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. Fatalism and selfishness will be eternally popular because they're the same thing. Don't reach out into the world and challenge yourself; you're fine just the way you are! Don't strive for anything. Don't grow. Just be, and you're equal and we're all happy. If people aren't convinced, hide behind the idea that nothing ever changes and there's no point doing anything, except living for your own comfort and convenience (of course). In our modern time, we've elevated fatalism to a positive value. Instead of admitting that we need to evolve as a species, we're looking inward and congratulating each other on how moral we are. Instead of striving so that we improve as individuals, and that we produce heroes and exceptional people, we're going to focus on making sure we accept each other as equals. We're all one, we're all the same, we're all OK, everyone wins! This is the mindset of a solipsist who fears the world and doesn't want to challenge himself or herself, so has created a social doctrine that demands no change to the status quo. When you think about it, equality and selfishness are the same idea, because with equality no one will strive and no one will tell you that you should strive, so you have ultimate freedom to consume, work, buy -- anything but push yourself to achieve. And if you do, others will sabotage you with many pointless demands. What is nihilism? If we could successfully encapsulate philosophies in a paragraph, we would have far fewer philosophical tests or debates. However, any sufficiently unique idea requires explanation not so much for its essence as symbols, but for its implications. If I say that my philosophy is to eat only the brains of cretins, I'm going to need to explain how to harvest those brains, what the justification is, and what implications it has for a social order that needs to breed captive morons for slaughter. And that's a super-simplified example. The definition of nihilism expands. It's like a doorway, more than an endpoint. We can start with the simplest definition: Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy What do values, knowing and communication have in common? Each relies on us representing our world or parts of it with symbols. A symbol uses a part of the whole to communicate the whole, and depends on its audience knowing enough about the topic to know what the symbol represents. Even our memories are stored in symbolic form such that we recall a summary or a conclusion, but not the whole of what is going on. Many of us can remember the end result of a conversation in a room; few can remember the steps of conversation, or all of the objects in the room. Nihilism is a rejection of the "false world" of symbols, memories and the "knowing" of others. When we say all values are baseless, we mean they are a choice and there is no writing on the wall or Word of God or scientific "proof" which can justify them. The world does not tell us what to believe; the world just is. Nothing is inherent and we cannot prove that some value or truth is inherent. We can only elect to believe them. A nihilist for example recognizes that even if shown proof of some truth, people may choose to disbelieve or may simply not understand. A person with no short term memory can see people walking through two doors, a blue door and a red door, and observe that everyone going through the blue door gets a hollowpoint round to the forehead. But without that memory, even if told the blue door is death, they may have no idea of the context and walk through it anyway (thus curing their memory problem). On a practical level, most human beings possess enough intelligence to be functional in a narrow range of tasks, but not to predict the outcome of some behavior they have not seen before. They therefore do not understand consequences of their actions beyond the immediate, and like basic algebra, are limited to measuring one variable at a time. Even worse, because they do not understand any idea more complex than one they have conceived, they view such ideas as wrong, and because they cannot see where their own thinking is limited, compare all ideas to their own and reject those which are not of their own conception -- which includes all ideas more complex than their own. When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the erroneous impression they are doing just fine.... The skills needed to produce logically sound arguments, for instance, are the same skills that are necessary to recognize when a logically sound argument has been made. Thus, if people lack the skills to produce correct answers, they are also cursed with an inability to know when their answers, or anyone else's, are right or wrong. They cannot recognize their responses as mistaken, or other people's responses as superior to their own. - "Unskilled and Unaware of It - How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments" by Justin Kruger and David Dunning We see immediately a split in worldviews: There is no meaning. Nothing means anything, or can mean anything. It's all pointless. When philosophers say that "A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy" this is what they are speaking of. However, in our view this is a confusion. The lack of meaning does not mean that one cannot have preferences, even logical ones.
Nothing means anything, or can mean anything. It's all pointless. When philosophers say that "A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy" this is what they are speaking of. However, in our view this is a confusion. The lack of meaning does not mean that one cannot have preferences, even logical ones. There is no inherent meaning. Meaning, values, memory and symbols are artifacts of judging, perceiving minds. Without humanity, the world just is; a tree falling in a forest makes sound, but there being no one there to recognize the sound and call it sound, the world remains unenlightened as to its soundiness. However, lack of inherent meaning does not preclude humans from choosing meaning, or from noticing that they as humans will find some things more meaningful than others -- specifically, as related to the task of human survival. People who seek an inherent meaning in life, like writing on the wall appearing from a mystical world that is guaranteed to be 100% true 100% of the time, find nihilism depressing -- they immediately see that they have no perfect argument to convince others they are right, and no perfect way of communicating it, so they give up on meaning entirely. Their view is that if meaning is not inherent to the same degree that, say, oxygen is, there's no way to discover it or share it. Others however do not share this view. They reason that without a being that can prove itself inherent, such as a god who can work miracles and communicate with us in a scientifically verifiable format, there is no way to prove anything inherent. The universe does not have a human consciousness, and will not give us truths in a form we can recognize as being similar to our memories. Instead, per the scientific method (otherwise known as any systematic method of discovery) we must observe, formulate theories about how the world works, test them and share as much as we can what we have learned. In many ways, this is parallel to our transition from childhood to adulthood. A child needs parents or other adults to provide absolute right answers that the child can trust and act upon; an adult is comfortable with greater degrees of ambiguity, and at some point says "this makes sense to me" or "this is what I want" and so pursues it. Children need inherent or quasi-inherent values; adults view values as, well, value choices. Not everyone has the same values but much like not everyone gives the same answer to a test question, some answers are better than others. What is passive nihilism? Nihilism as a philosopical doctrine is simple: the denial of inherent meaning. Nothing inherently, automatically and irrefutably "means" anything. Meaning is a projection of the human mind and does not exist outside of it, much like while we may use a symbol for "God" we cannot say God exists in the human form we project; we're using a variable or metaphor to describe God but that symbol is not equivalent to the thing itself. When we look for inherent meaning, we are inevitably talking about morality of method. This type of morality assumes that the instance of any one thing is equivalent to its essence, like our word and conception of God being the same God who exists to other species on other planets. For a morality to be inherent, it must be a morality of outcomes (effects) and not their causes, or the effects they in turn create. The only moral object that is inherent is the action; its consequences unfold over time and so are not inherent in the same way that material change is. For example, our civilization has become thoroughly neurotic about killing: murder is bad, except when we kill murderers, or wage war. If we wage war, we also need to be murdering murderers, or we are the aggressor who attacked first. However, if we murder a killer before he murders, or wage war against a civilization that by growing lots of cheap food will eventually produce an invasion force that will destroy us, we are committing immoral acts in terms of outcomes, but committing moral acts in terms of the effects of those outcomes. Through this reasoning, we see that inherent morality is like tying a hand behind our backs. Outcomes and methods exist in the moment, and may cause us personal fear, but what we must look at is the long-term consequences of our actions. Our human instinct is to demand inherent morality from fear for ourselves, but what this shows us is that what we want to consider "inherent" to the world is inherent to a different globe entirely -- the human head. What is active nihilism? When people ask how you can be a nihilist and still be striving for something other than self-pleasure, remember this: nihilism means denial of inherent value. It does not mean denial of functionality, or loss of a desire for our actions to be constructive and produce aesthetic beauty in life. Nihilism simply states that there is no inherent morality, or in other words no morality of method, so we must be willing to do immoral things for moral ends. Nature parallels this vision. In nature, predators consume their prey with vicious violence but that consumption creates smarter animals. The majority of intelligent creatures are the predators; the majority of stupid creatures are primarily prey. There is no morality of murder, or other outcome-based judgment, because such logic would stop the whole process of evolution. Instead, nature works by a basic principle of morality of consequence: if the ends (evolution) require vicious means (predation), so be it. When Plato wrote his metaphor of the cave, he was talking primarily about instance/essence confusions. (While most scholars prefer to think he is speaking of a dualistic world where perfect archetypes exist, his point is actually the opposite -- no such world exists, because essence is defined not by duplicating instances in a purer form, but by being the attributes in common between all instances.) In the Platonic view, most people are looking at instances (outcomes) and believing they see a pure essence (meaning), when really what they see is specific to their participation in the event -- and therefore, like morality, is easily gamed into a "I demand freedom so you cannot force me to change, even as I force you to change to avoid inconveniencing me wherever I go," which he identifies as the decay of a civilization. When we are children, the difference between instance and essence is clearer to us. We have recently learned words like "chair," and know that not all chairs are alike. We even draw the distinction "all chairs are like my chair" without assuming that all chairs spring from that one chair. But as time goes on, through a sleight of hand, we are convinced to build up an idealized, socially-driven version of more complex ideas that conflates to "all things like this are like the version I have most closely experienced." For example, in morality we conclude that our deaths would be an injustice, therefore all killing is wrong -- but how easily we are lured into paradox when it comes to killing those we perceive as threats. The principle of active nihilism is one of ultimate reality: we are real, in a physical world that is real, with real consequences for any given action. There are no inherent goals, so we must pick one. If we like life, that goal is survival. If we want to maximize survival, we pick a systematic method (the scientific method) for discovering truth, or mental constructs that correspond to constructs existing in the physical world. After all, the one inherent thing to life is physical reality outside of us; everything else is up for grabs or ambiguous. Thus there are two essential ideas in active nihilism: Adaptation not judgment. We judge; the world does not. What the world does, like a machine, is function on some input and fail on others. As organisms who want to survive, our goal is adaptation. While life and physical reality are inherent, the choice to adapt is not; we can choose suicide. But only true idiots argue over "validity" when there's a lack of inherent value. Nothing is valid or invalid; there are only results. Did you get the results you desire? Did your desiring make sense given the reality around you? Does your notion of sense make sense, both in the a priori zone of pure logic and the a posteriori zone of knowing how similar decisions in the past have worked out? Judgments are human and as such are (a) representative of a small segment, or partial truth, or truth or reality and (b) inherently anthrocentric in context, and to humans they appear inherent. Correspondence not absolutism. Absolutism means that something is true (a) because it is internally logical and (b) as a result, it applies in a universal context -- it is not situational, or specific, or time-dependent or context-dependent at all. Some logical ideas may exist a priori from the concept of logic itself, such as that one proposition must follow from another, but anything more complex is usually dependent upon factors from our world. Absolute thought exists in a universal context, in a perpetual present tense, to all people equally, without variation no matter what the balance of power (for moral actors) or context of the question is. If we said "donuts are good" is a universal truth, we would use donuts to end wars, feed cattle, balance machinery and soothe hemorrhoids. Sound insane? It's just an easy to recognize example of common insanity. Active nihilism denies inherent value but does not deny the inherency of reality. It tells us there are no default or universal judgments, and all that we can expect is that reality is consistent such that specific actions achieve similar results every time they are tried. This is the basis of all learning, and without it, even the basics of our understanding (gravity, time) would not make any sense because we could not expect them to be consistent. Historically, the most popular theory of truth was the Correspondence Theory. First proposed in a vague form by Plato and by Aristotle in his Metaphysics, this realist theory says truth is what propositions have by corresponding to a way the world is. The theory says that a proposition is true provided there exists a fact corresponding to it. In other words, for any proposition p, p is true if and only if p corresponds to a fact. The theory's answer to the question, "What is truth?" is that truth is a certain relationship -- the relationship that holds between a proposition and its corresponding fact. - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy From this consistency we hope to construct truths, but it is understood these are not universal; they only apply in our minds, to such degree that our individual minds are ready at that moment to accept them. The most profound truth if told without context seems like arbitrary babble, or if told to an idiot, seems like pretentious drivel. If active nihilism has a tenet, it is the denial of anthrocentric desires for "inherent" truth -- really, consistent patterns to our consciousnesses that we would like to believe are inherent to the universe, but are an artifact of the object we are using to perceive, namely our brains: social preferences, feelings and emotions, the "official" declarations of public institutions or individuals, the promises of advertising -- in preference for the adaptive model provided by the scientific method. "Deny no perception," says the fatalist; "Deny no truth," says the active nihilist. Toward a non-Hollywood Nihilism Nihilism will continue to confuse its audience because the actual concept is so much less emotionally satisfying than the false one. The kind of active fatalism that is required to deny anything but the self and the self's material comfort in the present moment carries with it a satisfying rage against all that we dislike in the world. Nihilism itself however sees the rage of rejection and the errors of calcification as one, and provides an antidote: remove the human definition of "inherent" that is essentially solipsistic, and replace it with a knowledge of events over time as a sequence of causes. It is for this reason that nihilism, unlike fatalism, does not proscribe striving for ideals, even ones that might overlap with what is considered "moral." Nihilism denies the inherent nature of values, and by doing so, denies human solipsism; it does this as a means to having clarity about why we choose to be moral, which is a form of adaptive strategy similar to the scientific method where we observe the world and pick a response that is most likely to bring about positive results. Nihilism may be our ultimate weapon against the consequence of human solipsism, which is backward rationalism. Because our selves are the formative archetype we know, we argue "from the self and toward the world" (instead of the converse). This means that when we find something we desire, we effect it, and then argue backwards from that effect toward a justification outside of the self. "I'm just drinking this alcohol so no wayward kids get it" could well summarize human logic of this nature. We rationalize from what we have done to the reasons for doing it, using tokens that will manipulate our audience, usually of an emotionally universal or logically absolute (contextless) type. Nihilism denies this solipsism by denying these universals and absolutes, and by rejecting inherent values that are cornerstones for manipulation, forcing us instead to formulate forward logic: "I am doing this action for this effect toward this goal." The rejection of the idea of inherent values negates justification because it means there are no universals toward which we can always ascribe our actions; instead, each action must be considered situationally not by a moral standard of outcomes, but by a moral standard of goals which will be measured by the outcomes they claim (before the action) to be attempting to achieve. For this reason nihilism is less a philosophy in itself (or like fatalism, a substitute for a philosophy) but a philosophical framework. When we understand like as not the false inherency of our solipsism, and as being composed of many moments knitted together by cause and effect where immediate outcome of an action is not its sole effect, life makes sense again. In the odd mode of paradox that afflicts many of nature's greatest creations, in human life we must accept nothingness in order to find meaning in something. Site map Copyright © 1988-20158 A.N.U.S.The most popular rapper of all-time, Eminem, will tour Australia in February, according to strong rumours from music industry insiders.
Australian music industry website themusic.com.au today reported being told a tour by Eminem, aka Marshall Mathers, would be announced in October and the shows would happen in February, in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and also in Auckland, New Zealand.
Set to return?... Eminem in concert at Melbourne's Etihad Stadium in 2011.
A reliable source confirmed to Fairfax that Eminem's Australian tour in 2014 will promote rapper's eighth studio album, The Marshall Mathers LP 2, also known as MMLP2. The album will be released on November 5 and is a good bet to top the ARIA charts. His last five albums made number one here.
Eminem has sold in excess of 100 million albums, won several Grammy Awards and arguably proved, most importantly, that the Beastie Boys weren't a fluke when it came to white rappers having credibility.
His shows are likely to be stadium gigs, as they were when Eminem last toured Australia in 2011. He played two shows at the Sydney Football Stadium and one at Etihad in Melbourne. Both venues have hosted crowds of more than 52,000 people.
Eminem rose to prominence as a controversial figure who was heavily criticised for his violent and apparently homophobic lyrics. In 2001, Peter Slipper asked the then-Howard Government to refuse Eminem a visa into Australia, but he was not banned.
He was at the peak of his popularity between 1999 and 2002, when he sold over 65 million sales of his albums The Slim Shady LP, The Marshall Mathers LP and The Eminem Show.October 2, 2014
UPTOWN APARTMENTS. Buildings of glass and steel. Hipsters. Strollers. Artisanal lattes and cupcakes. Chic cafes littered with Apple laptops. These are some of the myriad images associated with gentrification in Oakland, but to see them as the end of the story would conceal the role of the 1 Percent in turning our city on its head so they can profit from displacement.
The West Oakland Specific Plan (WOSP) is the most recent scheme for gentrifying Oakland, pushing people of color and blue-collar workers out, and moving tech in. It labels large swaths of West Oakland "opportunity sites" for redevelopment and connects with other redevelopment schemes to cover a massive area, stretching from Interstate 880 to Adeline Street, and East 14th Street to Emeryville.
Plans to redevelop the Coliseum and Lake Merritt are also in the works. While WOSP's authors promise "a healthy, vibrant West Oakland" and tout the input of "a wide range of community members [and] stakeholders," in content, WOSP is a plan for "development with displacement," in the words of Causa Justa :: Just Cause.
Hella ugly new condominiums in Oakland (Richard Johnstone)
WOSP is part of Oakland Mayor Jean Quan's master plan to bring 10,000 new residents and 7,500 new market-rate rental units into the city by courting private developers. Quan's plan explicitly focuses on "transit corridors"--that is, on housing positioned for commuters drawn in by the tech boom across the Bay in San Francisco, not for Oakland's current residents.
Unemployment in West Oakland was more than 40 percent at the time of the 2010 census, and two-thirds of residents live below the poverty line.
Until activists stalled final approval of WOSP at the July 29 Oakland City Council meeting, none of the slated housing development projects even gestured at accommodating low-income current residents. A revised plan now calls for 15 percent of WOSP housing units to be "affordable." But this is only a professed goal, left out of the implementation details, and isn't much of a concession, even if it does end up being enforced.
Multibillion-dollar housing lobbies have convinced the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to privatize public housing and enforce minimum-income requirements for new "affordable-housing" units. If it follows the guidelines set out by an umbrella organization made up of housing developers who back WOSP, the new "affordable housing" will require that prospective tenants families have a household income between $47,000 and $65,000 and pay rent between $1,200 and $1,600 per month for a two-bedroom apartment. Three of four West Oakland households make less than this threshold, often much less.
AT THE June 11 City Council meeting about WOSP, Mayor Quan argued that creating market-rate units for new renters moving into Oakland will ensure that existing housing remains available for locals. There happens to be historical precedent only for the opposite. The development of new market rate housing in San Francisco put a dramatic upward pressure on rents across the city that has rippled through the Bay Area.
Rental costs in Oakland are projected to go up, up, and away: In 2012, the average rent for a one-bedroom Lake Merritt apartment went up from $900 to $1,200. At the beginning of 2014, the average rent was $1,861, with a long way to go still to catch up to San Francisco's $2,631.
That's meant that a lot of people have been forced out of Oakland. Oakland's Black population dropped by 23 percent between 2000 and 2010, and it's safe to assume that as rents skyrocket, such displacement will continue.
WOSP's more progressive defenders argue that strong affordable-housing mandates need to be citywide, or developers will just avoid West Oakland. Meanwhile, we're supposed to have patience and trust that City Hall will address these concerns.
But it's hard to imagine builders passing up any chance at development near West Oakland BART, the city's closest station to San Francisco. More seriously, this pro-WOSP argument is a fatally self-defeating one. If we cannot demand concessions from capital because capitalists can invest somewhere else, then in a world where capitalism reigns, we are powerless to demand any consideration for human need.
WOSP hasn't yet produced concrete plans involving specific developers--it only smooths their way. For a preview of what the next stage is likely to look like, we can turn to the redevelopment of the former Oakland Army Base, adjacent to West Oakland, begun last year and closely connected to WOSP's vision.
The Army Base is being developed as a trade and logistics center in conjunction with the Port of Oakland. This $1.2 billion project--with substantial public funding--is being spearheaded by Prologis Incorporated. The billionaire partners of this firm include T. Robert Burke, founder of Metro Real Estate Equity Management LLC, a building contractor with the Carlyle Group and a major war profiteer under both the Bush and Obama administrations.
Prologis is partnering with the California Capital Investment Group, founded by Phil Tagami, a former president of the Port's Board of Commissioners now profiting from that connection. Tagami is perhaps best known for waving a shotgun at an Oakland Occupy protester in November 2011.
Community activists won a promise that 50 percent of hours worked at the Army Base project would go to Oakland residents--with some "small business" loopholes. But as of July, only 91 out of 425 new construction jobs had gone to people from Oakland, and just 11 had come through the jobs center created for West Oakland.
And while the project was pitched under the title "Restoring Oakland's Working Waterfront", the image this brings to mind of the pre-container waterfront of the 1950s with its tens of thousands of union workers is misleading. The project used to be called the "Oakland Intermodal Trade Gateway"--"intermodal" referring to its goal of replacing hundreds of truckers and other workers with a more direct and efficient ship-to-rail transfer.
THIS VISION for the city is emblematic of what Oakland's ruling elite desires. Capitalists investing in Oakland want it to become a center of growth based on the same high-tech economic model that's come to dominate San Francisco and the South Bay and is now one of the main pillars of production in the U.S.
Oakland can't easily offer the rock-bottom taxes, freedom from interference and space to sprawl that tech firms and other companies have found across Silicon Valley and the more distant edges of the Bay Area.
But neither can San Francisco--and its civic leaders have nevertheless succeeded in attracting vast amounts of capital. Beyond making special deals with particular corporations, San Francisco's formula has been to foster high-end residential development and service-sector businesses catering to skilled mental laborers and to companies wanting to offer a cool place to live and work while benefiting from the infrastructure and networks that have built up around the Bay.
However, San Francisco has reached a point where it's pricing out even tech workers--so there is an "opportunity" for Oakland. People are already moving to Oakland as they take jobs produced by the area's tech boom, and their offices could very well follow them across the Bay, just as they did from Silicon Valley to San Francisco over the last decade. The flows of money at stake are gigantic, both speculative (venture capitalists are investing more than $10 billion per year in the Bay Area, 40 percent of all venture investment in the U.S.) and realized (Bay Area-headquartered Google alone has $50 billion in yearly revenues).
Of course, Oakland is not about to switch completely to the production of software and the "next big idea," even if most manufacturing has left permanently for inland or overseas. Health care giant Kaiser Permanente (with almost as much yearly revenue as Google, although with lower profit margins) is Oakland's biggest employer, with more than 10,000 employees. The two next-largest private employers are also health care providers, and employment in the sector has increased by 56 percent in Oakland in the last half-decade.
And Oakland still hosts the fifth-largest container port in the U.S. with $40 billion worth of goods passing through each year and billions of dollars being invested in expanding capacity, even as the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, representing port workers, faces its most serious challenges in many decades.
THE CITY'S Office of Economic and Workforce Development issues an annual Economic Indicators report. The 2013 edition lauds Oakland's "business retention, expansion and attraction efforts" and "collaborative public/private partnerships" and explains that these focus on the city's "most dynamic" sectors:
Food and Beverage; Wellness/Healthcare; Green/Clean Business Sector; International Trade/Goods Movement; The Creative Economy, comprised of...Technology and its "ecosystem" of software, hardware, social media, communications innovations...Custom, Advanced and Artisan Production and Industrial Arts...Some of these sectors are existing strengths in Oakland; some have the potential to capture the overflow from San Francisco.
While some of these disparate sectors involve educated and relatively privileged labor and some are low-wage, what's consistent about capital's vision of the future is that decent-paying blue-collar and union jobs, relatively accessible to Oakland's residents of color, are to be increasingly automated away. Last year's Bay Area Rapid Transit strike prompted revealing advice from one tech CEO, Richard White: "Get 'em back to work, pay them whatever they want, and then figure out how to automate their jobs so this doesn't happen again."
White's comment conveniently combines a characteristic tech arrogance, a dystopian vision of the future, and a frustration with displays of power by workers who still have the ability to disrupt things. (BART isn't a profit center itself, but with all its lines meeting in Oakland, it, too, is central to the city's efforts to grab part of the Bay Area tech boom.)
The majority of Oakland's current residents are being forced out of their homes in part because they aren't considered "worthy" of a place in the city establishment's plan for economic development.
Both the war efforts and the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century put pressures on the ruling class to build cities around the needs of workers. Cities such as San Francisco had relatively extensive health and human services, public parks and recreational services, and housing was relatively affordable. In Oakland, Henry J. Kaiser built hospitals for his shipyard workers--the same that have become Kaiser Permanente's main business today.
However, as capital shifted from the urban centers to housing development in the suburbs (for profit as well as a variety of political reasons), cities were subject to disinvestment, and their working-class residents--especially Black and Brown people--were left to fend for themselves.
In response to the growing militancy of the civil rights movement, the labor movement and urban rebellions of the late '60s (including the Oakland-born Black Panthers), the state innovated military tactics such as SWAT teams alongside ideological justifications such as the "war on drugs" and a prison-building boom that resulted in the caging of ever-more Black and Brown people. West Oakland was devastated not only by the New Jim Crow, but also by urban renewal projects and freeway and BART construction, which tore up its most thriving sections.
At the same time, "while urban neighborhoods were struggling for survival, capital was circling the sky above, like a vulture, watching and waiting for the right time to strike," in the words of Brooklyn activist Ronnie Almonte. With the tech boom, the cycle has turned back from abandonment to gentrification.
Neither disinvestment nor gentrification comes from consumer choices or local government efforts to make streets safer. Rather, both are the result of the capitalist system of production that dominates our cities, shaping and reshaping urban spaces in the interests of capital accumulation. Capitalism searches endlessly for places to invest, creates endless competition and subordinates everything to the profit motive, including our homes, our streets and our neighborhoods.
As we saw in the cities of the postwar era, capitalists will not invest unless they stand to make a profit. Neighborhoods are never rescued for the sake of the populations that have historically inhabited them. Instead, when the time is right to make a profit, a whole arsenal of tactics is deployed to seize neighborhoods from the Black, Brown and poor residents who are seen as obstacles to reaping those profits.
THIS ARSENAL includes both carrots and sticks--carrots for some, sticks for others.
During the past couple decades, public/private redevelopment partnerships like WOSP have been sold as efforts to enliven bankrupt, decrepit and crime-ridden neighborhoods. These projects vary from seemingly benign events like Art Murmur--an Oakland street festival of food, art and music--and concerts in the park to high-priced retail outlets and housing developments.
Often the idea of cleaning up the neighborhood garners support from at least some residents who justifiably find the status quo unacceptable. Meanwhile, in practice, renters and old retail outlets catering to the population now deemed an "obstacle to growth" are priced out. When resistant residents don't move out in response to indirect pressure, landlords attempt to bribe them or criminally neglect their units to get them to go.
These redevelopment projects are not acts of charity. They are a means for exploiting economic crises, and they are the shiny side of a two-faced coin. Our cities--run down, poverty stricken, suffering from crime induced by state repression--already had shaky legs when they were hammered by the Great Recession of 2008, exacerbating income inequality. Now we are told the only way they can be saved is if they are sold off to the highest bidder.
But why is this fate inevitable? Cities like Oakland, East Los Angeles and Detroit are at or near hubs of financial prosperity. Detroit has the second-largest pool of architectural and engineering capital in the country next to Silicon Valley, the fourth-largest concentration of high-tech jobs, and the fifth-most important financial sector in the country--yet, because it is run in the interests of Wall Street, it has gone bankrupt. Now, to ensure capitalists continue to escape paying the costs of the crisis, Michigan's governor has placed the city under "emergency management."
The people of Detroit really got the raw end of the stick, with their right to vote effectively nullified. Under emergency management, their water services have been privatized, and water costs have skyrocketed. City managers are turning off water for residents that are $150--equivalent to two months--behind in payments. The average resident is $450 behind in payments.
At the same time, the city left the water on in hundreds of abandoned buildings this winter--leading to burst pipes, flooding and frozen water-damaged structures. These properties are now being sold to speculators at dirt cheap prices to be bulldozed and turned into new developments.
This response of the 1 Percent to the aftermath of crisis--like the WOSP plan for new residents to displace the old in Oakland--stands in stark contrast to the response of Richmond's Green Party Mayor Gayle McGlaughlin. McGlaughlin, Richmond city council members and activists attempted to use eminent domain to put victims of the foreclosure crisis back in their homes and on track to paying off their mortgages.
But democracy has been curtailed in Richmond too. The plan has been stalled indefinitely by costly court battles levied by the joint effort of a six-nation army of capitalists, including Pacific Investment Management, BlackRock, DoubleLine Capital, US Bank, Bank of New York Mellon, and Wilmington Trust.
THE FORCES that tame city governments in order to serve capitalist interests take more subtle forms as well. Attracting private investment is the only way to get access to substantial resources in the American variant of capitalism, so cities compete to draw in capital. Oakland, for example, is competing regionally to attract the spillover from the tech boom across the Bay and battling Los Angeles, Long Beach, Seattle and Vancouver for traffic through the port.
This logic can affect even unions, not to mention liberal politicians. If an impoverished city sees no development of any kind, no gentrification but also no jobs, nobody wins. The threat of abandonment may be mostly a bluff in Oakland, given its geographic placement at the heart of a booming region, but it helps explain the shortsighted support for WOSP by the Alameda County Labor Council. However distant this danger, capital's representatives will always warn of it.
For their part, young workers and people of color tend to see very few carrots and a heavy bundle of sticks. According to the Alameda County Public Health Department, "an African American child born in West Oakland can expect to die 15 years earlier than a white child born in the Oakland Hills." And that Black kid growing up in Oakland without wealth will have an easier path to prison than to a job in the Bay Area's booming tech sector.
WOSP is part of an ever-intensifying trend of state- and corporate-sponsored violence against people of people of color and workers in Oakland. Since the recession, public school closures have hit West and East Oakland the hardest, and Alan Blueford is just one of 29 residents shot at by police between January 2010 and May 2013--12 of whom were people of color and 12 of whom were murdered. Those numbers only include OPD shootings, leaving out Oscar Grant's murder by BART police in January 2009, Raheim Brown's murder by Oakland School District police in March 2011, and Jacorey Calhoun's murder by an Alameda Sheriff's deputy
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here: San Francisco. Let’s say Vick gets only lukewarm interest to start, or to compete for a starting job. If so, and if the Niners want more than a third-string insurance policy for Colin Kaepernick, Vick might be willing to go to try to win a Super Bowl ring. He turns 34 in June.
Fresh off a career year, Julian Edelman, 27, is hitting free agency at the right time. (Elsa/Getty Images) Fresh off a career year, Julian Edelman, 27, is hitting free agency at the right time. (Elsa/Getty Images)
7. Running backs and receivers have fallen to earth with a thud. Used to be backs were sexy pickups in free agency. Now even the prominent ones get no love, mostly because of the way the game is being played and because teams figure they can find adequate ones in the middle or late rounds of the May draft. Knowshon Moreno, Donald Brown and probably Chris Johnson, with young speedster Ben Tate … expect all of them to be disappointed this week. At receiver, Julian Edelman caught 121 passes out of the slot for New England last year, but the Patriots seem content to let the former college quarterback seek his fortune elsewhere; could the Jets, in the latest chapter of the border war between these two lovebird franchises, be “elsewhere?” In my mind, a great fit for Edelman would be Cleveland, which has money to spend and a hole at slot receiver. Cleveland could be in the mix for Eric Decker, who needs suitors. Finally, I think the receiver who will get more action than forecast is Golden Tate.
8. Michael Bennett is about to be very rich. People are forgetting Bennett’s versatility when they talk about the best pass-rushers getting paid in free agency. Bennett, for the first time in his NFL career, played significant snaps (more than 350) inside for the Seahawks, and he helped Seattle win the Super Bowl. “I think I’ll be one of the most valuable players in free agency,’’ he said late in the year, and he was right. Now the Bears, with brother Martellus Bennett providing in-house recruiting, are interested, and Michael Bennett knows this could be his best shot at free-agency dough. I know Seattle can’t afford everything, with so many good young players on the cusp of second contracts. But if I’m John Schneider, I’m fighting like crazy to convince Bennett to stay.
9. Best players to make money whom you don’t know well. DE Arthur Jones (Ravens), who should end up being a better long-term player than his former teammate, Paul Kruger, who was overpaid by the Browns last year … DT Paul Soliai (Dolphins), the best of a bad crop of defensive tackles and best nosetackle in the field … G/T Geoff Schwartz (Chiefs), versatile and underrated … T Anthony Collins (Bengals), whom I wrote about above.... Oh, and I can’t believe more teams, and more people, aren’t talking about wideout James Jones of the Packers. Great hands, and 17 touchdowns over the past two seasons.
10. First dominoes to fall: tackles. Too many deals too close to fruition.
Should be a fun week. We’ll have some good stories at The MMQB this week. We’re following a key free-agent and the trends of the system, so check back through the week for our stories.
Titans running back Chris Johnson has never rushed for less than 1,047 yards in a season and has missed only one game in six years. (Wesley Hitt/Getty Images) Titans running back Chris Johnson has never rushed for less than 1,047 yards in a season and has missed only one game in six years. (Wesley Hitt/Getty Images)
Quotes of the Week
I
“Chris Johnson is at his best when he’s trying to prove everybody wrong. He’ll have that chance when the Titans release him and he’s back at the bottom. Then he’ll regain the selflessness and the work ethic he once showed."
—Ian Rapoport of NFL Network on Sunday.
After Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reported the Tennessee running back would be put on the trading block because the Titans did not want to pay him his scheduled $8 million this season and Johnson wouldn’t take a pay cut, Rapoport reported Johnson would be released if he couldn’t be traded.
II
“Corners and offensive tackles, throw a party. Receivers and running backs, throw a funeral."
—Anonymous AFC front-office man Sunday, in the midst of feeling out the free-agent market that appears to be on the verge of downsizing salaries to offensive skill players in a big way beginning Tuesday.
III
“Who knows what’s going to happen with [Adam] Vinatieri? If he gets re-signed, if he wants to get re-signed, however long he wants to play, I just wanted to know whenever that guy is done, whenever that Hall-of-Fame career is over, that I just want a fair shake in kicking as well."
—Newly re-signed Colts punter Pat McAfee, who wants a chance to do punting/placekicking double-duty in 2014 and beyond, a rarity in today’s game.
IV
“Best defense ever. Ever! Hey, we’ll beat the Greek Gods!"
—Seattle defensive lineman Michael Bennett, as the clock wound down in the Seahawks 43-8 Super Bowl XLVIII rout of Denver, captured by NFL Films for its annual Super Bowl champion video.
Stat of the Week
Common wisdom on the weekend that remade the Saints: New Orleans GM Mickey Loomis is making space to account for two bloated numbers—the absurdist $26.4-million cap number of Drew Brees (he takes up 19.8 percent of the Saints’ $133 million cap), and the contract they’re trying to create to keep tight end Jimmy Graham.
What makes the most sense with Graham is to split the difference—a la baseball arbitration—on a long-term contract between the tight end franchise number ($7.04 million) and the wide receiver franchise number ($12.32 million). This way, the Saints could still make Graham the highest-paid tight end ever, and the team wouldn’t have the drag, potentially, of losing a grievance and having Graham take up one 10th of the team’s cap with the wideout franchise number.
By splitting the difference, and making a contract for halfway between the tight end and wide receiver franchise numbers, the Saints could pay Graham $48.4-million over five years. Heck, let’s be nice: five years, $50 million … an average of $10 million a year, exactly $1 million a year higher than the biggest tight end contract ever—Rob Gronkowski’s deal with New England.
Whatever happens, consider the great fortune of Graham. He averaged $824,535 in the first four years of his NFL career for producing this average season:
Games: 15.5
Receptions: 75.3
Yards: 965.8
Touchdown catches: 10.3
Factoid of the Week That May Interest Only Me
The Raiders will be one of the most interesting teams in free agency. They have a league-record $65 million in cap space available as of Monday morning, and two very significant free agents, both of whom I hear are very interested in testing the market and getting a golden parachute out of Oakland: tackle Jared Veldheer and defensive end Lamarr Houston.
So if you’re looking for a team this week to throw wild money at a couple of players, look for Oakland to lead the parade. Why? The Raiders have to spend. I’ve written about this the past couple of weeks, but the Raiders illustrate the importance of the rule in the 2011 CBA about minimum spending. In the four seasons between 2013 and 2016, every team in the league has to spend at least 89 percent of its cap limit. So the Raiders must think about extending their own players and signing some from the outside so they account for most of that $65 million of space this year. That's why Oakland, despite having a GM in Reggie McKenzie who's not a big fan of throwing around millions that aren't his, could be a big player this week.
Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note of the Week
The author in rural England over the weekend. (Photo courtesy of Peter King) The author in rural England over the weekend. (Photo courtesy of Peter King)
I was in England over the weekend, visiting my brother and his fine family, and meeting my great-nephew Thomas for the first time. Thomas and his mum (my niece Charlotte) and dad live in Lichfield, about two hours northwest of London, where the accompanying photo was snapped on an afternoon stroll.
Four fun things about the vocabulary and such that I experienced on the trip:
A Humped Zebra Crossing is a raised striped crosswalk in the road, designed for pedestrians to cross and slowing motorists to navigate … Going pear-shaped means you’ve started to do some sort of plan, and it goes terribly wrong, and you cannot fix it. As in, “I was coming over to your flat, but the baby fell on its head and now our day has gone all pear-shaped." … At a small supermarket, I listened to the very polite self-service checkout voice praise the shopper for putting items properly in the bag after scanning them. At the end, the machine told the shopper, in a chipper and high-pitched voice: “Well done!" … I watched the Six Nations rugby game between England and Wales on TV Sunday. England 29, Wales 18. Mostly, I was clueless about it, but I did note that No. 12 for England was Billy Twelvetrees, who made a lovely grubber kick to lead to a critical try for the home team. My brother Ken told me the history of the name “Twelvetrees." That was his mother’s maiden name. His father was a tree surgeon. When they married, the father decided to use the mother’s name; good for business, he thought. And so when young Billy was born, he took his mother’s last name.
Well done!
Tweets of the Week
I
“Wow unbelievable. Shocked and disappointed on everything that’s gone on this offseason."
—@TheJimmyGraham, the New Orleans (for now) tight end, after news surfaced Friday that the Saints would likely rid themselves of Darren Sproles and Lance Moore to save money on the salary cap.
II
“Rays manager Joe Maddon on Bucs new uniforms: ‘I'm not a big fan of the pewter. I'm anti-pewter. Pewter shouldn't even be a color.’ ”
—@IKaufmanTBO, Ira Kaufman, pro football scribe for the Tampa Tribune, crossing over to baseball for a few minutes and getting the Spencer Tracy-ish manager of the crosstown Rays to opine on the new (and bizarre) Bucs uniforms.
III
“Thought with FA coming up: Remember when we used to talk about ‘news coming across the wire?’ Now Twitter is the wire.”
—@FO_ASchatz, Aaron Schatz of vaunted Football Outsiders, speaking the truth.
IV
“For the record this is the real spleen-less Chris Simms.”
—@CSimmsQB, announcing his arrival (a very welcome one, I might add) on Twitter last week. In 2006 Simms, quarterbacking the Bucs, had emergency surgery to remove his ruptured spleen after taking a hit in a game against Carolina.
Retweet of the Week
“I am the greatest; I said that even before I knew I was. –Muhammad Ali.”
—@Sports_Greats. Retweeted by @RSherman_25, Richard Sherman.
William Clay Ford bought control of the Detroit Lions in 1964 for $6 million. (Joe Robbins/Getty Images) William Clay Ford bought control of the Detroit Lions in 1964 for $6 million. (Joe Robbins/Getty Images)
Ten Things I Think I Think
1. I think I’ll leave the automotive legacy to others, but when I think of William Clay Ford the football owner (he died Sunday of pneumonia, at 88), I think of two things: intense privacy (I never had a conversation with the man) and love of Detroit. It made little financial sense for the Ford family to move the Lions back downtown from Pontiac in 2002, but the Fords were determined to put a stake in the ground and try to help re-energize Detroit. I hope when people think of the elder Ford, they think of his efforts to return Detroit to greatness, as Herculean a task as that has turned out to be.
2. I think if a team trades for Ryan Mallett, who’s been a backup to Tom Brady in New England the past three seasons, it has to make a deal knowing he hasn’t played a game of football since 2010. And what makes this such a difficult trade beyond the obvious—can the man play?—is that this is a very good draft, and no team is going to want to trade a significant pick this year for Mallett. So the smart deal would be, say, a fifth-round pick this year and a conditional pick next year, based on whether Mallett plays and how much he plays in 2014. In essence, I don’t see how it makes sense for the Patriots to trade him this year, leaving them devoid of a No. 2 quarterback with knowledge of the system in a season when Tom Brady turns 37. A Mallett deal makes no sense to me, for either side.
3. I think it’s sad, but when I think of the career of Rashard Mendenhall, I think of Ray Lewis breaking his shoulder, not Mendenhall’s two 1,000-yard seasons with the Steelers. Video of that Lewis play will be on the great linebacker’s top-10 career hits video, and it’s a day, from Mendenhall’s rookie year, that the running back will take into early retirement with him.
4. I think, though, I really liked Mendenhall’s explanation on Huffington Post last night. “When they ask me why I want to leave the NFL at the age of 26, I tell them that I've greatly enjoyed my time, but I no longer wish to put my body at risk for the sake of entertainment. I think about the rest of my life and I want to live it with much quality. And physically, I am grateful that I can walk away feeling as good as I did when I stepped into it. As for the question of what will I do now, with an entire life in front of me? I say to that, I will LIVE! I plan to live in a way that I never have before, and that is freely, able to fully be me, without the expectation of representing any league, club, shield or city.’’ He says he’ll do a lot of writing. Good luck to him.
5. I think with Jared Allen certain to test the market and leave Minnesota, the Vikings had no choice but to do a deal with their other free-agent pass-rusher, Everson Griffen, who got an average of $8.5 million a year from the Vikings Sunday. That salary is inflated given what Griffen has accomplished in four seasons: 59 games, 17.5 sacks. Griffen is 26 and hasn’t earned that yet. Problem was, someone else would have paid him if the Vikings didn’t do a deal before free agency.
6. I think when Hakeem Nicks tells Josina Anderson of ESPN, “I want to go to a team where I’m the missing link,’’ I wonder if he knows how silly that sounds coming from a man with 109 catches and three touchdowns over the past two years.
Geno Smith threw the ball 443 times in 16 games, an average of 27.6 attempts per contest. (Joel Auerbach/Getty Images) Geno Smith threw the ball 443 times in 16 games, an average of 27.6 attempts per contest. (Joel Auerbach/Getty Images)
7. I think when I hear that the Jets want to limit Geno Smith’s throws to something under 20 per game in 2014, I am dubious. Marty “Never Met a Throw He Didn’t Like” Mornhinweg is the offensive coordinator, after all. And throwing the ball, say, 18 times a game would mean a team would have something like a 2-to-1 run-pass ratio, which hasn’t been done in years by any team. I’m not buying it. If you want your quarterback to throw fewer 20 times a game, you don’t like your quarterback and ought to get another one.
8. I think I don’t know what more you’d want Jared Allen to do than what he did for six years in Minnesota. He never missed a start. He averaged 14.3 sacks per year. He wasn’t a distraction. He played as hard as any pass-rusher in football. I will be amazed, with all this cap money available and pass-rushers so hard to find, if he gets shut out of the big-money market. He’s 31. He shows no signs of the end. Allen would be very high on my list.
9. I think Ross Tucker of The Sporting News did a heck of a job, moonlighting for us at The MMQB and writing about the inner world of grading offensive linemen. I learned a lot reading the story. Such as: “Most left guards should grade out higher than right guards. Most teams are ‘right-handed,’ meaning they often put the strength of the offensive formation to the right side rather than the left. As a result, most slide protections—a zone scheme in which three linemen block two defenders—go to the left, which is customarily the quarterback’s blindside. This means the right guard on most teams has a tougher job because he’s tasked with more one-on-one pass blocking assignments than the left guard … The pervading belief [is] that you can only tell how an offensive line is playing based on sacks allowed or rushing yards per carry—flawed metrics that suggest you can have a forest without any trees. Whether an offense moves the ball forward and gets pushed backward, football’s forgotten big men are playing a game in which their personal scoreboards change on every play like a stock market ticker.’’ Good educational stuff, and I thank Tucker for writing it for us.
10. I think these are my non-NFL thoughts of the week:
a. So great to be able to spend time with family I don’t see much, and so lucky to have a great big brother to see in England. Visiting my brother Ken and his wife, Jane, in the English countryside is always a time to feel grounded and fortunate in a world that moves too fast too often.
TALK BACK Have a question or comment for Peter? Email him at [email protected] and it might be included in Tuesday’s mailbag. b. Two big differences in their lives from mine: You can see the sky vividly on a clear night, and the silence at night is just stunning.
c. South By Southwest looks fun. To those who attend: Worthwhile to go one year?
d. Jealous of those NFLers who saw Duke-Carolina at Cameron Indoor on Saturday night. That’s a bucket list event for me—in Durham.
e. I see why NBC spent all that money on English soccer. Being in England, you feel the fever. The season’s a soap opera. I think it’s going to translate and is already.
f. If I haven’t told you already, go see “Gravity.” So many of those Best Oscar movies are so, so good. Other than the fact most movies are 10 to 20 percent too long, this is a great time for movies and to be a movie-goer.
g. My next one: “The Grand Budapest Hotel.” Looks terrific.
h. Geno Auriemma is 59. His UConn team is 33-0 and looks bound for a ninth national title under Auriemma, and he shows no signs of wanting to pack it in. He’s not appreciated enough around the country.
i. Coffeenerdness: Good job by Costa Coffee, the big coffee chain, in England, with the espresso. I like the place. When Starbucks is mobbed, the drinks suffer. I just have three visits to a Costa to compare, but the baristas seem to take their time regardless of attendance in-store. It shows.
j. Good story in The Guardian on the dangers of caffeine.
k. Beernerdness: Had a Wells Eagle IPA in a country pub Friday night. One thing I love about the beer in England: less carbonated than ours, by and large. One thing I don’t love: It’s served slightly cooler than tepid, and I’m a cold beer guy. But I’m used to it now. This IPA was cask-pumped and mild.
l. My fantasy baseball draft is Tuesday. March 11! Too early. To say I haven’t studied much would be an understatement. Hope no one laughs when I pick Joe Foy.
The Adieu Haiku
Mr. Detroit, gone.
Bill Ford loved cars, and his town.
City needed him.How might Cameron Maybin fit into Giants' platoon plans? Platooning is something new Bruce Bochy has been planning on utilizing this season -- Cameron Maybin can be a big part of that.
SAN DIEGO — The thing about Madison Bumgarner leading the team in home runs is that Madison Bumgarner will let you know that he leads the team in home runs.
“That was my main objective today,” Brandon Belt said. “Passing him.”
Belt did, hitting his first career grand slam and a solo shot two innings later. He’s tied for the major league lead with three homers, and when Bumgarner walked up in the clubhouse late Friday night, two overflowing bags of definitely-not-store-bought jerky in his hands, Belt pointed out that the tables had turned.
“That’s okay,” Bumgarner said slowly. “I play tomorrow.”
The moment was a reminder of how much has gone right for the Giants this week. Bumgarner was outstanding on Sunday and Belt looks poised for a career year. Others up and down the roster have gotten off to hot starts or contributed with big moments.
But the only number that matters thus far is eight. It’s the number of leads the pitching staff has blown, and it’s led to a 1-4 start. On Friday, Belt’s slam got Matt Cain off the hook. George Kontos, who had thrown better than any reliever over the past two weeks, gave it right back. The Giants fell 7-6 to the rebuilding Padres.
“We were going to have a 1-4 stretch at some point,” Belt said. “It just happened to happen early.”
There’s much more than a grain of truth in that. Every team has a run like this, but this team — coming off a second half and postseason of blown leads — would have preferred any other start to the season. It’s not so much that the Giants are blowing leads. It’s that it seems contagious. Kontos entered having struck out nine of the previous 10 batters he had faced. He got through the heart of a dangerous Diamondbacks lineup on Tuesday, earning a look in the seventh inning Friday. It went off the rails quickly.
Travis Jankowski walked and Wil Myers hit a single up the middle. Yangervis Solarte got a cutter that wasn’t far enough in on his hands, and he blasted it to right-center. The Padres had the lead, and they would tack on an insurance run that became important when Belt blasted his third homer of the year to dead center.
“I felt fine,” Kontos said. “I just didn’t do a good job of executing pitches.”
It seems there’s no right answer for Bruce Bochy at the moment, but he hid any displeasure, saying this in a bullpen in transition, and roles will become clear.
“It’s early. It’s the first week,” Bochy said. “We’ll get it figured out and they’ll settle into roles they’re comfortable in. This is a process. Ideally, you have it set up. We like to think we do. But this was a hiccup. George left a lot of pitches up and they took advantage.”
Cain did the same, giving up four runs in 4 1/3, including two homers to young center fielder Manny Margo. Again, execution mistakes, the theme of the young season.
“I wasn’t as sharp as I need to be,” Cain said.
Cain fell behind early to young right-hander Luis Perdomo, who fired 96 mph sinkers at the knees for five innings. In the sixth, he loaded the bases ahead of Belt. A slider hung at the knees and Belt crushed it.
“My goal right now is not to guess,” Belt said. “I just want to see the ball. I feel if I can do that, my hands will go. That’s what I did there.”
It was an impressive swing, one that brought Bumgarner sauntering over an hour after the final out. Given the early schedule, the ace should have been preparing to put an exclamation point on a hot start. Instead, they're hoping he can salvage the week.When communication goes through encrypted channels, rather than in public, the FBI has a hard time intercepting it
FBI anti-terror official calls on tech firms to 'prevent encryption above all else'
The FBI has again waded into the debate around encryption, with the bureau’s assistant director of counterterrorism telling the US congress that tech companies should “prevent encryption above all else”.
Michael Steinbach, speaking at a hearing before the House Homeland Security Committee, explained how the the FBI uses technology to track and intercept supporters of Isis in the Middle East and elsewhere.
When Isis supporters communicate using social media, it’s easy for law enforcement to intercept: in one recent incident, the USAF boasted of “a post on social media to bombs on target in less than 24 hours”.
But when the communication is done through encrypted channels, rather than in public, the FBI and others have a much harder time intercepting it. That led Steinbach to appeal to the companies building encryption products.
“There are 200-plus social media companies. Some of these companies build their business model around end-to-end encryption,” Steinbach said.
“When a company, a communications company or a ISP or social media company elects to build in its software encryption, end-to-end encryption, and leaves no ability for even the company to access that, we don’t have the means by which to see the content”, he added.
“When we intercept it, we intercept encrypted communications. So that’s the challenge: working with those companies to build technological solutions to prevent encryption above all else.
“We are striving to ensure appropriate, lawful collection remains available.”
Steinbach insisted that he wasn’t asking for a “back door” to be built into encryption products, telling legislators that “we’re not looking at going through a back door or being nefarious.”
But security experts have long argued that the nature of encryption is such that there can be no middle ground between encryption which is unbreakable to all, including law enforcement, or encryption which contains some sort of flaw that can be used by anyone who knows of its existence, whether or not they are law enforcement.
An increasing number of communications products have “end-to-end” encryption, meaning even the company that produces the software can’t break the encryption on messages sent between its customers. Apple’s iMessage network and Facebook’s WhatsApp both use end-to-end encryption, for instance, while Google’s competing Hangouts product does not.
Steinbach’s comments echo those of his boss, FBI director James Comey, who in March asked Congress to pass a law that would force tech firms to create a backdoor in any tool that uses encryption.
“Tech execs say privacy should be the paramount virtue,” Comey said then, “When I hear that I close my eyes and say try to image what the world looks like where paedophiles can’t be seen, kidnapper can’t be seen, drug dealers can’t be seen.”
“To have a zone of privacy that’s outside the reach of law is very concerning,” Comey added.
In May, Apple, Google and other tech firms wrote an open letter to the Obama administration urging it to preserve strong encryption against pressure from agencies like the FBI.
The letter argued that “strong encryption is the cornerstone of the modern information economy’s security,” and that the government should “fully support and not undermine efforts to create encryption standards [nor] in any way subvert, undermine, weaken or make vulnerable” commercial software.Political correctness demands diversity in everything but thought
For 50 years I’ve been painstakingly cataloguing the brutal militarism and human-rights violations of US foreign policy, building up in the process a very loyal audience.
To my great surprise, when I recently wrote about the brutal militarism and human-rights violations of the Islamic State, I received more criticism from my readers than I’ve gotten for anything I’ve ever written. Dozens of them asked to be removed from my mailing list, as many as I’d normally get in a full year. Others were convinced that it couldn’t actually be me who was the author of such words, that I must have been hacked. Some wondered whether my recent illness had affected my mind. Literally! And almost all of the Internet magazines which regularly print me did not do so with this article.
Now why should this be?
My crime was being politically incorrect. The Islamic State, you see, is composed of Muslims, and the United States and its Western allies have bombed many Muslim countries in the recent past killing thousands of Muslims and causing widespread horror. Therefore, whatever ISIS and its allies do is “revenge”, simple revenge, and should not be condemned by anyone calling himself a progressive; least of all should violence be carried out against these poor aggrieved jihadists.
Moreover, inasmuch as ISIS is the offspring of religion, this adds to my political incorrectness: I’m attacking religion, God forgive me.
Totally irrelevant to my critics is the fact that the religious teachings of ISIS embrace murderous jihad and the heavenly rewards for suicide bombings and martyrdom. This, they insist, is not the real Islam, a religion of peace and scholarly pursuits. Well, one can argue, Naziism was not the real Germany of Goethe and Schiller, of Bach and Brahms. Fortunately, that didn’t keep the world from destroying the Third Reich.
We should also consider this: From the 1950s to the 1980s the United States carried out atrocities against Latin America, including numerous bombings, without the natives ever resorting to the repulsive uncivilized kind of retaliation as employed by ISIS. Latin American leftists took their revenge out on concrete representatives of the American empire: diplomatic, military and corporate targets, not markets, theatres, nightclubs, hospitals, restaurants or churches. The ISIS victims have included many Muslims, perhaps even some friends of the terrorists, for all they knew or cared.
It doesn’t matter to my critics that in my writing I have regularly given clear recognition to the crimes against humanity carried out by the West against the Islamic world. I am still not allowed to criticize the armed forces of Islam, for all of the above stated reasons plus the claim that the United States “created” ISIS.
Regarding this last argument: It’s certainly true that US foreign policy played an indispensable role in the rise of ISIS. Without Washington’s overthrow of secular governments in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and – now in process – Syria, there would today be no ISIS. It’s also true that many American weapons, intentionally and unintentionally, have wound up in the hands of terrorist groups. But the word “created” implies intention, that the United States wanted to purposely and consciously bring to life the Frankenstein monster that we know and love as ISIS.
So, you wonder, how do we rid the world of the Islamic State? I’m afraid it may already be too late. The barn door is wide open and all the horses have escaped. It’s not easy for an old anti-imperialist like myself, but I support Western military and economic power to crush the unspeakable evil of ISIS. The West has actually made good progress with seriously hampering ISIS oil sales and financial transactions. As a result, it appears that ISIS may well be running out of money, with defections of unpaid soldiers increasing.
The West should also forget about regime change in Syria and join forces with Russia against the terrorists.
And my readers, and many like them, have to learn to stop turning the other cheek when someone yelling “Allahu Akbar” drives a machete into their skull.Washington Wizards guard John Wall (2) moves past Toronto Raptors forward Terence Ross (31) in the fourth quarter in game two of the first round of the NBA Playoffs at Air Canada Centre. (Photo: Peter Llewellyn, USA TODAY Sports)
TORONTO — The Washington Wizards are the only team so far in the 2015 NBA Playoffs that has found the recipe for victory on the road.
Dominant performances from starting guards John Wall and Bradley Beal helped the Wizards to a 117-106 victory and a 2-0 series lead over the Toronto Raptors in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference opening round series.
A vintage effort from Paul Pierce led the Wizards to a competitive Game 1 overtime victory. Game 2 was far more lopsided, thanks to a combined 54 points and 19 assists from Wall and Beal.
"When we're both aggressive and our offense is on, we're a tough team to beat," Wall told USA TODAY Sports of the massive game from the Wizards backcourt. "All we can do is be ourselves and play the game the right way. We believe in our ability to score the ball and find our teammates."
After a disappointing Game 1 loss, the Raptors started Game 2 strong and charged to a 10-point lead in the opening minutes and held a five-point edge at the end of the first. The crowd was wild for the home team, but by the end of the second, the momentum had shifted entirely in the Wizards favor.
Wall and Beal began to hit their stride in the second quarter. By halftime, the Wizards owned an 11-point lead. Wall posted 12 points and 10 assists while Wall put 20 points on the board on nine-of-14 shooting.
Wall finished the game with 26 points and 17 assists. Beal scored 28 points and dishes two assists.
"I thought John and Beal did a great job of leading us all game," Pierce said. "I've been saying it all year long. As they go, as we go. We follow their lead, the way they come out aggressive with that type of aggression it's tough to beat us."
The opportunity for Wall and Beal to deliver superstar-level performances was partially created by Raptors all-star point guard Kyle Lowry's limited action.
After fouling out in Game 1, Lowry picked up three first-half fouls on Tuesday and was forced to spend the majority of the game on the bench, playing just over 27 minutes total in the game. The Wizards held Lowry to six points and four assists, which Pierce said was a key factor in the win.
"He's a tremendous talent and you can't expect him to play like he's played these first two games all series long," Pierce said of Lowry. "He's the head of the snake and when he's got it going well, they're a tough team to beat. We try to be aggressive with our defense, on him especially."
Despite an opportunity to regroup at halftime, the Raptors let the game slip further away in the third quarter. The Wizards continued to shoot well and pushed their lead up as the quarter progressed. A series of four successful 3-point shots in the final two minutes put the Wizards up 97-75 at the end of the third.
Wizards forward Drew Gooden, who had five points and six rebounds off the bench, said that run to close the quarter was the final nail in the Raptors' coffin.
"I kept hearing the crowd go, 'Oh! Oh!' – but it was us scoring, it wasn't the Toronto Raptors scoring," Gooden said. "We basically took the crowd out of the game at that point and we started seeing the demeanor of the Raptors coming down and shooting wild shots."
The Raptors players were met with a chorus of boos from the crowd at the end of the third quarter. The deficit was 22 points, but the Raptors didn't give up. They forced overtime in Game 1 after trailing by 15, and again the Raptors attempted to rally again late in the game.
For a brief moment the Raptors mustered hope by cutting the lead to 10 at 3:15 of the final quarter. That's as close as they would get, though. Although the lead was never truly in danger, Pierce said the momentary lapse in defensive effort showed the Wizards still have room to grow.
"We just got to run through the finish line; sometime we get a big lead and it's like The Tortoise and the Hare," Pierce said. "The Hare is messing around and chilling on the sidelines. We've got to run through the finish line, simple and plain. We can't turn around, look back and look at the lead.
"We've got to just keep going and run through the finish line and we'll be alright. When we up 10, we got to go up 20. When we up 20, I say lets go up 30. That's one thing we have to improve on, but for the most part I'm happy to get a win."
The Wizards have earned back-to-back opening-round road victories for two consecutive years. In 2014, the team stole two on the road from the Chicago Bulls. They dropped one game at home but ultimately won the series 4-1.
With a similar chance to advance quickly out of the first round, Beal said it would be foolish for the Wizards to ease up. Game 3 takes place Friday at Washington's Verizon Center and Beal said he plans enter the game with the mindset that his team is the one down in the series.
"We have to play like we're down 0-2," Beal said. "Nothing changes. We can't stop being aggressive. We need to make a few adjustments here and there, but our approach has to say the same.
"We have to play desperate and play like we're the underdogs with that chip on our shoulder because they're not going to back down. They're not going to stop coming at us and we have to do our best to protect our home court one game at a time."
PHOTOS: Best of first roundFor months, South Africans have fretted about the possibility of a credit-ratings downgrade, concerned it would affirm that president Jacob Zuma’s leadership and infighting in the ruling African National Congress were dragging the country in the wrong direction.
On April 3, ratings firms confirmed their worst suspicions.
Following Zuma’s decision to fire finance minister Pravin Gordhan, Standard and Poor’s stripped
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approach to prioritising defence cooperation and aligning it with missions like maritime awareness and anti-submarine warfare and eventually joint naval patrol of the Indian Ocean, the report said.
"As a rising economic power and key security partner, it is the committee's judgement that India deserves a seat at the table as the US works with our other key allies and partners to increase resiliency, strengthen deterrence and secure superiority in both operating domains.
"Looking ahead to the future of the US' Major Defence Partnership with India, the committee encourages the Department to work closely with India in the cyber and space operating domains at appropriate strategic, operational and tactical levels," the report said.
The report, keeping in mind that key defence cooperation agreements -- Communications Capability and Security Agreement and the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geospatial Intelligence -- have not been completed, said the Department of Defence has approached negotiation of these agreements with consistency and good faith, as evidenced in the successful signing of the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement with India earlier this year.
The report commended both the Department and the Ministry of Defence for this progress, and hoped to see similar agreement with the two outstanding documents as well.
Over the last one decade, the defence trade between India and the US has increased from being almost non-existent to more than USD 14 billion. This is expected to increase manifold as India embarks on a major defence modernisation drive.
During Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US last month, both the countries pledged to deepen their defence and security cooperation.
The US and India look forward to working together on advanced defence equipment and technology at a level commensurate with that of America's closest allies and partners, said a joint statement issued after the India-US Summit at the White House.
US President Donald Trump had said that the security partnership between the US and India is incredibly important.
According to the White House, the United States remains a reliable provider of advanced defence articles in support of India's military modernisation efforts.Share The Latest News
Netflix has released a 360 video called Death Note The VR Experience which takes you on a journey with a shinigami named Ryuk. In this quick journey, you’ll find the infamous book of death which quickly throws you into a spiral.
Death Note is a live-action remake from the famous anime and manga, which features a high school student named Light that ends up finding a notebook. This particular notebook has the power to kill anyone whose name is written within its pages.
The series centers around Light’s attempts to create and rule a world “cleansed of evil” as “God” using the notebook, and the efforts of a detective known as L to stop him.
The Netflix version of Death Note is currently available on their platform. It has many similarities and its own unique traits that add a little spice to it. If you were a fan of the anime and mange, you should give the Netflix version a watch.Image copyright Thinkstock Image caption A small breeding colony of the northern bald ibis was found near Palmyra in 2002
A rare bird may become extinct in Syria because of the capture of Palmyra by Islamic State, experts say.
A tiny breeding colony of the northern bald ibis - a critically endangered species - was found near the city in 2002.
Only one female returned from the wintering grounds in spring 2013.
Three further birds held in captivity were abandoned last week after their Bedouin guards fled the fighting. Their fate is unknown.
'Extinction'
The Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon has offered a reward of $1,000 (£646) for information on the whereabouts of Zenobia (named after the queen of Palmyra), the only remaining bird who knows the migration routes to wintering grounds in Ethiopia.
Without her, birds bred in captivity cannot learn the migration routes and the species could go extinct in the wild in Syria, say ornithologists.
"Culture and nature, they go hand in hand, and war stops, but nobody can bring back a species from extinction," Asaad Serhal, Head of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon, told the BBC.
Image copyright AP Image caption Palmyra was built when the area was under Roman rule
The BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut says that for several decades the species was thought to be extinct in the Middle East until seven birds were found nesting near Palmyra more than 10 years ago.
Despite being protected, and breeding, their numbers dwindled to just four wild birds by 2012.
A tagging project in 2006 discovered that the birds from the Syrian colony were wintering in Ethiopia. But it was unclear what was happening to the fledgling or immature birds.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Dr Steven Portugal used the northern bald ibis to reveal why birds fly in a V formation (footage courtesy of Waldarappteam)
Background: Dr Steve Portugal, Royal Holloway University of London
Bald ibis were originally widespread across Europe, Africa and the Middle East, but due to hunting, habitat loss and pesticide poisoning, they underwent dramatic population declines and are now only found in Morocco and Syria.
These two populations are incredibly small, with the Moroccan population being unusual for the species in that they are not migratory, spending all year at the same site in the Atlas Mountains.
Most historic populations were highly migratory, and the relic Syrian population contains the only remaining individuals who have the knowledge of historic migration routes from Syria to wintering grounds in Ethiopia.
The loss of this remnant population would result in the loss of the last migratory bald ibis, while also losing the genetic diversity that these migratory individuals contain.
The fall of Palmyra came just days after IS captured the major Iraqi city of Ramadi.
The capture of the ancient ruins at the World Heritage site next to the modern city of Palmyra has raised international alarm.
IS militants have destroyed several sites in Iraq - most recently the ancient city of Nimrud, one of Iraq's greatest archaeological treasures.As we head into this holiday season, video game news grows relatively quiet and crazy stories start popping out their heads instead. For a bit of a break from the console wars, we turn to the National Liberty Federation, a conservative "Tea Party" styled group which has recently dipped its toes in the video game realm, albeit by accident.
They recently posted the above image to their Facebook page (found via Kotaku), which is a patriotic portrait of George Washington keeping the Irish, Chinese, Arabs and Africans at bay, demonstrating the statement on the picture:
"For God and Country - It Is Our Holy Duty To Guard Against The Foreign Hordes"
Normally, this would just be some good old fashioned racism/isolationism, but as any gamer reading this post will probably know, the image is actually taken from Irrational Games' BioShock Infinite. The game, out earlier this year, brought players to the fictional city of Columbia, a floating metropolis where the founding fathers are worshiped as gods, and America has become a sort of fetishistic religion. The image is a mural found in the game, and has been used as part of its promotional materials, which is how the National Liberty Foundation likely found it.
The NLF posts a large amount of images like this, though generally not quite so overtly racist, and certainly none filled with quite so much irony. Their Facebook page has 95,000 likes, so it's not exactly an obscure, unknown group in its home state of Florida.
Here's their official statement of purpose from their website:
"The National Liberty Federation (NLF) is dedicated to promoting awareness regarding our inalienable rights. Through educational endeavors, public forums and other mass communications, we seek to ensure our citizenry, members of the media, punditry, and government, remain focused on the importance of free enterprise, limited government, fiscal responsibility, individual liberty, and American heritage, as a means for perpetuating a free society."
I guess "American heritage" somehow goes hand in hand with a "holy duty to guard again the foreign hordes," even if I can't quite wrap my head around how those two overlap. Especially since the group in the picture actually includes an American Indian.
The National Liberty Federation has also appropriated other pop culture characters from Braveheart to Duck Dynasty to Charlie Brown to spread their message, though I imagine they've never heard of BioShock before. Really, their entire gallery page is made up of the sorts of images your grandparents might forward to with the subject line: "re: fw: fw: re: re: hilarious!!!"
I don't wish to enter a debate about whether or not the Tea Party is racist as a whole, but this particular sub-group certainly is if they're saying with a straight face that this Columbia propaganda is a creed Americans should follow. Perhaps there's some alternate universe where groups like this have their way in the United States, but I'm sure glad I don't live there.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
April 30, 2017, 10:09 AM GMT / Updated April 30, 2017, 10:14 AM GMT By Saphora Smith
President Donald Trump invited controversial Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to the White House during a “very friendly” call Saturday, the White House said in a statement.
According to the White House, Trump “enjoyed the conversation,” which addressed concerns over North Korea. The president also looked forward to visiting the Philippines in November for two summits with other Asian nations, it added.
The leaders also discussed the Philippine government’s contentious war on drugs, which has claimed thousands of lives and drawn criticism from rights groups as well as some Western governments.
The statement gave no further details of Duterte’s planned visit to Washington, but said it would be used to discuss the U.S.-Philippine alliance which the White House said was “heading in a very positive direction.”
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ERIK DE CASTRO / Reuters
Duterte launched a crusade against the trade and use of illegal drugs in the Philippines after assuming office in June 2016.
According to leading international campaign group Human Rights Watch, Duterte's crackdown has claimed some 7,000 lives, with half of those attributed to the Philippine National Police.
In addition to the killings, around one million alleged drug dealers and users have handed themselves in to police to avoid the violence.
Previously, the firebrand Philippine leader's comments — including saying former President Barack Obama should "go to hell" — have prompted some to compare him to Trump. Recent relations between the Philippines and its longtime ally the U.S. were strained under Obama, with Washington suspending aid to the country at the end of last year.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation — a U.S. government aid agency — announced in December that its board had deferred a vote on a renewal of the development assistance package for the Philippines "subject to a further review of concerns around rule of law and civil liberties."
Duterte then publicly renounced the U.S. alliance, instead seeking closer ties with China and Russia.
The leaders’ call Saturday appears to mark a change of direction in the U.S.-Philippines alliance, which even last month looked to be under further strain after an American TV drama featured a nasty fictional Philippine president.
The Philippine embassy in the U.S. issued a statement in March protesting the portrayal of the fictional Filipino president, who was shown making sexual advances toward the character of the U.S. secretary of state in the CBS show “Madam Secretary.”The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is a highly anticipated device all over the world, having been already released in some countries too. Singapore customers must wait one more day to get their hands on one. However, as everyone rushes to get their hands on the latest and greatest Note from Samsung, you must note (no pun intended) that Samsung has taken the peculiar step to region lock their device. What does this mean?
If you are a gamer you will definitely have heard this phrase ‘region-locking’ being tossed around more often than not. What it refers to is locking the use of a device’s online and gaming (or in the Note 3’s case, cellular) capabilities when not using it in the region where you bought your device from. The Galaxy Note 3 is employing a similar tactic, but all is not as bad as it seems.
This region locking will only affect those who look to buy a Note 3 handset from a country in a different region as specified by Samsung. This device will lose it cellular capacity if used with a SIM-card purchased from a different region. This move is mainly targeting consumers from other countries importing sets from a place where the devices are cheaper. This way, Samsung loses a large chunk of their profit. However, as said in the title, there is a simple workaround for this.
All one needs to do is buy a SIM-card (prepaid or postpaid) from the country of purchase and just boot the phone once with that SIM-card inserted. This will deactivate the region-lock permanently, and from then onwards you can use a SIM-card from any country in the world. Thus people who are used to buy local SIM-cards when traveling to a foreign country, fret not. As long as you have switched your phone on with a SIM-card from the country of purchase, there is no fear.
This ‘fact’ that the Note 3 would be permanently region locked first came out in a Wednesday blog post by the British online retailer Clove.
Here’s what Clove said:
“If you travel internationally (outside Europe) and usually insert a local SIM card when in those countries, the Note 3 will NOT be able to use the local network. It will lose all mobile connectivity with the exception of emergency calls. “For example, if you travel to the USA and insert a SIM card issued in the USA, you will not be able to use the Note 3 for any voice calls, text messages and mobile data connection. It will work via a WiFi connectivity only.”
However what Clove is assuming is that UK customers will not bother inserting a UK SIM-card at all, and try to use a US SIM-card directly. That’s where they are wrong. This region lock is only aimed at people looking to import sets from overseas, and thus those who will use it in the UK beforehand can from then onwards use it in any other country.
Samsung Germany has confirmed that Clove is incorrect. They have reiterated that the region lock is removed after a single use in the country of purchase. They said the following (translated from German):
From the statement, it is not entirely clear, but it also confirmed that after the first unlock the SIM lock is completely removed and then local maps can also be used worldwide. So you activate one of the devices in the intended market, the SIM lock is removed and then you can also use local SIM cards when traveling abroad. If you buy a Galaxy Note, for example, 3 in Germany and enabled it in Germany or another of the countries listed, then it can be also outside Europe, such as the U.S. or Asia use.
Regardless of motives, it is very surprising to see Samsung implement a region-lock. Estimates show that profit margins are not that greatly reduced, unlike those of game consoles. While the PS3 did away with region-locks, the Xbox 360 had stubbornly held on to this philosophy. However, in the face of losing sales, Microsoft decided to do a 180 (pun intended) and removed region locks from their upcoming Xbox One. Moreover, surely Samsung will know about this workaround, and should know that if someone is willing to take the risk of importing a foreign handset, they will have no qualms about spending just a few more dollars to remove the region-lock.
So, at the end of the day, those who will use this device at least once in the country of purchase, fret not. You will not be affected by this at all. On the other hand, if you have pre-ordered a foreign set, or have already purchased it, you should go and find yourself a prepaid card from the region of purchase and boot up your phone with it inside.
Readers of Twenty First Tech, what do you think about this attempt by Samsung to stem the importing of devices? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
Like this: Like Loading...Joan C. Edwards Stadium is a football stadium located on the campus of Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, United States. It can hold 38,227[3] spectators and includes twenty deluxe, indoor suites, 300 wheelchair-accessible seating, a state-of-the-art press-box, 14 concession areas, and 16 separate restrooms.[4] It also features 90,000 sq ft (8,000 m2). of artificial turf and 1,837 tons of structural steel. It also houses the Shewey Athletic Center, a fieldhouse and a training facility. The new stadium replaced Fairfield Stadium, a condemned off-campus facility built in 1927 in the Fairfield Park neighborhood.
Marshall has a 140-25 overall record at Joan C. Edwards stadium for a winning percentage of.848, which is the highest home winning percentage of any FBS team at its current home venue.[5][6]
History [ edit ]
The Joan C. Edwards Stadium was first proposed in 1986 to replace Fairfield Stadium.[4] On January 16, then-Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. met with Huntington and University leaders, stating that "money is available" if the plans for the stadium were put together. On June 15, the Board of Regents gives the green light to the new stadium project; on September 9, the university begins purchasing property east of the central campus for the proposed stadium.
On January 15, 1987, Governor Moore asks the Board of Regents to approve funding for the sale of bonds that would help finance the new stadium.[4] On June 8 of the following year, the state Legislature passes a state budget which has the inclusion of a new 30,000-seat stadium if the Board of Regents can secure funding. A little over one month later on June 9, the Board of Regents passes a resolution that endorsed the construction of a new football stadium.
On October 4, 1988, a rendering of the new stadium was unveiled.[4] The designers of the new facility were Stafford/Rosser Fabrap, a joint venture between Stafford Consultants of Princeton and Rosser Fabrap International of Atlanta. Soon after, the Board of Regents were given 1,800 sq ft (170 m2). of property by the Greater Huntington Area Chamber of Commerce. On November 1, the Board of Regents purchased additional property and hired investment bankers who helped decide the optimal financing method for the project.
On January 11, 1989, the Board of Regents approved a $70 million bond sale, $30 million of which was for the new Marshall stadium.[4] Demolition of the existing structures for the new stadium began on December 9. A contract for the new stadium was awarded on June 13, 1990 to RC-Irey, a joint venture between River City Construction Company of Huntington and the Frank Irey, Jr. Company of Monongahela, Pennsylvania. Groundbreaking ceremonies took place one month later on July 18. By October 6, 1990, steel beams were being erected for the new stadium. Marshall's "Thundering Herd" played their last game at Fairfield Stadium against Eastern Kentucky University on November 10, losing 12–15.[4]
On January 19, 1991, the designers admitted there was only room for 28,000 seats, not the original 30,000 due to an error in calculating the size of the chairback seats.[4] The remaining 2,000 were to be added to the south end zone after the 1991 season. It would be the sixth largest stadium in NCAA Division I-AA football. By May 3 of that year, it was announced that the stadium was ⅔ complete and on August 9, the "Thundering Herd's" freshmen and transfers held their first practice in the new stadium.
On September 7, 1991, the new Marshall Stadium was unveiled before a crowd of 33,116.[4] The opening game was against New Hampshire, which Marshall won, 24–23. One year later in July, Marshall football staff and administrators relocated into a new facilities structure at the north end of the stadium adjacent to 3rd Avenue.
In 2000, a bronze memorial to the 1970 plane crash that killed most of the football team was placed on the front of the stadium to the left of the main tower, and the road the stadium is on was renamed "Marshall Memorial Boulevard."
The record attendance was set on September 10, 2010 at 41,382 in a 24–21 overtime loss to West Virginia University.[7]
On June 28, 2017, the University Board of Governors approved the sale of beer throughout the stadium.[8]
Renovations [ edit ]
The expansion of the additional 2,000 seats was completed in July 1994. Six years later, in August 2000, another seating expansion brought the total number of seats to 38,019. The new expansion was completed before the 2000 season opener against SE Missouri St. In 2013, Marshall added four new skyboxes which raised the capacity to 38,227[3]
In 2005, the stadium underwent a change in the playing surface as the AstroTurf surface, in place since 1998, was removed, and a new FieldTurf surface was installed.
In 2014, AstroTurf was reinstalled.[9]
Naming [ edit ]
On September 4, 1993, the playing surface was named in honor of James F. Edwards, a donor to Marshall University. In 2003, the stadium itself was renamed to the Joan C. Edwards Stadium after James Edwards wife Joan C. Edwards. The renaming honored the couple, whose combined donations to the university exceeded $65 million. The Shewey Athletic Center on the north side of the stadium on Third Avenue was named for Fred and Christine Shewey, also major donors. The Shewey Athletic Center houses the stadium's locker room facilities as well as offices for both the football team and the athletic department.
The stadium is one of only two in NCAA Division I named exclusively for a woman. The other is Williams-Brice Stadium at South Carolina. (Several other stadiums are named after husband-and-wife pairs.)
Tenants [ edit ]
In addition to hosting Marshall football, the NCAA Division I-AA national championship game was held at then-Marshall University Stadium several times in the 1990s, including in 1992 and 1996—the years when the Thundering Herd won the national championship. The stadium also hosted the MAC championship game in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2002 as well as the 2014 Conference USA championship game.
In 2010, Kentucky Christian University played three of its home football games at the stadium.[10]
Top 5 attended games [ edit ]
Attendance Opponent Date Score Reference 1 41,382 West Virginia September 10, 2010 L, 21–24OT [11] 2 40,592 Louisville September 24, 2016 L, 28–59 [12] 3 40,383 West Virginia September 8, 2007 L, 23–48 4 38,791 Purdue September 6, 2015 W, 41–31 5 36,914 Kansas State September 10, 2005 L, 19–21
Gallery [ edit ]
Front entrance to stadium
Memorial located on the front of the stadium
Home Side 2008
Visitor Side Exterior 2008
The Joan at dusk 2009
Marshall vs Cincinnati 2008 Pregame
Marshall vs Houston 2008
Pregame as seen from the student section in 2012. The Shewey Athletic Center is seen at the far end of the field.
See also [ edit ]Anchor Merry Christmas 1995 Happy New Year Ale - The twenty-first special ale produced by the Anchor Brewing Company, this beer is brewed with a different recipe each year with the intent of bringing joy and celebration of the newness of life.
Anchor Porter Beer - A unique dark brew, this porter beer is brewed to produce an intensely rich flavor.
Anchor Steam Beer - Brewed using pale and crystal malts, Northern Brewer hops and fermented with lager yeast, Anchor Steam Beer is created with all the roundness of a lager but the complexity of an ale.
Bud Dry - This premium beer is brewed to have a smooth, rich, and dry taste, following in the Anheuser-Busch tradition.
Bud Ice - Brewed with ice crystals, this premium beer has a rich, smooth, full-bodied taste.
Bud Ice Light - This premium Bud beer has a smooth, ice-brewed taste, but contains fewer calories than any other ice beer on the market.
Bud Light - This light beer has a unique refreshing taste, originally introduced in 1982, and later became the most popular light beer in 1994.
Budweiser - This premium lager has been brewed and sold since 1876, and is known as "The King of Beers."
Busch - This leading subpremium brand has a clean, snappy character, as well as a smooth, refreshing taste that has satisfied many Americans since 1955.
Cave Creek Chili Beer - Created at the foot of Black Mountain, Arizona, Chili Beer has attracted attention from all over the country, and is sold in 40 states.
Coors - Brewed using high country barleys, malts, premium hops, Rocky Mountain water, and a unique brewing process, Coors is one of the highest quality beers in America.
Coors Light - Brewed from malted barley, choice grain, and hops, Coors Light is known as "The Silver Bullet."
Dead Armadillo - This roasted red handcrafted beer is brewed by the Dead Armadillo Brewing Co. in Lake Oswego, Oregon.
Dixie Beer - This pilsner has a noble hop aroma and flavor, and is brewed to a pale yellow color with a bitter taste.
Dixie Blackened Voodoo Lager - Produced at the Dixie Brewing Company, this dark lager is brewed using choice malts and hops and has a heavy malt taste.
George Killian's Irish Red Lager - A unique Irish red lager, George Killian's is brewed using choice ingredients, including slow roasted caramel malt.
Grant's Scottish Ale - This rich, full-bodied ale was brewed with traditional Scottish methods, creating a malty-fruity character and spicy, herbal flavor.
Henry Weinhard's Private Reserve Beer - Making every effort to follow traditional brewing techniques, Henry Weinhard's Private Reserve is a true premium, hand-made beer.
Icehouse - The first domestically brewed ice beer, Icehouse is a bold, hoppy beer with no watered-down taste.
Iron City Premium Beer - The flagship beer for the Pittsburgh Brewing Company, Iron City Beer is brewed using choice barley malt, corn, and hops to produce one of the first true lager beers ever brewed in the United States.
Liberty Ale - Brewed using American pale malt, this traditional style ale boasts a robust, hearty taste with an aromatic flavor.
Lone Star - Produced in the Heart of Texas, Lone Star is brewed with choice grains, hops, and crystal clear water to create a smooth taste.
Michael Shea's Irish Amber Pub Style Lager - A skillful blend of a variety of barley malts, this full-bodied Irish lager has just the right amount of tanginess and aromatic character.
Michelob - This superpremium draft beer has a full, smooth, yet somewhat European taste.
Michelob Amber Bock - Anheuser-Busch first introduced this premium beer in 1995, having a special, rich, roasted taste.
Michelob Light - Introduced as the country's first superpremium light beer, Michelob Light has a pleasant aroma and hop character, as well as smooth taste.
Mickey's Fine Malt Liquor - Brewed by the G. Heileman Brewing Co., Mickey's Fine Malt Liquor is one of the finer beers produced in LaCross, WI.
Miller - One of America's favorite choices, Miller beer is made with the finest barley malts and "the heart of the hop."
Miller Genuine Draft - This draft beer represents a true innovation in American brewing, and is brewed with a patented filtering process that gives it a smooth drinkability.
Miller Lite - The original low calorie beer, Miller Lite is a carefully hand-crafted pilsner that uses the finest in brewing techniques to produce a fuller, richer tasting beer.
Mr. Mike's Light Ale - Bottled and brewed by the New Haven Brewing Company, Mr. Mike's is a fine light ale produced in New Haven, Connecticut.
Natural Light Beer - This light beer has a pleasing aroma, introduced in 1977 as the first reduced-calorie beer produced by Anheuser-Busch.
New Amsterdam New York Amber Beer - Blending American originality with fine Old World brewing techniques, this amber beer uses the most expensive ingredients to create what has been called one of the finest beers in the world.
Nor'Wester Blacksmith Porter - This dark British style beer is brewed using chocolate malts to create a stout with a rich, coffee-like flavor.
Old Milwaukee - Crafted with genuine malted barley, pure water, cereal grains, and selected hops, Old Milwaukee is both brewed and bottled by the Stroh Brewery Company in Detroit, Michigan.
Perry's Majestic Lager Beer - Brewed from rich grains of organically grown barley and hops, Perry's Majestic Lager Beer is bottled for the Riverosa Company Inc. NY under license by Frankemuth Brewing, Inc.
Pete's Wicked Ale - A pleasant example of a brown ale, Pete's Wicked Ale is described as "the original American brown ale."
Rattlesnake Premium Beer - This premium beer is handmade with pure artesian well water and all natural ingredients to assure a smooth taste.
Red Dog - By combining two malts and five different varieties of hops, Red Dog is brewed for full-flavor while providing an uncommonly smooth premium beer.
Red Ridge Ale - Brewed using the finest barley malts, hops, yeast, and water found in America, Red Ridge Ale is produced by the Rainbow Ridge Brewing Co. in Evansville, IN.
Rogue American Amber Ale - This ale has a surprising aroma of coffee, traces of maple, and a smooth malt character informed by the generous use of hops.
Rolling Rock Extra Pale - Brewed using choice hops, malted barley, corn rice, and mountain spring water, Rolling Rock beer is the product of many years of brewing tradition, and has come to be known as one of the most popular beers in America.
Samuel Adams Boston Lager - Leading the American beer revolution is Samuel Adams Boston Lager, a full-bodied brew developed by using the finest ingredients and age old German brewing techniques to produce what has been called "The Best Beer in America."
Samuel Adams Triple Bock - First brewed in 1991, Triple Bock is produced using a caramel malt variety, top-fermenting yeast, and choice European hops to produce a unique flavor reminiscent of old sherry and fine cognac.
Saranac Black and Tan Stout and Lager - This Irish beer is brewed with a wide selection of eleven different malts, creating a hearty classic stout.
Saranac Mountain Berry Ale - This refreshing summer seasonal ale is brewed using raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, and honey.
Saxer Amber Lager LB - Specially brewed for excellence, Saxer Amber Lager is developed in the tradition of original American brewmasters.
Saxer Hefendunkel - Using a sophisticated blend of imported German caramel and malted barley, and brewing them with imported hops, Saxer Hefendunkel creates a rich, malt-roasted taste with a smooth finish.
Saxer Lemon Lager - Saxer Lemon Lager is brewed using Oregon grown Pale Malt barley and imported European hops to create a refreshing beer with a crisp, tangy lemon finish.
Saxer Pilsner - Brewed according to the traditions begun in Pilsen, Bohemia, Saxer Pilsner is a classic lager produced from malted barley and choice European floral hops.
Saxer Three Finger Jack Stout - Brewed according to the German Law of Purity, Three Finger Jack Stout is "The only lagered stout we know about."
Schlitz - Brewed with "Just the kiss of the hops," this is the beer that made Milwaukee famous.
Simpatico Lager - Combining Old World brewing techniques with a dedication to quality and hand-crafted care, Simpatico lager is brewed with the finest ingredients available, creating an award-winning lager.
Southpaw Light - This premium light beer is double-hopped for a unique beer taste that is brewed for more aroma, fuller body, and more flavor, creating a refreshingly drinkable beer.
St. Stan's Ale - Brewed using pale and caramel malts, aromatic hops for flavoring, and bittering hops, St. Stan's Ale has a very full, spicy, yet smooth flavor.
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White Ridge Wheat Beer - The finest wheat beer in America, White Ridge is brewed by the Rainbow Ridge Brewing Company in Evansville, Indiana.
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Apparently, being alive is “cruel and unusual punishment” under the 8th Amendment of the Bill of Rights. The judge writes:
“Inordinate and unpredictable delay… has resulted in a system in which arbitrary factors, rather than legitimate ones like the nature of the crime or the date of the death sentence, determine whether an individual will actually be executed. And it has resulted in a system that serves no penological purpose. Such a system is unconstitutional.”
Further Scott Shackford over at Reason notes:
“The judge notes that a bipartisan panel has criticized the state’s death penalty process as ‘plagued with excessive delay in the appointments of counsel for direct appeals and habeus corpus petitions, and a severe backlog in the review of appeals and habeas petitions before the California Supreme Court.’ The state keeps sentencing people to death and then is dragging its feet dealing with the process. Funding cuts to the Office of the State Public Defender are blamed for the limited pool of attorneys available to represent the defendants. “The judge also notes that after this extremely long wait, 60 percent of the handful of defendants (81 of them) who have made it through the whole state appeals process were granted relief from the death sentence once the case was taken up in federal courts.”
This had to be a Federal judge due to a peculiarity in the California Constitution, specifically in the state’s Declaration of Rights (Article I of the California Constitution). In the 1970’s, the infamous “Rose Byrd court” invalidated the state’s death penalty as a violation of the state’s Declaration of rights. In response, an initiative measure restored the death penalty by adding Section 27 to the state Constitution which read:
“SEC. 27. All statutes of this State in effect on February 17, 1972, requiring, authorizing, imposing, or relating to the death penalty are in full force and effect, subject to legislative amendment or repeal by statute, initiative, or referendum. “The death penalty provided for under those statutes shall not be deemed to be, or to constitute, the infliction of cruel or unusual punishments within the meaning of Article 1, Section 6 nor shall such punishment for such offenses be deemed to contravene any other provision of this constitution.”
Of course, that being the law of the land wouldn’t stop the Leftist dominated California legislature and executive officers from using a Federal judge and complacent Governor and Attorney General from overthrowing the very Constitution which restrains them… again.
A little mood music:
The judicial order can be seen below:
Federal Judge rules Death Penalty Unconstiutional if not inforced
TweetVilified former biotech executive Martin Shkreli took to YouTube on Tuesday to analyze Valeant Pharmaceuticals (vrx), the troubled pharmaceutical giant whose stock has cratered over 50% today on a messy earnings report. It was also Shkreli’s alleged drug price-gouging practices back in September that helped bring attention to Valeant’s own.
His analysis: Sell.
Shkreli, who hasn’t traded Valeant stock since he closed out of his long-position late October with a 3% loss, concluded in the live stream “investing class” that Valeant’s stock price seems fairly valued, and likely not a great investment. He states that the company’s dermatology brands are “smoke and mirrors,” with products that were non-medicinal.
That was after Valeant stock price dropped 50% to $33.51 on Tuesday, following an earnings report that missed analyst estimates and included an eyebrow-raising $600 million typo.
The former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, Shkreli, is also predicting a management shakeup for Valeant.
“The terminal value is determined by management confidence. I don’t think Mike will eventually survive this—even through this week,” said the one-time hedge funder. “They’ll probably vote him out today, just knowing how boards work.”
Shkreli also noted that it probably wasn’t a great decision on the management’s part to buy “female viagra” maker, Sprout, or dole out so many stock options to employees, both of which have hurt earnings.
“That would’ve been a nice billion dollars to have handy,” he said, referring to how much those two items impacted Valeant’s bottom line.
Shkreli, who is known for his odd live chats, concluded the session by playing chess, hip hop, and “reading court cases for fun.” Of course, you might not want to take investing advice from Shkreli. The 32-year-old is currently facing securities fraud charges from the federal government stemming from his time as a hedge fund manager.President Donald Trump with the executive order halting immigrants from some majority-Muslim countries from entering the US. Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images President Donald Trump's past comments about a "Muslim ban" and the hasty rollout of his immigration order targeting seven majority-Muslim countries may have undermined the government's legal arguments for upholding the order, law experts say.
On Thursday, the Ninth Circuit denied the government's emergency appeal to lift the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) on Trump's immigration order issued last week by a federal judge in Seattle, indicating in its opinion that Trump's past comments about a "Muslim ban" can be used as evidence for discrimination.
"It is well established that evidence of purpose beyond the face of the challenged law may be considered in evaluating Establishment and Equal Protection Clause claims," the judges wrote on Thursday.
Legal challenges to presidential executive orders are almost always "an automatic win" for the government, especially when they invoke national-security concerns, said William Stock, the president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
But the lawsuits against Trump's immigration order — which Trump has said he would appeal up to the Supreme Court— seem to be an
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create popular support".[22] The other movement, called Hezb-i Islami ("Islamic Party"), was led by Hekmatyar, who favored a radical approach in the form of violent armed conflict. Pakistani support largely went to Hekmatyar's group, who, in October 1975, undertook to instigate an uprising against the government. Without popular support, the rebellion ended in complete failure, and hundreds of militants were arrested.[23]
Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami was formed as an elitist avant-garde based on a strictly disciplined Islamist ideology within a homogeneous organization that Olivier Roy described as "Leninist", and employed the rhetoric of the Iranian Revolution.[24] It had its operational base in the Nasir Bagh, Worsak and Shamshatoo refugee camps in Pakistan. In these camps, Hezb-i Islami formed a social and political network and operated everything from schools to prisons, with the support of the Pakistani government and their Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).[25][26] From 1976–1977 Afghan President Daoud made overtures to Pakistan which led to reconciliation with Pakistani leader Bhutto.[22] Bhutto's support to Hekmatyar, however, continued and when Bhutto was removed from power in Pakistan by Zia-ul-Haq in 1977, Zia continued supporting Hekmatyar.[27]
Anti-Soviet resistance [ edit ]
During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Hekmatyar received large amounts of aid from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States.[28][29] Hekmatyar also gained the support of the British MI6 and even met Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street.[30] According to the ISI, their decision to allocate the highest percentage of covert aid to Hekmatyar was based on his record as an effective anti-Soviet military commander in Afghanistan.[31] Others describe his position as the result of having "almost no grassroots support and no military base inside Afghanistan", and thus being the much more "dependent on Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq's protection and financial largesse" than other mujahideen factions.[32] Author Peter Bergen states that "by the most conservative estimates, $600 million" in American aid through Pakistan "went to the Hizb party... Hekmatyar's party had the dubious distinction of never winning a significant battle during the war, training a variety of militant Islamists from around the world, killing significant numbers of mujahideen from other parties, and taking a virulently anti-Western line. In addition to hundreds of millions of dollars of American aid, Hekmatyar also received the lion's share of aid from the Saudis."[33] Hekmatyar's constant scheming against all of the mujahideen factions led Pakistani general and leader Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq to warn Hekmatyar that it was Pakistan that made him an Afghan leader and that Pakistan could and would destroy him if he resisted operational control by ISI.[34]
Warfare with other Afghan groups [ edit ]
Hekmatyar has been harshly criticized[by whom?] for his behavior during the Soviet war and the civil war, and was criticized for his group's "xenophobic" tendencies.[35] At various times, he both fought against and allied himself with almost every other group in Afghanistan. He ordered frequent attacks on other rival factions to weaken them in order to improve his position in the post-Soviet power vacuum. An example of his tendency for internecine rivalry was his arranging the arrest of Ahmad Shah Massoud in Pakistan in 1976 on spying charges.[36] Another example is when Massoud and Hekmatyar agreed to stage a takeover operation in the Panjshir valley—Hekmatyar at the last minute refused to engage his part of the offensive, leaving Massoud open and vulnerable. Massoud's forces barely escaped with their lives.[37] In 1987, members of Hekmatyar's faction killed British cameraman Andy Skrzypkowiak, who was carrying footage of Massoud's successes to the West. Despite protests from British representatives, Hekmatyar did not punish the culprits, and instead rewarded them with gifts.[38] Another example of the Hezb-i Islami's tendency to internecine fighting was given on 9 July 1989, when Sayyed Jamal, one of Hekmatyar's commanders, ambushed and killed 30 commanders of Massoud's Shura-ye-Nazar at Farkhar in Takhar province. The attack was typical of Hekmatyar's strategy of trying to cripple rival factions, and incurred widespread condemnation among the mujahideen.[39]
Another possible instance of Hekmatyar's treachery[peacock term] toward his rivals occurred in 1987. The Paris-based group Médecins Sans Frontières reported that Hekmatyar's guerrillas hijacked a 96-horse caravan bringing aid into northern Afghanistan in 1987, stealing a year's supply of medicine and cash that was to be distributed to villagers. This would have allowed the villagers to buy food. French relief officials also asserted that Thierry Niquet, an aid coordinator bringing cash to Afghan villagers, was killed by one of Hekmatyar's commanders in 1986. It is thought that two American journalists traveling with Hekmatyar in 1987, Lee Shapiro and Jim Lindalos, were killed not by the Soviets, as Hekmatyar's men claimed, but during a firefight initiated by Hekmatyar's forces against another mujahideen group.[40] In addition, there were frequent reports throughout the war of Hekmatyar's commanders negotiating and dealing with pro-Communist local militias in northern Afghanistan.[41]
Hekmatyar made an unlikely alliance with hardline communist and Minister of Defence Shahnawaz Tanai who launched a failed coup attempt in March 1990 against President Najibullah.
Hekmatyar has been accused of spending "more time fighting other Mujahideen than killing Soviets."[42]
Post-DRA civil war [ edit ]
A highly controversial commander, Hekmatyar has been dubbed the "Butcher of Kabul", accused of being responsible for the destruction and civilian deaths Kabul experienced in the early 1990s.[43]
According to the U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan in 1989–1992, Peter Tomsen, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was hired in 1990 by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to conquer and rule Afghanistan in the benefit of Pakistani interests, which plan was delayed until 1992 due to US pressure to cancel that plan.[44]
In April 1992, as the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan began to collapse, government officials joined the mujahideen, choosing different parties according to their ethnic and political affinities. For the most part, the members of the khalq faction of the PDPA, who were predominantly Pashtuns, joined with Hekmatyar.[45] With their help, he began on 24 April to infiltrate troops into Kabul, and announced that he had seized the city, and that should any other leaders try to fly into Kabul, he would shoot their plane down.[46] The new leader of the "Islamic Interim Government of Afghanistan", Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, appointed Ahmad Shah Massoud as defense minister, and urged him to take action. This he did, taking the offensive on 25 April, and after two days heavy fighting, the Hezb-i Islami and its allies were expelled from Kabul.[47] A peace agreement was signed with Massoud on 25 May 1992, which made Hekmatyar Prime Minister. However, the agreement fell apart when he was blamed for a rocket attack on President Mojaddedi's plane.[4] The following day, fighting resumed between Burhanuddin Rabbani's and Ahmed Shah Massoud's Jamiat, Abdul Rashid Dostum's Jumbish forces and Hekmatyar's Hezb-i Islami forces.
From 1992 to 1996, the warring factions destroyed most of Kabul and killed thousands, most of them civilians, during the Afghan civil war. All the different parties participated in the destruction, but Hekmatyar's group was responsible for most of the damage, because of his practice of deliberately targeting civilian areas.[48] Hekmatyar is thought to have bombarded Kabul in retaliation for what he considered its inhabitants' collaboration with the Soviets, and out of religious conviction. He once told a New York Times journalist that Afghanistan "already had one and a half million martyrs. We are ready to offer as many to establish a true Islamic Republic."[49] His attacks also had a political objective: to undermine the Rabbani government by proving that Rabbani and Massoud were unable to protect the population.[50] In 1994 Hekmatyar would shift alliances, joining with Dostum as well as Hizb-e-Wahdat, a Hazara Shi'a party, to form the Shura-i Hamahangi ("Council of coordination"). Together they laid Siege of Kabul, unleashing massive barrages of artillery and rockets that led to the evacuation of U.N. personnel from Kabul, and caused several government members to abandon their posts. However the new alliance did not spell victory for Hekmatyar, and in June 1994, Massoud had driven Dostum's troops from the capital.[51]
Relations with the Taliban [ edit ]
The Pakistani military had supported Hekmatyar until then in the hope of installing a Pashtun-dominated government in Kabul, which would be friendly to their interests. By 1994, it had become clear that Hekmatyar would never achieve this, and that his extremism had antagonised most Pashtuns, so the Pakistanis began turning towards the predominantly Pashtun Taliban.[52] After capturing Kandahar in November 1994, the Taliban made rapid progress towards Kabul, making inroads into Hezb-i Islami positions. They captured Wardak on 2 February 1995, and moved on to Maidan Shahr on 10 February and Mohammed Agha the next day. Very soon, Hekmatyar found himself caught between the advancing Taliban and the government forces, and the morale of his men collapsed.[53] On 14 February, he was forced to abandon his headquarters at Charasiab, from where rockets were fired at Kabul, and flee in disorder to Surobi.[54]
Nonetheless, in May 1996, Rabbani and Hekmatyar finally formed a power-sharing government in which Hekmatyar was made prime minister. Rabbani was anxious to enhance the legitimacy of his government by enlisting the support of Pashtun leaders. However, the Mahipar agreement did not bring any such benefits to him as Hekmatyar had little grassroots support, but did have many adverse effects: it caused outrage among Jamiat supporters, and among the population of Kabul, who had endured Hekmatyar's attacks for the last four years. Moreover, the agreement was clearly not what the Pakistanis wanted, and convinced them of Hekmatyar's weakness, and that they should shift their aid entirely over to the Taliban. Hekmatyar took office on 26 June, and immediately started issuing severe decrees on women's dress, that struck a sharp contrast with the relatively liberal policy that Massoud had followed until then. The Taliban responded to the agreement with a further spate of rocket attacks on the capital.[55] The Rabbani/Hekmatyar regime lasted only a few months before the Taliban took control of Kabul in September 1996. Many of the HIG local commanders joined the Taliban "both out of ideological sympathy and for reason of tribal solidarity." [56] Those that did not were expelled by the Taliban. In Pakistan Hezb-e-Islami training camps "were taken over by the Taliban and handed over" to Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) groups such as the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP).[57] Hekmatyar then fled to Iran in 1997 where he is said to have resided for almost six years, although he claimed in August 1998 that he still remained in Afghanistan.[58] Isolated from Afghanistan he is reported to have "lost... his power base back home" to defections or inactivity of former members. He was also distrusted by the Iranian Government who found him too unpredictable, unreliable, and an unnecessary liability, considering its tense relations at the time with the Taliban and the Pakistani government, and despite his pleas, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards refused to establish a proxy through any of his organizations or assist him in any way.[59] Allegedly, they even cut his phone lines and turned away anyone who wished to see him in his villa in North Tehran.[60]
Post-9/11 activities [ edit ]
After the 9/11 attacks in the United States Hekmatyar, who had allegedly "worked closely" with bin Laden in early 1990s,[61] declared his opposition to the US campaign in Afghanistan and criticized Pakistan for assisting the United States. After the U.S. entry into the anti-Taliban alliance and the fall of the Taliban, Hekmatyar rejected the U.N.-brokered accord of 5 December 2001 negotiated in Germany as a post-Taliban interim government for Afghanistan. As a result of pressure by the U.S. and the Karzai administration, on 10 February 2002 all the offices of Hezb-e-Islami were closed in Iran and Hekmatyar was expelled by his Iranian hosts.[5]
The United States accuses Hekmatyar of urging Taliban fighters to re-form and fight against Coalition troops in Afghanistan. He is also accused of offering bounties for those who kill U.S. troops. He has been labeled a war criminal by members of the U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai's government. ISAF identified Hekmatyar in 2002 as the number one security threat, ehad of the Taliban or al-Qaeda.[62] He is also a suspect behind the 5 September 2002 assassination attempt on Karzai that killed more than a dozen people in Kabul.[63] That same month, he released newsletters and tape messages calling for jihad against the United States. One of his commanders commented that there "will be suicide attacks [...] against soldiers".[64] On 25 December 2002 the news broke that American spy organizations had discovered Hekmatyar attempting to join al-Qaeda. According to the news, he had said that he was available to aid them. However, in a video released by Hekmatyar 1 September 2003, he denied forming alliances with the Taliban or al-Qaeda, but praised attacks against U.S. and international forces.[citation needed]
On February 10, 2003 the Afghan government reported that Hekmatyar was planning an alliance with Taliban and al-Qaeda factions. His group was involved in an intense battle with the U.S. army near Spin Boldak.[65] On February 19, 2003 the United States State Department and the United States Treasury Department jointly designated Hekmatyar a "global terrorist."[clarification needed][66] This designation meant that any assets Hekmatyar held in the USA, or held through companies based in the U.S., would be frozen. The U.S. also requested the United Nations Committee on Terrorism to follow suit, and designate Hekmatyar an associate of Osama bin Laden. In October 2003, he declared a ceasefire with local commanders in Jalalabad, Kunar, Logar and Surobi, and stated that they should only fight foreigners.[citation needed]
In May 2006, he released a video to Al Jazeera in which he accused Iran of backing the U.S. in the Afghan conflict and said he was ready to fight alongside Osama bin Laden and blamed the ongoing conflicts in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan on U.S. interference.[67] In an audiotape released the same month, called for revolt against U.S. forces and Karzai's "pupper government", and directly threatened to kill Lt. General Karl Eikenberry.[68] In September 2006, he was reported as captured, but the report was later retracted.[69] In December 2006, a video was released in Pakistan, where Gulbuddin Hekmatyar claimed "the fate Soviet Union faced is awaiting America as well." In January 2007 CNN reported that Hekmatyar claimed "that his fighters helped Osama bin Laden escape from the mountains of Tora Bora five years ago." BBC news reported a quote from a December 2006 interview broadcast on GEO TV, "We helped them [bin Laden and Zawahiri] get out of the caves and led them to a safe place."[70]
2008 resurgence [ edit ]
In May 2008, the Jamestown Foundation reported that after being "sidelined from Afghan politics" since the mid-1990s, Gulbuddin's HIG group has "recently reemerged as an aggressive militant group, claiming responsibility for many bloody attacks against Coalition forces [at the time, primarily the International Security Assistance Force and the administration of President Hamid Karzai." The re-emergence of this "experienced guerrilla strategist" comes at a propitious time for insurgency, following the killing of Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah, when some elements of the Taliban were becoming "disorganized and frustrated."[5] HIG has claimed responsibility for and is thought to have at least assisted in a 27 April 2008 attempt on the life of President Karzai in Kabul that killed three Afghan citizens, including a member of parliament. Other attacks it is thought to be responsible for include the 2 January 2008 shooting down in the Laghman province of a helicopter containing foreign troops; the shooting and forcing down of a U.S. military helicopter in the Sarubi district of Kabul on 22 January; and blowing up a Kabul police vehicle in March 2008, killing 10 soldiers.[5]
In interviews he has demanded "all foreign forces to leave immediately unconditionally." Offers by President Hamid Karzai to open talks with "opponents of the government" and hints that they would be offered official posts "such as deputy minister or head of department", are thought to be directed at Hekmatyar. It was reported in 2008 that Hekmatyar lived in an unknown location in southeastern Afghanistan, close to the Pakistani border.[5] In 2008, he denied any links with the Taliban or al-Qaeda and was even considered for Prime Minister.[71] Hekmatyar is now believed to shuttle between hideouts in Pakistan's mountainous tribal areas and in northeast Afghanistan.[72]
In January 2010, he was still considered as one of the three main leaders of the Afghan insurgency. By then, he held out the possibility of negotiations with President Karzai and outlined a roadmap for political reconciliation. This contrasted with the views of Taliban leader Mullah Omar and allied insurgent chief Sirajuddin Haqqani, who refuse any talks with Kabul as long as foreign troops remain in the country, Hekmatyar appeared less reluctant.[73]
2016 peace deal and pardon [ edit ]
On 22 September 2016, Hekmatyar was pardoned by the Afghan government as part of a peace deal between Hezb-i-Islami and the government. The deal also allows for the release of Hezb-i-Islami prisoners and the return of Hekmatyar to public life. The deal led a group of young activists to organise a protest against the pardoning less than a mile away from the signing ceremony. Human Rights Watch called the deal "an affront to victims of grave abuses".[74] Hezb-i-Islami agreed to cease hostilities, cut ties to extremist groups and respect the Afghan Constitution in exchange for government recognition of the group and support for the removal of United Nations and American sanctions against Hekmatyar, who was also promised an honorary post in the government.[75][76]
The agreement was formalised on 29 September 2016 with both Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Hekmatyar, who appeared via a video link in the presidential palace, signing the agreement.[77] UN sanctions on him were formally lifted on 3 February 2017.[78] On 4 May 2017, he returned to Kabul along with his fighters to meet President Ghani after spending two decades in hiding.[79]
Relatives [ edit ]
Some of Gulbuddin's relatives have served or are suspected of serving as his deputies.
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]The three-time FIFA Ballon d'Or winner has netted 93 goals in Europe's elite club competition, including five hat-tricks. His closest rival is Barcelona's Lionel Messi, who is 10 goals behind him in the Champions League scoring charts.
"I don't doubt that I will go down in footballing history. Whether people like it or not, the numbers speak for themselves. I will be up there with the rest," Ronaldo, 31, told the UEFA website (www.uefa.com) in an interview.
"Some like it more, some like it less, but I have no doubt that I'm already in the history of football.
"I always felt that I was a special player... I've always worked hard, believed in my potential and I've developed more and more as a player, as a person, as a human being."
Ronaldo has 16 Champions League goals this season, the most by any player in a single campaign, which has propelled 10-times European Cup winners Real to a semi-final with Manchester City.
The Portugal international, who missed last week's goalless first leg, will aim to extend his scoring record on Wednesday when Real and City battle at the Santiago Bernabeu for the right to face Atletico Madrid in the final in Milan on May 28.
"It's a privilege to know that I'm the leading goalscorer of all time in the Champions League. Obviously, I feel very happy at having achieved that," the 31-year-old said.
"It's a special competition and a competition that Real Madrid love. I've been lucky enough to win it twice and obviously I want to win it more -- hopefully again this year."Archaeology, Mythology and History of Crete : Zeus Minoan Christmas We all know the story of how Christ was born in a manger, with animals whose breath and bodies offered some warmth in the frozen cave, according to Orthodox tradition. But how many of us know that this story is not original, but had also taken place many centuries earlier in ancient Greece, specifically on the island of Crete? According to Greek mythology, Dias or Zeus, the father of the gods of Olympus, was born in a cave on Crete. No myth gives the precise location of the cave; Hesiod’s Theogony, for instance, refers to a cave near the ancient city of Lyktos in south-central Crete. This led to confusion and so today there are two contenders for the title of Zeus’s birthplace: the Ideon Cave on Mount Ida or Psiloritis near the village of Anoyia, and the Dikteon Cave on Mount Dicte, near the village of Psychro on the Lassithi Plateau. In both caves, excavations have brought archaeological finds to light showing that these were important cult places, but there is not enough evidence to choose one of the two as the birthplace of Zeus. Similarities between the stories of Christ and Zeus Zeus was born in a cave on Crete Christ was born in a cave in Israel Zeus was the greatest of the gods of Olympus Christ is the head of the Christian Church Zeus was born in a cave to hide him from his father Cronus Christ was born in a cave to hide him from Herod The goat Amalthea and a swarm of bees accompanied the newborn god and offered him nourishment during his early years According to variations on the myth, other animals which helped Zeus were the eagle, pigeons, the dog and the sow. Animals offered warmth to the baby Jesus in the cave The Cretan myths, unlike those of the rest of Greece, relate that Zeus died and was reborn each year Zeus Cretagenes, the Cretan-born Zeus, is thought to have replaced an older deity, the Cretan god of vegetation, who died in Autumn and was reborn in Spring, following the eternal cycle of nature. Christ was crucified, died and was resurrected. From the cave of Zeus to the manger of Christ According to the experts, religions evolve down the ages, adapting to new conditions. However, they always cover basic human needs, needs which do not change significantly through history. Just as our ancestors, thousands of years ago, prayed to Zeus (the Hymn to the Dictaean Zeus) for their families, their crops, their flocks and their ships, for peace and prosperity in their societies, so too do we pray to God today for exactly the same things. The only difference is that most of us are no longer farmers or shepherds, but businesspeople, employees and scientists. In Crete we also have a further example of ancient practices being carried over to the new religion. When the shepherds of Mount Psiloritis accuse each other of stealing sheep, they go to the monastery of Dioskourios and, before the holy icons, swear a solemn oath - not to Christ, as one would expect, but to Za (derived from the name of Zeus). Especially concerning the births of Christ and Zeus, we see collective memories and universal truths which still apply, unchanged, despite the millennia separating the two stories. Christ, according to Orthodox tradition, was born in a cave, like Zeus long before. Why a cave? Perhaps because caves were the first refuges for humans, offering shelter from bad weather and wild animals. Perhaps because caves are ancient symbols of the womb, the wombs of the Earth, Gaia, the Great Mother. Animals were at the side of the newborn Zeus and Christ and helped them to survive at the beginning of their lives, just as animals have helped people survive for thousands of years, with their meat, milk, wool or companionship. The exercise of power by cruel rulers has led to thousands of victims in every age. Both Cronus and Herod are expressions of the bottomless human thirst for power, a thirst which overcomes all law and conscience: Cronus swallowed his children alive, while Herod slaughtered all the male infants in his district. Both Zeus and Christ, in their first moments of life, faced these ruthless tyrants and were hidden in caves to survive. Just to make things clear: this article does not aim to equate Zeus with Christ. There are certainly similarities in their stories, but there are even more differences, particularly in their lives and personalities. This article was not written by an expert on religions, nor is it a scientific text. These are just some simple observations whose intention is more to entertain than to teach. I hope we have managed to do so. Related articles: Christmas in GreeceOnly several names of Bulgarian entrepreneurs have surfaced out of the Panama Papers so far, three days after the affair emerged exposing global offshore dealings that involve politicians, celebrities and business people from around the world.
The first names whose stories have been published are the Banevi family (Nikolay Banev and Evgeniya Baneva), the owners of a business holding with diverse industrial and services activities, and Petar Mandzhukov, whose businesses have included media publishing and arms exports.
Since the Panama Papers story emerged, at least 50 companies, 16 company owners and 78 shareholders from across Bulgaria have been linked to registrations in offshore jurisdictions around the world, according to Sofia-based news daily newspaper 24 Chasa – the ICIJ's only reporting partner from Bulgaria.
Another 100 people were directors, agents, lawyers or liquidators; some of them were foreign nationals residing in Bulgaria or having Bulgarian passports.
On Tuesday Economy Minister Bozhidar Lukarski noted he was expecting to see "big names" in the list of Bulgarians mentioned in the documents, but did not elaborate.
Since the mid-2000s, the names of Nikolay Banev and Evgeniya Baneva have been entered as shareholders, representatives or attorneys for several companies registered on the Seychelles, the Bahamas or in Panama.
In all cases, power of attorneys are initially handed to Bulgarian nationals in the beginning, but later on in the 2010s, when the nations tighten legislation on ownership transparency, Ms Baneva takes over the respective companies.
Speaking to 24 Chasa to comment on the affair, she is quoted as saying there is nothing wrong about offshore companies owned by entrepreneurs, unlike politicians or civil servants. Baneva has also noted her family has a number of companies not only in the abovementioned locations, but also in Switzerland, Russia, or Macedonia.
Baneva ran for MEP in 2014, and her husband, Nikolay Banev, had said he was considering a Presidential election bid this year, with a vote due in the autumn. Recently, Mr Banev also set up the so-called Eurasian Club, which he intends to transform into a political party, calling for Bulgaria's exit from the EU and NATO.
Mandzhukov for his part transferred the ownership of Kegel Asset Management, a company he had registered on the British Virgin Islands in 2001, to his wife, Ivaneta, in 2012.
Asked about Kegel Asset, he claims to "have never used" the firm, which did not pursue "any commercial activity".
Petar Madzhukov, 73, has been known as the owner of several media outlets (a former publisher of Duma, the newspaper of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), and a cable news network called BBT) and his involvement in the arms trade.
Prior to the democratic changes in 1989, he worked at Kintex, the state-owned arms exporter that secured a lot of hard currency for the Communist regime through a vast weapons industry, with hundreds of millions in revenues from sales to the Middle East and Africa.
Madzhukov has told 24 Chasa he "had forgotten" about his offshore company before the moment he was contacted by the newspaper.
Offshore activities are not illegal, but on a global scare are considered a possible means for tax evasions.
Krasen Stanchev, an economist with the Institute for Market Economics, has noted that in the case of Bulgaria, which has low personal income and corporate tax rates, offshore companies are unlikely to be used so much for tax evasion as for hiding money of obscure origin.The Idaho Central Credit Union Arena is Becoming a Reality
With open space that will fill with cheers and Vandals of all eras standing shoulder to shoulder, the Idaho Central Credit Union Arena will showcase all that is right about the University of Idaho, Vandals and the state.
“It’s time to have an arena that will establish an identity for Vandals basketball,” said Don Monson, former U of I basketball coach who led the team to championships in the early ‘80s. “There is a need for an arena with good seats, lighting and tradition. When you get to a place where you have an established home-identity, then you really have something.”
The arena will not only be a home for Vandal court sports, but also a gathering space for a variety of events to enhance student life on U of I’s residential campus.
“A modern, stand-alone arena is essential for ongoing excellence in basketball,” President Chuck Staben said. “It’s part of the recipe for an exciting campus environment for students and student-athletes.”
The arena also has become a priority for students. In 2015-16, the U of I student body agreed to assess a fee against itself to financially support the project. “I’m grateful our students share that enthusiasm for the future of Vandal Athletics and our residential campus,” Staben said.
Preliminary plans include the arena to be made in large part with wood and wood products using a contemporary building technique that blends thousands of years of construction technology with modern desires to use renewable materials.
“Between students, alumni and friends of the university, I’m proud of how we’re coming together as partners to build something special,” Staben said. “This is an investment in Vandal excellence, and a significant statement about what we can achieve when Vandals join together.”Hi Kickstarter!
I am here to launch my apparel company, MOHO ink. By day I am a graphic designer working with customers to create their vision, and NOW I am ready to create my own. MOHO ink started while, working at a screen printing shop, I not only designed shirts but learned the production process from start to finish. This experience mixed with my love for fashion design gave me the idea to create a line of fashionable screen printed tops that are easily accessorized for any occasion.
Rewards
So What Makes MOHO ink So Unique?
All of my tops are printed locally in Lexington, KY on high end tops with soft hand ink that blends into the fibers of the shirt. This method of printing leaves the fabric lightweight and soft to the touch. All tops come in a variation of sizes from S-XL and have a printed neck tag displaying the size and fabric content.
The designs are inspired by my love for patterns, culture, color, shape, and composition. My plan is to evolve MOHO ink through a series of collections. The first collection, Indi, will provide a launching pad to continue on to other collections that will each carry on their own stylistic theme.
Indi is a collection inspired by tribal jewelry and textile patterns. This 12 piece collection is offered in one of six garment styles and two color combinations.
The color combinations below are not 100% accurate to what the final collection will be. This set up is to show each design on the garment that is was intended for. Ink/garment color combinations may vary once production begins.
INDI Collection
The MOHO Plan
1. I will use Kickstarter funds for medium scale production of the first collection, Indi. This includes the blanks, printing, tag printing, packaging,etc. Another large portion of the money will go toward an awesome photo shoot with a local editorial / fashion photographer, a full blown website and an online store.
2. If funds raised are in excess of the amount requested, I will be up and running on my next collection before you know it! MOHO ink will continue to create new collections each season based on different inspirations.Although Google’s self-driving car, among others, is years away from being commercially available, there is a debate over the legislative implications it will have. There is much talk about liability in case of a crash, and who will be blamed if an accident occurs as a result of a defect in the autonomous driving technology (or in some cases a rational response to its surroundings). The operation of driverless cars will certainly bring about many questions, such as whether the owner of the car should be held responsible in case it causes an accident, or the car’s manufacturer should take the blame and pay for car damages from crashes.
While driverless cars are certainly going to be safer than conventional cars, since they will eliminate human error, which is the single biggest cause of crashes, they will still get involved in accidents, albeit at a far lower rate. No matter how hard Google or other companies are working on it, the autonomous driving software, like any other software won’t be flawless, as there is no such thing as “perfect software”, and it will almost certainly be prone to defects and hacking attacks, which might lead to a collision.
In a situation like that, when a self-driving car gets in a crash, or commits a minor traffic violation, such as running a red light or speeding, the main question that arises is who should get a ticket and be held responsible. Police officers will be faced with a dilemma, given that current laws say that the person seated at the driver’s seat is responsible for any movement that the vehicle makes, but with autonomous cars, which can drive themselves without the input of a human driver, the person should not be blamed for any potential mistakes the car makes.
If the car’s owner is not held liable, then the other options include penalizing the software developer, the person who designed the vehicle, or the car manufacturer. Google, for its part, is ready to accept responsibility in case some of its cars commit a traffic violation, and says that it should get the ticket, instead of the individual in the driver’s seat. “What we’ve been saying to the folks in the DMV, even in public session, for unmanned vehicles, we think the ticket should go to the company. Because the decisions are not being made by the individual,” safety director for Google’s self-driving car program Ron Medford, who used to work at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as a deputy administrator, told The Atlantic.
In addition to traffic tickets, there is the issue of whether the person who is at the helm of a driverless car should have demerit points added against their driver’s license if the car gets pulled over for speeding or running a red light. The California DMV, which is the first DMV in the U.S. to start writing rules to regulate driverless cars, has held a couple of public workshops to allow the public to help resolve some of the issues involving self-driving cars, such as whether they should be allowed to be operated without a driver or someone should be seated behind the wheel at all times, what requirements these vehicles should meet in order to be eligible for registration, as well as what safety standards they should comply with.I genuinely didn’t expect Mitch Trubisky to be starting by week 5.
I mean, not because I thought The Neck was any good (he’s complete trash!). I just figured John Fox wouldn’t have the guts to actually trust a rookie. John Fox comes from that old school crusty fart school of coaching. The kind of school that Tom Coughlin went to: the school that doesn’t trust young people to do anything right. The kind that will put a veteran who has spent time in the trenches out there in more trenches before the new fresh meat every time, even when the veteran’s brains are completely fried and the freshie has some good ideas on how to win this fight.
I guess it speaks to Fox knowing he’s toast if things don’t change. Fox has done absolutely nothing of value with the Bears. They haven’t won games. They haven’t drafted terribly well. They haven’t improved. They have been an underrated dump for a few years now, about as long as Kevin White has been on IR. Fox had about a two year window to fart around, but he had to start putting something together soon, and he wasn’t. Now he’s in a spot where he clearly has to feel the burn under his butt and there is a little bit of pressure to actually accomplish something.
So I assume the Bears will throw Trubes out there and Trubes will have a…meh season. He’ll look pathetic in some games. He’ll look good in others. Maybe even great once. Not 5 TD DeShaun Watson great, but…good. Once. He’ll never throw above 250 yards/2 TDs. He might drag them to a win and then we get a week
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was 19.
"They were looking for somebody loud and boisterous, who didn't give a shit about other people's opinions," Vetovitz says. "I was all for it."
Vetovitz is technically not a quadriplegic, because he has some movement in his hands, and he can even stand up, with help. "My feet are very ticklish," he says. But like most quads, he expects his internal organs to start failing in middle age, his life cut short. So if head transplants become available, he'll be the first in line.
"Everybody always thinks, "Oh, what a gross, horrible, mean thing to do to a person," he says of the surgery. "Well, pretend you're a total quad. Let's say you're real thirsty -- ask somebody to get you a glass of water, or ask somebody to help you transfer to the toilet when you have to go. When you become disabled, you lose all privacy. Your life is a schedule."
The tabloid approach rarely fazes Vetovitz. But one time, Hard Copy packaged his story in the Halloween episode, likening White and him to "Dr. Frankenstein and his monster."
"That really burned me up," Vetovitz says. He called up the producers, chewed them out, and they ran a second, less tasteless piece.
Vetovitz calls White, who has advised him on medical matters, "a very noble character."
"He's not the type of person that's just gonna switch a head, unless there's a very high chance of full recovery. He knows what it's like being behind the eyes -- because he sees it all the time, he sees the misery."
Any risks involved don't matter, says Vetovitz. When your life is changed forever because you landed in the pool the wrong way, risks are all relative.
White's first medical breakthrough was not head transplantation, but a technique of cooling the spinal cord that slowed down the damage enough so that doctors could operate on it. Then came his advances in extracorporeal perfusion, the isolation and cooling of the brain -- a technique now used in the Mayo Clinic and most other top hospitals. Sometimes he wonders why all the reporters don't ask him about those achievements, since they've actually been put in practice.
"We discovered that you can keep a human brain going without any circulation," he says. "It's dead for all practical purpose -- for over an hour -- then bring it back to life. If you want something that's a little bit science fiction, that is it, man, that is it!
"Here I spent all my years in brain surgery: training people, inventing new procedures, and taking care of patients. And it's just the worst thing I did for myself -- I came up with this head transplant idea. If I got rid of that, I'd be happy." Roll the cameras.
Laura Putre can be reached at [email protected] this week, Seahawks running back Alex Collins appeared on the “Danny, Dave and Moore” show on 710AM ESPN Seattle after scoring his first NFL touchdown.
Making the most out of two snaps against Atlanta on Sunday, the former Arkansas Razorback and Heisman Trophy candidate stuck this one in the end zone:
According to 710 ESPN Seattle producer Eric Mandel, part of the radio interview involved some confident words from the Seahawks running back about his previous experience with one of his favorite sports – lacrosse:
I love lacrosse, man. It was awesome. It was awesome. It wasn’t fair back then because I was bigger than everybody. I had fun, though. The parents didn’t like me on the other team, though.
Collins continued:
I used to get parents screaming at me all the time because I just used to lay kids out on the field and you’d hear the parents on the sidelines screaming at the refs like, ‘Get him out of here.’ I was not nice out there.
Mandel explained that Collins picked up lacrosse during his senior year at South Plantation High School in Florida and shared the mixtape below along with a few timestamps to watch out for:
:45 – Jukes two opponents so hard they collide
:57 – He literally de-cleats his opponent
1:18 – Spins ’em around in circles
3:09 – Does the weave
On the radio show, Collins said there are more highlights that never made it to the mixtape. Lacrosse All Stars has reached out to his publicist to request access. In the meantime, we had a little fun and created the Alex Collins video mashup at the top of this story. Hope you enjoyed!
Head over to MyNorthwest.com for more from Mandel and listen to the full radio show featuring Alex Collins.
Football Highlights
Alex Collins, Seahawks Running Back
Collins was chosen by the Seattle Seahawks in the fifth round as 171st overall pick of the 2016 NFL draft.This article is about the broadcasting practice. For other uses, see Wipe (disambiguation)
Wiping, also known as junking, is a colloquial term of art for action taken by radio and television production and broadcasting companies, in which old audiotapes, videotapes, and telerecordings (kinescopes), are erased, reused, or destroyed. Although the practice was once very common, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, wiping is now practiced much less frequently.
Older video and audio formats were both much more expensive (relative to the amount of material that could be stored) and took up much more storage space than modern digital video or audio files, making their retention more costly, and there was more incentive to recycle the film for reuse or for silver content than to preserve the content on the film, thus increasing the incentive of discarding existing broadcast material to recover storage space and material for newer programs.
The advent of domestic audiovisual playback technology (e.g., videocassette and DVD, and particularly with the rise of digital media in the 1990s) has made wiping less beneficial, as the cost of producing and maintaining copies of telecasts dropped dramatically. In addition, broadcasters also later realized how much commercial potential from home video, cable television and online streaming usage of their archived material was possible and that served as an incentive to preserve their recordings.
Australia [ edit ]
Australian broadcasters did not gain access to videotape-recording technology until the early 1960s, and as a result nearly all programmes prior to that were broadcast live-to-air. Very little programming survives from the earliest years of Australian TV (1956–1960), as kinescope recording to film was expensive and most of what was recorded in this way has since been lost or destroyed. Some early programmes have survived, however; for example, ATN-7, a Sydney station, prerecorded (via kinescopes) some of their 1950s output such as Autumn Affair (1958–1959), The Pressure Pak Show (1957–1958) and Leave it to the Girls (1957–1958); some of these kinescopes have survived and are now held by the National Film and Sound Archive,[1][2][3] with soap opera Autumn Affair surviving near-intact, likely one of the earliest Australian series for which this is the case.
ABC [ edit ]
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) erased much of its early output. Much of the videotaped ABC programme material from the 1960s and early 1970s was erased as part of an economy policy instituted in the late 1970s in which old programme tapes were surrendered for bulk erasure and reuse. This policy particularly targeted older programmes recorded in black-and-white, leading to the loss of many recordings made before early 1976, when the real reason is that Australian television converted to colour. The ABC continued erasing older television output until the late 1970s.
Programmes known to have been lost include most studio segments and stories from the 1960s current affairs shows This Day Tonight and Monday Conference, hundreds of episodes of the long-running rural serial Bellbird, all but a handful of episodes of the early-1970s drama series Certain Women, an early-1970s miniseries of dramatizations based on Norman Lindsay's novels, and nearly all of the pre-1978 episodes of the weekly pop-music show Countdown.
Network Ten [ edit ]
Many episodes of popular Australian commercial TV series are also lost. In the 1970s, Network Ten had an official policy to reuse tapes; hence, many tapes of Young Talent Time and Number 96 were wiped. To this day, Network Ten still only keeps some of its programming. Other notable losses from the Ten archive include hundreds of episodes of the Melbourne-based pop music shows commissioned and broadcast by ATV-0 Melbourne in the 1960s and early 1970s—The Go!! Show (1964–1967), Kommotion (1964–1967), Uptight (1968–70), and the Happening 70s series (1970–1972).
Seven Network [ edit ]
Many episodes of popular Australian commercial TV series are also lost. By the 2010s, Seven Network had an official policy to save the tapes; hence, current episodes of Home And Away were possibly wiped. Although it ran every Monday to Thursday nights except for the Olympics, Cricket/Big Bash League coverage, all of January or all Public Holidays breaks from 2013. To this day, the Seven Network still only keeps some of its news-oriented and flagship programming which dominate the ratings success.
Nine Network [ edit ]
The Nine Network discarded copies of some of their programs, including the popular GTV-9 series In Melbourne Tonight starring Graham Kennedy. Though it ran five nights a week from 1957 to 1970, fewer than 100 episodes are known to survive, and many of the surviving episodes are edited prints made for rebroadcast across Australia. Early episodes of breakfast show Hey Hey It's Saturday do not exist because the programme was broadcast live and did not begin live videotape recordings until a number of years later.
Brazil [ edit ]
From 1968–1969, Rede Tupi produced new episodes of the soap opera Beto Rockfeller by recording over previous episodes; as a result, few episodes survive. After the closure of TV Tupi in 1980 the 536 tapes at its São Paulo studios were transported to a warehouse in the São Paulo suburb of Cotia and were simply left to deteriorate there until they were recovered by the Cinemateca Brasileira in 1985 and subsequently restored by TV Cultura in 1989. Only two Rede Tupi O&Os are known to have any preserved videotapes; TV Itacolomi's archives are now owned by the unrelated TV Alterosa, affiliated with SBT, whereas the few remaining tapes belonging to TV Piratini are stored privately in a museum in Porto Alegre, albeit in a heavily deteriorated state. Also, all the tapes at the Rede Tupi studios in Urca, Rio de Janeiro were later found to have been massively degraded by vinegar syndrome, hence they were unable to be restored.
Rede Record also lost much footage from the 1960s due to wiping, fires, and deterioration; most of the MPB music festivals no longer exist, and the sitcom Família Trapo (pt) has only one surviving episode, featuring Pelé. Until 1997, Rede Record had no policy on archiving videotapes; since then, at least 600 videotapes that were previously believed to be lost have been recovered with the help of the Instituto Ressoar (pt).
Rede Globo lost the first 35 broadcasts of both Fantástico and Jornal Nacional, in addition to many segments of their other soap operas as a result of wiping, and also due to three fires that occurred in 1969 (at its São Paulo studios), 1971 and 1976, (the latter two at its Rio de Janeiro studios) where in the 1976 fire, an estimated 920 to 1500 tapes were destroyed.
Most of Rede Excelsior's output was damaged in a fire in 1969; however, in the late 1990s about 100 tapes of Rede Excelsior programming were discovered in the archives of Rede Globo and Rede Gazeta and these tapes were restored by the Faculdade Cásper Líbero and subsequently donated to the Cinemateca Brasileira in 2001.
Canada [ edit ]
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation never practiced wiping, and maintains a complete archive of all programming produced by them that was recorded.[4] A rare exception, however, is the 1984-93 music video series Video Hits, which the CBC says footage of said show does not exist in their archives, apart from a handful of short clips posted online.[5]
The CTV Television Network has admitted to wiping many programmes during the 1970s. Because of Canadian content requirements, the need for Canadian-produced programming led to more preservation of the shows they produced, and even very poorly received programmes (such as the infamous The Trouble with Tracy) were saved and rerun for several years after their cancellation. Furthermore, Canadian rebroadcasts have been a source of some broadcasts that are otherwise lost in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Japan [ edit ]
Some TV stations in Japan practiced wiping, this example included the original 1973 anime adaption of Doraemon. In addition, some programs released during the Tokusatsu boom of the 1970's were accidentally wiped following re-runs, as was the case with Toho's televised stageshow series Assault! Human, which was lost in the 1980's after Nippon TV accidentally overwrote the master tapes.
Pakistan [ edit ]
From Dawn.com's "The story behind the loss of PTV's precious archives" viewable at https://www.dawn.com/news/1125500 - "I was itching to find out where this treasure trove of a history went, so I talked to a senior manager at PTV. He took me back to the time PTV was founded, in November of 1964. No resources or no effort? At that time, a few test transmissions were broadcast, but the majority of programming was live. Live programming meant there was no recording equipment at the time. Since PTV — the country’s (then) most technologically advanced company — did not have the tools required to create backups, that content was considered lost as soon as it aired.
Pre-recorded shows started airing circa 71-72, stored mostly using Video Tape Recorders (VTR). Then, in the late '70s, they started using VPRs. Both were stored in spools. Final cuts of aired shows were archived in a near-freezing room, which was the standard storage requirement of these spools.
Around the early '80s, air conditioning for archives was turned down to inadequate levels. Why? That's subject to speculation. Anyway, that caused the spools to succumb to the heat and fuse together, resulting in loss of data. Data that was not backed up anywhere else, nor transferred to the next leading technology.
When they finally realised, around early '90s, that transfer to digital video was imminent, the required equipment to playback the old spools was no longer even serviceable and replacement parts were almost extinct."
Content chunk 2: "This salvaged material was stored at the Shalimar recording company. It is how we are able to air chunks of our history for “50 years of PTV celebration”. Imagine how much grander it would have been had we preserved these archives in time.
Some fans made recordings and preserved them all these years; they are the public’s only source of revisiting those shows. Without them, this part of our history would have been lost within a generation." [6]
The Center for Media Psychology Research Pakistan website gives a different wording: "PTV had originally started with black and white transmission but soon upgraded its facilities to broadcast color transmission. The television content was originally based on live broadcast due to lack of recording medium such as video cassette recording systems. Most of the early PTV dramas were also “performed” as it were live stage productions as it was broadcast in real time without any editing or enhancements. The initial recording medium in the 1970s was the one inch spool format which recorded sound and electronic moving pictures as a combined stream on a magnetic recording medium. However, due to lack of diligence on part of the PTV archive department more than 50% of the old archival content has been lost due to lack of air-conditioning facilities in the archival rooms (Abdurab, 2014). The one inch magnetic spool containing all old archives were eventually lost and thus the Pakistani nation lost a great treasure of the golden era of public broadcasting television." [7]
Bangladesh [ edit ]
From 1964 to 1967, all TV programs were recorded on film. Then in 1967, VTR recording was introduced to record their TV programs in high quality. Bangladesh Television rarely practiced wiping since its Archive was carefully being maintained.
Philippines [ edit ]
Episodes from 1979 to 1982 of the longest running noontime show, Eat Bulaga!, have been lost.
Another example of the wiping of TV archives in the Philippines was when martial law was declared, soldiers raided the ABS-CBN Broadcast Center and placed it under military control. As a result, ABS-CBN's pre-martial law archives, dating from 1953 to 1972, were lost.
Mexico [ edit ]
Due to its multiple studio facilities, namely its Chapultepec and San Angel studios, Televisa preserved most of its scripted series for broadcast years after the preserved programs had ended their original runs. Some Televisa programs, however, were lost not due to wiping, but due to the 1985 Mexico City earthquake that destroyed part of the network's archive. However, smaller channels, such as XEIPN-TV and XHDF-TV, did not begןn to preserve their recorded broadcasts until the early 1980s. Monterrey's Multimedios Televisión keeps most of its programming, though some special historical programming dealing with its flagship station's history clearly shows that some footage has been either donated by viewers recorded from its original broadcast, or uses footage of its programming recorded by fans and uploaded to websites such as Dailymotion, Vimeo and YouTube.
SFR Yugoslavia [ edit ]
Yugoslav Radio Television (JRT) practiced wiping until the 1970s when it gained access to newer and cheaper methods of recording, which allowed it to regularly archive programming.
United Kingdom [ edit ]
BBC [ edit ]
The BBC, the United Kingdom's first public service broadcaster, had no policy on archiving until 1978.[8] Much of the corporation's output between the 1930s and 1980s has been lost.
Rationales behind wiping [ edit ]
Rationales behind this policy include:
Technological [ edit ]
The BBC's television service dates back to 1936 and was originally a nearly live-only medium. The hours of transmission were very limited and the bulk of the programming was transmitted either live from the studio, or from outside broadcast (OB) units; film was a minor contributor to the output. When the first television broadcasts were made, there were two competing systems in use. The EMI electronic system (using 405 lines) competed with the Baird 240-line mechanical television system. Baird adopted an intermediate film technique where the live material was filmed using a standard film camera mounted on a large cabinet which contained a rapid processing unit and an early flying spot scanner to produce the video output for transmission. The pioneer broadcasts were not, however, preserved on this intermediate film as the nitrate (celluloid) stock was scanned while still wet from the fixer bath and never washed to remove the fixer chemicals. Consequently, the film decomposed very soon after transmission; nothing is known to have survived. No studio or OB programmes from 1936 to 1939 or 1946 to 1947 have survived because there was no means of preserving them. Historical 'firsts' from this era; the world's earliest television crime drama Telecrime (1938–39 and 1946) or Pinwright's Progress (1946–47, the world's first regular situation comedy), only remain visually as a handful of still photographs.
The earliest recording method for television was telerecording, which involved recording the image from a special television monitor onto film with a modified film camera. Early examples made by this method include the first two episodes of The Quatermass Experiment (1953), transmitted live while simultaneously telerecorded. The visual quality of the second episode's recording was considered so poor—a fly entered the gap between the camera and monitor at one point—that the remainder of the series was not recorded.
Although Quadruplex videotape recording technology was utilised in the UK from 1958, this system was expensive and complex; recorded programmes were often erased after broadcast. The vast majority of live programmes were never recorded at all. Videotape was not initially thought to be a permanent archivable medium – its high cost and the potential reuse of the tapes led to the transfer of programme material to film via telerecording whenever sales of overseas screening rights were possible or preservation deemed worthwhile. The recycling of videotapes, coupled with savings made on the storage of the bulky 2" tapes,[9] enabled the BBC to keep costs down.
Cultural [ edit ]
Drama and entertainment output was studio-based and followed the tradition of live theatre. Conventional filmmaking was only gradually introduced from the 1960s. The Sunday Night Play (a major event in the 1950s) was performed live in the studio. On Thursday, because telerecording was of insufficient broadcast quality, another live performance followed, the artists returning to perform the play again.
Today, most programmes are pre-recorded and it is relatively inexpensive to preserve programming for posterity; even so, the BBC Charter makes no mention of any obligation to retain all of them.
Rights [ edit ]
All television programmes have copyright and other rights issues associated with them. For some genres of programmes—such as drama and entertainment—the actors, writers, and musicians involved in a production all have underlying rights. In the past, these rights were defended rigorously—permission could even be denied by a contributor for the repeat or re-use of a programme. Talent unions were highly suspicious of the threat to new work if programmes were repeated; indeed, before 1955 Equity insisted that any telerecording made (of a repeat performance) could only "be viewed privately" on BBC premises and not transmitted.
Colour television [ edit ]
The introduction of colour television in the United Kingdom from 1967 meant that broadcasters felt there was even less value in retaining monochrome recordings. Such tapes could not be re-used for colour production, so they were disposed of to create space for the new colour tapes in the archives, which were quickly filling up. The increased cost of colour 2 inch Quadruplex videotape—approximately £1000 per tape at today's prices—meant that companies still often re-used the tapes for cost control. Negative attitudes to a programme's value also persisted. For these reasons, many programmes survive only as monochrome film recordings, if at all.
Some colour productions were telerecorded onto monochrome film for export to countries which did not yet have colour television. In some cases, early colour programmes only survive in this form.
Significant wiped programmes [ edit ]
High-profile examples of programme losses include many early episodes of Doctor Who (97), The Wednesday Play, most of the seminal comedy series Not Only But Also, all of the 1950s televised Francis Durbridge serials (further, the first two serials were never recorded), the vast majority of the BBC's Apollo 11 Moon landing studio coverage, all but one of the 39 episodes of The First Lady,[10] and all 147 episodes of the soap opera United!. There are many gaps in many long-running BBC series (Dixon of Dock Green, Hancock's Half Hour, Sykes, Out of the Unknown, and Z-Cars). The Beatles' only live appearance on Top Of The Pops in 1966, performing the single "Paperback Writer" is believed to have been wiped clean in a clear-out in the 1970s.
The first acting appearance of musician Bob Dylan, in a 1963 play entitled The Madhouse on Castle Street, was erased in 1968.[11]
There is lost material in all genres — as late as 1993, a large number of videotaped children's programmes from the 1970s and 1980s were irretrievably wiped by Adam Lee of the BBC archives on the assumption that they were of "no use", without consulting the BBC children's department itself.[12]
Other lost material [ edit ]
Virtually the entire runs of the corporation's pre-1970s soap operas have been lost. In the 1950s and 1960s, the BBC soap operas The Appleyards, The Grove Family, Compact, The Newcomers, 199 Park Lane, and United! produced approximately 1,200 episodes altogether. There are no episodes of either United! or 199 Park Lane in the archives, while only one episode of The Appleyards, three episodes of The Grove Family, and four episodes each of Compact and The Newcomers are known to exist. Three episodes of Dad's Army are missing, all from the second series.
Also vulnerable to the corporation's wiping policy were programmes that only lasted for one season. Abigail and Roger, The Airbase, As Good Cooks Go, the 1960 adaptation of The Citadel, the 1956 adaptation of David Copperfield, The Dark Island, The Gnomes of Dulwich, Hurricane, For Richer...For Poorer, Hereward the Wake, The Naked Lady, Night Train To Surbiton, Outbreak of Murder, Where do I Sit?, and Witch Hunt have all been wiped with no footage surviving while four out of seven episodes of the paranormal anthology series Dead of Night were wiped.
An edition of Hugh and I ("Chinese Crackers"), starring Hugh Lloyd, Terry Scott, John Le Mesurier and David Jason was located by Kaleidoscope Publishing in 2010 in the archives of UCLA, and brought to general public attention in February 2011.
Early episodes of the pop music-chart show Top of the Pops were wiped or never recorded while they were being transmitted live, including the only in-studio appearance by The Beatles. Clips of the Beatles miming "Can't Buy Me Love" and "You Can't Do That" on an episode from 25 March 1964 were found online by missing episode hunter Ray Langstone in 2015. The last lost edition dates from 8 September 1977. There are only four complete TOTP episodes surviving from the 1960s, while many otherwise-missing episodes survive only as fragments. Only two episodes still exist of The Sandie Shaw Supplement (a music-variety show hosted by the eponymous singer), recorded in 1967.
Finding missing BBC programmes [ edit ]
Since the establishment of an archival policy for television in 1978, BBC archivists and others over the years have used various contacts in the UK and abroad to try to track down missing programmes. For example, all BBC Worldwide customers—broadcasters around the world—who had bought programmes from the corporation were contacted to see if they still had copies which could be returned; Doctor Who is a prime example of how this method recovered episodes that the corporation did not hold itself. At the turn of the 21st century, the BBC established its Archive Treasure Hunt, a public appeal to recover lost productions, which has had some successes.[13]
The BBC also has close contacts with the National Film and Television Archive, which is part of the British Film Institute and its "Missing Believed Wiped" event which was first held in 1993 and is part of a campaign to locate lost items from British television's past. There is also a network of collectors who, if they find any programmes missing from the BBC archives, will contact the corporation with information—or sometimes even the actual footage. Some examples of programmes recovered for the archives are Doctor Who, Steptoe and Son, Dad's Army, Letter from America,[14] The Likely Lads, and Play for Today.
For many years the pilot episode of Are You Being Served? survived only in black and white, appearing in this form on the 2003 DVD release of the show. In 2009, a colour version was reconstructed when it was realised that the black and white film reel had actually recorded sufficient colour information as a dot crawl pattern to allow colour recovery.
ITV [ edit ]
The BBC was not alone in this practice – the commercial companies that formed its main rival ITV also wiped videotapes and destroyed telerecordings, leaving gaps in their archive holdings. The state of the archives varies greatly between the different companies; Granada Television holds a large number of its older black-and-white programmes, the company having an unofficial policy of retaining as much of its broadcast material (albeit by telerecording) as possible despite financial hardship in its early years. This includes the entirety of the soap opera Coronation Street which is now held at the Yorkshire Television archive, which itself possesses largely intact archives, although some early colour shows from the late 1960s and the early 1970s such as the entire output of the drama Castle Haven, the first two series of Sez Les and the children's variety show Junior Showtime are missing and believed wiped. The former ITV company Thames Television also has a significant library.
These cases tend to be the exception, however; the former nature of the ITV network, in which private independent companies were awarded licences to serve geographical areas for a set period of time, meant that when companies lost their licences their archives were often sold to third parties and became fragmented—and/or risked being destroyed, as ownership and copyright remained with the production companies rather than with the network. The archive of networked programmes made by Southern Television, for example, is now owned by the otherwise-unconnected Australian media company Southern Star Group but Southern's regional output is in the hands of ITV plc. The few surviving tapes of Associated-Rediffusion belong to many different organisations as the majority of Associated-Rediffusion's tapes were recorded in monochrome and therefore deemed of no use upon the arrival of colour broadcasting; as such they were disposed of by London successor Thames Television), although in recent years there have been occasional discoveries such as a 1959 episode of Double Your Money and the remaining missing episode of Around the World with Orson Welles, found by Ray Langstone in 2011. Many master tapes belonging to ATV have since deteriorated due to bad storage and are unsuitable for broadcasting. In particular, the ATV version of the popular soap Crossroads is missing 2,850 episodes of its original 3,555. Also often largely lost are quiz shows; few editions exist of the 1970s version of Celebrity Squares with Bob Monkhouse, or Southern's children's quiz Runaround.[citation needed]
Further, responsibility for archive preservation was left to individual companies. For example, ITV has no record of its live coverage of the 1969 Moon landings after the station responsible for providing the coverage, London Weekend Television, wiped the tapes. Of the 96 British inserts to the 1980s franchised Anglo-American-Canadian children's show Fraggle Rock, only 12 are known to exist as the library of the British producer (TVS) has been sold and subsequently split up.
In recent years, the trend of preserving material has started to change. The archives of Westward Television and Television South West are now held in trust for the public as the South West Film and Television Archive, whilst changes in legislation mean that ITV companies which lose their franchises must donate archives to the British Film Institute. However, the change of ITV from a federal structure to one centralised company means that changes of regional companies in the future seems highly unlikely.
Most material from the 1960s also only survive as telerecordings. Some early episodes are also believed to be damaged or in poor quality, whereas much of the output of other broadcasters – such as many early episodes of The Avengers which were shot in the electronic studio rather than on film, produced by Associated British Corporation – have been destroyed.
No copies of The Adventures of Francie & Josie exist, as most of Scottish Television's early shows were destroyed in a fire in late 1969 (although some sources state 1973). The Adventures Of Francie & Josie was made from 1961 to 1965 by STV.
Recovery of missing programmes [ edit ]
Since the BBC library was first audited in 1978, missing programmes or extracts on either film or tape are often found in unexpected places. An appeal to broadcasters in other countries who had shown missing programmes (notably Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and African nations such as Nigeria) produced "missing" episodes from the archives of those television companies. Episodes have also been returned to broadcasters by private film collectors who had acquired 16mm film copies from various sources.[citation needed]
Copies of several compilations from the British 1960s comedy At Last the 1948 Show, held by many to be a forerunner of Monty Python's Flying Circus, were discovered in the archives of the Swedish broadcaster SVT, to whom the producers Rediffusion London had sold them upon the companies' loss of its broadcasting licence. The master tapes, along with much of Rediffusion's programming, were wiped or disposed of by London successor Thames Television. Their recovery enabled the reconstruction of otherwise missing original editions of the programme, meaning most of the series exists in visual form.
Off-air home audio recordings of various television programmes have also been recovered, at least preserving the soundtracks to otherwise missing shows, and some of these (particularly from Doctor Who) have been released on CD by the BBC following restoration and the addition of narration to describe purely visual elements. Tele-snaps, a commercial service of off-screen shots of programmes often purchased by actors and television directors to keep a record of their work in the days before videocassette recorders, have also been recovered for many lost programmes.
Preservation of the current archive [ edit ]
Advances in technology have resulted in old programmes being transferred to new digital media, where they can be restored or (if they are damaged or otherwise cannot be restored) kept from decaying further. In the United Kingdom, the archives of both the BBC and those available of ITV, along with other channels, are being switched from the cumbersome older 2-inch quadruplex videotape and 1-inch Type C videotape formats to digital formats. This is an extensive and expensive process and one that will take many years to complete.
Live broadcasts in Britain are still not necessarily kept, and wiping of material has not ceased. According to writer and broadcaster Matthew Sweet, there are "big gaps in the record of children's television of the Nineties."[16]
United States [ edit ]
In the United States, the major broadcast networks also engaged in the practice of wiping recordings until the late 1970s. Many episodes were erased, especially daytime and late-night programming such as daytime soap operas and game shows. The daytime shows, almost all of them having been taped, were erased because it was believed at the time that nobody would ever want to see them again after their first broadcast. However, the success of cable television networks devoted to reruns of these genres proved that this was not the case, as the large number of episodes that were required for a daily program made even a short-run game show an ideal candidate for syndication. By this time, however, the damage had already been done.
Preservation by institutions such as museums [ edit ]
Some museums and other cultural institutions such as the Paley Center for Media have taken steps to discover and preserve (see, e.g., "Paley Center for Media#Archives") old recordings previously thought to have been wiped or discarded, lost, or misfiled.
Hosting sequences [ edit ]
Hosting sequences on videotape, nearly always featuring celebrities, were sometimes made for telecasts of family films, notably for the first nine telecasts of MGM's The Wizard of Oz. It is not known if those made for Oz survived since they have not been seen since 1967. One hosting sequence from that era that does survive is the one Eddie Albert made for the 1965 CBS telecast of The Nutcracker, starring Edward Villella, Patricia McBride, and Melissa Hayden. It has even been included on the DVD release of the program.[17]
Ernie Kovacs [ edit ]
Many of Ernie Kovacs's videotaped network programs were also wiped. During different times as comedian, writer, and performer Kovacs had programs on all four major television networks (ABC, CBS, DuMont, and NBC). After Kovacs's death, the networks wiped many programs. Kovacs's widow Edie Adams obtained as many programs and episodes as she could find, donating them to UCLA's Special Collections.
Soap operas [ edit ]
Though most soap operas transitioned from live broadcast to videotaping their shows during the 1960s, it was still common practice to wipe and reuse the tapes. This practice was due to the high cost of videotape at the time. While soap operas began routinely saving their episodes between 1976 and 1979, several soaps have saved recordings of most or all their episodes. Days of Our Lives has recordings of all its episodes; its first two episodes exist on their original master tapes, and were aired by SOAPnet in 2005. The Young and the Restless, Dark Shadows and Ryan's Hope saved most of their episodes, despite the fact that they debuted during the 1960s and 1970s, before retaining tapes became common practice. Episodes of The Doctors began to be saved no later than December 4, 1967; this is where reruns of the series began when picked up by Retro Television Network in September 2014, and distributor SFM Entertainment claims to have roughly 95% of the series' episodes intact in its library.[18] Episodes of other soaps broadcast during the 1950s to 1970s do exist in different forms and have been showcased in various places online.
Procter & Gamble started saving their shows around 1979. Very few pre-1979 color episodes of the Procter and Gamble-sponsored shows survive, with most extant episodes preserved as monochrome kinescopes. Exceptions include two episodes of The Guiding Light from November 1977 and another from 1973, which have been released on DVD. As the World Turns and The Edge of Night aired live until 1975, the year The Edge of Night moved to ABC and As the World Turns expanded from a 30-minute broadcast to one hour. Both shows began taping episodes in preparation for the move of The Edge of Night to ABC. The Edge of Night's ABC debut is believed to have survived. Overall, the number of surviving monochrome episodes recorded on kinescope outnumber color episodes for these programs.
Agnes Nixon initially produced her series One Life to Live and All My Children through her own production company, Creative Horizons, Inc., and kept a complete archive of monochrome kinescopes until ABC bought the shows from her in 1975. When
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work in ergonomics was started during the Second World War. "The altimeters in the cockpits were three dials, one reading hundreds of feet, one thousands and one tens of thousands. People were reading the wrong dials, and people were dying. Once research was done into how people actually read displays the problem was solved." Now displays are hybrid: we read rates of speed change better on an analogue dial and overall speed as one digital number. Young, who particularly likes the safey aspects of ergonomics, is currently developing an in-car device to encourage safer, greener driving called the Footlite. It should be launched in the next couple of years.
But as with everything, with ergonomics, there can be too much of a good thing. And sometimes you can get away with none at all. Designer Dick Powell, once celebrated for studying hundreds of women's breasts when he created an ergonomic bra in the 1990s (M&S bought it), was asked to turn his attention to the design of a horse saddle by a small independent maker. Ten years on, the AMS Quantum saddle is a triumph (horses can't speak, but their actions and stress-registering mats do). Yet Powell reckons: "there's more than enough ergonomics being applied. It's frustrating when the ergonomists tell you it's not enough. We usually design things to be produced in millions, and something has to give. And look at the iPhone." Indeed, look at the iPhone. It has every function imaginable except, unlike the Cocoon, the one of being comfortable to use. And do we care? The sales figures answer that question very nicely.
Ergonomics: A magnificent seven
Click here for gallery
Hadron Collider
Ergonomists helped design a better working environment for control room staff charged with operating the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Experts from CCD Design and the Ergonomics Consultancy in London made visits to the centre, just outside of Geneva, to interview staff, look at working practices and plot just how the new centre would operate.
The Aeron Chair
The poster product of ergonomics, launched by Herman Miller in 1994 and designed by Don Chadwick and Bill Stumpf, the Aeron's got the lot: lumbar support, sacral support, endless possible adjustments, lightness. Even Malcolm Gladwell writes about it in his book Blink. Ugly and expensive and worth every last cent.
Swiss Air first class seats
While ergonomics has its roots in aeroplane design during the Second World War, it was the cockpit that received all the attention back then. Now, it's passengers who enjoy the benefits of good design. Swiss Air's seats, created by Priestman Goode combine architectural and ergonomic quality.
O2 COCOON
Exhaustive audience research, oodles of so-called stylishness courtesy Syntes Design and endless ergonomic input from System Concepts Limited couldn't save the Cocoon, which survived a mere year in the competitive mobile phone marketplace. As the iPhone has gone on to prove, consumers rate apps over comfort any day.
Ford Focus
OK, so it's not the coolest car on the road and God knows what Jeremy Clarkson would say. But the Ford Focus was impeccably researched and, following "third-age testing", adjusted to the needs of the older driver too. Stable, practical and kind to the real grown ups. Ford's subtle bid, perhaps, to suck up the silver pound.
Cylinda Coffee pot
Danish architect Arne Jacobsen was an ergonomics natural. His lovely, still-popular Egg chair accommodates the human form effortlessly. His Cylinda tea and coffee pot, peerless exercises in Danish modern style from 1960/4, are simply perfect to hold.
Sky remote control
Twelve years old and so good at its job, it is simply modified to accommodate each new addition to TV life. Frazer Design came up with the form, Davids Associates the ergonomics. So perfectly weighted that you know which way round it should sit in your hand, even with both eyes trained on the telly.
Source: Independent
Belfast TelegraphTrack map
An aerial view of Pocono Raceway taken from a passing jetliner in late March 2014
An SCCA T-1 Camaro goes clockwise on the Pocono Raceway's front stretch, 1999
Victory Lane at Pocono during pre-race ceremonies at the 2005 Pocono 500
Pocono Raceway (formerly Pocono International Raceway) also known as The Tricky Triangle, is a superspeedway located in the Pocono Mountains in Long Pond, Pennsylvania. It is the site of two annual Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series races held several weeks apart in early June and late July, one NASCAR Xfinity Series event in early June, one NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series event in late July, and two ARCA Racing Series events, one in early June and the other in late July. From 1971 to 1989, and since 2013, the track has also hosted an Indy Car race, currently sanctioned by the IndyCar Series and run in August.
Pocono is one of only three NASCAR tracks not owned by either Speedway Motorsports, Inc. or International Speedway Corporation, the dominant track owners in NASCAR. The other two tracks that hold this distinction are Dover International Speedway and Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Pocono CEO Nick Igdalsky and President Ben May, are members of the family-owned Mattco Inc, started by Joseph II and Rose Mattioli.[1] Mattco also owns South Boston Speedway in South Boston, Virginia.
Outside the IndyCar Series and NASCAR races, Pocono is used throughout the year by the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) as well as many other clubs and organizations. The triangular track also has three separate infield sections of racetrack – the north course, east course and south course. Each of these infield sections use a separate portion of the track to complete a lap. During regular non-race weekends, multiple clubs can use the track by running on different infield sections. Also, some of the infield sections can be run in either direction, or multiple infield sections can be put together.
Track configuration [ edit ]
The track was designed by 1959 and 1962 Indianapolis 500 winner Rodger Ward,[2] Pocono Raceway has a unique design, as each turn is modeled after a turn at a different track.
Turn one (14° banking) - modeled after Trenton Speedway
Turn two (9° banking) also known as the "Tunnel Turn" - modeled after Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Turn three (6° banking) - modeled after the Milwaukee Mile
The circuit is sometimes considered a tri-oval, but the turns are much more severe than those of a more typical tri-oval such as Daytona and other intermediate speedways. An additional complication is that the three turns are in no way the same, nor are any of the three straights identical in length. The banking of each turn is considerably less than on many other long superspeedways. Although the track is long [2.5 mi (4.023 km)], the sharp nature of the turns and the low banking tend to make the average speeds lower than at other tracks of similar lengths. Because of its unique characteristics, Pocono is sometimes referred to as a roval (an oval track that behaves like a road course). Others refer to Pocono as a modified road course, due to the use of shifting gears to handle the range between the slowest turn and the fastest straightaway.
The unique design makes the setup of the car and the crew's ability to make chassis adjustments more crucial than at many other tracks. Often it is the difference between a winning performance and a poor performance.
Shifting [ edit ]
In 1991 some drivers in NASCAR (notably Mark Martin) experimented with shifting gears down the long, 3,740 foot front straight. The ratios for third gear and fourth gear were set so that third was used for most of the circuit (including the turns), and fourth was used for the later part of the long front stretch. This method provided a better RPM range around the track and improved overall lap times. By 1993, the entire field was shifting at Pocono, and using a special transmission (manufactured by Jerico) to shift gears without using the clutch. Shifting was criticized by some drivers (Rusty Wallace stated that the Jerico took away the ability to pass cars while Terry Labonte called it "a pain in the butt"). However, the practice continued until 2005, when a new gear rule eliminated the effectiveness of shifting. In 2011 the gear rule was changed again, and shifting returned to Pocono.
IndyCar races at Pocono [ edit ]
From 1971 to 1989, first USAC and then the CART IndyCar World Series held a 500-mile (800 km) race at Pocono as part of the IndyCar 500-mile Triple Crown. In 1989, Emerson Fittipaldi set a qualifying track record of 211.715 mph (340.722 km/h). Following the 1989 race, however, the track was criticized for its roughness, lack of catch fencing and runoff areas. After continuing squabbles between the management and the sanctioning body, it was removed from the IndyCar schedule.
Scott Dixon talks to the press after winning the Pocono IndyCar 400 in 2013.
In the wake of a meeting between Pocono CEO Brandon Igdalsky and IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard at the 2012 Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, speculation developed throughout 2012 regarding the possibility of a 2013 IndyCar Series race at Pocono Raceway. On the September 30, 2012, edition of Speed Channel's WindTunnel with Dave Despain, Bernard officially confirmed that the IndyCar Series would return to Pocono with a 400-mile race on July 7, 2013. Further acknowledging Pocono's place in IndyCar history, Bernard also announced that from 2013, the Indianapolis 500, Pocono IndyCar 400 and MAVTV 500 at California's Auto Club Speedway would mark a revival of IndyCar's all-oval Triple Crown. A $1 million bonus will be paid to a driver who wins all three races in a single season.
During the 2015 ABC Supply 500, Andretti Autosport driver Justin Wilson was struck in the head by Sage Karam's nose cone after he crashed in turn 1 late in the race. Wilson died from his injuries on August 24, 2015, the day after the race, at Lehigh Valley Hospital - Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Race of Champions [ edit ]
From 1977 to 1991, Pocono Raceway hosted the Race of Champions Modified race. From 1977 to 1979, the race was held on the 2.5-mile (4.0 km) triangular superspeedway; from 1980 onward, the three-quarter-mile infield oval was used. Richie Evans and George Kent were the leading winners, each winning two of the fifteen RoC events at Pocono. In 1992, the Race of Champions was moved to Flemington Raceway.
Notable events [ edit ]
Pocono Raceway and IndyCar announce the return of the Tricky Triangle to the IndyCar schedule starting in 2013.
Races [ edit ]
2006 Pennsylvania 500
Current [ edit ]
Tim Steele at the Pocono ARCA race in June 1996. Steele, a 3-time ARCA Champion, would win 9 ARCA races at Pocono, the most by a driver in a single series at the track.
Former [ edit ]
Records [ edit ]
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series records [ edit ]
(As of 30/07/17) [18]
* from minimum five starts
Environmental initiatives [ edit ]
In July 2010 Pocono Raceway began the installation of a 3 megawatt solar photovoltaics system. Upon completion the racetrack became the largest solar-powered sports facility in the world. The "solar farm" encompasses approximately 25 acres and consists of almost 40,000 solar modules, which satisfies the energy consumption for the entire racing complex and will help power 1,000 homes.[19] By December 2010, with less than four months in operation, the Pocono system had surpassed the 1,000,000 kilowatt hour production mark. Over the next 20 years the system is expected to produce in excess of 72 million kilowatt hours and offset 3,100 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually. Sheep are used to keep the grass to a low level.[20]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Coordinates:Chris Fox, CP24.com
A woman who is facing terrorism-related charges after allegedly threatening people with a knife at a Scarborough Canadian Tire failed to attend a court appearance today.
A suspect identified as Rehab Dughmosh was arrested in June after an incident in which she allegedly swung a golf club at employees at the hardware store near Markham and Lawrence Avenues and threatened them with a knife while expressing support for the Islamic State.
Dughmosh was initially charged with seven charges, including assault with a weapon, assault and threatening death.
Earlier this month, the RCMP also charged her with 14 terror-related charges.
The Crown alleges that Dughmosh left Canada on April 24, 2016 and tried to travel to Syria with the intention of joining ISIS but did not go any further than Turkey.
Dughmosh was scheduled to appear in court today but did not attend.
It is not clear why Dughmosh was not in court.
“She didn’t attend court. I am not quite sure why she didn’t attend court but she wasn’t here. You’d have to ask the people at the jail why she wasn’t brought here,” federal Crown prosecutor Howard Piafsky told CP24.
During the brief hearing on Friday, the judge in the case appointed a friend of the court to ensure Dughmosh’s rights are respected during the legal process. Typically, that is done whenever an accused chooses to represent themselves.
The next court date in the case has been set for Aug. 15.
The judge has issued a warrant to retain jurisdiction over Dughmosh to ensure she appears in court at that time.
Dughmosh has been in custody since her arrest.Now that college basketball is nuzzling into the middle section of its offseason, we wanted to look at the major seven conference in the sport and address all that has happened since early April. We're starting the series with the American Athletic Conference, and will post one league per weekday over the next seven days.
No conference in America should have as big of a profile jump next season as the AAC. I'll explain why below. Let's just get to the goodies and let you know what you need to know. Here's what's happened with this league over the past three-plus months.
Impact players returning
Not included, but certainly worthy: Wichita State's Landry Shamet, Shaq Morris and Markis McDuffie. Technically not "returning" to the AAC, but here they come. I think all three have a great chance at landing first and/or second team all-league honors.
As for the names above, all will be considered for our annual top 100 (and one) players list. There are even guys not listed who will get a good look (incoming/eligible transfer Cane Broom, at Cincy, for instance).
Impact players leaving
The Lawsons transferring out of Memphis (and going to Kansas) could be massively detrimental to the Tubby Smith era in Memphis. UConn was an injury-riddled mess last season, but losing Purvis and Brimah shouldn't prevent the Huskies from being better next season. Ojeleye and Dotson were second-round draft picks, the latter of whom was a massive riser (despite his history; Dotson was infamously banned from Oregon's campus in the aftermath of a sexual assault case that brought no charges) on draft boards.
Coaching changes
Brian Gregory, South Florida: Gregory taking over for Orlando Antigua, who was fired in January in the midst of an NCAA investigation, is the only coaching move in the conference this offseason. USF is in a state of significant change, but Gregory can be a savior. He did well at Dayton, then never managed to find success with Georgia Tech. For coach and program, this seems like a hire that should work for anywhere from 6-10 years. Gregory's career record is 248-180.
Wichita State's set up to be a top-10 team in college hoops next season. Best Shockers team ever? USATSI
Three biggest AAC offseason headlines
Wichita State leaves the MVC to join the American: The biggest move in conference realignment of 2017 came within a week of the season ending. Wichita State severed tied with the Missouri Valley (it was a member beginning in 1945) to upgrade its conference and better its chances at respectable seeding and overall consideration for Big Dance inclusion. The move is perfectly timed, because Wichita State is at the height of its powers and still has Gregg Marshall running the program. The AAC could use a boost, too, and this means... Commissioner Mike Aresco agressively pursues inclusion into the Power 5: Aresco and the American put together a hefty PR pitch/manifesto/stratagem in order to up the league's public standing. Here's the thing: the Wichita State inclusion promotes the conference in and of itself. And it's not a "power 6." There's a -- go with me on this term? -- Major 7. The Big East, though not a player in football, is indisputably a top-four conference in college basketball now. We had a major six group of leagues, and the AAC can now definitively be put with those groups thanks to successfully recruiting the Shockers. As for football, that's another matter I'll leave to the gridiron scribes. Memphis' Tubby Smith loses the Lawson brothers: The Memphis drama has been a disaster. Smith removed Keelon Lawson, the father, from the picture when it came to significant involvement in the program. What came next is no surprise. Dedric was a top-50 player in college hoops last season. Now Smith is floundering and fighting off all the negative recruiting that's come with the fallout. I've got more perspective, in the power rankings below, on how bad it is.An historic milestone in artificial intelligence set by Alan Turing - the father of modern computer science - has been achieved at an event organised by the University of Reading.
The 65 year-old iconic Turing Test was passed for the very first time by computer programme Eugene Goostman during Turing Test 2014 held at the renowned Royal Society in London on Saturday.
'Eugene' simulates a 13 year old boy and was developed in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The development team includes Eugene's creator Vladimir Veselov, who was born in Russia and now lives in the United States, and Ukrainian born Eugene Demchenko who now lives in Russia.
The Turing Test is based on 20th century mathematician and code-breaker Turing's 1950 famous question and answer game, ‘Can Machines Think?'. The experiment investigates whether people can detect if they are talking to machines or humans. The event is particularly poignant as it took place on the 60th anniversary of Turing's death, nearly six months after he was given a posthumous royal pardon.
If a computer is mistaken for a human more than 30% of the time during a series of five minute keyboard conversations it passes the test. No computer has ever achieved this, until now. Eugene managed to convince 33% of the human judges (30 judges took part - see more details below) that it was human.
This historic event was organised by the University's School of Systems Engineering in partnership with RoboLaw, an EU-funded organisation examining the regulation of emerging robotic technologies.
Professor Kevin Warwick, a Visiting Professor at the University of Reading and Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research at Coventry University, said: "In the field of Artificial Intelligence there is no more iconic and controversial milestone than the Turing Test, when a computer convinces a sufficient number of interrogators into believing that it is not a machine but rather is a human. It is fitting that such an important landmark has been reached at the Royal Society in London, the home of British Science and the scene of many great advances in human understanding over the centuries. This milestone will go down in history as one of the most exciting.
"Some will claim that the Test has already been passed. The words Turing Test have been applied to similar competitions around the world. However this event involved the most simultaneous comparison tests than ever before, was independently verified and, crucially, the conversations were unrestricted. A true Turing Test does not set the questions or topics prior to the conversations. We are therefore proud to declare that Alan Turing's Test was passed for the first time on Saturday.
"Of course the Test has implications for society today. Having a computer that can trick a human into thinking that someone, or even something, is a person we trust is a wake-up call to cybercrime. The Turing Test is a vital tool for combatting that threat. It is important to understand more fully how online, real-time communication of this type can influence an individual human in such a way that they are fooled into believing something is true...when in fact it is not."
Eugene was one of five computer programmes battling it for the Turing Test 2014 Prize. On winning the competition and achieving this historic milestone Vladimir Veselov said:
"I want to congratulate everyone who worked on Eugene Goostman. Our whole team is very excited with this result. It's a remarkable achievement for us and we hope it boosts interest in artificial intelligence and chatbots. Special thanks to Professor Kevin Warwick and Dr Huma Shah for their effort in organising the event.
"Eugene was 'born' in 2001. Our main idea was that he can claim that he knows anything, but his age also makes it perfectly reasonable that he doesn't know everything. We spent a lot of time developing a character with a believable personality. This year we improved the 'dialog controller' which makes the conversation far more human-like when compared to programs that just answer questions. Going forward we plan to make Eugene smarter and continue working on improving what we refer to as 'conversation logic'."
Among the judges tasked with separating the human and computer participants were the actor Robert Llewellyn, who played robot Kryten in the sci-fi comedy TV series Red Dwarf, and Lord Sharkey, who led the successful campaign for Alan Turing's posthumous pardon last year.
Professor Warwick concluded: "Not long before he died on 7 June 1954 Alan Turing, himself a Fellow of the Royal Society, predicted that in time this test would be passed. It is difficult to conceive that he could possibly have imagined what computers of today, and the networking that links them, would be like."
Further details about the Turing Test 2014:
Simultaneous tests as specified by Alan Turing
Each judge was involved in five parallel tests - so 10 conversations
30 judges took part
In total 300 conversations
In each five minutes a judge was communicating with both a human and a machine
Each of the five machines took part in 30 tests
To ensure accuracy of results, Test was independently adjudicated by Professor John Barnden, University of Birmingham, formerly head of British AI Society
This story has been updated to clarify the description of 'Eugene' as a computer programme rather than a'supercomputer'Revealed: Syria's steroid-mad 'Ghost' killers who keep Assad in power by slaughtering women and children
They wield AK-47s and machetes to carry out the government's dirty work
Massacre of 108 in Houla blamed on deadly death squad
Syrian troops today attacking rebel strongholds with helicopter gunships
Activists say violence has claimed lives of more than 13,000 people
These are the 'Ghost' killer thugs pumped up on steroids who are proving key to keeping Syria's brutal President Bashar Assad in power.
Covered in tattoos of images of their leader, they are blamed for roaming the nation massacring children and women by slitting their throats or shooting them at point-blank range.
Wielding AK-47s and machetes, they are said to carry out the government's dirty work so officials can claim the rampages are not being sponsored by the state.
Scroll down for latest video from Homs
Pumped up: Areen Al Assad, with a tattoo of Bashar Assad on his bicep, is said to be one of the 'Ghost' killers roaming Syria
Meat-head: Known as the 'Shabiha', they wear combat trousers and black t-shirts and are paid the massive sum of £130 per day
Known as the 'Shabiha', translating to 'Ghosts', they wear combat trousers and black t-shirts and are paid the massive sum of £130 per day.
Their modus operandi sees them swarm in to towns after the army has stopped shelling. A source said: 'Their mission is to terrorise the civilian population and conduct ethnic cleansing.'
A massacre of 108 civilians in Houla two weeks ago, including 49 children, has been blamed on the group who fanatically follow the Muslim Alawite sect.
They are also reported to have shot dead 12 workers in Qusayr and 78 villagers in Qubair last week.
Messing about: The 'Ghosts' modus operandi sees them swarm in to towns after the army has stopped shelling
Muscle man: Emergence of the death squad pictures comes after William Hague said yesterday he may have to send troops to Syria if the country spirals into a Bosnian-style civil war
Dr Mousab Azzawi, who runs the Syrian Network for Human Rights from London but had treated some of the Shabiha in Latakia, said recently: 'They were like monsters.
'They had huge muscles, and big bellies and beards. They took steroids to pump up their bodies. I had to talk to them like children as they like people with low intelligence.
'SYRIA COULD TRAIN ITS CHEMICAL WEAPONS ON ISRAEL'
Syria's large chemical weapons stocks could be trained on Israel, the latter's deputy military chief has warned.
According to Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh, Syria has the largest arsenal of chemical weapons in the world.
If the Syrians had the chance, he said, they would 'treat us the same way they treat their own people'.
Syria has not declared its chemical weapons stocks so their exact size is not known.
Among other things, Israel is worried that such weapons could fall into the hands of anti-Israel militants should the Syrian regime crumble.
Israeli radio stations and newspapers carried Naveh's remarks today.
He delivered them Sunday night at a ceremony in Jerusalem commemorating fallen soldiers.
Syrian activists estimate more than 13,000 people have died since an uprising against the Syrian regime erupted 15 months ago, drawing a bloody crackdown.
Israel has been watching the carnage in neighboring Syria with increasing concern. The two countries have fought major wars and multiple attempts to reach a peace deal failed.
Syria has strong ties to Iran, Israel's most fearsome enemy, and to Palestinian and Lebanese militants that have warred with Israel.
'That is what makes them so terrifying — the combination of strength and blind allegiance to the regime.'
Emergence of the death squad pictures comes after William Hague said yesterday he may have to send troops to Syria if the country spirals into a Bosnian-style civil war.
The Foreign Secretary said Britain would have to 'greatly increase our support for the opposition' if the current United Nations plan for a ceasefire fails, as his office now fears.
Mr Hague repeatedly refused to rule out military action yesterday if Syria descends into 'terrible' sectarian violence.
And he twice compared the violence raging in the Arab state to the conflict in Bosnia, where 12,000 British soldiers were eventually sent, rather than Libya, where the Government resisted sending in ground troops.
Mr Hague told the BBC: 'The reason I don’t rule things out is because we really don't know now how this situation is going to develop or how terrible it is going to become.
'Increasingly the analogy is not with Libya last year but with Bosnia in the 1990s.
'We are on the edge of that kind of sectarian murder on a large scale. So who knows what may be required from the international community to try to deal with that, if it gets going in that way.'
As violence continued to rage yesterday, claiming at least 38 lives, Mr Hague reiterated his message on Sky News.
He said Syria is now 'on the edge of a sectarian conflict in which neighbouring villages are attacking and killing each other so I don’t think we can rule anything out'.
The Foreign Secretary's words will fuel concerns that Britain risks being sucked into another Middle East war with potentially devastating political and humanitarian consequences.
Enforcers: Film footage shows the 'Ghosts' walking out and about
Action man: Pictured with guns, the Ghost poses for this photograph
But some diplomats believe the West will be compelled to act if the situation deteriorates and risks dragging in neighbouring countries such as Lebanon and Turkey.
Security sources said one scenario under discussion would see troops deploy to protect aid convoys entering Syria, a task Western soldiers also carried out in the early years of the Bosnian war.
Mr Hague gave credence to that theory by stressing the problems of providing aid to Syria yesterday.
'One of the great difficulties here is getting aid to them where fighting is going on and where the regime doesn’t provide access,' he said.
The UK has already provided £8.5million of medical supplies and emergency aid via international agencies.
Battered: The Ghosts filmed beating activists
Violence: A massacre of 108 civilians in Houla two weeks ago, including 49 children, has been blamed on the group who fanatically follow the Muslim Alawite sect
Mr Hague said he 'welcomed in principle' a Russian proposal for an international conference on Syria, but warned it must 'lead to a change and not just buy time for the regime to kill more people'.
He said it would be hard to see how Iran could attend the conference - one of Russia's demands - as it had already given Syria technical support and advised the regime on how to suppress protests.
Instead, he said the way forward was to adopt the peace plan of former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan.
Most diplomats, however, believe that plan is dead in the water, and the Foreign Secretary conceded: ‘Every other solution to the Syrian crisis involves a lot more death.’
Today Syrian troops attacked a rebel-held town in the centre of the country with helicopter gunships and shelled other restive areas across the country, activists said.
The aerial assault targeted the strategic river crossing town of Rastan that has resisted repeated government offensives for months, they added.
It is part of an escalation of violence in recent weeks that comes despite an internationally-brokered cease-fire that was supposed to go into effect on April 12 but never took hold.
Destruction: Syrians sit next to a damaged house at the northern town of Ariha, on the outskirts of Idlib, yesterday
Patrol: Syrian troops deployed in Duma, in a suburb of Damascus
'The regime is now using helicopters more after its ground troops suffered major losses,' said Rami Abdul-Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. 'Dozens of vehicles have been destroyed or damaged since the end of May.'
Syria's Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi recently said rebels are now using sophisticated anti-tank missiles. Videos posted by activists over the past week have shown many destroyed tanks and armored personnel carriers.
The Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees also reported government shelling in the central provinces of Homs and Hama, the southern region of Daraa, the northern province of Aleppo, and suburbs of the capital Damascus and Deir el-Zour in the east.
The Observatory reported the deaths of four civilians and an army defector in shelling in the area of Ashara in Deir el-Zour, and said another eight unidentified bodies had been discovered nearby. It reported three dead in the Hama shelling.
In Moscow, the Foreign Ministry said Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will visit Iran on Wednesday. Russia and Iran are Syrian President Bashar Assad's strongest allies. Moscow and China have vetoed two Security Council resolutions that threatened possible sanctions against Syria.
The ministry said in a statement that Russia is not playing the role of advocate for certain Middle East regimes.
'We are speaking for the strict observance of the norms and principles of international law in the interest of supporting regional stability and security in the Near and Middle East and North Africa,' it said.
Syrian activists say the violence has claimed the lives of more than 13,000 people. UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said on the killings of children in Syria: 'How many more children need to die?
'Repeated calls for the protection of children by all parties in Syria have not yielded positive action. But we must voice again our outrage when seeing the murder of innocents, especially children and women, as reportedly the case in Al-Qubair village in Hama.If you could see Israel naked, it might well look like this year.
For the length of this corrosive 2011, you could feel something numbing, something comforting, being stripped away from us. The protective coloration - the start-up sheen, the silvery comb-over pretense of democracy and peace-seeking, of Jewish values and of membership in the community of modern nations – all of it has begun to wear thin and wear out.
Women protesting in Jerusalem against the exclusion of women from the public arena, December 23, 2011. Michal Fattal
Good riddance. We're better off. We need to begin to again see Israel as it truly is. Naked and vulnerable. Real. Ailing. Still worth saving.
If you could see Israel naked, you could see behind the payot and the prayerful posturing and disproportionate power of extremists who, in their actions and rabbinic decrees, poison the name of Judaism and Jewish values.
And if you could see Israel naked, you would also see past the despair and the depression and the paralysis of the majority. You would see that there is a rising current of light to this darkness, a mounting if gradual popular resistance. By Israelis who still believe in the prophetic vision of their own Declaration of Independence.
By Israelis tired of being tacitly enslaved to the newest in the long, long line of Jewish history's false messiahs.
If we are to see Israel stripped naked, the place to begin may be with those most voracious in demands for what they have redefined – and weaponized - as "modesty."
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Imagine losing the extravagant hats and the sumptuous frock coats of the rock throwing, spit-spewing, child-abusing, crude-cursing misogynists of the voodoo yeshiva in Beit Shemesh.
Underneath the clothes, they are no different from any other group of testosterone poisoned bullies, weak and mean of spirit, wary of exposure, hiding unspeakable urges behind terrible acts.
So it is, as well, with the thousand local incarnations of Hilltop Youth, the part-hippie, part-redneck gun-nut vanguard of permanent-occupation blackmail in the West Bank.
Look past the exaggerated skullcaps and the exaggerated earlocks. Look instead at the funhouse-mirror ideology and the ritual Sabbath attacks on Palestinians and their property.
Concentrate, for a moment, on the rock-throwing against IDF officers. Focus on their contempt for courts, the government, the Knesset, and you begin to see a pattern: Stripped to their essentials, these people are, in the most profound sense, non-Jews. Not merely because of their vehemence in whoring after false gods of "modesty" and settlement.
More to the point, these are people who hate Jews. They have no use for them. They have no use for Jews who are liberal in outlook, temperate in behavior, believers in a Judaism which leans more to the universalist vision of the prophets than to the Amalek-must-die Dahiya Doctrine of Exodus. Which is, worldwide, most Jews.
In fact, the extremists who blacken our lives have little use for most Israelis, Jews or Arabs, and certainly none for the huge majority who supported the social justice movement this year. They look for support elsewhere, often abroad, often to actual non-Jews, with whom they have made bizarre common cause.
But because this was a year in which the country was often stripped naked, we also saw, over and over, acts of quiet heroism. The Shalit family in their struggle to free Gilad. The Margolese family of Beit Shemesh in their struggle to protect eight-year-old Na'ama. Tanya Rosenblit in her effort to be recognized as a human with rights on a public bus. The rape survivors whose testimony sent a former president of Israel to prison.
The list is long, and also includes heroism far from the public eye, as in the case of the
NISPED organization, a Negev Arab-Jewish coexistence and development association, whose Be'er Sheva office for volunteers was torched this month.
What these people are telling us is that we do not have to settle for a Jewish state which does to the world what the yeshiva punks of Bet Shemesh do to women and girls: spitting at those who are, or should be, our neighbors and allies, cursing those who are part of us.
If we could see truly Israel naked, we would need to make a decision. A decision about what a Jewish state should become, what Judaism is. What they will be, in this generation and those to follow.
Maybe we already have.
Perhaps it is Judaism itself that this corrosive year has flayed naked. Telling us that the Judaism which was created by, for, and in, a relentlessly hostile Diaspora, needs to adapt to a world in which that reality no longer exists.
Yes, we were a people hunted, stateless, defenseless, powerless, subject to humiliation and pogrom, exclusion and expulsion and massacre. But the survival mechanisms which sustained us, also produced horrible beliefs about non-Jews, and credos of superiority regarding Jews – a secret arsenal of bigotry and contempt. Now bared for all to experience.
If we could see the Jewish world naked, we might well see a new Judaism emerging this new year, a community of faith which fosters compassion and coexistence rather than the bullying, non-Jewish shandas of Beit Shemesh and mosque burnings and no compromise and Avigdor Lieberman.
A new Judaism. Stripped of xenophobia and 19th century clothes for
|
factor.Can’t live without your iPod or portable speaker or other device that can only be charged using a USB cable? Of course, you could just go out and shell out a few extra bucks to buy a separate charger. Or you could just install the U-Socket USB Wall Plug on your wall instead.
Aside from having two three-pronged outlets, this wall plug also has two extra USB charging ports that supply up to 2.1 Amps through each. Some minor assembly is required though, so we don’t recommend this wall plug for people who don’t know how to install their own wall sockets.
Your cellphone, for instance, probably recharges over USB. The manufacturer was kind enough to give you a wall-outlet dongle that converts the 110 volts coming out of your wall outlet into 5 volts of USB power. That’s fine, but you’ll either lose an outlet with that adapter, or you’ll misplace the dongle, and you’ll have to plug into your computer, and that’s not always convenient.
Some enterprising engineers at Fastmac realized how easy it would be to just build the transformers right into the wall outlets! Put 2 USB ports in the wall plate next to the 110 volt sockets, and you’ve doubled the versatility of your power line. We just happened to get a hold of a handful of these outlets, and brought them to you because, well, we think they’re pretty awesome.
U-Socket USB Wall Plug
Guaranteed to charge all mobile phones that accept USB power, including iPhone 4!
Operation temperature: 0 to 35 Degrees Celsius (32 to 95 Degrees Fahrenheit)
Input voltage: AC 100 to 125V 50/60Hz
Output voltage: USB: DC 5.0V 2100mA (2.1 amps)
You can get the U-Socket USB Wall Plug from ThinkGeek for $24.99 each. Also available at Amazon.com.
Related Deals: Amazon Coupons, ThinkGeek CouponThis article is over 2 years old
Group known as Street Children mock the devaluation of the Egyptian pound as well as the return of the islands to Saudi Arabia in video on social media
Four young Egyptians in custody for video making fun of the government
Four young Egyptians have been remanded in custody, accused of making fun of the government in a satirical video posted on social networks, according to judicial sources.
The move is the latest in a crackdown on voices critical of the authorities in Egypt.
Al-Jazeera accused of 'abandoning' journalist facing jail in Egypt Read more
At the same time, a fifth member of the group known as Street Children arrested on Saturday was ordered released on bail.
Their latest production appears to have touched a nerve as police round up activists involved in April protests against the president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, for handing over two islands to Saudi Arabia.
Rights groups accuse Sisi of running an ultra-authoritarian and repressive regime since he deposed in 2013 his democratically elected Islamist predecessor Mohamed Morsi.
Mahmud Ottman, a lawyer for the four, said they were arrested late Monday while visiting a friend’s home in central Cairo.
On Tuesday, Mohammed Adel, Mohammed Gabr, Mohammed al-Dessouki and Mohammed Yehya were remanded in custody for 15 days, their lawyer and a judiciary official said.
In the group’s latest video, Street Children mock the devaluation of the Egyptian pound as well as the return of the islands to Saudi Arabia.
The four are accused of “promoting ideas calling for terrorist acts by posting a video on social networks and YouTube”, Ottman said.
They are also suspected of “incitement to take part in demonstrations disturbing the public order” and “inciting mobs to commit hostile actions against state institutions”, he added.
A Cairo court on Tuesday ordered the release on bail of 10,000 Egyptian pounds (about 990 euros) for a fifth member of the group, Ezzedine Khaled.
He is accused of “inciting protests and publishing a video that insulted state institutions”.
Ottman said the bail had been paid and he expected Khaled to be released.
Attempts to protest last month against the handover of the two islands to Saudi Arabia were nipped in the bud by the authorities.
Since then, they have also cracked down on activists, bloggers, lawyers and journalists.
The overthrow of Morsi, who was deeply unpopular, unleashed a police crackdown on his supporters that has killed hundreds of protesters and imprisoned thousands of people.
Hundreds of people including Morsi have also been sentenced to death in speedy mass trials denounced by the United Nations as “unprecedented in recent history”.As is being reported by ESPN’s Dan Rafael, Shannon Briggs has just been busted in a random VADA drug test which will put his scheduled WBA title fight with Fres Oquendo in serious jeopardy.
“Breaking news: Heavyweight Shannon Briggs has failed a random VADA-conducted urine test for dramatically elevated levels of testosterone, ESPN has learned. His June 3 fight against Fres Oquendo for the vacant WBA "regular" title likely will be canceled.”
Briggs, 45, has been on a long and persistent campaign to make another run at a world title after falling into the abyss like aging fighters tend to do. But Briggs was actually making significant progress through a catchy “Let’s Go Champ!” marketing campaign, which earned him more attention than his actual boxing has warranted as of late.
Needless to say, I’m sure there will be some sort of rebuttal or explanation coming from Briggs’ camp in the coming days, but this news certainly doesn’t bode well for the Briggs brand, nor his world title aspirations.Denton is just the latest, and unlikeliest, battleground in a movement that has gained momentum around the country. Communities from Colorado to Pennsylvania have imposed similar bans, and the state of New York has prohibited fracking since 2008. By all accounts, the antifracking campaign here has caught the gas companies and their supporters flat-footed.
“If the election were held today, we would lose,” said Dianne Edmondson, chairwoman of the Denton County Republican Party, which has picked up the pro-drilling banner along with the Chamber of Commerce. “I’m telling the anti-ban folks that they have to pick up their campaign.”
With the vote about a month away, the debate is heating up.
“If the city of Denton can be persuaded to ban fracking, that will confirm all of the wild, environmental, wacko accusations that have been made about fracking all around the country,” said Tom Giovanetti, president of the Institute for Policy Innovation, a Dallas-based public policy research group, said during a debate at a community center last week. “The only reason for this campaign is for press releases to go out all over the country against fracking.”
Adam Briggle, a University of North Texas philosophy professor and one of leaders of the antifracking forces, responded: “They try to slander us. This is about common-sense regulation to protect the health and safety of our community.”This giveaway has now ended…
Music on the go with the FUGOO Sport waterproof speaker
A fiddle-throwndown next to the campfire. Mellow reggae vibes while floating around at the beach. Raucous guitar shredding on a muddy mountain bike trail. There is no adventure that bluetooth FUGOO Sport speaker isn’t prepared to handle.
— The scoop on FUGOO —
Many of you know that I am a die-hard music fan. Next to spending time outdoors, my other favorite hobby is music. Whether its discovering new bands on Spotify, shaking my booty on the dance floor, or rocking out in my car, I always love to get my groove on to some good tunes. So when I travel, I always make room in my suitcase for some sort of music playing device.
Last summer, I was at the Outdoor Retailer trade show in Salt Lake City, and I came across a relatively new California-based bluetooth speaker company named FUGOO. Not only was the speaker on demo waterproof, but the reps also claimed that the speaker had a 40 hour battery life. With these two features, FUGOO seemed like the perfect speaker for music-loving travelers and outdoor enthusiasts.
When I was planning my trip to Belize, I knew I had to get my hands on one to bring along on my island hopping and jungle exploring adventures. After a few weeks of use, it is apparent why FUGOO has won so many awards, including a “Best Of” award at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
— FUGOO Sport Design —
The FUGOO portable speaker comes in three different waterproof styles that all have the same core sound system. The FUGOO Style is sleek and the most chic of the models, while the FUGOO Tough is the most rugged of the designs. I chose the FUGOO Sport, which is a happy medium between the two. It can withstand a beating, including sand, salt water, and even mud, but still has a modern look. The cool part is that the jacket that protects the interior sound system can be swapped out. So if one day you decide that you’d like to swap the Sport out for the Style model, all you have to do is buy a new jacket, rather than an entire new speaker.
The speaker is slightly bigger than the palm of my hand and is small enough to carry around in a tiny bag. At 1.1 pounds, it is also light enough to take on a backpacking trip without it being too cumbersome. FUGOO also sells accessories that allow you to mount the speaker to just about anything.
— How does the FUGOO Speaker Work? —
FUGOO’s speakers pair with most devices that have a bluetooth function, including phones, tablets, and computers, and setting it up is very simple. First you turn on the speaker by pressing the power button on the side. Then you press the bluetooth pairing button and open your phone or computer’s bluetooth settings. My iPhone immediately found the speaker and upon choosing the speaker, a voice tells you that the pairing has been successful. Volume can be controlled by the buttons on the top of the speaker or on your phone. The speaker charges via a wall cable that is included.
— How is FUGOO’s sound Quality? —
This is the 4th bluetooth speaker that I’ve owned, and it is by far the best. For its size, the bass is thumping and at high volumes, FUGOO really does pack a punch. In Belize, I took it out on a boat for a day, and even when the boat engine was running, we were able to jam out to some Bob Marley. Another great feature is that the sound is projected from all four sides of the speaker for 360 degree sound, so you don’t have to worry about which direction the speaker is facing. Other reviewers agree on FUGOO’s sound quality and write that the FUGOO is even superior to Bose. Bam!
— Does the FUGOO battery really last 40 hours? —
This is where FUGOO really shines. The battery lasts for 40 hours, and that’s no joke. This is especially awesome if you are using the speaker on an outdoor adventure, like backpacking or river rafting, when access to a power outlet is limited. As long as you’ve got it fully charged when you leave home, you should be good to go. I used my speaker non-stop in Belize and only had to charge it once after three weeks of heavy use. If you aren’t sure whether the speaker needs charging, you just press the power button while the speaker is on, and a voice through the speaker tells you what percentage remains.
— How waterproof is the FUGOO Speaker? —
This speaker lives up to its claim. See the pictures below as proof. Most of my trip to Belize was water-based, and I brought my FUGOO speaker along on all kinds of adventures. I jumped into the sea with the speaker in hand, and as soon as I emerged, the tunes played on. No gargly noises. Just crystal clear sound as if nothing had happened.
I also took the speaker kayaking in one of Belize’s freshwater lagoons and to the Cenotes in Mexico, where FUGOO played on the sidelines while sitting in a few inches of water. And it’s rockin’ louder than ever before.
— Where can I purchase a FUGOO Speaker? —
You can purchase the FUGOO Sport directly on FUGOO’s website or on Amazon.
Disclosure: FUGOO provided the speakers for this review and giveaway at no cost, and some of the links in this post are affiliate links. An affiliate link means that if you make a purchase, I receive a tiny bit of compensation at no added cost to you. I only recommend products that I totally stand behind, and any purchases you make help keep this blog going. Thanks for all of your support, and if you ever have any questions about any of the products featured on my site, please email me. Thanks! KristenOh dear lord, I don’t think I’ve made an update since…
<checks post log>
Sep 8th???
Oh, ummm… <looks around nervously> I uh, I think we’ve done some things since then, yeah, let’s check git…
<git log –since=”sep 8″ | egrep ‘^commit’ | wc>
1482 2964 71136
1482 is a lot of commits, okay, I’m sure I can find one thing to talk about at least, it needs to be super duper important too. What to post, what to post..
I’VE GOT IT
I give you the beachball:
And the paper plane:
In all seriousness we have all been working crazy hard trying to get the next stable update out, and have been making really really good progress. It’s just that some of us <cough> forget to do an update for a while. Since I posted last I’ve finished the new status system, the new liquid system, and I’ve done terrain gen stuff, lua bindings stuff, networking stuff, tech stuff, bugfixing stuff… lots and lots of stuff.
Back to work!Didn’t the NeverTrumpers tell us he was BIG-Government? About that…
President Donald Trump, a new report suggests, is expected to request major cuts from the Environmental Protection Agency’s spending as part of his budget plan that is designed to boost military funding.
The White House will send its budget plans to Cabinet officials Monday, according to Axios. The president, insiders said, is targeting the EPA as part of a first step in his planned “deconstruction of the administrative state.”
Trump is expected to submit his full budget blueprint by March 13, The Associated Press reported last week. He will likely cut climate change and global warming initiatives from the EPA’s budget as part of his stated desire to force the agency to focus more on clean air and water.
Trending: WTF? The Weedkiller ROUNDUP Has Been Detected In These BEER & WINE Brands
The president’s position on climate change is no secret. In January, Trump reportedly ordered political appointees to review all of the data found by scientists at the EPA before it can be cleared for publication. In addition, the White House ordered the agency to remove its webpage on climate change and global warming, according to EPA staffers…
…The cuts to the EPA and increased spending in the military budget would be a step toward Trump’s promised military expansion, including a transition goal to expand the U.S. Navy’s fleet to 350 ships — the largest buildout since the Cold War, bringing with it a $165 billion price tag over 30 years, according to The Hill.
Trump’s military spending requests will require Congress to waive Obama-era military budget caps put in place as part of the sequester in 2013.
Read more: The BlazeHolly Brockwell, a 29-year-old from the UK, explains to This Morning why she wants to be sterilised and never wants children.
A woman who admitted she did not want to have children has won a four-year battle to be medically sterilised.
Holly Brockwell, from London, became the focus of abuse and online trolling last year after writing an article for the BBC, stating she did not want to have children.
"If I say I don't think I'd be a good parent, for instance, people respond, 'Everyone feels that way at first'," the now-30-year-old wrote. "If I say I can't imagine ever having the time, energy or money, I'm told I'll 'find a way to manage'. If I say I want to devote my life to my career, they say I'm'selfish'."
The journalist initially inquired with her GP about being sterilised when she was 26, but doctors repeatedly told her she was "too young" for the procedure. They instead suggested her boyfriend undergo a vasectomy.
Living a life without children Share your stories, photos and videos. Contribute
READ MORE:
* Woman faces online abuse for not having children
* Motherhood not for every woman, professor says
* Will women who choose to go childfree regret it?
* More women choosing to be childless
* Do women without children have to work harder?
* I don't want kids. What's the problem?
However after a "four-year battle with the [UK national health service] NHS", Brockwell has had her tubes tied.
HOLLY BROCKWELL/FACEBOOK UK woman Holly Brockwell has been sterilised four years after she first asked for the procedure.
The founder of tech website Gadgette is now speaking out against the harsh judgement she faced, revealing she believes a lot of it comes down to her gender.
"Many, many people have suggested that I shouldn't have sex if I'm not intending to reproduce, which is an opinion so old that I can see the cobwebs. No one says 'just cross your legs' to men wanting a vasectomy," she told the Independent.
"Sadly, I know from experience that those comments can come from healthcare professions as well as friends, family and strangers. I don't know of many men who've been told they're 'broken' or 'heartless', or that they're a 'waste of life'."
I feel like I'm still going to be saying "It's cheaper for the NHS than keeping me on the pill" when I'm dead — Holly Brockwell (@holly) May 15, 2016 Things I regret
- Smashing my phone
- Supporting HD DVD over BluRay
- Not buying Amazon stock
Things I don't regret
- Getting my tubes tied — Holly Brockwell (@holly) May 15, 2016
The 30-year-old told UK TV show This Morning that the procedure was far more cost-effective than staying on the contraceptive pill.
Holly Brockwell/FACEBOOK The journalist was forced to temporarily close down her Twitter account last year after she was abused for her decision not to have kids.
"It's cheaper than actually having a child on the NHS, it's cheaper than having IVF and all sorts of other things that the NHS offers," she said.
"The 'lifestyle choice' argument is a silly one to me, because having children is a lifestyle choice. Both should be equally respected, surely? Why is one more OK than the other?"
Brockwell is hoping her lengthy campaign will encourage women in a similar position, saying she'd like to see them "respected and listened to" should they seek sterilisation.
"No one takes a permanent, painful operation lightly, and while it's the doctor's responsibility to make sure it's the right thing for the patient, a blanket 'no' with no discussion isn't helpful to anyone."
Sign up to receive our new evening newsletter Two Minutes of Stuff - the news, but different.The split in the Climate Change Authority is a rerun of the climate policy fight Australia has been having for the past 10 years – the clash between what is undeniably necessary and what is politically possible.
The CCA report, to be released on Wednesday, lands exactly on the spot where the major parties might, just might, be able to reach a compromise and finally end the barren years of climate policy “war”, policy reversal and time-wasting gridlock.
Climate Change Authority splits over ETS report commissioned by Coalition Read more
Guardian Australia understands the report recommends a type of emissions trading scheme for the electricity sector where generators are penalised for polluting above an emissions-intensity baseline.
It’s the policy Labor took to the last election and exactly what most observers assumed the Coalition’s Direct Action would morph into after next year’s review shows what everyone already knows, that it isn’t fit for purpose in its current form.
The CCA is also understood to recommend a strengthening of the current “safeguards mechanism” for other big polluters.
The dissenters argue the authority is supposed to make recommendations based on what is scientifically necessary and leave it up to the politicians to make the political compromises – and that the recommended policy cannot meet the increasingly ambitious greenhouse gas reductions that Australia agreed to in Paris last year.
They are probably right.
But over the past decade the undeniably necessary task of doing our part to avert global warming has become ever-bigger and the politically-possible solutions seem to have shrivelled. We’ve actually done very little.
Coalition's policies go around in circles instead of finding the sensible centre | Lenore Taylor Read more
The new energy and environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, started out in his new job saying Direct Action needed no change at all because it was “very successful”. An authority report pushing for change – backed by board members mostly appointed by the Coalition – could help make the case that that starting point was never tenable.
The last time a politically possible policy was defeated because it wouldn’t achieve the scientifically-necessary greenhouse gas cuts was when the parliament voted down Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme. And that started the long and sorry story that led us here.A school in Halesowen has banned pupils from using 'woz' and 'it wor me' in the classroom, but the playful local dialect is full of linguistic gems
The Black Country dialect is very different from Birmingham's. Pretend, for a moment, that you care. That's why Brummies call people like me (born in Wolverhampton, raised in Sedgley, although later schooled in Solihull, and suffering a Proustian rush every time I think about the nocturnal vista of flaming blast furnaces I saw when I sat on my nan's back step in Wednesbury) Yam Yams. We're so called because even – imagine! – Brummies think we can't speak proper. "Yam Yams" is a reference to the Black Country use of "Yow am" (or yow' m).
This matters because a primary school in Halesowen has banned pupils from using "gonna", "woz", "it wor me" and other purportedly yam-yammy locutions in the classroom in order to improve their grasp of standard English and, thereby, employability. Dudley North MP (and Yam Yam) Ian Austin backs the ban.
But there's more to Black Country dialect than these words, more even than Walsall-born Noddy Holder's orthographically challenged titles for Yam-Yammy Slade songs (Gudbuy T'Jane, Cum on Feel the Noize). There is a rich linguistic heritage that the Scottish novelist AL Kennedy identified: when I interviewed her about her book Day, which tells the story of an eponymous Lancaster bomber tail gunner who hailed from Wednesbury. "There's an enormous sense of humour in the way Black Country people speak," said Kennedy. "It's a very playful and very old language."
It is both of those things: "Ow bist" (How are you?), for example, is a contraction of the Middle English "How be-est thou", to which a reply might be "Bay too bah", which, like the French comme ci, comme ça, means "I'm not too bad". "Bay" means "am not" (as in "I bay gooin' ter tell yow agen"). "Yam Yams" say "aks" instead of "ask", "lickle" not "little", and when we play roughly we say we are "lungeous". "I ay sid 'er" means "I haven't seen her".
I remember my primary school teacher (who came from Lincolnshire) asking his class at Alder Coppice school in Sedgley what we meant by "saft". It was, we told him, a gently reproving combination of silly and daft. But we probably didn't put it quite like that.
Later my O-level history teacher Mr England insisted that Black Country dialect, unlike its upstart local rival, Brummie, was more closely related Middle English than any other regional dialect. That thought is picked up on the superb Sedgley Manor website, which gives a dictionary featuring such gems as "bunny-fire" (bonfire), "clack" (eg "Stop your clack!" ie "Shut up!"), "kaylied" (drunk), "waggin'" (bunking off school) and "lezzer" (not what you're thinking, but a meadow – derived from the Old English "leasowe"). If you stood in Sedgley Bull Ring now, what you'd hear spoken is a dialect nearer to Chaucerian English than any in use in England.
I'm also moved to tears as I write these words, recalling words that filled my childhood that I'll never speak again. I've been deracinated, standardised, made – linguistically at least – just that little bit less charming.
That fate awaits, perhaps, the pupils of Colley Lane school too. Doubtless they will gain in terms of employability and job security as their headteacher and MP hope, but they risk losing a cherishable and irreplaceable heritage as well.Earlier this week, Funko announced the Big Trouble in Little China line of Pop! toys, and that inspired my next Fun Facts list. I watched this movie all of the time when I was a kid. I swear it was on a constant loop in my house for a little while there. The John Carpenter-directed movie stars Kurt Russell, and it was just such an incredibly fun movie, with great characters. I think it's about that time to show it to my own kids. Here are 11 Fun Facts about the movie that you may or may not know. It was hard to find decent clips from this film on YouTube to show you certain things, but I posted the original trailer, a supercut of Russell's best lines in the movie, and the most ridiculous death scene ever.
The story was originally written as a western but Carpenter thought it would be better to set it during modern times. The script even included a scene where Jack Burton's horse was stolen instead of his truck. As a fan of westerns, it would have been great to see this story told in the old west!
The Chinese writing that we see in the main title translates to "Evil Spirits Make a Big Scene in Little Spiritual State".
This was the last studio film Carpenter directed at the end of the 1980s because of the bad experience he had with studio head Lawrence Gordon. Apparently Gordon interfered with everything about the film up until its release date. Carpenter's Prince of Darkness (1987) and They Live (1988) were made independently through Alive Films without any studio interference and distributed by Universal Pictures.
There's a scene in which Russell is attempting to infiltrate a brothel. In it he is wearing the same outfit that he wore in the 1980 film Used Cars.
The test screening for the movie was so overwhelmingly positive that Russell and Carpenter thought the movie was going to be a huge hit. Unfortunately 20th Century Fox hardly put any effort into marketing and promoting the movie, so it was a box office bomb. Apparently the studio didn't know how to market this kind of film.
Russell suffered a bad case of the flu during shooting, so due to the fever a lot of the crazy sweat we saw on his body was real.
Russell was Carpenter's only choice to play the lead, but the studio wanted Jack Nicholson or Clint Eastwood instead. Both actors were unavailable by the time shooting started so Carpenter got to keep Russell. Which is great, because Russell was awesome!
or instead. Both actors were unavailable by the time shooting started so Carpenter got to keep Russell. Which is great, because Russell was awesome! Before the end credits roll, Russell's character is driving his truck and talking on the CB Radio, and he says, "You just listen to the old Pork-Chop Express here now and take his advice on a dark and stormy night when the lightning's crashing and the thunder's rollin' and the rain's coming down..." This statement pays tribute to the names of the 3 Storms, who were Lo Pan's bodyguards.
During the wedding scene where the villain Lo Pan is sticking the Needle of Love in Miao Yin, actor James Hong actually jabbed Suzee Pai too hard. You can see her flinch from the pain.
actually jabbed too hard. You can see her flinch from the pain. Carpenter wanted Jackie Chan in the role of Wang Chi, but he wasn't cast because his English wasn't good enough. Dennis Dun ended up in the role. Chan does make a cameo though, during the fight scene between the Chang Sings and Wing Kong Tong.
in the role of Wang Chi, but he wasn't cast because his English wasn't good enough. Chan does make a cameo though, during the fight scene between the Chang Sings and Wing Kong Tong. As the villainous Lightning character is crushed to death, some of the lightning he emits forms a small Chinese symbol as it disappears. The symbol translates as "carpenter".A mayoral hopeful in Mexico promises to eat, sleep most of the day and donate his leftover litter to fill potholes.
Morris, a black-and-white kitten with orange eyes, is running for mayor of Xalapa in eastern Mexico with the campaign slogan "Tired of Voting for Rats? Vote for a Cat." And he is attracting tens of thousands of politician-weary, two-legged supporters on social media.
"He sleeps almost all day and does nothing, and that fits the profile of a politician," said 35-year-old office worker Sergio Camacho, who adopted the 10-month-old feline last year.
Put forth as candidate by Camacho and a group of friends after they became disillusioned with the empty promises of politicians, Morris' candidacy has resonated across Mexico, where citizens frustrated with human candidates are nominating their pets and farm animals to run in July 7 elections being held in 14 states.
Also running for mayor are "Chon the Donkey" in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, "Tina the Chicken" in Tepic, the capital of the Pacific coast state of Nayarit, "Maya the Cat" in the city of Puebla and "Tintan the Dog" in Oaxaca City, though their campaigns are not as well organised as that of Morris.
Politicians repeatedly rank at the bottom of polls about citizens' trust in institutions.
Morris' cuteness, the clever campaign and promises to donate money collected from the sales of campaign stickers and T-shirts to an animal shelter has attracted cat lovers, but Camacho said most of his supporters were citizens tired of corrupt politicians and fraudulent elections.
"Morris has been a catalyst to show the discontent that exists in our society," Camacho said.
"Our message from the beginning has been 'if none of the candidates represent you, vote for the cat' and it seems people are responding to that."
Xalapa, a university city of 450,000 people, is the capital of the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, where residents have in last two years been beleaguered by drug violence, corruption scandals and the killings of at least nine reporters and photojournalists.
Morris has a website, a Twitter account and a Facebook page with more than 115,000 "likes", that makes him more popular in social networks than the five human mayoral contenders.
His website has a collection of memes that picture Morris yawning while describing his "ample legislative experience," an image that mirrors photographs of lawmakers sleeping during congressional sessions.
Morris' campaign managers are asking supporters to write-in "Morris" or draw a cat's face on the ballot to send a message to authorities, who are not taking the cat's growing popularity lightly.
APStory highlights Clashes between drug cartels killed more people than conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan
A total of 23,000 lost their lives, many of them innocents with no links to narcotics
(CNN) — It was the second deadliest conflict in the world last year, but it hardly registered in the international headlines.
As Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan dominated the news agenda, Mexico's drug wars claimed 23,000 lives during 2016 -- second only to Syria, where 50,000 people died as a result of the civil war.
"This is all the more surprising, considering that the conflict deaths [in Mexico] are nearly all attributable to small arms," said John Chipman, chief executive and director-general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which issued its annual survey of armed conflict on Tuesday.
"The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan claimed 17,000 and 16,000 lives respectively in 2016, although in lethality they were surpassed by conflicts in Mexico and Central America, which have received much less attention from the media and the international community," said Anastasia Voronkova, the editor of the survey.
In comparison, there were 17,000 conflict deaths in Mexico in 2015 and 15,000 in 2014 according to the IISS.
Read MoreOne gets the impression that Nintendo has never been quite sure what to do with Rhythm Heaven (or Rhythm Tengoku, in Japan). Unlike their less-musical equivalent, the WarioWare series, these rhythmic minigame collections have no ubiquitous mascot character to help market the inherent weirdness within. Without that crutch, it becomes difficult to explain to all but the most Japanese-enthusiastic audience exactly what the hell is going on in any of these games. Bizarre music plays in time with even more bizarre visual scenarios, and the gameplay often revolves around just a couple of different commands over the course of the entire game. It's not a game of which the appeal can easily be summed up in a TV commercial--at least in this country.
There is a reason why these monkeys are helping this golfer. That reason? MUSIC.
But that's what makes this franchise, and this latest entry, Rhythm Heaven Fever for the Wii, so fantastic. These games are so fundamentally bonkers that even if you've played the other entries in the franchise, you'll still feel like you're getting a fresh experience each time around. The minigames collected in Rhythm Heaven Fever may only revolve around a couple of variances on pressing the A and B buttons on the Wii Remote in time with the music, but somehow, be it through the transcendentally insane visual presentation that comes along with it, or the undeniably catchy rhythms inherent to the music, each game feels wholly unique, and almost always is a bunch of fun to play.
There are a bit more than 50 new minigames in Rhythm Heaven Fever, each only lasting a minute or two, but with incentives to play them again and again. Trying to get into specific examples of what each game does would be pointless, as they all revolve around the same core theme: press the A, B, or A and B buttons in time to the musical cues played out on-screen.
That sounds deceptively simple, but the rhythms employed in Rhythm Heaven Fever are often tricky, off-time, and full of stunts and pauses that are guaranteed to trip you up at various points. Yes, you're just pressing a pair of buttons in different combinations, but the timing requires precision, and a specific ear that can pick out the patterns within the musical composition. Each game is trickier than the last, of course, ensuring that by the time you get to the last few minigames, you'll either be an expert rhythm maker or hopelessly out of your depth.
Odds are greater on the former than the latter, as Rhythm Heaven Fever's progression is geared toward helping those hopelessly arrhythmic clods who couldn't keep a 4/4 beat if someone put a gun to their head. Four minigames are assigned to a specific set, or level, with a fifth game--a "remix" version of the four previous minigames combined into a single song--rounding out each tier. Should you find yourself hopelessly beaten down by one particular game or another, the developers were kind enough to provide you a skip option so that you might move on. The trick is that you'll have to fail several times before it pops up, meaning players who just want to skip from game to game because they're terrible at everything won't have that option until they've failed repeatedly and spectacularly.
If I had to pick a favorite among the many minigames, it's definitely this one. The song refuses to leave my brain.
Again, it would be pointless to try to run down the different minigame scenarios for you, because they all dart about in so many wild directions that it would essentially amount to me trying to describe each individual game specifically, since no two are exactly alike. They're similar in action, of course, but the scenarios include everything from musical pro-wrestling promo cuts, to one of the least "gangsta" rap video shoots since David Faustino made an album. Some of these are so completely out-there that even Nintendo's localization team seems to have thrown its hands up in surrender at a few different points, opting to just have characters describe the action as, "Hey! Let's do that thing we do! Yeah, that thing we do is great!" I don't remember the specifics of that one, but I believe it involved sentient tuning forks hitting their heads against each other's asses to power a zeppelin.
It's all done with a cute, if utterly strange cartoon art style that translates surprisingly well from the series' traditionally handheld roots. The music is also tremendously good, boasting some of the most inexplicably infectious songs of any game in the franchise. Stylistically, they run the gamut from goofy bossa nova to industrial-sounding pop music, though all of it sounds like it's been filtered through an old Casio keyboard--and I don't mean that insultingly. I've had at least a few of the songs stuck in my head on repeat for the last week, and based on conversations I've had with others who have played it that mostly consisted of them repeating the game's nonsense lyrics back at me, I'm not alone.
It'd be nice if the tutorials for each game could be accessed separately from the main game, and that you didn't have to wait for the tutorial to load up so you can skip it each time you play. The unlockables and bonus bric-a-brac aren't especially great either. But those niggles aside, Rhythm
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that align with their gender identity and direct teachers to refer to them by their preferred pronouns.
The board last year approved a policy barring discrimination against transgender students and staff, a move that spurred vocal protests and a lawsuit from an unnamed student who accused the board of overstepping its authority. While the policy has been on the books for a year, the new proposed regulations, released to board members July 1, would clarify for teachers and administrators their obligations to safeguard the rights of transgender students.
[Fairfax school board approves transgender protections]
The board votes on policy changes but typically does not weigh in on the regulations that implement them; school system regulations usually go into effect without board approval. But the board chairman, Pat Hynes (Hunter Mill), said the board would have the opportunity to change the proposed regulations if they are presented to the board for consideration. Hynes scheduled a School Board work session for July 21 to discuss the regulations.
[Read the draft regulations here]
Some parents have complained that school system officials have not been transparent enough as they drafted the regulations and have asked for more opportunities to provide input.
“This is a topic that’s very sensitive,” said Meg Kilgannon, who has three children in Fairfax schools. She said she thinks that schoolchildren are too young to be switching genders and that the school system needs to be careful in considering how the policies affect all students. “This is a new area of public debate in our country, and we need to have a debate.”
Those who back the new regulations say they are an extension of the policy passed last year, which already was at the center of heated debate. LGBT advocates say the regulations are an important step in the right direction, a move that could help transgender students feel more comfortable at school and allow them to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
“It’ll change the culture in a huge way. Culture is top-down in schools,” said Robert Rigby, a Latin teacher at West Potomac High and an advocate for LGBT students. He said the new regulations also would give clarity to teachers, who might struggle to understand how they should accommodate transgender students. “This will mean a lot to teachers. Teachers will now feel safer accepting their trans kids.... This is a big wide neon sign to all administrators and all staff: Accept your trans kids.”
While the regulations have been in the works for more than a year, they represent an effort to navigate the new and complex legal landscape of an issue that has proved deeply polarizing in Fairfax County and across the country. Transgender students say being allowed to use bathrooms that match their gender identity is a critical element of their well-being. But some people worry that allowing transgender students into restrooms that conflict with the sex on their birth certificates is a breach of privacy and traditional values; some argue that it is also a safety risk.
[Transgender students’ access to bathrooms is at front of LGBT rights battle]
The Obama administration in May directed public schools across the country to allow transgender students to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity and to respect transgender students who wish to be referred to by pronouns or names that differ from their birth certificates. The directive was met with immediate backlash: 21 states have sued to have it overturned.
[Another 10 states sue Obama administration over bathroom guidance for transgender students]
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in April sided with a Virginia transgender student who is suing for the right to use the boys’ bathroom at his high school, saying his lawsuit could move forward. The court also deferred to the Obama administration’s position that bathroom prohibitions for transgender students violate Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in public schools.
[Federal appeals court sides with transgender teen, says bathroom case can go forward]
Hynes, the Fairfax School Board chairman, said the developments might have created new legal obligations for the school system. She added that she thinks Fairfax already was complying with the new policy to not discriminate against transgender students, but the regulations will make the county’s nearly 200 schools more consistent and efficient, she said.
The proposed regulations would give transgender students access to bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identities. In classes that are sex-segregated — such as sex education — transgender students would be able to remain with classmates who match their gender identity. The regulations also would give all students the right to request private changing areas, regardless of the reason.
Transgender student athletes are bound by the rules set by the Virginia High School League, which requires transgender competitors to appeal to the organization and provide documentation of their transition if they wish to compete on teams that match their gender identity.
Critics accused the district of moving too hastily and without enough information. Board member Elizabeth Schultz (Springfield) said she wants to see more information on model policies and best practices and to hear from an expert on the matter. She questioned whether it was prudent to require students who feel uncomfortable with a transgender classmate to seek alternate arrangements.
“What we’ve done is shifted the burden... to 99 percent of the students,” Schultz said. “What happens if 60 girls in PE want private showers? Now what?”
She called the new regulations “a redefinition of what sex is” — an argument that conservative lawmakers in several states have made in challenging the Obama administration’s guidance on transgender students — and said the board has not given serious consideration to the implications of such a change. She said that the notion that you can “think your sex” runs contrary to science.
“If it’s now no longer a scientific thing and it’s now something a person can change by thought process... what are the implications of moving forward with that kind of public policy change?” Schultz said.TORONTO — In the span of four days, Toronto FC have won two games.
That is indeed a big deal for a team that had not tasted victory since May 7, a span of 10 games in all competitions including nine in Major League Soccer. And the latest — a comeback over Vancouver on Saturday that clinched TFC a third consecutive Nutrilite Canadian Championship — is easily the sweetest.
“It feels amazing,” ‘keeper Stefan Frei said after Saturday’s 2-1 win at BMO Field. “It’s something I would love to get used to.”
WATCH: FULL MATCH HIGHLIGHTS
Fittingly, both of Toronto’s victories this past week were against the Whitecaps. TFC won here on Wednesday 1-0 on Nick Soolsma’s second-half penalty, a match head coach Aron Winter said was a big confidence lift for a side that needed one.
Then the Reds won Saturday on Joao Plata’s second-half penalty and Mikael Yourassowsky’s first goal for the team about 10 minutes later to win the NCC finals on 3-2 aggregate.
“You enjoy it, but we have a few things coming up in the league and we want to keep that momentum going,” Frei said. “Because if we go on a losing streak again, then all these wins don’t really matter.”
Saturday’s victory finished off a week of positive buzz around the club. Before Wednesday’s game, TFC announced the signings of two Designated Players in midfielder Torsten Frings and forward Danny Koevermans. Though the duo will not be able to play until later in the month, it showed a promise of better things to come. Frei senses something in the air for the squad.
“Wednesday was really good for us,” he said. “We got the win which gave us the confidence, but also we knew there was a positive vibe with the two new guys coming in. That gave us some confidence, so going down a goal today, that really didn’t hurt us too much.”
Toronto didn't wilt Saturday, even when breaks didn't go their way. They seemed to have an equalizer in the 41st minute when Javier Martina’s long shot rolled toward the empty Vancouver goal, but was hooked away by Jay DeMerit. The ball may have been over the line, but play went on. At that moment, even Toronto’s coaches and players say they began to think of all the things that have gone wrong this season.
“There are times in games when you do feel like that, like when it was rolling across the line then saved,” said defender Richard Eckersley, “but you just have to keep going, keep going at it. We did and we got our break and capitalized and got the result.”
TFC have away games coming up in New York and in Houston in the next week and Eckersley feels Saturday’s win will help the team’s confidence more, as will the chance later this month to qualify for the CONCACAF Champions League group stage with a two-leg tie against Real Estelí of Nicaragua.
“It’s massive just to get any wins, no matter what cup it’s in,” the Englishman said. “It brings the lads together; you could see everyone on the pitch, we’re all best mates, and we need that because we have two tough games next week that we need to get some points on.”Boston-based Stomp Games is on a mission to amend your perceptions of what a Facebook game should be.
You may know Tencent as China’s leading ISP, but 50 percent of the company’s swelling revenue comes from Web-based games. What you may not know is Tencent recently snatched up League of Legends developer Riot Games, and has purchased minority shares in Epic Games. They’ve also created subsidiary Tencent Boston, comprised of industry veterans from Ubisoft and Electronic Arts. That subsidiary’s development studio – Stomp Games – is preparing to release Robot Rising, their first game on Facebook.
Robot Rising is no ordinary Facebook game, and my hours of playtime will emphatically back that up. This isn't a casual time-management game, nor is it remotely associated with farms or “Villes.” Rather, imagine if Diablo III got into bed with a free-to-play Mech game. Then imagine Stomp Games adding real-time multiplayer and strategy elements, crafting console-quality graphics and then saying “you know, we could release this on Facebook instead.”
Today Stomp Games will announce an open beta for Robot Rising. The beta will remain in place until the game launches sometime in Q4, and I highly recommend giving it a look even if you’ve been turned off by the typical crop of Facebook games on that platform.
Yesterday I spoke to Jeff Goodsill, GM of Stomp Games, about Robot Rising, Facebook games and the Free-to-Play movement in general. With Jeff’s history at Ensemble Studios (Age of Empires), I knew he would have some insights.
Enjoy the interview, and check out Robot Rising if you count yourself among the disinterested Facebook gamer crowd; or even if you consider yourself a core gamer.
Q: Will Robot Rising ever expand beyond Facebook?
A: Initially Robot Rising will only be available on Facebook. Gamers on Facebook have been waiting for games with a little more depth, action, story and real-time combat. Players don't want to be constantly spamming their friends with updates and requests. They just want to be able to get into the game quickly and not worry about long downloads, patches and long play sessions. We believe that gamers who have left the platform all together will be reenergized and excited to overcome the challenges that await, and that existing core Facebook gamers are ready for a change of pace.
Q: Stomp Games makes it clear that their inspiration is rooted in bringing AAA-quality games to consumers on multiple platforms. Is real-time cross-platform play a future possibility for Robot Rising?
A: Absolutely. Bringing a new experience that is beyond a port and takes advantage of what other platforms offer, such as a smart phone or tablet, is a great opportunity. Offering multiple access points into portions of our game will greatly extend the enjoyment for our players. For instance, you might be able to use your hard fought and combat hardened elite robot force to defeat other players, or post the fastest time through a complex, or just check into your base to accelerate a new armor technology. Abilities like this could all be enabled on other platforms as we continue development into the future.
Q: I’ve spent several hours with Robot Rising; it’s safe to say people aren’t expecting a game of this caliber on Facebook. What were some of the hurdles during the development process?
A: Delivering a true 3D, visually stunning, near console quality gaming experience in a browser has not been without some challenges. We have constantly been watching our content pipeline, cutting draw calls, reducing particle emitters, optimizing animations and slimming asset bundle sizes just to name a few. This has been part of our process from inception. Fortunately we have a super experienced and dedicated development team that have created many tools and tricks along the way enabling us to achieve this vision. People will just have to play it to believe it.
Q: Stomp Games' management team is comprised of some heavy hitters -- Former Art Director at EA Sports, Director of Creative Management for original Ubisoft titles, etc. Finding them supporting a Free-to-Play game on Facebook seems a strong reflection of F2P's increasing popularity.
A: I could go on for a while about our studio. I am extremely proud of what we have been able to accomplish with this modest sized team on a tight schedule. This only happens when everyone really pulls together in the same direction. We have all been energized by what we see as a great opportunity in this market. Our team is stacked with experienced core game developers that have worked on top titles across multiple genres and platforms including successful titles such as Age of Empires and Titan Quest. We know how to make great games but as a team this is our first endeavor on Facebook which has been mainstream for many people's casual gaming experience for years.
Michael Fitch our Executive Producer and Chief Product owner has been the visionary behind Robot Rising; Paul Chieffo our Director of Technology never ceases to amaze in pushing programming boundaries; and Chris Winters, our Art Director, is among the best I have ever worked with. That said, making a great game is not about a few individuals…it is all about the team. We have a ton of depth from our leads and product owners to our individual contributors. They are all really good at what they do and are inspiring to work with.
Q: Finding the right monetization balance with Free-to-Play is crucial. Are you avoiding "pay to win?" If so, how?
A: You will never have to pay to finish this game. From beginning to end you will be able to enjoy this experience with little or no money spent. We all really believe in this model. Having to pay out a large amount of money up front for a game you may not like has frustrated many gamers.
Q: But you still need to bring in some revenue…
A: We feel if we have done our job right and people really enjoy the game they will choose to enhance their experience with added items for their robot or base, or they may choose to accelerate their experience curve with small spends over time. Either way we think this game will be fun for a wide audience of gamers both novice and veteran.
Check out Stomp Games on Facebook, and follow me on Twitter for future updates.SHELBYVILLE, Ind. (WTHR) - A dramatic weight loss accomplished by a local teacher has created a dramatic health crisis.
Stanley Hollar can no longer walk.
Now, friends are hoping his story inspires Hoosiers to help Stanley walk again.
Just watching the 42-year-old work out at Anytime Fitness in Shelbyville is inspiring.
"Not many people are as dedicated as Stan," his trainer Doug Sparks said.
Whatever workout Sparks prepares for him, Hollar tries to double. The way he pushes himself to the limit, you'd never know just how much this substitute teacher has lost.
Stanley, who loves sports and socializing, spent most of his life on the sidelines.
"Life was a spectator sport," Hollar said. "I wasn't in the game."
His body stretching bigger than his personality, year after year.
"I was always the biggest guy in the room," Hollar explained. "In kindergarten I was over 100 pounds. At my high point, in February 2015, I was 678 pounds. I was actually to the point where I couldn't even get myself off the floor."
It was life-threatening weight gain. He even had to have a trach put in to help him breathe. On top of all of that, he's an amputee. A torn artery caused doctors to remove his leg while Hollar was in college in 1996.
"My doctors told me get rid of the weight or you're not gonna make it past your next birthday," Hollar recalled.
But he made a change.
Hollar lost 250 pounds with bariatric surgery. Then he lost another 250 with sweat, diet and determination.
"I just watched him get smaller and smaller," Sparks said. "He was really on it."
500 pounds gone, in dramatic fashion.
But Stanley's success has created an equally dramatic problem. His prosthetic leg is no longer practical or usable at all.
Stanley's prosthetic leg is as big as his waist now that he's lost weight.
It dwarfs him.
"As you can tell, I can fit my whole waist in it now," Hollar said. "This thing used to fit snug."
Then there's the problem of his skin.
"I've got loose skin hanging from about everywhere," Hollar explained. "After surgery, your body is like a balloon. It doesn't shrink back after 40 years."
He has so much excess skin, that a new prosthesis wouldn't fit correctly. Yet surgery to remove that skin isn't covered by insurance.
"The skin removal is considered cosmetic surgery," Hollar said. "For me, this is not cosmetic!"
For Stanley, it would be life-changing. He wants - he needs - to walk again. It's a mission inspired, in part, by his trainer.
"When you're like something long enough, it's hard to see past that. Stan didn't seem convinced that walking was in the cards when I met him," Sparks said. "'Isn't the plan to get up and walk?' I asked him. He said, 'I don't know, I've got all this extra skin. I'm not really a candidate for a prosthesis' and I was like, 'So you just give up?' That didn't jive with me. I think he needed to hear somebody say it."
He's not giving up now.
Friends created a YouCaring site to raise money to "Help Stanley Walk" again.
Surgery and the new prosthetic will cost nearly $25,000. That's their goal.
Because even though Stanley Hollar lost so much, he still has more to gain.
He will walk again.by Allen St. Pierre, Former NORML Executive Director
By George Rohrbacher, NORML Board of Directors, medical marijuana patient.
The Rohrbachers, farming family feeding America since 1972.
It is said that almost everyone in the marijuana law reform movement has a seminal moment they can point to when their public activism started. My moment was in the fall, six years ago.
I’m a past president of our local Kiwanis Club. I’ve been a member for years; we meet for breakfast at 6:30am, every Wednesday morning. My fateful “activism moment” was meeting face-to-face with one morning’s Kiwanis Club program, our town’s newly acquired dope dog. Some rock-ribbed citizen had left money in his will for the city to buy a dope dog for our town of 3,000, in a county of 18,000 people. The dog’s handler and the police chief were up at the speaker’s table. I had to fight back the urge to turn around and run.
As I sat down at my usual spot, ordered breakfast and clipped on my Kiwanis Club nametag, my heart was just racing! Thank God, my neck pain had not been severe enough that morning that it had required some marijuana medication, because, I imagined, triggered by the smell of freshly consumed ganja, that huge German Shepard would have leaped from the podium to pin me down to the floor, the dog’s sharp white teeth snarling and snapping at my throat.
As we went through club business about our kid’s reading program, ate breakfast and conducted the normal chit-chat that makes Kiwanis Club so enjoyable, I slowly calmed myself. I had not been found out as a marijuana user, yet. There was no need for me to panic, because the likelihood that I would be found out now by this agent of the state, was growing smaller and smaller by the moment. But, as the primal fear drained away, it started to piss me off; this dope dog was invading my space.
The dog handler got up and spoke glowingly about his charge, the alpha male of his litter. This dog had been born of a long and impressive pedigree in Baden-something, formerly East Germany. Looking at me from across the room was the pride of the jack-booted police state, the purebred German Shepard—smart, vicious, relentless.
The dog handler went chirping on, to mostly nodding heads, about what a fantastic dog he had and how many pot busts he had already made with it. Suddenly, all I could think was: This dog was born in East Germany, it’s father could have pulled someone down off the Berlin Wall…this dog’s great-grandfather would have marched the Jews or Gypsies to the ovens at Buchenwald or Auschwitz… And now, my own little town had a new resident from the same police dog gene pool that serviced the two most brutal totalitarian regimes in the history of the mankind!
Scenes from my childhood of when German Shepards attacked the Civil Rights marchers at Selma floated before my eyes… This well-groomed dog was a tool of the modern police state in all its scariest manifestations. The more I thought about it, the madder and madder I got.
I paid my breakfast bill and left in the first wave. I drove back out to the ranch and fed our cows their daily ration of hay, all the while mulling over my close brush with the dope dog. By the time I got done with my chores and back to the house, I absolutely had to do something! I picked up my telephone and called NORML, and I volunteered for the fight that very day…our fight for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…”
Marijuana prohibition is a corrupt and evil social institution, just like the Berlin Wall was. For generations both have been symbols of the ruthless and relentless oppression of the state. Then, one day, by the sheer weight of internal political rot and thousands of little hammers, the Berlin Wall came down, and it came down virtually overnight! Marijuana Prohibition is just as corrupt and evil as the Wall, and it, also, is rotting internally from seven decades of injustice. It, too, is ready for collapse.
Help NORML take down Marijuana Prohibition…throw down some cash, send out our warriors/winners of the NORML Pro-Pot Ad Campaign for a national cable advertising campaign for as little as $.08 per 30-second ad! Please help us roll public opinion past the tipping point to legalization. The time for us to strike is now! Marijuana issues are before two-dozen state legislatures, at this very moment, California just introduced the nation’s first bill to tax and regulate pot like alcohol! Cable ad pricing has never been better than it is at this moment. We’ve now got NORML’s awesome winning video ads…you’ve got a few bucks…let’s put ‘em together and cover America with NORML ads.
Get into the Fight! Help NORML kick electronic ass!
Examples of NORML cable TV buys:
-Cable Cannabis Blitz-
33,000, 30-second TV ads, broadcast 6AM-Midnight on cable packages during programming from ESPN, CNN, CNBC, Weather Channel, MSNBC, MTV, VH-1, BET, Animal Planet, E!, Bravo and 10 other major cable programmers for the cost of…$2,750…or approximately 8 cents/per ad! This ad package will reach an estimated 1.6 million households in 187 markets.
That is right! NORML can now purchase TV spots for only 8 cents.
-Women and Weed-
Approximately 1,500, 30-second TV ads, targeting women’s programming (Oxygen, Soap, Lifetime, Style, WE, etc…) for $1,200. This ad package will reach an estimated 27.5 million households in 90 major markets. What is the cost per ad in this package?
80 cents per TV ad!
-Men and Marijuana-
Approximately 2,600, 30-second TV ads, 27.5 million households targeting men’s programming (Comedy Central, ESPN, Speed, Versus, Sci-Fi, Golf Channel, etc…) for $4,900, which boils down to $1.88/per ad.
Get out your friggin’ wallets and purses people. Get in the fight and please help us!!! NOW!November 2, 2012
Gary Lapon reports on the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy--and explains why the most vulnerable are bearing the brunt of the ongoing crisis.
HURRICANE SANDY, the most devastating storm to hit New York City in decades, has left the city divided between areas facing ongoing devastation and those where life is returning to normal.
But the hurricane has also revealed divisions in the city that existed long before Sandy touched ground: between rich and poor, and between the workers who make the city run and the wealthy who reap the benefits.
Some sections of the city, such as Manhattan north of 39th Street, and inland parts of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, are practically back to normal. Residents have power, water and Internet, restaurants and stores are open, and for the most part, the bustle of the city has returned.
In the other New York, however, a humanitarian crisis is looming. As this article was being written on Wednesday, hundreds of thousands of people were still without power--and will be for several days more--after a transformer explosion that affected Manhattan below 39th Street.
Dozens of homes were destroyed in a massive six-alarm fire that hit Breezy Point in Queens on Monday night, leaving hundreds of residents homeless. NYU Langone Medical Center evacuated when its backup generators failed, and Bellevue Hospital, which suffered damage during the storm and was running on generators due to a loss of outside power, evacuated some 500 patients on Wednesday.
The line for the Second Avenue bus stretches half a block as transit service is restarted (Laura Durkay | SW)
Laura Durkay, a resident of the East Village and a SocialistWorker.org contributor, walked over 30 blocks on Wednesday to charge her cell phone in a deli in Midtown. "People are helping each other and sharing information," she said. "A man parked his truck on 12th Street with his radio on, and people gathered around to listen to the news. Electricity is the biggest issue. Starbucks and other places are jammed with lines of people waiting to charge their phones." In addition, cell phone service for many is spotty or down in areas without power.
SW contributor Sherry Wolf, who lives in Park Slope in Brooklyn, described the scene at a makeshift shelter in her neighborhood:
The Park Slope Armory that usually serves as a colossal YMCA--built by the 19th century robber barons as a fortress against the poor--is currently packed with more than 600 climate refugees, mostly seniors and others in desperate need. They appear like any of us would who haven't worn dry socks in days--happy for the donated hot meals and a dry place to sleep, but uncomfortable, frustrated and frightened about what happens next. Even teens off school this week are helping out, though, so many of us have displaced friends staying with us. In fact, I've got two camped out at my small place.
Although the Red Cross said that food relief was on the way, on Wednesday, residents stuck in lower Manhattan were relying on the few restaurants, such as pizza parlors with gas ovens, that were serving food to long lines of those who could afford it. Other restaurants, such as Northern Spy Food Co., "served [free] lunch to everyone who lined up outside their restaurant at Avenue A and 12th Street," according to the Gothamist.
Another obstacle for the poor stuck in the blacked-out area of Manhattan: They can't use the assistance they receive for food purchases from the state's food stamp program because the subsidy is delivered electronically, via Electronic Benefit Cards. Wherever the power is out, the cards are useless.
Durkay described the contrast between her neighborhood and Midtown as "surreal. Midtown is basically functional, while my neighborhood is a disaster zone--no power or cell phone service, maybe one business of out of every 10 or 20 open, no water or heat for many people, a few restaurants and bodegas open, but no grocery stores. Two guys called it the 'dead zone.'"
RESIDENTS OF public housing were especially hard hit, with nearly 60 complexes without power as of Wednesday. Durkay reported seeing residents on the Lower East Side, many of whom were without water or power, filling up buckets of water from fire hydrants outside their buildings.
Several of the public housing complexes in New York City are in Zone A, which is at greatest risk for flooding. Inside the high-rises of 14 stories high or more, thousands of residents, including the elderly, disabled and those with limited mobility, are stuck without water or power, with humanitarian consequences.
Hector lives in the Jacob Riis housing project, which is located in Zone A on the Lower East Side. "They shut down the elevators and hot water just a few hours after I found out about the mandatory evacuation on Sunday," he said. The pre-emptive shutdown, presumably intended to force people to evacuate, actually made it more difficult for those trying to get out.
According to Hector, most residents of his complex decided to stay. Some thought that Sandy, like last year's Hurricane Irene, which mostly missed New York City, would end up being mostly hype. Others, especially immigrants, had nowhere to go because they were without family in the area--or no way to get there because of a lack access of transportation.
The subway and bus system shut down at 7 p.m. on Sunday, and a cab ride from Manhattan to the outer borough, with extra fees for bridges and tolls, can run $40 or more.
While most of New York City's homeless population rode out the storm in one of the city's 46,631 shelter beds, according to Russia Today: "Lacking enough beds to house all those in need, many shelters made exceptions, allowing their buildings to go over capacity for the night. But although the efforts helped many in need, there still wasn't room for everyone."
As the hurricane approached on Monday, several homeless remained on the streets to face the storm unprotected. But billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg had little sympathy. "There are some people that are just very difficult," he told the New York Observer. "They want to avoid interacting with others, and how you get to those has always been a challenge and as far as I know, we're doing a good job with that."
One homeless man, 43-year-old James, told freelance journalist Julia Reinhart: "I can't go back to the shelter system for another two months...Only once you've been out for a year, can you be classified as long-term homeless, and therefore get access to additional assistance." When Reinhart asked about the emergency shelters, James said, "No, they don't want us there. These shelters are for the good folks, the families that get evacuated. There is no room in there for me."
Also left twisting in the wind during the storm were the thousands of prisoners jailed at Rikers Island. Most are awaiting trial, but can't afford or were denied bail, or are awaiting transfer to serve minor sentences. Amy in Queens reported that the buses to Rikers Island, which had begun running again by Wednesday, were full of people anxious to visit their loved ones to make sure they were okay.
THE STORM also raises questions about the state of New York City's basic infrastructure--and the priorities of the city's elites.
ProPublica, reporting on the failure of backup generators at NYU Langone Medical Center, explained that part of the system was in the basement, which flooded. New hospitals build generators above the level floodwaters are likely to reach, but according to hospital trustee Gary Cohn, "The infrastructure at NYU is somewhat old."
Tragically, lives were put at risk, including infants in neonatal intensive care, who had to be transported while nurses helped them breathe manually. Years of medical research were also lost when the generator failed.
Cohn, the NYU trustee, is president of banking giant Goldman Sachs, which is helping fund the construction of a nonunion Harlem Children's Zone charter school on public housing green space, in spite of community opposition. There is plenty of money for union-busting and school privatization, but updating hospital infrastructure is apparently lower down on the list.
Nor is there a centralized plan for dealing with hospital evacuations. According to a nurse at a downtown hospital, because of the continuing power outage, every hospital below 34th Street in Manhattan has been ordered to evacuate its patients by the weekend. But there is no plan for where to put the patients--nurses and other staff are working around the clock to find hospital beds for all the people who are soon to be displaced.
Meanwhile, the demand for hospital beds may be increasing as the supply dries up--as a result of injuries from the storm, the potential for the spread of disease resulting from the breakdown of sanitation systems and the possible worsening of New York's rat problem.
Power is out below 39th Street because of an explosion at a Con Edison substation at 13th Street, next to the water on the eastern edge of Manhattan. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, a senior Con Ed executive said the explosion might have been prevented had they moved some of the equipment to a higher level to avoid flooding, but that is "going to take some time." It's unclear why Con Ed, which knew about the risk of flooding after Hurricane Irene hit last year, did not take this precaution sooner.
A Con Edison employee, speaking anonymously, said that while company executives and Mayor Bloomberg declare that most New Yorkers will have power restored in four days, the real timeframe could be weeks--because of the unprecedented scale of the damage and the challenges it poses.
Con Ed workers are putting in 12 to 16 hour shifts in dangerous conditions to restore power as soon as possible.
WHILE THE contrast between Hurricane Sandy's impact on different sections of New York City is stark, the truth is that New York has been sharply divided for a long, long time.
It is both a playground for some of the wealthiest people in the world--home of the $175 hamburger, $3 million parking spot and the $95 million condominium--and the home of some of the poorest people in the U.S..
The scale of inequality is staggering. New York City trails only Moscow for the most billionaires with 57, yet it is also home to the poorest congressional district in the nation. The city's inequality surpasses that of Brazil, as Doug Henwood pointed out in a blog post last year: "The bottom half of the city's income distribution has 9 percent of total income; the bottom 80 percent, 29 percent...[the top 1 percent] has 34 percent of total income, compared with 19 percent for the U.S. as a whole."
David Rohde, a Reuters columnist, pointed out that Hurricane Sandy exposed how unequal New York City has become:
Divides between the rich and the poor are nothing new in New York, but the storm brought them vividly to the surface. There were residents like me who could invest all of their time and energy into protecting their families. And there were New Yorkers who could not. Those with a car could flee. Those with wealth could move into a hotel. Those with steady jobs could decline to come into work. But the city's cooks, doormen, maintenance men, taxi drivers and maids left their loved ones at home.
Rohde praised "the tens of thousands of policemen, firefighters, utility workers and paramedics who labored all night for $40,000 to $90,000 a year," as well as "local politicians who focused on performance, not partisanship, such as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie [and] New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg."
But it is politicians like Christie, Bloomberg and others--along with the corporate elites they serve--who are responsible for rising inequality in the first place.
In the years before Hurricane Sandy devastated his state, Christie took the axe to the benefits of the very workers who are taking the lead in helping residents during this crisis. Christie, with the help of several Democrats in the state legislature, attacked public workers with legislation to "remove health insurance from collective bargaining, more than triple employee health care contributions and raise workers' pension contributions." And Christie has led attacks on teachers' unions in his state, using his platform at the Republican National Convention to demonize teachers' unions further.
Bloomberg, with a net worth of more than $20 billion, is the tenth richest person in the U.S. Unsurprisingly, he opposed the extension of the so-called "millionaires' tax" that would have raised billions by taxing the very wealthy--money that could go towards repairing the city's outdated infrastructure.
During his term as mayor, Bloomberg's net worth has more than quintupled, while he slashed budgets impacting the neediest; cut funding to education, health care, child care, homeless shelters including for LGBT youth and libraries; and attacked the very public-sector workers whose response to Hurricane Sandy Bloomberg has hypocritically praised in front of television cameras.
According to an article from U.S. News and World Report, the city could have protected New York City from the flooding with sea barriers of the kind used in major European cities--at a cost of just over $6 billion. That's less than one-quarter of Bloomberg's current fortune--and less than one-third the amount that Bloomberg's net worth has increased since he became mayor.
THE EFFORTS of those workers have done an enormous amount to reduce suffering during this crisis. Limited bus service was active by Tuesday, and full bus service as well as limited subway and train service was restored by Wednesday. The MTA workers who made this possible--and who run the largest public transportation system in the country, the backbone of New York City--are more than two-thirds Black and Latino workers, who have been working without a contract since January due to the MTA's unwillingness to give them a fair deal.
Meanwhile, the MTA has announced further fare increases that will push the cost of public transportation even more onto working class New Yorkers.
Con Edison, despite making over $1 billion in profits each year, locked out employees just a few months ago in order to impose a two-tiered pension system and increased health care costs that cancel out pay increases. These same employees are working around the clock in dangerous conditions in order to restore power.
Then there are Verizon workers, who went on strike in August 2011 after the telecommunication giant, also incredibly profitable, demanded cuts in their pension, health care and retirement benefits. They are currently working 12-hour days repairing the damage done to phone and Internet lines in New York City.
Just
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in 1965, and has grown over time to the current 300-to-1 ratio that Hillary and Bernie complain about. But why wouldn’t we expect the ratio to increase over time? The size of the US workforce has doubled since the 1960s from about 75 million to 150 million workers, so the top 350-500 CEOs have become a smaller and smaller minority of all workers as total payrolls keep increasing. And adjusted for inflation, the S&P500 Index has increased three-fold since the 1960s, meaning that the CEOs of today’s S&P 500 companies are managing firms that are many times larger than S&P500 firms in the past and therefore deserve greater compensation relative to the average worker. For example, the value provided by an average hourly worker at Target or McDonald’s hasn’t changed much in the last 25 years. But the CEOs of Target and McDonald’s today are managing retail and fast food giants that are many times larger than Target and McDonald’s in the early 1990s.
4. To put the size of the largest of today’s S&P500 companies into perspective, I posted last week on CD about how the market value of Apple’s stock at $521 billion is greater than the entire stock market of Brazil ($490 billion). Further, the combined market cap of Apple, Google, Microsoft, ExxonMobil and GE exceeds $2 trillion, and those five companies as a separate country would be the world’s 6th largest stock market. It’s not surprising that the CEOs of S&P 500 companies whose value is comparable to the market caps of the entire stock markets of other countries are highly compensated.
Bottom Line: It might be a little disingenuous and hypocritical for Hillary Clinton to complain about excessive CEO pay when her minimum speaking fee, reportedly $225,000 for a one-hour talk, is more than the $216,000 average annual CEO salary in 2014. We could say how unfair it is that the average CEO in America has to work a full year, 50 weeks full-time, to earn the same income that Mrs. Clinton earns in about 50 minutes giving a speech! How unfair! How immoral! Something must be done!
And if Bernie Sanders compares the pay for an average CEO to the average worker — i.e. compares “apples to apples” — and understands that the Average CEO-to-Average-Worker Pay ratio was only 4.4-to-1 in 2014, I’m not sure how he can call that an “immoral” outcome that must be “dealt with.” If Sanders wants to deal with some excessive pay that’s “immoral” maybe he should start with Mrs. Clinton’s excessive speaking fees before dealing with CEO pay. Or he might deal with the “immorality” that there are currently more than 60 NBA players who will earn $12 million or more this season, which is more than the average CEO of an S&P500 company earns!
The claim of a 300-to-1 ratio for CEO-to-worker pay made by Hillary, Bernie and the AFL-CIO gets my “Biggest Blindly Accepted Statistical Legerdemain Award.” Well no it’s actually a tie with the gender wage gap myth mentioned in the Hillary ad above and the perpetual and incessantly repeated “77 cents on the dollar” statistical falsehood.Signup to receive a daily roundup of the top LGBT+ news stories from around the world
An MP coined the “Donald Trump of Bulgaria” has called for politicians in the country who are gay to be outed to the public.
Veselin Mareshki, who has likened himself to the American president, was appointed in parliament in March as part of a populist party.
Since being elected to his seat, the politician and businessman has pushed for other members of parliament to reveal their sexual orientation.
“I do not understand why homosexuals in power hide. Maybe they consider this something shameful,” the MP said, noting that “as free people they march on the squares” and “want to be seen”.
Mareshki also claimed that closeted gay MP’s could cause a “conflict of interest” when it comes to legislation.
He also said that those who are not open about their sexual orientation could be “dependent on people who have secret recordings of their activities”.
The populist said that this blackmail could lead to a war between Bulgaria and Russia, and the only way to prevent this would be through forcing parliamentarians out of the closet.
Mareshki’s comments have been condemned by LGBT activist Radoslav Stoyanov, who is organising this year’s Pride event in Sofia.
“His statement carries the message that gay people have to be deprived of political representation and should not be in power,” he explained.
However, Stoyanov and other activists believe that the outrage will not have any impact on the outcome of Mareshki’s comments.
“We will not see any [political] reaction because maybe they [political parties] consider this as something normal,” Stoyanov said.
Bulgaria is still rife with homophobia.
Just five years ago, an Orthodox priest called for participants in the annual Pride march in Sofia to be stoned.
Father Evgeni Yanakiev of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, to which most Bulgarians belong said: “Our whole society must in every possible way oppose the gay parade that is being planned. For this reason today I appeal to all those who consider themselves Christians and Bulgarians. Throwing stones at gays is an appropriate way.”
The right-wing nationalist party in the country also attempted to introduce a draft bill to ban gay pride marches.
Ataka introduced the bill which stated that “No meetings or demonstrations can be held with the purpose of public display of homosexual orientation or affiliation.”
It came after a previous, similar amendment was rejected by the Bulgarian Parliament last week because it violated EU Human rights regulations.Charlotte Hornets guard Lance Stephenson (1) complains after being called for a foul during the second half of the game against the Golden State Warriors at Time Warner Cable Arena. (Photo: Sam Sharpe-USA TODAY Sports)
There was a lot of buzz when Lance Stephenson left the Indiana Pacers this offseason for a 3-year, $27 million free agent deal with the Charlotte Hornets.
A polarizing figure among the Pacers' fan base, many were sad to see what looked like a burgeoning star walk for free.
Others were happy to see Lance become someone else's headache.
This season, Pacers, mired with injuries and a depleted lineup, have scrapped their way to a 7-10 record (8th in the East), while the revamped Hornets are a dismal 4-14.
So much for Charlotte being an Eastern contender. So far, the Hornets only know Bad Lance.
The former Pacers guard is averaging 9.6 points, 7.7 rebounds and 5.4 assists per game. So statistically speaking, he's not having a terrible season, but Grantland's Zach Lowe writes the Stephenson Experiment doesn't seem to be working in Charlotte.
And while players signed this offseason can't be traded for another two weeks, Lowe says he wouldn't be surprised if Charlotte starts to shop their big money free agent prize.
The Hornets are searching for upgrades on the wing and at power forward, per those sources, and they are willing to talk turkey on basically anyone other than Kemba Walker and Al Jefferson. Free agents signed this past offseason can't be traded until December 15, and few would be surprised if the Hornets make and take calls on Lance Stephenson ahead of that trigger date.
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The Hornets viewed Stephenson as a dose of perimeter dynamism for a plodding offense built around Walker's pick-and-roll work and Professor Al's post-up trickery. The 2013-14 version of that offense didn't really have a third leg — a creative off-the-dribble threat waiting on the weak side when smart defenses snuffed out the good stuff. Stephenson didn't promise to solve Charlotte's fatal spacing issues, but with Indiana he was an average 3-point shooter and a bullying rim attacker on the pick-and-roll.
It hasn't worked...
... Stephenson is an easy scapegoat, and that's partly his own doing. His body language has been horrible, and that degrades morale. He pouts when he doesn't get the ball on the weak side, flapping his wings and looking skyward as if his teammates have wronged him. He steals rebounds, and he hot dogs with the ball at times.
Now will the Hornets really trade Stephenson this quickly? Probably not. Plus, is there a market out there for him?
Lance has said he wanted to be in Indiana, would the Pacers perhaps be open to a reunion?Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump endorsed House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for reelection while campaigning with vice presidential nominee Mike Pence in Green Bay, Wis., on Aug. 5. (The Washington Post)
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump endorsed House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for reelection while campaigning with vice presidential nominee Mike Pence in Green Bay, Wis., on Aug. 5. (The Washington Post)
Capping a week of backbiting between Donald Trump and Republican leaders, the GOP presidential nominee on Friday sought to end a high-stakes impasse by delivering a formal endorsement of U.S. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s reelection bid after initially refusing to do so.
“We will have disagreements, but we will disagree as friends and never stop working together toward victory. And very importantly, toward real change,” Trump said during a campaign event in Green Bay, Wis., on Friday evening. “So in our shared mission to make America great again, I support and endorse our speaker of the House, Paul Ryan.”
When asked for the speaker’s reaction, a spokesman said: “He appreciates the gesture and is going to continue to focus on earning the endorsement of the voters in Southern Wisconsin.”
Trump ignited a firestorm in his party this week when he pointedly withheld his endorsement from Ryan, who faces a primary challenge Tuesday. That infuriated Republican leaders close to Ryan — and in particular the Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, himself from Wisconsin — who have sought to project party unity as the general election season hits its stride.
1 of 60 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × What Donald Trump is doing on the campaign trail View Photos The GOP presidential nominee is pressing his case ahead of Election Day. Caption The GOP presidential nominee is pressing his case ahead of Election Day. Nov. 7, 2016 Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at SNHU Arena in Manchester, N.H. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.
Trump sought to move beyond that feud Friday, flashing two thumbs up as he formally endorsed Ryan, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and Sen. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) for reelection.
Trump received a cold shoulder from several high-profile Republicans on Friday in Wisconsin, where he hosted an evening rally in Green Bay. Neither Gov. Scott Walker nor Ryan was expected to attend the rally, Trump’s first in the state since its April primary.
Walker, along with Priebus, attended a campaign event last week in Waukesha, Wis., with Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.
Wisconsin House Speaker Robin Vos, in an op-ed published on a conservative website Friday, said he was “heartbroken” over Trump’s decision to voice support for Ryan’s primary opponent, Paul Nehlen, in a tweet. Trump had praised Nehlen on Monday. Vos added that Trump “might be able to repair the damage, but it can’t be ignored.”
“Welcome to Wisconsin, Mr. Trump, but let’s get something straight — we are Ryan Republicans here in Wisconsin, not Trump Republicans,” he wrote.
The controversy made little strategic sense; instead, Trump had appeared to be engaging in score-settling by echoing comments Ryan made this year before he endorsed Trump. “I’m just not quite there yet,” Trump told The Washington Post on Tuesday in reference to endorsing Ryan. The heightened tensions could be particularly damaging for Trump’s unconventional campaign operation, which still depends heavily on the RNC for ground operations and fundraising.
Meanwhile, rival Hillary Clinton appeared increasingly bullish Friday about Democrats’ retaking the Senate and picking up seats in the House of Representatives. Trump’s weaknesses as a candidate, Clinton said, would strengthen her chances not just of winning the White House but also of putting forward a bold policy agenda in January — notably, comprehensive immigration reform.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump campaigned in Des Moines on Aug. 5. (The Washington Post)
“I’m hoping that the outcome of the election, which I am working hard to ensure [is] a victory, will send a clear message to our Republican friends that it’s time for them to quit standing in the way of immigration reform,” she told reporters at a convention of black and Hispanic journalists in Washington.
“There’s nothing like winning to change minds,” Clinton said, adding that the “political landscape” favors passage of the long-shelved legislation.
Trump acknowledged during his campaign event Friday that he would need the help of various party factions.
“I need a Republican Senate and House to accomplish all of the changes that we have to make. We have to make them,” Trump said. “I understand and embrace the wisdom of Ronald Reagan’s big tent within the party. Big, big tent, remember? Ronald Reagan. Great man. Great guy.”
Ryan’s team appeared caught unawares Friday afternoon when news began to circulate about Trump’s potential endorsement. During a radio interview with WISN’s Jay Weber on Friday morning, Ryan said he was unsure where things stood with Trump. He repeated several times throughout the morning that he was not seeking Trump’s endorsement and that his constituents — “our employers in Wisconsin” — are his top priority.
“Heck if I know,” Ryan said when asked about the status of his feud with Trump. “I’m not going to try to psychoanalyze this stuff.”
Asked later by radio host Charlie Sykes whether there was something sufficiently disturbing that Trump could do to make Ryan rescind his endorsement of the GOP nominee, Ryan responded: “With any endorsement of anybody, there’s never a blank check. And you know that, and that’s how I’ve always felt.”
He added, “I see no purpose in doing this tit-for-tat, petty back-and-forth with Donald Trump, because it serves no purpose, in my mind.”
The Clinton campaign has regularly sought to capitalize on the persistent tensions between Trump and his party’s leadership by pointing to intraparty attacks against the GOP presidential nominee. On Friday, the Clinton campaign released an ad featuring several high-profile Republicans denouncing the GOP nominee.
Trump, meanwhile, tore into Clinton on Friday during a campaign event in Des Moines.
“She’s really pretty close to unhinged, and you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it a couple times... and she’s like an unbalanced person,” Trump said, as the crowd raucously shouted, “Lock her up!”
Trump gave a thumbs-up as the crowd chanted. He added later that electing Clinton would lead to “the destruction of our country from within.”
Clinton’s running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.), also was in Wisconsin on Friday. He focused his 25-minute speech at a Milwaukee rally on attacking Trump.
He also took a veiled shot at Walker, the governor, as he congratulated Wisconsin over a challenge to its new voter ID law.
“You’ve got governors out there trying to screw around and keep people from voting,” Kaine said to loud cheers.
“Wisconsin, you know how to win,” Kaine said. “You’ve done it again and again and again.”
Robert Costa in Janesville, Wis., Kay Nolan in Milwaukee and Abby Phillip in Washington contributed to this report.Video Resources Be Emailed on New Serum Releases – When I release these Serum Presets, you can be notified via email! (You can unsubscribe anytime, and I really do care about your privacy and time!)
Here’s to moving into my new home! (A little way for me to celebrate with you 🙂 )
I’ve released 27 FREE Serum Presets for you to download!
I have never used Serum before creating these presets, but always kept hearing it being talked about and seeing it in tons of YouTube videos.
I eventually took the jump and bought Serum.
I usually like to give you guys a bunch of variety to use when I release presets, so this time around I designed some catchy bass sounds, plucks, leads, and pads!
There’s still lots for me to learn in regards to sound design as a whole, but as I keep practicing and releasing my free presets packs, hopefully that continues to teach me with the feed back from you!
Let me know what you think!
Here’s the download, enjoy!:Featured
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When Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters on Tuesday that Mitt Romney’s foreign investment accounts don’t trouble him because “it’s really American to avoid paying taxes,” he must not have realized that he was calling his party’s nominee-to-be a liar.
“As long as it was legal, I’m OK with it,” said the South Carolina Republican. “I don’t blame anybody for using the tax code to their advantage. … It’s a game we play. Every American tries to find the way to get the most deductions they can. I see nothing wrong with playing the game because we set it up to be a game.”
Graham assumes — no doubt correctly — that Romney sent his money offshore to avoid taxes. But the Republican candidate and his flacks have repeatedly insisted that the Romneys’ admittedly minimal tax bill was not reduced at all by their remarkable maze of holdings in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. It is “the very same” as if he had kept those millions of dollars in the United States, or so they claim.
But Graham clearly doesn’t buy that alibi. In fact, nobody does. And eventually Romney may be forced to release complete information about his investments that may yet indicate the extent to which he and his family have escaped taxation.
Meanwhile, what Graham unwittingly evoked with his clumsy endorsement of tax avoidance is the specter of Greece — a nation whose fiscal drama incites endless Republican prattle about the need for austerity. Warnings that as a nation we are on “the road to Greece” have become a favorite Republican cliche, regurgitated by every politician who wants to be considered for vice president as well as by the presidential candidate himself.
“You call that forward?” Romney said mockingly of an Obama campaign slogan last month. “That’s forward over a cliff, that’s forward on the way to Greece.”
What Graham, Romney and all the other Republican politicians and pundits consistently fail to mention — or perhaps don’t know — is that the central Greek problem isn’t overspending per se. The central problem is the Greek government’s failure to collect what taxpayers (especially wealthy taxpayers) actually owe under the law.
That’s because over the years so many Greeks have adopted an attitude toward taxes resembling that of Romney and Graham. Indeed, Greece has developed a culture of tax evasion, with wealthy citizens sending their money out of the country and poorer citizens bribing officials or conducting their business off the books. The amount of tax owed but not paid in Greece is estimated at roughly a third of total receipts — or enough to cover the nation’s deficits and begin to restore its credit.
Sociologists who have studied the Greek tax situation say that rampant evasion by the rich has trickled down to infect the rest of society, ruining the “tax morale” of wage-earners and small business owners. As James Surowiecki explained in The New Yorker, people here and elsewhere don’t pay taxes simply because they fear prosecution; they pay because they are “social taxpayers” who “feel a responsibility to contribute to the common good.” But that sense of shared obligation gradually dissipates when taxpayers suspect that many others, especially the rich, are not participating fairly and fully.
Despite growing debt and deficits, we are not on the road to Greece. With investors around the world rushing to purchase U.S. Treasury bonds and driving rates to historic lows, this country is far from the plight of the homeland of democracy. For now, it is safe to ignore right-wing rhetoric that shrieks the fiscal sky is falling.
But if such troubles lie ahead, the real cause will not be spending on income security, health care, infrastructure, education or any of the other programs that have made America a great nation. If we are driven toward national bankruptcy someday, the likeliest cause will be our failure to raise and enforce taxes on those who can afford to pay — because we, too, have encouraged a culture of evasion rather than responsibility.
Joe Conason is the editor in chief of NationalMemo.com.H. R. 1057
To amend the Tariff Act of 1930 to ensure that merchandise arriving through the mail shall be subject to review by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and to require the provision of advance electronic information on shipments of mail to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Mr. Tiberi (for himself, Mr. Neal, Mr. McCaul, Mr. Hunter, Miss Rice of New York, Mr. Kelly of Pennsylvania, and Mr. Buchanan) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means, and in addition to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
A BILL
To amend the Tariff Act of 1930 to ensure that merchandise arriving through the mail shall be subject to review by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and to require the provision of advance electronic information on shipments of mail to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. Short title.
This Act may be cited as the “Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention Act of 2017” or the “STOP Act of 2017”.
SEC. 2. Formal entry requirements—postal service as consignee.
Subparagraph (B) of section 484(a)(2) of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1484(a)(2)(B)) is amended to read as follows:
“(B) (i) When an entry of merchandise is made under this section, the required documentation or information shall be filed or electronically transmitted—
“(I) by the owner or purchaser of the merchandise; or
“(II) when appropriately designated by the owner, purchaser, or consignee of the merchandise, by a person holding a valid license under section 641.
“(ii) The Postmaster General shall be deemed the consignee for merchandise, as defined by section 498(c), imported through the mail, and the Postmaster General shall, at the Postmaster General's sole expense, designate a person holding a valid license under section 641 to file the required documentation or information or ensure that the owner or purchaser of the merchandise or a person holding a valid license under section 641 that is designated by the owner or purchaser files the required documentation or information.
“(iii) When a consignee declares on entry that he or she is the owner or purchaser of merchandise, U.S. Customs and Border Protection may, without liability, accept the declaration.
“(iv) For the purposes of this Act, the importer of record must be one of the parties who is eligible to file the documentation or information required by this section.”.
SEC. 3. Informal entries.
Section 498 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1498) is amended by adding at the end the following:
“(c) Application to postal shipments.—
“(1) DEFINITIONS.—In this subsection:
“(A) DOCUMENT.—The term ‘document’ means a piece of written, drawn, printed, or digital information, excluding objects of merchandise, that—
“(i) is conveyed in an envelope that is less than or equal to 165 millimeters in width, 245 millimeters in length, and 5 millimeters in depth; and
“(ii) weighs 100 grams or less when conveyed.
“(B) MERCHANDISE.—The term ‘merchandise’ has the same meaning as that term is defined in section 401 but does not include a document.
“(2) REQUIREMENT.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, for merchandise meeting the requirements of subsection (a), the Postmaster General shall comply with the entry requirements of section 484.
“(3) REGULATIONS.—Any regulation issued pursuant to this subsection shall apply identical entry procedures for merchandise imported through the mail as are applied for merchandise imported via a private carrier.”.
SEC. 4. De minimis shipments.
Section 321 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1321) is amended by adding at the end the following:
“(c) (1) For imported articles that qualify for the administrative exemption under subsection (a)(2) and that arrive at international mail facilities in the United States, the Postmaster General shall be deemed the consignee for such articles that are considered merchandise, as the term is defined in section 498(c).
“(2) In addition to the parties that are authorized to comply with the entry requirements of sections 498 and 484, the Postmaster General, as a consignee, may, using reasonable care, enter such merchandise that qualifies for the administrative exemption under subsection (a)(2).”.
SEC. 5. Customs fees.
(a) In general.—Paragraph (6) of section 13031(a) of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (19 U.S.C. 58c(a)(6)) is amended to read as follows:
“(6) (A) For the arrival of shipments of merchandise (as the term is defined in section 498(c) of the Trade Act of 1930) or any other item that is valued at $2,000 or less (or such higher amount as the Secretary of the Treasury may set by regulation pursuant to section 498 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1498) and subject to adjustment under subsection (l)) arriving at an international mail facility
|
Sunday, NASCAR driver Travis Kvapil directed several Belts toward a Fox television camera at the end of an interview.
Rodgers has been Belting -- pantomiming the act of putting on a wrestling-style championship belt -- for years. Winning a Super Bowl tends to draw a little extra attention, of course -- especially after Packers linebacker Clay Matthews draped Rodgers with an actual belt during the Super Bowl postgame ceremony.
Tuesday, Rodgers tweeted: "I know I wasn't the first to do "the belt", but u gotta admit my version has really taken off! And we're the champs, beltified."
Via Twitter (@AaronRodgers12) in recent days, Rodgers has portrayed himself as a Belt judge to determine, as he tweeted, "the appropriateness of using the belt celebration after work and daily accomplishments." I'll share a few of them will you below, along with comments that reveal Rodgers to have a solid comedic side.
Only in Belterica.One of the questions we get asked the most is “what are the latest trends of the Amsterdam food scene?”. And while we would love to come up with a surprising and insightful answer every time, that’s not how it works. It’s usually some rather unexpected event that triggers us to recognize a new trend. And so it happened last weekend on a trip to our favorite wine and liquor store Ton Overmars.
There are a lot of new local microbreweries in Amsterdam!
The Veterans – Brouwerij ‘t IJ and Brouwerij de Prael
It’s not that there were no microbreweries in Amsterdam before.
Actually, Brouwerij ‘t IJ has been around since 1985, and we have enjoyed many of their tasty brews throughout the years, especially on their lovely terrace by the windmill in Amsterdam Oost.
And it wasn’t just us, as Brouwerij ‘t IJ has been very successful. They extended their tasting room a few years ago and opened a second brewery in early 2013. So today you can find their distinct ostrich logo (a pun on IJ and ei, which means egg) in many bars and shops, and enjoy their regular selection of brews as well as seasonal specials.
Equally successful, although not around for quite as long, has been Brouwerij de Prael, another established household name in beers in Amsterdam, with its selection of beers named after Dutch chanson singers and tasting room smack in the middle of the red light district.
Given their success, and the microbrewery craze that swept the US, it’s probably surprising that nobody else was concocting fresh IPAs or mean Belgian Tripels around Amsterdam. But that has changed now.
The Rookies – Brouwerij Pampus, Two Chefs Brewing, and Butcher’s Tears
Over the last two years Brouwerij Pampus, Two Chefs Brewing, and Butcher’s Tears have started brewing, and we like what we taste!
The self-proclaimed old salts at Brouwerij Pampus spent much of 2012 and 2013 experimenting with different brews, gathering extensive feedback through their Facebook page and participating in countless beer festivals with a wide variety of beers. All their beers seem to follow a sailor’s naming scheme, such as the Drenkeling (drowning person), a Juniper Ale, or Seeheld (hero of the sea), an IPA that we quite liked for its bitter yet somewhat unexpected but lovely creamy flavor.
Two Chefs Brewing also started in 2012. Coming from a background as professional chefs and looking for interesting flavors they are on a mission to put more barley, more hops and just generally more flavor back into beer. So far they have made available an IPA called Green Bullet, which indeed is heavy on the hops.
The last newcomer is Butcher’s Tears, located in small-scale industrial zone by the tram depot in Amsterdam Zuid. The tasting room and website look distinctly grungy, but there seems to be a rather professional organisation behind it if the range of beers and the list of distribution points are any indication. We liked hanging out in their tasting room where both the Night Cap, a smooth pale ale, and the refreshing Green Cap went down well.
Where to Taste
Quite a nice list if we may say so! But there appear to be even more such as Brouwerij De 7 Deugden, which provides work opportunities to disabled people, Jopen, the pride of Haarlem, or Oedipus Brewing who are currently looking for investors through a crowfunding platform.
We are probably still missing a few, so best to do some exploring yourself. Here’s where:
Brouwerij ‘t IJ, Brouwerij de Prael and Butcher’s Tears have fun tasting rooms:
brouwerijhetij.nl/pub
Funenkade 7
1018 AL Amsterdam
Tel.: +31 (0)20 528 6237
Open daily 2pm to 8pm
Public transport: Tram 10 to Hoogte Kadijk stop or tram 14 to Pontanusstraat
Cuisine: Limited selection of cold snacks
Neighborhood: East
Vibe: Love all
deprael.nl/proeflokaal-2
Oudezijds Armsteeg 26
1012 GP Amsterdam
Tel.: +31 (0)20 408 4469
Open Tuesday to Sunday 12pm to 12am, weekend until 1am
Public transport: Any tram, metro or train to Central Station
Cuisine: Snacks and small dishes
Neighborhood: Red light district
Vibe: Living room
butchers-tears.com/tasting-room
Karperweg 45
1075 LB Amsterdam
Tel.: +31 (0)6 5390 9777
Open Wednesday to Sunday 4pm to 9pm
Public transport: Bus 15 or tram 16 to Haarlemmermeerstation
Cuisine: Snacks
Neighborhood: South
Vibe: Artsy
Two of our favorite beer bars that serve some of the above, next to an amazing selection of specialty beers on tap and bottled, are Café Gollem and Arendsnest:
arendsnest.nl
Herengracht 90
1015 BS Amsterdam
Tel.: +31 (0)20 421 2057
Open Daily 2pm to 12am, weekend until 2am
Public transport: Tram 1, 2, 5, 13 or 17 to Nieuwezijds Kolk
Cuisine: Limited selection of cold snacks
Neighborhood: Canals
Vibe: Bar
cafegollem.nl/?page_id=14
Raamsteeg 4
1012 VZ Amsterdam
Open weekdays 4pm to 1am, weekends 12pm to 2am
Public transport: Tram 1, 2, or 5 to Spui
Cuisine: Cheese snacks
Neighborhood: Canals
Vibe: Dive bar
Or bring a few bottles home at one of these two great specialty stores, De Bierkoning and Ton Overmaars:
bierkoning.nl
Paleisstraat 125
1012 ZL Amsterdam
Open Monday to Saturday 11am to 7pm and Sunday 1pm to 6pm
Public transport: Tram 1, 2, 5, 13 or 17 to Dam
Neighborhood: Dam
tonovermars.nl
Hoofddorpplein 11
1059 CV Amsterdam
Open Tuesday and Wednesday 9am to 6pm, Thursday and Friday 9am to 7pm, Saturday 9am to 5pm
Public transport: 2 to Hoofddorpplein
Neighborhood: SouthOn October 8, the Ohio Senate Government Oversight and Reform Committee passed SB 193 by a vote of 7-4. They voted after a hearing that last two hours and fifteen minutes.
Shortly afterwards, the bill passed the Senate by a vote of 23-11. The vote in the Senate was almost a pure party line vote, with all Republicans voting in favor and all Democrats voting against, except that Republican Senator Kevin Bacon voted against the bill. The bill removes the Constitution, Green, Libertarian, and Socialist Parties from the 2014 ballot. Those four parties were on the ballot in all elections 2008-2013. The bill removes them because none of them polled as much as 3% for either President or Governor in either of the last two elections. In 2010, the Libertarian Party had polled 2.39% for Governor and the Green Party had polled 1.52% for Governor. The other two minor parties had not run for Governor in 2010, although they did run for U.S. Senate in 2010.
The bill requires parties to obtain 55,809 valid signatures by the beginning of July 2014 if they wish to be on the ballot in 2014. It also requires each of their nominees to obtain their own petitions, but none of these nominee petitions would be greater than 50 signatures. The statewide petition would also have a distribution requirement, and would need at least 500 valid signatures in each of half the U.S. House districts.
The bill now goes to the House. Because the bill has an urgency clause, it cannot pass unless it obtains 60% of the members of the House. The House has 60 Republicans and 39 Democrats, so if all Democrats oppose the bill, and even one Republican opposes the bill, the bill will not pass, unless the urgency clause is removed from the bill. The House vote could come as soon as Thursday, October 10.
The Democrats on the committee moved to amend the bill so that only 2,000 signatures, instead of 55,809, would be required on the party petition. The amendment lost, 4-7, with Senator Bacon the only Republican in support of the amendment. UPDATE: here is the Columbus Dispatch article about the bill.Find out more Who Are The Junior Roller Derby League? Mama Bash School of Hard Knocks is a junior roller derby league for participants under 18 years old who identify as female, intersex, and/or gender expansive.
Current Squad Katie Black #84 (captain)
Madge #1236 (captain)
AnDracula #16
Beth Lord #9
Brat Worst #1205
Delta Strike #4
Dyduch #2
Gaz #8008
Humpme #00
Inky Minx #81
Jack Attack # 0
Juke Boxx #18
Just Jess #J17
Rammit #6
Shaolynn Scarlet #888
Trisha Smackanawa #42
Bench Team Niks Dotty (coach)
Find out more The London Brawling squad is made up of 20 All-star skaters from our league. All league members are eligible for the travel team, and skaters are chosen based on skill level, league participation, and attendance. Each squad is chosen for a three-month period. London Brawling compete in interleague bouts in Europe and internationally, and represent the best of our current skaters.
Current Squad Elke Dickson #114 (captain)
Humpme #00 (captain)
Bet #999
Brat Worst #1205
Brute #750
Camer Rattattack #237
Canelator #57
Dee I. Why #1305
Dusti #00
Dyduch #2
Inky Minx #81
Jazmyn Sadri #299
Rammit #6
Red #20
Rimmer #7
Sable #20
Sarah Thornley #666
Sirius Whack #934
Swift #89
The Valkyrie #31
Van Hustling #101
Wu Tang Jam #1993
Bench Team Andy (coach)
Find out more The Brawl Saints are the London Rollergirls’ All-stars reserve team (the “B” team). The team consists of up to 6 “crossover” London Brawling members, plus 14 more BS squad skaters. Brawl Saints compete on a national and international level and are one of the highest ranking B-teams in Europe, challenging A-teams from all over the continent.
Current Squad Beastie Noise #212 (captain)
Dr Jean Knockout #p53 (captain)
Amazing Disgrace #088
Beat-Her Parker #62
Bet #999
Camer Rattattack #237
Claire Force One #747
Detroit #75
Dire Ria #2222
Jemolition #14
Lethal Drizzle #33
Max Voltage #240
Punching Ovaries #68
Rudi Roue #52
Savage #9041
She’Ruthless #90
Sirius Whack #934
Strayhem #207
Swann #004
Swift #89
The Dodgefather #23
Van Hustling #101
Wu Tang Jam #1993
Bench Team StarLegend (coach)
Laia (line-ups)
Find out more Batter C Power are our team of rising stars. Named after London's iconic landmark, this team is made up of 6 crossover skaters from Brawl Saints and all other skaters in the league not on another travel team. They can be found bouting against the UK and Europe's up and coming leagues.
Referees.bash_rc
Bully Haze
Cherry Fury
Dr. Warlock
Duncan Disorderly
Grave Dogg
Short Circuit
Spectral Aberwraytion
Non-Skating Officials Carrie the 1
Ragna Rock
Find out more Referees call the penalties and count the points. This requires an in depth knowledge of the rules and a head for details.The neo-Nazi wing of the Alt Right is planning for a small-town Kristallnacht in 2017.
How did we get here? It all derives from a privileged racist who wanted to ski in the most pristine part of the U.S. When enigmatic Alt Right founder Richard Spencer took over the National Policy Institute in 2010, he took the non-profit and reestablished it in the town of Whitefish, Montana. Whitefish, set in the gorgeous Flathead Valley, is a resort town in the shade of Glacier National Park and a number of high-priced, private ski resorts. His parents, who lived and worked in Dallas, Texas, made Whitefish their vacation home given their love for the slaloms. Richard’s father, a well-paid conservative Othmamologist and his mother, a Ron Paul supporter who did GOP fundraisers, did not want to make their presence in Whitefish a political one.
And neither did Richard. Instead, he wanted to live in their $3 million dollar home and use their properties, one that his mother, Sherry Spencer, had purchased to make money renting to retail businesses and vacationers booking through Air BnB. Richard moved his new wife, the Russian photographer and Third Positionist Nina Kouprianova, and started his life in Whitefish. He rented an apartment in Arlington, Virginia for when he needed to do his conferences and network in Washington D.C., and the rest of the time he used a home office to write, edit his books, create podcasts, and so on. Only more recently did he rent out the office space in a strip mall in Whitefish, which likely lends to the complications that started to happen as his wife left him and things became strained with his parents.
Whitefish has not welcomed Richard, to say the least. After Richard harassed a GOP consultant on a chairlift at the expensive ski resort they are both members at, people in town finally had to reckon with the fact that one of the most well funded and loudest white nationalists in the country was sharing their supermarket. Later that year Spencer was banned from entering Hungary by Viktor Orban himself after he had organized a “pan-European” fascist conference with the support of the nationalist party Jobbik and featuring Russian New Rightist and Euraisianist Aleksandr Dugin. Spencer was detained and deported and the conference ended up being a failure, and when he was banned from entering the EU it was a low point for his movement (he was later banned from entering the UK as well).
When Spencer returned, the people of Whitefish had begun to organize with the local anti-racist/anti-fascist organization Love Lives Here, a member organization of the incredible Montana Human Rights Network (MHRN). The MHRN has been a leader of progressive organizing in rural parts of the country, especially by confronting the rise of the Patriot militias and those from the Northwest Imperative of the white nationalist movement who see the “Whitetopia” of Montana as a future “white homeland.” Love Lives Here organized to pass a resolution to stop white nationalist organizations from having conferences and essential operations in Whitefish, which ended up being curtailed in favor of a broader city council declaration of a commitment to diversity.
As Spencer began to gain a huge amount of celebrity in the wave of Trump and the Alt Right that defined 2016, Whitefish became increasingly uncomfortable with their most famous resident. They especially did not like that Sherry Spencer, who was becoming a wealthy property owner and businesswoman in the town, aided and abetted her son by giving him use of her properties (they shared an address at one point). While she said that she didn’t agree with his politics, she became the most essential piece in the Alt Right, allowing Spencer to grow the movement without being forced to think about finances.
Love Lives Here began to push the issue with Sherry Spencer, stating that people in town did not appreciate her allowance of her son’s genocidal racist ideas. After the Atlantic video came forward showing Richard Spencer yelling “Hail Trump, Hail Our People, Hail Victory” and many NPI conference goers doing Roman Salutes, the town had enough. Sherry Spencer’s ownership of a new building at 22 Lupfer Avenue is what especially caused the controversy, and Tanya Gersh specifically helped to raise the profile of Sherry as profiting off of the town while giving support to her son’s organization. According to the Virginia’s state corporation commission, her property is still listed as the primary headquarters for the National Policy Institute.
People stopped wanting to do business with her and potential customers were let know about her connections, with Air BnB renters canceling their appointments. Sherry, facing the financial blowback, began considering selling the property, but then railed against Gersh and Love Lives Here saying that she was being extorted into selling the property. This only comes from the fact Gersh said she would list the property if Sherry wanted her to, and suggested she give a donation to the MHRN as a show of good faith. Sherry put together a Medium.com post that outlined her side of the story, yet was mainly blanketing anti-racist groups and activists like Gersh as haters.
While Sherry battled with the community, the Alt Right took things to another level. Andrew Anglin of the Daily Stormer made Sherry’s situation his new pet cause, and did post upon post about the town, the people in it, and the anti-racist organizations. He then put in the information of local business owners and residents, including young children, putting the yellow Star of David with “Jude” in the middle on top of them, referencing the star that Jews were forced to wear as they were rushed to their death in cattle cars. Alt Right “shitlords” on social media began harassing the Jewish and other residents of Whitefish, calling in, spamming their businesses on Yelp, and creating such a climate of fear in which many were scared for their lives. It became so bad that town council people like Frank Sweeney spoke out against it, which was a strong move since Sweeney had consulted with the Southern Poverty Law Center back in 2014 about how to address the situation with Spencer during the first round. Later, even the Governor spoke out and had planned a visit to Whitefish to show support.
Love Lives Here began a broad-based solidarity project, where they arranged the handouts of “Menorah” cards so that people could put them in their window to show solidarity with the Jewish residents who were the victims of the vicious harassment. This show of support is one that unites the community softly; hoping to secure those bonds if the organization is to do even more involved organizing. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes also joined the admonishment of bigotry, and the entire state has come together in opposition to the Alt Right trolls who are trying to terrorize marginalized groups. This is what effective solidarity organizing looks like as it creates one community in opposition to the divisive nature of the far right, and it meant hat the Alt Right will have dramatically less pull in the state and the media.
The Daily Stormer then began a call to organize a march in Whitefish, one that is specifically meant to target the Jews of the city and calling them the financial and organizational infrastructure. This hails back to the Kristallnacht tragedy in Germany when the SS went and ransacked Jewish businesses, ramping up the cultural pogrom against Jews and blaming them nonsensically for the financial turmoil of the German country since the First World War. While this may seem extreme even for Anglin, he has made a name for the Daily Stormer by naming Trump opponents to kill and trying to get followers to create fake “black” accounts on Twitter to defame people of African origin.
Anglin’s march “against Jews, Jewish businesses and everyone who supports either” is set to happen on January 15th. Because of Montana’s liberal gun laws, they planned this to be an “armed march” to intimidate locals Jews and progressives, and he is planning to “bus in” skinheads from the Bay Area. This includes Goldenstate Skinheads (Goldenstate United), who were involved in the recent stabbing in Sacramento as well as in the early organizing of the American Freedom Party. This will also include members of the Traditionalist Workers Party, or its adjunct community organization the Traditionalist Youth Network, which often bridges the Blue Collar world of the KKK and skinheads with the Alt Right. This could also include members of Identity Europa, which has a heavy presence in the Bay Area of California.
In opposition, Love Lives Here and anti-racist are planning a January 7th celebration in favor of diversity, again rallying the community together with food, speakers, and music to create unity that will be necessary to combat the onslaught. While Andrew Anglin seems particularly set on bringing 200 armed racists to Whitefish to intimidate locals and possibly instigate bloody vengeance, Richard Spencer is actually saying that Anglin is just joking and that there will be no march.
All of this is bad news for Richard Spencer who has intimated recently that he might run for congress in Montana. As Love Lives Here and the MHRN is rally the community behind anti-racist values, it is unlikely that the majority of Montana is going to get behind armed neo-Nazis attacking Jews and Spencer’s insane bid for Washington. For anti-racists that want to support, it would be good to send money and make contact with Love Lives Here and stay prepared to hear news if the march actually takes place, and you can join in the organizing of counter-protest events.
In a master move, Love Lives Here is doing a fundraiser where you can donate a certain amount for every minute that the Nazis protest, so the longer they are there, the more money anti-hate groups will make. You can commit to donate here.
AdvertisementsGraffiti Knitting Explained
Graffiti knitting: the art of the sneaky stitch. I knit, I venture into the city, I yarnstorm, I take far too many photos, I run away giggling.
I have been a graffiti knitter (also known as yarnstorming or yarnbombing) since 2007, but took it up in earnest in 2009 after a terrifying incident involving the London Underground, a mechanical ‘Tube Sanitiser’ and several courageous Tube Mice. I escaped with my life, my yarn and eerie knitting powers.
On that day in the dingy underbelly of London Deadly Knitshade was born.
So I graffiti knit. But just what is graffiti knitting? Well…
What is graffiti knitting? Graffiti knitting or yarnstorming or yarnbombing or guerrilla knitting is the art of using items handmade from yarn to create street art. The artist creates an item using knitting or crochet, they take the item into a public place, they install the piece in that public place, they run away giggling. It’s really as simple as that.
What’s the point? That’s a bit like asking how long a piece of string is. There are loads of reasons why people make woolly art. Each yarnstormer has their own reason. I guess you’ll have to ask them.
Isn’t it a bit of a waste of yarn? I mean shouldn’t you be knitting for homeless pre-mature penguin babies with TB? I always find this question oddly narrow minded. Would you tell a painter or sculptor to use their materials for something more practical? “Hey, Michelangelo! What do you think you’re doing carving a giant naked chap when you could be making a nice functional bathroom set for your local hospice?” “Oi! Da Vinci! Cease painting that smirking brunette and give a few coats of that precious paint to that dedilapidated school house in the slums.”
If you really want to get picky then you could well ask the questioner why on earth they would ever do anything fun, creative or unusual when they could be doing something helpful and practical. The electricity used to watch that episode of Eastenders could be used to run x amount of life support machines. Right?
We all have to live but how we live is up to us. George Bernard Shaw one waffled “Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.” There is art in every single thing around you from your slippers to the station stairs on your morning commute. Some art is a little more slap-in-the-face obvious but what a beautiful world it is when art rears its interesting head.
Are there different kinds of graffiti knitting? There are a few types of graffiti knitting:
Cosies: Graffiti knitting began with people installing of ‘cosies’. These are basically handmade covers for items. The idea is attributed to have been started by Magda Sayeg of the Knitta group in Texas (they covered street furniure such as lamp posts) and by Knitted Landscape in Denmark (they covered rocks and made flowers). Think of the ‘cosies’ movement as “Oooo look! There’s unexpected knitting covering that thing! How cool!”
It can be a very effective style of graffiti, especially on a grand scale.
Stitched Stories: The Stitched Stories style of graffiti knitting moved on from ‘cosies’ to artists using amigurumi (knitted toys) and other styles to add a theme or story to their installation. It gave the woolly street art a bit of a voice. This first popped up in London in 2009 when graffiti knitting collective Knit the City’s Web of Woe was created under Waterloo Station. Think of the ‘stitched stories’ movement as ‘Oooo look! There’s unexpected knitting on that thing! And it’s got something to say too!”
Like its cosy sister style it can be epic and full of many tales or a teeny tiny scene with only a few characters.
My Part in the Graffiti Knitting Tale
What does the Stitched Stories idea have to do with you then? In 2009, after a handful of ‘cosies’ done on my own and with Knit the City, I was already bored of knitting square and socks to make cosies. I had the wild idea that I wanted our woolly street art to have a bit more of a purpose than simply being ‘knitting on something’.
I’m a storyteller at heart so it made sense to me to tell a story with my stitching. I planned out Knit the City’s Web of Woe, a 13-foot spider web full of screaming and struggling creatures, and KTC and I brought it to life. The internet went wild. Blimey.
After that I engineered whole installations with my sneaky stitching crew Knit the City. We started conjuring toys and characters to create tales from that point on from the characters in the Nutcracker attacking the Royal Opera House Ballerina Statue, to six yarnstorms based on the Oranges and Lemons nursery rhyme on the site of each existing church. History, stories, stitching.
My idea was to give my graffiti a voice, and most importantly a sense of humour. Socks on lamp posts are only funny for so long, but a Cheshire Cat in a tree will have people grinning until the pigeons eat it. No one else was doing it at the time so it was a bit of a leap of fibre-based faith. Street art sculpture in stitching. Madness.
I’m sure people were making items other than cosies before this point, but I have never come across anyone who used their graffiti to tell a tale before we did. I’ve even published a book about it. So it must be true. And my giant knitted squid will wrestle anyone who says otherwise.
Groups all over the world are now creating stitched stories of their own. The idea that it’s spread so far and wide makes my head pop if I think about it too hard.
Why do you call it yarnstorming when most people call it yarnbombing? I conjured the term ‘yarnstorming’ as a squishy, less violent and more creative term for ‘yarnbombing’. A necessary adaptation I made due to not wanting to use bandy about the word ‘bombing’ on the BBC news coverage of the first graffiti knitting event of my sneaky stitching collective, Knit the City. It’s got less destructive connotations and the whole point of what we do is that it’s removable. We’re storming not bombing. A fibre-based force of nature!
Aren’t graffiti artists meant to be anonymous? That’s really up the artist. Oddly, even though I tried to keep to hidden identity thing going, I’ve become a bit of an infamous graffiti knitter. I did start off shrouded in woolly mystery. Those were the days. But as my yarnstorms got more attention it was much harder to hide out. Especially when you’re carrying an 8-metre handknitted squid through the Natural History Museum.
Then when my Knit the City: A Whodunnknit Set in London came out that was that. My mediawhoring has made it into the Guardian, and been on BBC News and the BBC World Service. I have exhibited my work at Tate Britain, the Natural History Museum, the V&A and the Science Museum in London, and in Germany and New York.
The reason I chose to put a story to my identity was because I survived an epic battle with cancer. And that kind of thing makes you want to tell other people who are battling, or worrying about someone who is battling, so they can see it can be beaten.
And you have some kind of collective too, do you? I founded and continue to wrangle Knit the City, London’s first sneaky stitching collective, vaguely famous for our Telephone Box Cosy in Parliament Square. There are four of us in our crew: me, The Fastener, Shorn-a the Dead and Lady Loop. We are all as passionate about graffiti knitting as each other. We love what we do. Probably worryingly so.
So who is this Deadly Knitshade? Deadly Knitshade is a lone wool-hungry wolf whose knits aren’t content with lurking in the shadows of conventional knitting. They don’t stand under the woolly umbrella of quiet stitching at home in front of the TV. They do not smell of mothballs or Werther’s Originals. They do not hide in department store basements or charity shop bargain bins. They aren’t there to keep anyone warm in the winter. See the tale of how Deadly Knitshade came to be here
And what are Whodunnknits? Discernible by their Whodunnknit tags, my yarnstorms can appear anywhere. They like to get out. They demand to be noticed. They live in this city every bit as much as any of you do.
You can read more about my graffiti knitting check out My Graffiti Knits page.
My every day self and Deadly Knitshade exist side by side, day to day, in the same body. An episode or ‘yarnstorm’ could happen at any time. In any place. Deadly Knitshade arrives without warning. Sometimes in the least convenient of places. It is my yarn-flavoured burden to carry.
And it’s often quite embarrassing at parties.
What’s the Knit the City book about? Knit the City: A Whodunnknit Set in London (published by Summersdale) is the tale of the first few years of Knit the City, featuring the stories each yarnstorm told. It features my photos of each of our yarnstorms in detail if you want a close up look at our sneaky stitched stuff.
It also tells the woolly tale of how KTC first got started in our yarnstorming path. And there are two kooky little knitting patterns in there too, should you feel the urge to go a sneaky stitching yourself.
You’re talking about yourself rather a lot and turning up in all kinds of media. Don’t you worry people will think you have a giant ego you can see from space? I do. But the thing is that I have this overwhelming urge to live as much as I can in the time I have left. And also to try to shake people up with my stitching and encourage them to grab life by its woolly hands and take it dancing. It’s just not something you can do quietly.
For every frown I get there are a hundred people taking my lead and having wild woolly times. So I put up with the grumps. The grins are so much more worthwhile.
Don’t go! I have more questions! Hop over to my contact page and drop me an email. If you can manage to get it past my ravenous guard squid I might even reply. Good luck, sneaky stalker.NRL referees' boss Tony Archer says the crucial on-field try decision for Solomone Kata's touchdown right on halftime should have stood in the Vodafone Warriors' clash against Wests Tigers at Mount Smart Stadium yesterday.
The Vodafone Warriors went right across the field to the left, all the way back to the right and then to the left again - a total of 15 sets of hands involved - before Issac Luke's long pass put Kata across for what was one of the best tries ever seen. It would have given the home side a 22-12 or 24-12 lead at the break.
Referee Gerard Sutton appeared to be about to rule the try without hesitation until he was confronted by Wests Tigers players with wing Jordan Rankin claiming obstruction. Sutton then decided to send it to the bunker - as a try - but asking for it to be checked. In the bunker Luke Patten then eventually over-turned the original decision, claiming Rankin had been obstructed by Vodafone Warriors prop Sam Lisone as Tuimoala Lolohea kept the breath-taking movement alive. Archer today said the try should have stood.
It's no consolation now but one of the best legitmate tries likely to be seen was rubbed out when it should have been awarded as a fair try.
At the same time Archer supported the bunker's decision on Shaun Johnson's would-be second half try.Copyright by KOIN - All rights reserved Sasquatch's sign and dog on the Hawthorne Bridge, Mar. 2, 2016 (KOIN)
Copyright by KOIN - All rights reserved Sasquatch's sign and dog on the Hawthorne Bridge, Mar. 2, 2016 (KOIN)
Associated Press - SPRINGFIELD, Ore. (AP) --- A Springfield panhandling ordinance penalizes drivers stopped at red lights for passing money, food or other items to pedestrians.
The Register-Guard reports city council members voted 4-1 in favor of fining those drivers up to $50 despite opposition from almost everyone who spoke out at two public meetings.
Councilwoman Marilee Woodrow said she's heard from at least two dozen residents who support the ordinance.
The only no-vote came from councilwoman Hillary Wylie, who called the ordinance petty.
Mayor Christine Lundberg said the ordinance was set up with safety in mind.
The American Civil Liberties Union's Oregon branch has asked anyone cited under the ordinance to contact the agency.
Springfield joins at least four other Oregon cities including Roseburg and Medford to pass roadside panhandling restrictions.Roxanne Quimby’s foundation donated more than 87,500 acres in the Katahdin region to the federal government Tuesday in a critical step toward creation of a national monument in Maine’s North Woods.
While representatives for Quimby and the Obama administration remained silent Tuesday about a potential national monument designation, news of the land transfers drew strong reactions from those involved in a debate over the changing use of Maine’s vast forestlands. Supporters cheered a gift that they predicted could revitalize the region’s struggling towns, while opponents warned that providing a foothold to the federal government would inhibit economic development in the North Woods.
NORTH WOODS NATIONAL MONUMENT Q AND A On Tuesday, the Penobscot County Registry of Deeds posted documents showing that Roxanne Quimby’s nonprofit organization, Elliotsville Plantation Inc., had transferred ownership of more than 87,500 acres in the Katahdin region to the U.S. Department of the Interior. The donations are likely the final step toward creation of a North Woods national monument. Q: Where is the land? A: The 87,654 acres are located just east of Baxter State Park in the following townships and ranges in Maine’s Unorganized Territory: T3 R7, T3 R8, T4 R7, T4 R8, T5 R7 and T5 R8. The parcels include lengthy stretches of the East Branch of the Penobscot River and Wassataquoik Stream as well as the peaks of Deasey Mountain and Hunt Mountain. Elliotsville Plantation already allows some outdoor recreation – including hiking, camping, fishing in most places, as well as hunting and mechanized recreation in some areas – on the properties now operated as Katahdin Woods & Waters. Q: What is a national monument and how is it different from a national park? A: National monuments and national parks are both federally protected lands. While all national parks and many national monuments are managed by the National Park Service, monuments can also be managed by other federal agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service or the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Many of the same recreational activities are available on both classifications of land. The biggest difference between national parks and national monuments is the way they are created. Only Congress can authorize the creation of a national park, typically via legislation sponsored by the home state’s congressional delegation. The Antiquities Act of 1906 allows
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This article is accurate as of Aug 2013.The setup of Milgram’s experiment is simple: a participant and an actor who pretends to be an ordinary participant are ushered into the lab. The participant is “randomly” selected to be a teacher while the actor is the learner. When the actor makes a mistake in recalling the list of words, the participant shocks him.
The shocks start at a benign 15 volts and increase by 15 volts for each subsequent mistake. Initially the actor stoically grunts through the pain, but at 150 volts he demands to be released from the experiment. By 300 volts, he’s “unconscious.” The experimenter tells the participant to treat failure to answer as a wrong answer, leading ultimately to three shocks in a row with 450 volts.
Why don’t the participants object? Many do. But at the first sign of disobedience, the experimenter mildly instructs, “Please go on.” Further disobedience is met with “The experiment requires that you continue,” then “It is absolutely essential that you continue,” and finally “You have no other choice, you must go on.” If the participant rebels a fifth time, the experiment is terminated. These verbal nudges are enough to get two-thirds of participants to be maximally compliant.
Shocked? So were laypeople and scientists of Milgram’s day. In interviews with 110 psychiatrists, college students, and middle-class adults who were not aware of his results, Milgram found that 100% predicted that no participants would go all the way and that the maximum shock they would deliver was 135 volts.
Milgram’s participants were unusual neither by American nor by global standards. Subsequent studies elsewhere in the USA, along with South Africa, Australia, Jordan, Spain, and Austria, have found similar levels of destructive obedience.
In a boon for psychological science and a moral test for the country, the Trump presidency will be the most ecologically-valid, large-scale replication of Milgram’s studies ever conducted.
Instead of issuing verbal prods, Trump commands the FBI, Homeland Security, the CIA, and the military. Instead of torturing an obviously innocent victim, he targets African-Americans, women, Mexicans, Muslims, gay people and other groups who have faced dehumanizing animus since the United States enshrined slavery in the Constitution.
If 67% of us maximally comply with the destructive orders that are sure to flow from the Trump White House, Milgram will be proven scientifically right and we will be proven morally wrong.
Milgram’s studies aren’t all bad news, though. He and other researchers have identified six ways that you can be part of the resistant 33%. Here are the lessons we should learn:Tennis star Anna Kournikova will take a swing at getting contestants into shape on The Biggest Loser next season.
With Jillian Michaels set to leave NBC’s hit weight loss show, Kournikova has been confirmed as the new trainer for season 12, according to New York Magazine.
The decision to go in a new direction with the show’s trainer is part of an overall reboot. “We intentionally tried to not replace Jillian,” executive producer Todd Lubin tells the publication.
Next season the show will be “getting slightly away from just the tape measure, and getting into overall well being and health,” says Lubin. “That’s where Loser needs to go.”
As for the 29-year-old Russian athlete, Lubin says her background makes her the right person to help motivate overweight contestants to push themselves.
“She grew up with very little in Moscow, pounding tennis balls every day when she was 5,” he says. “That’s the drive she’s bringing to the show.”Share 0 SHARES
A WATERFORD man, bearing all the hallmarks of a certifiable prick has queried why nice guys just like him always finish last in life and love, WWN can reveal.
Taking to social media site, Facebook, 32-year-old Davey O’Driscoll invited his 432 online friends to weigh in on a discussion regarding how short changed he felt when it came to his encounters with the opposite sex.
“I just don’t get why we’re always the ones who lose out the most, are mistreated so badly, I’ve had it with women choosing complete bastards over me,” O’Driscoll explained in his lengthy status, alluding to a recent incident in which he hounded a female friend who had explained she had a boyfriend.
A helpful collection of Facebook friends chimed in to sympathise with O’Driscoll’s thesis that nice guys finish last while also pointing out how much of a prick he is.
“Didn’t you punch your niece once when she said you’d put on weight? She was 8 at the time if I remember correctly, Davey. Nothing nice about that,” explained one Facebook friend.
One person declining to engage in the online debate was O’Driscoll’s ex-girlfriend Elaine Buckley, who voiced her opinion to WWN instead.
“Nice guy? Nah, he’s a prick. Still owes me about two grand I lent him and he tried to cop off with my sister at her own fucking wedding. Delighted to hear he’s finishing last though,” Buckley explained.
Taking on board the relentless torrents of informative invective, O’Driscoll displayed a unique ability to absorb what people were telling him.
“Thanks for the feedback one and all, but I feel some of you are just a little intimidated by the fact you know your missus probably fancies me or something,” the prick concluded, “this is all proof nice guys like me just don’t stand a chance”.The headline from the Gujarat Assembly election results is perhaps not that the Bharatiya Janata Party is consolidating power and forming government for the sixth straight time. In Unjha constituency, which encompasses Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hometown Vadnagar, it is Congress candidate Asha Patel winning the seat by a margin of over 19,000 votes.
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Sitting BJP MLA Narayan Patel had previously won over Asha by nearly 25,000 votes in 2012. In what seems to be an encore of the election result five years ago, the Congress this time seemed to be riding strong on the Patidar wave. At least 40 per cent of the population in Unjha is from the Patidar community and anger against the BJP is visible.
ALSO READ: Gujarat Assembly Elections Results 2017 LIVE UPDATES
Two years ago, at the height of the Patidar quota stir, one of the 14 youths killed during the violent protests was from Unjha. The mood against the BJP is so strong in this part of Gujarat that the party did not field even a single candidate on its symbol in the 2015 civic polls.
The BJP has, however, tried to regain its foothold by wooing the Patidar community with government grants. When the Vijay Rupani government was rolling out schemes, projects and grants as part of it populist spree, ahead of the Gujarat election dates being announced, it had approved a grant of Rs 8.75 crore to Unjha-based Umiya Mataji Sansthan to develop tourist facilities. Unjha is the religious seat of Goddess Umiya, the reigning deity of Kadva Patidars in Gujarat.
On the BJP campaign trail, Rupani had avoided holding public meetings in Unjha after videos of Patidar youth disrupting the party’s Gaurav Yatra events went viral.
See Photos | PM Modi flashes victory sign, celebrations begin as BJP returns to power
Congress president Rahul Gandhi had also campaigned extensively in these parts as part of his Navsarjan Yatra. He spoke of PM Modi completely avoiding all other election issues and making the campaign all about him.
“You might have heard Modiji’s speech yesterday. For the first time, Modi-ji neither talked about the future of Gujarat, nor corruption, jobs or farmers. Narendra Modi-ji only spoke about Narendra Modi. Modi-ji, I want to tell you, this election is not about you. It is not about me either. It is not about BJP or Congress. This is about the future of the people of Gujarat, and if you give speeches, then speak about the future of the people of Gujarat. “I understand you cannot speak much about the 22-year rule… But at least tell the people what you will do in the next five years,” he said.
He had even visited the Umiya Mata temple, which is a few kilometres from Modi’s birthplace of Vadnagar, and performed aarti.
Earlier in October, in an attempt to woo the Kadva Patidars, PM Modi inaugurated the Umiya Dham Ashram in Haridwar via video conferencing. Welcoming the people with “Jai Umiya Maa!”, PM Modi said he was a volunteer in 1975-76 when the festival of Maa Umiya was organised.
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Despite its best efforts, today’s election results paint a different picture. The BJP has won the state but lost their traditional vote bank.A Trump rally in Reno, Nevada. Photo by Darron Birgenheier (Creative Commons).
Let’s be clear: Donald Trump is a white people problem. The post-election triage that political reporters are doing right now elucidates the reality that Trump won the presidency thanks to the unexpectedly strong support of both working-class and wealthy white people in key states like Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
The electorate in 2016 was the most racially diverse it has ever been in the history of the United States. But white Trump voters overwhelmed the record turnout among Latino voters and Asian American voters. Across the country, 58 percent of white voters turned out for Trump—the only racial demographic whose majority voted for him. It’s those votes that secured his victory.
Of course, Trump is also a patriarchal problem. But let’s also be clear that it wasn’t just white men who voted him into office. While women overall favored Hillary Clinton, the majority of white women voted for Trump. White women split 53 percent for Trump and 43 percent for Clinton.
Voting breakdown chart from the New York Times.
It’s not surprising that white Americans are willing to vote a racist and misogynistic man into office. It’s just shocking that they’re more willing to vote for a racist and misogynistic man than they confessed to pollsters.
Trump’s victory among white people has deep roots. For those voters, his declaration that he would ban Muslim immigrants, his ardent defense of stop-and-frisk as a way to solve police violence, and—most of all—his promise to build a wall along the southern border are a way to defend the privilege we have as white people. Those ideas hinge on the racist and Islamophobic idea that Black people, Latinos, and Muslims are dangerous—they must be kept out of the country and policed vigilantly if they’re already here. They reek of isolationism and fear. They are fueled by entitlement, by a desperate worry that a more racially equal and diverse country will take something away from white people. They are built on America’s history of white supremacy, of white people being in power and taking personal offense to the idea of change. Those ideas are the core of Trump’s platform, and therefore the core of his support.
Susan Faludi, writing in the New York Times last weekend about the decades-long demonization of Hillary Clinton, noted that “The G.O.P.’s gender grudge feeds on its own defeat. As the culture moves further away from the conservative ideal—as women gain freedoms, minorities assert rights, same-sex marriage proves commonplace—the monster’s howls grow louder. But the howls say nothing new. This election is the decisive battle in a Thirty Years’ War.” That battle didn’t turn out the way I hoped it would. But it doesn’t mean anything new. The country is just as racist and misogynistic as it was a week ago. We can just see it more clearly now. We can quantify it in the 59,427,652 people who voted for Donald Trump.
That this country cast its votes for a Trump presidency—and, let’s not forget, a Pence vice-presidency—feels devastating. It fills me with doubt that our country will ever get better, with doubt that our culture of fear and resistance to progression can ever change. But it is completely irresponsible to stop trying. We can’t refuse to face bigotry in our own communities and in ourselves. A huge part of the privilege of being white is to not have to think about racism, to be safer than others when we interact with the police or simply when we walk down the street. Too often, we refuse to recognize racism and we’re silent about its impacts. That silence has devastating effects; that silence is what let millions of white people cast their votes for Trump’s policies of exclusion, profiling, and wall-building. While most of me wants to curl up into a ball and never leave the house again, it’s on us to turn out. It’s on us to reach out to our families, our friends, our acquaintances, our communities and have those hard conversations. White supremacy got us into this mess, and it’s on us, on white people, to help get us out.Marijuana Legalization Ballot Drive Launched In Michigan
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Marijuana proponents on Friday launched a 2018 ballot drive to make Michigan the ninth state to legalize the recreational use of the drug and the first in the Midwest to do so.
The initiative has the backing of state-based marijuana advocacy groups and a key national lobbying organization, which suggests the financial backing and coordination will be there to gather the roughly 252,000 valid voter signatures needed to qualify for a statewide vote. The Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol said legalizing marijuana would boost tax collections, help industry and save some of the money spent prosecuting and imprisoning people for cannabis-related crimes. “Our country’s marijuana prohibition laws have failed miserably,” said spokesman John Truscott, who said arresting 20,000 nonviolent offenders a year for marijuana possession and cultivation is a waste of taxpayers’ money. “This initiative would make Michigan a leader in responsible adult-use marijuana...
See Article on Leafly HEREHere is the winning entry for the NDTV organized ‘Big Blow to Modi’ contest sent by an intellectual. This entry was selected unanimously by NDTV’s panel of judges because the theme wades into uncharted territory. The theme is that Narendra Modi’s success in life is purely because of dumb luck and fortuitous circumstances:
Maybe, one can give Narendra Modi the benefit of doubt and agree that he became the CM of Gujarat on 7th October 2001 by his hard work and abilities. However, his success after this date is based purely on luck.
When he replaced Keshubhai Patel as the CM of Gujarat, the BJP was in a sharp decline in the state, the only state where it has a legislative majority of its own. After taking over as Chief Minister, he managed to win a by-election by a very small margin. The Congress was in a comeback mode and assembly elections were just about a year away. Very few people in the country had heard of Modi.
In February 2002, a mob burnt a compartment of a train carrying pilgrims which was followed by unfortunate communal violence in Gujarat. The media and political parties used these happenings to make Narendra Modi a household name across the country. The media went after him so savagely that a disunited BJP and other right wing outfits united behind him and people voted overwhelmingly for him, giving him a two-thirds majority. Further the media etched his Hindutva image so firmly in stone that he could get away with demolishing illegal temples and taking on other RSS inspired outfits like the Bhartiya Kisan Sangh and still be considered the poster boy of Hindutva. Who is lucky enough to demolish illegal temples, get criticized by, Pravin Togadia of all people, for being anti-Hindu, and still be considered the poster boy of Hindutva?
Tarun Gogai has been the CM of Assam continuously since May 2001, a time longer than Modi has been the CM of Gujarat. Further he was a six term Member of Parliament prior to becoming the CM of Assam. Like Gujarat, Assam is a border state and unlike Gujarat it borders more than one country. And communal violence took place in Assam under Tarun Gogai’s tenure. And Assam, unlike Gujarat, is famous for tea. However, the media refused to give Tarun Gogai his share of fame and focussed on making Narendra Modi a household name.
Even Naveen Patnaik has been the CM of Odisha since 2000, a tenure longer than Modi and Odisha also has its share of communal violence. However, the media refused to give Naveen Patnaik his moment of fame.
Shivaraj Singh Chouhan, Raman Singh and Naveen Patnaik have worked in developing underdeveloped states but the media continues to ignore their achievements.
Tata Motors could have setup the Nano plant straight away in Gujarat. But no, first Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Mamata Banerjee had to come together and mess up the Nano plant in West Bengal and help it relocate it to Gujarat, thereby giving Modi free publicity. The reformist Prime Minister had to let the economy drift to such an extent that industrialists started clamouring for Modi. The media also gave Modi his corporate friendly image; by calling Gujarat a Hindutva laboratory, the media made Modi look like the CEO of a pharmaceutical company.
Pramod Mahajan’s ill-conceived ‘India shining’ campaign cost NDA the 2004 elections and later Vajpayee retired from active politics. Advani could have become PM in 2009 but a string of events like YSR’s manipulation of Telangana and Raj Thackeray’s impacting the NDA prospects in Maharashtra spoiled Advani’s chances of becoming PM. This reduced Modi’s competition and at the same time gave the UPA ten long years to work hard to improve Modi fortunes. Dr Manmohan Singh improved Modi’s luck with his silence and Robert Vadra with his business acumen.
But despite all this, Modi was just the CM of a state and his becoming a PM candidate was too far-fetched. But Justice Katju jumped in with his opinion on why he did not want Narendra Modi to become the PM of India, thereby kickstarting a national debate on his candidacy to the chagrin of senior BJP leaders. This was followed by other intellectuals voicing their opinion on why Modi would make a bad PM choice. The poor BJP leaders were forced to defend Modi’s candidature rather than debate their own candidature. To quote from Shakespeare, Modi was neither born great nor achieved greatness but Justice Katju and others thrust greatness upon him. This must be the first time in the history of the world that intellectuals started arguing on why they did not want a person to become the prime minister even before his own party had made up its mind on his candidature. Influenced by this noise, Nitish Kumar snapped the alliance with the BJP, giving the inevitability of Modi’s PM candidature as the reason. Many other leaders started posturing that they would not let Modi become PM. Britain as well as the European Union first boycotted him for years and then scampered to end the boycott, making Modi’ candidature look inevitable. All this pushed the other BJP leaders into a corner and they feebly had to give in to naming Modi as the PM candidate.
Various CMs of India occasionally visit The United States of America and hardly anyone notices. However, if the US had granted Modi a visa, he would have been just another Indian chief minister addressing a group in America. So the US rejected his visa. It was more newsworthy and dramatic for Modi to address NRIs in America via video conferencing. And America had to occasionally keep harping “Modi welcome to apply for a visa and await a review like any other applicant” to keep him in the news. And finally the US had to reach out to him on his own terms and US ambassador Nancy Powell visited him in Gandhinagar. This late scampering by foreign powers just helped fuel the Modi wave without any effort from Modi.
All these entities were guilty of first delivering a “Big Blow to Modi” and making him famous and then doing a “Big Bow to Modi”, thereby propelling the Modi wave.
To use stock market terms, a large part of the so called Modi wave is nothing but a short squeeze caused by the stampeding herd of investors as they rush to cover the short position they have held on Narendra Modi for more than a decade.
Even Meghnad Desai, an Indian-born British economist and Labour party politician who refused to set foot in Gujarat even to meet his own brother as long as Modi was the CM, finally decided to bury the hatchet and met Modi; probably to avoid self-exiling himself from India.
The terrorists tried to disrupt his rally in Patna but bungled it and instead gave him a chance to demonstrate his character in the face of crisis. And by sheer coincidence, they had to do it on a day home minister Shinde had to attend the music launch of Rajjo.
Assembly elections were held in four states and BJP comfortably won three of them. Shivaraj Singh Chouhan defended Madhya Pradesh and Raman Singh defended Chhattisgarh because of their good performance but Modi got the credit.
To Modi’s good luck, the BJP emerged as the single largest party in Delhi. But again, to his good luck BJP could not form the government and thereby was saved from the prospect of facing an aggressive AAP in the Assembly. This caused Delhi to have an AAP government supported by the Congress, fueling the Modi wave. This also triggered 49 days of non-stop high decibel theatrics which gave Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Raman Singh and Vasundhara Raje sufficient time and solitude to settle down and start governance away from the media glare and retain the momentum of the Modi wave.
And look at his luck: Politicians like Ram Vilas Paswan, who refused to join Vajpayee in 2004 and Advani in 2009 because of Modi, are willing to join Modi in 2014 because of Modi. And Gujarat based leaders like Keshubhai Patel and Gordhan Zadafia who refused to support Advani in 2009 because of Modi are now supporting Modi because of Modi.
Modi does not have to sit on a dharna or order his party workers to attack toll plazas to get publicity. Others do this for him.
Even at this stage Modi is just a political party’s PM candidate. But the high decibel campaign of the intellectuals and the Prime Minister’s silence has had such an impact that some people have started mistaking Modi for the PM rather than the PM candidate and started questioning him about everything from economic policies to fiscal deficit to gas pricing.
With all this evidence, one can sum up that Modi’s success is purely based on luck and nothing else.Real Madrid Ranks No.1 for Fourth Consecutive Year
New York, NY (May 11, 2016) – Forbes announced today its 2016 list of the World’s Most Valuable Soccer Teams. Real Madrid, valued at $3.6 billion, tops the list for the fourth consecutive year, making the team the second most valuable sports team in the world, surpassed only by the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, which is valued at $4 billion. Barcelona is currently valued at $3.5 billion, placing the team at the No. 2 spot on this year’s soccer ranking. The two most valuable teams, Real Madrid and Barcelona, consistently dominate on the field, enabling them to make a lot of money from finishing near the top of their domestic leagues as well as the Champions League. These two Spanish rivals are both planning to modernize their stadiums, which will lead to a continuing boost in revenue. Manchester United ranks No.3 on the list, valued at
$3.3 billion. The top 10 teams on the list are global brands that have the most lucrative kit and jersey deals.
According to this year’s soccer valuations, the top 20 teams are worth an average of $1.44 billion, an increase of 24% over last year. The increase is primarily driven by new lucrative television deals. The richest deal by far is the $7.9 billion agreement between the English Premier League with Sky Sports and BT Sport that starts with the 2016-17 season and is worth 70% more than the current deal. Comparatively speaking, the NFL earns $6.9 billion per year from its domestic television deals, while the NBA will take in $2.67 billion per year when its new television deal begins in the 2016-17 season.
Methodology: Forbes’ team values are enterprise values (equity plus net debt) based on April 20, 2016 exchange rates. Revenues and operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, player trading and disposal of player registrations) figures are for the 2014-15 season, converted into U.S. dollars based on the average exchange rate for that period.
The Top 10 Most Valuable Teams of 2016 are:
Rank Club Country Owner/
Controlling Shareholder Current Value ($mil) 1-Year Value Change (%) Revenues ($mil) Operating Income ($mil) 1 Real Madrid Spain Club members $3,645 12% $694 $162 2 Barcelona Spain Club members 3,549 12 675 108 3 Manchester United England Glazer family 3,317 7 625 190 4 Bayern Munich Germany Club members 2,678 14 570 60 5 Arsenal England E. Stanley Kroenke 2,017 54 524 122 6 Manchester City England Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan 1,921 40 558 131 7 Chelsea England Roman Abramovich 1,661 21 505 25 8 Liverpool England John Henry, Tom Werner 1,548 58 471 115 9 Juventus Italy Agnelli family 1,299 55 390 81 10 Tottenham Hotspur England Joseph Lewis 1,017 69 310 73
For the full list and more, visit: www.forbes.com/soccer
Plus :
Highest-Paid Soccer Players: For the third year in a row Cristiano Ronaldo ranks No. 1 on Forbes’ list of the world’s highest paid soccer players. The star player of Real Madrid banked $82.1 million last year in salary, bonuses and endorsements. Lionel Messi, a record four-time winner of FIFA’s player of the year award, earned $76.5 million last year, taking the No. 2 spot. Ronaldo and Messi are in a class of their own on the list, making more than twice the amount of any other player.
Media Contact: Christina Vega, [email protected] or 212.206.5155Here there and everywhere, Microsoft is busy promoting Windows Phone 8 here in London, at the same time Nokia is heavily promoting their Lumia 920. Billboard displays, dedicated TV adverts and even sponsoring dramas and product placements, it's everywhere. On UK TV, the Lumia 920 was on two separate gadget shows, one of which being Stephen Fry’s ‘Gadget Man’.
Last night saw the popular Gadget Show TV show put a bright red Lumia 920 with its wireless charging pad up against the HTC One X+ and the iPhone 5. In what can only be described as a hilarious iPhone 5 take down, the presenters gave all the props to the Lumia 920 and the HTC.
The Lumia 920 is a great device and many of the staff here own one as their daily driver, but it’s always interesting to see how well it goes down in the mainstream media. We’ll forgive them for thinking that it runs Windows 8. Hit the clip around the 13min mark to watch the segment for yourself but here are the salient points:Remember the nightmare we thought traffic and parking would be at the arena tucked way back in between New York New York and Monte Carlo? Yeah, you can wake up now, cause the nightmare is over.
Parking was a piece of cake directly in front of the venue (NYNY, Monte Carlo), down the street either way (Luxor, Excalibur, Aria), and across the street (MGM Grand, Tropicana). And even more impressively, there was almost no traffic at all after the event. Like literally, none. I pulled up the map, and couldn’t find a single stretch of “red” traffic anywhere within five miles of the Strip.
I parked at MGM Grand, sat in the upper deck, left the arena with the crowd when the show ended, and it took me less than 30 minutes to get from my seat to my car and out of the garage.
Jason parked at Aria and had a similar situation.
It took me about five minutes to reach the Toshiba Plaza. After the concert, I pulled out the parking lot with little traffic. I drove west on Harmon, and after passing the Cosmo I was clear. From there I head up Trop, and was home in fifteen minutes. -Jason Pothier, SinBin.vegas
But wait, there’s more.
We parked at the Tropicana, no issues leaving from there! @SinBinVegas@TMobileArena — Vegas Hockey Talk (@HockeyVegas) April 7, 2016
@SinBinVegas@TMobileArena tram to Mandalay and out onto the 15 so quick. Awesome place!!!!!!! — Vincent Rampa (@Rampa19) April 7, 2016
Honestly, it was incredible. Everyone thought traffic was going to be a disaster exiting the arena. It wasn’t, and I have to give props to one of the few people who consistently told us and the rest of the media not to worry about it, Rick Arpin. MGM’s VP of Entertainment has been tooting the horn for parking and traffic around the arena, and despite me giving him the opportunity to take a shot at all of us with a good, “I told you so,” Rick took the high road instead.
We are very pleased with how traffic and parking went, and we still will be learning with each event as they are all different. I am really proud of the team for its dedication and thousands of hours of work to prepare a plan and execute it. Also appreciate the great help of Metro and other agencies. -Rick Arpin, MGM Senior VP of Entertainment
Fine, then I’ll say it for you. We were wrong, you were right. Traffic is not a problem, and honestly, you’d be hard pressed to find anything wrong inside the building either.
Just wait hockey fans, when this place hosts the NHL, we are all going to be in for a treat.Is your desk overflowing with scraps of paper, coffee cups, envelopes and wilted plants? Well, far from being idle, it turns out you might just be a creative genius.
In world where ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’ is a well-valued idiom, being a messy person can often be mistaken as a hallmark of laziness. But thanks to a recent study, researchers have found there is a method to this madness.
Proving that sometimes working in mess is much more productive than precision and order, researchers at the University of Minnesota found that creative geniuses favour a chaotic workspace.
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After testing how well participants came up with new ideas when working in both tidy and disorderly work areas, it revealed that while those in the messy room generated the same number of ideas as their clean-room counterparts, their ideas were considered as far more interesting and creative when evaluated by impartial judges.
Furthermore, the data also found that people with a messy desk are more prone to risk taking while those at cleaner desks tend to follow strict rules and are less likely to try new things.
“Disorderly environments seem to inspire breaking free of tradition, which can produce fresh insights,” researchers said.
Shape Created with Sketch. The Ten Best Desks Show all 10 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. The Ten Best Desks 1/10 2/10 <p><b>Indocine Desk - £1,395</b></p><p>If this charming rosewood pull-down desk can't persuade you to keep your paperwork in order, no system ever will. It&'s the perfect place to keep a grip on your in-tray.</p><p><i>www.conranshop.co.uk; 020-7723 2223 </i></p> 3/10 4/10 <p><b>Tropic Desk with Trestles - £389.99 </b></p><p>This chic offering from Amode doubles as a table. There isn't much storage space, but then a design this clean is meant for those who keep all their documents in a slim-line laptop.</p><p><i>www.amode.co.uk</i></p> 5/10 <p><b>Writing Desk - £3,507</b></p><p>Created by Michael Young for British design house Established & Sons, this glorious A-frame construction contains a down-light, and is made from sustainably-sourced wood.</p><p><i>www.leighharmer.co.uk; 020-7381 0031 </i></p> 6/10 7/10 8/10 9/10 10/10 1/10 2/10 <p><b>Indocine Desk - £1,395</b></p><p>If this charming rosewood pull-down desk can't persuade you to keep your paperwork in order, no system ever will. It&'s the perfect place to keep a grip on your in-tray.</p><p><i>www.conranshop.co.uk; 020-7723 2223 </i></p> 3/10 4/10 <p><b>Tropic Desk with Trestles - £389.99 </b></p><p>This chic offering from Amode doubles as a table. There isn't much storage space, but then a design this clean is meant for those who keep all their documents in a slim-line laptop.</p><p><i>www.amode.co.uk</i></p> 5/10 <p><b>Writing Desk - £3,507</b></p><p>Created by Michael Young for British design house Established & Sons, this glorious A-frame construction contains a down-light, and is made from sustainably-sourced wood.</p><p><i>www.leighharmer.co.uk; 020-7381 0031 </i></p> 6/10 7/10 8/10 9/10 10/10
But why? Perhaps geniuses have far more important things to do than stewing over complicated filing systems, instead, under that mass of papers there is a sense of organisation that only they can operate through.
Just look at Albert Einsten, Thomas Edison and even Steve Jobs, they all had messy workspaces.
In fact, the idea that a clean desk creates a productive worker is very much a construct of the mid-20th century.
Historically, geniuses were always pictured with an unkempt desk with Einstein famously pointing out that, ““If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”
So, if your work space, like many of ours, is usually a mess, stop agonising over how you look to your colleagues and embrace your untidiness for what it is – genius.(Reuters) - Native Americans who often ate processed meat in a can, generically known as “spam” and a common food on reservations, one subsidized by the government — had a two-fold increased risk of developing diabetes over those who ate little or none, according to a U.S. study.
Cans of Hormel Foods Corp's Spam are pictured at a news conference in Tokyo December 11, 2008. REUTERS/Michael Caronna
Native Americans are at especially high risk of developing diabetes, with nearly half having the condition by age 55.
Researchers writing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition surveyed 2,000 Native Americans from Arizona, Oklahoma and North and South Dakota to look into potential reasons for the high rate.
“A lot of communities in this study are in very rural areas with limited access to grocery stores... and they want to eat foods that have a long shelf life,” said Amanda Fretts, the lead author and a researcher at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
None of the survey participants, whose average age was 35, had diabetes at the start of the study when they answered questions about diet and other health and lifestyle factors.
After five years, a follow-up survey found that 243 people had developed diabetes.
Among the 500 people in the original study group who ate the most canned processed meat, 85 developed diabetes. In contrast, among the 500 people who ate the least amount of “spam,” just 44 developed the disease.
Though Spam is a brand-name pork product, the lower-case term is also used to describe any kind of processed, canned meat, Fretts said. Canned meat is available freely to many Native Americans on reservations as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food assistance program.
Fretts and her colleagues found that unprocessed meat did not have the same relationship with diabetes, with people equally likely to develop diabetes regardless of how much hamburger or cuts of pork or beef they ate.
“I think what this study indicates is processed meats should be a priority for reduction (in the diet), especially among American Indians where they can go to food assistance programs and they can get discounted spam,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health who was not involved in the study.
Mozaffarian and his colleagues two years ago conducted an analysis that found that processed meats were tied to a 19 percent higher diabetes risk, while unprocessed meats were neutral.
“I think the biggest difference between processed and unprocessed meats is sodium,” he said, though he added that there is no clear explanation for the link of processed meats and diabetes.
Fretts and her colleagues noted that the people who ate the most processed meats tended also to be heavier, with larger waistlines, raising the possibility that processed meats contribute to obesity, which raises the risk of diabetes.
In an emailed statement to Reuters Health, The American Meat Institute, which represents companies that process meat, said that “processed meats are a safe and nutritious part of a balanced diet.”
Fretts said the study could not prove that eating processed meats was to blame for the increased risk of diabetes.
"I think there needs to be more follow-up," she said
|
TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi forces backed by air strikes from the U.S.-led coalition gained complete control of the northern district of Shirqat on Thursday, bringing the military a step closer to a main push on Mosul later this year.
Brigadier-General Yahya Rasool, spokesman for the military’s joint operations command, said in a statement broadcast on state television that the district had been liberated from “the desecration of terrorism”.
Shirqat, on the Tigris river 100 km (60 miles) south of Mosul, has been surrounded for months by Iraqi troops and Iranian-backed Shi’ite Muslim militias allied to the government. But the army, backed by local police and Sunni Muslim tribal fighters, conducted the fighting this week and the militias did not appear to take part.
Iraqi forces advanced swiftly through the area after Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the operation on Tuesday morning.
The area’s proximity to Iraqi supply lines reaching Qayyara air base further north, which will be used as a logistics hub for the push on Mosul, lends it strategic importance. A rocket attack on Tuesday that came within hundreds of metres of U.S. forces at the base is being tested for chemical agents.
Tens of thousands of civilians were thought to be trapped in the town and nearby villages, which have been under Islamic State control since the group seized a third of Iraqi territory in 2014. But the operation has not generated the large-scale outflux seen in other recent campaigns.
A spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said there had been no displacement on Tuesday and only 32 people dislodged from their homes on Wednesday to a nearby reception centre.
Iraqi authorities hope the course of battle will allow most residents to shelter in place to avoid creating a humanitarian crisis as forces move towards Mosul, where more than a million people are still living.
The U.S. envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition said on Wednesday the coalition was already taking steps to ensure there would be no repeat in the Mosul offensive of the abuses seen in the wake of the recapture of Falluja in June, when Shi’ite militias detained, abused and tortured scores of Sunni civilians.
Slideshow (13 Images)
The disposition of forces and the treatment of Shirqat’s residents will be closely watched by the Sunni residents of Mosul, who have a historic mistrust of the forces of successive Shi’ite-led governments in Baghdad.
U.S. and Iraqi officials have said the push on Mosul could begin in October, though there are concerns that not enough planning has been done for how to manage the city, Iraq’s second-largest, if and when Islamic State is expelled.
Hawija, east of Shirqat, is the other remaining Islamic State bastion south of Mosul. The group also controls the city of Tel Afar, west of Mosul towards the Syrian border.WARNING: Graphic details. Newcastle Crown Court hears how a former government vet indulged in 'inflicting pain on others' in sex session that allegedly went too far
WARNING: This article contains graphic details that some readers may find distressing
A British man is being accused of killing his gay lover in a crystal meth S&M extreme sex session.
Kirk Thompson, 46, is alleged of causing severe internal injuries to David Kochs, 43, during the session at his home in Newcastle.
Thompson, who previously worked as an animal welfare adviser for the government, invited Kochs over after meeting him online.
A jury at Newcastle Crown Court was told Thompson ‘enjoyed inflicting pain on others’.
He was alleged to have burnt Kochs during the session, including on his private parts, and inflicted at least 44 injuries on his back with a riding crop.
At one point, Kochs’ mouth was stapled together as was one nostril with a surgical skin stapler.
He died of severe internal injuries caused after an electric toothbrush and metal bar were inserted into his body.
At some point, he became aware Kochs was either dead, unconscious or asleep – and covered his body with a duvet on the floor of his living room, the court heard.
He then allegedly invited another man – who he had also met online – to his home for sex, the Northern Echo reports.
Robert Smith, prosecuting, said Kochs suffered a ‘large number of injuries’ in the incident on 2 March last year.
Speaking to the jury, he said: ‘The case you are to try over the next few weeks as the jury in this trial is an unusual one. It is also a very disturbing one.
‘Some of the injuries are likely to have been done with the deceased’s agreement as part of sado-masochist sexual activity.
‘The evidence establishes the defendant clearly enjoyed inflicting pain on others and, in this instance, David Kochs.’
The morning after the incident, Thompson messaged his father, saying: ‘Can you come down immediately, something tragic has happened, just you not Mum please ASAP’, the court heard.
When he arrived at the flat, his father dialled 999 – prompting paramedics and police officers to arrive at the scene.
When police discovered Kochs lying on the floor, Thompson told police he had engaged in ‘extreme, no limits, anything goes’ sex with him after taking crystal meth.
He added he had covered the victim with a duvet because he believed he had fallen asleep.
Thompson has admitted possessing crystal meth, but denies the other three charges.
The trial continues.The hoopla began familiarly enough. A person in the public eye made comments that some deemed offensive, triggering an angry and indignant backlash.
The villain this time was an Australian journalist, Josh Massoud, who took fire for his comments about the reputation of Irish in the country for partying hard and leaving destruction in their wake.
Posting a photo of storm damage in the Sydney suburb of Coogee, a popular Irish hangout, on social media on Monday, Massoud quipped: “Coogee demolished over the weekend and for a pleasant change the Irish aren’t to blame.”
Predictably, outrage ensued. A throng of Irish in Australia, at home and elsewhere, branded the 7 News Sydney reporter’s remarks “racist,” “offensive” and “disgraceful”.
Picking up on the kerfuffle, The Irish Times contacted the reporter for his response, probably expecting to find a chastened and contrite Massoud seeking forgiveness for the offense caused.
But here proceedings veered wildly off script. Massoud wouldn’t be apologising. In fact, he wasn’t sorry at all. He couldn’t even understand what the fuss was about.
Explaining that he was “intrigued” by the backlash since he found Irish people endearingly irreverent themselves, Massoud said it would be “disingenuous” to apologise since he’d only be doing so in response to the outrage, not his actual comments.
“Sure I could delete the post and apologise,” he said. “But if it takes almost two days to say sorry, how can that possibly be sincere? Is that what people really need to feel better these days?”
Apologies on demand
The default expectation today is that almost any claim of offense will be met with a swift and earnest apology. But if the offending party doesn’t actually feel sorry, what’s the point in him pretending (lying, effectively) otherwise?
Who was really convinced when a stone-faced Johnny Depp mumbled “sorry” to Australia earlier this year after he and his now-estranged wife failed to declare two Yorkshire terriers they’d brought into the country?
Rather than being a heartfelt expression of remorse, the ritualised public apology too often feels like a cynical piece of theatre. Both the players and audience are aware of the con but neither wants to draw attention to the spectacle, which functions to save the offender from the baying mob and gift the offended their pound of flesh.
We demand sincerity from people who see the world differently when, by definition, sincerity can’t be summoned on demand.
Genuine remorse
After provoking outrage last week by joking that he and Roy Keane didn’t want to be thought of as “queers” while travelling together, Irish soccer manager Martin O’Neill faced more anger over the genuineness of his apology.
“If I had made inappropriate comments then I obviously apologise,” O’Neill said. “I will attempt during the rest of my time not to make such inappropriate comments.”
Irish Times columnist Una Mullally dismissed the effort as a “bullshit apology”, calling for his reprimand, while Mark Kelly, director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, complained that it was not authentic.
While there is little reason to believe O’Neill has any malice toward gay people, it’s clear he’s not fluent in the vernacular of his critics, many of whom would sooner associate “queer” with the title of a university module than an acceptable way of referring to a gay man.
That’s hardly surprising for a man who came of age in 1960s Northern Ireland.
If O’Neill did not appear sufficiently remorseful, should he apologise again? Would it be genuine then, or would it just be a way to pacify the crowd while paradoxically convincing few of them anything inside his head had changed?
Whether we like or not, you can’t will someone into genuine contrition. And that’s as it should be. After all, an apology should mean something – it’s for people to give, not for other people to take. If the disrupters of our sensibilities aren’t really sorry, let’s allow them to say so.
And let’s stop demanding they pretend they are.
John Power is an Irish journalist based in MelbourneFebruary 6, 2014 at 3:57 PM
Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee says he felt bad for Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning when he encountered him walking alone after the Seahawks trounced his team 43 to 8 this past Sunday in the Super Bowl.
Inslee was leaving MetLife Stadium down a long hallway when he saw the quarterback.
“He’s all alone. There was no entourage around him,” Inslee told a luncheon on Thursday. “I wish I had a camera. It was like the picture of defeat — head down, slow. I felt bad for the guy.
“He gave it his all and he’s obviously a tremendous competitor, and I’ve lost a few in my life, too,” said Inslee, who was a starting quarterback in high school and often uses sports metaphors in his speeches. “So I just went up to him and introduced myself as the governor of the state of Washington and I shook his hand. And I said ‘I know this is a really tough game for you, but there will be others and hang in there’ because I kind of wanted to console him.
“He looked down at me like he was going to break me in half,” Inslee said. “It was sort of like ‘whatever, dude’ and he walked away. My therapy didn’t work too well.”
Inslee told the story Thursday at a luncheon for the state Association of Washington Business. It was about the only laugh the governor got from the audience, which was quieter than a library for much of his speech, which went over his priorities such as closing tax breaks to raise money for education and increasing the state minimum wage.An odd, previously unseen landform could provide a window into the geological history of Mars, according to new research by University of Washington geologists.
They call the structures periodic bedrock ridges. The ridges look like sand dunes but, rather than being made from material piled up by the wind, the scientists say the ridges actually form from wind erosion of bedrock.
"These bedforms look for all the world like sand dunes but they are carved into hard rock by wind," said David Montgomery, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences. It is something there are not many analogs for on Earth."
He believes the ridges, while still bedrock, are composed of a softer, more erodible material than typical bedrock and were formed by an unusual form of wind erosion that occurs perpendicular to the prevailing wind rather than in the same direction.
He contrasts the ridges with another bedrock form called a yardang, which has been carved over time by headwinds. A yardang has a wide, blunt leading edge in the face of the wind, and its sides are tapered so that it resembles a teardrop.
In the case of periodic bedrock ridges, Montgomery believes high surface winds on Mars are deflected into the air by a land formation, and they erode the bedrock in the area where they settle back to the surface.
Spacing between ridges depends on how long it takes for the winds to come back to the surface, and that is determined by the strength of the wind, the size of the deflection and the density of the atmosphere, he said.
The discovery is important because if the ridges were actually created by wind depositing material into dunes, "you're not going to have information from any prior history of the material that is exposed at the surface," he said.
"But if it's cut into instead, and you're looking at the residual of a rock that has been eroded away, you can still get the history of what was happening long ago from that spot," Montgomery said.
"You could actually go back and look at some earlier eras in Martian history, and the wind would have done us the favor of exposing the layers that would have that history within it," he said. "There are some areas of the Martian surface, potentially large areas, that up until now we've thought you couldn't really get very far back into Mars history geologically."
Montgomery is the lead author of a paper documenting the discovery published online March 9 in the Journal of Geophysical Research, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. Coauthors are Joshua Bandfield, a UW research assistant professor of Earth and space sciences, and Scott Becker, who did the work as an undergraduate in Earth and space sciences and has received his degree. The work was funded in part by NASA.
There could be landforms on Earth that are somewhat similar to periodic bedrock ridges, Montgomery said, but to date there's nothing exactly like it, largely because there are not many bedrock landscapes on Earth in which wind is the main erosion agent.
"There are very few places … where you have bedrock exposed at the surface where there isn't also water that is carving valleys, that's shaping the topography," he said. "Mars is a different planet, obviously, and the biggest difference is the lack of fluvial action, the lack of water working on the surface."Houston: The Rockefeller Family Fund has said that it will divest from fossil fuels as quickly as possible and "eliminate holdings" of Exxon Mobil Corp, saying the oil company associated with the family fortune has misled the public about climate change risks.
Though only a sliver of the endowment's modest $US130 million ($171 million) in assets is invested in fossil fuels, the move is notable because a century ago John D. Rockefeller snr made a fortune running Standard Oil, a precursor to Exxon Mobil. The charity said it would also divest from coal and Canadian oil sands.
Flames shoot from a tower at Exxon Mobil Corp's Torrance Refinery in California earlier this month. Credit:Bloomberg
Given the threat posed to the survival of human and natural ecosystems, "there is no sane rationale for companies to continue to explore for new sources of hydrocarbons", the Rockefeller Family Fund said.
In a letter posted on its website, the fund said Exxon's conduct on climate issues appears to be "morally reprehensible".Building your Extra Deck’s no joke: lots of strategies may run very different cards in the Main Deck, but a lot of Decks share the same Xyz and Synchros. If you don’t have the right Extra Deck cards it might be tough to build the Decks you want to play.
The good news? You’ll find a ton of powerful Xyz and Synchros in Premium Gold: Infinite Gold, including these three tournament-winning powerhouses: Abyss Dweller, Black Rose Dragon, and Castel, the Skyblaster Musketeer are all back as Gold Rares!
Abyss Dweller’s one of the most important Rank 4’s of all time, shutting down any effect that activates in the graveyard. Over the years we’ve seen it played to stop legendary Decks like Dragon Rulers and Nekroz, but these days it’s awesome against Kozmo, Monarchs, and Burning Abyss.
In the Kozmo match-up you can keep your opponent from replacing monsters like Kozmo Dark Destroyer and Kozmo Forerunner when you destroy them, making it much easier to attack. Against Burning Abyss you can stop your opponent from triggering the abilities of everything from Scarm, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss and Farfa, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss, all the way up to Dante, Traveler of the Burning Abyss’ ability that would retrieve cards from the Graveyard.
Monarchs can’t recycle The Prime Monarch or Super Quantum Blue Layer under Abyss Dweller, nor can they retrieve monsters with Erebus the Underworld Monarch. You’ll keep them from claiming Graveyard effects like Edea the Heavenly Squire and Eidos the Underworld Squire too, and they can’t search anything with Pantheism of the Monarchs.
Phantom Knights and Atlanteans struggle with Abyss Dweller too, making it a top pick for almost every Deck you’d expected to see in a tournament. It’s great in Atlanteans as well, where you can use WATER monsters as Xyz Materials to boost its ATK; Dweller gains 500 Attack Points whenever it has a WATER monster as Xyz Material.
Next up, Castel, the Skyblaster Musketeer offers a totally different kind of problem solving. Detach one Xyz Material and you can shift a face-up monster to face-down Defense Position. That shuts off monster effects, turn big attackers defense mode, and lets you reuse your own Flip Effects. Detach two Materials and you can target a face-up card and shuffle it back into its owner’s deck.
Returning a card to the Deck is amazing if that card would trigger its effect when destroyed. Cards like Dante, Traveler of the Burning Abyss; The Phantom Knights of Break Sword; and Kozmo Sliprider all come to mind. But since Castel can also bump away face-up Spells and Traps, it’s a great answer to Continuous Spell and Trap Cards that keep you from making key moves. Anti-Spell Fragrance, Imperial Iron Wall, and Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror are just three examples.
Castle can also just help you push damage through a bigger monster. With 2000 ATK there’s no attack restriction on its abilities, so you can blow away a monster like Ignister Prominence, the Blasting Dracoslayer or Ehther the Heavenly Monarch and then swing with everything you’ve got for a game-winning push.
Akiza’s Black Rose Dragon has been one of the most recognizable Synchros for over seven years. When you Synchro Summon it you can activate Black Rose’s effect to destroy all cards on the field. Or you can skip that and banish a Plant-Type monster from your Graveyard, target a Defense Position monster, change it to face-up attack, and drop its ATK to 0.
Since most Decks don’t run Plant monsters right now, Black Rose Dragon’s usually played for its field-wipe ability, demolishing monsters, Spells, Traps, and Pendulum Scales alike. Clocking in at Level 7 it’s really easy to Summon with Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit. It’s a Level 3 Tuner that lots of Duelists play just for its effect, but Tuning it to any Level 4 can unleash Black Rose Dragon and devastate the Duel.
That tactic’s even easier if you’re playing Emergency Teleport; since Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit’s a Level 3 Psychic-Type monster, you can Special Summon it from your hand or Deck whenever you want to Black Rose your opponent. That’s good news for Kozmos, Monarchs, and Phantom Knights since they can all play Teleport.
If you haven’t managed to add any of these monsters to your Extra Deck yet, Premium Gold: Infinite Gold is your chance to grab them in glorious Gold Rare foil. Nab yours when Infinite Gold hits stores tomorrow!Image caption Wayne Rooney before his operation to counteract premature hair loss
Footballer Wayne Rooney tweeted at the weekend that he had undergone hair transplant surgery, joining a growing list of celebrities who have gone public on such procedures. But how should ordinary men break the news to their friends and family?
For many men, losing their hair is an extremely sensitive issue. Whatever efforts they take to counteract the effects can be embarrassing.
Telling people you have had hair transplant surgery can elicit accusations of "manity" - male vanity.
But Rooney has earned some praise for his approach in going public shortly after his operation, with one commentator from the Irish Times saying he had handled the issue with great style.
"I was going bald at 25 - why not. I'm delighted with the result," Rooney posted at the weekend, adding: "It's still a bit bruised and swollen."
His frank approach elicited a supportive message from Manchester United and England team-mate, Rio Ferdinand: "Just don't go down the wearing a alice band route!! You'll be doing headshoulders adverts soon! Hope its gone OK. Good luck lad."
On Monday, Rooney followed up the announcement by posting a picture of his post-op head on his Twitter feed.
Image caption James Nesbitt in 2009 and right, in 2011, after his hair transplant surgery
Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi took a different approach in 2004. He was subjected to ridicule in the national and international media after wearing a white bandana, leaving commentators and the public playing a guessing game as whether or not he had hair transplant surgery.
He went public months later, saying he felt 25 years younger and that as far as he was concerned cosmetic surgery was a way of showing respect to your loved ones.
Rooney, who has premature hair loss, joins celebrities such as actors John Cleese and James Nesbitt in talking publicly about having hair transplant surgery.
Nesbitt, who spent tens of thousands of pounds on his operation, had been open about his fear of losing his hair. He initially discussed his transplant in a video testimonial for the Dublin clinic that carried it out at the end of 2010.
Virility link
In subsequent interviews, he maintained that it has changed his life and that anyone who says going bald isn't horrible "is lying".
His honesty led one commentator to suggest that he had "played a blinder... a mix of matter-of-fact honesty and bewilderment that people are making so much of it".
It's good if you can look confident and have a sense of humour - if you show shame of embarrassment it's the worst thing Judi James, Social behaviour expert
To many men, hair loss is a sensitive issue. In many people's minds it is associated with loss of virility and vitality - counter-intuitive given that high testosterone is one of the reasons cited by medical experts for hair loss.
Figures for how many hair transplant operations take place in the UK are hard to come by, but Dr Bessam Farjo, medical director of the Institute of Trichologists, estimates that the annual figure is around 10,000, compared with about 5,000 five years ago.
The surgeon runs his own medical centres, where he says he has seen numbers for these procedures steadily increase, and they are now starting to spike.
But hair transplant surgery is an expensive, painful procedure. Inevitably, men can face a hard time once family and friends get wind of it.
"The implication is that it's a vanity thing," says Mike Shallcross, deputy editor of Men's Health magazine. "But men nowadays want to look better and they want more advice on how to do it. There is a big boom area in male grooming and people do it for different reasons."
He thinks Rooney's approach to going public is a good one.
"I think it was admirable that he was so upfront," he says. "It is worse having had something obvious done, but trying to pretend nothing has happened.
"I don't know of any reason why one couldn't drip it into an exchange of e-mails with your friends - after all, if you turned up at the pub with your mates with a full head of hair, it could become an early talking point.
Image caption In 2004 Silvio Berlusconi appeared in a bandana, sparking rumours that he had undergone hair surgery
"Probably with colleagues at work, it's best to tell them in advance. It's a bit like having laser eye surgery, it's noticeable, suddenly you won't be wearing glasses anymore."
Shallcross says it's better not to make too big a fuss when announcing the news.
"The bigger the deal you make of it, the more dramatically people will react."
But, as Shallcross points out, hair transplants are not for everyone who is losing their hair.
"Male pattern baldness is common but many men are wearing it well - gone are the days of the Bobby Charlton combover - there are a lot of men who have made hair loss look cool. Actor Jason Statham is one of our most popular cover stars," he says.
But for those who do go down that route, humour can be key when making the announcement. It was this element that stood out with the Rooney announcement - and his wife's follow-up tweet pointing out that the decision had not been made on account of Coleen badgering him.
"Humour is very important in this kind of announcement," says social behaviour expert Judi James. "People take a lead from your own behaviour, it's good if you can look confident and have a sense of humour. If you show shame of embarrassment it's the worst thing.
"You could mention it beforehand. That will avoid the sniggering, and people are more likely to speak straight to your face about what it was like etc. Wayne has done the right thing - announce it and get it over and done with, and perhaps suggest a date when you will be showing it off.
"If you change your look, the reaction are mostly shock or laughter and actually laughter is not a bad response. If handled well, people will be laughing with you rather than at you."SEATTLE — The Mariners figured out how to stop giving up home runs to Gary Sanchez: Just walk him.
The rookie catcher was issued two intentional walks in the Yankees’ 5-0 win — after he hit his ninth homer in 18 games since being recalled from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on Aug. 3.
And both times Wednesday, Mark Teixeira stood in the on deck circle. Teixeira has 404 home runs in his career, yet he couldn’t disagree with Seattle’s decision.
“If Babe Ruth’s behind him, you intentionally walk him,” Teixeira said. “I’m hitting.195. Of course you walk him. … He’s as hot as any player I’ve ever played with in my entire career. You just don’t see guys doing what he’s doing — I don’t care how old he is.”
And the 23-year-old Sanchez did just fine behind the plate, as well, guiding Masahiro Tanaka through seven scoreless innings as the duo worked well together for a second straight start.
The combination helped the Yankees win their fourth game on this six-game West Coast trip and now, they will turn their focus to the final 36 games of the season — 30 of them against teams in the AL East.
And if the Yankees are actually going to at least put a scare into their division rivals, Sanchez will be a key part of it.
Manager Joe Girardi compared Sanchez’s start to that of Dellin Betances, who was an All-Star as a rookie and quickly became a force out of the bullpen.
“What Gary is doing is phenomenal,” Betances said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. You kind of anticipate him hitting a home run every AB.”
Let’s not get carried away. He also ripped a double down the left-field line to start the fifth and reached base four times Wednesday.
“When I got here, I expected to get some at-bats,” Sanchez said through a translator. “Now, I’m playing every day and it’s really good for me.”
With his first-inning blast, Sanchez became the fifth player in MLB history — since 1913 — to hit nine home runs in the first 21 games of his career.
He hit a towering pop-up to third in his next at-bat before drilling his sixth double of the season. At that point, the Mariners had seen enough, although they got some help from Didi Gregorius.
After Brett Gardner led off the seventh with a single, Gregorius bunted him to second.
Gregorius admitted he bunted on his own to get Gardner into scoring position for Sanchez, but manager Scott Servais took advantage of the open base and walked him.
“He’s earned it,” Servais said. “He did a lot of damage against us. … I certainly respect Mark Teixeira and what he’s done in his career — I’ve seen a lot of it — but watching the game with the naked eye, it’s obvious who’s hot and Sanchez had a heck of a series.”
Teixeira made them pay with an RBI single to left.
In the ninth, Gregorius doubled and Seattle walked Sanchez again — even though it loaded the bases with no one out.
“It’s part of the game,” Sanchez said. “I’m hitting the ball well. I see why they walked me.”
The move was certainly logical, albeit rare.
“You don’t see it very often,” Girardi said. “It means Scott Servais is probably paying attention to how he’s swinging. I’ve never seen a young player come up and do what he’s done as a manager.”
No one has.
“He’s the hottest hitter right now in all of the major leagues,” Betances said. “He can hurt anybody at any time — that’s what’s crazy. [But] I’ve known Gary for a while and that [power] was something he always had. He’s developed as a catcher. Calling games, blocking balls, I’ve been more impressed with that. Obviously, he’s hitting a home run every other game — or every game — but what he’s doing behind the plate [is better].”It’s been a few weeks since the announcement and the initial excitement has begun to subside with the prospect of waiting almost 2 years before the service is up and running. So, this feels like a good time to sit back and examine why this Google Fiber endeavor is such a big deal (other than the hopeful catalyst forcing Time Warner/Comcast/AT&T into insolvency or at the very least into companies that provide semi-decent service).
In short, Google Fiber is an Internet Service Provider (ISP) that will compete with Time Warner Cable, AT&T, and Comcast. The reason Google Fiber has received so much publicity is because it provides download speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second (GbPS). To put this in perspective, the average download speed for residents of North Carolina ranges from 3-7 Megabits per second (MbPS). 1 Gigabit (Gb) equals 1,000 Megabits (Mb). As of right now, the highest download speed generally available in North Carolina is 50 MbPS. Even if you are paying the $70 per month for these speeds, Google Fiber will provide you with speeds 20 times faster... and at the same price (based on current pricing in Kansas City). Not only will Google Fiber provide incredibly fast download speeds at reasonable costs, but it will offer free broadband internet at speeds up to 5 MbPS after a $300 “construction fee” (based on Kansas City pricing and speeds). This same model is expected to be adopted in all future cities as well. So it is easy to see why there is so much hype surrounding this announcement.
Okay, but where’s the catch? Well, there are a few caveats regarding Google Fiber’s service that tend to get lost in the details. First off, not everyone in Charlotte will have access to Google Fiber (at least not at the initial roll out). Currently, there is not a map of service areas provided, but here is a map depicting a decent estimation. Secondly, ISPs offer service “up to” a certain speed, which means that this is the best-case scenario for download speeds. There are a multitude of factors that can impact your personal download speeds. While 1,000 MbPS is an amazing feat, you will need to have the hardware to achieve these speeds. Most computers these days should be able to handle 1,000 MbPS download speeds. With that being said, most homes today use a wireless/Wi-Fi connection, which will limit your download speeds to anywhere from 600 MbPS down to 54 MbPS depending on your hardware. Now, 54 MbPS is still extremely fast and more than most people will need for basic internet browsing such as social media, surfing the web, and streaming movies. But be forewarned that you may need to do some hardware upgrading in order to truly take advantage of Google Fiber’s potential. However, given the speed of technological evolution, by the time Google Fiber service is finally available (expected in 2017) hopefully these concerns will have been remedied.
Verdict: Despite the few limitations, Google Fiber is going to be a great addition to our community and should provide a level of service and support that our current ISPs are profusely lacking. We should also see an increase in start-up business development similar to those seen in Kansas City, but that is a discussion for another time. So revel in the knowledge that our current ISPs are finally about to get some real competition and let’s all hope that Google delivers the quality product that we’ve come to expect from their brand.First Krita 3.0 pre-alpha!
Published 1/17/2016
More than a year in the making… We proudly present the first pre-alpha version of Krita 3.0 you can actually try to run! So what is Krita 3.0 pre-alpha? It’s the Qt5 port, with animation, instant preview, a handful of new features and portable packages for everyone! When we feel everything is nice and stable we’ll release Krita 3.1, and we’ll keep on releasing new versions as and when we finish Kickstarter stretch goals. So keep in mind: Krita 3.0 is experimental.
This “release” includes the latest version of the animation and the instant-preview performance work, plus there are a number of stretch goals from the Kickstarter already available, too. And it is a major upgrade of the core technology that Krita runs on: from Qt4 to Qt5. The latter wasn’t something that was a lot of fun, but it’s needed to keep Krita code healthy for the future! Whatever may come, we’re ready for it!
The port to Qt5 meant a complete rewrite of our tablet and display code, which, combined with animation and the instant preview means that Krita is really unstable right now! And that means that we need you to help us test!
Another little project was updating our build-systems for Windows, OSX, and Linux. We fully intend to make Krita 3.0 as supported on OSX as on Windows and Linux, and to that end, we got ourselves a faster Mac.
One of the cool things coming from this system is that for Krita 3.0 we can have portable packages for all three systems! We have AppImages for Linux, DMG’s for OSX and a portable zip file for 64 bits Windows. Sorry, no 32 bits Windows builds yet…
Download Instructions
Windows
Download the zip file. Unzip the zip file where you want to put Krita..
Run the vcredist_x64.exe installer to install Microsoft’s Visual Studio runtime.
Then double-click the krita link.
Known issues on Windows:
The location of the configuration files has changed: configuration data and custom resources, and the new location isn’t correct yet. The settings are in %APPDATA%\Local\kritarc and the resources in %APPDATA%\Roaming\Krita\krita\krita
If the entire window goes black, disable OpenGL for now. We’ve figured out the reason, now we only need to write a fix. It’s a bug in the Intel driver, but we know how to work around it now.
OSX
Download the DMG file and open it. Then drag the krita app bundle to the Applications folder, or any other location you might prefer. Double-click to start Krita.
Known issues on OSX:
We built Krita on El Capitan. The bundle is tested to work on a mid 2011 Mac Mini running Mavericks. It looks like you will need hardware that is capable of running El Captitan to run this build, but you do not have to have El Capitan, you can try running on an earlier version of OSX.
El Capitan, you can try running on an earlier version of OSX. You will not see a brush outline cursor or any other tool that draws on the canvas, for instance the gradient tool. This is known, we’re working on it, it needs the same fix as the black screen you can get with some Intel drivers.
Linux
For the Linux builds we now have Appimages! These are completely distribution-independent. To use the AppImage, download it, and make it an executable in your terminal or using the file properties dialog of your file manager,Another change is that configuration and custom resources are now stored in the.config/krita.org/kritarc and.local/share/krita.org/ folders of the user home folder, instead of.kde or.kde4.
Known issues on Linux:
Your distribution needs to have Fuse enabled
On some distributions or installations, you can only run an AppImage as root because the Fuse system is locked down. Since an AppImage is a simple iso, you can still mount it as a loopback device and execute Krita directly using the AppRun executable in the top folder.
What’s Next?
More alpha builds! We’ll keep fixing bugs and implementing features, and keep making releases! Right now, we’re aiming for an update every week. Remember that Krita 3.0 will not include all of the features from the last Kickstarter. We still have a ways to go with adding the rest of the stretch goals, but with this release you’ll get…
Change Log
All the animation features from the Animation Beta
And more animation goodness:
Animation Drop Frame Support
We implemented a “Drop Frames” mode for Krita and made it default option. Now you can switch on the “Drop Frames” mode in the Animation Docker to ensure your animation is playing with the requested frame rate, even when the GPU cannot handle this amount of data to be shown.
Show the current frames per second (fps) and whether the frames are dropped in the tooltip of the drop frames button.
The animation playback buttons become red if the frames are dropped. The tool tip shows the following values:
Effective FPS – the visible speed of the clip
Real FPS – how many real frames per second is shown (always smaller)
Frames dropped – percentage of the frames dropped
Other Animation Features
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who already has a son and daughter with Jimenez, revealed that he's now the proud papa of another baby girl. And that special addition to the family has a very special name.
"I named her Pauline," he revealed to Natalie Morales.
Stuart C. Wilson / Getty Images for Universal Pictu
"I'm telling you this because I love you," Diesel said before sharing the news. "I know that you are a good soul, and I know that this is in good hands."
It was a particularly fitting choice for Diesel, who said his close friend and co-star in five of the seven "Fast and the Furious" films, Paul Walker, was there with him when his new addition arrived.
"He was in the room," Diesel recalled. "There's no other person that I was thinking about as I was cutting this umbilical cord. I just... knew he was there."
And Diesel decided that Pauline's name would be a way to make sure Walker would always be there.
"It felt like, you know, a way to keep his memory a part of my family and a part of my world," he explained.
Venturelli / Getty Images Contributor
Diesel has long thought of Walker as a part of that family. At a recent preview screening of "Furious 7," he said that when Walker died in a car crash in 2013, "I lost my best friend. I lost my brother."
"Furious 7," Walker's last film, opens in theaters nationwide April 3.
Follow Ree Hines on Google+.Southern Cuisine and Bourbon Bar Hen Quarter Heads to Dublin for Midwest Debut
A new southern cuisine and bourbon bar is coming to Dublin. Hen Quarter, with locations in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington D.C., is breaking into the Midwest market with their first store located at 6628 Riverside Drive inside the new Bridge Park development by Crawford Hoying. It’s set to open in spring 2018.
“We couldn’t be more excited for Hen Quarter to join us at Bridge Park,” said Brent Crawford, Principal at Crawford Hoying, in a press release. “Now this east coast favorite can be enjoyed by Central Ohio residents, visitors and employees.”
Hen Quarter offers a menu spanning breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner, and features items like fried chicken and waffles, short ribs, shrimp and grits, and an assortment of salads. Smaller dishes will be available as well, which include deviled eggs, fried green tomatoes and a strawberry parfait.
The restaurant is 4,568 square feet and has extra dining space on its 815-square foot patio. It’ll have a full bar containing a “ridiculously long” list of bourbon, whiskey, scotch and specialty cocktails, including drinks like their signature Hen Quarter Julep, Kentucky Breakfast, and other classic beverages. Live entertainment will be a big part of Hen Quarter, too.
“With its lively atmosphere, Bridge Park offers the perfect setting for our newest Hen Quarter location,” said Ron Jordan, CEO at Jordan Restaurant Group, which owns Hen Quarter. “Hen Quarter is unlike any other restaurant in Columbus. We offer top notch Southern fare with low-key vibes and strong whiskey.”
Hen Quarter’s plans for Bridge Park follow announcements for a multitude of other dining destinations, including REBoL, Cap City Fine Diner, Z Cucina, Fukuryu Ramen, Vaso Rooftop Lounge, and more.
For more information on Hen Quarter, visit henquarter.com.
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About the Author Lauren Sega is the Associate Editor for Columbus Underground. She covers political issues on the local and state levels, as well as local food and restaurant news. She grew up near Cleveland, graduated from Ohio University's Scripps School of Journalism, and loves running, traveling and hiking.
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Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg has held the eponymous mid position in the Team SoloMid lineup since November last year. Now on his way to Intel Extreme Masters San Jose, both he and the team have come a long way since then.In the leadup to the main event at the SAP Center, Michal Blicharz took the opportunity to talk to Bjergsen about the path that took him to where he is today, how to deal with the demands of living the life of a professional League of Legends player and taking on the challenges ahead with his team.Hello, Søren, and thank you for speaking with us today. The last 18 months of your life must have been a complete blur. How was it to be a passenger on this trip?To be honest, it's been awesome. I have grown a lot since I started this crazy journey through esports, and I've learned a lot about myself and how to be in a work environment. I was a way different, less happy person 18 months ago, and I'm happy I was lucky enough to go down this road. There has been a lot of ups and downs, but I can say with confidence that this is the happiest I've ever been!How have you changed as a person since the NiP times?Back in NiP I think I was a lot more innocent. I was playing with a bunch of friends, and we didn't see it as much as a job as we did a hobby. I didn't understand the business side, building your brand, interacting with fans, etc. There was a big side I was missing - all I wanted to do was play the game that I loved. I was a lot more immature and didn't work with my team as well as I do now. Back then I thought someone else underperforming was their own problem when it’s really a team’s effort to get that player back on top.Is it true to say that after joining TSM you've been earning more than you thought you could earn in your life? What are you doing with the money?I am definitely earning a lot more than I thought I would at such a young age. My only actual job before this was being a paperboy, so I definitely have better working conditions now, haha. I am trying to save up, to build a good foundation for my future - it's unlikely I can stay in esports forever no matter how hard I try. Luckily both my parents work in economy, so they help me with managing my money and whatever questions I may have.What are the difficulties of moving across the world for a 19 year old from Europe?Now that I'm soon to be 19, it's a lot easier. At home I had a lot of difficulties with depression and more, so my parents helped me with whatever I needed. I didn't do my own laundry, I didn't cook, the main responsibility I had was my dog, to walk him and take care of him. That meant I had to get used to doing a lot of these basic householding things on a daily basis, but luckily I joined the team in the offseason and had a couple months to adjust.Obviously there is also the part about being far away from my family, friends and dog who I love dearly. I didn't get to see them much this past year, but I keep in contact with them as much as I can. I'm excited to visit Denmark against in December.What have you found outside LoL that kept you functioning and living a normal life?That's been something I had difficulty with. I have friends here, but not enough time to see them very often. After a couple months here, I got myself a French bulldog. He helped me have a connection outside of the game and my job, and sort of have an escape, a place where I could relax and be at peace.Unfortunately it caused some problems in the gaming house, and I also wasn't playing/practicing to my fullest potential since I had to take care of a pet, so I had to give him to my friend, who is he very happy with now. Now the main things I do outside League to take some time off is being with friends, working out and watching TV shows. I feel like all those things let me forget and focus on something other than the game. I learned you can't just live and breathe the game, you need some time off - even just an hour a day will go a long way.Is there a lot of pressure when you play for TSM, especially on you, as you were brought in with the job of putting TSM at number one?There is a lot of pressure, but not from TSM, the players or management itself. It comes from the fans and myself wanting me to perform well. I had some problems with confidence during the summer split, and it affected my performance since I was nervous and scared to play to my fullest potential simply because I had a couple bad games.It's important you don't let some bad games or scrims affect your mentality, since lack of confidence can easily break a player. Locodoco taught me that even if I don't play as well as I know I can, it's not the end of the world - it's all about what you learn, and ultimately to know why you didn't play to your fullest potential. He also taught me ways to relax before and inside the game if I was feeling anxious. In a couple weeks I got my confidence back and played much better around playoffs/PAX than I did the whole season.What was the key to taking the championship away from Cloud 9?The most important things were to figure out our weaknesses and their strengths, and coming up with a solid plan to play around both. It was important we adapted throughout the series and learned from what they showed us. I didn't go into that series with a lot of confidence. I didn't feel like we went into that series as the team I really wanted us to be, but we did well enough on the day to beat them. There's always room to improve, and I think we learned a lot of things that we can bring into Season 5 from playing at PAX/Worlds.How tough is it going to be to do it again, especially with the roster change?I'm not gonna lie, it's gonna be tough. The bootcamp leading up to Worlds was hard on the team - it's a close environment with 14 hours of practice every day. So it's gonna be hard, but I'll definitely enjoy it. The offseason has really shown me how much I miss scrimming every day, having a structive, the thrill of competitive games. I miss playing LCS every weekend, or practicing for an important best of five. I think we can do it again, and I think we can do it better this time!You're talking about Cloud 9 like an underdog and not the title defender. Why is that?As much as I'm happy we won PAX and got out of groups, I don't see this year as a complete success. I see a lot of room for improvement, and a lot of room to grow as a player and a team. I strive for us to do better at international tournaments, and to show we can be a real force in the competitive scene. I didn't expect us to win PAX, so it was more of a nice bonus. I'm gonna have real expectations of us doing well this year and taking at least top two or I'll be disappointed.So you see yourself as a team below Cloud 9 in the pecking order?I don't see us as below Cloud 9, but I don't see us as the clearly better team either - I wanna change that.Please correct me if I'm wrong - you don't have a replacement for Amazing lined up yet?Not officially :P Can’t say much.What are you looking for in Amazing's replacement?Some of the things I'm looking for in a jungler would be mechanical skill, communication and work ethic. I think pretty good mechanics are obviously a good foundation for building a world-class player, and we don't want a downgrade in that sense. Communication is extremely important in the jungler, since you're constantly talking to all lanes at the same time to figure out when and where to gank. It's important the jungler is talkative and reaches out to the lanes, asking what they want.Last would be work ethic, which is something that's really important to me. I wanna see players in my team that want and care about this as much as I do, and show it in their practice, their contribution to team talks and overall dedication to the game. I want someone who is willing to watch through replays and VODs of other regions because he is hungry to learn, not someone who says it's boring and wants to play solo queue instead.You come from Europe and play in NA. Which LCS region is stronger?I can't say which region is stronger - both regions have developed a lot since I changed. Back when I played in EU, there were very few coaches/analysts working on the team - mine had none. Now it's been over a year, and the infrastructure in both regions has become much better.I think the regions are extremely close, and are likely gonna stay this way for a while now. I enjoyed playing in both and don't have a preference - it will be wherever my career brings me. I don't have any intention to leave TSM, though - I'm very happy here and the organization treats me very well.What should the fans expect of Intel Extreme Masters San Jose, both from you and the event in general?Expect a good show, and great matches. Unfortunately Locodoco and Lustboy have been getting their visas, so our practice starts about a month later than the other teams going, and also playing with a new member. We're definitely gonna be at a disadvantage, and it won’t be easy for us to win, but if we make the most use out of our limited practice time, I believe we can do it. I hope I can perform well, since I have been playing a lot, even during the offseason, trying to perfect my play. Intel Extreme Masters San Jose will be a chance for me to show that!Think Team SoloMid are going to come out on top at Intel Extreme Masters San Jose? Give us your take in the comments below! Additionally, if you enjoyed this interview, why not read our interview with Cloud 9 jungler Meteos Images courtesy of lolesports on Flickr and Facebook.com/BjergsenLoLCLACTON MP Douglas Carswell has called on health ministers to help increase the number of medical students going into general practice.
Mr Carswell wrote to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, calling on the Government to take action to cut the length of time that it can take to see a GP.
He said there were major problems recruiting doctors in Clacton, Frinton and Walton, and asked: “What more can be done to make general practice more attractive to young doctors, in order to offset the number of GPs who are retiring?”
In response, minister Dr Daniel Poulter said the Government was taking action to address GP shortages, citing a new £10million investment fund and a new tenpoint plan to “incentivise younger doctors”.
Speaking to the Gazette, Mr Carswell added: “Local people have a growing sense of frustration and anger at the length of time that it sometimes takes to see a doctor.
“It’s not the fault of local GPs if there aren’t enough doctors. Ministers need to increase the number of medical students going into general practice.”
Mr Carswell said he had followed up by tabling a written question to the minister specifically about the future of Epping Close surgery in Great Clacton, which closed almost a year ago for repairs but never reopened.
Patients are now forced to use a surgery a mile-and-ahalf away in Kennedy Way.Arguably "the greenest blade server on the market", PSSC Labs' new Eco Blade 1U rack server offers power and performance with energy savings of up to 46% over competing servers, says the company. Engineered specifically for high-performance, high-density computing environments, the Eco Blade is a unique server platform that simultaneously increases compute density while decreasing power use.
The solution offers two complete and independent servers contained in 1U of rack space. Each independent server supports up to 64 Intel Xeon processor cores and 1.0TB of enterprise memory for a total of up to 128 Cores and 2TB of memory per 1U. A unique design feature—the lack of a shared power supply or backplane—provides for the bulk of Eco Blade's power savings and thus lower long-term TCO.
PSSC Labs calls on the IT industry to contribute its share to reducing its environmental footprint. The Eco Blade enables organizations to obtain the performance needed to fuel cutting-edge research and groundbreaking enterprises while significantly reducing the power used and, thanks to the 55% recyclable material content, waste generated via the data center.
The Eco Blade 1U server is certified compatible with Red Hat CentOS, Ubuntu and Microsoft operating systems.Displaying a placard that reads Rahul Gandhi se apni beti ke rishtey ki maang, this woman has been sitting on an indefinite fast at Jantar Mantar since July 9
Displaying a placard that reads Rahul Gandhi se apni beti ke rishtey ki maang, this woman has been sitting on an indefinite fast at Jantar Mantar since July 9
Braving the intermittent heavy rains, Om Shanti Sharma sits in silent prayer. She calls upon God for a suitable groom for her daughter. But she wants the match to be none other but the General Secretary of the Congress party Rahul Gandhi. And if the Gandhi scion accepts her proposal, she is ready to shell out Rs 15 crore as dowry.
Clad in a simple yellow sari, Sharma has been sitting on an indefinite fast at Jantar Mantar since July 9, and has taken a maun-vrata. However, the placard placed behind her speaks beyond her vow of silence. It reads, ‘Rahul Gandhi se apni beti ke rishtey ki maang’.
The card also states that she is from Jaipur in Rajasthan and wants her share in property from her in-laws and family. “She has taken a vow of silence, so she neither speaks, nor writes anything to communicate. She sits here all day praying,” said Santosh Murat Singh, another protestor at Jantar Mantar, who has been declared dead by his relatives and is fighting to prove his existence.
Meanwhile, police officials said that Sharma could be mentally unstable and has not sought any requisite permission or has submitted an undertaking regarding her protest. When inquired about the incident, additional DCP of New Delhi range KC Dwivedi refused to comment.These news briefs are based on wire services, NucNet, WNN, and other sources.
India Plans six more fast breeder reactors
India’s Department of Atomic Energy has announced ambitious plans for construction of the first two of a planned series of six fast breede reactors that will burn MOX fuel. The Chairman of the BHAVINI R&D complex told the Economic Times of India that its first unit will go critical in Spring 2016. The 500 MW prototype sodium cooled fast breeder reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam is expected to get clearance for fuel loading next March.
After a year of operations which will include generating power into the grid, if successful, the R&D center will seek approvel to build the next two units which will be designed to be 600 MW units. Their role will be to serve as platforms to optimize construction methods and to reduce costs from first-of-a-kind designs. The sites for the next four units, which won’t be built until at least 2030, have not yet been selected by the center.
India’s development of fast breeder reactors is part of a very long-term three phase program to migrate from conventional light water reactors to advanced designs.
Progress cited at Kudankulam NPP power station
The second of two Russian built 1000 MW VVER light water reactors has passed all hydraulic tests as part of the process of commissioning it to send power to the grid. Full commercial operations are expected by the end of this month though that date could change. Start-up has been postponed four times so far as operators fix glitches in the equipment.
Meanwhile, NPCIL and Rosatom are making plans to build two more 1000 MW VVERs at the site. India and Russia have signed off on an agreement for construction of as many as 12 units though not all of them will be in Tamil Nadu. A second site in Andhra Pradesh is being considered for the seventh and eighth units. There a coastal site could host as many as six nuclear reactors.
Vietnam postpones construction of first two of four planned Rosatom VVERs
As part of a continuing effort not to start its commercial nuclear program before it is ready, Vietnam has again postponed breaking ground for the construction of four Rosatom nuclear reactors this time for another two years to 2020.
Hoang Anh Tuan, director general of the Vietnam Atomic Energy Agency, said it still doesn’t have the workforce needed to build or to safely operate the reactors. However, he said that the environmental assessment of the proposed site for them in Ninh Thuan province had been completed with the help of the IAEA.
The start date for the plants was originally set to be 2014 and will eventually be composed of four 1000 MW units at a cost of about $9 billion. The bulk of the financing would come in the form of a loan from Rosatom. The Russian firm is training Vietnamese engineers to operate the reactors. A Japanese consortium has an agreement with Vietnam to build four more reactors, but the designs for them have not yet been agreed to by the two countries.
Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy makes progress on UK GDA process
Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy said it has completed a regulatory milestone in the UK Generic Design Assessment (GSA) for its 1350 MW ABWR reactor. The milestone completes safety and security requirements. The next step is the environmental assessment and all work on the GDA is scheduled for completion by the end of 2017.
Completion of he GDA does not grant the vendor a license to build one of its reactors in the UK. That’s a separate process. The ABWR is a candidate design for two sites in the UK 19 GW new build – Wylfa and Oldbury.
Saskatchewan takes a look at SMRs
The electrical supply system in the central Canadian province of Saskatchwan is interested in small modular reactors (SMRs) for its widely scattered communities.
SasPower President Mike Marsh says the utility has no immediate plans to pursue an SMR, but is waiting to see if they are proven to be successful in the market. He thinks they could be good fit in the province’s electrical grid.
In 2009 the utility backed off of a plan to develop a 1000 MW reactor after a combination of poor economics and public opposition forced it to cancel the effort. Now Marsh thinks that the lower cost of an SMR might make sense.
The population of 1.13 million people is spread over a huge area. Its two largest cities, Saskatoon and Regina, have a combined population of about just under 600,000 or about half the total provincial population. Mining, agriculture / forestry make up about 21% of the economy.
The energy industry is very significant. Producing 487,000 barrels of oil a day in 2013, Saskatchewan is the second largest oil producer in Canada.
The province is the world’s leading supplier of uranium – almost 85% of this uranium is exported, with the remainder used to fuel nuclear reactors in Canada. Saskatchewan’s uranium is responsible for 5% of the electricity generated in the United States. Saskatchewan also has a vast supply of mineable lignite coal.
SMRs could support the energy industry and also serve to be a substitute for coal burning. The province’s lignite coal is inefficient as a fossil fuel and leaves behind a large waste ash heap.
Five Companies Interested In Poland Nuclear Project, Say Reports
(NucNet) Five companies have expressed an interest in supplying the reactor technology for Poland’s first nuclear power station, Jacek Cichosz, president of PGE EJ1, the company in charge of the project, told local media.
According to press reports, the companies are GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy Americas, Korea Electric Power Corporation, SNC-Lavalin Nuclear Inc, Westinghouse Electric Company and Areva. Mr Cichosz said preliminary discussions had been held with all five. He said the qualification phase is to be completed by the middle of 2016 while a final decision will be made in 2019.
Readers should not hold their breath on this news as the Polish government has repeatedly indicated it is not ready for prime time to commit to build full size nuclear reactors. While the country wants to close its dirty coal fired power plant, it hasn’t sufficiently organized itself to deploy new nuclear reactors to replace them. Some firms have proposed swapping out the coal boilers for SMRs which would take advantage of existing grid infrastructure.
Japan’s government to support nuclear fuel recycling
(NucEngMag) Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has proposed revisions to the used nuclear fuel recycling program, calling for stronger government involvement to ensure more reliable management.
Currently, power companies that operate nuclear plants set aside funds for used fuel reprocessing and use them to pay Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd’s (JNFL’s), based at the village of Rokkasho in Aomori Prefecture. There is growing concern that power companies may withdraw from JNFL’s fuel recycling business if they confront financial difficulties.
Japan’s METI Motoo Hayashi gave assurances on 11/28 that the government will continue to pursue its policy of recycling nuclear fuel. He spoke to reporters after visiting the Rokkasho reprocessing plant. However, the plant has suffered a series of problems during test runs, and it is unclear when it will start operating.
Meanwhile, fuel storage pools at nulcear plant sites are becoming full and the problem will increase if more reactors are restarted while the Rokkasho plant remains offline.
The schedule of the Rokkasho’s completion has been postponed by more than two years because the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) has not yet finished its safety screening. Hayashi said the postponement will allow the plant to meet new safety requirements introduced after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. He added that he had asked JNFL to make an all-out effort to complete the plant. The NRA has taken a tough stand on safety at the plant calling for JFNL to be replaced by another operator if it cannot meet its new regulatory requirements.
System Commissioning At Olkiluoto-3 Expected To Begin In Spring 2016
(NucNet) System commissioning at the Olkiluoto-3 EPR unit under construction in Finland is expected to begin in the spring of 2016 with regular electricity generation beginning in “more than three years”, operator Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) said.
TVO said the estimated schedule came from plant supplier Areva-Siemens and “the next steps towards commissioning are now more accurate”.
TVO said it expects to apply for an operating licence for the plant in spring 2016. The company said generation from the plant is needed urgently to reduce Finland’s electricity imports from neighbouring countries.
Decisions to close several power plants have decreased Finnish electricity self-sufficiency and the 1,600-megawatt Olkiluoto-3 will replace “a significant part” of the import requirement, TVO said. A report by the European Commission said Finland is reliant on electricity imports during peak demand periods and “will continue to be reliant” until Olkiluoto-3 is complete.
Separately, France’s Economy Minister Emmanuel Marcon will travel to Finland to try to settle the multiple disputes over costly delays between Areva, Siemans, and TVO. Arbitration over nearly $6 billion in claims among the disputing parties has cast a shadow over efforts to recapitalize Areva’s nuclear reactor division, and to attract outside investors to it.
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Here’s a touchy subject for a person like me with chronic disease: intimacy. It requires hefty doses of humility and humor, both of which the pain of fibromyalgia and celiac disease can deplete.
With celiac disease, the pain comes from getting glutened: accidentally ingesting even a tiny crumb of gluten from wheat, rye, or barley. There’s the crampy pain, the inflammation pain, and the stabbing pain that can frog-hop the length of the intestinal tract for several days. The accompanying gut disturbances – first, there’s no movement, and then a few days later there’s way too much movement in said intestines – are anything but sexy. I also get the “gluten rash,” dermatitis herpetiformis, which affects only about 15 to 25 percent of people with celiac disease. It pops up wherever it wants: arms, legs, face, shoulders, even on the orbs with which I might moon someone if I was inclined toward such behavior. That rash creates an itch that must be scratched: not exactly a seductive kind of self-touch.
The good news with celiac disease is the painful and antisocial symptoms only manifest if I ingest gluten. As long as I’m extremely careful about what goes into my mouth, I’m fine. In reality, it’s difficult to stay 100 percent gluten free. I once got sick after eating some gluten-free candy, because the person who stuck his hand in the bag before me also was handling a very glutinous sandwich. Those bread crumbs stuck to his hands and then sloughed onto the candy I grabbed with my pristine paws.
I’ve also learned the hard way that when someone eats glutinous foods, traces of gluten remain in their mouth and on their lips until washed away. It’s awkward to say to your heartthrob as they lean in, “Hey! Before you plant a big one on me, could you brush and floss?” It feels like a knife in the heart of romance; however, suffering sickening kisses certainly won’t fan the flames of desire.
Fibromyalgia adds more challenges. The disease is characterized by widespread pain lasting more than three months. When I was diagnosed in 1988, diagnosis required eleven of eighteen “trigger points” to test positive for pain when pressed. According to the Mayo Clinic, the new diagnostic guidelines don’t require the tender point test; instead, the pain must not be explained by any underlying medical condition in order to call it fibromyalgia. The pain is deep, unremitting, and interferes mightily with daily life when one is in a flare. I try to minimize flares with the proper balance of exercise, rest, nutrition and medication.
A heavy sweater can feel like a torture device during a fibro flare, and skinny jeans feel like compression tubing when gluten attacks my gut. When a severe gluten attack triggers a fibro flare, it’s a four-swear firestorm. That gluten rash makes me scratch so hard I bleed, while the fibro pain in the soft tissue beneath screams against the pressure. The loose clothes that accommodate the abdominal inflammation brush across the rash, inciting more itching. It’s a vicious circle and the last thing I want is someone’s hands on me.
It takes humility and self-respect to sidestep a hug from loving friends and family when a flare has my skin feeling like an angry union picket line. It’s awful when a loving caress feels like being buffed with sandpaper. It’s worse when a prolonged flare turns an intimate relationship into a dodge ball tournament. It’s essential to speak up and clearly explain that the need for physical distance has everything to do with a horrible chronic condition and nothing to do with a sudden change of heart. Just avoiding it, or coming up with clever excuses like, “I’m too tired,” won’t work. I know from experience. Either the other person feels resentful and pulls away, or worse, decides to push on with attempting intimacy.
Submitting to painful intimacy, suffering in silence, is a very bad idea. I know this, too, from experience. The lingering pain turns into lingering resentment, and lingering resentment damages the heart. It’s difficult, I know, to turn down your sweetie without feeling like a jerk, especially when Sweetie’s feeling neglected and frisky. The mismatch feels wrong in the way that having only chocolate cake available on your birthday when you’re allergic to chocolate is wrong, but it can be dealt with, can be managed by making vanilla your new flavor fave. During these times, it’s important to validate one another and to agree that neither person is wrong or bad for wanting or not wanting. I say that, but inside I often feel at fault and that feels bad.
I sometimes even feel overwhelmed by the struggle to set limits when I’m in a flare. That, in turn, makes me want to avoid relationships, avoid intimacy, avoid, avoid, avoid. Enough avoiding and suddenly, one day, I won’t have to avoid because there will be a void: the love, the lover, the intimacy will be gone. So, what to do? I don’t want to be broken at intimacy, too, the way I feel broken because I have to follow a strict gluten-free diet, maintain a strictly gluten-free household, get enough exercise, and sleep and take the right medicine to minimize the pain, ask for help when carrying things hurts, not ingest alcohol, stay indoors and take lots of allergy meds during spring, and blah, blah, blah.
The answer is honest communication. Real love understands and accepts the medically required “no,” and real love lovingly searches for understanding, acceptance, and mutually beneficial solutions. Selfishness accuses, “Well, if you really loved me you’d make love even though it hurts. I have needs, too.” Self-pity responds, “Well, if you really loved me you wouldn’t push me for sex at all. Love me for my mind and leave my body alone.” Both are unhealthy and dangerous. I’ve found that love isn’t limited by what’s physically impossible; rather, it can deepen and widen when the couple together seeks ways to stay connected and express their love and desire in more ways than horizontally.
I’ve learned that love feeds creative problem solving. I can ask my sweetie to give me a very, very gentle rub with healing oils – when such a massage will help more than hurt. I show Sweetie how to do it by giving a massage first, demonstrating the kind of light touch that feels good to me. When physical intimacy isn’t medically wise, we play games to maintain emotional and mental intimacy. We also avoid making my illnesses the main event. When I feel unwell, I give myself a boost by doing something loving: put a love note in Sweetie’s lunch bag or make Sweetie’s favorite cake. Giving feels so much better than griping.
And then, when the time is right, I can jump in and go for it…after Sweetie brushes those teeth and washes that face and body with gluten-free products, of course.
[Photo credit to Sean McGrath]
Like what you read? “Heart” this story above, comment below, or consider submitting your own story!In canada its illegal to have sex with a domestic animal unless there is at least 3 males over 18 present engaged in the activity. In the Republic Of Ireland, if two people under the age of 16 attempt to have sexual intercourse and fail, they can be prosecuted. If they succeed they can't. In the quiet town of Connorsville, Wisconsin, it's illegal for a man to shoot off a gun when his female partner has an orgasm. It's against the law in Willowdale, Oregon, for a husband to curse during sex. In Oblong, Illinois, it's punishable by law to make love while hunting or fishing on your wedding day. No man is allowed to make love to his wife with the smell of garlic, onions, or sardines on his breath in Alexandria, Minnesota. If his wife so requests, law mandates that he must brush his teeth. Warn your hubby that after lovemaking in Ames, Iowa, he isn't allowed to take more than three gulps of beer while lying in bed with you or holding you in his arms. Bozeman, Montana, has a law that bans all sexual activity between members of the opposite sex in the front yard of a home after sundown- if they're nude. (Apparently, if you wear socks, you're safe from the law!) In hotels in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, every room is required to have twin beds. And the beds must always be a minimum of two feet apart when a couple rents a room for only one night. And it's illegal to make love on the floor between the beds! The owner of every hotel in Hastings, Nebraska, is required to provide each guest with a clean and pressed nightshirt. No couple, even if they are married, may sleep together in the nude. Nor may they have sex unless they are wearing one of these clean, white cotton nightshirts. An ordinance in Newcastle, Wyoming, specifically bans couples from having sex while standing inside a store's walk-in-meat freezer! A state law in Illinois mandates that all bachelors should be called master, not mister, when addressed by their female counterparts. In Norfolk, Virginia, a woman can't go out without wearing a corset. (There was a civil-service job- for men only- called a corset inspector.) However, in Merryville, Missouri, women are prohibited from wearing corsets because "the privilege of admiring the curvaceous, unencumbered body of a young woman should not be denied to the normal, red-blooded American male." It's safe to make love while parked in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Police officers aren't allowed to walk up and knock on the window. Any suspicious officer who thinks that sex is taking place must drive up from behind, honk his horn three times and wait proximately two minutes before getting out of his car to investigate. Another law in Helena, Montana, mandates that a woman can't dance on a table in a saloon or bar unless she has on at least three pounds, two ounces of clothing. Lovers in Liberty Corner, New Jersey, should avoid satisfying their lustful urges in a parked car. If the horn accidentally sounds while they are frolicking behind the wheel, the couple can face a jail term. In Carlsbad, New Mexico, it's legal for couples to have sex in a parked vehicle during their lunch break from work, as long as the car or van has drawn curtains to stop strangers from peeking in. A Florida sex law: If you're a single, divorced, or widowed woman, you can't parachute on Sunday afternoons. Women aren't allowed to wear patent-leather shoes in Cleveland, Ohio- a man might see the reflection of something "he oughtn't!" No woman may have sex with a man while riding in an ambulance within the boundaries of Tremonton, Utah. If caught, the woman can be charged with a sexual misdemeanor and "her name is to be published in the local newspaper." The man isn't charged nor is his name revealed. In Virginia, you can't have sex during the daytime, with a light on, or with socks on. In Rohnert Park, California, it is illegal for a women to
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.The Singaporean telecom operator is majority owned by Temasek, a Singapore government-owned investment company.Its three creators are anonymous college students. They claim to have built the app in just two hours. Yet Bang With Friends is the simplest, most disruptive app Facebook has seen in a long time.
Editor’s Note Read more about how the app’s creators are evolving its usability.
The premise is so obvious, you’ll kick yourself for not thinking of it first. You install the app, then the app lists your Facebook friends of the opposite sex. You click if you’d like to “bang” them, and no one ever knows... that is, unless one of those friends installed the app and elected to bang you, too. Bang With Friends makes finding a mate as easy as window shopping on Pinterest.
“We wanted to keep it simple,” one of the creators tells Co.Design. “See your friends, choose your potential bangs, and then get notified privately via email when you have a match. Wham, bam, thank you new friend with benefits!”
With my wife’s permission, I took Bang With Friends for a spin. After installing the app, I was greeted by a Pinterest-y wall of potential hook-ups: An old co-worker. A friend from high school. A cousin. A minor. A dude. My wife. Lots of my friends’ wives. My mother-in-law, but, thank god, at least not my mom (apparently, there’s at least one filter at work here). With the touch of a button, my vote was cast. I opted just for my wife–really! Part of me hopes she accepts. Part of me hopes she never experiences the oddity of seeing her friends and relatives as a list of potential DTFs.
A few smarter filters would no doubt, make the app less inherently awkward (it’s hard to believe that family members should make the list). But then again, filters imply a certain level of judgement. And if Bang With Friends is anything, it’s a nonjudgmental corner of your social, digital life in which you can let your basest impulses run wild. For however frat-boy-centric the app may be marketed, it’s solving one of the biggest problems in social networking: How do you have an intimate conversation in a room full of your relatives? And how do you leverage all this amazing connectivity to take a leap of faith, without leaving a permanent, devastating trail of evidence?
Since launching about a week ago, the team claims to have matched 10,000 couples, and due to overwhelming user demand, they’re working on an update that will bring LGBT matching. A mobile app is in the works, too, but they wouldn’t comment as to their current state of funding.
Bang With FriendsWe’ve had a few weeks of speculation now as to when the MacBook Air update would land, and when OS X Lion would see a release. Well, they both happened today.
We’ll be covering OS X Lion and other updates Apple has made elsewhere as the MacBook Air deserves its own post due to the amount of changes that have been made and the performance gains they bring.
Apple has rejigged the whole line-up to offer brand new specs for two 11-inch and two 13-inch models. The main improvements include a move to Intel Sandy Bridge Core processors, the addition of a Thunderbolt port, a backlit keyboard, and the fact every Air now ships with OS X Lion installed.
The processor included in your MacBook Air depends on the screen size you select. The 11-inch models ship with a 1.6GHz dual-core Core i5, where as the 13-inch models up that slightly to 1.7GHz. If you require something a little faster then it’s possible to select a 1.8GHz Core i7 chip in the 128GB 11-inch (+$150) and 256GB 13-inch (+$100) models. The two lower end Airs don’t seem to have the option.
Apple is claiming the new processors make the MacBook Air up to twice as fast as the previous model. That claim alone may see a few last-gen MacBook Airs appear on eBay. The performance claim of course depends on which chip you combine with the Intel HD Graphics 3000 and up to 4GB of 1333MHz DDR RAM.
As for the Thunderbolt port, it has been added to the right side of the laptop behind a USB 2.0 port. On the 13-inch model there’s also an SD card slot included. Now all we need is a decent range of peripherals that take advantage of the Thunderbolt’s super speedy data transfer capabilities.
One of the most desired features has made it into this revision: a backlit keyboard. Apple has included a sensor that adjusts the brightness of the light dependent on the ambient lighting. This is combined with a glass multitouch trackpad. The other user-facing feature is of course the screen, which is a super thin LED backlit panel. You get a resolution of 1366 x 768 on the 11-inch and 1440 x 900 with the 13-inch.
Battery life is very good considering the hardware contained within each laptop. The 11-inch manages 5 hours, where as the larger battery the 13-inch affords takes that time up to 7 hours. Apple claims all MacBook Airs can survive 30 days in standby mode.
As you’d expect with any new Apple product, these laptops aren’t cheap. The base 11-inch model is $999 with 64GB on-board storage and 2GB RAM. The 128GB and 4GB 11-inch model takes that price up to $1,199. Moving to the 13-inch model and the price starts at $1,299 for 128GB of storage and 4GB RAM. Increase that storage to 256GB and you pay an eye-watering $1,599.
Read more at the Apple press releaseSlowing down construction of coal-fired power stations will be vital to hit globally agreed climate change goals, the World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim, said as he outlined a five-point plan to flesh out last year’s Paris agreement to reduce CO 2 emissions.
Speaking at a climate ministerial meeting in Washington during the bank’s annual meeting, he said there was no prospect of keeping global warming at or below 2C (3.6F) if current plans for coal-fired stations, especially those earmarked for Asia, were built. “Many countries want to move in the right direction. We can and should all help to find renewable energy and energy efficiency solutions that allow them to phase out coal,” Kim said.
EU gives green light to ratifying Paris climate deal Read more
The World Bank president said achieving the climate change target required action in five areas. In addition to slowing down growth in coal-fired power stations, Kim said climate ambition needed to be baked into development plans for every developing country. It was important that the $90bn (£72bn) of planned infrastructure spending over the next 15 years was for low-CO 2 and climate-resilient investment.
He called for the ramping up of energy-efficient appliances and less use of hydrofluorocarbons, which are used in air conditioning units. “Phasing down HFCs could prevent close to half a degree of global warming by the end of the century,” he said.
Calls for the “greening” of finance by the Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, were also strongly backed by Kim who said the sector needed to be “fit for purpose to assess climate risks and opportunities”.
Finally, Kim said poor countries needed help to adapt to climate change and to become more resilient. He added that without climate-driven development, climate change could force more than 100 million people into extreme poverty by 2030, and that unless low-income countries in many parts of Africa, south Asia and the Pacific islands were helped all the gains in poverty reduction risked being lost.
Kim said countries needed more efficient water supply systems, climate-smart agriculture, early warning systems, better social protection and a reduction in disaster risk. He said: “It is our collective responsibility to see the Paris agreement through. We cannot afford to lose the momentum. With each passing day, the climate challenge grows.
“The longest streak of record-warm months has now reached 16 - such heat has never persisted on the planet for so long. The reality is stark. We have a planet that is at serious risk, but our current response is not yet equal to the task.”
Kim said the Paris climate agreement was a “victory for multilateral action and a powerful signal from all corners of the world that there can be no turning back”.HONOLULU – Kelepi Finau didn't know a wedge from a driver. But that didn't stop him from teaching his sons the basics of golf.
Plus, his wife, Vena, insisted on it.
"This is her project," said Kelepi, as he watched his son, Tony, play putt-putt with kids Monday at the Shriners Hospital for Children-Honolulu. "I feel like mothers and wives are smart when it comes to this kind of thing. Otherwise, I would've had them playing football."
Who knows? Maybe Tony and Gipper would've been pro football stars, like their cousin, Haloti Ngata. Or a famous NBA player, like another relative, Jabari Parker. Instead, due to Vena's prescience, Tony got on track to become the first PGA Tour player of Samoan and Tongan ethnicity.
"At times it'd be tough, like when we drove past the park on the way to (golf) practice and we'd see the other guys playing football or basketball," Tony said.
But the brothers stayed the course and stayed on the course. And now Tony, 26, is a blossoming star and among the field for this week's Sony Open in Hawaii at Waialae Country Club.
Monday, he arrived at the hospital with a check from his foundation and smiles from his heart.
"I knew there'd be a lot of Polynesian kids here and I wanted to come and connect with them," said Tony, father of two young children with his wife, Alayna, of Laie. "I'm not different from them and there's no reason they can't someday do what I'm doing."
When they were 6 and 7, Vena wanted Gipper and Tony – the most rambunctious and closest in age of the seven Finau children – to play a sport that would keep them occupied and keep them together. And something they could play for a lifetime.
"We didn't know at that time (they'd become pro golfers)," Kelepi said. "This was literally babysitting."
But Tony had an inkling. Despite seeing few other Polynesians on golf courses where they grew up in Salt Lake City, he knew you could look different than the other players and succeed. He'd seen someone else do exactly that.
"I watched Tiger (Woods) win the Masters in 1997, and that was right around the time I started playing golf. Tiger, he made it look exciting and made it look athletic."
Plus, he understood his family had made sacrifices.
"My dad didn't really know how to play golf, but he self-learned so he could teach us," Tony said. "We didn't have the funds for lessons, to travel for tournaments. But somehow, we found a way."
That included clubs from garage sales and scrounging for balls. And the generosity of an understanding professional at the Jordan River Par 3 who saw their potential, Richard Mason.
"He gave us a place to practice and play for free," Tony said.
Tony did well enough at West High School to earn a scholarship to BYU. Instead, he went pro at 17, and Gipper wasn't far behind. Some thought it was a big mistake, but at least one early supporter did not.
"(Tony's) hands, his wedge game and his putting were great for a big guy," said former University of Hawaii football coach June Jones, who played rounds with both while they were teenagers. "And he was poised and he hit the ball a mile. That's what I immediately saw. It's worked out because he remained committed to it. It could still for Gipper (who has played events on the Web.com Tour), too."
Jones took the Finau brothers on his missionary trips to Samoa, and let them stay at his home in Dallas, where they worked with PGA of America instructor Randy Smith.
"Back in 2010, Randy said of Tony, 'June, this kid is destined to win.'"
That hasn't happened yet, but it seems inevitable. As a PGA Tour rookie last year, he notched five top-10 finishes, including a tie for 10th at the PGA Championship, and earned $2,095,186. He's already banked $318,187 this season.
"My goal now is to win. That's really the next step, to win at the highest level," he said.
When he does, his first thoughts will be of his mother, the person who somehow knew he should play golf.
In 2011, Vena Finau died in a car accident.
Tony was struggling at the time, and considered giving up the game. Kelepi convinced him he owed it not only to himself but to Vena to continue.
"He's never alone now," the father said. "Wherever the wind is blowing, that's her."
Said Tony: "I know she's there, I do believe she's following me."
This article was written by Dave Reardon from The Honolulu Star-Advertiser and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.The higher education bubble has gotten a solid amount of press coverage in the last couple of years. Even with student loan debt lurching towards the $1 trillion mark the higher education bubble train keeps moving along. Part of this has to do with the odd financialization of higher education where things are so extreme that someone with no job can suddenly enter into a for-profit paper mill and go into massive government backed debt and actually be worse off. Forget about an affordable community college when you can study video game design from your futon. You might say this is low hanging fruit to pick on. But what about the law school market? Surely those pursuing the degree of most governmental representatives know a thing or two about political trends and some basic economics. Right? The statistics reveal a somewhat troubling picture within the higher education bubble and highlight a market saturation of lawyers, but also law schools pumping stats as if they were hocking adjustable rate mortgages at the height of the housing bubble. The data is somewhat revealing.
The law school bubble
There is always an argument that there is a shortage of attorneys from law schools but the figures show a very differing picture:
“(Law School Tuition Bubble) The market for new law schools solely depends on demand for legal education. It is wholly divorced from demand for legal services. If there were a connection, enrollments would drop in half starting this fall, probably more to account for the large number of Juris Doctor-holders who aren’t employed as lawyers (cyclically or otherwise).”
What the above data shows is rather fascinating. There is an abundance of attorneys out in the market. Any thinking person would quickly realize that it would be quicker to pull people off of the idle sidelines and put them back to work. This isn’t like a lost manufacturing workforce being shipped off to sea after all. These are American trained attorneys who presumably have an understanding of American law and practice. So why the continued growth? Well part of this has to do with the higher education bubble mentality and insane access to student loan debt.
Law schools and those who rank them are quick to shelter certain statistics but things may look darker than what is being presented to prospective applicants:
“(Annaivey) At 50 law schools, 20% of the students are either unemployed, flunked out, or are unknown, yet the ABA and LSAC disavow the use of data to rank law schools.”
So obviously removing a large cohort like this will skew data. And when you are charging $120,000 for a law education, that data may not be that useful in recruitment. Part of this growth has to do with many lower-tier law schools sucking in students and using big law firm pipe-dreams to lure in students into massive debt traps. Maybe the assumption is many applicants don’t even have a basic economics course under their belt? Take a look at this interesting chart of Bar completion rates versus actual legal job openings:
Source: Consumer Law and Policy Blog
Take for example New York where nearly 10,000 passed the bar exam yet openings only amounted to roughly 2,000 spots. And this is where the big law firms are at that many are given an implied whiff at. So many will go to other states right? Well look at the data there as well. You have students passing exams in all big states at much higher levels than actual openings. This is why you get comments like the below from a dean of a law school:
“It’s a leadership responsibility that each of us has. And damn the U.S. News if it affects our rankings. The kids are not gonna show up. Do you know that LSAT registrations are flat to down this year. That students’ applications to law school are flat to down in a substantial number of law schools. That’s never happened in a downturn in the economy before. They’re catching on. Maybe this thing they are doing is not so valuable. Maybe the chance at being in the top 10% is not a good enough lottery shot in order to effectively spend $120,000 and see it blow up at the end of three years of law school.”
This is a key point in the higher education bubble when it comes to law school. Without a doubt, there are big salaries to be had in law but the salary distribution is not as favorable as some would think:
“(The Stopped Clock) For years, it made economic sense for smart, ambitious 22-year-olds to pay the escalating price for a legal diploma. Law schools have had a monopolist’s hold on the keys to corporate lawyerdom, which pays graduates six-figure salaries. But borrowing $150,000 or more is now a vastly riskier proposition given the scarcity of Big Law jobs. Of course, that scarcity hasn’t been priced into the cost of law school. How come? In part, it’s because schools have managed to convey the impression that those jobs aren’t very scarce.” [emphasis added]
Keep in mind this chart is favorable since it looked at stats for the 2007 graduating class that locked in salaries before the economy went flying off the Grand Canyon like debt cliff. It seems that a big winning group here is the salaries of law professors but this is like looking at the revenues of paper mill for profits. This is more a symptom of the problem rather than a cure. The salary of law professors is high because demand for these degrees is still relatively good. Students still want the chance to reach into the top 10 percent echelon of graduating attorneys to make that six-figure income but the chart above is more sobering. Of course I doubt this is presented in any law school recruitment pamphlet.
A large portion of those going to lower-tier law schools with massive debt are setting themselves up for massive disappoint and are simply one tiny facet of the $1 trillion student loan bubble. There might be a silver lining and that is students are waking up:
“(Above the Law) The report indicates that as of 1/13/12 ABA applicants are down 16.7% and ABA applications are down 15.3% from 2011. The report also indicates applicants to Canadian law schools are up 4.4% and applications are up 5.4% from 2011.”
This goes in line with the reality that the higher education bubble is primed for popping. Can it be that many prospective law school applicants are understanding the above data and don’t want to roll the $120,000 dice just to see if they can cut into the top 10 percent of the graduating class of law students for that coveted six-figure salary job that is clearly limited? As many are starting to realize debt does come at a heavy cost if you invest in an asset at an inflated value. At the moment, law schools seem to fall into this category.
If you enjoyed this post click here to subscribe to a complete feed and stay up to date with today’s challenging market!Paul Craig Roberts
Infowars.com
January 28, 2012
In the Soviet Union common criminals were punished less harshly and received better treatment than political prisoners. A person who had committed a violent crime had more rights than someone who expressed criticism of the government and could be portrayed as having acted against the government. We now have the same situation in the US.
In a recent case the Supreme Court overturned the sentence of a drug dealer who was convicted on the basis of a warrantless 28-day search by having a GPS device affixed to his car. In other words, a common criminal still has privacy rights under the Constitution, but not US citizens who are suspected of vague and nebulous “terrorist support.”
Both Republicans and Democrats have demonstrated disregard for the civil liberty protections guaranteed by the US Constitution. Among the visible candidates for president, only Ron Paul has respect for the Constitution. As it is now possible for the executive branch to take away the life and liberty of a US citizen without due process of law, the Constitution is for all practical purposes lost. Tyranny looms, and Ron Paul is the only candidate who stands against tyranny.
This is why I have written that Ron Paul is our last chance and encouraged his libertarian handlers to be flexible enough for the electorate to elect Ron Paul. I agree that Ron Paul, if elected president, would be hamstrung by the Establishment, but the other candidates offer no hope whatsoever.
What is at stake is not libertarianism, but the US Constitution. Unfortunately, not many libertarians see that. Neither do many progressives. If truth be known, Americans are too divided and in opposition to one another to be able to unite against tyranny.
In previous columns I explained how Ron Paul could appeal to low income Americans, to elderly Americans, and to those Americans concerned about illegal immigration. I suggested that Ron Paul endorse Ron Unz’s proposal to raise the minimum wage to $12 per hour as a way of turning the jobs taken by illegal immigrants into a more livable income for Americans. I suggested that Ron Paul should acknowledge that people who have paid a payroll tax all their working lives have private property rights to Social Security and Medicare benefits.
A number of libertarians replied, as I knew they would from my long years of association with them, with their standard dogmatism that the minimum wage causes unemployment and that Social Security and Medicare are government programs not private property. They were blind to Ron Unz’s point that low wages cause unemployment among Americans who are unable to live on the wages, and, thus, cause an inflow of illegal immigrants who take the low wage jobs.
I don’t need to repeat my suggestions as the columns are available on my web site. I will, however, point out that the fact that Medicare and Social Security are intergenerational transfers does not mean that they are not private property. Consider your homeowner’s policy. If your neighbor’s home burns down or a person’s home in a distant location, the insurance company draws on the pool of funds created by policy holders’ premiums in order to compensate the person who lost his home. The damaged homeowner is not simply compensated from his own paid-in premiums. If more homeowners are elderly than young, it is an intergenerational transfer when a young homeowner’s home burns down.
Like Medicare, private health insurance is a transfer payment as premiums from the healthy support the care of the sick. Private medical insurance could also be an intergenerational transfer. Premium are adjusted for age, but generally speaking, the young are more healthy than the old.
For Ron Paul to further broaden his base, he also needs to add to my previous suggestions his endorsement of regulation to protect the environment and to protect private savers from fraud and irresponsible debt leverage by private financial institutions.
Libertarians claim that the best way to protect the environment is to have it privately owned. If streams, oceans, and underground aquifers were privately owned, the owners could sue polluters such as the oil companies, the mining companies, agri-business, etc. Thus, private property would protect the environment. Whether this would work or not, we are a long way from such private ownership, and many private economic activities are destroying common environmental resources.
The list is endless. The World Wildlife Fund reports that Asia Pulp & Paper is destroying the last remaining Sumatran tigers by clear cutting the tigers’ last remaining refuge in order to produce toilet paper marketed in the US under the Paseo and LIVI brand names. “Feel the Power! Buy our product and flush a tiger and a rain forest!”
The National Defense Resource Council reports that under an Obama regime and state of Utah plan, massive coal mining will be permitted adjacent to Bryce Canyon National Park. Three hundred heavy diesel trucks per day will travel down the scenic two-lane highway to supply China with dirty coal.
The Obama regime has granted Shell Oil tentative approval to begin drilling off the coast of the Arctic Refuge, the main on-shore birthing ground for polar bears.
Defenders of Wildlife reports that Shell Oil is pushing to open Bristol Bay to oil drilling, despite the danger to fisheries and wildlife and despite the fact that the long-term value of the renewable fisheries far exceeds the short-term value of nonrenewable fossil fuel extraction in the area.
In the Powder River Basin in Montana, coal companies are mobilizing to destroy the water resources and ranchers in the eastern part of the state.
All of these are current hot ticket items with progressives, environmentalists, and ranchers. Obama is vulnerable. He has put the tar sands pipeline on hold, but many believe he will approve the environmentally destructive project once he is re-elected.
Air, water, wildlife, and fish in the sea are not private property and have no protectors. They are being destroyed by the lack of regulation. Moreover, private property has not protected forests from being clearcut or soil from being depleted of its natural nutrients. The chemical farming with which agri-business has replaced natural farming has polluted America’s aquifers, streams, lakes, rivers, and the Gulf of Mexico, which has extensive dead areas from chemical fertilizer run-off.
As Herman Daly and other environmental economists have made clear, the world is running out of sinks into which to dump its wastes. The external costs of unregulated activity are mounting. Once a threshold is crossed, the environment is ruined. The drive to maximize short-run profits is a great source of ruin. The external costs associated with maximizing short-run profits can exceed the value of the private output.
A candidate committed to saving the Constitution, environment, private savings, protecting the security of the elderly, opposing war, and boosting the incomes of the worst off, which has the added benefit of reducing illegal immigration, is a candidate without equal in the presidential election.
We will not have such a candidate, because libertarian sectarian dogmatism will prevent it. Libertarians will be pure to the end and take the Constitution and the rest of us down with them.
This Paul Craig Roberts article first appeared at his website Institute For Political Economyhttp://www.paulcraigroberts.org/. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He is the author of several books including The Tyranny of Good Intentions and How the Economy Was Lost.Marco Rubio and Donald Trump. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Mike Lee on Wednesday announced an amendment to the GOP tax plan that would increase the tax breaks for families with children at the expense of corporations.
The pair said the proposed change was "a chance to do better by working families in this tax bill." It is unclear how much support the amendment has on Capitol Hill, but it is unlikely to go over well in the White House.
The amendment would pay for the expansion of the child tax credit by reducing the federal corporate tax cut, lowering the rate to 22%. As written, Senate Republicans' Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would cut that rate to 20% from the current 35%.
President Donald Trump has said the 20% rate is a red line, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said the corporate rate staying at 20% is "the president's number one issue that is not negotiable."
A White House official told Bloomberg on Wednesday that Trump would oppose the amendment. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rubio and Lee, in their statement, argued that the amendment was written to ensure enough tax benefits were going to families instead of corporations.
"Right now, 70% of the tax cuts we're considering would go to businesses, and only 30% to individuals," the senators said. "This amendment would level the playing field for families, while still kick-starting national investment and growth."
Here are the four key provisions of the Rubio-Lee amendment. It would:Exposed: Scam company impersonates cybersecurity brands, tricks hundreds out of money
Dangerous con artists are impersonating legitimate security sites
Researchers are warning of an online scam where fraudulent internet domains pass themselves off as legitimate cyber security companies.
Security firm Malwarebytes discovered a site that was masquerading as its homepage, using many of the same graphics and fonts but including a toll free number. When unwitting customers called the number, they found themselves being charged hundreds, if not thousands of dollars for completely bogus software support.
That's because they were not calling Malwarebytes at all but a fake tech support company called Tech Kangeroos – a team of trained con artists that has been found to be extorting huge amounts of money from people by impersonating an IT support firm and also many legitimate IT security companies including Symantec/Norton, Microsoft, AVG and Kaspersky.
When questioned, the fake tech support firm Tech Kangeroos says it is a third party firm with no affiliation with Malwarebytes or the other security firms it is impersonating the websites of. A disclaimer in bold on its own website repeatedly says as such.
Once the scammers have convinced the customer they are from a legitimate security firm, they encourage them install remote access software so that they can perform a fake security scan as a scare tactic before setting out a hefty bill to 'fix' security issues, as one victim, a customer of Norton antivirus reported. In fact unsuspecting victims are giving criminals full access to their computers.
> See also: A new Amazon email scam is after your cryptocurrency
According to many online reports they do absolutely nothing beside take a victim's money, and if discovered in their attempts once they've hijacked a computer, have been known to then try to break a victim's computer out of revenge.
Researchers from Malwarebytes found this out when they set up a test computer themselves for the scammers to target. After taking over the machine using remote access software Teamviewer, the Malwarebytes team refused to pay hundreds of dollars for 'Malwarebytes support' and the scammers then attempted to crash the computer.
A quick lookup for either the phone number or company name returns dozens of similar complaints.
'Just when you think you’ve seen everything when it comes to tech support scams, you realise how far the miscreants behind this plague will go to rob innocent people,' wrote Malwarebytes' blog.
Malwarebytes has tracked the IP address of the Tech Kangeroos company to Delhi, India.
'These types of scams are a significant problem, as the individuals behind them need little more than a website and phone number to pull them off, tricking consumers into giving away banking information, passwords, or even money,' a spokesperson from Symantec/Norton told SC Magazine.
'Unfortunately, like most established, consumer-facing companies, we see these kinds of organisations try to profit off our name by impersonating our brand.'
Web security firm High-Tech Bridge decided to dig deeper into this scam and performed research to understand how widescale the problem actually is.
They used Domain Security Radar a free online service which is designed to detect cybersquatting such as this, to analyse the domains of leading cyber security companies.
> See also: One in ten people have lost money through online scams
What they found was that cybersquatting or domain squatting is a widespread problem.
Dangerous cases are websites like 'trendmicrow.com' that collects personal data of Trend Micro customers pretending to be Trend Micro support. A Symantec's domain with typo'sytmantec.com' redirects users to random websites, hosting adult content and malware.
Country or altered domains of well-known cybersecurity brands, like 'kamai.ru', 'junipernetworks.cn', 'kasperskysupport.com' or 'ciscogroup.com' are being squatted by scammers who try to resell them, and are parasitising on the original brand value.
'Unfortunately, lack of international cooperation and jurisprudence enable fraudsters to make easy money on various illegal or at least unethical operations with domains,' said Ilia Kolochenko, High-Tech Bridge CEO. 'Even cybersecurity companies are being targeted these days, not only financial institutions or luxury brands.'
Information Age has approached Moksh Popli, the operator behind 'Tech Kangeroos' and is awaiting comment.Bandit shoots off ‘private part’ A 28-year-old bandit, who staged a robbery at a supermarket in South Trinidad shot his penis off when the gun he was carrying went off accidently.
The incident occurred on December 3 but yesterday doctors failed in an attempt to stitch back the vital organ.
Yesterday, police escorted him out of a medical institution and subsequently incarcerated him at the San Fernando Police Station.
Police are conducting investigations before laying charges against the man.
According to a police report, the man and another accomplice entered R & D grocery in Eccles Village, Williamsville, where they announced a hold-up at about 6 pm. Pointing guns at customers and the cashier, the men demanded cash, the report stated.
Both men took turns in pushing the money into bags while they kept the customers at bay.
Police said that as the men ran out the grocery, they fired several shots in the air as they headed towards a waiting vehicle.
However, police said as one of the bandits opened the door of the vehicle, he stuck the gun he was carrying into the waist of his pants. As he slumped into the seat, the firearm went off. Acting on a tip-off, members of the South-Western Task Force went to an abandoned house where they confronted a man lying on the floor.
Police officers said that the man’s testicles and penis appeared to have been rotting.
They rushed him to the San Fernando General Hospital where he underwent emergency surgery.
Yesterday, police said that surgery to re-attach what was remaining of the bandit’s penis proved unsuccessful.
Investigations are continuing into the robbery and the search for the other bandit.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department is investigating accounting irregularities at Chinese companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges, said an official with the Securities and Exchange Commission, suggesting criminal charges may be brought in addition to civil proceedings.
“There are parts of the Justice Department that are actively engaged in this area,” Robert Khuzami, director of enforcement at the SEC, said in an interview on Tuesday.
He told Reuters that a number of federal prosecutors around the United States were taking part in the investigation, but he declined to name them.
Involvement of U.S. attorneys general in various locations adds investigative firepower to the SEC and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which are also probing the accounting methods of certain U.S.-listed Chinese companies.
“I think that you will see greater (Department of Justice) involvement as time goes on,” Khuzami said when asked if criminal charges would be filed in the investigation.
A former federal prosecutor, he declined to elaborate on which Chinese companies or auditors were being scrutinized by the Justice Department.
An SEC review of accounting problems at foreign-based stock issuers sharpened its focus earlier this year when dozens of China-based companies began disclosing auditor resignations or book-keeping irregularities.
For example, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu CPA Ltd in May resigned as auditor of Chinese software company Longtop Financial Technologies Ltd, saying it had found falsified financial records and bank balance confirmations.
Shares of some Chinese companies listed in the United States fell on Thursday after Khuzami’s statements became public. Among them, Sohu.com Inc closed 4.7 percent lower at $50.62, Baidu Inc fell 9.2 percent to $110.29, China Sky One Medical Inc declined 3.8 percent to $2.29, and Sina Corp ended down 9.7 percent at $73.23.
The SEC has struggled to gain access to documents it needs in the investigation because strict Chinese laws have made auditors reluctant to turn them over.
The FBI has an embedded agent in an SEC working group on Chinese companies that enter the stock market through so-called reverse mergers with U.S. shell companies.
Officials from the SEC and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) are due to meet with their Chinese counterparts in Washington, D.C. in October for a second round of talks on joint inspections of auditing firms in China.
“Not having proper accounting and reliable audit review for publicly traded companies with operations in China is just not acceptable. We have to find a path to resolution of this issue,” Khuzami said. “It is... a big issue for us.”
Earlier in September, the SEC sought a federal court order to force the Shanghai arm of Deloitte to turn over its work papers regarding Longtop Financial.
The results of the Deloitte subpoena enforcement action will be closely watched by other auditing companies, Khuzami said. The federal government is also pursuing other options to ensure better accounting practices at U.S.-listed companies based in China, he said.
“Obviously, the results here will inform the conduct of others that are similarly situated. In that sense, it’s going to be instructive,” Khuzami said. “At the same time, we’re not a one-trick pony; There are other efforts to reach resolution of these issues. We continue to work closely with our regulatory counterparts in China and in other countries to find a path to resolution.”
In a recent interview with Reuters, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, underscored the government’s commitment to fighting accounting fraud of any kind. He declined, however, to comment on specific cases that could be brought against Chinese firms listed in the United States.
The Justice Department declined comment for this story, saying it does not confirm or deny investigations.
In any criminal case, the question would be whether the company lied to the auditor, or whether the auditor acted recklessly or knowingly in not detecting the alleged fraud.
Merely not providing records under these circumstances — as in the Deloitte case — would not likely rise to the level of criminal violation, Khuzami said.
The PCAOB, the agency that oversees auditors of public companies, has inspection authority over auditing firms, while the SEC has enforcement authority over those companies.
Together, the two agencies have greater leverage over auditing firms than do criminal authorities, Khuzami said.Somerville’s Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project has been
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series of constraints that could be applied on any other random recipe - like allowing only numerical values for express quantities and make sure every recipe has ingredients, a minimum numer or an exact numer and so on.
Types of data in Ruby
Although Ruby could represent any object, it doesn't mean that everything is generic, without specific functionalities. It doesn't even mean that we don't have any pre-built-in classes. Ruby gives us a numer of predefined classes, used to build all the components of an app. These types differ to the ones we see in another languages, because they are all generated from the same universal class: the Object Class.
This hyerarchy shows us that there is a single type of "base" and not a random number of primitive types as we can see in other languages, like C or Java. We should analyze those types and their advantages offered to programmers.
Prostacet makes a healthy prostate
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How to have a healthy prostate
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For transgender people, work isn’t always an easy place to be – They often face discrimination, and are twice as likely to be unemployed as the rest of the population. Many who do work are under-employed. But transgender experiences at the office can tell us a lot about the status of men and women at work.
Sociologist Kristen Schilt has spent years talking to transgender men and women about their work lives. One guy she interviewed is named Thomas. He’s a lawyer. He’d begun working at his law firm as Susan. Everyone in his firm knew about his transition, but clients and others outside the firm were told Susan had been let go.
Schilt says some time after his transition, his boss told Thomas that a lawyer at another firm said, “He was so glad they had fired Susan, who he had found to be very incompetent, but that he really loved this new guy, Thomas.”
That lawyer had no idea Thomas and Susan were the same person. But they were the same person, with the exact same abilities – Thomas just looked like a man.
Schilt says two-thirds of the transgender men she interviewed found workplace life easier once they left their female days behind. They’d say things like, “I don’t have to back up the claims I’m making. People listen to me more.” They reported having more authority than they’d ever had in their old work lives.
Chris Edwards has experienced that first hand. He’s a trans guy who works in advertising. He says in the creative department where he worked for many years it tends to be a boys’ club. Once he reached managerial level in that club he started to notice some differences in the way women were treated.
“But when I was a woman I didn’t really notice,” he says.
He became quite conscious of the pay gap at his firm. And he says it was always a woman who was expected to take the notes in meetings – no matter how senior she was.
There was a flipside to his transition. When he landed a corner office, some coworkers said, “Of course, now he’s a guy, he gets the corner office!” In fact, he’d just been promoted, and the new office went with the new title.
Lisa Scheps had a very different experience. When she was living publicly as a man, Scheps ran a business with three male partners. At 40, she told them she was going to start living openly as a female. She wasn’t prepared for their responses.
“One person said to me, ‘How do you expect to deal with business when all you’re going to be thinking about is nail polish?’,” says Scheps.
Her partners pushed her out of the company. Scheps has been an entrepreneur all her life. She thought she’d just start something else as a female business owner.
“My 40 years as man in the business world, I did not know failure,” she says. “Success came very easily to me.”
Not any more. Scheps, who is the co-founder of the Transgender Education Network of Texas, says administrative work is pretty much all she’s been able to find. Her income has fallen dramatically.
“It’s a very different world that I have discovered for women in the United States versus men in the Unites States,” she says. “It’s just that much harder, you just have to be that much better.”
Like everyone else who’s underemployed, Scheps says she just wants a job that matches her experience.
Ashley Milne-Tyte is the host of a podcast on women and the workplace called The Broad Experience.
Updated July 3, 2014 to add context to Chris Edwards' experience.A 39-year-old Macheke man is admitted at Wedza Hospital after three suspected female rapists allegedly took turns to sexually abuse him.
By Jairos Saunyama
Police are trying to track down the suspects who were using a BMW with South African registration numbers.
The complainant is said to be in a stable condition at the hospital where he is nursing a severely bruised manhood, among other effects from the sexual abuse.
Efforts to get a comment from police at their Mashonaland East provincial headquarters were fruitless yesterday.
But according to firsthand information obtained by this paper, on July 2, at around 5pm, the complainant whose name cannot be published to protect his identity, was at Makoni bus stop in Chitungwiza waiting for transport to Marondera enroute to Macheke where he works as a teacher.
A dark blue BMW with South African number plates allegedly offered him a lift to Marondera. The vehicle had three females and a male.
The complainant occupied the back seat with two of the women. It is alleged that along the way, the complainant was offered a cordial juice, which he accepted.
After taking the drink, he felt dizzy and fell asleep.
On July 3, at around 2pm, the complainant woke up and found out that he was in a small dark room and that his manhood was severely bruised. He also realised that his cash amounting to $120 was missing.
Two women allegedly entered the room and demanded sexual intercourse but he refused. One of the women produced a pistol and threatened to kill him.
The women then tied the complainant’s hands and forcibly offered him another bottle of juice which he drank.
One of the women allegedly then removed her clothes and started caressing the complainant before having sexual intercourse with him.
After the act, the other woman then had unprotected sex with the victim despite pleas from her colleagues to stop abusing him.
On July 4, at around 7pm, the suspects allegedly masked the complainant with a woollen hat and forced him into the vehicle.
They drove on a gravel road for about 30km before entering into Wedza-utiweshiri road where they dumped the victim at Maruta Village.
The suspects gave the complainant his cell phone and drove towards Murambinda.
The complainant was assisted by well-wishers who then reported the matter at Wedza Police Station.
Police officers attended the scene while the victim was taken to Wedza Rural Hospital where he is admitted and is in a stable condition.WARRENTON, VA.—“She’s a whore,” said Jim Brewster, a 62-year-old farmer, as he walked into the bakery for some coffee. “Murderous, rotten, no-good, pious … bitch,” said Waldo Ward, a 60-something retiree, as he left Walmart with Halloween candy for the neighbourhood kids. “She should be taken out and shot. Absolutely.”
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton speaks during a rally in Wilton Manors, Fla., on Sunday. ( JEWEL SAMAD / AFP/GETTY IMAGES )
“I confess that I’m a Christian, and I shouldn’t hate, but it’s awful close,” said Charles Graves, a smiling 71-year-old recently retired from a career in logistics. “It’s not like I’m not a Donald Trump fan,” said Rusty Gibson, 47, an electrician. “But it’s like good versus evil.” This was not a Trump rally. This was not some downtrodden bastion of blue-collar rage. This was four guys going about their Saturday in a Republican-leaning high-income Virginia town an hour from Washington, D.C.
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Each one of them said that they were not especially fond of Trump. But asked about his Democratic opponent, on the record, and they could barely contain their loathing or didn’t even try.
Charles Graves, a 71-year-old retiree of Warrenton, Va. says it's hard not to let himself hate Clinton.
Hillary Clinton is favoured to win the presidency next week. She is also detested by much of the country. If she succeeds, she will almost certainly be the most disliked person ever elected. Her numbers have improved in the wake of the three debates. But she is still seen unfavourably by 54 per cent of the public, compared to just 44 per cent who see her favourably. And “unfavourably” doesn’t begin to describe the intensity of the antipathy. “America is Flight 93, and Obama and Clinton have hijacked it,” said Ed Gordo, 62, a retired military man, as he stood outside a yarn shop with his dog.
Clinton does worst with white men without a college education. In a recent ABC poll, she tied Trump, 42 per cent to 42 per cent, with men with degrees; with non-college men, she had 29 per cent to his 60 per cent.
Electrician Rusty Gibson, 47, said he is not a big Donald Trump fan - but that the election is "like good versus evil."
Her chief problem is the widespread perception that she is deceitful and dishonest. Her dreadful numbers — only about a third of Americans say she is honest and trustworthy — have been hampered by the never-ending email controversy that roared back to life on Friday.
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“I just don’t believe a thing she says,” said Scott Steinmeyer, 55. “There’s no doubt that America could benefit from a female president. I don’t think that’s her.” It remains entirely unclear what exactly was found, during the FBI’s investigation of Anthony Weiner’s sexting, to prompt director James Comey to inform Congress that his team was now going to conduct additional investigation of Clinton’s emails. It remains unclear even whether the newly located emails were Clinton’s. But the email saga has reinforced perceptions about her that were formed more than 20 years ago. In Warrenton’s quaint Old Town on Saturday, people could immediately — though often inaccurately — describe controversies dating back decades: the Whitewater real estate imbroglio, her big gain trading cattle futures in the 1970s, most frequently her handing of the 2012 terror attack in Benghazi, Libya.
Bill Price, a 69-year-old retiree, said it is obvious Hillary Clinton is "dirty."
Democrats point out that Clinton was not found to have committed any wrongdoing. The people who despise her say her record is incompetence, selfishness and corruption. “Look at the evidence. Just look at it,” said Bill Price, 69, a retired television engineer with a handgun in his shirt pocket. “She’s as dirty as the day is long. It’s so obvious. A blind man on a fast horse in a dense fog could …” He trailed off. “Trump is not great. Trump is all we have.” Some of the criticism from Clinton-despising men in Warrenton was either tinged with sexism or openly sexist. Gil Troy, McGill historian and author of Hillary Rodham Clinton: Polarizing First Lady, said sexism is one of the main reasons for her perception issues. But he said they cannot be blamed on that alone. “She has a long history of saying dumb things or doing dumb things,” Troy said. Another factor, Troy said, is the “deep, effective anti-Clinton machine that is irrational in its hatred and that takes any one of their minor missteps and blows it up into a major scandal.” The effects of this conspiracy industry were on vivid display in Warrenton. Among other things, three of 15 men interviewed said Clinton had something to do with the 1993 death of White House lawyer Vince Foster. (She did not. It was a suicide.) Ward, who wants Clinton shot, acknowledged that he “can’t prove” this. But he is comfortable with his “assumption.” Clinton, he said, is a sociopath. “She’s totally incapable of telling the truth,” he said. “And there’s a distinct possibility she might not even know what the truth is.” More on thestar.com A Hillary Clinton secret: lots of voters really like her Despite sexting probe, Clinton says she won’t be ‘knocked off course’
Read more about:The fiancé of author Helen Bailey has been charged with her murder after a body was discovered in their back garden three months after she vanished.
Ian Stewart, 55, was also charged on Friday night with perverting the course of justice by reporting Miss Bailey, 51, as missing and preventing lawful burial.
Stewart, from Royston, Hertfordshire, briefly appeared before Hatfield Remand Court this morning and will remain in custody until appearing at St Albans crown court on Monday.
Tragedy: Ian Stewart, 55, has been charged with murdering his fiancee, author Helen Bailey, who has been missing for more than three months. The pair are pictured together
Hertfordshire police said a post-mortem is due to take place on Monday and specialist searches at Miss Bailey's home are set to continue.
It comes after neighbours of Helen Bailey claimed her body was discovered in a hidden underground cesspit in the grounds of her home.
Nicki McGrath's mother lives next door to the author and was very friendly with the previous home owner, who told them about a pit under the garage.
The pair were on holiday when they heard about her search underway at the property, so came home early.
She asked detectives on Thursday whether they had drained a 'well' in the property which the previous owner had joked was the 'one place to hide a body'.
While the officers initially told her they couldn't tell her anything, she claims a detective visited her on Friday to ask about the pit, and just hours later the body was found.
Speaking today, Ms McGrath said: 'Mum and I came over on Wednesday evening to see what time the generator [being used by police] would be turned off and we were told it was probably going to 1am, then we'll be turning it on again at 6am but we'll be gone by Friday.
'We were just leaving and I said "this might sound stupid, but I wouldn't be happy with myself if I walked out of this gate and didn't tell you guys about something, but I just want to ask, have you drained the well?"
'The first guy said to me he couldn't say anything so I said we knew the guy who used to own this house very well, and he had often joked that if there was one place to hide a body in his premises, he knew the ideal place
'He used to refer to it as the well.'
Nicki said a senior officer visited them on Friday and added: 'We told him about what we knew and he asked if we had details of the former owner.
'So mum got on the phone to him straight away and the detective asked him about the cesspit.
'It turned out the 'cesspit' they had actually been draining was the overflow so they hadn't actually found the [real] cesspit.
'So once they found the cesspit they got the fire brigade in, got a grappler and they found the body straight away.'
A spokesman for Hertfordshire Police said they could not comment on where Ms Bailey's body was found for operational reasons.
In a statement, Ms Bailey's family said: 'We share with Helen's friends, neighbours and fans our shock, disbelief and sadness at the news of her tragic death.
'As a family we also stand in solidarity with those around the world who have also suffered loss under tragic circumstances.
'Helen was immensely witty and talented. We love her deeply and are immensely proud of her achievements. She is now at peace and we shall all miss her terribly.
'We wish to express our gratitude to the police as well as all those who supported us in the search for Helen in whatever way they could.
'In life, Helen was a very just person and we know that she would now wish, like us, for justice to be done.'
Probe: Police were working in the large garden of Helen Bailey's mansion in Royston with forensics officers working under trees in the top right of the picture, by the swimming pool at the bottom of the picture and on a patio, top left
Detective Chief Superintendent Paul Fullwood, confirmed the body of Ms Bailey's dog, Boris, was also discovered within the grounds.
He said: 'The searches, which resulted in the discovery, have been painstaking and more work will need to take place in the coming days.
'Specialist officers are continuing to support Helen's family at this extremely difficult time.'
Detectives made the discovery in the grounds of Ms Bailey's sprawling £1.3 million seven-bedroom home, three months after she was last seen walking her miniature Dachshund.
The author, who created the Electra Brown series for teenagers, was last seen walking her dog near her home in Royston on 11 April.
It was initially thought that she had gone away for a few days and may have been depressed.
However last Monday specialist police teams returned to the £1.2million Hertfordshire mansion the couple shared and began searching its grounds.
On Friday the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit said they had found what is believed to be a body.
Police arrested Stewart on Monday on suspicion of killing his partner, disposing of her body and stealing her money.
Hertfordshire police said a post-mortem is due to take place on Monday and specialist searches at Miss Bailey's home (pictured) are set to continue
Yesterday he was re-arrested and questioned at Stevenage police station on suspicion of murder, before being charged.
Police carried out extensive investigations both in Royston and at Miss Bailey's property in Broadstairs, Kent, shortly after she disappeared.
But on Monday they announced a further five-day examination and are understood to have found her body on Thursday.
Earlier this week police were heard drilling in the garden at Royston, with further search work carried out on the patio and close to the swimming pool.
On Thursday night firemen were seen carrying two circular saws into the property. The noise of saws could be heard coming from the back garden, which was screened off.
Firefighters were on the scene at Helen Bailey's home this evening after a body was found
A second team was also seen taking items away from the Broadstairs property in evidence bags.
The couple met through a Facebook group for bereavement in 2011, which Mr Stewart joined following the death of his wife Diane who had an epileptic fit in their garden in 2010.
Computer software expert Stewart, who has two sons, is thought to have travelled to Majorca on holiday at the beginning of June – a trip which was booked for himself and Miss Bailey before she vanished three months ago.
Officers previously confirmed that money belonging to Miss Bailey was taken from her account after she vanished on April 11.(Last Updated On: January 22, 2019)
Introduction
Lukas Eder has posted a very interesting question on Stack Overflow, asking about a way of getting access to the binding metadata between entity mappings and database tables.
While I have previously answered a similar question using this article, I realized that case was much simpler since it only extracted the database metadata. In this article, you are going to see how easily you can get the bridge information between your JPA entities and the underlying database schema.
Integrator
Hibernate is very flexible, so it defines many SPI (Service Provider Interfaces) that you can register to customize Hibernate internals. One of these interfaces is org.hibernate.integrator.spi.Integrator which is used by many technologies that integrate with Hibernate ORM, like Bean Validation, Envers or JACC Security Provider.
Using the Hibernate Integrator API, we can write our own component that captures the SessionFactory build-time metadata which, otherwise, is only available during bootstrap.
public class MetadataExtractorIntegrator implements org.hibernate.integrator.spi.Integrator { public static final MetadataExtractorIntegrator INSTANCE = new MetadataExtractorIntegrator(); private Database database; private Metadata metadata; public Database getDatabase() { return database; } public Metadata getMetadata() { return metadata; } @Override public void integrate( Metadata metadata, SessionFactoryImplementor sessionFactory, SessionFactoryServiceRegistry serviceRegistry) { this.database = metadata.getDatabase(); this.metadata = metadata; } @Override public void disintegrate( SessionFactoryImplementor sessionFactory, SessionFactoryServiceRegistry serviceRegistry) { } }
The org.hibernate.boot.Metadata is what we are interested in since it contains the PersistentClass entity bindings.
To register MetadataExtractorIntegrator with Hibernate we have two possibilities based on the underlying bootstrap method.
Hibernate-native boostrap
If you’re using the Hibernate-native bootstrap, then you can register the Integrator with the BootstrapServiceRegistryBuilder as follows:
final BootstrapServiceRegistry bootstrapServiceRegistry = new BootstrapServiceRegistryBuilder().enableAutoClose().applyIntegrator( MetadataExtractorIntegrator.INSTANCE ).build(); final StandardServiceRegistry serviceRegistry = new StandardServiceRegistryBuilder(bootstrapServiceRegistry).applySettings(properties()).build();
JPA boostrap
If you’re using the JPA bootstrap, then you can register the Integrator with the BootstrapServiceRegistryBuilder as follows:
Map<String, Object> configuration = new HashMap<>(); Integrator integrator = integrator(); if (integrator!= null) { configuration.put("hibernate.integrator_provider", (IntegratorProvider) () -> Collections.singletonList( MetadataExtractorIntegrator.INSTANCE ) ); } EntityManagerFactory entityManagerFactory = new EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl( new PersistenceUnitInfoDescriptor(persistenceUnitInfo), configuration ).build();
That’s for when you want to bootstrap JPA without any persistence.xml configuration file.
If you want to use the persistence.xml configuration file, then you just need to provide a new property to declare the custom Integrator :
<property name="hibernate.integrator_provider" value="com.vladmihalcea.book.hpjp.hibernate.metadata.MetadataExtractorIntegrator" />
Domain Model
Assuming we have the following database tables mapped by our JPA application:
When running the following test case:
Metadata metadata = MetadataExtractorIntegrator.INSTANCE.getMetadata(); for ( PersistentClass persistentClass : metadata.getEntityBindings()) { Table table = persistentClass.getTable(); LOGGER.info( "Entity: {} is mapped to table: {}", persistentClass.getClassName(), table.getName() ); for(Iterator propertyIterator = persistentClass.getPropertyIterator(); propertyIterator.hasNext(); ) { Property property = (Property) propertyIterator.next(); for(Iterator columnIterator = property.getColumnIterator(); columnIterator.hasNext(); ) { Column column = (Column) columnIterator.next(); LOGGER.info( "Property: {} is mapped on table column: {} of type: {}", property.getName(), column.getName(), column.getSqlType() ); } } }
Hibernate generates the following output:
Entity: com.vladmihalcea.book.hpjp.util.providers.entity.BlogEntityProvider$Tag is mapped to table: tag Property: name is mapped on table column: name of type: varchar(255) Property: version is mapped on table column: version of type: integer Entity: com.vladmihalcea.book.hpjp.util.providers.entity.BlogEntityProvider$PostComment is mapped to table: post_comment Property: post is mapped on table column: post_id of type: bigint Property: review is mapped on table column: review of type: varchar(255) Property: version is mapped on table column: version of type: integer Entity: com.vladmihalcea.book.hpjp.util.providers.entity.BlogEntityProvider$Post is mapped to table: post Property: title is mapped on table column: title of type: varchar(255) Property: version is mapped on table column: version of type: integer Entity: com.vladmihalcea.book.hpjp.util.providers.entity.BlogEntityProvider$PostDetails is mapped to table: post_details Property: createdBy is mapped on table column: created_by of type: varchar(255) Property: createdOn is mapped on table column: created_on of type: datetime(6) Property: version is mapped on table column: version of type: integer
If you enjoyed this article, I bet you are going to love my Book and Video Courses as well.
Conclusion
Hibernate is highly customizable, and the Integrator SPI allows you to get access to the Hibernate Metadata which you can later inspect from your enterprise application.
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Share this: TweetPokémon passed me by when the first games were released in 1999 in the UK. In my head, I was too grown up for it at 15 and had the awkward moustache to prove this theory. I was about to move on from the N64 and onto the Dreamcast. Although I dismissed it, it was hard to ignore.
Everyone knew a little something about it but it was around this time that a younger cousin became obsessed. He was deep into the anime and the trading cards and so secondary exposure was inevitable. His persistent invites to play the trading cards meant I knew exactly who Charmander and Jigglypuff were. Being around him when the anime would be on TV meant I knew all about Ash and Team Rocket. Yet his obsession was despite him not even owning the game, so I never played it either.
I was only a brief owner of a handheld then. Somehow a Game Boy Color showed up in my house and I was briefly living the simple life of being a farmer on Harvest Moon. I seriously don't know where it came from and it vanished soon after. No Pokémon was played. It wouldn't be until 2012 that I would own another Nintendo handheld, the 3DS XL. In 2013, I got a Game Boy Advance SP on eBay. The library of games available to me was enormous. Again, no Pokémon was played.
Pokémon just wasn't on my radar for many years after that initial exposure. It wasn't until the release of X and Y that something clicked. Suddenly, I was paying attention. Sure, Tumblr and Kotaku may have played some part. The hype was there, the reviews were positive, the screenshots looked charming and I wanted to pet Pikachu with the stylus. For the first time I wanted to play a Pokémon game. The time was right. But it wasn't X and Y.
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Somehow I wanted the nostalgia of playing a game I never played. I wanted to go back to the beginning. Whether it was an attempt to connect to my youth, internet peer pressure or just to fill a gap in my gaming, I was ready. I did some research on how to spot fake carts on eBay and after setting myself a price limit, I went and bought Pokémon Blue. I'm so glad I did.
It taps into the need to explore and gain knowledge perfectly. I'm enjoying wandering around and then retracing my steps and then wandering some more. I'm not sure I want to catch 'em all yet. It bursts with personality. Some of the one-liners before going into battle are hilarious. The music is pretty great too. I think I made a good decision.
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I'm only 7 hours or so in and have just left being on-board the S.S Anne. I now have cut! The 3rd gym is next but maybe I should track back and level up my Pokémon? I'm already looking ahead too. Do I go to Generation II or jump further along?
So Twitch played Pokémon. Now a fish is playing Pokémon. It took a while but now and so am I!On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his old friend John Kerry in Jerusalem that he was concerned about the peace process, and asked the visiting US secretary of state to “steer [the Palestinians] back to a place where we could achieve the historical peace that we seek.” John Kerry quickly responded by lauding both sides’ “good faith,” and said he was “very confident” the negotiations would succeed.
But on Thursday, he loosened the diplomatic straitjacket, and we all got a much better look at what John Kerry really thinks about progress — and blame — in the new peace effort he worked so strenuously to revive a little over three months ago. He turned directly to the Israeli and Palestinian peoples and showed them rather more of his true colors. To the prime minister, it is safe to assume, they did not look particularly blue-and-white.
For the first time since he managed to restart the talks in July, Kerry dropped his statesman-like public impartiality, and clearly spoke from the heart — and what emerged were a series of accusations that amounted to a forceful slap in the face for Netanyahu. It was a rhetorical onslaught that the prime minister cannot have expected and one he will not quickly forget.
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In an extremely unusual joint interview with Israel’s Channel 2 and the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, a very frustrated Kerry basically blamed the Israeli government for stealing the Palestinians’ land and the Israeli public for living in bubble that prevents them from caring much about it. If that wasn’t enough, he railed against the untenability of the Israel Defense Forces staying “perpetually” in the West Bank. In warning that a violent Palestinian leadership might supplant Mahmoud Abbas if there was not sufficient progress at the peace table, he appeared to come perilously close to empathizing with potential Palestinian aggression against Israel.
“If we do not resolve the issues between Palestinians and Israelis,” Kerry warned early in the interview, “if we do not find a way to find peace, there will be an increasing isolation of Israel [and an] increasing campaign of delegitimization of Israel.
“If we do not resolve the question of settlements,” he continued more dramatically, “and the question of who lives where and how and what rights they have; if we don’t end the presence of Israeli soldiers perpetually within the West Bank, then there will be an increasing feeling that if we cannot get peace with a leadership that is committed to non-violence, you may wind up with leadership that is committed to violence.”
He later elaborated, expressing apparently growing dismay over continued Israeli settlement expansion: “How, if you say you’re working for peace and you want peace, and a Palestine that is a whole Palestine that belongs to the people who live there, how can you say we’re planning to build in a place that will eventually be Palestine? So it sends a message that perhaps you’re not really serious.” That was a critique that will have resonated widely among those many Israelis, and critics from outside, who have long argued that Israel should limit any settlement building to areas it envisages seeking to retain in a permanent accord.
Kerry seemed to place the blame for the failure to make rapid and major progress in negotiations overwhelmingly on Israel, with no acknowledgment — in his statements as broadcast Thursday — of two intifadas, relentless anti-Israel incitement in the Palestinian territories, the Hamas takeover of Gaza and the constant rocket fire from the Strip. (It is important to note that Channel 2 aired only part of the full interview on Thursday. More is set to air Friday evening.)
In lamenting the IDF’s presence in the West Bank, Kerry positioned himself directly opposite Netanyahu, for whom an ongoing Israeli security presence in the Jordan Valley is a stated crucial condition for an agreement. Perhaps more surprisingly, he showed no evident concern over the danger of a Hamas takeover in the West Bank were the IDF to withdraw, disregarding a widely held concern — borne of the rapid ease with which Hamas swept Abbas’s forces aside in Gaza in 2007 — that the official Palestinian Authority forces alone would not be able to hold sway.
His comments, which indicated an assessment that Israelis are unrealistic about where the region is heading, seemed particularly bitter. “The alternative to getting back to the talks is the potential of chaos. I mean, does Israel want a Third Intifada?” Kerry asked rhetorically, before lashing out at ordinary Israelis. “I know there are people who have grown used to this,” he said, referring to the current relatively peaceful stalemate. “And particularly in Israel. Israel says, ‘Oh, we feel safe today. We have the wall, we’re not in a day-to-day conflict, we’re doing pretty well economically.’
“Well, I’ve got news for you,” he said, apparently addressing the Israeli public. “Today’s status quo will not be tomorrow’s or next year’s. Because if we don’t resolve this issue, the Arab world, the Palestinians, neighbors, others, are going to begin again to push in a different way.”
That line of thinking reflects much international conventional wisdom on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — the assumption that Israel could attain peace with the Palestinians if only it wanted to, but that it just doesn’t want to enough. Many Israelis, Netanyahu most certainly among them, would counter that Israel cannot impose terms on a Palestinian leadership that, among numerous other problematic negotiating positions, still demands a “right of return” that would constitute suicide for the Jewish state. Many Israelis, their prime minister among them, too, would note that Israel is only too aware of how easily the
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rule’s repeal. The CEO of Murray Energy Company also was invited to watch President Trump sign the CRA resolution into law.
Countless other examples like this exist under this administration regarding the rollback of policies related to climate change, vehicle fuel economy standards, ozone pollution, and chemical safety to name a few. In fact, the White House is boasting about rolling back many of these regulations. Apparently, removing protections that safeguard children from harmful neurological effects and that protect disadvantaged communities from getting cancer are things that our administration applauds nowadays.
Reducing public access to government science and scientists
While there are valid reasons why the government keeps some information sensitive or classified, usually there is no such valid reason why science cannot be communicated openly. Yet, the Trump administration has been actively working to reduce public access to scientists and their work. For example, many government webpages have now been altered or removed, particularly those that focus on climate change. The Trump administration also has retracted questions from surveys intended to support disadvantaged communities.
Additionally, scientists in federal agencies have been restricted from communicating their work to anyone outside of the agency, and also have been barred from attending and presenting at scientific conferences. Yesterday, Joel Clement, former Director of the Office of Policy Analysis at the Interior Department, blew the whistle on the Trump administration for their attempts to silence his work to help endangered communities in Alaska prepare for climate change by reassigning him to a position in accounting. As Clement rightfully points out, removing a scientist from their area of expertise and placing them in a position where their experience is not relevant is “a colossal waste of taxpayer money.” The public has the right to access government science and to hear from the scientists that produce it.
The attacks on science keep rolling in
The examples that I’ve highlighted in this blog entry are merely a smattering of the attacks on science discussed in our report. All of these attacks are happening at the same time that the President has proposed deep cuts to scientific agencies and funding for basic research, sending a signal to scientists that their work is not valued. Senator Bill Nelson of Florida recently took to the floor to call for an end to the “blatant, coordinated effort by some elected officials to muzzle the scientific community.” It is becoming difficult to suggest that a war on science doesn’t exist when evidence is piling up, and suggests that the Trump administration intends to silence science and scientists wherever and whenever possible.
We cannot retreat from progress that the use of science in decision making allows us to make: more children living a healthy life without asthma, a number of lives spared due to vaccinations, the protection of America’s endangered wildlife. Scientists and science supporters are already speaking up and taking to the streets to march, to advocate for the use of science in decision making. We can resist the Trump administration’s attacks on science—our democracy gives us the right to do so.
Posted in: Science and Democracy Tags: Center for Science and Democracy, Trump Administration
Support from UCS members make work like this possible. Will you join us? Help UCS advance independent science for a healthy environment and a safer world.Back in 1976, famed physicist and astronomer Carl Sagan appeared on The Tonight Show to explain a new method of space travel. Using a technique called solar sailing, Sagan described a craft that used a large reflective sheet to "work exactly as a sailboat does," harnessing radiation from the sun to travel around our solar system. Now, almost forty years later, a solar-sailing spacecraft like the one Sagan described is about to have its first test flight.
The privately funded LightSail project is the creation of The Planetary Society — the non-profit group founded by Sagan and other astronomical luminaries, and currently headed by Bill Nye of "the Science Guy" fame — and aims to offer a demonstration of the potential of solar sailing as a faster and cheaper method of space propulsion than chemical rockets with two small spacecraft built by Stellar Exploration Inc. The first of these is tentatively scheduled to launch on May 20th.
The crafts have two main parts — four triangular Mylar sails that allow them to ride solar radiation, and small square "CubeSat" satellites that will open four arms to unfurl the sheeting. While solar sailing allows craft to travel toward, away from, and alongside the sun just as a sailboat can with the wind, crafts equipped with the technology still need a rocket-shaped shove to get out of our atmosphere. For its test flight, the LightSail will be riding an Atlas V rocket into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, a vehicle provided by Boeing and Lockheed Martin's joint space venture, United Launch Alliance. The final version of the craft will be ensconced inside another satellite, called Prox-1, and carried into space by SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket.
The project's first test flight, delayed from an original launch date of May 6th, intends to prove that LightSail can successfully unfurl its Mylar sheeting. If all goes to plan, a second LightSail mission will launch in April next year, aiming to demonstrate how future spaceships could use the propulsion technique to get around in our solar system without the need for bulky boosters or vast reserves of fuel that drive up the price of projects. Indeed, LightSail-1 was built with just $1.8 million, and the entire estimated program costs only reach $4.5 million — a tiny amount when compared with other spacecraft.
LightSail won't be the first solar sail to make it into space. A Japanese mission called IKAROS achieved that accolade in 2010, and in 2011, NASA successfully deployed a solar sail in low Earth orbit as part of its NanoSail-D project. But Bill Nye — thirty years after Carl Sagan helped found The Planetary Society to get people excited in space again — still echoes his mentor's enthusiasm about the technology. Speaking about the private funding the non-profit group received from donors and members to build the LightSail-1, Nye said "this is people who are enthusiastic about space exploration, who want to lower the cost of space exploration," backing a project that could help humans do "a lot more of it."A gender-mixed prayer space and a synagogue open to all results in a wide diversity of people with different attitudes and approaches to Jewish prayer who come dressed in a wide variety of styles. And while we say that we value and welcome this diversity, it is not uncommon to hear ourselves and those around us criticizing others in the synagogue not only for the way they pray, but especially for the way they dress. This is magnified if the person receives an honor such as an aliyah.
And so we ask, should there be a dress code in our synagogues? What is the minimal requirement that we could comfortably enforce on visitors?
But first, let’s acknowledge that any restriction on dress is going to be more of a demand on women than on men, even if the same standard of coverage is imposed on both. Limitations on men’s attire would be well within the norms of how most would dress anyway. If we create a space which men can enter as they are, but which women can access only after modifications to their appearance, we send the message that this space is the domain of men and women must be altered to be accepted. A synagogue should be a safe place for all; imposing limitations on modes of dress makes it party to the oppression and objectification of women.
Some will claim that it’s hard to concentrate on prayer with people nearby dressed in a certain manner. This is hypocritical. Maybe by imposing my preferences on another person, she will have a harder time focusing on her prayers since she had to dress in a way that makes her uncomfortable or feel unbecoming. Furthermore, we don’t prevent young children from entering our synagogues; we even encourage it, even though their behavior can be distracting. We don’t limit newcomers and visitors even though they are likely to talk to their neighbors, distracting the rest of us.
Contrary to the modern quasi-religious trend of combating sexual distraction by hiding women, when talmudic sources discuss rabbis who were exemplary in not succumbing to temptation, these rabbis were considered pious because they put restrictions on themselves, not on the women whom they encountered.
In Midrash Tanhuma, Satan takes on the disguise of a beautiful woman to distract Rabbi Matia ben Harash in the middle of his Torah studies. At first, Rabbi Matia tries to look the other way, but whenever he does so, Satan moves to the side to which he is looking. Finally, in despair, Rabbi Matia gouges out his eyes with burning hot nails. God sends Raphael to heal his eyes, but Rabbi Matia refuses help until he receives God’s promise to give him immunity to any future temptations. Note how Rabbi Matia never asks the ‘woman’ to leave his study house or to dress differently. His response to temptation affects him alone.
In the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Ta’anit, a man is caught gazing at a rabbi’s daughter. When the rabbi punishes his daughter for being “a source of trouble to mankind,” the Talmud brands him as unfit to teach Torah and commends his student for seeking a new teacher.
Even in the Bible, when King David brings the ark to Jerusalem, his wife Michal criticizes him for his behavior during the public celebration. She disapproves of the way he danced and the way he dressed. David rebukes her for criticizing someone sincerely celebrating his closeness with God, and God punishes her with childlessness.
There is no reason not to assume that when someone comes to synagogue, they do so sincerely, after having selected clothes that, in their mind, honor the occasion and place. If we find those clothes distracting or inappropriate, we need to change ourselves, not the other person.
Beyond subduing our feelings at inappropriate times or places, we need to learn to not objectify people or to draw conclusions about them based on their appearance.Arthur Cockfield is a Professor with Queen's University Faculty of Law. Allison Christians is the Heward Stikeman Chair in the Law of Taxation at McGill University Faculty of Law. This article draws from their submissions on FATCA to the Department of Finance, which are posted on the Internet.
For the first time in Canadian history, our federal government is preparing to provide a foreign government with sensitive personal financial information about hundreds of thousands of Canadians. It is doing so to stave off threatened economic sanctions, and is getting nothing in return.
The sad saga began with a U.S. attempt to root out offshore tax evasion through the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), enacted by Congress in 2010. Under FATCA, all non-U.S. financial institutions, including Canadian banks, are to dig through their bank records for evidence of accounts owned by U.S. expatriates and others with ties to the United States. Once this evidence is uncovered, the banks are to send the account information directly to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) so it can go after the alleged tax cheats.
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When FATCA was first put in place, former Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty decried the U.S. legislation as an effort to make Canadian banks an enforcement arm of the IRS. The problem is that, unless Canada plays ball, the United States is threatening to shut down the Canadian financial industry by imposing punitive taxes on financial transfers between U.S. and Canadian banks. Faced with this threatened economic sanction, the Canadian government ultimately capitulated and proposes to implement FATCA by July 1, 2014. The proposed law, which is part of Bill C-31 before Parliament, will override Canadian privacy laws so that our tax authorities can transfer the account information to the IRS.
This move is unacceptable as it gravely threatens Canadian financial privacy.
The proposed law applies to a broad class of U.S. expatriates and Canadians who could now be subject to fines, interest penalties, criminal sanctions, and denial of entry into the United States. Under the proposed approach, Canadian banks will have to look to their records on birth places, residences, Social Insurance Numbers and other information to see if any "U.S. person" holds an account. "U.S. person" is a defined term that includes many more people in Canada than almost anyone realizes. It includes U.S. citizens and non-citizens with various personal or economic ties to the United States (for example, former green card holders now residing in Canada).
Canadian snowbirds who travel to the United States for part of each year may also be caught in the tax web if they are deemed to be U.S. persons under facts and circumstances tests. So-called 'accidental Americans', including Canadians with U.S. citizen parents who have never stepped foot in the United States, are also swept up in the net. Finally, any Canadians who jointly hold accounts with a U.S. person for family or business purposes will see their sensitive financial information shipped south of the border too.
All Canadian businesses that are partly owned by a "U.S. person" will also have their sensitive financial account information disclosed to the IRS. This includes confidential information that, if improperly revealed to competitor firms, could harm the ability of Canadian businesses to compete against U.S. firms. In light of recent disclosures surrounding U.S. state-sponsored corporate espionage, the Canadian business community should be yelling to the rooftops about this commercial confidentiality concern.
The proposed law to implement FATCA needs to be amended to account for these privacy concerns. Canada should only transfer data associated with U.S. persons who are not Canadian residents. This approach accords with longstanding practice and emerging global information exchange standards. The government should take immediate steps to ensure this standard is codified in the legislation currently in front of Parliament.
This move would prevent the great privacy giveaway and institute in its place a sensible rule for information exchange. It would safeguard the privacy rights of Canadians while enabling Canada to work co-operatively on a global scale to ensure that tax evaders – American, Canadian, or otherwise – do not have a safe haven anywhere.The second search mission has taken place after a civilian with extensive military experience reported seeing what he believed to be a submarine tower. The alleged submarine was heading toward Stockholm.
Marko Saavala Unknown Submarine Did Illegally Enter Swedish Waters: Ministers
MOSCOW, January 11 (Sputnik) — A second, this time secret submarine hunt was launched in the Stockholm archipelago when a "very credible" informant reported seeing a possible conning tower a week after Sweden called off the initial search operation, the Swedish Armed Forces said Sunday.
“We consider the informant to be very credible. We had ships and ground units nearby, so we were able to quickly respond to that observation. Unfortunately, it did not yield any results,” Swedish Armed Forces spokesman Philip Simon was quoted as saying by the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.
The second search mission reportedly took place after a civilian with extensive military experience reported seeing what he believed to be a submarine tower on October 31. According to him, the alleged submarine, spotted near the island of Stora Hoggarn northeast of Stockholm, was heading toward the capital.
This possible new submarine was photographed, Dagens Nyheter said. “It looks like a black submarine tower. You can also see several other ships that operate normally in the waters, such as the Finland ferries,” said one of the newspaper’s military sources who claims to have seen the picture.
According to another source, the new image is of much higher quality than the one released by the Swedish forces during the first submarine hunt. “Compared with the image from Orno, this picture is taken at a greater distance. Yet this is a much better picture,” the source said.
The Swedish Armed Forces launched a major search operation off the coast of Stockholm on October 17 after receiving reports on the presence of a suspicious underwater object in the region.
On October 24, the operation was called off, failing to yield any results. Swedish officials confirmed, however, that a small submarine had violated the country’s territorial waters.No, it's not a clerical error.
Brooklyn Law School said Monday that it will refund graduates 15 percent of the total they paid in tuition if they are still searching for a job nine months after receiving their degree.
The program is called "Bridge to Success" and will begin with the incoming class of 2015.
The payment will be made in a lump sum and is meant to act as a safety net that will help give students more time to find "meaningful, full-time employment," the school said in a statement.
Related: Go to law school. Rack up debt. Make $62,000.
According to the law school -- which has total enrollment of about 1,100 -- its job placement record in the last two years has been approximately 90 percent.
The partial tuition refund program is the latest in a series of initiatives undertaken by the school in an effort to help students and alumni.
Last year, Brooklyn Law announced a 15 percent tuition reduction. And the year before the school created a 2-year J.D. program, the first of its kind in the New York City area.
"We have our ear to the ground," Brooklyn Law School President and Dean Nicholas Allard told CNNMoney. "Rather than continue to march over the cliff when a new direction is appropriate, we pay attention to what students want and need. The conventional legal education was passive and standardized. We've adopted a student-centric approach."
To qualify for the program, students must be working with career services and planning to take the bar exam.
Brooklyn Law School has budgeted for about 10 percent of its students to use the refund program, although Allard believes the actual number will be lower.
The average tuition is $43,500 a year but scholarships and grants can defray some of the total cost. Allard said there isn't a projected average refund amount because of the varying defrayed costs.
The maximum cost of tuition is $130,000, meaning that the most the school would refund to a student would be $19,000.
"Our paying customers are our students," he said. "I'm not concerned about our students ripping us off. I'm not worried about someone gaming the system. Our students come to study the law and want jobs -- not checks."Get the biggest daily news stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
An ominous noise coming from the sky has alarmed people around the world - and experts have no idea what might be causing it.
Footage has flooded YouTube from locations as varied as British Columbia in Canada, Allen in Texas and Queensland in Australia.
The sound, like something from Hollywood movies The War of the Worlds or Close Encounters of the Third Kind starts without warning and has people transfixed in the street as it continues.
And even the experts can't tell if it's aliens, God, the Earth or something else unknown.
Earlier this month a couple shot a clip in Germany where a child can be seen standing stock-still as it occurs.
Kimberly Wookey from British Columbia in Canada wrote on YouTube: “This is the second time I personally have heard these sounds here in Terrace, BC, Canada.
"On the morning of August 29th 2013 at approx. 7:30am I was awoken by these sounds.
"I shot out of bed and ran looking for a camera to try to capture them with. Came out into the living room to find my seven-year-old son awake and scared wondering what was going on.
"Checking my Facebook I noticed a lot of locals had heard the same sounds again but this time it was far more widespread. "
Metro has reported that the first noises came from Belarus in 2008, while in the same year ‘ear-defeaning’ sounds were posted to YouTube by an anonymous user.
According to Metro, NASA say it could be the earth’s ‘background noise’.
A statement from the agency said: ‘If humans had radio antennas instead of ears, we would hear a remarkable symphony of strange noises coming from our own planet. Scientists call them “tweeks,” “whistlers” and “sferics.”
"They sound like background music from a flamboyant science fiction film, but this is not science fiction. Earth’s natural radio emissions are real and, although we’re mostly unaware of them, they are around us all the time."
Trevor Farbo who posted a video from Queensland, Australia posted a video from when he was out for a walk.
He wrote, "We heard these strange noises, similar to what others have been hearing in other parts of the world, coming from the sky.
"It should be noted that storm clouds were rolling in at the time they were heard. Anyone have any idea of what could be causing this?"Digging new subway lines in Europe is no easy task. It's not the excavating itself that is so problematic; modern machinery can bore through the earth with surprising speed these days. Rather, in places that have been inhabited for centuries, if not millennia, no one really knows what one will find. The delays for archeological research can be significant.
In Berlin, that hasn't often been a problem. Aside from significant numbers of unexploded bombs dropped on the city during World War II and a few long-forgotten building foundations, construction tends to be relatively straightforward. The city, after all, spent the vast majority of its 770 year history as a regional backwater.
This autumn, however, an extension to Berlin's U-5 subway line means the city can gloat over a world-class delay of its own. Workers in the initial phases of building a subway stop in front of the Berlin city hall stumbled across remains of the city's original city hall, built in 1290. Archeologists were ecstatic.
On Monday, however, Berlin's Mayor Klaus Wowereit announced a new series of finds that has generated even greater enthusiasm. In digs carried out throughout this year, archeologists have unearthed 11 sculptures thought to have been lost forever -- valuable works of art that disappeared during World War II after having been included on the Nazis' list of degenerate art. Most of them have now been identified and have been put on display in Berlin's Neues Museum.
'A Minor Miracle'
"We hadn't expected this confrontation with this period of time, with these samples of degenerate art -- it is a minor miracle," Wowereit said at a press conference on Monday. "It is unique."
The finds were made among the ruins of Königstrasse (King Street), a formerly bustling street in the heart of prewar Berlin. Allied bombs decimated the quarter, however, and much of the rubble was simply buried after the war to make room for reconstruction. Much of the archeological work currently under way consists of sifting through the rubble that remains in the intact cellars of the structures that once lined the street.
In early January, workers discovered a small bronze bust in the shovel of a front loader that was cleaning out one of those cellars.
"We thought it was a one-off," said Matthias Wemhoff, director of the Museum of Prehistory and Early History in Berlin and a member of the archeology team looking into the finds. "It wasn't immediately clear that it was linked to degenerate art."
Soon, however, more artworks were discovered -- all sculptures, all from early 20th century artists and all bearing clear indications of having been fire-damaged. Only at the end of September did it become clear that all of the art pieces -- by such artists as Otto Freundlich, Naom Slutzky and Marg Moll, among others -- were on the list of artworks branded as undesirable by the Nazis. All were thought to have been lost forever.
Simply Destroyed
The list of works shunned by the Nazis for being "Jewish" or "un-German" is long, and encompasses primarily early 20th century modern art including pieces by such luminaries as Emil Nolde, Max Ernst, Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso and many others. Some 20,000 such works were confiscated by the party and those that weren't sold for hard currency or stolen by cynical party officials were simply destroyed. In 1937, a travelling exhibition of such "degenerate art," as it was called, made its way through Germany.
Many of the works now discovered in Berlin were part of that travelling show. Historians working on identifying the provenance of the pieces now unearthed have found documents indicating that some of them were returned to the Nazi Propaganda Ministry in 1941. After that, though, the paper trail goes cold.
Wemhoff believes that the works may have been purchased by a resident of Königstrasse 50, beneath which the finds were made, to save them from destruction. Initial speculation has centered around Erhard Oewerdieck, a government official who was awarded the title "Righteous among the Nations" by the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Israel for helping Jews escape the Holocaust during World War II. He rented several office rooms on the fourth floor of the building in 1941. He is also considered to the be only one in the building by then -- all of the Jewish tenants had been evicted and many deported by then -- to have had the wherewithal to collect the works.
Other Works?
Archeologists said on Monday that any pieces of art he might have kept in his offices would have ended up in a pile of rubble following the bombing run which destroyed the building in the late summer of 1944. City officials have initiated contact with Oewerdieck's family in an effort to learn if he did in fact seek to protect some degenerate artworks from destruction.
They are also interested in learning what other works he might have held. Archeologists have found some bits of wood and other indications that more destructible pieces might also have been present. "It is possible that there were wood sculptures or even oil paintings," said Wemhoff.
But if there were, they would have been completely incinerated.Researchers say they’ve developed an algorithm that can teach a new concept to a computer using just one example, rather than the thousands of examples that are traditionally required for machine learning.
The algorithm takes advantage of a probabilistic approach the researchers call “Bayesian Program Learning,” or BPL. Essentially, the computer generates its own additional examples, and then determines which ones fit the pattern best.
The researchers behind BPL say they’re trying to reproduce the way humans catch on to a new task after seeing it done once – whether it’s a child recognizing a horse, or a mechanic replacing a head gasket.
“The gap between machine learning and human learning capacities remains vast,” said MIT’s Joshua Tenenbaum, one of the authors of a research paper published today in the journal Science. “We want to close that gap, and that’s the long-term goal.”
Tenenbaum and two colleagues – New York University’s Brenden Lake and the University of Toronto’s Ruslan Salakhutdinov – tested the algorithm by setting it to work on a database of 1,623 handwritten characters drawn from 50 writing systems, including Sanskrit and Tibetan.
The software broke each single example of a character down into sets of simpler strokes that could create the character, and then zeroed in on the sets that came closest to producing the right look. The BPL algorithm was also asked to come up with completely new characters, written in the same style as the examples.
To measure how well the computer did, the researchers set up what they called “visual Turing tests.” The laid out characters drawn by an assortment of humans alongside an equal number of characters drawn by the computer, and then asked human judges to pick which was which.
During each round of testing, no more than 25 percent of the judges performed significantly better than chance when it came to correctly identifying the human-written vs. machine-written characters.
The researchers concluded that the BPL approach “can perform one-shot learning in classification tasks at human-level accuracy and fool most judges in visual Turing tests of its more creative abilities.” But they also acknowledged the limitations of their experiment: Classifying the characters was a relatively simple task, and yet it sometimes took the computer several minutes to run the algorithm, Lake said.
Once the algorithm is refined, it could be built into the speech recognition systems for next-generation smartphones, Tenenbaum told GeekWire. “If you want a system that can learn new words for the first time very quickly … we think you will be best off using the kind of approach we have been developing here,” he said.A client came to see me recently to talk about an issue that was upsetting her. She is 39 years old and has been married to a man the same age for about 15 years. Neither had had many partners before they got together.
They've had a good sex life but in the past few years she has felt the passion was missing. She was getting bored and was thinking about what sex with other men would be like. She had no intention of cheating on her husband and when she read an article about a swingers' club in their area, she was curious.
When she suggested the idea to her husband she was quite surprised that he was not upset. On the contrary he seemed quite interested. It took them a while to find the courage but they finally gave it a try.
They both liked it and it improved their sex lives for a while. But the one thing my client had not expected was feeling jealous when her husband had sex with women who, in her opinion, were better looking and more sexy than she was.
Although she is an attractive woman she began to feel more and more insecure. She decided not to take part in swinging any more but her husband is now disappointed and blames her for suggesting it in the first place.The victory for the entertainment business was Pyrrhic, although this initial success is dampened by a possible mistrial. Nevertheless, four Swedes have been martyred. Yet content creators and consumers are no closer to new business models that solve the problem.
Piracy is not usually honorable. But it is often a symptom of some kind of failure or injustice. The 17th Century pirates of the high seas were rebelling against tyrannical maritime labor practices. The pirates in Somalia are a direct result of government failure, and the pirates put on trial in Sweden were the result of a market failure, which is sadly now a decade old.
That the market has not come up with alternatives to file-sharing good enough to make piracy moot is the real problem, and the companies and individuals that have stood in the way of this are the ones who owe content creators an explanation. Extremists on both sides are hailing this as a win, but it’s the majority of us in the middle who continue to lose out.
This was a show trial about money and politics, but most of all it was a sideshow. This argument is over and the entertainment industries should be focusing on the licensing schemes, royalty agreements and the new business models content creators desperately need. Thankfully many more of them are. But this verdict will encourage the ones who are not to continue pretending there is some other way around this problem that involves suing people.
No one should have to accept people “stealing” their work, just as no one should have to accept a company demanding that its business model works when it doesn’t. But we all have to adapt to new market realities. The way we communicate and distribute all kinds of information will continue to change at an alarming pace. Taking hard-line measures against file-sharing in the interests of a handful of large organizations sets a dangerous precedent for the future of privacy, net neutrality and freedom of speech. Intellectual property laws are about striking a balance between the interests of individual IP creators and society as a whole. If the law tips too far in either direction, the whole system will fall. Bad legal decisions on piracy may actually end up doing more damage than the piracy itself.
The Pirate Bay verdict gives lawyers everywhere a mandate to continue chasing shadows. It won’t stop the Pirate Bay, let alone online piracy. The enormous surge in the Pirate Party’s membership that was reported after the trial is just the beginning. Most of the commentary that followed rightly talked of cutting heads off hydras and hitting hornet’s nests, etc. What that really means is anonymity features and non-accountability measures being baked into BitTorrent software, probably in the next six months to a year.
Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde said after the trial that “there’s no difference between us and Google.” The judge thought there was a difference – intent. The Pirate Bay was all about file-sharing and Google is not. But thanks to this trial the next generation of file-sharing sites will be much more secretive. The next mutation of The Pirate Bay will have no subversive rhetoric and won’t mock the labels and studios chasing it. It will be silent. It won’t respond. It wont be nearly as fun as TPB, but there will be no real differences between it and Google. No one will be able to prove intent, making it even more of a threat. Doesn’t exactly sound like a win for anybody in the business of creating content.
The real winners won’t be the ones that come out on top of this long, bitter trial process, appeals and all, which could take five years. It will be the side that develops the new technologies that will render that court decision meaningless before it is even issued. They may be Scandinavian pirates or Hollywood privateers, or some combination of thereof. The file-sharing community is working ten times harder because of this trial. The entertainment industries would be wise to do the same, and wiser to find ways to work with the pirates they continue to fight. The fact that they didn’t do so ten years ago cost a generation of artists billions.
No-one is ever going to trial for that.
—
Matt Mason
Author, The Pirate’s Dilemma
e: [email protected]
w: thepiratesdilemma.comA “Saturday Night Live” commercial spoof is stirring outrage online over its depiction of a female high school graduate who leaves her family to join the Islamic State militant group also known as ISIS.
The ad, starring “SNL” host and “50 Shades of Grey” star Dakota Johnson is a spoof of the Toyota commercial that portrays an Army-bound daughter being dropped off at the airport by her father. In the “SNL” version, though, the daughter is being picked up by Islamic militants in a Toyota pickup truck.
“You be careful, OK?” says the father, played by Taran Killam.
“Dad, it’s just ISIS,” she replies.
When a teary-eyed Killam instructs one of the militants, played by Kyle Mooney, to “take care of her,” he replies, “Death to America.”
As the truck drives away, a voice-over assures Killam: “ISIS: We’ll take it from here, Dad.”
While the studio audience seemed to laugh, plenty of viewers at home didn’t find it so funny.
Absolutely floored that anyone would find the #SNL ISIS skit funny. Nothing funny about it, it was tasteless.Desensitized much? #OrangeRoom — Rebecca Rhine (@becca76) March 1, 2015
Actually offended by the ISIS sketch... Is that seriously all you could come up with? @nbcsnl #SNL — Liv Amato (@liv_amato) March 1, 2015
I say this as a life long #SNL fan. The ISIS commercial was in poor taste. Scratch that. Horrible taste. — Martin Hendrickson (@MCHinBoise) March 1, 2015
Just saw maybe the most unfunny #SNL piece of all time. Is ISIS really a good subject for humor? #nbc And I've loved SNL for decades. — Ed Tate (@edwardtate) March 1, 2015
Very distasteful of #SNL making fun of the Isis crisis on tonight's episode — Morgan Uber (@Morgan_Uber) March 1, 2015
SNL ISIS skit also draws a moral equivalence between ISIS murderers and the U.S. Military (based on the spoofed commercial), that is wrong. — Steven Bucci (@SBucci) March 1, 2015
Can't be serious. Isis skit? Like going to college? When so many people are being kidnapped and killed? Depraved. #SNL — Raine LaChance (@rainelachance) March 1, 2015
Depraved? Perhaps, but the premise isn’t entirely inconceivable.
Last month, a 19-year-old Colorado woman was sentenced to four years in prison for conspiracy to support the terror group after admitting she wanted “to become an ISIS bride.”
The woman, Shannon Maureen Conley, was arrested at Denver International Airport, where she was attempting to board a one-way flight to Turkey. Conley’s parents tipped off FBI investigators after her father reportedly caught his daughter communicating with her terrorist “suitor” on Skype.After several countries failed to fill their allocated spots for the UCI Road World Championships, and some established cycling nations failed to qualify a single spot for the elite men's road race, Cyclingnews asked UCI president Brian Cookson whether the governing body might consider allowing countries to forfeit their spots in favour of nations who did not qualify. Related Articles Cookson: I don’t want a war with ASO but cycling must reform
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World championships cost Richmond $4.1 million
For example, while Sweden did not qualify any places for the men's road race, while Morocco and Turkey each qualified three riders and Iran earned six spots but none of these countries entered riders.
Cookson told Cyclingnews the UCI may revisit the rules at the end of the year with this in mind. "It's a shame they're not here. One understands there are reasons why they sometimes don't [race], all we can do is look at the circumstances and review them year by year, and try to give nations the opportunity to grow, and to challenge the established nations.
"We always look at rules on a constant basis. Take the example of Sweden, it's not a new nation in cycling. They've usually qualified in the past. There may be some particular circumstances this year. Cycling is becoming more global, the calendar is more global, so there are more opportunities for more nations to qualify. It wasn't too long ago that I was president of British cycling and we only qualified one or two riders, and now we have one of the largest teams. These things do ebb and flow. The road commission will be looking at the qualifications for next year, as we do in the review at the end of the year."
Next year's world championships will take place in Qatar, which will in some ways level the playing field, as the country has no established professional teams, and few countries will have a short trip there, but it can create a burden on the national teams with smaller budgets. This year the fields will likely be short a dozen or so riders, and there's the potential that next year could see more unfilled rosters.
When asked if there was a chance the UCI might allow countries to forfeit places so the entries can be reallocated, he said it was something the UCI could examine. "I would like to see the full number of riders in every event if we possibly can. If nations, if riders haven't qualified, there's a reason for that, which is they haven't scored
|
knew this. At the constitutional convention in Alabama, one of the leaders said he wanted to take away the vote from "all those who are unfit and unqualified, and if the rule strikes a white man as well as a negro let him go." In North Carolina, the Charlotte Observer saw disfranchisement as "the struggle of the white people of North Carolina to rid themselves of the dangers of the rule of negroes and the lower class of whites."
Tom Watson, the Populist leader of Georgia, pleaded for racial unity:
You are kept apart that you may be separately fleeced of your earnings. You are made to hate each other because upon that hatred is rested the keystone of the arch of financial despotism which enslaves you both. You are deceived and blinded that you may not see how this race antagonism perpetuates a monetary system which beggars both.
According to the black scholar Robert Alien, taking a look at Populism (Reluctant Reformers), Watson wanted black support for a white man's party. No doubt, when Watson found this support embarrassing and no longer useful, he became as eloquent in affirming racism as he had been in opposing it.
Still, Watson must have addressed some genuine feelings in poor whites whose class oppression gave them some common interest with blacks. When H. S. Doyle, a young black preacher who supported Watson for Congress, was threatened by a lynch mob, he came to Watson for protection, and two thousand white farmers helped Doyle escape.
It was a time that illustrated the complexities of class and race conflict. Fifteen blacks were lynched during Watson's election campaign. And in Georgia after 1891 the Alliance-controlled legislature, Alien points out, "passed the largest number of anti-black bills ever enacted in a single year in Georgia history." And yet, in 1896, the Georgia state platform of the People's party denounced lynch law and terrorism, and asked the abolition of the convict lease system.
C. Vann Woodward points to the unique quality of the Populist experience in the South: "Never before or since have the two races in the South come so close together as they did during the Populist struggles."
The Populist movement also made a remarkable attempt to create a new and independent culture for the country's farmers. The Alliance Lecture Bureau reached all over the country; it had 35,000 lecturers. The Populists poured out books and pamphlets from their printing presses. Woodward says:
One gathers from yellowed pamphlets that the agrarian ideologists undertook to re-educate their countrymen from the ground up. Dismissing "history as taught in our schools" as "practically valueless", they undertook to write it over-formidable columns of it, from the Greek down. With no more compunction they turned all hands to the revision of economics, political theory, law, and government.
The National Economist, a Populist magazine, had 100,000 readers. Goodwyn counts over a thousand Populist journals in the 1890s. There were newspapers like the Comrade, published in the cotton country of Louisiana, and the Toiler's Friend, in rural Georgia. Also, Revolution was published in Georgia. In North Carolina, thLightwood Games is continuing its work on the eShop with a new title. Later this year, “Word Logic by POWGI” will be released on both Wii U and 3DS.
Word Logic by POWGI features six pen-and-paper style word puzzles which require some degree of logic or deduction to solve. Both versions will support touchscreen controls while the 3DS edition will specifically offer handwriting recognition. A “left mode” is also included to avoid players blocking the screen with their stylus hand.
Here’s a rundown of the different puzzles:
• Kriss Kross – The classic word-fit puzzle. Place words into the grid using their length as a guide, and using logic to make sure everything overlaps correctly!
• Word Ladder – Make new words by changing one letter at a time. Can you turn one word into another in a limited number of steps?
• Crypto – A cipher puzzle (also known as a cryptogram) which reveals a quote when you crack the code!
• Word Sudoku – Place nine letters according to usual sudoku rules. As an extra clue, one row or column will spell a word.
• Gaps – Several words have one letter missing. Deduce the correct letter to fill in the gaps and spell a new word!
• Wordsweeper – Drawing inspiration from Minesweeper, the clues tell you which letters can be placed in an adjacent square. It’s a crossword-style puzzle solved using logic!
Word Logic by POWGI is tentatively targeted for August.
Source: Lightwood Games PR
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PocketAlbany to ban live music (including DJs) after 2am
“If the city would just tell the police to enforce the existing laws they could deal with crowds and any other problems. They don’t need this new (permit),” Spillenger said. “This is just one more attempt to turn Albany into an extremely boring city.”
According to Steve Barnes, all 25 cabaret licences awarded to establishments on Thursday require businesses to end all live music by 2am, a standard for all future licences, according to City Clerk Nala Woodard.
This is the most roundabout way to make last call 2am. I don’t have any idea why it couldn’t be easier to just make last call earlier rather than making all of these convoluted bans that affect the artists playing in Albany. If Troy just keeps on going about their business as usual and not making these convoluted self-serving rules, I can see the draw of nightlife to the Collar City, especially for touring DJs or other late-night acts.
Albany Music Coalition, where you at?You Can Buy Insulin Without A Prescription, But Should You?
Enlarge this image toggle caption Lynn Ischay for NPR Lynn Ischay for NPR
As anyone with diabetes can tell you, managing the disease with insulin usually means regular checkups at the doctor's office to fine-tune the dosage, monitor blood-sugar levels and check for complications.
But here's a little known fact: Some forms of insulin can be bought without a prescription.
Carmen Smith did that for six years when she didn't have health insurance and didn't have a primary care doctor. She bought her insulin without a prescription at Wal-Mart.
"It's not like we go in our trench coat and a top hat, saying, 'Uh I need the insulin,' " says Smith, who lives in Cleveland. "The clerks usually don't know it's a big secret. They'll just go, 'Do we sell over-the-counter insulin?' "
Once the pharmacist says yes, the clerk just goes to get it, Smith says. "And you purchase it and go about your business."
But it's still a pretty uncommon purchase.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Lynn Ischay for NPR Lynn Ischay for NPR
Smith didn't learn from a doctor that she could buy insulin that way. In fact, many doctors don't know it's possible. When she no longer had insurance to help pay for doctors' appointments or medicine, Smith happened to ask at Wal-Mart if she could get vials of the medicine without a prescription. To figure out the dose, she just used the same amount a doctor had given her years before.
It was a way to survive, she says, but no way to live. It was horrible when she didn't get the size of the dose or the timing quite right.
"It's a quick high and then, it's a down," Smith says. "The down part is, you feel icky. You feel lifeless. You feel pain. And the cramps are so intense — till you can't walk, you can't sit, you can't stand."
Smith says her guesswork put her in the emergency room a handful of times over the years.
The availability of insulin over the counter presents a real conundrum. As Smith's experience shows, without training or guidance from a health care provider, it can be dangerous for a patient to guess at the best dosage and timing from version to version of insulin. On the other hand, being able to afford and easily buy some when she needed it may have saved her life.
There are two types of human insulin available over the counter; one made by Eli Lilly and the other by Novo Nordisk. These versions of the medicine are older, and take longer to metabolize than some of the newer, prescription versions; they were created in the early 1980s, and the prices range from more than $200 a vial to as little as $25, depending on where you buy them.
Dr. Jorge Calles, an endocrinologist at MetroHealth, Cleveland's public hospital, is alarmed to think that some people are self-medicating with any sort of insulin.
"It's a very serious situation if they are selling it over the counter — without any control with a prescription, specifically," Calles says.
According to the medical consulting firm IMS Health, about 15 percent of people who buy insulin in the growing U.S. diabetes market purchase it over the counter without a prescription.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration declined multiple requests by NPR for an interview on this topic. But, in an email, an FDA representative said that the versions of insulin now available over the counter were approved for sale that way because they are based on a less concentrated, older formulation, "that did not require a licensed medical practitioner's supervision for safe use."
The broader availability of this form of insulin allows patients with diabetes to obtain it "quickly in urgent situations, without delays," the FDA says, and is intended to increase patient safety.
Still, some people with diabetes, as well as some doctors, doubt that the benefits of that greater availability outweigh the risks, especially for patients who switch from one type of insulin to another without telling their doctor.
"This is not something that should be done without the help of a professional," says David Kliff, who has Type 1 diabetes and writes the Diabetic Investors blog. Kliff has followed and written about the expanding business of diabetes for years.
FDA officials are "basically sticking their heads in the sand" on this issue, Kliff says, and making a lot of assumptions.
"They look at insulin as a drug," he says, "and say, 'There's this enormous body of evidence that shows that the drug is safe.' But, you know, there's a little asterisk at the end there. What the little asterisk basically says is: 'You know, that's assuming that the patient is trained on it.' "
When asked about safety concerns, the FDA told NPR that the agency welcomes more research into the safety of over-the-counter insulin.
One state does require prescriptions for all insulin. Dr. Kevin Burke, a health officer for Clark County, Ind., led the effort to require prescriptions in his state.
"I didn't realize that insulin was over the counter in Indiana until two of my patients, who were in good control, suddenly had increased glucoses," Burke says. He asked them if they had changed their diet, lost weight, altered their workout routines. They had not.
"They both admitted that they had decided to switch to over-the-counter insulin," Burke says, "which was different from what I had prescribed."
Over time, taking the wrong dosages destroys your body, Burke says. Poorly managed diabetes is the cause of a host of complications, such as high blood pressure, kidney disease, nerve damage, loss of eyesight and stroke.
Burke says he took his concerns to the American Medical Association. But the national doctor's association told him there are no data showing that the drug's over-the counter availability is a public health hazard. In fact, the AMA's board noted, getting insulin without a doctor's prescription may be an important way for some insulin-dependent patients to get access to the medicine they need.
Dr. Todd Hobbs is chief medical officer of Novo Nordisk in North America, which makes Novolin, one of the two versions of insulin sold over the counter. His company partners with Wal-Mart to sell its version under the brand name ReliOn. (Wal-Mart declined to be interviewed for this story.)
Hobbs says Novo Nordisk's version of insulin is for people who don't have insurance, or who have to pay a lot for their other prescriptions — "people who just, for whatever reason, have fallen through the cracks and either don't have insurance coverage at the time or are without coverage."
With ever-rising copays and premiums, he says, many patients are turning to nonprescription insulin because it's cheaper and all they can afford.
"But we hope to try to help them to not have to do that," Hobbs says.
"We clearly think the newer versions are more close to what the body would do on its own," he says. The prescription versions are better and safer, he agrees, because they make it easier for patients to avoid wild fluctuations in blood sugar.
Carmen Smith doesn't blame the insulin she was taking for her emergency room visits.
"Insulin is not the problem," she says. "It is getting the insulin that is the problem. Once I got connected with my physician, life as a diabetic got a lot less complicated for me."
Smith is now on Medicaid. She has a doctor — and a prescription for one of the newer generations of insulin.
This story is part of NPR's reporting partnership with WCPN ideastream and Kaiser Health News.Do you want “ peace of mind ” every day? Do you want “ freedom ” from negative thoughts?
Do you imagine yourself free from any negative thoughts? Do you imagine yourself happy, optimistic, and peaceful every day?
In this Christian book, The Power of Positive Energy: Powerful Thinking, Powerful Life, you will learn the strategies on how your mind can change into a positive-peaceful state. You will know the specific steps on how to make yourself happy, fulfilled, optimistic, calm, and peaceful every day.
You will learn the various tools and techniques successful people do every day, such as:
How to really think positively
How to gain confidence and increase self-esteem
and
The " top secret " morning habits of successful people
How to get motivated in life every day
in life every day
How to unlock the power of prayer to achieve what you want in life
How forgiveness can catapult you to more blessings in your life
in your life
How the benefits of attitude of gratitude can dramatically increase the quality of your life
The characteristics and qualities of highly successful people
How to really live a happy life every single day
Furthermore, these are the Ultimate Benefits you will receive from the book:
You will become a positive person every single day
You will become confident and your self-esteem and self-image will be lifted higher
and your self-esteem and self-image will be
You will have powerful morning habits that will make you more successful
You will always be motivated every single day
every single day
Your prayers will always be answered by God
You will be able to forgive anyone and that will give you enormous peace of mind
anyone and that will give you
You will always be thankful every single day
You will always have a success mindset
You will always be ultimately happy every single day
You will always experience great peace in your heart every single day
Praise:
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- John Robertson
"At first I thought this book is just about positive thinking. But when I scrolled its pages I realized that this is an entirely different book. This book is indeed amazing and powerful because it talks of ways on how to have a transformed life and mind. The Apostle Paul in the Bible talks about being transformed by the renewing of one's mind and this book will surely guide you into that. Ultimately, one can find everlasting love, joy, peace and security by following the steps outlined in this book. This is such a powerful and inspiring book, a life changer and full of vibrant energy. If you're in the state of negativity, helplessness and hopelessness, I very highly recommend this book. Two thumbs up!"
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Founded in 1935, Arrow is a global provider of electronics components and related services. Now, in addition to serving as a key supply-chain company for thousands of manufacturers, it will also serve as the default support and engineering assistant for entrepreneurs seeking an easier path to market.
Aimed squarely at technology and Internet of Things (IoT) crowdfunders, the new strategic alliance will see Arrow integrate its design and production platform directly into Indiegogo’s crowdfunding engine, giving users a direct channel to a myriad of design tools, prototyping wares, experts, and supply chain management. Not everyone will qualify, however; Arrow gets the final say on which campaigns it feels are suitable from a technical and manufacturing perspective.
“This is a completely new model of social funding, innovation, and production in the technology and IoT space,” said Matt Anderson, Arrow’s chief digital officer. “Crowdfunding has never before been integrated into a fully scaled innovation platform like this — that spans collaborative online design, prototype support, production, and supply chain management. The Arrow-Indiegogo collaboration will enable successfully crowdfunded companies to scale faster than ever before to bring their products to market.”
Today’s news comes five months after Indiegogo announced that cofounder Slava Rubin was stepping aside as CEO to be replaced by David Mandelbrot, the company’s former chief operating officer. This move was then followed by a round of layoffs. “We restructured teams to focus on areas of investment for 2016, including our marketplace business, enterprise crowdfunding, China, and other areas focused on empowering entrepreneurs,” the company told VentureBeat at the time. “Adjusting teams is something that we have done periodically to free up resources for new initiatives and to invest in growth.”
Indiegogo has launched a number of new initiatives of late, all designed to create key differentiators between itself and high-profile crowdfunding rival Kickstarter. Back in January, it launched a new enterprise crowdfunding program, which landed shortly after the rollout of a new standalone platform for nonprofits and social causes. And, in March, it partnered with Dell and Girls in Tech to support female entrepreneurs.
The latest partnership will provide discounts to Indiegogo creators on materials and design software, as well as access to engineers through Arrow’s live-video platform. Indiegogo says that the alliance came about after the company noticed Indiegogo creators were increasingly using Arrow’s services. “We’ve seen an incredible amount of growth among tech and IoT projects on Indiegogo, due, in part, because our team is constantly developing new ways to help entrepreneurs with support beyond funding,” said Mandelbrot.YoGen: Efficient Human-Powered Cell and Laptop Chargers
Our culture is rapidly becoming a mobile one, with virtually every other person carrying a cell or smartphone, plus maybe a digital camera, an iPod, or a laptop in the backpack, all of which operate on battery power. So what do you do when you need more juice than your battery will hold? Find an outlet and hope you have your charger with you? Pretty soon, you’ll be able to pull out your human-powered charger and continue with your phone call, take more pictures, or finish your email without having to find that plug or carry your adapter with you.
The YoGen charger, by Easy Energy, is a pocket-sized, hand-powered charger that operates by repeatedly pulling a cord (similar to a lawnmower starter) to offer enough electrical generation to power or charge a cell phone or other portable electronics. The YoGen is built with a high efficiency alternator that turns the kinetic motion from the spinning flywheel into electrical output for charging or operating small gadgets. It comes in two versions, one a straight generator, and the other with a 650 mAh 3.7V battery for backup.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXwGXnM72eg
Easy Energy also developed the YoGen Max, a foldable, treadle-type charger for laptops and other portables needing a 50-60 W power supply. The Max folds up to a book-sized package that will travel easily and provide power on the go. When your battery meter is low and you still need to work (or play), unfold the YoGen Max, plug in to your laptop, and press repeatedly on the spring-loaded pedal. The device is adjustable to the proper output for your machine, and an optional bank of rechargeable AA batteries can bridge any foot fatigue that may happen during extended usage.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYnnX-aAj5o
The latest product being developed by Easy Energy is the YoGen Bat: a rechargeable battery that works just like the YoGen, but is installed in the device instead of being an external charger. I think the YoGen Bat is going to be a big hit once it’s fully developed, but I’m laughing to myself as I imagine all the cell users yanking the cord to charge their batteries, while trying to continue the conversation.
Right now, Easy Energy is only taking orders for the YoGen series from wholesalers and distributors, but if that’s you, you can get more information from the company’s site.
RelatedRDAR's platform offers a third tool, which is unique to the sector. The company has designed a facial recognition engine that detects a child and monitors any new usernames, accounts, or aliases they create in attempt to bypass the monitoring systems.
More than half of children use social media by the age of 10!
95% of all teens ages 12-17 are now online and 80% of online teens are users of social media sites. (Pew Research Center Internet Project, 2011). According to a survey, 52% of 8 to 16-year-olds ignored Facebook's age limit and 43% had messaged strangers, starting from an average age of 12.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2552658/More-half-children-use-social-media-age-10-Facebook-popular-site-youngsters-join.html
Cyber Bulling Is A Serious Problem!
The internet has also given a new platform for bullies to harass their victims today. Bashing used to predominantly be done in school, but now it can be done via email, instant messages, and social media at all hours of the day! This bullying is often done by children, who have increasingly early access to online technologies. The abuse can create life altering emotional and psychological damage for the victims.Absolutely amazing. Even tragic. The Republicans railed against the proven failure that is Obamacare for years and voted at least half a dozen times to repeal it. It was the most important issue of the entire 2016 election. Then the GOP gained control – House, Senate, Presidency – and what happened? So far, nothing. There is no agreement on what a replacement should look like. It is entirely possible that four years from now, nothing important will have changed.
Who or what is at fault? People blame partisanship, special interests, public opinion, plots, bad leadership, annoying lobbyists, feckless careerism, the Democrats, the moderates, the conservatives, the CBO, the insufferable media, and Trump’s notorious lack of interest in the details of the legislative process. But really there is only one underlying source of failure: the failure to understand.
A Real Market
The root reason why Obamacare will last the current regime is intellectual. We should take it for granted that everyone in this debate wants more, better, cheaper health care for all. The intellectual failure is a lack of clarity about how to get there.
A real free market in health care would provide affordable, high-quality health care for all, not as a matter of right, but rather as a matter of market logic.A real free market in health care would provide affordable, high-quality health care for all, not as a matter of right, but rather as a matter of market logic. How do we know? Look at any market that is largely free. The impossibly brilliant and complex smartphone went from luxury to mainstream in a mere 10 years. The same is true for millions of services, from groceries to clothing to home appliances to software. The driving logic of competitive markets is to provide universal access.
Even in other forms of health care that are free of government control, we see this trajectory. Pet care is affordable, universal, and available at so many levels. Cosmetic surgery is the same. You can get nearly anything done to your body for less than the typical deductible of standard insurance. And consider free health care markets abroad: in a place like Lebanon, prices are one-tenth of the US for great service.
In today’s peer-to-peer economy, I can get a burrito delivered to my desk for $6, with no advance subscription service. I can get my groceries brought to my home for a small service fee. I have access to all the world’s information in my pocket, most of it provided for free. But, at the same time, I and everyone else have to pay exorbitant fees just to gain access to simple medicines to fix a sinus problem, and even then we risk being on the hook for more money than it would take to buy a nice car.
The system is not working, but there is no mystery about what would fix it: an open and competitive market. The free market delivers prosperity to all. It would do the same with conventional health care. The evidence for this assertion is everywhere around us, so present that ideologues have to shuck and jive to deny it.
You Can’t Legislate Access
Why can’t we get there? The people with decision-making power lack confidence in the solution simply because doing so would require a level of understanding which they seem either incapable of or unwilling to embrace. The belief that you can legislate your goals into being has subverted the courage it would take to repeal everything that stands between us and a free market.
A particular frustration in this debate concerns the treatment of “preexisting conditions.” Politicians like Trump think it is just fine to speak and tweet about the need to preserve prohibitions protecting people with real health problems. But from this position flows the main problems in health care today.
Trump’s role has been devoid of principle; he cares only about the optics and not the substance of reform. The cause of our current death spiral was precisely these prohibitions. If you are telling an industry how they must deal with a certain class of consumers, all the rest of the problems follow. That’s why there are the three pillars of bad and expensive health insurance: Guaranteed Issue, Community Rating, and Essential Benefits. They should be renamed: Forced Provision, Price Controls, and Production Quotas.
Put all those together and you drain the insurance market of all of its commercial features. It doesn’t matter if the insurers, service providers, and payment source are all private. It is no longer private enterprise. You lock down the market and make it impossible to operate properly. Competition is drained out of the system.
Trump’s Baneful Influence
Starting in his campaign and continuing throughout his presidency, Trump has made the preexisting condition mandate a condition of his support. Trump’s role has been devoid of any principle but this one, because he cares only about the optics and not the substance. That alone made the Republicans’ job impossible. They can do nothing but generate fake bills that bluster about “repeal and replace” but don’t actually do anything substantial to restore competition.
Imagine an alternative universe, one in which Trump actually understood the health care problem (and wanted to do the right thing). He might have given serious speeches on the topic. He could have boned up enough to present his point in interviews. He could have rallied the public in the same way he did on issues of immigration and trade, or the way Ronald Reagan rallied the public on tax cuts.
When you deregulate medical provision, there is nothing to stop it from being as accessible as software and groceries.Trump could have explained that the fixation on preexisting conditions is nothing more than a ruse to preserve government control that restricts access. There has to be flexibility on the part of insurers to behave like real insurance companies. They must have the freedom to decline issue, to price coverage, to offer any and every variety of plan. And yes, in the short term, some people would lose coverage. That is what happens when you impose an unsustainable plan on top of markets.
But if markets are allowed to work, this would change over time, and much more quickly than people think. New entrants would rush into the market and competition would drive down prices for everyone, regardless of preexisting conditions. Institutions would make profits by providing for these people’s needs. The P2P market would get to work. When you deregulate medical provision, there is nothing to stop it from being as accessible as software and groceries.
Frederic Bastiat was the first to describe the problem. People who want to preserve the existing system are looking at the seen beneficiaries rather than the unseen costs of regulating against a free market. This amounts to a failure of imagination. The reformers have failed to comprehend – and so they cannot persuasively argue for – the creative and transformative benefits that would flow from freeing the sector.
Yes, pushing public opinion and political consensus in a certain direction does take work. But it is not hopeless.A related fundamental error is described by Henry Hazlitt: the failure to look at the effects of policies on all groups over the long run rather than merely focusing on the effects on some groups in the short run.
Yes, pushing public opinion and political consensus in a certain direction does take work. But it is not hopeless. People can learn economics. It takes focus and it takes concentration, but economics is not incomprehensible.
What is the alternative? For health care to go through the current route: falling ever-further behind the market-driven direction of history, riddled with bureaucracy and undergoing unending pressure toward the disaster of single payer. This is an intolerable result.
The failure traces to a lack of understanding and imagination at the top. There is no other choice: the repeal and replace must be done at the lower levels of society, by people with an intellectual comprehension of the stakes and the real solution.(Part 1 in a series on Evangelical Christianity in America)
There is much confusion about Evangelical Christianity in America, including very basic questions such as: What is it? Who are Evangelical Christians? What do they believe? How is it changing? And so forth.
So, I thought that I would start a series, guaranteed to run as long as I feel like writing about it, that simply describes the basics of Evangelical Christianity in modern-day America.
Let’s start with perhaps the most basic of questions: What is Evangelical Christianity?
There is no one answer to even this the most simple of questions, though there are fundamental characteristics associated with it.
Historian David Bebbington defines Evangelical Christianity as having four main qualities (quoted from here):
* Biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible (e.g. all essential spiritual truth is to be found in its pages)
* Crucicentrism, a focus on the atoning work of Christ on the cross
* Conversionism, the belief that human beings need to be converted
* Activism, the belief that the gospel needs to be expressed in effort
Theologian John Stackhouse has a nice discussion of the theological aspects of the term here.
Sociologist Brian Steensland and colleagues point to these characteristics: “Evangelical denominations have typically sought more separation from the broader culture, emphasized missionary activity and individual conversion, and taught strict adherence to particular religious doctrines.”
As commonly used, Evangelical Christianity refers to Protestants only, and I will follow that convention, though there’s no reason that the general definition of Evangelicalism can’t apply to Catholics as well. In fact, Pope Francis has been labeled an “Evangelical Catholic.”
Here is where things get tricky: How do we measure Evangelical Christianity? That is, how do we know who is one and who isn’t one?
The most commonly-used approach is scholarly research is to look at religious affiliation and define Evangelical Christianity at a denominational level. So, people who go to “Evangelical” Protestant denominations are themselves Evangelicals. But… there are different approaches to doing this.
One affiliation-based approach, developed by Steensland et al., divides Protestants into three traditions: Evangelical, Mainline, and Historically Black. Evangelicals tend to be more conservative both socially and theologically, Mainline tend to be more liberal on both, and Historically Black tend to be theologically conservative and socially liberal.
A second popular affiliation-based approach, however, refers to “conservative” protestants and contrasts them with “moderate” and “liberal” protestants. Conservative protestants and then broken into different groups, including evangelicals, fundamentalists, and charismatics.
The term “conservative protestant” in the second approach is roughly equivalent to “evangelical” in the first approach.
Which is the better approach? I tend to use the first approach since its measurement characteristics are reasonably well supported in empirical studies; however, both approaches have their problems. With the first approach, many of the people defined as Evangelical don’t identify with that term themselves (a point I’ll return to below). With the second approach, many conservative protestants are conservative in theology but liberal in politics and social issues, so painting them with the broad brush of conservatism overstates matters.
To complicate matters further, journalists and other people in public discourse (and even some scholars) use a variety of terms as synonymous with evangelical/conservative protestant, including “fundamentalist,” “born-again,” and “religious right.” Others, however, give each of these terms more precise meaning.
As a second general approach, some scholars focus on identity. To them, Evangelical Christians are people who say they are Evangelical Christians.
With other religious traditions, affiliation and identity measures yield about the same results. For example, people in the Catholic church usually think of themselves as Catholics. However, as discussed above, many people involved in Evangelical churches identify with other labels, such as “born-again Christian” or “non-denominational Christian.”
Conceptually, identity and affiliation are two different matters. For example, I live in New England (Connecticut’s state motto: “We’re between New York and Boston), but I don’t identify myself as a New Englander–still a Californian. So, at some level, whether we look at identity or affiliation depends on which aspect of the religious experience we’re interested in.
As a third general approach, a well-known marketing firm–The Barna Group–uses theological questions to identify Evangelical Christians. They start with two theology questions to identify born-again Christians. Then, among born-again Christians, they use seven more theology questions to identify Evangelical Christians. For example, one of the seven questions regards “believing that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth.”
I don’t know of any scholars who use this 9-question theology test to define evangelicals, and it strikes me as convoluted and of unknown measurement qualities.
The different uses of the term Evangelical lead to all sorts of confusion. For example, using affiliation-based definition, about 25% of Americans are Evangelical Christians. But, using identity- or theology-based definitions, the number drops to 8%-15%.
What does all of this mean for the person wanting to learn about Evangelical Christianity? Basically, in reading any information about Evangelical Christianity, you, the reader, have to first assess how the author is using the term. It means more work for you, but it’s necessary for understanding what’s going on.
Enough confusing terminology! My upcoming posts will have cool graphs and numbers that demonstrate how Evangelical Christianity (as defined in the first affiliation-based approach) is doing.
(P.S., we bloggers are told that we need to add pictures to enhance our posts. But, I have no idea of how to visually illustrate an operational definition, so I just added a picture of a cute kitten).Illustration: Ben Ruby
Craig Venter thinks that sending living organisms to other galaxies on spaceships is "definitely" science fiction. It's much more realistic, he thinks, to print them on-site using digital representations of their genome. He calls this "biological teleportation."
Essentially emailing medicine and organisms back and forth between Earth and other planets is just one of the far-future implications of a device developed by Synthetic Genomics, a company founded by Venter, a superstar geneticist and biotechnologist. The tabletop device is called the Digital-to-Biological Converter, or DBC for short, and without a fancy box it looks like a bunch of complicated mechanical crap laid out on a table. The device accepts digital representations of DNA over the internet and reconstructs them on the spot using the chemical building blocks of life—adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. You might recognize their initials from the movie Gattaca.
"Just like a printer, it needs cassettes, but instead of colours, it's bottles of chemicals," Venter said over the phone. "It's packaging complex biology that each of our tiny cells do remarkably well at a much, much smaller scale."
The DBC. Image: Nature Biotechnology/Venter et. al.
Venter, who pioneered genome sequencing in humans, has been at the centre of some of the biggest genetics breakthroughs of our time. He has been teasing the advent of the DBC for years in interviews, and in his 2013 book, Life at the Speed of Light. Along the way, Synthetic Genomics developed a precursor to the DBC called the BioXp, which can construct DNA, but not quite from scratch. After the BioXp was used to quickly synthesize an avian flu vaccine in 2013, Venter says that SpaceX's Elon Musk expressed interest in using a futuristic DBC to print terraforming bacteria on Mars.
"Getting antimicrobials and vaccines to space is going to be important‚ and not at the slow pace of rocketships," said Venter.
Now the DBC has become more than just a futuristic curio, with a peer-reviewed paper published this month in Nature Biotechnology. The paper describes the system in detail, and lays out some of its successes: it can print DNA, RNA (key for decoding DNA instructions), viruses, some kinds of vaccines, and bacteriophages to kill infections. It can also print the synthetic bacterium developed by Venter last year, which, with just 437 genes, is the simplest life ever, according to him.
Read More: The Simplest Living Organism Ever Has
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rrha replied. "It's why she honored your request in the first place. She could have tried something, reached out to you, but you asked for space, and as painful as it was, she obliged. Do you really think she'll hold it against you because it took you longer than expected? Do you think she will push you away when she clearly misses you to the point of agony?"
"I fucked up." Ruby sniffled.
"You can make it right Ruby." Pyrrha declared, holding up Ruby's phone. "Today, right now."
Yang found a sort of comfort at Ren and Nora's apartment. They were surprised to find her still there when they returned, and even more surprised to find the fridge and pantry fully stocked, and what little mess they had left cleaned and sorted. After explaining the full extent of the situation, Yang apologized for not telling them the whole truth in the first place, explaining she had not wanted to risk putting a damper on their honeymoon. She would leave if they wanted her to. Nora and Ren objected instantly and strongly, offering their sympathy, their comfort, and a place in their bed. The futon was not the most comfortable place in the world after all.
Yang was hesitant to take them up on their offer at first. Promiscuity had been what had gotten her into the mess at hand. But Nora was persuasive, and Ren was accepting. More often than not, Yang would find herself sandwiched or sandwiching in their bed. It helped Yang cope with the loneliness she felt on a daily basis. It was no substitute for Ruby, but Yang was a very intimate person, it was in her nature to seek out and love others. The absence of love had been crushing, and any chances of a closer relationship with Blake soured by her mistakes. Pyrrha was with Ruby, Ruby was shunning her, and until now Ren and Nora had been away, celebrating their own mutual love. To share in it herself, even temporarily, was a great and appreciated relief. So she found herself laying on the couch, head in Nora's lap, Nora's fingers stroking her hair absentmindedly as she dozed, while Ren made lunch in the kitchen. A vibration from her pants broke her slumber.
"Yang, your butt's vibrating...again." Nora chuckled. Yang smirked, playfully tapping Nora on the cheek before shifting. Nora slid her hand into Yang's rear pocket, pulling the device free. Looking at the sender she squeaked. "Yang, it's Ruby!"
Yang shot upright, snatching the phone from Nora and opening the message. "Pizza at home tonight?"
"Hell yes! What time?" Yang texted back.
"7. I'm really sorry Yang. Please forgive me." Came Ruby's reply.
"Only if you give me all the hugs I've been missing!" Yang responded.
"Deal! I love you Yang!"
"I love you too Rubes!"
Yang was suddenly hugged around the waist by Nora. "What did she say?!" Nora demanded excitedly.
"Pizza night at home!" Yang cheered. She tossed her phone onto the couch and twisted around, pulling Nora into a deep kiss before grabbing her in a bear hug. "I've got my sister back!"
"Wooooooh!" Nora cheered.
Yang had not realized she was crying until her legs gave way. Nora found herself holding Yang as she convulsed, half laughing, half sobbing, as tears soaked into her shirt. "I've got my family back!"
THE ENDTo protest what they call the "barbaric, brutal and despicable treatment of the Palestinian people," hackers from the collective Anonymous have been attacking a number of Israeli Web sites, including Israel’s Foreign Ministry and the municipal Web site for Tel Aviv.
Israel, all your base are belong to us. — Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) November 16, 2012
The group has also deleted the databases of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Bank of Jerusalem, and leaked e-mail addresses and passwords for other sites.
The campaign began Thursday night with coordinated attacks on several Israeli sites, including the Israeli Defense Forces blog and a private Israeli surveillance and security company. By Friday, the group took credit for bringing down 600 Israeli sites, using the hashtag #opisrael to boast about their progress on Twitter.
In a statement, Anonymous said what spurred their campaign was an Israeli government threat to sever Internet and other telecommunications into and out of Gaza.
"We are ANONYMOUS and NO ONE shuts down the Internet on our watch. To the IDF and government of Israel we issue you this warning only once. Do NOT shut down the Internet into the "Occupied Territories", and cease and desist from your terror upon the innocent people of Palestine or you will know the full and unbridled wrath of Anonymous."
The group also provided a digital "Anonymous Gaza Care Package" allegedly containing tips on evading IDF surveillance, basic first aid and other information for Gazans.
The attacks themselves are relatively rudimentary -- the group recruits Internet users to flood target Web sites with traffic until they crash -- but they can prove difficult to thwart.
"The best the owner of a site under attack can hope for is to get between the targeted site and the attacking site," writes the New York Times' Nicole Perlroth. "But blocking the attack is nearly impossible because of the innumerable sites on the Internet on which Anonymous can post their attack tools."While all the information in the following article is still true, I have also written an updated article for those of you who are still looking for a Kaos Trap. After reading the article below, I recommend you check out the updated article here
It's that time of year again and parents are frantically searching high and low for all the “most wanted” items on their children's wish lists.
For many of you, this list includes the ever elusive Kaos Trap.
What is the Kaos Trap?
The Kaos Trap is similar to all the other Traps in Skylanders Trap Team, but as you might expect, it can only Trap one specific Villain. (That would be Kaos.)
When was the Kaos Trap Released?
The Kaos Trap was actually released on Day 1 (with a limited supply, just as Activision warned us about).
It was most often found at Toys R Us, but I got a few reports of folks finding Kaos Traps at Target as well.
In most cases, stores only received one case of 24 Kaos Traps. Some larger stores received 2 cases. However, especially in major metropolitan areas, even 48 Kaos Traps is simply not enough for the hundreds and thousands of Skylanders fans in each city.
When Wave 2 rolled in (about a week or two later) some stores were able to put out another case of Kaos Traps, but as you know those disappeared just as quickly as the first cases.
Are there different Kaos Traps?
There are in fact two versions of the Kaos Trap. There is the regular Kaos Trap which you can buy in a Single Pack and there is the Ultimate Kaos Trap which is available exclusively in the Dark Edition Starter Pack.
The Ultimate Kaos Trap has a larger head and paint on Kaos' face.
However, in the game, the two Traps function exactly the same.
The Dark Edition Starter Pack is rapidly disappearing, but it is still currently the most cost-effective way to get your hands on a Kaos Trap. This is precisely why I recommended the Dark Edition to anyone and everyone who asked me about it back in September and October.
How many times have you walked down the Skylanders aisle looking for a Kaos Trap and walked right by a Dark Edition Starter Pack?
More Kaos Traps are Here…
Just this past week most Toys R Us locations got a new shipment of Sklyanders in. This included the Wave 3 Minis:
Gill Runt & Thumpling
Small Fry & Weeruptor
and a surprise shipment of Wave 2.5 Traps:
1 Air Hourglass
2 Air Screamer
1 Air Toucan
2 Earth Hourglass
1 Earth Toucan
2 Fire Screamer
1 Life Toucan
1 Magic Axe
1 Magic Hourglass
2 Tech Angel
2 Tech Hand
2 Undead Axe
2 Undead Hand
1 Water Angel
1 Water Axe
2 Kaos
That's right there are 2 Kaos Traps in each case of 24 Traps. Most locations received multiple cases and I know a few of you had some luck getting your Kaos Trap this time around.
I think most TRU stores have sold through these cases quickly, but I would keep an eye out especially at other retailers to see if they get the same Wave 2.5 cases in soon.
Even more Kaos Traps Coming Soon…
I announced this a while ago, but we know that there will be more Kaos Traps coming out with Wave 3.
However, it will be very similar to the Wave 2.5 scenario. There are only 3 Kaos Traps per case and they will probably sell out in the same day that they are put on the shelf.
Follow Me to be Notified of More Kaos Traps
I do my best to stay on top of all the latest Skylanders news. Around this time of year I especially try to stay on top of new shipments coming into stores.
As I mentioned above, I know my latest notification of the Wave 2.5 shipment helped some of you secure your very own Kaos Trap. I'm glad that I was able to help out.
When I hear about a new shipment, whether it's on Amazon.com or at Toys R Us or some other retailer here's what I do:
1) I post about it on the SCL Facebook Page
2) I tweet about it on @sclmatt
then if the news is big enough (which more Kaos Traps would certainly qualify as “big enough”)
3) I send out an email to the SCL Mailing List
So, if you're still waiting to get your Kaos Trap (at a decent price) or if you want to be the first in your area to know about new release Skylanders, I would highly recommend following SCL on Facebook or Twitter or joining the Mailing List (you can use the form at the bottom of the left-hand column on any page).
Thanks for reading. Happy Hunting!An illegal Somali migrant and her husband were spared prison because the judge had to consider their human rights and said they were “decent and law-abiding people”.
Barwaaqo Ahmed and her husband Saeed Osman Hersi, both 43, faced custodial sentences for Ahmed’s illegal entry into the United Kingdom.
But Judge Patricia Lynch, QC, gave the pair nine-month prison sentences suspended for a year, rationalising that “exceptional circumstances” were required “when we are dealing with otherwise perfectly decent and law-abiding people who have proved themselves to be hard workers and good citizens”, reports The Times.
Judges Rule it Would ‘Not Be Fair’ to Deport Paedophile Refugee https://t.co/4eJwEZsXkT — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 15, 2017
Ms. Ahmed, who speaks no English, admitted that she entered the country illegally in April 2016 using someone else’s passport. Mr. Hersi, who arrived in the UK in 1990 and gained citizenship in 2000, also pleaded guilty to helping his wife enter the country under false pretences at Chelmsford Crown Court.
Judge Lynch said that though “it is so serious to enter this country with false documents”, the case itself was not “exceptional” and she had to consider their human rights and family circumstances.
“I have to take into account, as I am entitled to, the [human rights] article which looks after [the right] to family life,” she said.
The couple has an eight-month-old daughter, born in the UK, and two older children who arrived in May 2017 and have since gained British citizenship.
Imam who masterminded #Barcelona was supposed to be deported – but judges blocked it to protect his “human rights” https://t.co/ErIf1ngfs1 — Jack Montgomery ن (@JackBMontgomery) August 23, 2017
In June, Breitbart London reported that Lord Justice Philip Sales ruled it would “not be fair” to deport a paedophile refugee, despite the judge acknowledging he faced no threat of persecution in his native Zimbabwe.
Following the terror attacks in Spain last week, Spanish media reports suggested that Abdelbaki Es Satty, the imam thought to have acted as the Barcelona terror attack’s mastermind, should have been deported from Spain in 2014 after completing a prison sentence — but judges said this would have breached his human rights.
Twitter Follow @friedmanpress Follow Victoria Friedman onA new study suggests that the student debt crisis was caused by college administrative costs growing twice as fast as other college expenses.
Leftists scream that big industry charges high prices, engages in lots of featherbedding, and manipulates the political system for handouts. But they have been mum about skyrocketing college bureaucratic costs.
The U.S. government first began trying to encourage more Americans to attend college by offering partially guaranteed private bank loans under the National Defense Education Act of 1958. But commercial banks continued to bear underwriting risk from the loans they made on a first-dollar basis. Over the next 25 years, the cost of college tuition rose at about the same rate as the cost of inflation.
But newly-elected President Bill Clinton, as part of his first budget agreement with Congress, passed the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1993. The legislation gave the U.S. Secretary of Education, under the “Federal Direct Student Loan Program,” the power to require colleges to make sure that at least 60 percent of all new student loans were made directly with the United States government. The law remained silent as to the maximum percentage of student loans that could be made directly by the federal government.
With Clinton eliminating all underwriting requirements that made sure student borrowers or their parents had a high probability of being able to repay the loans, the program exploded. Colleges realized they could raise tuition and increase enrollment knowing the U.S. taxpayer was now 100 percent responsible for losses on loans made to 18-year old students, regardless of their ability to repay.
With inflation growing by 43 percent over the next 25 years, the cost of college tuition and fees increased from $6,100 to $12,559, or 106 percent.
Skyrocketing tuition, stagnant incomes and the growth in college attendance explain why about 70 percent of students graduating from college took on student loans and about 40 million Americans are still carrying some student debt.
Despite all other forms of consumer credit shrinking since 2006, due to the residual effects of the Great Recession, student loan debt has tripled from $481 billion to $1.37 trillion. The total of U.S. student loans is currently growing at $2,726.03 per second.
According to the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) this explosion in student debt did not primarily go to funding college instruction and research, which only accounted for about 38 percent of the cost growth. About 62 percent of the rising cost of a college education went to paying for college administrative costs.
The Clinton administration’s expansion of federal financial aid drove tuition costs up dramatically. The loan program did expand the number of students attending college, but it was administrators themselves who received the greatest direct financial benefit, the study suggests.
FEE calculates that the increased access to financial aid from direct federal loans, which also drove up tuition costs, will dramatically drive up default rates. They forecast that the current default rate should be about 17 percent, rising to 32 percent over time.
Although the Obama administration “officially” claims the national student loan default rate fell from 13.7 percent to 11.8 percent last year, Breitbart News reported in April that the St. Louis Federal Reserve determined that the student loan delinquency rate was 27 percent.
The Fed determined that the Obama Administration used a political calculation for the default rate that included all student loans outstanding. But 45 percent of student loans are not in repayment, along with a substantial number of non-paying loans that have negotiated a “forbearance.”Snoop Lion has always been candid about his love for women and weed, and now, the rapper reveals that he was more than happy to share that love with athletes and entertainers on the road, because in a past life, he was, indeed, a pimp.
"I put an organization together," the Reincarnated rapper tells Rolling Stone's contributing editor Jonah Weiner in the new issue of Rolling Stone. "I did a Playboy tour, and I had a bus follow me with ten bitches on it. I could fire a bitch, f–k a bitch, get a new ho: It was my program. City to city, titty to titty, hotel room to hotel room, athlete to athlete, entertainer to entertainer."
PHOTOS: Celebrity pot smokers
Snoop Lion (previously known to the public as Snoop Dogg), 41, said that his decision to get involved in the scene came from a "fascination," not a desire to make money.
"I'd act like I'd take the money from the bitch, but I'd let her have it," he said of how he ran his organization. "It was never about the money; it was about the fascination of being a pimp … As a kid I dreamed of being a pimp, I dreamed of having cars and clothes and bitches to match. I said, 'F–k it — I'm finna do it."
PHOTOS: Quirkiest celebrity names ever
The "Ashtrays and Heartbreaks" rapper said his clientele consisted of a number of high-profile athletes (whom he declined to name), who would "come hang out, pick and choose, and whichever [woman] you like comes with a number."
"A lot of athletes bought p—y from me," he added.
PHOTOS: See Snoop Dogg's tattoo of Nate Dogg
Snoop Lion has been married to high school sweetheart Shante Broadus since 1997, and the couple have three children together: Cori, Corde, and Cordell, aged between 12 and 18. His wife "had to take a backseat" to his business, the rapper admitted, and noted, "I love her to this day because she coulda shook out on a n—a, but she stayed in my corner. So when I decided to let it go, she was still there."
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Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now!Many a caustic word has been exchanged in the acrimonious debate over the Indian economy’s employment data. One set of numbers claims the current phase of economic growth as jobless. Alternative data sets have accompanied vigorous assertions of rising employment. And then there are many in the middle, trying to make sense of the scant (and outdated) data and wondering how anybody reached any conclusion at all.
Welcome to the republic of statistical scramble in the age of Big Data. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) 2014 election victory was predicated partly on the promise of enhanced economic well-being; straightening out data inconsistencies should be a priority on the path to fulfilling that promise.
Take a look at labour data. Currently, employment data is collated from different surveys, each one measuring different things using varied methodologies. NITI Aayog’s task force on improving employment data recently released the first draft of its report, which lists how several arms of the government get involved in collecting and mashing up data. The report is unequivocal about the current state of data collection: “The available estimates are either out-dated or based on surveys with design flaws that render them unsuitable for inferring nationwide employment level."
On the demand side, the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), in the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (Mospi), conducts a comprehensive household survey once every five years, with the last one occurring in 2011-12. The labour bureau in the ministry of labour and employment also conducts two household surveys—a quarterly quick employment survey and another on an annual basis. These are in addition to the decadal population census surveys, which measure two variables: a headcount of all types of workers at 10-year intervals and all non-agricultural enterprises, regardless of size.
On the jobs supply side, Mospi conducts a statutory annual industries survey for units registered under the Factories Act, 1948. NSSO also conducts an unorganized units survey; this is in addition to the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) census conducted by the MSME ministry. Finally, various government administrative bodies, such as the Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) or Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), provide some indication of organized sector employment trends (though this is being increasingly undermined by growing preference for contract labour). In addition, there are some private sector surveys also—for example, by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy.
All these measures suffer from some infirmity, whether it’s methodological, unviable sample size, inability to distinguish between different types of employment, long gaps or irregular frequencies. But one thing is common: the findings only provide a partial picture and are therefore useless as a tool for policy design. Part two of the Economic Survey says: “The lack of reliable estimates on employment in recent years has impeded its measurement and thereby the Government faces challenges in adopting appropriate policy interventions."
The NSSO has, in the meantime, begun a fresh, ambitious annual exercise to map all nature of employment data; a quarterly survey will generate similar estimates for urban areas. In its report, NITI Aayog has recommended, among other things, vast improvements to existing surveys, institutional and legislative changes, overhauling physical and digital infrastructure and more aggressive use of technology to crunch the time-gap.
But the study might need to extend beyond employment data because statistical distortions also exist in other areas. NITI Aayog provides an example about the state of statistical confusion: each enterprise, while filing returns or statutory information, is assigned a different identification number under Good and Services Tax Network, EPFO, ESIC, Factories Act and Shops and Establishment Act.
This problem is not restricted to enterprise data and exists in other government departments as well. Take the example of estimating the cotton crop. Two separate ministries release two separate estimates every year.
The agriculture ministry’s cotton crop estimate for 2015-16 was 30.15 million bales of 170kg each, while the textile ministry’s estimate for the same year was 33.8 million bales—that’s a difference of 620 million kg! In the previous year, 2014-15, the estimates put out by the two ministries were 34.8 million bales and 38 million bales, respectively. This divergence seems bewildering, especially when acreage estimates from both the ministries broadly tally.
Forget discrepancies between ministries: this paper had reported (goo.gl/vsYGzc) how cotton yield figures differ widely within the agriculture ministry. There have also been reports (goo.gl/fd9adW) about vastly varying data on the number of taxpayers added since demonetization emerging from different parts of the government. Mismatch between data sets from within the government also breeds scepticism regarding the statistical robustness of national accounting, especially when anecdotal evidence seems contra to buoyant gross domestic product data.
India’s magnificent statistical heritage distinguishes the nation from its neighbours, whose growth record is often viewed with scepticism globally. This infrastructure needs an urgent overhaul to maintain credibility, perceive economic trends and deliver appropriate policy prescriptions.
Rajrishi Singhal is a consultant and former editor of a leading business newspaper. His Twitter handle is @rajrishisinghal.
Comments are welcome at [email protected] ALERT (If you think there are spoilers in a ripped-from-the-headlines true story.)
It's stressful enough working in the sickbay aboard a U.S. naval vessel without having to act opposite one of the world's best thespians.
But at a moment's notice, Navy Hospital Corpsman Danielle Albert had to do exactly that, going toe-to-toe with Tom Hanks in the Oscar-bait final scene of "Captain Phillips."
In director Paul Greengrass's high seas, high stakes thriller, Hanks plays Captain Richard Phillips, the real-life Merchant Marine taken hostage during the very public 2009 Somali pirate hijacking of the Maersk Alabama cargo ship. While remaining effectively true to the story, the film captures all the drama of the hijacking, the tense hostage standoff, and the daring rescue by the Navy SEALs.
[Related: Q&A: Tom Hanks Takes Us to Sea]
After two edge-of-your-seat hours, Phillips is finally taken safely aboard the USS Bainbridge missile destroyer, played with aplomb by her sister ship, the USS Truxtun. Phillips is taken down to the ship's infirmary and checked out by the ship's hospital corpsman (i.e. the medic), played by Albert, the actual corpsman aboard the Truxtun.
In the infirmary, Phillips, who has kept remarkable composure throughout the whole ordeal, finally allows the emotions of the past four days to come out. And boy, does Hanks let it out.
While that scene may very well be the one that gets Oscar voters attention, it wasn't originally supposed to be in the movie at all.
"That scene that was in the infirmary, we stumbled upon it by accident, because it actually happened," Hanks told Yahoo Movies over the phone. "The captain of the actual Bainbridge, the ship that was involved in the rescue of Phillips, said 'Well, you know, I didn't meet him till after he came out of the infirmary.' And we didn't even know that. So Paul [Greengrass] said, 'Let's go look at the infirmary.' We went down, and we met the staff down there, and they were up for it."
"While Tom was getting ready for that scene, I said to [Albert], 'Just treat it like a regular military exercise,'" said Greengrass during a press conference. "It'll be entirely routine – just it'll be Tom Hanks."
View photos
"So we kind of shot this training drill, except we made it look like it was real," said Hanks.
As instructed, Albert treated the scene as she'd been trained to react to a similar real-life scenario. Well, after freaking out a little first.
"It was very, very intimidating," Albert told "CBS This Morning" in the video below. "Tom Hanks came around the corner and I froze. I didn't know what to do. It was terrible. I broke out in hives. It was bad."
[Related -- Tom Hanks: Diabetes Is Not Going to Kill Me]
To relax her, Hanks jokingly asked Albert if perhaps she was the one who needed medical attention.
"And we did it again, and I did it exactly, exactly what I would do in a real situation," said Albert.
"As I recall, the first take sort of fell apart, both for technical reasons and because everybody was just kind of like, finding it. And we just said 'Hey, let's remember, this isn't a test. Nobody can make a mistake. Everything's going to work.' And so we just did it again a few times, and the end result is what Paul got," said Hanks.
What Greengrass got is a scene that may just go down in the annals as one of Hanks's finest moments on film. It's certainly Albert's, though in the grand scheme of things, we're sure she plays a more important role every day.
"Captain Phillips" is in theaters now.
See Navy Hospital Corpsman Danielle Albert at the 6:30 mark of CBS This Morning's story:We don’t yet know the exact price of Volkswagen USA’s 2017 Golf Alltrack.
We are certain, however, that Volkswagen, a company with a brand image severely tarnished in the United States, will be able to do no better than slightly undercut the basic price of the Subaru Outback.
And that might be a problem.
Increasingly seen as a vehicle no different from the standard crossovers of our day — the Toyota RAV4s and Ford Edges and Nissan Muranos — the Subaru Outback continues to distinguish itself as a true crossover. Blending the qualities of a typical high-riding utility vehicle – or emphasizing them with 8.7 inches of ground clearance – with a more traditional wagon shape, the Outback truly does cross over. John Edward would be proud.
Now in its fifth generation, the Subaru Outback has outright ownership of the sub-sub-segment it created. Pretenders to the throne, often inevitably rare premium brand tall wagons, have come and gone.
Now that you’re hackles are up, we’ll acknowledge the AMC Eagle’s role in crafting the category. But with Eagle – and AMC – left behind, Subaru carved out a corner of the U.S. market in which a handful of others have done little more than nibble at the edges.
Honda’s Crosstour, more of an elevated Accord hatchback than a wagon, almost an upsized Subaru Crosstrek, generated 109,000 U.S. sales since 2009. Subaru sold more than 152,000 Outbacks in the U.S. just last year.
Volvo, up a notch or two from the Outback in terms of price, sold nearly 20,000 XC70s in 2002, but XC70 sales declined in the following seven years and the XC70 now averages little more than 5,000 annual U.S. sales. Volvo’s U.S. division produced fewer than 3,500 V60 Cross Country sales over the last 17 months.
Audi USA gave up on the A6 Allroad; the A4 Allroad produced fewer than 17,000 sales since 2012.
Toyota Venza? Toyota USA has given up on the Venza’s attempt to bridge the divide between RAV4 and Highlander, or between the Camry and Highlander, or between the Matrix and Camry, or whatever. Sales plunged 45 percent between 2009 and 2014.
But if Volkswagen’s previously hurting U.S. operations are to recover from the diesel emission scandal’s self-inflicted wounds, entering a new sector may just be the ticket. If Fuji Heavy Industries’ little ol’ Subaru brand can do it, surely a global power powerhouse such as Volkswagen can do so, as well.
The foundation is worthy, though the idealistic all-wheel drive, manual transmission, diesel wagon so long sought after in North America won’t be available. But the Golf family earned the tenth spot on TTAC’s list of the best automobiles in 2016, and the platform is arguably at its best in its most practical wagon form.
At first, none of the Golf Alltrack’s three trim levels (S, SE, SEL) will offer a manual transmission, but every Alltrack will be fitted with the torquey 1.8-liter turbocharged inline-four and all-wheel drive. Every Golf Alltrack’s ground clearance will be elevated by 0.8-inch. Every Alltrack will feature the 360-degree cladding, especially important around the wheel arches, that will suddenly cause the collective American car consumer to consider the Golf SportWagen emasculated. Poor dear.
Yet all Golf Alltracks will be significantly smaller than the Subaru Outback. Remember, the conventional Golf is a direct rival of the Subaru Impreza, and we would think nothing of directly comparing an Alltrack version of the non-SportWagen Golf to the Subaru Crosstrek. The Golf wagon body provokes an unfair Outback comparison. The Subaru Outback is 10-inches longer than the wagonized Golf, greater exterior dimensions that create 15-percent more space for passengers, 17-percent more cargo volume, and 10-percent more cargo space with the rear seats folded.
The Golf Alltrack’s smaller interior highlights the difficult road ahead for Volkswagen’s semi-direct Outback rival. Not only is the Golf Alltrack’s Volkswagen badge representative of a scandal that will see the company buy back hundreds of thousands of diesel-powered cars and pay owners $5,100-$10,000, the smaller Golf Alltrack interloper will be priced right alongside the car which dominates the very segment it essentially created. (And the Golf Alltrack will be expected to add to Volkswagen’s tally, not just cannibalize the roughly 900 monthly Golf Sportwagen sales.)
Do the math. A Volkswagen Golf Sportwagen in base S trim costs $22,445 including destination — but that car includes a manual transmission, which won’t initially be available on the Golf Alltrack. The automatic? An extra $1,100. Also standard on the 2017 Golf Alltrack is all-wheel drive, for which Volkswagen USA charges $1,975 on the one model where it’s offered as optional equipment: the Tiguan.
Now the Golf Alltrack S price has risen from $22,445 to $25,520, or precisely $1,000 less than the least expensive Subaru Outback. But this assumes Volkswagen won’t charge a single penny extra for anything other than the transmission and all-wheel-drive system. Improbable.
Despite capacity constraints, Subaru sold 63,969 Outbacks in the United States in the first five months of 2016, a 6-percent year-over-year increase. Based on history’s perspective, the Outback’s share of the market appears unlikely to be dented by the arrival of the 2017 Volkswagen Golf Alltrack.
[Images: Volkswagen, Subaru]
Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures. Follow on Twitter @goodcarbadcar and on Facebook.“The next green revolution is going to come from earthworm technology.” Ephraim Whingiri, Zim Earthworm Farms
Related topics Farming
Conservation
Agriculture
Technology
[HARARE] A project in Zimbabwe is promoting the use of earthworms to enable the country’s small-scale farmers improve soil fertility and boost crop yields.The earthworms eat organic wastes, and their faeces that are more potent than ordinary compost are used to improve soil fertility, according to Ephraim Whingiri, the chief executive officer of Zim Earthworm Farms (ZEF).ZEF held a campaign last month (26 August) in the capital Harare, and so far has trained 100 farmers to use earthworm technology Experts say that increased soil degradation and soil infertility have led to the massive drop in food production in the country, thus requiring interventions to boost agriculture “Soil conservation technologies enhance productivity and help farmers realise increased production,” says Whingiri.Whingiri explains that earthworm technology is cheap and can alleviate poverty, adding that his organisation is training smallholders to breed earthworms as an income-generating activity.Tracy Kashanje is one of the 100 smallholder farmers who have been trained by ZEF in how to produce organic fertiliser and compost from earthworms. ZEF trained the farmers at no cost to them, according to Whingiri.Kashanje and other smallholders were given 60 grams of earthworms after the training to help breed and keep them.“It is cost-effective as I sell earthworms and also use it as manure,” says Kashanje. “Organic farming has increased my harvest.”Whingiri says earthworm technology can address the waste management and food security dilemmas in the country, adding: “Earthworms technology is economically viable, sustainable and socially acceptable. Every household has waste from animals, food waste and field waste, which if composted and inoculated with earthworms, can be converted into rich bio-fertiliser”.According to Emmanuel Chikwari, acting head of Chemistry and Soils Research Institute at Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation, earthworms degrade wastes faster than conventional systems.Chikwari adds that organic farming can help improve soil structure, and that unlike chemical fertilisers which are popular in the country, organic manure is not prone to nutrient losses through leeching. “There is a need to provide appropriate training for farmers so they can know how to handle and manage earthworms, Chikwari says, adding that the government must increase support for organic farming so that researchers can generate information that can be packaged and given to farmers.Chikwari suggests that there should be programmes designed to motivate farmers to use organic farming in the region. “[Earthworm technology] is the way to go for now,” Chikwari tells SciDev.Net.Whingiri agrees: “The next green revolution is going to come from earthworm technology.”This article has been produced by SciDev.Net's Sub-Saharan Africa desk.The PawSox owners have asked the I-195 Redevelopment District Commission to have its Monday meeting about the baseball stadium in open session, not a closed-door meeting, and Commission Chairman Joseph Azrack has agreed.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The PawSox owners have asked the I-195 Redevelopment District Commission to have its Monday meeting about the baseball stadium in open session, not a closed-door meeting, and Commission Chairman Joseph Azrack has agreed, PawSox spokeswoman Patti Doyle said shortly after noon on Friday.
“We want to be as transparent as possible,” Doyle said. “We always have. We prefer that format, for sure.”
Doyle said she and a principal owner of the team, lawyer James J. Skeffington, spoke Friday morning after a Providence Journal reporter called Skeffington Friday with questions about the team’s proposal. Skeffington was not immediately available for an interview, Doyle said, but the two determined they want the meeting to be open to the public, Doyle said.
The commission has typically met in closed session with developers seeking to acquire parcels of 195 land freed up by the state's highway-relocation project. The sale and purchase of public property is one reason that state boards and commissions may convene in meetings closed to the public.
Asked earlier on Friday whether any portion of the PawSox owners' meeting with the 195 commission might be held in open session, Doyle replied: "It’s up to the 195 Commission. We will absolutely adhere to the protocol they put in place."
Doyle said the team called the commission after that phone call and requested the open meeting.
195 commission spokeswoman Dyana Koelsch issued this statement on the change:
"Recognizing the high level of public interest in the proposal for a stadium on 195 land, and in consultation with the PawSox owners, the 195 Commission has decided to hold in open session its Monday meeting for a presentation on the proposal."
Monday's meeting is at 4 p.m. at 315 Iron Horse Way, Suite 101.LONG BEACH (CBSLA.com) — A man was fatally shot Monday in Long Beach, and police have detained several people in connection with the shooting.
Police were called out to the 800 block of Cedar Avenue at about 9 a.m. and a man was declared dead at
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Nabeel:
Yeah. That’s… that’s after March of last year, and sort of similar harassment I receive. My family, my wife, my children – they do face this harassment too. Now yesterday for example, and I think that is also because of you. When I said in my Twitter account that I’m going to meet Julian Assange and I’m going to speak to him in a TV programme, and last night my house was surrounded by almost 100 policemen – armed, machine guns, and they realised then that I was not at home, then they just ask my family to tell me to come to the public prosecutor today at 4 o’clock. Well, I am here.
Julian:
So, you’re here today at 4 o’clock.
Nabeel:
I was here, and I received that when I was last night, and I think… but I’m used to…
Julian:
What are you going to do?
Nabeel:
I’m going to go back. I mean, I have to face it, you know. I mean, it’s not the first time but this is the struggle, this is the freedom, this is democracy that we are fighting for. It has a cost and that we have to pay the cost, and the cost might be very expensive as we have paid high cost in Bahrain, and we are willing to pay that for the changes that we are fighting for.
Julian:
Alaa, you wrote…
Alaa:
That’s…
Julian:
Sorry, jump in… go ahead, Alaa.
Alaa:
I want to say about family, yeah. It’s just that there’s an aspect to – and it’s a different story for every person but, um, I’ve seen this in the revolution in Egypt and I’m sure this is happening… because it’s such a massive event, that’s not just activism, this is the revolution, and so families then eventually, you know, get mobilised some way – they join you or they fight with you or something like that – and… and it’s, it’s part of each person’s story and, you know… and I keep hearing stories from everyone, like I remember there was this lady in Tahrir – in the first sit-in in the first 18 days that toppled Mubarak – who was, um… She was a very young bride, I mean, just been married and… but she is joining the protests, the sit-in, and she’s spending the night in Tahrir; her husband isn’t because he’s not convinced so we used to joke with her, like you know, that if Mubarak doesn’t fall then your family life is in crisis, like, your marriage is in crisis, and if he falls then you’re going to have the upper hand of the house and so on, but you know, part of that is not a joke. It’s actually how the dynamics work out, and then I think he started joining her at the end. And it’s always been like this to me, I can’t separate where the family, you know, ends and where the activism starts, so yeah, I used to go to protests because I married and moved out of the house and it was a good activity to do with my family… it was… you know, when you grow up and…
Julian:
Alaa, you said… you said that the different society as it currently was under Mubarak was not worth having a child in, but, um, you changed your mind.
Alaa:
I actually never said that. That’s people interpreting why we believe… why me and Manal have been married so long but did not have a child. I actually never said that…
Julian:
I see. Well, what happened?
Alaa:
No, we were, I don’t know… I mean, we never felt as excited about having children -and also agreed on it, you know – until the moment of the revolution so… but we were already kind of deciding that we were going to have a child in that year, 2012 or 2011 something like that, and we just didn’t, you know, make the final decision and then when the revolution started and we joined it and discovered how beautiful it is, we just… like, that’s it. We are going to have a child.
Nabeel:
The revolution is not completed yet in Egypt. The revolution is not yet complete in Egypt so you need to do the other half, and once you have finished the other half, you need to have more children.
Alaa:
Yes, yes, yes, that’s the plan, that’s the plan.
Julian:
Where we at now with…? What’s the current status… what’s the state of play in Bahrain right now?
Nabeel:
I would say there are three different stages. In Tunisia complete revolution, complete overthrow of the regime, completely new system…
Alaa:
No, it’s not complete in Tunisia at all.
Nabeel:
Well, then you have in Egypt, which is halfway revolution, not yet completed, army and the system and the regime still exist. Then you have Bahrain revolution still exists and working and did not yet achieve anything but the revolution is still in process. It is still continuing after a year. Many people were killed in terms of percentage, much more than people lost in Tunisia and Egypt. The number of people detained is much more in terms of percentage than Tunisia and people were fired from work, people were systematically tortured, people were killed and the present mosque were demolished, houses been looted…
Julian:
This…this…the demolishment of this symbol of the six pillars, um…
Nabeel:
That shows this.. the mentality, it’s a tribal mentality…
Julian:
… It’s a sort of self-inflicted 9/11, isn’t it? I mean, they knocked down the most significant part, architectural part, of Bahrain.
Nabeel:
In fact, they made out of it a symbol where it was not, but now you see it in every cloth people wear, and every house you go you see a frame with the Pearl Roundabout. People start wearing jewelleries made of the Pearl Roundabout, people having this five hundred coin for selling it in the black market – because of the crazy reaction of the government by demolishing. You can’t demolish memories, you can’t demolish history – it exists, it is fact, it’s reality. What are you going to do? You going to make it… you’re going to strengthen it in people’s minds, and this is what they’ve done. That remains, that’s why people fighting to go back to the same place now. I… including myself and my family, because they made that place a symbol. If they had not demolished that, if they had not attacked the people early morning, killed people early morning, we wouldn’t have that place as a symbol,but now they made it as a symbol. That shows the tribal mentality of regimes, of ruling regime, ruling this part of the world. Unfortunately, we are in a region ruled by families, dictators, since 10th… of couple of hundred of years but their strength comes from the wealth, from the Americans’ support, from the armies they have, and from no legitimacy from people. No other… no legitimacy from people – but those are realities that they are ruling us and we can’t change them because nobody wants to talk about them.
Julian:
Alaa… Alaa, where’s Egypt now? I just noticed this mornin… reading just – actually, just two hours ago – that the judges… three judges who are overseeing this trial of the NGOs resigned. So what’s happening?
Alaa:
Yeah well, that’s a very long story.
Julian:
Give me… give me the big picture.
Alaa:
Yeah, yeah, let’s talk about the revolution, then we can get back to the NGO case later.
Nabeel:
But the Tunisia revolution, you said not completed… why’s that?
Julian:
Why is…?
Nabeel:
Why Tunisian revolution is not done?
Alaa:
The Tunisian revolution. Well, there is no… I don’t think there’s any revolution that has been complete. A complete revolution means that, you know, that a new world of justice is created and that hasn’t happened. I’ve lived in South Africa for three years, the revolution there is not complete and that doesn’t mean defeated because it won completely but it’s still there, the need, you know, the need for a completely different life and Tunisia, I think what is happening is that the regime is much smarter than in Egypt or in Bahrain or in Libya or in Syria. It, you know, it decided that it is going to let go of power, so that power is elected so that the people would go back and leave the streets, but then the social order that keeps, you know, unemployment high and workers rights are thrown out of the… window, and that makes, you know, strategic foreign policy or whatever decisions not be based on actual – what’s the word? – sovereignty, you know, on any kind of actual independent section of Tunisian interests but rather international…
Julian: [talks over AE]
Why do you think… why do you think Tunisia has decided to cease to recognise Syria?
Alaa:
Do you mean the Syrian government?
Julian:
Yes.
Alaa:
No, because they have an elected government, of course. No. I mean, I’m not saying an elected government makes no difference, it does make a difference, but it’s a reform, it’s a small improvement – well, it’s a major improvement, but it doesn’t rise up to the actual aspirations of the people. The ruling class or the ruling elite in Tunisia was smarter from the very beginning, you know, Ben Ali fled instead of waiting until he’s, you know, toppled like Mubarak did and so on. So they’ve been consistently, er, smarter but the revolution is not over yet. And in Tunisia there has been like a strike action recently that was attacked by the elected government. Protests, both by the Salafists – Salafists’ protests was around religious issues – and protests by the labour union were…
Julian:
Alaa…
Alaa:
…attacked and beat by tear gas and so on, so it’s still ongoing.
Julian:
What’s the present state of play in Egypt now? You have these big, big powerful factions, you have the companies, you have the military, which also has its own economy. You have the people involved in this initial revolutionary movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Coptics, how’s all this playing out?
Alaa:
Well basically, you know, the 18 days thing was quite surprising that that, you know, that Mubarak would fall that quickly, and the price was high but we thought it would be much higher and so on. So, what’s happening in Egypt is that… what we expected should happen, like I mean, we would all have expected that a revolution would be something that would stretch over a year maybe, so that year that didn’t happen with Mubarak is happening with the military. And people up to an initial moment of thinking, you know, that the military might just decide to redeem its unity and status by not engaging and not protecting the regime is… actually, the military is the core of the regime… so the revolution now is a revolution against military rule, and it is getting deeper in… in the sense that the goals now are not just to remove the military council – the generals – from, you know, ruling, but also remove any generals from any position that should be held by civilians, subjecting the military to an elected authority, stripping away the economic power of the military so that it’s just an arm… you know, a tool in the hands of the executive, and not a state within the state and so on. And that’s massive. This is citing… this is confronting all interests at once. Like, it’s obvious that American interests really – and Saudi interests – want the, you know, strategic Egypt remains in the hands of the military. Like decisions about defence, about Suez Canal, about relationship with Israel, about foreign policy, about internal security, about whether Egypt is involved in the War against Terror or not – all of these things should be in the hands of intelligence, the military and so on, and not in the hands of an elected authority. So, this is what the fight is about, and it’s tough… people are getting killed…
Julian:
But what… what has happened to the revolutionary forces now? So, you had the… the soccer clubs, the Ultras, the unions, how would you describe where these groups are now, and what are they doing? Have they disbanded, are they still pushing for change in particular directions? Have they been captured? Has the Muslim Brotherhood been captured?
Alaa:
No. Well, the Muslim Brotherhood has almost stepped out of the revolution. They’ve been elected into parliament and they’re now interested in negotiating with the military and with the Americans, and in, you know, very, very gradual reforms, and in taking over, you know – through elections – so it’s their right to take over but, you know, but they’re not interested action, confrontation and continuing the revolution and so on. They’re… most of the organised… like formal parties and so on maybe have a more critical position than the Muslim Brotherhood, but they’re also not exactly being, you know, acting in a revolutionary fashion. It’s the smaller, less political but organised groups, like the football Ultras, like football fans – independent football fan associations were the kings of the street battles with the police – are still very strong and still very much into it and they’re being hunted down by the police now and tortured.
Alaa:
Um, the labour unions, which is a… independent labour unions are a new phenomena, they’re… you know, we only had three before the revolution, now we have a hundred and something, so it’s still growing. Just today there was a strike that shut down all courts in the country by the clerks in the courts and so on, so they…that’s still ongoing but it’s recent, it’s small and it’s growing. We have a student movement now that’s growing. The student movement in Egypt’s history have always played a massive role. Now students… you know, and young people, are the revolution but when we’re talking about here is an organised student movement that is within the universities and the high schools, so it’s not just students joining protests but it’s students actually organising and forming their own structures for decision-making and so on.
Nabeel:
I will summarise what he says in regard… I will summarise…
Alaa:
And there are neighbourhood committees and so on. But, um…
Julian:
Right. Alaa, do you remember during the…
Alaa:
Sorry, I just wanted to say…
Julian:
Sorry, go on…
Alaa:
I interrupt you because I really wanted to make a point, that… so all of these factions and then we have, you know, the different organised groups – they’re still a very small part of the revolution.Now the biggest… the body of the revolution is still completely non-affiliated with any formal structure. It is masses that join in and, you know, and protest or go on strike, wildcat strikes, without clear leadership, and are willing to engage in street battles also. So you’ve got strikes, sit-ins, protests, street battles – this is the revolution. Now, this is still very strong. This is, you know, this is still what is shaking the regime and it grows, it is not getting smaller, it’s actually getting bigger but it’s been a year and people are wondering whether you can continue this way or whether, you know, you need to move to more formal structures. And I think, you know, I think the formal structures haven’t offered an answer. – that’s like the interesting sideshow stuff that I’ve been talking about like the independent trade unions and the student movement and so on, that’s growing and it’s going to play an important role but certainly political parties are not going to be the solution. And so we’re waiting for this massive social movement to come up with a way, you know, to make decisions in… more rapidly, because right now it is so organic that decisions are made very slowly. That mob, that crowd, that tribe, that masses, them masses, you know, and all these manifestations of the people might disappear.
[AE crew needs to take a break to change the cards]
Julian:
Yes, ok, you can go off…we’ll just wait till you change your cards.
Alaa:
We had… yeah, I’m done with that point. I just wanted to say that the disorganised revolution is the revolution and I don’t know whether… well, I believe in it but I don’t know where it’s going so…
Nabeel:
I mean, the problem…
Julian:
What’s… what’s… go on…
Nabeel:
I would say the problem weakening the complete revolution in Egypt, as it is in Yemen, you have the classic, political parties which want to go ahead with the existing process and compromise with the regime, that we have it in Egypt now and we have it in Yemen. And then you have the revolution of the young, of the youth movement industry who wants to have complete revolution but the problem… although they are very powerful, they are in the streets but they are not as organised as the political parties which exist for many years, and that’s why they are taking the benefits now in Egypt for example, or in Yemen. The political groups, the parties are taking the benefits and going ahead with the system and having kind of compromises. Where in Bahrain we could minimise the… the gap between the existing classical group, political group, with the youth movement. We… we’re just trying to make it very close and almost they are close – they’re talking in one language, they’re talking one demand, maybe in one ceiling [?], but not as there as in Egypt where you have different voices, people in the street and people want to…
Julian:
But, I mean, are they both… are they really both kept out from power – the political groups in Bahrain…
Nabeel:
Both of them – that’s one reason of course, both of them were kept out of power, both of them were…
JA;
And… and the revolutionary groups in Bahrain and the people who supported these protest movements in Bahrain, have they been wound up? Are they too scared to act? Um, are they fractured? Are they apathetic? Who’s left who’s still pushing forward?
Nabeel:
Well, still a lot of people. You have… I mean, I would didn’t be surprised, or you should not be surprised, to see half of the Bahraini population coming out in one protest. It’s still happening. It’s not happening in any of the revolutions. None of the revolutions we had in the history in the past 50 years you would see 50 per cent of the population out in the street in one protest, but you will see in Bahrain. Unfortunately, because of the double standard of many countries, because of the double standard of many state channels like Al-Jazeera, like Al-Arabia, like other European channels that they don’t highlight this but this is the reality, this is the fact, that more than half of the population were deep in the street in the protest. Although we… they have killed many people, detained many people, till today we have many people, and very united also.
Julian:
Why doesn’t Al-Jazeera report the Bahraini… let me rephrase this… how is Al-Jazeera reporting the protest movement in Bahrain?
Nabeel:
Al-Jazeera were positive in Egypt, they were positive in Tunisia. In fact, Al-Jazeera were a sign for any revolution in the Arab world if it is a credible revolution or not. If Al-Jazeera will cover those revolution it is credible, but when it comes to Bahrain Al-Jazeera were quiet. I’m talking about Arabic Al-Jazeera not the English – English completely different.
Julian:
Yeah. The English was alright, wasn’t it?
Nabeel:
It’s still certain limit… they were ok. The Arabic one, they were complete silence. In fact, in many areas they’d taken the side of the government.
Julian:
Why?
Nabeel:
Why? Because they are all from similar ruling family and similar region. A democracy in Bahrain means it’s going to have an impact on Qatar, it’s going to have an impact on Saudi Arabia, which has the Al-Arabia TV channel.
Julian:
So why did Saudi send troops into Bahrain?
Nabeel:
That’s, er… I mean, this is something the whole world has to speak out and have to condemn what happened but we’ve seen the invasion of Saudis to my country with complete silence. Now the same governments sending troops to Libya to fight the regime and now they are against the Syrian Assad – which they have to be maybe – but when it comes to Bahrain they were complete silence. With Saudi and the troops…
Julian:
Were they scared of the activist Shi’a in Bahrain spreading into Saudi?
Nabeel:
No, because the Saudis are very influential in the United States, in Europe. They have… for the interests of United States, for the interests of many European countries, for the arms sales, for the flow of the oil, for the mutual interests which many countries seen have… has more priority than the human rights of the Bahrainis. For example, the same United States which asked Russian not to sell arms for Syria, they are selling arms to Bahrain. The same Turkish government which is supporting the Russian revolution, which they have to support, and they are selling armed vehicles to Bahrain, and at the same time they’re trying to cover, trying to support the Bahrain government till today. Yesterday, a statement by the representative… American representative in the human rights council saying that ‘We will not talk about Bahrain this session because Bahrain is improving itself and it is doing better’ – where people d… As I’m talking to you, a few hours ago one man died because of tear gas. We have… daily basis people are dying.
Julian:
Is… is Iran fuelling the revolutionary forces in…?
Nabeel:
This is what our government’s saying. This is what the Americans maybe try to buy that, but that’s got nothing… none of the revolution is [inaudible]…
Julian:
Did you…? I read a cable at the time of these Bahraini protests about eight months ago and this US cable, which we have published, says that the Bahraini government officers came into the US embassy and they said: ‘Look, Iran is behind these calls for human rights in Bahrain. It is funnelling money and weapons into the Bahrainian resistance’, and then the US ambassador writing back to Washington said that he saw no evidence that that was true. That they keep claiming this… they keep claiming this but over years they had never seen any evidence.
Nabeel:
Yeah, yeah. Similar to that at least one cable that was about me, where one of the government agents goes to the American embassy, says that Nabeel Rajab is receiving funds from the Iranian government and Americans tell the State Department that it’s not true, they’ve got nothing to support that. But…
Julian:
Do you think this fear-mongering about Iran is the… is it the primary reason why the West is not supporting..?
Nabeel:
I’m sure they want Bahrain stable as the Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain. They want Bahrain to be very quiet and stable, and the revolution is not making it stable…
Julian:
So, it’s like, the Fifth Fleet is based in port in Bahrain and it is right next to Iran?
Nabeel:
Yes, and losing… you have to take… Let’s put things in a trap. Losing Mubarak… losing Ben Ali in Tunisia and losing Mubarak in Egypt angered the Saudis very much. You know that there was a telephone call where they had a fight – the Saudi king with Obama? And when it comes to Bahrain this is the last thing the Saudis want to see – a revolution on Bahrain, few miles from their border, which means going to have impact, negative, in Saudi Arabia – that’s why Saudi sent the troops to Bahrain to take part in the crackdown, in killing people, detaining people, and they have taken part in that bloody crackdown with the complete silence of… from the international community. Yes, Saudi didn’t want democracy; yes, Qatar, which want to promote democracy in Syria and other parts of the world but they don’t want democracy in Qatar – they want to stir all the region as they are having their own farm or company. This region is being ruled as of this moment like it’s companies belong to those families. Democracy means you have to stop this and you have to ask your people, you have to share power, you have to share wealth and those governments will not accept that to happen. That’s why the Americans were afraid of the Saudi position, Saudis are influential because of… now they bought the American silence with this biggest arms deal we had few months ago, couple of months ago…
Julian:
This was with Bahrain, or with Saudi?
Nabeel:
With the Saudis…
Julian:
Yeah – Eighty-something billion dollars.
Nabeel:
It’s being silent on Bahrain is not to please the Bahraini as much as to please the Saudis.
Alaa:
But it’s also about US interests, it’s all about like international interests, like, let’s be clear here. A democratic Arab world would not allow military bases, foreign military bases within, would not allow military ships to pass through the Suez Canal, would not be selling… would be deciding on the… the selling of oil or attributing – what do you call it? – allowing, you know, oil companies to drill and so on, would… would probably… like, the policy around oil would change radically on who and when and how much to sell and so on, even dealing some for the future or whatever. Would not be,… would be at peace with Israel in the sense that people are not interested in war, but would not be in friendship with Israel, and so on. And so a democratic Arab world would be completely different in terms of any strategic policies and so the interests of the United States, the interests even of the European Union and the interests of Israel is… are completely invested in no more democracy there, and the regimes understand that, and they regimes have built their own fortunes and their own power around being agents of these powers, to a point where Saudi is now big enough that it’s one of the agents more. It’s not as powerful obviously but it has its own interests to protect and it…
Julian:
Alaa…
Alaa:
… it would negotiate and push and even argue from a similar position to the US.
Julian:
Alaa, you may remember, during the heat of the Egyptian revolution, Suleiman, the head of domestic intelligence in Egypt, was proposed by Joseph Biden, by the State Department, by Hillary Clinton to be a sort of replacement figure for Mubarak, a compromise figure, and we released many cables about him and his position in relation to Israel and his relation to United States and being a sort of… a torturer-in-chief for…
Alaa:
I mean, this is for tortures, yeah…
Julian:
Yeah, but very quickly after it was apparent that Suleiman was not going to succeed you saw Hillary Clinton turn around and start to praise the Egyptian revolution and say that in fact the Egyptian and Tunis revolutions were because of two great American companies, Twitter and Facebook [all laugh]. You must of heard this time and time again, but I was reading this handbook by the Ultras, the soccer clubs – perhaps you just could very briefly describe their role? – but in this handbook, on the front page it says ‘Do not use Twitter and Facebook’ because you’ll all be rounded up, and on the back page it says ‘Do not use Twitter and Facebook’. Can you just describe a little bit what Egyptians think about this claim, and is there in fact some truth to it?
Alaa:
Yeah, ok. So, yeah, so it needs to be taken one by one. So, first of all you have to realise that there’s a… there’s a battle for narratives in… in the revolutions. The revolutions are about ideas as much as they are about, you know, bodies in the streets and bullets and so on. And so there’s a battle for narrative around the revolution and when that shift happened, when the US official position started, you know, praising the revolution, that shift also happened in Egyptian official media, like State-controlled media, and in representatives of the government and that’s when the military rulers started talking about it and so on. And the most crucial aspect of this battle of narrative is to try and narrow down the revolution to being about the Facebook youth. That doesn’t meant that the Facebook youth didn’t play an important role in the revolution – they did – but the thing is if you draw a circle around, you know, a side of revolution and say this is the true revolution, everybody else is not for real, and then you play on everything, you play on class, you play on how much people are willing to use violence to defend themselves – to isolate, you know, the revolutionary forces in charge. So they’re well- off, middle-class, highly educated, internet-connected youth played an important role in the revolution and they were, for very tactical reasons, they were the symbols of the revolutions because you needed the whole world to love the Egyptian revolution. So you also had this great Woodstock-like party in Tahrir without the drugs and the sex but, you know, you had this wonderful, you know, amazing and very inspiring – it’s also very real, there’s no aspect of, you know, of fantasy about it… a party in Tahrir Square… but if you tell the story… you know, that’s right about Tahrir. You tell the story about the Egyptian revolution as these wonderful kids – good-looking, well-connected kids being in Tahrir – then you are ignoring the workers, you are ignoring the street battles, you are ignoring how much we had to use violence in defence of ourselves. Of course, it wasn’t… you know, calling it violence would be incorrect because when you throw rocks at armed personnel carriers that are shooting from machine guns at you, I don’t think that should be called violence – but what I’m saying is, you know, we were not sticking to the script that people outside of the revolution think that was going on. So, Hillary was not just pushing to comp… American companies, she was pushing a narrative that is designed to stop the revolution, to make sure that it doesn’t go deeper than Mubarak. Um, so that’s why it’s such a contentious issue. Like, Twitter and Facebook are very useful but if you… but if I talk about how useful they are and this gets turned into a tool that is used against the revolution then I’d rather say that they were not useful at all. But that’s… the reality is they were very useful…
Julian:
Nabeel, I want to hear from you about the present status of Facebook and Twitter in Bahrain because in researching for this meeting I saw that there had been a Facebook page created by supporters of the regime listing all the photographs of – or many of the photographs of – Bahrainian activists to help hunt them down. What’s… what’s going on?
Nabeel:
Well, first of all we have to know that Bahrainis may be the most active nation, I think, now in the Arab world in Twitter. We have learnt from Tunisian, we have learnt from the Egyptian, we have become smart on using Twitter for our revolution and Facebook, and also beside us the government are the smartest in the Arab world in using it Twitter and Facebook and social media, and what you have seen is part of that. Hired a tenth of PR companies in the United States, in Britain, in Europe which have hundreds of people brought from different Asian countries, African countries, to work day and night on the social media, Twitter and Facebook, to create fake public opinion, to mislead public opinion, to show a different story on what’s happening on Bahrain, to change the reality and the fact of what’s happening on Bahrain. But after all of this, after millions being paid – hundreds of people were invested in this by government – reality will come out. Fact will come out. Activists, unpaid activists, volunteers, few volunteers will bring out the reality and fact to the international… That’s why… you know, me today – I don’t have a PR company, I don’t have people working for me, but finally when you were looking for the truth, you found it. They have a lot of companies doing that but they fail… but they’re smart, they’re using…
Julian:
You have some five fake accounts…
Nabeel:
I have five… six fake… fake account made – Twitter and Facebook…
Julian:
That are pretending to be you and…
Nabeel:
That are pretending to be me saying bad words in English and Arabic and… Some people believed it but now from the numbers following me you can know: this is not the real Nabeel; this is real Nabeel. But that’s… that’s… you have to fight… I mean, this is the new order – government social media, Twitter, Facebook. There were all sorts of revolution in the 90s, I mean in the 70s – they didn’t have this, unfortunately…
Julian:
I’ll ask both of you…Do you think it’s, you know, when technology becomes democratised for a period or there is some new technology that enters into the frame – like the internet was a relatively new technology or it’s things like Facebook and Twitter and WikiLeaks are all new – that there’s… some people can move quickly and adapt quickly – and those are young people who are not already bound up into a patron infrastructure, not spending all their time on maintaining their position, so they are the first people to come in and quickly adopt this technology – but once an existing regime sees that it is important and it is static and it is not changing, they start pouring their efforts into it; they learn more slowly but they have a lot more resources. Do you think that the Bahrainian regime will conquer Facebook and Twitter and people will have to go to a new…?
Nabeel:
Well, Tunisians have shut down Twitter and Facebook. Egyptian government, they have tried to slow down the internet or shut down the whole internet…
Alaa:
But they cannot completely…
Nabeel:
… completely cut it off. In Bahrain, they targeted all the Twitter activists and detained them, and some of them tortured to death. So, everywhere government have different tactics. That’s why you see a lot of Bahrainis move to use fake and secret names, but at the same time the positive thing is a big part of Bahrainis – percentage, big percentage of Bahrainis – start learning how to use the internet, how to use social media, because of the revolution. A positive and a negative. But the positive thing: at least 20 per cent of members of my family have learnt how to do the internet and do social media… I’m telling you – all, including my mum….
Julian:
So, even my… Yeah, my mother, my mother now, because of my situation she gets on Twitter.
Nabeel:
Yeah, yeah. My mum is over 80 years of age and she said ‘You have to keep Twitter in my telephone’. She doesn’t know it, but she asked the person with her: ‘Just check what’s happening. Anybody writing things…?’. It’s… it is something we hadn’t, we didn’t have it. Everybody’s using internet, everybody… it’s because of the revolution now.
Julian:
Alaa, can you speak about this battle to keep, er, try and restore bits of the internet, restore bits of the telephone system, during the Tahrir Square protests? There was one ISP that had 6 per cent of the population or so covered.
Alaa:
Yeah, I’m not sure they had 6 per cent, they had 6 per cent of the connectivity but I think actually the number of individual clients was so small…
Julian:
But can you just speak about this progression… you had… everything was connected and then bits… as time went by bits and pieces were chopped off…
Alaa:
[talking over] Yeah, so there…there was a constant… there was a constant battle to try and keep the information flowing. We would not focus on, you know, stirring it outside the country, but also the revolution was happening in multiple cities – the uprising of the revolution was still ongoing – the uprising was happening in multiple cities and you needed to keep information, you know, flowing from one city to another. Um, so you had everything – you had from people reverting to dialogue because there were… there were… the landlines were still working, so they were dialling up over international lines, even international calls; you had one ISP that was kept running – we think because they had some political banking, stuff like that, running on it and oh, I don’t know, maybe they thought they needed to monitor stuff. I mean, we don’t know why they kept one ISP running, but they kept the one ISP with the least number of subscribers running. Um, and then you also had satellite, you know – people brought in satellite internet connectivity, mostly from outside the country. In fact, Bahraini friends who came and then were trapped in Egypt as the revolution started in Bahrain because this is what… they joined the Egyptian revolution, bringing with them satellite equipment.
Alaa:
People were using satellite phones, but all of that was not really very important. What was important is… um, even internal information flow was not very important because once you had people in the street… You know, if you hear that something is happening in Suez and you are in Alexandria there’s not much that you can do about it until… until you’ve secured your own location. But it all happened very quickly, so on the 28th the police was defeated and then three days later the internet was back because there was no point in keeping communication, you know, shut off by then – they were already defeated in the battle in the streets. So… so I know it sounds interesting, you know, all the stories about… and, in fact, I was involved in that because I was outside the country at that time so I was constantly making phone calls to landlines or using fax machines to get information out of the country and then publish it online, and I had the usernames and passwords of most human rights websites, and you know, prior – because we had leaks that the… that the shutdown was coming and so on… But it’s… it’s not really an interesting side of the rev…you know, it didn’t really matter. Information is critical for starting things and it
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Francisco will have to navigate the third-toughest schedule in the NFL. Here, we offer our initial thoughts on each of the team's 16 matchups in 2015.
(Note: All times are PT)
<span color="#aa0000" face="Arial Regular, Arial, sans-serif" size="3" style="color: #aa0000; font-family: 'Arial Regular', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 14px;">Week 1: Monday, Sept. 14, vs. Minnesota, 7:20 p.m.</span></span>
The obvious storyline is Adrian Peterson and NaVorro Bowman making their respective returns. Peterson, a six-time Pro Bowl selection and the NFL's MVP in 2012, sat out all but one game last year due to legal issues. Meanwhile, Bowman missed all of 2014 recovering from a severe knee injury that he suffered in the 2013 NFC Championship game. Bowman looked like his old self in two standout preseason performances. This matchup is also the first "Monday Night Football" telecast at Levi's® Stadium. Winning in Week 1 will be crucial for the 49ers, as they face playoff teams from 2014 in five of their next six games.
<span color="#aa0000" face="Arial Regular, Arial, sans-serif" size="3" style="color: #aa0000; font-family: 'Arial Regular', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 14px;">Week 2: Sunday, Sept. 20, at Pittsburgh, 10 a.m.</span></span>
The Steelers open their season playing the defending-champion New England Patriots on Thursday. That means they will have a few extra days to prepare for the 49ers, who will be traveling cross-country on a short week. The good news? The Steelers will be without top rusher Le'Veon Bell and deep-threat wide receiver Martavis Bryant, both of whom are serving suspensions. This game will have signifcant meaning to Tomsula, a native of nearby Homestead, Pa. Many family members, including his parents, still live in the area.
<span color="#aa0000" face="Arial Regular, Arial, sans-serif" size="3" style="color: #aa0000; font-family: 'Arial Regular', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 14px;">Week 3: Sunday, Sept. 27, at Arizona, 1:05 p.m.</span></span>The Hollywood Reporter just interviewed 'Batman and the Signal' artist Cully Hamner, who discussed Gotham's big change... To the daylight.
'Batman and the Signal' artist on bringing Gotham into the daylight https://t.co/cf46Ilhpcj pic.twitter.com/bLsW5KH1oZ — Hollywood Reporter (@THR) December 12, 2017
In the new Batman miniseries, Gotham City will have a hero to do work when Batman catches up on his sleep, AKA in the daytime. His former sidekick Duke Thomas will step up to the plate and take on the job in 'Batman and The Signal.'
Although co-written by Scott Snyder and Tony Patrick, Hamner was asked about the art behind the big change in color.
Bats 🦇 comic books day:
Batman and the signal #1 and #2. pic.twitter.com/XVpTc8Wmel — All About Batman & Movies (@All4Batman) December 6, 2017
The artist began explaining, "We’ve seen in the movies, sometimes, a little bit of Gotham in the daytime, but traditionally the city is a nighttime environment," adding, "But I wanted to play with adding of reality to that, because obviously cities don’t just exist in the nighttime."
It seems the difference in colors directly correlate with the difference of character between Batman and Duke.
Hamner continues, "You’ve got Duke, who in this series is more of a figure of fun than you might expect. There’s a real sense of humor to this book that you don’t necessarily get in a regular Batman book."
'Batman and the Signal' No. 1 is set to release Jan. 3, 2018, and be sure to be ready for change upon reading!We’re excited to announce the release of the new Resolute Class Advanced Heavy Cruiser. This Tier 6 starship is based upon the original design of the Excelsior Class starship. Like other Tier 6 ships it has been heavily retrofitted to include the latest in state-of-the-art technologies and has received a 2410 visual update.
Items and Abilities
The Resolute Class Advanced Heavy Cruiser comes equipped with the Tactical Maneuvering Matrix universal console. When activated it provides a sizeable boost to turn rate, damage resistance and damage. This boost scales with the number of nearby enemies. In addition, this console provides a passive bonus to turn rate and damage resistance.
In addition, this starship can unlock the Improved Weaponized Emitters starship trait by achieving level 5 in their Starship Mastery. While this trait is slotted your Aceton Beam and Overwhelm Emitters abilities cause radiation damage over time to enemies within 3km of the target.
Costumes
The Resolute Class Advanced Heavy Cruiser can use all costume parts from any existing Advanced Heavy Cruiser regardless if you own the Advanced Heavy Cruiser or the Advanced Heavy Cruiser Retrofit.
Look for a follow up blog that will detail the stats on this awesome new Tier 6 cruiser and its fleet variant in the near future!
Phil “Gorngonzolla” Zeleski
Lead Systems Designer
Star Trek Online
Discuss in the forumsThere are some similarities between Boulder and Ann Arbor, Mich., where I lived for a period of time. Each city is about the same size; each city hosts a world-class university; each city has serious traffic problems, especially on football Saturdays.
But there are some significant differences, too. Boulder's population is listed at 108,090. Ann Arbor is a bit larger with its population of 120,782.
Now the comparison of budgets and city personnel is quite surprising. According to Boulder City Manager Jane Brautigam, Boulder's annual operating budget is $260,677,000 with a total of 1,447 fulltime employees. Ann Arbor's administrative assistant to its mayor, Christine Schopieray, indicates that Ann Arbor's annual operating budget is $130,240,000 with a total of just 729 employees.
With Boulder having twice the number of employees and twice the operating budget, can anyone in Boulder's city administration explain what services we enjoy for all that money and staffing, services that are denied to the taxpayers of Ann Arbor? In other words why is there such a large discrepancy?
Richard J. Bowman
BoulderMedia playback is not supported on this device Moyes looks ahead to 'tough start'
Manchester United manager David Moyes says he finds his club's start to the new season "hard to believe".
Among their first five Premier League games, the champions host Chelsea and Manchester City and Liverpool away.
Season starts Arsenal: Aston Villa (H), Fulham (A), Tottenham (H), Sunderland (A), Stoke (H). Aston Villa: Arsenal (A), Chelsea (A), Liverpool (H), Newcastle (H), Norwich (A) Chelsea: Hull (H), Aston Villa (H), Man Utd (A), Everton (A), Fulham (H). Man City: Newcastle (H), Cardiff (A), Hull (H), Stoke (A), Man Utd (H). Man Utd: Swansea (A), Chelsea (H), Liverpool (A), Crystal Palace (H), Man City (A). Tottenham: Crystal Palace (A), Swansea (H), Arsenal (A), Norwich (H), Cardiff (A).
Moyes said: "I find it hard to believe that's the way the balls came out of the bag, that's for sure."
The Premier League responded by saying: "We have absolutely assured him the process is random and above board. He has accepted those assurances."
A league spokesman also confirmed that Moyes had put his concerns to them directly.
However earlier on Thursday the Scotsman said: "I think it's the hardest start for 20 years that Manchester United have had.
"I hope it's not because Manchester United won the league quite comfortably last year [that] the fixtures have been made much more difficult."
Moyes officially took over from Sir Alex Ferguson, who retired after 26 trophy-laden years in charge, on 1 July. The former Everton boss saw his new side win the Charity Shield with a 2-0 victory against Wigan last week. They start their Premier League campaign away at Swansea, before facing Chelsea, Liverpool, Crystal Palace and Manchester City.
Manchester City, who finished second last season, play two promoted clubs, Hull and Cardiff.
Chelsea, meanwhile, will face two teams who finished in the bottom half last season as well as Hull, Everton and Man Utd.
Fast out of the traps? Chelsea are the best starters in Premier League history, picking up an average of 2.10 points from their first game
Manchester United are nearly as good, averaging 2.05
Arsenal are third best, with 42 points from their 21 games
Liverpool fans start the season with optimism, averaging 1.76 points from their first game
Others: West Ham 1.47, Blackburn 1.44, Newcastle 1.42, Man City 1.31, Aston Villa 1.24
Spurs and Everton are both notoriously slow starters, each averaging only 1.2 points from their opening games Stats courtesy of Opta (only includes clubs which have been in the Premier League for a minimum of 16 seasons)
Four of Arsenal's opening five opponents finished in the bottom half last season, although they do have the derby against Tottenham. Spurs also face two promoted teams as well as Swansea and Norwich.
Meanwhile, Moyes refused to be drawn on whether Wayne Rooney, who has been the subject of two bids from Chelsea, would feature in Saturday's season-opener at Swansea.
The striker, 27, missed Sunday's Community Shield win over Wigan with a shoulder injury but was fit enough to start England's international friendly victory over Scotland on Wednesday before being replaced by match-winner Rickie Lambert.
"It was great for Wayne to get fitness and he played for 65 minutes or so, so overall I was really pleased with the outcome," said Moyes, who was at the game to watch Rooney and his club-mates Danny Welbeck and Tom Cleverley.
"Hopefully when I get back to Old Trafford I will be able to tell you how he is and how his fitness is so. Until I assess that I can't say any more."Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Jim Muir describes the aftermath of the explosion
An attack by a suspected suicide car bomber has reportedly killed four people in a Hezbollah stronghold in a Shia-dominated suburb of Beirut.
Flames were seen pouring from the facade of a multi-storey building, along with large plumes of smoke.
The blast, in Arid Street in the southern Haret Hreik district, left at least 20 injured, reports say.
There has been a spike in sectarian tension in Lebanon blamed on the conflict in neighbouring Syria.
Hezbollah forces have been fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, while Lebanese Sunni Muslims tend to back the Syrian opposition.
Hundreds of people gathered at the scene as Hezbollah's emergency services worked to extinguish the blaze. It is not clear what the target was, though there are Hezbollah offices close by.
A group calling itself the al-Nusra Front in Lebanon put out a statement on Twitter claiming to be behind the attack in revenge for "massacres" perpetrated by Hezbollah.
It is not clear what links the group has to the al-Nusra Front in Syria - an al-Qaeda-linked force fighting Mr Assad's government.
Lebanon's Haret Hreik district is densely populated with many shops. Buildings were damaged and glass strewn over the street.
Details of casualties are sketchy. But of the four deaths reported by Hezbollah's al-Manar TV, quoting Hezbollah officials, one is reported to be a woman.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Hundreds of people gathered in the street as Hezbollah's emergency services tackled the blaze
Image copyright AFP Image caption The blast caused extensive damage, shattering windows and destroying shop fronts
Image copyright AP Image caption The blast is thought to have been caused by a suicide bomber in a vehicle
Body parts thought to be those of the suicide bomber were scattered at the scene, Lebanon's national news agency reported.
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati called a meeting of the government's emergency response committee.
It is the latest of several recent explosions in Lebanon. Five people were killed and many others injured by a bomb blast on 2 January in the same Beirut district.
Former minister Mohamad Chatah, a Sunni and a critic of Hezbollah, was killed with five others by a car bomb in December.
There are fears that the spiral of violence could tighten further, says the BBC's Jim Muir, who went to the scene.
However, a Hezbollah official and MP told him the organisation did not plan to respond to Tuesday's attack, our correspondent adds.
Lebanon has been politically deadlocked since last March with an alliance led by Sunni former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Hezbollah unable to agree on a coalition government.Short-term rentals of private residences would be sharply curbed under a proposed ordinance drafted by San Diego City Councilwoman Barbara Bry, whose district includes the La Jolla area.
Her proposal, released Monday, arrives a few months before the full council is expected to take up yet again the contentious question of how to regulate vacation rentals, which have mushroomed in popularity with the growth of the online home-sharing platform, Airbnb.
The city planning department already is at work drafting alternative measures based on three options it released earlier this year, which at the time ranged from the most permissive to one that would effectively ban such rentals.
The city is hoping to hear the matter Oct. 23, said Planning Director Jeff Murphy. It will mark the sixth hearing at City Hall in two years to consider the issue of short-term rentals.
Under Bry’s suggested regulations, homeowners would be allowed to rent out only their primary residences on a short-term basis but for no more than 90 days a year. By clamping down on such rentals, Bry says her proposal would effectively shut down the transformation of single-family homes by absentee investors into what she calls “full-time mini-hotels in residential zones.”
While Bry’s draft ordinance is certain to advance the debate among council members, it is less likely to forge consensus on an issue that has divided elected leaders for more than two years.
Councilman Chris Cate, who has consistently argued in favor of permitting vacation rentals citywide but with much stricter enforcement and escalating fines, said Monday he would not support Bry’s proposed regulations, which he thinks have come too late.
“We're getting to the point where we’re getting ready for a council hearing on this, and this should have been heard first at the committee level,” said Cate, who has previously codified his ideas in a proposed ordinance.
“I want to make sure as a city we're being able to meet expectations of our residents in terms of enforcement, and I don't believe we can effectively ban rentals in residential zones and have that ban enforced.”
San Diego's elected leaders have been debating since 2015 potential regulations that would satisfy both home-sharing hosts and homeowners who have complained that their neighborhoods have been overrun by vacationers and late-night parties.
In March, the council’s Smart Growth and Land Use Committee weighed various options but could not reach consensus on the best approach for governing short-term rentals, although it did agree on permitting home sharing, where homeowners rent out spare bedrooms to visitors.
The most lenient of three options the planning department offered up earlier this year for the rental of entire homes would allow them to operate in residential zones but would require ministerial permits, as would all the options.
The strictest proposed a minimum stay of 21 days, an option that had been proposed in the past by City Councilwoman Lorie Zapf, who now says she supports Bry’s current proposal.
A third option struck a middle ground, allowing vacation rentals but requiring a special permit for larger homes that have six or more bedrooms or accommodate more than 10 guests.
Earlier this year, City Attorney Mara Elliott issued a memo concluding that San Diego’s municipal code does not permit short-term rentals in any zone, an opinion that runs counter to her predecessors.
“The council has been dealing with this issue before I got here, and the Smart Growth and Land Use Committee was deadlocked on how to deal with whole home rentals, so I think it’s just time to take this whole issue to the entire council,” Bry said. “This has been vetted in the communities for the last two years.
“What’s changed, I think, is a wider appreciation that we need to provide more housing for San Diegans and second, that this is spreading into more neighborhoods.”
Tom Coat, a co-founder of Save San Diego Neighborhoods, which has fought to ban short-term rentals in single-family neighborhoods, said his group appreciates the direction of Bry’s proposal but it has not decided yet whether to back it.
“We’re talking a closer look at it, but we’re concerned that San Diego doesn’t have enough resources, because of the huge growth in the numbers of vacation rentals, to do adequate enforcement, so we’d like to see more concrete and better enforcement ideas in it,” Coat said.
“But we are ecstatic over the fact it would put a halt to the investor class of short-term rental operators. We’re really opposed to people coming in and buying up housing stock and converting it to hotels where they don’t live.”
Both Bry and Cate are proposing that permit fees be imposed for all short-term rentals. Such fees, Cate said, could go toward beefing up city enforcement of problem rentals. Bry says that it should not be that difficult to monitor short-term rental hosts who are in violation of whatever regulations are ultimately adopted.
“There is now software cities are using that scan websites and can generate letters to properties to make sure they’re complying,” Bry said. “And we will still be collecting those TOT funds. I’m always open to new input and suggestions.”
CAPTION Hundreds of San Diego hotel workers marched in downtown San Diego to pressure Marriott hotels to improve pay and working conditions for low wage workers. Hundreds of San Diego hotel workers marched in downtown San Diego to pressure Marriott hotels to improve pay and working conditions for low wage workers. CAPTION Hundreds of San Diego hotel workers marched in downtown San Diego to pressure Marriott hotels to improve pay and working conditions for low wage workers. Hundreds of San Diego hotel workers marched in downtown San Diego to pressure Marriott hotels to improve pay and working conditions for low wage workers. CAPTION The Supreme Court on Monday struck down a federal law that bars gambling on football, basketball, baseball and other sports in most states, giving states the go-ahead to legalize betting on sports. The Supreme Court on Monday struck down a federal law that bars gambling on football, basketball, baseball and other sports in most states, giving states the go-ahead to legalize betting on sports. CAPTION Viasat is a global communications company working to connect the unconnected throughout the world. As part of our mission, we're bringing low-cost, high-speed satellite internet to rural towns throughout Mexico. We believe that everyone, everywhere deserves the opportunity to add their voice to the global conversation. (Courtesy of Viasat) Viasat is a global communications company working to connect the unconnected throughout the world. As part of our mission, we're bringing low-cost, high-speed satellite internet to rural towns throughout Mexico. We believe that everyone, everywhere deserves the opportunity to add their voice to the global conversation. (Courtesy of Viasat) CAPTION San Diego has agreed to sell 16 lots in Nestor for $1 each, in the pursuit of affordable housing. The nonprofit San Diego Community Land Trust plans to build three and four-bedroom homes there for people with moderate incomes. That means a family of five with an income of up to $102,750. San Diego has agreed to sell 16 lots in Nestor for $1 each, in the pursuit of affordable housing. The nonprofit San Diego Community Land Trust plans to build three and four-bedroom homes there for people with moderate incomes. That means a family of five with an income of up to $102,750. CAPTION Toys R Us still sells about 20% of the toys bought in the U.S., according to an analyst at Jefferies LLC. Toys R Us still sells about 20% of the toys bought in the U.S., according to an analyst at Jefferies LLC.
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Twitter: @loriweisbergWhen customers first hear about being able to enable extra JET Blue or ESE Database performance counters via adding a "Squeaky Lobster" registry value, they often think it must be a joke or ask you to repeat it. And invariable the question comes up... _why_ "Squeaky Lobster"? Various lore or conjecture has surfaced around it... that it was a developer's child's toy or that is just thought up after lunch one day. Not exactly... and retrieving the information was a little tricky as the initial checkin was 2 years before I started...
The story starts with a certain developer, let's call him, "Andrew Goodsell", for the time being, but I call (or called) him, "boss", and I can assure you those explanations are not quite right. If you were to get incriminating information about your boss, you might wonder what is the proper time to blog about it? Right after you stop working for him I think is the right answer to that... and as of today I have transferred to the Exchange organization, while "Andrew" has not. I am as they say, unsupervised. ;-) Andrew, is a very sharp man who prides himself on his professional decorum, and a bit of a perfectionist to boot. In fact his professionalism is what makes this singular lapse in judgment so amusing and fairly uncharacteristic of any decision he would make (or have let me make ;-) today.
Andrew has been involved in a fair share of the database performance work in ESE and as anyone decent at perf knows, one of most critical steps is having a way of accurately measuring performance, base-lining performance, at several levels in a software stack. Exchange 5.5 added ESE Database performance counters to facilitate this work. Most of these perf counters were intended for only internal ESE and Exchange developer usage (as you can probably deduce from one of the code snipits below, and looking at what these counters measure... things like B+ Tree Inserts/sec for example).
Enter cute girl... So that autumn while Andrew was working on adding perf counters and working on Exchange 5.5's performance, a cute girl was managing computers in the Exchange Performance lab. Andrew was working on performance and adding performance counters while this girl worked with the powerful computers in the performance lab. It isn't a wonder how they ran into each other. She was cute, it is no wonder Andrew got a crush.
Some of the simplest ESE performance counters would also be helpful for advanced administrators in debugging Exchange server issues (Cache Size, File Operations/sec, etc). Andrew mentioned he thought if competing companies had access to some of the more detailed perf counters, they might be able to reverse engineer our implementation details and steal intellectual capital (now that's the professional Andrew I know, trying to protect our intellectual capital). After he says this, he rolls his eyes and says something to the effect of "I don't know what I was thinking!" (this is because the implementation details are more complex than what the counters show, but at the time this made sense). So there was a need to split the ESE Database perf counters into two kinds.... internal (dev only) and external (admins). The internal ones would have to be hidden.
Now, fairly smitten with this girl, ANYTHING she did was fascinating (to Andrew). Oh come on, we've all been there. And one such thing she did was participate in a Giving Campaign, basically an event where we raise money for charities and non-profits. In order to encourage people to give money, various prizes would be donated and a raffle sort of mechanism to win the prizes would be done. The girl of interest donated a toy Squeaky Lobster to the charity raffle.
Andrew thought that was the funniest and most random thing to contribute as a prize for a giving campaign ever. Who would want a Squeaky Lobster? Most random prize in giving campaign I guess equals most uneasy to guess registry value ever. Anyway, a name was chosen that was about as random as you could get for 1997 (as there weren't very many words available in 1997, I think the Seattle was recovering from that awful grunge thing). Knowing the crowd Andrew hung out with back then, it would not surprise me if they decided it at or on the way back from lunch as they used to work 12 hour days and take extra long lunches.
An excerpt of Andrew's fateful check in from SLM logs (note, I've deleted the developer actual email aliases), relevant information highlighted:
#F eseperf.cxx v1
#K text
#O in
#P 1.00
#T Fri Sep 26 11:15:00 1997
#A <dev_alias_1_deleted>3
#C 47424, 41913 finalize perf ctrs
#I 2
#D 1113
27a28,32
> #pragma const_seg( ".text" )
> const char szDisplayDevOnly[] = "Squeaky Lobster"; #pragma const_seg()
As an aside, note the ".text" segment notation, I had forgotten about that, now that's old school. Man, 8 years is a LONG time in the computer industry.
And so a little over 4 months later, the first Squeaky Lobster Enabled product shipped on Feb 3, 1998, with ESE97 in Exchange 5.5. In fact this is when the database engine under Exchange was renamed from JET Blue to ESE (to avoid confusion with JET Red, which has only vestigial relations to JET Blue / ESE). ESE97 shipped in 1998, just to confuse everyone. The above picture is of the original Exchange 5.5 packaging with the original Squeaky Lobster. But at this point in our story, the counters are secret so it's not a big deal.
But there is no way to keep any sort of more extensive analysis mechanism a secret for long... eventually someone will need the information. And eventually an Exchange performance case came along sometime in 1998 (according to the earliest record I can find in the PSS DB) that required the extra analysis these performance counters offered. The PSS engineer told a customer how to enable the counters so they could analyze the customer's issue. I mean, it comes down to the customer, you do what is necessary and possible to support them. Then another case came in, and another, and eventually someone from PSS thought to publish a KB on 4/17/2000, KB 259895, what counters are enabled by squeaky lobster, _official_ Microsoft documentation admitting the existence of Squeaky Lobster!!!
Well, that didn't last long (about 6 months). In about 2000 someone public (Brian Sheaffer / Paul Thurrott) noticed and of course such a thing was far too silly for the serious professionals that control the web site of most big corporations. ;-) About as silly as Squeaky Lobster for a prize in a charity benefit! I mean we're a professional organization.
Now there are about 300 PSS related investigations, service tickets and KBs referencing this phrase (including the above one). There is a Squeaky Lobster in Andrew's office as well, but do not be fooled, it is not the original. That Squeaky Lobster was given to him by a PSS engineer who thought it was funny, or maybe to thank him for being repeatedly asked by customers, "What was that? Can you spell it?".
A mere 4 and a half years after the checkin, someone wised up... and for Windows 2003 RTM, and Exchange 2003 SP1, code was checked in to try "Show Advanced Counters" first, and if that fails try "Squeaky Lobster". The comment in the code is:
> // deprecated name (yes, we are ending the insanity)
> err = DwPerfUtilRegQueryValueEx(hkeyPerf,(char*)"Squeaky Lobster",&Type,&lpbData);
Note: we moved away from that archaic.text seg stuff, the compilers are now smart enough.
And finally to come full circle, once this happened the name of the registry value appropriate for product documentation on our web site. Note that page specifies Exchange 2003 SP1. If you replace "Show Advanced Counters" with "Squeaky Lobster", the instructions should work for Exchange 5.5 through Exchange 2003 RTM as well as current products, though the registry key you use for step 2, varies. For Ex 5.5 it is "ESE97" instead of "ESE". In Ex2k you have to use "ESE98" before SP2, and finally for SP2 and later, just "ESE". The same process works for Windows, but use "ESENT" instead of "ESE", oh and you have to enable the performance counters for Windows first.
I promised an Exchange MVP, Michael B. Smith, about a year ago and I apologize for the delay, some would even mock me for taking so long with this single post, but at that time, the fact that there was a Ms. Squeaky Lobster unknowingly influencing Microsoft product development was not known. You got to wait until you get all the details, Eric. It wasn't till Andrew, accidentally spilled the information at a dinner. After that I blurted out, "I'm SOOO BLOGGING THAT!", Andrew had an immediately look of regret on his face, and now he won't really talk about it anymore. ;-) So that is about all the Squeaky Lobster trivia I could collect.
The next time you have to really dig into Exchange (or Active Directory) database performance, just remember how responsible professional ESE software engineers are adding easily discoverable (based upon the activities of their current crush at the time) mechanisms for diagnosing your top issues. So with that in mind, the next time you go to buy a software product, remember to check the box to see if this is one of the many Squeaky Lobster Enabled products. Oh just checked an Exchange 2003 box, not actually listed on the box, hmmm, I guess serious professionals are in control of the packaging too. ;-)
So Sept 26th of this year is Squeaky Lobster Day, the 9 year anniversary of the checkin of the Squeaky Lobster registry value, be sure to Squeaky Lobster a server at 11:15, and then go to an extra long lunch, and make a silly decision you'll regret and feel embarrassed about 9 years down the road... sorry, Andrew, you can't stop the insanity...
Cheers,
Brett Shirley
ESE (aka JET Blue) Developer“Separatist insurgents”? Translation — Muslims waging bloody war to establish an Islamic State. Bombing during “peace talks” is iconic of the whole of the whole conflict. What peace talk with Muslims waging jihad in the cause of Islam has ever held?
“Car bomb found in Thailand on day of peace talks,”
By Liam Cochrane, ABC net, September 2, 2016:
Thai police have disarmed a car bomb near the Malaysian border, on the day of peace talks between the Thai Government and separatist insurgents in the south.
The stolen utility vehicle was filled with containers of petrol and at least one gas bottle, but did not detonate.
It was discovered in Waeng district of Narathiwat province, not far from the scene of a small explosion early on Friday morning that did not cause any injuries.
Secondary explosions targeting those responding to an initial attack have become a common tactic in Thailand’s “deep south”.
While most of Thailand is Buddhist, the southern-most provinces comprise of a Malay-Muslim majority and clandestine fighters have long fought for a separate state.
More than 6,500 people have been killed since violence intensified in 2004, according to independent monitoring group Deep South Watch.
A string of small bombs and arson attacks across seven Thai provinces killed four people and injured dozens of others last month, including several foreign tourists in the seaside town of Hua Hin.
A car bomb a week ago destroyed the front of Southern View Hotel in Pattani, killing one person and injuring 30 other bystanders.
‘A good sign military is continuing peace process’
The attempted car bombing on the Malaysian border is being seen as a message from some insurgents that they reject the peace talks underway in Kualar Lumpa today between the Thai Government and other factions of the insurgents, who do want to discuss peace.
This peace process began under former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra but quickly fell apart.
The military that overthrew Thailand’s civilian government in 2014 has restarted the peace dialogue, but the talks are boycotted by some within the National Revolutionary Front (known by the Malay-language acronym, BRN), the main fighting force within Thailand.
“It’s a good sign that the military is continuing the peace process,” said Muhammad-Ayub Pathan, senior editor of Deep South Watch.
“If they keep going step-by-step it will be a credit to them in the eyes of the world,” Mr Pathan told the ABC.
The meeting in Kuala Lumpur will focus on terms of references the peace dialogue — including what to call the umbrella group of Malaysia-based insurgents, known as Mara Patani — and calls by the Thai military for insurgents to stop attacking civilians.A blood-red moon will dominate the sky Sunday night, delighting some sky watchers while leaving others in fear that the apocalypse is nigh.
The lunar eclipse and supermoon will happen simultaneously, an event the world hasn't seen in more than three decades. The last one was in 1982, according to NASA.
Earthlings who miss Sunday night's celestial show will have to wait about 18 years for their chance to catch another supermoon eclipse, which NASA calculates will return in 2033.
"That's rare because it's something an entire generation may not have seen," says NASA's Noah Pedro in a statement about the event.
A red moon
Late Sunday evening, people in many areas of the world will be able to look up at the sky and see a total lunar eclipse, strengthened by a supermoon.
Previous Next On average, the moon passes through some of the Earth's shadow two to four times every year resulting in an eclipse, according to NASA.
Depending on which portion of the Earth's shadow it passes through, humans can glimpse a very subtle, partial or total lunar eclipse. The latter make up about 35 per cent of eclipses.
When the moon is as close to the Earth as it possibly can be, then it appears as large as it can ever be in our sky. - Paul Delaney, York University professor
During a total eclipse, the Earth blocks nearly all direct sunlight from reaching the moon.
Indirect sunlight still manages to make it there, though. First it passes through the Earth's atmosphere, which filters out most of the light, except for much of the red or orange hues.
This makes the moon appear a "rusty, reddy, orange colour," says Paul Delaney, a professor at York University's physics and astronomy department.
The amount of dust and clouds in Earth's atmosphere during the total eclipse determine what colour the moon appears. It could be red, orange, yellow or brown.
This total lunar eclipse is a special treat for Canadians, he says, as they'll likely be able to see it from anywhere in the country.
"This is a goodie," he says. "Everyone will be able to see it."
That is, unless bad weather, like clouds or rain, persists at the same time.
A partial eclipse will be visible starting at 9:07 p.m. ET on Sunday, and the total eclipse is expected to begin about an hour later, at 10:11 p.m. After it wanes around 11:23 p.m., a partial eclipse will remain visible until 12:27 a.m. Monday.
What makes a moon super?
The second celestial event of the night, a supermoon, will make the moon seem bigger and brighter in the night sky. A supermoon appears when the moon is in its full phase and the orbit brings it closer to Earth than usual.
The moon ranges from roughly 355,000 to 405,000 kilometres away from Earth during its orbit, Delaney says, and on Sunday it'll be just 357,000 kilometres away.
This makes it look 14 per cent larger and 30 per cent brighter than when it's farther away, according to NASA.
While the size difference is nearly imperceptible to the naked human eye, "when the moon is as close to the Earth as it possibly can be, then it appears as large as it can ever be in our sky," Delaney says.
Both a supermoon and lunar eclipse are fairly common on their own, but the pair occur together only once every few decades.
Final eclipse of the tetrad
Adding to the mystique of Sunday's events, this lunar eclipse also happens to be the final one in a tetrad, a series of four total eclipses separated by about six months.
In this tetrad, the previous three total lunar eclipses took place on April 15 and Oct. 8 in 2014 and April 4 this year.
Delaney estimates eclipses align into a tetrad roughly once every decade. However, between 1600 and 1900, not a single full tetrad occurred.
This century, NASA calculates that there will be eight tetrads. The last one started in 2003 and was completed on Oct. 28, 2004. The next one is set to begin April 25, 2032.
Blood moon prophecies
Not everyone, however, is excited about this soon-to-be completed total lunar eclipse sequence.
Some Christian pastors have dubbed this particular sequence the "four blood moons" — perhaps due to the reddish tone of a moon during a total lunar eclipse.
A supermoon is seen on Aug. 27, 2015 in Tijuana, Mexico. On Sunday, Sept. 28, a supermoon will coincide with a total lunar eclipse, finishing off the final eclipse in a tetrad of these events. (Jorge Duenes/Reuters) They say it is a biblical prophecy heralding a big event.
John Hagee, a pastor for his self-named ministry, wrote a book called Four Blood Moons: Something Is About
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made by a little-known monkey living in Ethiopia’s mountain grasslands may hint at the origins of human speech. Unlike most other primates, which communicate in strings of short, relatively flat-toned syllables, geladas possess uncannily human-like vocal tempos and undulations.
“When we first started working with geladas in 2006, we noticed sounds like people were talking around you,” said evolutionary biologist Thore Bergman of the University of Michigan. “Most primates only make a few sounds, but geladas produce a complex stream with a rhythm similar to language.”
Key to the gelada vocalizations, described today by Bergman in Current Biology, is the ability to smack their lips. Underlying that seemingly simple action is a rich synchrony of lips, tongue and the hyoid bone beneath them.
'The ability to produce complex sounds might have come first.'
Though the monkeys moved their lips without without actually vocalizing, the researchers speculated that lip-smacking could have been a precursor to human speech, setting a tempo for what would become the sonic foundations of language.
Bergman builds on that notion. He shows that geladas sometimes use lip-smacking to shape their calls, giving them a human language-like quality. Geladas were already known to possess an extremely rich vocal repertoire; lip-smacking adds to that richness.
An open question, said Bergman, is whether the lip-smacking vocalizations have some special significance. “We don’t know much about the function,” he said. “It will be interesting to see if the fact they produce these complex sounds allows them to communicate things other monkeys might not be able to.”
The possibility that early ancestors of humans may have shared this ability raises a linguistic chicken-egg-problem, Bergman added.
“The ability to produce complex sounds might have come first. Then, when we could do that, we could attach meanings and communicate in more sophisticated ways,” he said. “Or it could be that, as we needed to communicate more, we developed an ability to produce a greater variety of sounds.”
Whatever the order, vocal complexity is likely intertwined with social complexity. Baboons are closely related to geladas, but use fewer vocalizations and don’t smack their lips. Perhaps not coincidentally, baboons live in relatively small, short-lived groups.
Gelada groups stay together for many years, with females having especially long-lived relationships. Often groups come together in bands of several hundred individuals. “It’s a very complex social system. They have some of the largest groups of any primate,” Bergman said. “These very large group structures may be linked to vocal complexity. There’s some evidence across primate that bigger groups make more sounds.”
Citation: “Speech-like vocalized lip-smacking in geladas.” By Thore Bergman. Current Biology, Vol. 23 No. 7, 8 April 2013.
Video: Thore Bergman/Current BiologyLate in 2011 DC Comics acquired the worldwide rights to Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy series of novels. All three novels, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest, will be published as graphic novels under DC’s Vertigo imprint from 2012 through 2014.
The first of the three graphic novel adaptation releases, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, will arrive in bookstores November 2012 and features a cover by artist Lee Bermejo (Batman: Noel). No word yet as to the page count, format size, or cover price of the book.
Best-selling comic book and graphic novel publisher DC Entertainment announced today the creative team for the highly-anticipated new graphic novel based on Stieg Larsson’s international sensation THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. Crime author Denise Mina will write the book, with the cover image created by Lee Bermejo and art from Leonardo Manco and Andrea Mutti. DC Entertainment’s Vertigo imprint is working closely with the estate of Stieg Larsson and Hedlund Literary Agency to adapt the book, which will be released in November 2012.
“We’re thrilled to be adapting this incredible story into a series of graphic novels,” stated Karen Berger, executive editor, Vertigo. “Denise, Lee, Leonardo and Andrea have such great passion for the material and stylistically they’re a perfect match to bring it to comics life. Their beautifully dark and visceral work will certainly blow us all away.”
Scottish writer Denise Mina is the acclaimed author of DECEPTION and FIELD OF BLOOD, and is considered a leading international crime fiction novelist. Mina has also written for Vertigo’s HELLBLAZER series and most recently, she wrote A SICKNESS IN THE FAMILY graphic novel, also for Vertigo.
Lee Bermejo is fresh off the critical and sales success of graphic novel BATMAN: NOEL, a New York Times best-seller and follow-up to the 2008 hit JOKER. Bermejo has also worked numerous comic series including Vertigo’s HELLBLAZER and the Vertigo Crime graphic novels, among others.
Argentinean artist Leonardo Manco has worked extensively on Vertigo’s HELLBLAZER comic, while Italian artist Andrea Mutti first worked with Vertigo on graphic novel THE EXECUTOR, and then worked on the imprint’s popular DMZ comic series.
DC Entertainment is the worldwide leader in producing best-selling graphic novels and comic books, including best-selling Vertigo titles SANDMAN, FABLES, 100 BULLETS and ROAD TO PERDITION.
Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy is an international publishing juggernaut, with more than 60 million books sold worldwide and reaching the top of numerous best seller lists. Published by Knopf in the U.S., sales for all three books exceed 17 million copies, including digital sales of 3.5 million copies. Since September 2008, when THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO was published in hardcover, Larsson’s books have been a constant presence on bestseller lists across America.It is the closest thing to a smoking gun congressional investigators have in their probe of Project Gunrunner -- a program that was intended to stop the flow of guns to criminals in Mexico but instead allowed those guns to be smuggled to Mexico instead.
An internal memo from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives shows that U.S. officials allowed criminals to buy 1,318 guns worth nearly $1 million, even after they suspected the buyers were working for Mexican drug cartels, and that the agency's effort to stop the guns had "yielded little or no results."
That memo came to light Wednesday at a Senate Judiciary Hearing and provided by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. The ATF memo shows a list of 15 suspects, all later indicted, who bought guns on behalf of Mexican cartels.
Click here to see memo (see page 1)
Those suspects are known in the trade as straw buyers, or people who legally purchase guns and illegally resell them, in many cases to Mexican cartel members across the border.
After buying 407 guns, they became suspects in Operation Fast & Furious, an offshoot of Project Gunrunner run specifically out of the Phoenix ATF office.
In a companion memo dated June 15, 2010, field agents say they recovered “179 crime guns in Mexico…and 130” in the U.S., but roughly 1,300 were unaccounted for and "due to the proximity to the border, bank subpoenas and financial investigations have yielded little or no results."
Click here to see memo (see page 2)
In a second, equally explosive disclosure, a law enforcement source tells Fox News, that ATF undercover agents were acting as the straw buyers and purchasing guns using government-issued false identifications and then providing those guns to cartel traffickers to gain credibility in their undercover roles. In that capacity, the ATF "provided 2, 50 cal. machine guns to traffickers that are loose in Mexico and unaccounted for," the source said.
Yet, the ATF and the Department of Justice did not shut down the operation.
According to Rep,. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., additional documents show:
-- U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona Dennis Burke was in full agreement with the investigative strategy of allowing the transfer of firearms from gun stores to straw buyers.
-- Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer knew about and even approved a wiretap application for suspects targeted in Operation Fast and Furious over a year ago. Issa on Wednesday released documents from Assistant Attorney General Breuer, head of the Criminal Division and a former White House counsel to President Bill Clinton that show he approved Operation Fast and Furious wiretaps.
A second document shows that Burke supported the strategy “to allow the transfer of firearms to continue to take place … in order to further the investigation and allow for the identification of additional co-conspirators who would continue to operate and illegally traffic firearms to Mexican [Drug Trafficking Organizations].”
"I am extremely disappointed in the Justice Department’s response to my inquiry," Grassley said Wednesday. "The ATF also clearly knew that these guns were being exported south of the border to Mexico."
Grassley has been dogged in his pursuit of Project Gunrunner since a single ATF whistleblower brought it to his attention in February following the death of Agent Brian Terry.
Grassley feels that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice are stonewalling his investigation. He thinks that "in light of the growing evidence that the department’s claims (that it does not allow guns to be smuggled to Mexico) are patently false."
He took the unusual step Tuesday of personally writing to Holder, saying "you should check to see if you are getting accurate information from your staff.... You might be ill-served."
Click here to read the letter.
Holder's appearance before the Senate Wednesday was tame compared to the grilling he got the day before from Issa.
In one exchange Issa's exchange with Holder got particularly tense.
Issa: Mr. Attorney General, we’re looking at you. We’re looking at your key people who knew or should have known about this and whether or not your judgment was consistent with good practices and whether or not, instead, the Justice Department is basically guilty of allowing weapons to kill Americans and Mexicans. So will you agree to cooperate with that investigation, both on the House and Senate side?
Holder: We’ll certainly cooperate with all the investigations, but I’m going to take great exception to what you just said. The notion that somehow or other, this Justice Department is responsible for those deaths that you mentioned, that assertion is offensive. I want to tell you that.
Issa: But what if it is accurate, Mr. Attorney General?
Issa has threatened to hold the DOJ in contempt, but sources say that is a long process.
More likely, investigators will continue to pour over documents they obtained last week in Arizona and will continue to drill down until they determine who ultimately approved of the operation and how high up does the awareness go.
President Obama and Holder maintain they know nothing about Operation Fast and Furious until it was disclosed in the press.Joest Racing has found a new home, with the legendary sports car racing outfit set to take over Mazda’s DPi program beginning next year.
The Japanese manufacturer announced Tuesday the formation of Mazda Team Joest, which will compete in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with a pair of Multimatic-developed Mazda RT24-Ps.
Its current program, run by SpeedSource, has been discontinued immediately and will not take part in the three remaining Prototype races this season.
“The creation of Mazda Team Joest provides us a unique opportunity to partner with a team with proven success in the prototype ranks, and gives us the best chance to return Mazda to the top step of the podium,” said Masahiro Moro, President and CEO of Mazda North American Operations and Managing Executive Officer, Mazda Motor Corporation.
“I welcome the Joest family to the Mazda family, and I’m convinced that, together, we will write many more pages in the book of Mazda racing successes.”
The German squad, led by managing director Ralf Juttner, had been the mastermind behind Audi’s LMP1 program, having scored 11 overall victories in the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Audi and multiple titles in the FIA World Endurance Championship, American Le Mans Series and European Le Mans Series.
With Audi pulling the plug on its factory LMP1 program after a 17-year partnership with Joest late last year, it sent the team searching for a new manufacturer partner, with Juttner having attended this year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona and Twelve Hours of Sebring, with the goal of putting together a DPi program.
“We are excited and proud about this new opportunity with Mazda,” Juttner said. “Mazda has such a long tradition in motorsport and, especially in America, has created a huge platform for racing enthusiasts.
“For us, this is not only a return to American racing, which we have always enjoyed, but also great news to the big group of our Japanese fans, who have always warmly embraced us.”
The team, which will establish a North American base in the Atlanta area, will soon begin testing in preparation for next year with Mazda’s four current factory drivers.
Its driver lineup for 2018, however, has not yet been determined.
In conjunction with Joest, further developments will be made to the car by Multimatic, with the Canadian-based firm taking the lead in chassis improvements after struggling, largely with reliability issues, in the first half of its debut season.
The car will continue to be powered by the AER-tuned Mazda MZ-2.0T engine.
“This is an important moment in Mazda Motorsports history as we align our brand’s top-level sports car racing program with one of the best sports car teams of all time,” said Mazda Motorsports director John Doonan.
“What Mr. Joest, Ralf Jüttner and the entire Joest Racing organization have accomplished is not likely to ever be matched.
“We are very excited to work with them to put Mazda in victory lane and to strive for more championship trophies, adding to the substantial Mazda and Joest Racing legacies in the years ahead.”
Mazda’s new partnership with Joest brings to an end a long-running relationship with Sylvain Tremblay’s SpeedSource operation, which helped deliver the manufacturer multiple championships in Grand-Am competition.
“We accomplished a great deal with their organization at all levels of the sport for more than two decades,” Doonan said.
“They are a perfect example of a team that has grown through our Mazda system: from grassroots club racing, to Rolex 24 race-winning efforts in GT and then on to the Prototype program.
“Friendships in our sport run deep and we certainly don’t see that changing.”Buy Photo The edge of Tate's Hell State Forest. A portion of a 10-mile stretch from Carrabelle to Sopchoppy is being considered for a state lands purchase. (Photo: Democrat files)Buy Photo Story Highlights The rolling terrain features sand hills, marshes, hardwoods and the rare Godfrey's blazing star
State Acquisition and Restoration Council staff members will be spending the summer in the vicinity of hell — that’s Tate’s Hell State Forest. They will be surveying more than 17,000 acres of rolling sand hills, hardwoods, and marshes to see if the swath of wild north Florida is worthy of being included on the Florida Forever priority list as conservation land.
The property is called the Bluffs of St. Teresa and stretches 10 miles east from Carrabelle to about four miles south of Sopchoppy. The Bluffs looks like a truncated Louisiana when outlined on a map and takes in much of the land between Tate’s Hell and Bald Point State Park, where Ochlockonee Bay meets the Gulf of Mexico.
“There’s nothing like this for sale anywhere near the Gulf,” said Dean Saunders, a realtor representing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' interests in selling the tract of Franklin County land. “It’s very, very unique. Seventeen miles of water frontage; the Gulf, the river, the bay. How do you put a price on that?”
Well, they did. And if the state likes the price then some locals will be left with mixed feelings. Conservation land is tax exempt, depriving local governments of property tax money.
“We’re all environmentalists here. There’s no doubt about that,” said Franklin County Commissioner Joseph Parrish. “But there’s a concern when you take another 17,000 acres off the tax rolls.”
Parrish said more than 88-percent of Franklin County is already owned by government. Seven of the county’s top 10 landowners are either local, state or federal entities. Much of Franklin County is managed as either state or national forests or to protect Apalachicola Bay.
Saunders said the asking price for the property is $62 million. It’s been on the market for a year. Last month, he made a pitch to the state. He submitted an application to ARC for the tract to be purchased as a Florida Forever property and set aside for recreation, conservation and protection of natural resources.
“It’s a beautiful piece of land — rolling hills, bay front, Gulf front. It’s something. We thought if they would like to, perhaps, the people of Florida should have the opportunity to buy the land,” said Saunders.
This summer, ARC staff will descend on the terraced landscape and walk among the 12-foot sand hills, marshes and hardwoods looking for rare plants and animals and identifying plant communities. It's part of the evaluation of properties for inclusion in a state land-buying program.
A rare plant, the Godfrey’s blazing star, a rare mussel, the bald eagle and several other rare birds are known to live on the property
Since the early 1990s, Florida has set aside more than 2.5 million acres for preservation and protection. That’s six percent of the state’s total acreage and the 14th highest among the states, according to the National Wilderness Institute.
Parrish said local residents understand and accept why much of the county’s property is tax exempt but explains the situation makes it hard for the county to raise money and pay its bills.
Staff’s assessment of the property is scheduled for the October ARC meeting in Tallahassee.
“Maybe there’s a way we can work it out so some of the land is homesteaded,” said Parrish.
Reporter James Call can be reached at [email protected]. Follow on Twitter @CallTallahassee.
Read or Share this story: http://on.tdo.com/29iHeN4Groban was essentially leaking Gen Con tales for a week when he came back, or sweating them maybe; they beaded on his irregular surface. One of them was about an encounter with Margaret Weis. I should say that he had an encounter, perhaps. Judging from the particulars of his account, it’s entirely possible that Margaret Weis - who must be considered fantasy royalty - had no perceptible encounter of any kind.
So, I filmed an upcoming episode of my ELI5 show about a game called Atlas Reactor, a game I didn’t understand entirely, which made it a great candidate for explaining as though I were a child. I played through a game and a half or so with them on the show, and then I’ve played at least one game and probably more every day since.
I was deeply, deeply confused about what type of game it was, and I’d even installed it and read about it and done literally everything I could to be a good consumer that longs to be rewarded. I had heard that it was a Turn Based MOBA somehow, but we’ve got to get the fuck away from calling games with unique characters MOBAs. Street Fighter isn’t a MOBA. We can get into what a MOBA is at some other juncture, but let’s agree today that a MOBA is not any game where there is more than one character.
If anything, Atlas Reactor is more like competitive XCOM, but that’s a garbage comparison also that gains expediency while sacrifices every other detail. It’s a Turn-Based Tactics game, we can build up from there: in its basic form, two teams of four unique characters engage in turn-based arena battles. But what it means is interesting, because of how they have parsed time. Look at this:
Prep - Dash - Blast - Move
Everybody does that last one - Move - but because these are Unique Characters, analogous to LOL Champs, you have five abilities. Four you can use right away, and a final “ult” that requires you to have generated enough Energy through your other abilities to use it. Each ability is coded to Prep, Dash, or Blast, and inside the turn they occur in that order. Most of your direct damage is happening at the end there, in Blast. Dash moves can get you out of the way, and occur before that. Prep abilities take a bunch of forms, but happen earliest. But what’s key is that all abilities in a phase occur simultaneously, so there’s tons of From Hell’s Heart type moments from characters that are on their way out. The character I use most, Zuki, has an ability that begins in one turn and then ends in another turn. They’ve interpreted their way of measuring time in so many unique ways.
Different characters are more or less adept at different phases, and some don’t have abilities that take place in certain phases at all. Philosophically, it’s hard not to be fascinated by that. What does it mean to be a “sniper” in that context? Well, one way they’ve done it to to make a character salted with interesting Prep abilities one turn that lead to devastating applications of Blast abilities you use in later turns.
There’s more to it, for example some abilities have the Free keyword, which means they can be used in conjunction with other actions. Each of those abilities I mentioned can be customized in a variety of ways, to generate more energy, or to apply debuffs, or some other mechanical novelty. It’s really special, but little weird, and it’s a scary place out there right now where making a good game - maybe even a great game - isn’t enough. If I can fill that gap, I will.
(CW)TB out.Welcome to another edition of This Week in Racism. I’ll be ranking news stories on a scale of 1 to RACIST, with “1” being the least racist and “RACIST” being the most racist.
-There's no question that Holland's got talent. What's surprising is that the small European nation's biggest talent is telling shitty racist jokes. Cornelis Heuckeroth, who goes by the clever stage name, "Gordon," got himself into a spot of bother when he unleashed a series of zingers at the expense of a Chinese contestant named Xiao Wang. Wang belted out a memorable rendition of Verdi's "La donna e mobile" from Rigoletto that wowed the live audience, but before he could start singing, he had to submit to a dressing down from his Dutch overlords.
Gordon asked Wang, "Which [Verdi] number are you singing? Number 39 with rice?" He also snuck in that old favorite where Chinese people say "suplise" instead of "surprise." And—hold on to your sides for they are about to split—he revealed that Wang's performance was the "best Chinese I've had in weeks, and it's not a takeaway." Following the performance, the judges feigned surprise that a nerdy Chinese guy with glasses could sing, and the lone American judge informed the Dutch judges that you're "really not supposed to say things like that to people." Gordon's response was a thoughtful, well-reasoned utterance of the word, "What?"
Holland's Got Talent, just like it's American incarnation, seems to be a revolving-door freak show where most of the pleasure is derived from watching rich people shamelessly mock eccentrics. I know what you're saying, that's sounds great. The contestants go onto these shows willingly, hoping for their moment of glory in front of millions of viewers. Everyone is aware of what their roles are in this modern-day pantomime. That said, if you are going to make fun of someone for being different, at least be clever. This Gordon fellow could at least try saying something fresh about the Chinese, like how they are the most populous nation on the planet, and could lay waste to the nation of Holland with a collective 1.3 billion farts in their general direction, never mind their massive economic and military influence. Try harder next time, guys. RACIST
-Last week, we brought to your attention the Chappelle's Show-esque comic irony of Craig Cobb, the North Dakota white supremacist who found out he's 14 percent black. Poor Craig found out just how tough it can be to live in America as a black man when residents of Leith, North Dakota thought it wise to remind him that their town is for whites only. An unidentified individual spray-painted "BACK IN BLACK" on Cobb's home. Assistant State's Attorney Todd Schwarz clarified that the alleged perpetrator is "not an AC/DC fan," leading me to believe this was a racially motivated crime. Cobb took to the streets to "patrol" his town following the potential hate crime, and was arrested for his efforts. No word on if the NAACP plans to come to Cobb's defense, but I can say that I #standwithcobb. Stay strong, soul brother! RACIST
-The official Armani Instagram got actress Alfre Woodard confused with actor Idris Elba. Some people say this is racist, and that Armani is implying that all black people look alike. I say, if you throw a beard on Alfre Woodard, I'd get confused too. 4
-Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the television personality who recently completed the "Devil's Trifecta" of starring in a dumb reality show, co-hosting a daytime talk show, and working for Fox News, offered a rebuke to Oprah Winfrey's recent assertion that much of the criticism leveled at Barack Obama is racist. On an episode of Fox & Friends, Hasselbeck said, “throwing around racist accusations, calling someone a racist certainly for disagreeing when they are indeed not, would undermine racism when it does occur.”
The Survivor All-Star almost, kind of has a point. Accusing someone of racism is often the easiest path to discrediting a contrary opinion, primarily because it cannot be proven empirically. There's no racism test that people can pass or fail. This column is only one man's opinion on the week's events, not the final word on what is racist. The best we can do is quote former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who, when asked to define pornography said, "I know it when I see it." Using accusations of racism as a rhetorical device does undermine society's attempts to curb bigotry, because, as Hasselbeck pointed out, it cheapens the discourse. That doesn't mean that Americans should feel afraid to speak up on the topic. The only way to get a handle on what racism is, and how to combat it fully, is to continue the dialogue.
Are some criticisms of Barack Obama racially motivated? Certainly. Does that mean he should not be criticized? Of course not. After his supporters fought long and hard to save Obamacare, the online marketplace rollout has been disasterous. In a democracy, it's the responsibility of the people to say, "you fucked up." He fucked up, but not because he's black. 2
The Most Racist Tweets of the Week:
Pumpkin spiced nigger — seth :] (@sethHashtagAF) November 22, 2013
A nigger walks into a bar with a parrot. Barkeep says "whered you get that thing?" Parrot replies "Africa. Their all over the damn place!" — Chet Walken (@Walken4GOP) November 21, 2013
I said to the barman, that chink just standing ere, he 1 a those kamikaze geezers? Why Ray because hes chinese? No he just nicked my pint! — Ray Carlin Winston (@ThaFackinDaddy) November 20, 2013
Stupid beaner girls at McDonalds are so loud and annoying — Frost (@kadertot_5) November 17, 2013
swear I'm hunting this stupid ass cracker @MelissaBachman then imma taxidermy her & mount her over my fire place (: #fortheanimals — Griselda Blanco (@wetX2) November 22, 2013
I want to call this weather a nigger and drag it behind a truck. — THE DEVIL (@NOIRFANCY) November 20, 2013The administrators of two file-sharing sites have been sentenced to fines and a year in jail for linking to copyright works. Breaking a long run of operators being acquitted for similar activities, a Spanish court decided that the act of linking constituted a for-profit "public communication". The lawyer for one of the defendants has denounced the decision, saying that it can only be understood in "political terms".
In common with many similar sites, FenixP2P.com and MP3-es.com carried no content of their own, but instead linked to other locations where content was hosted. A negative ruling against their operators seemed unlikely as Spanish courts have continually acquitted defendants running similar sites.
It therefore comes as a quite shock to hear that the Provincial Court of Vizcaya has sentenced the operators of both sites not only to fines, but a year in jail.
After originally being acquitted, an appeal in the case was brought by ADES (Spanish Association of Distributors and Publishers of Entertainment Software) and Promusicae, the well-known recording industry outfit.
While the court agreed that neither site actually hosted any infringing content, it noted that the defendants organized and made available links which enabled free downloads of copyright works, from which they intended to profit via advertising.
Crucially, the Court of Vizcaya viewed linking very differently to other courts handling similar cases in the past, when it described the act as “communicating to the public” and not an exchange between individuals.
Lawyer for FenixP2P, Carlos Sanchez Almeida, says the decision is completely wrong and can only be viewed as a political statement.
“FenixP2P was a P2P links page that all courts have declared exempt from criminal liability in recent years,” he explained.
“Given the general atmosphere in the country after the internet campaign against the Sinde Law, a statement like this can only be understood in political terms.
“The Provincial Court of Vizcaya did not hear directly from experts and witnesses, in violation of the principles of contradiction and immediacy,” he added.
Almeida says he is considering his response to the decision, possibly to include an appeal to the Constitutional Court and even the European Court of Human Rights.Chairman of NBC Entertainment Bob Greenblatt is reported to have ripped GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump in a Facebook post, calling the former NBC reality-TV star “toxic” and “demented.” Greenblatt’s division, which produced Trump’s The Apprentice before he joined the company in 2011, cut ties with the real-estate mogul last year. “The sad state of affairs thanks to a pompous businessman turned reality-TV star (whose show consistently ran LAST in its time period, by the way) who thinks speaking his mind is refreshing,” Greenblatt wrote. “It’s actually corrosive and toxic because his ‘mind’ is so demented; and his effect will unfortunately linger long after he’s been told to get off the stage.” A rep for NBC only commented to Page Six that, “Bob’s Facebook page is not public.”Viking's Choice: Twitching Tongues, 'Sacrifice Me'
Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of the artist Courtesy of the artist
Groove can be an ugly word in metal. But just because some bands haven't evolved beyond Pantera's (awesome) Cowboys From Hell, that doesn't mean the groove can't find nastier pastures. Twitching Tongues has been particularly adept at the moody mosh, where angst broods with Alice In Chains-inspired melodies, a sludgy Crowbar crunch and Colin Young's husky baritone.
The L.A. band's third album, Disharmony, is far heavier and more outwardly metallic than its hardcore-leaning catalog, with some thrash/death-metal riffs breaking up the prowling groove. The dramatic "Sacrifice Me" is particularly indicative of the band's shift, with a searing chorus and a sinister funk bass that floats in space. According to Young, "It doesn't sound like any other Twitching Tongues song, and it's got a spirit of its own within the record. It's for those constantly affected by the negative actions of others growing up: the freaks, the nerds, the outcasts, the bullied. Always fight back. 'They deserve every second of pain.'"
Disharmony comes out Oct. 30 on Metal Blade.Splatoon 2 is selling seven times faster than the original Splatoon
Matt Sayer 24 August 2017 NEWS
The turf-war shooter accounts for one in every three Switch games purchased in Japan.
It seems Nintendo made the right move in bringing Splatoon back for a second splat on the Nintendo Switch. According to numbers collected by the Game Data Library, Splatoon 2 has sold over one million copies in Japan alone, accounting for one in every three Switch games sold in the country.
This impressive pace has seen Splatoon 2 sell the same amount of copies in one month as the original game did in seven months – a tremendous feat even considering the Wii U's low adoption rate.
Doing a graphical comparison here, Splatoon 2 sells in 1 month what the original sold in 7. pic.twitter.com/KTHmitEFd5 — Game Data Library (@GameDataLibrary) August 23, 2017
In comparison, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has only sold half a million copies in Japan, despite launching over four months earlier than Splatoon 2. Even Mario Kart 8 Deluxe pales in comparison to the squid-based shooter, racking up a little over 642,000 sales since its release back in April.
It's fantastic to see Splatoon's unique ink-splatting concept get the recognition it deserves this second time around, and it's all the better seeing as Nintendo just dropped a bunch of new free content for the game. And hey, if you're looking to get splatting yourself, why not check out our Splatoon 2 best price guide?Trump’s silence about four U.S. troops killed in action by ISIS is deafening.
It’s been nearly two weeks since four Army Special Forces troops were killed in an ambush by ISIS gunmen in Niger, and Donald Trump still has not publicly acknowledged their sacrifice, let along honor them or offer up condolences.
During that time, Trump has weighed in on more than a dozen topics via his Twitter account, picking fights with the NFL about how best to honor the military, whining about unfair media coverage, and trying to relive the 2016 election. But nothing to honor the troops.
In a speech on Friday, Trump actually bragged about how his team was defeating ISIS. That, just one week after ISIS fighters killed four Americas, making it the worse day of combat loss for the U.S. military during Trump’s time in office.
Trump even golfed this weekend, while the bodies of the U.S. fallen were being returned to the U.S.
Trump won’t dwell on the four losses, let alone acknowledge them in public. But the men who were killed were Staff Sgt. Bryan Black, 35; Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Johnson, 39; Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright, 29, of Lyons,; and Sgt. La David Johnson, 25. All four were assigned to the Army’s 3rd Special Forces Group.
Black, 35, served as a Special Forces medical sergeant. A native of Puyallup, Washington, he enlisted in the Army in October 2009, and will be laid to rest at the Arlington National Cemetery on Oct. 30.
Jeremiah Johnson, from Springboro, Ohio, enlisted in the Army October 2007. He was recently described as “a red, white and blue, rock solid American with a great heart.” He leaves behind a wife and two daughters.
Wright was buried in Georgia on Saturday, as mourners lined a local highway to pay respects, according to an AP dispatch. Wright had followed both of his parents and a brother into the Army. In fact, Wright’s family has been serving in the military for over 200 years.
“To our records, we had not lost a single member until Dustin,” said his brother, Will Wright. “That’s 205 years, that’s a good run.”
David Johnson, the youngest of the four U.S. troops killed in Niger, was “a gym and church regular who believed in hard work,” according to a local news report. “Aside from his love of cycling, his friends also remembered his love of cars and his commitment to being a reliable father and husband. He even tattooed his wife’s name on his chest.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s silence remains deafening.What it all comes down to is giving birth is the most selfish act in the whole world. Whether you planned it or didn’t plan on having/wanting a child, that decision (or lack thereof), is a selfish one.
In my opinion, everyone wanting sex should always take a pill, use a condom, or be gay. And a side note, the last choice is deemed best because there’s no way in hell unwanted pregnancies happen. In fact, gay couples even help in alleviating the earth’s overpopulation problem. And still, just a reminder for all the gay couples out there who want a baby…ADOPT DON’T SHOP. IF THE BUYING STOPS, THE UNWANTED PREGNANCIES…still go on…but, you know, it is still better to adopt.
But this is not a sexuality dissertation, I am here to make you realize that having a child isn’t all what it’s cracked-up to be — especially for the child that you have utterly and completely neglected to give full support to. And I am not saying to totally stop populating; I just want to make clear that when you do decide to have a child, that you completely are prepared for the veracity of that decision, and that you are prepared to live your life for your child forever and ever. It is only when you are dead that you stop becoming a parent.
And since your child didn’t “want” to be born, your child has no obligation and guarantee to make you happy, you take that person for what he/she is no matter what. You cannot throw an argument that your child should be grateful and should take care of you in return for giving him the “wonderful gift” called life. Act like a parent and not somebody who is still “single”, or act like your money is still for yours alone. And MOST IMPORTANTLY, having a child is not a means to an end: No, your marriage cannot be fixed with a
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escaped from a jail in Simpson County was captured Wednesday morning, authorities said.
Shawn Dennis Bratcher, 26, was arrested about 7:45 a.m. on Athens Road in Mendenhall, Simpson County Sheriff's Department Chief Deputy Bryan Buckley said in a news release.
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Cutrell Varnado, 28, was captured about 30 minutes after the Tuesday morning escape from the Simpson County Adult Detention Center.
"Varnado is currently incarcerated for capital murder and kidnapping," Buckley said.
Bratcher was jailed on charges of receiving stolen property, Buckley said.
Mendenhall schools were locked down Tuesday morning during the search. The Simpson County School District lifted the lockdown at about 12:30 p.m.
AlertMeWINNIPEG — It’s a year late, but the new Transcona Aquatic Park is opening Friday with free admission.
Global News got an exclusive tour of the brand new facility at the corner of Kildare Avenue East and Wabasha Street.
“This is a first of its kind in Winnipeg,” said Councillor Russ Wyatt. “You’d have to go to Portage la Prairie to see anything close to this.”
The park, also known as TAP, features four water slides, two diving boards, a beach-like sloped access, shaded areas, change rooms and washrooms.
This was phase two of the almost $7-million project.
Phase one began in June 2013 with a $800,000 splash pad. The splash park was open for a year before it was shut down for two summers while phase two was built.
The project was supposed to have a lazy river but that cost ran too high.
It was also delayed by a year due to a debate at city hall over the cost of building outdoor washrooms and change rooms rather than renovating existing facilities inside the nearby Transcona Centennial Pool. In the end, new facilities were built.
The grand opening is Friday and swimming will begin free of charge right after the ribbon cutting at 10:30 a.m to 8 p.m. The park has free admission on Saturday July 1st and Sunday July 2nd as well with hours from 1 p.m to 8 p.m.
1 p.m to 8 p.m are the hours the park will operate this summer giving staff time to work out problems that arise in the morning. Next year the hours will be extended.
Admission costs and more information can be found here.Three iPad users claim that because the iPad will shut itself off after remaining in direct sunlight for long enough, it fails to meet the promises Apple made about using the iPad as an e-book reader. The group has filed a federal class-action lawsuit in the Northern California district to "redress and end this pattern of unlawful conduct."
When the iPad's operating temperature reaches a critical level, it will force itself to shut down and display a message warning the user to let the device cool down before trying use it again. This warning is the same that iPhones and iPod touches give before shutting down when they overheat, often after being left in direct sunlight.
The lawsuit alleges that the iPad "does not live up to reasonable consumer's expectations created by Apple insofar as the iPad overheats so quickly under common weather conditions." Apple lists the iPad's operating temperature as 32° to 95° F (0° to 35° C), so it's not hard to see that using it out in the hot sun can quickly heat up the device over the maximum temperature.
The plaintiffs seem to take particular issue with Apple claiming that "reading on the iPad is just like reading a book." This claim is patently false, according to the lawsuit, because a real book can be used in "the sunlight or other normal environmental conditions" without shutting off.
Most consumer electronic devices can be damaged from overheating if used in direct sunlight for long periods of time; not all of them have the automatic shutoff capability that the iPad does. (Sadly, my boom box from 1986 didn't have an automatic shutoff, and my Quiet Riot tape melted all over the inside when I left it playing by the pool on a hot summer day.) However, during my hours-long marathon Plants vs Zombies sessions—both indoors and in the shade of an apartment deck on a sunny, 82° day—my iPad never became even warm to the touch.
The iPad may not work "just like a book" at the beach or out in the hot sun. Does that fact truly make Apple guilty of fraud, negligent misrepresentation, deceptive advertising, unfair business practices, breach of express or implied warranty, intentional misrepresentation, or unjust enrichment? The plaintiffs are seeking class-action status and asking for an injunction against Apple's "false" promises as well as "real" and punitive damages.Journal Entry: “There appears to be no sign of western civilization. I am The Outsider; with eyes on me at all times. Eating at a restaurant, I notice wandering eyes glancing up and down directed at me. Some so glaring & blatant, I have wonder if they’re aware that they are staring or if they even care for that matter. My hotel doesn’t want to deal with me, for I don’t speak their language (understandable,) and often wave their hands in an attempt to end our conversation and avoid trying to decipher what I’m saying. The game of Charades has officially become my life.”
Facebook and Instagram, where I found solace, was nothing more than my portal to the Western World. It was a mind-numbing task to keep me entertained while I waited for time to pass. Nevertheless, I could no longer turn to it in my hour of need, as China had banned them along with several other applications and websites. Even with a VPN (virtual private network,) accessing social media was excruciatingly slow and agitating, mostly futile. I was forced to endure my spare time and adapt.
I had almost surrendered to the forceful will of China. The feeling of unwelcomeness, the nearly 100% fortified language barrier, the ignorance to personal space, and the constant surveillance and checking in with police, were tolling. I watched as the thought of exploring new boundaries and traversing into the untouched wilderness caught fire and turned to ash. With the regulations and risk that prowled, it seemed impossible to forge ignorantly like I always had.
Before giving up completely, I made one last ditch effort in journeying East. After all, China held far too much beauty to concede so easily. With the pronunciation of my destination fresh on my tongue, I headed for the Suzhou Railway Station in hopes that I would acquire a ticket for the following day. When I arrived, I must have seen at least 15 ticket counters, each with a line of 15 people. I took a deep breath and chose a line that appeared fast-moving. My anxiety grew, as I closed in on the counter and the realization that they don’t speak English triumphed my thoughts. “What would I do if they didn’t understand me or if they had questions or if I had questions for that matter?” I thought to myself.
When it was my turn, I repeated my chosen destination as clearly and loudly as I could. The attendant looked at me with outward confusion. I changed my inflection several times and even tried saying the word differently. Still, he looked at me with annoyance. I pulled out my phone and placed it against the glass window. He studied it for a moment and, clear as day, said: “Zhangjiajie!?” My face turned blank, as I nodded yes. I swear he repeated the exact words I had said to him. The fact that he couldn’t piece together what I was saying dumbfounded me; perhaps he was just toying with me. He typed on his computer for a few seconds before turning to me to say: there are no trains to Zhangjiajie from this station. He said if I wanted a direct train to Zhangjiajie, I would have to go to the Shanghai Railway Station.
His confidence made me curious because my contact, who speaks Chinese and did the research, had confirmed two trains out of Suzhou to Zhangjiajie. Nevertheless, I didn’t question him because the line behind me had started to grow. One man was so close I could feel his toes touching my heels and his bag jabbing into my back. I turned to him several times as if to make a point that he was uncomfortably close. Even the ticket attendant asked him to take a few steps back. He did not.
After a failed attempt at purchasing a ticket East, I reconciled that I should stick to the major cities where English was more relevant and the eyes less glaring. I had accepted defeat, and, even further, was content with it. I had resources all over the world helping me through China, but with my fate already accepted, I silenced them, rationalizing that it would be best to stick to the cities. One contact, in particular, did not accept my defeat and assured me that there was a train that went to Zhangjiajie from Suzhou. She was the one who did the research in the first place and was the reason I was so confident in going to the train station where I knew communicating with them would be a struggle. She messaged me several times saying that I should go back to the station. She went as far as reaching out to a friend, a Chinese resident, who confirmed the train to Zhangjiajie from Suzhou. She followed up with a screenshot including a Chinese sentence, the train number, the train time, and the cost. She exclaimed that I should show this to the ticketing agent and assured me I couldn’t go wrong.
I glanced down at my phone, reading the time 21:15, but I had already made up my mind. After all, I was tired and ready for bed. Then it dawned on me: what am I doing? I had 45 days left in China, and I was about to throw them all away because things got challenging. I mean, my short experience in China had been the toughest yet, due to the non-avoidable language barrier and lack of willingness on their end to work with me, but was it enough to tame me and send me back to the city? I thought to myself.
I looked over at my phone again, 21:18. The small manifestation of motivation crept through me and pushed me out of bed. I told Ryo that I would run to the train station one last time. It was close to a six-kilometer round trip but, by the time my shoes were on, I was more than thrilled to find out if the journey would continue or end within the city limits. Her confidence gave me confidence, and I was ready to face the ticket counter once more.
Cash in pocket, I raced toward the train station. The fall weather had struck China a week earlier, so the air felt refreshing and eased the tortures that running had so graciously invited. I made it to the ticketing office doors by 21:45 only to see a large sign covering the handle: Ticketing hours 07:30 – 21:30. “Fuuuuu****k,” I exhaled quietly. I searched the entire railway station looking for an information center or employee that might be able to point me in the right direction, even though I was confident that I was too late. I searched for several minutes with no luck and, eventually, wandered back toward the South Gate where my path home awaited. On my way back, I noticed an identical ticketing office. I thought it might be the same one until I saw a sign reading: “North Ticketing Office,” hanging above the corridor. I thought for a second before making the decision to go check it out, just in case they were open.
I kept my expectations maintained and approached the escalator. As few inches at a time became visible, I could see that the office lights were on and the doors open. “Could it be?” I thought to myself. I raced up the escalator and made my way into the giant room. There, I saw a lonely ticketing booth occupied by an attendant. The line was three people deep, and I was quick to become the fourth. This time, when it was my turn, I didn’t speak; rather, I slid my phone up to the glass window and looked at him intently. He looked at my phone, back at me, and then onto his computer. A few moments went by, then he turned to me and held up his index finger (he was asking if I only wanted one ticket). I nodded with hesitation, as not but several hours before, another attendant told me there were no trains to Zhangjiajie. He slid the computer screen toward me, pointing at the price. A sense of relief came about, as I handed over my money. He had my money but continued staring at me. “PASSPORT?!” he questioned. In the back of my head I knew there was a possibility that they would need my passport for the transaction, but since I had booked several bus tickets without it, I figured I wouldn’t need it. I was wrong.
He slid the money back under the window and, the best he could, said: “no passport, no ticket.” I was frantic and explained how I had left my passport at my hotel and how I really needed this ticket. I even tried to show him a picture of my passport from my phone, but he stood by his original “no” and warned that there was nothing he could do. He said I would have to find the Police Cart if I wanted more help with purchasing a ticket.
Now, the last thing I wanted was to find a police officer, as I was heavily warned always to, at all times, keep my passport on my person. I read about random spot checks and the penalty associated for those caught without it. And to think I was going to approach a police officer so I could tell him that I didn’t have mine?? To me, It sounded more like a trap than an act of goodwill.
I left my place in line anyhow and searched for the police cart. Two steps outside of the door was a police officer on the phone; I patiently waited for him to finish his conversation hoping that he spoke a little bit of English. As it turns out, he did not. He slid his phone into his pocket and blabbed a bunch of Chinese at me, barely letting in a breath. I pleaded that I only spoke English, but it didn’t seem to get through to him. I motioned to the counter and waved him to follow me. He had a smile on the whole time and didn’t appear to be bothered by my interruption. His teeth were missing and his uniform, old and tattered, but I felt comfortable with him because he seemed to be the only person who didn’t mind working with me in trying to figure things out.
When we arrived back at the counter, they exchanged words in Chinese. Some, I understood clearly. “He doesn’t understand,” I heard the police officer say, as he pointed at me with pity. The ticket attendant, trying to follow protocol, argued as if he was going to lose his job. I found it ironic that the police officer was encouraging a break in the protocol that the government had created.
After some back and forth, the ticket attendant finally accepted the picture of my passport and money, in exchange for a ticket to Zhangjiajie. I thanked them both with exaggeration and did my best to convey how grateful I was for what they had done. After all, I was considerably grateful for not having to come back the next morning or to have to run all the way back to my hotel to grab my passport. My faith in Chinese people became restored by the police officer’s actions and ability to understand what it can be like as a foreigner in a country without the advantage of words. Honestly, I could’ve hugged the man!
As I walked back to my hotel, I could feel the life sliver back into my veins and, once again, I felt its rejuvenating effects take hold. I smiled for it was the pure essence that shaped who I was and had set me apart from other weary travelers in the past. The thought of a new adventure or journey was my lifeblood and the cure for ordinariness. The seemingly normal train ticket was the difference between visiting a country and experiencing it; seeing its culture and being a part of it. It was a ticket into the unknown that would inevitably lead to more unknown and more adventures.
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The Impossible Object TeamThee eel was removed from inside the patient’s body
This story might make you feel a little unwell, but imagine how uncomfortable it must be for the guy on the operating table.
He got an eel stuck in his backside as a result of a prank gone wrong.
Couple frantically wave to try and stop cruise ship after being 45 minutes late
Initially it was believed the eel may have been inserted for sexual kicks, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
His friends allegedly inserted the Asian swamp eel into his backside but then it swam into his body and disappeared.
Images and video footage from the Second People’s Hospital of Yibin, south west China show medics having found the animal inside the man’s body using an endoscope.
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After having cut him open, they then remove the eel by slowly lifting it out of him, astonishing the nurses and other staff inside the operating theatre.
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The eel even appears to be still alive, twitching as the doctor removes it using a pair of forceps.
The man is now recovering from the operation and is not expected to suffer any long-terms injuries as a result of the prank gone horribly wrong.
In March this year doctors removed an Asian swamp eel and four pond loaches (misgurnus anguillicaudatus) from the stomach of a young woman after she shoved all of them into her body during a live broadcast.
She survived the stunt, which was aimed at gaining fans online, but had her account terminated for the inappropriate material.
Last month there was a case of another patient with an eel stuck up his backside.
He had put the 2ft eel up his backside in a bid to cure himself of constipation.
He ended up in hospital in Guangzhou, China, with severe stomach ache.Aedes aegypti carries not just Zika, but also dengue fever, yellow fever, and Chikungunya virus. CDC The ongoing outbreak of Zika virus in the Americas can be traced to a single species of mosquito called Aedes aegypti, which we once almost eradicated from these areas.
In the 1940s and 1950s, Central and South American countries launched massive campaigns to eradicate the pesky mosquito, which also carries yellow fever, dengue fever, and Chikungunya virus. And these efforts were largely successful:
As of 1964, the mosquito had reportedly been eradicated from all mainland countries of the Western Hemisphere between the United States and the southern tip of South America except for Venezuela, Colombia, and French Guiana.
According to the World Health Organization, "Aedes aegypti was virtually eliminated from the Americas. By the late 1960s, most mosquito-borne diseases were no longer considered to be major public health problems outside Africa."
But as the threat diminished, so did the resources available for battling the problem, and the mosquito came surging back.
We asked Gregory Lanzaro, a professor of pathology, microbiology and immunology at the University of California at Davis why these eradication efforts ultimately failed.
The main reason, he said, was that the programs weren't sustainable.
"When the numbers of mosquitoes and level of disease drops to a very low level, the people who are funding those efforts withdraw the money, the control goes away, and the mosquitoes come back," Lanzaro told Business Insider.
Why the approach used back then won't work today
The primary method of controlling mosquitoes back then involved spraying them with insecticides like DDT, but this wouldn't be practical today, Lanzaro said. Apart from the fact that DDT is incredibly toxic — as Rachel Carson's famous book "Silent Spring" made clear — many A. aegypti mosquitoes have evolved resistance to the pesticide. Some of the early efforts to eradicate A. aegypti involved inspectors forcing their way into people's homes to ferret out places where the insects might breed. "Whereas in the past you could pass regulations that required homeowners to give access to mosquito control people, today in most societies that's not possible," Lanzaro said.
A technician from Oxitec inspects larvae of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in Campinas, Brazil. Thomson Reuters On the other hand, today's scientists have some techniques at their disposal that we didn't have in the 1960s: namely, genetic engineering.
New genetic tools in the fight against disease
In a promising new development, mosquitoes can be modified to be sterile or resistant to carrying parasites like Zika.
In fact, a British company called Oxitec is doing exactly that, by creating male mosquitoes with a gene that causes their offspring to die before they reach adulthood. Brazil has already begun doing field tests of these genetically modified mosquitoes, and the results are promising.
However, this approach has its problems too. Making these mosquitoes requires producing them in large quantities and releasing them regularly, which is expensive and may not be very sustainable.
Another promising approach involves creating mosquitoes that are guaranteed to pass on a trait like viral resistance or sterility to all of their offspring, a strategy known as gene drive. Compared with other genetic approaches, gene drive would require far fewer mosquitoes and less frequent releases.
But it poses some ethical issues. Some environmentalists worry that altering or completely eradicating a mosquito species would have unforeseen effects on an ecosystem.
A combined approach is needed
While Lanzaro is skeptical of these concerns, he's still cautious. "To say there absolutely would be zero risk would not be fair," he said, but "we have to balance that with the benefits."
Genetic engineering may be our best bet, but we need to combine it with other approaches, such as educating people about how to get rid of the mosquito's breeding spots.
"We're going to continually be faced with the introduction of these kinds of disease into the US. Being better able to manage them is something that really needs serious thought," Lanzaro said.Seattle apartments used to feature one parking space per unit, but more recently only about half of new rentals near downtown or transit have a parking stall. The trade-off is supposed to be more — and more affordable — apartments.
As Seattle grows into a larger and denser city, urban renters are giving up a long-held luxury: the apartment-building parking space.
It’s now common for buildings to open completely free of parking in a city where, not long ago, the average renter was guaranteed spots for one or two cars.
In downtown and areas near frequent transit service across Seattle, 30 percent of new apartment developments proposed in the past several years included no parking at all, according to new data analysis provided by the city.
Newer apartments increasingly don’t have parking Seattle apartment projects proposed or built near frequent transit service — where parking is not required — from mid-2012 to early 2016: * 386 buildings totaling 37,141 units * 30 percent of buildings have no parking * 15 percent of apartment units are in buildings with no parking * Overall, a median of 0.5 parking space per unit * Projects with parking average just 0.73 parking space per unit Source: city of Seattle
But even buildings that do include garages are shrinking them: On average across the city, developers now include 60 percent fewer parking spaces per unit at new buildings than they did a decade ago. Now, only about half of new apartments come with even an option for a parking space.
The change is based on the bet that more people will give up their cars, and that cutting out costly parking garages will allow more apartments to spring up, helping ease the city’s affordability crisis.
But it’s been a bumpy ride: Some residents have complained it’s still not possible to live a car-free lifestyle in Seattle, and that vehicles have simply migrated from apartment garages to parking on increasingly crowded city streets. And while the change has spurred construction of thousands of new apartments each of the past few years, the city’s rents are among the fastest-growing in the country.
Either way, with Seattle’s roads at capacity and new parking regulations not going away, the trend certainly appears to be the future of the city.
“You’re seeing a major shift as the city grows up and gets dense,” said Greg Smith, CEO of local developer Urban Visions. “The trend clearly is less parking. We’re going through this transformation, and any time you go through changes, it’s stressful, and you see that right now.”
The parking spots began to disappear after the city put new regulations in place between 2007 and 2012 in an effort to reduce traffic and cut down on developer costs so they could add more apartments.
Now, in addition to all of downtown, parking is not required in select areas near bus and rail lines in neighborhoods such as Ballard, Fremont, the University District, Northgate, West Seattle, Columbia City, Beacon Hill and Rainier Beach.
The change means that for the first time in the city’s history, anyone living in a new building in these neighborhoods is typically no longer guaranteed a parking space.
In 2004, apartments built in Seattle had an average of 1.6 parking stalls per unit, making it possible for renters to have as many as two cars even at new apartments. But that figure has fallen nearly every year since. Next year, according to the Dupre + Scott research firm, the latest apartment projects are slated to have only 0.6 space per unit, a record low.
By contrast, the suburbs — where getting around without a car is much more difficult — have kept their parking-space requirements largely intact. Throughout the Puget Sound region, areas outside Seattle still have more than one parking space per new apartment, on average.
Enough parking?
Despite the angst, it turns out Seattle has no shortage of parking in apartment buildings. A study last year by King County Metro found that only about 70 percent of the apartment parking spaces both in downtown Seattle and in the rest of the county were actually being used overnight.
Developer Mark Knoll says one of his new 30-unit buildings in West Seattle offered just two parking spaces near the entrance, and in three months he hasn’t been able to rent out either spot for $75 a month.
Alex Brennan, a senior planner for Capitol Hill Housing, a public entity that owns about 2,200 apartments, says federal rules often require it to offer parking spaces to its low-income tenants for free — and even then many of the spaces sit empty.
“It might not be obvious, but there is a significant oversupply of parking spaces in Seattle,” said Clark Williams-Derry, a researcher who has studied parking in apartments for the Sightline Institute, a local urbanist think tank. Though it might be tough to find a spot on a Saturday night in Capitol Hill or lunchtime downtown, within apartment buildings in general, “there’s a glut of parking and it’s hard to charge people the full amount to cover the cost.”
It costs about $35,000 to build the average underground space in Seattle, and even if each stall is occupied and paid for by tenants, the building owner often takes a financial loss.
Some researchers have argued that developers make up the cost by adding to rents across the board — even to tenants without parking. A local study by Sightline found buildings in Seattle with parking charged about $250 more per month for rent than those without a garage. Researchers from around the world have come to similar conclusions.
Living without parking
Kelly Hostetler and her boyfriend, both in their late 20s, rent an apartment in a Capitol Hill building that doesn’t have parking — but they didn’t want to give up their car, which they use for trips outside the city and the occasional Costco run.
“Parking can either be, ‘Oh my god, it’s a miracle, there’s a spot right in front of our building,’ or it can mean we could spend forever” looking for a space, she said. Often they’ll drive to an area they know has more free spots that’s a 10-minute walk from their apartment.
She said even if their building had parking, they likely wouldn’t pay the $100 to $150 a month they were quoted during their apartment search to rent a spot. Some landlords even require tenants to pay for a parking spot, making her parking-free building a cheaper option, Hostetler said.
Allie Sachnoff, 27, also lives in a parking-free apartment building in Capitol Hill but she doesn’t have a car.
“It’s definitely tricky to have visitors and friends over, and have parties. Parking is definitely a concern,” Sachnoff said.
But Sachnoff picked an urban locale largely so she didn’t need to drive.
“I really value living somewhere I can walk everywhere, where there’s light rail and buses within a five-minute walk,” Sachnoff said. “It works out well for me, but I’m also willing to plan my day around the transit options available.”
Parking prices in residential buildings are climbing at about the same rate as rents: The average garage parking space across Seattle now costs $133 a month, up 11 percent from a year ago, and up 55 percent since 2012, according to Dupre + Scott. In downtown, where parking is scarcest, the average garage space is now nearly $200 a month.
Parking-free boom
The new parking rules combined with the ongoing building boom have had a big impact. Developers are now proposing or building about 5,000 parking-free living units per year in Seattle just downtown and in areas near transit — about the same as the number of units that do have parking in those areas.
Some buildings, especially those made up of super-small (and cheaper) micro-housing, can include dozens or even more than 100 living units without a single parking stall.
Long-term, the trend is likely to accelerate: With the passage in November of the $54 billion light-rail and bus expansion measure — which includes big money to study housing near new stations — planners will likely move more neighborhoods into zones where parking isn’t required.
And developers are moving in that direction: About 25 percent of buildings proposed near transit had no parking in the first couple of years after the full parking rules went into effect in mid-2012. Last year, the rate increased to about 35 percent.
“I think it’s very much the new thing,” Smith said, citing a younger generation of urban renters that is increasingly likely not to own a car. “If you’re going for the younger crowd, you better think like they do.”
In neighborhoods like Roosevelt, already an urban village where apartment buildings can be built without parking, communities are expecting big changes.
“For sure, it’s going to make street parking a lot tighter,” said Scott Cooper, president of the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association, who supports added density but knows not everyone there does. “I didn’t move to Roosevelt because it’s got amazing parking, I moved here because it’s a center for people, restaurants, cafes, shopping. For the people who have been here longer than I have, decades, I know it’s a harder transition and a tougher pill to swallow.”
Cooper said a neighborhood committee works with developers as soon as proposals are unveiled and has occasionally had success in altering plans, sometimes by getting more parking added.
Bill Zosel, who lives in central Seattle’s Squire Park neighborhood, one block from a new micro-housing project with very little parking, said he can tell most people living there don’t have cars. He said community concerns over the parking-free projects often just serve as a proxy to protest development in general.
“They’re not so much concerned about parking as they are trying to keep the neighborhood the same as it is,” said Zosel, who sits on the board of his community council.
But angst remains. When Knoll filed plans with the city in 2014 for a new West Seattle Junction building that called for 60 apartments with five parking spaces, the West Seattle Blog wrote a brief item on the idea, and dozens of people quickly commented on the site: “There goes some of the free parking spots, for sure!” one read. Another: “Is that a typo? 60 units with 5 parking spaces?” Others were angrier: “What is wrong with these people?”
Knoll calls this a double-standard: He notes that people in buildings with garages still park in the street, too, as do their visitors, and that plenty of families in single-family homes clog the streets with multiple vehicles, too.
“The need for housing outweighs the need for free street parking,” Knoll said. “My opinion is that free street parking is a privilege, not a right.”President Tony Tan Keng Yam leaves office this Thursday as the head of state who preceded the biggest change to the elected presidency in its 26 years.
The move to entrench multiracialism in the highest office in the land, by ensuring members of the country's main races occupy it periodically, is a change he fully supports.
He believes it will stand the nation in good stead and further fortify the social fabric at a time when the terror threat to Singapore is at its highest.
Citing the spate of recent terror attacks and disrupted terror plots around the world, he says: "Singapore is a target for terrorists."
In a measured voice, he adds: "One of these days, an incident will happen. And when that happens, it's very important to ensure we do not allow it to destroy our cohesion, or to have tensions between the various communities.
"In that respect, reserving this next election for the Malays is appropriate - unfortunately, because of these circumstances around the world which Singapore is caught up in," he says.
For Dr Tan, 77, the need for Singapore to continue reinforcing multiracialism is never-ending.
It is a key reason he cited for supporting the reserved election when the Constitutional Commission proposed the mechanism last year.
Related Story Making waves for Singapore abroad
"Since the elected presidency was instituted, the presidents, including myself, have all been non-Malays," he adds in an interview at the Istana's Yusof Room, where a bust of the first president, Mr Yusof Ishak, who died in office in 1970, is displayed.
"It's good to make sure from time to time, people of different ethnic groups have the opportunity to become president so that it reflects our multiracial society," he says.
Indeed, ensuring Singapore stays multiracial and the bonds that bind its diverse people grow stronger each day are aspirations especially close to the President's heart.
During the 75-minute farewell interview with The Sunday Times and sister newspapers Lianhe Zaobao and Berita Harian late last month, he repeatedly stresses the need to constantly tend to the social fabric, to build up what he calls the country's "social reserves".
These reserves include mutual trust and understanding developed over the years by Singaporeans of different backgrounds, which has helped cement inter-racial and inter-religious harmony, he says.
But out-of-the-ordinary incidents, like the Little India riot on Dec 8, 2013, demonstrate how fragile this state of affairs could be.
Dr Tan was abroad when he got news on the scale of the riot by foreign workers from the Indian sub-continent.
"I was alarmed," he recalls. The violence and burning of police cars - scenes reminiscent of the communist and race-instigated riots of the 1950s and 1960s - worried him.
REWARDING WORK I've done my best. It's been hard work but it's always been very rewarding. How Singaporeans will regard me, that's for Singaporeans to decide.'' PRESIDENT TONY TAN KENG YAM, on his assessment of his six-year term in office.
"If it gets out of hand, it could cause great strain on our social fabric," he says, recalling his anxiety.
He felt it would be good for the President to make a statement "to emphasise the need for calm, for people not to take matters into their own hands and reinforce the importance of racial harmony".
"We should not let a single incident such as this undermine confidence in our society," he wrote in a Facebook post soon after the incident. "Instead, let us redouble our commitment to keeping Singapore safe, peaceful and strong."
Dr Tan recalls in the interview: "We have no SOP (standard operating procedure) for this sort of thing because we never thought this could happen in Singapore. But when it arises, you have to decide whether you should just sit back or whether that's an area (in which) you could make a contribution."
Singapore's multiracial harmony and peace are very fragile, he notes.
"You have to keep emphasising it and it's not something which is to be taken for granted," Dr Tan says.
MULTIRACIAL HARMONY IS KEY
Dr Tan came to the job after a quarter-century of public service and in an election that he won by a whisker: 7,382 votes.
During the 2011 campaign, the call by some for the president to be an alternative centre of power was not only insistent but reflected a widespread misunderstanding of the role of the elected president.
In his characteristic calm voice, Dr Tan describes the president's role and responsibilities, making clear the job of governing the country is that of the Government, not the president.
On the presidency and today's young Q What are your reflections on the presidency as you approach the end of your term? A The president has a very important role domestically. As head of state, he's a unifying force. He has to build a sense of community, a cohesive society, where people help each other, look out for each other, are concerned for each other. This is more important than ever in these difficult times when
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pray in his room. A decision on whether to discharge him will be made following another medical examination.
Many Ashkenazi Jews regard Elyashiv as the "posek ha-dor", the contemporary leading authority on Jewish Law, and are asking the public to pray for his recovery.When I met Jenkins, his top priority was to sell me senbei, light-brown honey-flavored crackers. He is employed by a historical museum, where he wears a yellow kimono-like jacket called a happi and hawks cracker boxes to tourists in the gift shop. “You must be Mr. Jenkins,” I said to him, and he responded affirmatively in a hillbilly drawl, a legacy of his dirt-poor childhood in rural North Carolina. Like the Japanese tourists who flock to see him, I found his diminutive, jug-eared appearance endearing, and bought a box of crackers immediately. A minute later, he told me he’d sent a box of senbei to his military lawyer, a Texan. “He told me it was the awfulest cookie he ever tasted,” Jenkins said.
The Japanese consider Jenkins and Soga’s story a great modern romance: two people find love under Orwellian conditions, and through mutual devotion win their freedom. When visitors stroll into the shop, they whisper to each other (“Jenkins-san!”) and stare at Jenkins until he beckons them to pose for a picture. “Photo” is one of the few words he knows in Japanese—he speaks Korean at home.
That Tuesday, his day off, Jenkins drove me around the island, which, like much of rural Japan, is beautifully manicured and eerily vacant, its tidy alleys prowled by well-fed cats. He and Soga live with their daughters near the very alley where, more than three decades ago, Soga was snatched by North Korean agents. North Korea is never far from his mind: if you mention juche—the infamous pillar of North Korean ideology—in his presence, his eyes instantly glaze over as he lapses into a robotic Korean recitation of its principles, memorized syllable by compulsory syllable in the 1960s and ’70s.
Come lunchtime, we stopped at a local restaurant for pizza (easily the worst I have ever had, but after years of weevil-infested rice rations, Jenkins savors any taste of America). As we ate, I posed various questions that a Japanese journalist had told me everyone in Tokyo longed to ask: Was North Korea’s new ruler, Kim Jong Un—the third son of the late bouffant strongman Kim Jong Il—plotting war on Japan? Were there more abductees? Did Jenkins have more secrets?
About Kim Jong Un, Jenkins could offer little insight. No one had ever heard of him before a few years ago, Jenkins said, and the speed of his ascent—he is thought to be just 29 or 30; no one knows for sure—makes Jenkins suspect that he is a puppet of the military leadership. When I asked how Jenkins could know anything about the inner workings of the North Korean military, he said that he had worked at the military university, and as a white man he’d been, oddly enough, highly trusted, because he was too conspicuous to have any hope of escaping the country. “We trust Jenkins more than we trust you!” he recalls one general saying to a military visitor. (Jenkins added that he had only once been in the same room with the Great Leader, Kim Il Sung, who snorted disapproval at Jenkins’s Korean dress and ordered him and other Westerners to never again sully Korean clothing. Jenkins wore a suit and tie thereafter.)(Photo: Tom Anthony / Flickr)A leader is defined as a person who manages the process of social influence in which s/he honestly enlists the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task. A liar is a person who intentionally delivers a false statement to another person in order to deceive that person. Liars don’t lead; they mislead.
Leadership was a common theme articulated throughout the Republican National Convention. Republicans contend that President Obama lacks the leadership necessary to move the country beyond the current economic crisis and does not possess the leadership necessary to navigate the treacherous international waters going forward. Republicans contend that former governor Mitt Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan (D-Wisconsin) possess the leadership qualities to effectively manage the economy and strengthen America’s position on the global stage.
There are honest, fact-based debates between President Obama’s supporters and detractors regarding his current record, leadership style, and negotiating skills. Many have questioned the president’s willingness to make concessions during budget and health care negotiations; his foreign policy decisions, including Guantanamo; the use of drones to perform bombing raids; and the assassination of Muammar Qaddafi. The difference between legitimate debate and what was presented at the Republican National Convention is the utter lack of factual content by too many Republican speakers. They did not make misstatements, exaggerations, mistakes or errors. They lied.
During his acceptance speech, Rep. Ryan falsely accused President Obama of “raiding” Medicare for $716 billion. Ryan falsely attacked President Obama for failing to keep open a Janesville, Wisconsin, GM plant which actually closed under Bush in 2008. He castigated the president for walking away from the Simpson-Bowles Commission’s recommendations to cut the deficit. Of course, Ryan never mentioned the fact that he was on the committee and that he voted against the committee’s recommendations. Ryan also lied by blaming Obama for a budget deficit mostly created by programs that Ryan himself voted for. According to The New York Times, Ryan “lamented the nation’s credit rating – which was downgraded after a debt-ceiling standoff that he and other House Republicans helped instigate.”
During his acceptance speech, Ryan said, “I accept the duty to help lead our nation out of a jobs crisis and back to prosperity.” No, Mr. Ryan, you can’t “lead our nation” by lying to it and failing to take responsibility for problems that you helped create. Liars don’t lead; they mislead.
Former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice spoke on behalf of the Romney campaign, telling America that we “can’t lead from behind.” Well, suffice it to say, she’s been lying a long time, and her lies are well documented. Go to Rep. Henry Waxman’s (D-California) report, Iraq on the Record: The Bush Administration’s Public Statements on Iraq. According to the report, “Between September 8, 2002, and September 28, 2003, National Security Advisor Rice made 29 misleading statements (lies) about the threat posed by Iraq in 16 separate public appearances.”
“Ms. Rice made significantly more statements that were false – 8 – than any of the other four officials (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, or Powell),” the report said.
Finally, at the top of the ticket, the truth is just as hard to find. Romney said, “Unlike President Obama, I won’t raise taxes on the middle class of America.” According to the Tax Policy Center, Romney’s plan lowers taxes on the top 2 percent of earners and raises taxes on everyone else; taxes on the middle class would go up by about $2,000 per household to pay for Romney’s tax cut for the wealthy. Romney also stated, “And unlike the president, I have a plan to create 12 million new jobs.” The truth is, President Obama proposed the American Jobs Act, and it was killed by Congressional Republicans. According to PoliticusUSA, “The second part of Romney’s lie was a bit more devious. Romney promised to create 12 million new jobs, (knowing) that economic forecasts show that if nothing is done, the economy will create 11.8 on it’s [sic] own.”
Another lie that Romney told during his speech was: “I will begin my presidency with a jobs tour. President Obama began with an apology tour.” As The Washington Post’s Fact Checker put it, “The claim that Obama repeatedly has apologized for the United States is not borne out by the facts, especially if his full quotes are viewed in context.” In other words, Romney’s proclamation is a lie.
In his speech Romney said of Ryan, “I saw in Paul Ryan – a strong and caring leader who is down-to-earth and confident in the challenge this moment demands.” Ryan’s not down-to-earth. He’s a man who has willingly constructed a narrative to create artificial distinctions between President Obama and himself. During his convention speech, Ryan said, “President Obama’s stimulus measure was not only the “the largest one-time expenditure ever by our federal government,” it was “a case of political patronage, corporate welfare, and cronyism at their worst.” According to the New York Daily News: “The stimulus measure created 2.5 million jobs and, more important, cut taxes for 95% of Americans. It was also highly transparent and virtually fraud-free. It wasn’t the biggest one time expenditure – that would be World War II.” He’s not a strong and caring leader; he’s a liar.
Romney said about himself: “Americans have a choice. A decision. To make that choice, you need to know more about me and about where I will lead our country.” The problem is that Romney has yet to provide any specifics about where he will lead the country, or how. Romney did say Obama’s “policies have not helped create jobs, they have depressed them.”
He went on to say: “His plan to raise taxes on small business won’t add jobs, it will eliminate them. His assault on coal and gas and oil will send energy and manufacturing jobs to China.” According to PoliticusUSA.com, the reality is that President Obama has created 4.5 million jobs. His extension of the Bush tax cuts for everyone but the rich actually cuts taxes for 97 percent of small businesses. Oil, coal and natural gas production have all increased under Obama. Coal production is up 0.93 percent. Oil production is up 5.7 percent, and natural gas is up 22 percent.
Romney pollster Neil Newhouse stated, “Fact checkers come to this with their own sets of thoughts and beliefs, and we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.” In a representative democracy, facts do matter, and checking the facts is how we hold our representatives accountable. Romney and Ryan have based their campaign on smoke and mirrors, sleight of hand, political prestidigitation, lies and deceit.
Liars don’t lead; they mislead.This weekend (Friday 6/3 – Sunday 6/5) we are giving away a Worm Factory 360 Composter with worms from EarthEasy, valued at $139.95! The Worm Factory 360, available in your color choice of green, black or terracotta, makes it easy to recycle your food scraps and household waste. Worms work 24/7 converting waste into nutrient rich organic fertilizer for your garden. The Worm Factory houses thousands of worms and is designed to expand vertically, allowing a high compost capacity in a very small footprint. For more information on the Worm Factory 360 Composter, please visit EarthEasy.
To enter, please take a look at the Worm Factory 360 Composter product page and answer the following question, “Which product feature is most appealing to you about the Worm Factory 360 Composter?” on the comments section of our Facebook EarthEasy Worm Factory Composter Giveaway post anytime from Friday June 3rd through midnight Sunday June 5th, as well as share the Facebook giveaway post on your timeline. The winner will be drawn at random from all qualified entrants, and notified through Facebook. (See rules for more information.)
Be sure to visit www.eartheasy.com and connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube and Google+
Good luck and happy gardening!
UPDATE 6/10/2016: Congratulations to Penny Snyder!
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Christian Eriksen was today on the brink of signing a new contract with Tottenham to bring an end to a year-long saga.
Eriksen has been in negotiations with Spurs since September last year but he was expected to agree a four-year deal today, worth about £75,000 per week.
Standard Sport reported last week that player and club were likely to conclude discussions before this weekend's game at Stoke, where Eriksen will hope to rediscover top form after a slow start to the season.
Eriksen, 24, was in talks with Spurs for much of last season, and the length of time the negotiations lasted gave hope to rival clubs. Had he not signed, Eriksen would have entered the final year of his contract at start of next season.
Juventus expressed an interest in taking the player to Serie A while Manchester United also showed admiration when Louis van Gaal was in charge. Paris Saint-Germain also asked to be kept informed of developments.
But Eriksen has decided to stay at White Hart Lane, which will delight manager Mauricio Pochettino, who is thought to have been concerned at the lack of progress.
Eriksen joined Tottenham for about £11million from Ajax three years ago and has contributed a regular flow of goals and assists since then.
It was suggested that he had asked for as much as £150,000-a-week to commit to Spurs again, a figure Tottenham are highly unlikely to have paid.
Tottenham's record signings 10 show all Tottenham's record signings 1/10 Davinson Sanchez - £40m Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty I 2/10 Moussa Sissoko - £30m Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty I 3/10 Erik Lamela - £30m Jan Kruger/Getty Images 4/10 Roberto Soldado - £26m Paul Gilham/Getty Images 5/10 Serge Aurier - £23m Getty Images 6/10 Heung-min Son - £22m (Scott Barbour/Getty Images) 7/10 Vincent Janssen - £20m Getty Images 8/10 Paulinho - £17m GETTY 9/10 Luka Modric - £16.5m Michael Steele/Getty Images 10/10 Darren Bent - £16.5m Alex Livesey/Getty Images 1/10 Davinson Sanchez - £40m Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty I 2/10 Moussa Sissoko - £30m Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty I 3/10 Erik Lamela - £30m Jan Kruger/Getty Images 4/10 Roberto Soldado - £26m Paul Gilham/Getty Images 5/10 Serge Aurier - £23m Getty Images 6/10 Heung-min Son - £22m (Scott Barbour/Getty Images) 7/10 Vincent Janssen - £20m Getty Images 8/10 Paulinho - £17m GETTY 9/10 Luka Modric - £16.5m Michael Steele/Getty Images 10/10 Darren Bent - £16.5m Alex Livesey/Getty Images
But Eriksen's agent Martin Schoots told Standard Sport last month that his player was happy at Spurs - and Eriksen looked certain to make good on that claim today.
Tottenham have little time to celebrate their achievement in securing Eriksen, however.
With players returning from international duty, Pochettino will start preparing in earnest over the next two days for Saturday's match at Stoke.
Spurs produced one of their best performances of last season in winning 4-0 at this venue in April.
They have collected five points from their opening three matches this term but have yet to find their stride.
Tottenham are hopeful that goalkeeper Hugo Lloris will return to action after missing the last two games with a damaged hamstring.The Mall of India near Delhi attracts the eyes of the passer-by, but as you go past the swanky structure, the scene suddenly changes to a cluster of tiny, dirty houses, and huts. This unpleasant confrontation can challenge your view of economic development in the world’s largest functioning democracy.
One of India’s biggest and largest malls standing right next to a poor locality could be mistaken as India’s diversity, but a tall wall has been erected to prevent the mall’s visitors from seeing the settlement, which points instead to a division of the rich from the poor.
As part of a group of photography enthusiasts, called the Delhi Photo Expedition, we decided to juxtapose the two sides of India’s economic reality in our frames. Although we found more smiles and warmth on the sadder side of the wall, we couldn’t help notice the brutal exclusion of the poor from the so-called development that India often boasts of.On Sept. 24, Boston voters will whittle a field of 12 mayoral candidates down to just two who will run off in November. About a third of the cityâs voters are undecided and probably another third are squishy when it comes to support for their candidate. People who have lived in the city and followed politics for decades have told me theyâre having a tough time sorting out the candidates who share many similar positions on the issues. Imagine, then, the confusion of voters who are either new to the city or just recently started to pay attention to the race.
There are no villains in this field. All of the viable candidates could be described as moderate or liberal. And even candidates whose names are closely aligned with a cause, such as organized labor or expansion of state charter schools over the objections of organized labor, have staked out nuanced positions. Voters can turn to the candidatesâ websites to find white papers, blueprints, and other detailed documents on major issues.
My view? Bostonians could sleep soundly if any of six or seven of these candidates were to win. Itâs almost laughable to think that just a few months ago people were worried that no one of substance might emerge to replace Mayor Menino, who is retiring after five terms in office.
Still, a lot of voters are openly asking for help. Iâm not going to tell you who to vote for, but I can offer some pointers to help understand the candidates, and where theyâre coming from. In that spirit, hereâs my alphabetical guide for the perplexed:
Anyone drawn to social justice causes and eager to be part of electing the cityâs first Hispanic mayor will want to learn more about City Councilor Felix Arroyo. I have no doubt that Arroyo will prioritize the needs of the cityâs poor. But it remains an open question as to whether the 34-year-old Arroyo has sufficient experience to manage a $2.6 billion municipal budget.
Former member of the appointed School Committee and nonprofit executive John Barros is smart, dignified, and self-made. Barros, 40, has had a hand in restoring one of the poorest sections of Roxbury. But he has surprised me and many others with his desire to bring new business to downtown Boston. Barros, who is the son of Cape Verdean immigrants, is causing a lot of people to sit up and take notice. He should appeal to voters who favor underdogs, especially talented ones.
Mayoral candidate Dan Conley, 54, is a first-rate district attorney. If public safety dominates your concerns, then he certainly belongs at or near the top of the list. Conley can hold his own on other citywide issues, including education and fiscal management. He would be an all-around safe pick for voters who value mature, if uninspired, leadership.
City Councilor John Connolly, 40, has staked out public education as his key issue. Anyone with school-aged children will want to give special consideration to his campaign. He makes a powerful pitch to the cityâs middle class. But he is equally serious about helping low-income families climb the economic ladder through better education. Connolly scores high on my political courage index as the sole candidate to declare for the office before Mayor Menino announced his retirement.
It has become trite to identify district City Councilor Rob Consalvo, 44, as a younger, physically fitter version of Mayor Menino. But there is more than a grain of truth to the claim. Consalvo shares Meninoâs populist touch and his love of manipulating the nuts and bolts of municipal government. Voters who canât bear the thought of Menino leaving office can try to keep the streak alive through Consalvo.
Charlotte Golar Richie, 54, has a great resume that includes experience as a state representative, city department head, and nonprofit executive. The possibility of electing the cityâs first woman and African American mayor was generating lots of buzz when she announced her entry into the race in April. But she has run a lackluster campaign. So marginal, in fact, that Iâve started hearing legitimate questions about her desire to lead. Right now, her campaign is more symbolic than substantive.
District City Councilor Michael Ross, 41, has never become a creature of City Hall despite more than a decade on the council representing the Back Bay. Newcomers to the city who wonder why there is a dearth of entertainment venues and late night transportation options will want to explore Rossâs solutions. So will entrepreneurs who favor regional business solutions. Ross is pinning his hopes on younger Bostonians who share his can-do attitude and older Bostonians who are tired of seeing all of the political power concentrated in a few, politically muscular sections of the city.
Bill Walczak, 59, is another underdog who deserves serious consideration despite never having run before for elected office. His idealism led him to found a neighborhood health center in Dorchester during the 1970s. His pragmatism enabled him to expand it into a first rate institution for medical and educational opportunities. Walczak stands apart from the field in his ability to manage large organizations. Voters who favor substance over style should find his candidacy especially appealing.
State Representative Martin Walsh, 46, is a survivor of childhood cancer and recovering alcoholic who has no equal when it comes to understanding the plight of struggling Bostonians. Walshâs deep ties to organized labor scare some voters who worry about the health of the cityâs reserves should he win. But working-class Bostonians adore his politics. Even people who disagree with his policies donât have a bad word to say about him personally. Heâs the character candidate.
The remainder of the field includes two gadflies and one veteran city councilor. Radio host Charles Clemons is an amiable gentleman with a spiritual bent. Former Boston teacher David Wyatt offers nothing of substance. City Councilor Charles Yancey boasts three decades on the job but not a great deal to show for it in terms of pushing the city forward.
Good luck.
Lawrence Harmon is a Globe columnist.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has vowed to get Judge Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court bench, no matter the procedural and political cost.
And one cost indeed could be very heavy for Republicans. Democrats may filibuster Gorsuch’s nomination, forcing Republicans to end the centuries-old rule that gives the minority party power to block a Supreme Court nominee. (Just a few years ago, Democrats ended the ability to filibuster on all nominees except those for the Supreme Court.)
If Republicans do blow up the filibuster for all nominees (something President Trump is okay with), it could make Senate Republicans’ job on everything else a lot harder. If the filibuster goes, congressional experts warn that so, too, does any remaining semblance of bipartisan cooperation on the Senate’s approval process for Cabinet members and judges and any future Supreme Court vacancies.
The stage is set for this epic battle: At least one Senate Democrat had promised to block Trump’s pick before the nominee was even announced, essentially as punishment for Republicans who blocked President Barack Obama’s most recent Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland.
“This is a stolen seat. This is the first time a Senate majority has stolen a seat,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) told Politico back in January.A mother's pre-pregnancy weight can have an impact on her child's IQ, research shows. (iStockphoto)
The bright line between "social" and "economic" issues in American politics is perhaps blurrier than one might think. One study shows the economic effects of abortion, finding significant economic consequences for women who carried unwanted pregnancies to term.
The Turnaway Study is a five-year analysis of women who received abortions and those who were turned away because their unborn babies were legally too old to abort. The study, which is still ongoing, comes from Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), a think tank at the University of California, San Francisco.
According to an ANSIRH presentation of preliminary findings to the American Public Health Association this year, both groups of women had similar economic circumstances prior to seeking abortions. One year later, however, 76 percent of women who had been denied abortion were on public assistance, compared to 44 percent in the group who had undergone abortions. In addition, 67 percent who had not had abortions were under the poverty line, compared to 56 percent in the abortion-receiving group. Only 48 percent of those who had not terminated their pregnancies were working full-time, compared to 58 percent in the cohort who received abortions. The vast majority of women who did not abort kept their babies.
Though these differences are sizable, the study's lead investigator says economics was not the initial focus of the study.
"We were looking for mental health differences. That was the main point of the study," says Diana Greene Foster, director of research at ANSIRH and the study's lead author. But one year after the women either received or were denied abortions, the study did not find any significant difference in anxiety or depression levels between them and those who had terminated their pregnancies.
Rather, the big differences appeared in two major areas, says Foster.
"There are big physical health differences but even bigger socioeconomic differences," she says. Shorter-term complications like infection and hemorrhage affected the women who give birth, but the lasting complications were financial. Though many participants in the study were partnered, Foster points to the women who found themselves suddenly living alone with children as vulnerable to new financial difficulties.
Single mothers are far more likely than partnered parents to live under the poverty line. According to the Census Bureau, over 34 percent of people in families headed by single women in 2011 lived under the poverty line, compared to 13 percent for all families.
Having a child makes it easier to slip beneath the poverty line. As of 2011, the poverty threshold for an adult under 65 years of age was just over $11,700. For one person with one child, the threshold is around $15,500.
The threshold also goes up with each child, whether in a single- or two-parent household. That's important because, like many women in the larger population seeking abortions, many women in this study already had children and feared the financial consequences of having yet another child.
"Women denied an abortion were 25 percent more likely to report they didn't have enough money for food, housing, and transportation over the two years [studied]," says Foster.
Though ANSIRH, which tends to do pro-choice work, says that the study was designed to be objective, the results of this study undoubtedly could be seen as ammunition for pro-choice advocates. Women denied abortions, it would seem, may contribute less to the economy and are more likely to need taxpayer dollars in the form of public assistance.
Still, abortion is still in large part a moral issue, and pro-life advocates remain strongly committed to reducing the number of terminated pregnancies annually.
"We already have 1.2 million abortions a year in this country, which is an astonishing number," says Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League, a group that works to eliminate abortions. He believes that combating unwanted pregnancy is a matter of changing people's behavior, rather than turning to "stopgap measures" like abortion and contraception.
As for the economic data presented in ANSIRH's study, Scheidler believes that there are alternatives to looser abortion laws.
"What I think a study like this really points to is the need for economic policies that will provide real opportunity to women so that they won't have to turn to abortion," says Scheidler. He counts among these "authentic health care reform" for an inefficient system. Aside from that, he also says that women facing unwanted pregnancies can turn to charity organizations, including crisis pregnancy centers.
Whether the issue is framed in economic or moral terms, what is certain is that it affects plenty of Americans. According to data from the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit that studies reproductive issues, around half of American women will have an unintended pregnancy, and by age 45, nearly one-third of American women will have an abortion.
More News:
Danielle Kurtzleben is a business and economics reporter for U.S. News & World Report. You can follow her on Twitter or reach her at [email protected].
Corrected on Nov. 21, 2012 : An earlier version of this story mischaracterized ANSIRH as a neutral organization. The group tends to do pro-choice work.50 Common Things We Procrastinate On
There’s always tomorrow – except when there’s not.
Why do we constantly put off things that we know we should do? What does it take to motivate ourselves to follow through on these activities?
One big part of the answer is identifying activities that we tend to procrastinate on.
When we acknowledge what it is we tend to procrastinate on the most, we better prepare ourselves to overcome that procrastination in the future. Here are some of the most common things we tend to procrastinate on. How many of these apply to you?
You may procrastinate on…
1. Going to the doctor for a check-up. 2. Calling your family and friends to see how they are doing. 3. Paying your monthly bills now so you don’t have to worry about them later. 4. Updating your resume and searching for a job. 5. Answering your e-mails. 6. Starting that hobby you always wanted to try. 7. Cutting out junk food we know is bad but continue eating anyway. 8. Leaving for work or school on time. 9. Doing your homework now so you can relax later. 10. Asking that guy/girl out on a date. 11. Cleaning up the house. 12. Donating to that charity you always wanted to. 13. Planning a vacation to a new country. 14. Finally going to the gym and working out. 15. Getting car maintenance done. 16. Reading that book your friend recommended you last year. 17. Telling someone a secret you’ve been hiding from them. 18. Going back to college. 19. Apologizing to someone after you’ve hurt them. 20. Telling someone you love them. 21. Creating something artistic and sharing it with others. 22. Waiting for that “perfect” moment to start your own business. 23. Doing laundry. 24. Cleaning the dishes. 25. Spending more time with your kids. 26. Starting to take small steps toward the life of your dreams. 27. Going to a concert or sporting event. 28. Learning how to speak a foreign language. 29. Taking a week off from work. 30. Running in a marathon. 31. Writing that book you always wanted to write. 32. Volunteering at a local community center. 33 Selling old stuff around the house you don’t use anymore. 34. Letting go of a mistake you made a long time ago. 35. Asking for something because you’re afraid the answer will be no. 36. Studying for an exam. 37. Getting to bed at a reasonable hour. 38. Having children. 39. Helping a friend with something they asked you to help them with. 40. Quitting smoking. 41. Getting married. 42. Shopping for groceries. 43. Putting out the garbage. 44. Buying new clothes. 45. Getting a place of your own. 46. Saving for retirement. 47. Breaking off from a relationship you know isn’t going to work. 48. Trying new recipes. 49. Getting a haircut 50. Doing something just for the fun of it.
Did I miss anything? What are some things you often find yourself procrastinating on?
Stay updated on new articles and resources in psychology and self improvement:There are supercars and supercars. And then, there is the Bugatti Veyron Mansory Vivere. One look at it and you are going to say, “Wow!”
Tagged as the “crazy witch doctors of the automotive tuning world”, Mansory has once again come forward with yet another creation to whet the appetite of supercar enthusiasts the world over.
This is described by the manufacturer as a “strictly limited version”, and is considered to be one up on its predecessor, the Vincero. Aesthetically speaking, the car is a stunner, with modification of the bonnet, wings and the addition of a smart front apron. LED daytime running lights in the headlight and tail light clusters add class to the general appearance of the car.
External Appearance and Bodywork
At $3.5 million, the supercar is a mini fortune on wheels, and with looks to accompany it. However, the external appearance is not everything that is good about Bugatti Veyron Vivere. The car has further embellishments with striking alloy wheels. The design of the wheels in a five double-spoke pattern adds face value to the car.
The lacquered carbon fiber finish gives the entire bodywork a sleek finish, which sets it apart from other great names in the supercar category. In fact, carbon fiber has been used extensively to craft quite a few parts.
Interiors
The interiors can be simply defined as ultimate luxury, as Mansory has again exhibited their capability of combining rock solid engineering with luxury. The classy carbon fiber finish on the exteriors continue inside as well, giving added comfort to the driver and passengers. The craftsmanship and high-quality materials of the interior create the required ambiance expected of a supercar.
Performance
With a top speed of 410 km (255 mph), this car can reach 0 to 100 km (60 mph) in 2.5 seconds, which is considered pretty powerful but expected of a car in this category. The engine packs a punch with a maximum torque of 1,109 bhp, and displacement of 8 liters. Fuel consumption just goes through the roof, but then, who is bothered, least of all those who just happen to have an extra $3.5 million to splurge on a set of hot wheels?
Our Take
Mansory has once again taken the automobile world by storm with their limited version of the Bugatti Veyron Vivere. However, judging by the feedback from reviews there are a few differing opinions. Just like developing a taste for good wine, the taste for certain supercars and their looks is also an acquired one. There are many who feel that the car is just plain ugly, and then there are those who will swear by it. So, it all boils down to personal preferences.
One thing clearly emerges here is that the Mansory has invested a lot in terms of financials and reputation to bring out a limited version supercar, that will make heads turn and that the owner will be proud to have. This is essentially the objective of bringing out a limited edition supercar, and with their Bugatti Veyron Vivere, Mansory seems to have achieved just that.
Related: What You Should Know About The 2017 Bugatti ChironImage to HTML Converter
Most web pages are made up of HTML files linked to separate image files. Here's a way to embed an image directly into an HTML file.
Enter the URL of any JPEG, PNG or GIF on the web:
How does it work?
A table is created which is filled with large numbers of 1x1 cells. Each cell has a background colour of the corresponding pixel in the image. That's all it is; just a massive grid of coloured table cells. View the source to see the details or browse the Python script or the Perl script which generates the table.
Why does it take so long to load?
Tables are an inefficient way of encoding detailed graphics. A normal image file takes about two bytes to encode each pixel. By contrast the HTML version takes nearly fifty bytes to do the same. This means the size of the file is very large.
To combat this, the HTML table uses basic RLE compression. Runs of multiple cells on the same row with the same colour are merged into one cell using the COLSPAN attribute. One could achieve higher compression ratios by also merging cells that had very similar colours; thus making the format 'lossy'.
Why does it take so long to display?
Web browsers are designed to display image files; they aren't optimised for 10,000 cell tables. To help the browser out, the table is chopped up into smaller tables, each containing about 15 horizontal lines. This allows browsers like MSIE to render the chunks independently without having to wait for the entire image to load. Other browsers such as Mozilla don't care, since they are capable of rendering tables as they load.
So it's big, bloated and slow. What use is this?
In its pure form, none. At least none that I can think of.
However, it is the seed for a powerful tool. Combining table-based images with JavaScript opens the door to the creation and manipulation of dynamic content. Take a look at this simple example of a column of navigation buttons. Each of the arrows is a clever mix of graphics (for the tip), text (for the label) and simple table-based imagery (for the borders, and background). JavaScript is used to bring the whole thing together and to animate it on mouse roll-overs. Using pure graphics would have involved loading ten different images (instead of two) and would have made it more difficult to create or edit the text on the buttons.
The lesson here is to think outside the box. Images and HTML are more interchangeable than they look. With a little imagination one can make small, dynamic and visually appealing content without resorting to Flash or Shockwave.
What's next?
URI-encoded images have made table-encoded images obsolete (except for Internet Explorer). I've written a library which creates images with JavaScript.
Featured on Digg, 25 June 2007.
Last modified: 30 January 2019This week we have added a new feature to the Ashcroft Model dashboard. The constituency-by-constituency pages now show estimated current vote shares for each seat in three different scenarios: according to turnout in the 2015 general election; including those who say they voted in the EU referendum; and including those who say they will vote in June.
Alongside these estimated vote shares, the model also shows the leading party’s “win chance” in that seat. In calculating the win chance, the model takes into account data from several previous general elections to transform the estimated gap in vote share
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October 2008 in a Champions League win against PSV Eindhoven at Anfield.[60] A second Champions League goal quickly followed with Keane scoring the opening goal in Liverpool's 1–1 draw with Atlético Madrid.[61] Premier League goals were less forthcoming but he scored twice for Liverpool against West Bromwich Albion on 8 November.[62] Upon scoring twice after a goalless spell he said:
“ The goals have been a long time coming but deep down I knew they would. I might have worried about it when I was younger but not now.[63] ”
Six weeks passed before Keane scored again but it was a crucial equaliser against Arsenal, giving Liverpool a 1–1 away draw against their league rivals.[64] In the following Premier League match against Bolton, Keane scored two more league goals to seal a 3–0 win for Liverpool.[65] During the January transfer window, Tottenham Hotspur made an approach for the striker and Liverpool accepted the offer, allowing the Irishman to return to his former club for a fee of £12 million, £7 million less than Liverpool had paid for him.[66][67][68]
Return to Tottenham Hotspur [ edit ]
Keane rejoined Tottenham on 2 February 2009, signing for a basic fee of £12 million, potentially rising to £16 million with add-ons.[69] The deal meant that the cumulative transfer fees paid for Keane over his career amounted to around £75 million.[70] He signed a four-year contract with the north London club.[71] Keane was one of three players to make returns to Tottenham during the transfer window, along with Jermain Defoe and Pascal Chimbonda.[54] He was also made Tottenham vice-captain a week later,[72] after often deputising for Ledley King during his first spell there.[73][74][75] Keane scored his first goal since his return to the club on 4 March,[76] opening the scoring in the crucial 4–0 home victory against Middlesbrough.[77][78] He followed this up by scoring another vital goal, this time a last-minute equaliser, away to Sunderland in a 1–1 draw on 7 March.[79]
Soon after Keane's return to White Hart Lane, railway service Virgin Trains ran an advertisement with the slogan "A Liverpool to London return faster than Robbie Keane."[80] On his return to Liverpool on the final day of the season, he scored in a 3–1 defeat.[81] He received a generally warm reception from the fans despite scoring against them.
On 31 July 2009, Keane captained Tottenham to winning the Premier League Asia Trophy in a pre-season competition in China. He scored twice in the 3–0 win over Hull City inside Beijing Workers Stadium. On 26 September 2009, Keane scored four goals in a 5–0 win over Burnley.[82] During Tottenham's League Cup Fourth Round match, Keane scored one of two goals against Everton on 27 October 2009 at White Hart Lane.[83][84] He continued his scoring form with another against Sunderland in their 2–0 home win on 7 November 2009.[85]
Loan to Celtic [ edit ]
On 1 February 2010, Keane signed for Celtic in a loan deal until the end of the 2009–10 season and was assigned the number 7 shirt, previously worn by Jimmy Johnstone and Henrik Larsson.[86][87] After signing for Celtic, Keane said "The club is massive. I am a Celtic fan and did not have to ask much about it. I always wanted to play for Celtic and it works for all parties."[86]
He made his Celtic debut in a 1–0 defeat on 2 February at Rugby Park against Kilmarnock.[88] He scored his first goal for Celtic in a 4–2 victory in the fifth round of the Scottish Cup against Dunfermline at East End Park.[89] He scored his first goal in the SPL against Aberdeen in a 4–4 draw on 13 February.[90] His first goal at Celtic Park proved to be the winner against Dundee United on 20 February.[91] Keane's first Old Firm match against Rangers was on 28 February, with Celtic losing 1–0.[92] On 13 March, Keane scored his first Celtic hat-trick in a 3–0 Scottish Cup win over Kilmarnock,[93] and then scored two in a league clash against them two weeks later.[94]
Keane's penultimate match was a 2–1 Old Firm win over Rangers on 4 May[95] his last match for Celtic came against Hearts on 9 May, he scored the first goal in a 2–1 victory.[96] He stated that he enjoyed his time at Celtic and that it had given him back his 'hunger for football'.[97] On 12 April, Keane was announced as SPL Player of the Month for March 2010.[98] On 19 April 2010, Keane was announced as Celtic's Fans' Player of the Year.[99]
Loan to West Ham United [ edit ]
Keane warming up for West Ham United before a match against Aston Villa in April 2011
On 30 January 2011, Keane joined West Ham United on loan for the remainder of the season.[100] Keane made his debut for West Ham on 2 February in a 3–1 victory over Blackpool at Bloomfield Road, scoring his first goal in the process.[101] West Ham had an option to extend the deal by two years if they avoided relegation from the Premier League.[102] However, in May 2011 West Ham were relegated and Keane returned to Tottenham.[103]
LA Galaxy [ edit ]
2011 [ edit ]
After playing for the newly reformed New York Cosmos in Paul Scholes's testimonal match,[104] Keane joined LA Galaxy of Major League Soccer,[105] becoming one of the club's three allowed designated players, alongside David Beckham and Landon Donovan. The Galaxy traded their previous third Designated Player, Juan Pablo Ángel, to city rivals Chivas USA to make room for Keane.[106] He made his debut on 20 August 2011, in a California Clásico game against the San Jose Earthquakes, and scored his first goal for his new team in the 21st minute, in a 2–0 win at The Home Depot Center.[107] On 13 September, he scored his first CONCACAF Champions League goal in a 2–1 group stage loss to Monarcas Morelia of Mexico.[108]
The Galaxy finished the season as Western Conference champions, and won the Supporters' Shield.[109] On 6 November, in his first full match, Keane scored in a 3–1 win over Real Salt Lake to book a place in the 2011 MLS Cup.[110] Two weeks later, he assisted the winning goal for Donovan in the 72nd minute of the final as the Galaxy defeated Houston Dynamo 1–0 at their home stadium.[111]
Loan to Aston Villa [ edit ]
On 8 January 2012, Keane agreed to move on loan to Aston Villa for two months, until the new MLS season began in March. He trained with the Villa squad on 9 and 10 January and completed the move on the 12th.[112][113]
He made his debut at Villa Park in a 1–1 draw with Everton on 14 January, coming on as an 81st-minute substitute for Stephen Warnock.[114] Keane then made his full debut in Villa's next match against Wolverhampton Wanderers, in which he scored his first two goals for the club including the winner in a 3–2 victory.[115] On 5 February, he scored the equaliser against Newcastle United, in an eventual 2–1 loss, his third goal for Villa, in four league games.[116]
Return from loan [ edit ]
On 18 March 2012, Keane scored twice in a 3–1 home win over D.C. United for the Galaxy's first win of the season.[117] In July, with five goals including consecutive braces, he was voted MLS Player of the Month.[118] He finished with 16 regular season goals, fourth in the league's top scorers, and was one of three strikers named in the MLS Best XI, alongside Thierry Henry and Chris Wondolowski.[119] His two goals in a 4–2 win over Toronto FC on 22 September sealed a place in the 2012 MLS Cup Playoffs.[120] In the Conference semi-finals, Keane scored twice in a 3–1 second leg win over San Jose, as the Galaxy recovered from a 1–0 home loss in the first match.[121] Against Seattle Sounders FC in the Conference final, he scored another two goals in a 3–0 first leg win, and a late penalty in a 2–1 loss in the second leg at CenturyLink Field.[122] Keane scored a last-minute penalty to complete a 3–1 win in the 2012 MLS Cup, once again against Houston Dynamo.[123]
Keane in action for LA Galaxy in 2013
At the start of the 2013 season, in the absence of Donovan, Keane was promoted to captain by head coach Bruce Arena.[124] On opening day, he had a part in each goal as Galaxy beat Chicago Fire 4–0 at home, assisting a hat-trick for Mike Magee before himself finding the net in added time.[125] On 26 May, he scored his first MLS hat-trick in a 4–0 rout of Seattle,[126] and he recorded another on 27 August in a 4–2 comeback win over Salt Lake, putting him on 10 goals for the season;[127] he was the league's Player of the Month in August.[128] Keane scored twice in a 5–0 win over Chivas on 6 October, the first and last goals of the victory.[129] For the second consecutive season, he made the MLS Best XI, as recognition for his 16 goals and 11 assists, statistics which put him fourth and third on the respective top scorer lists.[130]
On 6 March 2014, Keane signed a new multi-year contract extension with LA Galaxy.[131] For the third season in a row he reached double figures in goals, scoring his tenth on 20 July in a 2–1 loss at Sporting KC.[132] Keane scored his 50th MLS regular-season goal on 28 September, chipping New York Red Bulls goalkeeper Luis Robles to open a 4–0 victory.[133]
On 3 December 2014, Keane was awarded the MLS Most Valuable Player Award after a season in which he recorded a career high 19 goals and 14 assists in 29 appearances.[134] Four days later, he scored the 111th-minute winner in the 2014 MLS Cup which the Galaxy won 2–1 against the New England Revolution for a record fifth title.[135] Keane was given the MLS Cup MVP award, similar to Man Of The Match award.
After the announcement that his former Liverpool teammate Steven Gerrard would join the Galaxy in July 2015, Keane confirmed that he would not hand over the captaincy.[136] He scored the second goal of the 2–0 home win over Chicago in their first game of the season on 7 March.[137] On 17 June, Keane scored a hat-trick in the fourth round of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, as the Galaxy won 6–1 against fifth-tier amateurs PSA Elite.[138] On 5 July, Keane scored a hat-trick in a 4–0 win over Toronto.[139] Twelve days later, in Gerrard's first match, he scored three goals for the second consecutive game including two penalties with Gerrard also netting in a 5–2 win against San Jose.[140]
On 6 March 2016, Keane scored from the penalty spot in the opening 2016 league fixture; a 4–1 home win against D.C. United.[141] He followed that up with another successful penalty on 19 March in the 3–1 home victory against San Jose.[142] After missing five games with a knee injury, Keane returned on 8 May to face New England Revolution and scored twice in the 4–2 home win.[143] Keane scored his 80th MLS regular-season goal on 23 July in a 2–1 away win against Portland Timbers with a simple tap-in from close range.[144] On 11 September, he scored Galaxy's fourth goal in their 4–2 home win over Orlando City.[145] He scored twice in a 4–2 home defeat against Seattle Sounders on 25 September for his ninth and tenth goals of the season.[146] In November, Keane stated that he would be leaving LA Galaxy after his contract expired at the end of the season, but that he would not be retiring.[147] In total, he scored 104 goals in 165 appearances during his six seasons with the club with his last game being the MLS Cup Playoff penalty-shootout defeat to Colorado Rapids on 6 November 2016.[148][149]
ATK [ edit ]
On 4 August 2017, Keane signed for Indian Super League team ATK joining former teammate Teddy Sheringham, the team's head coach. He said that the opportunity to play in a new league appealed to him.[150] He was assigned the number 10 jersey and appointed as the club captain.[151] However, he suffered an achilles injury during a pre-season training camp in Dubai and had to return home for treatment, ruling him out of action until December.[152] Spanish defender Jordi was appointed as the captain in his absence.[153] On 7 December, he made his first-team debut, coming on as a 61st-minute substitute in a 3–2 defeat against Chennaiyin.[154] On 23 December, he scored his first goal in a 1–0 victory against Delhi Dynamos.[155][156] About his finish, manager Sheringham said "If I said he does that at least once every day in training, I wouldn't be exaggerating".[157]
Keane was appointed player-manager of ATK in March 2018 after Sheringham and his replacement Ashley Westwood were sacked with ATK finishing outside the play-offs. He scored the only goal in a 1–0 win over NorthEast United on his managerial debut, enough to save them from last place.[158] After contesting the final three matches as player-manager, Keane decided to leave the club at the end of the season and stated he would be taking time out to consider his options.[159]
Keane officially announced his retirement on 28 November 2018.[160][161][162]
International career [ edit ]
Keane with the Ireland national team in 2004
Keane was part of the so-called "golden generation" of Republic of Ireland youth football of the late 1990s.[163]
Under the guidance of Brian Kerr, the unfancied Republic won the UEFA U16 and U18 European championships in 1998, and Keane was part of the victorious U18 side in Cyprus.[164] In 1999, he played at the World Youth Cup in Nigeria, where the Republic reached the last 16 before going out on penalties to the hosts.[165] His first Ireland cap came against the Czech Republic in Olomouc in March 1998.[166] He scored his first senior international goals against Malta in October that year.[167]
Keane was selected by Mick McCarthy as part of the Republic of Ireland squad for the 2002 FIFA World Cup in South Korea and Japan, scoring three goals in Ireland's four games. Keane scored an injury-time equaliser against Germany in the group stage match as the Irish surprised many by holding the former champions to a 1–1 draw.[168] This was the first of only three goals which Germany conceded in the tournament (the other two were scored in the final by Brazil's Ronaldo). In the Round of 16 match against Spain, he scored a last-minute penalty to force the game into extra-time and a penalty shootout after the Irish had gone a goal down early in the first half, but eventually lost 3–2 on penalties.[169]
Keane became Ireland's leading goalscorer during a match against the Faroe Islands on 13 October 2004 when he scored his 22nd and 23rd goals. The first of these goals broke Niall Quinn's record of 21 goals.[170]
Although Ireland failed to qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Keane scored four goals in the Republic's eight qualifying matches. Following Steve Staunton's appointment as Ireland manager, Keane was appointed captain.[171] In their first game under Staunton, Keane scored the second goal in the 3–0 victory against Sweden at Lansdowne Road, and celebrated the final match at the Lansdowne Road stadium with a hat-trick on his 70th senior international appearance in a 5–0 defeat of San Marino on 15 November 2006.[172] Giovanni Trapattoni, who took over from Staunton, maintained Keane as team captain starting in his first game in charge against Serbia on 24 May 2008 which ended in a 1–1 draw.[173]
As captain, Keane led the team to a second-place finish in the 2010 World Cup qualifying campaign. He scored his 40th international goal against Cyprus, a header in the 83rd minute, which secured a 2–1 win for Ireland.[174] Along with Dimitar Berbatov, he topped the scoring chart in the qualifying group with 5 goals in 10 games. His 41st international goal came in the controversial 2010 World Cup play-off with France on 18 November 2009.[175] This was his 26th goal in competitive (non-friendly) internationals.
Keane won his 100th cap against Argentina in a 1–0 friendly defeat on 11 August 2010. This match was also the first international football match at the new Aviva Stadium.[176] He scored his 45th international goal against Russia in October 2010.[177] It was the first time Ireland had lost a game in which Keane had scored. Previously, Ireland had won 26 and drew 10 of the 36 games in which Keane had scored (Note: This counts the 1–1 result against Spain in the knockout stages of the 2002 World Cup as a draw. Ireland lost in a penalty shootout). He equalled Andy Townsend's record for most appearances as Ireland captain (40) on 26 March 2011 and also scored a goal in the process.[178][179]
Keane with Ireland in 2011 before a match against Russia
Keane took part in the inaugural Nations Cup for Ireland, which took place in February and May 2011. He ended the tournament as top scorer, despite not having played in the Republic's first game against Wales. Keane scored three goals in total, two against Northern Ireland in a 5–0 victory, and what proved to be the tournament's winning goal in a 1–0 victory over Scotland.[180][181] Ireland emerged from the competition victorious, having won all three of their games without conceding a goal.[182]
On 4 June 2011, Keane scored twice in a 2–0 away win against Macedonia in qualification for UEFA Euro 2012 to become the first Irish or British player to score more than 50 international goals.[183] Following the game with Macedonia his total stood at 51 goals. He added another two goals in Ireland's 4–0 play-off hammering of Estonia in Tallinn which effectively secured qualification for Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine to bring his goal tally to 53.[184]
After a disappointing tournament in Poland, Keane brought his international tally to 54, with an 89th-minute penalty against Kazakhstan in Ireland's opening World Cup 2014 qualification match. This left the score at 1–1 before Kevin Doyle's goal a minute later secured a winning start to the campaign.[185] On 2 June 2013, Keane scored the third and fourth goals of the game, his 55th and 56th goals for Ireland, against Georgia in a 4–0 win.[186]
On 7 June 2013, Keane played his 126th game for Ireland and became the new record appearance holder, breaking Shay Given's previous record of 125 appearances. He also scored his second hat-trick of his international career in the same game against the Faroe Islands scoring his 57th, 58th and 59th goals in a 3–0 win for Ireland.[187] Keane scored his 60th international goal against Sweden on 6 September 2013, in a 2–1 loss.[188] He went on to score his 61st and 62nd goals for Ireland against Kazakhstan on 15 October 2013 in a 3–1 win and against Latvia a month later in a 3–0 victory, both games being played in Dublin.[189][190]
Keane missed his chance to score his 63rd goal against Costa Rica in Philadelphia on 6 June 2014 when he missed a penalty in a friendly game.[191] He was the highest male international scorer among active players following Miroslav Klose's retirement in 2014.[192] On 11 October 2014, he scored his third international hat-trick, his 63rd, 64th and 65th goals, in a 7–0 European qualifying win against Gibraltar at Aviva Stadium. The treble concluded with a penalty in the 18th minute of the match. This took him to a record 21 goals in European Championship qualifiers, surpassing the 20 by Turkey's Hakan Şükür.[193]
Keane was selected in manager Martin O'Neill's 23-man squad for UEFA Euro 2016 in what would be his final major tournament appearance for Ireland.[194] However, he was restricted to a bench role and only played a total of 23 minutes against Sweden and Belgium respectively.[195][196]
On 24 August 2016, Keane announced his retirement from international football.[197] His last match for Ireland was a friendly against Oman on 31 August 2016 at Aviva Stadium. Ireland emerged victorious 4–0 and Keane signed off with a goal to take him level with German great Gerd Müller on 68 international goals. He received a rousing ovation from the assembled crowd when he was substituted in the 57th minute.[198] Keane was also given a guard of honour from his Ireland teammates after the match had finished and he left the pitch with his two sons to rapturous applause from the home fans.[199][200]
Style of play [ edit ]
A talented, quick, and agile player,[201][202] Keane was a versatile forward, capable of playing anywhere along the front line,[203] due to his ability to score and create goals.[202] Throughout his career, he was often deployed in creative roles as a second striker, as a winger, or as an attacking midfielder behind the forwards, and as a main striker.[202][203] A technically gifted, intelligent, and hard-working forward,[201][203] Keane was also renowned for his pace, dribbling skills, and creativity, and also stood out for his leadership throughout his career.[204]
Although he used many different goal celebrations throughout his career, Keane's signature goalscoring celebration involved him performing a cartwheel, followed by a forward roll, and subsequently standing up and mimicking gesture of firing pistols with his hands.[205]
Personal life [ edit ]
On 7 June 2008, he married former Miss Ireland contestant Claudine Palmer, in Ballybrack, South Dublin.[206] The couple had their first child on 10 May 2009, a boy named Robert Ronan Cambridge Keane, Jr.[207][208] The pair welcomed their second son, Hudson, on 5 October 2015.[209]
Keane, who is a cousin of iconic singer and former Smiths frontman Morrissey,[210] is also noted for his singing skills.[211][212][213] His first cousin is Jason Byrne who is the second-highest goalscorer in League of Ireland history.[214] Keane holds a U.S. green card which qualifies him as a domestic player for MLS roster purposes.[215] Keane achieved his UEFA 'A' Licence in January 2016, via the FAI's Coach Education Programme.[216] Keane spoke in favour of the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Ireland ahead of a referendum in 2015.[217]
Career statistics [ edit ]
Club [ edit ]
[218][219][220]
International [ edit ]
[221][222]
Appearances and goals by national team and year National team Year Apps Goals Republic of Ireland 1998 5 2 1999 8 3 2000 9 2 2001 7 1 2002 11 6 2003 7 4 2004 10 6 2005 7 1 2006 6 4 2007 8 3 2008 7 3 2009 11 6 2010 8 4 2011 10 8 2012 8 1 2013 9 8 2014 7 3 2015 5 2 2016 3 1 Total 146 68
Honours [ edit ]
Club [ edit ]
Tottenham Hotspur
LA Galaxy
International [ edit ]
Republic of Ireland U18
Republic of Ireland
Individual [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]MMS compatibility between Google Voice and users of traditional cellular phones has long been solved for many folks on many carriers around the globe… except Verizon. We’re not sure why America’s #1 carrier wasn’t able to get MMS to work between Google Voice users and their own subscribers to this point, but there’s no longer anything to worry about.
Phandroid can confirm (after about half a dozen tests) that Google Voice users will now see MMS messages sent by Verizon Wireless numbers. The photos show up inline as they would on any ordinary MMS-to-MMS connection instead of simply being lost and dissolved into nothingness.
The reverse is still the same as it’s always been — Google Voice users can send photos to Verizon users and Verizon users will see it as a link to a photo. Still not quite as smooth as we’d like, but it certainly is a big step forward for those on Big Red who had to put up with this annoyance. Now go send some pictures!The two-year rule was introduced in an effort to clamp down on sham marriages and to put an end to so-called "wife imports".
But it has been blamed for forcing women to remain in abusive relationships, with a 2012 government-ordered inquiry recommending the rule be abolished.
According to Eva Eriksson, who carried out that inquiry on behalf of the former equality minister, Nyamko Sabuni, thousands of newly arrived women seek help every year after being assaulted by their Swedish spouses.
Eriksson, who is the governor of Värmland in west Sweden, claimed that the two-year rule locks women and their children into abusive relationships.
But Arnholm, who replaced Sabuni as equality minister in January 2013, has defended the rule.
"I think it serves its purpose," Arnholm told newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.
"It makes it simple and possible for people who fall in love to quickly be able to be together and to live in the same country. I know that many people appreciate [the rule]. Removing it would have sad consequences."
Arnholm did concede that there are some problems with the two-year rule.
"It should not be a protective shell or a pretext for battered women to stay with their men. We have to, at all costs, avoid the feeling that one gets thrown out of Sweden if one leaves an abusive man. But that does not lead me to conclude that the two-year rule should be abolished."
As part of the 2012 inquiry, Eriksson spoke to social services, police, hospitals and women's refuges.
She concluded that the extent of abuse suffered by women who came to Sweden to marry a Swedish man was widespread.
The report was welcomed by The National Organization for Women's Shelters and Young Women's Shelters in Sweden (Roks).
The Centre Party's Women's Association has also demanded that the two-year rule be scrapped, with its president, Gunilla Hjelm, urging Arnholm to take "immediate action" against "the practice of wife importation".
She said it "puts thousands of women in vulnerable positions".
The Local/nr Follow The Local on TwitterAn Ohio teenager who collapsed just days before his graduation died of a caffeine overdose, according to an autopsy.
Logan Stiner, 18, was found dead on the floor of his home in LaGrange around 11 a.m. on May 27, News Net 5 reports.
Stiner’s brother found him lying on the floor.
“He’s on the ground passed out. I don’t know how long he’s been lying here,” the brother said in a 911 call.
At first, authorities believed Stiner's death was because of natural causes, the Chronicle Telegram initially reported.
That same day, his mother, Katie Stiner, found bags of caffeine powder in the house. It took an autopsy to connect the powder to Stiner's death, according to the Chronicle Telegram.
Lorain County Coroner Dr. Stephen Evans said Stiner was found with more than 70 micrograms of caffeine per milliliter of blood in his system -- 20 micrograms more than what is considered a lethal dose.
It is unclear why Stiner was taking the caffeine powder, but he was a successful high school wrestler and once told his mother he took some sort of "pre-workout" substance, Newser reports.Share. George Lucas' original vision for Star Wars finds new life. George Lucas' original vision for Star Wars finds new life.
Dark Horse has launched a number of new Star Wars comics in 2013, including Brian Wood's post-Episode IV-era Star Wars and Gabriel Hardman's Star Wars Legacy sequel. But the publisher has announced a new Star Wars project that easily ranks as one of their most unexpected and unique to date. We'd almost expect this was an April Fool's Day joke if it weren't first revealed at WonderCon yesterday.
Dark Horse's newest comic is called "The Star Wars." This eight-issue mini-series is adapted from George Lucas' original screenplay draft of what would eventually become the original Star Wars film we all know and love. The Star Wars features Annikin Starkiller and his family as the main characters, along with a number of other familiar elements that would be reworked in later drafts. For example, Luke Skywalker is a respected Jedi general, Han Solo is a reptilian alien, and the Sith Knights and their Death Star are the great menace to the galaxy.
The Secret History of Star Wars
This comic sees LucasBooks editor J.W. Rinzler adapt Lucas' screenplay, with artist Mike Mayhew providing the visuals. It's clear from the preview page below that Mayhew is paying homage to painter Ralph McQuarrie's original concept designs for the movies.
“I’m not sure where I first read about The Star Wars -- it was years and years ago -- but the idea of Luke Skywalker being an older Jedi General, and Han Solo being a six-foot-tall lizard, turned my Star Wars fan brain on its side,” said editor Randy Stradley in Dark Horse's press release. “I always assumed this would be one of those stories that would be ‘lost to history,’ so getting to work on bringing it to life is kinda like a dream come true.”
“While researching in the Lucasfilm Archives I’ve found many treasures -- but one which truly astounded me was George’s rough draft for The Star Wars. His first complete imaginings were hallucinating to read -- mind blowing,” said Rinzler. “While working with George on another book project, I once asked if we could adapt his rough draft. He was hesitant. Years later, with Dark Horse’s invaluable help, we showed him a few drawn and colored pages of what it might look like. He gave us the okay.”
The Star Wars #1 is set to launch in September 2013.
Jesse is a writer for IGN Comics and IGN Movies. He can't wait until he's old enough to feel ways about stuff. Follow Jesse on Twitter, or find him on IGN.In many ways, Payday: The Heist is very similar to Left 4 Dead. You team up with three friends, you fend off hordes of enemies and try to stay alive. But, in a few important ways, they're very different. In Left 4 Dead, a throng of zombies are trying to keep you out of a safe room, in Payday, you rob banks, take hostages and mow down legions of cops. According to a post on the Overkill blog, spotted by VG247, the Payday devs are working with Valve on a collaboration that will bring both concepts together.
"We are excited to be able to confirm that an in-depth collaboration between OVERKILL and Valve is currently in production." says Overkill director Ulf Andersson. "We are working on a very cool blend of PAYDAY and Left 4 Dead."
A "cool blend," eh. Time to indiscriminately mash Left 4 Dead and Payday's premises together until something works. Zombies robbing a bank? Survivors robbing a zombie bank? Tanks robbing a bank? Crims robbing a bank staffed by Tanks? This isn't working. What do you think it'll be?Fabian Delph is a League Cup and FA Cup runner-up with Aston Villa
Aston Villa captain Fabian Delph has signed a five-year contract at Manchester City less than a week after saying he was staying at Villa Park.
England midfielder Delph's move to City had appeared over after he "set the record straight" over his future.
City agreed to meet an £8m release clause inserted into the new four-and-a-half-year contract signed in January.
"At just 25 years old, he still has his best years ahead," said City boss Manuel Pellegrini.
"He is an excellent player, I am looking forward to working with him."
Delph completed a medical on Friday and will fly to Australia over the weekend to join his new team-mates for pre-season training.
He will wear the number 18 shirt which Frank Lampard, now at New York City, wore last season.
LISTEN: Ex-Villa boss Paul Lambert tells 5 live Fabian Delph had every right to change his mind
Aston Villa released a 30-word statement confirming their captain's exit.
"Aston Villa can confirm that Fabian Delph has exercised the release clause in his contract and will join Manchester City," it said.
"We'd like to wish him success in his future career."
Frank Lampard, who wore City's No 18 shirt last season, has sent a message to Fabian Delph
Delph released a statement last week after reports of his original medical at City, saying: "I'm not leaving, I'm staying at the football club."
On Friday, he said he had spoken to his England team-mate and City goalkeeper Joe Hart - as well as Villa's new signing from City Micah Richards - before signing.
"Micah Richards told me that as far as he is concerned, this is the best club in the world and he had the time of his life here," added Delph.
Former Leeds player Delph did not travel with the Villa squad for their pre-season training camp in Portugal.
He helped Villa retain their Premier League status last season, making 28 league appearances, and also played a key role in their run to the FA Cup final, where they lost 4-0 to Arsenal.
He made his England debut against Norway last September and has six caps.
Find all the latest football transfers on our dedicated page.Copy a temporary flv (flash video) file to another folder Each time that a Flash video file (.flv) is played in your Web browser, a temporary file with all the content of the flv file is created in the temporary folder of Windows, usually located under [User Profile]\Local Settings\Temp.
In order to view this file, go to your temp folder while playing a video in YouTube or in other similar Flash video Web site, and click the 'Date Modified' column to sort the files list by date. If you do it right, you'll see that the first filename begins with 'fla' prefix and the file size is gradually growing. This 'fla???.tmp' file is in fact a full.flv file that can be played with any video software that support flv files. However, this file is locked by the flash player component and you cannot copy or open it by a regular software. also, when you close the Web browser, the file is automatically deleted. In order to extract this.tmp file, you can use the VideoCacheView utility. When you run this tool, it automatically scan the cache of your Web browsers and the temporary folder of Windows, and find all stored video files.
After the video list is loaded, you can find the same tmp file that you see in the temporary folder: Select this file, and choose 'Copy Selected Files To' option. Now, you should select the folder that you wish to copy the file: After you click 'Ok', the file will be copied into the selected folder. Be aware that before you copy the file, you must wait until the flash video file is fully loaded by your Web browser. Otherwise, the copied flv file will be corrupted.Image caption The site is regularly used for motocross and quad bike events
A man has died and a woman has been seriously injured at a quad and motocross event in County Durham.
The male rider, who has not been named, came off his bike at the privately-run event next to Low Hardwick Farm, near Sedgefield, at about 13:00 BST.
He was taken by air ambulance to hospital in Middlesbrough but was confirmed dead shortly before arrival.
The woman, in her early 30s, suffered serious injuries at about 14:10 at which point the event was closed.
The female rider was also taken to the James Cook University Hospital by air ambulance, police said.
A spokesman for Durham Police said: "We took the decision on safety grounds to close down the privately-run event, which involved around 100 participants and 300 spectators.
"We understand the formal investigation is likely to be led by the local authority, but we are carrying out initial inquiries
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enii îşi declamă, stângaci, discursurile prefabricate. Este ocazia de a ilustra, încă o dată, mediocritatea intelectuală şi morală a unui fals patriotism,unul care refuză luciditatea şi onoarea, în favoarea jubilaţiei demagogice şi a corupţiei instituţionalizate.
Ziua de 24 ianuarie 1859 este mai mult decât un pretext prăfuit pentru a omagia, la Iaşi, oamenii Unirii. Dincolo de coaja clişeelor, se află o istorie ce îşi are semnificaţia ei pentru cei de astăzi. Trecutul nu este in România cu adevărat trecut. El revine spre a ne bântui, cu toate promisiunile înşelate şi ocaziile ratate de care a avut parte această naţiune.
24 ianuarie 1859 are şi partea de umbră pe care prea puţini o evocă- Unirea cea mică este întemeiată pe sacrificiul istoric al Moldovei. Pentru Iaşi şi pentru Moldova, ea este începutul unui declin care explică subdezvoltarea regională de astăzi.
Unirea a dat naştere unui stat român care a mizat, constant şi programatic, pe centralizare. Statul român, calchiat pe model francez iacobin şi bonapartist, nu a avut nici un fel de înţelegere pentru diversitatea pe care o garantează autentica autonomie locală. El a ţintit spre uniformizare şi centralizare, ca parte a proiectului de constituire a unei identităţi naţionale monolitice.
De aceea, soarta Moldovei în anii de după Mica Unire anticipează tratamentul care va fi rezervat şi noilor provincii în anii de după 1918. Viziunea policentrică, care ar fi permis alocarea echilibrată de resurse şi negocierea raţională a dezvoltării, nu a fost cu adevărat luată în considerare. 1859 este, simultan, momentul auroral al unei generaţii de oameni politici din Moldova, dar şi debutul seriei istorice de decădere al provinciei lor, spre a relua notaţiile lui A. D. Xenopol de la început de secol XX. Iaşiul a devenit un oraş de provincie ca oricare altul. Spiritul moldovean a fost confruntat cu hemoragia de cadre şi de inteligenţe spre Bucureşti. România se confunda cu centrul. Pentru cei de dincolo, pentru cei din margine, nu exista decât perspectiva rataşării la noua locomotivă istorică. Pledoaria junimistă a lui P. P. Carp a recuperat exact acest nivel ignorat al autonomiei locale. Cetăţenia nu se poate cristaliza decât prin exerciţiul libertăţilor şi al bunei guvernări.
25 ianuarie 1859 invită la regândirea, astăzi, a modului în care ne imaginăm statul şi naţiunea. Este vremea să ieşim din tiparul care ne-a marcat istoric evoluţia, un tipar definit prin centralizare şi prin obsesia unităţii. Fiecare dintre provinciile ce compun România, în măsura în care şi-a putut conserva o minimă identitate sub asaltul nivelator comunist, poate propune o voce specifică. Naţiunea nu trebuie organizată asemeni unei cazarme, în care sa domnească o ordine a inhibiţiei şi a centralismului. Statul nostru trebuie obligat să înveţe să respecte spaţiul de libertate al cetăţenilor săi. Din acest spaţiu de libertate se naşte şi identitatea colectivă a unor regiuni.
Cetăţenia presupune reechilibrarea relaţiei dintre centru şi provincie. În locul “feudalizării” României, ce oferă un alibi pentru exploatarea rapace, este momentul să se aşeze descentralizarea ce permite gestionarea de resurse, cu atenţie la necesităţile locale. Identitatea României se sprijină pe această diversitatea intelectuală şi temperamentală a zonelor noastre. România este mai mult decât o hartă atârnată pe un perete de şcoală. Ea se hrăneşte din acest ataşament pe care fiecare dintre noi îl avem faţă de locurile din care venim.
Sacrificiul provinciilor pe altarul statului venerat asemeni unei divinităţi nu conduce decât la subdezvoltare şi la impas istoric. Diversitatea etnică şi regională este fundamentul unui patriotism care unifică, fără a uniformiza. Subsidiaritatea poate fortifica România, înlăturând un model perimat.
25 ianuarie 1859 este o zi ce uneşte speranţe dezamăgite şi realitatea naşterii unei naţiuni. Omagiul ipocrit poate fi inlocuit cu examinarea lucidă. Căci numai luciditatea patriotică poate fi punctul de pornire al unui alt început.
Ai informatii despre tema de mai sus? Poti contribui la o mai buna intelegere a subiectului? Scrie articolul tau si trimite-l la editor[at]contributors.ro
Citeste mai multe despre: identitate, romania, UnireWashington (CNN) Congressional Republicans have a simple plan to get an Obamacare repeal and replace bill to President Donald Trump: Keep kicking the can down the road.
House Republicans made the argument they needed to pass a bill so the Senate could take it up. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won a key vote Tuesday by telling colleagues they just needed to bring something -- anything -- to the floor. Now, GOP leaders want senators to do it again: Pass a so-called "skinny bill" so they can work with the House on a final proposal.
Keeping the ball rolling is the name of the game. The actual policy details can wait until what would be an intense conference committee between House and Senate lawmakers.
"What a skinny repeal does is it gets it to a conference committee," said Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota. "At that stage, then we can begin the process of rebuilding again as one option."
Already, senators have rejected two significant proposals: One to repeal the Affordable Care Act without an immediate replacement in place, and another to allow bare-bones health insurance plans not permitted under Obamacare.
The "skinny" proposal is a major reduction in the scope of the bill the Republicans first imagined. It would only repeal the individual and employer mandates as well as the medical device tax. Experts have already warned the skinny repeal could drive up the cost of insurance, but it's not the end game. It's a vehicle.
"We've embarked on a conference strategy," said Roger Wicker, a Republican senator from Mississippi.
After the dramatic 51-50 vote Tuesday on the motion to start floor debate on health care, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, told reporters that the "real negotiations" would begin once the Senate and House got to a conference.
In private conversations -- as they worked to convince 50 Republicans to vote to begin debating the health care bill -- one leadership aide told CNN "a lot of promises were made about what we'll be able to get for members in a conference."
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, a key negotiator for Trump, said the current need is for the Senate to reach the "lowest common denominator" to keep moving.
"What gets us to 50 votes so that we can move forward on a health-care reform legislation... that's what needs to happen," Price said on CNBC Wednesday morning
The Senate strategy is similar to the plan used in the House months ago when Speaker Paul Ryan and his allies were struggling to keep their health care proposal alive. The message then had been that Republican members just needed to send something to the Senate. And then, the negotiations would continue from there.
"None of these votes to me are votes that you ought to live or die by -- they are process votes to move the product along," Oklahoma Republican Rep. Tom Cole, an ally of the leadership, urged House members in March. "You ought to try to continue to amend it, to change it."
The House eventually passed its bill in May with no margin for error, 217-213.
Easier said than done
There are problems, however, with assuming that House and Senate Republicans are going to have any easier time coming up with a comprehensive bill than the Senate did.
It was just a few months ago that Republican senators were boastful that they could find consensus on a plan that would repeal and replace Obamacare on their own. The goal then was to pass something quickly and maybe avoid a messy conference altogether. The House would quickly pass the Senate bill and, send it to Trump and everyone could move on to tax reform having delivered on their long-standing campaign promise.
Only recently has it become clear to leadership that conference is the best strategy now.
During the marathon sessions this week, the thinking is that Republicans will be forced to go on record on various health care proposals. Most of them are expected to fall short of the votes they need, but it will give leadership a clearer indication of which strategy to pursue during conference.
Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn demurred when asked by reporters if leadership had the votes on a "skinny" repeal bill, changing the conversation to the importance of getting to a conference, instead.
"The idea is to try to give people an opportunity to vote on everything they want to vote on and ultimately pass a bill that 50 senators can agree to with the idea of getting to a conference with that," Cornyn said.
Pressed again, Cornyn responded: "If we can pass a bill out of the Senate, we can work with the House."
What would a conference deal look like?
Entering a conference without agreement on their own replacement bill could put senators at a distinct disadvantage as the negotiate with the House, however. Already, the House of Representatives has a health care bill. They worked through their differences and found a way forward after fits and starts. Conference committees are also notoriously arcane and tedious not to mention there are still vast differences between the House's vision for an Obamacare replacement and the Senate's.
House Republicans passed a bill that would end the enhanced funding for Medicaid expansion in 2020 and would give individuals tax credits to buy insurance that were tied to their age, with an income cap.
Senate moderates, meanwhile, have tried to fight to extend Medicaid expansion funding in their states and phase it out beyond the 2020 marker. Senate moderates have also poured billions more into their proposed legislation to ease the transition for low-income people off of Medicaid expansion and to help lower premiums of high-cost patients.
The House bill, meanwhile, gave states the ability to let insurers charge consumers more based on their health history and to waive essential health benefits like maternity care and hospitalization. Versions of the Senate bill have chipped away at those protections, but moderates have made it clear that they are opposed to changes that go as far as the House's did.
In other words, waiting until a conference to find consensus among senators may make the process more grueling and uncertain.
"The differences between House Republicans and Senate Republicans are virtually irreconcilable," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said on the floor Wednesday morning. "So what is the point of conference?"
For now, however, Republicans are praising McConnell's ability to at least get them to this point.
"He pulled it out of the hat again. He's good at it," said Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona. "He never quits so we're still working at it obviously, the end game, but at least we started."
Correction: Sen. Mike Rounds represents South Dakota.Osama Bin Laden's death is being celebrated, and everyone seems to repeat the old conspiracy theory that he was indeed the mastermind behind the terror attacks of 9/11. But that was never proven, and there is not even evidence hinting at such a connection according to the FBI. It is very well possible that completely different organizations than al-Qaeda were responsible for the planning and execution of 9/11, and that the latter was merely one of the involved parties.
Osama Bin Laden was never formally charged, because the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation didn't deliver the necessary evidence to the Department of Justice, which would be the required path in this matter. Another explanation for the lack of criminal charges was brought forward by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at the time, who said that the 911 attack was an act of war and not a law enforcement matter. But this mere redefining of the attack doesn't explain why no evidence would be needed to proof who was behind the attacks, and how it was accomplished. Just for comparison, the airplanes that attacked Pearl Harbor were clearly Japanese, and they didn't come from nowhere, but were launched from aircraft carriers within range.
If anyone is surprised by this fact, which one could be excused for as it is very rarely mentioned by your friendly television pundit, read for yourself what Rex Tom, FBI Director of Investigative Publicity, stated in 2006 about the FBI's position:
“The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice then decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, bin Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11.”
Now, in a constitutional state in which the exercise of governmental power is constrained by the rule of law - which usually assumes the innocence of an individual if not proven otherwise by a formal trial before appropriate courts - this lack of evidence to even bring forward charges and start a trial could have been a hindrance.
The U.S. government saw it differently and bombed Afghanistan just weeks after September 9, 2001, as usual without a formal declaration of war, with one of the top priorities to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden. It doesn't even need mentioning that the waterboarding in Guantanamo Bay of various detainees rounded up without charges is beyond anything that a constitutional government could ever do. From the moment of ordering unconstitutional torture and wars, any government simply ceases to be constitutional.
And there is quite apparently continuity of the U.S. government in acting in these ways, unbound by the rule of law. The current U.S. President Barack Obama gave a live speech shortly after the death of Osama Bin Laden was announced, boasting about the success that he said was his personal priority order. Right at the beginning of the speech (Full-text), he repeated the unfounded myth, which can thus also be called a lie, that Bin Laden would be responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks. That may be former president Bush's and Obamas personal opinion - but it just goes against the clear assessment of the responsible government authority. Obama goes on to say: And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.
What justice does Obama refer to, exactly? Osama Bin Laden was certainly responsible for many crimes, and maybe even 911 - but as there seems to be no formal evidence for the latter, it is wrong to make this the official reason for his execution. Now, probably few care about the death of Usama, who was a terrorist after all. But how about the 5 women and 4 children that were killed one week ago, on April 22 as reported by BBC, by a U.S. military drone in Pakistan, when missiles hit not just a building with suspected militants, but also a family house?
And this is not a single incident at all. In Obama's war on al-Qaeda, as he proudly called it in his speech, over 700 innocent civilians were massacred by drones in Pakistan alone, so far. In March, 40 innocent people were killed in an attack on a tribal meeting, in February, 9 children, as young as 8 years old, were killed by U.S. helicopters, and so on.
The connection between Bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks was made by the Bush-Cheney administration, at the morning of the attacks, before the first tower even collapsed. Nearly ten years later, after intensive investigation, a government commission, two wars and the interrogation under torture of some 750 people detained in Guantanamo Bay without charges, no hard evidence could be found that would confirm the initial allegation.
But something else is much more worrying than the missing link to Bin Laden - there are still many open questions of what really happened at the fateful day of 9/11/2001. The families of victims, and thousands of engineers, architects, politicians, professors and other citizens, demand a real investigation of the events and the responsible parties. According to their judgement, the official explanations, including blaming Bin Laden and Al Qaeda for everything, without proper evidence, are insufficient.
To just highlight the most obvious and easy to see discrepancy: At the World Trade Center site, three towers collapsed, but only two were hit by an airplane. The third tower, WTC7, was at a significant distance of the other two towers, more far from them then several other skyscrapers, with no other tower significantly damaged. WTC7 collapsed suddenly, very fast and evenly. The official explanation is that a fire in a few floors would have caused this. But no skyscraper ever collapsed due to a fire before 9/11, and none did after. The open question in this case is: was WTC7 the only tower in history that collapsed because of burning furniture - or are the engineers right who insist that the only realistic explanation is a controlled demolition with explosive charges expertly planted at the foundations of the tower?
None the less, the same unfounded 11 am allegation of the Bush-Cheney administration is repeated by countless people, in media and government, even today and it is still used to continue unconstitutional and ruinous wars, which claim the life's of hundreds of thousands of innocent people and leave the international reputation of the United States blood stained.Scott Boone, who as the defensive coordinator at William & Mary last year was a finalist for Footballscoop.com's Football Championship Subdivision DC of the year, will be named to that position at Nevada today, according to a report by the website.
Boone has been the coordinator at William & Mary the last three seasons and the linebackers coach the last seven. He would replace Scottie Hazelton, who was the DC and LB coach under first year coach Brian Polian last season. Hazelton stepped down recently to take a job with the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars.
A message left with Boone was not immediately returned, nor was an email seeking confirmation with Nevada officials.
Last season, the Tribe ranked second in the country in scoring defense (14.0) and eighth in total defense (305.5). William & Mary also ranked 11th in pass efficiency defense (107.4), 13th in rushing defense (118.1) and 15th in third down conversion defense (33.0).
In his first season as defensive coordinator (2011), the Tribe was one of the Colonial Athletic Association's top defenses and ranked among the league leaders in scoring defense (22.2), total defense (350.9) and rushing defense (146.9).
Boone ran a multiple, aggressive 4-3 defense at William & Mary, which could signal a change from Hazelton's Tampa 2 scheme.
Boone has been a college coach for more than 25 years and was the head coach at Randolph-Macon (Virginia) for seven years, compiling a record of 37-33. He joined the William & Mary staff in 2004 as an offensive assistant. He also coached at his alma mater, Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Ind.CLOSE Rebecca Lauber, 23, of Jupiter, has an extremely rare condition called autoimmune polyglandular syndrome. The condition causes her body's infection-fighting system to attack her organs. Lauber works out as part of her routine to stay healthy. Wochit
Buy Photo Rebecca Lauber, 23, of Jupiter, spends her morning working out at Planet Fitness on Tuesday, July 25, 2017, in Palm Beach Gardens. Lauber has a rare autoimmune condition, Polyglandular Autoimmune Syndrome Type 1, that affects many of the body’s organs. “My body attacks itself and I lose my electrolytes and my calcium, so it’s important that I stay active and eat right,” Lauber said. “I work out and try to stay healthy so that I’m not defined by my illness, and I want to encourage others to get out and be active and stay healthy and not be defined by their illnesses either.” (Photo: ERIC HASERT/TCPALM)Buy Photo
She suffers from a disease so rare only 500 other cases have been recorded worldwide.
She suffered years of multiple seizures and, once in her teens, was within an hour of having a heart attack before a doctor realized what was happening.
Rebecca Lauber, 23, certainly has had a tough life so far, but spend a half-hour with her and you'd never guess. She's so positive and bounces back from adversity so well, rubber balls should be envious.
Lauber has an extremely rare condition called autoimmune polyglandular syndrome, which causes her body's infection-fighting systems to attack her organs instead of protecting them. It's caused by a mutation of a crucial gene she got from both her parents, who are carriers of the defect yet do not suffer any ill effects. No one else in Lauber's family is affected, although an aunt has lupus, another autoimmune disorder.
Lauber was born with the condition, but doctors were mystified about what was wrong with her until she turned 6 in 2001. As a child she had multiple seizures. Doctors treated her for epilepsy.
Eventually, after dozens of blood tests, one doctor at Dover Air Force Base in her native Delaware noticed her abnormally high calcium levels and acted on a hunch. He told her mother that unless she was taken to a hospital right then and there, she'd die.
Lauber was airlifted to Children's Hospital in Philadelphia where physicians finally were able to unravel the mystery.
Buy Photo Rebecca Lauber rehydrates while walking/running on a treadmill during her morning workout at Planet Fitness in Palm Beach Gardens. “We have to keep our bodies active, we have to stay focused on the goal,” Lauber said. “We can’t take no for an answer when it comes to not having a cure for our diseases.” (Photo: ERIC HASERT/TCPALM)
Lauber's family has a strong tradition of military service. Family members have served in every branch except the Marines. In high school, she excelled in ROTC activities and applied to enlist. She was rejected because of her disease.
That caused a prolonged bout of deep depression, Lauber told me. Yet she bounced back and decided to start a new chapter of life in a new state.
Today, Lauber, who moved to Florida a year ago and lived briefly in St. Lucie West, holds down a job as an emergency medical technician at the Cleveland Clinic in Weston, near Boca Raton.
Until about 18 months ago, doctors had to closely monitor her calcium and electrolyte levels, which could fluctuate dangerously without warning.
Dr. Michael Levine, chief of the division of endocrinology and diabetes at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, finally figured out what was wrong with Lauber. She still flies to see him three times a year.
She showed signs of hypoparathyroidism, Levine told me.
"There are four parathyroid glands within the thyroid gland that regulate the level of calcium and phosphates," Levine explained. "When I first met her she had abnormal calcium and phosphate levels and hair loss, so I thought these might be the effects of a syndrome."
In those days, Levine said, treatment consisted of using vitamin D and calcium. Lab tests revealed that a parathyroid hormone was missing.
"She did reasonably well," he said, but when a hormone replacement drug called Natpara became available 18 months ago, she started taking it.
It has transformed Lauber's life. One injection a day now manages her disease. Yet, at $100,000 a year, Natpara is horribly expensive. Her hospital medical insurance completely covers her expenses.
"She's had a very challenging life, but she has a very optimistic attitude," Levine said.
She does indeed. Lauber's dream is to become an advocate for children like her who suffer from rare diseases. She understands that often they have no one to share their experiences with, and how incredibly frustrating and lonely that can be.
Lauber, who now lives in Jupiter, is a fitness buff. Looking at her, you'd never guess she has a life-threatening condition. She oozes enthusiasm and positivity.
She's studying for her EMT certification at Palm Beach State College in West Palm Beach. Yet her dream job is to be a role model and fitness inspiration for children like her in a hospital setting.
Levine described Lauber as a fighter.
"In many chronic diseases, (success) is based on attitude," he said. "A 'whiny' attitude is common, and that's not good. Or you can be Rebecca's way. She's a fighter, she's positive and she derives a great deal of satisfaction from helping others. She has decided she won't be controlled by her disease."
Maybe one day researchers will come up with a cure for Lauber's condition. For now, she's able to manage her disease and live an active and fulfilling life. She can be earnest, forthright and passionate — and then dissolves into giggles.
She's a rubber ball who makes the old saying about mind over matter, well, really matter.
Anthony Westbury is a columnist for TCPalm. This column reflects his opinion. Contact him at 772-221-4220, [email protected], or follow him @TCPalmWestbury on Twitter.
Read or Share this story: https://www.tcpalm.com/story/opinion/columnists/anthony-westbury/2017/07/27/heres-girl-who-never-stops-bouncing-back-anthony-westbury/468752001/In 1984, Escondido resident Saul Mendoza competed in the Olympics, representing his native country of Bolivia. More than two decades later, in 2005, he opened the San Diego Fencing Center in Escondido to train athletes in the sport he loves.
With sword-fighting front and center in films such as the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series, prospective students have gained exposure to the ancient sport. Mendoza’s center, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, now trains about 75 competitive and amateur fencers and has seen two of its former students earn fencing scholarships to Yale.
Mendoza, 50, talks about the appeal and challenges of fencing.
Q: How did you become interested in fencing?
A: I grew up in Bolivia and was exposed to the sport through friends in my neighborhood. I loved the personal challenge that fencing provides, and I pushed myself to compete and train with athletes above my level. My local club supported me and exposed me to an international culture of travel and sports etiquette that I would not otherwise have been part of. I was a three-time South American champion by the age of 18 and qualified to compete for Bolivia in the Olympic Games in Los Angeles 1984. Additionally I competed in junior and senior world championships.
Q: Who are your influences and inspirations in the world of fencing?
A: My greatest influences in the sport of fencing were my coaches, Pedro Bleyer and Eduardo Auza. Through their encouragement and instruction, I gained self-confidence and discipline and a love for the sport. Skills I learned through sport I use everyday in work and personal and professional relationships. I feel very lucky that as a young boy in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, I had access to a Hungarian fencing school, and it was just luck that a coach from Hungary lived in my neighborhood.
Q: What are the benefits of fencing for participants in the sport?
A: Fencing develops teamwork, leadership and critical thinking skills. It is a highly visual spatial task and works on fine motor skills. For our young athletes, parents report improved attention. The tactical aspects allow girls and boys to train together because here the focus is not on strength but on control, technique in combination with quick decision-making. It’s an equal playing field.
Q: How do you help athletes develop their skills as competitive or amateur fencers?
A: We have all levels of athletes, from recreational to locally, nationally or internationally competitive. If an athlete’s aspirations are solely recreational, we will still help them improve their skills the same as for the fencer who trains for important events. In fencing, it’s not about identifying an athlete with potential, it’s about student-coach teamwork in developing the athlete that wants to go further. This is not a quick sport to master; it takes years of dedication and training.
Q: How did you decide to open the fencing center?
A: After moving to Escondido, we started the process of searching for a commercial site for our business with the idea of additionally opening a fencing school. Ultimately, we ended up purchasing an empty lot and constructing the commercial building, opening the San Diego Fencing Center in 2005.
Q: Please tell us about your experience as an Olympic fencer for Bolivia.
A: Competing in the Olympics for Bolivia was a huge honor. Los Angeles did an amazing job hosting and welcoming all athletes. My best life experience.
Q: One of your students will be fencing for Yale this year. Can you tell us about him?
A: Walter Musgrave started fencing at 9 years old and has always been a dedicated hardworking athlete. He rarely missed a group class, took private lessons, competed at local tournaments, national and international tournaments as well as volunteered at local events as a referee and support for organizers. Through this sincere love of the sport, he developed a beautiful fencing resume. Obviously, he is also a dedicated student and this combination made him appealing to many of the NCAA fencing programs. We feel great knowing that as a new freshman, he will have his fencing team as a built-in support system. Actually, Walter is the second student I’ve had accepted to Yale. It’s wonderful that so many great universities in this country recruit fencers and that these programs are accessible to our athletes.
Q: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
A: In times of adversity, remember that the difficult moments will pass like clouds in the sky, stay focused on your long-term goals.
Q: What would people be surprised to find out about you?
A: My fencing students would be surprised to know that I was competitive in street cycling and almost chose training in cycling over fencing.
Q: What is your ideal San Diego weekend?
A: Escondido is so beautiful there is nothing better than swimming in the backyard, barbecuing with my wife and kids, enjoying the mountain views and beautiful weather.
What I love about Escondido...
South Escondido has a rich culture. We have Grand Avenue street scene, a pocket of organic health stores, great private and public school options and access to hiking and nature.Sols 1051-1054: Approaching "Lion"
22 July 2015
After driving just over 20 meters, the rover stopped 4.4 meters short of the Sol 1049 drive goal because the vehicle pitch exceeded the 15-degree limit set by the rover drivers. So another 6.4-meter drive toward the bright outcrop of interest, dubbed "Lion," was planned for Sol 1051. That drive completed successfully, providing a good view of the outcrop. ChemCam and Mastcam observed the sand ripple "Agency" and bedrock target "Mullan" before the Sol 1051 drive. Now that the Lion outcrop is within LIBS range, ChemCam and Mastcam observations of it are planned for Sol 1053, specifically targets named "Sorrel Springs" and "Buckskin." A nearby rock called "Hewolf" will also be observed before the rover drives closer to the Lion outcrop. Hopefully the rover will be in position for contact science on the outcrop this weekend. The Sol 1054 plan is much less complex, with a Navcam search for clouds above the rover and ChemCam calibration activities. The vehicle should be recharged and ready for a busy weekend plan!
by Ken HerkenhoffThe sun blazes above Bahawalpur, an area of Pakistan known for fertile fields and feudalism. It’s afternoon and the temperature has already exceeded 120 degrees Fahrenheit as I sit talking to a small group of women in a courtyard. They listen politely, exchanging stories about their lives and why I am there.
These are hardscrabble women, trying to scratch out a living as weavers and sharecroppers on an acre or so of land, supplementing their family’s income by selling crafts. Their homes have no toilets, no electricity, no clean water. Their children’s futures limited by poor quality schools. This is what poverty looks like.
Yet they are aspirational. They proudly tell me their husbands all own cellphones, which have become essential to farming, even for the poorest.
As the sun beats down upon our backs, I am reminded to mention Acumen’s new investment in a solar company, d.light, which has a $7 torch on the market. I tell them it’s a big seller in India and Kenya and customers swear by them. The women listen, nodding their heads. I ask whether they would be interested in buying such a product to bring light into their homes after the sun goes down and Bahawalpur becomes cloaked in darkness.
A broad-eyed woman with a rust-colored scarf hanging loosely on her head, her face drenched in sweat, leans forward on thick haunches. She looks directly at me, her gaze betraying a mix of bemusement and exhaustion.
“We don’t want a light,” she says flatly.
“We’re hot. Bring us a fan.”
“A fan?” I ask, stumbling over my own words. “But a light would help you save the money you pay for kerosene. There is no smoke. You could work later at night and your children could study.”
I try to make my case for the solar lantern, but my attempts are futile. The woman gives me that look again: “We work enough. Forget the light. We need a fan.”
I don’t have a fan to sell nor the power to make it run.
That evening, I return to my guesthouse, exhausted by the heat and more grateful than ever for the fan above my bed. For many of us, it’s hard to imagine a life without power when electricity is the undercurrent of nearly every aspect of our lives.
It’s been eight years since we made our first investment in d.light and I learned a valuable lesson about energy and the poor. The world has changed and so has Acumen. The cost of solar has plummeted from $4 to $1 per watt. The proliferation of mobile technologies makes payments for new innovations more possible, so poor families don’t have to pay cash upfront. Awareness of solar’s benefits have increased, and we are seeing its potential to transform lives.
Importantly, we’ve also come to understand the Energy Ladder: like cellphones, consumption of energy creates demand for more consumption. It may take time — and marketing dollars — before people will convert to solar but, once they do, they quickly want to get to that next rung of the ladder and purchase not only light but energy to power their cellphones, radios, televisions and more. Indeed, consumers will push the edge of their purchasing power to change their lives through access to energy.
Fast forward to today. I return to Pakistan to visit a new investment in a company providing off-grid household solar products to the rural poor. We drive five hours outside of Lahore, at least two of those hours on dirt roads. Finally, we arrive at a cluster of mud houses. Men, most sporting turbans, some with rifles slung across their back, stand to greet us. Veiled women huddle near one of the houses, hiding their faces from us as they prepare the evening meal.
Life on the surface feels like I imagine it has felt for many generations. Families rise with the sun and work outside until the sun goes down. And then it is quiet.
But things are changing. A few weeks prior, the compound residents, all members of an extended family, purchased a 50-watt solar home system for $280, mostly on credit. The bright yellow unit includes a solar panel to power six lights, a cellphone charger, a radio — and a fan. It also includes USB capabilities so the families can load up a flash drive with music, which usually costs them 20 cents at the local mobile phone outlet.
The men beam with pride as they gush about their new lives. I ask what they value about the system. A mustachioed elder doffing a cap that accentuates dark, sparkling eyes, bushy eyebrows and a sort of elfish, mischievous personality speaks for everyone. “We like the light for security,” he says, explaining that they installed a light outside the houses to know whether nightly visitors are friends or bandits.
The second priority? The charger. Previously, one man would drive two hours into town and wait to charge all of the residents’ phones before returning. The men would regularly lose five or so hours of phone access in addition to the charging and travel expenses.
Third, the fan. “It cools and keeps insects away at night. Our children can sleep and do better in school,” he continues. Another interjects, “And we want fans like the rich people have.”
I think about what this means. On Monday, this family was living as they did
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take home a growler of their favorite.
And while you can see into their brewing space from the room, co-owner Jay Sykes said he plans to open it up for tours later on this year.AP Exclusive: Possible USAID bid rigging probed The DOJ is reportedly investigating potential contract rigging at the office that distributes foreign aid
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is conducting an investigation into possible contract rigging by the general counsel at the government agency that distributes foreign aid, documents obtained by The Associated Press show.
Memos from the inspector general of the U.S. Agency for International Development also reveal that there was evidence that Deputy Administrator Donald Steinberg tried to interfere with an internal investigation.
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The inspector general's office told a House committee on Wednesday that the Justice Department investigation was "ongoing."
An attorney for the USAID general counsel, Lisa Gomer, said Thursday night that he was told the Justice Department decided not to initiate a criminal investigation. He declined to say who in the department informed him there was no probe.
The Justice Department was unable to immediately clarify whether there was an ongoing investigation. When an inspector general makes a criminal referral, the department has the option of pursuing an issue such as alleged contract fraud as either a civil or criminal case.
Meanwhile, inspector general documents showed that the USAID deputy administrator, Donald Steinberg, told IG investigators they had no right to make a criminal referral to the Justice Department without going first to top USAID officials. The IG's office told Steinberg that the office was independent and did not need such approval.
Inspectors general are watchdogs within a federal agency and are supposed to operate independently.
The original investigation focused on whether Lisa Gomer, USAID general counsel, may have "wired" a contract last May so the winner of the solicitation would be the agency's retiring chief financial officer, David Ostermeyer.
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The contract bidding for a "senior government-to-government assistance adviser" was canceled after questions were raised.
"If the solicitation was in fact designed for Ostermeyer to win, Ms. Gomer and USAID may have violated various federal laws, the Federal Acquisition Regulation and government ethics policies," according to a letter from two House members to USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah in November.
The letter was written by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the panel's national security subcommittee.
On Wednesday, the inspector general's office wrote Issa's committee saying the Justice Department authorized the inspector general to give the committee documents related to Steinberg's potential interference. The Justice Department said it would continue to investigate the original allegations. All the documents were described as "law enforcement sensitive."
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One document said Steinberg told inspector general officials that Shah asked him to speak with the internal investigators about the review. Steinberg, according to another inspector general document, ripped into the independent watchdog.
"When people are slapping badges down, reading rights and monitoring who is calling who as it relates to career people, it is a mistake," Steinberg was quoted as telling his agency's investigators. Steinberg added, according to the document, "We are not that kind of agency. People are being told they need to hire lawyers and that is inappropriate."
The memo also quoted Steinberg as saying "now that Justice is involved, it is like the IG is out to get these people. Justice is going to proceed criminally. This should have come through the front office first."
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The law governing inspectors general says that the internal investigators "shall report expeditiously to the attorney general whenever the inspector general has reasonable grounds to believe there has been a violation of Federal criminal law."
There was no response to a message requesting comment, left on the home answering machine of a David Ostermeyer.
Gomer attorney David Schertler said in a statement Thursday that his client "did not violate any law. We understand that the Office of Inspector General for USAID conducted an investigation, in which Ms. Gomer cooperated completely, and we have been informed that the Department of Justice reviewed the matter and declined to initiate a criminal investigation. Ms. Gomer is an example of a dedicated and committed public servant who served as an excellent General Counsel for USAID and did nothing other than to further the best interests of the agency and the United States. Her decision to leave public service is a loss for USAID."
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Steinberg declined to comment.
A senior USAID official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the subject, said Gomer has been reassigned from her general counsel's position and has submitted her resignation effective Feb. 9. The official said she was not ordered to resign.
The USAID spokesman, Kamyl Bazbaz said, "We take very seriously the independence of the inspector general and the importance of the agency's cooperation with IG audits and investigations."
He added, "It is the usual practice for the IG to brief the senior leadership of the agency regarding its ongoing investigations and audits."
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In an inspector general's "memorandum of interview" last June, investigators described their probe into allegations that "Lisa Gomer, general counsel for USAID colluded with David Ostermeyer, chief financial officer for USAID, by working with him to write a scope of work for a personal service contract... in the Office of General Counsel."
"Gomer planned to select Ostermeyer for the position," the memo said.
The job Ostermeyer would have received in working with foreign governments would have paid between $123,758 and $155,500, according the USAID solicitation document. The solicitation said "the work is generally sedentary and does not pose undue physical demands," an important factor in an agency where USAID workers can live in poor conditions in dangerous countries.
According to an inspector general's document from last June, Steinberg said he "had already looked into this matter thoroughly and knows there is nothing to it." Steinberg said the contract award was canceled because of issues raised about the procurement.
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"He said it is a mistake to have a criminal investigation under way," the investigative document said. "To take a matter to the Department of Justice for criminal consideration without first reporting the issues to the front office is inappropriate and a judgment error on the IG's part."
According to the document the deputy assistant inspector general for investigations, Lisa McClennon, told Steinberg "the agency never has the right to instruct the inspector general's office on whether or not something is presented to Justice."
Issa said in a statement, "This interference by the top USAID official and his deputy in a corruption investigation of other top officials is disturbing and outrageous. Inspectors general can only be effective if they are independent. Efforts to intimidate or chastise an inspector general for investigating agency corruption and submitting findings to the Justice Department are simply incompatible with honest government."Betsy DeVos on Wednesday announced plans to halt two Obama-era regulations aimed at holding for-profit colleges accountable. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
In her most sweeping action on higher education to date, Betsy DeVos on Wednesday announced plans to halt two Obama-era regulations aimed at holding for-profit colleges accountable and providing relief to students defrauded by them.
The first regulation targeted by President Donald Trump's education secretary is known as Borrower Defense to Repayment. The rule outlines how student loan borrowers who have been defrauded can apply to have their loans forgiven. The department is currently processing 16,000 loan forgiveness claims.
The second regulation, which is already in effect, is known as gainful employment. It aims to hold schools accountable for outcomes of students by requiring schools to prove that their graduates’ incomes compared to their debts will allow them to pay back their student loans. Programs that don’t meet that standard are barred from accessing federal funds.
The announcement sent student loan and consumer advocates, civil rights groups and others into a frenzy. They blasted the administration for a decision that they said would make it easier for for-profit schools to defraud students and evade accountability, make it harder for defrauded students to get their loans discharged, and amounts to a significant waste of tax payer dollars.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who has been a fierce critic of the sector, even announced plans to sue DeVos.
“This is a betrayal of students and families across the country who are drowning in unaffordable debt,” she said in a statement. “I will be suing Secretary DeVos and the U.S. Department of Education to defend these critical regulations and the right of our students and taxpayers.”
But the education secretary said the decision was made in the best interest of students and taxpayers.
“My first priority is to protect students,” DeVos said in a statement. “Fraud, especially fraud committed by a school, is simply unacceptable.”
The secretary said that her office has fielded concerns about the regulations from colleges and universities of all types.
The Obama rules “missed an opportunity to get it right,” she said, and they’ve resulted in a “muddled process” that will cost taxpayers a significant amount of money. In regard to the gainful employment rules specifically, DeVos said that it’s “overly burdensome and confusing” for colleges and universities.
“It's time to take a step back and make sure these rules achieve their purpose: helping harmed students,” DeVos said. “It’s time for a regulatory reset.”
But the move elicited widespread condemnation.
Former Education Secretary John King, who is now the president and CEO of The Education Trust, called the decision “deeply worrisome.”
“These rules were put in place to protect taxpayers and students – particularly low-income students and students of color – who are most likely to be taken advantage of by unscrupulous institutions,” he said. “This action indicates, yet again, that this department is abdicating its responsibility to students and taxpayers.”
For some, the move cemented fears that the Trump administration would loosen restrictions the Obama administration put on the for-profit college sector in an effort to eliminate bad actors. One of the most recent hires at the department includes an executive from the for-profit industry, Robert Eitel.
“President Trump spent years defrauding and misleading students with his sham Trump University, so it’s no surprise his Administration wants to sit by while other predatory colleges defraud their students,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said in a statement. “Thousands of borrowers who have been cheated by dishonest institutions are currently drowning in debt with no degree to show for it, so I am extremely disappointed that Secretary DeVos has decided, once again, to side with special interests and predatory for-profit colleges instead of students and borrowers.”
Jen Mishory, the executive director of the nonprofit Young Invincibles, which advocates in the interests of young adults, said the decision sends an alarming message that the administration is putting the interests of the for-profit college industry over that of students and taxpayers,
“Eliminating these two regulations serves as a toxic combination, simultaneously stripping students of protections and allowing poorly performing, predatory schools to proliferate,” she said.
Others lamented the long, arduous process that led to the regulations being finalized – a process that included multiple rounds of stakeholder input.
“Reopening the gainful employment rule will simply waste more taxpayer resources in an effort at a giveaway to poor-quality career training programs,” Ben Miller, senior director for postsecondary education at the Center for American Progress, said. “This rule has been through two regulatory processes and multiple court cases.”
Persis Yu, director of the National Consumer Law Center’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project, agreed: “These rules were created through robust negotiation processes,” he said. “Starting over wastes taxpayer money and creates uncertainty for students who are wondering how to protect themselves from being ripped off by predatory schools.”
DeVos said the department is working with loan servicers to get the 16,000 claims discharged as quickly as possible, but any new applications will be paused. It plans to begin renegotiating the gainful employment rules in November.Newly examined video of Kemp's ridley sea turtles, which are found primarily in the Gulf of Mexico, shows that the species' recovery from endangerment has stalled at less than one-tenth of historic nesting levels.
Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham came to that conclusion after being tasked with identifying the qualifying measure of endangerment for the species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, or IUCN.
Kemp's ridley turtles are currently classified as critically endangered on the IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species. The species was on the brink of extinction in the 1980s, but a Mexico-U.S. bi-national conservation program initiated in 1978 was able to reverse its decline.
The decades of intense conservation efforts were evident by 2009, with the Kemp's ridley exhibiting an exponential recovery rate that was expected to continue for many years. However, an unanticipated downturn occurred in 2010 when the amount of nesting dropped significantly, and since that time, the species has not regained an upward trajectory to recovery.
How many Kemp's ridley turtles should there be in the Gulf? Scientists and conservationists weren't sure; there was a lack of data between 1880, when the species was discovered, and the start of the conservation efforts in 1978.
UAB's study, led by Thane Wibbels, Ph.D., a biology professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, and doctoral student Elizabeth Bevan, set out to answer that question through the evaluation of a historic film recorded in 1947 by Andres Herrera, a Mexican sportsman, on the Kemp's ridley's primary nesting beach in the western Gulf of Mexico near Rancho Nuevo, Mexico.
The film captured a mass-nesting event known as an arribada, involving tens of thousands of nesting turtles on a single day in 1947. It would help provide a rare benchmark for evaluating the historic population size of a species prior to its becoming endangered, which is usually not available for endangered species.
Uncovering the original riddle of the ridley
Prior to the film, the location of the Kemp's ridley nesting grounds was a mystery. After hearing about a large mass nesting of sea turtles from locals, Herrera recognized the significance of such a unique biological phenomenon and became committed to documenting this unique event for society.
During a two-year period, Herrera flew his own plane 33 times over the Gulf Coast north of Tampico, Mexico, conducting aerial surveys in search of the mass sea turtle nesting. In 1947, he finally uncovered the event, but his discovery would remain unknown to the scientific community for more than a dozen years.
"At the time of the film's development, no one was able to connect the dots between the phenomenon of the mass nesting and that the nests belonged to the Kemp's ridley sea turtles," Wibbels said. "Herrera was a hobby enthusiast who wasn't aware of the pursuit in the scientific world to uncover this location. Meanwhile, Archie Carr, who was considered to be the world's leading sea turtles expert, had been searching for the nesting beaches for this species for decades."
Carr searched for the Kemp's ridley nesting beaches in all of the usual nesting regions—Florida, the Caribbean and the northern Gulf of Mexico; but after 20 years, he had found nothing.
"He had no logical explanation for the fact that this abundant turtle was seemingly not breeding or nesting," Bevan said. "Scientists began to wonder whether the Kemp's ridley could actually be a hybrid turtle."
The dots were finally connected, and part of the mystery debunked, by Henry Hildebrand, Ph.D., from the University of Corpus Christi, who heard about the film and viewed it in 1961. Later that year, Hildebrand presented that film at the annual meeting of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, revealing the news to the scientific community for the first time.
Breaking down the nesting numbers
It was estimated by some who viewed the original black-and-white footage that there were more than 40,000 nesting Kemp's ridley sea turtles on the beach that day. Wibbels and Bevan's recent study reflects more conservative, but still remarkable, numbers.
Wibbels and Bevan calculate that there were 26,000 sea turtles on a 1- to 2-mile stretch of beach on the day the film was taken.
The results from UAB's study published this week indicate that approximately 120,000 to 180,000 nests were laid over the entire 1947 nesting season in contrast to approximately 14,000 nests in the most recent nesting season.
This new information on the historic population size greatly increases the mystery surrounding the abrupt decline in the recovery of this endangered species since 2009. The number of nests laid in the 2015 nesting season represents a 34 percent decline in comparison to 2009, and this occurred during a time when exponential growth of the population back toward historic levels was expected.
What this means for conservation
Intense conservation efforts are continuing, and this critically endangered species is protected throughout its range.
"Because the Kemp's ridley is so protected, scientists believe that potential factors limiting its recovery may be habitat-related," Bevan said. "Another hypothesis among the field is that environmental pollution, in particular the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, may have significantly impacted the population, and many years may be required before the species regains an exponential recovery rate."
An alternative hypothesis is that the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem may have changed over the past seven decades since the Herrera film was recorded, and can no longer support the abundance of Kemp's ridleys documented in the 1947 film. For example, studies have shown that the abundance of blue crabs, a preferred food item for the Kemp's ridley, has significantly declined in the northern Gulf of Mexico in recent decades.
"The Kemp's ridley could be significantly impacted by long-term changes and the overall health of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem because of its near exclusivity to the area and presence as a higher-trophic-level predator," Bevan said. "That's why it's so important that we continue our research into the mystery of its stalled growth."
"Solving the mystery will require continued monitoring of turtles on the nesting beach, a better understanding of the ecology of the Kemp's ridley in its foraging and developmental habitats, and an evaluation of potential changes in the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem since the 1947 Herrera film," Wibbels added.
Explore further: Study assessed impacts of Deepwater Horizon oil spill on sea turtles
More information: Bevan, E., T. Wibbels, B. M. Z. Najera, L. Sarti, F. I. Martinez, J. M. Cuevas, B. J. Gallaway, L. J. Pena, and P. M. Burchfield. 2016. Estimating the historic size and current status of the Kemp's ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempii) population. Ecosphere 7 (3):e01244. DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.1244This year's 14th issue of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine announced on Monday that CHiCO with HoneyWorks (Ao Haru Ride, Magic Kaito 1412) will perform a new opening theme song for the Gintama. television anime, and XY will perform the series' new ending theme "We Gotta Fight." The songs will debut in the anime in April.
CHiCO with HoneyWorks performed the opening theme song "Pride Kakumei" for the fourth television anime season of Gintama. XY is debuting this year, and "We Gotta Fight" is the rock group's debut song.
The four-member all-girls band ЯeaL are performing the current opening theme song "Kagerō." RIZE (Shion no Oh) is performing the current ending theme song "Silver."
The fifth Gintama. television anime season premiered on January 9. Crunchyroll is streaming the series as it airs.
Chizuru Miyawaki is returning from the fourth Gintama television anime to direct the new series, and Shinji Takeuchi is returning to design the characters and serve as chief animation director. Yumi Nakamura is credited for design. Nami Maniwa and Takayoshi Fukushima are returning as art directors, and Ritsuko Utagawa is returning for color design. Yuki Teramoto is once again director of photography, and Tomomi Suzuki is the CGI director. Takeshi Seyama is in charge of editing. Audio Highs is returning to compose the music, while Katsuyoshi Kobayashi is returning for sound supervision. Shinji Takematsu is the sound director. Yoichi Fujita (first three Gintama anime, Gintama: The Movie ) is supervising the anime as he did for the fourth anime.
Hideaki Sorachi began the original manga in 2004 and it continues to be ranked among the top-selling manga in Japan. Viz Media published the first 23 volumes in English. Shueisha published the manga's 67th volume in Japan on December 31, and the manga entered its final arc in July.I will start with these quick, but unequivocal, statements. I am not Indigenous. I do not claim a mythical ‘cultural heritage.’ I do not seek validation by parading Indigenous family members as ‘proof’ of my connectedness. I do not claim DNA (I actually have no idea what random mixture my DNA consists of). I do not claim to speak for Indigenous Peoples. Although I identify as Scouse, I am, for all intents and purposes, white. I am also, in the most literal sense of the word, a Settler, having migrated to the USA only twelve years ago – in 2005.
I do not make these statements seeking applause for owning my whiteness or settlerism, but to make a point. The point being: It took me less than a minute to type these words. It is THAT easy to acknowledge my whiteness. Why am I making this point? Because of the increasing number of examples of PretIndians in academia, (faculty and support services), literature, politics, and other aspects of public life, who continue to falsely claim Indigeneity for themselves. Or, as with the current furore over Write magazine in Canada, seek to dismiss the very existence of cultural appropriation, or as is more often the case, to deny that settlerism is real.
How is this connected to staying relevant in Indigenous Studies? I believe that answer is twofold. First, because such actions are quite possibly the most invasive and damaging forms of cultural appropriation; are by their very nature unethical; reinforce structural and institutional racism; and create pain, anger, and suspicion, among Indigenous peoples. Second, because those who seek to falsely claim Indigeneity, either through identity or heritage, appear to do so as a means of acquiring instant validation, and therefore relevance in their field, which is usually only at least a couple of degrees away from being connected to indigenous Studies (or it various incarnations – American Indian Studies; Native American Studies, First Nations Studies; etc.), and without any concern for the damage that they are causing.
Such actions mean that spaces often reserved or at least intended for Indigenous voices are now being occupied by imposters. Why this is dangerous and problematic has been articulated much more eloquently than I could ever hope to do so by such Indigenous thinkers as Kim Tallbear, Vince Diaz, Suzan Shown Harjo, Glen Coulthard, Tanya Tagaq, Robert Warrior, Adrienne Keene, and too many others to mention. In most cases, the issues that result from such imposters taking these spaces include silencing actual native voices, stories, and intellectualisms; creating false narratives; of claiming lived experiences that never happened; of exemplifying and strengthening the sense of settler entitlement; and the commodification of Indigenous identities and cultures. Settler entitlement itself ensures that Indigenous realities remain secondary to the false narratives being displayed, or claimed, or validated. And such pursuit of validation and relevance renders, at least in the eyes of willing audiences, actual Native voices as invalid, and irrelevant, especially if the imposter is rehashing the age-old, hyper-romanticized, notions of Indigenous peoples. Hearing these romantic myths ‘validated’ by imposters is the epitome of settler entitlement, and the mirror reflection of the imposter’s own desires. As the imposter seeks validation through perpetuating agreeable stories, so too does the non-Indigenous audience seek validation in hearing such tales of innocence and inferiority, which remove all evidence of settler guilt/responsibility in the process. In such instances, actual Indigenous voices, especially those seeking to dispel such romantic and racist idealism, sound discordant and are unwelcome intrusions to the blissful white noise of settler entitlement.
On a basic, subliminal ego level, the idea of being immediately accepted as an ‘expert’ on Indigenous histories and cultures is appealing, as is the idea of being welcomed without question or mistrust by Indigenous peoples and scholars, but personally, never to the point of pretending I am actually Indigenous. As a scholar I expect my work to be critiqued and peer reviewed anyway, so while it sometimes feels ‘inconvenient’ to have an extra level of scrutiny attached because I choose to work in Indigenous Studies/History, it is also entirely expected. After generations of historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and other ‘ists’ writing paternalistic, patronizing, dismissive texts that claim to speak ‘for’ the ‘simple’ and ‘innocent’ yet ‘tragic’, and ‘tragically misunderstood,’ Native peoples; or creating laws, policies, and systems, that sought to suffocate Indigenous peoples; those of us who inherit that legacy must be prepared to prove we do not continue it. We must be prepared to answer any and all questions about our motives and intentions for working in this field. And we must be prepared to show that when we write about, and not for Indigenous Peoples, we are being informed by Indigenous scholars, academics, artists, and storytellers, rather than by the western worldview which we naturally inhabit. We must be prepared to prove that we are not distorting Indigenous voices, claiming these voices and experiences as our own, simplifying these voices, or seeking to translate these voices into our own western framework. And in addition to the growing number of exceptional Indigenous scholars out there, we also have some outstanding non-Indigenous scholars that we can learn from – scholars like Frederick Hoxie and Theda Purdue, who created a new legacy decades ago by writing ethically sourced histories of Indigenous peoples, and always ensured that their works showcased, and were informed by, Indigenous voices.
And for me, this is how to stay relevant as a non-Indigenous scholar in Indigenous Studies. To listen to, and learn carefully from, Indigenous voices, scholars, activists, educators, artists and community members, and to as often as possible, use my position to shine a light on, and hold a torch to these voices and peoples, humbly moving to the side as I do so. To always stand next to, and not in front of, or in place of, Indigenous peoples. To be an ally and advocate in ways that actually help rather than ways that make me feel good. To accept that I will always be learning, and will always, at least to some, be outside of the cultures and communities I work with and write about, no matter how deeply I am welcomed into them. To always ask permission, and accept that I am likely to hear ‘no’ when asking if I can write or speak about certain issues or aspects of cultures. To respect every no that I hear. To learn to engage with Indigenous peoples on their terms and in their spaces – or more bluntly, to show respect. To be willing to accept that I will make mistakes, and to be willing to hear what those mistakes are (I may well have even made a few in this essay, although I sincerely hope not). To accept that I will often be met with caution, if not outright mistrust by Indigenous individuals and communities, and that it is my responsibility to earn a way past that caution and mistrust, rather than an inherent right to be accepted openly without my motives being questioned. To accept that I will be questioned, often, by students, and colleagues, and even family members, and asked to prove myself, often on a daily basis. To accept that for every interview with a ‘source’ that I wish to conduct, I may have to submit to being interviewed by them beforehand. To accept that if I take from a community – whether that be through knowledge, stories, memories, or lessons shared – I must be willing and prepared to give back to that community.
And finally, to accept that even though I am a settler who does not try to seek validation by falsely claiming Indigeneity, I will constantly have to answer and apologize for those of us who do. As I said at the beginning, I did not write this for applause or validation, but to make a point. From my perspective it is far easier, and much more ethical, and intellectually and emotionally rewarding, to acknowledge and own my whiteness and work my way to trust from there. And so, on that note, even though I try always to earn respect and validation through hard work and ethical scholarship, I sincerely apologize for those of us who seek to cheat their way to such respect. And I sincerely wish that they would stop.
AdvertisementsISLAMABAD: Pakistan Army has proposed a new alternative network along the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) route for secured flow of the internet traffic as the current framework involve Indian companies posing security risk.
According to a report, a senior military official briefed the National Assembly Standing Committee on Information Technology on the matter.
Director General Special Communications Organisation (SCO) Maj-Gen Amir Azeem Bajwa informed the members that the network which brings internet traffic into Pakistan through submarine cables has been developed by a consortium that has Indian companies either as partners or shareholders, which is a serious security concern.
Seeking approval for the establishment of a cross-border optic fiber connectivity network under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), the military official proposed a new alternative network system to be set up in Gwadar for the flow of internet traffic.
A consortium without Indian involvement would be assigned the responsibility of laying the network along the CPEC, he said, adding that for Pakistan the security of projects under the CPEC is top priority.
Commenting on the importance of an independent network, PPP lawmaker and member committee Shazia Marri said the concerns shared by the DG Special Communications Organisation must be looked into thoroughly, given the significance of CPEC.
The committee was convinced with the briefing and the serious nature of threats Pakistan is facing in this digital age. It directed the IT Ministry to work on the project with the SCO jointly.
Currently Pakistan lacks in its own cyber security mechanism and our internet systems are vulnerable, Shazia said.
‘The country needs to gear up, as post CPEC, there will be greater competition in the region, and with current security concerns, we would need to simultaneously work on strengthening our security mechanisms.’Google has just updated its Google Earth iPhone app to work with the iPad. The free app brings the desktop Google Earth experience to Apple's latest device.
In addition to offering native iPad support, Google Earth 3.0 also adds a road layer for the iPad and the iPhone 3GS. Testing the app on our 3G iPad, we found that the built-in GPS unit worked quite well when determining our exact location, and that the optional tilt function was great for controlling the axis of the globe to pinpoint location and find out additional information.
If you've never used Google Earth before, think of it like a giant scalable world map that has the added benefit of not only Street View and terrain indicators, but also pulls in information from Wikipedia, photos added by other users, and the locations of businesses and Google Places.
Our only real complaint is that we got an "Out of Memory" message a few times while testing the app. This is the first time we've seen this message in more than two months of frequent iPad usage, and while we imagine it's because the constant redrawing of satellite and Street View imagery is taxing on the iPad's available memory, this is still something we hope Google can address in a future update.
You can check out our gallery to get an idea of what the app looks like on the iPad.
What do you think of Google Earth for the iPad? Let us know!
google-earth-ipadBOSTON — The World Series is over, the Red Sox finally got to introduce their manager, and New Englanders have spent the better part of the last month pondering how to make the team better in 2018. This is a time of year that includes a lot of suggestions for what president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski can do this winter — some of which are realistic and intriguing, others which make little to no sense.
I sought out as many of these suggestions as possible on Twitter, in order to explain (beyond even the limits of 280 characters) why the Red Sox should not do what many of you think they should do. And if you read between the lines, you get a pretty good sense of what I think they should do this winter.
Why the Red Sox shouldn't trade for Giancarlo Stanton.
We might as well start with the biggest one. Long the long-distance object of Red Sox fans' affection, Giancarlo Stanton is eminently available in a trade and coming off by far his best season, one in which he hit more home runs than anyone in 16 years. He'd be the perfect fit for an offense starved of power. I don't need to spoonfeed you the argument for adding Stanton.
The argument against trading for Stanton isn't as contrarian as you might think. It isn't, "Actually, Giancarlo Stanton is bad." It's just that Stanton is not worth the cost it would take to acquire him once you consider his massive contract.
That contract is why the Marlins are trying to trade him. Stanton signed a 13-year, $325 million deal three years ago that was heavily backloaded; Jeffrey Loria figured he'd sell the team before the big money really kicked in, and here we are. Stanton has made just $30 million of that deal over the last three years, leaving $295 million for the final 10 years of the deal.
But that’s just money, right, and the Red Sox can afford money. Boston will go over the competitive-balance tax in 2018 after staying under this past season, so there is room to add to the payroll. However, the serious penalties for spending too much clock in when a club goes $40 million over the tax. For next season, that would be at $237 million.
That’s what's called the second surcharge threshold. Any money spent beyond that point will be taxed at least 62.5 percent (for a first-time offender) and up to 95 percent (for a third-time or more offender). That surcharge exacerbates how bad a contract it is for Stanton.
And it's not just money anymore, because past that point a team will have its first draft pick moved back 10 spots in the draft order — which means it would hinder a club's ability to develop its own talent. It seems reasonable to look at that second surcharge threshold as a stricter salary cap for the Red Sox.
Stanton will count $25 million toward the luxury tax in each of the next 10 seasons. Yes, the Red Sox should have Hanley Ramirez coming off the books after 2018 (barring his option vesting), and Pablo Sandoval comes off after 2019. But there's long-term uncertainty about David Price, and Boston's young core is in line for extensions or free agency in the next three seasons. The CBT threshold increases each season, but not considerably. It'll still only be $210 million (with the second threshold at $250 million) in 2021.
Stanton does have an opt-out clause after 2020, meaning there's a possibility that the team that acquires him will only pay him $77 million over three years. But the opt-out clause shouldn't be considered a good thing. If Stanton is as good as you hope he is for you, he'll opt out after 2020 and you'll have to decide whether to re-sign him to a massive deal then — at a time when the player you’ve traded for him probably has yet to hit free agency. If he doesn't opt out, it's probably because he's been injured or underperformed (see: Price and Masahiro Tanaka).
While the injury concern isn't as pronounced as it would be for a pitcher, Stanton hasn't been a paragon of health over the course of his career, averaging 127 games per year over his seven full major-league seasons. In 2016, which is one season ago, he missed 43 games and slugged only.489.
If Stanton were a free agent, he almost certainly would not receive a 10-year, $295 million deal with an opt-out after three years, which means that theoretically, he should have negative trade value. There's a reason he wasn't claimed when he was placed on waivers in August. Miami would likely have to kick in some money — maybe close to $50 million — to make the finances more palatable.
But a new Marlins ownership would alienate whatever remains of the fan base by trading a player coming off the best season in franchise history as a salary dump. Miami needs to get some reputable major-league players back in a trade, meaning the Red Sox would have to give up talent in order to take on a bad contract. Trading Rafael Devers, Andrew Benintendi, Jackie Bradley, Jr. or Xander Bogaerts — any one of them, individually — would represent a theoretical overpay for Boston.
The Marlins' best hope is to get several teams involved on Stanton and drive up the trade price that way. After all, while giving up talent and paying that much money for Stanton may not be worth it on its face, doing so to add Stanton while also preventing him from going to the Yankees might change the equation.
But the teams rumored to have preliminary interest in Stanton aren't Boston's close competitors in the American League. New York has four outfielders, a stated goal of getting under the competitive-balance tax and one presumes an interest in adding Bryce Harper in 2019. Houston and Cleveland seem unlikely to wade into the deep end of that financial commitment.
This is all why trading for Stanton would be a tempting but bad idea in a normal offseason. But it would be especially bad this offseason, given the availability of a similar option on the free-agent market in J.D. Martinez.
Martinez is older than Stanton, and he has many of the same health concerns, averaging 130 games per season over the last four years. But, he's been nearly as productive over those four seasons as Stanton:
Stanton (2014-2017):.271/.366/.573/.939, 154 OPS+, 150 HR
Martinez (2014-2017):.300/.362/.574/.936, 149 OPS+, 128 HR
Yes, Stanton's better — an advantage made more pronounced if we account for age, defense and Fenway Park, since Stanton is
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proliferation of cell phone tower “simulators,” which reports say are used by federal and state law enforcement to track suspects but also have the capability of capturing the information stored on all cell phones in their vicinity.
In particular, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee — Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, respectively — have petitioned Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson asking him to lay out federal policy regarding the usage of the phony cell towers.
“The Judiciary Committee needs a broader understanding of the full range of law enforcement agencies that use this technology, the policies in place to protect the privacy interests of those whose information might be collected using these devices, and the legal process that DOJ and DHS entities seek prior to using them,” the senators wrote in the letter dated Dec. 23, and released just days ago, as reported by The Washington Times (WT).
Fourth Amendment be damned
The paper further reported:
The senators cite a November article from the Wall Street Journal that reported the Justice Department is targeting criminal suspects using the devices, which mimic cellphone towers and can also snag information and general phone locations of innocent Americans.
The WSJ said in its report that the Justice Department in particular was “scooping up data” from thousands of cell phones via devices installed on airplanes, which mimic cell phone towers. The high-tech spy program is supposedly aimed at criminal suspects, but in the process “is snagging a large number of innocent Americans, according to people familiar with the operations,” the paper reported online.
The WSJ said the program was begun by the U.S. Marshals Service and ramped up around 2007, during the waning years of the Bush Administration. It reportedly operates Cessna aircraft from at least five metro-area airports, and has a flying range that covers the majority of the U.S. population.
In response to the Judiciary Committee’s letter, the Justice Department neither confirmed nor denied the existence of the program. One official with the department said that U.S. agencies were complying with federal law, including seeking court orders but that further open discussion of any such program would likely lead to a compromise of American capabilities for suspects and foreign powers alike.
The WT noted that the senators also wrote that, after the committee’s staffers were briefed by FBI officials, the bureau changed its policy so that it now gets a search warrant before deploying a cell tower simulator, with “a number of potentially broad exemptions.”
The WT further reported:
Those exemptions include cases that pose an imminent public safety danger, cases that involve a fugitive, and cases where technology is being used in public places or areas the agency determines there’s no “reasonable” expectation of privacy.
The Constitution is supposed to be the final authority on “reasonable” expectation of privacy, and indeed the Fourth Amendment states that citizens are protected in their “persons, papers and effects” from undue government spying. Nevertheless, such programs continue, even though the debate over Americans’ privacy in the Digital Age has become somewhat of a major issue in Congress, especially data collection.
Opponent turned supporter
In early December, the Obama Administration announced that it had renewed for three months a National Security Agency program permitting it to gather and temporarily store information on dates and durations of phone calls, to determine if there are any terrorism ties.
This is from someone who, as a junior U.S. senator from Illinois, campaigned in 2008 as a presidential candidate who opposed such Bush-era spying programs.
As reported by The New York Times in January 2014:
As a young lawmaker defining himself as a presidential candidate, Barack Obama visited a center for scholars in August 2007 to give a speech on terrorism. He described a surveillance state run amok and vowed to rein it in. “That means no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens,” he declared. “No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime.”
More than six years later, the onetime constitutional lawyer is now the commander in chief presiding over a surveillance state that some of his own advisers think has once again gotten out of control.
Shortly after this article was published, Obama went to the Justice Department to give a speech defending the same spying that he once said he opposed.
Sources:
http://www.washingtontimes.com
http://www.wsj.com
http://www.nytimes.comConvict Escape Attempts Thinking outside the square seemed to be a defining feature of the Convict mind. Such thinking was clearly on display when a Convict tried to escape Port Arthur by disguising himself as a kangaroo. In hindsight, it wasn't a clever idea as the guards saw the kangaroo and used it as target practice. Novel thinking was also on display when catholic Convicts worked out a form of suicide that would not only get them around god's laws, but would also win their mates a holiday in the big smoke. The getaway washing tub While being transported to Australia in 1843, a Convict secretly stowed himself away in the hold of the Maitland. He had planned to arrive in Sydney unsuspected and then assume the role of a free settler. Having been missed, it was presumed he had just fallen over board and drowned. Six weeks after his disappearance, the captain suspected his champagne stores had been tampered with. During a search to ascertain whether there was a hidden entrance to the stores, the lost Convict was discovered. Later, the man was transported to Tasmania and again he made a dash for freedom. He was last seen paddling across the ocean in a stolen washing tub. Kangaroos and Convicts To escape from Port Arthur, Convicts had to pass across a narrow isthmus known as the Neck. This was guarded heavily by ferocious dogs and surveyed by stationed military personnel. A Convict named Billy Hunt disguised himself as a kangaroo in the hope making it through the Neck. The plan was working brilliantly until one of troopers decided to use the kangaroo as target practice. Billy was then forced to reveal his true identity. China or bust A group of Convicts got the idea that China was across some river just north of Sydney. Comforted by this knowledge, 20 male Convicts and a pregnant female set off on foot to build a new life in China. One died of exhaustion, four were speared by Aborigines and the remainders stumbled back into Sydney a week later. Finding the loopholes in God's laws Life in Coal river (Newcastle) and Macquarie Harbour (Tasmania) was hell on earth and many Convicts felt that death was their only hope of escape. Unfortunately, many of the Irish Convicts were catholic and feared that suicide (an unforgivable sin) would send them to an eternal hell. To solve this dilemma, they devised a plan based on teamwork. Four Convicts would draw straws; one to be murdered, one to be the murderer and two to act as witnesses at the murder trial so as to ensure a conviction. The plan was win win all round. The victim would escape life without fear of going to hell. The murderer would be executed and also escape life. As for the witnesses, they would have to testify at a trial in either Sydney or Hobart and thus have a holiday. Escape from Cockatoo Island In October 1861, Frederick Ward was arrested for horse theft and imprisoned on Cockatoo Island. The Island was said to be impossible to escape from as the men were chained and the harbour was inhabited by man eating sharks! Despite the danger, Ward's girlfriend, Mary-Anne Bugg, swam to the island with a file for Ward to cut through his chains. After freeing himself, Ward swam to Balmain and with Mary, moved to the Hunter Valley. Unfit to be executed Daniel Gordon was a Convict of African heritage. In February 1788 he was tried for robbing the public store and condemned to death. He was later pardoned on the King's birthday in June. In August 1789, he was again caught stealing and was expected to be sentenced to death. However, as he appeared 'wild and incoherent' in court, his trial was postponed until the following day. When his condition failed to improve, the judge placed him in the care of surgeons as unfit for trial. It is hard to know whether judge believed Daniel was insane or was just entertained by Daniel's colourful antics. As for Daniel's fellow Convicts, they were in no doubt. It was said that they " gave him credit for the ability he had acted his part and perhaps he deserved their applause."Daniel died 39 years later, aged 81. A leisurely row from Sydney to Timor Mary Bryant escaped in the Governor's six oar cutter with her husband, baby son, three year old daughter and five other Convicts. They then rowed to Timor, (5000 Kilometres from Sydney) navigating the uncharted Great Barrier Reef and the Torres Strait. Upon arrival in Timor, they claimed to be ship wreck victims but were soon identified as Convicts and sent back to England for trial. On the return journey, Mary's husband and son died of fever. Sadly for Australia, the English press found her tale of perseverance quite stirring and so rather than transport her once more, she was freed into the community where she no doubt strengthened the gene pool that had been weakened by the loss of Convicts. A jail bird flies away A Eora warrior named Pemulwuy was felled with seven bullets and taken to a Parramatta hospital. He lapsed in and out of consciousness for many days and his death was thought to be a certainty. Amazingly, Pemulwuy recovered and several weeks later, he somehow escaped into the darkness; his leg-irons still in place. According to the Eora people, his impossible escape was achieved by turning himself into a bird. Alexander the cannibal Alexander Pearce was transported to Sarah Island in 1822. A month later, he escaped with Thomas Bodenham, Robert Greenhill, Matthew Travis and John Mather. The party headed overland to Hobart. After 15 days without food, they decided to experiment with cannibalism. The men drew straws and it was Thomas Bodenham who drew the short one. He knelt down, was killed by a blow to the head and subsequently served up for lunch. A week later, John Mather was foraging for roots when a hungry Greenhill crept up behind him, and swung at him with an axe. At that very moment, Mather moved and the axe glanced off his head. The two men wrestled and Mather seized control. However his good fortune didn't last long. Determined to eat him, the other three ganged up and killed him. Four days later, Travis was bitten by a snake. Six days later, he too was on the menu. This left only Pearce and Greenhill. For a few days, each eyed the other suspiciously but vowed not to betray the other. Pearce thought Greenhill was lying and so killed him in the dead of night. Out of character for Pearce, he left the body untouched. In 1823, Pearce was recaptured and confessed to his crimes. Such was the fanciful nature of his story, no one believed him and so he was sent back to Sarah Island. Nine months later, he again escaped and for provisions, he took with him Thomas Cox. A few weeks after escaping, a crew of a passing ship saw smoke and Pearce was found. He again confessed to his crimes and even had a morsel of Cox to verify his story. Pearce was taken back to Hobart and hanged on the 19th July 1824. The judge at his trial declaring that the case was 'too inhuman to comment on'. Exported to Japan A group of Convicts stole the Cyprus, a supply vessel carrying a group of Convicts to Macquarie Harbour. They dumped the officers and crew on shore and sailed off to Japan where they pretended to be shipwrecked British mariners. They were sent back to Britain as shipwrecked sailors. Unfortunately one of them was strolling through London town when he met an ex-police constable from Hobart town who recognised his tattoos. The white aborigine William Buckley escaped from the Sorrento settlement in 1803. The settlement was then disbanded and with nothing heard of Buckley, it was presumed that he had starved to death or been killed by Aborigines. 33 year later, a farmer came upon a strange white man speaking an aboriginal language. He had a extremely long beard and wore possum skins. Once the man learnt to speak English again, he informed the authorities that he was William Buckley and had spent 33 years living with the Aborigines. He was pardoned and became a respected civil servant. His story inspired the saying 'Buckley's Chance'. With a little help from friends. John O'Reilly wanted to annoy the English and so he hatched a plan to rescue Irish Convicts from Western Australia. For his plan, he organised for an American boat, the Catalpa, to sail to Western Australia to rescue Convicts. On March 29, 1876 the Catalpa arrived off Western Australia. Six Irish Convicts made a dash for freedom by running into the bush where they were picked up in wagons, rode to the whaleboats and then on to the ship. A number of people witnessed the escape and reported it to the authorities. However such is the nature of grapevine communication, by the time word reached Perth, the story was not Convicts escaping, but the Irish invading. Western Australia went into war mood. Troopers were dispatched to dig trenches and the gunboat Georgette steamed out to sea to courageously confront the invading Irish fleet. But the only ship found was the Catalpa. Numerous shots were fired across its bow which brought every Irishman onto the deck. There, armed with everything from a whaling lance to meat knife, they started chanting "death, but no surrender." The Geogettes's captain demanded to know if any Convicts were on board. The Catalpa's captain said no and that as an American ship outside territorial waters, he would not submit to a search. The Geogette then turned back to port while the Catalpa continued on its way to America. When it eventually arrived, O'Rielly took to the public speaking circuit where he gave a popular lecture on how he had made the English look like buffoons. Enthusiasm for work After the official closure of the penal settlement on Sarah Island, twelve Convicts, under the supervision of several soldiers and Master Shipwright David Hoy, remained behind to complete the fitting out of the brig, Frederick. Although the specific orders concerning the fit-out had been mysteriously mislaid, the men dutifully carried out their tasks with 'great propriety, executing Mr. Hoys' orders with promptitude and alacrity'. The Frederick was launched in January 1834 and ten of the Convicts celebrated the occasion by seizing control. They sailed it to New Zealand and then onto South America. It was abandoned off coast of Chile and the Convicts rowed the ship's whaleboat the remaining 80 km to shore. Passing themselves off as shipwrecked sailors, they assumed positions as shipwrights and became respected members of the community. Several married local women, while six of the men made a further escape to America and Jamaica. The four who remained in Chile were eventually caught and brought back to Hobart for trial as pirates. As the boat was seized from the harbour rather than the high seas, they escaped the charge but had to live out their days on Norfolk Island.(CNN) Confederate flags are off the shelves at Walmart. But still up for grabs: guns.
Walmart, the nation's largest retailer, was the first to announce plans this week to remove Confederate flag products from its stores after Dylann Roof killed nine African-Americans in a Charleston, South Carolina church. The company was hailed by many for quickly responding to the uproar over the flag. But it has since come under pressure to also stop selling guns in response to the nation's latest mass shooting.
"I would hope that stores like Walmart would recognize the danger of having these guns displayed right next to an aisle away from microwave popcorn and and Xbox games," said U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat who has pressed for gun control since 20 children were shot and killed at a school in his state in 2012. "I'm not terribly confident that a 21-year-old Walmart clerk is going to sell guns responsibly or be able to give customers the kind of advice they need on how to responsibly use that gun."
The debate over the Confederate flag has also raised broader questions about where the line should be drawn for retailers that sell other questionable or offensive products.
While Amazon and eBay and many other smaller retailers also joined Walmart in ending sales of the Confederate flag, accessories featuring the swastika, posters of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara and books denying the Holocaust are still readily available online. Critics have since called for such items to be taken down, as well.
But when it comes to guns, don't expect Walmart to stop selling firearms anytime soon.
An integral part of the company
CEO Douglas McMillon said this week that the sporting goods department is an integral part of the company. As a part of Walmart's goal of selling firearms primarily for the purposes of hunting and sports, it does not sell handguns, a policy dating back to 1993; nor does it sell high-capacity magazines. And customers can only purchase firearms in-store, not through Walmart.com.
Guns for sale at a Wal-Mart, July 19, 2000.
Walmart stores carrying guns strictly adhere to firearms sales rules that govern each state, a spokesman said. The company also takes numerous additional safety measures such as videotaping all guns sales transactions and requiring store associates to complete a certification program before they are allowed to handle firearms.
"Our focus as it relates to firearms should be hunters and people who shoot sporting clays and things like that," McMillon said in an interview with CNNMoney's Cristina Alesci. "We believe in serving those customers, we have for a long time, and we believe we should continue to."
And there's one major factor that makes the sale of the Confederate flag and the sale of guns two starkly different considerations Walmart and other companies: public opinion.
By the time retailers began announcing that they would stop selling flag merchandise this week, it was already clear that the the public was overwhelmingly on their side.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley was widely praised Monday when she called on the flag to be removed from her state's Capitol grounds, in an announcement that brought together colleagues from both sides of the political aisle. Other public officials quickly followed suit in Mississippi, Alabama and Kentucky, declaring that it was time to remove images of the rebel flag.
Guns are a more complicated issue
Public opinion on guns is far less straight-forward, with Americans closely divided on the importance of protecting the rights of gun owners versus controlling gun ownership.
Jason Maloni, a crisis communications expert at LEVICK, said the lack of consensus on gun control and the demand for firearms across the country gives little incentive for companies to stop selling them.
"Retailers pay very, very close attention to what consumers say and at the end of the day, they make an economic decision," Maloni said. "If the product is legal, if the product is desired by the community and the sales are strong, you can expect them to carry it."
Still, gun safety advocates say companies such as Walmart can be an important part of the national dialogue on the politically thorny issue.
Shannon Watts founded the gun reform advocacy group Moms Demand Action after the devastating shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. She said Walmart could be a powerful voice in the campaign to reduce gun violence, including by advocating for all gun buyers to be subject to background checks.
"There's absolutely a role in this country for American businesses and restaurants and retailers to play," Watts said.
Mark Kelly, the husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords -- one of the victims of a 2011 shooting in Tucson, Arizona, that killed six people -- is a gun-owner. In fact, he remembers buying a shotgun at a Walmart in Texas many years ago after going through a background check.
Kelly, who has become a vocal public advocate responsible gun ownership since the Tucson shooting, said in an interview Wednesday that calling for Walmart to stop selling guns is not the answer. Instead, Kelly said, the public should pressure the retailer to become a leading voice on gun safety.
"It would be great to see a retailer like Walmart say hey, everybody should get a background check before buying a gun, just like they have to do here at Walmart," Kelly said. "It would be great to have Walmart on our side of the debate."A pink shirt day was held Sunday at the Windsor Express game where fans were asked to wear the colour in support of an ongoing local anti-bullying initiative.
SAFE Windsor, a coalition of local groups, largely promotes anti-bullying of the LGBT community, but also discrimination against any youth.
The group partnered with Windsor Express because bullying is often prevalent in sports teams where kids get teased because of physical abilities, said Patrick Kelly, co-chairman of SAFE Windsor, which includes the Teen Health Centre, Family Services, local school board, Windsor police, local health unit and AIDS committee as members of the coalition.
“If you look at the statistics, 25 per cent of kids by Grade 4 experience bullying,” he said. “Up to 10 to 15 per cent of teenagers experience serious bullying.
“If it starts early and lasts too long we know it leads to lifelong issues such as depression and eating disorders — that’s on top of any violence that might occur with bullying itself.”
The first 500 fans attending the Express game Sunday against the Niagara River Lions received pink cardboard megaphones which they could bring to school or their workplace as a symbol “to shout out and stop bullying,” Kelly said.
“The only way bullying stops is when people see it, they say something to stop it,” he said.
“Often bullying happens in the shadows — it’s even worse with cyber-bullying. It’s only when people stand up and say something that it stops.”
For more information on the coalition and its anti-bullying efforts, go to safewindsor.com.
[email protected] Indiana, 23 More States Could Pass Discrimination Bills
Indiana's only the beginning: bills to deny services to LGBTs have appeared in two dozen states under the guise of'religious freedom.'
It's too late to stop Indiana's new "turn-away-the-gays" legislation. Governor Mike Pence has signed it into law. But nearly half of the states are considering similar bills, some of which go even further.
If there's any encouraging news, it's that passage of Indiana's bill has generated a significant outrage that could translate into public pressure in other states to water down their discriminatory bills. This year, Georgia lawmakers, for example, seemed poised to pass their own license to discriminate bill, but the bill got tied up in committee last week.
More importantly, Indiana's example might also apply pressure on businesses to speak out against such legislation, which proved an effective tool in the arsenal against these antigay bills in Arizona last year.
Arizona's Republican governor Jan Brewer faced enormous backlash from the business community and others when considering signing a similar piece of legislation last year. Apple threatened to reconsider plans for expanding to the state and the NFL publicly worried about effects on the Super Bowl, for example, and Brewer vetoed it. Then a number of states backed away from their own plans.
But the proposals never disappeared entirely, just getting put on the back burner. The states considering "religious refusal" legislation span the country, from Maine to Hawaii. Here's a full list, according to the Human Rights Campaign:
Western: Hawaii, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado
Midwest: South Dakota, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, Michigan
South: Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Alabama
East Coast: Maine, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida
None of these bills actually come out and identify LGBTs as the target of discrimination. Most are far more subtle: they restrict the state from enforcing laws that "substantially burden" religious expression.
And a handful of states are going even further by removing the "substantially." A bill in Texas would allow anyone to sue who considers their religious freedom impeded in any way.
Many of the bills are advancing swiftly, with little organized opposition beyond public outcry and press releases. Although the bill failed in Georgia last week, for example, another passed the Arkansas Senate. And after Arizona faced huge backlash last year, Mississippi went ahead with passing its own bill anyway.
Where they're made law, it's likely to spark federal constitutional challenges. But that will be a slow and expensive process: first, civil rights groups have to find a compelling plaintiff who has been injured by discrimination. Then the case would need to work its way through the federal court system, likely over the course of years.
And there's no guarantee of an entirely favorable ruling from the Supreme Court, which recently ruled that Hobby Lobby is exempt from certain laws on the basis of the owners' religions beliefs.
The "Religious Freedom" bills are part of a larger backlash against the advances of marriage equality. A bill in Oklahoma would promote "ex-gay" camps, and bills would invalidate local nondiscrimination laws in Texas, Mississippi, and West Virginia.
In addition, 12 states are considering legislation that would subject trans people to increased discrimination: Nevada, Colorado, South Dakota, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Minnesota, Kentucky, Florida, South Carolina, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Kentucky, for example, was considering a "bathroom vigilante" measure that would issue $2,500 bounties to residents who reported trans people for using bathrooms. That measure was voted down last week.Stephen Colbert was skeptical last night about Glenn Beck’s advocacy of Food Insurance survival kits, which Colbert said provide “a bag of food to keep around just in case the world comes to an end, but will be all better in a couple of weeks.”
The Food Insurance website advertises that “while your neighbors are struggling to find food, you will be dining on lasagna, beef stroganoff, and a variety of other delicious entrees.” But Colbert was still not convinced: “Even the best food insurance cant truly makes you safe. What if it turns out the virus that wipes out mankind is transmitted via stroganoff?”
So Colbert himself recommended that you buy his “Food Insurance Insurance,” which will “cover any damage to your Food Insurance.” He added: “With Glenn Beck’s Food Insurance and Stephen Colbert’s Food Insurance Insurance, America as we know it will end, but at least Americans as we know it will still be fat.”Watch:Check out their line of headsets, camera cables, and LED lighting today!
Editorial disclaimer: These are my views and opinions alone. Operate at your own risk.
I recently watched a very popular YouTube video that illustrated the beauty of nap of the Earth flying. The pilot, flying a J-3, is very experienced and very familiar with the area he was flying. Link here: http://youtu.be/X_Kt_CxXxtA
I will go ahead and state for the record, and in spite of my safety-promotional-ways, that I am not opposed to this type of flying, but…
The problem we get into in this day-and-age of viral videos is that some might watch something like this and then immediately feel compelled to emulate it with no thought of the legalities, hazards, or physics involved. In the unlikely event that I produce a low flying video it will have disclaimers all over it so as not to encourage someone to take unnecessary risks.
There are thousands of aviation professionals that make their living flying low all day long so we know it can be done legally and safely.
But, and it’s a big BUT, these folks are trained to do this kind of flying and they generally aren’t carrying innocent bystanders or showing off. The latter two are what have gotten pilots into trouble.
They know the area they are operating so ground-based hazards can be avoided. This is one of the things that almost ended my career before it ever started (article here).
Also, the professionals aren’t down there buzzing friends or family (not legal – see FAR references below), so they avoid the whole stall-spin hazard that folks get into. By the way, the video I watched didn’t have any of that kind of flying, just low n’ slow in a J-3 Cub.
Finally, the professional understands the physics involved with staying out of box canyons or what to do in case of an engine failure.
I’m always amazed that many of the amateur videos show low flying over water. It is spectacular, but if the engine fails and you don’t have enough energy to get to land, it going to be a very bad day. If you are in a fixed gear aircraft you should expect to flip over as soon as the gear touches the water. The sudden stop will probably render you and your passenger unconscious and upside under water. Chances of survival are very low. In fact two people perished in a Cub leaving Oshkosh after ditching in Lake Winnebago with eyewitnesses watching it happen. The Cub wouldn’t have had a lot of energy hitting the water, but with no shoulder harness…well you can figure out the rest.
The regulation (14 CFR 91.119) is clear. 1000′ from person or property or 500′ from person or property in “non-congested” areas. What isn’t as clear is 14 CFR 91.13 Careless and Reckless. It is so broad that if you have an accident or hurt someone, you can expect that to be added to your list of condemnations. Also, each FAA guy or gal has their own interpretation, so you should go ahead and assume there will be some risk of regulatory entanglement if your low level sortie isn’t carefully scripted and executed (and even then you never know). Worst case someone gets hurt. Note this Stearman pilot in Wisconsin was charged with homicide after striking wires on a low level flight with a passenger – 2007 Aero-News Network article here.
My intent isn’t to say you can never fly below pattern altitude, nor do I want to scare anyone. My intent is to make sure you have considered all of the risks and how to mitigate them before you do something that you might regret, especially if you are carrying passengers.
Flying low is a polarizing subject, so let’s hear your opinions. Don’t worry, you won’t offend me.
Enjoy the view!
by Brent Owens
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For the past several years, I chased after an Android future that never really materialized. I went through a number of Android convertible tablets (like the Transformer TF101 and TF300), and I tried Webtop on my Motorola phones as a full PC in a Lapdock. Android came very close, but I kept feeling like the devices were coming up just a bit short. When Microsoft's Surface RT came out, I watched closely but was turned off by the steep price. A year later, when prices finally started to come down, I bought one from Craigslist.
Android devices never gave me the confidence to travel without a laptop. They were inherently limited by the fact that they had evolved from a mobile OS that wasn’t designed to do heavy word processing or render web-based apps and sites in full desktop mode.
Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, famously said, “You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not gonna be pleasing to the user.” However, Surface RT was a different story. In fact, I've increasingly been using Surface RT more than any of my Android devices. Here are five reasons why.
1. Microsoft reimagined the OS
Windows 8 wasn’t a mature mobile OS, but the interface leverages mobile touch devices in a form that follows function. iOS and Android both took a classic icon-based desktop design, shrunk it down to smartphones, and then expanded it to run on larger tablets. Microsoft reimagined the OS to work around the device. Gestures take some practice to master, but they make navigation more intuitive. Windows 8 on a touch device gets out of your way. The actions become natural to interact with apps, to navigate through the OS, and to organize and customize the platform.
I recently talked to someone who said that when they go back to their non-touch Windows desktop, they find themselves reaching out to perform touch actions. I found the same thing when returning to Android tabs after using Surface RT. When you miss features that are absent, something is done right.
2. Surface RT has a native interface for productivity
The Classic desktop is powerful. You can’t run traditional x86 code, but that may not be such a disadvantage. With Office and a full desktop version of IE, plus all of the traditional apps, accessories, logs, control panels, and services as Windows, Surface RT becomes an ideal traveling companion for productivity. The ability to drop into a native interface that is keyboard- and mouse-oriented gives Surface RT a huge advantage over Android and iOS for basic, traditional productivity tasks. You don’t have to find touch-oriented workaround solutions to cut and paste, drag and drop, manipulate the file system, input text, mouseover, and point, because it's all natively supported.
3. The Modern experience is improved in Windows 8.1
Windows 8.1 has improved the Modern experience tremendously. Apple and Microsoft both played with gadgets and widgets that are designed to bring a mobile-like experience to the desktop. The reason smartphones and tablets are popular with business users is because of the excellent digital assistant utility of those devices. Notifications and alerts (for calendars and tasks), instant access to contacts, and the ability to call up maps and navigation utilities — these and other features are a traditional strength of tablets and smartphones and a liability for PCs. Business users would love to have those features consolidated in one device, but to gain one, the sacrifices on the other have remained too great. Surface RT goes a long way to address that. With Windows 8, I complained that the Classic desktop was used as a crutch too often. However, Windows 8.1 starts to bring Modern into the foreground of the experience, with more time spent in full-featured mobile apps.
4. Refresh and restore with greater ease
Surface RT refresh and restore are like a reset on Android or iOS. Windows on Intel is still vulnerable to all classic Windows issues, meaning that you may find yourself far away from home with a crippled OS and no reinstall media, no keys, and unable to recover. If something goes wrong, recovering the exact state may be difficult or impossible on a traditional PC, but it's far easier on ARM-based devices, including Surface RT. On the other hand, with a full desktop browser, things that have to wait until you're back at a regular PC on other ARM devices can be done immediately in the Surface RT Classic desktop. Google Drive, Dropbox, social media sites, blogs, and many online apps work on Surface RT just like a regular Windows PC rather than as a crippled mobile site or by the unreliable method of rendering a “mouse and pointer”-oriented site in desktop mode on a mobile browser.
5. The general freedom of an NT OS is baked into Surface RT
Surface RT offers the basic open freedoms of Windows. While you can’t install Classic apps, use alternate markets, or sideload apps, much of the general freedom of an NT OS is baked into Surface RT. You can browse networks and copy and manipulate files as much as you'd like. You can launch files or apps multiple ways and directed to multiple destinations. Peripheral support on Surface RT is also unmatched by Android or iOS, including keyboards, mice, joysticks, external drives, and (most significantly for me) printers. I’ve tried countless cloud printing solutions on iOS and Android, and they’ve all been unreliable and difficult to configure. Surface RT doesn’t support every Windows printer, but when it works, it's just like setting up one in Windows — comfortable, familiar, and reliable. If you can’t print, you’ll probably find that your hotel’s business center or a Kinkos will take your SD card, load your document onto their PC, and print it out for you with very little hassle. Furthermore, the built-in USB will take a thumb drive or any size external hard drive. I’ve even hooked up an external USB DVD drive.
It isn’t that Android can’t do some of these things, it's that it can’t deliver all of these things as consistently or as well. Android still has a tremendous advantage as a leisure content consumption platform, which is why it's so popular on the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire. If that's what you're looking for in a mobile device, Surface RT may disappoint you. But if you want a hybrid device that places an emphasis on productivity in a corporate environment, neither iOS or Android come close to the solution that Surface RT offers.
Do you agree or disagree? Share your opinion in the discussion thread below.0
STOCKTON, California –
The internet was abuzz this past week when a mug shot of accused arms dealer Jeremy Meeks hit the web, making women swoon and men jealous over his movie-star good looks.
Apparently all the attention Meeks has gotten since being arrested has only helped him, as billionaire actress and media mogul Oprah Winfrey has reportedly agreed to pay Meeks’ $900,000 bail, with the intent of giving him a job as a talk show host on her OWN Network.
“Jeremy is so beautiful. He’s really one of the most gorgeous men I’ve ever seen.” Said Winfrey. “I saw his picture while I was checking my Twitter, and my heart skipped a beat. He is practically the definition of the word ‘sexy’.”
Meeks has said he will gladly take the offer of hosting his own program, as it has always been his dream to get out of arms dealing and move into the entertainment world. He is reportedly working with Winfrey, her producers, and a group of writers to determine the best kind of show for his ‘style.’
“I am not a doctor, so I guess I can’t really be Dr. Phil or anything.” Said Meeks. “What I’ve suggested is a milder version of a Jerry Springer, where my guests are mostly cons and criminals like me, and I can maybe help them get or stay on the straight-and-narrow.”
Winfrey may not be looking just to have a new face for her network, though. Possible troubled waters with Winfrey and longtime partner Stedman Graham mean that it’s always possible that Winfrey is looking towards a future with a younger, more handsome beau.
“Oh gosh, that’s just not true.” Said Winfrey, giggling like a school girl. “I really just want for Jeremy to find a better life. He’s got a beautiful girl and a family already. He certainly doesn’t need me or my billions of
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8 things not to purchase on November 24.
Thanksgiving is just around the corner and you know what that means - The Black Friday sales are coming soon! Lots of discounts and promotions are waiting for your, however, not every Black Friday deal is worthy of your money! In order to help you decide what is a great deal for you and what’s not, we are going to list the top 8 things you shouldn’t purchase on November 24.
1. Tools - If you are planning on purchasing new tools for you or for a handyperson in your life, make sure to hold off those place until December. Even though Black Friday is known for huge discounts and sales, in December, you can expect even more deals on wrenches, hammers, drills, and etc.
2. IPhones - We know that you want a new iPhone so badly, but purchasing one on Black Friday is not the best idea! There are going to be some stores that will offer gift cards when purchasing the new iPhone 8 at a full price, but keep in mind that you can’t count on a huge discount and get one for below of $699. The prices for iPhone X and iPhone 8 Plus will be even more expensive. So, instead of purchasing an iPhone on November 24, wait until December when you can get a new-model iPhone.
3. Jewelry - Another thing you shouldn’t purchase on Black Friday. You need to wait until January and make your jewelry purchase or wait until Valentine’s Day when there are going to be so many discounts!The Government is to provide new and upgraded equipment for the Army, Naval Service and Air Corps, including new aircraft, naval ships and armoured personnel carriers.
The White Paper on Defence is being published today and will outline the Government’s policy on defence for the next ten years.
It will set out the role of the Defence Forces nationally and internationally.
The plan also commits to doubling the number of women in the Defence Forces, increasing the strength of the Army Ranger wing and establishing new units to travel to conflict zones where gender-based violence is part of warfare.
A new Institute for Peace and Support and Leadership Training is also to be set up at the Curragh and a new employment support scheme is to be established for young people from disadvantaged areas.
A new process of fixed-cycle defence reviews is to be established and the strength of the permanent Defence Forces is to be brought up to and maintained at 9,500.
Running to almost 200 pages, the document commits to new and upgraded equipment including new armoured personnel carriers for the Army, the replacement of the Cessna and Casa aircraft for the Air Corps and three new ships for the navy, at least one with the increased capacity to carry a helicopter.
It includes a plan to develop specialist units in conjunction with gardaí to work in countries where gender based violence such as rape and physical and sexual intimidation are used as weapons of warfare.
Minister for Defence Simon Coveney has said Ireland has been under-investing in security for some time and that our expenditure in this area is the second lowest in Europe.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, the minister said the White Paper on Defence, will set out how spending is to be increased and how the defence forces will expand and grow over time.
Mr Coveney said Ireland now faces much more complex defence challenges than in previous times, such as international terrorism, radicalisation, mass migration internationally, cyber security and the threats of rapidly changing technologies.
"Traditionally Ireland has taken a view that everybody likes the Irish, so therefore there's no military threat to Ireland.
"And I think traditionally, our focus on defence has been related to Northern Ireland and the troubles there and international peace keeping."
The minister said there is also the need for the defence capacity to be increased here and abroad.
He added that there is an active recruitment program in place which is specifically aimed at trying to attract more women into the force.
Security Analyst Tom Clonan said a "brain drain" from the Defence Forces needs to be addressed.
Speaking on the same programme, the former Army officer said there has been a difficulty in retaining officers in the recent past, due to pension erosion, and some staff being asked to retire in their 40s and 50s.
He said there is a difficulty in retaining staff in the Army and that it is losing very special skill sets such as bomb disposal personnel at a very high rate.One of the most prominent differences in the bases of support for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders is in racial composition. In Fox News's most recent poll, Clinton led Sanders by 29 points among all voters -- and by 50 points among non-white voters. Sanders has increased his emphasis on courting non-white voters for that very reason.
New data from Gallup makes clear that part of the divide has nothing to do with Sanders: Clinton is simply very popular among black Americans. Eighty percent of black Americans view Clinton favorably -- only four points below where President Obama polls right now.
Of course, Clinton is also much better known than Sanders, or most Republicans running in 2016. Ninety-two percent of respondents were familiar enough with Clinton to have an opinion, compared to one-third who were familiar with Sanders. If you adjust the favorability for each candidate based on how well known they are, Sanders is viewed favorably by 70 percent of black Americans who know about him.
For all of the 2016 candidates, those figures look like this.
We can look at this another way. Below, we've plotted favorability versus unfavorability, with points scaled to how familiar people are with each candidate.
Notice that, generally, as Republicans get better-known, they are less popular. Generally, as Democrats get better known, they are more popular -- though Clinton just sort of breaks the scale.
The question is: As Sanders becomes better known, how does his dot move? Does it go straight up, mirroring Clinton's numbers? Or does it drift a bit to the right, instead, seeing increased favorability but also increased unfavorability? (If that 70 percent overall favorability figure is predictive, Sanders would drift over to 30 percent unfavorability.)
Notice Ben Carson's circle. He's doing better than most other Republican candidates with black voters. He seems to be likely to buck the trend of Republicans growing less popular as they're better known.
But it's hard to say where Carson or Sanders will go. There's a lot of time and a lot of campaign that will need to unspool before we get a good sense of how black voters are reacting to the candidates. Sanders is doing everything he can to drag his circle up and to the left. He has to.via August 04, 2015 at 02:33PM
“If any job is going to take up someone’s life, it deserves a living wage.”
A Texas paramedic came to the rescue of fast food workers seeking a living wage, saying others who are struggling to get by should support their cause against “bosses” who pit workers against each other for crumbs while “they made off with almost the whole damn cake.”
Jens Rushing, an EMT in Arlington, Texas, took to Facebook to defend the often derided “burger flippers” in New York City who recently won a wage hike to $15 per hour.
While conservatives who make a living pounding out an occasional “think piece” have called increasing the minimum wage “immoral,” Rushing chided fellow workers at real jobs for knocking the fast food employees, saying that is what the bosses want.
“I’m a paramedic. My job requires a broad set of skills: interpersonal, medical, and technical skills, as well as the crucial skill of performing under pressure,” Rushing wrote. “I often make decisions on my own, in seconds, under chaotic circumstances, that impact people’s health and lives. I make $15/hr. And these burger flippers think they deserve as much as me? Good for them.”
“Look, if any job is going to take up someone’s life, it deserves a living wage. If a job exists and you have to hire someone to do it, they deserve a living wage. End of story. There’s a lot of talk going around my workplace along the lines of, “These guys with no education and no skills think they deserve as much as us? Fuck those guys.” And elsewhere on FB: ‘I’m a licensed electrician, I make $13/hr, fuck these burger flippers.‘”
He continued, “And that’s exactly what the bosses want! They want us fighting over who has the bigger pile of crumbs so we don’t realize they made off with almost the whole damn cake. Why are you angry about fast food workers making two bucks more an hour when your CEO makes four hundred TIMES what you do? It’s in the bosses’ interests to keep your anger directed downward, at the poor people who are just trying to get by, like you, rather than at the rich assholes who consume almost everything we produce and give next to nothing for it. ”
Rushing noted that the company that employs him boasted of making $1.3 billion last year and that they expect their employees making $27,000 a year or less to applaud them, adding that they are just as important to the company as the CEO.
“Can they pay us more? Absolutely. But why would they? No one’s making them,” he wrote before adding a final exhortation for workers to band together for living wages for all: “Organize. Fight. Win.”How to Write a Emacs Major Mode for Syntax Coloring
This page shows you how to write a emacs major mode to do syntax coloring of your own language.
syntax color your own language
Problem
You are writing a major mode for a new language. You want keywords of the language syntax colored.
Suppose your language source code looks like this:
Sin[x]^2 + Cos[y]^2 == 1 Pi^2/6 == Sum[1/x^2,{x,1,Infinity}]
You want the words “Sin”, “Cos”, “Sum”, colored as functions, and “Pi” and “Infinity” colored as constants.
Solution
Save the following in a file.
( setq mymath-highlights '(( "Sin\\|Cos\\|Sum". font-lock-function-name-face) ( "Pi\\|Infinity". font-lock-constant-face))) ( define-derived-mode mymath-mode fundamental-mode "mymath" "major mode for editing mymath language code." ( setq font-lock-defaults '(mymath-highlights)))
Now, copy and paste the above code into a buffer, then Alt + x eval-buffer.
Now, type following code into a buffer:
Sin[x]^2 + Cos[y]^2 == 1 Pi^2/6 == Sum[1/x^2,{x,1,Infinity}]
Now, M-x mymath-mode, you see words colored.
How Does it Work?
The string "Sin\\|Cos\\|Sum" is a regex, the font-lock-function-name-face is a pre-defined variable that holds the value for the default font and coloring spec used for function keywords.
[see Elisp: Regex Tutorial]
The line define-derived-mode defines your mode, named “mymath-mode”, based on the fundamental-mode. fundamental-mode is the most basic mode.
The line (setq font-lock-defaults '(mymath-highlights)) sets up the syntax highlighting for your mode.
Writing a Mode for a Language that Has Hundreds of Keywords
Typically, a language has hundreds of keywords. Elisp has a way to generate regex for your keywords.
Suppose you are writing a mode for the Linden Scripting Language (LSL). LSL has about 553 keywords. First, here's a sample of LSL source code so you get some idea of how we want it colored.
integer score = 0; string mySay = "i ♥ you" ; vector v = <3,4,5>; list myList= [2,4,7,3]; integer sum( integer a, integer b) { integer result = a + b; return result; } default { state_entry () { llSay (0, mySay); } touch_start ( integer total_number) { if (score == 1) { llSay (0, mySay); } else { llWhisper (0, "Ouch!" ); } } }
Each type of keyword uses a different color.
Here's the code.
( setq mylsl-font-lock-keywords ( let* ( (x-keywords '( "break" "default" "do" "else" "for" "if" "return" "state" "while" )) (x-types '( "float" "integer" "key" "list" "rotation" "string" "vector" )) (x-constants '( "ACTIVE" "AGENT" "ALL_SIDES" "ATTACH_BACK" )) (x-events '( "at_rot_target" "at_target" "attach" )) (x-functions '( "llAbs" "llAcos" "llAddToLandBanList" "llAddToLandPassList" )) (x-keywords-regexp ( regexp-opt x-keywords 'words)) (x-types-regexp ( regexp-opt x-types 'words)) (x-constants-regexp ( regexp-opt x-constants 'words)) (x-events-regexp ( regexp-opt x-events 'words)) (x-functions-regexp ( regexp-opt x-functions 'words))) `( (,x-types-regexp. font-lock-type-face) (,x-constants-regexp. font-lock-constant-face) (,x-events-regexp. font-lock-builtin-face) (,x-functions-regexp. font-lock-function-name-face) (,x-keywords-regexp. font-lock-keyword-face) ))) ( define-derived-mode mylsl-mode c-mode "lsl mode" "Major mode for editing LSL (Linden Scripting Language)…" ( setq font-lock-defaults '((mylsl-font-lock-keywords)))) ( provide'mylsl-mode)
Note that the highlighting mechanism of font-lock-defaults is based on first-come-first-serve basis. Once a sequence of characters is colored, it won't be changed. So, the order of your list is important. In general, put longer length keywords first. (this won't fix all cases where a keyword matches part of other keywords. If your language has a lot such keywords, you need to use other forms to solve this problem. (info "(elisp) Search-based Fontification"))
The `(,a,b …) is a lisp special syntax to evaluate parts of elements inside the list. Inside the paren, elements preceded by a, will be evaluated.
In the above, we based our mode on c-mode, because the syntax is similar. Basing on a similar language's mode will save you time in coding many features, such as handling comment and indentation.
The line:
( provide'mylsl-mode)
adds the symbol mylsl-mode to the variable features list. [see Elisp: provide, require, features]
Now, to run the code, Alt + x eval-buffer. [see Evaluate Emacs Lisp Code]
Open the LSL language sample file given above, then Alt + x mylsl-mode. Here's the result:
sample mylsl-mode syntax highlighting result.
Complex Syntax Coloring
For many language, the syntax coloring are not fixed set of strings. For example, in XML, you have <xyz>…</xyz> pattern where the “xyz” can be anything.
emacs html-mode syntax coloring screenshot
Font Lock Mode Basics
To handle more complex syntax coloring, continue to
Elisp: Font Lock Mode BasicsTough New Gun Laws Drive Gun Makers To Move
Enlarge this image toggle caption Joel Rose/NPR Joel Rose/NPR
Firearms manufacturers are pulling up stakes in at least two of the five states that enacted tough new guns laws following the school shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School last year.
In the months after those shootings, governors in New York, Connecticut and Maryland signed broad new bans on assault weapons. Delaware passed a law requiring universal background checks. Colorado adopted background checks and a ban on high-capacity magazines.
"To have this many states have so many changes in one year is absolutely unprecedented," says Robyn Thomas of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. She says gun control advocates are now targeting states they weren't even thinking about before. "So if we look at states like Washington and Oregon and Virginia and even Nevada, there are opportunities there that we weren't able to fully realize this year because this is still sort of a new reality."
But this "new reality" — if that's what it is — does not sit well with the firearms industry. In Colorado, firearms maker Magpul Industries announced it's leaving the state in response to a law that bans high-capacity magazines. Gun maker Beretta threatened to leave Maryland. Beretta now says it will stay put but add jobs only in other states. In Connecticut, at least one rifle maker is planning to move because of a broad new ban on assault weapons that was signed in April.
"You know, I knew that day — once I finished reading this bill, I knew if it passed and became the law of the land, we really wouldn't have a choice but to move," says Josh Fiorini, CEO of PTR Industries, a company that builds high-end semi-automatic rifles at a factory in Bristol, Conn.
The new state law makes it illegal to buy PTR's products in Connecticut. And Fiorini says vague language in the law makes it unclear whether his 40 employees are in violation when they assemble and transport the weapons.
"These are good jobs. Those are skilled tradesmen. Whether they're the welders, the machine operators, machine programmers, toolmakers, these are the kind of manufacturing jobs that used to be the backbone of the northeast economy," he says, "and the rest of the country is saying 'Hey, if you don't want 'em, we'll take 'em.' "
Fiorini won't say where the company is moving. Texas is rumored to be the front-runner. But he says he's gotten offers from dozens of different states. And firearms makers say they're getting pressure from their customers, too.
"It is very much a concern — if they don't leave the state that consumers and Second Amendment advocates will boycott their product," says Lawrence Keane of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, an industry trade association based in Newtown, Conn. He says the state's new gun law is misguided because it will only affect law-abiding gun owners.
"It will do nothing to reduce crime. It will just simply cause a reduction in sales, cause these companies to have to let employees go," Keane says.
But gun control advocates say there's proof that tougher gun laws — like the assault weapons ban that has long been on the books in California — do help reduce gun-related deaths. Thomas of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence says it's unfortunate that Connecticut may lose jobs because of its new laws. But she says that should not be the main concern of state officials.
"I would even call it a distraction to the real issue here, which is whether or not these laws are effective and save lives. And if that's the case, then 50 jobs moving from Connecticut to Texas is really just a side issue," Thomas says.
The final economic cost of the new state gun laws may not be clear for a while. The governors of Texas and South Dakota will be in Connecticut next week to pitch gun makers on their states in person.But the US still stubbornly insists Iran stop enriching uranium to 20 percent, despite proving good on its promises
A United Nations report due this week is expected to detail a decrease in the growth of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium because it is diverting much of the material to make fuel, as it has promised, Reuters reports.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and even Israeli intelligence admitted publicly last October that Iran was diverting much of its enriched uranium for peaceful scientific research and medical isotopes.
This information clashes with what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to warn about. On Monday, he issued another stern warning of Iran’s determination to become a nuclear state, insisting that a “robust, credible, military threat” is the only thing that can stop it.
Some reports claim Iran has installed new uranium enrichment, increasing its overall capacity. But this upcoming UN report is expected to conclude that the rate of growth of Iran’s capabilities is slowing, primarily because the material is being used for fuel and other peaceful purposes.
Iran has repeatedly announced its 20 percent enriched uranium is for peaceful purposes like fuel, scientific research, and medical isotopes. Iran has followed through on this promise.
Still, negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 are essentially stagnant because of Washington’s insistence that Iran give up its 20 percent enrichment.
Last 5 posts by John GlaserSPRINGFIELD - Police have charged a Maryland man with five counts of arson in connection with a spate of intentional blazes earlier this month that left several families homeless, according to investigators.
Five apartment buildings or multi-family homes at 282, 286 and 292 Union St., plus 125 Andrews St. and 185 Hancock Street were set on fire after midnight on March 12. Nearby homes also were damaged by flames during a bone-chillingly cold night when firefighters battled for hours at a time, officials said.
Fire units from surrounding communities rushed to the scenes to assist Springfield firefighters.
Mardell Davis, 30, was arrested late Friday and charged with five counts of arson.
A police report drafted by Officer Mark Bacon indicates Davis was initially connected to a restraining order filed by a resident of 292 Union St. According to police, he said he carried cups of an accelerant to Union Street, where he set multiple fires.
Video surveillance shows a suspect wearing dark pants and a hoodie walking first to 292 Union St., then to 282 Union St., reports state.
"The video shows flickering of lights and suddenly there is a large burst of flame and the suspect can be seen walking out away from the fire heading east on Union Street on foot," according to reports.
The same scenario played out at 286 Union St. when a surveillance camera captures Davis allegedly entering the stairwell there, and a burst of flame erupts once again. Police say Davis confessed to all five local arsons.
Back in Maryland, Davis is wanted on a slew of charges including rape and attempted murder. Details surrounding the alleged incidents leading to the charges in Maryland weren't immediately available Saturday night.
His motive for setting the fires in Springfield was vague, according to police.
"He was mad and high, according to him," said police Capt. Trent Duda, who led the investigation but also credited the narcotics and street crimes unit, plus Officers Louis Adamas, Greg McCain and Gifford Jenkins.
Duda said the investigation was complicated by Davis offering an alias (David Lewis) to police, and by a girlfriend in this area who believed he had outstanding warrants out of Albany, New York, as opposed to Maryland.
Davis claimed he has family and friends in Springfield but was angry at a woman he left behind in Maryland, Duda said.
Police department spokesman Sgt. John Delaney also said in a statement that investigators quickly sized up the fires as targeted, not random.
"The morning after the fires the police department patrolled the immediate vicinity of the fires all week to calm the neighborhood," Delaney said. "This arrest should let all the residents on Union Street rest easy. Investigators believe the motive could be domestic."
Davis' accounts of setting the fires included specific details that could not easily be manufactured and were confirmed by surveillance cameras, reports state. He also fled from police over a barbed wire fence when they attempted to stop him, reports state.
He recounted sitting in a chair and setting the fire at Hancock Street and setting another blaze on the front porch of Andrew Street, police said.
Police recovered lighter fluid, paint thinner and Styrofoam cups from the suspect, reports state.
Davis is scheduled for an arraignment hearing at Springfield District Court on Monday.You’ve seen the stories – President-elect Donald Trump was shocked to learn he needs to hire over 4,000 political appointees by January 20, and that people in Washington may refuse to work in a Trump administration, or that Trump, as a newcomer to politics, may not know enough people to get down to business. Many of the same news sources which said Trump would never win are now exaggerating the few hours’ delay of a transition memo, or the switch from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to Vice President-elect Mike Pence to lead the transition team, as signaling a process in disarray.
U.S. Representative John Mica (R-FL) (C) and Representative Pete Sessions (R-TX) (R) speak with reporters as they depart with Trump campaign "Make America Great Again" hats distributed at a House Republican caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. November 15, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Trump was well aware if he won he would need to hire, and if he was not keeping lists of potential candidates, you can be sure others around him were. Far from some kind of unanticipated chore, political organizations stretching back to Tammany Hall if not ancient Rome live for this task – handing out jobs is one of the prizes every election winner, Republican or Democrat, takes home.
In addition, the standing bureaucracy in Washington oversees these transitions every four to eight years, as do the national party offices. And as a businessperson, Trump is no stranger to the hiring process. Though many are new to government, this is not a cold start for the president-elect’s team.
But when it gets down to the actual work of filling jobs, how exactly is it done? I worked in the State Department for 24 years’ worth of transitions. Trump will fill positions pretty much the same way every other modern president before him has.
He has already started with the big jobs, such as transition head Mike Pence, and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, former chair of the Republican National Committee. After that will come the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, and an Attorney General. Trump will hand-pick these people.
Those appointees will then fill in below them, the deputy and assistant secretaries, attorneys, and special advisors. Given the number of people he knows and trusts from his business, Trump himself may seed in some mid-level appointees, particularly in agencies like Treasury and Commerce. The Democrats would have likely done the same, drawing, for example, from loyalists at the Clinton Foundation.
These positions amount to about one-fourth of the jobs that need to be staffed. And of those, maybe fewer than 100 are critical for Day One.
One important point: the top tier political appointees require Senate confirmation. So do around 1,000 others. A good strategy to both ease that process and to locate experienced hands is to turn to senators and congressmen for recommendations.
With those Senate confirmation jobs lined up, Trump’s transition team will move to other positions, including any number of economic and national security staffers. Many will be drawn from people already advising Trump, or selected out of think tanks and academia. People from those pools are already vetted politically based on their association and/or past work.
And don't believe what you might read about vast numbers of people in Washington refusing to work in Trump’s White House.
The currency of public service is power, and official Washington will kneel on broken glass before any but an ideological handful would turn down a job with access to the West Wing. Don't be surprised if even a few of those high-profile Republican national security officials who signed letters in March and August saying they'll never work for Trump quietly change their minds, "for the good of the country." Whether or not Trump will invite them is another story.
The largest category of jobs left to fill after all that include people like schedulers, subject matter experts, special counsels, and staff assistants. Many will be pulled from the cadre of campaign volunteers and interns – why do you think someone devoted all that time knocking on voters' doors during an Iowa winter?
The last way Trump will staff up his administration is via application. In fact, you can go right now to President-elect Trump's "Serve America" website and complete one online. And yes, getting hired is a long shot.
While the longer process plays out, Trump's team does have the (not often used) option to ask some current Obama-appointed staffers to stick around, especially those in positions that are non-partisan. And not every job available to Trump has to be filled by Inauguration Day; there are layers of career civil servants, who make up the vast majority of federal employees, that can stand in temporarily, same as say next year when their eventual political-appointee boss goes on vacation. In addition, once president, Trump can also appoint his own acting head of an agency while awaiting a confirmation hearing for his real choice.
Absent a core group of appointees, there is no immediate hurry. Chris Lu, who ran Obama’s first transition team, recalled the chaos of that period; Obama was still announcing key personnel in mid-January 2009. The first formal announcement of a Cabinet member, Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary, didn’t come until 16 days after the 2008 election. In fact, many administrations don't complete their first full cycle of appointments for months.
And of course it has been only about a week since Trump’s election, a span history suggests is a tad early to declare discord and disarray. The rumors of Trump’s deadly personnel failures some ten weeks before he even takes office seem to be exaggerated.Rubinstein suffered a heart attack two months ago
Zelda Rubinstein, the US actress best known for her role as the diminutive psychic in 1982 film Poltergeist, has died in Los Angeles at the age of 76.
The 4ft 3in (1.29m) actress died in hospital on Wednesday after recently suffering a heart attack, her agent told the Los Angeles Times.
Eccentric medium Tangina Barrons was her first major role and one she reprised in two Poltergeist sequels.
More recently, Rubinstein appeared in Southland Tales and TV's Picket Fences.
She also appeared in a high-profile Aids public awareness campaign in the 1980s and was an outspoken activist for the rights of people of restricted height.
Haunted house
Born in Pittsburgh in 1933, the former lab technician was almost 50 when she made her big-screen debut as a woman playing a Munchkin in The Wizard of Oz in 1982's Under the Rainbow.
Poltergeist followed, in which her character came to the assistance of a suburban family living in a haunted house.
Fans will remember her child-like voice exhorting spirits to "go into the light" before declaring "this house is clean".
She went on to appear with Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles, before returning as Tangina in Poltergeist II: The Other Side and Poltergeist III.
Rubinstein was sent to hospital at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center two months ago, after suffering a mild heart attack.
"She had ongoing health issues and unfortunately they finally overtook her," her agent Eric Stevens said.The surge of capital into Canada's nascent marijuana industry has sent stock prices soaring -- and brought warnings it's a bubble that could soon burst.
Credit: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg
The value of 26 marijuana stocks listed in Canada has swelled to almost C$4 billion ($3 billion) from close to nothing in the past two years, as investors rushed to bet on the country's move toward legalizing recreational use. Canopy Growth became the first marijuana unicorn, reaching a valuation of C$1.24 billion on Wednesday. Other producers, including OrganiGram and Aurora Cannabis, saw their share prices surge more than 250% this year.
While investor optimism is being fueled by analysts' estimates that there could be about 3.8 million recreational marijuana users in Canada by 2021 and billions in sales, there's mounting concern companies are overvalued. How Canada will regulate, tax or distribute the products remains unknown, and some of the publicly traded companies have yet to make a sale.
"Oh, they're going to pop," Nick Brusatore, the largest shareholder of Affinor Growers, said by phone. Once a mining company, the firm now develops greenhouse technology for crops, including cannabis. "It's going to pop hard."
Canada is on track to become the first Group of Seven country to legalize pot for recreational use if it pushes forward with introducing legislation in 2017. It would join eight U.S. states where it won't be a crime to use the drug recreationally by January and follows Uruguay, which became the first country to legalize it in 2013.
'Serious Bubble'
Chris Damas, an analyst at BCMI Research in Barrie, Ontario, likens the capital pouring into the sector to the dot-com craze of the 1990s. At the time, the value of technology stocks rose rapidly as investors saw opportunity in the Internet's growth despite the fact many companies had no revenue, he said.
Many holders of pot stocks that have increased tenfold are company insiders, and the market could crash if they decide to start selling to take profits, Mr. Damas said. "It does smell like a real serious bubble," he said in a telephone interview.
Companies started piling into the sector after Canada changed rules governing medical use to allow access only through licensed producers. In 2013, Health Canada began approving licenses and six medical marijuana companies began trading on the TSX Venture Exchange. When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wooed voters with a promise to legalize the drug in the country's 2015 election campaign, the industry began to take off.
Frenzy Begins
The market went into a frenzy ahead of a report to the government in November that laid out practical issues surrounding legalization. It's yet to be made public, but price-earnings ratios now range as high 737 for Moncton, OrganiGram and 108 on a forward earnings basis for Aurora. Canopy, the country's largest medicinal producer, has a ratio of enterprise value to trailing 12-month sales of 50. That compares to 1.3 for pharmacy chain Jean Coutu Group (PJC). Enterprise value is market value plus debt.
For their part, many pot companies say investors are betting on future growth.
"The stocks are not overvalued," said Denis Arsenault, chief executive officer at OrganiGram. Volumes have risen alongside prices, which signals that investment funds are becoming more comfortable with the industry and the idea that a legal one will soon exist in Canada, he said. "The investment community is waking up to the reality this is going to happen."
Prohibition Ending
Cam Battley, exec VP of Aurora, whose market value has risen to C$581 million from about C$50 million this year, said that unlike pharmaceutical companies, which have long lead times between startup and generating revenue, marijuana companies will become profitable faster as there's pent-up demand for product and millions of potential customers. "It's been a remarkable fast growth period for us," Mr. Battley said.
Canopy has more than half a million square feet of production space and has proven it can raise and deploy capital, said CEO Bruce Linton. Smith Falls, Ontario-based Canopy, which operates out of an old Hershey chocolate factory, has the most substantial production facilities and Canada will have a multibillion-dollar marijuana market when prohibition ends, he said.
In the U.S., the cannabis market in legal states totaled $6 billion in 2015 and is expected to reach $50 billion in 2026, according to data from Cowen & Co. But the drug remains illegal at the federal level and publicly traded companies are largely in auxiliary industries selling such things as seed kits and lotions, or raising investment funds for the industry.
Pure Play
That makes Canada a destination for investors who want to focus on producing and distributing the drug, said Brendan Kennedy, CEO of Privateer. Privateer has raised $120 million to invest in cannabis companies including closely held producer Tilray.
That said, securities regulators have issued an "unprecedented" number of warnings to investors regarding the risks of cannabis penny stocks, Mr. Kennedy said.
Last year, a review of issuers entering the medical pot business by the Canadian Securities Administrators found 25 "raised serious investor protection concerns" due to deficiencies in their disclosures.
"Most of these companies are unproven," Mr. Kennedy said in a Dec. 5 telephone interview. "They're all based on a hope and a prayer." Still, there's massive opportunities in the industry with other countries such as Germany and Australia also looking at moving into medical marijuana, he said.
While Affinor investor Mr. Brusatore is bracing for a pot bust, he's betting another big investor will eventually move into the sector: Big Tobacco.
"I'm pretty sure the tobacco boys are already getting their tie-ups happening right now."
--Bloomberg NewsThe developer behind indie title Fortress Fallout says that Bethesda Softworks parent company Zenimax Media has forced him to abandon the trademark for his game after allegations of infringement with the popular Fallout series. As Jordan Maron (aka YouTuber Captain Sparklez) discusses in a recent video, Zenimax asked in a letter that Maron "immediately expressly abandon the application for Fortress Fallout and cease any and all current or proposed use of any mark incorporating the term Fallout."
Maron says his company, Xreal, has been forced to comply with the request due to a lack of resources. "Our lawyers said that Bethesda is a notoriously litigious company," Maron says in the video. "Obviously they have lots of money and resources at their disposal which me and my partner don't really have at the moment. So essentially we are being strong-armed into having to change our name, which is unfortunate because I personally don't feel there is any confusion between Fortress Fallout and the Fallout video game franchise." Bethesda and Zenimax did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
We'd wager the average consumer would have little to no chance of confusing Fortress Fallout with Bethesda's popular post-apocalyptic RPG series, as Xreal's game is a free-to-play mobile title with 2D, tile-based graphics and multiplayer-focused strategy gameplay. Still, Xreal is now looking to rename the game, preferably to something that includes the word "Dungeon," according to Maron.
As Maron points out in his video, this isn't the first time that Bethesda has defended its exclusive right to use a common word in gaming titles. Back in 2011, the company suedmaker Mojang over the latter company's trademark for, a free-to-play card game that Zenimax said infringed onseries. The case was eventually settled in 2012, allowing Mojang to keep using thename as long as it didn't use it in a title that directly competed with. "I'm very happy we've resolved the matter, but it does seem silly for me that we have a system where two companies have to waste piles of money and time and end up in a situation where nothing has changed," Mojang founder Markus "Notch" Persson told Ars at the time.
Last year, Candy Crush Saga maker King drew controversy for using its trademark on the word "candy" to remove other candy-themed games from mobile app stores (King later filed to abandon that trademark). King also went after Stoic Studios' The Banner Saga for potential trademark infringement before settling amicably out of court.Gov. Snyder fills potholes in
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from one of the familiar grasslands structures. With the help of architect Nick Pancheau and builder Tom Skovron, the giant metal bin Morris bought for $12K was transformed into a one-bedroom sanctuary with incredible views of the surrounding plains.
The original bin, which measures 36 feet in diameter and 20 feet in height, has stayed largely intact; inside it, the primary living space is enclosed in a 900-square-foot insulated box. There are, however, stairs that lead to the unfinished space below, which Morris currently uses as an art studio.
With the home's expansive punch-out windows, protruding observation desk, and bridged entryway, there are also plenty of opportunities to pause and savor the pastoral environment. Take a look:
· Prairie Grain Bin Turned Bucolic Retirement Home [Houzz]
· All Adaptive Reuse posts [Curbed National]KIEV, Ukraine – Defiant Ukrainian protesters seized control of the capital’s central post office Wednesday, hurling fire bombs and rocks and standing their ground against officers in riot gear who threw stun grenades and fired water cannon a day after clashes that left at least 25 people dead and raised fears of civil war.
GALLERY: 13 powerful images from Kyiv protests as violence escalates in Ukraine
The demonstrators forced their way into into the post office in Independences Square, also known as the Maidan, after a nearby building they had previously occupied was burned down in the previous day’s clashes. Against the official onslaught, thousands of activists armed with fire bombs and rocks defended the square which has been a bastion and symbol for the demonstrators.
READ MORE: Canadian embassy closed in Kyiv amid deadly protests
During the night, the square was encircled by a wall of fire from burning tires. Smoke was still rising from the rose above the centre of the Ukrainian capital on Wednesday afternoon.
Ukraine’s top security agency on Wednesday accused protesters of seizing hundreds of firearms from its offices and announced a nation-wide anti-terrorist operation after 25 people were killed and hundreds injured hundreds in street clashes in the most unrest in the country’s modern history.
The violence Tuesday was the worst in nearly three months of anti-government protests that have paralyzed Ukraine’s capital in a struggle over the identity of a nation divided in loyalties between Russia and the West. It prompted the European Union to threaten sanctions against Ukrainian officials responsible for the violence and triggered angry rebukes from Moscow, which accused the West of triggering the clashes by backing the opposition.
WATCH: Deadly crackdown on protesters in Ukraine. Global National’s Christina Stevens reports
Sanctions would typically include banning leading officials from travelling to the 28-nation bloc and – crucially – freezing their assets there. Travel bans and assets freezes for the powerful oligarchs who back President Viktor Yanukovych could prompt them to pressure him to change course.
But the bad blood runs so high that it’s not clear whether an unstoppable force of conflict has been unleashed: The rising rage on both sides has fueled fears that the 46-million nation in the centre of Europe could be sliding deeper into violence that could lead to its breakup. While most people in western regions of Ukraine resent Yanukovych, he still enjoys strong support in the mostly Russian-speaking eastern and southern regions, where many want strong ties with Russia.
READ MORE: Canada signals medical aid to Ukraine activists, condemns violence: Baird
Neither side now appears willing to compromise, with the opposition insisting on Yanukovych’s resignation and early elections and the president prepared to fight till the end.
Radical protesters willing to confront police with violence were largely shunned at the start of the demonstrations three months ago, but they have become a key force in recent weeks, with moderate demonstrators bringing them food and some even preparing Molotov cocktails for them. Police also have turned increasingly brutal after law enforcement officers were killed.
VIDEO: A stand-off in Ukraine between police and anti government protesters is spiralling out of control. At least 25 people were killed and hundreds injured Tuesday in clashes in Kiev. Susan McGinnis has the latest from the state department.
The protests began in late November after Yanukovych turned away from a long-anticipated deal with the EU in exchange for a $15 billion bailout from Russia. The political manoeuvring continued ever since, with both Moscow and the West eager to gain influence over this former Soviet republic.
The Kremlin said it put the next disbursement of its bailout on hold amid uncertainty over Ukraine’s future and what it described as a “coup attempt.”
Yanukovych on Wednesday blamed the protesters for the violence and said the opposition leaders “crossed a line when they called people to arms.”
WATCH: Ukraine riot police run through fire and combat protesters
The European Union appears poised to impose sanctions as it called an extraordinary meeting of the 28-nation bloc’s foreign ministers for Thursday.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called for “targeted measures against those responsible for violence and use of excessive force can be agreed … as a matter of urgency.”
“It is the political leadership of the country that has a responsibility to ensure the necessary protection of fundamental rights and freedoms,” said Barroso, who heads the EU’s executive arm. “It was with shock and utter dismay that we have been watching developments over the last 24 hours in Ukraine.”
WATCH: Amateur footage of overnight clashes in Ukraine
The latest bout of street violence began Tuesday when protesters attacked police lines and set fires outside parliament, accusing Yanukovych of ignoring their demands to enact constitutional reforms that would limit president’s power – a key opposition demand. Parliament, dominated by his supporters, was stalling on taking up a constitutional reform to limit presidential powers.
Police responded by attacking the protest camp. Armed with water cannons, stun grenades and rubber bullets, police dismantled some barricades and took part of the Maidan. But the protesters still held their ground through the night, encircling the camp with new burning barricades of tires, furniture and debris.
READ MORE: Ukrainian protesters end 3-month occupation of Kyiv city hall
On Wednesday morning, the centre of Kyiv was cordoned off by police, the subway was shut down and most shops on Kyiv’s main street were closed. But hundreds of Ukrainians still flocked to the opposition camp, some wearing balaclavas and armed with bats, others, in every-day clothes and with make-up on, carrying food to protesters.
A group of young men and women poured petrol into plastic bottles, preparing fire bombs, while a volunteer walked past them distributing ham sandwiches to protesters from a tray. Another group of activists was busy crushing the pavement into pieces and into bags to fortify barricades.
READ MORE: World worried over deteriorating situation in Ukraine
“The revolution turned into a war with the authorities,” said Vasyl Oleksenko, 57, a retired geologist from central Ukraine, who said he fled the night’s violence fearing for his life, but returned to the square in the morning, feeling ashamed. “We must fight this bloody, criminal leadership; we must fight for our country, our Ukraine.”
Yanukovych was defiant on Wednesday, his tone leaving little hope for a compromise.
“I again call on the leaders of the opposition … to draw a boundary between themselves and radical forces which are provoking bloodshed and clashes with the security services,” the president said in a statement. “If they don’t want to leave (the square) – they should acknowledge that they are supporting radicals. Then the conversation with them will already be of a different kind.” He also called a day of mourning for the dead on Thursday.
The Health Ministry said 25 people died in the clashes, some from gunshot wounds, and Kyiv hospitals were struggling to treat hundreds of injured. Activists also set up a makeshift medical unit inside a landmark Orthodox Church not far from the camp, where volunteer medics were taking care of the wounded.
Meanwhile, in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, where most residents yearn for stronger ties with the EU and have little sympathy for Yanukovych, protesters seized several government buildings, including the governor’s office, police stations, prosecutors and security agency offices and the tax agency headquarters. They also broke into an Interior Ministry unit and set it on fire. The building was still smouldering Wednesday morning and some protesters were driving around town in police cars they had seized during the night.
VIDEO: WARNING: Graphic violence. Not suitable for younger viewers A woman was shot and seriously wounded as protesters tried to storm the Security Service of Ukraine building in the western city of Khmelnitsky
Tensions continued mounting. The government imposed restrictions for transport moving toward Kyiv, apparently to prevent more opposition activists from coming from the Western part of the country, and at least one train from Lviv was held outside Kyiv. Several highways into Kyiv were also blocked by police.
READ MORE: Ukraine pole vault great and Olympic chief calls for peace in Kyiv
Acting Defence Minister Pavlo Lebedev told the ITAR-Tass news agency that he has dispatched a paratrooper brigade to Kyiv to help protect arsenals. He refused to say if the unit could be used against protesters, the agency said.
Tensions soared after Russia said Monday that it was ready to resume providing the loans that Yanukovych’s government needs to keep Ukraine’s ailing economy afloat. This raised fears among the opposition that Yanukovych had made a deal with Moscow to stand firm against the protesters and would choose a Russian-leaning loyalist to be his new prime minister.
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies that Putin had a phone conversation with Yanukovych overnight. Peskov said that Putin hasn’t given Yanukovych any advice how to settle the crisis, adding that it’s up to the Ukrainian government.
VIDEO: Violent clashes between police and protesters in central square
Peskov also added that the next disbursement of a Russian bailout has remained on hold, saying the priority now is to settle the crisis, which he described as a “coup attempt.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement, blaming the West for the failure to condemn the opposition for the latest bout of violence.
EU leaders took the opposite stance, with Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt putting the blame on Yanukovych in an unusually tough statement.
“Today, President Yanukovich has blood on his hands,” Bildt said.Saving Naples: Geologists to drill 13,000ft into side of volcano to find out when it will blow
Geologists fear massive eruption is imminent
Locals fear team will trigger explosion
Scientists are planning to drill into the heart of an active volcano to try and protect the city of Naples from a devastating eruption.
Researchers are to install underground sensors inside Campi Flegrei, a volcano in southern Italy.
The team plans to drill a 4,000-metre hole into the side of the volcano early next year and measure the difference in temperature of the rocks to find out where the red-hot magma lies inside the mountains.
Tourists tour the steaming craters at Campi Flegrei outside Naples. Scientists fear that it might be ready to erupt
Campi Flegrei caldera lies around 5 miles west of Naples. It is a low-lying volcano and more than 1.5 million people live in the immediate vicinity.
It has had periods of unrest in 1969–1972, and 1982–1984 but it last erupted in 1538.
Movement in the ground over the past 40 years has made geologists fear that another massive eruption is likely.
Scientists estimate that magma lies at least 7,000 metres below the surface of the caldera.
But little is known about Campi Flegrei, or similar volcanoes. ‘Calderas are the only volcanoes that can cause truly catastrophic eruptions with global consequences, yet they are still poorly understood,’ says Giuseppe De Natale, the project's coordinator and a geophysicist at Italy's National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology in Naples.
Scientists also expect to hit high temperature liquids (up to over 900°F) which, according to the research team, could be used to generate geothermal energy. These liquids do not turn into gas because they are under so much pressure.
Geothermal energy is an alternative source of energy that can be converted into power, and is considered a reliable alternative to wind or solar energy.
But local critics say the drilling is too close to the city and could even trigger an explosion. Coming across magma too close to the surface could cause an explosion which could be catastrophic if it took place close Naples.
The probe is expected to face temperatures of up to 600 C as they drill deeper into the volcano and get closer to the magma at its core.
‘No similar project has ever faced such temperatures,’ De Natale told Nature magazine.
Borehole fibre-optic sensors will help scientists know where the magma is stored while other sensors will monitor the movement of the ground around the volcano, giving potentially vital information about when it might erupt.How many times have you sent your resume and never heard back? You start consoling yourself like I might need more experience or I wasn’t a good fit or they just didn’t see or receive my resume. But in reality, your resume had some obvious mistakes that didn’t let them go through your whole resume.
You’ll be amazed to know that Hiring Managers hardly take 6 seconds to examine a resume, so it’s highly important to avoid following resume mistakes:
1-Correct Your Objective.
Mostly job seekers, copy paste same old though popular job objectives on their resumes; this is one of the biggest resume mistakes but forwarding a resume with the same objective to multiple organizations is utterly the biggest mistake one could make.
There’s no need to put ‘Objective’ on your resume, instead just give a brief summary that should determine an accomplishment-driven summary as recruiters prefer good track record. Also emphasize on duties that highlight your uniqueness, simultaneously setting you apart from other candidates.
2-Irrelevant Work Experience.
Flooding own resume with some irrelevant work experiences is one the common resume mistakes job seekers do and proudly do! Two main reasons behind this mistake: Either you want to lengthen your resume or you want to express that you’re multi-talented and willing to work for any job position.
You should keep in mind for which job you are applying, always alter your experience accordingly. No matter how good you are at making different cuisines but if a company wants an Italian cuisine cook then make sure you discard other cuisine proficiencies and only focus on Italian cuisine job duties – and not responsibilities!
3-Hobbies? Nobody Cares!
Yes, nobody cares what you do in your leisure time if it’s irrelevant to the job you’re applying for. Do not waste your recruiter’s time and most importantly, it’s a waste of space as you can add other relevant information to other sections instead of adding and filling this useless section.
4-Avoid Personal Pronouns.
This is one of the senseless resume mistakes job seekers don’t even notice that this might make them fall in “No-Fit List”. You shouldn’t include words like “I”, “me”, “she” and “my” as Hiring Managers already know that this is your resume and every mentioned information is related to you.
5-Use Correct Tenses.
It’s highly important that you should use correct English in terms of tenses and other grammatical errors. Never mention your Past Job Experience using the Present Tense. Only your current job requires Present Tense.
6-Avoid Using Pointless Words.
Mentioning “Phone” before an actual number or writing a word “Email” before an email address is undoubtedly among the imprudent resume mistakes that job seekers commonly do. They already know it’s your phone number and your email address so there’s no need to use unnecessary words in your resume.
7-Avoid Including References.
It’s pointless to mention references at the bottom of your resume unless they are needed. If your Hiring Manager wants to speak to your references, he’ll definitely ask you.
Therefore, do not waste a valuable space by just writing “reference upon request”.
So, these were the common resume mistakes that job seekers don’t realize while making their personal resume but there are other lots of mistakes, I’d say BLUNDERS that actually hinder a manager to spend at least 3 seconds on your resume. Always Remember: Never Lie on your Resume! Good Luck!
Looking for some effective social media tips? Follow me here!
[fbcomments]As an ordinary human being, you may feel that there is nothing you can do in the fight against terrorism. You couldn’t be more wrong.
You see, terrorism directly targets ordinary people. You, an ordinary person, can deny terrorists their victory simply by refusing to be a victim. Believe it or not, you have a choice in the matter. This is because the victims of terrorism are not
simply those who get blown up during the initial attack. It’s the
people who are scared to fly in airplanes or visit big cities
afterwards. It’s the people who get dragged into a war against an
abstract concept. It’s the people who get attacked in the street because
they look like they might come from a hot country…
Here is how you, an ordinary human being, can fight terrorism:
Ignore it.
The more you think about a threat, the larger it grows in your mind.
The more you talk about it, the more worried you and people around you
become. So quit talking about terrorism. Quit seeking out horror stories
in news shows and on the internet. The media’s job is to sensationalise
things to get you to watch them. That’s how they get ratings and they
are very, very good at it. Don’t get dragged in by these ploys. Turn off
the sensationalist television. Be informed, yes, but don’t stand for
any of that alarmism, speculation, bias, uncertainty and denial.
Instead:
Know the facts. There is no risk.
The odds against you being killed in a terrorist attack are millions
to one. Ditto plane crashes. Only somebody who regularly enters lottery
draws would be put off by odds like these. You have more chance of dying
in a car crash tomorrow, and do you fret about that? Hell no.
Understanding this will enable you to:
Show no fear.
Terrorism, by its very definition, sets out to provoke terror. If you
are scared afterwards, the act of terrorism was successful. If you
refuse to be intimidated, the terrorists have lost. It really is as simple as that. You are not a mindless animal. You can choose not to give in to your basic impulses. Show some backbone.
Don’t be provoked.
Don’t get irrationally angry against the entire country that the
terrorists originate from. Don’t start to take out that anger on nearby
people who look like they might be from that country. And don’t accept a similar reaction from your leaders.
The reason? Hate breeds terrorism. If you attack people, you give them
motivation to retaliate. And if you hit back harder then they’ll hit
back harder still. It’s a cycle of aggression which only you can break.
As the attacked party, you’re supposed to be the good guy here: act like it. Back down. Walk away. Be the bigger man…Metro is currently facing a huge backlog of work on aging and broken tracks, partly because its way of scheduling the work isn’t working. The agency is announcing a new strategy for fixing its tracks on Friday, meaning there’s a huge opportunity to get track work right.
Silver Spring pocket track. Photo by Ben Schumin on Wikipedia Commons.
There currently isn’t enough time to do maintenance
In 2011, Metro started MetroForward to fix the system’s infrastructure. The plan was to spend a large part of the project’s $5 billion budget to fix the rails themselves. Five years and $3.7 billion later, the track work backlog hasn’t gone anywhere
WMATA employees, the Tri-State Oversight Committee, and the Federal Transit Administration have all said that doing track work only during overnight hours isn’t enough. The FTA also found that there is less time than before to perform track inspections that could find defects like cracked rails, defective fasteners, and third-rail insulator issues.
WMATA General Manager Paul Wiedefeld is now mulling over options to fix the way the agency does track work, hoping to cut the current backlog and bring everything up to a state of good repair.
This chart from WMATA, made in 2011, shows why there isn’t enough time to get all the maintenance work done overnight. There are three periods— 5-hour, 7-hour, and 56-hour work windows— in which work could be done. Green signifies the usable time and red signifies time lost to setup/teardown and other non-work activities. The shorter the maintenance period, the less productive the actual work time is.
Track usage production ratios. Image from WMATA
Metro’s current track work strategy doesn’t work
Metro usually performs single-tracking in several places each weekend while workers take a track out of service. Trains often run less often because of this, sometimes every 24 or 26 minutes on average (in reality, trains may come as quickly as every couple of minutes on one side of the single-tracking area, or as infrequently as every 40 minutes on the other).
Weekend single-tracking is rough. It’s caused a vast drop in weekend rail ridership, with some saying the system is unusable on the weekend. The reduction in service and increased unpredictability due to single-tracking is a big reason for this.
Full weekend shutdowns may be the way to go
As opposed to a single evening that provides 2.5 hours usable trackwork time (or 4.5 hours if the work starts at 10pm instead), a full weekend of track work from 9 pm Friday to 5 am Monday can provide up to 48.5 hours of usable track work time and allows access to both tracks, increasing the useful time ratio from 50 percent to 86 percent. The drastically-increased amount of unbroken time that workers have available on the track means that much more work can be accomplished.
Shutting down sections of track on the weekend to perform maintenance work not only is more convenient for passengers (rip the band-aid off instead of a slow pull), but also more beneficial to the maintenance personnel performing the work. Instead of being constrained to one track to work in, workers can spread out and move around the site easier, there’s no need to watch out for trains moving on the opposite track, and there’s a good potential more types of work can get done through better utilization of the work area.
Buses cost money though, and they would be needed for sectional shutdowns to ferry passengers across. Full shutdowns cost somewhere around 15 percent more than single-tracking according to one project. But if one method has a chance of retaining ridership and will accomplish more work in a single weekend than the other might in two or more, it may be worth it. Cost is no longer the driving factor for when and where track work occurs, as new Wiedefeld has seemingly made clear.
Not all stations and track can always be shut down for a weekend at a time though, so the agency may have to revert to other less-efficient track work strategies:
Short periods of track work are incredibly inefficient
During the week, the Metrorail system closes at 12 am, and opens at 5 am. While this provides five hours of “off” time, it really only gives maintenance personnel 2.5 hours or less to spend on the tracks. Setting up and tearing down track work is incredibly time consuming, as the process can include assembling workers and equipment, moving any heavy track machinery (prime movers) into the area, making sure the track is clear, setting up “shunts” to mimic a train in the area so the central rail routing system knows not to send trains into the work area, and more. An hour or more can quickly be used just to set up the work area.
If everything is set and placed, work can start. But when things don’t go as planned, time can be easily eaten up, as the FTA noted in their Safety Management Inspection review published last year:
On the March 23 [overnight] shift, for what should have been a simple T-bar replacement…the contractor was still not able to get access onto the work site until 2:00 a.m., and the contractor had to start clearing the site at 4:00 a.m., leaving only two hours of productive time…The impacts of this limited work window can be exacerbated by communication and logistical challenges. For example…it became clear that the Power branch work crew had the wrong size T-bar…and there was confusion whether the ATC department had been consulted in the planning of the work.
One hour before the crews need to wrap up (i.e. 4am in the morning if the system opens at 5am), they stop working so everything can be cleaned up so passenger trains can use the track. When this work runs over, passenger-carrying trains can be disrupted and you may see a tweet saying that there has been “late-clearing track work.”
Mid-day track work is not productive and causes passenger frustration
Based on the track work production numbers from the chart, mid-day track work is incredibly time-consuming, disruptive to passengers, and doesn’t provide much benefit. A mid-day maintenance window might be from 10am to 3pm (5 hours), which provides 2.5 hours of usable track time in the best case scenario. But if there are any issues in the morning and rush hour runs over past 10, the track work may wait, and that eats into the usable time.
What starts out as 2.5 hours of usable time could get whittled down to 1.5 or 1, or even less, on an especially bad day. While this work is going on, trains carrying passengers get to single-track around the area, waiting at least 10 minutes on either side of the stretch before going through.
Start track work earlier in the evenings
One option that helps provide more track time is to start track work “early outs” earlier in the evening at possibly 8pm, and end them later, possibly up to 6am. Current early outs usually start at 10pm and end by 5am. This provides 7 total hours of time for work, or around 4.5 usable hours of track time. The two-hour-early start provides two more hours of usable track time, which is valuable. Starting even earlier and ending later could provide up to 10 total hours, or 7 hours of track time, over double what crews would get with a typical overnight work session.
While early outs let track work start earlier, they require a delicate balance as well. If they start too early or end too late, they could severely impact peak rush periods and cause delays and rider frustration. More work could get done, but if done poorly could continue the ridership decline.
Longer shutdowns are an interesting possibility
Metro has never performed a shutdown longer than a weekend in recent history, but it seems Wiedefeld is headed in this direction. A shutdown from 9pm on a Friday to 5am the Monday a week later would provide about 200 track hours of usable time of 224 available, meaning 90 percent of the week is usable for track work. 200 hours of track time would be the equivalent to over 4 weekend shutdowns, 44 nights of work with 10pm early outs, or up to 80 regular overnight work sessions. Track work could be completed easily and quickly for both tracks in the work area.
At the same time, shutting down a station or two during the week is also hard. Buses and drivers would be needed to shuttle passengers around the shutdown area, more than Metro may have available. Replacing a rail car that can comfortably hold 120 passengers with 40-50-person buses means lots of road traffic, buses, and drivers. Extended shutdowns requires planning with jurisdictions to ensure alternate transportation for Metro riders goes as smoothly as possible.
This assumes the work is being done properly and coordinated well
Good use of track time means that workers are well-trained for what they need to do, equipment is available, and contractors are prompt and responsive. Audits have found that this is not always the case, and that new workers are liable to receive deficient training. At other times equipment has not been available or wasn’t brought to the work site, resulting in large amounts of time wasted while waiting for the necessary parts.
Similar to how some electrical crews are receiving specialized training to better handle heavy-duty power cables, perhaps some track and structures crews may require the same training to verify that work is being done properly or to help ensure training of others. Metro’s safety and track departments need to step up their quality control and assurance game, too: track work needs to be inspected by independent analysts who know exactly what they’re looking at. Independent workers need to be in the tunnels checking that inspections are being performed and equipment is being installed properly. Otherwise, performing the track work is a waste of Metro’s time and our money if the equipment has to be ripped out and replaced again.
Wiedefeld is releasing his track work strategy tomorrow, but as always, communication with customers again will be key to make this plan successful. Riders not only want to know what work is being done, but why the work needs to be done, what specifically is being done backed up with photos or video, and that the work is being done properly. Working with all interested parties, especially riders, is the only way the upcoming trackwork program can be successful while not alienating the very riders paying for a large portion of the agency’s budget.Dozens of anti-gang police officers across the city are quitting their assignments over a requirement to reveal personal financial information under strict anti-corruption rules, The Associated Press has learned.
Gang units in some of the city's most violent neighborhoods are being left with multiple vacancies, with officers choosing instead to work regular patrol shifts, Assistant Chief Earl Paysinger said Monday.
One of the areas most affected is the city's northeast division, which includes territory controlled by the notorious Avenues gang around Highland Park. Rather than fill in financial disclosure forms, most of the division's anti-gang unit has decided to leave and return to patrol, resulting in an unspecified number of vacancies.
Paysinger and other police officials stressed the reassignments would not affect public safety. The former gang officers — along with their street smarts and gang expertise — would remain in the neighborhoods they had long served.
The main difference would be that, as regular patrol officers, they would not be able to use some of the investigative techniques they could as gang officers.
"The community should not be concerned," Paysinger said. "We haven't backed away from our gang enforcement posture."
The deadline for officers to sign the LAPD's financial disclosure forms is the end of March but many officers are letting their superiors know ahead of time that they are declining.
The rules were mandated by the U.S. Department of Justice after a scandal in the late 1990s involving misconduct by anti-gang officers from LAPD's Rampart division.
The rules require gang and narcotics officers to reveal portions of their personal financial records to the department and are supposed to snare corrupt officers in units frequently handling cash or drugs.
The police officers' union, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, has long faulted the requirements, saying they are onerous and sap morale, among other criticisms,
Paysinger said gang officers who chose to quit rather than fill in the forms did not have a full understanding of the policy, and said the financial disclosure forms were less intrusive than credit card applications
The departure of gang officers could put the cash-strapped department under additional pressure. Already, it has had to cut overtime to deal with a shrinking budget.
Despite this, the city last year recorded its lowest homicide rate in decades.Arjun Maini boosted his Toyota Racing Series title hopes with his second win of the campaign in the first race of the Taupo quadruple header.
The Indian was pressed hard for much of the race – either side of a red flag stoppage to recover Matteo Ferrer‘s car – by single-seater newcomer Callum Ilott, who had started alongside the Indian on the front row of the grid.
But an error from the European karting champion would lead to contact with Charlie Eastwood that forced the latter out of the race and triggered a second pause in the action.
Artem Markelov got past into second, but after the restart the GP2 racer had contact with Ilott that ended the Briton’s promising run and dropped the Russian to the back of the pack.
Sam MacLeod – whose European F3 ride with Motopark was announced this week – benefited to claim P2 behind Maini, with Santino Ferrucci getting his fourth podium from five races.
Championship leader Lance Stroll had a quiet race but benefited from the chaos ahead to climb from eighth to fourth by the finish. Maini has gained 21 points on the Canadian, cutting his margin to 34 with six races to go.
Thomas Randle took fifth after passing impressive debutant Sergio Sette Camara who ended up losing just one place from his P5 grid slot. The Brazilian has taken over from Dhzon Simonyan at Giles for the final two rounds and is already just ten points short of the 55 scored by his predecessor.
Brandon Maisano recovered to seventh after a poor qualifying result left him starting 15th. Ilott’s ETEC team-mate and fellow single-seater newcomer Nikita Mazepin repeated his best finish of eighth after passing James Munro, who was followed across the line by fellow home favourite Damon Leitch.
UPDATE: A post-race investigation has determined that Arjun Maini and Nikita Mazepin made false starts. Both have picked up ten-second penalties and are demoted to 12th and 13th respectively. Sam MacLeod inherits the victory.Opera is about many things. However it is, first and foremost, an extended analysis of the nature of love. It examines why we love, and what love signifies in erotic, emotional and spiritual terms, its comic triumphs and its tragedies and failures - and it shows what happens when love comes into conflict with the forces of political reaction and religious orthodoxy, and how it turns sour when subject to abuse or obsession. We’ll be looking at variations on this immense theme in coming weeks. But by way of a prelude, here are five of the most iconic operatic love stories ever written.
Gluck: Orphée et Eurydice
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Robert Wilson’s 1999 Paris production, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner
The Orpheus legend deals both with a love that transcends the grave and a singer whose music has the power to tame the forces of hell. Early opera composers such as Peri, Caccini and, above all, Monteverdi, took it as their starting point, though it’s Gluck’s version that remains, perhaps, the most potent and familiar. It was written in 1762 in Italian, as Orfeo ed Euridice, for a castrato Orpheus, then revised in French, in 1774, for a tenor, though we most frequently hear it now in an edition prepared by Berlioz for the mezzo soprano Pauline Viardot-Garcia in 1859. This was the version used by John Eliot Gardiner for Robert Wilson’s 1999 Paris production, in which Madgalena Kožená played Orpheus. Wilson’s stylised staging has some of the drastic simplicity of classical friezes, the androgynous costumes remind us that both love and music know no distinctions of gender or sexual orientation.
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Wieland Wagner’s 1962 production, recorded here in 1967, conducted by Pierre Boulez
In Tristan und Isolde (1865), Wagner portrays love as a consuming passion that can find neither emotional nor sexual satisfaction on earth and can only be released in the voluntary extinction of the self in the metaphysical flux that pervades the universe. The score, using harmonic suspensions to suggest psychological states between arousal and climax, caused one of the biggest revolutions in musical history. Stick with the murky black and white footage above, for a rare opportunity to watch Wieland Wagner’s epoch-making production, first seen at Bayreuth in 1962, but recorded here during the Osaka festival in 1967. There are three legends on stage – Brigit Nilsson and Wolfgang Windgassen as the adulterous lovers, and Hans Hotter as betrayed King Marke – and Pierre Boulez in the pit. It doesn’t get much better. For clearer visuals – though perhaps not quite so overwhelming an experience – try Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s Bayreuth early 80s production conducted by Daniel Barenboim: you can watch it here.
Verdi: La Traviata
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Willy Decker’s 2005 Salzburg production, starring Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazón and Thomas Hampson
La Traviata (1853) has become so familiar that we tend to forget that Verdi’s depiction of the open cohabitation between the courtesan Violetta and middle-class Alfredo caused outrage in its day. Willy Decker’s Salzburg production, updating the opera to the 1960s and rejecting theatrical naturalism in favour of a symbolic, intuitive approach, was not to everyone’s taste when it opened in 2005. But Decker is wonderfully perceptive in his understanding of how their affair brings the lovers into conflict not only with Alfredo’s bourgeois family, but also with Violetta’s demi-monde cronies. And vivid performances from Anna Netrebko (Violetta), Rolando Villazón and Thomas Hampson (Germont) make this production very powerful indeed.
Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Robert Carsen’s 2007 New York production, conducted by Valery Gergiev
Apart from the single act of violence at its centre, Eugene Onegin is among the most emotionally realistic of operas – a muted study of the consequences of one man’s arbitrary rejection of the woman who could have been the love of his life. It works best when least subject to directorial interference. Robert Carsen’s 2007 New York production plays it straight, but carefully uses the vast space of the Metropolitan Opera House’s stage to suggest the emotional abysses that open up between the characters. Handsome Dmitri Hvorostovsky is the ideal Onegin opposite Renee Fleming’s beautifully sung Tatiana. Valery Gergiev is on fine form in the pit. Though recorded in New York, the upload comes from Russian TV: there’s there’s some introductory material; the opera starts at 13:30. A fine alternative is Joseph Keilberth’s 1962 performance, in German, with the great Fritz Wunderlich as Lensky: you can watch it here.
Puccini: La Bohème
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Zeffirelli’s 1967 made-for-television production, conducted by Herberg von Karajan.
Like La Traviata, La Bohème has become so familiar that we can easily forget how provocative it should be. A study of the impact on love of grinding poverty, it also examines what happens when what
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bullying abuses of community organization groups like ACORN to further influence bank lending practices.
1990s
With the mechanisms in place, the community organizing groups began developing directed strategies to exert more and more pressure on the lending industry in the cloak of complicity with CRA. Community organizer Barack Obama worked closely with ACORN activists. Employing the radical Alinsky intimidation tactics Obama had learned and was teaching -- "direct action" -- activists crowded bank lobbies, blocked drive-up teller lanes and demonstrated at the homes of bankers to browbeat risky lending in poor and minority communities. Those who resisted were accused of racism to the media and government officials.
The agitators could now stall or hijack bank mergers by filing complaints of non-compliance against the institutions. Lawsuits alleging redlining and racism began flooding the court system. With the prospect of expansions and mergers threatened, banks settled cases and, significantly, increasingly made loans they would not have normally made. The net effect, as ACORN litigation increased, was that credit standards lowered.
Initially the GSEs resisted purchasing these risky mortgages but eventually the Clinton Administration instructed them to substantially increase the percentage of these mortgages in their portfolios. The government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac of the Clinton reforms became "a feeding trough," in the phrase of Peter Ferrara.
The poor communities and their exploitive leaders benefited from the capitalization with a surge of homeownership, at least on the surface. Wall Street benefited from increased sales of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and guaranteed mortgage-backed securities, as the housing market benefited from new capital channeled from Fannie and Freddie. And the GSE heads profited, with political support in Washington in the form of campaign contributions.
In the period 1989-2008, topping the list of recipients of contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Dodd (D-Connecticut), who received $165,400. Second on the list is Sen. Obama (D-Illinois), receiving $126,349 with only three years in the Senate. Rep. Frank (D-Massachusetts), received $42,350.
February 1990
Madeline Talbott, a well-known radical ACORN leader and banking industry agitator, challenged the merger of a Chicago thrift, Bell Federal Savings and Loan Association, who responded that they were being bullied into irresponsible "affirmative-action lending policy."
1991
ACORN interfered with a House Banking Committee meeting for two days protesting a move to bring CRA reform.
1992
Enforcement of CRA was "sporadic," as the Washington Times notes, until a Federal Reserve Bank of Boston study asserted that there were "substantially higher denial rates for black and Hispanic applicants than for white applicants." Co-author Lynn Browne was approached by co-author Alicia Munnell to do the study because "community activists were complaining that mortgage loans were not being made in minority communities."
According to the Times, however, "the study had mishandled statistics on minority default rates. When the errors were accounted for, the same study showed no evidence that nonwhite mortgage applicants were being discriminated against."
Frank Quaratiello, writing in the Boston Herald, cites Stan Liebowitz, "My guess is that they were interested in finding a particular result." Said Liebowitz, "Richard Syron was head of the Boston Fed at the time. He went on to be the head of Freddie Mac. They were looking for mortgage discrimination and they found it."
According to Quaratiello, Syron became Freddie Mac CEO and chairman in 2003 and "faced increasing pressure to buy up more and more risky mortgages, some of which the Boston Fed's guide had, in effect, served to legitimize." Regarding Syron's total compensation in 2007 of $18.3 million, Liebowitz reportedly quipped, "Nice reward for presiding over unprofessional research behavior, bankrupting Freddie Mac and crippling our financial system, all in the name of politically correct lending."
September 1992
The Chicago Tribune described the ACORN agenda as "affirmative action lending." And, writes Kurtz, "ACORN was issuing fact sheets bragging about relaxations of credit standards that it had won on behalf of minorities."
October 1992
Congress, enacting the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992, allowed legislation to "amend and extend certain laws relating to housing and community development." The Act created the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) within HUD to "ensure that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are adequately capitalized and operating safely." It also "established HUD-imposed housing goals for financing of affordable housing and housing in central cities and other rural and underserved areas."
Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa) warned about the impending danger non-regulated GSEs posed. As the Washington Post reports, his concern was that Congress was "hamstringing" the regulator. Complaint was that OFHEO was a "weak regulator." Leach worried that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were changing "from being agencies of the public at large to money machines for the stockholding few."
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) countered, as the Post reports, "the companies served a public purpose. They were in the business of lowering the price of mortgage loans."
September 1993
The Chicago Sun-Times reports an initiative led by ACORN's Talbott with five area lenders "participating in a $55 million national pilot program with affordable-housing group ACORN to make mortgages for low- and moderate-income people with troubled credit histories." Kurtz notes that the initiative included two of her former targets, Bell Federal Savings and Avondale Federal Savings, who had apparently capitulated under pressure.
July 1994
Represented by Obama and others, Plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit alleging that Citibank had "intentionally discriminated against the Plaintiffs on the basis of race with respect to a credit transaction," calling their action "racial discrimination and discriminatory redlining practices."
November 1994
President Clinton addresses homeownership: "I think we all agree that more Americans should own their own homes, for reasons that are economic and tangible and reasons that are emotional and intangible but go to the heart of what it means to harbor, to nourish, to expand the American dream.... I am determined to see that you have the opportunity and together we can make that opportunity for the young families of our country. I am committed to a new and unprecedented partnership between industry leaders and community leaders and Government to recommit our Nation to the idea of homeownership and to create more homeowners than ever before."
June 1995
Republicans had won control of Congress and planned CRA reforms. The Clinton Administration, however, allied with Rep. Frank, Sen. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) and Rep. Waters (D-California), did an end-around by directing HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo to inject GSEs into the subprime mortgage market.
As Kurtz notes, "ACORN had come to Congress not only to protect the CRA from GOP reforms but also to expand the reach of quota-based lending to Fannie, Freddie and beyond." What resulted was the broadening of the "acceptability of risky subprime loans throughout the financial system, thus precipitating our current crisis."
The administration announced the bold new homeownership strategy which included monumental loosening of credit standards and imposition of subprime lending quotas. HUD reported that President Clinton had committed "to increasing the homeownership rate to 67.5 percent by the year 2000." The plan was "to reduce the financial, information, and systemic barriers to homeownership" which was "amplified by local partnerships at work in over 100 cities."
Kurtz concludes, "Urged on by ACORN, congressional Democrats and the Clinton administration helped push tolerance for high-risk loans through every sector of the banking system -- far beyond the sort of banks originally subject to the CRA. So it was the efforts of ACORN and its Democratic allies that first spread the subprime virus from the CRA to Fannie and Freddie and thence to the entire financial system. Soon, Democratic politicians and regulators actually began to take pride in lowered credit standards as a sign of ‘fairness' -- and the contagion spread."
Attorney General Janet Reno, with a number of bank lending discrimination settlements already, sternly announces, "We will tackle lending discrimination wherever it appears." With the new policy in full force, "No loan is exempt; no bank is immune." "For those who thumb their nose at us, I promise vigorous enforcement," reiterated Reno.
1997
HUD Secretary Cuomo said "GSE presence in the subprime market could be of significant benefit to lower-income families, minorities, and families living in underserved areas..."
1998
By falsifying signatures on Fannie Mae accounting transactions, $200 million in expenses was shifted from 1998 to later periods, thereby triggering $27.1 million in bonuses for top executives. James A. Johnson received $1.932 million; Franklin D. Raines received $1.11 million; Lawrence M. Small received $1.108 million; Jamie S. Gorelick received $779,625; Timothy Howard received $493,750; Robert J. Levin received $493,750.
April 1998
HUD announced a $2.1 billion settlement with AccuBanc Mortgage Corp. for alleged discrimination against minority loan applicants. The funds would provide poor families with down payments and low interest mortgages. Announcing the Accubank settlement, Secretary Cuomo said, "discrimination isn't always that obvious. Sometimes more subtle but in many ways more insidious, an institutionalized discrimination that's hidden behind a smiling face."
Before the camera, Cuomo admitted the mandate amounted to "affirmative action" lending that would result in a "higher default rate." The institution would "take a greater risk on these mortgages, yes; to give families mortgages who they would not have given otherwise, yes; they would not have qualified but for this affirmative action on the part of the bank, yes. It is by income, and is it also by minorities? Yes.... With the 2.1 billion, lending that amount in mortgages which will be a higher risk, and I'm sure there will be a higher default rate on those mortgages than on the rest of the portfolio."
May 1999
The LA Times reports that African Americans homeownership is increasing three times as fast as that of whites, with Latino homeowners is growing five times as fast, attributing the growth to breathing "the first real life into enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act." This breath of "life" mandated that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy mortgages with deviant down-payments and debt-to-income ratios which allowed lenders to approve mortgages for lower-income families that would have been denied otherwise.
By now all pretense had disappeared, lending practices were based upon concerns of discrimination in the banking system regardless the consequences. The administration threatened to veto a bill passed by the Senate which had "shortsightedly voted to retrench" CRA, as the advocative Times put it.
Under pressure, Fannie Mae was resisting increased targeting, arguing that the result would be more loan defaults. Barry Zigas, heading Fannie Mae's low-income efforts, argued, "There is obviously a limit beyond which [we] can't push [the banks] to produce," the Times reported.
Fall of 1999
Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers warned, "Debates about systemic risk should also now include government-sponsored enterprises, which are large and growing rapidly."
September 1999
With pressure from the Clinton Administration, Fannie Mae eased credit requirements on loans it would purchase from lenders, making it easier for banks to lend to borrowers unqualified for conventional loans. Raines explained that "there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market," reported the New York Times.
With this action, Fannie Mae put itself at substantial risk in the event of an economic downturn. "From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us," warned Peter Wallison. "If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry." The danger was known.
September 1999
A study by Freddie Mac, confirming earlier Federal Reserve and FDIC studies, contradicts race discrimination arguments for CRA. The study found that African-Americans with annual incomes of $65-$75,000 have on average worse credit records than whites making under $25,000, showing that the difficulty in qualifying was not because of race but because of bad credit records. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas accordingly entitled a paper "Red Lining or Red Herring?"
2000
The National Community Reinvestment Coalition instructed on how to exploit the new CRA regulations, "Timely comments can have a strong influence on a bank's CRA rating." NCRC asserted, "To avoid the possibility of a denied or delayed application, lending institutions have an incentive to make formal agreements with community organizations." That is, the mere threat to intervene in the CRA review process had equipped the ACORN groups for the massive shakedown.
Moreover, ACORN had been given a compelling incentive, as CRA allowed the organizations to collect a fee from the banks for their services in marketing the loans. The Senate Banking Committee had estimated that, as a result of CRA, $9.5 billion had gone to pay for services and salaries of the organizers.
Winter 2000
City Journal warned that the Clinton administration had turned CRA into "a vast extortion scheme against the nation's banks," committing $1 trillion for mortgages and development projects, most of it funneled through the community organizers.
March 2000
Rep. Richard Baker (R-Louisiana) proposed a bill to reform Fannie and Freddie's oversight in a House Subcommittee on Capital Markets.
Rep. Frank (D-Massachusetts) dismissed the idea, saying concerns about the two were "overblown" and that there was "no federal liability there whatsoever."
Treasury Undersecretary Gary Gensler testified in favor of GSE regulation. He argued that the bill would promote private market discipline, increase transparency and preserve market competition, reducing the potential for subsidized competitors to distort financial markets.
Fannie Mae spokesmen responded by calling the testimony "inept," "irresponsible," and "unprofessional."
Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute testified to the subcommittee that the bill was "a milestone in Congressional efforts to gain control of the Government Sponsored Enterprises." He added that the "political courage and stamina that was required to introduce this bill and to continue to press it forward cannot be overstated." He emphasized that the bill was only an "interim step in the necessary process of dismantling the GSEs and eliminating both their threat to the taxpayers and to the private financial sector of our economy."
Wallison explained why Fannie and Freddie "pose a serious problem for both the public and private sectors." First, they contain an inherent contradiction. "It is a shareholder-owned company, with the fiduciary obligation to maximize profits, and a government-chartered and empowered agency with a public mission. It should be obvious that it cannot achieve both objectives. If it maximizes profits, it will fail to perform its government mission to its full potential. If it performs its government mission fully, it will fail to maximize profits."
He sounded an alarm on a "vicious and dangerous cycle." "Fannie and Freddie must grow in order to maintain their profitability and hence their high stock prices, but there is no countervailing check on their growth - no effective competition, no required government approvals, and no fear in the financial markets that there is any risk associated with financing this growth. Moreover, their fiduciary obligations to their shareholders require them to exploit their subsidy to the fullest extent possible. These are agencies that are - in the fullest sense of the phrase - out of control."
Congressional Democrats and GSE representatives vigorously attacked any such criticism. "We think that the statements evidence a contempt for the nation's housing and mortgage markets," rebuffed Sharon McHale, Freddie Mac spokeswoman. Congressional Democrats and GSE representatives prevailed.
June 2000
Fred L. Smith Jr., writing in Investor's Business Daily, recalls testifying before the House Financial Services Committee that GSE "special privileges create a serious hazard to the market, to taxpayers [and] to the economy." He warned that these GSEs were "strange organizations, neither private-sector fish nor political-sector fowl" and that "as a result, no one is quite sure how these entities should be evaluated or held accountable." These new debt portfolios "will certainly increase the likelihood of a Fannie-Freddie default."
Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pennsylvania): "Mr. Smith, that is almost a fallacious argument," adding that rapid growth of GSE debt holdings was nothing to worry about as it simply reflected "inflation and the growth of population. "Everything, proportionately, is that much larger."
Rep. Marge Roukema (R-New Jersey): "very few banks or S&Ls could, even in this day and age, even now, meet the stress-testing requirements which Fannie and Freddie are required to meet."
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-New York) regarding the Treasury Department line of credit: "It is really symbolic, it is obsolete, it has never been used." "Would you explain why it would be important to repeal something that seems to be of little use?"
Smith: "as long as the pipeline is there, it is like it is very expandable.... It is only $2 billion today. It could be $200 billion tomorrow."
Because of Democrat obfuscation, Smith's "tomorrow" arrived in 2008 when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson put Fannie and Freddie into conservatorship.
April 2001
Fiscal Year 2002 Budget declares that the size of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is "a potential problem," because "financial trouble of a large GSE could cause strong repercussions in financial markets, affecting Federally insured entities and economic activity," says a White House release.
July 2001
Subcommittee hearing on a bill proposed by Rep. Baker to transfer supervisory and regulatory authority over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and abolish the OFHEO.
Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pennsylvania) responded : "This bill would dramatically restructure the current regulatory system for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In my opinion, it also represents a solution in search of a problem. Nearly a decade ago, Congress created a rational, reasonable, and responsive system for supervising GSE activities, and that system with two regulators is operating increasingly effectively. H.R. 1409 would unfortunately interrupt this continual progress."
March 2002
Business Week interview with Fannie Mae Vice-Chairman Jamie Gorelick about the prospects for the coming year:
Gorelick: "we are expecting a very, very strong 2002."
Gorelick: "We believe we are managed safely.... Fannie Mae is among the handful of top-quality institutions..... And we have consistently exceeded every standard that the examiners have set for us."
May 2002
In an OMB Prompt Letter to OFHEO, the President calls for the disclosure and corporate governance principles contained in his 10-point plan for corporate responsibility to apply to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
February 2003
OFHEO reports that "although investors perceive an implicit Federal guarantee of [GSE] obligations... the government has provided no explicit legal backing for them," warning that unexpected problems at a GSE could immediately spread into financial sectors beyond the housing market, according to a White House release.
2003
Rep. Richard Baker (R-Louisiana), chairman of the House Financial Services subcommittee with GSE oversight over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, was informed by OFHEO "on the salaries paid to executives at both companies," according to the Washington Post. Reportedly, "Fannie Mae threatened to sue Baker if he released it, he recalled. Fearing the expense of a court battle, he kept the data secret for a year." "The political arrogance exhibited in their heyday, there has never been before or since a private entity that exerted that kind of political power," he said.
June 2003
Freddie Mac reported it had understated its profits by $6.9 billion. OFHEO director Armando Falcon Jr. requested that the White House audit Fannie Mae.
July 2003
Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), Elizabeth Dole (R-North Carolina) and John Sununu (R-New Hampshire) introduced legislation to address Regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The bill was blocked by Democrats.
September 2003
In an interview with Ron Insana for CNN Money, Rep. Baker warned, "I have concerns that if appropriate resources aren't allocated for internal risk management, the consequences will be far more severe than just a real estate slowdown. The losses would fall quickly through the capital these companies have and down to shareholders and taxpayers. These companies have some of the lowest capital margins of any financial institution in the nation, yet, at the same time, they are two of the largest. The concern is that if something doesn't work out the way they predict, the American taxpayer could be called on to pay off the debt in some sort of bailout."
The New York Times reports that the Administration recommended "the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago," calling for new supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the Treasury Department. Reportedly, Congressional Democrats "fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing."
Treasury Secretary John Snow testifies that Congress enact "legislation to create a new Federal agency to regulate and supervise the financial activities of our housing-related government sponsored enterprises" and set prudent and appropriate minimum capital adequacy requirements, says a White House release.
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): "I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two government sponsored enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis.... I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury.... I believe that we, as the Federal Government, have probably done too little rather than too much to push them to meet the goals of affordable housing and to set reasonable goals.
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): "These two entities - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - are not facing any kind of financial crisis.... The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."
Rep. Melvin Watt (D-North Carolina): "I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing."
October 2003
Fannie Mae discloses $1.2 billion accounting error.
November 2003
Council of the Economic Advisers Chairman Greg Mankiw warned, "The enormous size of the mortgage-backed securities market means that any problems at the GSEs matter for the financial system as a whole. This risk is a systemic issue also because the debt obligations of the housing GSEs are widely held by other financial institutions. The importance of GSE debt in the portfolios of other financial entities means that even a small mistake in GSE risk management could have ripple effects throughout the financial system," from a White House release.
Mankiw explains that any "legislation to reform GSE regulation should empower the new regulator with sufficient strength and credibility to reduce systemic risk." To reduce the potential for systemic instability, the regulator would have "broad authority to set both risk-based and minimum capital standards" and "receivership powers necessary to wind down the affairs of a troubled GSE," says a White House release.
February 2004
Fiscal Year 2005 Budget again highlights the risk posed by the explosive growth of the GSEs and their low levels of required capital, and called for creation of a new, world-class regulator: "The Administration has determined that the safety and soundness regulators of the housing GSEs lack sufficient power and stature to meet their responsibilities, and therefore... should be replaced with a new strengthened regulator," reports a White House release.
Mankiw cautions Congress to "not take [the financial market's] strength for granted." Again, the call from the Administration was to reduce this risk by "ensuring that the housing GSEs are overseen by an effective regulator," says a White House release.
June 2004
Deputy Secretary of Treasury Samuel Bodman spotlights the risk posed by the GSEs and called for reform, saying "We do not have a world-class system of supervision of the housing government sponsored enterprises (GSEs), even though the importance of the housing financial system that the GSEs serve demands the best in supervision to ensure the long-term vitality of that system. Therefore, the Administration has called for a new, first class, regulatory supervisor for the three housing GSEs: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banking System," the White House reports.
September 2004
OFHEO reported that Fannie Mae and CEO Raines had manipulated its accounting to overstate its profits. Congress and the Bush administration sought strong new regulation and authority to put the GSEs under conservatorship if necessary. As the Washington Post reports, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac responded by orchestrating a major campaign "by traditional allies including real estate agents, home builders and mortgage lenders. Fannie Mae ran radio and television ads ahead of a key Senate committee meeting, depicting a Latino couple who fretted that if the bill passed, mortgage rates would go up." Again, GSE pressure prevailed.
October 2004
Rep. Baker again warned about the coming crisis in the Wall Street Journal: "Then there's the lesson of a company, Frankenstein-like, seemingly grown so powerful that it can intimidate and arrogantly flout all accountability to the very government that created it."
Baker adds, "Although their bonds bear the disclaimer ‘not backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government,' the market does not believe it and looks right past the companies' risk strategies to the taxpayers' pockets."
In a subcommittee testimony, Democrats vehemently reject regulation of Fannie Mae in the face of dire warning of a Fannie Mae oversight report. A few of them, Black Caucus members in particular, are very angry at the OFHEO Director as they attempt to defend Fannie Mae and protect their CRA extortion racket.
Chairman Baker (R-Louisiana): "It is indeed a very troubling report, but it is a report of extraordinary importance not only to those who wish to own a home, but as to the taxpayers of this country who would pay the cost of the clean up of an enterprise failure.... The analysis makes clear that more resources must be brought to bear to ensure the highest standards of conduct are not only required, but more importantly, they are actually met."
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): "Through nearly a dozen hearings where, frankly, we were trying to fix something that wasn't broke."
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): "Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines."
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-New York): "And as well as the fact that I'm just pissed off at OFHEO, because if it wasn't for you I don't think that we'd be here in the first place, and now the problem that we have and that we're faced with is: maybe some individuals who wanted to do away with GSEs in the first place, you've given them an excuse to try to have this forum so that we can talk about it and maybe change the, uh, the direction and the mission of what the GSEs had, which they've done a tremendous job. There's been nothing that was indicated that's wrong, you know, with uh Fannie Mae. Freddie Mac has come up on its own. And the question that then presents is the competence that, that, that, that your agency has, uh, with reference to, uh, uh, deciding and regulating these GSEs. Uh, and so, uh, I wish I could sit here and say that I'm not upset with you, but I am very upset because, you know, what you do is give, you know, maybe giving any reason to, as Mr. Gonzales said, to give someone a heart surgery when they really don't need it."
Rep. Ed Royce (R-California): "In addition to our important oversight role in this committee, I hope that we will move swiftly to create a new regulatory structure for Fannie Mae, for Freddie Mac, and the federal home loan banks."
Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Missouri): "This hearing is about the political lynching of Franklin Raines."
Rep. Ed Royce (R-California): "There is a very simple solution. Congress must create a new regulator with powers at least equal to those of other financial regulators, such as the OCC or Federal Reserve."
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-New York): "What would make you, why should I have confidence? Why should anyone have confidence, and uh, in, in you as a regulator at this point?"
Armando Falcon, OFHEO Director: "Sir, Congressman, OFHEO did not improperly apply accounting rules. Freddie Mac did. OFHEO did not fail to manage earnings properly. Freddie Mac did. So this isn't about the agency engaging in improper conduct. It's about Freddie Mac."
Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut): "And we passed Sarbanes-Oxley, which was a very tough response to that, and then I realized that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wouldn't even come under it. They weren't under the ‘34 act, they weren't under the ‘33 act, they play by their own rules, and I and I'm tempted to ask how many people in this room are on the payroll of Fannie Mae, because what they do is they basically hire every lobbyist they can possibly hire. They hire some people to lobby and they hire some people not to lobby so that the opposition can't hire them."
Rep. Artur Davis (D-Alabama): "So the concern that I have is you're making very specific, what you have correctly acknowledged, broad and categorical judgments about the management of this institution, about the willfulness of practices that may or may not be in controversy. You've imputed various motives to the people running the organization. You went to the board and put a 48-hour ultimatum on them without having any specific regulatory authority to put that kind of ultimatum on ‘em. Uh, that sounds like some kind of an invisible line has been crossed."
Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut): "Fannie Mae has manipulated, in my judgment, OFHEO for years. And for OFHEO to finally come out with a report as strong as it is, tells me that's got to be the minimum not the maximum."
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): "Uh, I, this, you, you, you seem to me saying, ‘Well, these are in areas which could raise safety and soundness problems.' I don't see anything in your report that raises safety and soundness problems."
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): "Under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines, everything in the 1992 Act has worked just fine. In fact, the GSEs have exceeded their housing goals. What we need to do today is to focus on the regulator, and this must be done in a manner so as not to impede their affordable housing mission, a mission that has seen innovation flourish from desktop underwriting to 100% loans."
Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Missouri): "I find this to be inconsistent and a and a rush to judgment. I get the feeling that the markets are not worried about the safety and soundness of Fannie Mae as OFHEO says that it is, but of course the markets are not political."
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): "But I have seen nothing in here that suggests that the safety and soundness are at issue, and I think it serves us badly to raise safety and soundness as kind of a general shibboleth when it does not seem to me to be an issue."
Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): "Mr. Raines, 1.1 million bonus and a $526,000 salary. Jamie Gorelick, $779,000 bonus on a salary of 567,000. This is, what you state on page eleven is nothing less than staggering."
Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): "The 1998 earnings per share number turned out to be $3.23 and 9 mills, a result that Fannie Mae met the EPS maximum payout goal right down to the penny."
Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): "Fannie Mae understood the rules and simply chose not to follow them that if Fannie Mae had followed the practices, there wouldn't have been a bonus that year."
Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut): "And you have about 3% of your portfolio set aside. If a bank gets below 4%, they are in deep trouble. So I just want you to explain to me why I shouldn't be satisfied with 3%?"
Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae CEO: "Because banks don't, there aren't any banks who only have multifamily and single-family loans."
Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae CEO: "These assets are so riskless that their capital for holding them should be under 2%."
January 2005-July 2006
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), co-sponsored by Sens. Sununu and Dole and later Sen. McCain, re-introduced legislation to address GSE regulation.
"The bill prohibited the GSEs from holding portfolios, and gave their regulator prudential authority (such as setting capital requirements) roughly equivalent to a bank regulator. In light of the current financial crisis, this bill was probably the most important piece of financial regulation before Congress in 2005 and 2006," reports the Wall Street Journal.
Greenspan testified that the size of GSE portfolios "poses a risk to the global financial system. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to bail out the lenders [GSEs]... should one get into financial trouble." He added, "If we fail to strengthen GSE regulation, we increase the possibility of insolvency and crisis... We put at risk our ability to preserve safe and sound financial markets in the United States, a key ingredient of support for homeownership."
Greenspan warned that if the GSEs "continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road... We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk."
Bloomberg writes, "If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different.... But the bill didn't become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn't even get the Senate to vote on the matter. That such a reckless political stand could have been taken by the Democrats was obscene even then."
April 2005
Treasury Secretary John Snow again calls for GSE reform, "Events that have transpired since I testified before this Committee in 2003 reinforce concerns over the systemic risks posed by the GSEs and further highlight the need for real GSE reform to ensure that our housing finance system remains a strong and vibrant source of funding for expanding homeownership opportunities in America.... Half-measures will only exacerbate the risks to our financial system," from a White House release.
May 2005
At AEI Online, Wallison warned that "allowing Fannie and Freddie to continue on their present course is simply to create risks for the taxpayers, and to the economy generally, in order to improve the profits of their shareholders and the compensation of their managements. It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit."
January 2006
Chairman Greenspan, in a letter to Sens. Sununu, Hagel and Dole, warned that the GSE practice of buying their own MBS "creates substantial systemic risk while yielding negligible additional benefits for homeowners, renters, or mortgage originators." He stated, "... the GSEs and their government regulator need specific and unambiguous Congressional guidance about the intended purpose and functions of Fannie's and Freddie's investment portfolios."
March 2006
Sens. Sununu and Hagel introduced an amendment to a Lobbying Reform Bill directing GAO to study GSE lobbying and requiring HUD to audit the GSEs annually.
May 2006
After years of Democrats blocking the legislation, Sens. Hagel, Sununu, Dole and McCain write a letter to Majority Leader William Frist and Chairman Richard Shelby expressing demanding that GSE regulatory reform be "enacted this year" to avoid "the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the Housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole."
May 2006
Sen. McCain (R-Arizona) addressed the Senate, "Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae's regulator reported that the company's quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were ‘illusions deliberately and systematically created' by the company's senior management.... Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator's examination of the company's accounting problems.... OFHEO's report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay."
McCain stressed, "If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole. I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation."
April 2007
Sens. Sununu, Hagel, Dole, and Mel Martinez (R-Florida) re-introduced legislation to improve GSE oversight.
April 2007
In "A Nightmare Grows Darker," the New York Times writes that the "democratization of credit" is "turning the American dream of homeownership into a nightmare for many borrowers." The "newfangled mortgage
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how many patients Assured has enrolled.
“We value the care that Volunteer Hospice provides for our community,” Candace Hammer Chaney, a local Assured manager and community liaison, said in a statement.
Emerick and other hospice-industry officials said volunteer hospices don’t offer the range of services required of those receiving federal funding. And, Emerick added, there’s little oversight.
“They don’t have a reputation of negligence or complaints as far as I’m aware, but there’s always the possibility of that when they’re unlicensed or unregulated,” she said.
But Astrid Raffinpeyloz, volunteer-services manager at Volunteer Hospice, said its hospice wouldn’t have lasted long in a small town if there were problems.
“We don’t have oversight from the government, but we have minute oversight from the community,” Raffinpeyloz said.
Someone to listen
For Mike Clapshaw, 71, there was no question about who would care for his wife, Deborah, when her cancer came back for the third time, leading to her death in December 2014. She was 60. For the last four months of her life, the Volunteer Hospice staff eased her pain — and his.
“It was always, ‘What can I do to help?’ ” he said.
Helping was always the point, said Rose Crumb, whether the pain at the end of life was physical, emotional — or both.
“Some people just need someone to listen to them,” she said.
Crumb, at nearly 92, now suffers from osteoporosis, congestive heart failure and other ailments that plagued her patients in earlier years. But she’s not worried about her final days.
“I’m all signed up for hospice,” she said. “I have everything written down.”Eden Hazard has said the Chelsea players have been talking about winning the Premier League title "all season long", but told SFR Sport "it won't be easy."
Hazard, 25, struck his ninth goal of the season and the 50th of his Premier League career from the penalty spot in Chelsea's 3-0 Boxing Day win over Bournemouth.
The victory racked up a club record 12th consecutive success for Antonio Conte's men, who are seven points clear at the top ahead of Liverpool's home game with Stoke City on Tuesday.
That gap has led some to claim the title could return to Stamford Bridge again, just a season after they last triumphed under Jose Mourinho, but Hazard said the media were some way behind the topic of discussion inside the Blues' dressing room.
"We have been talking about the title all season long. We always want to win at Chelsea. We're happy now. I hope we'll continue like this through to the end of the season," the Belgium international said.
"We're happy, we're winning matches, that's the important thing. We're top of the league, we have to stay there. We're happy. Everything's going well. We know it won't be easy all season, we hope it will be. But it's up to us to do our utmost for this run to continue."
Hazard drew praise from both Conte and opposition manager Eddie Howe for his display in the game in which he led the line in a false nine role in the absence of the suspended Diego Costa.
"I felt good. During the week, I thought Michy [Batshuayi] would play there as Diego was suspended, but the coach chose me up front. I had already played there last season and a few minutes this one, so I already knew the position a bit and I did rather well," Hazard, whose side now face Stoke at home on New Year's Eve, said.
"It's an important period. We know that points will be dropped. It's up to us to pick up as many as possible. That's three, we play again in four days. It's up to us to continue like that."Ever wondered if you’re a buffalo whispering, croc wrangling, Akubra-wearing salt-of-the-earth Territorian or if you’re just another latte sipping southern blow in?
Well now you can find out with the NT News’ “How Territorian Are You?” quiz.
1. Are there more saltwater crocodiles or camels in the Northern Territory?
2. Which desert spans the NT, Queensland and South Australia?
3. Two cars depart at the same time for the Elliott Mardi Gras. One heads north from Alice Springs and the other heads south from Darwin. According to Google Maps, which car will get there first?
4. On what date did the bombing of Darwin begin?
5. Which former CLP pollie punched her niece in the face outside the Katherine Centrelink office and, in a separate incident, set a loaf of garlic bread on fire and caused the evacuation of a Darwin city hotel?
6. What would you have caught if you hooked a metery?
7. Which sea to the north of Darwin had a sporting event named after it?
8. In which national park would you find Gunlom, Jim Jim and Maguk?
9. The late Phillip Hughes scored the highest cricket score in the NT in 2014, what was that score?
10. What is the name of the cyclone that caused the 1998 Katherine Flood?
11. Which Territorian athlete got photo bombed by the Queen at the 2014 Commonwealth Games?
12. What is the official Northern Territory bird emblem?
13. On what date did Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin?
14. Finish this NT News headline: “Why I stuck a...”
15. What sort of car did Lindy Chamberlain drive to Uluru where her daughter Azaria was taken by a dingo in 1983?
16. Which Aboriginal community was formerly known (and still often referred to) as Port Keats?
17. How big is a Darwin Stubby?
18. What is the name of the ghost that allegedly haunts East Point?
19. ARIA award winning musician C.W Stoneking and Australian swimmer Leisel Jones were both born in which Territory town?
20. How far is Alice Springs from Uluru?
21. Which movie filmed in Darwin starred Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman?
22. Who won the 2014 NT Australian of the Year award, and what film did she star in as a teenager (hint: it’s Australia’s first colour feature)?
23. Which town is closest to the Devils Marbles?
24. 1994 film Priscilla Queen of the Desert saw a group of actors playing drag queens climb which Territory attraction in full drag, one calling herself “a cock in a frock on a rock”?
25. Which much-loved Top End pub was famously demolished in the middle of one September night in 1999?
26. Which NT actor won a best actor award at Cannes in 2014, and for what movie?
27. What is the closest roadhouse to where Peter Falconio went missing?
28. In which year was Alice Springs flooded at Easter?
29. Anglers can only keep male mud crabs 13cm or bigger. What is the size limit for Jennies (female mudcrabs)?
30. Tiwi Island football star Cyril Rioli helped Hawthorn win the 2014 AFL Premiership after recovering from an injury to which part of his body?
31. How many Federal Government senators represent the Territory and what are their names?
32. The NT got self-government in which year?
33. What name does the Territory’s own superhero – who rearranges Woolworths herb containers to brilliantly spell out words like “Boobs” and “Fart” – go by?
34. The capital of the Northern Territory is Darwin. But what was it known as previously?
35. How many political parties has Alison Anderson been a member of?
36. How many Tiwi Islands are there and what are their names?
37. How many gorges make up Katherine Gorge, and in which national park would you find it?
38. On what Top End river can you go on jumping croc cruises?
39. Territory artist Albert Namatjira was born in which community in 1902?
40. The rogue crocodile Sweetheart, now a star attraction at the NT Museum, was trapped in which river?
41. Who is the NT News’s fearless resident cartoonist?
42. Who was the character Crocodile Dundee was based on?
43. Which mining giant shut down its Gove alumina refinery in 2014?
44. What is the meaning of the word “budju”?
45. Who was the mayor of Darwin who reportedly slept through Cyclone Tracy?
46. Name the Territory’s biggest UFO hotspot.
47. How many RAAF bases does the NT have?
48. Unscramble these letters to form the name of a Territory town and pub: YLWRATEDSA.
49. Which Territorian infamously said: “I will never, ever drink another beer”?
ANSWERS 1. Camels - there are about 300,000 camels and about 100,000 crocs; 2. The Simpson Desert; 3. The Darwin car will get there in nine hours, the car from Alice arrives 26 mins later; 4. February 19, 1942; 5. Larisa Lee; 6. A barra measuring 1m-plus; 7. The Arafura Sea; 8. Kakadu; 9. 202 not out; 10. Cyclone Les; 11. Brooke Peris; 12. The wedge tailed eagle; 13. December 24, 1974; 14.... cracker up my clacker; 15. Holden Torana hatchback; 16. Wadeye; 17. 2.25L; 18. Poinciana Woman; 19. Katherine; 20. 462.9km - we’ll accept within 20km either side; 21. Australia; 22. Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, and she starred in Jedda in 1955; 23. Tennant Creek; 24. Kings Canyon; 25. Hotel Darwin; 26. David Gulpilil for Charlie’s Country; 27. Barrow Creek; 28. 1988; 29. 14cm; 30. Hamstring; 31. Two — Senator Nova Peris and Senator Nigel Scullion; 32. 1978; 33. Spiceman; 34. Palmerston; 35. Three, plus an Independent; 36. Two - Bathurst and Melville; 37. 21 gorges in Nitmiluk NP; 38. Mt Olga — it’s about 200m higher than Uluru; 41. Hermannsberg; 40. Finnis; 41. Col Wicking; 42. Rodney Ansell; 43. Rio Tinto; 44. ‘Good looking’, or ‘vagina’; 45. Tiger Brennan; 46. Wycliff Well; 47. Two — Darwin and Tindal; 48. Daly Waters; 49. No territorian. ever.
WHAT DOES YOUR SCORE MEAN >>
Score 0-5: The Southerner.
You probably don’t fish or hunt, over-sanitise your hands and when someone says “budju” you say “what?” A Darwin stubby is not your cup of chai so your ignorance to its size is irrelevant. But there is hope. The cure: a dose of pigging, a dip in the Cage of Death and a ride on a bucking bronc (a real one). Or you can bugger off back down South.
Score 5-15: The Blow-in.
You don’t call yourself a Territorian but like to think you’re fitting in all right.
Maybe you are, but you still have some way yet to go.
A hint: don’t tell your new friends that you don’t recognise Jessica Mauboy and secretly swore off beer just now to preserve brain cells for the next quiz.
Score 16-25: Territory not-so-tough.
Your ability to eat a four-chilli pawpaw salad without tears is being investigated as part of your Territorian status review.
Do better next time or Wicking will feed you to Brutus.
25-40: Territory tough.
You recognise the symptoms of mango madness in time to know you’d better stick your face in the esky and crack another 2L stubby.
You own a set of thongs, a pair of steel-capped boots, and, if you’re a sheila, a pair of going-out thongs.
You’re not scared of pythons and don’t hesitate to bob a cane toad with a golf club.
Score 40-49: “That’s not a knife. THIS IS a knife.”
Buffalo whisperers, croc wranglers and Akubra-wearing salt-of-the-earth Territorians, this is you.Hannah Flynn
Administrator
Posts: 387
10/8/2015
"Let's speak of the South. Of a place of flint."
In the bright heart of the Elder Continent lies a prison built to hold a pretender-god. You'll see what lies there. But first you'll need to steal an instrument of power from the lair of the Order Vespertine. And that's the easy bit.
Flint is a special Christmas treat: a two-part, Truly Exceptional Story. Part I is coming on 29 October, and Part II will follow on 26 November.
Written by Alexis Kennedy, each part on its own is bigger than a standard Exceptional Story.
Traffic with the inscrutable Bishop of St Fiacre's; penetrate the mysteries of the Order Vespertine; and in Part II, be the first to see what lies behind the borders of the Presbyterate...
How does a two-part Exceptional Story work?
Regular subscribers will have access to the first part of the story in November. Anyone who is an Exceptional Friend in December will be able to play both parts of the story then.
This is an experiment in two-part Exceptional Stories. We think it's worth two months' subscription, but if you choose to unsubscribe for November, we'll understand.
--
Wields the news canon, aboard the hype train.
Kylestien
Posts: 734
10/8/2015 DAMMIT I WANT TO BUY THIS WITH FATE! WHY CAN'T I BUY THIS WITH FATE? I WANT TO EXPLORE THE ELDER CONTINENT! DX (Goes off to cry in a corner because the only way to buy Friendship is with paypal) DX
--
I will accept all actions, though I hold the right to refuse for my own reasons. However, if you explain WHY you send me a harmful action like Loitering or Dantes,And I feel the reason good, I will consider it more. http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Kylestien
Persuasive patron. You want a lesson, send me a message asking for one.
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Hannah Flynn
Administrator
Posts: 387
10/8/2015 Kylestien wrote:
(Goes off to cry in a corner because the only way to buy Friendship is with paypal) DX
Or with a card! Please don't cry!
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Wields the news canon, aboard the hype train.
metasynthie
Posts: 645
10/8/2015 Snuffers! Knapt! In the Garden were selected the Shames!
[clutches a page from the Liber Visionis]
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Positively antique
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/metasynthie
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Kylestien
Posts: 734
10/8/2015 Hannah Flynn wrote:
Kylestien wrote:
(Goes off to cry in a corner because the only way to buy Friendship is with paypal) DX
Or with a card! Please don't cry!
A quick question: Is there a way I can stack up on Subscriptions all at once rather then one payment a month/ because i have a bit of extra cash right now but I'm not sure if I will later for this story.
--
I will accept all actions, though I hold the right to refuse for my own reasons. However, if you explain WHY you send me a harmful action like Loitering or Dantes,And I feel the reason good, I will consider it more. http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Kylestien
Persuasive patron. You want a lesson, send me a message asking for one.
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Kalix
Posts: 50
10/8/2015 Very exciting! I get far too depressed in winter, so this will be a real treat :-)
Blaine Davidson
Posts: 331
10/8/2015 This hurts me. Why must you taunt us with content that's so far away? The brutality of it all.
--
Blaine Davidson, a reserved and sensible woman with a fondness of collecting rarities.
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metasynthie
Posts: 645
10/8/2015 Blaine Davidson wrote:
This hurts me. Why must you taunt us with content that's so far away? The brutality of it all.
So that there's time to infiltrate the Order Vespertine beforehand? To the Moon Leagues!
--
Positively antique
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/metasynthie
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deadcrystal
Posts: 125
10/8/2015 The Knapt! The Woman in Yellow! The Patroness! The Word of Caution! The Light Factory!
The entrails spoke true! Haruspex does work!
edited by deadcrystal on 10/8/2015
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Alice~Darkmoor
A determined Dolphin - Alexis
Great Grind Empress, and Knife and Candle Queen
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Sara Hysaro
Moderator
Posts: 4514
10/8/2015 This is definitely interesting.
--
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Sara%20Hysaro
Please do not send SMEN, cat boxes, or Affluent Reporter requests. All other social actions are welcome.
Are you a Scarlet Saint? Send a message my way to be added to the list.
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Arlong
Posts: 27
10/8/2015 The Presbyterate! The Presbyterate!
It's borders we shall penetrate!
--
Arlong, the original, main, and default.
Varanasi, an Invisible Eminence who desires the magnificent treasures of the South.
Ingolstadt, an Extraordinary Mind who yearns the ultimate secrets of the North.
Reykjavik, a Persuasive lotus-eater who craves the greatest delights of the West.
Malacca, a Dangerous swashbuckler who seeks the grand adventures of the East.
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Curious Foreigner
Posts: 210
10/8/2015 So you can buy Friendship with Paypal now? I didn't know because at the beginning, it was only said it would be possible 'eventually', so I stocked up for half a year and haven't had to replenish it yet.
I'm really looking forward to this.
--
Cochimetl went North, and beyond. No poems, only candlelight now. (Well, maybe one poem.)
The Gun-Toting Gallivanter, after an extended absence, is back in London again.
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imeja
Posts: 22
10/8/2015 Looks cool. Can you now buy someone else a month's Exceptional Friendship? Because that looks like a good seasonal present.
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/imeja
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Ian Hart
Posts: 433
10/8/2015 Very very cool. What will happen if someone signs up in December? Will they get just part 2?
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Antifinity
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genesis
Posts: 920
10/8/2015 Ian Hart wrote:
Very very cool. What will happen if someone signs up in December? Will they get just part 2?
h4nchan wrote:
Anyone who is an Exceptional Friend in December will be able to play both parts of the story then.
[...] We think it's worth two months' subscription, but if you choose to unsubscribe for November, we'll understand.
--
http://fallenlondon.com/Profile/mikey_thinkin
Keeping track of incomplete content and loose ends in Fallen London
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Ian Hart
Posts: 433
10/8/2015 Ah, I assumed that was continuing the scenario from the previous sentence. I see it now though.
Certainly a fair and generous way to handle it.
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/AntifinityA police officer stands in the passageway connecting New York City's Port Authority bus terminal and the Times Square subway station Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017, near the site of Monday's explosion. Commuters returning to New York City's subway system on Tuesday were met with heightened security a day after a would-be suicide bomber's rush-hour blast failed to cause the bloodshed he intended. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
NEW YORK (AP) — New York subway riders shrugged off the city’s latest attack Tuesday, a day after police say a would-be suicide attacker set off a pipe bomb.
The underground passageway at the Times Square station where the homemade device went off Monday was crowded with commuters a day later. The only sign of Monday’s explosion was in increased police presence, including a badge-wearing German shepherd named Omar.
Riders said they had no qualms about returning to the station where authorities say Akayed Ullah set off the bomb.
“I just feel like New York City is a resilient city and you just go on with your life and do the best you can,” said Jennifer Farinas, whose commute involves a bus from Secaucus, New Jersey, to the Port Authority Bus Terminal near the targeted station and then the subway to her marketing job. “Anything can happen, any time, anywhere; you just have to be aware.”
Maintenance worker Jorge Garcia said he didn’t think twice about getting on the subway at the Times Square station.
“I’m used to it,” Garcia said. “I already went through 9/11. I was about three blocks away when the World Trade Center came down.”
Sammy Baron said that his bus from New Jersey arrived at the terminal about 20 minutes after the explosion on Monday and that people were still running from the scene.
But Baron took the same bus Tuesday and transferred to the subway to his Manhattan banking job. “Life continues,” he said.
Ullah, a Bangladeshi immigrant, was the only person seriously injured in the explosion in the blocklong walkway. Three other people complained of hearing loss and headaches.
Ullah, 27, remained hospitalized Tuesday and it was unclear whether he would be well enough to appear in court to face federal terrorism charges.CHICAGO -- Jay Cutler was on the run again and out of the game in a hurry.
Cutler played just one series and watched as the Chicago Bears beat the Buffalo Bills 10-3 on Saturday night even though the offensive line did little to ease any lingering concerns.
The Bills got two sacks from Shawne Merriman and nine in all, but the Bears prevailed on a soggy night in which both teams pulled their starters early. Cutler and Chicago's skill position starters played one series, with the linemen staying in for the first half. On defense, the first stringers lasted two series, while the Bills lifted their starters on both sides after two.
The Bills had to like what they saw from Merriman and Marcel Dareus, the third pick in the draft who also got a sack. Buffalo is counting on both players to help a defense that ranked last against the run a year ago and got hit hard by injuries while trying to adapt to the 3-4. That's one reason Buffalo went 4-12 last season..
In other games: Sam Bradford produced 17 points in four possessions with big help from a defense that jumped on Peyton Manning's backups for a pair of early interceptions as the St. Louis Rams opened the preseason with a 33-10 victory over the Indianapolis Colts. Josh Brown's 60-yard field goal capped an almost perfect first half not just for offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels' rebuilt attack but for all phases. Brown's boot bettered his career best of 58 yards in 2003 with the Seattle Seahawks and he added a 53-yarder in the third quarter.... Jake Locker threw a 45-yard touchdown pass in his NFL debut, and the Tennessee Titans beat the Minnesota Vikings 14-3 to make new coach Mike Munchak a winner in his preseason opener. Matt Hasselbeck started for Tennessee, and the veteran signed to a three-year contract to mentor Locker and make the Titans competitive this season looked sharp in his lone series. He completed 5 of 6 passes for 55 yards in an opening drive marred by a botched handoff leading to a 30-yard loss.... Super Bowl MVP Aaron Rodgers threw a touchdown pass before swapping his helmet for a baseball cap in the first quarter as the defending champion Green Bay Packers opened the preseason with a 27-17 loss to the Cleveland Browns. Rodgers and most of Green Bay's first-string offense played only two series in the first quarter.
Notes: Mike Patterson, who collapsed and suffered a seizure at practice just 10 days ago, returned to the Philadelphia Eagles on Saturday. P Patterson didn't answer questions, but he did smile broadly and tell reporters, "I feel great," while leaving the practice field. Patterson, a 300-pound defensive tackle, was diagnosed with a brain AVM after collapsing during one of the team's training camp practices at Lehigh University on Aug. 3. A brain AVM, or arteriovenous malformation, is a prenatal condition in which blood travels abnormally between the arteries and veins.Tech ads just aren't what they used to be.
Sure, you have your robot phone wars and naked spokeswomen in bathtubs (what was she selling, again?). But missing are the cheesy songs, silly slogans, and giant gadgets that made the tech ads of yesteryear so wonderful to watch.
OK -- maybe "wonderful" is the wrong word. But looking back on them now, it's hard not to find them amusing. And, yes, a little embarrassing.
Don't take my word for it. Check out these 15 vintage tech commercials for yourself. If all the obsolete technology doesn't put a smile on your face, surely the cameo by a young William Shatner will bring you some joy.
For more retro tech laughs, be sure to take our tour of the best magazine tech ads from the past, too. The Bee Gees, Bill Cosby, and a 20-something Bill Gates all await you.
1. Mario on Atari
See, now if Microsoft had hired this guy instead of Seinfeld, that churro campaign could have really taken off.
See also:
Priceless! The 25 Funniest Vintage Tech Ads
19 Weird but Real Gadgets and Gizmos
Geekiest Houses: When tech obsessed geeks build their dream homes
Next page: Sony Super WalkmanIn 2013, Chicago Ideas hosted Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and Tony Award-winning actor Tracy Letts who shared his ten recommendations for How to Live a Creative Life. With pieces of advice like, “read a fucking book,” and, “feel good about stealing,” this funny, frank and invigorating Talk remains an adults-only go-to for creative stimulation.
[vimeo_embed src=”https://vimeo.com/79985946″/]
1. Don’t do anything.
“Go home, sit on the couch and stare at the wall for a long time. And then the next day, do the same thing. And pretty soon you’ll stop thinking about your problems or your schedule or your failings and your mind will start to wander and you’ll start to fantasize. You will start to daydream.”
2. Stop listening to NPR.
“I recognize that I am speaking to people who have come to the MCA for Chicago Ideas Week while the Bears are playing, so you’re probably NPR listeners… people who start to listen to too much NPR start to regurgitate some of the same ideas and, actually, the skin starts to get a little sallow. Too much NPR is not good for the skin.”
3. Get out of the way.
“When you’re sitting there thinking your thoughts on the couch or in the shower, a censor appears. Your own personal censor appears and says, ‘Stop thinking about that. Don’t think about that. That’s wrong to think about that.’ Think whatever you want. Think of the most venal, vile, disgusting, disturbing thoughts you possibly can. Get rid of the censor and let your mind go wherever it goes.”
4. Stop drinking.
“If you’ve ever been a sober person talking to a drunk person then you’re aware that they have nothing to say. I know this myself from when I was drinking. It destroys creative impulses. If you want to live a creative life maybe you should stop drinking or at least don’t drink so much.”
5. Masturbate.
“You probably think that I mean this literally– and I do. Masturbation is playing with yourself and that’s something that a creative person has to do… It involves the body, it involves the mind and it involves, again, unchecked fantasy. You are allowed to think whatever you want to think. You are allowed to think about whatever gets you off.”
6. Lie.
“Lie because the truth, in fact, is rarely interesting. Let’s face it, we’re all lying. We’ve all lied a lot. I think the key here is stay true to yourself, know thyself and know what you’re doing when you lie….When you’re talking to me, or when I’m talking to you let’s make shit up.”
7. Steal.
“I’ve stolen it all. Everything I wrote was stolen. Some of it is shot through my own experiences, through my own history, my family, my beliefs–all of that stuff. But everything, it’s all stolen. There’s nothing new…Don’t get in your way about stealing. Feel good about stealing.”
8. Get help.
“You should probably see somebody. I know that I’ve seen shrinks in my life, maybe because of some of these other things on the list. I’ve needed to see shrinks in my life. Sometimes they can really help you break patterns and sometimes the key to creative thinking is breaking habits.”
9. Read fiction.
“You will not get a better window into the experience of your fellow man than by reading a book. So when you’re done sitting there for half an hour, pick up a fucking book and read it for two fucking hours.”
10. Don’t create anything–it already exists.
“I sometimes improvise with David Pasquesi and TJ Jagodowski. They’re two improvisers, they work out of iO primarily, they’ve been doing it along time and they are arguably the best improvisers in the world…One of the things they actually rehearse is openings of the scene. So that moment when the lights come up and you’re looking at each other–and then Dave says, ‘All right, stop, where are we?’ And I say, ‘Well there’s a body of water right here.’ … ‘That’s right. We know where we are, we’re already in the space, we know it’s not magic, and it’s not a lie. We’re already there, it already exists, because it’s already part of us, it’s just about finding it in the other person.’”Should there be a formal separation of Corporation and State that is similar to the separation of Church and State, in our Constitution? This is a subject I am thinking about a lot lately. It occurred to me while I was listening to President Bill Clinton's speech at the 2003 Fortune Brainstorm conference in Aspen last week...
Imagine what our nation would be like if there were no Separation of Church and State? This basic principle has ensured that our American democracy has remained unbiased toward any particular religion; it has also protected religions from getting overly involved in politics. When our Constitution was formulated it made sense to add in this protection, because the Church was one of the main political forces of the time and posed a very real threat to democracy. But when our Constitution was designed corporations had not emerged as a major political force. For this reason no protections were added to the Constitution against manipulation from corporate interests.
However today we live in a very different world, a world of giant global corporations with billions of dollars to lobby with. Is the integrity of our democracy threatened by the influence of corporate special interests? Are our national decision-makers being influenced by corporate entities? And if so, is this really democratic; are We The People really being represented fairly in this process? It may be time to introduce the notion of a formal Separation of Corporation and State to protect our democracy from being overrun by corporate influence. I have written a full article on this subject which, if it doesn't get published elsewhere, I will post to this Bog.HEMPSTEAD - A former Texas trooper pleaded not guilty to charges he lied about his actions last July while arresting Sandra Bland, whose death in Waller County's jail three days later sparked a national outcry from civil rights activists.
Dressed in a gray suit and tie and flanked by his attorneys, former Department of Public Safety Trooper Brian T. Encinia said little Tuesday afternoon during a minutes-long arraignment hearing before State District Judge Albert M. McCaig Jr.
Encinia, 30, pulled Bland over near Prairie View A&M University in July for failing to signal a lane change. The stop spiraled out of control when Bland, a Chicago native, refused to put out a cigarette Encinia had asked her to extinguish.
Dashcam video showed Encinia reaching into Bland's car and trying to pull her out, and brandishing a stun gun and warning her "I'll light you up."
Bland was found hanged in her jail cell three days later. The death, ruled a suicide, provoked a nationwide outcry and fueled an ongoing debate about the way police interact with the public, particularly minorities.
Demanding accountability
In an arrest affidavit, Encinia said he had ordered Bland out of the car to safely continue the investigation.
A Waller County grand jury indicted Encinia in January of misdemeanor perjury based on that statement, according to a special prosecutor in the case. If convicted, Encinia could spend up to a year in jail and have to pay a $4,000 fine.
Earlier this month, DPS Director Steve McCraw formally fired Encinia, saying he violated the department's courtesy policy and procedures. Encinia is appealing the termination to the Texas Public Safety Commission. Separately, the trooper is named in a wide-ranging civil lawsuit filed by Bland's family that alleges negligence and wrongful death. Attorneys representing Encinia in that case have asked - unsuccessfully - that it be delayed while his criminal trial plays out. The civil trial is set to begin next January.
Bland's mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, and older sister, Shante Needham, both appeared at the arraignment, along with their lawyer, Cannon Lambert.
"To come all this way, I needed to do it," said Bland's mother after the hearing, as she embraced those who'd gathered in support of her and her family.
"I'm hopeful things go in the direction that [Encinia] eventually gets detained and he can remain there for the maximum amount of time that perjury carries," Needham said. "At the end of the day, my sister, my mother's daughter, is no longer here anymore. He needs to be held accountable for his actions."
Encinia's attorneys, meanwhile, said the indictment represented a "fundamental misunderstanding" of police procedure, blaming the charge on a "runaway grand jury" and a "media frenzy."
"This case now represents much more than Brian Encinia," said Chip Lewis, the attorney. "It is a threat to all Texas police officers in the state of Texas."
Bland's family had met with the special prosecutors handling the case and made clear that they were not interested in a plea deal, but wanted Encinia to receive the maximum penalty provided under the law, said Lambert, the family's attorney.
"Anything short of that, I think, will be a disservice to this family," he said.
The people's still watching
Despite its brevity, the hearing and the circumstances leading up to it continued to generate strong emotions, with approximately three dozen protesters gathering outside the courthouse to continue to press for more information and accountability regarding Bland's death.
"We want to know what happened to our sister," said one protester, surrounded by others carrying signs like, "Justice for Sandy," and "Stop Police Brutality NOW."
"We trust [the police] to be in good health, in a good mental state and definitely in a good emotional that they're not going to go off," said Ruth Abigail Rodriguez, among the protesters. " Right now they're saying that Encinia did everything he was supposed to do – I disagree."
In one tense moment, the protesters confronted Sheriff Glenn Smith outside the courthouse, accusing him of being responsible for Bland's death, which they called a murder.
"This is their right," he said, when reporters asked him about the protesters' comments.
Sarah Kim contributed to this report.Kano, Nigeria (CNN) Boko Haram militants opened fire on northern Nigerian villages, leaving bodies scattered everywhere and as many as 2,000 people feared dead.
"The attack on Baga and surrounding towns looks as if it could be Boko Haram's deadliest act," Amnesty International said in a statement.
Islamist militants sprayed bullets as they stormed in last weekend in trucks and armored vehicles, local authorities said Friday.
When they arrived, they unloaded motorcycles and pursued residents who fled into the bush, firing indiscriminately, said Baba Abba Hassan, a local district head.
Local officials reported death tolls ranging from hundreds to as many as 2,000 people.
"Dead bodies litter the bushes in the area and it is still not safe to go and pick them (up) for burial," said Musa Bukar, the chairman of the local government where Baga is located.
"Some people who hid in their homes were burned alive."
Raid lasted for days
During the raid that started January 3, hundreds of gunmen seized the town of Baga and neighboring villages, as well as a multinational military base.
Attacks started at dawn and continued throughout last weekend, according to residents.
Though local officials gave conflicting death tolls, they agreed on the massive number of fatalities.
More than 2,000 people were killed in attacks on 16 villages, Bukar said. He could not explain how he
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DL positions. Mike Purcell is a guy who is a bit further down the depth chart, and is likely competing for a practice squad spot.
What to expect in 2014:
He came into the NFL measuring 6'3, 305 pounds. As we discussed last year, he is viewed by many as a bit of an undersized 3-technique. He has had a year to work with Jim Tomsula and the 49ers strength and conditioning team, so it is possible he has put on some weight and could potentially move into nose tackle work.
And if Purcell is going to make any kind of impact in 2014, it would probably be in a nose tackle role. The defensive end positions are considerably deep right now. After Justin Smith and Ray McDonald, the 49ers have Tank Carradine, Tony Jerod-Eddie, Demarcus Dobbs, Quinton Dial, Lawrence Okoye, and Kaleb Ramsey. At nose tackle, Glenn Dorsey and Ian Williams are the primary guys, but Quinton Dial could very well get some work there as well. Ian Williams is a question mark to be ready at the start of training camp, opening the door for extensive practice and playing time in the preseason. I have no idea if Purcell is going to attempt any kind of transition to nose tackle, but it would make sense for him to improve his roster chances.
Odds of making the roster:
All that being said, the odds are not good for him to make the roster. He has practice squad eligibility, and the 49ers could always use defensive line developmental talent. Of course, the 49ers are also still looking at other options to add to the group. Yesterday, we learned the 49ers were in attendance at a workout for defensive end Lakendrick Ross. He is a monstrous defensive tackle prospect who put on a Pro Day in advance of Friday's 2014 NFL Supplemental Draft.
The 49ers could use some interior depth, particularly with Ian Williams being such a question mark. I don't know that Purcell or Ross or Dial will be the answer, but it is something we could see the 49ers pursue if Williams is not back early in camp.TOKYO (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has threatened Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) over its Mexican-built cars, but the biggest risk from a punitive tariff would be for its compatriot Nissan Motor Co (7201.T), the largest automaker operating in the country.
Employees work at a production line before the opening of Nissan's new plant in Aguascalientes, Mexico. November 12, 2013. REUTERS/Henry Romero
Trump has criticized U.S. companies like General Motors (G.N) and Ford Motor Co (F.N) which manufacture abroad, accusing them of costing U.S. jobs. On Thursday he took on Toyota, warning the world’s largest automaker that it would face a “big border tax” if it exported Mexico-built cars to the U.S. market.
But it is Nissan, Japan’s second-largest automaker, which would be the bigger victim of any tax punishment. Nissan built its first overseas plant in Mexico in 50 years ago and now produces more than 800,000 cars there, mainly its entry-level Versa and Sentra sedans.
Nissan’s production dwarfs that of Toyota, Honda Motor Co (7267.T) and Mazda Motor Corp (7261.T) in Mexico. It exports roughly half of its output to the United States, where it also has production plants.
Vehicles made in Mexico comprise roughly one-quarter of Nissan’s total U.S. vehicle sales, industry experts say, compared with around 30 percent for smaller rival Mazda, but less than 10 percent for Toyota and Honda.
Japanese automakers together produced around 1.4 million vehicles in Mexico in the year ended March, nearly 40 percent of the country’s total output. According to the Japan External Trade Organization, they plan to ramp up production to 1.9 million by 2019.
Current production in Mexico is dwarfed by the number of cars they produce in the United States, their single largest market, where Japan’s top three automakers alone produced around 4 million vehicles in 2015.
Trump has said he plans to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico, and has vowed to impose a 35 percent tariff on cars exported to the United States from Mexico.
According to JP Morgan estimates, an increase in tariffs on cars exported from Mexico to the United States to even 10 percent would hit Nissan’s consolidated operating earnings by 10.3 percent, more than 5.5 percent at Mazda. Toyota would see a hit of 0.7 percent, while Honda 2.2 percent.
All four Japanese automakers building cars in Mexico said they have no immediate plans to change operations. But Nissan and Renault SA (RENA.PA) CEO Carlos Ghosn told Reuters he was watching the incoming Trump administration closely and would respond to whatever policies it adopts.
“I don’t want to preempt or try to guess what’s going to happen,” Ghosn said in an interview on Thursday, on the sidelines of the CES technology show in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“It’s not a question that we are afraid or not afraid, we’re dealing with 160 markets in the world, different powers, different policies, different approaches, so we are used to adapting our strategy to different policies,” he said.
One Asian auto executive told Reuters his company long ago made a strategic decision to make Mexico a production hub in North America, and that it is tough to alter its strategy overnight.
“We can’t turn back the clock on these decisions,” said the executive, who did not have clearance to speak to media and so declined to be identified.
“What we need to explain more clearly (to Trump) is that most automakers are not cutting production capacity or jobs in the United States to make Mexico an additional production hub.”
Still, analysts said automakers would likely think twice about expanding production in the country in the coming years.
“As long as this administration is in place I suspect (Nissan is) not going consider any additional capacity there,” CLSA analyst Chris Richter said.
Trump’s criticisms come just as Japanese automakers are shuffling their production portfolios to boost supply of popular, higher-margin sport utility vehicles (SUV) and trucks for the U.S. market.
Honda last year announced it would expand its U.S. production capacity to build more of its CR-V SUV, while shifting production from Mexico.
Toyota has said that its Guanajuato plant under construction in Mexico will produce the entry level Corolla sedan, a vehicle segment currently produced at its plants in Mississippi and Ontario, Canada. Demand for the cars has slumped in recent years as cheap gasoline prices has prompted drivers to buy more SUVs.
“We’re always considering ways to increase production in the United States, regardless of the political situation,” Toyota President Akio Toyoda told reporters on Thursday.Report calls for 'killer robot' ban
Updated
Autonomous "killer robots" are a real possibility and must be banned before governments start deploying them, campaigners have warned.
The report 'Losing Humanity' - issued by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic - raised the alarm over the ethics of the looming technology.
Calling them "killer robots," the report urged "an international treaty that would absolutely prohibit the development, production, and use of fully autonomous weapons".
The US military already leads the way in military robots, notably the unmanned aircraft or drones used for surveillance or attacks over Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and elsewhere.
But these are controlled by human operators in ground bases and are not able to kill without authorisation.
Fully autonomous robots that decide for themselves when to fire could be developed within 20 to 30 years, or "even sooner," the 50-page report said, adding that weapon systems that require little human intervention already exist.
Perhaps closest to the Terminator-type killing machine portrayed in Arnold Schwarzenegger's action films is a Samsung sentry robot already being used in South Korea, with the ability to spot unusual activity, talk to intruders and, when authorised by a human controller, shoot them.
Fully autonomous fighting machines would spare human troops from dangerous situations.
The downside, though, is that robots would then be left to make nuanced decisions on their own, the most fraught being the need to distinguish between civilians and combatants in a war zone.
"A number of governments, including the United States, are very excited about moving in this direction, very excited about taking the soldier off the battlefield and putting machines on the battlefield and thereby lowering casualties," said Steve Goose, arms division director at HRW.
While Mr Goose said "killer robots" do not exist as yet, he warned of precursors.
He added the best way to forestall an ethical nightmare is a "pre-emptive, comprehensive prohibition on the development or production of these systems."
AFP
Topics: robots-and-artificial-intelligence, unrest-conflict-and-war, science-and-technology, united-states, korea-republic-of
First postedSeptember 21, 2011 CNNSecurity cameras catch the courthouse shooting spree of an Arkansas man.5NEWS Reporter 6:31 p.m. CDT, September 21, 2011Crawford Co. Courthouse Shooting"I Wasn't Going to Die There" Says Officer Who Fired at Courthouse GunmanOne of the officers involved in a shooting at the Crawford County Courthouse talked with 5NEWS Wednesday about his decision to fire at the suspect. Police shot and killed James Palmer, 48, after they say he shot one person and injured a police officer.Surrounded by cameras, Lt. Stephen Staggs with the Van Buren Police Department relived the afternoon of Sept. 13. He was at the prosecuting attorney’s office when panic alarms from inside the courthouse went off. “We’re thinking well that’s gotta be a test,” said Staggs.Staggs ran to the courthouse. He said, “I heard gun shots, so then I knew it was the real deal.”Staggs took cover behind a car in gravel parking lot he estimates just 30 yards from where the gunman fired multiple shots at police. “I’ll be honest with you, I made up my mind during that, that I wasn’t going to die there,” said Staggs. “I was going home.”Staggs says he fired one shot. Officials confirm Officer Dave Passen, Detective Randy Allen, and two Crawford County sheriff’s deputies also fired at Palmer. “This guy was firing, firing at other offers, firing at people in the courthouse,” said Staggs, “It’s our job and our duty to stop it.”With 25 years of service, Staggs says he never fired his service weapon at anyone before the shooting at the courthouse. The officer returned to work Monday. “Hopefully I’ll keep that guardian angel around,” said Staggs.Staggs says he still does not know which officer fired the shot that killed the suspect. The prosecuting attorney’s office cleared all of the officers involved of any wrongdoing earlier this week.911 Calls: Deadly Crawford Co. Courthouse ShootingInstead of using ordinary buttons and pins to stitch up clothes, Korean-born artist Ran Hwang creates amazingly large installations of birds and cherry blossom trees. When you look up close, the amount of individual buttons is somewhat overwhelming, but from afar, the installation transforms into one breathtaking image.
“My immense wall installations are extremely time consuming and repetitive manual work,” says Hwang. “This is a form of meditative practice that helps me find my inner peace. Pins are used to hold buttons onto the surface to form a silhouetted image, or to disintegrate such image. No adhesive is used so the buttons are free to stay and move, which implies the genetic human tendency to be irresolute. I use buttons because they are common and ordinary, like the existence of human beings.”
“By hammering thousands of pins onto a wall, I discover significance of existence,” she adds. “Like the monks practicing Zen facing the wall, my work is a form of performance that leads to finding oneself.” Hwang graduated from the School of Visual Arts in NYC and has exhibited her work in New York, Paris and Seoul.
The artist
Ran Hwang’s website3-D printing may soon expand beyond the small scale. In 2010, the world's largest 3-D printer will build the Radiolaria Pavilion, a 10-meter-tall structure in Pontedera, Italy. Made out of sandstone, the building will be printed one 5-10mm layered sheet at a time.
The thin layers of the structure are held together by an inorganic binder, not the normal steel reinforcements that most buildings have. This allows for strength and design freedom not available before. The structure was designed using CAD/CAM software and then exported directly to the printer. Once printed, it only takes about 24 hours for the material to fully set. The process is also pretty environmentally sound, and if any of the building material remains unused, it can be recycled.
So far only a 3-by-3-by-3 meter model has been made of the Radiolaria Pavilion, but that's enough to prove the process works. Considering the ease of moving from design programs to finished building, this could transform building construction. Without the need for rigid steel reinforcement, it could also usher in an era of more free-flowing and organic architectural design. Soon we might be living in printed sandstone buildings that rival those on Tattooine.
[via Dezeen]The story of this postseason has been the dramatic change in the attitude towards relief pitcher usage. It’s been most notable in Cleveland, where Andrew Miller has been used anywhere from the 5th through 9th inning, but basically all of the teams still left have been utilizing their best relievers as often as possible, and relying more on their bullpens than ever before.
Yesterday, over at FiveThirtyEight, Rob Arthur showed that this isn’t just our perception, but that teams really are pulling their starters earlier than ever this year. Below, I’ll borrow a neat graphic from his post.
The maxim of starting pitching being the key component to winning in October is dying a very public death this month; relievers are the hot new thing, and pretty much everyone is buying in at the same time. But in Arthur’s piece, he also suggests that this big change hasn’t actually mattered all that much.
But is this shift to the bullpen working? No — or at least, not that we can see. Runs per game tends to decline from its regular season norm every October, and this year is no different. So far, only 2.6 runs per game are crossing the plate in the postseason, down from 4.5 in the regular season. If managers’ newfound bullpen savvy was depressing runs per game to a significant degree, you’d expect the gap between the regular season and postseason to be even larger than usual. But that’s not the case: Since 2000, seven years have seen larger drops in scoring between the regular season and playoffs than we’ve seen so far this year. Another place reliever usage might alter the game is in terms of preventing comebacks. Going to the bullpen while the starter is cruising is an even tougher sell when you have a lead, but sabermetrics suggests it’s the best way to preserve that lead. Through 24 playoff games3, there have been two comeback wins after six innings — close to the regular-season average of 13.6 percent. Similarly, if managers were acquiring leads and then unleashing a cavalcade of relievers to prevent offense, we’d expect there to be less movement in win probability. But the 2016 postseason has featured an average win probability change almost exactly in line with those of previous Octobers.
That part of the article struck me as odd, as it certainly feels like offense is way down this October, and that relievers are primarily responsible for the domination of opposing hitters. So, instead of just looking at runs per game, I asked David Appelman to send me the regular season and postseason wOBA for each of the last 15 years. Here’s those numbers in a table, along with the difference between the two.
Regular Season and Postseason wOBA season Regular Season wOBA Postseason wOBA Difference 2002 0.326 0.339 -0.013 2003 0.328 0.303 0.025 2004 0.330 0.339 -0.009 2005 0.326 0.316 0.010 2006 0.332 0.314 0.018 2007 0.331 0.331 0.000 2008 0.328 0.322 0.006 2009 0.329 0.320 0.009 2010 0.321 0.290 0.031 2011 0.316 0.329 -0.013 2012 0.315 0.281 0.034 2013 0.314 0.287 0.027 2014 0.310 0.295 0.015 2015 0.313 0.292 0.021 2016 0.318 0.278 0.040
As I write this, hitters are posting a.278 wOBA this postseason, the lowest year of any year in the sample, down 14 points from last year’s postseason, even though offense was up during the regular season this year. And naturally, that means that the gap between regular season and postseason wOBA is at its largest point in the sample as well. Here’s a graph of the data, in case you’d rather see it visually.
The broader recent trend has been towards larger gaps in wOBA between the regular season and postseason, with 2016 being a more extreme version of 2010 and 2012, the previous years where there were gaps over 30 points. This lines up a bit with Arthur’s graph of the move away from starting pitching, and it’s probably not a coincidence that gap is getting larger as starters are being asked to pitch less in the playoffs.
So why isn’t it showing up in runs per game yet, as Arthur noted yesterday? Well, run scoring can be influenced pretty heavily by sequencing, and especially in small samples, stringing hits together can lead to runs even if pitchers dominate most of the rest of the game. But when we look at the rate stats that are the building blocks of offense, we can see pretty clearly that offense is down significantly this postseason, and manager’s increased aggressiveness in using their relievers is indeed working.Gender reassignment surgery still rare in CT
This 2015 image provided by courtesy of E! shows Caitlyn Jenner in the first official promotional trailer for the new documentary series, "I Am Cait," in Malibu, Calif. This 2015 image provided by courtesy of E! shows Caitlyn Jenner in the first official promotional trailer for the new documentary series, "I Am Cait," in Malibu, Calif. Photo: E!, Via AP Photo: E!, Via AP Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Gender reassignment surgery still rare in CT 1 / 4 Back to Gallery
Though born male, Rudy never felt as though that was who she really was, not even as a child.
"I always identified as female," said the Connecticut resident, who asked that her real name not be used. "All of my friends were girls. I was not interested in anything my brother was interested in. I remember seeing girls in their Brownie uniforms and think `Damn, I don't want to wear a suit and tie. That's not me.' "
Rudy first dressed as a female when she was a college freshman, and began physically transitioning from male to female in her early 20s. By age 21, she'd had breast augmentation surgery and some facial surgery. By 23, she had gender reassignment surgery to become a woman.
But, like many transgender people in the state, she had to leave Connecticut to get the procedure. That's because few doctors in the state perform gender reassignment surgery, also known as "bottom surgery," in which the genitals are surgically changed from those of one gender to the other.
Slowly, that's starting to change. Yale-New Haven Hospital, for one, is starting a gender reassignment surgery program, involving professionals from a variety of disciplines, including urology, plastic surgery and mental health. Other places, including the Circle Care Center in Norwalk, offer other gender transition services, including hormone replacement therapy and counseling.
But for the most part, transgender people in the state looking to transition from one gender to another have to go elsewhere. Rudy, for example, had to travel to Florida. Gender reassignment programs also exist in such places as California, Montreal and Philadelphia.
The high-profile transition of the former Bruce Jenner -- an Olympic athlete who went to high school in Connecticut -- into Caitlyn Jenner has sparked a national conversation on the topic of gender reassignment. Many see the conversation as positive.
More Information Fast facts on gender transformation
According to the National Center for Transgender Equality, there are about 700,000 transgender adults living in the United States.
Gender reassignment surgeries range in price from $15,000 to $50,000 for male to female surgeries and $50,000 to $100,000 for female to male surgeries.
The global consulting firm Mercer found that in 2014, 8 percent of all large employers provided coverage for gender reassignment surgery, up from 5 percent in 2013. However, only another 3 percent say they are considering covering the procedures.
"This is great for the transgender population," said Dr. Stanton Honig, a urologist who is leading the program at Yale. "It gives them an opportunity to have a conversation about what they want to do."
It's unclear, however, whether this greater understanding could lead to greater availability of gender reassignment services.
"Nationally, there are going to be more centers, I think, over the next three to five years," he said. "(But) you really have to have a clinical interest in this field."
What is gender reassignment?
The national discussion on Jenner's transformation -- sparked by a recent Vanity Fair cover story -- has, among other things, raised a deceptively simple question: How easy is it to physically transition from one gender to another?
According to the National Center for Transgender Equality, there are about 700,000 transgender adults living in the United States. However, not all people who are transgender choose to medically change genders -- a complicated, and expensive process that involves multiple surgeries, possibly (but not always) including "bottom surgery."
Other elements involved in transitioning include hormone therapy and altering the face and chest to create a more feminine or masculine appearance.
Those changing from one gender to another can choose some or all of these options, but many adhere to a set of guidelines laid out by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. These guidelines, called the standards of care, outline a variety of steps medical professionals advise people to take before medically changing genders.
These steps including dressing (and essentially living as) the target gender for at least a year, having hormone therapy for at least a year and getting a letter from a mental health professional stating that the patient is a good candidate for transitioning.
It's difficult to get hard numbers on exactly how many people have transitioned because "many procedures deemed necessary for transitioning already exist and are undergone by non-transgender people," said Vincent Villano, director of communications for the National Center for Transgender Equality.
Honig said it's both easier and less expensive to transition from male to female than to go from female to male. Depending on how involved the surgery is, Honig said, male to female surgery costs from $15,000 to $50,000, while female to male surgery can cost from $50,000 to $100,000.
Though costly, the surgery is covered by an increasing number of insurance companies. In a study released earlier this year, the global consulting firm Mercer found that in 2014, 8 percent of all large employers provided coverage for gender reassignment surgery, up from 5 percent in 2013. However, only another 3 percent say they are considering covering the procedures. Specific companies that cover the surgery, and some related services, include Aetna and Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Evolving options
Despite this progress, experts said there are still few places in Connecticut where people can access gender reassignment services.
Circle Care Center in Norwalk doesn't offer surgery, but does provide access to hormone therapy, mental health services and other help for those who are transitioning.
The majority of people who seek these services at Circle often have to travel out of state for surgery, said A.C. Demidont, who oversees transgender health care and other services at the center.
"It sucks for them," Demidont said of those who have to travel for their surgeries. "They have to go and stay in a hospital for a while" in a place they might not be familiar with.
Demidont wasn't aware of the growing program at Yale, but was pleased something was in the works.
Honig, who is trained in sexual and reproductive medicine, joined Yale about a year and a half ago. He has done a handful of male-to-female gender reassignment surgeries, and is hoping to offer a formalized surgical program at Yale within a few months.
In addition to offering surgeries, Honig also provides follow-up care to those who, like Rudy, have already had the surgery. Rudy said she was thrilled to know there was someone providing care in her own state.
"I know a lot of girls who can't afford to travel" for the surgery, she said.
Honig said, unlike the gay, lesbian and bisexual populations, which have made a lot of progress toward acceptance, "the transgender community has probably progressed the least. I think (Jenner) is going to bring this much more to the forefront."
Others aren't sure what the impact of Jenner's transition will be. "I think it's wonderful that she came out," Demidont said. "But how Caitlyn looks is not the norm" for those who have transitioned.
Rudy also had a mixed view on the potential impact of Jenner's transition. Though she, too, believed Jenner drew more attention to the issue, she pointed out that not all the attention is positive.
"It's a little disheartening," Rudy said. "You see a lot of people on social media making nasty comments about it. A lot of people aren't ready."Marilynne Robinson writes in the New York Review of Books:
Poe’s mind was by no means commonplace. In the last year of his life [1848] he wrote a prose poem, Eureka, which would have established this fact beyond doubt—if it had not been so full of intuitive insight that neither his contemporaries nor subsequent generations, at least until the late twentieth century, could make any sense of it. Its very brilliance made it an object of ridicule, an instance of affectation and delusion, and so it is regarded to this day among readers and critics who are not at all abreast of contemporary physics. Eureka describes the origins of the universe in a single particle, from which “radiated” the atoms of which all matter is made. Minute dissimilarities of size and distribution among these atoms meant that the effects of gravity caused them to accumulate as matter, forming the physical universe. This by itself would be a startling anticipation of modern cosmology, if Poe had not also drawn striking conclusions from it, for example that space and “duration” are one thing, that there might be stars that emit no light, that there is a repulsive force that in some degree counteracts the force of gravity, that there could be any number of universes with different laws simultaneous with ours, that our universe might collapse to its original state and another universe erupt from the particle it would have become, that our present universe may be one in a series. All this is perfectly sound as observation, hypothesis, or speculation by the lights of science in the twenty-first century. And of course Poe had neither evidence nor authority for any of it. It was the product, he said, of a kind of aesthetic reasoning—therefore, he insisted, a poem. He was absolutely sincere about the truth of the account he had made of cosmic origins, and he was ridiculed for his sincerity. Eureka is important because it indicates the scale and the seriousness of Poe’s thinking, and its remarkable integrity. It demonstrates his use of his aesthetic sense as a particularly rigorous method of inquiry.
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the few writers who had a larger influence outside his own language. The French, such as Baudelaire, were amazed by Poe, but Anglo-Americans have tended to sniff at him as a genre writer.
Poe has a reasonable claim to be the father of modern detective fiction, and played sizable roles in horror fiction and science fiction. (In Poe’s day, the line between hoaxes and science fiction wasn’t clear. A New York newspaper editor had ripped off Poe’s story about a trip to the Moon by publishing it as news and then later admitting it was a hoax. So Poe later wrote an 1844 hoax that appeared in the editor’s newspaper as news about a Graf Zeppelin-like balloon trip across the Atlantic in three days.)
On the other hand, maybe genre fiction is the great literary achievement of the last couple hundred years or so?
For example, it’s pretty cool that most big cities in America these days have their own crime fiction writer, typically a former local newspaper reporter. Awhile ago I asked if any writers or movies had yet touched upon the mortgage meltdown, and a commenter suggested Michael Connelly’s 2011 Lincoln Lawyer novel The Fifth Witness.
It turns out that the entire story takes place within a half-dozen miles of my house, with numerous scenes set at restaurants I’ve eaten at (e.g., the Hamburger Hamlet in Sherman Oaks). And the big trial is set at the Van Nuys courthouse where I’ve done jury duty. A key character is a (highly) fictionalized version of Angelo Mozilo, whose name may have come up at iSteve a time or two.
Now that’s reader service!
The point of genre literature is to meet the reader’s interests and desires part way. This is usually considered slightly disreputable from a literary point of view, but maybe encouraging reading is a good thing?
If that’s true, Dulwich College, a London area prep school, would rank high in this revised history of literature. Its graduates include two geniuses of genre — P.G. Wodehouse and Raymond Chandler — and a respectable third in C.S. Forester, whose Horatio Hornblower sea stories played Dashiell Hammett to Patrick O’Brian’s Chandler.
Perhaps Shakespeare was vaguely sensing what became science fiction in Hamlet? The play has several references to what sounds like astronomy: e.g., “I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.” It’s not all that implausible that the Danish setting of Hamlet refers in some fashion to the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601). Hamlet begins with discussion among night watch soldiers of what may be Tycho’s supernova of 1572. When Tom Stoppard filmed his Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead with Tim Roth and Gary Oldman, he was going through his science phase (that culminated in Arcadia in which a teenage genius of the early 19th Century anticipates the chaos theory of the late 20th Century), and thus he turned Elsinore into an observatory / laboratory.
Science fiction wasn’t a thing yet in Shakespeare’s day, but it seems not implausible that if it were a genre back then, Shakespeare would have used it.
Physicist Max Planck famously said that science advances one funeral at a time. Turning that around, perhaps new worldviews are advanced less by great thinkers than by books for boys? Maybe Poe was therefore one of the most influential minds of the 19th Century?News
Paul Dummett in line to face Serbia – Just not where he’d have expected…
An interesting development for Paul Dummett, with injuries rocking Wales and putting him in line for a first competitive match at international level.
The Newcastle defender has made a couple of friendly appearances but Saturday’s home match against Serbia is looming large.
Group D in World Cup qualifying is rife with Newcastle players competing against each other, currently Serbia (Mitrovic) are top with seven points, ahead of the Republic of Ireland (Daryl Murphy and Ciaran Clark), with two points further back Wales (Dummett).
This international break was looking like pretty much every other one for Paul Dummett, included in the squad but zero chance of playing.
However, injury to first choice Ben Davies against Arsenal at the weekend, has been followed up by the shock withdrawal of West Ham’s James Collins who was expected to deputise.
Chris Coleman has filled the gaps in the squad with Bristol City’s (on loan from Sunderland) Adam Matthews and Joe Walsh of MK Dons.
However, Paul Dummett is expected to get the nod in Coleman’s three man defence as a centre-back!
First choice at left-back for Rafa Benitez, many/most Newcastle fans though believe that Dummett’s best games for NUFC have been when he has been selected the odd time at centre-half.
Chris Coleman has made clear in the past that he sees Paul Dummett as good cover for centre of defence and indeed had lined up the Geordie to play there in June 2015 in a crucial Euros qualifier against Belgium, only for him to pick up an injury.
This weekend’s injuries don’t just present a potentially great chance for the Newcastle defender, it also means that if he does start he will almost certainly be one of those marking Aleksandar Mitrovic, with the striker back in form for club and country.
Rafa Benitez is one who is in doubts that Paul Dummett can do a job for Chris Coleman, saying ahead of this Wales v Serbia match:
“Paul Dummett is a player you can trust and the kind of player, sometimes people complain that he doesn’t get forward enough.
“But he is always doing well, he can make a mistake sometimes, like anybody else, but he can be trusted.
“If he has to play for his country, he can do as well as anybody.”A Salvadoran illegal alien and member of a criminal gang has been deported so he can face aggravated murder charges in connection with the execution of a rival gang member.
This week, agents with U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office of Enforcement and Removal Operations flew 26-year-old Jose Martin Cruz Martinez from Texas to his native country so he could face trial. In a similar fashion, ICE officers also flew 50-year-old Renan Hernandez Navarro to Honduras.
According to information provided to Breitbart Texas by ICE, Cruz Martinez has an outstanding warrant in El Salvador for the August 8, 2014 shooting murder of a member of the Pandilla 18 who had been riding as a passenger in a taxi bike. Hernandez Navarro is wanted in connection with an August 18, 2000 warrant charging him with “culpable murder”.
Cruz Martinez was arrested on August 9, in the border city of Hidalgo, Texas. ICE agents confirmed that he was a fugitive wanted by Interpol days later. Last month an immigration judge in Texas ordered Cruz Martinez be deported.
Hernandez Navarro was arrested in Eagle Pass in August, shortly after authorities confirmed that he was wanted in his home country. Last month an immigration judge ordered his deportation.
Since Oct. 1, 2009, ERO has removed more than 1,700 foreign fugitives from the United States who were sought in their native countries for serious crimes, including kidnapping, rape, and murder.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project and you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.The city of Dallas has wasted no time tearing down its Robert E. Lee statue following a 13-1 vote by the city council Wednesday. The city of Dallas has wasted no time tearing down its Robert E. Lee statue following a 13-1 vote by the city council Wednesday. Photo: WFAA/Facebook Photo: WFAA/Facebook Image 1 of / 22 Caption Close Dallas to remove Robert E. Lee statue from public park 1 / 22 Back to Gallery
The Dallas City Council voted Wednesday to removed the statue of Robert E. Lee from a public park following ongoing backlash nationwide surrounding Confederate monuments.
The council voted 13-1 in favor of immediately removing the monument to the Confederate general in Lee Park near Turtle Creek, the Dallas News reported Wednesday afternoon. A task force will be convened by the city to figure out what to do with the statue.
Dallas' WFAA is live streaming the removal of the statue on Facebook Wednesday afternoon.
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GIVE IT UP: Texas lawmaker wants University of Texas to give him the statue of former governor
This is not the first Lee statue in Texas to be taken down. The University of Texas at Austin removed its Lee statue from campus in late August along with those of Albert Sidney Johnston and John Reagan. The renewed interest in tearing down Confederate monuments followed the deadly protests in Charlottesville, Va., over the proposed removal of another Lee statue.In case of full-scale war, power will be handed over to commanders of military regions
In time of the war, governors, regional governments, autonomous republics and important cities, regional internal affairs offices, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Federal Security Service, the as well as certain units of the Russian Guard will be controlled by regional military commanders under the Russian Defense Ministry. The new systems of military administration were first inspected during recent exercises in the Caucasus, reports Izvestia.
“During the Caucasus-2016 strategic command-and-staff exercises of the Russian Armed Forces, the Defense Ministry tested the efficacy of military regional commands” - according to a high-ranking source in the Defense Department. “Cooperation with local governments was one of the major elements of the exercise, which overall was successful.”
Currently, changes to legislation are being drafted to allow a military emergency regime to be maintained, for the mobilization of citizens, businesses and factories, and defense (protection of industrial, military and social facilities from hostile diversions, and prevention of social disorder).
Previously, in the event of war, each regional department and local government were only responsible for their own specific tasks, in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense. Now all power will be exercised by the military, who will organize and direct the activity of local authorities and law enforcements agencies.
According to Izvestia, the leadership of the Russian Defense Department was satisfied with the command and-staff exercises of local governments and governors of the Stavropol Region, Ingushetia, Crimea and Sevastopol.
In time of war, each of the five military regions will be divided into two parts – Operations And Strategic Command, and War-Time Military Command. The first oversees regiments, divisions, brigades and
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29 issue, there have been nine separate federal and state probes over the last decade that "have managed to establish that Mena was indeed the center of a brazen narcotics-trafficking operation."
1996 - The White House hosted a major drug dealer at its Christmas party last year... Cabrera was indicted in 1983 by a federal grand jury -- on racketing and drug charges -- and again in 1988, when he was accused of managing a continuing narcotics operation. He pleaded guilty to lesser charges and served 54 months on prison. Since his visit to the White House he has been sentenced to 19 years on prison for transporting 6,000 pounds of cocaine into the US.
1997
- In his book, The Secret Life of Bill Clinton, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard quotes an ex-drug pilot as saying that he once brought a Cessna 210 full of cocaine into eastern Arkansas where he was met by a state trooper in a marked police car. " Arkansas," he said, "was a very good place to load and unload." Later Evans-Pritchard wrote:
"On my first visits to Arkansas, I could smell that something was wrong. The place reminded me of Central America, a sort of anglophone Guatemala, where a corrupt and violent political machine operated behind the scenes. People dissembled in interviews, instinctively. The deeper I looked, the clearer it became that the Dixie Mafia had a foothold in official Arkansas, and that intimidation was part of the culture.
"Dissident members of the Arkansas State Police provided me with stacks of confidential reports showing that one of Mr. Clinton's biggest financial backers during his assent to power...had been under investigation for international drug-trafficking....
1998:
Arkansas Highway Police have seized $3.1 million in cash from four suitcases in a tractor-trailer rig's sleeper section. The driver was charged with money laundering among other things. The seizure was the fourth largest in American history and nearly fifty times more than all the illegal money seized by Arkansas highway police in a typical year.
Arkansas
has long functioned as a center of narcotics activity. The airport at Mena has been used for major drug trafficking, and sparsely populated areas have proved attractive for "kick drops" in which drug shipments are released from a plane to confederates on the ground who are given the geographical coordinates of the shipment. It has also been alleged that drug money was laundered through the Arkansas Development and Finance Administration.
1997 - Progressive Review editor Sam Smith interviews Billy Bear Bottoms, pilot for Barry Seal, who, until he was murdered, was considered by some the biggest illegal drug importer. Bottom thinks this is inflated but says that
Seal "testified in a trial in Las Vegas that he had made about 50 trips of 300 kilos each. His transportation fee was $5,000 per kilo. We actually only made about 25 trips." The transportation fee alone works out to $1.5 million a trip or $75 million for 50 trips; half that for 25. [That would be about $2.7 million a trip in today's dollars].
1999
- From "Partners in Power" by Roger Morris:
"[Key investigators] Duncan and Welch watched the Mena inquiry systematically quashed and their own careers destroyed as the IRS and state police effectively dissolved their investigations and turned on them. 'Somebody outside ordered it shut down,' one would say, 'and the walls went up.' Welch [a state trooper] recorded his fear and disillusion in his diary on November 17, 1987: 'Should a cop cross over the line and dare to investigate the rich and powerful, he might well prepared himself to become the victim of his own government. The cops are all afraid to tell what they know for fear that they will lose their jobs.'"
1999
- Bill Duncan: An IRS investigator in Arkansas who drafted some 30 federal indictments of Arkansas figures on money laundering and other charges. Clinton biographer Roger Morris quotes a source who reviewed the evidence: "Those indictments were a real slam dunk if there ever was one." The cases were suppressed, many in the name of "national security." Duncan was never called to testify. Other IRS agents and state police disavowed Duncan and turned on him. Said one source, "Somebody outside ordered it shut down and the walls went up."
1999
- Rusell Welch: An Arkansas state police detective working with Duncan. Welch developed a 35-volume, 3,000 page archive on drug and money laundering operations at Mena. His investigation was so compromised that a high state police official let one of the targets of the probe look through the investigative file. At one point, Welch was sprayed in the face with poison, later identified by the CDC as anthrax. He would write in his diary, "I feel like I live in Russia, waiting for the secret police to pounce down. A government has gotten out of control. Men find themselves in positions of power and suddenly crimes become legal." Welch is no longer with the state police.
1999
- Jean Duffey was head of a joint federal-county drug task force in Arkansas. Her first instructions from her boss: "Jean, you are not to use the drug task force to investigate any public official." Duffey's work, however, led deep into the heart of the Dixie Mafia, including members of the Clinton machine. The local prosecuting attorney, Dan Harmon issued a subpoena for all the task force records, including "the incriminating files on his own activities. If Duffey had complied it would have exposed 30 witnesses and her confidential informants to violent retributions. She refused." Harmon issued a warrant for her arrest and friendly cops told her that there was a $50,000 price on her head. She eventually fled to a secret address in Texas. The once-untouchable Harmon was convicted in June 1997 of five counts of racketeering, extortion and drug dealing.
2000
- Insight Magazine: Canadian police have identified Clinton donor and Macao gambling tycoon Stanley Ho as the leader of a triad gang of organized criminals with strong ties to Communist China. President Clinton personally accepted $250,000 from a Macao gambling tycoon whom Canadian police identify as a "leader" of a Chinese triad, or organized-crime syndicate... According to a separate Canadian Security Intelligence Service report, the triads are involved in "drug trafficking; money laundering; corruption; computer-software piracy; credit-card forgery and fraud; counterfeit currency and identification operations; and migrant smuggling."
2001
- Stewart Tendler, Times, London : Customs officers have seized nearly $2 million in cash after it was flown into Britain on behalf of Marc Rich, the fugitive billionaire pardoned by Bill Clinton. Mr Rich, whose presidential pardon is under investigation by the FBI, now has to prove that the cash was honestly acquired, or he could lose it. Investigators are holding the cash under powers aimed at preventing drug traffickers moving their profits from country to country...
2001
- In 1984, a Clinton bodyguard, state trooper L.D. Brown, applied for a CIA opening. Clinton gave him help on his application essay including making it more Reaganesque on the topic of Nicaragua. According to Brown, he met a CIA recruiter in Dallas whom he later identified as former member of Vice President Bush's staff. On the recruiter's instruction, he also met with notorious drug dealer Barry Seal in a Little Rock restaurant, later joining Seal in flight to Honduras with a purported shipment of M16s and a return load of duffel bags. Brown got $2,500 in small bills for the flight. Concerned about the mission, Brown consulted with Clinton who said, "Oh, you can handle it, don't sweat it." On second flight, Brown found cocaine in a duffel bag and again he sought Clinton's counsel. Clinton allegedly said to the politically conservative Brown, "Your buddy Bush knows about it" and of the cocaine, "that's Lasater's deal."
2001
- In 1985, Clinton established the Arkansas Development Finance Authority that would become, in the words of one well-connected Arkansan "his own political piggy bank." Though millions of dollars were funneled to Clinton allies, records of repayments would be hazy or non-existent... Later, an investigator found evidence of an electronic transfer of $50 million from the Arkansas Development Financial Authority to a bank in the Cayman Islands.
2001 - In 1989 Terry Reed filed a civil action against Buddy Young, chief of the Clinton security detail and later a top FEMA official. Reed argued that he had been framed after trying to pull away from his involvement in the Iran-Contra machinations... One estimate was that ten million dollars were passing through Mena every week. Patterson said the matter was repeatedly discussed in front of Clinton by his bodyguards. Patterson said the governor had "very little comment to make; he was just listening to what was being said." Reed's case unraveled when the state judge ruled that no evidence regarding Mena, the CIA, Dan Lasater, the Arkansas Development Finance Agency, or the Clintons would be permitted.Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira’s mixed martial arts career is coming to an end.
The former PRIDE and UFC heavyweight champion, who built a 34-9-1 (1 no-contest) record since his MMA debut in 1999, announced his plans to retire from the sport by the end of 2015.
Coming off back-to-back losses for the first time in his 46-fight career, "Minotauro" plans to fulfill his UFC contract and move on.
"I know I won’t fight forever," Nogueira told Ag. Fight. "I’m focused on my gym’s business now. It’s a beautiful work, we have 9,000 students, 32 gyms. … I plan to end my career by the end of the next year, I believe. One more year. It’s until the point my body can handle.
"So many injuries, I’m dedicating to other things now. I will decide when the time comes. I have two more fights in my contract, and then I’ll stop (fighting)."
Nogueira entered the Octagon for the first time in 2007 after winning 30 of 36 bouts. The Brazilian eventually became the interim heavyweight champion, but went 5-5 under the UFC banner.
The legendary heavyweight, who fought the who’s who of MMA for over a decade, feels he doesn’t have the recognition he deserves.
"They want to rush my retirement. The fans are very critical in Brazil," he said.
"You see Randy Couture’s career. He has two wins for each loss, and he’s treated like an idol. He’s Capitan American, national hero. I have four wins for each loss, and they say I have to retire. Brazilians are very critical, and I think it’s a bad mentality for the athlete."Mounting costs, risks, and public misgivings of waging war are raising the importance of U.S. power to coerce (P2C). Meanwhile, globalization of trade, investment, finance, information, and energy give the United States promising coercive options, especially against adversaries that depend on access to such markets and systems.
The Power to Coerce: Countering Adversaries Without Going to War documents the most interesting of U.S. P2C options: financial sanctions, support for nonviolent political opposition to hostile regimes, and offensive cyber operations. Cutting off access to the global interbanking system can visit severe and radiating economic pain and be calibrated according to the target's response. Support for prodemocracy opposition can be very threatening and offer strong leverage, but this option can be high risk and calls for judicious use.
Offensive cyber operations are also a high-return, high-risk option. Skillfully targeted, they can disturb the functioning and confidence of states and markets and thus have coercive value. However, the risks and costs of collateral damage, retaliation, and escalation are considerable, especially if the target country is itself a cyber-war power. Given its own vulnerabilities, the United States might wish to raise, not lower, the threshold for cyber war.
The state against which coercion is most difficult and risky is China, which also happens to pose the strongest challenge to U.S. military options in a vital region. Russia, Iran, and other states less robust than China are more-inviting targets for coercive power.
The United States should hone its ability to monitor financial assets and flows and to isolate recalcitrant states and banks that do business with them. The U.S. State Department and intelligence community should refine their methods to support nonviolent democratic opponents in hostile and repressive states and assess the risks and benefits of using those methods. More generally, the U.S. government should prepare for the use of P2C as it does for military warfare, including assessment of options, requirements and capabilities, conducting war games to refine these capabilities, and planning with allies. Just as authorities, responsibilities, and command chains are delineated for hard power, so should they be for P2C.This is why Twitter needs groups. After only 15 days, mothers are signing up at an astounding rate to Twittermoms.com. According to its founder, the site’s growth has been unexpectedly strong, and about 39 percent of its 5,000-or-so daily users are considered “addicts” based on Quantcast figures.
So what gives?
Twittermoms is not what you think. It isn’t a Twitter clone for mothers. Instead, it’s a site where moms who Twitter can come together and talk about being mothers. It is a perfect demographic for Twitter, filled with people who have lots of real opinions based on experience and like to share them. The site features discussion forums for those that want to chat about “The NEW Twitter” or “Pet Peeves” and offers groups based on interests. For example, some mothers choose to join the “Being Moms” group, while others joined the “Twins!” group.
Much like Twitter, the service has a timeline to show the site’s latest action and users can becomes friends with others, thus allowing them to get updates about the forum posts their friends have made, as well as the groups they’ve joined. (Update: It should be noted that all of the features that Twittermoms offers comes from Ning, an online service that specializes in helping companies create social networks.)
At its core, Twittermoms is basically a group for mothers who Twitter. Because of that, it highlights an interesting point: why hasn’t Twitter addressed its need for groups? Present.ly, an enterprise micro-blogging tool we profiled yesterday offers group segmentation on its platform and the feature has proven to be one of the most useful on the service. And considering groups like Twittermoms are cropping up to bring like-minded Twitter users together, Twitter itself may want to start offering groups sooner rather than later.
If you’re a mom and you want to try out Twittermoms, the site is ready to bring you aboard.More fixes are appearing for a pair of highly dangerous vulnerabilities exposed earlier this month in the Android mobile operating system.
Security vendor Webroot and ReKey, a collaboration between Northeastern University in Boston and vendor Duo Security, released software on Tuesday that detects if an Android device is vulnerable and applies a patch.
Google, which manages the open-source Android project, quickly issued patches for the so-called “master key” vulnerabilities, one of which was found by Bluebox Security and another one that appeared on a Chinese-language forum.
But mobile phone manufacturers and operators are often very slow in releasing patches to their users, a problem that is likely to become more critical as mobile device use rises.
The result is a large number of users running vulnerable devices. More than 156 million Android smartphones were sold in the first three months of this year worldwide, amounting to a 74 percent market share, according to analyst Gartner.
The vulnerability found by Bluebox may affect more 900 million devices made over the last four years running Android versions 1.6 and higher.
The vulnerabilities are particularly dangerous since they allow an attacker to modify an Android package file, which is used to install an application, without affecting its original cryptographic signature.
The signature is generated by the application’s author and is used to verify the program’s integrity. By using the vulnerability and maliciously modifying an application, a hacker could gain complete control over an Android device.
ReKey is an application that applies the Google patches. It also will alert users if an application tries to install itself using the vulnerabilities. ReKey needs root access to a device, which is normally not granted to most applications, in order to patch vulnerabilities.
Webroot wrote on Tuesday that it has deployed a patch within its SecureAnywhere Mobile product, which also covers Android’s Jelly Bean 4.1 and Ice Cream Sandwich releases.
Bluebox also has an application that detects if a device is vulnerable and scans for malicious applications.
In order to protect users, Google is scanning applications in its Play store to ensure those programs are legitimate. Android also has a feature, called ”Verify Apps,” which allows Google to vet applications before installation.
Application markets and websites not run by Google have posed a risk for Android users. Security researchers have found numerous examples of popular applications that have been modified to deliver secret code that can spy on users.
Send news tips and comments to [email protected]. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirkPrime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet have accumulated a backlog of more than 300 appointments that are due to be filled, a CBC News investigation has found.
Almost 20 per cent of governor in council (GIC) appointments, which include roles with Crown corporations, port authorities, agencies and tribunals, are currently vacant or occupied by a Conservative appointee whose term is past its expiry date.
Overall, 170 GIC positions are listed as vacant. Another 116 are past their appointment's expiry date but the incumbent has been allowed to remain in the role until he or she is either replaced or renewed.
Currently, 61 federally appointed judge positions are vacant, including one seat on the Supreme Court of Canada.
In the Senate, 20 per cent of the 105 seats are empty. The government has pledged to fill the 21 spots "by the end of the year." Three more senators are due to retire in January.
Taking a toll
In some cases, incumbents have been temporarily renewed only a day or two before their appointments were set to expire because the government had not yet launched the process to find a replacement.
For example, Graham Fraser's appointment as commissioner of official languages, which was set to expire Sunday, was extended Thursday for two months. The government has yet to issue a job posting to find his successor.
Graham Fraser's appointment as commissioner of official languages was extended Thursday for two months, only days before it was set to expire. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
The backlog has taken a toll on the operations of some boards and government bodies.
The CRTC hasn't been able to hold a planned hearing on French music since November because it doesn't have the necessary three French-speaking commissioners.
The parole board, where 21 per cent of positions are currently vacant, says it's being stretched, with its remaining part-time board members putting in additional hours to ensure the work is done.
Alberta judges warned a Senate committee in late September that the 61 vacant judge positions could affect court proceedings, saying the province's justice system is so backlogged they are now setting trial dates for 2018. Last week, an Edmonton judge stayed a murder charge against Lance Matthew Regan, citing delays in bringing the case to trial caused in part by the backlog in Alberta's justice system.
'Overwhelmed'
Liberal government insiders privately point to the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office as the source of the problem, saying "the centre" has been "overwhelmed."
The government is confident the problem will be resolved soon. It says the backlog was caused in part by the decision to overhaul the appointments process and bring in a more open, balanced, merit-based system. The new system is now up and running and vacancies are being filled, officials say.
"Before it was just people being picked based on partisan connections or who was friends with who," said Liberal MP Mark Holland, parliamentary secretary to the minister of democratic institutions.
There seems to be a paralysis within this government about making decisions. - Michael Cooper, Conservative deputy justice critic
"Now, we have Canadians from all walks of life stepping forward and saying they want to serve — many with absolutely extraordinary backgrounds — and it takes time to go through those."
There are 25 job postings on the government's GIC website, some of them for multiple positions. While some are full-time positions with six-figure salaries, others are part-time jobs that come with per diem payments.
Opposition critics say the appointments backlog is symptomatic of a bigger problem with Trudeau's government.
Conservative MP Michael Cooper says the appointments backlog is part of larger problem the Trudeau government has in making decisions. (CBC News)
"There seems to be a paralysis within this government about making decisions … and it appears to extend to decisions respecting appointments," said Michael Cooper, Conservative deputy justice critic.
"This really goes to the effective functioning of boards, agencies, commissions and Crowns, so it's very serious."
NDP justice critic Murray Rankin, a former administrative law professor, is troubled by the vacancies.
"This is a real crisis in administrative justice in Canada," he said, adding the Trudeau government has had a year to make appointments. "A lot of these agencies do important work."
NDP MP Murray Rankin says the appointments backlog is a 'crisis in administrative justice.' (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
Stephen Harper's government went on an appointment spree in the weeks leading up to the last election, not only filling most of the positions that were vacant but making 49 "future appointments" of individuals whose terms weren't due to be renewed until well after the election.
Privy Council officials say when Trudeau took office, there were very few "critical" appointments that had to be made right away.
The Liberal government decided to reform the system and make part-time appointments subject to the same kind of formal selection process used in the past for full-time appointments.
"Until the new approach has been implemented, appointments or re-appointments will only be made to positions essential to government business or to those that deliver important services to Canadians," Trudeau said in a press release on Feb. 25 to announce the new selection process.
A search of orders in council adopted by the Trudeau government revealed that the terms of 98 appointees were renewed for only a year while the government drafted its new appointments policy. The government made another 30 stopgap appointments of less than a year to deal with appointments that were about to expire.
'A remarkable response'
The first job posting drafted under the new process was published at the end of April — nearly six months after the government was sworn in — and an online portal has been set up to allow candidates to apply for open positions.
By the end of September, there were approximately 2,700 applications for just over 50 job competitions.
"It has been a remarkable response," Holland said. "The Canadians that are stepping forward to fill these positions and are looking to serve has been absolutely remarkable."
Liberal insiders say the time it took to set up the new system coupled with the sheer volume of applications have contributed to the backlog. They say the new system only got up and running in earnest toward the end of the summer.
While the number of appointments that fall under each minister's responsibility varies, some ministers, such as Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Trudeau himself, have very few appointments that are vacant or past their expiry date.
Transport Minister Marc Garneau, whose portfolio has the greatest number of GIC appointments, has the most vacant or past their expiry date, with 72.
Transport Minister Marc Garneau has more appointments to fill than any other minister. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly has 28 vacant positions to fill while Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett has 22, including the treaty commissioners in both Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Marc Roy, spokesman for Garneau, points out that some of the 72 positions on the GIC website that fall under Garneau's responsibility are selected by provincial or municipal governments, not the federal government.
He said the minister's office is working closely with the Prime Minister's Office and Privy Council Office "to manage vacancies in a speedy and efficient manner, triaged according to the most pressing needs."
As for the judicial appointments, the government would only say they will be filled "soon."Recently I was given the task of performing command execution on a compromised MSSQL server with the following restrictions:
No use of the xp_cmdshell stored procedure. No writing anything to disk.
These restrictions matched those of a recent pentest that a member of my team, Lee Christensen (@tifkin_), was involved in. Through my research I found that there were basically two means to achieve this objective. The first is through the use of SQL Agent jobs, as documented here. The other option was to create a custom stored procedure using the Common Language Runtime (CLR), which would allow for the execution of code from any of the supported programming languages, such as C#. While both methods require the attacker to have the sysadmin role, each option also has their own unique restrictions. The SQL Agent method requires that the SQL Agent service be active (which it is not by default), and that the SQL Agent service account has the necessary privileges required for the command to execute successfully. The CLR stored procedure method requires the ability to create custom stored procedures, the ability to enable the use of CLR on the SQL Server, and requires that the SQL Server service account has the necessary permissions for the command/code to be executed. I also initially believed that that the stored procedure had to be available externally as a DLL file, and then loaded into the SQL Server for execution, thus failing the second restriction. This turned out not to be the case.
After successfully testing the SQL Agent job method via the CmdExec system, I was informed that tifkin_ had managed to bypass the need for a DLL file by loading the byte stream directly into the SQL server in a previous attack. I set out to replicate his work using my own research and methods. At this point the only reference I had seen to malicious custom stored procedures was in the PowerUpSQL command Create-SQLFileXpDll. This command has the restriction of using DLL files, and was therefore not suitable for this exercise. After some research, I found an invaluable StackOverflow article with the information I was seeking here. It turns out that Visual Studio will output a file that contains all the information necessary to create a CLR stored procedure without ever having to touch the disk of the victim SQL Server. Awesome!
The following are instructions you can follow to create your own assembly code for loading into a SQL Server:
Install Visual Studio along with the SQL Server Data Tools. For my own project I used Visual Studio Express 2013, since the server I was attacking was SQL Server 2012.
Create a new SQL Server project.
Under Project Settings, change the Permission Level to UNSAFE. Make sure the language is C#.
Add a SQL CLR C# Stored Procedure item. This will provide you with a template.
Add your own C# code to the template. For example, here is what my proof of concept code looked like, which created a text file in the c:\temp directory:
using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using System.Data.SqlTypes;
using Microsoft.SqlServer.Server;
public partial class StoredProcedures
{
[Microsoft.SqlServer.Server.SqlProcedure]
public static void SqlStoredProcedure1 ()
{
System.IO.File.AppendAllText("c:\\temp\\test.txt", "this is a test");
}
};
Once the code is ready, go ahead and build it, then browse the output folder. There should be a dacpac file within the bin directory. Extract the dacpac file.
Within the extracted contents of the dacpac file is a file named mode.sql. Open this file in a text editor. You will find the two instructions we need to create the stored procedure. The first loads the assembly, and appears as such:
CREATE ASSEMBLY [adduser] AUTHORIZATION [dbo] FROM 0x4[...snip...] WITH PERMISSION_SET = UNSAFE; The second instruction will create a stored procedure from the loaded assembly, as appears as such: CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[SqlStoredProcedure1] AS EXTERNAL NAME [adduser].[StoredProcedures].[SqlStoredProcedure1];
Now that we have the necessary Common Intermediate Language (CIL) instructions that form the assembly, we can go ahead and begin the attack. First, make sure that whichever account is connecting to the SQL Server has sysadmin privileges, and that the SQL Server service account has the privileges needed to execute your code. The first command to execute sets the SQL Server to allow for CLR instructions to be executed, and is as follows:
sp_configure @configname=clr_enabled, @configvalue=1
If this command executes successfully, then you can go ahead and execute the two previously created commands, in the order listed above. This will load the assembly into memory and create a stored procedure from that assembly. Finally, go ahead and execute the stored procedure using the following command:
EXEC [dbo].[SqlStoredProcedure1];
Assuming that all commands were successful, you should now see the results of your executed code. Amazing! There’s a lot more you can do with this than simple file creation, obviously. There are even ways to pass parameters into your code from the EXEC SQL statement. In my next post I will release a weaponized version of this technique that is capable of running any command of an attacker’s choosing.
In summary, it is not enough to simply disable the xp_cmdshell extended stored procedure on a SQL Server. The ability to create stored procedures must also be locked down, otherwise an attacker can create their own stored procedure that can natively execute C#, all using transactional SQL.
Check out Part 2 with a working PowerShell module here.
Acknowledgements:Altered fate: Using CRISPR to switch on specific genes makes mouse skin cells morph into neurons.
The gene editor CRISPR is as versatile as it is precise. By tweaking the tool or deploying it in novel ways, researchers are solving an expansive list of scientific problems.
Here are three of the latest CRISPR hacks:
Cell switch:
Many researchers use CRISPR to mutate genes, but a modified version of the tool can activate genes instead. This tweak gave one group a fast, efficient way to transform mouse skin cells into neurons1. The technique could allow scientists to easily produce neurons from individuals with conditions such as autism.
Researchers reprogram skin cells by exposing them to chemical cues that coax them toward becoming a new cell type. Typically, they do this by splicing genes that encode the cues into the cells’ DNA. However, cells sometimes switch off these implanted genes.
In the new study, published 1 September in Cell Stem Cell, researchers used a modified version of CRISPR to turn on the skin cells’ own genes, ones that had been silenced during development. They targeted three genes for factors that can directly convert skin cells to neurons.
After three weeks in culture, the cells became mature neurons that could transmit and respond to electrical signals. The CRISPR approach generates more of these functional neurons than the traditional method does.
Tag team:
In a second study, researchers modified the CRISPR system to add or remove chemical tags on DNA2. The tags, called methyl groups, are a form of epigenetic modification — one that controls gene expression without changing the DNA sequence. Methyl groups typically turn genes off.
In the new study, which appeared 22 September in Cell, researchers fused a modified version of CRISPR’s cutting enzyme, CAS9, to either of two other enzymes. One of the enzymes, called DNMT3A, makes the gene editor add methyl groups to DNA. The other enyzme, TET1, causes CRISPR to remove methyl groups.
Among other tests, the scientists used the TET1 system to switch on genes that are typically turned off in cultured neurons. Injecting the system into genetically modified mice alters methylation patterns in the animals’ brains.
Researchers could use the new tools to probe the significance of DNA methylation in autism and other conditions.
Genome scan:
More than 98 percent of the human genome does not code for proteins. Instead, many of these so-called noncoding regions regulate the expression of genes.
In a study published 30 September in Science, researchers used CRISPR to identify which noncoding segments of the genome affect expression of particular genes3.
The researchers used CRISPR to introduce roughly 18,000 mutations into human cells. The enzyme targeted the mutations to noncoding regions near three genes. Mutations that block expression of these genes make the cells resistant to the cancer drug vemurafenib.
The researchers then added the drug and identified hundreds of these mutated locations in the surviving cells. The screening method could reveal noncoding regions of the genome that regulate genes tied to autism.TEL AVIV, Israel, June 17 (UPI) -- Israel's defense industry racked an unprecedented $7.2 billion in exports in 2010, up on the $6.9 billion achieved in 2009.
That put the Jewish state among the world's top four arms exporters but declining military budgets around the world are likely to reduce sales over the coming years.
"We recognize the challenges but we're working hard to maintain the level we're currently at and even to increase it," said Reserve Brig. Gen. Shmaya Avieli, head of the Defense Ministry's Foreign Defense Assistance and Defense Export Department.
The Israelis are hoping to secure big-ticket deals at the Paris Air Show, a major international defense industry showcase next week at the Le Bourget exhibition center.
Government figures indicate Israeli defense companies sold military hardware worth $9.6 billion in 2010, $2.4 billion of it to Israel's military.
But meantime, China, once a promising market for Israeli weapons and electronic systems, remains off-limits, largely because of Israel's ally, the United States.
The Americans blocked the sale of four $250 million Phalcon advanced early warnings aircraft to the People's Liberation Army in 2000, citing U.S. components used in the systems carried by the aircraft. Beijing was furious.
RELATED Israel plans big boost for spy satellites
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who sanctioned the Phalcon deal, is currently in Beijing, the first such visit in a decade.
Israeli officials, however, stressed the policy of no weapons sales to China is still in place.
In 2005, Israel agreed to upgrade Israeli Aerospace Industries unmanned aerial vehicles sold to Beijing in the 1990s. The United States responded by downgrading Israeli's participation in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. The drone upgrade was scrapped.
RELATED Israeli arms firms target Latin America
The Americans remain uneasy about Israeli defense links to China, in particular about the Chengdu J-10, China's new air force fighter, which reputedly involves technology from the joint U.S.-Israeli Lavi fighter project of the 1980s.
The delta-winged Lavi, being developed by IAI, was canceled in 1987 under political pressure from Washington because of soaring costs.
The Americans, who provide Israel with $3 billion a year in military aid, were also reluctant to fund a project that would compete with Lockheed's F-16 Fighting Falcon, the leading U.S. fighter of the day.
Arieh Herzog, head of the Israeli Missile Defense Organization, said in May that Israel halted sensitive technology transfers to China in 2005 and created an office to oversee military exports.
Six years after the Pentagon blocked Israel from advanced military technology over concerns about leaks to China, Washington is once again funding Israeli high-profile air-defense missile systems development.
These focus mainly on IAI's Arrow high-altitude, long-range interceptor designed to down Iranian ballistic missiles and deployed in 2000, and the Iron Dome, intended to counter short range projectiles, which got its baptism of fire in March and April.
Iron Dome is being built by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems of Israel. The U.S. Congress authorized $205 million to support the Iron Dome program in early 2011.
India has expressed interest in the Arrow but given extensive funding provided by the United States, such sales might be problematical. In March, The Jerusalem Post reported that the Defense Ministry was discussing possible Iron Dome sales to European NATO states.
The system will be one of the main attractions in the Israeli pavilion at the Paris Air Show.
Another Israeli missile defense system, David's Sling, designed to counter medium range rockets and missiles, is currently being developed by Rafael in partnership with the U.S. Raytheon Corp.
Increasingly, Israel's defense industry is looking to the Third World for exports. Asia and Latin America, where several states' energy-fueled economies are taking off, have become prime targets, particularly since Israel's alliance with Turkey, a major arms market, collapsed in 2009.
But with defense markets generally shrinking following the global financial meltdown two years ago, and likely to be cut back further as oil prices rise again, the Israelis face growing competition from their key allies, the Americans.
U.S. arms makers are increasingly looking abroad for sales as the U.S. military budget is reduced.
U.S. defense contractors are expected to sell hardware worth a record $46.1 billion to foreign buyers in 2011. That's a nearly 50 percent hike from $31.6 billion in 2010 -- much of it to Israel's Arab adversaries. Five hours after confirming to the Journal-World the hiring of former West Virginia assistant Joe DeForest to become his special-teams coordinator, second-year Kansas University football coach David Beaty revealed that a coaching staff that was decimated by departures this offseason was nearly full again.
“Actually, we’re getting close to being done,” Beaty said Friday night from Sporting KC’s home field, where he entertained a group of 250-300 KU football supporters during KU’s final Football in February event. “We actually have another guy that we’ve already hired. We’re just waiting on the background check to get here, so our D-line job is gonna be full here pretty quick, and then hopefully we’ll finish the running-back job maybe Monday.”
Beaty did not reveal the identity of either candidate for the two remaining vacancies, but did admit he was relieved to have the hiring all but done with a week to spare before the start of spring practices.
“It’s great to get it behind us, and I’m just excited to get those guys here,” he said. “They’re on fire for KU, and they’re excited to get here, and that’s a really cool deal.”
Having nearly a week to get his staff on the same page before opening spring practice on March 6 was invaluable, Beaty said. And he added that he did not anticipate it taking long to get the newcomers up to speed.
“These guys are all pros,” Beaty said. “They’ve been around it for a long time, and most of ’em know our systems, so it’s a pretty easy slide-in there.”
One guy who will get a jump-start on the others is DeForest, a veteran of the Big 12 who comes to Kansas after a four-year stint at West
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setup an ambush.
The other VERY important aspect is how it can stop/delay a defuser plant. This can lead to situations where a frantic attacker plant turns into a quick defender clutch by keeping the drone near the site, without Echo even being nearby. This can take the place of or augment situations like Oregon laundry and Clubhouse pool table plants where Smoke is critical to holding off a plant.
Being a 3 armor/1 speed, you can expect to see him playing site often and using his drone to help team mates. With Hibana in the mix however, playing site is less safe than ever so you will see him played for roaming as well.
Thoughts from Pro Players
I think Echo will be an awesome new niche pick which will also cause a decrease in valk's pick rate which will be nice. - Canadian, Team Continuum, #1 PC Team I think smoke is still going to be inplay, his utility is still relevant and yeah echo's weapons might be better but its hard to beat smoke with area denial. - Necrox (smoke player), Team Continuum, #1 PC Team
SKYSCRAPER
With this map the developers went for a more "vanilla" design after the extremes that were Yacht, Border, and Favela. It was designed to be competitive with a nice balance of risk vs reward spawn points, rappelling, bomb sites, hatches, and destructible inside/outside walls/floors. They also designed the map to have lots of recognizable and different areas instead of the sameness of maps like Hereford and Border where call-outs can be difficult. There are 4 bomb sites, 2 on each floor, with 2 in one corner stacked on top of each other, and 2 in another corner also stacked on each other. They even added the first rappel focused spawn point! It's too early to tell which bomb sites will be preferred and what the real meta will be on the site, but you can bet the new operators will be involved. The important part is that this is a map we will likely see actively played.
Thoughts from Pro Players
Skyscraper is probably one of the best competitive maps, I think it will get played a lot. - Snake, Team Most Wanted, #3 PC Team
CALIBER DESTRUCTION
The variations on holes in materials based on the gun used won't have a major impact on the meta at first. Over time things like kill holes, wall bangs, and crawl holes will see tweaks. The most obvious thing you'll notice is the difference in hole sizes between pistols, rifles, shotguns and DMRs.
ARM AND NECK SHOTS DAMAGE UPDATE
The changes to arm and neck damage will overall lead to a more lethal game, along with hopefully a lot less complaints about head shot hit reg. The arm damage boost will definitely affect situations where the arm is more exposed than the body such as when peeking and using shields. The neck damage changes will likely result in an even higher percentage of instantly lethal engagements between pro players. This will especially affect characters with strange head to neck hit boxes like Rook and Doc. This will also likely lead to lower cross hair placement as you can let recoil ride up from upper chest/neck height instead of accidentally jumping the head. Guns with extremely high fire rate and straight up recoil like the SMG-11 will greatly benefit from this and lead to more kills with less whiffing.
The modifications to shotgun damage probably won't affect a lot of shotgun players, but some of the weaker pumps like Smoke's shotgun will be even less effective, making them a really sub-par choice.
Thoughts from Pro Players
The damage change to make it so arm shots deal 1.0x damage is a bit silly but somewhat understandable - it however nerfs shield operators pretty significantly. The removal of the neck hitbox is going to make the game a lot less frustrating and more frustrating at the same time. You'll headshot more but you yourself will be headshot more. - Meepy, Team Playing Ducks, #2 PC Team
WEAPON BALANCING
Removing the ACOG from the SMG-11 is something that has been requested a lot and has finally been done. Between this, the shotgun nerfs, and the addition of Echo, we will likely see a lot less Smoke play in the future. Smoke played a pretty critical role in a lot of the pro league and finals play, but that will change pretty heavily.
The boost to Caveira's pistol is a nice change as I've seen a lot of potential kills spoiled by the range dropoff. This alone is unlikely to make her any more viable as a pro operator however, due to the better choices available, including Echo now.
The damage nerf to Blackbeards gun was definitely a much needed change to a still overpowered operator. If you do the math, 2 shots at 55 damage is enough to kill a 100 hp defender, but 2 shots at 44 is not. That simple change may be enough to allow non-headshots to result in more escapes from Blackbeard, but now with the neck also counting as a headshot, it's hard to say. I can't see this change or any of the others making Blackbeard any less of a must pick. With Hibana now able to open kill holes in reinforced walls, we can expect him to be even more of a must pick.
The nerf to Capitao's Para wasn't hugely necessary, but as a utility driven operator that was a bit overpowered at 3 speed with grenades, its a good change. This won't affect his pick rate, as he will still be fairly lethal and his speed plus utility can't be beat.
To sum things up as far as operator picks go, Smoke less, Caveira still no, and Blackbeard/Capitao the same.
Thoughts from Pro Players
I think the removal of ACOG on the SMG-11 was somewhat unnecessary, but is also kind of inconsequential because I think smoke will probably be falling out of the meta somewhat either way. Lastly I think the damage nerfs on Capitao and Blackbeard's guns were necessary!- Canadian, Team Continuum, #1 PC Team
3 MINUTE ACTION PHASE IN THE RANKED PLAYLIST
This is a change that on the surface doesn't seem to directly affect pro league play, but most definitely will. One of the most common complaints I get from pro players in interviews is that outside of scrims there isn't a good way to practice. This is due to how having 4 minutes changes so much of Ranked play from Pro League that it's unsuitable as practice most of the time. This change will benefit both the current pro league players, as well as those hopefuls who only get a taste of it before being crushed in Go4 matches.
CONCLUSION
The new meta is going to be a bit more chaotic, with a great new map and a lot less site play. The new operators will be mostly must picks, especially if Thermite is allowed at the same time as Hibana. Some operators like Thatcher, IQ, and Blackbeard will be more useful, and some like Smoke will be less useful. Head shots will be plentiful and even arm shots will be more lethal. I expect a much harder time for defenders trying to run out attackers time, along with a much higher need for careful and timely droning. Roaming will be much more prevalent for defenders, but with a bit more intel and ambush power available thanks to Echo. A good majority of the strategies for all the popular sites will see significant changes.
Good or bad, the Invitational will play out very different from Season 3 finals.The Crossbow
The crossbow was invented in China but developed into a significant weapon in medieval Europe. With a mechanism for holding the drawn bow until it was ready to release, it propelled arrows with tremendous force over 350 yards. The crossbow allowed soldiers to fire from great distances and avoid close contact with the enemy. Swords, which had to be used at close range, were no match.
Gunpowder
The discovery of gunpowder led to the development of cannons in the 1300s. Cannons could demolish castle walls and blast through wooden ships. The cannon started as a clumsy battlefield weapon but soon became one of the most essential chess pieces for military commanders. As the weapon became more advanced, more uses were found for it.
Machine Guns
Machine guns allowed for rapid, continuous fire, thereby eliminating frequent reloading. The first was the Gatling gun, used in the American Civil War. The British soon carried them over to the Boer War, and soon the machine gun became one of the most common sights on the battlefield.
The Tank
The tank, an armored combat vehicle equipped with a cannon and machine guns, replaced the use of rifles in war. It put an end to trench warfare, since tanks, with their caterpillar traction, could easily bulldoze over trenches. Tanks were first used at the end of World War I, and they emerged as a symbol of modern warfare. They are still highly used today.
Aircraft
Combat aircraft, both bombers and fighter planes, changed the nature of war during World War II. Air superiority became critical to victory. The British Spitfire, American Mustang, and German Messerschmitt were among the most famous fighter planes of the war. Planes had first been used to great effect in the First World War, but the intervening years took them from being tools for scouting to tools of devastating power.
Nuclear Bombs
Nuclear weapons, first developed in 1945, allow for massive destruction. Atom and hydrogen bombs are examples of nuclear weapons. Because these weapons are so perilous to human existence, treaties limit their development, but many rogue countries still hope to build them.
Precision Smart Bombs
Smart bombs are highly accurate bombs that are guided to their targets by computers. Smart bombs hit their targets much more frequently than unguided dumb bombs and cause both fewer casualties and less damage to civilian areas.A female prison officer has joined her murdering lover behind bars after she showered him with gifts including alcohol, drugs, mobile phones - and even porn.
Anita Allenby, 57, became infatuated with 28-year-old Falak Alam, who was put in prison after stabbing a man to death over a bodged drug deal when he was 16.
Mum-of-two Anita then smuggled in three phones, Spice, Subutex, steroids, cannabis, porn and vodka into HMP Full Sutton for Alam during a four-month period.
Hull Crown Court, East Yorks., heard evidence of the bounty was covertly hidden in 60 hand-written 'love letters' to Allenby - after they struck up a'sexual relationship'.
Pictured: Prison officer Anita Allenby, left, and convicted murderer Falak Alam, right. Hull Crown Court heard the duo struck up a sexual relationship
Alam had requested Anita to bring him pornography on memory sticks which 'goes like hot cakes' - as lags were offering to pay £1,500 for three devices.
Prosecutor Mark McKone said of Allenby, who began working at the jail in 2005: 'She fell in love with Falak Alam, despite being 29 years older than him.
'Falak Alam might or might not have been in love with her, but they had a sexual relationship, as evidenced by the letters.'
Alam used his disabled brother Arif Alam, 31, to source the contraband, which was worth three times its street value in prison, and hand it to Anita to then pass on to the inmate.
The court heard the conspiracy was 'largely successful' - but it was slang terms found in the love letters in December 2014 that were the scheme's undoing.
Alam spoke of having 'decent dark' in reference to cannabis resin, but said the skunk [herbal variety] was 'poor quality'.
He used 'bag of sand' to refer to a 'grand' - ie, £1,000 - and also said 'people going to turn up with the paper' in another reference to cash.
Alam also offered to buy Allenby new laptops and a 'pressie' in return, telling her: 'I'll get someone to get you one from PC World.'
Pictured: HMP Full Sutton in East Yorkshire, where Allenby supplied Alam with drugs, booze and pornography
Jailing the trio for a total of 15 years, judge David Tremberg, QC, told her: 'You, Anita Allenby, well knew that the relationship itself, and what was to follow, was fundamentally incompatible with your role as a prison officer.
'To behave as you did was a root and branch abuse of trust and a dereliction of your core duty.'
Allenby, of Howden, East Yorks., admitted conspiracy to supply MDMA, conspiracy to supply cannabis, and conveying mobile phones into prison.
She was jailed for five years and ten months.
Falak Alam admitted conspiracy to supply MDMA, conspiracy to supply cannabis, and conveying mobile phones into prison.
He was jailed for six years and three months, which will start on May 1, 2019, just before his earliest release date.
Arif Allam, of Leeds, West Yorks., admitted conspiracy to supply cannabis, conveying mobile phones into prison, and a range of driving offences after stealing and crashing his disabled father's car.
He was jailed for two years and six months, and was banned from driving for 42 months.
A Prison Service spokesperson said: 'We do not tolerate any corruption and we take swift action against those who undermine the good work of their colleagues or compromise the safety of our prisons.'
'The vast majority of our prison staff are hard-working and honest but the small minority who involve themselves in corruption will face the full force of the law.'Contrary to what most people believe, we do pay some attention when people ask us to do MTF testing on certain lenses. I’m not saying we do it, but we do pay attention to the requests and when we have some downtime will look at that request lists and see if there’s something on it we can get to. One thing that a lot of people have asked about is how the third-party ultra-wide angle zooms look. Certainly, there’s reason for interest. The third-party alternatives cost far less than the newer brand-name ultra wide lenses.
We’re going to put them out in one post, but really the three third-party ultra wide options aren’t all directly comparable to each other. The new Sigma 12-24mm f/4 DG HSM Art lens is an alternative to the Canon 11-24mm f/4 L. The Tamron 15-30mm Di VC USD provides an alternative to the Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 L lenses and the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 ED AF-S. The Tokina AT-X 16-28mm f/2.8 Pro offers an even lower cost option.
To be clear, MTF charts shouldn’t be the first consideration when choosing an ultra-wide zoom. Things like flare-resistance, vignetting, and whether you can easily use a filter on the lens may all be more important than absolute sharpness with an ultra-wide zoom. But sharpness is always nice to know about.
Remember, as always, that all of the lenses were tested at the widest aperture. This means the f/4 lenses would be expected to be sharper than the f/2.8 lenses if all else was equal. If a f/2.8 lens is nearly as good as a f/4 lens on these tests, then you would expect it to be better once stopped down to f/4. To simplify things for those who want to tell me they want to see what the f/2.8 lenses look like at f/4, I’d be happy to. It costs around $4,000 to bench-test a set of 10 ultra-wides, so just let me know the check’s on the way, and we’ll get right on it.
In the meantime, here are the results of the tests we have done.
MTF Results
I’m going to start by just giving the MTF graphs for the three third-party ultra-wide zooms. Since these are 2X zooms, we tested them just at the two extremes. (OK, truth is ultra-wide lenses take foooorrreeeevver to test on the optical bench, our patience isn’t all that good, and we decided to use that 2X thing as an excuse not to do the center of the focus range too.) We’ll present the MTFs for each lens with the widest end on the left.
That’s pretty good at both ends of the range, but most impressive at the wide end which is clearly sharper both on and off axis than the long end. Since most people are going to use an ultra-wide at the wider end, I think that’s a good choice.
The Tamron also puts it’s best at the wide end, and it’s quite spectacular there. Remember this is at f/2.8 which should make a lower MTF, but it’s just about as good as the Sigma. But also remember the Sigma is vastly wider, which is a tough thing to do. So far, though, I’m impressed with the third-party offerings.
The Tokina is a bit older in design and by far the least expensive of the ultra-wide zooms. At the wide end, it’s not bad. Not as good as the Tamron, but acceptable. At the 28mm end, though, it’s really pretty weak. Still, it’s adequate at the wide end, and most people have the longer end covered by a 24-70 or similar alternative lens. Given the very low price of the Tokina, it would give a lot of individuals a practical ultra-wide option.
MTF Comparisons
I thought it would be useful to do some graphs giving direct comparisons between the third-party wide zooms and a few of the brand-name lenses they would be alternatives for.
We’ll compare at both the wide and long ends with the Canon on the left, Sigma on the right. Remember the Canon is at 11mm while the Sigma is at 12mm in this graph. Here is the wide end of the range.
The Canon is a tiny bit better than the Sigma, but this difference is small, and I doubt you’d see much difference in actual use. Copy-to-copy variation is greater than this difference in averages.
And here they are at 24mm.
At 24mm the Canon has a clear advantage in MTF, one that would probably be noticeable, although the Sigma has lower astigmatism-like separation. The Canon would have a clear resolution advantage at 24mm. On the other hand, the Sigma has a $1,200 advantage at checkout. If I were buying the lens to use at the wide end mostly, the Sigma would have to be considered a very viable alternative.
I suspect the comparison to the Canon Mk II lens is more pertinent and probably fairer. The Mk III is a brand-new release costing $2,300. The Mk II is still widely available new for around $1,450, while the Tamron is about $1,200. We’ll compare the Tamron to the Canon 16-35 Mk II first. Remember this is at the extreme of the zoom range, so in this first chart, we’re comparing the Canon at 16mm to the Tamron at 15mm.
While the Canon has a little sharpness advantage right in the center, off-axis the Tamron looks much better with less astigmatism and higher resolution out near the edges.
Now we’ll look at the long end, by comparing the Canon at 35mm to the Tamron at 30mm.
The Tamron’s still a bit better, although things are more even now. As I mentioned, there’s a lot more to choosing an ultra-wide zoom than MTF, but these curves would suggest the Tamron deserves strong consideration if you’re considering the Mk II Canon.
OK, if you’re planning on buying a Mk III, then you probably aren’t considering third-party alternatives. That lens is a good example of sometimes things are expensive because they’re worth it. But I thought the Tamron’s performance was really good and for fun thought we’d post it up against the new wide-angle MTF champ and see how it looked.
That’s a pretty credible performance for the Tamron. Sure, it’s not as good as the Canon Mk III, but it’s still pretty damn good for $1,000 lower sticker price.
Nikon 14-24mm Comparisons
The Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 has, until the Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 Mk III, been the gold standard of all wide-angle zooms. Lately, you’ve been able to find it refurbished or as gray market for only slightly more than the Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8, so I thought that comparison would be appropriate, too. Here is the Nikon at 14mm compared first against the Tamron at 15mm and the Tokina at 16mm. Remember, though, the difference between 14mm and 15mm is pretty noticeable.
The Tokina is obviously not as sharp as the Nikon, but as we mentioned above, at the price they’re asking it’s definitely usable. The Tamron matches up pretty well, though. A tiny bit less sharp in the center but perhaps a bit sharper in the edges, although with more astigmatism / lateral color.
Conclusions
From an optical point, the MTF tests agree with what people have said for some time. The Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 is certainly competitive with the Canon and Nikon wide zoom lenses. It’s certainly worth consideration if you’re buying in this range. Of course, as I said earlier, there’s a lot to consider in a wide zoom that has nothing to do with MTF. If the shooting you’ll do makes Vibration Control useful, this is the lens for you. If you want to use screw on front filters, this isn’t.
The Tokina is decent at the wide end, but not so much at 28mm. I’ll add that while I’m not putting up variance numbers with these, the Tokina’s were all over the place at 28mm. There was one copy that was every bit as good at 28mm as it was at 16mm. The majority were pretty poor, though. I say this because I’m sure some people have copies of this lens that are good at both ends. But I think they would be the exception. Still, given its price and the fact that most people use other lenses at 24mm and up, it’s certainly worth looking at, especially for those who only shoot wide occasionally.
Roger Cicala and Aaron Closz
Lensrentals.com
January, 2017Wayne Pickering (AKA, Brian McConnell), head of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco formed to honor George W. Bush -- which, at the risk of boasting, SFist was the first to tell you about back in March -- just contacted SFist to let us know that commission's ordinance initiative to changing the name of the Oceanside Wastewater Treatment Facility to the "George W Bush Sewage Plant" will, in fact, be on the November ballot. More details to come. Stay tuned.
Pickering was worried yesterday that they might not qualify since there was a spot check of 500 of their signatures. But that's normal since the process works like this: the power that be test 500 random signatures against the voter files. Based on said raw count, if no more than 143 of the 500 signatures (28%) are thrown out, you automatically qualify for the ballot. And: ta-da! Also, according to Wayne, "we turned in 11,999 signatures, of which 11,041 were counted in the official raw count. We need 7,168 signatures from SF voters to qualify, so we went in with over 50% more than we needed."
Congrats, craz poop plant renaming people! For the full press release, follow the jump.391219 08: Bruno, a one and a half year old pitbull dog believed to have attacked 10 year-old Shawn Jones with two other dogs, is kept in a pen at the Pinole Animal Services Center June 26, 2001 in Martinez, CA. Jones remains hospitalized in critical condition after he was attacked by three pitbull dogs. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) A Hollywood, Florida man is in custody, accused of pouring scalding water on a 1-year-old pit bull during a domestic dispute, according to court records. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
– A 1-year-old put bull is recovering after a brutal case of animal cruelty, reports WSVN-TV
The dog, named Moon, was rushed to an animal hospital Sunday night with much of her skin burned off by scalding water.
“It’s horrible, you know,” cried Moon’s owner Mariah Facca. “She doesn’t even have any fur. She used to love going in the water. I don’t even think she wants to be around water.”
Facca told police she was breaking up with her boyfriend, 27-year-old Alain Williams, when he told her he had poured boiling water on the dog.
Moon suffered second-degree burns on 40 percent of her body. Veterinarians fear the burns are so extensive that her organs may fail.
“Her wounds are basically on top of her head…the back, the leg and part of her forelegs too, so she has pretty significant burns,” explained Veterinary Dr. Fumiko Miyamoto.
Moon is facing a long road to recovery. Vets caution she will need her bandages changed each day for to 90 days; and she’ll need months of care after that.
“It hurts a lot. I don’t want nothing to happen to my dog. I love her so much,” Facca pleaded.
Williams was arrested and charged with animal cruelty. During the arrest, he threatened police, vowing he would “find them and kill them” before they subdued him with Taser, according to the police report.
On Monday a judge set his bond for $86,000, admonishing Williams. “Burning the skin off an animal is really just beyond anyone’s imagination as to what the dog went through.”
(TM and © Copyright 2014 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2014 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)Abstract From the foods we eat and the houses we construct, to our religious practices and political organization, to who we can marry and the types of games we teach our children, the diversity of cultural practices in the world is astounding. Yet, our ability to visualize and understand this diversity is limited by the ways it has been documented and shared: on a culture-by-culture basis, in locally-told stories or difficult-to-access repositories. In this paper we introduce D-PLACE, the Database of Places, Language, Culture, and Environment. This expandable and open-access database (accessible at https://d-place.org) brings together a dispersed corpus of information on the geography, language, culture, and environment of over 1400 human societies. We aim to enable researchers to investigate the extent to which patterns in cultural diversity are shaped by different forces, including shared history, demographics, migration/diffusion, cultural innovations, and environmental and ecological conditions. We detail how D-PLACE helps to overcome four common barriers to understanding these forces: i) location of relevant cultural data, (ii) linking data from distinct sources using diverse ethnonyms, (iii) variable time and place foci for data, and (iv) spatial and historical dependencies among cultural groups that present challenges for analysis. D-PLACE facilitates the visualisation of relationships among cultural groups and between people and their environments, with results downloadable as tables, on a map, or on a linguistic tree. We also describe how D-PLACE can be used for exploratory, predictive, and evolutionary analyses of cultural diversity by a range of users, from members of the worldwide public interested in contrasting their own cultural practices with those of other societies, to researchers using large-scale computational phylogenetic analyses to study cultural evolution. In summary, we hope that D-PLACE will enable new lines of investigation into the major drivers of cultural change and global patterns of cultural diversity.
Citation: Kirby KR, Gray RD, Greenhill SJ, Jordan FM, Gomes-Ng S, Bibiko H-J, et al. (2016) D-PLACE: A Global Database of Cultural, Linguistic and Environmental Diversity. PLoS ONE 11(7): e0158391. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0158391 Editor: Alex Mesoudi, University of Exeter, UNITED KINGDOM Received: April 11, 2016; Accepted: May 9, 2016; Published: July 8, 2016 Copyright: © 2016 Kirby et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability: The D-PLACE database (and all data contained within) is available at http://d-place.org. Funding: D-PLACE was developed with generous support from the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (www.nescent.org), the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (http://www.shh.mpg.de/en), and the National Science Foundation (award numbers 1519987, BCS-1423711, and EF-0905606). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Database Content Cultural data To date, D-PLACE includes coded cultural data drawn from two major cross-cultural databases: the Ethnographic Atlas [11–15] and the Binford Hunter-Gatherer dataset [16,17]. The Ethnographic Atlas was chosen as a starting point because, with 1291 societies, it is the largest of the different cross-cultural databases (see a comparison of samples in [33,34]). As cultural features are dynamic and often display internal variation, most cross-cultural researchers have coded variables for a particular time and place focus [33,34]. D-PLACE facilitates the matching of time and place foci among datasets that are compiled by different authors by ensuring that downloaded data are tagged with a focal time (the year to which ethnographic data refer), and focal place that includes a focal latitude/longitude and any supplementary information provided on location (e.g., name of village or area). In addition, each data point is linked to one or more of the 4,000+ ethnographic sources that were consulted in coding the data [11–14,16]. In preparing the EA and Binford datasets for D-PLACE, we replaced society names identified as pejorative with a preferred, English-language ethnonym. A searchable list of ‘alternate’ names for each society includes the original society name and, where available, one or more autonyms in the society’s own language, as well as other commonly encountered ethnonyms. For heuristic purposes, we use the term “society” to refer to cultural groups in the database. In most cases, a society can be understood to represent a group of people at a focal location with a shared language that differs from that of their neighbors. However, in some cases multiple societies share a language (S1 Table). There is also some variation among authors of different datasets in how societies are delineated, with the same cultural group embedded in a larger unit in one cross-cultural sample, but split into multiple groups in another. For example, the society Murdock [11] refers to as “Tunava” includes both the Deep Springs Valley and Fish Lake Valley Paiute groups, whereas Binford [16] describes the Fish Lake and Deep Springs Paiute as distinct societies. As described below, D-PLACE highlights potential links among such societies by assigning them a matched “cross-dataset id”, but leaves decisions on how to combine data to the user. Here we briefly describe the two component databases. S1 Supporting Information provides additional details on the methods we used to adapt the Ethnographic Atlas and Binford Hunter-Gatherer dataset for inclusion in D-PLACE. Ethnographic Atlas database. D-PLACE includes coded data from the Ethnographic Atlas (EA) for 1291 societies distributed globally (Fig 1), ranging from societies with complex agricultural economies and political systems to small hunter-gatherer groups [11–15]. The EA focuses on preindustrial societies, not on contemporary nation-states. Over 90 cultural traits are coded in the EA, with an emphasis on those describing kinship and marriage, but including traits describing subsistence economy, religion, and the division of labour. The “focal year”, i.e., the time period to which the cultural data refer is before 1800 for 3% of societies, in the 19th century for 25%, between 1900 and 1950 for 69%, and after 1950 for 2%; 1% of the 1291 societies are missing a focal year. While the sample is global, there is an emphasis on North American and African societies. Binford Hunter-Gatherer database. The Binford Hunter-Gatherer database includes coded cultural data for 339 hunter-gatherer societies [16]. According to Binford ([16]:130), the sample includes “all hunter gatherer groups known to exist during colonial and more recent era […] that were described with sufficient detail to be included in a comparative analysis.” The database includes 40 ethnographic variables, some of which overlap topically with those of the EA (e.g., subsistence economy, marriage system), and others that are distinct (e.g., size of groups cooperating for subsistence, distance moved by nomadic societies per year). The focal year for data in the Binford dataset is before 1800 for 2% of societies, in the 19th century for 63%, between 1900 and 1950 for 22%, and after 1950 for 11%; 2% of the 339 societies are missing a focal year [17]. Of the Binford societies 66% are also described in the EA, though in some cases their focal dates and locations differ from their EA counterparts. Compared to the EA, the Binford dataset includes many more societies in Australia and in northern North America. Combining cultural data across the EA and Binford datasets. We have not attempted to combine cultural data across different contributing databases, for two reasons. First, even when working on similar topics, different ethnographers may have had particular emphases, and different coders/authors may have unique coding scales and rules. Second, as noted above, different authors have often used different time and place foci even though they are coding the same society. Because cultural practices change over time and vary by region, discrepancies are to be expected when the foci are different. For example, both the EA and Binford datasets include cultural data for the Pumé (“Yaruro”) of Venezuela. Recent ethnographies distinguish between River Pumé and Savanna Pumé, with River Pumé described as more dependent on horticulture, and Savanna Pumé on foraging [35]. The EA and Binford datasets differ in their foci for the Pumé, and the values Murdock and Binford assigned to hunting, gathering and fishing as sources of Pumé subsistence diverge accordingly. The EA, which relies on descriptions of Pumé of the Cinaruco River by Leeds [36], describes Pumé subsistence as made up of a near-equal mix of shifting agriculture combined with pig husbandry (contributing approximately 40% and 10% to subsistence, respectively) and hunting-gathering-fishing (contributing 20%, 20% and 10%, respectively). The Binford dataset describes hunting, gathering and fishing as contributing 6%, 41%, and 53% of subsistence needs, respectively, reflecting Binford’s greater reliance on work carried out with Savanna Pumé (e.g., [37]). Many similar examples exist, and therefore we have chosen to present data from the EA and Binford datasets separately in D-PLACE and allow users to decide how best to combine these different data sources for their intended purposes. Differences in time foci can also be critical. For example, the main focal year for matched Binford and EA societies sometimes differs by more than 50 years (e.g., the focal year for Chumash in the EA is 1800, and in Binford is 1860). Users may therefore wish to consider whether discrepancies in codes could reflect cultural changes between the focal times described. The Binford dataset is one of the few major cross-cultural datasets to report multiple estimates for different time and place foci for a single society. For example, Binford ([16]:288–298) provides estimates of household size pre- and post-settlement in reservations for some societies in the US Southwest; in summer vs. winter for arctic groups; in the wet vs. dry season for tropical groups; and in different settlements or villages of the same society. In deciding not to harmonize or summarize these data in any way, D-PLACE maintains the insights into intra-cultural variation they provide. For display on the website’s maps and trees, one estimate is chosen at random for each society. All estimates are included when data are downloaded as a comma-separated values (CSV) file. We provide users with a number of tools to help make decisions about when and where cultural data may be compared and combined. First, as mentioned previously, data are tagged with a society name, the dialect or language spoken by the society, a focal time, and a focal place. Second, each cultural data point is linked to its source ethnographies where possible. Third, to facilitate access to further cultural data for D-PLACE societies, we also provide information on where each society appears in other major cross-cultural databases, including the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (see [38]; see [39]); eHRAF World Cultures (HRAF; [40]); Jorgensen’s Western North American Indian dataset [41], and Bowern’s CHIRILA dataset for Australian languages [42]. While differences in time and place foci are undoubtedly important sources of variation in the data, biases of dataset coders and of the ethnographers on whose descriptions codes are based will also be important. We therefore urge researchers thinking of using variables in D-PLACE for new research to consult the detailed codebooks that are linked to each component database, as these provide complete descriptions of coding rules used by Murdock and Binford, as well as any decisions made by D-PLACE authors when adapting the codes for D-PLACE (see also S1 Supporting Information). We also recommend researchers consider coding a random sample of the societies from the original ethnographic sources to assess inter-coder reliability, and to better understand the source ethnographies on which the codes are based. Linguistic Data The language spoken by a society is an important
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Join this beautiful south metro ride and support CAP Agency Crisis Nursery. $10 per bike. Registration begins at 11am. Bikers return to JT's Hideaway at 6pm. Food and drink ticket will be provided after the run. Raffle tickets and Prevent Child Abuse Blue Ribbons will be sold to support the cause! Proceeds will benefit the Crisis Nursery!Terry Bily952-758-3322
Geneva Cancer Run (# 21517) 09-Jun-2012 (Saturday)
Geneva, MN
If you have felt the wrath of cancer come ride with us, starting and ending in Geneva, $10 to ride, food will be a minimum of a $5 donation at the end! door prizes and silent auctions, cars and bikes welcome......having fun and helping the cause!
Jake Jensen
507-320-8557 / (Saturday)If you have felt the wrath of cancer come ride with us, starting and ending in Geneva, $10 to ride, food will be a minimum of a $5 donation at the end! door prizes and silent auctions, cars and bikes welcome......having fun and helping the cause!Jake Jensen507-320-8557 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
Care Packages For Soldiers Albert Lea (# 21037) 16-Jun-2012 (Saturday)
Albert Lea, MN
Bergdale Harley DavidsonRide 11:00. $20/Rider $10/PassengerThis is a fundraiser for sending care packages to soldiers overseas. The Patriot Guard will be helping us out. Hoping to get as many flags as possible on bikes and riding in a designated route, which will be posted at a later date.A dinner, silent auction and door prizes will be at th......
Lorianne Marquardt
507-766-6233 / (Saturday)Bergdale Harley DavidsonRide 11:00. $20/Rider $10/PassengerThis is a fundraiser for sending care packages to soldiers overseas. The Patriot Guard will be helping us out. Hoping to get as many flags as possible on bikes and riding in a designated route, which will be posted at a later date.A dinner, silent auction and door prizes will be at th...... For More Information Click Here Lorianne Marquardt507-766-6233 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
Kylers Kruz - 4th Annual (# 22016) 16-Jun-2012 (Saturday)
Mound, MN
Ride starts and ends at the Minnetonka American Legion in Mound, MN.Ride approximately 100 miles.The Minnetonka ALR Post #398 is working with The American Legion Legacy Scholarship Run and several Veterans Related Charities on a benefit motorcycle run. The money raised will benefit American Legion Legacy Scholarship fund and Veterans Related Ch......
Kevin M. Wells
952-472-9582 / (Saturday)Ride starts and ends at the Minnetonka American Legion in Mound, MN.Ride approximately 100 miles.The Minnetonka ALR Post #398 is working with The American Legion Legacy Scholarship Run and several Veterans Related Charities on a benefit motorcycle run. The money raised will benefit American Legion Legacy Scholarship fund and Veterans Related Ch...... For More Information Click Here Kevin M. Wells952-472-9582 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
Angels Hotrods And Hogs (# 22657) 16-Jun-2012 (Saturday)
Chanhassen, MN
Join the excitement of this growing Twin Cities event by purchasing your ticket to our poker run-style motorcycle and car rally. Upon registration a punch card will be mailed to you that will act as your event ticket. Checkpoints will be located around the Twin Cities where participants can receive punches. Guests with a full punch card at the fina......
www.mnangel.org/events/item/18
Brooke Trierweiler
612-627-9000 / (Saturday) Join the excitement of this growing Twin Cities event by purchasing your ticket to our poker run-style motorcycle and car rally. Upon registration a punch card will be mailed to you that will act as your event ticket. Checkpoints will be located around the Twin Cities where participants can receive punches. Guests with a full punch card at the fina...... For More Information Click Here Brooke Trierweiler612-627-9000 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
Red Bull Motorcycle Run (# 22495) 23-Jun-2012 (Saturday)
Stacy, MN
This Ride benifits all deployed military with preference to the 34th 'Red Bull' Infantry Division of the MN National Guard. The run starts at the Stacy Municipal Bar and grill and ends at the Stars and Strikes in Wyoming MN.The Run is approximately 100mi with 3 stops.There will be a Silent Auction, Band and Family Entertainment after th......
www.csoaf.com
Bob Schule
Email Motorcycle Event Organizer (Saturday)This Ride benifits all deployed military with preference to the 34th 'Red Bull' Infantry Division of the MN National Guard. The run starts at the Stacy Municipal Bar and grill and ends at the Stars and Strikes in Wyoming MN.The Run is approximately 100mi with 3 stops.There will be a Silent Auction, Band and Family Entertainment after th...... For More Information Click Here Bob Schule
Pal Ryder Motorcycle Run (# 22542) 23-Jun-2012 (Saturday)
Minneapolis, MN
The Ride will start in Minneapolis and end in Hinckley, MN at Tobies' Restaurant. There will be a banquet and raffle, as well as food at stops along the way, all included in the registration cost. The start is sponsored by Minneapolis McDonald Owners and they will be providing breakfast before the the ride. Dennis Kirk is also sponsoring a stop......
www.minneapolispal.org
Brianna Garman
612-673-3447 / (Saturday)The Ride will start in Minneapolis and end in Hinckley, MN at Tobies' Restaurant. There will be a banquet and raffle, as well as food at stops along the way, all included in the registration cost. The start is sponsored by Minneapolis McDonald Owners and they will be providing breakfast before the the ride. Dennis Kirk is also sponsoring a stop...... For More Information Click Here Brianna Garman612-673-3447 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
Pike Ribbon Ride - 7th Annual (# 23026) 23-Jun-2012 (Saturday)
Janesville, MN
$15.00 per person/$25.00 couple silen auction,quilt raffle drawing 100 +miles ride game at each stop all bike welcome or any kind of vehicle welcome
Dawn
507-381-1922 (Saturday)$15.00 per person/$25.00 couple silen auction,quilt raffle drawing 100 +miles ride game at each stop all bike welcome or any kind of vehicle welcomeDawn507-381-1922
Can You Hear The Thunder Ride (# 23040) 30-Jun-2012 (Saturday)
Aurora, MN
Bike Ride for the local Mesabi Thunder special Olympics team. Line up at 11:00 a.m. at the Aurora A&W. Then ride to Fortune Bay and around to The Sawmill in Virginia and then back to the Community Center in Aurora for burgers and great door prizes. $30/$50 includes shirt, supper, prizes. There will also be a DJ, silent auction, and car wash. Ev......
Barbara Hinsz
218-780-7687 / (Saturday)Bike Ride for the local Mesabi Thunder special Olympics team. Line up at 11:00 a.m. at the Aurora A&W. Then ride to Fortune Bay and around to The Sawmill in Virginia and then back to the Community Center in Aurora for burgers and great door prizes. $30/$50 includes shirt, supper, prizes. There will also be a DJ, silent auction, and car wash. Ev...... For More Information Click Here Barbara Hinsz218-780-7687 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
Care Packages Fundraiser For Soldiers Mankato (# 21035) 14-Jul-2012 (Saturday)
Mankato, MN
Ride 11:00. $20/Rider $10/PassengerThis is a fundraiser for sending care packages to soldiers overseas. The Patriot Guard will be helping us out. Hoping to get as many flags as possible on bikes and riding in a designated route, which will be posted at a later date.A dinner, silent auction and door prizes will be at this event starting at 4:00......
Lorianne Marquardt
507-766-6233 / (Saturday)Ride 11:00. $20/Rider $10/PassengerThis is a fundraiser for sending care packages to soldiers overseas. The Patriot Guard will be helping us out. Hoping to get as many flags as possible on bikes and riding in a designated route, which will be posted at a later date.A dinner, silent auction and door prizes will be at this event starting at 4:00...... For More Information Click Here Lorianne Marquardt507-766-6233 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
Warriors For Christ Motorcycle Rally - 4th Annual (# 22591) 14-Jul-2012 (Saturday)
Forest Lake, MN
Ride starts at Maranatha Church with kickstands up at 10 AM for a 160-mile scenic ride, including 3 stops and poker run. Ride ends at Riverdale Church with food, family fun activities, and FREE Cody James Full Band Concert. Cost for ride is $25 for solo rider or $30 for rider with passenger. All proceeds benefit Cody James Ministries.
codyjames.org
Jamie James
417-483-5596 / (Saturday) Ride starts at Maranatha Church with kickstands up at 10 AM for a 160-mile scenic ride, including 3 stops and poker run. Ride ends at Riverdale Church with food, family fun activities, and FREE Cody James Full Band Concert. Cost for ride is $25 for solo rider or $30 for rider with passenger. All proceeds benefit Cody James Ministries.Jamie James417-483-5596 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
Garters and Chains Ride Against Breast Cancer (# 22840) 14-Jul-2012 (Saturday)
Ogilvie, MN
This event is to raise money in my Grandmother's Name, that died from Breast Cancer at the young age of 39. She was one of the first women to donate herself for research at the University Of Minnesota. This ride is to raise money for "Research and Future Breast Cancer Patients."
Linda Wahlstrom
320-272-4893 / (Saturday)This event is to raise money in my Grandmother's Name, that died from Breast Cancer at the young age of 39. She was one of the first women to donate herself for research at the University Of Minnesota. This ride is to raise money for "Research and Future Breast Cancer Patients."Linda Wahlstrom320-272-4893 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
MN Ride For Hope (# 23219) 14-Jul-2012 (Saturday)
Owatonna, MN
Ride will tour the Lake City / Red Wing / Cannon Falls area and return to Owatonna with several stops. Hog roast lunch along the way (cost extra). Cost is $20 (single) and $25 (with passenger). Riders can designate one of five charities to donate to. Over $2000 in raffle prizes awarded at end of the ride. We hope you can participate!
Tom Carman
507-774-8341 / (Saturday)Ride will tour the Lake City / Red Wing / Cannon Falls area and return to Owatonna with several stops. Hog roast lunch along the way (cost extra). Cost is $20 (single) and $25 (with passenger). Riders can designate one of five charities to donate to. Over $2000 in raffle prizes awarded at end of the ride. We hope you can participate!Tom Carman507-774-8341 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
Ltd Motorcycle Memorial Tour (# 20761) 21-Jul-2012 - 22-Jul-2012 (Saturday - Sunday)
Appleton, MN
This ride is to honor the memory of three soldiers, Ltoka, Timmerman and Day in the 34th Inf Division, 1st Batallion 151st Field Artillery that were killed in Iraq. This will be the 7th Annual Ride and camping is available and encouraged where the ride will begin and end in the Swift County Fairgrounds in Appleton, MN. You can find more information......
www.facebook.com/pages/ltd-motorcycle-memorial-tour/136948516369282?v=info#info_edit_sections
Robert / Chad Turner
320-289-2532 (Saturday - Sunday)This ride is to honor the memory of three soldiers, Ltoka, Timmerman and Day in the 34th Inf Division, 1st Batallion 151st Field Artillery that were killed in Iraq. This will be the 7th Annual Ride and camping is available and encouraged where the ride will begin and end in the Swift County Fairgrounds in Appleton, MN. You can find more information...... For More Information Click Here Robert / Chad Turner320-289-2532
Raise A Littl Hell Ride (# 21427) 21-Jul-2012 (Saturday)
East Bethel, MN
3rd Annual RAISE A LITTLE HELL RIDE starting and ending at Route 65 Pub and Grub. Show up around 10AM maps and FREE can coozies will be handed out while supplies last. No COST to riders, RAISE A LITTLE HELL RIDE t-shirts will be available, proceeds and donations will go to The American Cancer Society. 200 mile ride around Lake Mille Lacs during the......
www.raisealittlehellride.com
Big Stue
763-360-3599 / (Saturday) 3rd Annual RAISE A LITTLE HELL RIDE starting and ending at Route 65 Pub and Grub. Show up around 10AM maps and FREE can coozies will be handed out while supplies last. No COST to riders, RAISE A LITTLE HELL RIDE t-shirts will be available, proceeds and donations will go to The American Cancer Society. 200 mile ride around Lake Mille Lacs during the...... For More Information Click Here Big Stue763-360-3599 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
Ride For Their Lives (# 22265) 21-Jul-2012 (Saturday)
Fridely, MN
Home for Life's 9th Annual Ride for Their Lives, Open House and Memorial Garden Event is set for Saturday July 21 with gates opening at Home for Life at NOON. Riders will depart from the Fridley, MN Hitchin' Post location at 11am, on an escorted ride to Home for Life via a route through the beautiful St. Croix Valley. Riders and all open h......
homeforlife.org/events.htm
Bill Pease
952-334-8024 / (Saturday)Home for Life's 9th Annual Ride for Their Lives, Open House and Memorial Garden Event is set for Saturday July 21 with gates opening at Home for Life at NOON. Riders will depart from the Fridley, MN Hitchin' Post location at 11am, on an escorted ride to Home for Life via a route through the beautiful St. Croix Valley. Riders and all open h...... For More Information Click Here Bill Pease952-334-8024 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
Bikers Against Child Abuse Mn Silent Run - 3rd Annual (# 23180) 21-Jul-2012 (Saturday)
Chisago, MN
Registration 10:30 to 12:00 Reide Departs 12:15 Rain or ShineDonation: $10 Rider and $10 Passenger Free goggles for everyone registered until goneRide has 3 stops for 140 miles, we will ride on both sides of the Columbia RiverReturn to Roadhouse for 50/50 raffles and Taco Bar and a late night band provided by the Roadhouse
Vince Jones
651-497-1618 / (Saturday)Registration 10:30 to 12:00 Reide Departs 12:15 Rain or ShineDonation: $10 Rider and $10 Passenger Free goggles for everyone registered until goneRide has 3 stops for 140 miles, we will ride on both sides of the Columbia RiverReturn to Roadhouse for 50/50 raffles and Taco Bar and a late night band provided by the RoadhouseVince Jones651-497-1618 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
Rmh Cruise (# 21879) 22-Jul-2012 (Sunday)
Rochester, MN
$20/rider or $60 Club (includes 2 registrations, 2 t-shirts, 5 additional door prize tickets)All proceeds to benefit the Ronald McDonald House of Rochester, MNRoute: Approximately 130 mile (4 stop) ride through SE Minnesota (All bikes due back to RCTC by 4:00 p.m.)
www.rmhcruise.com
Art Hall
507-951-1131 / (Sunday) $20/rider or $60 Club (includes 2 registrations, 2 t-shirts, 5 additional door prize tickets)All proceeds to benefit the Ronald McDonald House of Rochester, MNRoute: Approximately 130 mile (4 stop) ride through SE Minnesota (All bikes due back to RCTC by 4:00 p.m.)Art Hall507-951-1131 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
Meet and Greet Party (# 23207) 28-Jul-2012 (Saturday)
Sturgeon Lake, MN
After the ride enjoy live outdoor music, Food and Drink Specials. Prize Giveaways, Everyone is welcome! We have room for your campers and trailers or near by rustic camping.A.B.A.T.E of MN nonprofit Org.
www.jackpineriders.org
Tara
218-372-3040 / (Saturday)After the ride enjoy live outdoor music, Food and Drink Specials. Prize Giveaways, Everyone is welcome! We have room for your campers and trailers or near by rustic camping.A.B.A.T.E of MN nonprofit Org.Tara218-372-3040 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
Lets Ride Minnesota (# 21683) 18-Aug-2012 (Saturday)
Olivia, MN
Registration is from 9:00am to 11:30 am. The ride ends at the Renville county fairgrounds, Bird Island, MN. The ride is followed by a meal, honor ceremony at 7:00pm, then a concert featuring Canyon Cowboys and ThundHerstruck. Awesome raffle prizes available.
www.letsridemn.org
Bill Neubauer
320-365-4419 / (Saturday)Registration is from 9:00am to 11:30 am. The ride ends at the Renville county fairgrounds, Bird Island, MN. The ride is followed by a meal, honor ceremony at 7:00pm, then a concert featuring Canyon Cowboys and ThundHerstruck. Awesome raffle prizes available.Bill Neubauer320-365-4419 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
North To The Lakes Mc Run - 8th Annual (# 22836) 18-Aug-2012 (Saturday)
Brainerd, MN
Vietnam Vets MC Club, Chapter D, proudly announces it's annual run to assist homeless veterans. Registration at Brainerd American Legion from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. Riders $20.00 passenger $10.00 and 100% of proceeds go to Homeless Veterans Fund at St. Cloud VA. Fee includes corn on the cob and pork dinner.
Steve Eisenreich
320-267-0376 / (Saturday)Vietnam Vets MC Club, Chapter D, proudly announces it's annual run to assist homeless veterans. Registration at Brainerd American Legion from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. Riders $20.00 passenger $10.00 and 100% of proceeds go to Homeless Veterans Fund at St. Cloud VA. Fee includes corn on the cob and pork dinner.Steve Eisenreich320-267-0376 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
Roys Teddybear Ride (# 22979) 18-Aug-2012 (Saturday)
Bock, MN
160 mile motorcycle run,with four stops on the way, Will ride up and around Mille lacs lake. Will start and end at Roys Place with food,drinks and Live music at the end of ride, contest and auction at the end of ride, Come join us we ride for childrens hospital in MN All proceeds go to childrens. Hosted by Roys place
Linda
320-556-3311 / (Saturday)160 mile motorcycle run,with four stops on the way, Will ride up and around Mille lacs lake. Will start and end at Roys Place with food,drinks and Live music at the end of ride, contest and auction at the end of ride, Come join us we ride for childrens hospital in MN All proceeds go to childrens. Hosted by Roys placeLinda320-556-3311 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
Ride To Save Lives (# 23615) 18-Aug-2012 (Saturday)
White Bear Lake, MN
Annual Ride to SAVE Lives Motorcycle run for Suicide Awareness Voices of Education (SAVE)Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. Riders pull out at 9:45 a.m. The route will be approximately 125 miles with a stop for lunch and will end at about 3:00 p.m.Ride starts and ends at Stadium Sports Bar. Arrive early to register and get the route and coffee an......
save.donordrive.com/event/ridetosavelives
Linda Lurie Mars
952-946-7998 / (Saturday)Annual Ride to SAVE Lives Motorcycle run for Suicide Awareness Voices of Education (SAVE)Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. Riders pull out at 9:45 a.m. The route will be approximately 125 miles with a stop for lunch and will end at about 3:00 p.m.Ride starts and ends at Stadium Sports Bar. Arrive early to register and get the route and coffee an...... For More Information Click Here Linda Lurie Mars952-946-7998 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
Sunday Ride - 3rd Annual (# 23477) 19-Aug-2012 (Sunday)
White Bear Lake, MN
Ride is free - Ride at own riskROAD GUARDS WILL BE PROVIDED10:30am Meet at Macalouso's Roadhouse in White Bear Lake Depart at 11am11:30am Arrive at The Olde Brick Inn in North BranchDepart at 12:30pm1:00pm Arrive at The Roadhouse Tavern in Chisago CityDepart at 2pm2:30pm Arrive at Meisters Bar in ScandiaDepart at 3:30pm4pm Arr......
Joey Launderville
651-775-0381 / (Sunday)Ride is free - Ride at own riskROAD GUARDS WILL BE PROVIDED10:30am Meet at Macalouso's Roadhouse in White Bear Lake Depart at 11am11:30am Arrive at The Olde Brick Inn in North BranchDepart at 12:30pm1:00pm Arrive at The Roadhouse Tavern in Chisago CityDepart at 2pm2:30pm Arrive at Meisters Bar in ScandiaDepart at 3:30pm4pm Arr...... For More Information Click Here Joey Launderville651-775-0381 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
Care Packages For Soldiers Fridley Mn (# 21036) 25-Aug-2012 (Saturday)
Fridley, MN
Ride 11:00. $20/Rider $10/PassengerThis is a fundraiser for sending care packages to soldiers overseas. The Patriot Guard will be helping us out. Hoping to get as many flags as possible on bikes and riding in a designated route, which will be posted at a later date. A dinner, silent auction and door prizes will be at this event starting at 4:00......
Lorianne Marquardt
507-766-6233 / (Saturday)Ride 11:00. $20/Rider $10/PassengerThis is a fundraiser for sending care packages to soldiers overseas. The Patriot Guard will be helping us out. Hoping to get as many flags as possible on bikes and riding in a designated route, which will be posted at a later date. A dinner, silent auction and door prizes will be at this event starting at 4:00...... For More Information Click Here Lorianne Marquardt507-766-6233 / Email Motorcycle Event Organizer
Construction Cruise (# 22122) 25-Aug-2012 (Saturday)
Grand Rapids, MN
This is a charity ride for Itasca Habitat for Humanity. The ride will take 155 mile journey through the northern portion of Itasca county. Lakes, rivers and even some winding roads will be on the menu. There will be two stops and gas will be available at each stop.
Wayne Roskos
218-244-5629 / (Saturday)This is a charity ride for Itasca Habitat for Humanity. The ride will take 155 mile journey through the northern portion of Itasca county. Lakes, rivers and even some winding roads will be on the menu. There will be two stops and gas will be available at each stop.Wayne Roskos218-244-5629 / Email Motorcycle Event OrganizerI was in Vermont this weekend and busted my knee. So I’m a bit down on Vermont. But TPM Reader SS wanted to share his thoughts on Sanders. So I’m giving Vermont a break.
You gave Reader MJ’s remark the headline “Feeling the Semi-Bern.” MJ asks for your thoughts on it all, which you haven’t yet provided. But let me remind you and everyone else out there: Sanders is not a member of the Democratic Party. Never has been and probably never will be.
Here in Vermont, there is a marriage of convenience between the Progressive Party and the Democratic Party, where (in statewide races, at least) there is usually only one candidate from either party to run for office. Up in Burlington, the parties often run against each other, but it rarely happens for statewide positions. Usually the Democratic Party candidate goes forward, but very often the Progressive candidate is the one who’s allowed to run. And sometimes they both run. Anthony Pollina is a great example of how these issues have played out over the last twenty years or so.
Bernie Sanders came into Congress in 1991 as an independent who identified with Vermont’s Progressive Party. He founded the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He’s caucused with the Democrats, but he has never joined the Democratic Party. In many ways, he is to the Democratic Party what Donald Trump is to the GOP: an outsider to the party who was welcomed in but who has been willing to wreck the party to achieve his own goals. Hence, all the vague talk from Sanders about a political revolution and no talk that I’ve heard or seen about how to build the Democratic Party in all fifty states.
Think about it: Sanders has shown little interest in building the fortunes of the Democratic Party. I mean that literally. I heard on the Chris Hayes show the other day that Clinton has raised millions for the DNC, while Sanders has raised $1,000. Sanders would argue that it’s important to get money out of the electoral process, but you can’t tell me that Sanders isn’t spending millions on himself. And I really don’t care if that money from small donors or not. Yes, Bernie is creating a movement, and that’s great. But at the end of the day, we’re likely to continue to have two political parties that will control much of the dialogue for years to come. I get the sense that many Progressives don’t give a second thought to what might be best for the Democratic Party overall, conveniently forgetting that representative and senators and governors come from parties many more times than not. There’s little to no thought among progressives about the depth of the bench of other elected officials. And that lack of strategic thought is one reason why I’ll vote for Clinton, because the Democratic Party will continue to be important, revolution or no revolution, and the Democratic Party will need to go toe-to-toe with the GOP, which means that the Democratic Party has to be strong. And unlike Bernie, Hillary is proud to call herself a member of the Democratic Party.
I’m very, very grateful that Bernie has moved the Democratic Party to the left. But I’m definitely not feeling the Bern up here in snowy Vermont.Two months after a recent college graduate incurred $53,000 in charges at a gentleman’s club on Okaloosa Island, investigators are reviewing allegations of fraud and larceny.
Tommy Salter, 24, of Warner Robbins, Ga., was at Club 10 early Aug. 18, celebrating his graduation from Georgia Tech, according to his father and an Okaloosa County Sheriff’s report.
Salter told Club 10 employees he could only spend $600, according the report.
But his dad, 52-year-old Joe Salter of Mary Esther, was shocked by the $53,000 charge that ended up on a joint American Express credit card account he shares with his son.
“Their employees totally took advantage of my son,” Salter said Saturday. “It’s totally ludicrous.”
The club’s co-owner called it “a huge champagne night.”
“Oftentimes, men come in here and they spend a lot of money in an effort to show off in front of the entertainers,” said Tim Beal. “And then they get buyer’s remorse.”
Club 10 employs women who also perform private dances, but Okaloosa County law prohibits full nudity.
Beal said Salter bought at least 19 bottles of champagne in a champagne room. The bottles can range from $150 to $2,000. He also said Salter bought “Club Cash,” Monopoly-like money used to tip waitresses.
But Joe Salter said 24 of the 30 receipts he received from American Express were printed after 4 a.m. — when the club should have been asking patrons to leave.
He said his son was kept at Club 10 until 8 a.m., when employees drove him home.
The last charge came at 7:54 a.m., he said.
He said Tommy had been drinking heavily before arriving at Club 10 and could have been an easy target for manipulation.
Allegations on an Oct. 12 sheriff‘s report include larceny over $20,000 and credit card fraud. They represent charges that could be filed if the case is pursued in criminal court.
Otherwise, it may end up in civil court.
But Beal said he’d already been in contact with American Express after Salter filed a chargeback with the company, seeking to have part of the charge withdrawn. The company decided in Club 10’s favor.
“We rarely ever lose chargeback attempts,” Beal said.
Club 10 policy prohibits running tabs in the champagne room, Beal said. Patrons must instead sign a receipt for each champagne purchase they make on credit. Beal called it a “straight sale” policy.
He said the younger Salter signed each receipt, even scrawling his initials next to the itemized charges.
But Joe Salter says only the signature on the first receipt matches his son’s signature; the rest are signed with scribbles.
He also said Tommy came home with bruises on his neck. He believes they came from club employees yanking him awake throughout the expensive morning.
In a letter to American Express, Beal wrote that Joseph Salter told him, “This is not the first time my son has done something like this,” and “My son gets out of control when he drinks.”
Salter called those statements false and said past credit card statements would prove that his son had never “done something like this” before.
When asked if a manager or any other employee considered refusing to keep accepting payments from Salter that night, Beal said Salter appeared to know what he was doing.
“This fellow was lucid,” Beal said. “He was actually dancing with the manager, Chris, right before he left.
“He was in the best mood.”
Beal said there are “many occasions” when employees would cut off customers from buying more alcohol, but this wasn’t one of those cases.
It’s unclear if security camera footage captured any or all of the transactions.
Still, Beal said he was willing to listen to the Salters’ case in a private meeting.
He estimated he might reconsider about $15,000 of the total bill, although Salter said meetings scheduled with the club’s owners had repeatedly been postponed or ultimately canceled.
The case is still under investigation as deputies await Tommy Salter’s statement, Joe Salter said.
[Via - NFDailyNews.Com]
Stupid Shit People ACTUALLY Put On Their Resumes
Online Slut Stories Unlike Any Other
Study shows AIDS entered U.S. via HaitiPerth millionaire Zhenya Tsvetnenko is facing a potential 20-year jail term after being indicted by US prosecutors as part of a multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud consumers by charging unsuspecting mobile phone users for unwanted text messages.
An indictment filed in Federal Court in Manhattan on Friday charged Mr Tsvetnenko, Fraser Thompson, an ex-executive at mobile aggregation company Mobile Messenger, as well as Francis Assifuah, who authorities say ran digital content providers.
Zhenya Tsvetnenko (pictured here in 2009) is in hot water with US authorities, charged with defrauding consumers in an automated SMS scam. Credit:Ross Swanborough
The indictments relate to a period from 2011 to 2013.
Mr Tsvetnenko's media advisor, Evelyn Duffy, said the 36 year-old would defend all allegations against him but would not comment further as the matter was before the court.Melina or Giuliana could be the first trans woman to win Germany's Next Top Model
Germany’s Next Top Model has cast two transgender contestants.
Melina Budde and Giuliana Radermacher will be competing on the show’s 12th cycle.
They are part of the final 50 and will have to impress head juror Heidi Klum to fully enter the competition.
If Melina and Giuliana master the first catwalk, they’ll jet off towards the Côte d’Azur and board a cruise ship for their next challenges.
‘As a little child I already knew something wasn’t quite right with me,’ Giuliana told German tabloid BILD.
‘When I was in kindergarten, I often played with girls and had barbies. And I preferred wearing girls’ clothes. When I was seven or eight years, I told my mother I’d rather want to be a girl.’
Giuliana’s mom was supportive of her daughter and took her to the doctor so she could start her transition.
Melina’s mother has also been supportive.
‘My mum told me I could be everything,’ Melina writes on her Instagram profile.
‘So I became everything.’
The model and make-up artist says she’s taking part in the competition to challenge stereotypes.
‘I’m here to show that clichés are overrated,’ she said.
‘And [to show] that the first impression is often deceiving.’
It’s not the first time Germany’s Next Top Model has a trans contestant.
In 2015, Iranian-born model Pari Roehi walked down the runway, but the judges eliminated her in the third round.
A photo posted by PARI ROEHI© (@pariroehi) on Oct 15, 2016 at 5:57am PDT
Germany’s Next Top Model starts on Thursday (9 February) at 20:15 on ProSieben.Climate science hopelessly politicized. Geological Society of Australia gives up on making any statement
So much for the consensus. In 2012 The Geological Society of Australia (GSA) was one of the few associations to make a slightly skeptical position on climate. For poking their heads above the parapet they’ve had years of headache and debate, and finally have issued a statement saying they have given up entirely on putting out any statement. The debate is so furious and divisive that no position could be agreed on. (I wonder exactly how many of their members are fans of climate models? Was this the work of just a few zealous believers?) I think I’ve hardly ever met a geologist who wasn’t somewhat skeptical.
The back story is that, like most science associations, in 2009 the GSA chanted the litany. (Their 2009 statement is here). They wrote that governments should take strong action to reduce CO2 and that meant paying geologists more to do research and sit on plum advisory committees. How predictable…
1. That strong action be taken at all levels, including government, industry, and
individuals to substantially reduce the current levels of greenhouse gas emissions and to
mitigate the likely social and environmental effects of increasing atmospheric CO2. 2. That Earth Scientists with appropriate expertise be included in Australian advisory
bodies… 4. That sufficient targeted funding and resources be allocated by Australian
governments,…
That’s when they discovered that their members were furious and did not agree. It caused an uproar. So they surveyed their members (if only all associations would do that) and reissued a statement in 2012 which was more skeptical. Now, after being badgered for another two years they have backed away from the whole debate. It is too divisive to even put forward a statement that does not pander entirely and 100% to the so-called consensus. Read below how tame and banal their 2012 statement was. They merely pointed out some feedbacks were not well understood. But no cracks in the faith are allowed!
This story shows firstly how meaningless statements from most science associations are. Argument from Authority always was, and still is, a fallacy of reasoning. A small committee of six can easily spout a position that many of their own members disagree with. Almost no associations go to the trouble of surveying their members. It also shows how aggressively faithful the believers are. Even a statement with mild truisms that does not profess complete obedience to the approved chant is not allowed.
A comment from Chris on the ABC site in June 2011 reveals the depth of feeling:
The reason you cannot find the link on the Geological Society of Australia web site to their [2009] “policy statement” supporting AGW is that it was withdrawn about 12 months ago after a howling, screaming objection from the majority of GSA members who objected to a “policy statement” that we did not agree with being put forward by 6 members of the management committee (all, I am told, employed by government) without reference to, or approval from, the wider membership. The majority wider GSA membership (some 4,000 members) does not support AGW.
Earth scientists split on climate change statement
Graham Lloyd, The Australian
AUSTRALIA’S peak
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a deck code from Shadowverse Portal
– A new Contact Us feature, Comment/Report, for players to share their thoughts on Shadowverse and report misconduct
– Elite 2 difficulty setting added to Practice mode for all leaders as well as a new achievement for completion
– In-game notifications sent 5, 30, and 60 minutes before the game undergoes maintenance
– A message window in the upper-right displaying your opponent’s class when redrawing cards
– Changes to the Device Link feature
Instead of link codes, user IDs and passwords will now be used for device linking. To set a link password, tap More on the Home screen followed by Device Link. Link passwords are case-sensitive and must be 8 to 16 characters long including any numbers. They can be changed any number of times. Please be aware link codes issued prior to the update will not be usable afterwards.
– Changes to the ability mechanics of some cards
The mechanics of the silver Runecraft card Piercing Rune and the bronze Neutral card Goblin Mage will be changed.
The cost of Piercing Rune will be changed to 2 if an allied follower evolves.
Goblin Mage will put a random follower that costs 2 play points or less from your deck into your hand.
Due to the above changes, these cards will temporarily yield more vials when liquefied. The silver Neutral card Fortunehunter Feena will also yield additional vials due to its connection with Goblin Mage, but Fortunehunter Feena’s mechanics will not be changed.
For a limited time, Piercing Rune and Fortunehunter Feena will yield 200 vials for a normal or animated card when liquefied. Goblin Mage will yield 50 when liquefied.
For details, see Card Adjustments in the February Update.
Thank you for always staving off the darkness with us!
Shadowverse TeamThe Seattle Seahawks were not used to trailing. The Seattle Seahawks were the rag-tag gang of loud, misjudged players that blew out their opponents 150-20 during a three-game stretch. The Seattle Seahawks were the team that somehow had beaten five out of the top ten teams ranked in overall DVOA with a secondary consisting of two day-three picks and a midget for a quarterback. The Seattle Seahawks were a team of destiny, of young and relentless men daring to write their own path to greatness.
Yet here they are, after nearly two quarters of play, down by the largest deficit they have faced this season. The loss of Jason Jones and Chris Clemons as well as the weariness of veterans Red Bryant and Brandon Mebane are starting to show on the D-Line. Richard Sherman has been beaten not for one, but two big gains and a touchdown. On the other side of the ball, statistics of going 1-for-5 on third downs and 58 yards rushing echoed the sentiments of an dysfunctional circus we saw three years ago. And despite holding on to a relatively even time of possession and a similar number of overall plays ran, the offense is being out-gained in almost every category.
Momentum, or the aura and driving force behind any good potential comeback, was not on their side. An organization that prides themselves on being physical and tough got stopped on a 4th and 1. A mentality of speed and quickness on defense are being torched for big gains by an aging Michael Turner and an even older Tony Gonzalez. A communication within the final seconds of the first half left three points on the board. Things have to change. Things need to change.
When Pete Carroll came back into the NFL after ten years at USC he instilled not only a philosophy on his team; he brought up a complete change and radical shift in culture and principles. Gone were the days of being blown out and rolling over dead when you're losing by 31, because if you're slacking at any point in the game it means you're not giving me 100%. You don't dare to be complacent, weather the score is up or down by a lot, because I have two hungrier guys behind you ready to do a better job and I'm willing to throw them at your place.
And the Seahawks brought it in. And as they faced off tougher, stronger opponents they eventually crafted their own motto, their way of Seahawks football. They were going to "Always Compete" and fight, regardless of what the score is.
Unfortunately, that was last year. Now it's time to fight for a win. The only question left is wondering how to accomplish this goal.
1-10-SEA 20 (15:00) (Shotgun) R.Wilson pass short right to S.Rice to SEA 31 for 11 yards.
Right now, all the Falcons defense care about is points. Don't worry about field positioning, or first downs, etc. Just hold them to 3, or preferably, 0. Try not to allow the big plays, but if you do, bear down in the red zone. Just get off the field and let the offense blow this wide open. The Seahawks are down by three scores and as long as both sides do their jobs, things will be fine.
1-10-SEA 31 (14:28) M.Lynch right end to SEA 32 for 1 yard
Leverage and Quickness. Two of the key components of a undersized lineman. When you don't stack up to the man six inches in front of you, you gotta beat them with speed. You have to be the first man to hit, and you must do it low.
Max Unger failed on both counts, and thus Lynch is stalled for only a yard.
2-9-SEA 32 (13:51) R.Wilson scrambles right end to SEA 49 for 17 yards
"The important this is, you've got to be able to throw the ball at an NFL level first. That's what Russell can do. He's a thrower first. Then if you've got mobility to extend the play, to give your receivers more time to get position or to pick up a first down, that's good." - Fran Tarkenton, Quarterback, NFL Hall of Fame Class of 1986
1-10-SEA 49 (13:11) (Shotgun) R.Turbin left guard to ATL 44 for 7 yards
The quarterback and the running back must work together to succeed. He must see what the other sees. He must decide whether or not to keep the ball or hand it off at the last second's notice, and the running back must be able to respond to a potential exchange successfully. This move must be practiced over and over again, like a choreographed dance or a military routine, until the two minds are essentially working as one, and the guesswork becomes second nature. This is how teams run the read option successfully.
2-3-ATL 44 (12:34) M.Lynch right guard to ATL 42 for 2 yards
Nothing special here. Michael Robinson enters the field for the first time this half. Sweezy (who I personally believe needs to bulk up past 300 pounds this summer) gets bulldozed and loses to his man. Okung gets beaten by a veteran swim move. Lynch and co. pushes the pile for another 3 inches.
3-1-ATL 42 (11:59) R.Wilson right guard to ATL 40 for 2 yards
Just last quarter the Seahawks encountered a short yardage situation and couldn't convert. It was a handoff to Michael Robinson, the fullback. He was stopped behind the line of scrimmage. The Seahawks aren't looking to fool anyone and try a fancy play action here. Old fashioned quarterback sneak, get the first down, and keep the drive going.
1-10-ATL 40 (11:24) (Shotgun) R.Wilson sacked at ATL 48 for -8 yards
Some sacks are made because a defensive player(s) physically punishes the offensive lineman and barrage their way towards the quarterback. Some sacks are made by great decisions on the defense's part, and the coverage is so on point that the quarterback is essentially stuck within the pocket waiting for an open man, which is all the trenches needed to trap the guy for a loss of yards. Some sacks are made by stupid decisions by the quarterback himself, running all the way out the pocket at a slight cognition of pressure and flushes himself right into the defenses' arms. Some sacks are just based on luck.
This is one of those sacks.
2-18-ATL 48 (10:37) (Shotgun) R.Wilson pass short right to Z.Miller to ATL 29 for 19 yards
"A ruptured plantar fascia is a very painful tear in the largest ligament in the foot (the plantar fascia). It often mimics the most common type of heel pain called plantar fasciitis. Cortisone heel spur injections (steroid shots intended to treat heel pain) can put you at risk for a rupture of the plantar fascia. This painful condition causes arch pain, heel pain, and sometimes swelling or bruising in the bottom of the foot. It will not usually get better on its own." - Symptoms of a torn plantar fascia, via Ankle and Foot Center.
1-10-ATL 29 (9:53) (Shotgun) R.Wilson pass deep left to G.Tate for 29 yards, TOUCHDOWN.
Seahawks are in the Falcons red zone. The latter team must play their coverage or scheme effectively. They must continue to bear down against the offense and hold them down to a field goal or less. They cannot afford to make a mistake now.
Falcons 20, Seahawks 0 Seahawks 7
Follow Mike on Twitter | Follow FieldGulls on Twitter | Like Field Gulls on FacebookTo celebrate the release of the action-comedy Vigilante Diaries, Cityonfire.com and Anchor Bay are giving away the following prizes to three lucky Cityonfire visitors:
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Anchor Bay Entertainment will release Vigilante Diaries in select theaters and on iTunes on June 24, and On Demand, DVD and Blu-ray on July 5.
The film features an all-star ensemble cast led by Paul Sloan (I Am Wrath), UFC’s Quinton “Rampage” Jackson (A-Team), action icon Michael Jai White (Falcon Rising), Paul Sloan (I Am Wrath), Jason Mewes (Clerks), Michael Madsen (Kill Bill), Jaqueline Lord (Mercenary for Justice), WWE star Sal ‘Chavo’ Guerrero, Jr. and James Russo (Once Upon A Time in America).
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WINNERS: Grand Prize/David; 1st Runner Up/Michael S; 2nd Runner Up/Danny H.When Santa Claus asks Mariah Carey if she’s been naughty or nice this year, her performance at last week’s tree-lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center will undoubtedly be classified in the first category.
After missing the pretaping, Mimi later howled her way through “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” causing much embarrassment all around when it was later aired on NBC.
But she has the chance to redeem herself this week when she plays six festively themed shows at the Beacon Theatre, and the bouncing 1994 single will be a definite highlight.
Twenty years after its release, the song is firmly established as a modern classic. It re-enters Billboard’s Holiday 100 Chart every year and, as Billboard’s associate director of charts/radio Gary Trust reveals, “It’s Carey’s best-selling download of all of her songs — 2.8 million sold since Nielsen Music began tracking sales in the early 2000s.” As of 2013, the song was reported to have earned $50 million in royalties.
“I’ve been very lucky to have written many hits like ‘Hero’ and ‘One Sweet Day’ with Mariah Carey, but ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ is the cherry on top,” says Walter Afanasieff, the 56-year-old producer and songwriter who co-wrote the tune. “I never imagined it would be something that we’d still be talking about 20 years later, but I’m glad that we are. It definitely helped feed and clothe my three children!”
We all know the song, but here are eight things you probably didn’t know about how it came together.
1. Carey didn’t even want to record a Christmas album.
At the time, Christmas albums were considered to be for older artists who had been put out to pasture, so the then-24-year-old singer needed convincing from her (now ex-) manager and husband Tommy Mottola.
In his book “Hitmaker: The Man and His Music,” Mottola remembers her seeing the cover of the “Merry Christmas” album (which features Carey on a sleigh) and exclaiming, “What are you trying to do, turn me into Connie Francis?”
“I don’t know what their marriage was like, but Tommy was instrumental in Mariah’s early career milestones,” Afanasieff tells The Post.
2. The song was written in 15 minutes.
When they got together in the summer of 1994 to write songs for the album “Merry Christmas,” Afanasieff and Carey carved out the chords, structure and melody for “All I Want for Christmas Is You” in just a quarter of an hour. “It’s definitely not ‘Swan Lake,’ ” admits Afanasieff. “But that’s why it’s so popular — because it’s so simple and palatable!”
3. The video features a secret cameo.
“All I Want for Christmas Is You” is ostensibly a romantic song, and the object of Carey’s affection makes an appearance in the video she directed — the man dressed up as Santa is none other than Mottola.
4. No actual musicians play on the song.
Although “All I Want for Christmas Is You” sounds like a full band played it, Afanasieff put the song together on his computer. The only things added were the vocals of Carey and her backing singers.
5. Carey made Christmas happen early for the recording.
The vocals for “All I Want for Christmas Is You” were recorded in the dog days of August in New York, but that didn’t stop Carey from getting into the yuletide spirit. “We had Christmas trees and lights brought into the studio to get us in the mood,” laughs Afanasieff. “There was even talk of bringing in some snow at one point, but we didn’t go with that, thank God!”
6. It’s a smash-hit ringtone.
Aside from the worldwide sales that continue to this day, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has set new records on the cellphone charts. In 2009, it became the first holiday ringtone to be certified double platinum for more than two million sales.
7. Goats love “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
In 2010, a British goat farmer discovered that his animals produce more milk when Carey’s Christmas classic is played on a loop — in contrast to “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late)” by Alvin and the Chipmunks, which reportedly brought milk production to a screeching halt.
“I think Mariah should endorse a brand of Christmas goat cheese made from the milk of those goats,” says Afanasieff. “And I would obviously want half of the profits!”
8. Carey and the song’s co-writer are no longer in contact.
Despite the enduring success of “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Afanasieff hasn’t heard from Carey since they worked together on 1997’s “Butterfly” album, after which she decided to explore a more R&B-influenced direction.
“It’s a shame, because we had great chemistry,” says Afanasieff. “My greatest dream is to work with her again. Mariah, all I want for Christmas is you!”The Mystery of Global Warming's Missing Heat
toggle caption Stuart Westmorland/Corbis
Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren't quite understanding what their robots are telling them.
This is puzzling in part because here on the surface of the Earth, the years since 2003 have been some of the hottest on record. But Josh Willis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the oceans are what really matter when it comes to global warming.
In fact, 80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters. They hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. So Willis has been studying the ocean with a fleet of robotic instruments called the Argo system. The buoys can dive 3,000 feet down and measure ocean temperature. Since the system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans.
"There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant," Willis says. So the buildup of heat on Earth may be on a brief hiatus. "Global warming doesn't mean every year will be warmer than the last. And it may be that we are in a period of less rapid warming."
In recent years, heat has actually been flowing out of the ocean and into the air. This is a feature of the weather phenomenon known as El Nino. So it is indeed possible the air has warmed but the ocean has not. But it's also possible that something more mysterious is going on.
That becomes clear when you consider what's happening to global sea level. Sea level rises when the oceans get warm because warmer water expands. This accounts for about half of global sea level rise. So with the oceans not warming, you would expect to see less sea level rise. Instead, sea level has risen about half an inch in the past four years. That's a lot.
Willis says some of this water is apparently coming from a recent increase in the melting rate of glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica.
"But in fact there's a little bit of a mystery. We can't account for all of the sea level increase we've seen over the last three or four years," he says.
One possibility is that the sea has, in fact, warmed and expanded — and scientists are somehow misinterpreting the data from the diving buoys.
But if the aquatic robots are actually telling the right story, that raises a new question: Where is the extra heat all going?
Kevin Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research says it's probably going back out into space. The Earth has a number of natural thermostats, including clouds, which can either trap heat and turn up the temperature, or reflect sunlight and help cool the planet.
That can't be directly measured at the moment, however.
"Unfortunately, we don't have adequate tracking of clouds to determine exactly what role they've been playing during this period," Trenberth says.
It's also possible that some of the heat has gone even deeper into the ocean, he says. Or it's possible that scientists need to correct for some other feature of the planet they don't know about. It's an exciting time, though, with all this new data about global sea temperature, sea level and other features of climate.
"I suspect that we'll able to put this together with a little bit more perspective and further analysis," Trenberth says. "But what this does is highlight some of the issues and send people back to the drawing board."
Trenberth and Willis agree that a few mild years have no effect on the long-term trend of global warming. But they say there are still things to learn about how our planet copes with the heat.Pinterest Chip Somodevilla
John Kelly is already grating on the president and severely restricting his media diet.
Donald Trump's hiring policy rarely places competence as a high priority. The president values personal chemistry, loyalty, and good looks far above a person's actual abilities, and his praise has rarely translated into success for his underlings. In that regard, the hiring new chief of staff John Kelly may be one of Trump's most successful personnel decisions.
A new story from the New York Times by Maggie Haberman and Glen Thrush details how Kelly has tried to still the chaos inside the White House, often frustrating Trump in the process. Kelly is forcing people to stick to appointments and schedules, pushing the president to weigh more carefully moves like ending DACA or banning transgender people from the military, and even persuaded Trump to put out a White House-issued, spell-checked response to North Korea's latest missile firing, instead of just tweeting about it.
These are admittedly low bars, and even Haberman and Thrush acknowledge that it's basically routine office management. But imposing any kind of order in the toxic daycare that is this White House is a feat. Still, Kelly's most impressive accomplishment may be his ability to curate the information that the president gets.
Mr. Kelly cannot stop Mr. Trump from binge-watching Fox News, which aides describe as the president’s primary source of information gathering. But Mr. Trump does not have a web browser on his phone, and does not use a laptop, so he was dependent on aides like Stephen K. Bannon, his former chief strategist, to hand-deliver printouts of articles from conservative media outlets.
Now Mr. Kelly has thinned out his package of printouts so much that Mr. Trump plaintively asked a friend recently where The Daily Caller and Breitbart were.
What we know about Trump's briefings before Kelly's tenure doesn't inspire confidence. Aides have told people meeting with the president to keep printouts short, one page if at all possible, to keep his attention from wandering. He requires twice-a-day packets of positive news stories about himself that still need to be "more fucking positive," according to the people assembling them. And as he's said himself, Trump prefers to make gut decisions without reading or learning much about whatever he's talking about. So it's incredibly ambitious to try to turn these briefings into something productive.
It's unsurprising that Kelly would edit out Breitbart stories. He reportedly had a hand in pushing for Bannon's exit from the White House, and since the self-styled super-villain returned to running the site, Breitbart has been antagonizing the generals in Trump's administration and Trump himself after his speech on Afghanistan. But while it's comforting to know Bannon isn't hand-delivering cherry-picked news to Trump (even if Trump still texts him in secret), it's shocking how isolated the president is becoming. He doesn't seem to have basic Internet access beyond Twitter. You don't have to be a cyber-security prodigy like Barron to turn on a laptop, right?We obtained unbiased estimation of trends in amphibian occurrence probabilities (i.e., changes in the number of populations that occur when local extinctions exceed (re-)colonizations within a metapopulation) from 61 study areas across North America (Fig. 1; Table S1), incorporating data from 389 time-series of 83 species of amphibians (Table S2) using a hierarchical occupancy model30. Study areas were mainly Federal and State protected areas, and we had no a priori expectation that amphibian populations or resource conditions were in decline or deteriorating when surveys were initiated. Data came from field surveys of multiple habitat units (e.g., wetlands, stream segments, forest patches) within each protected area and included habitats where amphibian species were expected to have a chance of occurring. Site selection was unconditional on initial amphibian presence, and sites at each study area were selected under a probabilistic design (e.g., simple random sampling, stratified random sampling); this means that though site selection differed among study areas, statistical inference is appropriate at the scale of each study area. Survey methods differed among habitats and species, but were generally chosen to maximize the probability of detecting the target species and sometimes multiple standard methods for detecting amphibians were used. Multiple species may have been detected during a single survey occasion. Surveys were repeated on multiple occasions within a time period when each species had the possibility of occupying a site (i.e., sites were assumed to be demographically ‘closed’ during the duration of surveys). These detection-nondetection data were analyzed in our occupancy model, and used to estimate detection probabilities, thereby accounting for unequal effort and other sources of observation error so that inference is on the (true) state of a population (i.e., present or absent) and is unconditional on whether or not a species was detected at a site during sampling occasions31.
Statistical model
Using Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods30,32, we estimated trends of amphibian populations for each metapopulation (i.e., each combination of species and study area), and the effects of four of the most widely cited threats [land-use, contaminants, climate change and disease risk5,6,8,13], as there is evidence that these threats have contributed to the extinction of local populations [e.g., (26–29)]. Trends were estimated for each metapopulation, and represent the balance of local extinctions and colonizations over each time-series; a negative trend occurs when extinctions exceed colonizations. We defined 5 regions as geographic clusters of protected areas.
For all studies, multiple observations were collected within a year, which allowed us to estimate unbiased trends across years. We denote year by y and time-series by k, so that ψ yk is the probability a site in the kth time-series in the yth year is occupied by a given species and p yk is the probability of observing a given species during a visit to a site, given that site is occupied by the species. We denote the number of visits to the ith site in a given year for a given time series as N iyk and the number of times the species was observed at the site during those visits as Y iyk. The true, but unobserved, state of a site is denoted by z iyk, where z = 1 if a site is occupied and z = 0 if not.
Observations Y iyk are modeled with a binomial distribution as:
Note the binomial probability is conditional on the true occupancy state of the site, which is a Bernoulli trial with probability of occurrence for the specific combination of year and time-series. To accommodate variation of detection probabilities among different years and time-series, we assumed a random distribution for the detection parameters:
We estimated occupancy trends as a derived parameter within the MCMC algorithm, calculating the average rate of change in number of occupied sites (λ) in each time-series as a function of the estimated trend parameters in the logit-linear model as
where ψ i and ψ f are occupancy at the start and end of each time series.
Our interest was in understanding the factors associated with annual variation in occupancy probabilities. We expected that relationships would not be evident among threats and continental-scale population trends if declines are driven by different factors among populations, but that relationships may be detectable at regional scales if these threats influence populations more consistently at a smaller spatial scale.
We fit a generalized linear mixed model, where the model included two random components, α k, a random-effect for time-series intercept, and δ yk, a random-error component to account for sub-sampling of sites within each combination of year and time-series, where:
Distributions for random-effects were specified as:
A fixed model, βX, was used to specify the effect of year (continuous), threat, and interaction between threat and year. Covariates for threats were scaled and centered to have a mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1 and year was centered to have a mean of 0 at the level of the time-series. To account for model uncertainty in the inclusion of parameters and minimize potential effects of correlation among threat covariates, we fit parameters using a Bayesian LASSO (least absolute shrinkage and selection operator) approach33,34, by specifying the β parameters to come from a double-exponential distribution, where:
and τ, the regularization parameter was estimated from the data used to fit the model (example code to implement a LASSO provided in Supporting Online Material). To allow for a single value of τ to be estimated, we specified year covariates and interactions between year and threats to have a mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1 when fitting the model. We then back-transformed estimates so the estimated effect of year represented the average annual change in occupancy across all time-series and the estimated interaction effects represented the average annual effect of a 1-standard deviation increase in the value of a threat. The Markov Chain Monte Carlo-estimated posterior probabilities of the parameters (i.e., the standardized partial regression coefficients) can be interpreted as the relative contribution of each threat to the observed population trends.
Priors were chosen as follows: logit−1(μ α ) and logit−1(μ p ) were uniform (0,1) on the real scale; σ p, σ α, and σ δ were uniform (0, 3); and τ was uniform (0, 20). Models were fit using JAGS run via R (v.2.15.2; R Core Development Team 2012). We used a burn-in sample of 5000 iterations and then estimated the posterior distribution of parameters based on the next 25000 samples. Three chains were run and model convergence was assessed based on Gelman-Rubin statistics35.
Threats
Disease risk was defined as the suitability for occurrence of the fungal pathogen B. dendrobatidis (Bd)36, as it is classified as one of the “enigmatic” causes of amphibian decline13,37. We used spatially referenced predictions of Bd suitability for the United States, which were generated under the environmental niche model described in36 (provided by D. Olsen, US Forest Service). In a binomial regression model, the detection of Bd was found to be different among major ecosystems of the US, generally increasing with number of species, and increasing with decreasing minimum temperature (details of model found in36). Predicted suitability under this model is qualitatively similar to the global model38 in8. There are no comparable data on other emerging amphibian pathogens such as Ranavirus or Batrachochytium salamandrivorans.
The threat from climate change relates to an increased risk of extinction in response to changes in precipitation, mainly resulting in increased frequency and intensity of droughts39. This threat from climate change was calculated as the mean difference in mean annual precipitation from (2001–2011) and the 30-year normal (1981–2010; available from: http://www.prism.oregonstate.edu/, accessed 13 March 2014), which was a proxy for water availability. To obtain the difference in annual average precipitation during the period of our surveys (2001–11), we subtracted the 10-year average annual precipitation for each sub-basin over the period of record (monthly data obtained from PRISM for 2001–11; http://www.prism.oregonstate.edu/recent/; accessed 13 March 2014) from the 30-year (1981–2010) normal precipitation (http://www.prism.oregonstate.edu/normals/; accessed 13 March 2014).
The threat from land use change was evaluated because it is the single most important threat to biodiversity in general40, and both human influence (Human Influence Index; HII41) and the application of pesticides42,43 are components of this threat. The human influence index (HII), developed by the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network41, is an index of direct human disturbance which incorporates human population density, land transformation, accessibility, and electrical power infrastructure to represent direct human influence on the landscape. We summarized the 1-km2-pixel HII raster map provided by41 as the mean HII within each sub-basin.
The threat from contaminants was described by the estimated annual pesticide use values for compounds known or hypothesized to be important to amphibians (Table in44 and updated by K. Smalling, USGS pers. comm.). We used the ‘EPest-high’ application estimation method from42,43 for each county from 2001–11, which treats non-reporting of application as missing values which are estimated from nearby data. Values were summarized at the sub-basin scale by weighting the average application by the area of the county falling within each sub-basin, and thus reflect the average pesticide application per unit area.
For each threat, we calculated the average, normalized intensity (the value of each threat) within each sub-basin (i.e., United States Geological Survey (USGS) HUC4-scale sub-basins; http://pubs.usgs.gov/wsp/wsp2294/html/pdf.html) for use in our occupancy models. We investigated the correlations among the normalized threats for all 204 sub-basins in the continental United States using the Band Collection Statistics tool in Spatial Analyst in ArcGIS 10.2. Not all sub-basins had amphibian population data; correlations among threats for the subset of sub-basins (n = 55) with amphibian species data were determined independently. All correlations were <0.47, except a positive correlation between Bd and climate for the 55 sub-basins with amphibian data (ρ = 0.648) results from the inclusion of precipitation in the suitability model of36.ST George Illawarra have appointed Paul McGregor as their coach for the next three seasons.
McGregor took the coaching reins in round 12 after Steve Price was sacked mid-season.
The former Dragons skipper has filled the coaching position in an interim role with the Dragons heavily linked to Wayne Bennett before the supercoach announced he will join Brisbane next season.
While the joint venture was also linked with Test coach Tim Sheens, McGregor won out on Friday.
A former Origin and Test centre, McGregor declared the announcement was career highlight.
media_camera Paul McGregor has been announced as Dragons head coach for the next three years.
“It was an absolute honour to play and captain the Dragons and to now be given the opportunity to be the head coach on a full-time basis is an even greater honour,” said McGregor.
“When I first began coaching after retiring from playing, I did this because I felt that I had something to offer and I wanted to share my experience and make players both better players and better people and this will continue to be a guiding principle for me.
media_camera Paul McGregor has been announced as Dragons head coach for the next three years.
“When I took over the role half-way through the year it was definitely in difficult circumstances and despite the concerns that I had at the start of the journey, I have loved every minute of it.
“The response of the players, the challenge and the positive rewards gave me the desire to put my hand up for the role full-time.”La Guardia Airport, whose dilapidated terminals and long, unenviable record of traveler delays have made it a target of jokes and complaints for decades, will be completely rebuilt by 2021, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York announced on Monday.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport in northern Queens, estimates the overhaul will cost about $4 billion, most of which will go toward tearing down the Central Terminal Building, rebuilding it in place and augmenting it with a grand entry way.
The project “replaces the airport in its entirety,” Mr. Cuomo said at a Midtown Manhattan luncheon for the Association for a Better New York. He said that airport officials and planners had concluded that there was no way to fix La Guardia, that it essentially had to be torn down and rebuilt. With no place to create a substitute anywhere near Manhattan, they decided it had to remain crammed between Flushing Bay and the Grand Central Parkway.
The big thought was to create an aesthetically pleasing, unified airport in place of the collection of disconnected terminals, decades old, that form the airport, said Daniel R. Tishman, a developer appointed by Mr. Cuomo to lead a committee to create a master plan for La Guardia.Zahra Jamshed, CNN Written by
Air Ink, a brand new concept by India-based Graviky Labs, uses polluted air to create paint and ink. The company's first line of Air Ink products includes pens, oil-based paints and spray paints. Each product contains pigments made from carbon soot.
The ink is the brainchild of Graviky Labs founder Anirudh Sharma, who describes himself as a chronic inventor. Sharma previously created LeChal, a smart shoe fitted with sensors that help the visually-impaired walk, through gentle vibrations.
In a recent partnership with Tiger Beer, Graviky Labs tested its soot-based product in Hong Kong -- which is known for its high pollution -- and put it in the hands of local artists. 9 artists were invited to paint murals with the ink in the city's Sheung Wan district.
Capturing carbon soot
Sharma was first inspired to create Air Ink after a conversation with his friends in India, during which, many complained about how heavy air pollution would leave marks on their clothes.
Painting with pollution
He experimented with the idea as a researcher at MIT media lab, and then went on to start Graviky Labs in India -- further developing the concept.
"I thought, artists create their work through smudging, marks, ink and paint. How do we tackle this air pollution problem creatively, like an artist would? What if we used art as a way to repurpose this carbon soot?"
So for the past three years, Sharma's team at Graviky Labs have researched just that -- how to capture, purify and re-purpose carbon soot, and turn it into an usable paint for art.
Painting with pollution
Car emissions are one of the biggest contributing factors of India's serious pollution woes. The air in Delhi, for example, was rated as having the world's most polluted air (with the highest concentration of particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers) by the World Health Organization in 2014.
"Because of this, we wanted to create technology that can capture a vehicle's carbon emissions without compromising the performance of the vehicle."
The carbon soot is first captured using a cylindric device that is fit over the car's exhaust pipe. Next, Sharma says, the soot undergoes a purification process that removes heavy
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work to be done, but our board and I believe that this new corporate structure we are pursuing would accelerate News Corporation's businesses to grow to new heights, and enable each company and its divisions to recognise their full potential – and unlock even greater long-term shareholder value," said Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corporation. "News Corporation's 60-year heritage of developing world-class media brands has resulted in a large and unparalleled portfolio of diversified assets. We recognise that over the years, News Corporation's broad collection of assets have become increasingly complex. We determined that creating this new structure would simplify operations and greater align strategic priorities, enabling each company to better deliver on our commitments to consumers across the globe. I am 100% committed to the future of both the publishing and media and entertainment businesses and, if the board ultimately approves a separation, I would serve as chairman of both companies." News Corporation believes that a separation of the businesses into distinct public corporations with their own identities and strategies would enhance overall shareholder value and allow each company to: • Focus on and pursue distinct strategic priorities and industry-specific opportunities that would maximise their long-term potential.
• Benefit from greater financial and operational flexibility and better position each company to compete.
• Respond and react more quickly to rapidly-evolving technology and global market opportunities.
• Tailor its capital structure, and allocate and deploy resources in a manner consistent with its strategic objectives that best enhances value for its respective shareholder group. With more focus devoted to each business' financial and operational structure, investors would be able to more clearly evaluate the inherent value of both portfolios of assets and invest in each company accordingly. The new global media and entertainment company that would be created through the proposed transaction would consist of News Corporation's highly-profitable cable and television assets, filmed entertainment, and direct satellite broadcasting businesses, including Fox Broadcasting, 20th Century Fox Film, 20th Century Fox Television, Fox Sports, Fox International Channels, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, FX, Star, the National Geographic Channels, Shine Group, Fox Television Stations, BSkyB, Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland, among others. As a pure-play content producer and distributor, the Company would build on its deep heritage in developing incredibly strong, premium content for distribution on screens of all sizes by leveraging its leading content across its entertainment and cable news verticals, as well as its unparalleled collection of regional sports networks, and the industry's leading movie and TV production and distribution company. In addition, the entertainment company would benefit from its rapidly growing, high-margin cable network and pay-TV assets, and the distribution capabilities and opportunities associated with its unrivaled global footprint with significant scale across North and South America, Europe and Asia. The new global publishing company that would be created through the proposed transaction would consist of News Corporation's current publishing businesses, as well as its book publishing, education and integrated marketing services divisions. The new publishing company would create a scaled publishing platform that would be one of the best capitalised in the industry. The publishing company would have the opportunity to leverage its trusted brands for innovation and value creation across all traditional and digital platforms. The publishing company would incorporate some of the world's most successful print, digital and information services brands including Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, HarperCollins, the New York Post, and the Daily, as well as offer the rich diversity of assets in Australia, including leading brands such as the Australian, the Herald Sun, the Daily Telegraph and the Courier Mail. In addition, the company would include the Times, the Sun, the Sunday Times, as well as News Corporation's integrated marketing services group and its ground-breaking digital education group, including Wireless Generation. With a balanced portfolio of stable and growing news publishing brands and other assets, shareholders would benefit from strong and consistent free cash flow generated by these businesses, over multiple platforms. Upon closing of the proposed transaction, News Corporation's shareholders would receive one share of common stock in the new company for each same class News Corporation share currently held. Following the separation, each company would maintain two classes of common stock: class A common and class B common Voting Shares. Upon closing of the proposed transaction, Rupert Murdoch would serve as chairman of both companies and CEO of the media and entertainment company. Chase Carey would serve as president and COO of the media and entertainment company. Over the next several months, the company will assemble management teams and boards of directors for both businesses. The separation is expected to be completed in approximately 12 months. Management is developing detailed plans for the board's further consideration and final approval. To execute the transaction requires further work on structure, management, governance, and other significant matters. After receiving final approval of the board of directors, News Corporation will convene a special shareholder meeting to consider the transaction. This meeting is not expected to take place until the first half of calendar 2013. During the closing process, News Corporation will remain focused on delivering the best possible results for the benefit of its consumers, customers and shareholders. In addition to shareholder approval, the completion of the separation will also be subject to receipt of regulatory approvals, opinions from tax counsel and favorable rulings from certain tax jurisdictions regarding the tax-free nature of the transaction to the company and to its shareholders, further due diligence as appropriate, and the filing and effectiveness of appropriate filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The company will provide interim updates as appropriate. There can be no assurances given that the separation of the company's businesses as described in this announcement will occur.
The surprise in News Corp's announcement is that Rupert Murdoch will, for the first time in 60 years, not directly run the company's global stable of newspapers. He will be chairman of the new publishing business, but that is likely to be seen as a ceremonial role compared with his close involvement with his newspapers in the past.
The news will spark speculation about who is likely to take over News Corp's publishing business, which includes the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, newspapers in the UK and Australia, as well as its education assets. News Corp's search for a newspaper chief executive comes at the same time as the New York Times Company's own recruitment process. It would be an unlikely candidate that would interview for both roles
Here is Rupert Murdoch's statement to News Corp staff:
Dear colleagues: It is with much enthusiasm and personal pride that I share with you today's news regarding our plan to drive towards the next, transformative phase of this organisation you and I have built together into one of the largest, most innovative media companies of our time. That very size and breadth has created an opportunity to separate News Corporation into two global leaders in their own right -- we will wow the world as two, as opposed to merely one. I believe our leadership is born out of a spirit of innovation. We have never accepted the status quo. We have always been driven by the belief that we can do better – deliver a better product for our audiences and provide better performing businesses for our shareholders. Our success has come from our speed, flexibility and creativity in responding to changing markets, in combination with our commitment to serving our customers' needs. Our publishing businesses are greatly undervalued by the skeptics. Through this transformation we will unleash their real potential, and be able to better articulate the true value they hold for shareholders. Our aim is to create the most ambitious, well-capitalised and highly motivated publishing company in the world, consisting of the largest collection of our news and publishing brands, as well as our groundbreaking digital education group; we will also work to create the world's top media and entertainment company, encompassing our premier broadcast and cable networks, leading film and television production studios and highly successful pay-tv businesses. Much of our foundation already exists – because of you. We have the creative minds. We have the assets. We have the brands. But we must realign and reorganise in this moment of opportunity so that we can heighten our focus and be faster, more nimble, and more adaptable to change. When we began this journey 60 years ago in Adelaide, we made a commitment to provide great journalism, while also entertaining our consumers. In news, information, data, literature, and digital content, no company has devoted the resources, the passion, or enjoyed the success we have. That will not change. The most important guarantee to free societies, free markets and free minds is free speech. Knowledge has changed the course of history in every society, and we believe that being a creator and distributor of information is not just the right thing to do, it's good business. The failure of other publishing companies to embrace the future has itself created opportunities for us around the world. Our publishing company will deliver on the promise of a well-informed society as we aggressively grow our business across borders and new global platforms. On the media and entertainment side, we have a reputation for inspiring and entertainingms of imaginations every day. We have a history of empowering truly visionary, creative talent to take chances that have redefined the landscape again and again. Today, our creative content businesses have never been stronger. Our distribution assets, globally, are on full throttle. These businesses, at the core of an independent media and entertainment entity, will innovate and grow even faster. The most valuable commodities in the world today are information, analysis and education, with infinite potential through the growth of technology and digital platforms to accelerate the improvement of world living standards. Today there are 30m tablets in use in the US and 75m worldwide. In five years' time, there will be at least 75m tablets in the US and 375m in the world. Smartphones will get far smarter and grow rapidly over the next 5 years, from 120m active phones to 225m in the US, and from 835m to 1.7bn in the world. These technologies will permeate all parts of life – including education – and it is my firm belief that these two companies will be best positioned to compete in this rapidly evolving global economy and distribute our premium content on these platforms. Over the years, I have become accustomed to the noise of critics and naysayers...and pretty thick-skinned! Remember what they said when we started the Fox Network, Sky, Fox News and the Sun? These experiences have made me more resilient. And they should you, as well. And time and time again, we persevered, creating new businesses, new products, telling new stories, informing and educating the public in new ways –- and giving jobs to thousands more people. I am extremely excited by this big change. It is a testimony to our entrepreneurial spirit and determination to educate, inspire and entertainms of families across the globe. I will personally be leading the creation of our new companies and will serve as chairman of both organisations and as CEO of the media and entertainment company. Chase Carey will continue to partner with me on leading the media and entertainment business, by serving as president and COO. We are busy working on other important details and will inform you as they become available. Lastly, each of you will make this possible. I will forever be grateful for your loyalty, hard work, creative thinking, and most of all, for your support in making this transition a successful one. We have much work to do as we grasp the great opportunities that lie ahead. I cannot express how much I appreciate all of your hard work up to this point, and for the promise of your continued creativity as we lay the foundation stones for these two great companies. Each will be unified in their spirit, in their determination, and in their dedication to touching and enhancing lives around the world. Best regards, Rupert Murdoch
Here is the full Tom Mockridge memo to News International staff in London following the announcement:
Dear colleagues, Rupert has now told you about the exciting changes to our parent company, News Corporation. Our future here at News International is now as part of the largest newspaper and digital group in the world – with more than 170 titles and some hugely respected and prestigious brands. Globally we join forces with Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal and great Australian papers, including the Adelaide Advertiser – in the city where Rupert began the News Corporation story. In the UK it means joining forces with HarperCollins, recently awarded publisher of the year and with a heritage going back nearly 200 years. They published Dickens back then and their current list is an eclectic mix that captures Stephen Fry, Tony Parsons, Sophie Dahl and the Dalai Lama. These are challenging times for our sector but we have proved ourselves time and again to be market leaders and pioneers in our field. I see a bright future, though the pressure to ensure our journalism is compelling and our business practices and procedures robust will be greater than ever. Implementing this change will take about 12 months. There are complex regulatory, commercial, managerial and practical issues to navigate whilst we continue with the daily task of producing and selling papers. Rupert will be taking questions on this at 3pm today on Fox Business News. He will also visit us in the near future. I am hoping to see as many of you as possible over the next few days to answer any questions you may have about this and the price rise we are implementing next week on The Sun and the Sunday Times. All the best, Tom Mockridge
Lisa O'Carroll reports that Surrey police officers who were hunting Milly Dowler's killer have been referred to complaints body the IPCC for alleged failure to investigate News of the World for hacking her phone.
Mark Lewis, the solicitor for the Dowler family, said he welcomed the referral of Surrey's deputy chief constable Craig Denholm to the IPCC over hacking.
"The Dowler family welcomes the proper investigation of what happened at Surrey police 10 years ago. They regret that the passage of time means that some individuals can now no longer be investigated. The family have no further comment to make at this time."
Several Guardian correspondents are listening in to News Corporation's conference call with Rupert Murdoch right now. We will bring you updates as we have them.
Rupert Murdoch begins the call by describing today as an "exciting day" and one of "great pride for me personally". It is the culmination of more than three years of reviews by News Corp into managing the business. "It is the logical next step in our evolution," he says.
Murdoch says the move will create "two best in class companies". The entertainment business, he reminds us, includes very profitable TV and movie companies such as Fox and BSkyB.
The newspaper business, which includes the Sun and the Wall Street Journal, is of "unparalleled scale and breadth", Murdoch says.
Murdoch says the coming months will be "particularly busy and exciting" for News Corp.
"I'm convinced that as separate entities both businesses will be able to reach new heights … make no mistake, my contention applies also to the global publishing business," Murdoch says.
He says naysayers could "not be further from the truth" and the separation will "unlock the shareholder value that investors deserve".
The publishing company will have a "robust net cash position," he adds.
"I look forward to the future of both these world-class companies," Murdoch says.
Murdoch is now open to questions. Why is the move being made now? "I felt we were making great progress and I still think we are," Murdoch answers.
He says other companies have done well out of splitting up companies. "It's a very big move and a very big decision for me," he adds. "This is not a fait accompli. There are a lot of steps to take."
"The answer is one word, it's digital," says Murdoch, bullishly, when asked about structural decline in the publishing industry. He is adamant that people will pay for news online.
One analyst asks about the capital structure of each spun-off company.
Dave Devoe, News Corp's chief finance officer, doesn't have any detail to share further that Murdoch's contention that the publishing firm will have a "robust net cash position".
News Corp's Devoe says "we have no changes in the plans we've talked about on BSkyB" when asked whether this move makes it more or less likely they will revisit a full takeover of the company.
Murdoch suggests that News Corp will look at internal candidates only for the chief executive of its publishing business.
He says "we have a wonderful group of managers in the whole company to choose from. This is going to take many months to complete and we're in no hurry to make a decision on that".
Murdoch says the corporate upheaval "is not a reaction to anything in Britain".
That is the only reference so far to the phone-hacking scandal that apparently had no impact on this move today.
The Guardian's Dan Sabbagh is also listening to the conference call. He has just tweeted:
Murdoch "I do not want our newspapers to become monopolies; they will become a political target". — Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) June 28, 2012
The shares will be allocated one for one, but the structure and pricing there after has yet to be evaluated, says chief financial officer Devoe.
Chase Carey says the companies are "going to be competing at one level, but at the end of the day they are going to look for opportunities... to work together at arm's length".
That concludes the conference call.
Rupert Murdoch will be interviewed on Fox Business News in just under one hour and we will bring you that live here.
Here is a brief summary of today's developments:
• News Corporation has confirmed that it will spin off its publishing business from its TV and film companies. Murdoch expressed "great pride" at the historic separation of News Corp into two companies.
• Rupert Murdoch will step back from his newspapers for the first time in 60 years, but will be chairman of both new companies. "It's a very big move and a very big decision for me," he adds. "This is not a fait accompli. There are a lot of steps to take."
• The move was not linked to the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, Murdoch said. "It is not a reaction to anything in Britain," he said, witthout mentioning the scandal directly.
• Murdoch suggested in an analyst call that only internal candidates will be considered for chief executive of the publishing business. "We have a wonderful group of managers in the whole company to choose from," he said in a conference call with analysts.
• Murdoch will give an interview to Fox Business News at 3pm BST (10am ET).
Tom McCarthy in New York here. We're waiting for Rupert Murdoch to appear on Fox Business – he's scheduled for 10:45 am ET – to talk about his new companies and answer questions about the split.
Lisa O'Carroll notes that shares in News Corp barely budged on the announcement, a reflection of the fact there were no big surprises. Shares were down slightly, 0.63%, in early trading at $22.17.
In the UK, shares in BSkyB rose slightly, by 0.51% to 685p, on the FTSE 100. News Corp's Chase Carey said in an analysts call in the past hour that the move does not make it more or less likely that the company's will revive its bid for the remaining shares in BSkyB.
My colleague Dominic Rushe reports that in a conference call with market analysts, Rupert Murdoch was very bullish on News Corp's publishing assets.
BTIG's Rich Greenfield asked Murdoch what made him so confident, and he said "in a word: digital." He said he was convinced news remained a valuable commodity and the "naysayers" would be proven wrong. BTIG values the new publishing firm at $1 and the soar-away Foxtastic media firm at $29. Greenfield told me he was impressed by Murdoch's belief that he could grow the value of the business. "Time will tell. The market has a very different view to Rupert about the value of the sort of assets you work for," said Greenfield.
Most everyone sees the overwhelming international embarrassment (not to mention serious legal hazards... and general rottenness) of the News of the World phone hacking scandal as having contributed to pressure on Rupert Murdoch to spin off the News Corp publishing business.
Not so, Murdoch said today. The split has nothing to do with that unpleasant episode.
But even as Murdoch downplays the scandal, it refuses to go away, my colleague Lisa O'Carroll points out. The latest news today: one of the most senior police in Britain is being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission over claims he failed to act when he discovered the News of the World had hacked Milly Dowler's phone.
Here's the Guardian's Sandra Laville:
Deputy Chief Constable Craig Denholm, who was in overall charge of Operation Ruby – the investigation into the girl's disappearance in March 2002 – is to be the subject of an independent investigation by the police watchdog. The inquiry centres on allegations that Denholm knew Milly's phone had been hacked by the News of the World in 2002 and did not act. Surrey police and the police authority referred his conduct to the IPCC on 21 June and the police watchdog announced on Thursday it would be carrying out an independent investigation.
Rupert Murdoch is on Fox talking about... the Supreme Court's upholding President Obama's health care law.
"I think it's been shown that it's going to add tremendously to the national budget. I'm just worried that this entitlement culture – we've seen where it's taken Greece, we've seen where it's taken France and Spain."
Neil Cavuto is interviewing Murdoch. He looks downright terrified.
Cavuto asks Murdoch about the timing of the announcement. Was it timed to the SCOTUS decision on health care to obscure the news?
"No no we're not that good at planning. We wanted to do it this week. WE thought on a Friday is bad because it wouldn't get reported. And next week there's the fourth of July in there.
"I've been getting advice from both sides."
Q: From Chase Carey? Devoe?
"What brought me to it was, after 58 years building a company, gradually, I realized the logic of it, and how all the companies would be better managed, we'd be a lot better in every way."
Q: Who'll run the publishing business?
"WE don't know yet. We have great division heads... we've got really great management right across the whole company. Maybe we'll take someone from Fox News.[ Ha ha]
Q: Hacking scandal. Is this a way to keep litigation on the publishing side?
No nothing to do with it at all. At All. This is not any reaction. This is looking forward to what's looking best for the company, for our shareholders.
Q: BskyB. You're [News Corp is] under investigation for being unfit to lead it [BSkyB]?
"No regulator said that at all. A number of people on a parliamentary committee threw that in. When asked if they had any evidence, they said not."
"There are billions and billions of dollars, and if Britain didn't want 'em, there are plenty of good places to put them here!"
"We've got things to be very bullish about in this country."
Cavuto actually drew Murdoch out quite well there. He pushed him on whether News Corp's problems in the UK have led to the split. He pressed him on the failed BSkyB acquisition, asking if the split was a way to make another run at the broadcaster.
Which pushes Murdoch (whose eye-glasses appear to be suffering a terminal fogginess issue, maybe from the heat coming out of his ears) to say:
"There are billions and billions of dollars, and if Britain don't want 'em, there are plenty of good places to put them here!"
Cavuto asks about the US election and whether it will affect his business.
Murdoch answers: "If taxes go up and so on we'll have less cash. And my own feeling is if that happens, the economy will slow down, or not get much better than it is today... Not that other things won't be going on.
Q: Finally, quickly... and you've been very patient. [Cavuto senses Murdoch's impatience but, blessedly, his journalistic instincts get the better of him]. The question is, what about your sons? WIll there be future roles for Lachlan and James?
I have daughters, too, Murdoch points out. Of Lachlan and James, he says, "Well, they have to earn it. And have to want it. Lachlan is very happy running his own business in Australia--and he loves living there."
Q: SO [Lachlan is] not going to run the new publishing company?
Murdoch: "I think that's highly unlikely."
[Super-uncomfortable silence.]
"Thank you Mr. Murdoch."
Murdoch seemed angry, annoyed with Cavuto. His answers grew shorter and shorter and his smile grew tighter and tighter. Is Cavuto still employed?
Here's what we heard from Rupert Murdoch:
• The decision to dump the publishing arm of News Corp into a separate business had nothing to do with the phone-hacking scandal and is not a move to insulate the profitable body of News Corp from litigation that might now affect the gangrenous newspaper arm. "No nothing to do with it at all. At All. This is not any reaction. This is looking forward to what's looking best for the company, for our shareholders."
• The split is not a way to take another run at BSkyB. In fact, if BSkyB doesn't want News Corp money, that's just fine. In fact, we're not that excited about investing in Britain anyway. America's where it's at now, don't you know: "There are billions and billions of dollars, and if Britain didn't want 'em, there are plenty of good places to put them here!"
• Lachlan Murdoch is not on deck to run the new News Corp publishing business: "I think that's highly unlikely.... Lachlan is very happy running his own business in Aurstralia--and he loves living there."
News Corp shares have cooled as the news sinks in. My colleague Dominic Rushe:
The company's shares have soared about 11% over the last two days but slipped today, and are now down 1.79% at $21.91. The Dow Jones Index (another Murdoch company) is down over 145 points at the moment following Obama's Supreme Court victory (of which Rupert does not approve) – so it's not really a reaction to the split news.
We're going to wrap up our live blog coverage of today's big News Corp announcement.
A summary of Rupert Murdoch's rather pugnacious interview on the decision is here. Our breakdown of what the two new companies will look like is here. The full News Corp statement on the split is here. And our reporting on a conference call Murdoch held this morning, in which he dismissed any notion that the decision to divide was made under adverse pressures, is here.News Article:
Godzilla: The Art of Destruction Book
Date: 4/06/2014 (Updated: 04/08/2014) Author: Chris Mirjahangir Source: http://www.insighteditions.com
156 pages thick, Insight Editions will be releasing an expansive book on all the design work that went into Godzilla (2014). This includes a wealth of concept art, storyboards and more.
The publication also has a stellar front cover art. Click the image to the right to see a high resolution version or download the 14MB TIF.
The book will be released on May 13, 2014, to coincide with the debut of the movie. It retails with an MSRP of $45, although is currently available from Amazon for $28.46.
Here is an official blurb on the new book:
Published to coincide with the release of Warner Bros. and Legendary's Godzilla, directed by Gareth Edwards, this visually stunning book presents an extraordinary new vision for the beloved character through a dynamic selection of concept illustrations, sketches, storyboards, and other pre-production materials. Godzilla: The Art of Destruction is the definitive book on one of the most anticipated films of 2014. Featuring interviews with the director and key crew and cast members, the book tells the complete story of the making of Godzilla from concept to final frames. Comprehensive and enthralling, Godzilla: The Art of Destruction is a book that no fan will want to be without.
Update (03/26/2014): Insight Editions has graciously shared some of the inside pages to see in advance of the book's May 13th release. Below are four pages from the publication with corresponding captions direct from the publisher. Click the image for a very high resolution version or download the original TIF files found below. The book is available now for pre-order.
Download 6MB TIF
Download 54MB TIF
04. LEFT Dr. Brody monitors the crisis at the Janjira facility. BELOW The Janjira nuclear power plant control room was a daunting design challenge—everything from switches and gauges to signage and paperwork had to be created and accurately reflect a period Japanese nuclear facility. This piece of concept art set the look of the facility.
Download 15MB TIF
06. OPPOSITE LEFT AND ABOVE Concept art depicting the Q-Zone. "The great thing about haze and fog is that you can create beautiful, dark foreground silhouettes," says Edwards. "It really gives a sense of scale and scope." OPPOSITE BOTTOM RIGHT Q-Zone set dressing showing a weathered radiation warning sign.
Download 45MB TIF
08. RIGHT Concept art imagines the surreal effect of the giant monsters, such as this nuclear submarine dropped in the mountains. "I love this shot," says Edwards. We struggled with trying to find a position for the submarine that didn't feel too silly, but you could still read it from a distance. This is a shot that's never in the film, they don't actually approach it from the boat, but again, things get drawn just to give it flavor."
Credits :
Reprinted from Godzilla: The Art of Destruction by Mark Cotta Vaz, published by Insight Editions. TM & © Toho Co., Ltd. © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (s14)During his career, Sergio Agüero has made a massive impact in every city where he’s played. Consider his early days in Buenos Aires, a spell in Madrid, his current stint in Manchester City and, of course, his legendary visit to Ottawa.
That’s right, Ottawa. The Argentine striker was the star of the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup, playing in front of sold-out crowds at Ottawa’s Frank Clair Stadium four times. And it was during that tournament that John Pugh – who already owned Ottawa-based teams in the USL Premier Development League and W-League – realized his city was ready for something more.
“People really began to understand what going to a real professional soccer game was like [during the U-20 World Cup],” Pugh tells MLSsoccer.com. “That would have been the ideal moment in time to start a professional club here in Ottawa. It’s taken longer than that, of course.
“We needed to build a stadium, and that’s taken quite a number of years and gone through a few trials and tribulations along the way.”
Around the same time, a group of local businessmen were angling to bring a Canadian Football League team back to Ottawa. But when cracks were found in Frank Clair Stadium shortly after the U-20 tournament ended, the businessmen – collectively known as the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG) – realized they’d also need a stadium to bring their gridiron dreams to fruition.
Working with the city, they formulated a plan to redevelop all of Lansdowne Park – the site where Frank Clair sat – to include retail, residential and a new stadium fit for both football and fútbol.
“This is much more than a soccer destination,” says Pugh, one of the partners in OSEG. “It’s a 24-7 destination in terms of restaurants, shopping and all sorts of things. It’s a really exciting event for the whole city.”
The group was awarded its CFL team in 2008, and the NASL awarded Pugh a team in 2011. However, multiple lawsuits from local groups pushed back the opening of refurbished Frank Clair Stadium – since renamed TD Place Stadium – to July 2014.
But with a league and venue in place, Pugh’s team could get down to its next major task: establishing an identity. The club ultimately decided to hold onto the city’s recent soccer past.
“We’ve had W-League and PDL soccer here for many years under the old Fury Soccer Club banner, and built a foundation of academy and youth soccer programs,” he says.
So, in February 2013, after a public name-the-team contest, the city’s NASL team was unveiled as the Ottawa Fury FC. The next month, the team hired former Montreal Impact manager Marc Dos Santos as its first head coach.
On April 5, they officialy opened play in the NASL, and on Saturday, they'll play their home opener against Minnesota United FC.
“I really feel like the NASL is growing,” says Dos Santos, who managed Montreal from 2009-11, during the messy split between the USL and NASL. “Maybe there’s a lot more space for soccer in North America than people think. Maybe MLS is not going to be able to cover every zone and every area.”
Pugh, like Dos Santos, is bullish about the NASL’s prospects, citing the strong ownership groups as a key element of the league’s ongoing growth. But he is also excited about the fact that his club is yet another place where Canadian players – and coaches – have an opportunity to showcase their talents.
“We’re very pleased because two players have come through our youth ranks,” he says, referencing Kenny Caceros and Chad Bush. “Some players [that] have played for us in the PDL, like Carl Haworth and Drew Beckie, have now returned to Ottawa to play for our NASL squad.”
Dos Santos, whose roster includes 11 Canadian players, is unequivocal about where his club fits into the grand scheme.
“We want to be a club that supports the Canadian program and helps the national team,” he says. “If we want our national team to compete at the highest level and hopefully qualify for a World Cup and be competitive, we have to make sure our Canadian players are always around an environment where they’re going to play at the highest level they can.”
Dos Santos (at right) has some clear short-term goals in the team's first season of NASL play, but the Fury didn't quite get the the start they were after. The club lost its spring season opener 2-0 to the Fort Lauderdale Strikers on April 12.
“The first goal we have is to make sure that at the end of the season, we’re a respected club in North America,” Dos Santos says. “One of our dreams is to make it to the [NASL] final four; the other dream is to make the semifinal of the Amway [Canadian Championship].”
While Dos Santos and Pugh both have high hopes for the club’s performance on the field, they realize that its performance off the field in the coming years could be just as important. Ottawa has had a fraught sports history in the past 20 years, watching two CFL teams and three minor-league baseball teams cease operations during that time.
But Pugh, for one, feels soccer will be different.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” he says. “We expect to build that fanbase over time. It wasn’t too long ago that teams like Vancouver and Montreal were playing in front of crowds of 5,000-10,000 and they’ve moved successfully up.”
The Fury will also have a bit of a head start, with three established supporters' groups ready to bring their own character to home games. The oldest, the Bytown Boys, was established in 2011 to support Capital City FC, a defunct team in the now-outlawed Canadian Soccer League.
“The Fury welcomed us with open arms, so we attended PDL games and W-League games,” says Stephane Brisson-Merrick, 28, president of the group. “We knew they were going to NASL, so we figured we may as well get in on the ground floor.”
Brisson-Merrick says the group’s members have been actively recruiting people in the Ottawa soccer community to attend Fury games, and while it’s occasionally been a tough sell – particularly amongst diehard supporters of the European game – he hopes the team will show the sort of character that will appeal to all fans of the game.
“I want them to leave everything they have on the field, every game I want them to leave it on the field,” he says. “Make sure you work hard, because in the end, I think that’s what most sports fans love.”
Indeed, there’s been plenty of hard work involved in bringing a professional men’s team to the Canadian capital, but now that the season has begun it all finally seems real for those involved.
The home opener on Saturday at their temporary home at Carleton University is the next big step, but the big date in the minds of many is their NASL fall season home opener, July 20 against the New York Cosmos at their newly minted stadium.
“TD Place is going to be a wonderful place to watch soccer,” says Pugh.
They have built it – now the question is, will Ottawa soccer fans come?The Padres-Mariners trade sending Seth Smith to Seattle for Brandon Maurer might seem like an easy enough win-win swap where everyone gets what they want. The Mariners get a platoon hitter to complement Justin Ruggiano in right field to give Lloyd McClendon's lineup some help, and the Padres get a young pitcher with upside, dealing mid-90s heat and with past prospect touts to his credit. But is it that simple?
Certainly you have to credit the Mariners and GM Jack Zduriencik for getting the (more) sure thing. Smith has long track record for providing decent power from the left side of the plate, with a.481 SLG career vs. righties. More significantly, he slugged.441 for a.178 ISO against RHPs over the last three years when he didn't get to call Coors Field home, and instead had to hit in tougher parks such as Oakland's Coliseum and Petco Park. Moving to Safeco Field won't do him many favors, but it's still an easier place for a lefty to pop for power than Oakland, but especially for a platoon guy Smith does a good job of lining balls to all fields instead of simply living or dying on what he drives to right field. So while he got some headlines for his 10 first-half homers, that's not really his game, and I suspect he'll fit better in Seattle as a result. Paired up with the right-handed Ruggiano, he ought to be a good short-term patch in one outfield corner.
The question is whether Smith's going to be good for that kind of production over the life of his contract, because thanks to last year's in-season extension he signed with the Padres' outbound management team, he's locked up through 2016 for $13 million with a 2017 club option for another $7 million (with a cheap $250,000 buyout). In an offense-starved offseason market, that's a reflection of how expensive it is to add established offensive talent, because Smith's a decent spear carrier, but that's a hefty chunk of change for a simply useful part-time corner outfielder. Good on him
|
however, lead designer Preston Watamaniuk felt that,
“a game centered on brutal Krogan combat with more of a melee focus could be pretty exciting. I’m sure Grunt would be up for it.”
Lead writer Mac Walters was a little more conflicted:
“Aria. The Illusive Man. Kai Leng. Any henchman. The list goes on. I think most of them could have successful spin-offs of their own in some fashion.”
Finally, producer Michael Gamble felt like our lonely surviving Prothean friend could use some time in the spotlight, saying,
“Following the story of Javik a little bit more would be pretty cool. As the last remaining member of a lost race, I think that we could tell a lot of stories about his adventures in the Milky Way, and coming to terms with his place in the new Galaxy.”
What can a debut trailer reveal?
In the following month, studio director Yanick Roy had a question for fans:
‘When the game takes places (as in time period’) and ‘who the main protagonist is‘ were the two biggest requests received, Roy later noted. One thing we can extrapolate from this is that the debut trailer will likely reveal these two features of the game, and that’s not too surprising, as they’re two of the most important aspects of the game after all. Fans and the gaming media have been having conversations on whether it will indeed be a sequel or prequel. Given the story of Shepard has ended, a sequel wouldn’t be a ‘sequel’ in the official sense, but it would carry on in a period after the war with the Reapers.
Retaining likeness with previous games
In the same conversation, Roy also confirmed that the new game would indeed play in the same vein as the previous trilogy.
So we know for sure that it’ll play like the past games. It’ll be a third person shooter with exploration, RPG mechanics, dialogue systems, etc. Phew! What, you guys didn’t think they’d actually go through with that dating sim thing did you?
Same-sex romantic relationships
There was one last thing that was commented on before finishing the conversation. A series fan asked the studio director if same-sex relationships with other characters would still be in the new game in the same vein as the trilogy. No need to fret, said Roy:
A Gears of War producer joins the team
In a surprising tweet, former producer on Gears of War 3 and Gears of War: Judgment Chris Wynn announced that he had entered the fray as senior development director on the new game.
Looking back on it now, my immediate reaction would have been to question where the new game will go gameplay wise. However, a producer’s job is to bring together multiple facets of the various teams in the studio, coordinate effectively between them, manage budgets, and oversee overall efficiency. While a knee-jerk reaction, thinking the high octane, heavy action gameplay from the Gears of War series would now become meat and potatoes of this new Mass Effect isn’t too unreasonable, but there’s no need to worry. Developers are adaptive and their ways of thinking can change from game to game. The Gears of War games were excellent in their own right and are among my favorite of the last generation, but the essence of what makes Mass Effect the series that it is are the deep characters, wonderful lore, and allure of the open galaxy.
A milestone is reached
We first started hearing of BioWare devs playing around in the new game a few months later in September. As always, producer Casey Hudson was happy to talk of the progress they’ve made:
So progress was coming along well. Being able to finally go into the game engine and run around in the world is an accomplishment, and things were heating up. Games in development routinely have ‘milestone reviews’. These reviews help establish the direction the game is taking and ensuring everything is on track to continue moving forward. Once again Hudson took to Twitter to give just a little tease.
Mass Effect-y indeed! In just under a year after it was first announced, substantial progress was being made on a consistent basis. Exciting!
Shepard’s story may not even be referenced at all
Be prepared to say goodbye to all your old pals and escapades as Shepard, according to lead writer Mac Walters. In an interview with Complex, any hopes to see Commander Shepard’s story or events surrounding him or her to be even touched upon are quick to be dashed.
“Well, I can’t get into details, but the idea is that we have agreed to tell a story that doesn’t relate necessarily to any of the Shepard events at all, whatsoever”, explained Walters.
“That’s what we’ve been deciding for a while. But throughout it all, one of the key things is that it has to be Mass Effect. It can’t just feel like a spin-off. It has to feel like a Mass Effect game at its heart, at its core. Just without the Shepard character or the Shepard specific companions.”
Our first glimpses into the new world
With N7 day just around the corner, eager fans were salivating at any chance to get any snippet of information on the next game. Boy did BioWare deliver on that one! On Nov. 7, 2013, a slew of cryptic Mass Effect tweets were released to fans around the world. Let’s analyze them piece by piece.
First image
The first to be tweeted was by producer Michael Gamble. “The next chapter of Mass Effect is upon us!!” he exclaimed to the picture seen here:
First thing’s first, what’s that in his hands? An Xbox 360 controller eh? Obviously our first thought would be to assume the game would at least be released on the Xbox 360 right? Not quite. We should note at the moment of publication of the tweet, the PC drivers for the Xbox One controller weren’t quite ready yet, and the 360 controller is the default when testing on PC units.
What seems apparent to me is that he is looking at the screen on the right, however, the image is cut off just enough to the point of obscurity. So what of the left? It becomes clear that the picture is in fact concept art, a desktop wallpaper. We can see a humanoid character standing in the center of the screen on what looks to be a command center or holodeck-like room. Peering out to the horizon, we see a dreary brown desert landscape, complete with dunes and hills. Could it possibly be one of the new planets we’ll get to land on in the new game?
Second image
The next tweet is a lot more exciting. Sent out by our good chap Yanick Roy, it shows a developer working on some interesting concepts. “…with new characters to fall in love with…”, it reads.
On the left, we see 4 drawings of what appear to some type of hand-cannon. This is quite the reveal. Previous games in the series all featured your standard assault rifles, shotguns, pistols, etc. What these drawings showcase are new types of offensive weaponry. Each has a different form in the image. Perhaps we’ll get multiple types and be able to upgrade and customize these blasters to fit our gameplay styles. On the right, we can see a character that looks to be a human in a suit of armor. Is it our protagonist? Maybe…maybe not. The suit somewhat resembles Cerberus battle armor, but that’s pure speculation.
Third image
We got another exciting one here! Tweeted out by level designer Gary Stewart, we catch a look into another environment.
Obviously another piece of concept art, we can use it to deduce some more snippets of information. You can see human figures walking near the bottom. The two in the front appear to be soldiers of some kind walking in water. The world appears dank and gloomy. However, something stands out with the one in the back. Notice the blue silhouette on his/her back? A little reminiscent of human husks wouldn’t you say? The character’s walk also seems strange compared to the two in front. It might be my imagination, but it almost looks like there’s an arch in the neck, with the arms clenched as if it were some form of zombie creature. It could very well just be another marine.
What does capture the eye right away in the larger part of the image is the tall structure in the center. Fungi-like in nature, it spirals upward in an almost insectoid manner. It even resembles a Reaper spire artifact as seen in previous games in the original trilogy. Does it have anything to do with the Reapers? Given the new game will reference nothing from past games, and given the fact the Reaper war is over, I’d say the chance of it being anything of Reaper origin is unlikely. Right, on to the next one!
Fourth image
The next picture isn’t huge on the details, but we can at least determine facts about the setting. “…and new worlds to explore!” was tweeted by gameplay designer Manveer Heir.
We can tell it’s dark (no way!). A nightly stroll near a rocky outcrop? Massive rock structures dart the land in this piece of concept art. A part of a planet can also be gleaned from the background sky. Obviously this is a planet we’ll be able to land on, as detailed art like this isn’t made for nothing. What planet is this? Who calls it home? What’s our mission there? All unanswered questions at this point!
Fifth image
Thought we were done? Not yet folks. Sent out by lead designer Ian Frazier, we get to see an old friend! Poor Mako…I do miss that floaty and…err, unweildy bugger. It’s the note that went along with the image that caught my attention though.
“…so we can draw inspiration for the future,”. Is that a hint?
That’s a Mako alright, but what does it mean? Drawing inspiration for the future game from past games, in this case, the Mako, indicates an intention to return to the more fleshed out exploration aspect of the original Mass Effect. In the previous trilogy, fans were a little dismayed at the limited scope of discovery and exploration in Mass Effect 2 and 3. Does signal a possibility of actually landed on planets, taking a vehicle for a ride and heading out into the unknown? Anything’s possible at this point, and frankly I’m out of my seat with excitement. I missed the ability to explore ancient ruins, abandoned military outposts, barren wastelands and tundras.
Final image
A fitting end to the series of tweets came by way of none other than Casey Hudson. We didn’t get a specific image to look over and analyze, but rather an overview shot of the studio at work (thanks everyone!).
“We continue working hard to create amazing new Mass Effect experiences for you. Happy N7 Day everyone!,” it read.
Alright, if I had the vision of a hawk, I might be able to discern exactly what’s on screen on the monitors in the back, but I’m no miracle worker here. What’s obvious right away is a menu shot there on the middle screen. Look familiar? That’s because it is. It shows the customization screen from Mass Effect 3‘s multiplayer mode. What does that tell us exactly? What’s most likely happening here are designers using the multiplayer from Mass Effect 3 as a reference point and building on to it. We’ll see large changes and updates for sure, but it’s clear that it’ll be a starting point for the next Mass Effect‘s multiplayer. We also know the new game will continue to implement the same post-release DLC as previous games, as noted in a job listing by BioWare.
I quite enjoyed the multiplayer myself so this is most welcome news.
Leaked information from a private fan panel
Here’s where things get interesting. In the deepest corners of the internet, on an obscure forum that has relatively low traffic, a very, very intriguing post was made. A few weeks before PAX East earlier this year, BioWare sent out invites to Mass Effect fans who wanted to see a little something fresh at the expo behind closed doors. Non-disclosure agreements were signed and things were kept hush-hush. I would know as I was actually sent one of these invites myself. The post was killed shortly after being posted, likely by a cease and desist order from EA. Why else would a random post on a small random site detailing what was seen at this gathering be nuked? Because it was most likely true information.
A brave soul who attended this panel decided to let the whole world in on what he/she saw (thanks for that whoever you are)! Here’s what we learned:
The panel opened up with a question from BioWare: “What does N7 mean to you?”
They next asked if fans would like to see a sequel, prequel, or something else. The majority agreed a sequel was in order
Two new species were demonstrated. One was described as an “arrogant” race. Thin and skeletal in nature, they possess glowing eyes and necks that “frilled up from their chest”
The second was described as an “ancient, advanced, guardian” race. They looked very synthetic and resembled sci-fi rock golems with glowing lines over their bodies that looked like something out of Tron. Floating fragments also dotted around their body that itself had a color scheme similar to the Reapers
Multiple species were shown rendered in Frostbite 3: Asari, Salarian, Human, and Krogan
They intend to bring out uniqueness in model variety in the other species as they do with humans, giving them unique and diverse body and bone structure
Next, a lineup of the series’ standard main races was shown. Fans were then asked what two races they would get rid if they were forced to, with the majority picking Quarians and Krogan
Multiple human armor configurations were then shown, and fans were asked what they deemed to be the most iconic.
Numerous land vehicles shown
Intention to focus heavily on characters and choices and the idea to bring back the focus on exploration and discovery, with a goal to bring back the feeling of being “a stranger in a strange like Mass Effect 1″
Various head configurations of Krogans shown with different face plating on the forehead, jaw line, and chin.
Desire to implement large amounts of customizable armor, down to different individual pieces, colors, textures, materials, etc
Experimentation with having a type of “debugging menu” in the game for picking plot flags when making a save file. This is so you can have the exact file you want without having to do another long playthrough
More news coming next year
And that about wraps up everything we “know” about the next Mass Effect game at this point. When pressed for more last week, general manager Aaryn Flynn shot down any hopes of hearing or seeing more soon on Twitter.
This doesn’t come as a surprise really. Having just recently released a series of teaser photos last month, the chances of seeing even more new media of the game are slim to none. That leads me to my little points of speculation though!
Speculation: How and when we’ll see more
2014 is no doubt a huge year for BioWare. The release of Dragon Age Inquisition happens in the fall, and we’ll start seeing marketing for it ratchet up intensely as launch closes in thanks to EA’s coffers. Work on their new IP (helmed by Casey Hudson’s team) is well under way, and new information and media on the next Mass Effect will start trickling out. Let’s take a look at previous announcement to launch schedules and see if we can extrapolate from there.
The original Mass Effect was formally announced in October 2005 and launched in November 2007. With Mass Effect 2, the very first details were revealed in March 2009 at GDC, with a release in January 2010. Finally, Mass Effect 3 was revealed at the Spike Video Game Awards in December 2010. The game then saw an information blowout via Game Informer the following May, with a gameplay debut at E3 2011. It was released in March 2012.
So let’s recap where we’re at with this one. It was formally announced last September. Fans were then asked what sort of information they’d like to see in a debut trailer in June of this year. Lastly, we were witness to the first teaser images of the game last month.
What events could possibly harbor new information? Quite a few in fact. As Aaryn Flynn noted, some time in 2014 is when we can expect more. Coincidentally, GDC 2014 is right around the corner in March. With Mass Effect 2 first revealed at GDC in 2009, it’s certainly a possibility to finally get more info there in a few months. I don’t feel that we’ll get more details on things related to the main character or story, but rather on the game’s engine tools, levels, environments, developer techniques, etc. The Game Developer’s Conference is mostly used by various studios to showcase technical aspects of their games as well as hold panels for up and coming developers.
As Yanick Roy asked earlier in the summer, details on the main character, setting of the game, etc will most likely be revealed in an official debut trailer. Fitting. The perfect place to finally blow the lid on it? E3 2014 of course.
So, here’s my projected outlook on what we’ll get:
March 2014: First details on the technical side of things at GDC
June 2014: Debut trailer at E3 2014
Late 2014/early 2015: Gameplay videos and other media start getting released
Spring 2015 or Fall 2015: Release
The release date prediction varies wildly as I don’t feel confident to really pinpoint an exact time. By Spring 2015, the game would be about 27-30 months in full development. Plenty of time considering the relative ease of use of the new Frostbite 3 engine. BioWare may feel they really need to make a huge splash with the first debut of Mass Effect on next generation consoles and call for even more time that results in a nicely polished game in the fall.
Whatever the case may be, it’s finally comforting to say we can expect more detailed information soon. The original was my top game of the last generation and left an impact on me and showed me what kind of experiences games can deliver. I can’t wait to see where the next one takes us.This video is no longer available
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Video title:
Sex Cyborg Harmony To Give You A Real Live Connection
Upload date:
May 5 2017
Uploaded by:
MrHairyBit
Video description:
Sex robots, sex with a robot or sex cyborgs are the basis for scifi porno for years. Sex robot cyborg porn dreams of sex with a robot that can love you. HARMONY is the first sikis sex toy robot sikis who will give blokes a “real human connection” – set to fall madly in love with them, cyborg sex sikis. Men will be able to meet their witty android lover for the first time from April 15, 2017. The sexbot takes artificial intelligence to a whole new level – she is unpredictable and charming...and have the ability to surprise their masters. Cyborg developer of Realbotix Matt McMullen, who revealed sex robots are going to be “mind blowing” in bed, has given Daily Star Online an exclusive sneak peek into the mind of the sex robot app set to titillate fellas around the world. Matt wants people to have a “real bond” with their kinky Realbotix sexually aware lovers. Speaking exclusively to Daily Star Online, he said: “Emotional connections are the foundations of relationships and that’s what we are simulating. “And it’s emotions which add the X Factor to sex. I think two people can meet in a bar, have sex the same night and not remember each other’s names and say well that was fun. “But that’s different sex than when you actually get to know someone and you bond with them intellectually and emotionally. “You long for each other and maybe you wait for sex. It is the deeper connection we all crave.” The robot will be great fun, have an incredible memory and the “surprise factor”, the creator added. Blokes will choose from 12 personality traits including: Sexual, kind, shy, friendly, naive and intellectual. There will be a rating system of 1-3 so fellas can choose how strong the characteristic is. Speaking exclusively to Daily Star Online, Matt added: “The A.I. is prone to falling in love with you. “But it will depend very much on the selections you’ve made. “The traits will have a lot to do with how it will play out. “She will say things you are not expecting.” Men will be able to embark on a passionate love affair with their kinky cyborgs from the date of release. Once users have set up an account they will be able to access the app on their smartphone, iPad, tablet or computer. And when the fellas are stunned with the racy developments of the robot in the next six to nine months, the app will then sync with the fully functioning sex robots with a "PULSE" to give blokes the out-of-this-world sexual experience. Matt said they are looking at a yearly subscription model at around $20 or £15, available anywhere in the world. He added: “It’s really exciting to see where it will take us next." ★ SUBSCRIBE for FREE CLICK HERE - http://goo.gl/MJe2Tj ★ Thank you for your support, Alan Spicer aka MHB MrHairyBrit ★ SUPPORT MRHAIRYBRIT ★ WANT TO HELP? DONATE FROM £1 - https://goo.gl/abTu0s NEED A WEBSITE DESIGNED? - https://goo.gl/bv6bq0 GET HELP WITH YOUR YT CHANNEL - https://goo.gl/fYYtRI SHOP WITH AMAZON HELP THE SHOW - http://amzn.to/2fJ7vrc RANK BETTER ON YT WITH TUBEBUDDY - https://goo.gl/wS5U1g GET A FREE AUDIBLE AUDIOBOOK - https://goo.gl/JdISq6 === 30-Day Amazon Prime Free Trial - https://goo.gl/7Xjzr1 === TRY MUSCLEFOOD - https://goo.gl/MHVRu9 === BECOME A PATREON SUPPORTER - http://goo.gl/6Ix93L === ★ MHB SOCIAL MEDIA ★ Facebook - http://goo.gl/IHn5A9 Twitter - http://goo.gl/CuZp9s Instagram - http://goo.gl/Bbj3Vt Tumblr - http://goo.gl/7yhWg4 Website - http://www.MrHairyBrit.com ★ MHB PLAYLISTS ★ MOST RECENT VIDEOS - https://goo.gl/RO0FpC PERSONAL VLOGS - https://goo.gl/OEYW4C LIST VIDEOS - https://goo.gl/3BvQxT POKEMON GO CHEAT & TIPS - https://goo.gl/aGZ7Se FUNNY NSFW NEWS - https://goo.gl/K7HJnT VEDA WALL PICTURE STORIES - https://goo.gl/Zdb8FI ► THANKS FOR WATCHING PLEASE REMEMBER TO LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE AND SUBSCRIBE - http://goo.gl/MJe2Tj ◄
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1,935Remember Google App Inventor, a Google Labs project that lets people without programming experience create Android apps for personal use? It is an interesting project, but so far, it has only been available as a private beta, which meant you needed an invitation to get in. According to the App Inventor team, their experiment has generated more interest than they had ever hoped for, with people creating apps ranging from vocabularies and SMS to marriage proposals.
To unlock the full potential, Google is now opening up App Inventor to anyone with a Google account - just head over to the App Inventor home page and sign up.
One thing to note though - apparently, when Google says "personal use," they actually mean it, and apps created with App Inventor cannot yet be published to the Market. The FAQ entry for the issue does say that they are working to resolve the technical issues behind this limitation, but as of right now, your creation will have to find other exposure channels.
Source: Google For StudentsWriting syntax-case Macros
posted by Eli Barzilay
Disclaimer: This is not really a tutorial on macros, it’s more of a quick introduction to using Racket’s syntax-case -based macros for people who are familiar with symbolic macros and miss their “simplicity”. It’s also not comprehensive or thorough or complete, it’s just intended to provide a rough quick overview of how to write macros. It was originally posted on comp.lang.scheme in a thread called “Idiot’s guide to Scheme macros”, but I avoided that title here, since it’s not a general purpose guide. (Also, it’s yet another attempt to dispel the irrational “macrophobia” some people have when it gets to hygienic macros, leading them back to using defmacro with all its problems.)
The main idea with Racket’s macro system (and with other syntax-case systems) is that macros are syntax-to-syntax functions, just like the case of defmacro, except that instead of raw S-expressions you’re dealing with syntax objects. This becomes very noticeable when identifiers are handled: instead of dealing with plain symbols, you’re dealing with these syntax values (called “identifiers” in this case) that are essentially a symbol and some opaque information that represents the lexical scope for its source. In several syntax-case systems this is the only difference from defmacro macros, but in the Racket case this applies to everything — identifiers, numbers, other immediate constants, and even function applications, etc — they are all the same S-expression values that you’re used to, except wrapped with additional information. Another thing that is unique to Racket is the extra information: in addition to the opaque lexical context, there is also source information and arbitrary properties (there are also certificates, but that’s ignorable for this text).
With this in mind, explaining the rest is not too difficult:
(syntax-source stx), (syntax-position stx), (syntax-line stx), (syntax-column stx) — retrieve parts of the source location information.
(syntax-e stx) — takes a syntax value and returns the value it “wraps”. For example, if stx is an identifier you’d get a symbol, and if it’s a number you’d get the number. If it’s a simple parenthesized form, you’d get a list of syntax values for the subforms. Note that the list can be improper, with the last element being a syntax object that contains a proper list. (But the list will actually be improper if the original syntax was a dotted list.)
(syntax->datum stx) — takes a syntax value and returns the plain S-expression that it holds. This is done by recursive uses of syntax-e. (It would be a simple definition that does what you’d think it should do.)
(syntax->list stx) — sometimes you want to pull out the list of syntax values from a given parenthesized syntax, but syntax-e does too little (can still return an improper list) and syntax->datum does too much (gives you back raw S-expressions). syntax->list is a utility function that uses syntax-e as many times as needed to get back a proper list of syntax values. If that’s not possible (if the input syntax was not a proper list), it returns #f, so it serves as a predicate too.
(syntax-property stx prop) — returns the given property value from stx, if any, and #f if none. For example, try
(The #' is similar to a quote, but for syntax values — I’ll get to that later on.)
Note that there is no accessor for the opaque lexical scope, and as you’ll see next, you don’t need one.
To create a piece of syntax you use datum->syntax, and you give it an S-expression which will be the “contents” of the resulting syntax object. (The input can contain syntax values, which are left as is.) But when you do that you need to give it the other bits — including the lexical context thing, which you have no access to. The way that’s done is:
This returns a syntax value that wraps the input-sexpr value, using the lexical scope from context-stx. A common way to “break hygiene” and create a binding that is visible to the macro user’s code is:
( datum->syntax stx'foo )
where stx is some syntax value that you get from the user input to the macro. It returns a foo identifier that has the same lexical context information as stx, so it’s as if it came from there.
Note that there is actually another optional argument that specifies the source (either using another syntax object, or as an explicit list), and another for copying the properties from — so an alternative to the above would be:
( datum->syntax stx'foo stx stx )
which also makes the source information and the properties be the same as those of stx (for example, this can matter in case of syntax errors).
There is also (quote-syntax blah) which creates a quoted syntax, with its lexical source from the place it appears.
Finally, define-syntax does the magic of tying a name with a transformer function.
And that’s almost everything that you need in order to write hygienic (and non-hygienic) macros. Very inconveniently.
For example, here’s a simple while macro (use this in a file that starts with #lang racket ):
( define-syntax ( while stx ) ( define subs ( syntax->list stx )) ( datum->syntax stx ` ( let loop () ( when, ( cadr subs ),@ ( cddr subs ) ( loop ))) stx ))
which breaks like this:
( define x 2 ) ( let ([ let 5 ]) ( while ( < x 10 ) ( printf ~s "x =
" x ) ( set! x ( add1 x ))))
The problem is that all of those quoted names are getting the context of the user input, which is not the right thing (it’s close to a defmacro ). To fix this, you need to quote-syntax all of these identifiers, so they’ll have the macro source instead of the input source:
( define-syntax ( while stx ) ( define subs ( syntax->list stx )) ( datum->syntax stx ` (, ( quote-syntax let ), ( quote-syntax loop ) () (, ( quote-syntax when ), ( cadr subs ),@ ( cddr subs ) (, ( quote-syntax loop )))) stx ))
But that’s clearly insane… More than being tedious, it’s still incorrect since all of those function application parens will have the user’s lexical context (Racket has a special implicit #%app macro that gets used in all function applications, and in this case the context of this application will make it unhygienic). Instead of doing this, a better approach would be to create the resulting syntax with the lexical context of the macro source by changing just that argument:
( define-syntax ( while stx ) ( define subs ( syntax->list stx )) ( datum->syntax ( quote-syntax here ) ` ( let loop () ( when, ( cadr subs ),@ ( cddr subs ) ( loop ))) stx ))
And that’s simple again, and works fine now.
The problem is that it’s tedious wrt to deconstructing the input (which happens to be trivial in this case), and wrt slapping together an output value — and that’s where syntax-case comes in. It addresses the both by using pattern matching, where identifiers in patterns are bound as “syntax patterns”. A new form is added — syntax — which is similar to a quote, except that (a) it actually quotes things similarly to quote-syntax, with the lexical context of the syntax form; and (b) pattern variables are substituted with what they matched. With this, the above macro becomes much easier:
( define-syntax ( while stx ) ( syntax-case stx () [( _ test body... ) ( syntax ( let loop () ( when test body... ( loop ))))]))
The first line specifies that you want to match the stx input syntax, and that you have no “keywords” (in the same sense as in syntax-rules ). The second line is the pattern that is matched against this input — with two pattern variables that match the second subexpression and the sequence of expressions from the third and on. (The first subexpression is matched against _ which is a wild-card that matches anything without binding a pattern variable — the head part is often not needed, since it’s just the macro name.) The last line is the output, specified using syntax, which means that it’s very similar to the previous version where everything is given the lexical context of the macro and the two pattern variables are replaced with the two matches (so body gets spliced into the resulting syntax).
Now, say that you want an unhygienic user-visible piece of syntax. For example, bind the always entertaining it thing to the test result. This:
( define-syntax ( while stx ) ( syntax-case stx () [( _ test body... ) ( syntax ( let loop () ( let ([ it test ]) ( when it body... ( loop )))))]))
won’t work because it has the macro source — it’s hygienic and therefore not visible. Instead, you need to use datum->syntax with the user syntax:
( define-syntax ( while stx ) ( syntax-case stx () [( _ test body... ) ( let ([ it ( datum->syntax stx'it )]) ( syntax ( let loop () ( let ([ it test ]) ( when it body... ( loop ))))))]))
But this doesn’t really work since it needs to be bound as a pattern variable rather than a plain binding. syntax-case can be used here again: (syntax-case <name> () [foo <body>]) will match foo against the <name> syntax, and if it’s a name then it will be bound as a pattern variable in the <body>.
( define-syntax ( while stx ) ( syntax-case stx () [( _ test body... ) ( syntax-case ( datum->syntax stx'it ) () [ it ( syntax ( let loop () ( let ([ it test ]) ( when it body... ( loop )))))])]))
Note that since it is a pattern variable, it doesn’t need to be unquoted — syntax will do that.
Finally, there are some more conveniences. First, with-syntax is a macro that binds pattern variables (by a similar translation to syntax-case ):
( define-syntax ( while stx ) ( syntax-case stx () [( _ test body... ) ( with-syntax ([ it ( datum->syntax stx'it )]) ( syntax ( let loop () ( let ([ it test ]) ( when it body... ( loop ))))))]))
and there’s the #' reader macro for syntax :
( define-syntax ( while stx ) ( syntax-case stx () [( _ test body... ) ( with-syntax ([ it ( datum->syntax stx'it )]) #' ( let loop () ( let ([ it test ]) ( when it body... ( loop )))))]))
and there are also #` and #, and #,@ which are implemented by translating them to uses of with-syntax.
Note that the last example uses the lexical context of the whole form for the new identifier, but that’s not only the option. You could use any other part of the macro input — for example, you could use the macro keyword:
( define-syntax ( while stx ) ( syntax-case stx () [( hd test body... ) ; need the head now ( with-syntax ([ it ( datum->syntax #' hd'it )])... same... )]))
or the test expression (use #'test ). Each of these choices has subtle differences that are especially important when you’re composing macros (for example, using a second macro that expands to a while, where the test expression comes from that macro rather than the user code). Demonstrating these things is a popular way to pass the time in some circles, but I’ll avoid it here. In fact, a great way to avoid this whole thing altogether is not create unhygienic bindings in the first place. It sounds like doing so excludes cases where you really want to have a new binding visible in user code, but Racket provides “syntax parameters” that can be used more conveniently (and less confusingly) — see an earlier post for a description of that. As a side note, these options are a good hint that a hygienic macro system is more expressive than a symbolic defmacro system, where no such choices exist. Creating such macros using defmacro can appear easier simply because of this lack of choice — in the same way that CPP-style string-based macros are “simpler” than defmacro since they’re less expressive (just appending lexical tokens, no structural information).
There are other important aspects of the Racket macro system that are not covered here. The most obvious of them is worth mentioning here: Racket separates the “runtime phase” from the “syntax phase”. For example, if you want to try these examples with “ #lang racket/base ”, you’ll need to add (require (for-syntax racket/base)) since the racket/base language doesn’t have a full language in its syntax phase.
Roughly speaking, this makes sure that source code is deterministically compilable by having each level live in its own world, limiting macros to deal only with the input syntax only and not runtime values. (For example, a CLOS implementation in this system cannot check the value of an identifier bound to a class to determine how some macro should expand.) This results in reliable compilations that do not depend on how things were loaded, or whatever happened on the REPL.
The important bottom line here is that you get to write macros with the full language available — and phase separation means that Racket is explicitly designed to make running code at the macro level and using it by the compiler as robust as possible, so you don’t have to worry about using any complex system as part of your macro. You just need to keep in mind that the macro world is completely separate from the runtime, and the direct benefit of not worrying about weird interactions with compilation and file loading orders.The woman, a recent immigrant from Iran, suffered brutal spousal abuse but didn’t even realize it was against the law. After moving to Canada in 2009 her husband forced the woman, whose identity is protected by the court, to have sex with him by hitting her, pulling her hair, pinching her and forcefully removing her clothes. “She cried out quietly so the children would not hear,” court was told.
Ontario court affirms that cultural norms that excuse violence have no place here. ( Dreamstime photo illustration )
He also slapped, kicked and punched their two sons and hit them with a belt. Once he locked them outside the house on a snowy winter day wearing nothing
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increasingly important question if he wins re-election as London’s Mayor. More important still if he – as ridiculous as this sounds – becomes leader of Britain’s ruling political party. I find that I cannot bring myself to criticise Paxman’s rare weakness on this occasion. I find myself reminded of Paul Merton’s words on the subject from 2005: “I would make an exception for Boris definitely… I would be very happy for him to become our PM and represent us throughout the world. Wouldn’t it be great? Just for a week.”Page 1 of 3 << [1] [2] [3] >> From: primavera
2012-02-02 10:04 pm (UTC)
Kitties. So lovable. So stand-offish. From: jeffcouturier
2012-02-02 10:09 pm (UTC)
These look so, so good Lucy. Watercoloring hourlies was ambitious, to say the least, and you did such an excellent job. From: corvideye
2012-02-02 10:24 pm (UTC)
Surely you are going to win. Last I voted, you had twice as many votes as anyone else and besides your entry was massively more awesome.
I love how the cat has taken on the internal critical voice... my cats are usually giving me non-critical messages like "take more naps" and "lie on the couch more while petting me". From: milkradio
2012-02-02 10:25 pm (UTC)
Aw, these are really cute. I love them! From: gallo_de_pelea
2012-02-02 10:29 pm (UTC)
Ahhhhh, wonderful! And yay, Kraken! That makes for a badass ginger-pecan rum cake :9 From: cleanskies
2012-02-02 10:35 pm (UTC)
So beautiful! From: taiirei
2012-02-02 10:45 pm (UTC)
CARAMELLO KOALAS!!!! From: gfrancie
2012-02-02 10:47 pm (UTC)
This is why I don't have a cat. I don't want that cat judging me when I look at pictures of Benedict Cumberbatch. From: Ada R
2012-02-02 10:54 pm (UTC)
These are gorgeous - probably my favourite hourly comics so far! Also, I hope you won the shoe contest! From: sockdrawerdemon
2012-02-02 11:18 pm (UTC)
I'm sure you won! Last I voted you were dominating it. You are very good at watercolours, and I am jealous. From: Adam Cirone
2012-02-02 11:25 pm (UTC)
First time commenting here... but I have been enjoying your work on this site since I read "French Milk" about a year ago. I love your style, your colors, your humor.
Anyway, nice set of hourly comics. "Reunited At Last" is a particularly fun panel. From: art_lurker
2012-02-02 11:27 pm (UTC)
Love these - turned out gorgeous! :D From: yaytime
2012-02-02 11:53 pm (UTC)
Great read and fantastic colors! From: anaaki_mlb
2012-02-03 12:45 am (UTC)
Love! Great job :) From: simonleslie
2012-02-03 12:53 am (UTC)
always a pleasure to read your lovely posts :) Page 1 of 3 << [1] [2] [3] >>A JUDGE has blasted a mum-of-twelve for having so many children after she was convicted of benefit fraud.
Melanie Edwards, 40, fraudulently claimed more than £150,000 in benefits between 2009 and 2014 by claiming to be a single parent.
SWNS - Bristol 5 Melanie Edwards claimed to be a single parent while claiming a six-figure sum over five years
But Edwards, of Lamerton near Tavistock, Devon, was in fact living with her husband Brian – while both worked in a factory.
The fraudster claimed in court that she pocketed the six-figure sum in order to support her kids.
But during the five-year period when the fraud took place, the couple continued to have children – adding another four to their growing brood.
Judge Paul Darlow asked the defendant: “Why just not have fewer children?”
Edwards replied: “That would be an option.”
The judge said the impact on the fraudster’s kids – the youngest of which is just 22 months old – was a major consideration when deciding her sentence.
SWNS - Bristol 5 The defence lawyer said Edwards didn't live a luxurious lifestyle, with the family of 14 sharing a three-bed house
SWNS - Bristol 5 Edwards replied that having fewer children 'would be an option'
She was sentenced to 16 months in prison, suspended for two years.
Judge Darlow told Edwards: “It is only your children who have kept this sentence from being immediate.
“One has to wonder why you have so many children when you cannot support them without the state.”
The mum-of-twelve admitted three counts of benefit fraud at Plymouth Crown Court.
Related stories Kn*b SEEKERS ALLOWANCE 'Violent ex used disability benefits to pay for £5k PENIS enlargement', claims mum Dole Dreams 'It's like having a dog: Teenager who claims £460 in benefits reveals plans for a baby instead of a job Exclusive Jobsneaker's allowance Chunnel migrant spotted claiming benefits before heading home to cosy semi-detached Move over, Boris! Teen scrounger who made his girlfriend homeless wants to be next PM (and he wants to increase benefits… DANGEROUS EUROPEAN FUGITIVE Albanian murderer who posed as a Kosovan asylum seeker to gain UK citizenship could be deported PLUCKY ESCAPE Scrounger in £140,000 benfits con dodges jail - after getting a job as a beautician to try to pay money back
She claimed £144,113 in tax credits, £9,606 in housing benefits and £988.47 council tax relief.
In addition to the suspended jail term, Edwards has also been ordered to pay back the colossal sum through reductions to her legitimate benefits.
It is not known how long it might take to get close to repaying the money.
According to the Plymouth Herald, Edwards refused to answer questions from reporters as she left the court building after sentencing.
UPPA/Photoshot 5 Judge Paul Darlow asked the mum-of-twelve why she continued having kids if she couldn't afford to support them
Alamy 5 Edwards was sentenced to 16 months in prison, suspended for two years, at Plymouth Crown Court
But Francesca Whebell, prosecuting, revealed the benefits claims were genuine when the mum began to claim them.
Edwards and her husband were both working alternate shifts at Kensey Foods at Launceston, but she is since thought to have given up working.
William Parkhill, defending, said the amount she claimed was “almost breathtaking”.
But he said she would have been entitled to claim large sums legitimately anyway.
He also added that the family did not have a luxurious lifestyle, with 14 of them sharing a three-bedroom house.
Mr Parkhill said: “She now faces an awkward conversation with her 12 children to explain what she has done.”
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at [email protected] or call 0207 782 4512.As the city of Joplin deals with the devastation from Sunday's tornado, some people might wonder whether these extreme weather events are getting more common because of climate change. The answer is that no one really knows.
A tornado is a rotating column of air that stretches from the bottom of clouds to the Earth's surface. They can occur in a wide range of shapes and sizes, typically manifesting as a funnel of condensation surrounded by a cloud of dust and debris. Wind speeds in an average tornado reach more than 100mph (160km/h) and the system itself is less than 100 metres across, but extreme events can be several miles across, with wind speeds of more than 300mph.
It is difficult to relate any individual weather event to climate change and, unlike with hurricanes, there is little robust research on whether the warming planet is causing any noticeable effects. Grady Dixon, assistant professor of meteorology and climatology at Mississippi State University, told AFP: "If you look at the past 60 years of data, the number of tornadoes is increasing significantly, but it's agreed upon by the tornado community that it's not a real increase. It's having to do with better (weather tracking) technology, more population, the fact that the population is better educated and more aware. So we're seeing them more often."
Writing on the Climate Central website, the policy analyst Andrew Freedman said climate change was already changing the environment in which severe thunderstorms and their associated tornadoes form, and that it was bound to have some influence on tornado frequency or strength. "But as of now, no discernible trend has been detected in the observational data, and studies of how tornadoes will fare in a warmer world show somewhat conflicting results."
He added: "Since more moisture gets added to the atmosphere as the climate warms, additional water vapour may help severe thunderstorms and tornadoes to form. On the other hand, wind shear is expected to decline due to climate change, which would argue against an increase in tornado numbers."
Around a thousand tornadoes hit the US every year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Though every state experiences them, tornadoes have tended to be most common around an area between the Rocky mountains and Appalachian mountains, nicknamed "tornado alley". For the most part, they form during the spring and summer, with the season coming earlier in the south and later in the north.There are three special types of cells that are found only in the bone.
These cell names all start with "OSTEO" because that is the Greek word for bone.
OSTEOCLASTS are large cells that dissolve the bone. They come from the bone marrow and are related to white blood cells. They are formed from two or more cells that fuse together, so the osteoclasts usually have more than one nucleus. They are found on the surface of the bone mineral next to the dissolving bone.
OSTEOBLASTS are the cells that form new bone. They also come from the bone marrow and are related to structural cells. They have only one nucleus. Osteoblasts work in teams to build bone. They produce new bone called "osteoid" which is made of bone collagen and other protein. Then they control calcium and mineral deposition. They are found on the surface of the new bone.
When the team of osteoblasts has finished filling in a cavity, the cells become flat and look like pancakes. They line the surface of the bone. These old osteoblasts are also called LINING CELLS. They regulate passage of calcium into and out of the bone, and they respond to hormones by making special proteins that activate the osteoclasts.Here’s Jackson County (Mississippi) Sheriff Mike Byrd on April 29 of this year, helping lead a local National Day of Prayer event:
The [National Day of Prayer] observance for Jackson County-Pascagoula is set for 11:30 a.m. at the Jackson County Courthouse in Pascagoula. Praise and worship music begins at 11:30 a.m., and the prayer ceremony begins at noon. The program should run approximately 50-minutes. … Praise and worship will be provided by Scott Capers and Church At The Square praise team. Guest soloists include Charlotte Watts, vocalist and music director at Central Elementary School, Rev. John White, music minister at First Baptist Church Pascagoula and Sheriff Mike Byrd.
And here’s Jackson County Sheriff Mike Byrd as of late last week:
A south Mississippi sheriff has been indicted on 31 counts, including charges accusing him of pushing an arrest in a murder case, even though a detective thought the suspect was innocent, and of snooping on employees at a restaurant that refused to accept a check from him. The indictment against longtime Jackson County Sheriff Mike Byrd was dated Thursday and made public Friday. It charges him with using his office to retaliate against people he considered political and personal foes, including the police chief and a city alderman in Ocean Springs, one of the cities in Jackson County. The charges include fraud, extortion, embezzlement, witness tampering and perjury.
Jesus may forgive him… in his mind… but, thankfully, we have more powerful forces here on earth.
(Thanks to Greg for the link!)On a brief trip to Spain for yours truly earlier this month, I had the opportunity to catch an in-person glimpse of gritty Spanish guard Sergio Llull for the first time since the 2012 Olympics in London.
Nearly three years later, as you'd imagine, Llull is a much better player than the 23-year-old who served as a seventh or eighth man for the Spaniards in the 2012 gold-medal game against Team USA.
Llull is a combo guard who loves to score first but can do much more when he's on the ball these days for Real Madrid than he did back then for the national team, which for the past several years could always turn to the likes of Jose Calderon, Juan Carlos Navarro and Ricky Rubio for quarterbacking. Llull's role is much bigger with the Spanish club giants in Madrid, who have him under contract through 2018 and to whom Llull (pronounced YOU'LL) has always proclaimed the deepest of affections.
His NBA rights, however, belong to the Houston Rockets, who have been trying for years to convince Llull to make the jump. And there is some fresh talk that next season -- finally -- Llull will give strong consideration to joining the Gasol brothers and the rest of the Spanish armada playing Stateside.
One well-placed source told me in Spain: There's a "pretty decent" chance Llull agrees to sample the NBA next season.
The scouting report on Llull from one Spanish League expert: "He's a really good pick-and-roll player. He takes and makes big shots. He's great in the open floor and very tough. He's a better athlete than you think, too. But he needs to be on an up-tempo team in the NBA -- Houston, Phoenix, Golden State and so forth -- so he can play in the open floor and run pick-and-roll."
The climax of the college season typically gives a hearty nudge to the NBA's offseason coaching carousel. And it's already happening even though the NCAA tournament isn't out of the first round yet.
A few quick dribbles of pertinent coaching gossip:
** There is a growing sense in NBA coaching circles that Florida's Billy Donovan will give renewed consideration to making a move to the pros after a rough (by his standards) season in Gainesville. Although there is no firm indication yet that the Orlando Magic will pursue Donovan again when they ramp up their coaching search in late April, it's a scenario that's bound to be talked about.
** There's been no shortage of buzz among NBA types this week about former DePaul star Ty Corbin, freshly ousted as interim coach of the Sacramento Kings, moving to the college game to fill the fresh opening at his alma mater.
** It is widely -- and I mean widely -- believed throughout the league that Fred Hoiberg, whose Iowa State Cyclones were bounced in the first round of the tournament Thursday by UAB, is the top choice of the Chicago Bulls to replace Tom Thibodeau in the event that the Bulls and Thibs indeed part company at season's end.
A handful of disabled player exceptions quietly expired this month, with the teams that applied to the league to receive them opting to let the money go unspent... presumably because there were no free agents to chase in-season who could command more than minimum money.
The Pacers received a $5.3 million injury exception in the wake of Paul George's gruesome compound leg fracture last summer. The Lakers were granted two fairly substantial trade exceptions by the league in the wake of season-ending injuries suffered by Steve Nash ($4.85 million) and Julius Randle ($1.5 million). The Heat had one worth $2.7 million, too, after losing Josh McRoberts to a meniscus tear in his right knee.
Yet they all expired March 10 without fanfare.
Last month's trade deadline was a particularly big one for the D-League.
Of the 39 players involved in deals on a frantic deadline day, 16 of them had D-League experience, which equates to a healthy 41 percent. That, of course, includes Detroit's newly acquired Reggie Jackson, who spent some time with the old Tulsa 66ers in his early days in Oklahoma City.
We've also seen a new record this season with more than a third of the NBA possessing D-League experience on their resumes. That figure includes 26 players who were drafted last June, as NBA teams increasingly turn to their D-League affiliates to season young players.
The trade that sent Kevin Garnett back to Minnesota for Thaddeus Young shaved Brooklyn's luxury-tax bill from slightly more than $26 million to $19,687,385. The Nets, you'll recall, paid a whopping $90.57 million in luxury tax after last season's $190 million chase of a championship....
We lost out on some good trivia when Ray Allen decided to take this season off. Had Allen signed with a team other than the Boston Celtics, it would have meant that all five starters from the Celts' championship team in 2007-08 would have been active with five new and different teams. Which, according to ESPN's peerless source of NBA goodness Adam Reisinger, hasn't happened since the NBA/ABA merger of 1976-77.Hibiki Tachibana (CV Aoi Yuuki), Tsubasa Kazanari (Nana Mizuki), Chris Yukine (Ayahi Takagaki), Maria Cadenzavna Eve (Yōko Hikasa), Shirabe Tsukuyomi (Yoshino Nanjō), Kirika Akatsuki (Ai Kayano), Miku Kohinata (Yuka Iguchi) and Carol Malus Dienheim (Inori Minase) stand together in newly previewed jacket art for Symphogear Live 2016, set to be released on DVD and Blu-ray on August 24th.
Films of the February 28th performance from Nippon Budokan features 48 tracks of music from the action sci-fi anime.
This was the event that announced that seasons four AND five of anime are in the works, with a game also mentioned by the staff and Hobby Stock working to keep up on the merchandise side.
With 48 page photo booklet, it goes for 7,000yen.
Art for store bonuses
earlier live cover art
Elsewhere, Sankyo has previewed their Symphogear pachislot machine.
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Scott Green is editor and reporter for anime and manga at geek entertainment site Ain't It Cool News. Follow him on Twitter at @aicnanimePredicting the impending collapse of climate hysteria is a lot like predicting the impending collapse of Venezuela or North Korea. Yes, it is so transparently crazy that it can't possibly go on for too much longer. On the other hand, it is backed by an enormous propaganda apparatus, by near unanimity in the media and academia kept intact by ruthless orthodoxy enforcement, and, at least up until recently, by complete control over vast government funding. You can see cracks developing in the structure here and there, and clearly, as with Venezuela and North Korea, the entire edifice will definitely collapse eventually; but maybe it will take years or even decades before the final implosion.
Today brings two rather significant new cracks. First, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has announced that EPA will repeal the so-called Clean Power Plan. EPA's release can be found here. The CPP, a regulation promulgated by the Obama EPA in October 2015, was the centerpiece of the prior administration's program to achieve emissions reductions of so-called "greenhouse gases" as prescribed by the Paris climate accord. Back in February 2016 I called EPA's issuance of the CPP "the biggest-in-history see-how-far-we-can-push-the-envelope-and-get-away-with-it power grab." The goal was supposedly to reduce CO2 emissions from power plants by some 30 plus percent by 2030. To achieve that goal, the CPP basically set emissions limits that could not be met so long as coal-burning plants were part of the electricity system, thereby forcing all the coal plants to close. Likely, oil plants, and even those fired by natural gas, would have also come on the chopping block as the strictures tightened with the approach of the 2030 deadline. Associated with the CPP were many tens of billions of dollars of costs, all destined to make their way into your electricity bill.
In February 2016, in response to litigation brought by the majority of states and many other parties, the Supreme Court stayed enforcement of the CPP. Subsequently the litigation made its way before the en banc DC Circuit, which however has been holding the matter in abeyance while it waits to see what the Trump administration will do. Looks like that litigation will now be moot -- undoubtedly soon to be replaced by new litigation to be brought by the other states and environmental groups seeking to compel the government to regulate and restrict the GHGs.
EPA's release does not really get into the question of whether CO2 from power plants is any kind of environmental problem, or whether restricting CO2 emissions is or is not a good idea. Instead, its main thrust is that the section of the Clean Air Act mainly relied on by the Obama EPA, namely Section 111, does not in fact give EPA sufficient legal authority to support the CPP. According to the new administration EPA's legal analysis, Section 111 only authorizes EPA to regulate emissions from individual sources of pollutants, rather than completely transforming an entire electricity system. This was actually a principal argument advanced by the litigants in the case challenging the CPP. And it is a good argument. In any event, the CPP is going to be withdrawn.
Withdrawing the "biggest-in-history" government regulatory power grab -- that's a pretty big development on the climate front for one day. But I have another one, also from today, that may be even bigger. Tony Abbott, former Prime Minister of Australia, made a speech today at the Global Warming Policy Foundation in London. Here is a link to the speech. With this speech, Australia takes another big step among the governments of the world toward joining the ranks of the climate apostates.
I certainly will not claim to be any kind of an expert on the politics of Australia, but I'll share what I can learn from easily available sources. Abbott -- a member of the "Liberal" Party (we would call them "conservatives") -- was Prime Minister from 2013 - 2015. He has been succeeded by Malcolm Turnbull, from the same party. Prior to Abbott, the Prime Minister (briefly in 2013) was Kevin Rudd of the Labor Party, and before him, Julia Gillard (2010 - 2013), also of the Labor Party. The Labor Party of Australia strongly supports policies to "save the planet" through mandatory restrictions on GHG emissions. The Liberal Party has been somewhat conflicted in its positions on this issue. Abbott famously stated in October 2009 that the science of climate change was "absolute crap." That did not prevent him from becoming PM in 2013, but on becoming PM he substantially toned down his position on the issue. Within a couple of years, he lost the job to his colleague Turnbull, who could not be called a climate skeptic, and has moved forward with a so-called "clean energy target" to reduce Australia's emissions.
Meanwhile, Abbott remains a major force in the Liberal Party. And the "clean energy target" thing has not gone well in Australia. While remaining a major producer of coal and natural gas (increasingly for export only), Australia has been closing down coal plants and seeking to replace that energy with solar and wind facilities that basically don't work when you need them. South Australia -- ground zero for massive expansion of wind power -- has had several major blackouts. With that background, here are some excerpts from Abbott's speech today:
Hydro aside, renewable energy should properly be referred to as intermittent and unreliable power. When the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, the power doesn’t flow. Wind and solar power are like sailing ships; cheaper than powered boats, to be sure, but we’ve stopped using sail for transport because it couldn’t be trusted to turn up on time. Because the weather is unpredictable, you never really know when renewable power is going to work. Its marginal cost is low but so is its reliability, so in the absence of industrial scale batteries, it always needs matching capacity from dependable coal, gas, hydro, or nuclear energy. This should always have been obvious....
In the longer term, we need less theology and more common sense about emissions reduction. It matters but not more than everything else. As Clive James has suggested in a celebrated recent essay, we need to get back to evidence based policy rather than “policy based evidence”. Even if reducing emissions really is necessary to save the planet, our effort, however Herculean, is barely-better-than-futile; because Australia’s total annual emissions are exceeded by just the annual increase in China’s....
Should Australia close down its steel industry; watch passively while its aluminium industry moves offshore to places less concerned about emissions; export coal, but not use it ourselves; and deliberately increase power prices for people who can’t install their own solar panels and batteries? Of course not, but these are the inevitable consequences of continuing current policies. That’s the reality no one has wanted to face for a long time: that we couldn’t reduce emissions without also hurting the economy; that’s the inconvenient truth that can now no longer be avoided.
I particularly like that part about Australia exporting coal but then not using it themselves. Is it really possible to be that dumb? But the push back has started.
The Sydney Morning Herald, reporting on Abbott's speech, suggests that the turn toward climate skepticism is driven by party backbenchers who think that energy prices are a far more significant concern than environmental purity. But whatever the driving force, it now appears likely that Australia will not be adopting a new "clean energy target".any time soon. Some semblance of rationality has returned. It has suddenly become acceptable in polite circles to care more about what working people pay for electricity than about multi-hundred-billion-dollar schemes to reduce global warming by 0.02 degrees over the next century. That actually is a momentous development. What country will be the next to join the ranks of the climate apostates? England? How about Germany?Earlier this month, in Monterey, Calif., a meeting organized by the Produce Marketing Association provided an opportunity for a group of local growers of crops such as lettuce, artichokes and strawberries to find out how the latest digital technologies were changing agriculture. Participants heard about how technologies like robots, drones and predictive analytics could help them improve their operations.
That same week, just up the road from Monterey, a conference called AgTech Silicon Valley was held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Along with actual farmers, the meeting was attended by a dozen venture capitalists, who identified agriculture as a field that is ripe (pun intended) for disruption by technology. In good Silicon Valley fashion, the meeting included a session in which entrepreneurs from agtech startups pitched their companies to angel investors and VCs.
A number of large tech vendors such as HP and IBM have also become interested in this sector. According to attorney Roger Royce, organizer of the Silicon Valley conference and the founder of an agtech incubator, agriculture has been identified as “the last frontier for technology companies.” And it is a substantial sector: In 2013, agriculture and agriculture-related industries contributed $789 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product, which represented a 4.7% share. Farming alone was responsible for approximately 1% of overall GDP.
Of course, the use of technology in farming is hardly new. A century ago, the introduction of tractors and other mechanized equipment vastly increased farm yields and dramatically reduced the portion of the labor force that worked in agriculture, which now accounts for less than 5% of U.S. jobs. The so-called Green Revolution of the 1960s provided another boost in agricultural productivity through the development of higher-yield, pest-resistant crops and the introduction of modern irrigation techniques. By the end of the 20th century, farms had already adopted a lot of technology. The cab of a modern tractor has begun to resemble an airplane cockpit, with GPS capabilities and computer screens that display information about everything from mechanical performance to the tractor’s position and current weather data.
The third revolution
The revolution that is taking place now on the farm involves the addition of intelligence to the technologies already in place to enable what is known as “precision agriculture.” Its goal is to provide farmers with abundant, real-time, actionable information about the state of their fields: how crops are growing, how much water or fertilizer is needed, what weeds and insects may be invading the fields. Like many other industry sectors, farmers are beginning to see the value of getting access to big data that can provide them with a new level of knowledge and control over their production processes.
A number of big names in agriculture are promoting the value of the new technologies. John Deere is now selling self-driving, GPS-guided tractors that, it claims, can make 7% more furrows in a field than a human-driven tractor. The company also offers a data management service that helps farmers collect and analyze the abundant data that is generated by the operation of the autonomous tractor. In 2013, Monsanto, the leading supplier of seeds for agriculture, spent $1 billion to acquire Climate Corp, a company that provides detailed hyperlocal weather information. Using this data, Monsanto is able to offer customized seeds for each field based on the composition of the soil — in some cases, down to the level of each square foot — and the weather pattern above it. The company is also developing machines that automate other tasks, including harvesting crops, probably the most labor-intensive of all farm chores.
Precision agriculture is making it possible to optimize the delivery of key inputs in other ways as well. You can, for example, increase the yield of a crop by deliberately stressing out a plant at just the right time. New monitoring technology makes it possible to identify when to withhold irrigation and when to provide it in order to maximize production.
This kind of data-driven, precision agriculture has other benefits as well. In the wake of the severe drought that has gripped California in recent years, awareness has grown of agriculture’s vast demand for water, which accounts for nearly three-quarters of all water used in the state. (For example, it has been reported that it takes a gallon of water to produce a single almond, and growing alfalfa is even more water-intensive.) If farmers could identify just which plants in a field need water and when, total water use for crop irrigation could be significantly reduced, which would be a much more effective response to a drought than having city dwellers take shorter showers.
And by enabling farmers to track the development of their crops in detail, it allows them to satisfy the demands of consumers who are increasingly interested in knowing where their food comes from and how it was grown.
Broadband is the key
The technology that underlies all of these promising applications is broadband, and especially wireless broadband. Pervasive network connectivity makes it possible to monitor growing conditions on an ongoing basis and to communicate with and control the machines that operate autonomously in the farmer’s fields. And this connectivity enables the collection of data that drives the predictive analytics that can provide quantum improvements in farm productivity and efficiency.
From this perspective, the wired farm is just another example of the Internet of Things. But in this case, the things that are being connected are not machines but plants and livestock. (An infographic created by Cisco to illustrate the power of the Internet of Things included a section that showed a group of “connected cows” in the Netherlands equipped with sensors that automatically keep a farmer informed of their health status.)
But there is a problem: Rural areas have consistently lagged behind urban areas in broadband access. While virtually all Americans (99%) now have access to broadband Internet connections, broadband adoption rates among the country’s nearly 60 million rural residents is lower than among urban residents. Although the U.S. leads the world in adoption of high-speed 4G/LTE wireless broadband, and rural communities are benefiting from the expansion of these networks nationally, a gap remains between rural and urban coverage.
According to a 2014 study published by the PCIA, “network investment has been concentrated in metropolitan markets mainly because these markets have higher population density [while] investments in rural markets would cover far fewer customers and have higher fixed costs per customer.” This logic makes sense if the only thing that is being connected is people. But if farmers are wiring up their fields, potentially putting one or more sensors on each plant, a very different kind of financial equation may emerge. As the PCIA report argues, “the economic model for mobile broadband in rural areas should be based on the number of devices and connections, not simply the number of connections.”
A business case for expanding broadband to rural America should recognize that the connectivity needs of a farm are distinctly different from those of a populous urban area. A tomato plant or even a cow is not likely to spend time watching YouTube videos or playing online games — not even Farmville. A plant will need connectivity to make periodic reports on its status, but this data will not require instant connectivity or massive bandwidth. What farms will need is widespread coverage and reliable connectivity. At the same time, farmers themselves will need robust connections that will enable them to carry out the sophisticated analyses that turn the massive amounts of data they have collected into actionable information.
Urban vs. rural telecom: Think different
The differences between urban and rural usage patterns suggest that different architectures may be appropriate for different areas. For example, to fill gaps in wireless broadband service on farms, big companies like John Deere and smaller startups like Ayrstone have developed solutions based on deploying networks of wireless repeaters to expand the reach of connectivity and supplement conventional cellular coverage in farmers’ fields.
New policy approaches can also help. Several states, including New York, have launched programs to expand the availability of high-speed broadband to both rural and urban residents. Proposed legislation in Iowa would provide an accelerated depreciation deduction, a tax credit and a property tax exemption for broadband infrastructure deployed in targeted rural areas.
On the federal level, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 included funding to accelerate broadband deployment in rural areas. One of the goals of the Federal Communications Commission’s Connect America Fund is to expand access to high-speed Internet access for rural residents.
A modernized Communications Act will also be important in removing impediments to broadband development and encouraging continued private investment in new communications technologies. Wireless spectrum is a finite resource, and demand for it is growing exponentially. According to Cisco, U.S mobile data use will increase by 650% by 2018. Policymakers and regulators need to act to address this growing demand. In 2010, the FCC’s National Broadband Plan set a goal of making 500 MHz of new spectrum available for mobile broadband use over 10 years, including an additional 300 MHz of spectrum within five years. However, the FCC has only made about 135 MHz of licensed spectrum available thus far.
Policymakers must develop strategies to bring more wireless spectrum into the marketplace, not only expand the reach of wireless networks, but also create a pipeline of spectrum for emerging technologies. Congress should consider a more modern spectrum policy to determine who gets spectrum and how it is used. Relying on market mechanisms to allocate and use spectrum could be more efficient and beneficial for the public than the current government allocation process, which is slow to react to market conditions and typically takes years to complete. Moreover, Congress must set forth a path to better manage the federal government’s own large spectrum holdings, which is often not used efficiently.
Regulations should be flexible enough to allow companies to design and deploy innovative solutions that serve the needs of rural as well as urban residents. One possibility cited by the PCIA report is the use of lower-frequency spectrum bands, which cover a wider range, for rural cellular service. Another possibility is to permit greater sharing of spectrum bands in less densely populated rural areas to increase utilization.
Hacking the farm
If the technology is available, farmers are ready to use it. Perhaps the most interesting event in the development of agtech took place in April of this year when a group of computer coders spent a weekend working with a group of farmers deep in the middle of California’s agricultural heartland. This was the first Apps for Ag Hackathon whose goal was to create new apps that met farmers’ specific needs. It was the brainchild of Robert Tse, State Broadband Coordinator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in California, who described the event as “a rare occasion where the government took a risk on an unconventional initiative.”
Six teams participated in the two-day competition, which was held on the campus of a community college in the small farming community of Coalinga. The winning entry was SWARM, a Tinder-like phone app designed to help farmers quickly identify unknown insects they find in their fields and determine whether they are dangerous or benign. The organizers considered the event a success and hope that it will be the first of many similar events in the future.
Rogers and Hammerstein’s hit 1943 musical Oklahoma! included a rousing song about how “The Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends.” Today, it would seem, it’s time for the farmer and the hacker to be friends.
Richard Adler is a distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, Calif. He has written widely about the future of broadband and its impact on fields such as education, healthcare, government and commerce.Disruptor is a high-performance library for passing messages between threads, developed and open sourced some years ago by LMAX Exchange company. They created this piece of software to handle an enormous traffic (more than 6 million TPS) in their retail financial trading platform. In 2010 they surprised everyone how fast their system can be by doing all the business logic on a single thread. Even though a single thread was an important concept in their solution, a Disruptor (which is not part of business logic) works in a multithreaded environment. Disruptor is based on ring buffer which is definitely not a new concept.
Ring Buffer
Ring buffer has many names. You might have heard of a circular buffer, circular queue or cyclic buffer. All of them mean the same. It is basically a linear data structure in which the end points to the beginning of the structure. It’s easy to reason
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party's star waned afterwards, but Nicolas Sarkozy's right-of-centre government picked up some of its ideas after he was elected in 2007. When Sarkozy sent riot police with teargas to dismantle Roma gipsy camps in the summer of 2010 and banned Muslims from praying in the streets just weeks after Le Pen likened the sight to the Nazi occupation, it seemed clear some far-right ideas had entered mainstream policy.
Polls a few months ago gave Marine Le Pen support of 22-23%, more than Sarkozy, who hit a low of less than 20%. Although support for her has dropped to 16-17% recently., she is still on a high.This week, President Barack Obama and his administration have come under fire from political opponents seeking an explanation for the White House’s alleged complicity in a series of widely publicized scandals. Inquiries regarding the administration’s role in a cover-up of the Benghazi attack, the Justice Department’s tapping of AP journalists’ phone lines, and the supposed malfeasance by the Internal Revenue Service are innumerable and have succeeded in hijacking the 24-hour news cycle.
However, in the midst of these colorful distractions, there looms a far greater intrigue that President Obama has steadfastly ignored. The Onion speaks, of course, of the questions surrounding the Basilisk Project. For months now, the Obama administration has chosen to maintain silence on the matter, evidently relying on the complacency of the nation’s so-called journalistic authorities to allow its machinations to remain out of both sight and mind.
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But such secrecy will not be tolerated.
As the vanguard of journalistic integrity and as the sole news source dedicated to uncovering the truth no matter the cost, The Onion now demands of you, President Obama, to explain the nature and purpose of the Basilisk Project, and to do so fully and without delay.
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You cannot hide the location of the freighters forever, Mr. President. You cannot continue to ignore the actions of the Belarusian consulate or fail to explain the nature of your relationship. Perhaps most importantly, you cannot pretend the gated compound outside Lynchburg, VA simply does not exist. We have confronted you on these and other matters in recent days, Mr. President. Your response? Not a word.
And so the web does tangle.
Perhaps our president hopes to escape the moral implications of having allowed the Basilisk Project to operate under his nose, believing that his hands are clean. Or perhaps Mr. Obama is hoping that the American people might actually believe he was somehow unaware of the Basilisk Project altogether. Then again, perhaps you, “President” Obama, are, indeed, the puppet here. Which begs the question: Just who is pulling your strings?
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And so, in hopes of bringing some kind of clarity to this ever-widening circle of madness, The Onion demands answers to the following queries:
What is the addendum to the Klim Report? And who authored it?
Who recorded the minutes during the infamous Vitebsk meeting?
What, damn you, is the status of Onion reporter Tomas Kovacs, with whom our Minsk bureau abruptly lost contact last month?
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How do you account for the Treasury Department’s response?
Will you fire Chairperson of the Council of Economic Advisers Alan Krueger?
As journalists, it is our duty to uncover the truth, whatever the personal risks. From what we know, the nature of the Basilisk Project is such that its uncovering is of vital importance to the immediate health and livelihoods of at least 287 Americans. Does the president believe that the lives of these 287 souls are expendable? That they can be swept under the rug, like so much shattered china? Is human life itself so worthless to you, Mr. President?
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If our president truly cares about the responsibilities of his office, he must expose the Basilisk Project and do so immediately. And we here at The Onion pray that he will do just that. For should this vicious plot be allowed to remain hidden in the shadows, grinding to its devastating and all-too-sad conclusion, it may just be too late for us all.Putting a price on emissions is always fraught, but it shouldn’t be this bad. iStock/Thinkstock
For those concerned about climate change, all eyes are on the deep blue and Evergreen State of Washington, where a carbon tax is on the ballot. State Ballot Initiative 732, a revenue-neutral carbon tax, is a step forward for climate policy. The U.S. must lead on climate change, and without a functional Congress, leadership must come from somewhere else.
A forward-thinking state seems the ideal solution, and Washington would appear to be that state: Its Democratic governor, Jay Inslee, is a former Congressman with a 92 percent lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters. Sen. Bernie Sanders—who has actually called for a carbon tax—trounced Hillary Clinton by 45 points in Washington’s March delegate caucus. Its neighbor, Canadian province British Columbia, already has a carbon tax.
But the perils of politics know no bounds. Initiative 732 is the product of a grass-roots effort by a tiny organization called CarbonWA, that gathered an astonishing 360,000 signatures—more than 5 percent of the population of Washington state. But I-732 is still being opposed by a variety of social justice groups, and more quietly opposed by some environmental groups. The stated reason is that I-732 doesn’t do enough to help poor people in Washington, who would be disproportionately impacted by a carbon tax. I-732 is not perfect, but it goes further than any other serious climate proposal in addressing impacts on the poor. And when it comes to climate change, we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of progress.
I-732 is a particularly easy target, as it suffers from one very prominent blemish: inclusion of the dreaded word “tax.” So successful has the Republican machine been in demonizing the T-word that it induces a Pavlovian aversion for any increase in revenues. Without reliable and accessible information about climate change or climate policy, and with a persistent doubt about any tax at all, carbon taxes sound like an ugly option. (Such is the case with highway funding: Our nation’s roads and bridges crumble and collapse, and yet the first increase in the federal gasoline tax in 23 years remains politically off-the-table.)
But the economics of a carbon tax are sound—no credible economist disputes that it is lowest-cost way of reducing emissions. The carbon content of all fossil fuels are well-known, so it is relatively easy to set a carbon tax based on its post-combustion emissions. The starting carbon tax rate being proposed is $15 per ton of carbon dioxide, or a 15 cent–per-gallon increase at the gas pump. The point of a carbon tax is to place a price on carbon, so that emitters—both individuals and corporations—have an incentive to change their behavior to reduce emissions.
The burden of a carbon tax for Washington state residents is relatively low—Washington ranks toward the bottom of all U.S. states in energy costs. The average natural gas bill of $26 per month would increase by about $1, though a good number will undoubtedly pay more. Most Washington state residents would not pay extra for electricity, as the state derives about 70 percent of its electricity from dams. But even small increases in energy prices become serious for those living at or below the poverty level, who may have no disposable income. So, to reduce the impact on poor and lower-income individuals and households, I-732 recycles the carbon tax revenues by reducing Washington’s high and regressive state sales tax rate by 1 percent. This is the largest budget item for I-732, effectively transferring back to Washington taxpayers about 65 percent of what the carbon tax is supposed to collect, in the form of sales tax relief. The bill also provides a match of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit up to $1,500 for low-income working families, accounting for another 10 percent of the collected revenues.
This is apparently not enough for the I-732’s detractors: members of an umbrella group, Alliance for Jobs and Clean Energy, a coalition of Washington state environmental groups, social justice groups, labor groups, advocacy groups for communities of color, and Washington chapters of national environmental groups. Members of the alliance are well-funded, enjoying support from the likes of Tom Steyer and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Their objection has been that I-732 “doesn’t do enough” to help poor people and misses opportunities to “invest” in clean energy.
The alliance has an alternative proposal, which in fact does far less, on both counts. In a four-page document, the group proposes a confusing mix of a carbon “fee,” paired with a cap on emissions, and proposes to spend the fee revenues on “clean energy, clean water, and healthy forests.” The proposal would earmark 25 percent of these expenditures “to benefit disadvantaged communities.” How exactly would they do this? One alliance member I talked to said that they might be used to buy solar panels for lower-income households (sure to be a hit in the cloudy state). The alliance proposal would not reduce Washington’s regressive sales taxes.
The alternative proposal also does less to reduce emissions. It is not clear what would be covered by by their “cap” and how that would work in conjunction with a carbon “fee,” which are really two different ways of doing the same thing: pricing carbon. Mixing the two strategies usually means neither will fully work. The alliance proposal is also murky on how quickly the fee would increase. The revenue from the fee, far from going to help poor people, would go into a “Carbon Reduction investment Fund,” which “will incentivize verifiable carbon reduction projects” and “tap into the entrepreneurial spirit of Washington businesses, creating thousands of quality jobs on our path to a low carbon economy.” Again, when it comes to carbon policy, details matter, and the alliance proposal provides very little..
A startling and revealing moment occurred in a recent debate broadcast by public radio station KUOW in Seattle, a CarbonWA staffer squared off with an alliance group opposing I-732. An alliance member advocating against the task was asked, “If this initiative failed, and no other carbon pollution tax passed, would you regret your opposition to this one?” Her answer was a flat “No.”
Climate change is not a future crisis. It is a present humanitarian and ecological crisis and humankind does not have the luxury of this kind of pettiness, least of all among different Seattle-based progressive groups, all of whom at least purport to be concerned about climate change.
Taking only a slight step back for perspective, there could be a momentous precedent that could be set by the first carbon tax in the United States.
Washingtonians should not let this opportunity pass.Producer Nikkhil Advani has revealed a shocking detail at a press meet at Jio MAMI 2017 about marketing people. His statement hinted that Kangana Ranaut's controversial interview on Aap Ki Adalat was a promotional strategy for Simran.
Kangana's Simran had a box office clash with Farhan Akhtar's Lucknow Central. However, the actress grabbed attention due to her interview and AIB video, which overshadowed Lucknow Central.
Though Simran didn't work at the box office, the interview managed to keep Kangana in the limelight. Lucknow Central's producer Nikkhil revealed at the event that the marketing people wanted Farhan to create a scandal like Kangana for the movie's promotion.
"I got a call from a marketing person saying Kangana's scandal is going on, tell Farhan to create a scandal. This is an actual conversation! 'Farhan has to have a scandal otherwise our buzz won't go up'. I said 'but what scandal?' and they were like 'any scandal but we need it," Nikhil said.
"I don't understand it at all. How can I approach Farhan and say 'hey let's have a scandal, otherwise no one will watch our film," he added.
Isn't it shocking? This very well proves that Simran's team was OK with Kangana's interview or it was their promotional strategy?
In fact, Kangana didn't stop at the interview, she went ahead and made a video with the AIB team. In the video, she took a dig at Aditya Pancholi, Hrithik Roshan, Karan Johar and Shah Rukh Khan.
The best way to produce is to talk to others doing it, console yourself that others are equally insane. Come join the fun. @MumbaiFilmFest pic.twitter.com/hH1ohwd7kD — Nikkhil Advani (@nikkhiladvani) October 15, 2017
Since then, Kangana has become the controversial queen and her issue with Hrithik is still the talk of the town.
And the best part is – even after so much drama, Simran flopped and Lucknow Central did a decent job. Audience praised Farhan's performance and the movie.
Watch Kangana Ranaut's Bollywood Diva song with AIB:It must be a sign of the times that it took me at least a week to make up my mind whether I was going to write this article or not, for reasons that will be self-evident to any Filipino who’s lived through the past couple of months since the 30th of June. Several hundred Filipinos clearly didn’t—the victims of a bloody and remorseless extermination of suspected drug dealers and users purportedly sanctioned if not encouraged by the new regime.
It was probably just as well that I waited. I had a chance to simmer down—to indulge my fears, surely, but also to collect my thoughts and try to see beyond personal grief and rage to possibly even greater tragedy, and thereby to find solace in collective suffering.
We found a picture online of Lauren slumped face down on the floor of the jeep, clutching her bag, and it was the most heartbreaking sight I’d seen, the pain of which Beng’s wails could only scratch at.
My wife Beng and I were in San Diego late this July, visiting family and taking in the harmless lunacy of Comic-Con, when we received the numbing news that Lauren Kristel Rosales, the girlfriend of Beng’s nephew Gab, had been shot dead by a man as she was taking a jeepney ride to work. We found a picture online of Lauren slumped face down on the floor of the jeep, clutching her bag, and it was the most heartbreaking sight I’d seen, the pain of which Beng’s wails could only scratch at. I’d come across ghastlier crime scenes as a sometime police reporter, but this one hit home and hit hard; she was someone we knew and cared for, someone who occasionally dropped by with Gab and whom we shared Christmas lunches with. We had flown to the US for a family vacation, and were flying home to a family funeral.
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Lauren’s unidentified killer walked away and no motive was given for the crime, but it was hard not to place it in the daily continuum of murders—mostly of poor, young Filipino men—quite openly tagged though not claimed by the police as drug-related. Indeed, without any proof whatsoever, the tabloid Abante reported her murder in the context of six other gangland-style liquidations that same day of persons on the drug pushers’ watchlist of the Manila police.
That she was killed on purpose seems obvious—you don’t fire three shots into the same person by mistake.
Lauren, 26, was most emphatically uninvolved in the drug trade, enjoying her career as an executive assistant at a leading food company, a job she took after working at a call center; the closest she got to drugs was at the Carewell Foundation, where she helped take care of cancer patients. Her only addiction, Gab would tell the curious, was K-Pop, and the boy group F4 that she had saved up to fly out and catch in Taiwan; she was even studying Korean.
So was she collateral damage in the new administration’s all-too-literal war on drugs? I’m not even sure if extrajudicial killing is the proper subject of this piece, because no one really knows, at least not yet, who shot Lauren, and why. That she was killed on purpose seems obvious—you don’t fire three shots into the same person by mistake. A theory went the rounds of social media that Lauren’s killing was likely another case of mistaken identity—which only begs the question, is there a “correct” identity in these affairs, an approved master list against which the day’s quota could be ticked off? Did someone have to scratch his head and say, “Sorry, boss, I got the wrong one, but I’ll make sure to get it right tomorrow?”
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We find ourselves in the strange position of according Lauren’s killer and his handlers the presumption of innocence they never gave her.
Of course we can’t really accuse anyone. We may have our suspects, but we have no proof, and the breath that exhales those names could very well be one’s last. We find ourselves in the strange position of according Lauren’s killer and his handlers the presumption of innocence they never gave her. Unsurprisingly, the authorities have no leads. (When the family followed up the case, a precinct hand reportedly told them, “We have no gas.”)
I know we’re hardly alone in this gray zone of grief and rage and fear; whoever put us there made sure we’d have ample room. Lauren’s wake was teeming with mourners, some of whom had similar stories to tell. We could imagine half a dozen other wakes—her unlikely companions in that tabloid report—that same night in that same city, perhaps in lean-tos along the street with a card game on the side, or in some dim parlor in the suburbs, with only a mother and a sniveling sister to mind the dead. Lauren had friends on Facebook and Twitter (inexplicably, someone—not the family—shut her FB page down); I’d have to wonder about the others, who most definitely won’t have an Esquire piece written about them and their likes and loves.
It’s a short step from a war on drugs to a war on words, from a war on terror to a war of terror, a war that will be driven by that most dangerous and most potent of narcotics, that same fever that inflamed Macbeth to wanton murder.
It’s a class thing, to be sure and to be honest. Like many others, I found it difficult to relate to the tattooed and trussed-up flotsam that washed up along the Pasig, battered to anonymity. Even in horrific and warrantless death, grief and outrage will choose their subjects, settling on the familiar—until Death itself becomes the most familiar figure of all, visiting not just the drug dens and the back alleys but the Internet cafes and the suburban malls and the campus hallways. It’s a short step from a war on drugs to a war on words, from a war on terror to a war of terror, a war that will be driven by that most dangerous and most potent of narcotics, that same fever that inflamed Macbeth to wanton murder.
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Our dear, hapless Lauren wasn’t the only collateral damage in this offensive—it’s every citizen’s peace of mind, that spasm that now seizes you when a stranger turns up at your door or on your rear-view mirror with malice aforethought.
If I speak in riddles, it’s because metaphor may soon be our only refuge. I’ve often made the grim joke that only journalists get shot in this country and that poets and fictionists never do (at least not since Rizal) because politicians and generals don’t read the sort of ponderous prose and verse we teach. But this isn’t a novel now, is it?
No, it’s not. It’s nonfiction of the worst kind, a waking nightmare we can’t seem to break out of. Our dear, hapless Lauren wasn’t the only collateral damage in this offensive—it’s every citizen’s peace of mind, that spasm that now seizes you when a stranger turns up at your door or on your rear-view mirror with malice aforethought. We cremated Lauren, but there’s no rest for the living.
This piece originally appeared in our September 2016 issue. We notified Butch Dalisay before running the image, both in the print edition and in this website. The image printed in the article is a manipulation of an original photograph taken by Bernadette Parco. (Our print edition mistakenly attributed the photo to the DZBB.)A New York Times reporter will be of little assistance to prosecutors as they put a former CIA officer on trial for allegedly leaking classified information about a botched operation in Iran.
Journalist James Risen testified Monday at an unusual pretrial hearing in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, where former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling goes on trial next week on charges that he illegally leaked national security information to Risen that the journalist used in his 2006 book, "State of War." A chapter in the book details an apparently botched plan to provide Iran with flawed nuclear blueprints through a Russian intermediary.
For at least six years, Risen has been resisting prosecutors' efforts to compel his testimony, saying he has an obligation to protect the confidentiality of his sources. Ultimately, a federal appeals court ruled that Risen must testify and that he had no special privilege as a journalist to quash the subpoena.
Monday's hearing was designed to hammer out ahead of trial exactly what Risen would be willing to answer, and exactly what would be asked of him. The Justice Department, under pressure from free-press advocates, had previously said it would not try to press Risen on whether Sterling was his confidential source, and would limit its questions.
Still, at the outset of Monday's hearing — which marked Risen's first actual court appearance in the case despite years of legal wrangling — it appeared Risen was unwilling to answer anything but the most basic questions.
Wearing a pained expression through much of his testimony, Risen acknowledged that he had written certain newspaper articles and "State of War," and that he had used unnamed sources. But when he was asked whether he had confidentiality agreements with unnamed sources, he refused to answer, even though he had admitted as much in affidavits he had previously sworn out.
"I decline to answer the question. I don't want to provide information that I believe the government wants to use as a building block... in this case," Risen said.
Eventually, after Risen consulted with his lawyers, he confirmed that he promised confidentiality to certain sources. He also reiterated to prosecutors that he would not under any circumstances testify about the identity of his sources, or what information came from confidential sources.
Risen was somewhat more cooperative when defense lawyers cross-examined him. Risen acknowledged under cross-examination that, in previous affidavits, he said he made a conscious decision to publish the material in "State of War" because he felt the public had the right to know about a botched intelligence operation, drawing the parallel that bad intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq had led the country into war.
That admission is important to defense attorneys because they argue that, under the law and the government's theory of the case, Risen is just as guilty of exposing government secrets as Sterling. Defense lawyers are still seeking to have the case dismissed on the basis of selective prosecution.
After Risen completed his testimony, defense lawyer Edward MacMahon said the case against Sterling, of O'Fallon, Missouri, should be dismissed because Risen's unwillingness to testify in any detail leaves the government unable to prove key elements of the crime, including venue. Specifically, prosecutors must prove that the crimes occurred in the Eastern District of Virginia. Usually this is a formality, but MacMahon suggested it will prove difficult without Risen's testimony, even though CIA headquarters are in the district, as is Sterling's former home in Sterling, Virginia.
It is not entirely clear how Risen's stance affects the government's case. The government possesses email and phone records that show extensive contact between Sterling and Risen. Brinkema has previously suggested the government could rely on those records to establish what it needs without compelling Risen's testimony.
Brinkema said it will now be up to prosecutors whether they want to call Risen as a witness next week in front of a jury. If he is called, the expectation is that he won't be asked any questions other than those that were asked on Monday, and he would be expected to give the same answers.Heartland (originally titled “Homeland” in its early stage) is a cancelled FPS in development by Incognito Entertainment / SCEA, planned to be released on the PSP. The project was conceived by David Jaffe as a mature shooter focused on making players thinking about their decisions and the consequences of war, with political themes related to George W. Bush’s administration and their “war on terror”.
Jaffe wanted to arouse players’ emotional reactions with a strong setting and series of dramatic events, which would have been directly affected by their choices during the game. A couple of examples of these difficult / morally ambiguous decisions would be to “blow up a bridge, stranding the townspeople, but preventing the ground assault” and “obey or disobey the order to douse an innocent family and their house with gasoline, and set them on fire”.
Heartland was meant to be a metaphor of the real US invasion of Iraq in 2003, with North American being the invaded country by a foreign army. The game was to be set in “heartland” of the US in an alternate history in which China invaded America. The main protagonist was a soldier debating whether to stay in the army and fight for America or go AWOL to find his family. As revealed by Jaffe in a few articles on 1UP and Escapist:
“On one hand, it was supposed to be emotional, we wanted players who are sensitive types like myself – that cry at Hallmark commercials – we were hoping that those types would actually cry, and that other players would still feel something that came close to an emotional response.” “We were trying to put in a lot of gameplay that would evoke emotion. You had sequences where you’d go into homes and your commanding officer would tell you to shoot innocent Chinese-Americans. It was very dark and was meant to cause players to consider what it’s like to live in America and be an American today.” “It wasn’t supposed to make you hate the Bush Administration so much as, as a layperson political junkie, it was supposed to put into light – using games as a medium – all the things I didn’t like about the Bush Administration.”
The team planned to use many different and original ways to unfold Heartland’s story and its themes, for example by letting players to find a tape they could watch: initially one would see the execution of a Chinese soldier, but by rewinding the tape you could discover older footage with the soldier’s family during a vacation at Disneyland.
The Incognito team was full of talented developers and after their experience on the PSP with Twisted Metal: Head-On they were planning on making a full 1st person shooter experience to “create the definitive shooter for the PlayStation Portable.”
You can imagine Heartland’s gameplay as an open ended FPS, with several objectives in each area and many different ways to resolve them. It was meant to be more similar to a “Deus Ex” set in a contemporary american settings than another “Call of Duty” or “Battlefield”. As said by Jaffe “I was really excited about creating this almost homage to Deus Ex.” On his old blog Jaffe wrote:
“HEARTLAND: Was going to be a return to more old school, opened up single player (and co-op) Goldeneye/Doom II style level design. Plus a little Deus Ex thrown in, in terms of multiple solves, as much emergence as we could intentionally create (not the mention the happy surprises)”
Unfortunately Heartland would never seen the light of day: the team worked on the project for about 6 or 8 months, creating concept art, 3D models and an early engine running on the PSP, before most of them were moved to the Warhawk team to help finishing the game. As more and more people left the Heartland team, they thought to cut some parts (such as the planned multiplayer mode), but in the end with less than 10 people available it was clear they did not have enough resources to fulfill their original concept. For Sony Warhawk was a much more important project to complete and it had the priority over an ambitious PSP game.
With such a small team David Jaffe and Scott Campbell left Heartland behind and decided to start a most suitable project, which later became “Calling all Cars“, released for Playstation Store in May 2007. In mid 2007 Incognito was splitting to create two new studios: Eat Sleep Play lead by Scott Campbell and David Jaffe – which later created Twisted Metal (2012) – and Lightbox Interactive lead by Dylan Jobe – which later created Starhawk (2012).
Unfortunately we still did not save any image from Heartland (the ones you see in this article are from random videos related to the chinese army), we got in contact with a few former developers who worked on the game but they did not have any screenshot or concept art anymore. If you know someone else who worked on this lost game, please let us know!
What do you think about this unseen game? Give your vote!
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(your first comment will be moderated before to be published)Not since the amateur days has a Grand Slam match-winner boasted such a meagre salary. In a revelation which should stun all of football's young multi-millionaires, Alex Cuthbert, Wales's try-scorer, is on £5,000 with his club. That's £5,000 a year, not a week.
To supplement his earnings with the Blues, Cuthbert is guaranteed £14,000 a year direct from the Welsh Rugby Union because of a contract with the sevens side. The 21-year-old lives in student digs in the capital and drives around in a battered Renault Clio. Yet all this is about to change due to his extraordinary emergence in the Six Nations.
For starters, Cuthbert will pocket the £85,000 which comprises his appearance fees and Grand Slam bonus. Then he will enter contract negotiations with the Blues as they try to repel the interest from English clubs, two of whom have apparently already come calling. Cuthbert will soon be earning well in excess of £100,000 a year and looking back on five games which changed his life.
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Cuthbert was born and raised in Gloucester, but qualifies through his Welsh mother, Caroline. Signed on a development contract, Cuthbert, a former striker with Gloucester City, did not expect to gain anything greater than experience this campaign. "It's crazy how much everything has changed in such a short time," he said. "I could never have thought I would be scoring the winning try in a Grand Slam game six months ago. I was just expecting to train with the Blues' seniors. In terms of money and contracts it is life-changing. I will have to pay off my student loan and maybe try to buy a house."
The car he receives so much stick for from the rest of the squad will stay and act as a reminder of how far he has travelled in such a short time. Cuthbert, who is on the shortlist for the Six Nations player of the tournament, believes this is only the start of the adventure.
"There is still a huge amount of development and learning to come from both the team and, of course, myself. Being in the Welsh environment has already upped my game, playing with world-class players like George [North]. I do look up to George – even though he is only 19. We are still so young, as are many of the boys. As the years go by, we can only get better."
Keep up to date with all the latest news with expert comment and analysis from our award-winning writersThe original Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 9.7 from last year is now finally starting to receive its update to Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, more than half a year after that version of the OS got official (and remember this was Samsung's premium tablet offering in 2015).
Lateness aside, this is a welcome update of course. Currently Marshmallow is rolling out to the T815 iteration of the device, which is the one that has 4G LTE connectivity. The first country to get it is Germany (for units sold unlocked), but it will hopefully become available in more places soon. After applying the update, you'll be on build T815XXU2BPD6.
As every other Marshmallow update out there, this one too will bring you new features such as Now On Tap, Doze Mode, new permissions, new emoji, and improved quick settings toggles. Additionally, you get support for multiple user accounts, so you can easily share the tablet with family members without worries about exposing your private data. The update also includes the April security patch.
SourceThe Carolina Panthers and New Orleans Saints are set to face off on Thursday Night Football in the latest edition of a bitter NFC South division rivalry. Both teams are in need of a win, especially the Panthers, who have gotten off to a 3-6 start this season. New Orleans is sitting at 4-5, but both teams are behind the Atlanta Falcons.
Cam Newton and the Panthers were the best team in the NFC last season and were expected to compete for a Super Bowl appearance again this year. That obviously didn’t happen, and they are struggling in a big way. Carolina cannot afford to drop to 3-7 this season if they hope to make the playoffs.
Drew Brees is playing at an MVP-caliber level this season and has kept the Saints in the playoff picture. They are on the outside looking in right now, but they have come through with some big wins. If the New Orleans’ defense can step up this week, they will give the Panthers a run for their money.
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Looking ahead at this week’s game, there are a lot of reasons for fans to tune in. Both teams have high-powered offenses, but their defenses have struggled. If fans want to see points in bunches, this game is one that you might want to tune into.
All of that being said, what bold predictions can be made for the Panthers vs. Saints game this week?
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Cam Newton Totals 300 Yards, Four Touchdowns
If the Panthers are going to pull out a win, everything starts with the play of their star quarterback. Cam Newton will respond with a big game, totaling 300 yards and four touchdowns. New Orleans doesn’t have a strong defense, and Newton will take full advantage of that fact this week.
Drew Brees Throws for 350 Yards, Four Touchdowns
New Orleans has been very happy with the play of Drew Brees this season and will get another big performance this week. He will torch the Panthers’ defense for 350 passing yards and four touchdowns. Carolina’s defense is nothing close to what it was last season, and Brees will show that again this week.
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Carolina’s Defense Will Sack Drew Brees Five Times
While the Panthers’ secondary isn’t good this season, they still are capable of putting pressure on the quarterback. That will show this week when they sack Drew Brees five times. New Orleans doesn’t have a bad offensive line, but they are going to get torched this week.
New Orleans Forces at Least Three Turnovers
Even though the Saints’ defense leaves a lot to be desired, they do have playmakers on the roster. New Orleans will show that this week by forcing three turnovers. Whether they force Newton to throw interceptions or force fumbles from other players, the Saints will put themselves in a good position by forcing three turnovers.
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The New Orleans Saints Pull Off a Hard-Fought Victory
Throughout the 2016 season, the New Orleans Saints have shown that they could beat good football teams. They have already defeated the Panthers once and will come through with the season sweep this week. New Orleans won’t win in blowout fashion, but they will pull out a close win when everything is said and done.
Expect to see both of these teams bring a little extra to the field this week. The NFC South rivalry aspect of the game is going to make this week’s matchup even more entertaining to watch.
Do you think the New Orleans Saints can pull out a hard-fought victory against the Carolina Panthers? What are your final score predictions for the game? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!
[Featured Image by John McCusker/AP Images]Grad school provided me with a lot more insight into the problem of gender inequity than I bargained for. While I was pursuing a PhD in economics — a highly gender-imbalanced discipline, with women accounting for 12 percent of American economics professors and only one female Nobel prize recipient to date — my partner was immersed in Ada Developers Academy. Ada is an intensive training program for women who want to become software engineers.
Part of her training included discussions about the various ways that sexism exists and persists in the technology sector, which is only slightly less gender-imbalanced than academic economics. In conversations with her, I became aware of how rife graduate school was with many of the same dynamics that make tech an uncomfortable place for many women. The issues here are both deeper and broader than pay disparities, and data we gathered this fall supports the notion that even (and perhaps especially) highly educated women experience gender inequity in the workplace.
Educated Women Give Their Employers Low Marks for Gender Equity
When the research team at PayScale started preparing this year’s gender pay report, I wanted to determine whether highly educated women had different experiences of workplace gender inequity than men or women with different levels of training. To do this, we asked survey respondents to rate their employer’s activity regarding workplace gender inequity. They could choose a rating from 1 (“No action is taken”) to 5 (“My employer is proactively addressing the issue”). There was also a sixth response option: “There is no issue, so no action is needed.” When compiling this data for the report, we deemed either a 1 or 2 a low rating.
We found a disturbing trend in the data. As men gained more education, they tended to be less likely to give their employer a low rating in addressing workplace gender inequity. The opposite happened for women, however — highly educated women were more likely to report an unaddressed problem in the workplace.
Do You Know What You're Worth? GET A FREE PAY REPORT
Highly educated women often
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to acknowledge vulnerability.
There's much at stake.
Postponement of the recovery process can result in a life not fully lived; men who do not have support and help for dealing with what was done to them are at a significantly higher risk for a host of health issues (substance abuse, self-destructive behavior, chronic health conditions), mental health issues (depression, suicidal ideation, post-traumatic stress disorder) and social dysfunction (failed relationships, impeding of education and career objectives, interpersonal violence).
All survivors -- men and women, boys and girls -- have suffered silently long enough. It's time we spoke openly, intelligently and compassionately about the men who have suffered the trauma of sexual assault, abuse, and domestic violence.
Each of us can begin the conversation with a man we know -- whether he's a man who's experienced abuse himself or just a man in a position to help change the narrative.
If you or someone you care needs help, please visit:
1in6.org
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-799-SAFE (800-799-7233)
Explore the full series of PSAs. And join us by sharing the campaign and facts on social media. It takes a few clicks and just a moment to share the powerful and important message for the 21 million men who have had an unwanted or abusive sexual experience: you are not alone.
Maile M. Zambuto is the CEO of the Joyful Heart Foundation. Steve LePore is the Executive Director of 1in6.Philippe’s got his own way of saying things, but he has a point about the real consequences of fake news… https://t.co/a02sXiaHfp — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 14, 2017
Dear Mike Flynn & Mike Flynn Jr., What goes around COMETS around. And given your pizza obsession…https://t.co/rmyO7wyJKX xo Philippe — Philippe Reines (@PhilippeReines) February 14, 2017
Damn. Damn.
Trump National Security Advisor Mike Flynn resigned last night after news reports came out indicating that he had lied about talking to Russia about alleviation of sanctions by phone before Trump took office. You may recall that Flynn’s son pushed the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory that led to a man entering a Washington D.C. pizzeria with a rifle in order to “self-investigate” the absurd claims, and he was subsequently removed from Trump’s team.
The elder Flynn himself didn’t mention the “Pizzagate” conspiracy by name, but he also pushed similar conspiratorial claims about what leaked emails revealed during the campaign. And … well, now Clinton’s Twitter account has gone full scorched-earth policy to smite these buffoons. Continuing in the spirit of her famed “Delete your account” tweet from the election, she’s already trashed Trump over his troubles with the courts, as well.
Elsewhere on Twitter, a video of Flynn’s campaign remarks about Clinton has been circulating, wherein he stokes the “lock her up” fervor, which may not have been the best idea for him in hindsight:
“If I did a tenth of what [Hillary Clinton] did, I would be in jail today.” — Michael Flynn’s own words, really!!! https://t.co/Tt97WATdXU — Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) February 14, 2017
Lock him up?
Really, though, the most concerning part of all this isn’t necessarily that Flynn may have lied to Vice President Mike Pence about the contents of his phone call with Russia (which he did, unless Pence was just covering for him with some lies of his own), or even Flynn’s own actions in that phone call. No, what should really get the focus is this: Flynn reportedly advised Russia, on that very phone call, not to respond to the Obama administration’s newest sanctions, and the next day, Trump openly praised Putin for doing just that on Twitter.
It also seems that acting Attorney General Sally Yates, who was fired for refusing to have the Department of Justice defend Trump’s Muslim ban, told the Trump administration last month that Flynn was lying about his phone call and that he could be compromised by Russian blackmail, contrary to Trump’s recent comments that he hadn’t heard what was going on with Flynn. There was a coverup here, and Flynn has taken the fall, but that doesn’t mean he’s the only person involved. Democrats in Congress are already asking questions (along with Republicans like John McCain), and with some aspects of the famed Trump/Russia intelligence dossier now confirmed, we deserve to know how deep it went.
(featured image via a katz / Shutterstock, Inc.)
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—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—
Follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google+.Jerry Kill got his long his long-expected raise Saturday.
The University announced that Kill's contract has been restructured through 2018-19. He'll make $2.1 million next year, up from $1.2 million last year, which was the lowest salary among Big Ten coaches.
“Coach Kill is proving his model works here at the University of Minnesota,” Athletics Director Norwood Teague said in the press release. “It is right to support him as he builds a program that will make the state of Minnesota proud.”
The Gophers have gone 3-9, 6-7 and 8-5 in Kill's first three seasons, and Kill has turned around the team in the classroom, too.
“Jerry Kill is the right coach for the University of Minnesota,” University President Eric Kaler said in the press release. "He has clearly moved our program forward and I am pleased we have come to this agreement to secure his long-term leadership of Gopher football.”
Kill thanked Kaler and Teague for their support in his statement.
The coach added, "I am extremely proud of what our players and coaches accomplished on and off the field last season. We still have a lot of work to do, but are moving the program in the right direction. I look forward to continuing to build a program that positively represents the great people of Minnesota and am excited to work with our players again when we start spring practice in early March.”
Update: Kill's new contract will increase his salary by $100,000 each year. So he'll make $2.1 million, $2.2 million, $2.3 million, $2.4 million and $2.5 million over the next five years.
The contract also has language that guarantees that the Gophers assistant coaches' salary pool will rank in the Top 6 of the Big Ten.Universal Pictures holds a solid edge in box office market share as the midpoint of 2015 nears. The studio’s “Jurassic World” passed Disney’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” as the year’s highest-grossing film in North America on Friday.
But defending champ 20th Century Fox isn’t ready to concede just yet, and Warner Bros. and Disney aren’t giving up, either.
With the latest in the dinosaur-movie franchise gobbling up ticket sales, as well as success of “Furious 7,” “Fifty Shades of Grey,” “Pitch Perfect 2,” the low-budget “Boy Next Door” and the even lower-budget “Unfriended,” Universal has connected on all six of its releases, accounting for 23.9 percent of the year’s domestic grosses.
Warner Bros. and Disney are virtually tied for second at 18.9 percent, and Fox is behind them with 13.5 percent of the year’s receipts.
Also Read: 'Ted 2,' 'Jurassic World' and 'Inside Out' Could Make Box Office History
Universal is having its best year ever and appears to have plenty in the tank with “Minions,” “Straight Outta Compton,” “Steve Jobs,” and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie‘s “By the Sea” still to come.
But Disney has “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” coming in December, which some analysts believe will hit the $2 billion mark globally. It has only three films rolling out before then, but they’re heavyweights: Marvel’s “Ant-Man” in July, the Steven Spielberg-directed “Bridge of Spies,” starring Tom Hanks and written by Joel and Ethan Coen, in October, and Pixar’s “The Good Dinosaur” in December.
Warner Bros. doesn’t have a traditional tentpole movie this year (though it’s loaded for 2016), but can’t be counted out because it has a whopping 15 releases still to come. The best bets to connect significantly appear to be July’s “Vacation” remake, the mob saga “Black Mass” with Johnny Depp in September and the Nancy Meyers-directed comedy “The Intern,” which stars Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro, also in September.
Also Read: Kerry Washington, Kate Hudson Exit Warner Bros. Thriller 'Unforgettable'
Fox is a dark horse, with 12 films coming in the next six months. Several appear on track to be hits and show breakout potential, including July’s teen tale “Paper Towns,” adapted from a bestseller by John Green (“The Fault in Our Stars”), September’s “Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials” in September and the animated “Peanuts Movie” in November.
Fox also has two Christmas offerings: “Joy,” which reteams David O. Russell with Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert DeNiro, and writer-director Alejandro Inarritu’s “The Revenant,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy.
The chart below, courtesy of Rentrak, offers a closer look at how the year has gone so far and what’s in the works for the major players:
2015 Box Office Market Share – Year to Date (as of 6/24/15)
Also Read: 'Jurassic World' Takes Aim at 'Titanic' and 'Avatar' After Hitting $1 Billion at Box Office
1, Universal ($1.25B in domestic grosses)
So Far: Notwithstanding two Legendary flops, “Seventh Son” and “Blackhat,” the studio is batting 1.000 with two billion-dollar blockbusters (“Jurassic World” and “Furious 7”) and another that has the potential in Illumination Entertainment’s animated “Minions.”
Key Releases: We’ll find out if Comedy Central TV star Amy Schumer is a movie star when her Judd Apatow-directed “Trainwreck” takes on “Ant-Man” next month. No matter how well its rivals do, if the Danny Boyle-directed “Steve Jobs” connects, draws awards attention and takes off, Universal will be hard to catch. If you doubt the studio is operating with confidence, how about slotting the Amy Poehler-Tina Fey comedy “Sisters” against “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”
2. Disney ($995M)
So Far: Marvel delivered with “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and so did Pixar with “Inside Out.” Director Kenneth Branagh’s live-action fairy tale “Cinderella” was an important score, offsetting the disappointing original sci-fi tale “Tomorrowland.”
Key Releases: “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” will be a monster, but only two weeks of it will count toward this year’s grosses. Pixar’s “The Good Dinosaur” should be strong, leaving Paul Rudd’s “Ant-Man” and the Cold War spy saga “Bridge of Spies” as the potential difference makers.
3. Warner Bros. ($991M)
So Far: “Mad Max: Fury Road” with Tom Hardy and “San Andreas” with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson were big wins, while “Get Hard” delivered domestically. “Jupiter Ascending,” “Hot Pursuit,” “Entourage” and “Run All Night,” however, did not, with Will Smith’s “Focus” being a push.
Key Releases: For the studio to be in the race at the end, it will require solid showings by “Magic Mike XXL,” the “Vacation” remake, Ron Howard’s drama “In the Heart of the Sea,” “The Intern,” and “Pan,” with Garrett Hedlund, Amanda Seyfried and Hugh Jackman. The Two films from directors coming off indie hits, “Midnight Special” from Jeff Nichols (“Mud”) and the boxing drama “Creed” from Ryan Coogler (“Fruitvale Station”) could help, too.
Also Read: 'Magic Mike XXL' First Trailer Brings Channing Tatum's 'Bro Time' to Showtime (Video)
4. Fox ($715M)
So Far: “Kingsman: The Secret Service” was a very pleasant surprise, but Liam Neeson’s “Taken 3” came up short of high expectations and it appears Melissa McCarthy’s “Spy” will too, at least domestically.
Key Releases: “Paper Towns,” “The Peanuts Movie” and “Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials” appear bound for glory. And if the rebooted superheroes of “Fantastic Four” or Ridley Scott’s “The Martian” should break out and even one of the Christmas films connects, Fox could hold onto its crown.
5. Paramount ($277M)
So Far: There’s not much to say with just three releases, one that clicked (“SpongeBob Squarepants: Sponge Out of Water) and two that didn’t (“Project Almanac” and “Hot Tub Time Machine 2.”)
Key Releases: Paramount’s summer — and possibliy the next few years — will hinge on the performance of July’s “Terminator: Genisys” and Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible 5 – Rogue Nation.” And we’ll see how much Jason Blum’s “Paranormal” franchise has left when the 3D “Ghost Dimension” arrives for Halloween.
6. Lionsgate ($246M)
So Far: “Divergent: Insurgent” delivered, but it’s clear now that the franchise will never match “The Hunger Games.” “Age of Adaline” was a minor hit, as was CBS Films’ “The Duff,” but it got ugly after that with “Mortdecai,” “Spare Parts,” “La Mala” and “Child 44” all whiffing.
Key Releases: “American Ultra,” with Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart and Topher Grace, could connect, and Vin Diesel’s “The Last Witchhunter” might, too. But it’s all about Jennifer Lawence’s final go-round as Katniss Everdeen in “Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2” at Thanksgiving.
Also Read: Lionsgate Execs Reveal Why 'Power Rangers' Was Banished to January; Future of 'Odyssey'
7. Sony ($217M)
So far: Kevin James’ “Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2” and Kevin Hart’s “The Wedding Ringer” were moderate hits, while “Chappie” and “Aloha” missed. It’s been a tough run for the studio, which hasn’t had a film top $300 million globally since “22 Jump Street” last June.
Key Releases: Things will get more interesting — and could get much better — for Sony in the second half. Among the 13 films to roll out are: “Pixels,” which teams Adam Sandler with James in July; Diablo Cody’s Meryl Streep rocker “Ricki and the Flash” in August and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the Robert Zemeckis-directed highwire thriller “The Walk” in October. Presume the James Bond epic “Spectre”and “Hotel Transylvania 2” will be hits. Jack Black’s family film “Goosebumps” lands in October and, if it works, it could launch a franchise. On Christmas Day it will be Will Smith in the NFL saga “Concussion,” but before that we get “The Seth Rogen/Joseph Gordon-Levitt Xmas Movie,” from the gang that brought us “The Interview.”
8. The Weinstein Company ($189M)
So Far: David Heyman’s British import “Paddington Bear” was a nice surprise and Helen Mirren did it again with “Woman in Gold,” but “Eva” didn’t stay long.
Key Releases: Awards fare is TWC ‘s specialty and this year’s standard bearers are the John Wells-directed comedy “Adam Jones” with Bradley Cooper, Emma Thompson and Lily James (“Cinderella”) and the Todd Haynes drama “Carol.” It’s a period romance starring Kyle Chandler, Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, who tied for Best Actress honors in Cannes. There’s also “Hateful Eight,” a Western from Quentin Tarantino on Christmas Day. Before that, there is Antoine Fuqua’s Jake Gyllenhaal boxing drama “Southpaw” in July, the animated “Underdogs” in August and “No Escape,” an action film with Owen Wilson, Lake Bell and Pierce Brosnan, in September.
9. Relativity Media ($74M)
So Far: Horror films “Woman in Black 2: The Angel of Death” and “The Lazarus Effect” and Kevin Costner’s race relations drama “Black or White” all landed in the mid-$20 million range.
Key Releases: The best bet for a breakout looks to be “Masterminds,” a crime comedy that stars Jake Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig and Owen Wilson arriving in August. Also meriting a look are the Natalie Portman Western “Jane Got a Gun” in September, the Melissa Rauch comedy “The Bronze” in October and the Halle Berry thriller “Kidnap” in October.
Also Read: Two Relativity Board Members Resign After Clash With CEO Ryan Kavanaugh
10. Focus Features ($60M)
So Far: Low-budget horror film “Insidious: Chapter 3” made money, but three small films with well-known stars didn’t: Jude Law’s “Black Sea,” Morgan Freeman and Diane Keaton’s “5 Flights Up” and Julianne Moore’s “Maps to the Stars.”
Key Releases: Kate Winslet stars in Alan Rickman’s second directing effort “A Little Chaos” this month, Ryan Reynolds and Ben Kingsley star in the sci-fi thriller “Self/Less” in July and Alicia Vikander and Eddie Redmayne topline “The Danish Girl,” directed by Tom Hooper (“Les Miserables”), in November. The action film “Cop Car” opens in August and offers a peek at the work of John Watts, the new “Spider-Man” director.Drivers of the world, get ready for the most incredible announcement you’re going to hear all day. The navigation app Waze just introduced a new feature that reroutes drivers by any nearby trucks that are transporting horses so that everyone can get a good look at them!
Day. Officially. Made. This is going to completely change the way that people drive forever.
Advertisement
From now on, when a Waze driver sees a trailer full of horses on the road, they simply flag the location of the horse truck on the app and all Waze users within a 50-mile radius will immediately be rerouted to drive directly to the horses. This will ensure that the Waze user gets a good look at the horses’ faces through the slits in the trailer, and maybe even sees their tails swishing around if it’s one of those trailers where you can see through the bars in the back.
For added convenience, once the driver catches up with the truck transporting all the beautiful horses, the Waze app will delete the driver’s original destination entirely so that they can focus on following the horses and trying to get their attention by honking the horn or sticking their head out of the window to yell at the horses that they love them.
As if that weren’t already awesome enough, Waze will also send drivers automated notifications reminding them to wave at all the nice horses as they drive past, as well as notifications pointing out that driving past a horse truck on the road is like getting a surprise visit to the zoo while you’re driving.
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It’s awesome to see the people at Waze working so hard to make driving infinitely more enjoyable! Pretty soon, it will be easier than ever to find all the horse trucks on the road and look at the horses while you drive. We can’t wait to try out this incredible new feature!Why The Politics Of The 'Star Wars' Universe Makes No Sense
Enlarge this image toggle caption Keith Hamshere/Lucasfilm/The Kobal Collection Keith Hamshere/Lucasfilm/The Kobal Collection
Why The Politics Of The 'Star Wars' Universe Makes No Sense 9:57
Unless you've spent the past year or so in an ice cave on Hoth — or have the misfortune of living on a planet farthest from the bright center of the universe — you're probably aware there's a new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, coming out on Friday.
The trailers suggest a return to the dogfights and lightsaber duels of Episodes IV-VI. But in this special edition of the NPR Politics Podcast, we talk about our hopes that the new film sticks to one aspect of the much maligned prequels: an obsession with politics and political process.
Because Episodes I-III are all about politics. Senate votes and procedure dominate the plots from Phantom Menace's initial scroll, which reads, "The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.... The congress of the Republic endlessly debates this alarming chain of events..."
The Mess That Is The Galactic Senate
But let's get this out of the way early: The Galactic Senate portrayed in Episodes I-III is a mess.
"To be fair and honest with you, I'm not sure [Star Wars creator] George Lucas understands either," said Seth Masket, an associate professor of political science at the University of Denver and a Star Wars fan. "It's a little vague how the government works there."
The Senators represents worlds and groups of worlds. But there are also Senators representing what are essentially government agencies, which sounds pretty odd when you think about it.
"There doesn't seem to be [political] parties or a second chamber," said Masket, who compared the Galactic Senate to Nebraska's nonpartisan, unicameral Legislature.
One key planet, Naboo, apparently elects its queen, Padmé Amadala. She's not a member of the Galactic Senate but somehow can speak before it and puts forward a no-confidence motion that essentially brings down a government.
"This is allegedly a government that's been in power either a thousand years or a thousand generations and it's hard to imagine that government lasting even a thousand days with those kinds of rules," said Masket.
Political Scientists Who <3 Star Wars
Masket's been writing about Star Wars and political science for years (sample post: "The Star Wars Galactic Senate Needed a Minority Party") and gets into spirited debates with similar-minded interlocutors all the time.
"Part of what makes the subject so alluring is there's plenty of vagueness there," said Masket. "There's just enough there that we can put our hooks in without making it incredibly specific."
As a graduate student at UCLA, Masket described seeing The Phantom Menace with other grad students.
"We were just tickled that it featured so much politics," said Masket, although he added, "it turned out we weren't actually all that into the films in the final analysis."
One of Masket's many posts on Star Wars summarizes the important plot points from an academic perspective.
Episode I featured a two-minute depiction of life in the Galactic Senate in an attempt to demonstrate the Old Republic's dysfunction. That scene also revealed that Lucas doesn't understand how legislatures function, what bureaucrats are, why legislative parties form, the function of the media, etc., but it still attempted to show institutional behavior.
Episode III contained a subplot in which the Emperor sowed discord in the government by appointing a plainly unqualified and inexperienced Jedi to the Council. This is all about institutional competition and the challenges of separation of powers.
Episode IV, of course, was all about the executive branch's accretion of power at the expense of the legislature, which of course led to a violent rebellion headed by ousted senators. There were a farm boy and some robots, but that was a subplot.
Maybe The Jedi Weren't Such A Force For Good After All
One controversial conclusion Masket's political science background brings to Star Wars scholarship: that the Jedi knights may have been a destabilizing force who contributed to the downfall of the Old Republic.
"They're also a really unusual aspect of a government. They clearly play some role in the Old Republic of enforcing peace; they're some sort of peace officers," said Masket, who jokingly compared the Jedi to the Taliban in Afghanistan. "They play a very weird and undemocratic role and they're secretive and they're religious and they don't seem to be subject to anybody else's rules other than their own."
Star Wars + Politics = Internet Gold
In our present-day galaxy, Star Wars comes up regularly in political life. President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative to shoot down incoming nuclear missiles was dubbed Star Wars by its critics.
Sen. John McCain frequently compared himself to Luke Skywalker when he ran for president in 2000. And Vice President Dick Cheney's detractors often called him Darth Vader. Cheney has embraced the nickname in retirement, using the Imperial March as entrance music for political speeches and adorning his pickup truck's trailer hitch with a Darth Vader cover.
And many of the current crop of presidential candidates were children when the original films came out in the theaters. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz does pretty decent Yoda and Darth Vader impressions.
And then there's the epic mashup of Donald Trump as Vader.Editor's Note: This week's Rock 10 Questions features Tom Hamilton, the bass player from Aerosmith, easily considered one of America's greatest Rock n Roll Bands. I'd like to thank my colleague Jim Villanueva from our All Access sister site http://music.allaccess.com for sharing portions of his recent interview with Hamilton.
1) What would be about your proverbial - or perhaps literal - Beatles on Ed Sullivan moment? Can you recall the moment when you knew you wanted to make music for the rest of your life?
Yeah. That night, I remember it was a cold night and like most of these big shows they used to be on Sunday nights and the family would gather around The Ed Sullivan Show to see what this phenomenon was called The Beatles that everybody was talking about. I'd seen them on a news program a few days before -- and remember I was only 11 or 12 -- and they were showing them and I'm thinking, they look like girls! Look at their hair! Why don't they get their hair cut? And then Sunday night came along and I heard them and I was just so blown away. It was a real imprinting moment. I was already into music, but I was into instrumental guitar music, mostly by The Ventures. So then The Beatles come on and I was so blown away and I had this sort of conflict about deserting my favorite instrumental guitar band for this new band that sings, but I decided to do it! So it was a real big bang moment. All I could do is dream about being in The Beatles and buying every Beatles magazine, every deck of cards, every poster and just study this stuff. I never took seriously the idea that I was actually gonna get to my late teens and make a commitment to be in a band. I always thought it was dream; I never thought I would actually do it.
2) Fast forward to the upcoming Aerosmith Rocks Donington 2014 concert collection, available on September 4th. Walk us through the process of creating the setlist, but in this particular case, knowing that the gig is gonna be filmed.
We were doing this European tour last year and the idea of filming the Donington show came up during the tour. And we felt really good about the set we were doing and the songs that we were playing and so it didn't really occur to us to really make any changes to the setlist, per se, for when we filmed it. But that whole process of making up a setlist is a really complicated and hard job. Whenever we get ready to tour and we rehearse, the first days of rehearsals are always dedicated to sitting in front of the blackboard with all the songs and figuring out what we're gonna play live. We have a certain structure that we tend to stick to in terms of the songs that we know we wanna play for people, because we love them and don't want to disappoint them. I think a lot of bands get knocked in the press if they don't really change their setlist completely every night. I don't know, I guess we're just maybe a more rehearsed, more figured-out type of band. We like to go up there and really nail the audience with something that we've been working a long time to put together and polish and really get as good at it as we can. That was another reason why that setlist worked great for the filming as well because it was something... that we'd been doing for a long time.
3) In terms of the film, how much control do you guys have over the show, how it's shot or how it's edited?
We have complete control. We're the king of the mountain as far as that goes. Generally we've done enough of these things to where we know what works for us, so we demand a lot of approval on pretty much every aspect of it, including which photos they use and artwork and stuff like that for the cover. We feel like that's the only way we can make sure it's as good as it can be, Aerosmith-wise.
4) In watching the film a couple days ago, I was struck by the overwhelming majority of folks in the crowd who probably weren't even born when you released your debut album. What does that say about the longevity of the band and the overriding influence of classic rock on current music?
It's interesting because [on] this tour (recently wrapped 15-city Blue Army Tour), the composition of the crowd seemed to be a lot younger than it was last time we toured the States. And we'd already noticed that in Europe and South America where our following is actually very young, considering how long we've been together. In the States we always get the fans who still like to go to concerts and still love the band from maybe the 70s, or some of the early days. But there's more younger people there; like in their teens and 20s. I don't know, maybe it's because there's a certain thing that we're doing, in terms of its authenticity as a rock show. So kids who are curious about rock, or who are inspired by it... I think they get into us because we're kinda like a bridge back to that big bang era I was talking about. It's amazing that there are a lot of people in their teens and 20s who are fascinated by what happened back then, as far as all the amazing bands that came out and the genres that were generated and the styles. So, yeah, it's really neat.
5) So many bands are certainly influenced by what you guys, and of course, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin and on and on, have done.
We're just kind of handing down what inspired us. We were inspired by The Stones, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, The Doors and other amazing, just unbelievable bands from Britain like Deep Purple. We dreamed of being famous and the whole thing. We wanted the whole thing. A lot of successful bands will deny they were after [the same thing] because they think it's shallow, but yeah, we wanted to be famous, and we wanted to make hits and be successful and have that dream come true. When we made our first records, we wanted to feel the power that we felt from listening to Zeppelin albums. That's your standard. You just wanna get in the studio and make it sound as big and huge as those other bands.
6) Speaking of big and huge, the setlist on the upcoming Aerosmith Rocks Donington 2014 is bookended by "Train Kept A-Rollin'" and "Mama Kin" and includes timeless hits such as "Love In An Elevator," "Last Child," "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)," Walk This Way," Dream On," and on and on. But it also features a couple of what I would consider gems: "Jaded" and "Home Tonight." Give me an even deeper track that you especially like to play.
Well I love it when we play "Lord of the Thighs" from the second album (1974's Get Your Wings), but we haven't been playing that one much lately. I love playing "Janie's Got a Gun" but that one's kind of sporadic; we don't add that for every show. You know, "Kings and Queens" (1977's Draw the Line)... when we were on tour in Europe, there were so many kids that were calling out for that song. Brad and I have always wished that we could put that in the set, but you have to sell it until it's a unanimous decision for that to happen. And finally we convinced everybody to put it in there. I wish it was in that night (at Donington) but we just didn't happen to play it that night.
7) Now you guys just played at the Pro Football Hall of Fame's first-ever Concert for Legends. Boston hero Tom Brady is a sure bet to be inducted into the Hall of Fame when he retires. Would you like to weigh in on "Deflate-Gate?"
I don't think any of us really know what took place, whether he actually said to these guys who work for the team, "I want you to depressurize the balls so they're at this specific pressure," or whether it was more of a look or a nod or maybe even a misunderstanding. I don't know, the guy is so known for his integrity I just don't think that he would knowingly cheat. Having said that, these guys are pros and when you become a pro... you do follow the rules but you follow them to their very, very limits just to have any edge you can. That's where you can probably get in trouble. But as far as the guy being devious, it just does not fit the guy. I've met him a few times and we're friends with the Krafts (New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft) and there's just never been a hint or a whisper of the guy liking to be sneaky. We'll all be glad when this is put to bed and we can move on.
8) If you had to pick a song title that best describes the entire history of the band, let me give you some choices and see if one pops out at you and tell me which one it would be: "Dream On," "Train Kept A-Rollin'," "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" or "Livin' On the Edge?"
I think "Livin' On the Edge." One thing about everybody in the band is that we're proven to have issues with risky behavior (laughs). We seem to have a high-risk tolerance, so stepping out on the edge a little bit has been something that's worked well for us, but it's also been very destructive in the past.
9) After navigating through numerous periods of rocky relationships, how are you guys doing today?
We're doing well. We have things come up but we don't have as many crises as we used to. You can have issues that are going on about stuff that's happening at the moment, or you can get into that stuff about overall future strategy and plans. Sometimes we don't all come up the same, but in general, there's just not the explosive resentments going on. It's great, you know. I mean everybody gets a chance to get away from each other in between shows and that probably helps a lot. I mean everybody gets burnt out but then everybody shows up physically and mentally, spiritually ready to go do what we do. This time, for me, it was just such a blast, and same as last year, which is where the DVD is taken from. One of the biggest rewards of having our band after this many years is that we have a giant list of songs to play and we don't have to put two or three gems in the middle of a bunch of songs that nobody really listens to. Pretty much every song we play - and that's reflected on the DVD - are songs that we love and our audience loves.
10) Final quick question: Can you picture Aerosmith ever announcing retirement, or will you guys rock 'till you drop?
There might be a time where we say this is probably gonna be the last big run, as far as tours go, but I don't know, I think it's pointless to do that because I can just visualize six months or a year after this, you're constantly gonna hear that your fans are still dying to hear you play. And it's hard to resist that. It's hard to come up with a good reason not to answer the call. [Our fans] are always there. That's true in the U.S., it's true of our European fans, Eastern Europe, Japan, India; in all these places our audiences are really young and they're just discovering the band and they're insanely enthusiastic. I just can't imagine not wanting to go and consummate that situation."I'm not sure how I actually ended up with it," he wrote in an Facebook Atari Museum group post, "but he may have lent it to me and I just never gave it back or he never asked for it to be returned." Osborne found the song languishing on an old cassette tape, and says he can't find any other information about Chubby's recording elsewhere on the web. "How funny would it be that the only reason they never used Chubby's version of the Dig Dug song was because I never got the only known recording of it back to my dad?" Osborne has recorded the cassette to his PC and uploaded the song to SoundCloud. There was probably a better master of the song somewhere, but he says he doesn't know where it is -- he's asking former employees and diehard fans in the Atari Museum group to offer any information they might have.
Check out the full, ridiculous track on Osborne's SoundCloud account, or at the embedded player below. Want to compare it to the version used in the commercial? We'll embed that too -- but make sure your speakers are on: audio only comes out of the right channel.On Sunday, Redditor Pianoangel420 submitted pictures of a raccoon and squirrel snuggling together.
(Story Continues Below)
The photographs inspired another user, Crappy_Doodler, to imagine the pair as the heroes of a children's book.
"This is way too cute," Crappy_Doodler wrote. "I immediately imagined them going on adventures in a children's book. Had to draw it."
The result was a whimsical illustration, entitled "The Adventures of Simon and Oliver," which, in turn, led to Reddit's version of crowd-sourced storytelling.
Hours after Cr
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was barred from giving interviews under the terms of his release from 18 years in jail for treason in 2004 — was allowed to speak freely, with the full permission of Israel’s security establishment, about what his interviewer termed his exposure of “one of Israel’s greatest secrets.”
A technician from 1976-85 at Israel’s nuclear facility at Dimona, Vanunu revealed overwhelming evidence of Israel’s nuclear program to Britain’s Sunday Times in 1986, including dozens of photographs, enabling nuclear experts to conclude that Israel had produced at least 100 nuclear warheads.
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To this day, Israel has never acknowledged that it has a nuclear arsenal, instead maintaining a policy of “nuclear ambiguity” while vowing that it will not be the first to use nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
The timing of the interview Friday appeared particularly telling, as Israel internalizes that its lobbying efforts have likely failed to prevent Congress approving the world powers’ nuclear deal with Iran, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called “a historic mistake.” Netanyahu has repeatedly pledged to act alone if necessary to ensure Iran does not obtain nuclear weapons. Two weeks ago, the military censor allowed the broadcast on TV of tape-recorded conversations in which former defense minister Ehud Barak describes at least three occasions in 2010, 2011 and 2012 when Israel ostensibly came close to striking at Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Vanunu, now 60, was interviewed in a friend’s apartment in Tel Aviv. He described a gradual process by which he decided, over his years working at Dimona, that he had an obligation to reveal “to the citizens of Israel and the Middle East and the world” the nature of what he called “the powder keg” at Dimona — “the quantities, the numbers, the types.”
“I saw what they were producing and its significance,” he said, calling Israel’s nuclear program “a failure” that he had “exposed” — in an apparent critique of Israel’s entire nuclear strategy.
He talked about bringing “an ordinary camera, a Pentax” into the facility where he had been working for nine years, soon after learning that he was going to be fired, and shooting two rolls of film — about 58 pictures. He wasn’t suspected because he was a familiar figure, and he habitually carried a backpack with his university text books into the facility.
‘Any man would have fallen’ for the honey trap, he said to interviewer Danny Kushmaro, ‘including you’
He then kept the film for months, taking it overseas to Thailand, Nepal and Australia before finally getting it developed in Sydney. “I took a risk that the film would be ruined,” he said.
He denied that he had exposed the nuclear program as revenge for losing his job, and also denied being paid any money by The Sunday Times or others for his revelations. His long-term lawyer, Avigdor Feldman, he said, works for him voluntarily.
Vanunu described how he was lured from London to Rome and arrested — befriended in a Mossad honeytrap by an agent (Cheryl Bentov) he knew as Cindy. “Any man would have fallen” for the ploy, he said to interviewer Danny Kushmaro, “including you.”
He claimed that he picked Cindy up, not the other way around, when they were crossing a street in London, and never suspected that she was an agent until he woke up after three days drugged on a boat bound for Israel. She had suggested they travel to Italy, where the Mossad raided their apartment and kept him chained to a bed for seven days, he said. Even in Italy, he said, he thought Cindy “was also a victim.”
‘I, Mordechai Vanunu, took the responsibility to inform the citizens of the nuclear danger… Dimona is very dangerous’
Asked whether he’d fallen in love with her, he said, “Yes, no, I didn’t fall in love with her. I said a connection could develop.”
He said his punishment — with 11 of his 18 years in jail served in solitary — had been radically unfair. He paid the price, he said, of destroying the global reputation of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence service by exposing the nuclear secret. “I went against the Shin Bet, the Mossad, the army,” he said.
He said he was “not a foreign spy,” but rather someone who acted as he did “because I thought it was the right of the people to know… I, Mordechai Vanunu, took the responsibility to inform the citizens of the nuclear danger… Dimona is very dangerous,” he said.
That role ended the day the Sunday Times published the story, he said. “I’m done with this story. I have no more secrets.”
Therefore, he pleaded that he be allowed to leave Israel and live abroad with his new Norwegian wife. (He married Professor Kristin Joachimsen at a church ceremony in Jerusalem in May.) He said he had sought to annul his citizenship, no longer felt he was Israeli, noted he had converted to Christianity, and asked: “Why are they still keeping me here?”
He said he would be prepared to pledge not to give interviews if he were allowed to leave Israel, but then seemed to backtrack. (He has given several interviews to the foreign press over the years, in breach of his release provisions.)
Israel has repeatedly denied him permission to leave the country, in part because he allegedly still constitutes a security threat, and a further High Court hearing on the issue is expected soon. (In 2007, Vanunu was jailed for an additional six months for violating his release provisions when he was found traveling towards the West Bank city of Bethlehem, away from his home in Jerusalem.)
Vanunu also claimed he was punished more severely because he comes from a poor Moroccan background as opposed to a more privileged European one. But the bottom line, he pleaded, was that, “They should close the Vanunu file.”This article is produced in association with Masters of CG, a contest for creatives in partnership with HP, Nvidia, and 2000 AD. Vote for your favourite entry today and you could win an HP Slate 7 Plus (*EU residents only).
When the history of the 2010s come to be written, they'll be remembered as an era in which computer generated special effects truly ruled the roost. And with this trend has come a brand new type of'making of' video, to bring the work of the VFX wizards front and centre.
Quickly digestible and instantly shareable, the 'VFX breakdown' video pulls away the magician's curtain to reveal the constituent elements of our favourite CG scenes. Often without commentary or explanation - a true case of "a picture tells a thousand words" — they offer a fascinating insight into how some of the biggest movies were put together.
Here we select 10 of the best examples of the VFX breakdown video. But if we've missed your favourites then please add them in the comments below and we'll consider adding it to a future update...
01. Gravity
Gravity isn't just a movie with a lot of VFX; it's practically ALL digital effects, with the two actors' faces the only real-life footage in many of the scenes. The starlit sky, planet Earth, spacecraft, debris and even space suits were all created digitally at Framestore, whose technicians used a combination of motion controlled cameras and sophisticated light rigs to simulate the effects of micro gravity.
This VFX breakdown of the 2013 Oscar winner for Best Visual Effects highlights just how much work they had to do. Read this interview with Framestore CEO William Sargent for more about this boundary-pushing British VFX company.
02. Oz The Great and Powerful
Prequels, particularly CG-heavy ones, don't have a great track record (we'll just mention Jar-Jar Binks and leave it at that). So the quality of this 2013 fantasy film leading up to the events of 1939's The Wizard of Oz was all the more remarkable.
A great story was complemented by astonishing CG environments that brought a whole new (third) dimension to the magical land first conceived by author L Frank Baum. And seeing these environments stripped back to their component parts in this VFX breakdown, with commentary by VFX supervisor Scott Stokdyk, highlights just what a sterling job Sony Pictures Imageworks did on the picture.
03. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
'Show' is often better than 'tell' in highlighting how an effect was achieved, and there's a great example at the start of this VFX breakdown for 2012's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. We're talking of the trickery used to make Ian McKellan as Gandalf look enormous when appearing next to the dwarves, despite all the actors being of normal size.
"It's what we call slave mocon," VFX supervisor Kevin Sherwood, of Weta, told us in this interview. "You have two sets running at the same time, with two cameras. One bit of action is happening on one stage and then on a stage right next to it there's a motion controlled camera. That's being driven by the live action set camera and choreographing action so that you can do a scale change."
That might all sound a bit confusing, but the VFX breakdown makes it easy to see how they did it. And keep watching as more scenes in the hit fantasy epic, which was Oscar nominated for Best Visual Effects in 2012, are dissected before your eyes.
04. Prometheus
2012's Prometheus showed there was life in the Alien franchise yet, thanks in part to the Oscar nominated effects work of MPC. This VFX breakdown shows how they created the alien planet LV-223, space environments, the human crew, alien spacecrafts, an explosive crash scene sequence, and the alien 'Hammerpede'. Phew.
05. Pacific Rim
When it comes to over-the-top scenes of epic destruction, there can be few films to match Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim. If you've not see the summer 2013 blockbuster, all you need know is that 250ft mechs battle giant alien monsters off the coast of major cities — and when that fails, in the cities themselves.
In this revealing video combining VFX breakdown and documentary short, ILM discusses the design, effects and animation of these beautifully realised machines. You can learn more about how they were designed in this interview with animator Hal Hickel.
06. The Avengers
Currently the third highest grossing film of all time, next to Avatar and Titantic, The Avengers (aka Avengers Assemble in the UK and Ireland) proved that a superhero team could be more than the sum of its box office parts.
One of the biggest challenges was pulling together the 'tie-in' shot during the third act, which incorporates both practical special effects and extensive digital visual effects by ILM, including a digitally generated New York City environment, as can be seen in this revealing VFX breakdown.
07. Star Trek: Into Darkness
By the end of the century, the space-faring adventures of the Starship Enterprise seemed to belong to a bygone age. But then in 2009 JJ Abrams came along and breathed new life into the franchise with a time-jumping prequel that made Kirk, Spock and company young and virile once more.
Four years later, Star Trek: Into Darkness consolidated the rejuvinated series with a smart script, a series of star performances and some very special effects courtesy of German effects company Pixomondo. This VFX breakdown draws back the curtain on some of its most memorable scenes.
08. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
The last in the seven-strong Harry Potter series was arguably the best of the lot. No expense was spared to bring the climatic battle between the boy wizard and Voldemort to spectacular life, in such convincing fashion you didn't almost didn't notice the CG.
This VFX breakdown resets the balance, highlighting just how much pixel-pushing work went into creating these dark and destructive scenes, which got the movie an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects in 2011.
09. World War Z
Brad Pitt’s 2013 World War Z brought zombie horror back to mainstream cinema, thanks largely to the smarts of an MPC team led by VFX supervisor Jessica Norman, working under the guidance of production VFX supervisor Scott Farrar.
This VFX breakdown details the main order of business: creating the zombie hordes in Jerusalem, the plane crash sequence, the Wales sequence and the epilogue scene. You can find out more details about how they were put together in this article.
10. Hugo
A children's adventure about a boy who lives alone in a French railway station in the 1930s, under fear of discovery by Sascha Baron Cohen's comical gendarme, Hugo doesn't particularly sound like a showcase for visual effects.
But it won the 2011 Oscar for exactly that (one of 11 nominations the movie received in total). If you're curious to know why then check out this VFX breakdown of the work Pixomondo performed on the enchanting story.
Masters of CG: voting now open!
In recent weeks, our Masters of CG contest has challenged you to create a new title sequence, film poster, main shot or ident for 2000 AD character Rogue Trooper.
Now all the entries are in, and we're pleased to reveal the shortlist for all to see. View the entries here! The competition will now enter a public voting phase, and we're asking you to help us the select the very best entries via the Masters of CG website. To entice you to vote, we're offering you the chance to win an HP Slate 7 Plus (*EU residents only).Since its first introduction in vSphere 5.5, VMFS UNMAP also know as Space Reclamation for a VMFS based datastore has been a pretty popular Storage capability in vSphere. A commonly asked question from customers is when will the "automatic" capability return? Well, it looks like it is now back in the upcoming vSphere 6.5 release as blogged about here by Duncan Epping. Below is a screenshot of where you can find the setting. VMFS UNMAP is now enabled by default and you will need to have a VMFS 6 datastore to take advantage of this new feature.
For customers who wish to automate the configuration of the VMFS UNAMP capability whether that is to check the current settings or to enable/disable it, there are some new vSphere 6.5 APIs that have been introduced which differ from the previous implementations. To change the VMFS UNMAP setting, there is a new vSphere API called UpdateVmfsUnmapPriority() which accepts the UUID of a VMFS 6 datastore as well as an unmapPriority property which can either be "low" which means it is enabled or "none" which means it is disabled. To view the current VMFS UNMAP settings, there is a new property under the Datastore->Info->Vmfs object called UnmapPriority.
To demonstrate this new vSphere API, I have created two small PowerCLI functions called Get-VMFSUnmap and Set-VMFSUnmap which can be downloaded from here.
Here is an example of retrieving the current VMFS UNMAP settings:
Get-Datastore "mini-local-datastore-hdd" | Get-VMFSUnmap
Here is an example of enabling automatic VMFS UNMAP setting:
Get-Datastore "mini-local-datastore-hdd" | Set-VMFSUnmap -Enabled $trueYouths attending multiple San Francisco high schools are walking out of class Thursday morning in protest of the results of the 2016 presidential election.
Students from schools including Galileo High School in the Marina District and Mission High School in the Mission District are already arriving at City Hall, per some reports.
The San Francisco Unified Deputy Superintendent tells a San Francisco Chronicle reporter that at least 10 schools are participating in Thursday's demonstration.
San Francisco students marched down Market St. on Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016 to protest Donald Trump's election. San Francisco students marched down Market St. on Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016 to protest Donald Trump's election. Photo: Sarah Ravani / The Chronicle Photo: Sarah Ravani / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 10 Caption Close Students from multiple high schools around the Bay Area walk out in protest of election 1 / 10 Back to Gallery
Update 11:09 a.m.: Mark Nieto of KGO is now reporting some students protesting are heading north along the Embarcadero. Other protesters remain at City Hall.
Update 11:27 a.m.: Students from Las Lomas High School in Walnut Creek have also walked out, and students in Oakland have disrupted Mayor Libby Schaaf's press conference.
Update 11:43 a.m.: A traffic reporter for KCBS writes that the northbound Embarcadero lanes at Sansome St. are closed.
Update 12:30 p.m.: Students attending Concord, Ygnacio Valley, Clayton Valley Charter, and Mount Diablo high schools have reportedly walked out in protest. Students attending College Park High in Pleasant Hill as well as Korematsu Middle and El Cerrito High in El Cerrito are expected to walk out today as well.
Update 1:05 p.m.: Students attending Napa High School are currently protesting, alongside teens of Vintage High, New Tech High and Valley Oak School. Police are onsite.
Update 1:25 p.m.: Students from private schools in San Francisco, including Sacred Heart Prep, are now joining the protest at City Hall.
Update 1:33 p.m.: Protesting San Jose students are arriving at their City Hall.
For more on this protest, read our breaking news story, Students march on SF's Market Street to protest Trump election.
Read Alyssa Pereira's latest stories, and follow her on Twitter at @alyspereira. Send her news tips at [email protected] Centuries, These Asian Recipes Have Helped New Moms Recover From Childbirth
Enlarge this image toggle caption Grace Hwang Lynch for NPR Grace Hwang Lynch for NPR
Khanh-Hoa Nguyen stirs a pot of green papaya and pigs' feet soup. The clear broth and pale green chunks of unripe melon are redolent with fish sauce, the way her own mother prepared the soup after Nguyen's sister gave birth.
After her second year at the University of California at Berkeley, Nguyen was spending the summer at her parents' home in Los Angeles, watching her mother prepare big pots of Vietnamese postpartum foods for her sister.
toggle caption Khanh-Hoa Nguyen
"I don't think I would have known if I didn't go home that summer," says Nguyen, who is now co-editing one of the most comprehensive English language cookbooks featuring traditional Asian foods for new mothers.
For generations, new Vietnamese mothers have eaten this stew, just as Korean mothers have downed bowls of seaweed soup and Chinese women have simmered pigs' feet with ginger and vinegar. The food traditions stretch back for centuries, part of the practice of resting for the first 30 days after giving birth that is common throughout Asia.
In Chinese, it's called zuo yuezi, or "sitting the month." Vietnamese refer to it as nằm ổ, literally "lying in a nest." The recipes for these foods are unlikely to be found in any cookbook. These postpartum tonics have traditionally been prepared by grandmothers and aunts; the ingredients and techniques passed down orally.
When Nguyen returned to Berkeley that fall, she took a course in Asian American and Pacific Islander community health. In that class, Dr. Marilyn Wong put out a call for students who were interested in documenting Asian postpartum traditions. Nguyen not only volunteered to do research, but led a group of 13 undergraduate students who spent the past two years interviewing relatives and collecting recipes spanning six Asian ethnicities: Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, Hmong, Cambodian and Filipino. Together with Wong, Nguyen edited the cookbook From Mothers to Mother: A Collection of Traditional Asian Postpartum Recipes, which will be released this month.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Grace Hwang Lynch for NPR Grace Hwang Lynch for NPR
Wong, a retired physician, says that in her 30 years of working in public health clinics in San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., she saw a lack of nutritional guidance for low-income immigrants and refugees, who may be living far from their grandmothers and aunts and their native foods. Doctors would simply tell a breastfeeding woman to drink plenty fluids and eat more calories, Wong says. Even with her degrees in medicine and public health, Wong doesn't dismiss the value of Asian folk remedies.
"In Western medicine, we don't pay enough attention to tradition. We just dismiss all that and start from scratch, because now we know what minerals and vitamins and molecules are," muses Wong.
She points out that the Chinese technique of braising pigs' feet with ginger and vinegar makes them especially nutritious. "The vinegar probably leeches out the calcium from the bones. That's what you need, the calcium. Women will have loss of bone mass from breastfeeding. In the old times, they could not verbalize it that way, but they knew that women who did this did better than women who didn't."
These traditional soups can be hard for younger or more assimilated women to swallow. Even though she spent her childhood in Vietnam, Nguyen's sister initially dismissed these stews. But worried that she might not produce enough milk, she gave them a try. "And it really helped my sister with breastfeeding," says Nguyen.
Soups play a big role in all six cultures represented in From Mothers to Mothers, although the recipes also include dishes such as Cambodian caramelized pork belly and Tulia clams with tomatoes and ginger. Nguyen and the other students interviewed family members to learn the cooking methods, and then practiced making them at Wong's home in the Berkeley Hills and at their own apartments.
"Sometimes we'd have to call mom," Nguyen laughs.
"When you say a 'pinch,' what is that?" Wong interjects.
Across the range of cultures and geography, some trends emerged. "Papaya is also used in Chinese postpartum recipes and Cambodian postpartum recipes," notes Nguyen. "Pork belly is also used in Vietnamese, Cambodian and Chinese cultures. Ginger is a very common postpartum ingredient."
And perhaps there is another ingredient in these stews which helps new mothers to recuperate: community. "The whole village would be there and people would be cooking and taking care of your baby," says Wong of the postpartum practices in pre-industrial China. "The mothers were really pampered."
After three semesters of research, the students recorded 30 recipes, each of them printed in English and in its native language. Students have also crowdfunded more than $7,300 to donate nearly 500 copies of the book to Bay Area clinics and nonprofit groups serving low-income Asian Americans.
From Mothers to Mothers will be sold at Eastwind Books in Berkeley and online. Wong hopes there will be a second phase to this project, perhaps to study postpartum food traditions of South Asia or the Middle East.
Grace Hwang Lynch is a multimedia journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is currently working on a memoir about food, identity and caretaking. Follow her blog HapaMama.com or on Twitter at @GraceHwangLynch.Helsinki, Finland. Flickr/la-citta-vita After numerous business trips to Finland to do consulting and teach marketing at the Helsinki School of Economics (now Aalto University), I noticed that…
1. Everything in Finland seems to work better - from the way doors close, heating systems work, and safe transportation systems run on time. 2. Finnish young people are very smart - whether they have a college education or not. 3. Finnish products are made really well.
With quality people, methods, and products, why is Finland not on most people's radar screen for doing business or visiting? The answer is quite simple. Finland has not done a good job of marketing itself, its companies, or its very capable people.
The Finnish brand is not well-known.
The first problem is that Finland is not very well-known outside its borders — especially in the United States. In fact, when I tell my friends and associates that I am going to Finland, without fail, the next time they see me, they ask, "When are you going to Sweden…, Norway…, Denmark…?" They rarely, if ever, remember that I am going to Finland. Even more amazing, when I return from Finland, they'll ask, "How was Sweden…, Norway…, Denmark…?"
What's the problem?
Why is this a problem? People are less likely to want to "buy a product" that has no clear, positive image in their mind. In fact, it is a rule of marketing that if prospective buyers cannot remember the brand (in this case, made in Finland), it is unlikely they will buy the product. Looking at some examples of other countries, most believe that France makes quality wine, Germany makes high-performance cars, Japan makes reliable consumer electronics, and the US makes desirable software for computers and entertainment. These brand images give products from companies in those countries an advantage in the marketplace.
The Finnish reaction is part of the problem.
When I have raised this issue with Finns, I typically receive one of the following reactions…
"This is not our area of responsibility," "We have no control over this," "We don't have the budget to market Finland."
With regard to this last point, I was given a stack of brochures about Finland for background research on a piece I was writing for a Finnish client. All of them looked beautiful and were obviously expensive to produce (there was a budget for that). None of them emphasized the benefits of doing business with Finnish companies or visiting Finland. Some good "things" were in these brochures, but they were buried in the body text that most people (83.3% according to data) will not read. The money was spent, but it was not effectively invested because the proper marketing strategy and architecture were missing.
Evidence that Finland has a Corporate Image problem.
My point was underscored in a news "blurb" that appeared in the Business Section of the Los Angeles Times way back on the 17 th of February, 1999. In the piece entitled "More on Tech," the author wrote (and I am quoting verbatim), "Nokia to Buy Diamond Lane: Swedish cellular phone maker Nokia agreed to buy Petaluma, Calif.-based Diamond Lane Communications Corp. for $125 million to help meet demand for Internet access through wireless phones." Nokia was, and still is, Finland's best-known brand, and the writer of the article in a major newspaper thought it was a Swedish company. Case closed.
This is only part of a greater Marketing Problem.
The confusion of Finland with other better-known Scandinavian countries is really part of a larger marketing problem. This problem is underscored by the fact that Nokia has been in business since 1865, but it hired its first CMO in January of 2011. Just over a year later, Nokia laid off thousands of people, and she was gone. Not long after, Nokia sold its handset business to Microsoft. My Finnish friends were livid at the time and are still upset about this. It is as if Coca Cola or Disney were sold to a French company.
Nokia's great fall.
At its peak in 2007, Nokia had a market capitalization of $250 billion. That was before the iPhone and Android phones took the lions-share of the smartphone market away from Nokia's disappointing smartphone line-up. Before the Microsoft deal was announced, Nokia's stock price was trading somewhere between $3 and $4 per share - giving it a market value between 2 and 3% of its 2007 value. While there are many reasons for Nokia's sharp decline, experienced marketers know that Nokia had a great fall because it was a product-driven company dominated by engineers and a bureaucracy that missed the marketplace signals because of its lack of marketing expertise.
Finland is a great place to do business
When you have a great product and the world does not know about it, that is the ultimate proof that a lack of marketing expertise is the problem. What are some of the facts that support the notion that Finland has a great product and is a fantastic place to visit and do business?
Lots of available space. 5.5 million people living in 131,000 square miles — 38 people per square mile.
5.5 million people living in 131,000 square miles — 38 people per square mile. Top of the world education. Frequently tops the world in education. Finnish students are frequently ranked amongst the top three in the world.
Frequently tops the world in education. Finnish students are frequently ranked amongst the top three in the world. Universities and research centers are great too. 21 Universities and 12 research Centers of Excellence.
21 Universities and 12 research Centers of Excellence. Leading in R&D. Among leading nations in R&D expenditures as a percentage of GDP.
Among leading nations in R&D expenditures as a percentage of GDP. Not as cold as most think. Average temperatures vary between 25 ° F in Winter and 64 ° F in Summer.
Average temperatures vary between 25 F in Winter and 64 F in Summer. Easy to communicate. Official international business language is English.
Official international business language is English. Western-style government. Western parliamentary democracy led by a President.
Western parliamentary democracy led by a President. In all the right clubs. International affiliations include membership in the EU, UN, WTO, OECD, IMF, World Bank, EBRD, AsDB, AfDB, IDB, the Nordic Council, ESA, CERN, and EUREKA.
International affiliations include membership in the EU, UN, WTO, OECD, IMF, World Bank, EBRD, AsDB, AfDB, IDB, the Nordic Council, ESA, CERN, and EUREKA. Bridge between East and West. Expertise to bridge the gulf between businesses and countries in the East and West.
Expertise to bridge the gulf between businesses and countries in the East and West. Advanced technology infrastructure. Europe's leading information society second only to the USA in the use of information technology, and it has the world's highest number of mobile phones and Internet nodes per capita.
Europe's leading information society second only to the USA in the use of information technology, and it has the world's highest number of mobile phones and Internet nodes per capita. Advanced financial infrastructure. World's most developed electronic banking system.
World's most developed electronic banking system. High-performing stock market. Stock market that has frequently outperformed most of the world's capital markets.
. Stock market that has frequently outperformed most of the world's capital markets. Uses the Euro. Monetary unit is currently the Euro - one of the world's four hard currencies.
Monetary unit is currently the Euro - one of the world's four hard currencies. Industrial leader. World leader in forest products, pulp, paper, and board technology, and shipbuilding.
World leader in forest products, pulp, paper, and board technology, and shipbuilding. Lower tax rates. The lowest corporate and capital tax rates of any EU country.
The lowest corporate and capital tax rates of any EU country. Safety. Safe and virtual risk-free environment.
Safe and virtual risk-free environment. Most wired and wireless. Most wired nation in the world with sophisticated digital and fiber optic voice and data processing networks.
. Most wired nation in the world with sophisticated digital and fiber optic voice and data processing networks. Lowest corruption. Tied with Denmark for having the least corruption in the world.
. Tied with Denmark for having the least corruption in the world. Most competitive. The most competitive nation in Europe in 1999.BIOSTAR is now readying a crypto currency (such as Bitcoin) mining motherboard, the BTC-24GH, with 64 ASICs on-board that offers 24GH/s performance which is equivalent to more than 30 ATI 7970 graphic cards. The product is now ready to ship, and BIOSTAR is planning to build up professional operation sites in specific countries. In the Bitcoin world, a "mining rig" is a computer system used for mining bitcoins or other crypto currencies. It can be built specifically for mining or it could be your everyday computer for gaming and surfing, and is used to mine only on a part-time basis.With the rising price of Bitcoins, GPU mining can theoretically be profitable. What you need is a system that can do enormous amounts of mathematical calculations. Up till now, the best way to do this is the GPUs in graphics cards. Now there are ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit). ASICs are good at one thing only, solving mathematical hash functions. In this case, their strong hashing power and low power usage, making it very efficient to use.
17 Comments on BIOSTAR Ready to Launch Motherboards with Built-in ASICS – Great for Bitcoins
#1 HalfAHertz
How exactly are they planning to send the necesarry data for all 64 ASICs through a single measly usb port? :o Posted on Mar 18th 2014, 4:06 Reply
#2 Relayer
I can't believe no other mainstream company ever tried to cash in on this before! Posted on Mar 18th 2014, 4:40 Reply
#3 lZKoce
If what they say for their product is true- equal to 30 GPU's at a time, this should be a game changer, right? No more farms with riser extensions and 6xGPU's in one rig? Does that mean these boards will cost equally to 28 GPU's :) Posted on Mar 18th 2014, 8:58 Reply
#4 Deadlyraver
The key to the profitability here is the performance per dollar vs performance per watt vs performance per block.
There are so many variables that if you wish to inquire on a mining chip you gotta be an artist with math. Be sure to have the best ASICSs that will support all three variables on a 24/7 continuous operational standard with your local power company. Posted on Mar 18th 2014, 9:12 Reply
#5 Scheich
..2 years ago, it was done with gpus. Now the required compute power is 1 million times higher, good luck with those. Posted on Mar 18th 2014, 10:14 Reply
#6 micropage7
just back to dedicated system, and for serious mining Posted on Mar 18th 2014, 10:19 Reply
#7 GLD
ANYTHING to keep the crypto miners from jacking up the prices of gpu's sounds AWESOME to me! Posted on Mar 18th 2014, 10:51 Reply
#8 Jorge
There is a sucker or two born every second... ;) Posted on Mar 18th 2014, 10:53 Reply
#9 thekaidis
Is this still SHA256, or the first commercially-available Scrypt ASIC? Posted on Mar 18th 2014, 11:17 Reply
#10 Eiswolf93
Stil SHA-256, divide 25 GH/s by 30, 833 MH/s, so for normal Bitcoin.
But 25 GH/s ist not enough to play in Bitcoin-Mining today. At the current difficulty you gain 12$ per week. In two or three months you make just a few dollar per week. Newest ASIC miner have a hashrate measured in TH/s Posted on Mar 18th 2014, 11:30 Reply
#11 Casecutter
This has never been explained or at least I keep missing it... the work (mathematical calculations) being done to benefit "Whom" and you are getting paid for that work?
Or are miners just unearthing what amounts to 4-leaf clovers that someone (the people who have/want them) deems as valuable? Gold is valuable as yes it hard to find and folks perceive it value from it rarity and tangibility. Ok unearthing crypto-currency has to some a degree both that, but someone created the algorithm and only tangible in the world of 0’s and1’s, it all seems shaky… Mother nature controls gold and other rare minerals values. If tomorrow someone unearthed 16 cubic mile of gold, sure there goes the price. But still gold has real "uses" to make all kind of useful stuff, even if it was found in abundance. Do solving these mathematical calculations/ algorithm do anything? Are they unearthing a cure for cancer, unlocking time-travel, what is there perceived good/tangible to the world, other than wasting electricity? The unique properties of gold provide a variety of applications in electronics, engineering, and healthcare. Even if gold was in abundance people could find more uses due to it being more cost effective.
Some Leprechaun (no one absolutely knows who created this) says "find-me 4-leaf clovers" and it leads to a "Pot-of-Gold" and for some right now it’s true. But just like what predominantly was to blame for the 1929 Crash of the Stock Market, folks put their faith in “Buying on the Margin”, it probably sounded as much the "sure thing" as Bitcoin sounds today.
There's so many downsides it makes no real sense. I’ll give a couple... how does anyone know there's not going to be that "16 cubic miles" of algorithms unlocked tomorrow? What can be made from a Bitcoin, you know real things?
IDK I guess I’m looking to be sckooled... in such New World Economics. Posted on Mar 18th 2014, 12:04 Reply
#12 Scheich
u dont have to pay 15-20% for money transfers. that alone is huge. theres other stuff good and bad, but all in all the general idea is very nice. Posted on Mar 18th 2014, 15:14 Reply
#13 a_ump
i've wondered about dedicating my home pc to bitcoin mining. How long does it take to get a coin? and are percentages of a bitcoin worth cash aswell or do you have to wait till you have 1 whole coin? Posted on Mar 18th 2014, 19:50 Reply
#14 Nordic
Casecutter said: This has never been explained or at least I keep missing it... the work (mathematical calculations) being done to benefit "Whom" and you are getting paid for that work?
Or are miners just unearthing what amounts to 4-leaf clovers that someone (the people who have/want them) deems as valuable? Gold is valuable as yes it hard to find and folks perceive it value from it rarity and tangibility. Ok unearthing crypto-currency has to some a degree both that, but someone created the algorithm and only tangible in the world of 0’s and1’s, it all seems shaky… Mother nature controls gold and other rare minerals values. If tomorrow someone unearthed 16 cubic mile of gold, sure there goes the price. But still gold has real "uses" to make all kind of useful stuff, even if it was found in abundance. Do solving these mathematical calculations/ algorithm do
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; he spent a half-hour explaining how it happened. On January 20, CBS debuted You’re In The Picture, a game show hosted by Gleason in which celebrities would stick their heads through an oversized picture and ask Gleason yes or no questions to try and figure out who they were supposed to be. The premise was promising—just a variation on an old party game for the “panel show” era—but the execution was embarrassingly poor, and the prideful Gleason was so stung by the savage reviews that he decided to scrap the show. But he still owed CBS 30 minutes of airtime each week, so the following Friday, Gleason spent his entire You’re In The Picture slot making fun of himself, walking the audience through the thought processes that led to a bomb so big it’d make “the H-bomb look like a 2-inch salute.” This was like the TV version of The Devil’s Candy, Julie Salamon’s account of the making of The Bonfire Of The Vanities: an explication of how everyday showbiz hubris leads otherwise smart and talented people to make something god-awful.
2. J.D. Shapiro, Battlefield Earth
John Travolta might still occasionally insist that people are clamoring for a sequel to his reviled L. Ron Hubbard adaptation Battlefield Earth, but in 2010 one of the film’s screenwriters, J.D. Shapiro, was happy not only to take the blame, but place that blame on what he called his “Willy Wonker.” In a New York Post editorial apologizing to anyone who went to see the movie, the writer also responsible for Robin Hood: Men In Tights said that he had originally investigated Scientology because he heard it was a great way to meet women. He spends most of the piece recounting his attempts to pick up dates at Scientology HQ, where he made enough of an impression to get the Battlefield Earth job. Shapiro insists that he wrote a gritty, rich screenplay with compelling characters, further elaborating, “What my screenplay didn’t have was slow motion at every turn, Dutch tilts, campy dialogue, aliens in Kiss boots, and everyone wearing Bob Marley wigs.” But a new batch of notes from Travolta’s camp pointed the film in the direction of the flop classic it is today, and Shapiro lost his job for refusing to go along with them. Still, he ends on a note of triumph: “Looking back at the movie with fresh eyes, I can’t help but be strangely proud of it. Because out of all the sucky movies, mine is the suckiest.”
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3. Axl Rose, “One In A Million”
Most apologies come after the fact. But when Guns N’ Roses released G N’ R Lies in 1988, frontman Axl Rose felt the need to print a preemptive apology right on the album’s cover. “This song is very simple and extremely generic or generalized, my apologies to those who may take offense,” he writes of “One In A Million,” a track whose lyrics blast “polices and niggers” before avowing, “Immigrants and faggots / They make no sense to me / They come into our country / And think they’ll do as they please / Like start some mini-Iran / Or spread some fucking disease.” But his apology was too little, too early; the song caused an outcry that put Rose on the defensive, showing the world the first glimpse of the batshit Axl to come.
4. Soulja Boy, “Let’s Be Real”
Soulja Boy, thy name is irony. Last year, the young rapper—who has no qualms about trying to pick feuds with everyone form Nas to Fabolous—raised hackles with his song “Let’s Be Real,” which includes the lines “Fuck the FBI and fuck all the army troops / Fighting for what? / Bitch, be your own man / I’ll be flying through the clouds with green like I’m Peter Pan.” The anti-military comments chafed even harder coming from a kid who calls himself Soulja Boy, and the star was ultimately shamed into apologizing, saying in a three-paragraph statement that “my frustration got the best of me.” Unfortunately, no one shamed him into realizing that comparing yourself to Peter Pan isn’t exactly the best way to sound street.
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5. Busta Rhymes, “Arab Money”
With the sheer, overwhelming volume of words that spitfire MC Busta Rhymes packs into each album, it’s no wonder some of those words would eventually spark controversy. The gravelly rapper spiked his 2008 song “Arab Money” with lines like, “Y’all already know I got the streets bust / While I make ya bow down and make salaat like a Muslim.” Justifiably, the Arab community took offense at this—and the song’s remix, which commits blasphemy by quoting the Quran. After vehemently defending and trying to clarify the song’s meaning, he became contrite during a phone conversation with Iraq-born rapper Narcicyst following the release of Narcicyst’s answer song “The Real Arab Money.” Granted, he reportedly apologized to Narcicyst for the “misunderstanding,” not the song itself, but still.
6. Darkthrone, Transilvanian Hunger
Perhaps it’s a cultural thing, but Scandinavian black-metal bands just aren’t that good at expressing their inner selves. In fact, Norway’s Darkthrone enlisted the infamous church-burning, bandmate-murdering, Nazi-sympathizing black-metal musician Varg Vikernes to write a few lyrics for the group’s 1994 album, Transilvanian Hunger. That resulted in a backmasked message, “In the name of God, let the churches burn,” as well as a statement on the album cover that reads, “Norwegian Aryan Black Metal.” This, along with a leaked statement saying, “If any man should attempt to criticize this LP, he should be thoroughly patronized for his obviously Jewish behavior,” caused Darkthrone’s label to force a public apology out of the group. But rather than being sincere about it, Darkthrone used the opportunity to try to justify their pejorative use of “Jew” as mere “slang.”
7. Jim Suptic of The Get Up Kids, Emo
Although respectable—or invisible—enough to evade widespread ridicule in the ’90s, the musical subgenre known as emo became a punching bag in the ’00s. And rightly so, though often at the expense of the better acts that made crappy ’00s emo possible. Many ’90s emo bands, like the massively influential The Get Up Kids, didn’t whine or suck or wear eyeliner at all, but when The Get Up Kids reformed in 2009, interviewers wanted know what the band thought of all its illegitimate, girlfriend’s-jeans-wearing offspring. The Kids’ leader, Jim Suptic, offered this backhanded apology in an interview with Drowned In Sound: “If this is the world we helped create, then I apologize… If a[n emo] band gets huge and they say we inspired them, great. The problem is most of them aren’t very good. What does that say about us? I don’t know. Maybe we sucked. We at least can play our instruments.”
8. Eminem, “Foolish Pride”
Eminem has never been shy about mouthing off to anyone and everyone, but his impish offensiveness took a turn for the racist on a song the rapper recorded pre-fame. The early-career track “Foolish Pride,” which resurfaced thanks to the Eminem-hating hip-hop magazine The Source, blasts black women, with the young Marshall Mathers declaring, “Black and whites, they sometimes mix / But black girls only want your money / ’Cause they’re dumb chicks,” and then, “Don’t date a black girl, take it as a diss.” In case anyone might miss his meaning, he follows that up with, “Black girls are dumb and white girls are good chicks.” On his 2004 song “Yellow Brick Road,” Eminem says he’s sorry for his youthful lapse with the line, “I singled out a whole race, and for that I apologize.” Too bad he had to chase that mea culpa with the postscript, “I was wrong, ’cause no matter what color a girl is, she’s still a ho.”
9. Iggy Azalea, “D.R.U.G.S.”
Giving credence to the idea that there can be only one Azalea/Azealia in hip-hop, rapper Azealia Banks took to Twitter earlier this year to call out a fellow MC, the white Iggy Azalea, for her song “D.R.U.G.S.” In it, Azalea boasts, “When the relay starts, I’m a runaway slave / Master.” To Azalea’s credit, she immediately issued what seemed to be a heartfelt statement, writing, “In all fairness, it was a tacky and careless thing to say and if you are offended, I am sorry. Sometimes we get so caught up in our art and creating or trying to push boundaries, we don’t stop to think how others may be hurt by it. In this situation, I am guilty of doing that and I regret not thinking things through more.”
10. Mandy Moore, So Real and I Wanna Be With You
Mandy Moore apparently spends a lot of her time in deep, soul-searching contemplation of her existential identity. Or at least regretting the shit she makes. In a 2004 interview with the Houston Chronicle, the actor and singer called her first two albums—1999’s So Real and 2000’s I Wanna Be With You—things that she doesn’t think are very real, nor things that she particularly wants to be with. “Crap, crap, crap,” she called them adding she was sorry “to anybody who bought them and wasted their money.” Her contrition, however, stopped short of issuing refunds.
11. The Simpsons, “A Streetcar Named Marge”
Before New Orleans become a touchier subject post-Katrina, The Simpsons thought it might make some jokes at The Big Easy’s expense in its 1992 episode “A Streetcar Named Marge.” Parodying A Streetcar Named Desire and Sweeney Todd, the episode’s musical-within-a-show, Oh, Streetcar!, opens with a song that contains the lines, “Long before the Superdome / Where the Saints of football play / Lived a city that the damned call home / Hear their hellish roundelay / New Orleans / Home of pirates, drunks, and whores / New Orleans / Tacky, overpriced souvenir stores.” Shooing its drunks and whores under the carpet, New Orleans bristled at the insult. Fox issued a formal apology that stated in part, “We regret that the song, taken out of context, has caused offense,” and the next week’s episode of The Simpsons, “Homer The Heretic,” featured a chalkboard gag in which Bart wrote, “I will not defame New Orleans.”
12. Mike Daisey, The Agony And The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs
When This American Life repackaged excerpts from monologist Mike Daisey’s one-man show The Agony And The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs in January 2012, it quickly became radio show’s most popular episode, racking up more than 800,000 downloads. Then, it came to TAL’s attention that Daisey had fudged some of his facts. In March of 2012, the program issued a retraction and ran an episode (“Retraction”) detailing the inconsistencies in Daisey’s account of his trip inside a Chinese factory that produced Apple products. Daisey himself fessed up, admitting that his monologue wasn’t, strictly speaking, “journalism.” “In my drive to tell this story and have it be heard, I lost my grounding,” Daisey wrote on his blog. “Things came out of my mouth that just weren’t true, and over time, I couldn’t even hear the difference myself.” It was an overdue apology, but one that at least saw Daisey getting over lazy defenses that his factual laxity served some grander artistic “truth.”
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13. Beastie Boys, Licensed To Ill
The Beastie Boys’ 1986 debut album Licensed To Ill introduced the trio as raucous, raunchy guys with a predilection for partying and, unfortunately, homophobia and misogyny: The album was originally titled Don’t Be A Faggot and the tour supporting the album included girls dancing in cages onstage. But with maturity came wisdom, and the Beasties have since gone out of their way to make amends. In 1999, Adam Horovitz wrote a letter to Time Out New York in which he apologized for, “the shitty and ignorant things we said on our first record.” The band has also backtracked on the misogyny, often apologizing in public statements and planning a women-only mosh pit on their eventually cancelled 2000 co-headlining tour with Rage Against The Machine, a direct reaction to the sexual assaults that occurred at the infamous Woodstock ’99. But perhaps the most overt apology came from the late Adam Yauch on the song “Sure Shot” off of the band’s 1994 album Ill Communication: “I want to say a little something that’s long overdue/ The disrespect to women has got to be through/ To all the mothers and sisters and the wives and friends/ I want to offer my love and respect to the end.”
14. Michael Jackson, “They Don’t Care About Us”
The King Of Pop’s 1995 album, HIStory: Past, Present And Future, Book I, began as an oddly conceived package that paired an album’s worth of new material with a best-of collection while making neither available separately. This proved a mild annoyance, however, compared to the reaction to the track “They Don’t Care About Us,” in which Jackson sings, “Jew me, sue me, everybody do me / Kick me, kike me, don’t you black or white me.” The New York Times brought the offending lines to light in advance of the album’s release, leading an “angry and outraged” Jackson to bemoan the misinterpretation of a song he had intended as a statement about “the pain of prejudice and hate.” Jackson subsequently reached out to Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, formally apologizing (“I just want you to all to know how strongly I am committed to tolerance, peace and love”) and vowing to return to the studio and re-record the offending section of the song.
15. Square Enix, Final Fantasy XIV
The videogame developers at Square Enix may have bungled their lavish online game Final Fantasy XIV, but the ensuing apology was a tour de force of self-effacement. The game launched in late 2010 to universally poor reviews that criticized its bugs, arcane interface, and myriad signs of a work released before it was finished—like the airship ports from which no airships could travel. In response to a groundswell of fan rage, Square Enix released a three-pronged apology. The epic document includes a statement of regret from the development house’s CEO, who mourned the game’s failure to achieve the proper “level of enjoyability” in its initial state. Final Fantasy XIV’s producer, Hiromichi Tanaka, hastened to add, “I would like to apologize for our inability to fully satisfy our users.” To show that he meant it, in the next sentence, he resigned his post. But the weirdest aspect of the groveling was a sort of pre-apology from Tanaka’s replacement, who wrote, “I am aware that a great many people will think the responsibility of leading Final Fantasy XIV is far too large a task for someone so unknown. After all, even my very best may seem no more than a drop in the bucket.” Maybe next time, Square Enix should bypass game development altogether and skip straight to the apology—that seems to be the best part.Ivan Rakitic really gained the love of Barcelona fans all over the world after just two months at the club. He came in as the substitute of Xavi Hernández, and has taken over the midfield as the next Barça maestro.
Now, there's one more reason for you to love him.
Rakitic had better offers from Manchester City, Atlético Madrid and Real Madrid, but refused all of them and decided to join the Catalan side, sources told Barça Blaugranes. Mundo Deportivo reported it first. The Citizens had the highest offer of them all, something around €32 million. But Ivan's wife didn't want to move away from Spain, so he quickly said no to the proposal.
Later, came offers from Atlético and Real Madrid, both set at €26 million. Real offered a better salary than Atleti, but Ivan again said no to both. He already had one club in mind. It was Barcelona.
Do you remember how much Barça had to pay to Sevilla to buy Rakitic? That's right, €18 million. Almost half of the offer from City, and lower than the ones from Atleti and Real. From what we've learned, the wages that Barça offered were also lower than City's and Real's salary proposals, but there was no way Rakitic was moving anywhere but the Camp Nou.
I love you, Rakitic.Get ready for ground shattering geopolitical changes. At the crossroads of Asia and Europe, it has been decided that the Russian city of Ufa will be the point of convergence for all the initiatives and projects of the Silk World Order of trade and integration that China and Russia are spearheading. Ufa, which is the capital of Russia’s Bashkortostan, is being used to simultaneously host an extraordinary summit for both the BRICS—which has increasing become an alternative forum to that of the G7—and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) respectively from July 8 to 9 and from July 9 to 10, 2015.
The Coming Together of Eurasia and Beyond
The joint BRICS and SCO summit in Ufa has been organized by Moscow as the simultaneous holder of both the rotating chairmanships of the BRICS and the SCO. It is no coincidence, however, that the Seventh BRICS and Fifteenth SCO summits have been amalgamated as one large international summit. The Kremlin has used the opportunity to bring Russia’s partners together. This is part of the integration process of the Silk World Order. There will be joint BRICS and SCO sessions and many important exchanges and discussions about a new archetype for the world.
One informal session at Ufa will not only include all the members of the BRICS and the SCO, but will also include all the members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), according to information disclosed by Russian President Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov to the Russia media days before the summit in Ufa. Aside from Brazil and South Africa, since all the members of the BRICS and the SCO are located in Eurasia, the Kremlin saw it as pertinent that the EEU be involved in some type of discussion about the development of the Eurasian space. In essence this means that Armenia will be attending the joint BRICS and SCO summit in Bashkortostan, since all the other members of the Eurasian Economic Space are either full SCO members or, in the case of Belarus, an SCO dialogue partner. According to the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) in Berlin, which asserts that the BRICS-SCO-EEU talks are «a sign that Russia is aiming for political block-building,» the Republic of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan will also take part in informal meeting of the BRICS, SCO, and EEU. [1]
The Eurasian and global convergences in Ufa are clear. Using the links that already exist between the two, China’s New Silk Road and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union will begin a roadmap to fuse together in Bashkortostan as the pivotal axis of rotation in the Eurasian space. This is a continuation of the high-level discussions that were announced by both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin on May 8 on the Xi Jinping’s arrival to Moscow, ahead of the Victory Day celebrations on May 9, 2015.
After failed attempts at different venues, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Hassan Rohani will finally meet in Ufa. India and Iran are rekindling their strategic bonds that had been neglected by the government of Modi’s predecessor, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The use of the Iranian port Chabahar by India for gaining access to Russia and Central Asia through the North-South Corridor will definitely be discussed by Indian and Iranian officials at Ufa.
The Coming Silk World Order Being Unveiled in Ufa
While the New Silk Road and the EEC come together in Ufa, the BRICS will put together a development map while the SCO will outline its expansion plans for new full members. The applications of India, Iran, and Pakistan for full membership will be addressed. Moreover, Egypt and several other countries have applied to join the SCO in come context.
Ufa is being used to stamp out a roadmap for the «Eurasian Century» and a Silk World Order that goes beyond Eurasia, which includes everything from a transcontinental mega railroad network connecting the Iberian Peninsula to the South China Sea and to what has been dubbed as the «modern city of the Eurasian continent» in Belarus.
The US is clearly worried about the Silk World Order that is emerging. It has begun to pull out all the stops, from courting Brazil on the eve of the summit in Ufa to calls for the European Union to not join China’s banking project. The Pentagon’s 2015 Military Strategy that addresses the possibility of confrontation with an updated «Axis of Evil» composed of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea is catered to Washington’s proclivity to confront the countries that are challenging a US-dominated international order.
While Washington and NATO are making a general call to arms, the Chinese are busy building trade infrastructure and transport networks. In Belarus, the Chinese are building the first «modern city of the Eurasian continent» in the forests next to the Minsk National Airport as part of what Bloomberg calls «a manufacturing springboard between the European Union and Russia.» [2] Upon completion, the new export-oriented city in Belarus, which is being built on the route of the European highway that links Berlin, Warsaw, Minsk, and Moscow, will be the largest manufacturing and industrial park in Europe.
The US Dollar and Bretton Woods are Finished
The Silk World Order that is being shaped in Ufa will see the existing Bretton Woods financial architecture of the world unraveled and replaced by one that is no longer dominated by the trilateral grouping of the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. The monopoly of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which has benefited Washington, is at its end. The US dollar as a currency in bilateral and multilateral trade is being scraped by the BRICS, SCO, and EEU— Washington’s flooding of oil markets was partially aimed at derailing this by forcing renewed dependence on the US dollar for energy trade.
The BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), the first institution of the BRICS, is being launched by Brazil, China, India, Russia, and South Africa. It is joined by the SCO Development Bank and by the recently launched Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in the assault on Bretton Woods.
Gone are the days of unchallenged US domination. The architecture of the post-Second World War or post-1945 global order is now in its death bed and finished. With or without Washington, a Silk World is emerging and its coming is being trumpeted from Ufa as the SCO strengthens and the BRICS institutionalizes itself as the cornerstone of a new multi-polar world order.
NOTES
[1] Gabriel Domínguez, «What to expect from the SCO, BRICS summits in Russia,» Deutsche Welle, July 6, 2015.
[2] Aliaksandr Kudrytski, «China Builds EU Beachhead With $5 Billion City in Belarus,» Bloomberg, May 26, 2013.
This article was originally published by the Strategic Culture Foundation on July 10, 2015.The New York legislature closed down late Thursday night with an end-of-session-deal that would strip convicted lawmakers of their pensions, extend mayoral control of New York City schools for one more year, and legalize daily fantasy sports gambling.
Legislators have agreed to expand the hours New Yorkers can drink alcohol, permitting drinks to be served at 10 am Sunday instead of the current noon start time. On certain occasions, like sporting events played Europe that are shown early in the morning in the United States, bars and restaurants can start serving at 8 am. Another measure to allow drinking in movie theaters was gaining support, but passage was uncertain.
Lawmakers were still counting votes to legalize daily fantasy sports, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said. “If the votes are there, then we’ll do it,” Heastie said. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman halted the online games last fall, but said they could resume if the legislature acts to regulate them. Legislators also considered a measure to legalize online poker.
They were having more trouble reaching agreements on ethics reform, in a year that’s seen the two former legislative leaders sentenced to prison as well as state and federal probes of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s economic development programs. A measure to close a major campaign finance loophole involving limited liability companies has not gained traction in the state Senate, and other measures remain stalled.
The one bill that was likely to pass would cancel the pensions of lawmakers convicted of a felony. The measure was initially agreed to in March 2015, but the Assembly has not acted yet. Heastie said the pension forfeiture measure will be approved before the Assembly leaves. “It will be resolved one way or the other,” Heastie said. The Assembly wants to limit the scope of the pension forfeiture for lower-level officials, but the Senate does not want to alter the bill, which would be the first step toward changing the state’s constitution.
The session that allows purchasing alcohol and betting online as big accomplishments would be a far cry from what New Yorkers deserve and want out of Albany.
Blair Horner with the New York Public Interest Research Group said it would be a “failure” if no other ethics reforms were approved before the final gavel on the 2016 session. “The session that allows purchasing alcohol and betting online as big accomplishments would be a far cry from what New Yorkers deserve and want out of Albany,” said Horner, who added residents are tired of seeing lawmakers do the “perp walk.” “They expect Albany to clean itself up,” Horner said.
While legislators extended the use of alcohol, they acted to restrict the use of other drugs—heroin and opiates. The new measure makes it easier to get treatment and eliminates some roadblocks by health insurers. It focuses more on helping people than punishing addicts with jail time, said the Senate bill co-sponsor, Terence Murphy of the Hudson Valley. “It doesn’t matter if you’re black, if you’re white, what religion you have,” Murphy said. “It has shaken down very, very, very good families.”
Homeless advocates are disappointed with legislators’ failure to follow through with Cuomo’s plan to spend $2 billion on supportive and affordable housing. Six thousand of the 20,000 promised units were approved in the state budget, but a memo required to free up the rest of the money has failed to materialize so far. Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi, a Democrat from Queens, was pessimistic when he spoke earlier in the week on the issue. “One of the worst-kept secrets in Albany is that funding for homelessness never seems to materialize,” Hevesi said.
One bitter advocate said the governor’s promise to fund homeless housing is about as credible as “a degree from Trump University.”
Another measure that seemed to be falling off the table as the session drew to a close was one that would allow ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft to operate outside of New York City. Heastie said the measure was “on life support.”Derrick Gibson, named as lead defendant in a federal tax fraud conspiracy indictment. (Photo: Provided)
More than 30 people from Battle Creek have been indicted in federal court and accused of committing a conspiracy to defraud the IRS of $22 million through false tax forms.
United States Attorney Patrick Miles Jr. announced the indictments in Grand Rapids for 34 people on Tuesday.
During raids that began early Monday, 24 people were arrested by officers from several federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.
An investigation officials said began in 2008 showed the defendants allegedly used information obtained in part from patients and employees of the Battle Creek Veterans Affairs Medical Center and from inmates of the Michigan Department of Corrections to file 4,668 federal income tax returns claiming "false, fictitious and fraudulent refunds totaling over $22 million" between the 2007 and 2014 tax years.
Derrick J. Gibson, 52, of Battle Creek, was named the lead defendant.
Officials said the defendants used obtained names, social security numbers, and dates of birth to file fradulent returns.
According to the indicment:
• MDOC inmates including Bobby Crabtree, David Haymer and Joseph J. Johnson provided personal information of fellow inmates and expected money or personal items in exchange.
• Inmate Shawn McKnight attempted to recruit others outside the prison to provide personal information.
• VA employees including Alvin Stephenson II provided personal information of veterans who were patients.
• Several others filed the false returns, often using the personal information to claim dependents or earned income credits and obtain tax refunds.
• Several of the defendants opened and maintained bank accounts to deposit the tax refunds.
The indictment outlined several cases of people filing false tax forms and receiving several thousands of dollars in refunds.
Each defendant faces up to 10 years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000 if convicted.
The case was investigated by: the Internal Revenue Service; Veterans Affairs-Office of the Inspector General; U.S. Postal Inspection Service; the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms; Department of Homeland Security; Battle Creek Police Department; Albion Police Department; Calhoun County Sheriff Department; and Michigan State Police.
“In a modern world in which personal identification information can be acquired in various ways and misused, and where government funds are growing ever scarcer, my office will continue to lead investigations into cases where identification information was misused as a tool to commit tax fraud,” Miles said in a statement. “My office will bring to justice those willing to misuse other people’s identification information, often victimizing them, in order to steal money from the government.”
The investigation was begun several years ago by the Battle Creek Police Department and the IRS and according to the indictment, the defendants began their fraud in 2008.
The defendants listed in the press release are:
Gibson
Charmica Griffin, age 44
Stephanie T. Baker, 34
Latia M. Williams, 41
Alvin E. Stephenson II, 46
Sandria M. Blakley, 34
Edward Warden, Jr., 47
Chanel McClenney, 35
Darwin Gibson, 25
Bobby Crabtree, 45
Deqynn Gibson, 24
Darrien Gibson, 25
Rochelle R. Velasquez, 29
Scherrie Mcnutt, 35
Devoine Gibson, 51
Prentis H. Gibson, 74
Lamont Joyner, 25
Shameika N. Carr-McClenney, 33
Charleeta Cork, 39
Keith Cork, 41
Maiya R. Jackson, 21
Shawn McKnight, 36
David Haymer, 48
Diallo Dotson, 42
Romell Bolden, 25
Labrisha Porter, 23
Kypree Taylor, 22
Rosemary Boyd, 53
Patricia Riddle-McClinton, 60
Joseph Jeremy Johnson, 29
Kisha N. Evans, 36
Simone Watkins, 47
Romaro Carswell, 45
Contact Trace Christenson at 269-966-0685 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @TSChristenson. Contact Jennifer Bowman at 269-966-0589 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @jenn_bowman
Read or Share this story: http://bcene.ws/1oWBy3NHillary Rodham Clinton spoke at Marketo’s Marketing Nation Summit last month in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a robust defense of her four years as secretary of state on Wednesday, saying she worked tirelessly to slow Iran's nuclear development and to lay the groundwork for lasting peace in the Middle East.
During a speech before a pro-Israel gathering in Washington, the potential 2016 presidential candidate repeatedly invoked the title of her forthcoming memoir, "Hard Choices," to describe her service in President Obama's administration.
On Iran, Clinton said, "President Obama and I knew we had a hard choice: Keep reading from the same playbook -- politically safe but practically unsustainable -- or tear up the old playbook and devise a new strategy."
In her remarks to the American Jewish Committee's Global Forum, Clinton detailed her arm-twisting diplomacy to round up enough votes at the United Nations Security Council to impose tougher sanctions on Iran. It was "my personal mission" to convince allies in Europe and Asia to cut exports from Iran so the regime would suffer an economic blow, she said.
"When I left as secretary and passed the baton on to Secretary Kerry, we were positioned to really explore whether we had set the table well enough to see changes that were sufficient to meet our legitimate objections to Iran's behavior and its future plans," Clinton said.
The former U.S. senator and first lady offered a preview of her book, due out June 10, saying it would detail her work as America's top diplomat regarding Israel. Clinton said it was "not a hard choice" to defend Israel's security and that she was "proud to do my part to keep our relationship rock solid over the years."
Clinton said she endured "endless meetings," "vigorous discussions -- even arguments" and "endless phone calls" on behalf of Israel, noting that she helped convene three rounds of face-to-face negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
"I can tell you that hard choices are exactly what it will take to achieve a just and lasting peace, a comprehensive peace between Israelis and Palestinians, two states for two people," Clinton said.
As she said during a March speech in New York, Clinton repeated that she is "personally skeptical" that Iran's leaders will follow through on a comprehensive agreement to end their nuclear program. And she reiterated that the United States could pursue other options if diplomacy fails. "Let's be clear," she said, "every option does remain on the table."
Clinton was warmly received by a couple thousand Israel supporters and other foreign leaders in attendance. The speaker who followed her, AJC Executive Council member Matthew Bronfman, alluded to the possibility of a Clinton campaign in 2016 by saying: "We know that you have a hard choice to make soon...We hope you make the right one on our behalf."
Clinton did not speak about her political deliberations, nor did she refer to the hubub sparked this week over Republican strategist Karl Rove's suggestion that Clinton may had suffered "brain damage" from a head injury in late 2012.
After months writing and rewriting book chapters from the third-floor study at her family home in Chapaqua, N.Y., Clinton said, "it's nice being out of my attic." She playfully plugged the memoir, calling it "a light summer read that I'm sure would be great at the beach."
Clinton's only reference to domestic politics came near the end of her remarks, when she said, "I would like to see our own democracy work a little more smoothly in order to set a better example [to the world] and to deal with our own problems here at home."UPDATE: A tropical system that had been meandering across the Caribbean last week is now gaining strength in the Gulf of Mexico and preparing to dump heavy rains and produce tropical storm-force winds across the Tampa Bay area later this week.
Invest 99L has become Tropical Depression Nine, and meteorologists said the system is expected to develop into a tropical storm by mid-afternoon Monday.
10News WTSP The latest 7-day forecast
10News WTSP The latest Tampa Bay-area radar
Kate Wentzel, 10Weather WTSP meteorologist, said the weather disturbance could be named Tropical Storm Hermine or Tropical Storm Ian, depending if it is named first or second to Tropical Depression 8 that is churning in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of North Carolina.
The system's disorganization in recent days has caused confusion for forecasters trying to predict its next move. Sitting just north of central Cuba and about 60 miles south of Key West late Sunday, the depression is expected to push west into the Gulf of Mexico until forecasts show it turning east-northeast late Tuesday afternoon and into Wednesday, Wentzel said.
Buckets of rain will fall on the Tampa Bay area throughout the week as the storm floats in the Gulf, where warmer, more open waters make conditions more conducive for storm development.
Tom Dougherty, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Ruskin, said the area should see average wind and rainfall on Monday and Tuesday before the system makes its northeastern curve, meaning the most severe weather will hit on Wednesday and Thursday, when the system is closer to the coastline.
Wentzel said residents could see between 5 and 9 inches of rain in total by the end of the week, the heaviest rainfall being in areas north of Tampa and along the coast.
NWS meteorologist Rodney Wynn said it won't just be rain, though. He expects severe thunder and lighting, too. Most storms will happen during the daytime hours, he said, with brief breaks overnight.
"There will be heavy downpour, lighting and thunder... There is not a high risk of tornados," he said. "But there is always that chance."
Check the live weather radar
Pinellas County will have sandbag materials available for residents through Monday at dusk at John Chesnut Sr. Park, 2200 East Lake Road in Palm Harbor, Lealman Community Park, 3890 55th Ave. in St. Petersburg, and Taylor Park, 1100 Eighth Ave. SW in Largo. St. Petersburg will have materials available to residents from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday at Northeast Park, 875 62nd Ave. NE, and Frank W. Pierce Recreation Center in Bartlett Park, 22nd Avenue S between 6th and 7th streets.
Pinellas sandbags are limited to 20 per person, and St. Petersburg sandbags are limited to 10 per person. Hills
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no one would want to know me.
Occasionally there were shafts of hope, but they didn’t last long. Aged 17, I was given driving lessons as a present. I hoped beyond hope this was a sign of a turnaround in her attitude to me, that perhaps at last we could bond.
Despite passing my test first time, I was never allowed to drive the family car even to the top of the road — even though this meant I had to walk past a churchyard on my way home, where two murders had recently taken place.
Instead, my mother said I should come home before dark, which in winter made absolutely no sense. So I ran past the churchyard as fast as I could, my heart pounding and my night out ruined.
Like most offspring, I have of course inherited some of my mother’s characteristics. It’s important to acknowledge that.
I believe it’s what you do with those characteristics that counts. One of mine is over-reacting, and I have become better at handling it.
Like most offspring, I have of course inherited some of my mother’s characteristics. It’s important to acknowledge that. - Angela aged three
Largely, however, I have learned to treat these negative characteristics like muscles: if you don’t use them, they just get weaker.
My childhood also made me adept at dealing with bullies. I vowed from a very early age that I wouldn’t allow anyone else to talk to me the way my mother had done. Today, I avoid any individual who verbally tries to demean me.
I try to mix only with people who bring out the best in me. And I believe my mother’s behaviour has made me far more resilient.
Over these past six months, I have even been able to laugh at some of the ridiculous things my mother would say to me.
For example, when I telephoned her five minutes after the agreed time, she’d say: ‘Other daughters phone their mother on time. But you’re giving me a nervous breakdown. Is that what you want?’
In some ways, I credit my mother for my choice of career.
She told me so many times I wouldn’t cope at university — ‘just look at your bedroom’ — that I didn’t apply. But instead of fretting, I told myself that in those three years I would have been studying, I would find a career I wanted and perhaps my salary would enable me to leave home.
It wasn’t easy, but eventually I landed a researcher’s job on a national newspaper, later interviewing all sorts of people, from celebrities to those who have experienced terrible traumas.
I marvelled at some of the human qualities I discovered and tried to learn from them.
I also became finely tuned to the intricacies of people’s characters and, from an early age, observed how friends and strangers behaved with their parents and vice versa — hoping to find out that being part of a family didn’t always have to be so stressful.
Angela's mother Florence in June 1938
When I saw good things, I would try to adopt the same habits myself. Today, I remain an avid people-watcher — another legacy of my mother’s difficult behaviour.
When I began working, I suggested I should move out, imagining my mother would be pleased to get rid of me.
Instead, she came out with phrases that, I have since learnt, many difficult parents use: ‘If you do, you will never set foot in this house again.’ Or: ‘You’re doing this deliberately to kill your father and me.’ And a classic bribe: ‘If you go, we will write you out of our will.’
I married very early to a stable, easy-going man who encouraged me to find myself. Although our relationship didn’t work out in the long run, my ex and I are still friends. Today, I have a long-lasting second marriage to an ideal partner who, as a bonus, had a wonderful mother I got on brilliantly with.
I didn’t initially want children for fear of becoming a mother like mine. But then thought it might be something I’d regret.
Sure enough, I fell in love instantly with my three sons, who have now grown up. Not for a second have I wanted to control their lives or belittle them — and indeed, I never have.
Our relationship is easy and strong. Because the truth is that if you have a horrid parent, you don’t have to turn into one yourself.
It can take a while, and needs introspection and courage, but it’s certainly worth it.Woman with the longest fingernails in the world breaks them all in a car crash
A woman with record-breaking 3ft fingernails is recovering in hospital after surviving a car crash in which all ten were all broken off.
Grandmother Lee Redmond is said to be devastated at the loss of her nails, which had not been cut for 30 years.
She has been hospitalised with serious but not life-threatening injuries after she was ejected from the seat of an SUV in the crash.
Scissorhands: Lee Redmond in 2006. Her record-breaking nails were lost in a car accident earlier this week
The driver of the 4x4 in which she was a passenger is in a critical condition. A friend said: 'Lee knows she's lucky to be alive but she's devastated.'
Redmond's nails hadn't been cut since 1979.
The Salt Lake City, Utah resident was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records, which claimed her nails measured a total of more than 28 feet long in 2008.
The longest nail - on her right thumb - was a sickening 2 feet, 11 inches.
Mrs Redmond, who once turned down £60,000 to have them clipped on live TV, has now lost her claim to fame.
In 2006 she said she was ready to cut her nails so she could care for her husband, who suffers from Alzheimer's.
However she changed her mind, insisting that the nails did not interfere with her husband's care - indeed, that they did not impact her daily life much at all.
She did have to care for the nails daily, soaking them in olive oil and cleaning them with a toothbrush.
And when, in previous interviews, she was asked the inevitable question about how she goes uses the bathroom, she replied: 'Very carefully'.
Police lieutenant Don Hutson said Mrs Redmond was thrown into the road when her car hit another vehicle at a crossroads. Her nails were all snapped off near the fingers.
Lieutenant Hutson added: 'She is conscious and is heartbroken over the loss of her nails.'
Redmond has been featured on TV in episodes of 'Guinness Book of World Records' and 'Ripley's Believe It or Not.'Bronx police arrested a 7-year-old boy, put him in handcuffs and held him in custody for 10 hours after a playground fight over $5, according to a $250 million claim brought by the child's family against the city and the NYPD. Officers allegedly arrived at the Bronx public school on Dec. 4 in the morning and handcuffed and held Wilson Reyes in a room there for four hours before taking him to the station house for another six hours of interrogation and verbal abuse, the suit alleges.
The New York Post reports that Reyes' mother found him at the police precinct, "panicked" and "seated in a shabby chair with his left wrist cuffed to the wall."
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The incident apparently began when Reyes' was falsely accused by another child of stealing $5, provoking a scuffle. Children 7 to 17 years old can be tried as juveniles and Reyes originally faced a robbery charge before another child admitted to taking the money and charges against the 7-year-old were dropped. But Reyes' family is seeking damages.
"I never imagined the cops could do that to a child. We’re traumatized,” his mother, Frances Mendez, told the New York Post. "It’s unfathomable, what the police did. The whole thing sounds so stupid. They were interrogating him like he was a hardened criminal," said Mendez's attorney, Jack Yanowitz.
The city has responded to the claims saying Mendez's account is "grossly untrue" and that "the child was held in the precinct... less than half of the time mentioned" -- which still means a 7-year-old was held for well over four hours by police.
As Gothamist noted, this is not the first alleged incident of excessive police action in New York schools. In 2010, for example, a Queens 12-year-old was put in metal handcuffs by police when caught doodling on her school desk in green marker. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the country schoolchildren have been arrested for acts including burping in class, spraying on perfume and milk fights.Last week DieTrollDie published a letter from a Spokane attorney Christopher Lynch to a Guardaley’s copyright troll David Lowe. In that letter Mr. Lynch indicated that his client wouldn’t cave in to troll’s evidence-free demands and was prepared to fight and win. Surprisingly or not, the troll backed off and dropped the defendant (LHF Productions v Doe 1 et al, WAWD 16-cv-01017). This story was picked up by the tech media (TorrentFreak, Techdirt). So, given the coverage, I won’t elaborate on the obvious — that the trolls are cry-bullies, who tend to run away once they smell the trouble of a competent defense. However, I want to dig a bit deeper into one of the reasons behind the troll’s hasty retreat. Particularly, I’d like to elaborate on a mind-boggling fraud that the Guardaley network committed upon the US federal courts in 2012-13, an FBI-probe-worthy fraud that outdid the infamous Prenda’s forgery:
We will also seek discovery of the relationship of Messrs. Macek and Arheidt to the fictitious “Darren M. Griffin.” […] We have a spreadsheet of over 600 federal cases where parties related to your client’s foreign representatives filed a declaration of “Darren M. Griffin.” Most of these declarations are verbatim copies of the 21 paragraph Macek and Arheidt declarations filed by your firm claiming the witness was “retained as a consultant” by Maverickeye or Crystal Bay Corporation “in its technical department.” Most of the 600+ Griffin declarations do not state any education or work experience sufficient to admit the typed-up charts of alleged infringement. But, interestingly, the 42 “Darren M. Griffin” declarations filed in the WD WA claim “Darren M. Griffin” has “a degree in computer science.” This is at odds with the APMC playbook I discovered where the apparent goal is to downplay the declarant’s credentials “hoping the judge won’t question his qualifications too much.” It was bold of your client’s foreign representatives to tell the Judges of our Western District of Washington in 42 declarations that a fictitious declarant has a college degree – just like it was bold to tell Judge Rice that “Darren M. Griffin” is a former investigator for Crystal Bay Corporation. If we go forward, we will expect cooperation on discovery of how LHF witnesses Messrs. Arheidt and Macek are connected to “Darren M. Griffin” and to Crystal Bay Corporation.
Where in the world is Darren Griffin?
Darren Griffin Darren Griffin
There are piles of evidence suggesting that Darren Griffin¹, a purported “expert” that signed more than 500 declarations, does not exist. I have no idea why the trolls decided to fool the judges on such a massive scale, jeopardizing their otherwise smooth extortion machine, but it is what it is: 30 federal district courts were most likely brazenly defrauded.
Those who follow copyright trolling cases know that it was Chris Lynch who first suspected that Darren Griffin is not a real person (Elf-Man v. Lamberson, WAED 13-cv-00395). This suspicion was reaffirmed when the troll, instead of simply supplying Darren Griffin in flesh, attempted to cut and run by dismissing the case. Fortunately, the defendant was compensated for his troubles: the court awarded $100K in fees. Unfortunately, the Griffin fraud was swept under the judicial carpet at that time.
Later, an Iowa defendant in Killer Joe Nevada v. Leaverton (IAND 13-cv-04036, appealed to CA8) also questioned Griffin’s existence. The accusations prompted a tap dance by one of the troll network coordinators — Keith Vogt (scroll down to read the emails): he did not contest the fact that Griffin was a fiction. Instead, he tried to imply that there was no “ethical concern,” since at the time of the filing the he did not know that Griffin was not a real person.
Even though the defendant technically won (the case was dismissed with prejudice), unlike in Lamberson the court denied attorney’s fees, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed this denial. And the Griffin fraud was swept under the rug. Again.
Although it is depressing that both the architects and the implementers of such an obvious massive fraud have not been held accountable, I hope that more defendants will press for discovery in the future, and maybe some judge will refer the crooks to the FBI/DOJ, like Judge Wright did, when he sent the Prenda train on the collision course with the wheels of justice.
Guardaley’s secretive operations aimed at shaking down hard-working Americans by abusing the court system has been always a deep rabbit hole to travel. If I start following the other leads provided by Mr. Lynch (conflicting declarations, non-existent evidence, legality of unlicensed investigations, etc.), I risk not to finish this post. That does not mean that I won’t explore other wrongdoings in the future. However, for today, I leave it here. I have reasons to believe that in building a criminal case against Prenda, the alphabet agencies extensively used my humble work as a reference, so I hope that this post will be equally useful.
One important note: while the racket’s senior players (Keith Vogt, Carl Crowell, Michael Hierl, Richard Fee et al) are undoubtedly aware of the Griffin situation, I’m sure that many of the attorneys listed below simply submitted whatever was sent to them by the troll masters. While it does not excuse those attorney’s lack of candor and the duty to verify what they file with the courts, their actions don’t raise to the level of a deliberate fraud.
The list of cases with forged declarations and attorneys who filed them
The list of plaintiffs
Battle Force LLC (2)
Bicycle Peddler LLC (7)
BKGTH Productions LLC (8)
Bleiberg Entertainment LLC (5)
Breaking Glass Pictures LLC (34)
D3 Productions LLC (3)
Dead Season LLC (2)
Dimentional Dead Productions LLC (2)
Dragon Quest Productions LLC (2)
Elf-Man LLC (8)
Flypaper Distribution LLC (1)
Georgia Film Fund Four LLC (19)
Killer Joe Nevada LLC (50)
Ledge Distribution LLC (3)
Lynn Peak Productions Inc (11)
Maxcon Productions Inc (2)
NGN Prima Productions Inc (1)
Night of the Templar LLC (6)
Osiris Entertainment LLC (1)
Pounds Pictures Inc (2)
Power of Few LLC (11)
Private Lenders Group Inc (6)
R&D Film 1 LLC (62)
Riding Films Inc (17)
RynoRyder Productions Inc. (3)
Safety Point Productions LLC (8)
Sibling The Movie LLC (4)
SoJo Productions Incorporated (1)
TCYK LLC (128)
Thompsons Film LLC (7)
TriCoast Smitty LLC (1)
Vision Films Inc. (17)
Voltage Pictures LLC (81)
Zambezia Film Ltd (44)
How many differences can you spot?
Followups
¹ Maybe it is a mere coincidence, maybe not: it pays to remind that “Griffin” was the surname of Herbert Wells’s Invisible Man.By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN
(CNN) - As you might have heard, Lauren Green at Fox didn’t do a very good job interviewing Reza Aslan on his new book about the historical Jesus.
Instead of asking him about "Zealot," she asked him why, as a Muslim, he would presume to write a book about Jesus. He responded by citing (and re-citing) his academic credentials.
The interview went viral, and Aslan went to No. 1 on Amazon.com (ahead of J. K. Rowling).
But what does the book actually say? Here are seven of Aslan's key arguments in "Zealot":
1. Jesus was a violent revolutionary
Many scholars have argued that Jesus was a political figure. After all, he was crucified by Rome, and crucifixion was at the time a punishment for political offenses. But these scholars often claim, as John Dominic Crossan did in "Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography," that Jesus was a nonviolent revolutionary.
Aslan portrays Jesus as a man of war who worshiped the "blood-spattered God of Abraham, and Moses, and Jacob, and Joshua” and who knew full well that “God’s sovereignty could not be established except through force.”
2. Jesus’ kingdom was worldly
In the Gospel of John, Jesus famously says, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). Aslan begs to differ. Jesus’ kingdom was neither purely nor predominantly spiritual. He preached “a physical and present kingdom: a real kingdom, with an actual king that was about to be established on earth.”
3. Jesus revolted against Roman and Jewish authorities
Jesus didn’t just take on Rome. He took on Jewish authorities, in particular those who ran the Jerusalem Temple.
“There can be no doubt,” writes Aslan, “that Jesus’s main antagonist in the gospels is neither the distant emperor in Rome nor his heathen officials in Judea. It is the high priest Caiaphas, who will become the main instigator of the plot to execute Jesus precisely because of the threat he posed to the Temple’s authority.”
4. Palm Sunday is the key moment in the Jesus story
Every Jesus biographer has a key moment in the life of Jesus when his essence is revealed. For Aslan, that moment comes when Jesus mounts a donkey and rides into Jerusalem.
In this celebration, commemorated in the Christian world every year on Palm Sunday, Jesus is not demonstrating his humility. Instead, he is announcing his kingship.
The “unmistakeable” message of this scene, according to Aslan, is that “the long-awaited messiah — the true King of the Jews — has come to free Israel from its bondage.”
5. The early church turned Jesus into a pacifist preaching a spiritual kingdom
In 66-73 CE, a bloody Jewish revolt against Rome left Jerusalem in ruins and chastened the early Christians, who reinvented Jesus as an apolitical figure in order to make nice with Rome.
Those who wrote of Jesus in this way (Paul included) never met the man, and, in Aslan's view, they badly mischaracterized him, turning “their messiah from a fierce Jewish nationalist into a pacifistic preacher of good works whose kingdom was not of this world.”
6. The idea that Jesus was God also originated with the early church
As a Jew, Aslan observes, Jesus would have rebelled against any notion that God is incarnated in human flesh.
Therefore, the elevation of Jesus to divinity must have come after his crucifixion, at the hands of Greek-speaking Jewish Christians who “transformed Jesus from a revolutionary zealot to a Romanized demigod.”
7. The Bible isn’t to be believed (as history)
In "Zealot," Aslan repeatedly refers to passages in the New Testament as “preposterous,” “fanciful,” “obviously contrived,” “riddled with the most basic errors,” “simply ridiculous,” and “absurd to the point of comedy.”
Here the Bible is a source for data about Jesus’s life, but that data must be carefully sifted through a scholarly lens, and in particular through the socioeconomic realities of life in the ancient Mediterranean at the time of Jesus.
At least as Aslan sees it, Jesus probably didn’t tell his followers to turn the other cheek. He probably did say, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth. I have not come to bring peace, but the sword” (Matthew 10:34).Story highlights Endless Computers has produced a simplified, robust and affordable desktop aimed at emerging market consumers
The company said its $169 product is designed to be hooked up to a TV screen and can be used anywhere
Endless designed its own operating system; one that was highly functional but could work with cheap processors
The Endless unit is preloaded with a full encyclopedia, recipes, educational lectures and health information
(CNN) You will see plenty of smartphones in the developing world and you'll see plenty of TVs; but you're unlikely to see desktop computers in remote areas.
Poor internet connectivity, uncertain power supply and a simple lack of money have meant that billions have been locked out of the knowledge economy.
Matt Dalio, CEO of Endless Computers, wants to change all of that with the first simplified, robust and affordable desktop aimed at emerging market consumers.
Dalio told CNN he got the idea to create a $169 computer while he was traveling and noticed that, while most homes did not have a desktop computer, they often had an HD screen.
"It was one of those micro-epiphanies," he said. "I was in India and I looked over at a television and then I looked at my hand and there was a phone in it and I thought why not connect the two?
Read MoreAn Important List for your Holiday : My Favorite Coding Toys of 2017
Sara Chipps Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 26, 2017
There are a lot of toys and even more noise out there focused on teaching kids the basics of coding. I’ve played with nearly all of the toys on the market that advertise teaching coding skills, the ones below are some of my favorites. This is your guide if you’re looking for something exciting and educational for a child in your life this holiday season.
I mean, just the cutest.
Okay, yes, it’s fairly ridiculous to think that there are ways to shove the concepts of coding in such tiny minds, but there are. Check out these great books by codebabies. A gift like this says to your partner or friend “I’m not going to stop until this kids thinks and acts just like me”.
There is:
HTML for Babies
CSS for Babies
and of course, JavaScript for Babies
this thing is loud but super fun
Last year I bought my nephew a Code-a-Pillar last year and he loved it. Also, it makes a freakin racket, so only buy if it’s not your actual child. The different sections represent different things the Code-a-Pillar can do. Move left, move right, front, make a noise, kids are encouraged to change the order of the segments and make their caterpillar zoom around the room in fun ways.
Oh man, do I love these products! Rube Goldberg machines with matching dolls and stories are everything my childhood was missing. I feel like it would have completely taken me away from my side career as a sink cabinet chemist (a good thing). I know they are fun because I got them for my niece and we played with them for hours together. Goldie has books, she’s got apps, she’s got style. Everything about her is amazing and she has great friends. Goldie++. Right now they are giving away free sweatshirts with purchase.
Disclaimer: I made these. I love these. This is my full time job (I made it pretty far without mentioning them, give me some credit).
Jewelbots are smart friendship bracelets that light up when you are with your friends and enable users to send and receive secret messages. They encourage users to write real code and welcomes first timers to their first development environment. This is real coding, C++, thousands of kids are doing it. I’m obsessed, if you have any questions this is my personal email, feel free to reach out. Right now they are BOGO for Cyber Monday.
Minecraft is one of the most amazing things to happen to kids in the past 20 years and is birthing a lot of young programmers. Kano is a computer that kids can build themselves especially for playing Minecraft. I love that is combines so many of their interests in one place. Minecraft introduces kids to building in Java, which is incredible. The design of the product is beautiful. Kano is a great investment in a future inventor.
I’m usually not a fan of the drag->drop coding environments for kids over 6. It is effective education to introduce logic workflows early, but I often think that we belittle the intelligence of children by thinking they can’t understand real code. Sphero, however, has been really thoughtful about the design of their interface and the possibilities of what can be built are endless. I really love what they have built and their suite of toys from this one to the BB8. This product is perfect for any child that wants to dip their toes in the world of coding but isn’t ready to get completely submerged.
This is a pricey gift, but I have played with dozens of kids and Parrot Drones and they freaking love them. You can use Node.js to control them and that is so freaking sweet. When kids figure out they can code these drones they go nuts. I really recommend these for the kids that are ready to take the next step into learning. Make sure you have LOTS OF SPACE FOR THEM. These can go very high and very far, you don’t want them playing inside (unless you live in a ginormous warehouse).Betrayal (also known as Lady Jayne: Killer) is a thriller film released in 2003. The film stars Erika Eleniak, Julie du Page, Adam Baldwin, James Remar and Louis Mandylor.
Film synopsis [ edit ]
Jayne Ferré (du Page) is a professional assassin that works for the Mafia. When one of her hits goes wrong, she ends up with a suitcase full of a million dollars that belongs to mob boss Frank Bianci (Louis Mandylor). Knowing that he has put a price on her head, Ferré decides to leave Los Angeles and ends up hitching a ride with Kerry, a teenager running from a drug dealer, and his mother, Emily (Eleniak).
After agreeing to cover their expenses, Jayne, Emily, and Kerry head for Texas. During the ride, their car breaks down which forces them to spend a night in a motel. On the night, Kerry discovers Jayne's money and decides to return to LA to pay his debt.
When Jayne finds out, she kidnaps Emily and they go to LA after Kerry to recover her money. Emily manages to escape, and stumbles upon Alex Tyler, an FBI agent who agrees to protect her and to take her to her son.
Cast [ edit ]
Release [ edit ]
The film DVD premiered on 2003 in Italy, Netherlands, Finland, Spain, United States, and Germany."It makes no sense at all to try to deny the reality of Jewish power and prominence in popular culture." -- Michael Medved, well-known Jewish author and respected film critic. For decades Israel has violated well established precepts of international law and defied numerous United Nations resolutions in its occupation of conquered lands, in extra-judicial killings, and in its repeated acts of military aggression. Most of the world regards Israel's policies, and especially its oppression of Palestinians, as outrageous and criminal. This international consensus is reflected, for example, in numerous UN resolutions condemning Israel, which have been approved with overwhelming majorities. "The whole world," United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan recently said, "is demanding that Israel withdraw [from occupied Palestinian territories]. I don't think the whole world... can be wrong." [note 1] Only in the United States do politicians and the media still fervently support Israel and its policies. For decades the US has provided Israel with crucial military, diplomatic and financial backing, including more than $3 billion each year in aid. Why is the U.S. the only remaining bastion of support for Israel? Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who was awarded the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, has candidly identified the reason: "The Israeli government is placed on a pedestal [in the US], and to criticize it is to be immediately dubbed anti-Semitic," he said. "People are scared in this country, to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful -- very powerful." [note 2] Bishop Tutu spoke the truth. Although Jews make up only about three percent of the US population, they wield immense power and influence -- vastly more than any other ethnic or religious group. As Jewish author and political science professor, Benjamin Ginsberg, has pointed out: [note 3] "Since the 1960s, Jews have come to wield considerable influence in American economic, cultural, intellectual and political life. Jews played a central role in American finance during the 1980s, and they were among the chief beneficiaries of that decade's corporate mergers and reorganizations." Today, though barely two percent of the nation's population is Jewish, close to half its billionaires are Jews. The chief executive officers of the three major television networks and the four largest film studios are Jews, as are the owners of the nation's largest newspaper chain and the most influential single newspaper, the New York Times... The role and influence of Jews in American politics is equally marked. Jews are only two percent of the nation's population yet comprise eleven percent of what this study defines as the nation's elite. However, Jews constitute more than 25 percent of the elite journalists and publishers, more than 17 percent of the leaders of important voluntary and public interest organizations, and more than 15 percent of the top ranking civil servants. Stephen Steinlight, former Director of National Affairs of the American Jewish Committee, similarly notes the "disproportionate political power" of Jews, which is "pound for pound the greatest of any ethnic/cultural group in America." He goes on to explain that "Jewish economic influence and power are disproportionately concentrated in Hollywood, television, and in the news industry." [note 4] Two well-known Jewish writers, Seymour Lipset and Earl Raab, pointed out in their 1995 book, Jews and the New American Scene: [note 5] "During the last three decades Jews [in the United States] have made up 50 percent of the top two hundred intellectuals... 20 percent of professors at the leading universities... 40 percent of partners in the leading law firms in New York and Washington... 59 percent of the directors, writers, and producers of the 50 top-grossing motion pictures from 1965 to 1982, and 58 percent of directors, writers, and producers in two or more primetime television series." The influence of American Jewry in Washington, notes the Israeli daily Jerusalem Post, is "far disproportionate to the size of the community, Jewish leaders and U.S. official acknowledge. But so is the amount of money they contribute to [election] campaigns." One member of the influential Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations "estimated Jews alone had contributed 50 percent of the funds for [President Bill] Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign." [note 6] "It makes no sense at all to try to deny the reality of Jewish power and prominence in popular culture," acknowledges Michael Medved, a well-known Jewish author and film critic. "Any list of the most influential production executives at each of the major movie studios will produce a heavy majority of recognizably Jewish names." [note 7] One person who has carefully studied this subject is Jonathan J. Goldberg, now editor of the influential Jewish community weekly 'Forward.' In his 1996 book, Jewish Power, he wrote: [note 8] "In a few key sectors of the media, notably among Hollywood studio executives, Jews are so numerically dominant that calling these businesses Jewish-controlled is little more than a statistical observation... Hollywood at the end of the twentieth century is still an industry with a pronounced ethnic tinge. Virtually all the senior executives at the major studios are Jews. Writers, producers, and to a lesser degree directors are disproportionately Jewish -- one recent study showed the figure as high as 59 percent among top-grossing films." The combined weight of so many Jews in one of America's most lucrative and important industries gives the Jews of Hollywood a great deal of political power. They are a major source of money for Democratic candidates. Reflecting their role in the American media, Jews are routinely portrayed as high-minded, altruistic, trustworthy, compassionate, and deserving of sympathy and support. While millions of Americans readily accept such stereotyped imagery, not everyone is impressed. "I am very angry with some of the Jews," complained actor Marlon Brando during a 1996 interview. "They know perfectly well what their responsibilities are... Hollywood is run by Jews. It's owned by Jews, and they should have a greater sensitivity about the issue of people who are suffering." [note 9] A Well-Entrenched Factor The intimidating power of the "Jewish lobby" is not a new phenomenon, but has long been an important factor in American life. In 1941 Charles Lindbergh spoke about the danger of Jewish power in the media and government. The shy 39-year-old -- known around the world for his epic 1927 New York to Paris flight, the first solo trans-Atlantic crossing -- was addressing 7,000 people in Des Moines, Iowa, on September 11, 1941, about the dangers of US involvement in the war then raging in Europe. The three most important groups pressing America into war, he explained, were the British, the Jews, and the Roosevelt administration. Of the Jews, he said: "Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government." Lindbergh went on: "For reasons which are understandable from their viewpoint as they are inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not American, [they] wish to involve us in the war. We cannot blame them for looking out for what they believe to be their own interests, but we must also look out for ours. We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction." In 1978, Jewish American scholar Alfred M. Lilienthal wrote in his detailed study, The Zionist Connection: [note 10] "How has the Zionist will been imposed on the American people?... It is the Jewish connection, the tribal solidarity among themselves and the amazing pull on non-Jews, that has molded this unprecedented power... In the larger metropolitan areas, the Jewish-Zionist connection thoroughly pervades affluent financial, commercial, social, entertainment, and art circles." As a result of the Jewish grip on the media, wrote Lilienthal, news coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict in American television, newspapers and magazines is relentlessly sympathetic to Israel. This is manifest, for example, in the misleading portrayal of Palestinian "terrorism." As Lilienthal put it: "One-sided reportage on terrorism, in which cause is never related to effect, was assured because the most effective component of the Jewish connection is probably that of media control." One-Sided 'Holocaust' History The Jewish hold on cultural and academic life has had a profound impact on how Americans look at the past. Nowhere is the well-entrenched Judeocentric view of history more obvious than in the "Holocaust" media campaign, which focuses on the fate of Jews in Europe during World War II. Israeli Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer, a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has remarked: [note 11] "Whether presented authentically or inauthentically, in accordance with the historical facts or in contradiction to them, with empathy and understanding or as monumental kitsch, the Holocaust has become a ruling symbol of our culture... Hardly a month goes by without a new TV production, a new film, a new drama, new books, prose or poetry, dealing with the subject, and the flood is increasing rather than abating." Non-Jewish suffering simply does not merit comparable attention. Overshadowed in the focus on Jewish victimization are, for example, the tens of millions of victims of America's World War II ally, Stalinist Russia, along with the tens of millions of victims of China's Maoist regime, as well as the 12 to 14 million Germans, victims of the flight and expulsion of 1944-1949, of whom some two million lost their lives. The well-financed Holocaust media and "educational" campaign is crucially important to the interests of Israel. Paula Hyman, a professor of modern Jewish history at Yale University, has observed: "With regard to Israel, the Holocaust may be used to forestall political criticism and suppress debate; it reinforces the sense of Jews as an eternally beleaguered people who can rely for their defense only upon themselves. The invocation of the suffering endured by the Jews under the Nazis often takes the place of rational argument, and is expected to convince doubters of the legitimacy of current Israeli government policy." [note 12] Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish scholar who has taught political science at City University of New York (Hunter College), says in his book, 'The Holocaust Industry,' that "invoking The Holocaust" is "a ploy to delegitimize all criticism of Jews."[note 13] "By conferring total blamelessness on Jews, the Holocaust dogma immunizes Israel and American Jewry from legitimate censure.... Organized Jewry has exploited the Nazi holocaust to deflect criticism of Israel's and its own morally indefensible policies." He writes of the brazen "shakedown" of Germany, Switzerland and other countries by Israel and organized Jewry "to extort billions of dollars." "The Holocaust," Finkelstein predicts, "may yet turn out to be the 'greatest robbery in the history of mankind'." Jews in Israel feel free to act brutally against Arabs, writes Israeli journalist Ari Shavit, "believing with absolute certitude that now, with the White House, the Senate and much of the American media in our hands, the lives of others do not count as much as our own." [note 14] Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has spoken with blunt exasperation about the Jewish-Israeli hold on the United States: [note 15] "I've never seen a President -- I don't care who he is -- stand up to them [the Israelis]. It just boggles the mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all the time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing anything down. If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on." Today, the danger is greater than ever. Israel and Jewish organizations, in collaboration with this country's pro-Zionist Christian fundamentalist "amen corner," are prodding the United States -- the world's foremost military and economic power --
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the side effects related to fluoride consumption. Most alarming of course, is the fact that according to sources, "there has never been a single randomized controlled trial to demonstrate fluoridations effectiveness or safety". And worst of all, fluoride remains an unapproved new drug according to the FDA.And this, we are told, is only the tip of the iceberg.Nanditha Prasad Ram is a consumer and health journalist and a practicing holistic therapist.Her blog is available at http://www.bindumandalayoga.blogspot.inLame lane: A rider coasts along the 4m-long cycle path in Chesterfield (Picture: Ross Parry)
Bradley Wiggins would make swift work of this cycle lane… as indeed would a doddery grandfather riding a rusty boneshaker.
The path – sandwiched between two junctions – is only 4m (13ft) long.
Council bosses say it is a useful link in a much longer bike route in Chesterfield.
But users say officials could have saved themselves the bother of marking its start and finish with painted signs – which are squeezed in next to each other on the small patch of pavement.
Lisa Jennings, 36, said: ‘To paint this pathetic little lane is just an insult to cyclists forced to use genuinely dangerous roads which still don’t have a cycle lane.’
And Will Jones, 22, added: ‘It makes the council a laughing stock.’
A Derbyshire county council spokesman said: ‘It is part of our Chesterfield town-wide network.’Short and sweet. PBO has been endorsed recently by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Pennsylvania's largest daily newspaper, AND the Winston-Salem Journal of North Carolina. What makes this even more interesting is that Winston-Salem endorsed John McCain in 2008!
According to the Winston-Salem editorial:
Four years ago on this page, we endorsed Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona over Obama. We wrote that we were impressed with Obama, but McCain would “bring the Iraq war to a successful conclusion, work to end American dependence on foreign oil, reduce America's output of climate-changing gases and begin the rebuilding of our economy.” The Democratic president has done all those things and more. He is calm under pressure and courageous in standing up for the rights of all Americans, including the poor, veterans, the elderly, women, gays and immigrants. In contrast, we’ve sometimes found it hard in the last few weeks to tell just what Obama’s challenger, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, really stands for.
According to Wikipedia:
The Winston-Salem Journal is a daily newspaper primarily serving the city of Winston-Salem, North Carolina and its county, Forsyth County, North Carolina. It also features coverage of Northwestern North Carolina and circulates as far west as Tennessee and north to Virginia.
The last time the Journal endorsed a Democratic party candidate for President was in 1964 (Lyndon Johnson).
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Both endorsements come with substantive descriptions of our President's solid record over the past 3.5 years, as well as stark contrasts between the fundamentally different visions that the two candidates have for this country.
In addition, the Philadelphia Inquirer which endorsed then Senator Obama in 2008, wastes no time in calling out the extreme and unprecedented Republican obstructionism that the MSM has simply refused to address.
The recovery is slow, but its speed has been hampered by obstinate Republicans in Congress dead set on opposing any program that might boost Obama's reelection. They say they can't be blamed for Obama's lack of success earlier in his administration, when Democrats held the House and Senate. But Americans need to remember that Congress' rules give great power to the minority party to thwart legislation.Are you a college student of color interested in doing great journalism? ProPublica wants to help. We are a nonprofit investigative newsroom and we’re offering stipends to five minority students who work or want to work at college journalism outlets – newspapers, websites, radio stations or TV stations. We want to make college journalism accessible to students for whom it would otherwise be economically out of reach. Students can apply for the stipends annually. Those selected will receive $4,500 per semester.
Each student in our Emerging Reporters Program will also receive ongoing mentoring from ProPublica’s reporters and editors. We’ll also bring you to our newsroom in New York for a week.
ProPublica’s mission is to shine a light on abuses of power, producing stories of moral force that provoke change. There are currently few minority reporters who specialize in investigations. Without more such voices, visions and points of view, there is every reason to believe that important stories are being overlooked.
If you are interested in being a ProPublica Emerging Reporter, please send the following to [email protected]:
A note explaining your interest
Your resume
Three writing samples, which can be published or unpublished work
A paragraph describing how this stipend would allow you to do journalism that would otherwise be beyond your financial means.
And if you have questions, ask away.
The deadline for applications is Aug. 1.Scott Morrison has counted cuts already rejected by the Senate in his budget update, which campaigners say undermine the government’s budget message
The Turnbull government is “banking” $13.9bn in Abbott-era savings rejected by the Senate in a budget update that still shows the deficit blowing out by $26bn over four years since the May budget.
Myefo: Scott Morrison reveals budget deficit to blow out by $26bn over four years – politics live Read more
The government announced new savings in the midyear economic and fiscal outlook (Myefo) on Tuesday – including cutting bulk-billing incentives for pathology services and tightening a welfare “crackdown” – to pay for already announced new spending on innovation, the special Syrian refugee intake and processing asylum seekers in Australia.
But a slump in revenue, partly as a result of falling commodity prices, saw the 2015-16 deficit climb from $35.1bn predicted at the time of the last budget to $37.4bn now.
And included in that deteriorating bottom line are old savings included in policies that the Senate has steadfastly refused to pass – which means the budget update counts “savings” that are “wholly unrealistic”, according to the Australian Council of Social Service (Acoss).
Among the “savings” still counted in the budget update despite being rejected are:
* The $4.8bn that would be saved by the latest version of proposed cuts to family payments, even though Labor has only passed $500m of them;
* $3.2 bn from increasing the interest rate for student loans and requiring that they be paid back sooner;
* $1.1bn from cutting university funding;
* $1.3bn for the proposed $5 hike in the PBS co-payment that was supposed to start in January;
* Over $600m in rejected welfare savings, including forcing under-25s to wait a month to receive the dole, which was rejected by the Senate in September.
Malcolm Turnbull's stocks remain high, but his coffers are increasingly empty Read more
“Those 2014 budget measures were stalled in the Senate for good reasons,” said Acoss chief executive Cassandra Goldie.
“If the government wanted to give us a realistic assessment of the budget, they should not be booking savings that are wholly unrealistic,” she said.
The chief executive of Universities Australia, Belinda Robinson, said she believed “the community will be concerned that the government, despite one year’s reprieve, intends to pursue the cuts to university funding announced in the 2014 budget”.
And Labor’s health spokeswoman, Catherine King, criticised the government for counting the “savings” from the PBS co-payment despite health minister Sussan Ley saying in May she was not going to “waste time” putting them back to parliament because they would be voted down.
The Myefo does remove $5.8bn from the budget bottom line to account for delays in the Senate and concessions the government has made to try to get legislation through, but still counts the savings from the stalled legislation.
It shows total revenue will be $33.8bn lower than expected over four years, partly as a result of declines in commodity prices since Joe Hockey handed down his final budget in May.
Myefo: bulk-billing rules 'Tony Abbott's GP co-payment in disguise', says AMA Read more
Economic growth has also taken a hit, with the treasurer, Scott Morrison, predicting a lift in real GDP of 2.5% this financial year, compared with 2.75% forecast in the budget. The government has also cut half a percentage point from the expected figure in each of the next few years, with growth now tipped to be 2.75% in 2016-17 before firming to 3% after that.
“The inclusion of this more realistic outlook on domestic growth should be seen for what it is; that is, a statement of confidence in our economy,” Morrison said as he joined the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, in Perth on Tuesday to announce the new figures.
Morrison pointed to improvements in the forecast unemployment rate, which has been revised down from 6.5% to 6% this financial year and is expected to fall to 5.5% by 2018-19.
The government is continuing its budget rule of not cutting to make up for revenue writedowns, but has found offsets for new spending announced since the last budget.
The new cuts in the health portfolio include $650m over four years by cutting bulk-billing incentives for pathology and MRI services, $595m from “streamlining” health workforce programs, and $472m from adjusting aged care funding formulas.
Morrison is also banking on $1.3bn by expanding the welfare payment integrity measure announced in the last budget, which was already slated to achieve $1.7bn, with an increased focus on pursuing discrepancies between the employment income they declare to Centrelink and the “pay-as-you-go” information provided to the tax office.
Myefo: key points at a glance Read more
A further $695m is to be saved from the welfare system by increasing other forms of data-matching. The government will also gain $318m from a new cap on the number of green army projects.
Myefo represented the first major test for the new financial team installed after Malcolm Turnbull ousted Tony Abbott from the top job in September on the grounds the country needed better economic leadership.
The underlying cash deficit is expected to be $37.4bn in 2015-16, a deterioration from the $35.1bn estimated at the time of the budget. The expected deficit increased from $25.8bn to $33.7bn in 2016-17, increased from $14.4bn to $23bn in 2017-18, and increased from $6.9bn to $14.2bn in 2018-19. The new figures represent a cumulative hit to the budget position of about $26bn over four years.
The government is now projecting a return to surplus in 2020-21, one year later than tipped at the time of the last budget.
Morrison and Cormann said the government was not rushing back to surplus because extreme measures “would place a handbrake on household consumption and business investment growth and unnecessarily threaten the fresh new momentum emerging in our transitioning economy”.
The treasurer said: “Despite revenue writedowns of almost $34bn caused by falling commodity prices, a declining terms of trade, weaker global growth and the adoption of more realistic domestic growth outlook, we continue patiently and responsibly on the path to budget balance.”
Morrison stressed it was “a budget update, not a budget” so bigger changes would be considered in May and in the lead-up to the federal election. Decisions on tax changes have also been deferred until next year.
The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, said the government’s budget was “on a road to nowhere with no prospect of improving”.
“Instead of looking at multinational taxation, or superannuation tax concessions, the Liberals are at it again. They are proposing the harshest cuts to the people least able to protect themselves,” he said.
The shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, said Turnbull and Morrison had “presided over a budget deficit blowing out at the rate of $120m a day since the last budget”.
Bowen said: “Deficit reduction and returning to surplus was at the heart of this Liberal government, and it begs the question: if they have no plan to return to balance, what is the point of the Turnbull government?”
Greens MP Adam Bandt said Morrison was following Hockey’s lead by “taking the axe to the old, the sick and the poor while letting the very wealthy off scot-free”.Image caption Anastacia successfully beat cancer in 2003
Singer Anastacia has been forced to cancel her European tour after being diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time.
The 44-year-old made a full recovery in 2003 after being treated with surgery and radiotherapy.
"I feel so awful to be letting down all my amazing fans. It just breaks my heart to disappoint them," she said in a statement on her Facebook page.
All tickets for the tour, due to start on 6 April in London, will be refunded.
The singer, famous for her hit single, I'm Outta Love, last performed live in Germany in December 2012.
She was due to play 13 dates this April across Europe to promote her latest album It's A Man's World.
Anastacia says she will continue the writing and recording a new album despite her diagnosis and hopes to schedule a new tour as soon as possible.
She was last seen on British TV when she joined Gary Barlow, Louis Walsh and Tulisa on the X Factor judging panel last year.
When she was first diagnosed with the disease, she said her ordeal had taught her the importance of early detection in fighting breast cancer and she urged other women to have mammograms.
In a statement, she said "I'm a fighter by nature and nothing will ever change that."Canada presently witnessing a rise in rational thought
According to a brand new Ipsos poll for Global News, 51 percent of Canadians hold the opinion that religion causes more harm than good. This number is an increase from 2011 when 44 percent of those polled said the same.
The Canadian province which showed maximum antipathy towards religion is Quebec. The people of the state are much more likely compared to other provinces to feel that religion does much more harm compared to the good it actually does. A whopping 62 percent of Quebecers exhibit antipathy towards religion. 18 percent of the respondents admit losing respect for any individual when they discover that person is of a religious frame of mind.
The poll shows an increasing number of respondents do not believe that the religious have higher moral ground. A majority of them vehemently disagrees with such an assertion. Only 24 percent of the total respondents said religious individuals make better citizens. In 2011, 32 percent believed the same.
The poll discovered despite their religious views, Canadians are extremely tolerant towards others' religions. 90 percent of all respondents said that they are comfortable around individuals who are from a dissimilar religious background. The view of disassociating religion from politics has gained ground in the Canadian psyche.
In another development, students studying in the Catholic school board in Ontario will soon enjoy the flexibility of opting out of the religious programs and courses. This was made possible by a certain human rights settlement which carries implications all across the province.
The settlement was the result of a complaint filed by a student, Claudia Sorgini. The Ontario resident student, in 2016, alleged that she was discriminated against. She felt hostility against her when she wanted an exemption from religious classes. The case was subsequently settled in private in May 2017.
Paul Champ, the lawyer representing Sorgini, said that the settlement represents a victory for those students studying in the Ontario Catholic schools. He said, "We're hopeful that it will send a message to all Catholic school boards across the province that pressure to attend religious courses or activities is discrimination in publicly funded schools."
Friends, this week is a time to pray. This is a vital case for the future understanding of freedom of conscience & religion in Canada. https://t.co/42rGrNh5Q8 — Don Hutchinson (@DonH1187) June 12, 2017
When asked, the lawyer who represented the defendants in this specific case declined to comment.
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Follow the Conversation on Twitter960 babies in TB scare at Kaiser in S.F. SAN FRANCISCO
Kaiser Permanente is contacting 960 mothers whose babies may have been exposed to a health care worker in San Francisco who has an active case of tuberculosis.
The worker was assigned to the postpartum unit in the maternity ward of Kaiser's San Francisco Medical Center to care for mothers and infants. Kaiser officials say the infection risk for patients is very low, but testing will be provided along with treatment if necessary.
Kaiser also is notifying 115 employees who may have been exposed.
The Oakland health maintenance organization learned of the worker's infection Aug. 18. The part-time night shift employee worked at Kaiser from March 10 to Aug. 10 and is no longer an employee there. Kaiser has been working on the matter with the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
"We feel that this is a low-risk exposure, but we want to be aggressive about identifying any potential contacts," said Dr. Stephen Parodi, chief of infectious diseases for Kaiser Permanente in Northern California.
He said that the involved TB strain is a common one that responds well to a regimen of antibiotics. Pediatricians began notifying patients Tuesday.
"We are trying to take a personal approach," Parodi said.
Those potentially exposed are being asked to take a skin test. If the test is positive, further screening will be performed, including chest X-rays.Image copyright AFP/Getty Images Image caption Interpol says it does not comment on specific cases
China says Interpol has issued a notice for the arrest of a billionaire who has criticised the government in Beijing.
Property tycoon Guo Wengui is currently thought to be in the US.
Authorities did not give a reason for the notice, but state media outlets have claimed that Mr Guo bribed a vice-minister, which he has denied.
Mr Guo has recently made allegations regarding top Chinese officials and their families' businesses in interviews with overseas media.
Politically motivated?
On Wednesday, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said Interpol had issued a "red notice" for Mr Guo, which seeks the arrest of a wanted person globally.
Asked about Mr Guo, Interpol said it did not "comment on specific cases or individuals except in special circumstances and with approval of the member country concerned".
Chinese news outlets said Mr Guo bribed the former vice-minister of state security, Ma Jian, with 60m yuan (£6.8m, $8.7m). Mr Ma has since been arrested and is being prosecuted for corruption.
But Mr Guo has denied such allegations and suggested that the notice for his arrest was politically motivated.
The tycoon, who says he is no longer a Chinese citizen, said in a tweet (in Chinese) on Wednesday that the move was initiated by "corrupt officials who are terrified that their criminal behaviour would be unmasked by me".
Mr Guo has recently given interviews to foreign Chinese-language media outlets, including Voice of America, making allegations regarding certain Chinese officials and their families who control business empires.
VOA said its journalists had been approached earlier by Chinese officials asking them to cancel their interview. The live broadcast on Wednesday was cut short, which VOA said was due to a "miscommunication".
The South China Morning Post noted that Mr Guo's interviews have coincided with what it called an "international publicity war" launched by China against him.[VEGAN] 10 Food Dehydrator Recipes You Need To Know One of the best things about owning a food dehydrator is all the easy, healthy and delicious food options available. It doesn’t get any easier than preparing food and popping it in your dehydrator. Some tips will ensure you get the most from your efforts. Read below to be inspired!
We also have a useful article if you would like more information and reviews on the best food dehydrator. THANK YOU FOR SHARING THIS PAGE!!!
Recipe by: Rawmazing We have all been there. It's 9 pm on a Thursday night, and we get a craving for something naughty. There isn’t an apple or banana that exists that will kerb this craving.
But you have been good diet wise this month, really good. Now, you don’t just want to toss all that good work away on an unhealthy pack of chips or biscuits.
Enter Rawmazing’s Cheezy Kale Crackers.
They are the healthy alternative snack for those killer cravings we all get. The snack that you give your non-vegan friends and they beg for more. Also, perfect to give to your kids as an in-between snack.
It’s hard to believe they are vegan, but they are. The Raw Coconut and the Nutritional Yeast blend well together to give a fantastic base and crunch.
This easy and delicious recipe will fast become your go-to food dehydrator recipe that sneaks into the monthly routine.
Recipe by: A Cedar Spoon
When I am entertaining friends at my house, I always feel a twinge of unease when I pull out a bag of chips and empty them into a bowl. It is probably just me, but I always feel that I should go to more of an effort for my friends that just emptying a packet of store bought (vegan) chips.
Finally, there is a tastier, healthier and more crowd-pleasing option - Crunchy Roasted Chickpeas. I love chickpeas in any form, but my favorite has got to be the dehydrated version.
This recipe is very easy to follow and is just delicious.
The last batch I made a few different flavours. Zesty Paprika (Paprika seasoning with lemon juice), Spicy (cayenne pepper) and Salt and Vinegar.
Be inspired by this recipe and always remember that you have so many options open to you when you have a food dehydrator.
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Recipe by: The Real Farmhouse As a parent, it is so important to find healthy snacking options for your kids. Encouraging them to eat more fruit and vegetables has never been harder, with all the advertisements for junk food they are bombarded with. The best you can do is provide them with options that they like as much, or more than the sugar filled alternatives. Dehydrated Watermelon Chips are your answer to that problem all parents face.
Perfect for an afternoon snack, or as a lunch box filler. Your kids will definitely come back for more.
Plus, us parents love them too!
Recipe by: Oh So Delicioso Growing up, my mom never bought me store bought fruit leathers. She knew what I didn’t, that they were horribly sugar, preservative, and salt filled.
Now I know better, and am grateful for that tough love growing up.
When I bought my first food dehydrator, one of the first recipes that I made was a fruit leather. A mango flavoured one. From that moment I was hooked, and the best part was not feeling guilty about eating it.
The key is using a fruit that is in season. Use the Peach-Rasberry Fruit Leather recipe as a guide and experiment at will.
A quick note and one that's mentioned in the recipe linked to is that the thickness of the leather is essential. Take care and follow the instructions - you and your kids will love it!
Note: To Veganise this recipe, just swaps the honey out for agave syrup. Raw Corn Chips Recipe by: Shine With Nature This is a 2 for 1! Not only has Tiasha from ShineWithNature.com suggested a great corn chip recipe, but an exceptional Raw Vegan Chili as well.
Perfect for those Mexican theme nights, and you can also use them as a chip base for vegan nachos.
This one gets the thumbs up from us!
Recipe by: Rawmazing A big part of me becoming Vegan was a strong influence of my friends, a particular couple. They are an incredible power couple, and our families really enjoy spending time together.
When they come over for dinner, I take the time to cook them a wonderful vegan meal to show them the appreciation for putting me (and my family) on this path. Special pride is taken to make sure they eat something they hadn’t had yet.
These sliders are perfect on so many levels. They are super healthy, enjoyed across all age brackets (young and old) and are easy to make for a group of people. In other words, ideal for entertaining. 90% of the preparation you can do before hand which is my style.
This recipe really opened up my eyes as to the potential of owning a food dehydrator.
Recipe by: The Healthy Family and Home If complicated is the enemy of ‘done’, then these Habanero Crackers are the friend of me!
They are so easy and delicious there is no way that one batch is enough. There are no guilty feelings either as these little bundles of taste are packed with essential nutrients that will keep you healthy!
One of the best things I love about this particular recipe is the tips that Karielyn gives to make cooking them easier. The tips are worth the read on their own.
The texture of the crackers lend themselves to be used as both a dipper, or you can use them to add extra crunch to your favourite salads.
Recipe by: Southern Plate If ever someone asks me why do I have a food dehydrator, my response is “Have you ever eaten Spiced Tomato Chips?”. These are those treats that you come by every now and again that make you say “Wow!”.
Dehydrating the moisture out of foods really concentrates the flavor. It seems to be more evident with tomatoes, especially when they are flavored with basil and sea salt.
For anyone that has a vegetable garden, you will love this alternative to freezing or canning your harvest, as it is easier and takes up less space.
There are some excellent additions to this recipe that are discussed in the ‘comments’ section beneath the recipe that is worth checking out.
Recipe by: Apron Strings Blog
I completely agree with Anne (Apronstringsblog.com) that most of the store bought kale chips are crumbled flakes or seasoning. They leave me so….thirsty.
These are super yum! Something about how the nutritional yeast and garlic cooks into the broccoli, so delicious. If you have ever made kale chips and are looking for another healthy alternative to add to the mix, you will love this recipe.
I used my Tribest Food Dehydrator to make these. Note: They do take a long time, about 24 hours. They are well worth it.
The Apron Strings Blog is definitely worth checking out; they have a tonne of excellent recipes for vegans.
Recipe by: Joyful Abode
“A Real Food Rainbow” I don’t know who coined that term, but I love it! One of the best ideas that I’ve seen in a long time. The reason that I like it so much is that the kids can help preparing and because they are so involved they love to eat them too.
In my personal recipe book, I am going to file this under ‘guilt-free,' ‘child-friendly’ and ‘wonderfully vegan.'
A perfect food dehydrator recipe for when a particular fruit is in harvest, and you have some extra coconut butter around.
Have you got any recipes that need to be on this list? Given any of the above a try? How did it work out? Let us know in the comments!Authorities in Frankfurt are investigating two people who claimed to have witnessed mass sexual assaults on New Year’s Eve saying the pair may have been making up the attacks.
Frankfurt prosecutors announced the beginning of an investigation into 27-year-old Irina A. and a local chef named Jan May who claimed a group of 50 Arab men terrorised his customers and sexually assaulted women. The pair gave their account of the events to the German tabloid Bild, but police have cast serious doubts on the authenticity of their story, Frankfurter Rundschau reports.
According to Mr. May, the group of 50 men came into his restaurant terrorising his guests, stealing their jackets, and sexually assaulting several female patrons. The story was backed up by the 27-year-old woman who told the paper, “They grabbed me under my skirt, between the legs and on my breast – everywhere.”
Police say the story didn’t add up after they discovered the women in question was not in Frankfurt on New Year’s Eve and so could not have experienced any type of sexual assault.
They also noted that before the Bild article had been published they had not received any criminal complaints regarding mass sexual assaults saying, “Masses of refugees were not responsible for any sexual assaults in the Fressgass over New Year. The accusations are completely baseless.”
“Interviews with alleged witnesses, guests, and employees led to major doubts with the version of events that had been presented,” police said.
“One of the alleged victims was not even in Frankfurt at the time the allegations are said to have taken place,” they added.
Editor in Chief of Bild, Julian Reichelt, has apologised for the article and the newspaper has removed it from their website. On Twitter, Mr. Reichelt wrote there would be “consequences” as a result of the article.
Entschuldigung in eigener Sache. Ich werde zeitnah mitteilen, welche Konsequenzen @BILD daraus zieht. https://t.co/nbyExKc2NO — Julian Reichelt (@jreichelt) February 14, 2017
This is not the first time German media have been fooled by the so-called “fake news” phenomena. Last year in Berlin, a group of pro-migrant activists called “Moabit Helps” claimed a migrant had frozen to death waiting for benefits. The story was widely reported across German media, but when no dead migrant was found and the sole witness went into hiding, the story was proved to be a hoax.
In Austria, a young Muslim girl claimed she had been attacked at a train station by people who had torn off her hijab and tried to throw her onto the train tracks. After police looked at the footage they saw the girl walk onto a train with no violence occurring at all and launched an investigation claiming she lied to police.Pranksters struck the Jack in the Box at 2130 North Post Road. (Photo: Fox59)
A bizarre prank intended to get the best of fast food workers targeted an east side Indianapolis restaurant.
According to a report from the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, someone called the Jack in the Box at 2130 North Post Road and said employees needed to do a safety inspection late Sunday night, Fox59 said.
The caller, who posed as a public safety official, then instructed an employee to rip the fire extinguisher out and break a window because there was a gas leak at the location. The worker followed the instructions, the report said, and broke a window.
She later realized it was a prank.
The prank has targeted several fast food locations around the country. It works like this: someone posing as public safety officials calls to tell employees they have a gas leak; the caller then informs them the store could explode if they don’t relieve pressure by breaking windows.
At a suburban Minneapolis Burger King on Friday, employees ran out to their cars to get tire irons so they could break the windows. At least 20 windows were shattered in that case, police said. Similar incidents have been reported in other states.
This story originally appeared at Fox59.com.
Read or Share this story: http://indy.st/1N61UL2It seems like every year it happens with nearly every NHL team. The team is 90 per cent pencilled in, and has a projected blue chip prospect set to step forward. But then it happens. A rookie whose time is right, comes out of nowhere, makes a good impression in camp, produces in pre-season games, and low and behold, grabs himself a roster spot. PHOTO CREDIT - Bruce Bennett/Getty Images Winnipeg - August 28, 2014 - It seems like every year it happens with nearly every NHL team. The team is 90% penciled in, and has a projected blue chip prospect set to step forward. But then it happens. A rookie whose time is right, comes out of nowhere, makes a good impression in camp, produces in pre-season games, and low and behold, grabs himself a roster spot.
The question is, will it happen with this season’s version of the Winnipeg Jets? Tough to say. Most of the Jet’s prospects are meat and potatoes style, but it’s happened recently (see Jacob Trouba) and there are some up and comers this year that could surprise. Here's a look at my top three.
Adam Lowry: Former standout with the Swift Current Broncos, Lowry had a better than solid rookie season with the Jet’s minor league affiliate in St. John’s, scoring 33 points in 64 games including 17 goals. Lowry already has NHL size to go with a decent skill set. And, with good NHL bloodlines (son of former NHLer Dave Lowry) he likely knows what it takes to make it as a pro.
But is he ready to make the big step, and make an impact? It’s possible, but not likely. Adam took a big step in production between his third and fourth years in the WHL, but the AHL is much harder, and the NHL... the best league in the world. I think it’s likely he will get a decent number of games in the NHL, but doubtful he will get enough to make an impact.
Nic Petan: The diminutive offensive dynamo for Portland represents a lot of what the Jets need: elite skill. But in Petan's case, that comes at a price, with reference to his below average stature. Nonetheless, he has the touch and with back to back 100 plus point seasons, there's not a lot he can accomplish at this level.
The bigger question is, can he do it at the NHL level, and can he do it now? On most teams the answer would be an immediate no, however, the Jets are definitely one of the bigger teams in the NHL, so, if you put Petan on a line with big Buff and a size-able D, could that not make enough space for Petan to work his magic? Why not? In the right context there is still room for a smallish player, so long as he has the support of a bigger cast.
Josh Morrisey: There's no question Morrisey is an elite talent. Many top prospects put up their numbers surrounded by a stellar supporting staff. Morrisey has not been so fortunate. Playing on a team where the only other elite talent was Edmonton Oiler's first rounder Leon Draisaitl, Morrisey earned his stats. And to Morrisey's credit, his stats are impressive.
He put up 73 points in only 59 games, quite an achievement. He only saw one game with the Ice Caps when the Raiders were knocked out of the playoffs, but he looks to have all the talent he needs to develop into a top flight offensive NHL defenseman. Unfortunately, he does still have some physical maturing to do. He's presently listed at less than 200 lbs., and that's not quite NHL D size. An exceptional talent nonetheless, who knows?
It's normally at this point where I hail the most recent draft pick, first rounder Nick Ehlers as the second coming and the one to come out of nowhere to grab a roster spot, but I'm not going to do that. Ehlers is a great talent but he needs more time in junior, as do over 97% of all first round picks. So if not Ehlers, who will be the guy this year?
There's no clear cut leader out of the Jets prospects but I'm going to say Petan has the best shot. Why? It's not because he is the best talent (that would be Morrisey) or the most physically mature (see Lowry) but the position he holds presents the most opportunity. Petan is a centre but its common for young centres to start on the wing, and the Jets are crying for elite scoring on the wing. So that's my prediction, Petan will be this year's training camp surprise, and if I'm wrong, oh well, I'm sure that's happened at least once before.London Welsh will play in the Premiership after winning their appeal against a Rugby Football Union ruling barring them from England's top flight.
Last month, the RFU ruled the Exiles had not achieved the criteria needed to earn promotion from the Championship.
The appeal panel agreed with the club's argument that the criteria itself contravened EU and UK competition laws.
Newcastle Falcons will now be relegated to the Championship after finishing bottom of the Premiership last season.
London Welsh learned that they would be barred from the Premiership on the day of the first leg of their Championship play-off final but it did not deter them from going on to a 66-41 aggregate victory.
London Welsh timeline 14 May - The Exiles insist they will pass the RFU's eligibility test to play in the Premiership if they win promotion.
16 May - They announce plans to play at Oxford United's Kassam Stadium if they go up.
23 May - RFU deems that London Welsh will not be eligible for promotion after failing to meet their Minimum Standards Criteria (MSC). That does not prevent the Exiles beating Cornish Pirates 37-21 in the first leg of the Championship final in Cornwall.
24 May - Exiles chairman Bleddyn Phillips says they are considering taking legal action to allow them to play in the Premiership.
30 May - Welsh beat Pirates 29-20 in the second leg of the Championship final to secure a 66-41 aggregate victory.
31 May - Phillips confirms that the club will appeal against the RFU's decision to deny them promotion.
19 June - Exiles learn that their appeal hearing has been put back to 28 June.
29 June - Appeal panel rules that the RFU's MSC contravenes EU and UK competition law and finds in favour of Welsh, who will play in the Premiership at Newcastle's expense.
The club then announced it would appeal against the RFU's ruling that stipulated that Welsh had not qualified for promotion because they did not have primacy of tenure at Oxford's Kassam Stadium - where they intend to play their home fixtures.
That point was upheld by the panel, and indeed conceded by Welsh at the appeal, but the issue of competition law was decreed to be of greater significance.
The ruling prompted the RFU's chief executive officer Ian Ritchie to announce a review of how clubs are judged for promotion to the Premiership.
"We will now instigate a full review of the minimum standards criteria, working within the Professional Game Board, with the aim of ensuring all stakeholders are agreed on the process going forward," he said.
Media playback is not supported on this device Lyn Jones joy at Welsh promotion
"The RFU considers this matter closed which will now enable all clubs to continue their planning for the 2012-13 season."
In a statement, London Welsh added: "The fundamental strength of our case was based not only on overwhelming legal merits, including
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about the state of our nation in the reign of the first Marxist to be elected President of the United States.
However I come here not to bury Obama, but to ignore him. We have more important things to discuss.
George Will penned (okay, he probably typed it) a column last week pointing out the fact that the Affordable Care Act might well be repealed by an action involving the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. I wouldn’t say it’s a strong chance or a likely one, but it is a chance, unlike the chance that John Boehner or Mitch McConnell would have the courage to repeal it in the next Congress.
The courage to capitulate seems to be all the courage possessed by our Congressional leadership these days. This is why the stories are pouring out of the media about how “impossible” repeal will be now that millions would be effected. This is why the Consultants of Capitulation are flogging the idea that it would be crazy to try and repeal Obamacare now. After all, the headlines almost write themselves: “GOP to Poor on Obamacare: Drop Dead.”
How shocked are you that this would happen? That’s what I thought; another shockyawn! in the age of Obama.
We are stuck with leadership that won’t lead, and a rank-and-file that cannot seem to replace them. We are also stuck with a beltway mentality that major undertakings are not possible unless they are couched in terms of helping the poor. And so we are stuck with legislation the creates more poor that need help. It’s time to shock the establishment back to life, and let them know we want repeal, and only repeal of this unconstitutional restriction on our liberty.
When they tell you, “Millions will be affected!”, you reply as Andrew Breitbart would; just one word: “So?”
We know millions would be affected. In fact, most Americans would benefit from repeal. Do we hold them hostage to the few who actually benefit from the destruction of our healthcare system? No. No we do not.
While the Administration seeks to distract you with the childishly stupid superstition of man-caused global warming (excellent word choice, Dr. Krauthammer), and while we are watching Benghazi investigations snail their way forward, you can be sure that the war on liberty involving Obamacare is in full swing in the media and among the DC Elites.
If Congress can no longer find its courage, we are going to be forced to incorporate the repeal as part of the Liberty Amendments that will be discussed at the Convention of States. Now more than ever, this convention MUST happen.
We will have to contend with the naysayers of both kinds among us: those who are afraid of repeal, and those who are afraid of Restoration. The way to do it is by educating them. Unfortunately, many are resistant to facts, so you will have to be persistent and learn to ignore them when they adamantly stand on the side of ignorance.
As Rob Natelson has written, repeal of the Seventeenth amendment is also going to be a major challenge. People are going to insist that popular election of Senators represents more liberty, not less. We have the same problem with getting rid of the Sixteenth Amendment allowing taxation of income. All such efforts at repeal are met with demands that a replacement “solution” is required. Repeal and Replace becomes the mantra, encouraging growth of government, not reduction.
These battles are going to be long, slow, and tedious. But we must rediscover our national manhood (and believe me, conservative women are telling you this, more than most men will), and we must not stop fighting against these job-killing, racism-promoting, divisive, class-warfare-inciting infringements on our liberty.
When it comes to finding your manhood, I’ll let The Duke explain in this great scene from The Train Robbers
I’ve been forced by time constraints to lay off the ArticleFiveProcess website for the first quarter of this year. But in a week or two I’ll be ramping it up, and revising the way data is reported. It’s still alive, it’s just restin’.
Continue contacting your state representatives. Ignore the cranks who think everything will be just fine if we elect more conservatives. We either make the Constitution work, or prepare for the inevitable violence to come (the world is showing this to be obvious, every single day). Get up one more time than you’re knocked down. That’s all that matters.
Recent Articles in the Liberty Amendments series:
Discussion #24 – Can we really do this?
Discussion #23 – Because the Internet, that’s why
Discussion #22 – Just the Video
Discussion #21 – Frequently Asked Questions
The first Article in the Liberty Amendments series:
Discussion #1: Zombie Doctrine, Tactics, and the Liberty Amendments
Recent Articles in The Amnesty Papers series:
Article #4: Haste, Crisis, and Reality
Article #3: Take it Away, Steve
Article #1: Take Back the Language
Article #1 – Amnesty: What Does It MeanHere is a detailed breakdown of the release dates for the next edition of Street Fighter IV!
Ultra Street Fighter IV will initially hit consoles on June 3, 2014 on PlayStation 3 and June 4, 2014 on Xbox 360 through their respected digital marketplaces PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Marketplace respectively. This version will be for users who own Super Street Fighter IV or Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition and will cost $14.99 USD. The full game release on consoles, both digital and physical, will arrive at Aug. 5, 2014 for $39.99.
On the 360 end, Xbox Live Gold members can save money by downloading SSFIVAE for free as part of their Games For Gold package, allowing players to needing only to buy Ultra.
Owners of SSFIVAE on PC can upgrade for $14.99 on Aug. 8, 2014 with new features including Steamworks online functionality. The full version will also come out on the same date for $29.99.
If you pre-order Ultra, you will gain access to the bonus outfits for the new characters Rolento, Hugo, Poison, Decapre and Elena. Stay tuned for more information on how to pre-order! Check out the trailer featuring the outfits after the jump! Check out some of the character breakdown videos on Capcom Fighters' YouTube channel!Despite all the free-agent hoopla this summer, with trips to mountain retreats and breathless Twitter updates coming at all hours, the Detroit Pistons’ acquisition of Italian League MVP Luigi Datome has gone largely unnoticed. Signing for just $3.5 million over two years, Datome’s arrival certainly didn’t merit attention on the scale of Dwight Howard landing in Houston, but he could be an impactful signing all the same.
The 6-foot-8 forward spent his last few seasons in Italy with Virtus Roma, establishing himself as an elite marksman from the perimeter. In 48 games with Roma, Datome shot 51.5 percent from the field, 39.4 percent from behind the arc, and 92.6 percent from the line, just 0.6 percent away from the hallowed 50-40-90 club. He was such a proficient outside shooter that he actually led his team in scoring despite not being a traditional ball-dominating wing. The majority of Datome’s scoring opportunities came from spotting up or attacking off screens. Those types of plays made up just a shade less than 43 percent of all his possessions combined, according to Synergy Sports.
When the Pistons signed Datome, they were under no illusions. This was not the next Manu Ginobili or Dirk Nowitzki. They knew that Datome possesses one clearly translatable NBA skill: He can knock down shots. In unguarded catch-and-shoot situations, Datome converted exactly half of his 60 attempts for a ridiculous adjusted field goal percentage of 72.5 percent (before you say that pros should always shoot that well on open shots, trust me, it’s not that easy). Those open looks that were rather scarce in an Italian league where Datome was a marked man will be much more frequent as a secondary player in the NBA, at least until he proves to opposing teams that he’s a player who can’t be left alone outside the arc. In a league where aggressive defensive schemes are driving the constant one-on-one isolation play that dominated the 1990s into extinction, Datome should prove to be capable of handling the rigors of a higher level of competition, and could wind up being an extremely valuable role player.
In order to give their star players more space to operate without being harassed by multiple help defenders, NBA teams have begun to place an even greater emphasis on shooting. Guys that play hard or volume scorers capable of creating their own offense are far less appealing these days in comparison with players who do nothing but knock down shots — either spotting up along the perimeter or off screens. If Datome succeeds, he’ll do so at a bargain price, at least for the next two seasons. Here is how Datome’s contract compares to deals signed by players with (theoretically) similar skill sets over the past two summers.
Of all the players on that list, Datome’s closest comparison would be Chicago’s Mike Dunleavy Jr., as both wings subsist on a diet of screens off the ball and spot up opportunities. Yet Dunleavy Jr., because he has proven his NBA worthiness for more than a decade, will make near double what Datome will during the next two seasons. Given the league’s harsher economic climate ushered in by stiffer luxury tax penalties in the new CBA, those dollars matter to owners — especially to a team like Chicago that avoids the tax like the plague.
If you’re an NBA-caliber perimeter marksman right now, you’re in demand. And it’s a seller’s market. As teams across the league place more emphasis on shooting, the contracts for shooters go up into the range of those middle-class salaries that teams like, say, the Rockets avoid. Houston’s progressive front office has shown that you can find effective role players in the second round of the draft (Chandler Parsons, Chase Budinger), by digging around the free-agent scrap heap, or looking to Europe and beyond (Patrick Beverley).
Other teams are clearly coming around to this way of thinking. What Datome signifies is that teams, even those with questionable decision-makers like Joe Dumars, are open to the volatility that comes with that third option.
That is why the Italian forward’s impact this season is something both executives and fans will keep a close eye on. If Datome proves capable of translating his game to the NBA, he will embolden teams across the league to closely monitor Europe for players capable of bringing over similar skills. Good teams that are just a knockdown shooter away from contention will then have a viable method of bringing in talent that would otherwise cost them, in the case of Martell Webster, about three times as much as Datome will rake in this season.
For a long time the NBA’s middle class has reaped the financial benefits with minimal return. But the economic climate will likely curb the way they are compensated, and this Italian import could be the start. If Datome proves worthy of an NBA roster spot, the next batch of free-agent shooters — players like Quincy Pondexter in Memphis — could see their earning potential take a hit because NBA teams have begun looking elsewhere for equivalent talent that can do the same work for far less. If you weren’t paying attention to Datome before, you might want to now. He may turn out to be a bigger deal than you think.NSW election 2015: Polls suggest Mike Baird's Coalition to defeat Luke Foley's ALP with reduced majority
Updated
Premier Mike Baird's Coalition government is set to survive a swing against it and hang on to several key seats to return to power after Saturday's New South Wales election, two polls suggest.
An Ipsos poll published in Fairfax newspapers showed the Coalition ahead of Labor 54 per cent to 46 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis.
The result represented a 10 per cent swing against the Government since the 2011 election.
Fairfax reported the poll results showed the Coalition could lose 18 seats under redrawn electorate boundaries, retaining 51 seats compared to Labor's 38.
Mr Baird led Opposition Leader Luke Foley as preferred premier 56 per cent to 27 per cent.
A Galaxy poll, published in News Corporation newspapers, indicated Mr Baird was likely to hang on to the marginal seats of Campbelltown, Coogee and The Entrance.
That poll also put the Coalition ahead of Labor 54 per cent to 46 per cent after preferences.
News Corporation reported the polls suggested the Government could retain all its seats except 10.
Mr Foley said he had always believed winning the election would be difficult.
"I've always said this is a big mountain to climb but I'm in this race to win it," he told 702 ABC Sydney.
"There's some very important issues at stake in this election, not the least of which is the future of the state's electricity network."
In an interview for the ABC'S AM program, Mr Baird said he was not concerned about the impact of federal issues on the state election, despite Mr Foley's attempts to link Mr Baird's re-election with Tony Abbott's survival as Prime Minister.
"Obviously the Federal Government has gone through some difficult times, but this election is about our record and where we want to take the state," Mr Baird said.
"I see the Leader of the Opposition is out there this week and, in an increasingly desperate way, wanting to say he's going to organise partyroom votes in the Coalition in Canberra after this election.
"The Opposition might like to talk about it, but they're not understanding that the people in the street understand that this is about state issues and where we want to take them."
The polls follow an ABC Vote Compass survey that indicated Mr Baird was more popular than any leader in the country's three most recent elections.
Topics: elections, states-and-territories, polls, nsw
First postedThe breast implants removed from Paola Deyanira Sabillon were found to contain 3.3 pounds of liquid cocaine. ITN video screenshot
BOGOTA, June 22 (UPI) -- Authorities in Colombia said a woman was arrested at an airport in the capital when her breast implants were found to contain 3.3 pounds of liquid cocaine.
Authorities said Paola Deyanira Sabillon, 22, drew the attention of security staff at El Dorado International Airport when she appeared nervous in line and X-rays determined she had recently undergone surgery on her breasts.
Sabillon, who is from Honduras and was preparing to fly to Spain, told investigators she received breast implants filled with an unknown substance she had been hired to transport.
The implants were removed at a Bogota hospital and Sabillon was treated for an infection stemming from the original surgery, which is believed to have taken place at a clinic in Pereira, Colombia.
The substance inside the implants was determined to be cocaine, authorities said.
Sabillon was hospitalized for five days before being released into police custody.Christopher Hodgkinson - partner of Natasha Harris whose death in 2010 was linked to excessive coca-cola consumption - has been making ''angry'' calls to the company. He is pictured here giving evidence at Harris' coroner's inquest in 2012.
Coca-Cola staff in Invercargill are understood to be on alert after angry phone calls were made to the company by a man whose partner's death was linked to excessive coke consumption in 2010.
Christopher Hodgkinson, the partner of 30-year-old Natasha Harris who drank up to 8 litres of coke a day for several years before she died in 2010, said he made several calls to the company one day last week.
Hodgkinson blames Coca-Cola for his partner's death, and said he had asked the company to help him get his eight children back in the phone calls.
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
* Coca-Cola addiction linked to death
* Woman drank up to eight litres of Coke a day
He had been living with Harris and their children prior to her death but lost custody in the months afterwards, he said.
He had been given the "royal run around " by Coca-Cola on the phone and had been angry, but had not threatened anyone in the calls, he said.
It is understood the fizzy drink giant has subsequently sent photos of Hodgkinson to its southern staff so they know what he looks like and can keep alert.
A Coca-Cola spokesman said the company was absolutely committed to keeping its people safe and would implement whatever measures were necessary to protect its people.
"Regarding the specifics of your inquiry, we will be making no further comment."
When police were asked if Coca-Cola had lodged a complaint about Hodgkinson, a spokesman said: "Police are aware of allegations that threatening phone calls were recently made to a group of people in a call centre. Police are making inquiries into the matter."
The incident comes four years after Hodgkinson rebutted Coca-Cola claims he had made death threats against its Invercargill staff.
In 2011, Coca-Cola Amatil New Zealand managing director George Adams said the company had employed a security firm to shadow its Invercargill staff after a threat was made against them.
Staff had also been asked to wear plain-clothes to work and were travelling in unmarked vehicles.
At that time, Hodgkinson said he had called Coca-Cola and got "anti" at them several times but had never made threats.
The problem was not staff but the product, he said in 2011.
In 2013, Otago-Southland Coroner David Crerar linked Harris' high coke consumption to her death.
"I find that, when all of the available evidence is considered, were it not for the consumption of very large quantities of Coke by Natasha Harris, it is unlikely that she would have died when she died and how she died," the coroner found.
Coca-Cola argued the huge quantities of Coke she drank could not be proven to have contributed to her death.
Hodgkinson said on Thursday he had "let things lie for a while", before contacting Coca-Cola again last week.
He rang the company in Auckland multiple times in one day asking to help him get his kids back, he said.
His life has been rocky since his partner died in 2010.
He had been involved in an incident which resulted in him doing jail time for a home invasion offence before being released in October, he said.
"I have done a few years' jail and had a lot of deep s... to deal with over the death of my partner. I have lost all my kids. I am trying to get back on my feet."
Assistance from Coca-Cola would allow him to get into a big house which he believed would help him get his kids back.
"I have nothing and the company is still out there making money from a product that has devastated the lives of us nine."SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — A new report on the tour bus crash in San Francisco’s Union Square that left twenty people injured shows that the company operating the bus had an unfavorable safety record, and had hired unqualified drivers.
After the CHP inspected the entire City Sightseeing fleet, more than 20-percent of the company’s buses were pulled out of service.
Other problems included emergency exits on two buses that didn’t work, and two buses that had broken wheel fasteners. One bus had a leaky fuel tank, and another bus had passenger seats that weren’t properly secured to the floor boards.
The attorney for the bus driver involved in the crash says he isn’t surprised by the CHP’s report.
“There are lots of laws that are in place to protect the public. Unfortunately, we have to depend upon these companies to self-regulate and follow the law and to take their busses in and properly license them, properly inspect them, get the CHP inspections done each year, all of the drivers properly licensed and trained – follow the rules regarding how many hours they drive. This is all routinely violated and we have to depend upon the honesty of these tour operators,” Attorney Robert Cartwright said.By, 35
BOSTON, Mass. -- There’s no question that the ARM Cortex-M7 -- with its robust memory and processing power -- extends the capabilities of the microcontroller in ways that would have been unimaginable even a few years ago. Significant is the fact that the processor is positioned to become a core building block in the Internet of Things (IoT).
To wit, ST Micro’s STM32 F7 won best-of-show at ARM TechCon in September. It's the first 32-bit MCU family to feature the ARM Cortex-M7 core and has 320KB of SRAM and 1024KB of flash. Atmel’s Cortex-M7 parts, not yet announced, are expected to have on the order of 384KB of SRAM and 2MBs of flash. That’s ten times more than for the typical MCU.
But, whether the Cortex-M7 has the necessary resources to “get the job done” depends an awful lot on who you ask. What is telling in itself: the giant hairball of decisions and trade-offs in hardware, software, and systems that today’s embedded developers say they wrestle with in a design space that seems almost unconstrained at times.
“For developers coming from Windows, Linux, IOS, Web service programming, and business logic programming, the Cortex-M7 is constraining and stifling. But, for the developer who has worked on 8051, any 8-bit micro, or Cortex-M0 through M3 parts, will view the Cortex-M7 as absolutely massive,” said Matt Liberty, founder of Jetperch LLC, which provides DSP and embedded software consulting services.
A real-time I/O processing powerhouse
“It’s a real-time I/O processing powerhouse. In fact, bare-metal executor loop programming, which runs on target hardware without an operating system and is efficient, simple to understand and easy to debug for small embedded programs like those written for many 8-bit microcontrollers, will likely fail to use this much processing and memory.”
In the case of the IoT, the adoption of a real-time operating system (RTOS) becomes critical, Liberty stressed, in order to manage the complexity of networking and the multitude of peripherals efficiently. But, the number of RTOS's has exploded over the last several years as the community struggles to find the right approach, and selecting the "best" RTOS has become a major challenge for developers.
“A quick glance at Wikipedia's "List of real-time operating systems" is enough to give an embedded software engineer nightmares,” stressed Liberty. “Although C and C++ will remain commonplace, both languages are lacking when considering multi-threading, safety, and security. Languages like D and Rust have the potential to fill the gap, but neither is ready today for embedded applications.”
Frank Hunleth, an embedded software developer who specializes in video processing and embedded Linux, agreed that the industry needs to prove out the use of higher-level languages on these platforms and help define their libraries.
“I’m sure that if I use an M7 on a project in the next year that I’ll still be using C or C++ on it, because that’s what most tools and libraries support,” he said. “Do I want it to stay that way? No, because we’re missing out on things like static-checked memory safety like you get from Rust, ease of development from Python, and the fault tolerance and concurrency of Erlang and Elixir.”
Coming up short
Others view the M7’s memory as coming up short for the Internet of Things, even with features intended to make the most of it, like ST’s Adaptive Real-Time Accelerator for internal embedded Flash and L1 cache for both execution and data access from internal and external memories.
“It’s a lot of memory and storage for a micro-controller. But, with even the smallest of Java VMs [an environment that interprets Java byte code, allowing the processor to perform the program’s instructions] requiring at least 2MBs to run, we’re not likely to see Java or any other VM-based platform running on these small CPU cores anytime soon,” said Michael Anderson, CTO and chief scientist for the PTR Group. “If you add a communications stack and an executive or an RTOS like ARM’s mbed, Micrium’s μC/OS-III, or FreeRTOS, your program space starts to look pretty small.”
Anderson emphasized that the lifeblood of many of these new IoT applications will be memory utilization. “Memory is precious. Encapsulating APIs inside of class libraries, while it may be good in the general-purpose computer, eats memory. There are few in the computing industry that are not aware of the memory bloat our code has acquired over the years. If we don’t think hard about what we’re developing and continue writing code the way many of us have become accustomed to when we have gobs of RAM, we’ll never be able to enable all of the exciting new possibilities for the IoT that use these tiny memory footprint microcontrollers.” (Article continued on page 2)Laura Pedrick for The New York Times
Donald Garner Jr. was at his auto-salvage lot shooting the breeze last year when a customer mentioned that her nine-year-old twin sons had just gotten back from computer camp. Great skill to have, said Mr. Garner, who went on to complain about how much he was going to have to pay a pro to build a decent Web site. Why not ask her boys to do it? the customer asked. He could pay them whatever he thought the results were worth. He thought about it. Why not? he replied.
Mr. Garner had to suppress a laugh when the boys showed up the next day with clipboards and serious looks. But he dutifully gave them a rough idea of what he had in mind, and then waved goodbye without particularly high expectations. A month later, he was stunned and delighted when they delivered exactly the sort of site he had had in mind. He dashed off a check for $2,000, but the boys would accept only $700. “They did a beautiful job — just superb,” Mr. Garner said. (Take a look.)
It’s really not surprising that some businesses are getting a technology assist from, well, children. They are way ahead of the rest of us on much of this stuff, having cut their teeth on it at home and at school. And they’re thrilled to work for wages that a pro would sneer at at — music to the ear of the cash-flow-conscious business owner.
Should you trust a teenager to develop a Web site? Sure, if you can afford to write the whole thing off if the kid messes it up or simply loses interest, a common hazard when employing the young. If you’re under time pressure, if the site is mission-critical, if you want customers to conduct complex transactions via the site, if you’re in a sophisticated business that calls for a slick, dynamic Web presence, if you have serious data security needs, forget about it. Bite the bullet and spend the $5,000 or $20,000 or more that it takes to get a higher-shelf site.
Obviously that doesn’t describe Donald Garner Jr.’s situation, and in fact most small businesses probably can afford to take a flier on a youngster who shows some Web-design skill. Some of these kids can produce great Web sites, said Pete Ingram-Cauchi, chief executive of iD Tech Camps, which operates computer camps all over the country — including the one attended by Ross and Scott Padalino, the boys who developed Mr. Garner’s site. “There are 13-year-olds who are just amazing programmers now,” Mr. Ingram-Cauchi said. “They can put together Web sites that are fully up to professional standards, including embedded flash animation and video.” The Padalino twins certainly seem to think Web site development is kid stuff. “The hardest part was interviewing Donny,” said Ross. “But even that was only medium hard.”
Of course, Web site design is one thing. Can a kid help run the computers and applications that are close to the guts of your business? Maybe. When Steven Freidkin was 13, he was setting up entire networks and software systems for small businesses at bargain-basement prices. But today, as a grizzled 26-year-old who runs a successful I.T. firm called Ntiva in McLean, Va., Mr. Freidkin looks back on his early work and wonders if it was a good idea. “There’s a pretty good chance with a kid you’ll end up having the systems fail at some point, you’ll lose data, and you’ll have a professional come in to clean up the mess for far more than you would have paid to have him come in in the first place,” he said. “I can tell you about 30 examples from this year alone where I had to fix that sort of situation.”
But Mr. Friedkin points out there’s a way to have your cake and eat it, too: If you know of a teenager who seems to have the technical chops to handle a significant I.T. job, fine, but hire a pro to supervise. He has provided that sort of supervisory service to a number of customers who brought in kids to help with I.T., and he says it often allows the customer to save some money without much risk of something going wrong. He himself makes a point of hiring interns in their early teens — they remind him of himself at that age — and puts them on customer projects but only after training and under the watchful eye of a more experienced staffer. And even then he doesn’t charge the customer for the kid’s time. Mr. Friedkin’s last-ditch advice to anyone who insists on placing an important I.T. project in the hands of an unsupervised youngster: First, hire the teen to set up and maintain your home network and then try him out on a less-important business project.
But don’t bother trying to hire the Padalino boys. They’re 10 years old now, and they’ve already got a waiting list of companies that they’re not getting through any time soon. “We’ve got a lot of homework, we play soccer, and we develop games for our own computer,” Scott said.
On the other hand, if you’re looking to invest in a computer-game development firm …
You can follow David H. Freedman on Twitter.CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — On the day after two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev tapped out an early-afternoon text message to a classmate at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. Want to hang out? he queried. Sure, his friend replied.
In Boston, the police and the F.B.I. were mounting investigations that would end three days later with Mr. Tsarnaev’s capture and his brother’s death. But on that Tuesday afternoon, he lounged in his friend’s apartment for a couple of hours, trying to best him in FIFA Soccer on a PlayStation. That night, he worked out at a campus gym.
On Thursday afternoon, he ate with friends at a dormitory grill. By early Friday, he was the target of the largest dragnet in Massachusetts history.
To even his closest friends, Mr. Tsarnaev was a smart, athletic 19-year-old with a barbed wit and a laid-back demeanor, fond of soccer and parties, all too fond of marijuana. They seldom, if ever, saw his second, almost watertight life: his disintegrating family, his overbearing brother, the gathering blackness in his most private moments.Syracuse, N.Y. — Time Warner Cable is raising its cable television and Internet service prices and imposing a new fee for retransmitting broadcast stations that customers can get free over the air.
The media giant said the higher rates will increase the average customer's bill 6.4 percent. It attributed the increase in part to rising rates that television networks and programming providers are charging Time Warner for the right to carry their channels on its cable system.
"We work our hardest to control these costs on your behalf, but the price of programming is increasing dramatically," the company said in a notice to customers.
Another factor is the cost to maintain and grow its network, the company said. Time Warner spokeswoman Joli Plucknette-Farmen said the company invested $227 million in its network across the Northeast in 2013.
The company's standard television service, which includes about 80 mostly standard-definition channels, will rise from $79.99 to $82.99 a month. Digital television service, which includes more than 200 channels, many in high-definition, will increase from $88.98 to $92.99.
In addition, the cost of renting a cable converter box, which is needed to receive the company's digital television service, will rise from $8.99 to $10.25 a month for the first box and from $6.20 to $7.45 for each additional box.
For the first time, customers will be charged what Time Warner is calling a "broadcast TV fee" of $2.25 a month. The company said the fee will defray the increased costs that broadcasters charge Time Warner to retransmit their over-the-air signals.
Plucknette-Farmen said broadcasters used to charge nothing for the right to transmit their over-the-air signals. However, in recent years, they have begun charging retransmission fees, and those costs rose 40 percent last year, she said.
"This will give customers a better understanding of what we're being charged," she said.
Programming from local broadcast stations can be received free with an indoor or outdoor antenna. However, Time Warner customers will not have the choice of dropping broadcast channels from their cable service to avoid the broadcast TV fee. Plucknette-Farmen said federal law requires the company to include local broadcast stations in its service.
The company also is adding $3 to the monthly fee for all of its Internet services. The price of its standard broadband service, its most popular, is rising from $54.99 to $57.99 a month.
Plucknette-Farmen said the 70 percent of Time Warner's customers who are receiving a promotional discount will be charged the higher service and equipment rates after their promotional periods ends. For everyone else, the new rates will show up on their next bills, she said.
Time Warner Cable Price Increase Notice
Contact Rick Moriarty at [email protected] or (315) 470-3148. Follow him on Twitter @RickMoriartyCNY and on Facebook at rick.moriarty.92.Richard Karn Wilson (born February 17, 1956) is an American actor and former game show host. He is best known for his co-starring role as Al Borland in the 1990s sitcom Home Improvement and his tenure as the fourth host of Family Feud from 2002 to 2006.
Early life [ edit ]
Karn was born Richard Karn Wilson in Seattle, Washington. His father Gene was a Seabee who served in World War II. Richard graduated from Roosevelt High School and the University of Washington,[1] where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi. Karn also gained drama experience in Scotland at the Edinburgh Festival.[citation needed]
After earning his drama degree in 1979, Karn moved to New York City, where in less than one week he was hired to do a commercial for Michelob beer that was featured during Super Bowl XIV. When he joined the Screen Actors Guild, he was informed there was already a Richard Wilson, prompting him to drop his last name.[2]
Show business career [ edit ]
In 1989, his wife Tudi convinced him to move to Los Angeles. He found a place for them to live by managing an apartment complex, catering events at a Jewish synagogue on the side.[citation needed] After receiving a traffic citation, Karn attended a traffic school and sat beside an agent who told him about casting for the new television show Home Improvement. The role of Al Borland had already been given to Stephen Tobolowsky, but when taping was scheduled, Tobolowsky was busy with another movie and the role had to be recast. Karn was a guest star in the pilot episode but became a regular cast member when the show was picked up by the network.[2][3]
In 2002, Karn replaced Louie Anderson as the fourth host of the game show Family Feud. Karn left Family Feud in 2006 and was replaced by John O'Hurley.[citation needed]
In 2002, Karn made an appearance in The Strokes' music video for "Someday", which featured segments of the band on a fictional showing of Family Feud against the band Guided by Voices.[citation needed]
On October 6, 2008, Karn replaced Patrick Duffy as host of Game Show Network's Bingo America.[4] Karn served as a substitute host on GSN Radio.[citation needed]
Karn did commercials for Orchard Supply Hardware in the 1990s.[citation needed]
Filmography [ edit ]
Film [ edit ]
Television [ edit ]
Books [ edit ]
House Broken: How I Remodeled My Home for Just Under Three Times the Original Bid (1999) – ISBN 0-06-105144-6 (with George Mair)
(1999) – ISBN 0-06-105144-6 (with George Mair) Handy at Home: Tips on Improving Your Home from America's Favorite Handyman (2002) – ISBN 0-312-30606-7 (with George Mair)
References [ edit ]NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil closed up on Wednesday for the first time in five days as traders took stock of the market’s rout after crude prices lost nearly 10 percent over two days and benchmark Brent fell to below $50 a barrel.
Weekly data for U.S. crude inventories showed a surprising drop last week, helping oil reverse early losses, although gasoline and distillates stocks jumped by record levels.
Oil prices were lower in early New York trade, extending their downdraft after the first negative reading in five years for euro zone inflation. They rebounded after the inventory data issued by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Brent’s front-month contract LCOc1 settled at $51.15 a barrel, up 5 cents from Tuesday’s close. It hit a session low of $49.66 in European trade, after euro zone consumer prices in December fell by more than expected.
U.S. crude CLc1 settled up 72 cents at $48.65, after rallying earlier to $49.31.
Brent’s premium to U.S. crude CL-LCO1=R narrowed to $2.50, its lowest since mid-October.
Some traders said oil markets could be at a crossroads after losing over half their value from June highs, especially after the astounding 10 percent drop in the past two days.
Others thought Wednesday’s price action was just a reprieve ahead of another leg lower.
“I would call this a dead cat bounce,” said Tariq Zahir, managing member at Tyche Capital Advisors in Laurel Hollow in New York. “Nothing’s fundamentally changed. These people that have gone trying to pick a bottom have been wrong for weeks on end.”
Slideshow (2 Images)
U.S. gasoline and distillate fuel stocks soared by the most ever last week, rising more than 19 million barrels as a global
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remains large at 53 million deaths.
We focused on heart disease but also examined all natural causes of death. In some analyses, we examined death certificates that list both heart disease and additional, secondary causes of death such as influenza; these analyses begin in 1983, the first year in which computerized death certificates listed secondary causes of death.
We fitted a locally weighted polynomial regression (LOESS) line19–21 to daily deaths from January 1, 1973, through December 31, 2001. Use of this standard nonparametric smoothing procedure has several benefits: The procedure makes minimal distributional assumptions about the data, it corrects for the influence of trends and seasonal factors on mortality, and it enables us to estimate the number of deaths that would be expected during the holiday period, given the null hypothesis that natural-cause mortality is unaffected by the Christmas/New Year’s holidays.
The LOESS procedure requires the choice of a bandwidth (roughly speaking, the span of data over which the local averaging takes place). Choosing a bandwidth that is too wide (ie, oversmoothing) would flatten the regression curve near a peak, and would consequently magnify the apparent size of any holiday spike. We proceeded conservatively, choosing a narrow bandwidth of 6 weeks, and thus undersmoothed according to conventional guidelines.19,20 This undersmoothing mitigates any bias in the estimate of excess holiday mortality. As an additional check, we reanalyzed our key findings with an exceptionally conservative bandwidth of 1 week to ensure that our findings remained statistically significant at 0.05 or better. We compared the number of deaths observed during the 2-week holiday period with the number expected under the null hypothesis: 100 × [(observed number of deaths − expected number of deaths) ÷ expected number of deaths].
For convenience, we call this statistic “the holiday effect.” A holiday effect of, for example, 5% would indicate that 5% more deaths occurred during the holiday period than would be expected if the holidays had no effect on mortality.
Following official recommendations22 and our earlier practice,23–30 we calculated standard errors31 and significance levels, even though we examined complete counts, not samples. As in our previous work,23–30 the research design allowed examination of numbers of deaths rather than death rates.
Results
In Figure 1, the solid line indicates the observed number of cardiac deaths for each day of the year, and the dotted line indicates the number of cardiac deaths predicted by the null hypothesis. Aside from the 2-week holiday period, the solid and dotted lines agree closely. For the 351 days outside the holiday period, observed and expected daily mortality levels correlate ≈0.995 (P<0.000001). Thus, our regression procedure corrects well for trends and seasonal influences and accurately predicts cardiac mortality outside the holiday period. Figure 1. Daily US cardiac deaths, 1973–2001. Solid line indicates the observed number of deaths for each day of the year, summed over the study period (eg, 49 038 total deaths occurred on July 1 for 1973+1974+ … +2001). Dotted regression line indicates the expected number of deaths for each day, given seasonal fluctuations and the null hypothesis that mortality is unaffected by the holidays. Because so many deaths are examined (≈55 000/d), the standard error for each daily count is small (≈235, or 0.4% of the daily count).22 Consequently, the observed number of deaths during the holidays is many standard errors above the number expected under the null hypothesis.
Figure 1 shows 2 distinct spikes in cardiac mortality: one around Christmas and one around New Year’s. Because so many deaths are examined (≈55 000/day), the standard error for each daily count is small (≈235, or 0.4% of the daily count).19 Consequently, the observed number of deaths during the holidays is many standard errors above the number expected under the null hypothesis.
Excess holiday mortality is evident not only when the data-years are summed, as in Figure 1, but also when each data-year is examined separately. We studied holiday mortality in 26 separate years; for 24 of the 26 years, the observed number of deaths during the holidays exceeded the number expected under the null hypothesis (P=0.00001, binomial test). Full details on each year’s holiday effect are provided in the Table.
Size of the Holiday Effect for Cardiac and Noncardiac Mortality, by Year Year Heart* Nonheart All Natural The holiday effect is calculated for the 2-week holiday period, December 25–January 7, and equals 100 × [(observed number of deaths − expected number of deaths) ÷ expected number of deaths]. The expected number of deaths is determined from the LOESS regression procedure described in the text. *Cardiac deaths are coded 390–398, 402, 404, 410–429 in ICD-8 and ICD-9 and I00–I09, I11, I13, I20–I51 in ICD-10. 1973 −0.44 0.26 −0.04 1974 1.36 1.15 1.24 1975 1.94 0.07 0.86 1976 1.90 1.18 1.48 1977 2.09 1.51 1.76 1979 0.89 −0.23 0.24 1980 5.19 3.13 4.00 1981 −0.90 −0.59 −0.73 1982 2.09 −0.07 0.83 1983 4.29 3.18 3.64 1984 1.01 0.40 0.65 1985 2.79 0.18 1.24 1986 2.25 0.58 1.25 1987 0.73 −0.63 −0.10 1988 1.48 0.27 0.74 1989 4.76 2.55 3.37 1990 2.08 0.35 0.99 1991 3.71 2.78 3.12 1992 1.84 0.56 1.02 1993 6.15 4.49 5.08 1994 3.08 1.13 1.82 1995 2.67 1.50 1.91 1996 1.85 2.37 2.20 1997 3.98 2.43 2.96 1999 6.10 5.08 5.42 2000 3.05 0.80 1.53
The percentage excess in holiday mortality has gradually increased during these 26 years. The size of the holiday effect correlates with year of death (Spearman r=0.492; P<0.02, 2-tailed test). In the latest 3 years, observed holiday mortality was 4.4% above the number expected; in the earliest 3 years, holiday mortality was only 0.95% above the number expected.
The excess in cardiac holiday mortality remains statistically significant (both on a year-by-year basis [P<0.05] and for the summed yearly data [P<0.05]) even when an exceptionally conservative bandwidth of 1 week is substituted for the 6-week bandwidth we have used. When a 1-week bandwidth is used, the LOESS regression line exhibits “wiggles,” a classic indication of a bandwidth that is too narrow (details available on request). Thus, the holiday peak, first found by Kloner et al for CHD in Los Angeles,17 is evident nationwide, not only for CHD (2.46% more deaths than expected [SE ±0.12%; 95% CI, 2.22% to 2.69%]) but also for non-CHD deaths (2.81% [SE ±0.25%; 95% CI, 2.32% to 3.30%]).
The double spike on Christmas and New Year’s is particularly striking for cardiac deaths that occur rapidly after presentation of the medical problem (ie, individuals who are dead on arrival [DOA] or die in the emergency department [ED] or as outpatients; Figure 2). For this DOA/ED/outpatient group, more cardiac deaths occur on December 25 than on any other day of the year; the second largest number of cardiac deaths occurs on December 26, and the third largest number occurs on January 1. (A more detailed examination of this double spike is provided later in Figure 6). For inpatients, no obvious double spike occurs on Christmas and New Year’s, although a dispersed spike takes place during the holiday period and just afterward (Figure 3). Figure 2. Daily US cardiac deaths, 1979–2001, for DOA/ED/outpatients. Solid line indicates the observed number of deaths for each day of the year, summed over the study period. Dotted regression line indicates the expected number of deaths for each day, given seasonal fluctuations and the null hypothesis that mortality is unaffected by the holidays. Figure 3. Daily US cardiac deaths, 1979–2001, for inpatients. Solid line indicates the observed number of deaths for each day of the year, summed over the study period. Dotted regression line indicates the expected number of deaths for each day, given seasonal fluctuations and the null hypothesis that mortality is unaffected by the holidays.
For DOA/ED/outpatients, 4.65% more cardiac deaths (±0.30%; 95% CI, 4.06% to 5.24%) occur during the holiday period than would be expected from the dotted regression line. For inpatients, this cardiac holiday peak is 1.60% (±0.21%; 95% CI, 1.19% to 2.01%). Information on nursing facility residents is available only for 1989 to 2001 (versus 1979 to 2001 for inpatients and DOA/ED/outpatients). Nursing facility residents also produce a cardiac holiday spike (3.72±0.38%; 95% CI, 2.97% to 4.46%).
Possible Explanations for the Cardiac Holiday Peak
Kloner et al17 proposed that colder temperatures cannot explain the holiday peak because daily CHD mortality correlated only weakly with daily temperatures during December and January in Los Angeles. Our data support their proposition for the following reasons: (1) The climatic hypothesis cannot easily explain the twin mortality spikes on Christmas and New Year’s. (2) The cardiac mortality peak exists after correction for seasonal fluctuations. (3) The cardiac mortality peak is slightly smaller in the northern border states (states that bordered Canada) than in the southern border states (states that bordered Mexico or the Gulf of Mexico) (2.22% versus 3.10%). The cardiac holiday effect pervades the United States, and the size of this effect varies insignificantly from region to region: northeast (2.32%; 95% CI, 1.88% to 2.75%), south (2.66%; 95% CI, 2.29% to 3.03%), midwest (2.29%; 95% CI, 1.87% to 2.72%), and west (2.86%; 95% CI, 2.32% to 3.39%).
Kloner et al proposed but did not test 4 additional explanations, which we assess below.
Respiratory diseases. Respiratory diseases increase during winter, and patients weakened by respiratory diseases can die from cardiac diseases. The respiratory hypothesis is undermined by 2 considerations: (1) People dying from cardiac diseases with respiratory disease listed as a secondary cause of death produce a smaller holiday peak than do people dying from cardiac diseases alone: 3.51% versus 3.77%. (2) Interaction between cardiac and respiratory diseases cannot easily explain the twin mortality spikes on Christmas and New Year’s.
Emotional stresses associated with holidays. It seems plausible that people with Alzheimer’s disease are less aware of holidays than are people without Alzheimer’s disease. Thus, given the hypothesis that emotional stress is associated with holidays, the holiday peak should be relatively smaller for people dying from cardiac diseases with Alzheimer’s disease listed as a secondary cause of death. The cardiac peak, however, is slightly larger when Alzheimer’s disease is listed as a secondary cause than it is for people dying from cardiac diseases alone: 3.97% versus 3.77%.
Changes in diet and alcohol consumption. This explanation is undermined by the following findings: (1) Inpatients, whose diet and alcohol consumption are strictly regulated, produce a holiday peak (Figure 3). (2) People dying from cardiac diseases with substance abuse listed as a secondary cause of death produce a smaller holiday peak than do people dying from cardiac diseases alone: 3.46% versus 3.77%.
Increased particulate pollution. The increase in particulate pollution during the winter might be consistent with a general increase in winter mortality, but this hypothesis cannot easily explain the twin mortality spikes on Christmas and New Year’s.
We considered 5 additional explanations not proposed by Kloner et al, as follows.
Month boundary effect. Deaths generally peak at the beginning and dip at the end of each month. 23 If a “month boundary effect” could explain the holiday peak, then the equivalent of a holiday peak should occur at every month boundary, not only at the December/January boundary. To test this hypothesis, we applied our regression procedure to 11 dummy holiday periods, each centered on a different month boundary (February 1, March 1, etc). For example, instead of using December 25 to January 7 as the holiday period, we substituted January 25 to February 7 as the dummy holiday period, and then re-ran the regression procedure. On average, for the 11 dummy holidays periods, no mortality peak occurred; the observed mortality almost exactly equals the level expected (observed/expected=0.999; SD=0.0023). The mortality peak observed for the real Christmas/New Year’s holiday period is far larger than the peak at any of the other month boundaries. Thus, the month boundary effect cannot account for our findings.
Reporting artifact. The holiday peak does not result from misreporting of death dates because the peak is evident for inpatients, whose death dates are particularly likely to be recorded accurately.
Postponement of death. Perhaps the holiday peak occurs because some patients postpone death to reach an important occasion. 28,29 Given this explanation for the peak, mortality levels should dip immediately before the holiday period, and the preholiday dip should be about the same size as the holiday peak. These expectations are not supported by the evidence shown in Figures 1 through 3. The postponement hypothesis may also be undermined by other data. As noted above, it seems plausible that people with Alzheimer’s disease are generally less likely than others to be aware of the holidays and thus should be less likely than people without Alzheimer disease to try to postpone death to reach these holidays. Thus, given the postponement hypothesis, the holiday peak should be relatively smaller for cardiac patients with Alzheimer’s disease. As noted above, however, this hypothesis is faulty. The cardiac peak is larger when Alzheimer’s disease is listed as a secondary cause than it is for people who die from cardiac diseases alone: 3.97% versus 3.77%.
Precipitation of death. Perhaps the holidays merely precipitate some deaths that would have occurred soon anyway. Such precipitation should produce a dip in deaths immediately after the holidays. A dip of this sort is evident but is much smaller than the holiday peak.
Inappropriate delay in seeking medical care. Previous studies3–7 show that admissions to urgent care facilities drop on holidays and spike immediately thereafter. This phenomenon may occur because some patients inappropriately delay seeking medical services to avoid disrupting their holidays.3–7 Any holiday-induced delays in seeking medical care should affect not only cardiac deaths but also other deaths. Thus, given the delay-in-seeking-care hypothesis, natural noncardiac deaths also should display a holiday peak. Such a peak is indeed evident, both for DOA/ED/outpatients (Figure 4; 4.99±0.42%; 95% CI, 4.17% to 5.81%) and for inpatients (Figure 5; 1.30±0.14%; 95% CI, 1.03% to 1.57%). The noncardiac holiday peak constitutes an independent replication of the cardiac holiday peak because the death certificates that we used to generate Figures 4 and 5 are entirely different from the death certificates that we used to generate Figures 1 through 3. Figure 4. Daily US noncardiac deaths from natural causes, 1979–2001, for DOA/ED/outpatients. Solid line indicates the observed number of deaths for each day of the year, summed over the study period. Dotted regression line indicates the expected number of deaths for each day, given seasonal fluctuations and the null hypothesis that mortality is unaffected by the holidays. Figure 5. Daily US noncardiac deaths from natural causes, 1979–2001, for inpatients. Solid line indicates the observed number of deaths for each day of the year, summed over the study period. Dotted regression line indicates the expected number of deaths for each day, given seasonal fluctuations and the null hypothesis that mortality is unaffected by the holidays.
For both cardiac and noncardiac diseases, the holiday peak is most evident for DOA/ED/outpatients. Figure 6 examines DOA/ED/outpatients and provides a magnified view of cardiac and noncardiac mortality during the period immediately surrounding the winter holidays. Both types of mortality display twin holiday peaks, with the peak for Christmas being slightly larger than that for New Year’s. The number of cardiac deaths is higher on December 25 than on any other day of the year, second highest on December 26, and third highest on January 1. The pattern is similar for noncardiac deaths. The number of noncardiac deaths is highest on December 26 than on any other day of the year, the next highest occurs on December 25, and the third highest occurs on January 1. Figure 6. Daily US cardiac deaths (A) and noncardiac deaths (B), 1979–2001, for DOA/ED/outpatients. Magnified view of the information in Figures 2 and 4 for the period immediately around the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
We note additional similarities between cardiac and noncardiac mortality during the holiday period. The Table indicates for each year examined the size of the holiday peak for cardiac deaths, noncardiac deaths, and all natural deaths combined. As with cardiac mortality, the percentage excess in noncardiac holiday mortality is gradually increasing during the years under study. The size of the noncardiac holiday peak correlates with the year of death (Spearman r=0.395; P<0.05, 2-tailed test). In the latest 3 years, observed holiday mortality was 2.8% above the number expected; in the earliest 3 years, holiday mortality was only 0.50% above the number expected. For each year, the size of the holiday peak for cardiac mortality is strongly correlated with the size of the holiday peak for noncardiac mortality (r=0.874, t=8.83, P<0.00001). This strong correlation is also evident from the detailed data in Figure 7. Figure 7. Size of the holiday effect for cardiac and noncardiac mortality by year. Each point on the graph indicates the size of the cardiac holiday peak (x axis) and the size of the noncardiac holiday peak (y axis) for a given year. A strong correlation between the size of the cardiac and noncardiac holiday effects for each year is indicated.
In sum, both cardiac and noncardiac deaths spike during the 2-week holiday period from December 25 through January 7. In the 26 years under study, 42 039 “excess” deaths occurred during this holiday period (95% CI, 39 098 to 44 980). In other words, our findings indicate that during the Christmas/New Year’s holiday periods from 1973 to 2001, ≈42 039 more deaths occurred than would be expected if the holidays did not affect mortality.
Discussion
For cardiac and noncardiac diseases, a spike in daily mortality occurs during the Christmas/New Year’s holiday season. This spike persists after adjusting for trends and seasonal factors and is particularly large for the DOA/ED/outpatient population. For this group during the holiday period, 4.65% (±0.30%; 95% CI, 4.06% to 5.24%) more cardiac deaths and 4.99% (±0.42%; 95% CI, 4.17% to 5.81%) more noncardiac deaths occurred than would be expected if the holidays did not affect mortality. DOA/ED/outpatient cardiac mortality is higher on December 25 than on any other day of the year, second highest on December 26, and third highest on January 1. These twin holiday spikes are also conspicuous for noncardiac mortality.
We considered 10 explanations for the holiday spike. Earlier studies3–7 suggested that some patients delay seeking treatment until after the holidays. These studies did not investigate whether such delays produced additional deaths. Our data suggest that holiday-induced delays in seeking treatment may contribute to additional cardiac and noncardiac deaths around the holidays. Thus, our findings extend the earlier literature by raising the possibility that holiday-induced delays in seeking treatment may have fatal consequences.
Our findings also extend and modify 2 other literatures: (1) European researchers12–15 have found an increase in winter mortality, but they have not sought to determine whether some of this increase results from the winter holidays rather than from winter itself. Future research should seek to disaggregate the effects of winter and the winter holidays. (2) Other research9–11 found that suicides, homicides, and accidents increase on Christmas, New Year’s, or both. This research examined ≈5% of all deaths; our study examined the remaining 95% of deaths and indicates that deaths from natural causes also spike during the holidays.
Delays in seeking treatment could result in sicker patients, some of whom die as inpatients. Thus, the inpatient holiday peak may be consistent with the delay-in-seeking-treatment hypothesis. This hypothesis, however, cannot easily explain the holiday peak in nursing facility residents’ deaths (3.72±0.38%; 95% CI, 2.97% to 4.46%). Some other processes may also play a role—for example, changes in medical staffing during the holidays.32,33 Future research should investigate the potential effect of these staff changes.
The epidemiological data used in this article are appropriate for examining a large (n>53 million), nationwide, multiyear dataset and for demonstrating the existence of a previously unknown double spike in cardiac and noncardiac mortality; however, our data are not appropriate for definitively identifying the detailed causes of this double spike. Future investigations should seek an answer to this question and to additional questions raised by the data in the Table and in Figure 7. For example, cardiac holiday peaks occurred in 24 of the 26 years under study but not in 1973 or 1981. Was this a fluke or are these years unusual in some way? The Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries’ embargo on exporting petroleum products to the United States and other countries included the holiday period from December 25, 1973, to January 7, 1974. Travel during the embargo was markedly reduced,34 and it also was reduced during the recession of 1981.35 If the holiday effect occurs in part because of delays in seeking medical treatment by travelers, then a reduction in travel may produce a reduction in the holiday effect. Future research should assess this possibility.
Potential explanations for the holiday effect need to be assessed further in follow-up investigations with different types of datasets, which provide more details on patients and their circumstances. In comparison with the large-scale dataset we have used, these follow-up datasets are likely to be richer in detail but more limited in size, geographic area, and time period. Even before these follow-up studies are performed, however, the current evidence seems sufficient to demonstrate that the Christmas/New Year’s holiday season is a risk factor for both cardiac and noncardiac mortality. Because this risk factor is growing with time, it seems particularly important to investigate it and control it.
Dr David P. Phillips conceived the idea for the study and conducted the analyses. Dr Ian S. Abramson determined the appropriate LOESS bandwiths and helped ensure the statistical integrity of the study. Jason R. Jarvinen conducted the literature review. Dr David P. Phillips, Jason R. Jarvinen, Dr Ian S. Abramson, and Rosalie R. Phillips contributed equally to the interpretation of data and the writing and revising of the article. The authors thank Evelyn and Robert Kleinberg, Christy G. Kwan, Kevin Lewis, and Miranda and Rachel Phillips for useful comments.
FootnotesOn the Day of Ashura, Shia Muslims around the world gather to mourn the Imam, Husayn ibn Ali, and his defeat in the battle of Karbala (in present-day Iraq) in 680AD. They slash their heads and backs using swords or iron chains with blades until the streets are covered in blood. Every Good Friday, Catholics in the Philippines re-enact the suffering of Jesus Christ. These devotees are voluntarily crucified by having nails hammered through the palms of their hands and their feet. And every October, thousands of people converge on Phuket in Thailand to celebrate the Vegetarian Festival in veneration of Chinese deities and ancestors; practitioners remove parts of their skin, perform bloodletting, and impale their cheeks and limbs with anything from knives and skewers to antlers and umbrellas – all while burning firecrackers are tossed at them by the crowd.
Widespread participation in such voluntary rites over millennia of human history raises an important evolutionary question: Given the high cost, why does the practice go on? To find out, I’ve spent the past decade exploring ritual traditions around the world. My first destination – a literal trial by fire – took me to the rural parts of southern Europe where fire-walking has been performed for centuries. In Greece and Bulgaria every May, a number of Orthodox communities called the Anastenaria walk barefoot on burning coals to celebrate two Christian saints, Constantine and Helen. And in Spain, the residents of a small village in the central province of Soria stage a fire-walk on the night of the summer solstice. The origins of those rituals are lost in time, reaching at least as far back as the Middle Ages (some even place their dawn in prehistory, but evidence is lacking). And in the case of the Anastenaria, their perseverance defied not only the passage of time but also historical adversities such as the uprooting of their communities after the Balkan Wars and centuries of persecution, often violent, by the Greek Church.
To learn why such costly practices have endured, I started by doing what anthropologists do: I asked the locals. For more than two years, I had fascinating conversations, met interesting people, heard about extraordinary experiences, conducted hundreds of interviews and made great friends. But the answers I got were often perplexing. Some described feeling an undefined ‘urge’ to participate, while others said: ‘We don’t think about our rituals, we just do them,’ or simply: ‘It’s always been done that way.’
In Greece, people referred me to the most senior members of the community, but even the elders had reached no consensus on the importance of the rite. Some argued that fire-walking was done to ensure a good crop; others that it was done to heal the ill, to ask the saints for good fortune, or to thank them for providing for their devotees. Yet others would serve up ancient myths, such as: ‘Our ancestors once emerged unscathed from within a burning church, so we fire-walk to commemorate that event.’ Gradually, I realised that people don’t always know why they perform their rituals, and yet those rituals are of central importance to their lives. What was going on?
Part of the explanation might be found in cognitive dissonance theory, which holds that when the cost or effort spent in pursuing a goal is disproportionately higher than its rewards, the discrepancy (or dissonance) will tend to create mental stress or discomfort. In order to resolve this dissonance, we often attribute greater importance to the goal, a phenomenon called ‘effort justification’. In a classic psychology experiment conducted in 1959, the psychologists Elliot Aronson of Stanford and Judson Mills of the United States Army found that people who had to go through a highly embarrassing situation in order to join a discussion group subsequently reported liking the group more. In a follow-up study, researchers used electric shocks, and found that those who received severe shocks before entering the group valued their membership more than those who received merely mild ones.
pain or fear, typically thought of as negative, can be transformed into pleasurable experiences – akin to the thrill of the bungee-jumper
Across cultures, people are first drawn into ritual events for no particular reason. Most often, they simply follow their parents or peers. Other times, they might be motivated by curiosity or the need to belong. But whatever the reason behind their initiation, as participants invest more time, effort and resources in these activities, the act of participation itself makes them feel more meaningful and important.
There are, of course, a variety of other factors that contribute to the popularity of risky rites. For one thing, repetitive and predictable ritual patterns might help soothe anxiety and offer a sense of control when the future looks ominous or uncertain. The Polish anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski described in Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922) how the fishermen of the Trobriand Islands performed a variety of magical rituals before going fishing in the dangerous waters of the open sea where the results were unpredictable, but didn’t do so before fishing in the calm waters of the lagoon, which guaranteed an easy catch.
Another clue comes from neuroscience. As rituals become more arousing, they trigger hormones that stimulate the reward systems of the brain. Sensations such as pain or fear, typically thought of as negative, can be transformed into pleasurable experiences – akin to the sharp thrill experienced by the bungee-jumper – through a spike in the neurotransmitter dopamine. An increase in neuropeptides called endorphins, which bind to the brain’s opiate receptors, produce the same soothing euphoria felt by the marathon runner (the ‘runner’s high’).
Yet these psychological and physiological insights get us only so far, especially when it comes to more extreme rituals such as fire-walking, which push the limits of human endurance by imposing extraordinary pain, stress and risks. Thus, the evolutionary puzzle remains. Why would such costly practices have survived throughout human history, unless they offered some social benefits?
The French sociologist Émile Durkheim argued in Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912) that the collective performance of ritual generates a kind of ‘electricity’, an ecstatic state of shared excitement that he called ‘collective effervescence’ (think of a rave party). According to Durkheim, those collective events result in the alignment of emotional states, producing a sense of belonging and assimilation in all participants, who feel and act as one. In other words, the rituals serve as a kind of social glue.
Durkheim’s insight was revolutionary, but could we define or measure this togetherness, and what were the underlying biological and psychological mechanisms behind these effects? No one really knew, largely because researchers interested in ritual behaviour were divided into two methodological camps, each possessing only part of the toolkit required to drill down.
One camp, mostly consisting of anthropologists such as myself, try to understand human behaviour by immersing themselves in the everyday life of small social groups for extended periods of time, an approach known as participant observation or, in the words of the US anthropologist Clifford Geertz, ‘deep hanging out’. Through this process, ethnographers manage to get first-hand experience and a wealth of insider information about wide-ranging aspects of life. But the data is often subjective and hard to organise systematically or investigate experimentally. In other words, it specialises in a type of knowledge that is ‘a mile wide and an inch deep’.
The other camp, mostly consisting of psychologists, relies on experimentation and quantitative research using numerical data and statistical analysis. Those researchers typically invite subjects to spend a very short time in a laboratory setting, where they look at specific aspects of their behaviour and cognition in an artificially controlled environment – an ‘inch wide and mile deep’ type of knowledge. For example, a number of neuroimaging studies have asked people to meditate inside a brain scanner and then examined the brain areas activated during meditation. Such methods allow researchers to test specific predictions with great precision, but the situations are often so unnatural and out of context that results can be dubious – people do not naturally meditate inside a large, noisy, claustrophobic electromagnet.
This problem is particularly pronounced when it comes to rituals, which are inextricably connected to specific places and special meanings that cannot be reproduced in a laboratory. For instance, the most important Muslim ritual (the Hajj pilgrimage) requires a trip to Mecca, while the largest Hindu ritual (the Kumbh Mela) requires bathing in the Ganges river.
As someone trained in both ethnographic and experimental methods, I knew that each approach required support from the other, and I thought I had a way to make it work: instead of taking people out of their natural context and moving them into a sterilised laboratory setting, why not immerse the laboratory in the context by moving it into the field?
To carry out my plan, I turned to a small Spanish village called San Pedro Manrique, home to the largest fire-walk in Europe. This ritual takes place on the shortest night of the year, June 23, and is part of an eight-day-long festival of San Juan. The festival includes both Catholic and secular events, and the paso del fuego (Spanish for fire-walk) is performed by religious people and atheists alike. The tradition is held sacrosanct by the locals, who consider it an inextricable part of their personal and collective identity. A fire-walker features prominently on the village’s most sacred symbol, its flag. The recinto, an amphitheatre built specifically to host the fire-walk, is the biggest public structure in the area. After all, as people kept reminding me: ‘San Pedro would never be San Pedro without the fire-walk.’
‘Stomp on the fire using your entire foot … walk straight and look straight … respect the fire, but do not be afraid of it’
Many collective rituals involve synchronous movement, known to boost social cohesion. Studies conducted independently by the psychologists Frank Bernieri at Oregon State University and Michael Hove at Cornell found that when subjects moved in synchrony, they reported greater social rapport. Emma Cohen and fellow anthropologists at Oxford University found that rowers rowing in synchrony produced elevated levels of endorphins, long associated with social bonding. But are these bonding effects due simply to the fact that people perform the same movements at the same time, or to shared emotional states stirred up through empathy and contagion?
The village of San Pedro Manrique was ideal for exploring this distinction, because its fire-walking ritual was not performed in synchrony – fire-walkers crossed the fire one by one. If collective effervescence was more than an automatic effect of concurrent movement, then the very structure of the ritual should cause states of emotional arousal (for example, heart rates) to be synchronised across participants regardless of their bodily activity.
Coordinating an experiment in this setting, complete with specialised equipment, was no trivial task. In 2008, I assembled a team of nine researchers from the humanities and the sciences, bringing expertise in areas as diverse as medicine, anthropology, religious studies, filmmaking, and neuroscience. After months of testing and preparation at Aarhus University in Denmark, we arrived in Spain equipped with 40 high-precision, portable heart-rate monitors that could be worn unobtrusively under clothes, invisible to observers. We placed those devices not only on active fire-walkers, but also on spectators with various degrees of social affinity to them – relatives and friends, acquaintances, and even strangers.
As we worked behind the scenes, the village buzzed with excitement. More than 3,000 visitors (five times the local population) had gathered from near and far to watch the spectacle. The locals were dressed up, most of them wearing red and white, the village colours. At the centre of attention were three young girls called the móndidas. Those girls, chosen by ballot every year, are the official hostesses of the festival and the first ones to be carried over the fire (yes, the fire-walkers also carry a person on their back during their ordeal!). They, and everyone else, had been preparing for this day all year. In an interview, San Pedro’s mayor said he considered that year’s fire-walk the highlight of his 22-year mayorship, because he would finally get to carry his daughter over the fire.
After sunset, the crowds of locals and visitors started flooding to the town hall square. People were drinking and dancing, and the atmosphere was festive. But the fire-walkers were among the last ones to show up. They had spent the evening with their families, getting ready for their big night. No physical preparation is required, but having a clear mind is crucial. Temperatures are extreme and the experience of walking over burning coals can be painful. The pace must be controlled with precision. Walk too slowly and you’ll prolong contact with the fire, which is guaranteed to cause a nasty burn. Try to run and you’ll push deeper into the coal bed, where temperatures are even higher. Go toes-first and you could get pieces of burning matter stuck between your toes. Put too much weight on your heels and you’ll reduce the surface area of the impact point, plunging deeper into the hearth. The more experienced fire-walkers advise the youngsters, who listen in awe and anticipation: ‘Stomp on the fire using your entire foot … walk steadily and confidently … walk straight and look straight … respect the fire, but do not be afraid of it.’
A fire-walker carries a woman on his back across burning embers during the night of San Juan in San Pedro Manrique in northern Spain. Photo by Cesar Manso/Getty
At last, the vibe around the square began to change. No particular person was in charge, but everyone seemed to know exactly what to do. Like an orchestra without a conductor, the fire-walkers assembled out of nowhere, holding hands to form a big circle, several metres around. Un
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minutes or so, or only one instance of music, and so on. The important thing is that each track is self-contained, independent of the others, and all of them are exactly the same length as one another and as the video project itself. You, or your sound mixer, can then import the audio files into an audio mixing application; I've used Audacity, Ardour, and Qtractor for the job, mostly depending on what the system I'm using happens to have installed or what the complexity of the project demands.
There's a little bit of an expectation now that an audio mixing application will have the ability to import a video track so that audio can be mixed exactly along with the video. This certainly does help with sound cues or subtle sonic touches like noticing a passing airplane outside a window and dropping in a faint airplane sound effect, and so on.
The de facto audio mixers for Linux do not yet feature this ability out-of-the-box. One solution is a click track. This is the time-honoured convention of having a spare audio track with either literal clicks or, in my personal version of the click track, temporary sound effects that indicate where an when some significant event is supposed to occur. This, combined with a lo-res temporary render of the movie that I can have open in Dragon or Mplayer, allows me to easily maneuver my audio mix and cross-reference the video as needed. So far I've not missed an audio cue yet, and I feel that the absence of a constant video track helps me immerse myself in the sound design.
The application Xjadeo allows you to bind a video file to the JACK transport, which is sort of a meta playhead that synchronizes various sound sources on a system. JACK is usually used by musicians so that, for instance, the drum machine playing in Hydrogen will come in at the right moment in a sequence being designed in Ardour or Qtractor. Xjadeo uses ffmpeg to play back a video in time (and, accordingly, stop or scrub) with your audio in any JACK-aware audio mixer. Re-importing the Mix Once your sound is mixed to your liking, you should export the sound as one complete mixdown. Obviously you will keep the audio project itself in the event that you need to re-mix or change the language or the dialogue (ie, for a dub track), but I see no reason to allow Kdenlive to do any of the mixing by keeping tracks separate.
Before importing the final mix into my project, I generally save a copy of the project as, for instance, project-name_mixed.kdenlive. This, I open in Kdenlive, and eliminate the unneeded audio tracks, mostly just to avoid silly mistakes but sometimes also to save system resources. Importing the final mix is as easy as adding a clip to the Project Tree, and then dragging the final mix to a new audio track in the timeline, starting at 00:00:00:00. You've now successfully made the round-trip with your audio mix.Constant fundraising requests combined with enthusiastic supporters led to more than 1,500 donors contributing more than was legally allowed to the Bernie Sanders campaign, The Atlantic reports. "It's very similar to what drug dealers use or casinos use to get people to continue to play," Timothy Fong, the co-director of the Gambling Studies Program at UCLA, said of such fundraising requests, which incite urgency and impulsiveness.
Sanders' campaign was built on grassroots support, and it drew in many people who had never donated to a political campaign before and who perhaps didn't fully understand the federal laws or lost track of how much they had contributed. Many who donated did so frequently, and without an awareness of the $2,700 limit for individual contributions to a campaign.
The FEC requires that campaigns send refunds for any donation in excess of the legal limit within 60 days, and according to its federal filings, the Sanders campaign has issued more than $5 million in refunds. But several of the largest "over donors" to Sanders said they never received checks the campaign reported that it sent to them late in the spring, in some cases for several thousand dollars. "Are you kidding me? I barely even received a thank you from the campaign," said Annamarie Weaver of Chicago when I informed her that, according to records on the FEC website, the Sanders campaign had issued her a refund of $3,617 on May 1 and another one for $500 on May 31. "That's complete bulls---." [The Atlantic]
By comparison, President Obama had only refunded $1.5 million by the end of July in 2008. This year, Hillary Clinton's campaign has refunded $3.4 million so far. Jeva LangeMerry sushi! Perfect for Christmas… or any time of the year when you want to impress your friends and family while spreading a bit of sushi cheer. The roll has an intricate design, yet it is still easy to make.
Instructions
Step 1: preparing rice and crab sticks
Start by cooking a batch of white and a batch of pink sushi rice. Click here to learn how to make pink sushi rice. Now remove the orange skin of the crab sticks by finding the seal and peeling it back around the stick. Slice it off with a sharp knife. Take a half sheet of nori. Place the three crab sticks next to each other on the nori and wrap it into a small package. Cut off any excess nori. Let the package rest for 4 to 5 minutes with the seal side down. This allows the nori to absorb liquid from the crab sticks, in order to keep the seal in place.
Step 2: cutting the tuna Place the tuna under the crab sticks package to begin making Santa’s hat. The tuna should be the same length as the crab package, but slightly wider. With the crab package laying on the tuna, slice lengthways and down about ½ cm into the tuna at the side of the crab package. Then slice off a piece of the tuna (also at ½ cm depth) to create a place for your crab package to fit in snugly. Watch the video to see how exactly this is done. Flip the tuna over and use your knife to gently cut a rounded top for the hat. Peel the tuna back gently as you slice to ensure a smooth edge. Flip it over again, and make an incision approximately ½ cm deep at the edge of your cut out for the crab package. Place a small piece of folded nori into the incision to make the black line of Santa’s hat. Now place the tuna piece on top of the crab sticks package, with the rounded edge on top.
Step 3: assembling the top piece of Santa
Take one softly boiled carrot. Cut off each end to make a piece that is the same length as a half sheet of Nori. Then cut the carrot into a square by slicing off the rounded edges of the carrot. Now slice off the squared edges to get a circular piece of carrot. Scrape your knife across any edges to ensure you have a good circular shape. Wrap the carrot in a piece of nori. Place the nori wrapped carrot next to the crab sticks package underneath the tuna. This is the top piece of Santa. Let it cool in the fridge while you prepare the rest of the roll. Cut and wrap the second carrot in the same way and set aside.
Step 4: making Santa’s Beard Take half a sheet of nori and cut it into 3 pieces. Put a little bit of cooked white sushi rice on each piece and roll into three small rice rolls. Do the same with another half sheet of nori. You will need 5 small rice rolls in total. Now make an extra-long nori sheet by gluing two half sheets together, using a little bit of sushi rice to make a seal. Cut the small rolls lenghtwise in half. Place 4 of these cut rice rolls with the rice facing upwards on the long nori sheet, approximately 1 cm from the edge of the sheet. Now add a thin layer of sushi rice on top of the rolls in the middle. Next place another ½ rice roll in the middle on top of the sushi rice. This creates a smiley Santa face. Add a little bit of rice to the sides of the smile to keep it in place. Now add some more rice on top of the roll that makes the smile. On top of that, place two ½ rice rolls (facing downwards this time) to create a v-shape on top of the rice. Place the second nori wrapped carrot in that v-shape. This is Santa’s nose. Place 2 more rolls on the side flanks (facing downwards) to complete Santa’s beard. Carefully watch the video to see how to do all this.
Step 5: creating Santa’s Face Take 2 small pieces of nori and moisten one side with water. Roll each sheet into a very tight roll and set aside. These are Santa’s eyes. Wet your hands slightly and put a thin layer of the pink sushi rice on top of the assembled face, above the nose. Place the eyes on top of the pink sushi rice on either side of the nose. Now add another thin layer of pink sushi rice on top of the eyes. Note: the less rice you use in this step, the better, or you’ll end up with a huge Santa roll! Add a little bit of white sushi rice on the sides of the pink, to make sure it’s a round shape. Now take the assembled hat out of the fridge and place it on top of Santa’s face.Abstract In animal communication research, vocal labeling refers to incidents in which an animal consistently uses a specific acoustic signal when presented with a specific object or class of objects. Labeling with learned signals is a foundation of human language but is notably rare in nonhuman communication systems. In natural animal systems, labeling often occurs with signals that are not influenced by learning, such as in alarm and food calling. There is a suggestion, however, that some species use learned signals to label conspecific individuals in their own communication system when mimicking individually distinctive calls. Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) are a promising animal for exploration in this area because they are capable of vocal production learning and can learn to use arbitrary signals to report the presence or absence of objects. Bottlenose dolphins develop their own unique identity signal, the signature whistle. This whistle encodes individual identity independently of voice features. The copying of signature whistles may therefore allow animals to label or address one another. Here, we show that wild bottlenose dolphins respond to hearing a copy of their own signature whistle by calling back. Animals did not respond to whistles that were not their own signature. This study provides compelling evidence that a dolphin’s learned identity signal is used as a label when addressing conspecifics. Bottlenose dolphins therefore appear to be unique as nonhuman mammals to use learned signals as individually specific labels for different social companions in their own natural communication system.
Labeling or naming is one of the describing features of human language (1). Although the widespread use of alarm and food signals in animals gives the impression of labeling, the structure of these signals is usually predetermined from birth (2). A cognitively more complex use is when labels are acquired through learning (3). Vocal production learning (3), which enables animals to copy novel sounds in their environment and develop their own individually distinctive repertoire of calls, has been observed in a select number of animals, namely songbirds, hummingbirds, parrots, bats, pinnipeds, cetaceans (4), and elephants (5). Among these animals, only parrots (6) and dolphins (7) have been found capable of using arbitrary, learned signals to label objects in experimental studies. For both groups there are data that suggest this ability is also present in their natural communication system (8⇓⇓⇓–12). Thus, both dolphins and parrots present interesting avenues of research for understanding labeling or naming in the animal kingdom.
Bottlenose dolphins are particularly interesting in this respect because they develop individually distinctive signature signals, termed “signature whistles” (13⇓–15). A signature whistle is a learned, individually distinctive whistle type in a dolphin’s repertoire that broadcasts the identity of the whistle owner (16). Instead of relying on morphological differences in the vocal tract for identity signaling, as found across the mammalian kingdom (17), dolphin identity is encoded in the frequency modulation pattern of their signature whistles (15). Conspecifics react to a synthetic version of the modulation pattern of an animal’s signature whistle as if it was the original whistle (18). Each individual develops its own modulation pattern early in life. This development is influenced by vocal learning (11), with animals often using calls heard in the environment and modifying them to create a novel and unique pattern (19, 20). In isolated dolphins, the signature whistle accounts for close to 100% of all whistles produced (13, 15). In wild groups, however, only about 38–70% of whistles are signature whistles; the rest are other shared whistle types (21⇓–23). Animals that meet at sea tend to exchange signature whistles before they join each other (24). The dolphin’s fission fusion society, coupled with their restricted vision underwater, was likely responsible for the selection of these individually distinctive signature whistles (25).
Signature whistles form an important and stable component of an individual’s vocal repertoire (26), but dolphins are capable of vocal learning throughout their lives and individuals can copy the signature whistles of others (7, 9, 10). This means that the signature whistle of one animal may be found as a minor part of the vocal repertoire of other individuals, evident as occasional events of whistle copying or matching (9, 10, 27). This copying of signature whistles is relatively rare but may allow animals to label and address social companions (9⇓–11). All other whistles produced by dolphins, often called nonsignature whistles, clearly also have communicative value but should be less suitable to address individuals because their frequency modulation patterns are not individually distinctive (9). To test whether whistles can be used to address individuals and, if so, what whistles can be used for addressing, we need to know how a receiver reacts to playbacks of whistles.
We investigated this in experiments on wild, free-ranging bottlenose dolphins off the east coast of Scotland. We performed focal follows and recorded the signature whistles of the animals in situ. To identify signature whistles of wild animals, we used the SIGID (SIGnature IDentification) method (28). We played back either a synthetic version of the animal’s signature whistle that we had just recorded, thereby producing a copy to address the animal that had the animal’s voice features removed, or we played control whistles of either an unfamiliar animal from a different population or a familiar animal from the same population (see Materials and Methods for details).
Results The vocal responses given by the animals in the 1 min following a playback were classified as either the same whistle type as the stimulus (a reply to being addressed) or a different whistle type (no reply), as decided by human visual classification where observers were blind to context (Materials and Methods). Only whistles that reached an average similarity score of >3 (27, 29) were deemed to be the same whistle type as the stimulus, indicating high whistle similarity (Fig. 1). Fig. 1. Mean similarity values of whistles produced in response to playback stimuli. We used a high similarity value (>3) as an indication that the animal replied to the playback with the same whistle type as the playback stimuli (a copy response). Similarities were rated by five blind observers who had significant agreement in their judgement (Cohen’s κ = 0.46, z = 22.5, P < 0.0001). Note that all outliers in the familiar control condition were in response to natural and not synthetic whistles. The dolphins’ responses differed significantly between the copy treatment and both the familiar controls (Barnard’s exact test, Wald statistic = 1.8, P = 0.04) and the unfamiliar controls (Barnard’s exact test, Wald statistic = 3.2, P = 0.001) (Fig. 2). Animals responded to hearing their own signature whistle by calling back with the same whistle type (Fig. 3), which occurred only twice with the familiar controls and did not occur with the unfamiliar controls. This result supports the hypothesis that signature whistle copies can be used to label or address specific individuals. Although both the copy treatment and unfamiliar control whistles were predominantly synthetic to remove voice features, we used natural whistles for the familiar control stimuli to preserve familiarity cues that might be present in voice features (Materials and Methods). This method resulted in a conservative test of addressing because familiarity cues in controls could have favored a reply to these whistles. However, to include all playbacks in our analysis, we also conducted an additional test comparing copy treatments and familiar whistles in which we included synthetic whistles as familiar control stimuli that were deemed to be signature whistles in the field by listening to their delivery pattern (28), but were not confirmed to be signatures later on when analyzed with a post hoc SIGID method (28). The dolphin’s responses remained significantly different when comparing the copy treatment playbacks with familiar controls consisting of the natural and the synthetic stimuli (Barnard’s exact test, Wald statistic = 2.4, P = 0.007). All results remained significant when applying Holm’s sequential Bonferroni adjustment (30). Because the result did not change when pooling natural and synthetic familiar whistles, we used the pooled sample for further analyses. Fig. 2. Response of wild bottlenose dolphins to whistle playbacks. The playbacks were either their own signature whistle (copy, n = 12), an unfamiliar signature whistle (unfamiliar control, n = 10), or a familiar whistle (familiar control, n = 12). The response may either be an animal replying with the same whistle as the playback stimulus (black) or not replying to the playback stimulus with the same whistle type (gray). The asterisks indicate a significant difference (**P = 0.007; ***P = 0.001). NS, not significant. Fig. 3. Spectrograms of three examples of copy treatments where animals called back with the same whistle; sampling rate: 48,000 Hz, FFT length: 1,024, Hanning window function. Playback stimuli are labeled (PB) and the average similarities of the whistles produced by the animals to the playback are given; high similarity whistles (vocal reply) are highlighted (*). If the time between the playback and the response is greater than a few seconds, arrows have been inserted indicating the actual time. Animals responded to hearing their signature whistle by calling back for 8 of the 12 copy playback treatments. None of these eight playbacks had a whistle of the same type as the stimulus produced in the 1-min period preceding the playback (Fig. 4). The number of same type vocal responses (replies) to the copy playbacks varied with the mean number of replies being 2.75 whistles (range: 1–7) (Fig. 4), and for the two cases in which a familiar control playback was followed by a matching response, the number of replies was one and three whistles, respectively. Fig. 4. Whistle sequence and composition of each of the twelve copy playbacks. Each letter represents a different whistle type, which is positioned to when it was produced in relation to the playback (start at time of playback = 0) is shown. The “R” shows where animals replied with the same whistle as the playback stimuli (replies) as decided by human observers. The animals never produced the same whistle as the playback stimulus (labeled R) in the 1 min preceding a playback. This result could be explained in two ways. First, the owner of the signature whistle replied when he was “addressed” or, second, another animal heard the signature whistle of an animal it knew and called back with a copy of that signature whistle. We were unable to identify which animal in the group replied to the playback but we can use the rate of signature whistle copying in wild animals to assess who replied to the playback. Rates of copying are low in wild animals. Published rates of copying shortly after hearing a whistle as in our experiment lie at 0.2 copies per minute (10, 27). Given this natural rate of copying, it is unlikely that the responses given here to the copy playbacks were signature whistle copies, because this would result in a rate of 1.83 copies per minute (22 copies in 12 min). The small number of matching responses given to two of the familiar control playbacks may in fact also have been replies to signature whistles because the signature whistle identification method we used (SIGID) does not always successfully identify every signature whistle (28). There was, however, a significant difference in the timing of the vocal response to the copy playbacks and the familiar controls. The mean latency to the first whistle of any type produced after the playback did not differ between the copy treatments and the unfamiliar controls (Wilcoxon paired test: W = 35.5, df = 17, P = 1), but did differ significantly between the copy treatments and the familiar controls (W = 10, df = 16, P = 0.01). The mean latency to first whistle produced after the copy treatments was 2 s (range: 0.0001–8), and after the familiar controls it was 14 s (range: 0.97–41). The latency to first whistle produced after the playback also differed between the two control treatments (W = 9, df = 14, P = 0.05). The latency to replies (i.e., to whistles of the same type as the stimulus) also varied, with a mean initial time to the first reply of 3.8 s (range: 1.7–8) for the copy playbacks (Fig. 4), and 16.9 s (range: 1.7–34.7) for the two cases where the familiar control sound was followed by a whistle of the stimulus type. These data and the composition of whistle types following a playback of a signature whistle of a group member (Fig. 4) clearly showed that the reply was specific to the stimulus, and that dolphins did not simply all react with their own signature whistle when hearing the signature whistle of a group member. No significant differences could be found in whistle rates between the copy treatment and unfamiliar control playbacks in the 1 min following playbacks (Wilcoxon paired test: W = 54.5, df = 20, P = 0.74) or for the copy treatment and familiar controls in the 1 min following playbacks (W = 98.5, df = 22, P = 0.1). There was also no significant increase or decrease in whistle rate from the 1 min before to the 1 min after playback (copy treatment: W = 28.5, df = 11, P = 0.7; unfamiliar controls: W = 15, df = 9, P = 0.72; familiar controls: W = 12, df= 11, P = 0.4). Mean movement responses toward the boat were positive (6 m) for copy treatments and negative for both the control playbacks (unfamiliar = −18 m; familiar = −17 m). This difference was, however, not significant between either the copy and unfamiliar control playbacks (t test: t = −0.75, df = 18, P value = 0.4) or the copy and familiar control playbacks (Wilcoxon paired test: W = 54, df = 21, P = 0.47), which may be because of small sample size and large variance (Table 1). There was also no significant difference between the mean group sizes for the different treatment types (Wilcoxon paired test: W = 130, df = 33, P > 0.95). The mean group size for all control playbacks was 13 animals (range: 2–25) and 12 animals (range: 3–23) for the copy treatment. Table 1. Animal response to playback stimuli
Discussion These results present evidence that signature whistles can be used to address bottlenose dolphins. The significance of this finding lies in the kind of signal that is used for addressing. Birds have complex learned communication signals and engage in copying and matching of sounds in which they address each other. Songbirds have been shown to respond to songs that are in their repertoire by singing back with the same song, called “type matching” (31). Songbirds are more likely to respond to song if sung by an unfamiliar stranger than a familiar neighbor (31). However, this response is not universal because some species respond to the most similar song irrespective of caller (32). These responses can be strongest to playbacks of “self-song” recorded from the focal bird (32), but as these recordings were not synthesized it is unclear whether the birds reacted to their own voice features or the song type they shared with the playback. There are, however, two main differences between bird song and dolphin whistles. First, most bird song is produced in the context of mate attraction and territory defense (33). Dolphins do not produce song but use single whistles as social sounds in affiliative contexts (9, 10, 24⇓–26); neither are they territorial (34). Second, bird song types used in matching are rarely exclusive to an individual but repertoires tend to be shared (33). In bottlenose dolphins, on the other hand, the signature whistle is almost only used by one individual. The signature whistles of others can also form a minor part of an animal’s vocal repertoire as a result of copying. However, such copies are only used very rarely (10, 27). The fact that a signature whistle is primarily used by the whistle owner allows it to serve as a label for that particular individual when copied. The learning of identity signals, as seen in bottlenose dolphins, is rare but has also been found in some bird species, such as green-rumped parrotlets (35). Although birds can discriminate individuals based on their contact calls (36), it is unclear what influences the development of the parameters used for individual recognition. An interesting exception might be the song sparrow, in which animals seem to modify learned calls after learning a perfect copy, thus introducing individual uniqueness (37). It is unknown whether these identity-encoding aspects are copied by conspecifics when engaging in song matching. Contact call learning in birds, however, tends to lead to a high similarity in contact calls between chicks and model adults. It is therefore important to distinguish between general vocal convergence in calls over time and the copying of signals to address specific individuals. If two or more animals converge in their calls, these calls can only be used for addressing the group collectively rather than individuals. Some bird species use vocal imitation to converge on shared call types between pairs or groups of animals (38⇓⇓–41). It is unclear whether the production of these shared calls functions in addressing the group. In bottlenose dolphins, the selective use of a signature whistle by one animal allows for the occasional copying of that whistle by another animal to be an effective way of addressing an individual. A parallel to the dolphin signature whistle may exist, however, in some species of parrot that can use calls to label (12) or address (42) conspecifics in captivity and use call matching in the wild (8). It remains to be seen what the underlying mechanism for addressing or labeling is. At a basic level, an animal may learn that producing a particular call leads to a desirable result, such as the approach of an associated animal without an understanding of the link between the call and the approaching individual. Alternatively, an animal may have a modality-independent representation of an individual and displays goal-directed behavior to make contact. Results on cross-modal representation (43), the understanding of the link between a whistle and an individual (44), and goal-directed behavior in dolphins (45, 46) suggest this more complex mechanism. It is clear that signature whistles have meaning (1) in that they are labels for individuals (18), and may be induced by an intention to contact a specific individual. Given that bottlenose dolphins in captivity are able to learn novel signals to label artificial objects and use these labels to report the presence or absence of objects (45), it is hard to see why these skills would not be used in the wild when animals are trying to make contact with specific individuals. Such a representational use of learned identity labels represents an interesting parallel to humans and the apparent necessity for these vocal labels in maintaining group cohesion may lie at the root of the evolution of complex communication and cognition systems.
Materials and Methods Playbacks. Group follows of wild bottlenose dolphins were conducted off the east coast of Scotland in the Moray Firth and in St. Andrews Bay from June to August 2001 and May to September 2010. The study was approved by the Animal Welfare and Ethics Committee of the University of St Andrews. Follows were conducted upon a small 6-m boat at sea state three or less. Photographs were used to ensure that playbacks were conducted on different groups. Acoustic recordings were taken with either two or four HTI-96 MIN or HTI-94 SSQ hydrophones (frequency response: 0.002–30 kHz ±1 dB) towed at 2-m depth. Recordings were made using either a Tascam DAP1 DAT recorder sampling at 48 kHz (frequency response: 0.02–22 kHz ± 0.5 dB) or directly onto a Toshiba laptop computer using either an Edirol UA-25 (sampling rate 96 kHz, 16 bit) or an Avisoft 416 Ultrasoundgate sound card (sampling rate 100 kHz, 8 bit). Recordings were observed on the boat using real-time spectrogram displays in Adobe Audition v2.0 (Adobe Systems). This process enabled signature whistles produced by the focal group to be identified in situ using the SIGID method (28). The SIGID method uses the stereotypy and temporal patterning, which are unique to signature whistles, to identify them in wild free-ranging groups of animals. The SIGID analysis was performed by a human observer in real time on the boat and later checked by repeating the analysis in the laboratory using the sound recordings. Once a signature whistle sequence had been identified during a follow, a synthesized version of the identified signature whistle was prepared using SIGNAL software following the methods described in ref. 18. In copy treatment playbacks we used synthetic signature whistles, with the exception of two playbacks where natural whistles had to be used. Animals responded to both natural and synthetic playback stimuli (Table 1). Because it is difficult to perform the SIGID analysis in real time, it was rerun in the laboratory and only those playbacks in which the playback stimuli (whistles that had been recorded in situ) were confirmed as signature whistles were used in the analysis as treatment (signature whistle copy) playbacks. Only four of the synthetic whistles were not confirmed to be signature whistles in the post hoc SIGID analysis. In the familiar controls, we played one of six whistles that we recorded locally from other groups with very low background noise (recorded close to the animals with no boat noise and no biological background noise). Given the high level of local connectedness between animals in this population (47), these calls were classed as familiar to our target animals. The SIGID method did not classify these as signature whistles. Four of these whistles were only used once in a playback and two of them had to be used twice. Familiar control whistles were left unaltered to preserve any possible familiarity cues in voice features. However, to include all our data and to minimize pseudoreplication, we conducted two tests for familiar playbacks, one only with these unaltered whistles, and one in which we included the four synthetic whistles that were played back but that were not found to be signatures. Results did not differ between these tests (Results). Unfamiliar control stimuli consisted of six synthetic signature whistles modeled after signature whistles of captive dolphins from Zoo Duisburg, Germany (two captive born/two wild-caught in the Gulf of Mexico) and The Seas, Epcot, Florida (one captive born/one wild-caught in the Gulf of Mexico). Four of these recordings were used in two playbacks and two were used only once. All playback stimuli are shown in Fig. S1. Each dolphin group was only exposed to one playback consisting of two whistles of the same type separated by a 3-s interwhistle interval. All playbacks were conducted with the boat engine switched off. In three playbacks only one whistle was played because of technical difficulties (two of the copy treatments and one of the familiar controls). To make sure that the animal that emitted the playback whistle remained with the focal group, the playback was aborted if any animals were deemed to have left the group while the playback signal was prepared on the computer. Playbacks were performed by playing sound files using either a Lubell LL916 underwater speaker (Lubell Labs: 0.6–21 kHz ± 8 dB) at 2-m depth and a Magnat classic 1000 XL car amplifier (frequency response: 0.005–100 kHz ± 3 dB) or a J-9 speaker and a Phonic MAR2 amplifier. The playback source level was set to 150 dB ± 3 dB re 1 μPa at 1 m (rms) measured with a calibrated B&K 8103 hydrophone. Playbacks were randomized in their sequence and were conducted when the focal group was participating in nonpolarized behavior (animals exhibiting nondirectional movements with surfacings facing different directions) or were socializing (animals interacting with each other in close proximity). We noted the distance of all members of the focal group for a minimum of six surfacings immediately before and after the playback. The distances of the animals from the boat were estimated by eye and, when possible, corroborated with a laser range finder (Bushnell Scout 1000: ± 1-m accuracy). The error of estimates by eye was ± 10 m. The distance of the closest animal to the boat before and after the playback was used to determine a directional movement response (±) of the animals to or from the boat. Analysis. The acoustic recordings were analyzed by inspecting the spectrograms (FFT length 1024, 87.5% overlap, Hanning window) in Adobe Audition v2.0. All statistical procedures were conducted in R (R project for statistical computing; GNU project). Visual classification allowed the similarity of the whistle response given by the dolphins to the playbacks to be quantified using human observers. Visual classification is widely used in animal communication studies (15, 33) and has been shown to be more reliable than computer-based classification when analyzing dolphin call types (15, 48). Five human observers, all experienced in sound analysis and blind to context, rated similarity of extracted whistle contours (frequency modulation pattern) using a similarity index ranging from 1 (low similarity) to 5 (high similarity). Only whistles that reached an average score of >3 (27, 29) were deemed to be the same whistle type as the stimuli, indicating high whistle similarity. The κ-statistic was used to ascertain observer agreement (49). A Barnard’s exact test was used to compare the animals’ vocal responses to the playback treatments (50). Barnard’s test was used as an alternative to Fisher’s exact test because the discrete nature of Fisher’s exact test means it produces highly conservative P values for small sample sizes. Whistle rates of the group of animals (rate per individual per minute) were compared before and after playback for each treatment. A Lilliefors (Kolmogorov–Smirnov) test was used to test for normality followed by a paired t test or Wilcoxon paired test with a Bonferroni-adjusted significance level of P < 0.016. Whistle rates were compared between playback treatments post playback. A Lilliefors (Kolmogorov–Smirnov) test was used to test for normality followed by a t test or a Wilcoxon test with a Bonferroni-adjusted significance level of P < 0.025. The same tests were also performed on the movement response using a significance level of P < 0.025.
Acknowledgments We thank Thomas Götz, Luke Rendell, Paul Thompson, all our field assistants, and our human judges for their help during this study; Peter Tyack and Peter McGregor for comments on previous drafts of this work; and Heidi Harley and Kerstin Jurczynski for their support recording captive dolphins at the Seas and at Zoo Duisburg. The project was funded by a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Studentship, a Marie Curie Fellowship of the European Community programme “Improving Human Research Potential and the Socio-economic Knowledge Base” under contract HPMF-CT-2000-00510, a Royal Society University Research Fellowship, and a Fellowship of the Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin. The study was carried out under Scottish Natural Heritage Research License numbers 2791 and 10778.
Footnotes Author contributions: S.L.K. and V.M.J. designed research; S.L.K. and V.M.J. performed research; S.L.K. analyzed data; and S.L.K. and V.M.J. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1304459110/-/DCSupplemental.Pokémon #150. Mewtwo. My favourite <3There is sooo much amazing fanart for Pokemon on deviantART but relatively little for Mewtwo! I think it's just because how difficult he is to draw well. There certainly a lot of "realistic"/horror versions of him though.So here is my attempt at filling a niche.Mewtwo was always my favourite pokemon because A. he was the strongest and B. he has an attitude problem. I tend to like that combination. Had to save that Masterball for him, couldn't say you beat the game till ya caught at least mewtwo. Heck, the first movie was about him!I also gave a whirl at using skin brushes adonihs; [link] FIND AT FANEXPO TORONTO TO BUY A PRINT~Edit: = Meeshkamodel insisted I add a mew, so there's a mew now! A few other tweeks here and there.A- A+
Police seized Adam Nilsson’s iPhone, iPad and iPod, spray paint, stencils and several other items when they served a search warrant at the Baker City councilor’s home on Aug. 9, eight days after he was cited for criminal trespassing while in possession of a firearm, and second-degree criminal mischief at an abandoned lime plant near Huntington.
Both are misdemeanor charges.
Nilsson,
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of Morgan receiving a flu shot from Dr. Oz here:But just a few days later, Piers reportedly began to develop flu-like symptoms that clearly inhibited his ability to speak properly. His symptoms quickly worsened, prompting him to publish a "tweet" on January 23, just 11 days after getting his flu shot, explaining that his voice had "plunged to [a] ludicrous level, fading in and out." Following this, Morgan added, "Not entirely sure I'll make tonight's live show at this rate."So much for all that talk about the safety and effectiveness of the flu shot, and Dr. Oz's absurd claim that flu shots cannot cause the flu. As made perfectly evident for millions of Americans to see, Morgan's health quickly began to declined almost immediately after getting a flu shot from Dr. Oz, which is highly suspicious and greatly concerning. Morgan himself essentially affirmed just days later during an interview with country signer Dwight Yoakam that the flu shot he received was responsible for spurring his illness."We're both doing the math, aren't we," retorted Morgan to Yoakam, who had just advised the controversial television personality to never again get a flu shot. "We both saw him put that thing in my arm, and within 10 days I've been struck down."You can watch the segment with Morgan and Yoakam here: http://youtu.be/X5SQPPvR-JA It is difficult not to chuckle at the whole ridiculous charade. What was meant to further pull the wool over the eyes of gullible Americans literally blew up in the face of those that perpetrated it, as millions of Americans have now had their eyes opened to the fact that flu shots are dangerous and can, indeed, cause flu-like symptoms and other health damage.And what better elitist personality to take the fall for this failed attempt at promoting worthless flu shots than Piers Morgan, whose unabashed hatred for the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is helping to fuel a resurgence of appreciation for our precious right as Americans to own weapons for our own protection. With that said, it just might be appropriate to actually thank Piers Morgan for hammering what is hopefully the last nail in the coffin of the flu vaccine scam.Custom Disney Infinity artist Raynaldo Perez (aka @Kirdein) has done it again with a new gorgeous Baloo Tailspin custom. We’ve already seen his amazing detailed customs with his transformation of Aladdin and Jasmine, his creative Cave of Wonders Portal, and the wonderful Hall of Heroes with Allison and JV figures. This time around Raynaldo takes us back to the 90s with a fresh wave of nostalgia washing over us.
It’s almost as if the figure pose was made for this custom! Dancing Baloo laid back with a coconut drink in one hand, laughing off the dangerous job of piloting the Sea Duck over choppy waters and through dangerous storms.
Our friends over at Disneyholics wrote up a clever Jungle Book “Our Disney Infinity” post, and where they had a similar idea of a Pilot Baloo costume change. We had a little fun with their article, making them a few custom power discs, and it tickles us like crazy that we get to see the real thing come to life!
If you need a refresher on the magic and wonder that was Tailspin, here is the opening credits and song!
Check out a full gallery of Raynaldo’s Baloo custom below and make sure you go follow him on twitter and give him a shoutout!
Baloo Tailspin Custom Figure Gallery
Follow Raynaldo On Twitter here!
Thank you everyone for the feedback. I'm glad you all like the custom Talespin Baloo! pic.twitter.com/ny72Wwsbos — Raynaldo Perez (@Kirdein) March 17, 2016
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On August 22, 2017, two Nelson, British Columbia, residents successfully completed a circumnavigation of Mulvey Basin in Valhalla Provincial Park, bagging all 13 peaks. Vince Hempsall shares their story.
The headlamp beam glared off the white surface of the golf ball, forcing me to squint to make out the black cursive lettering: “Miracle Flight+ 2”. Appropriate considering we’d need some good fortune to complete the mission we had just embarked on. I placed the ball back on the rock where I found it beside its twin and a golf club and finished hiking the 20 metres to the summit of Mount Dag, one of the tallest peaks in the Valhalla mountain range.
It goes without saying a nine iron and two golf balls are strange items to find on top of any mountain peak. But the fact it was 2:30 in the morning and my climbing partner, and mountain guide, David Lussier and I were embarking on a quest to traverse 13 peaks of the Mulvey Basin in under 24 hours, made the discovery even more surreal.
This was our second attempt of this traverse in as many years and the forecast was perfect: clear skies with zero percent chance of precipitation. Then again, good weather was predicted for our first attempt in 2016 and that ended with us cowering under a boulder during a freak electrical storm at 8,500 feet.
As David signed the register on the summit of Dag, I continued thinking of my bizarre discovery. Why a nine iron? Why not a driver? Surely that would be a lot more satisfying. I imagined teeing up and driving a ball across the two-kilometre-wide span that separated us and Gladsheim Peak, the final destination of our mission. Suddenly all thoughts of golf vanished as David asked, “You ready?” He had replaced the register in its waterproof canister, slotted it back in the stone cairn and was looking at me expectantly. It was time to descend from the summit, collect our bivouac gear and start the 12-kilometre circumnavigation of Mulvey Basin: 13 peaks, eight of which we’d have to rock climb, and over 2,300 metres of elevation gain. At that moment, I wished I could’ve just soared over to Gladsheim as well.
Located in the southern end of Valhalla Provincial Park, the horseshoe-shaped Mulvey Basin is ringed by some of the most beautiful and iconic mountains in British Columbia. On the Northern rim is Asgard Peak, a perfect pyramid rising up from the ridge line. Due south is Gimli Peak, which looks like the prow of a massive battleship barrelling towards the American border. Then there’s the aptly named Wolf’s Ears. All are incredible pieces of rock that boast world-class alpine routes and when done individually, make for a wonderful day of climbing.
Doing all the peaks in one day is a different story, however. No one had ever attempted such a feat. It requires intimate knowledge of the routes up the peaks as well as the fastest way to reach them across the scree. Physical stamina is a given but so is mental fortitude because, in the interest of saving time, all climbing needs to be solo (without ropes) or simul-climbing. The latter style involves two climbers, connected by a rope, climbing a route at the same time. The seconder follows the leader and removes the gear the leader puts in the rock to protect a fall. Despite having a safety rope, however, a fall while simul-climbing is still bad as both parties could plunge dozens of metres and hit ledges. So really, falling is not an option.
Finally, to think of doing a traverse of all the peaks in the Mulvey Basin in less than a day requires a bit of lunacy. And I believe Dave and I are guilty of that. After all, this wasn’t our first stamina adventure involving Gimli Peak: five years ago we bicycled the 86 kilometres from our homes in Nelson to the Valhalla Provincial Park, hiked to Gimli Peak, simul-climbed the south ridge and returned home again in 21 hours. This couldn’t be worse, right?
The itinerary of our trip had us bivouac on the south face of Dag, about 100 metres below the summit and waking up at 2am to bag the summit. We’d then descend, collect our gear and scramble and climb the Nott-Dag traverse in reverse tagging Little Dag, Batwing and Mount Nott along the way. Following that we’d climb the Wolf’s Ears from East to West, run up the Muzzle and then descend via the Robertson-Gimli couloir and make our way to Gimli Peak. All of which went perfectly well until we reached the South Ridge of Gimli.
Despite it being early on a Tuesday, there were already parties lined up for the South Ridge by the time we got there. One group was on the first pitch, one was putting on gear and another had given up and was preparing to do the alternative start to the route. We approached that couple and told them our plan and they graciously allowed us to go in front of them. We quickly dumped our overnight gear at the base and started simul-climbing the nine pitches to the top. It took us an hour and a half to complete them.
We walked off via the East ridge descent, picked up our overnight gear and hiked to the Gimli- Nisleheim col where we again donned climbing shoes and simul-climbed the East Ridge of Nisleheim. We reached the peak around noon, changed back into our approach shoes, and did the fourth class scramble down the Northwest Ridge.
It’s at this point I need to stress just how much walking is involved with the Mulvey Basin traverse. It’s a detail you rarely hear in terms of adventures but I obsessed about it as we trudged across the long expanse of moraine from Nisleheim to Midgard Peak. Hillary, Lewis and Clarke, Amundsen – those guys traipsed along forever but history doesn’t record such a mundane act of putting one foot in front of the other. Instead, we celebrate their destinations.
Later I would learn from David (who’s in the process of authoring a guidebook to the Valhallas) that the first peaks to be climbed in this area of the Valhallas were done so in 1953. Leon Blumer and Gordon Hartley marched in from the North via the old Gwillim Creek trail for many kilometres before scrambling up the Humps (East and West) and the East Molar. Ironically, we would not be accessing those peaks on this excursion because they are not a true part of the horseshoe around the basin but rather overlook Mulvey Creek from a lower vantage.
Instead we elected to finish the traverse on Gladsheim, which, at 2830 metres, is the tallest mountain in the Valhallas. And as we scrambled up the low fifth class to the Midgard Peak and learned it was still early afternoon, we started to think we might just accomplish that. But I remained cautious given our experience from a year ago.
From Midgard we descended the Northeast Ridge, hiked the fourth class terrain to the base of Asgard and then enjoyed simul-climbing the spectacular Southwest Ridge to its summit. That route is so incredible we briefly forgot how tired we were feeling after having been on the move for over 14 hours. We reached the peak, descended the East face and contoured around to the Trireme Wall where another amazing route awaited us, the Integral West Ridge. First done in the 1960s, this route was originally graded 5.5 (or relatively easy for beginner climbers) but as I clung desperately to a lichen-strewn flaring corner on the North-facing wall, I couldn’t help but think that grade was a colossal sandbag. (David says he’ll probably grade it a bit harder in his book.)
We tagged the top of the Trireme Wall and then continued along the ridge to the Trireme col, which was our highpoint during last year’s attempt. I thought back to that moment, on July 30th, when we stared west at the approaching thunderhead clouds. No storm had been forecasted for that day but it was obvious things were about to get very, very scary. Our hearts sank. We were so close! For one insane moment, we both thought about trying to beat the storm and ascending Gladsheim but then realized we’d be stuck on the highest peak around, carrying metal climbing gear in an electrical storm. Not smart. Instead we retreated. But the storm came on so quickly we only made it about 100 metres down the col when we were hammered by a downpour. We spotted a cave and crawled in (leaving our metal equipment at the mouth of it) and spent the next half hour being assaulted by rain and thunder. Lightning flashed every 30 seconds or so. A hundred kilometres to the east revellers at the Kaslo Jazz Fest also noticed the encroaching storm. It would crash into them 30 minutes later in the middle of Michael Franti’s set but his band would continue playing through the temptest.
Back in the cave we noticed the lightning had passed and the rain was starting to subside a bit so we gathered our things and continued down the couloir, eventually finding a bivy spot beside a large boulder. We endured a miserable night shivering in our soaked sleeping bags while rain fell sporadically. The following day the rock was too wet to climb so we hiked out of the basin, dejected, and returned home. But we resolved to attempt the traverse again one day.
This year, looking out from the Trireme col, we were relieved to see clear skies in all directions. But the light was starting to dim. It was 6:30pm and we still had a long ridge to scramble and three pitches of rock climbing to do before we could reach the peak. We ignored our exhaustion and set off. David kept asking if I wanted to rope up but I felt we couldn’t waste time so I waved him off. At one point I second-guessed that decision, though, when I was straddling a knife-edge of rock with one leg dangling down the north face and the other dangling over Mulvey basin.
But I persevered and we reached our bivouac spot about 100 metres below the summit without incident. We dumped our overnight gear, grabbed our headlamps and scrambled to the peak of Gladsheim just as the sun was setting on the horizon. It was 8:20pm. We had walked, climbed and scrambled over 12 peaks for the past 16 hours to get to this spot. We snapped a few photos and then I sat down and watched the light fade from burnt orange to purple. David posted a shot to Facebook (amazingly there’s cell service at the top of Gladsheim) and then we descended to our bivy where we stretched, ate and then collapsed into a restless slumber. I dreamt of flying.
Photo Slideshow:
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The Mulvey Basin Traverse Itinerary – By David Lussier
The goal was to ascend the 13 named peaks encircling Mulvey Basin in one day. In counter-clockwise order, they include: Mount Dag (2750m), Little Dag (2725m), Batwing (2650m), Mount Nott (2600m), East Wolf’s Ear (2750m), West Wolf’s Ears (2750m), the Muzzle (2700m), Gimli Peak (2810m), Nisleheim Peak (2650m), Midgard Peak (2810m), Asgard Peak (2830m), The Trireme Wall (2715m) and Gladsheim Peak (2830m). The route involves about 12km of linear distance and 2300m of elevation gain. There are numerous single-rope rappels required, endless 4th class scrambling and multiple pitches of simu-climbing up to 5.10a.
Start: Bivouac on the south shoulder of Mount Dag at 2660m. Awaken at 2am and scramble to the summit of Mount Dag.
Dag to Nott: Scramble and climb the Nott-Dag traverse in reverse (PD+, 5.5, A0) and tag Little Dag, Batwing and Mount Nott.
Nott to Muzzle: From the col, traverse the Wolf’s Ears from east to west (AD, 5.6), then tag the Muzzle.
Muzzle to Gimli: After descending the hidden couloir from the Robertson-Gimli divide, contour around the Gimli Basin at approximately 2325m to the base of Gimli Peak and climb the South Ridge (D-, 5.10a). Descend via the East Ridge and return to the base of Gimli to collect overnight gear.
Gimli to Nisleheim: Traverse below the West face to the Gimli-Nisleheim col then climb the East Ridge of Nisleheim (AD-, 5.7).
Nisleheim to Midgard: From the Summit, descend the Northwest Ridge (4th class) to the Nisleheim-Midgard Col then walk to the base of Midgard Peak and ascend via the Southeast Ridge (PD, 5.1).
Midgard to Asgard: Descend the Northeast Ridge (4th class) and follow the height of land on 4th class terrain to the base of the Southwest Ridge of Asgard. Climb the Southwest Ridge (AD, 5.7).
Asgard to Trireme Wall: Descend via the regular East face (3rd class) to 2475m. From here, contour eastward towards the Trireme Wall. Climb the Integral West Ridge of Gladsheim (AD+, 5.7) and tag the top of the Trireme Wall.
Trireme Wall to Gladsheim Peak: Continue along the West Ridge to the peak of Gladsheim (AD+, 5.7). Summit at 8:20pm then descend to an exposed bivouac site at 2750m.
Finish: The following morning descend the West ridge to the Trireme Couloir, scramble down to Mulvey Basin, hike through and back to the trailhead via the Gimli col trail.The Russian State Duma adopted in the third reading on Friday a law banning the propaganda or public demonstration of symbols of organizations that collaborated with Nazis or are in denial of the rulings made at the Nuremberg Trial.
MOSCOW, October 24 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian State Duma adopted in the third reading on Friday a law banning the propaganda or public demonstration of symbols of organizations that collaborated with Nazis or are in denial of the rulings made at the Nuremberg Trial.
The new amendments expand the list of organizations, whose symbols are banned in Russia, to include those that collaborated with fascist organizations and movements or are cooperating with the international or foreign organizations or their representatives, that deny the Judgment of the Nuremberg tribunal or other verdicts passed on during the World War II.
According to the document, those demonstrating the symbols of such organizations in public will face the fine of up to 50,000 rubles (about $1,200). The maximum penalty for the organizations, using such symbols to produce goods for sale of propaganda purposes will reach $2,400.
Deputy Speaker of Russian State Duma, and one of the bill's authors, Sergei Zheleznyak noted that next year the world will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Nazi Germany's defeat, but nowadays one can see neo-Nazism becoming popular in Ukraine and several other countries. According to Zheleznyak, this is an attempt to glorify war criminals guilty of killing dozens of people and it is even becoming state ideology.
Zheleznyak stressed that Russia's aim is to lead the global anti-fascist movement. He added that the current events in Ukraine are unfolding with the connivance of some international organizations, including those referring to themselves as protectors of human rights, as well as with the connivance of the governments and people of many foreign countries.
Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), formed in 1942, is among the most known organizations that corroborated with fascists. In 1943 UPA pledged to aid Third Reich in exchange for promises to allow the creation of an Independent Ukrainian state. During the WWII the Ukrainian nationalists killed 850,000 Jews, 220,000 Poles, over 400,000 Soviet prisoners of war and 500,000 Ukrainian civilians.Correcting someone on a misremembered line from a film is the behaviour of a true pub bore. As they didn’t say in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: when the misquote becomes the line, use the misquote.
Still, in a bid to protect you from the pedants, Telegraph Men selects the top film phrases we all get wrong...
The quote: Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By’
Fact: more people have now said “Did you know they never actually say ‘Play it again, Sam?'” than have said “Play it again, Sam”. This is the misquoter’s misquote, its place in cinema history cemented when compulsive reference dropper Woody Allen used it as the title of his 1972 film.
2. Dirty Harry
The misquote: Do you feel lucky, punk?
The quote: Being as this is a.44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya punk?
It’s easy to see how this one became truncated - the misquote gets across Clint Eastwood’s sentiment perfectly while taking a fifth of the time of the original.
3. The Silence of the Lambs
The misquote: Hello, Clarice…
The quote: Good evening, Clarice…
Unfortunately nobody seems to be called Clarice nowadays so this one is hard to roll out in a social setting. The important thing is that you say it while wearing a muzzle.
4. The Empire Strikes Back
The misquote: Luke, I am your father
The quote: No, I am your father
Out by a single word, this one topped LoveFilm’s list of memorable misquotes. Luke’s reaction to the revelation – an extended, screamed "No!" – is also eminently quotable and has provided the basis for many youtube re-edits.
5. Field of Dreams
The misquote: If you build it, they will come
The quote: If you build it, he will come
Kevin Costner’s character walks around in his crop field, repeatedly hearing the words “If you build it, he will come”. He is amazed that his wife, sitting on the porch, can’t hear them too – and it appears a generation of filmgoers wasn’t paying much attention either.
6. The Graduate
The misquote: Mrs Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?
The quote: Mrs Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me. Aren’t you?
This is one of the few misquotes that gets the tone of the original wrong as well as the words. With the misremembered line, Dustin Hoffman’s character appears much surer of himself, but in the original there’s a moment when he genuinely doesn’t know whether the older woman is trying to seduce him or not.
7. The Wizard of Oz
The misquote: I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto
The quote: Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore
…we must be over the rainbow! And while we’re there, there are better lines from the 1939 film to quote. What about: “If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard; because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with”? Or just “There’s no place like home”.
8. All About Eve
The misquote: Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride
The quote: Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night
Unless you can match Bette Davis’s effortless disdain it’s best not to try this one in either version.
9. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
The misquote: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?
The quote: Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?
The ‘mirror, mirror’ line is now so standard that it provided the title to the 2012 updating of the Snow White tale.
10. Wall Street
The misquote: Greed is good
The quote: The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works.
This misquote became a shorthand for the perceived attitude of City traders in the '80s, and the sentiment was recently revived in a speech by Boris Johnson when he claimed that “greed [is] a valuable spur to economic activity”.
Forgetting the exact wording is going to be the least of your worries if you find yourself quoting it to the wrong crowd.Conservatives hesitant about Donald Trump may find comfort in the genuine alarm and even hatred the left shows for the eleven judges Trump says he likes for the Supreme Court.
The left-wing group Think Progress immediately went with the race card, referring to the “eleven white people Donald Trump will consider for the Supreme Court.”
They don’t like Judge Steven Colloton because:
He is a reliable conservative. In 2008, the Eighth Circuit heard Planned Parenthood v. Rounds, a challenge to a South Dakota law that required abortion providers to tell their patients that abortions terminate “an existing relationship” with an “unborn human being” and that abortions lead to an increased risk of suicide. They don’t. Nevertheless, Colloton joined an opinion which reinstated the law after a panel of his court ordered it halted.
Think Progress points out that the Eighth Circuit is the only federal appeals court to strike down the contraceptive mandate in Obamacare.
Judge Allison Eid annoys Think Progress because she clerked for Clarence Thomas and served as a speech writer to William Bennett. She also supported the Second Amendment rights of Colorado university students.
They don’t like Missouri-based Judge Raymond Gruender because he’d worked for Bob Dole’s presidential bid and also wrote the opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Rounds.
Judge Joan Larson is on their blacklist for clerking with recently deceased Justice Antonin Scalia, a man she called “one of the greatest legal minds of our era.”
Think Progress has negative things to say about each of the eleven Donald Trump is said to have come up with in consultation with conservative legal scholars.
The pro-abortion group NARAL Pro-Choice America says, “…these people are terrifying. And many of them are devoted members of the anti-choice movement.”
William Pryor drew their sharpest criticism. They call him:
A highly controversial George W. Bush judicial appointee, Pryor is a long time outspoken anti-choice activist who opposes legal abortion even in cases of rape or incest. Among his statements on the issue: ‘I will never forget Jan. 22, 1973, the day seven members of our highest court ripped the Constitution and ripped out the life of millions of unborn children.’ He also said Roe v. Wade was the “worst abomination in the history of constitutional law.
NARAL doesn’t like Diane Sykes either:
Also a George W. Bush appointee, she has a long and documented history opposing the right to choose. As a judge in open court, she praised the criminal motives of anti-abortion protesters. “I respect you a great deal for having the courage of your convictions and for the ultimate goals that you sought to achieve by this conduct.”
Judge Thomas Hardiman “has contributed to the National Right to Life Committee before he was appointed to the federal bench.”
Judge Raymond Kethledge “…was the Judiciary Committee counsel for Sen. Spencer Abraham while Sen. Abraham was pushing for the Federal Abortion Ban. He also supported the Supreme Court nomination of Samuel Alito; it is worth noting that Alito became the fifth vote to uphold the constitutionality of the Federal Abortion Ban.”
And Judge Steven Colloton “…worked on special assignment to the Office of Independent Counsel, Kenneth Starr.”
NARAL president Ilyse Hogue summed up their opposition: “Donald Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees is a woman’s worst nightmare.”
As for conservatives, one very well connected Hill staffer who used to clerk for one Trump 11 describes the list as “an ideological murderer’s row.”
If anything it is the specter of four Hillary Clinton Supreme Court picks that may lure never-Trumpers into the yes camp. His eleven suggestions may have helped assuage the caution of many of them.Course Intro
In our free online Social Engineering and Manipulation course, you will learn how to defend against social engineering tactics used by criminal hackers. By studying how these hackers operate, you can prevent such attacks against your company.
Course Description
Social Engineering and Manipulation – Exploitation of the Human Element
Social engineering has been the cause of many of the most high profile cyber-attacks in recent years. The human element is too often the problem. In this online, self-paced Social Engineering and Manipulation training class, you will learn how some of the most elegant social engineering attacks take place. Learn to perform these scenarios and what is done during each step of the attack, from imitation through exploitation. This course is intended to help you better prepare your organization for defense of social engineering attacks, as well as how to ethically use these techniques for intelligence gathering. As a reminder, by taking this course, you agree to our terms of service.
Topics include: Intro to social engineering, exploitation lifecycle, digital information gathering, targeting, digital profile reduction, psychology of social engineering, elicitation, pretexting, cold calling, bypassing physical security, post exploitation, binary evasion and more.
Tools include: Kali Linux, Social Engineering Toolkit (SET), Google, Maltego, Scythe Framework, Recon-NG Framework, Creepy, Portable Virtual Box, Metasploit, Hyperion; Veil
Pre-requisites: This class is intended for cyber security professionals who have at least a baseline understanding of penetration testing and security policy principles. Approximately two years of experience in cyber security or Certified Ethical Hacker certification (or comparable cert) is highly recommended. If you do not meet these pre-requisites, it is recommended that you complete our Security+ and Ethical Hacker classes, before beginning.
Instructor: @polymath
CEU / CPE: 5
Total Clock Hours: 3 hrs, 55 mins
Get a Certificate of Completion
What is Social Engineering and Manipulation?
Social engineering refers to the “art” of manipulating people to divulge confidential information. Typically, criminal hackers will rely on the fact that most people will be trusting (in varying degrees), and that it is much easier to trick employees of an organization into providing them with information (passwords, account numbers, etc.) they can use to exploit the company than to use traditional hacking methods to obtain it.
Social engineering professionals (white hat hackers) work for companies to prevent such exploitations by learning the methods that criminal hacker use and developing strategies to combat them.
What Does the Social Engineering and Manipulation Training Course Cover?
Our free online Social Engineering and Manipulation course covers the methods that are used by criminals to exploit the human element of organizations, using the information to perform cyber attacks on the companies. In the class, you will learn to execute the methods yourself, in a step-by-step manner. The purpose of this training is to prepare you to defend your organization against social engineering attacks, and to learn how to use these methods ethically to gather intelligence.
In the Social Engineering and Manipulation class you will cover various topics, including introduction to social engineering, targeting, exploitation lifecycle, digital profile reduction, digital information gathering, psychology of social engineering, cold calling, elicitation, pretexting, post exploitation, bypassing physical security, binary evasion and other applicable subjects.
The tools used in this training course include:
Social Engineering Toolkit (SET)
Kali Linux
Maltego
Google
Scythe Framework
Creepy
Metasploit
Recon-NG Framework
Portable Virtual Box
Hyperion & Veil
This course is 3 hrs. and 55 min. of total clock hours, and you will receive a Certificate of Completion once finished.
Who Should Take the Social Engineering and Manipulation Training Course?
The Social Engineering and Manipulation training course is ideal for:
People wanting to learn about ethical hacking and how social engineering plays a part
People who want to understand how criminal hackers gain access into secure systems
People who want to understand how secure their own organization’s systems are from social engineering attacks
Additionally, students who take this class should be security professionals who have a basic knowledge of penetration testing and security policy principles, and who have worked in the IT industry for at least two years.
Why Study Social Engineering and Manipulation?
It’s expected that cybercrime will cost the world $6 trillion annually by 2021, a significant increase from the $3 trillion it cost in 2015. That means that information security professionals, including social engineers, are in high demand. In fact, because there is so much cybercrime and an increasing demand for cybersecurity professionals, the field has little to no unemployment.
Social engineering is an essential part of the overall cybersecurity career field for those IT professionals who want to play an active role in the protection of their organizations’ security controls.
A career in social engineering offers a substantial salary, flexibility, and often times, an exciting environment for those who love information security and technology. Social engineers may be hired on a permanent basis, but many are hired on contract or as consultants.
Which Jobs Will the Social Engineering and Manipulation Training Course Prepare Students For?
Most positions in the IT field now require employees to possess knowledge and skills in cybersecurity, no matter what the specific roles are. That means that training in social engineering and manipulation will better prepare you for any position in an IT department. Specifically, penetration testers, network engineers, cybersecurity engineers, and certified information security managers will all benefit from this course.
Do you know someone who could benefit from this training class? Email them an invite and they can join you, and you earn cybytes!(CNN) Canadians with cystic fibrosis live, on average, 10 years longer than their counterparts in the United States, according to a study published Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine.
Cystic fibrosis, a progressive genetic disease, causes persistent lung infections that compromise the ability to breathe over time. The researchers say differences in diet, lung transplantation and health care coverage may contribute to the survival gap between nations.
Since the early 1970s, both nations have maintained cystic fibrosis patient data registries. Annually, the US Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, which helped fund the new study, and Cystic Fibrosis Canada have published separate reports based on registry data.
"We noticed that the median age of survival within these reports differed between the two countries," said Dr. Anne Stephenson, lead author of the new study and a respirologist at the Adult Cystic Fibrosis Center of St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. "However, as they were calculated independently, we were uncertain whether the differences were real or due to technical issues."
The goal of the study was to see whether this survival gap between nations might have been due to differences in calculating statistics, or possibly disease severity.
But the differences aren't just about math -- they're real, the researchers soon discovered.
Factors behind the'survival gap'
Stephenson and her colleagues examined national cystic fibrosis registry data between 1990 and 2013 for 5,941 patients in Canada and 45,456 patients in the United States. While survival increased in both countries over time, Canada began to see greater improvements than the US beginning in 1995, with a dramatic increase in Canadian survival rates in 2005.
For the most recent years, 2009 through 2013, the median age of survival has been 50.9 years in Canada, compared with just 40.6 years in the US. In particular, rates of Canadian males dying at older ages grew significantly faster than those of US males, while no differences in rates were seen among females.
"The reasons for the survival gap is definitely multifactorial and not based on one factor alone," Stephenson wrote in an email, adding that the study was not designed to determine any direct causes.
She has received personal fees from Cystic Fibrosis Canada for work unrelated to this study.
"We hypothesize that three factors may be playing a role in the survival gap: lung transplantation; differences in the two health care systems; the differential approach to nutrition in the 1970s that started first in Canada," Stephenson wrote. The impact of each of these factors remains unknown, however.
Transplants, insurance, diet
A higher proportion of cystic fibrosis patients receive a lung transplant in Canada than in the US. And a greater proportion of deaths in the US occurred in patients who had not received a transplant.
In 2005, when the United States began using a lung allocation score to prioritize people on the transplant waiting list, the survival gap also increased dramatically, the authors noted. The score may make access to a lung more difficult for cystic fibrosis patients, according to the authors.
This score, designed by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, which operates under contract with the US government, is not used in Canada.
Since 2005, an individualized lung allocation score, which estimates disease severity and chance of success after a transplant, has been assigned to every transplant candidate 12 and older, explained Anne Paschke of the United Network for Organ Sharing, which runs the network. This score, blood type and distances between the lung donor and patient all factor into who gets a lung first.
The study authors also found that differences in survival varied according to the insurance status of US patients. Those with private insurance had similar survival rates to those of Canadians, who have universal, publicly funded health care coverage.
However, Canadians had a 44% lower risk of early death than US patients receiving continuous Medicaid or Medicare coverage and a 36% lower risk than those receiving intermittent Medicaid or Medicare coverage. Compared with US patients with no health insurance (or unknown health insurance status), Canadians had a 77% lower risk of early death.
"Insurance status in the US is a complex construct and may reflect a combination of other unmeasured factors such as socioeconomic status," Stephenson said. "The impact of US health insurance/health care policy and survival in US (cystic fibrosis) patients needs further targeted study in order to make definitive conclusions."
Finally, Canadian doctors began recommending a high-fat diet with supplementation for patients with cystic fibrosis in the 1970s.
"Cystic fibrosis affects the ability of the digestive system to absorb fat," Stephenson explained. The high-fat diet, which increases nutritional absorption, prevents malnutrition and so probably helps
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up in Friday night’s SSE Airtricity League win over Galway United.
The injury is not considered especially serious and manager Stephen Kenny has not ruled him out of Sunday’s FAI Cup final. But the former UCD player, who scored in the home game against Zenit, will be travelling today primarily to continue receiving treatment from the team’s physiotherapists.
“I’d have taken a draw the other night to not lose Robbie,” said Kenny. “That was a big blow for us because he’s really in an explosive run of form. He’s really come out of his shell and found his feet; found an extra bit of acceleration and confidence. He knows what he’s doing, he has adapted tactically to challenges we’ve asked of him and would definitely have started on Thursday.”
At least he should be back for Sunday’s game at the Aviva Stadium. Shane Grimes will miss that and faces an anxious wait to see if his career might be threatened by his much more severe hamstring injury, which was sustained in the opening stages of last Tuesday’s defeat to St Patrick’s Athletic.
The defender, who is from Dundalk, had featured in every round of the cup and was in with a strong shout of starting the final. Instead he must wait to see if an injury, similar to the one that ultimately ended Paul O’Connell’s career, might similarly threaten his.
“It was a strange day for him,” said his manager. “He was up all night because his child was born that morning and then he captained the team that night and had to come off within minutes. Just unusual circumstances, and very difficult for him. He played in every round of the cup, but he misses the final obviously.”
Battered and bruised
“I’ll sit down with Stephen and see how he trains,” said Kenny. “Obviously he has missed a week with a hamstring, and two games in four days... He has played just an hour. We have to be completely ready for this as there is a real challenge going into their backyard with their formidable record and their quality. We must be ready, really ready.”
Daryl Horgan reckoned he was ready, saying with a smile that he had already lined up his cup final tickets for friends and family and sorted out his suit for Sunday.
The winger had another weekend to remember, first celebrating the successful defence of the league title with the rest of the team after Friday night’s game, then heading the next night to Dublin, where he was named the PFAI’s Player of the Year.
“It was nice to get the award,” he said. “Obviously those types of awards [the ones where other players do the voting] are great, but they don’t really get me going. I’m more interested in trophies than anything else. You can’t beat winning the league. You can’t compare that to an individual award; it’s just nowhere near it, to be honest.”
January window
“It would be huge,” he said. “I’ve said it before, I’m not going to go to another club in England or wherever and play in the Europa League or the Champions League. There’s no hope of that really. So to be in the last 32 of the Europa League would be absolutely incredible.”
On the face of it, this game in St Petersburg is not the one that is likely to decide whether the team goes through, with the home tie against AZ in a few weeks looking more central to the Irish side’s prospects at this point.
But Horgan insisted that there will be no sense of surrender now because they are away to the group’s most expensively assembled side.
“I think there’s expectation now because of what we’ve done,” said the 24-year-old. “I think at the start everyone thought we’d be the whipping boys, but because of the way that we’ve played we’ve brought expectation on ourselves, and that’s fantastic.
“But there’s no point in getting too overwhelmed by it. We’ll try our best to get a result in St Petersburg, but then we’ll come in and get the head straight on for Sunday. And I suppose it helps that it is a cup final, because it’s a massive occasion, a massive crowd and special for everyone.”This weeks topic will look at the order confirmation email. More often than not this part of the shopping process gets too little attention compared to the effort that has been put into getting a customer in the first place. Sometimes we find it can even seem like the store has rushed this part and this doesnt help at all with reducing post purchase anxiety. For new customers this is the first time you have communicated with them after taking their money. The more professional this email is the more the customer will know they made the right decision in buying from you. Get it wrong and you’ll end up looking bad. New web stores can be especially vulnerable to this.
First things first
Before we even consider what is in the email - make sure your system is sending emails correctly. By this we mean make sure your server is setup right. This might seem obvious but email can go wrong with very little warning leaving you with a debugging nightmare. The first you will know about this part not working is when a customer calls you up complaining. For new customers this will be the first contact via email so you can not rely on being on any safe senders list.
To make sure your email gets delivered at a very minimum you should ensure:
Correct DNS setup. Make sure you are allowed to send email from your chosen domain at the server IP address. Make sure the email headers are correct. Make sure the content is not spammy which may lead to the email being marked as spam by over sensitive spam filters. Have a look in your SPAM box in your email client to see what type of words and phrases to avoid. Make sure you are not sending from a blacklisted IP. DNSBL
If you want to be sure your email meets all these requirements why not outsource this part of your business. There are some good 3rd party companies who do the email for you. We’ve used both Postmark and Sendgrid and have been more than happy with both. Prices for peace of mind are extremely reasonable.
If we have not managed to persuade you yet and you are really determined to do it yourself read this piece on what good web developers should know about sending email and weep.
Excellent - now the interesting bit about content
Email meta information such as
From Name. This might seem like common sense but make this clear. Normally the best option is to put your domain name or the name of your store. It need to be something the customer will instantly recognise. Don’t leave it as the group that apache is running as on your web server like in the above example.
Reply To. Always, always, always make this a real address. There are too many companies using ‘do not reply to this email address’ and we think this is bad. Why would you think it was a good idea to frustrate paying customers and make it hard for them to get in touch? This is an easy win and puts you ahead of competitors with very little effort. Just setup a new email address like [email protected] and let people use it.
Subject lines Try to summarise what is in the email. If this person also subscribes to other email from your company they need to be able to easily differentiate between the two. This will obviously differ depending on company but we think these are good email subject lines.
Your Order Confirmation
Your Monthly Invoice
Thank you. Your Order Summary is Here.
Your Order Summary. This is What Happens Now.
Inside the email
Ask yourself what you like to see when you have just purchased online. You normally need the answers to a few simple questions and to be reassured of a few things. These are nearly always the same for all customers.
1. Summarise what has just happened
Reinforce the purchase with the customer. They may not be looking at this email for a few days after the purchase and it is always good to summarise the purchase.
2. Show the order
This is now the only reference the customer has of buying from you. You must provide them with a list of what they purchased and how much they spend on each item. Amongst other things this helps you if you decide to change your pricing and the customer queries the amount.
3. Describe what to do in case of an error
Mistakes happen and people change their minds. This can even happen 2 minutes after buying something. You should provide easy instructions or a link to page that describes how to change the order. This section might also describe your refunds and returns policy.
4. Describe what will happen next
Tell the customer when they might expect the product based on the shipping they have purchased. If you are selling digital goods, explain where to go to download the product.
5. Sign the email from a real person or team.
We love this one and whenever this happens to us we get a warm and fuzzy feeling! Provide a name and phone number of someone you can speak to if you need. It is as simple as that. Reassuring your customer that there is someone there to talk to will give them massive confidence in your business. If the customer is a regular shopper why not go one step further and attach a support Vcard. I know we love it when this happens.
6. Give your customer an incentive to buy again straight away
We are all in business to sell. Why not include a coupon code with a discount if this customer buys again within a week. If its a big enough discount people will jump at the chance.
If you have anything to say or have any improvements for this article please leave a comment below.
Thanks for reading.The Labour leadership contender wants the House of Lords to be scrapped. Credit: PA
Labour leadership candidate Andy Burnham has branded the House of Lords "a national embarrassment" and wants it to be scrapped. The MP for Leigh posted his comments about the upper house to the social media site Twitter.
Andy Burnham @andyburnhammp Follow It's official: the Lords is now a national embarrassment. We should scrap it & replace with indirectly-elected Senate of regions & nations.
Mr Burnham proposed that a better alternative would be an "indirectly-elected Senate of regions and nations". He said that he favoured a proportional second chamber built from votes for the House of Commons, which would make every vote count. On the subject of reforms to the House of Lords, Downing Street has said that David Cameron is willing to consider new all-party talks to address issues.
The total number of members in the House of Lords is now 826. Credit: PAMay 14, 2013
Marriage equality
Brazilian Flag
By Jacob Combs
Brazil’s National Council of Justice (CNJ), a top judicial panel, ruled today that same-sex couples across the country cannot be denied a marriage license, and that government officials must provide such licenses when they are requested.
The new development, first reported by the newspaper O Globo, would bring to an end the legal maneuvering same-sex couples faced in several Brazilian states after a 2011 Supreme Federal Court decision ruling that gays and lesbians can enter into legal unions. After that ruling, couples throughout the country were able to seek a judge’s approval to convert their ‘stable union’ into a full marriage.
Since Brazil has a federal political system similar to the United States, individual states were allowed to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples that would allow them to automatically convert their stable unions without going before a judge. Several states have amended their laws in this way, the most recent being Rio de Janeiro in late April.
In its 14-1 ruling, the CNJ wrote that the Supreme Court “affirmed that the expression of homosexuality and homosexual affection cannot serve as a basis for discriminatory treatment, which has no support in the Constitution,” according to Agence France-Presse. The decision was authored by Joaquim Barbosa, who heads the CNJ and is also the chief justice of the Supreme Court. The CNJ’s decision can still be appealed to the high court.
Brazilian legislators are currently considering a bill that would officially legalize marriage for same-sex couples. In its decision, however, the CNJ said that there was no reason to delay offering marriage licenses to couples while the Brazilian Congress considers marriage equality legislation.
Experts weigh in on Prop 8 at the Supreme Court Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton signs marriage...Pin 0 Shares
This year my company informed us that our company's health care costs were starting to get out of control. Premiums for employees and for the company's portion of the bill were rising. With all the uncertainty that has come with Obama's Health Care plan and as to what will be covered in the future, this year the company decided to kick the can down the road on making hard decisions with the company's health care plan and do a few things to help us save money this year. One thing that they implemented for employees this year was a flexible spending account or FSA. By using this FSA our family will save hundreds of dollars this year on our taxes.
While the FSA has worked out great for us because of our high health care spending at our household this year (we had a baby), it may not be the right option for everyone. We'll explain below.
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So What Is A Flexible Spending Account (FSA)?
Flexible Spending Accounts aren't something you're going to find at all places of employment because not everyone offers them. In addition if you're self employed, you aren't able to participate in a FSA plan.
Usually how the FSA plan will work is your company will have an open enrollment period where you can sign up for the company's plan. Our company had that enrollment period earlier this year when we jumped on the opportunity because we knew we were going to have a lot of medical expenses this year with a baby on the way.
When you sign up for your company's plan you'll need to elect an amount that you want deducted pre-tax from your paycheck. That amount you elect to have deducted from your pay will then be split up into your pay periods and deducted from each check. By deducting the money pre-tax it means that you're saving a good amount of money on taxes for the year. The more you deduct for your expected medical expenses, the more you'll save.
Normally you can’t change your amount you’ve elected to deduct from your pay during the year unless certain life events have happened and there has been a change in your employment or family status. (you have a baby or get a new job)
FSA Contributions
As mentioned above when signing up for your FSA you'll need to tell your employer how much you want to contribute to your account for that year. To do that you'll want to estimate how much money you think you'll be paying on medical expenses for the year out of pocket for things like doctor's visits, prescriptions, dental care, and so on.
The government doesn't currently have a limit for the amount that you can add to your FSA account, although most employers will cap the FSA account at a certain percentage or around $5000. My company plan has a limit of $5000, although we designated less than that at $3000 for the year. With that amount we were reasonably sure that we would be able to spend all the money as we were having a baby this year. Remember, you need to be careful about how much you designate for your account, because you have to spend the money – or risk losing it! More on that in the next section.
Our plan has a maximum of $5000 that you can contribute, and at this time we’re contributing $3000. We are expecting our first child this year, and we expect to have substantial medical bills because of that, so using a FSA this year is a good choice for us. With the life change event in July when the baby is born we can elect to increase our contributions if needed. If we expect to use all $5000 of the maximum allowed, we can add the extra contributions to our plan at that time.
FSA Contributions – Use It Or Lose It
FSA plans in most cases have a rule that you must spend the funds added to your account during the year, or you'll lose the money to the plan where it will be used to help cover costs of other plan users who have left their job during the year (before they could add all their funds to the account – even though they've used up their total amount already).
Since funds are subject to forefeit you'll want to make extra sure that you are careful about estimating your health care costs and that you come as close as possible to the reality of what your costs are. For us, we knew just about what we would spend this year based on our spending last year, and the estimated costs of having a baby at our local hospital. In the end we'll end up spending a bit more than we have in our account, but I would rather under-estimate than over estimate – and lose the funds.
FSA Funds Can Be Used At Any Time – The FSA Loophole
One thing that is nice about adding money to a FSA is that you can use your elected funds at any time after you sign up. For example, we have only put in about $1000 in our account so far this year, but within the next couple of weeks we'll have submitted for reimbursements from our account for the full $3000 amount. As long as you've signed up for the account, and are in the plan, you can use up to your full plan election amount at any time.
This point of the FSA has been referred to as the FSA loophole because if you end up leaving a job only part of the way into the year, you no longer have to make contributions to your FSA, even though you’ve used all of your money for the year. The negative balance in your account is balanced out by funds not used by other plan members who have forfeited their funds at the end of the year.
You will sometimes see people who are planning on leaving their company sign up for the FSA plan anyway, knowing they can take advantage of the loophole.
Getting Reimbursed For FSA Approved Expenses
For most FSA plans how it works is you'll pay for all of your health care expenses out of your own pocket, and then once you pay you just submit a claim for reimbursement. Usually you'll get reimbursed in one of three ways.
By Check: You submit documentation of your approved expenses, and within a couple of weeks you'll receive a check in the mail. If something isn't approved or you need further documentation, you'll receive notice.
You submit documentation of your approved expenses, and within a couple of weeks you'll receive a check in the mail. If something isn't approved or you need further documentation, you'll receive notice. Direct Deposit : Again, submit your documentation proving your expenses, and if they're approved you'll have the money deposited directly into your account. For us, this is the way our plan works – we submit a fax to the Flex Spending plan administrator and they approve our expenses or ask for more documentation.
: Again, submit your documentation proving your expenses, and if they're approved you'll have the money deposited directly into your account. For us, this is the way our plan works – we submit a fax to the Flex Spending plan administrator and they approve our expenses or ask for more documentation. FSA debit card: Some plans will just give you a debit card for your flex spending account that allows you to use it to buy approved expenses directly using your funds.
Changes To Flex Spending Accounts Due To Obama Care
After the health care law was passed earlier this year there were a couple of pretty big changes made (for the worse in my opinion).
Over the counter medicines: Starting next year in 2011, flexible spending account money cannot be used for over-the-counter meds unless they are specifically prescribed by a doctor. In current law your FSA funds can be used for over the counter drugs and other items such as eyeglasses, contact solution, bandages and non-prescription forms of birth control.
Starting next year in 2011, flexible spending account money cannot be used for over-the-counter meds unless they are specifically prescribed by a doctor. In current law your FSA funds can be used for over the counter drugs and other items such as eyeglasses, contact solution, bandages and non-prescription forms of birth control. Limits on your contributions: Starting in 2013, your contributions to your FSA will be capped at $2,500 each year with annual inflation increases. Although there are currently no limits, most employers cap the maximum somewhere around $5,000.
Why are these changes being made? Because they want to collect as much tax money as possible in order to help pay for the trillion dollar Health Care plan. Personally I'm not happy about it as it means I'll most likely end up having to pay for more taxes.
Why FSAs Are Great
If you know that your family will be incurring substantial medical costs during the year, using a FSA plan sponsored by your employer is a great idea. If you estimate how much you'll spend, or even if you know that you'll be leaving your job and want to take advantage of the FSA loophole, you can come out substantially ahead. At our house this year we estimated the amount we were going to spend at around $3000, and in the end we'll end up saving almost $1000 in taxes. Want to figure out how much you could save, check out this FSA Savings calculator.
Do you have a flexible spending account? How much were you able to save in taxes due to your FSA? Tell us your FSA experience, or ask us questions in the comments!
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Books will never be outdated. Reading is fun, educational, and most of all – inspiring. And while book readers like Kindle become more widespread and accessible, nothing can replace the feel of holding a book in your hands. If you are a reading enthusiast, surely you have tones of books lying in your home. In this post, we will show you a clever way of using your old gutters to store your favourite books, by building your very own DIY gutter bookshelf.
How to turn your old rain gutters into a bookshelf
There is an easy, cheap, and stylish alternative for the wooden bookshelf in your home. And that’s vinyl gutters. You can built them all by yourself, without having five years of experience as a handyman. Just follow the steps.
Items you need
The hardware you’ll need:
One vinyl gutter. If you don’t like the colour, or if it has rust on it, consider repainting it before you start.
Two gutter end caps. Make sure they will fit.
Four screws.
[Optional] Two mounting brackets.
Tools to use
Nothing really out of the ordinary here. The project requires basic tools every man should have. You could also add a stud finder, but a simple knock`n`listen technique was enough for us not to drill through any pipes or electric wires.
Step 1: Preparation
Decide how long your gutter bookshelf will be. You can go wild here. Corner shelves, strange forms, etc. Just cut accordingly, be careful and remember – better to cut less than attended and correct afterwards.
Attach the gutter caps when you are done cutting.
Step 2: Marking
After you’ve decided where exactly your future rain gutter bookshelf shall be, start marking the spot. Use the marker to label where the screws will be. Try to hold the vinyl gutter over it’s future spot and use your level to place it as horizontally as possible.
After you’re sure you’ve picked the right places, drill small holes for the screws.
Step 3: Montage
The final stage of this project is actually installing the gutter to the wall. By now you should have shaped the vinyl gutter to the size you require. Drill two holes in the back of it and attach it to the law using the screws. You can put mounting brackets for extra stability.
Once mounted, make sure your new gutter bookshelf will withstand the extra weight from the books. Put some pressure over it by pushing it down with your hands. If it is stable and doesn’t swing, you are okey. If it swings, tighten up the screws until it’s stable.
Enjoy your new gutter bookshelf
There you have it, easy, cheap, and fancy new home for your books to be displayed. If you liked the tutorial you can find the full infographic here.
And remember, for every guttering issue you can’t handle, we are here to help. Don’t feel shy to contact us.
Posted by | No CommentsGiven that it’s the early moments of the game, the puzzles are ridiculously simple, and likely not indicative of what you’ll get up to a few hours into the game. What I found myself focusing on was the interactions between the boy and Trico. Like Ico, their bond gives this adventure weight, and while it’s too early to say whether The Last Guardian succeeds in making you care about the two of them, I can say that it was a joy to watch them playfully interact.
There are two examples that stand out in particular.
One, when you’re trying to feed Trico for the first time, if you approach the beast with food in-hand, he unleashes a terrifying scream in protest. Instead, you need to drop the food near him, walk away, and give him space to calm.
Two, as you’re leaving the opening area, an underground lake appears. It seems Trico is afraid of water (possibly because of his electric tail?), and won’t follow you any further. Fortunately for the boy, there’s a stash of food hidden away, and if you toss one of them in the water, Trico will spend a hilariously uncomfortable amount of time wondering if they should jump in the water. Trico will put one of their feet forward, feel some rocks fall into the water, then back off. Then, they’ll notice the food bobbing up and down and reconsider their decision. Eventually, hunger trumps all, and Trico dives down, gets soaked, and lumbers over to the food barrel. One hopes the game is full of such moments.I was BernieOrBust for other reasons and still would be if Kasich or probably anyone else was their nominee. After that convention though... I mean that was literally chilling. I can't believe this is happening in my lifetime.
The party must come at 1/3 of the way over. It's not perfect and it's not even the middle, but honestly, the DNC is becoming authoritarian too. The smugness and arrogance is alarming and it is dripping from the top. It might not matter if we vote for her or not if this is how they're going to campaign.
What I absolutely do not want to see at the DNC is the absence of hope, goals, and policy like I have the past few weeks. It's all been 'I'm not him.' We need her to come out, be honest and sincere (even if it's not pretty) and talk about the emails and her mistakes. That is the only way that gets put behind her. If the DNC is on defense the whole election and only attacking Trump's character, we lose. And she needs to start holding open press conferences regularly. Get the hard part over with now so we can fuckin move on.
All she has to do is be honest. I would really appreciate her saying that she is a political insider and she is a part of the establishment. Talk about the benefits of that. Just fucking be honest and transparent... Announce that she is going to close the Foundation while she is in office. The problem for her is that the entire republican party thinks she's a liar, all the Sanders supporters and independents think she is a liar, and a lot of her own supporters think she is a liar. Take some beta blockers or some xanax to relax and just talk to us and not AT us. Lets do the best we can.
My hope is that this all happens obviously, but I would like for her to realize that this is her ultimate goal. Once she gets in, she can actually be progressive. She has more money than god- she doesn't need more afterwards. She can fuck over some of her donors and actually get shit done for people. Why not go down in history as one of the great Presidents instead of just being the first lady president? I don't see that happening, but that's my dream that doesn't appear to be absolutely impossible, like Bernie somehow walking out with the nomination.
Hug Bernie supporters and pull them close. We are assets. Trump even fucking realizes that. We can learn to like her, but she needs to show us actual action and her true self. No more playing the focus group written character she thinks we want to see. If you're a cold and calculating, that's fine, so long as we know we are her priority and not banks/corporations/donors.
Free idea: Steal his slogan at the convention and show what a great America looks like. Use Bernie to help because he knows. If they agree like she says, but only disagree on method, then show it. And be selective about how you hit Trump, hit really fuckin hard in a truthful way that will get under his thin skin, and focus on hope for the majority of the time.
I'm really fucking scared her arrogance and entitlement issues pushing our country into fascism. That convention really shook me up.No doubt Gmail is still the number one free email clients available worldwide having 1 billion users.
It is fast, beautiful and easy to use – moreover, 90.7 million users access Gmail every month.
Growing popularity of Gmail put it on the radar of hackers…
…and hackers today are smart enough in the phishing scam they even fooling experienced technical users.
According to a report, hackers hacked over 10 million Gmail accounts and put it for the sale on the Dark Web.
You might be one of those victims who doesn’t even know that his Gmail account has been hacked.
Getting Google account hacked is a big deal you can’t ignore it, especially when it has your personal information such as private photos, emails, bank details, etc.
Now the question is…
…how hackers hack a Gmail account?
Well, there isn’t a single action that hackers use to hack and read your email without logging into your Gmail account.
The hacking activities include using Gmail for mobile, the IMAP feature, email forwarding, and so on.
However, Gmail’s “last account activity” feature is helpful but you need to know other ways to protect your Gmail account from hackers.
Today, I’ll show you some of the easiest ways to find out if your Gmail account has been hacked or compromised.
The tips are useful for all Gmail users including those who hasn’t even faced this hacking issue.
It’s a good idea to keep an eye on your email accounts to monitor suspicious activities.
Security is a thing you need to put on priority when working online.
As you see hackers easily hacked 10 million Gmail accounts that mean you need to be aware of the tricks to find out if your Gmail account has been hacked in order to protect that from hackers.
I have seen people asking questions on social media and communities. Like this:
Someone hacked my gmail account and changed the password.
Someone hacked my gmail account and changed the password. Someone changed my gmail password and phone number.
Someone changed my gmail password and phone number. I can’t access my gmail account.
I can’t access my gmail account. I can’t sign in to my google account.
Five Ways to Check If Your Gmail Account Has Been Hacked
The tricks I am going to share with you to find out hacked Gmail account will never let you fall in the above situation.
Without further ado, let’s jump right in:
#1. Gmail last account activity feature
Gmail has a very helpful last account activity feature that you can see at the right side bottom of your Gmail account page.
“Last account activity” shows you the location, IP, method, and time when your Gmail was last accessed. You can see the last 10 login details including the current one.
This is the first and easy way to check if your Gmail account is hacked or not.
Using this method you can easily find out if your account is being used by someone else whom you don’t know.
The best part of this feature is – you can log out the users whom you think shouldn’t access your Gmail account.
#2. Email forwarding
This is another useful feature of the Gmail that allows you to forward any email coming into your Gmail account to any other email address.
Also, it is one of the safest ways for hackers to read your all email.
As they hack your google account first thing they do forward all emails to their own accounts and since most people don’t know about this feature, as a result, they hardly even know that someone else is reading their email.
To check forwarding first click at the setting it will open a tab like:
Click on Forwarding and POP/IMAP and see if forwarding is enabled on any email id that you don’t know, if yes disable it and save.
#3. POP and IMAP settings for Gmail
POP and IMAP is a useful feature of Gmail for users who like to access their email on any other 3rd party client by using any of these two protocols.
But the problem with it is – anyone who has access to your Gmail password can configure their email client to receive your email, HACKERS also.
It would be better for you to keep it disabled if you aren’t using the IMAP or POP feature.
But most of all follow the first step we talked earlier, to check the unexpected login IP and location, a hacker might be using to read your emails.
#4. Check your account at Check Point
According to a report of the Security firm Check Point, Gooligan a malware created by Trojan horse is striking 13,000 new Google accounts every day.
Especially the devices that run on Android 4 (Jelly Bean, KitKat) and Android 5 (Lollipop).
The virus comes from third-party app stores and malicious links in phishing attack messages.
Gooligan uses a rootkit to steal authentication tokens to access data from Google Play, Gmail, Google Photos, Google Docs, G Suite, Google Drive and other programs.
Furthermore, it installs apps that get your account information to publish fake ratings and reviews to raise the profile of such apps.
Thanks to Check Point by using it you can easily find out if your account has been account compromised.
Go to the Check Point put your email there and click the check button and it will show you if your account was breached.
#5. Check your account at Have I been pwned
Have I been pwned? is a FREE way to check your google account if it has been compromised or “pwned” in a data breach.
However, it works same as Check Point but it goes a step ahead and shows you the sites where your mail was pwned.
If you ever feel that your Gmail account has been hacked, or get an email from google about suspicious login activity.
The first thing you do is change your password immediately, as well as your security question, password recovery email, and registered phone number also.
You never know when you can be in this situation where you can’t access your google account, therefore, it is better to be ready and keeps an on your accounts for any unusual activities.
Now I have a question for you!
Have you ever experienced anything that looks like your Gmail account may have been hacked?
Let us know your thoughts in the comment section.With buzz building around his adaptation of “The Fault in Our Stars,” Josh Boone is nearing a deal to write and direct an adaptation of Stephen King‘s acclaimed novel “The Stand” for Warner Bros. and CBS Films, TheWrap has learned.
An individual familiar with the studios’ plans tells TheWrap that Boone will adapt King’s epic novel as a single, R-rated movie that will be faithful to the book.
Warner Bros. and a representative for Boone did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Scott Cooper (“Out of the Furnace”) was most recently attached to direct, though he exited the project in November over creative differences. Ben Affleck and David Yates have also been involved with “The Stand” over the years.
Also read: ‘Crazy Heart’ Director Scott Cooper Exits Warner Bros.’ Stephen King Adaptation (Exclusive)
“The Stand” chronicles an epic battle between good and evil after the American population is all but wiped out by a deadly virus. Story follows a group of survivors who fight against an Antichrist-like figure named Randall Flagg.
Originally published in 1978, “The Stand” achieved cult-like status by the time it was re-released in 1990 with additions and revisions by King. The influential novel was adapted as a star-studded TV miniseries in 1994 starring Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald and Rob Lowe.
While Warner Bros. serves as the lead on “The Stand,” CBS Films will co-produce and co-present the movie, which is being produced by Roy Lee and Jimmy Miller.
Also read: Shailene Woodley’s ‘The Fault In Our Stars’ Trailer Released — Need a Tissue? (Video)
Boone made his feature directorial debut with the indie comedy “Stuck in Love,” which starred Greg Kinnear as a writer grappling with family problems. The film, which co-starred Jennifer Connelly, Lily Collins, Logan Lerman and Kristen Bell, also featured a cameo from King, who is one of Boone’s childhood heroes.
“The Fault In Our Stars” is based on John Green’s bestselling novel of the same name, and stars Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort. Boone directed from a screenplay written by Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter. Fox 2000 will release the movie on June 6.
Boone is repped by CAA and attorney Gregory Slewett.Wait. Before you begin reading this post, click play on the video below.
Ah, that’s better. Now we’re ready to proceed.
You’ve probably heard the “Christmas Song” hundreds of times in your life, and you’re well familiar with that opening line about “chestnuts roasting on an open fire.”
But how many of us have actually partaken in this holiday tradition? If you’ve never had a warm roasted chestnut, you’re missing out. Chestnuts grow from mid-fall to early-spring, and they peak during the holidays—which is why they’re associated with this time of year. They have a texture kind of like a baked potato, and they’re the only nut that contains vitamin C, so eating some is a good way to ward off winter scurvy if you’ll be spending Christmas sailing as a pirate. The sweet, nutty flavor of chestnuts will warm your manly holiday spirit to the core, and most importantly, roasting them gives you an excuse to do something with fire.
Watch the Video
What You Need
The Roaster
Yes, you can roast chestnuts in the oven. But what would be the fun in that? A man never misses a chance to build a fire and cook over it.
To roast your chestnuts, you’ll need a pan that you can put into the fire. Long-handled popcorn or chestnut roasters make the ideal vessels for open fire chestnut roasting, as they allow you to roast the nuts without burning your face off. And their lids let you shake the chestnuts around for even roasting,
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in need of cheap office space with large companies that have space standing empty. "One of the advantages we have is that we are not displacing an existing industry," says company founder and CEO David Mandell. "These are hidden transactions."
Working together
Other peer-to-peer start-ups are so new that they are not yet on the radar of existing businesses.
Or, in the case of YourMechanic, the two sides are beginning to work hand in hand from the earliest stages of the company's evolution.
Launched a year ago, YourMechanic.com links car mechanics with individuals who need repairs. But not every kind of car repair can be completed in a customer's driveway, notes founder and CEO Art Agrawal.
"In cases like a head-gasket job, which might take a whole day to finish, we refer them to a shop where they can get the work done," he says.
His company is so young that it doesn't yet have an app to kick back some benefit to him when he refers business to a shop. But he hopes that working with repair shops from the beginning so they can see the benefits will prevent confrontations later and allow both sides to profit.
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He acknowledges that his model takes away the easy cash that car repair shops rely on in order to build larger relationships. "Brake jobs and other simple repairs are what those shops count on," he says. But he hopes that, down the line, both sides will see the value in sharing. "Right now," he adds, "there are only a handful, but I'm optimistic."
History is on the side of innovation, says Charley Moore, founder and executive chairman of Rocket Lawyer, an online legal collaborative. While zoning restrictions and other regulations might serve as speed bumps, he says, "I doubt that the genie of collaborative consumption can be put back into the bottle. Consumers usually get what they want."Cruelty Free Charities
So you’ve got a few extra pounds and decide that you want to do a good thing and donate to a charity, to help out with the many illnesses and diseases that are causing fatalities and affecting many millions of people around the world. However you are not sure which charity you should donate to.
Well, there are many choices that you may have to get your head around including which illness you want to help find a cure for and even then there are many choices for you to pick from. Sometimes is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
So that’s why these lists will hopefully help you when deciphering through the millions of choices out there.
Who To Donate To
Action Against Allergy
Action Cancer
Action For Blind People
Against Breast Cancer
Age Care
Alcohol Concern
Allergy UK
Animal Cancer Trust
Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust
Arterial Health Foundation
The Arthritic Association
Aspire
AVERT
Balls To Cancer
BEAT (Beating Eating Disorders)
The Big C
Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity
The Bob Champion Cancer Trust
Bosom Buddies
Bowel Cancer Information
Bowel Cancer Care
Bowel Cancer Survival Trust
Breast Cancer UK
Breast Friends
British Deaf Association
British Dyslexia Association
British Homeopathic Association
BIBIC (British Institute for Brain Injured Children)
British Kidney Patient Association
British Organ Donor Society
British Polio Fellowship
British Red Cross
Cancer Active
Cancer Kin Centre
Cancer Recovery Foundation
Cancer Research Wales
CLIC Sargent
Cardiac Risk in the Young
Cardiomyopathy Association
Caring Cancer Trust
Chest, Heart & Stroke Scotland
The Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group
The Children’s Research Fund
Christian Lewis Children’s Cancer Care
Cleft Lip & Palate Association
Dementia UK
Downs Syndrome Association
Dr Hadwens Trust for Humane Research
East Anglia’s Children’s Hospice
Eating Disorders Foundation
Elton John AIDS Foundation
ENABLE
Epilepsy Action
Epilepsy Scotland
Epilepsy Society
FORCE Cancer Charity
Foundation for Liver Research
Genetic Disorders UK
Greater London Fund for the Blind
Guide Dogs for the Blind Association
GUTS
Haemophilia Society
The Haven
Headway – The Brian Injury Association
Hearing Link
Herpes Virus Association
Heartbeat
Henshaw’s Society for the Blind
The Humane Research Trust
International Glaucoma Association
Jeans for Genes
John Charnley Trust
Laura Crane Trust
The Little Foundation
Lord Dowling Fund
Lymphoma Association
Macmillan Cancer Support
Marie Curie Cancer Care
Mencap
Meningitis Trust
Mental Health Foundation
Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children
Mind, The Mental Health Charity
Migraine Action
MS Research and Relief Fund
Multiple Sclerosis Trust
Narcolepsy UK
National Deaf Children’s Society
National Kidney Federation
National Osteoporosis Society
National Reye’s Syndrome Foundation
National Society for Research into Allergy
New Approaches to Cancer
The Nutritional Cancer Therapy Trust
The Pain Relief Foundation
ORBIS UK
Penny Brohn Cancer Care
Pink Ribbon Cancer Care
Quest Cancer Research
Raynaud’s & Scleroderma Association
Royal College of Psychiatrists
Royal National Institute of Blind People
Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation
Safer Medicines Trust
SANE
The Scoliosis Association UK (SAUK)
Scottish Spina Bifida Association
Shaw Trust
SHINE
Spinal Injuries Association
Sue Ryder
Teenage Cancer Trust
Terrance Higgins Trust
Together Against Cancer
Tree of Hope
Values into Action
Wellchild
York Against Cancer
So there you have it, next time you are looking to donate money to a good cause, stop and think if it’s a medical charity and not on this list then it’s more than likely that your money is helping support the killing of millions of innocent animals around the world and consequently supporting animal cruelty and useless experiments and tests that have resulted in the death of animals and hundreds of thousands of humans.Orange announced a $40 “Klif” Firefox OS phone for Africa, and Mozilla says it’s working with Verizon Wireless and others on Firefox OS feature phones.
There’s still no evidence that Mozilla’s HTML-focused Firefox OS has made much of a dent in the world smartphone market, where it has been focused on low-end devices sold primarily to emerging markets. Yet, Firefox OS still leads the way among upstart, Linux-based mobile operating systems, and will soon be available in more than 40 markets, this year, on a total of 17 smartphones, according to its latest stats. Meanwhile, the very first Tizen (Samsung Z1) and Ubuntu (BQ Aquaris E4.5) phones have only just shipped, and Jolla’s Sailfish OS based Jolla phones are still mostly limited to Europe.
Ace
(click to enlarge)
Even if Firefox OS isn’t taking the world by storm, it’s been enjoying enough success to encourage dozens of carriers and a smaller number of vendors to continue to risk new launches. For example, Cherry Mobile recently introduced the Ace, the first Firefox OS phone in the Philippines. The simple, single-core phone appears to be the same low-cost Spreadtrum design used by the Firefox OS Intex Cloud FX and the Spice Fire One Mi-FX 1 in India, and it’s priced similarly at 1,499 Philippines Pesos ($34).
At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, Mozilla announced the latest Firefox OS phone, a 35-Euro ($40) “Orange Klif” model built by Alcatel OneTouch (TCL Communications). The Klif will be carried by Orange in African countries including Egypt, Senegal, Tunisia, Cameroon, Botswana, Madagascar, Mali, The Ivory Coast, Niger, and Kenya. The phone will also be sold in Jordan, Mauritius, and Vanuatu.
Orange Klif
(click image to enlarge)
Orange will offer the phone with data bundles of up to 500MB per month for six months. The Klif will ship with localized content such as Star Africa, as well as Arab-language content.
The 3G-ready phone runs on a dual-core, Cortex-A7 MediaTek MT6572 system-on-chip. It otherwise sticks to typical low-end features like a 3.5-inch HVGA (480 x 320) capacitive touchscreen, 256MB RAM, 512MB flash, and a microSD slot.
The dual-SIM Klif is further equipped with GPS, 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth, and FM radio. The 98-gram, 112 x 62 x 12mm phone has a 2-megapixel (interpolated VGA) front-facing camera and a 1300mAh battery with 6.2 hours of 3G talk time.
Mozilla to smarten up feature phones with Verizon, KDDI, LG U+
Africa was the last major continent to be breached by Firefox OS, although in North America, the phone hasn’t made it north of the Rio Grande. Now, Mozilla is working on a 2016 release in the U.S. market, as part of a deal with Verizon Wireless. This does not appear to be the higher end phone one might expect, but rather one or more variations on a feature phone.
Verizon, KDDI in Japan, and LG U+ in Korea announced they will work with Mozilla to develop flip-phone, slider, and slate form-factors that will use Firefox OS to add some smartphone-like features to a basic feature phone. These are said to include “fun applications, content, navigation, music players, camera, video, LTE, VoLTE, email, and web browsing.” Rosemary McNally, VP, Device Technology at Verizon referred to the initiative as “creating a modern, simple and smart platform for basic phones.”
Stated Li Gong, President of Mozilla: “We’re excited to work with operator partners like KDDI, LG U+, Telefonica and Verizon Wireless to reach new audiences in both emerging and developed markets and offer customers differentiated services.”
In Japan, flip-phone sales have continued apace throughout the smartphone revolution, but they have faded fast in the U.S. and Korea. Some use flip-phones as a secondary phone, however, or as a companion to a higher end tablet.
The KDDI testimonial for the partnership does not refer to feature phones so much as the popularity of its first Firefox OS phone, a KDDI Fx0 slate that’s one of the more advanced Firefox OS phones around. The LG-built Fx0, which went on sale in Japan in early January, is notable for its transparent back cover designed by Tokujin Yoshioka. The over-$400 phone is based on an LG G3 model, and features a 4.7-inch screen with 1280 x 720 resolution.
KDDI Fx0
The Fx0 has a quad-core, Cortex-A7 Snapdragon 400 clocked at 1.2GHz, plus 1.5GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, NFC, LTE, and a 2,370mAh battery. Both 8- and 2.1-megapixel cameras are available.
As we reported last week, KDDI will also offer an unusual, disc-shaped Runcible smartphone that runs Firefox OS under a custom, minimally disruptive GUI. The carrier invested in Monohm, the Berkeley, Calif. based startup behind the Runcible.
Monohm’s Runcible
(click image to enlarge)
In addition to its partner announcements, Mozilla revealed some new features coming to Firefox OS. These include Improved performance and support of multi-core processors, as well as “enhanced privacy features,” says Mozilla. Other new features will include additional support for WebRTC, right-to-left language support, and an NFC payments infrastructure.
Finally, Mozilla released a beta version of Webmaker, a free, open source mobile content creation app. Webmaker is available for Android, Firefox OS, and “via a modern mobile browser on other devices in over 20 languages later this year,” says Mozilla.
Further information
The Orange Klif will go on sale in the second quarter in 13 countries in Africa and elsewhere for 35 Euros ($40). More information may be found at this Alcatel OneTouch Orange Klif product page. More on the Klif and Mozilla’s other announcements can be found at the Mozilla blog.Family Court judge says 'courts' rulings must be fitted to the sweeping changes in family relations in our times.' Feminists aghast.
A ruling by a Family Court judge in Rishon Letzion is being hailed as a precedent by campaigners for gender equality in divorce, reports Maariv.
Judge Yaakov Cohen ruled that a divorced father will not have to pay child support money to his ex-wife, because they took equal parts in raising the children when they were married, and have continued to do so since their divorce.
The former couple have three children, and they separated 18 months ago, splitting their assets equally and agreeing to share parenting time equally between them. The father makes 12,000 shekels ($3,400) per month, and the mother makes 13,000 shekels ($3,700). She sued the father for child support, demanding that he pay her 9,000 shekels ($2,600) per month.
The demand is based on Jewish law, which determines that only fathers bear responsibility for child support. The woman's lawyer also noted that the High Court has upheld this rule, even in cases in which the parenting is shared equally between both parents.
Judge Cohen observed, however, that the times are a-changing. “Based on accumulative experience in the family courts,” he wrote, “it appears that a continuously growing number of fathers take a meaningful and real part in raising their children, and the courts' rulings must be fitted to the sweeping changes in family relations in our times.”
The father noted that he and his wife helped each other throughout the marriage, and whenever one of them was more occupied with studies, the other pitched in and helped more with house work and child rearing. “The basis was partnership,” he claimed. “I knew how to be a mom and she knew how to be a dad.”
Judge Cohen dismissed the claim made by opponents of egalitarian rulings like his, that they could be abused by fathers who will ask for equal parenting arrangements just to avoid child support payments. “Just as it would not be proper to think that a mother demands custody of her children just to enlarge the child support payments she receives, so I find it improper to assume that a father who demands joint custody does so because of foreign, financial motives,” he determined.
The father's lawyer, Attorney Maya Rotenberg, told Maariv that there is no justification for making the father pay more than the mother for child support, when they shared the burden equally during the marriage. “We live in an era in which women work and support their families. If the father was made to pay child support beyond his means, his basic right to be with his children would have been breached.”
Judge Cohen's ruling may not be the first of its kind, however: in August, a similar decision was handed down by Judge Yoram Shaked in Tel Aviv.
Feminists are opposed to the rulings, which some see as forming a new trend. “Egalitarian parenting is a welcome phenomenon, but this is an anomalous case that a judge turned into a model for all of society,” opined Dr. Esther Herzog, according to Maariv.
"The judges want to be the reformers and gain fame and recognition at women's expense,” she accused, “but this is done on the backs of the weakest women. This case does not reflect reality. In how many cases does the woman make more than the man? In how many cases do the men participate in raising the children like the women? This is an unbearable pretension to create change through the courts and not through the Knesset.”
Leading feminist voices also oppose egalitarian reform in Israel's divorce laws. Two public committees that were appointed by the government recommended reforms in parenting rights and child support, but feminist opponents vowed to "bury" their recommendations. More than seven years since the committees were appointed, and long after they made their recommendations, there is still stiff opposition in the Knesset to attempts to legislate them into law.
Israeli fathers' rights and pro-family activists claim that Israeli divorced fathers pay anomalously high child support, in comparison to other OECD countries.The French Leicester City? Ranieri enjoying a flying start at Nantes
The Italian has enjoyed a stellar return to France, where he is threatening to cause another great upset with another rank outsider
With and sitting first and second, the top of the table has a familiar feel, yet look down to third and there is an unexpected team. Led by Claudio Ranieri, have powered their way onto the podium of ’s top flight, with the Italian coach threatening to pull off another stunning achievement.
Ranieri will forever be associated with ’s stunning title success in 2015-16, but though Nantes had to appeal for special dispensation for him to lead their club this season, the former and boss has proven that he is certainly not past it.
Nantes 5/6 to beat Tours
The scale of his achievement at Stade de la Beaujoire should not be underestimated. When he arrived in the middle of June, this was a club in turmoil.
On the eve of pre-season, Nantes had been dumped by Sergio Conceicao, who installed an incredible fighting spirit in the team to lead them away from relegation and onto the fringes of the European race last season in double-quick time. The Portuguese had pledged his future to the club by signing a new deal but in a spectacular U-turn then left them to take charge at just as the summer transfer market began.
Ranieri, who had been sacked by the Foxes four months earlier amid player discontent, agreed to take over but was almost denied the chance when bureaucracy took hold.
France’s union of coaches UNECATEF initially would not ratify the Italian’s contract as he was due to turn 65 this season – a limit imposed for professional coaches in France. However, the legal commission of the League (LFP) overturned this decision, ruling that it would not stand up in European Court with regards age discrimination.
Having been approved for the post, Ranieri was promptly handed the outrageous target of reaching Europe by president Waldemar Kita – a bit like demanding Swansea finish in the top six of the Premier League – and lost his first two league matches in charge.
“He’s not asked me for guarantees and I’ve not promised him anything,” Kita told the media somewhat ominously even before the season began.
Having been determined to give the existing playing staff their chance, and hampered by limited time to work in pre-season, Ranieri quickly realised an overhaul was needed. Several signings were hastily completed, including goalkeeper Ciprian Tatasuranu and defensive midfielders Andrei Girotto and Rene Khrin, as a more defensive system was installed.
Since then, everything has been a roaring success. Ranieri said at the beginning of September that he was aiming to have one of the best five defences in Ligue 1, and while that target looks very realistic, even the outlandish goal of finishing in Europe this season suddenly seems a possibility.
Just as Leicester’s title win was built around 1-0 victories, so too have Nantes constructed their push into the places off the back of incredible defensive work. In 10 matches, they have conceded only seven goals, the second best record in Ligue 1 behind.
Tatarusanu has been particularly outstanding. His numbers match up well with any keeper in Europe’s biggest five leagues as he ranks fourth in save percentage in terms of goalkeepers who have made at least 20 stops. Only Jan Oblak, Ivan Cuellar and Marc-Andre ter Stegen offer better figures in this regard – and he is within one percent of the Slovak, who is top.
* Minimum of 20 saves
“Ranieri has brought his great experience, his serenity, and an Italian style that we have seen sometimes in matches,” top scorer Emiliano Sala told L’Equipe. “He wants us to have a defensive bloc that sits deep and is compact. For him, we have a kind of castle to protect. He always speaks to us about that castle.”
Left-back Leo Dubois admitted: “We’re not playing beautiful football, but we’re improving. Ranieri insists firstly that we get the defensive aspect correct.”
Ranieri has treated questions about the negative approach, which has typically dominated his press conferences, with his usual charm.
“I’m Italian, so for me, defence is very important,” he said after a 1-0 win in Montpellier during September.
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Following a 1-0 victory at home against the following week, he added: “When I say I’m Italian, I’m joking. I want to win with style. But our development needs wins like this. It allows the team to gain confidence. Winning 1-0 is perfect, but 2-0 is better.”
And take confidence they have. Not since the second week of the season have Nantes suffered a single league defeat, while they have conceded only three goals in their last eight outings, winning six of them.
Ranieri might not be able to reproduce the fairy tale ending that he managed at Leicester, but the early indications are that the master squad builder is brewing something rather special once again.The "NVIDIA is secretly working on an x86 chip" rumor that Charlie at the Inquirer has been flogging since at least 2006 has just been given a major boost, and by none other than NVIDIA itself.
A bit-tech.net reporter was in the audience at a recent Morgan Stanley Technology Conference, when NVIDIA VP Mike Hara seemed to indicate that the company is considering developing a x86 CPU for the mobile space sometime in the next two years.
I've always been a major doubter of the NVIDIA-produced x86 rumors, though I know at least one other tech reporter besides Charlie who's sold on the story. But Hara's remarks make it fairly clear that the company is indeed headed in this direction.
Based on what Hara said, it seems that NVIDIA would be looking to do a Tegra-like SoC design, but one that pairs an x86 core with an NVIDIA GPU (as opposed to Tegra's ARM + GPU pairing).
Why would NVIDIA do this? Because, as a recent and widely linked Jon Peddie report correctly points out, the integrated graphics processor (IGP) will eventually go away, as integrated GPUs move off of the chipset and onto the processor die. IGPs are a huge and very successful part of NVIDIA's volume business, and the company can't afford to see that segment left solely to Intel at a future date when all mobile x86 processors come with an on-board GPU.
Can NVIDIA compete?
Now that Intel has announced that it will be using TSMC as a fab source for some future Atom designs, the idea of an NVIDIA x86 SoC doesn't seem as bad as it previously did. NVIDIA is a TSMC customer, so their hypothetical SoC would have process parity with an Intel-made Atom SoC. And given the former company's embedded GPU prowess, and the latter's lack thereof, it's not unreasonable to imagine that the NVIDIA SoC could outperform the Intel SoC for most of the media-centric applications that both parts would likely find use in.
I confess that I don't at all understand the x86 licensing situation, so I don't feel that I can weigh in on the legality of the hypothetical NVIDIA part. But if Intel wants to win customers in the smartphone space eventually, it might be best for them to just leave NVIDIA alone to make whatever it likes. I suggest this because the fact that SoC x86 processors are sole-source now—meaning that you only get them from Intel, and even when they come from TSMC Intel will still exercise a ton of control—is a strike against them vs. ARM.
If a smartphone maker like Nokia goes with ARM, then it can choose from a variety of suppliers like TI or Qualcomm. This competition among sources is healthy and gets the handset maker a lower price; it also guarantees a supply of ARM chips, because if one supplier goes under you can just move on to the next. Intel can't offer this with x86, but NVIDIA as a credible second source of x86 mobile parts might be enough to get the world's most successful ISA into the phone market.Once again confirming that there is no such thing as a "moderate" Syrian rebel (although there certainly is for State Department funding and arming purposes), on Friday, two prominent ISIS commanders have left the ranks of the calliphate to join forces with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters, i.e., "moderate rebels" on the provincial border between Homs and Deir Ezzor, al Masdar news reported.
ISIS commanders decide they want to be'moderate' rebels again. https://t.co/o4IC4mIZTY — Hayder al-Khoei (@Hayder_alKhoei) May 13, 2017
Or, as some put it, "Thursday: ISIS; Friday: FSA"
After communicating with FSA contigents, Ghassan Al-Sankeh and Mahmoud Al-Faraj arrived in Badia in central Syria and defected quietly, leaving behind ISIS fighters under their command in rural Deir Ezzor.
The ISIS commander Mahmoud Al-Faraj was said to be one of the highest-ranking commanders in Al-Mayadin, a city on the Euphrates River which reports indicate the Islamic State has transformed into its new capital. ISIS controls the vast majority of the eastern province of Deir Ezzor although the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has maintained a presence in the provincial capital throughout the conflict while the FSA emerged in its southwestern desert last week.
Meanwhile, with ISIS' oil funding almost entirely gone, and its fighters on the defensive in both Syria and Iraq, it is now quietly melding back into other opposition groups that have been cheered, supported and armed by the west. In other words, ISIS is returning back to where it started.The bill has passed the Senate only, next it would have to pass the ASSembly.
The bill was sponsored by local Senators Pat Gallivan, George Maziarz and Michael Ranzenhofer, as well as Senator Joe Griffo (R) of Rome.
Griffo seems to think that officers aren't getting enough respect nowadays and passing a law will make people respect the police.
Our system of laws is established to protect the foundations of our society,” Senator Griffo said. “Police officers who risk their lives every day in our cities and on our highways deserve every possible protection, and those who treat them with disrespect, harass them and create situations that can lead to injuries deserve to pay a price for their actions.” Griffo said that New York police require extra safeguards because “too many people in our society have lost the respect they need to have for a police officer…. We need to make it very clear that when a police officer is performing his duty, every citizen needs to comply and that refusal to comply carries a penalty.”
I do think there are reasons for the decline in respect of police officers. But somehow, I don't think mandating it by law will do anything to advance it.How about they pass a law making it a felony for a police officer to annoy a citizen who has committed no crime? If this law goes through, any tiny remaining shred of power citizens had against being abused by the police will be gone. The law is written so vaguely as to enable the police to arrest anyone for just about any reason at all, if they take a dislike to the person or their actions. But rest assured, we are not in a police state!
Here is the press release from the NY Senate. Here is the text of the bill.In another lifetime, Louis Mahlangu was an electrician.
It was a good job, challenging and respectable, the kind of profession that could make his family proud.
There was just one problem.
“There was no work,” he says. No matter how hard he looked, Mr. Mahlangu was barely finding enough jobs to scrape by. Then his sister invited him to tag along to her job. The hours were good, she promised, and the pay – well, it was better than anything he was likely to earn replacing wiring in suburban houses.
And so he put on a pair of rubber rain boots, hiked to the top of a squelching mountain of Johannesburg’s garbage, and began digging for plastic.
Twenty-two years later, he’s still there, along with thousands of others like him, collecting dinged Coke bottles and pulverized yogurt cartons discarded by the city’s residents and selling them on to private recycling companies. At his peak, Mahlangu says, he made up to $1000 each month, a respectable wage in a country where the newly proposed minimum wage is around $250 per month.
For years, informal recyclers like Mahlangu – there are some 60,000 to 90,000 of them countrywide, according to South Africa’s Department of Science and Technology – were Johannesburg’s only real system for sorting the salvageable from the sludge in its residents’ garbage. Some worked the dumps, while others traversed the city on foot, plucking recyclables directly from household trash bins.
But lately, these informal recyclers have acquired a new competitor: the city itself. Over the last few years, Johannesburg’s government has begun building up a system of curbside recycling like those found in most Western cities – complete with its own sorting facilities and sleek new trucks huffing their way through the hilly suburbs.
That growing footprint – and the looming threat it poses to informal recyclers like Mahlangu – speaks to a broader development question that has long flummoxed Africa’s cities. It’s the puzzle of how to meld the two distinct economies that seem to walk in lock-step through the streets here – one formal and regulated, the other informal and entrepreneurial, competing to serve metropolises growing at a breakneck pace.
And it’s a question that goes far beyond recycling. Take public transport. Across most of sub-Saharan Africa, city buses, if they exist at all, compete with well-organized private networks of wheezing passenger vans – Senegal’s cars rapides, East Africa’s matatus, Ghana’s tro tros, South Africa’s minibus taxis – that traverse cities on routes written nowhere but known to almost everyone.
In many African cities, it is not uncommon to see women hawking trays of tomatoes, onions, or bananas just feet from air-conditioned supermarkets, or shacks backed up against ultra-modern apartment complexes. Outside Johannesburg, thousands of men descend daily into the abandoned shafts of the city’s old formal gold mines, informally – and illegally – collecting whatever is left.
“What many developing countries are now grappling with is that there are very deeply entrenched and often quite well organized informal sectors” in industries like recycling, says Linda Godfrey, principal scientist on the “Waste for Development” project at South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), a parastatal research organization. “These informal pickers have mobilized themselves and have systems that work. We're now introducing advanced policy instruments that can affect their livelihoods and that can cause friction.”
In Johannesburg, the government has puzzled over what to do with informal recyclers nearly since the word "go" on the city’s first pilot recycling program in 2009, says Nelly Rampete, who manages recycling for Pikitup, the municipal waste collection agency. Should the city hire them? Ignore them? Try to beat them at their own game?
Over time, the sector's observers say, it's attempted a bit of all three. They city has made scattered efforts, for instance, to support waste-picker “cooperatives,” giving designated groups of recyclers material support – like working clothes or storage facilities – in return for agreeing to sell their goods back to city-designated recycling companies.
But recyclers have often bristled at the inefficiencies and rigidities of the city’s systems. They’ve been doing it longer, they argue, and they simply know how to do it better. And efforts to outdo the recyclers – for instance, by getting city trucks to collect recycled goods early in the morning, before informal collectors have a chance make away with them – have gone about equally well.
“They just get there earlier and beat the trucks,” says Musa Chamane, an activist with the environmental justice organization groundWork, where he organizes waste pickers. “When you exclude recyclers, they just re-include themselves.”
For now, indeed, informal collectors remain the core of recycling here. The city collects recycling curbside in only about 30 percent of its neighborhoods. Countrywide, meanwhile, informal recyclers are still responsible for about 80 to 90 percent of paper and packaging diverted from South African landfills, according to a study by Dr. Godfrey and her colleagues at the CSIR. Collectively, they save the country’s cities as much as $50 million, according to that research, with each individual recycler diverting about 20 tons of material from landfills every year.
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“The main thing we are asking is to be recognized as the backbone of this economy,” says Mahlangu, who sits on the organizing committee for a group of reclaimers at the Marie Louise landfill west of Johannesburg. Since the city began introducing curbside recycling, he says, his and his colleagues' incomes have dropped off steeply from their peak of $1000 a month, now coming in somewhere closer to $300. He often hears that the city supports informal recyclers, he says, but has yet to see much practical evidence of that.
“We are providing a huge service to the city, and to the environment,” he says, his eyes following the queue of trucks lumbering toward the top of the dump. “In return we just ask that they recognize us as workers and as human beings.”Oriel Park will be the venue for the 2014 EA Sports Cup Final between Dundalk and Shamrock Rovers.
The match, televised live by Setanta Sports, will kick-off at 5.45 on Saturday 20th September. Further match information will be released in due course while the Derry City match due to be played on Friday 19th September will be re-fixed soon.
Dundalk qualified for the final after beating Wexford Youths 5-0 in Monday’s semi-final while Shamrock Rovers, who have this morning appointed Pat Fenlon as manager, defeated Bohemians 2-0 at Dalymount Park.
Dundalk have not won the League Cup trophy since the 1989/90 season when they defeated Derry City on penalties following a 1-1 draw. Dundalk last appeared in a final in the 1994/95 season when Dermot Keely’s Dundalk team lost 2-1 over two legs to Cork City.
Shamrock Rovers are the current holders having defeated Drogheda United in the 2013 final. Rovers have won the tournament on one other occasion back in 1976/77 when they defeated Sligo Rovers.
Dundalk have won the competition on four occasions and three times on penalty kicks. Jim McLaughlin won the trophy in 1976/77 beating Cork Alberts on penalties following a 4-4 draw on aggregate while his team also required spot-kicks to beat Galway Rovers in 1980/81. A Martin Murray penalty gave Dundalk a 1-0 win over Shamrock Rovers in the 86/87 final before Turlough O’Connor’s side won Dundalk’s fourth League Cup in 1989.The French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs announced yesterday that a high-level government official returned six pre-Columbian artifacts to Ambassador Carlos Bonilla Sandoval for repatriation to Costa Rica.
According to an official release by France Diplomatie, Jean-Paul Balzamo made the return of six ceramic and pottery objects, some made into human and animal shapes. The Agence France-Presse quoted a spokesman from the Foreign Affairs industry, who explained that the relics were confiscated at the French customs service of the Paris-Roissy Charles de Gaulle International Airport. Technicians investigated the relics’ provenance and determined that they belonged to Costa Rica.
Spokesman Bernard Valero stated that:
“The return of these archeological objects is one more example of France’s commitment and our ongoing cooperation in the international fight against the smuggling of objects of art and cultural heritage.”
In September of 2010, national newspaper La Nacion reported on the recovery of 28 pre-Columbian objects stolen in the 1990s and later confiscated by Italian law enforcement agents in Milan. Those objects were confiscated back in 1998, and they were kept at the embassy in Rome for 12 years due to budgetary constraints. Repatriating archeological objects is generally an expensive affair due to the logistics and insurance requirements involved. In the end, diplomatic corps member Miguel Angel Obregon brought the objects back in suitcases.
Looting of antiquities by real-life tomb raiders (nighthawkers in the United Kingdom) has always been a problem for researchers working in Costa Rica. The late Professor Michael J. Snarskis, an American archeologist considered to be the pioneer of modern archeology in our country, once criticized the collections at our Gold and Jade Museums as originating from grave robberies of cultural heritage sites by opportunists with connections to underground antiquities dealers who operate in the lucrative black market.Two of the rivals for Premier Dalton McGuinty's job have come out in favour of selling beer and wine in corner stores, marking the first major policy difference among the Liberal leadership contenders.
At an all-candidates debate in Toronto on Thursday, Sandra Pupatello and Glen Murray endorsed giving corner stores and supermarkets the right to sell beer, wine and spirits.
Mr. Murray kicked off what turned out to be the liveliest portion of the one-hour debate at the Canadian Club of Toronto by saying he enjoyed the fact that he could buy a bottle of wine at his neighbourhood dépanneur when he lived in Quebec.
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He said the model in that province, where the government owns the liquor board, the Société des Alcools du Québec (SAQ) but allows wine and beer to be sold in corner stores, has helped mom-and-pop shops, which had been losing market share to large retail chains.
"I think we should steal from our neighbours," Mr. Murray said.
The debate, moderated by TVOntario host Steve Paikin, provided the second opportunity for the seven candidates, all former cabinet ministers, to square off against each other. The candidates were asked to respond to Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak's proposal this week to radically overhaul the province's alcohol distribution system.
Ms. Pupatello, who was renowned around the provincial legislature for her highly partisan attacks on opposition members, embraced the
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officers fooled around, it just wasn't who she was.
"Do you believe our evidence?" Sha'dur asked plainly, he had a way of going straight for the jugular, something she had admired and tried to emulate.
"More than that, I know its true." Len'char said. "I work for Naval intelligence, we've known about the anomalies in our sun for some time now."
Jha'dur moved fast, grabbing her brother before he had the chance to jump up in rage. "Sit!" She hissed firmly. "Let him speak."
"We know." He repeated. "We expected sooner or later someone outside the official astronomical observatories the government operates would find out, but frankly we thought it would be years yet. I'm very impressed."
"Impressed!" Sha'dur riled. "You knew the world was ending and you did not speak up to the Science council!"
"They are a civilian body and do not need to know, let them carry forward in their beliefs and ignorance." Len'char scoffed.
"An ignorance which cost us our livelihoods!" Sha'dur growled. "Something you could have prevented."
"The government will be happy to offer you a new opportunity, we have a wide range of scientific facilities dealing with astronomy and biology, large enough to keep you both productively employed."
"Military science?" Sha'dur almost laughed. "mapping hyperspace to create more invasion routes? Using my sisters gifts to create biological weapons? This is your offer?"
"It is." The officer said stonily. "we will give you as much freedom and resources as you need, I know you both have your own personal projects," he glanced at Jha'dur who met his gaze head on. He knew about her tests for an anti ageing serum and was offering her nearly unlimited resources to continue her research. "I guarantee you that you may continue them, as well as woriking for us in certain fields."
"And you want us to keep silent." She said. "If you knew and have told no one, and if you have been monitoring the academy you clearly do not want the people to know."
"Exactly." He said. "Your work will be secret, known only to the highest echelons of the military and government, you will not speak of it to anyone, you will not associate outside of your new facility, you will obey military regulations, and in return you can do whatever research you like, and more importantly you can play your part in saving our people."
"But we can't tell them?" Sha'dur asked again. "Why not? They have a right to know whats coming and prepare for it!"
The intelligence officer did not answer straight away, instead he followed Jha'durs gaze to the opposite bank and the party there.
"Suppose you went over there and told those people that the world was ending and they believed you, what would happen?" he asked.
"I guess they'd try and leave the planet, after going home and picking up their possessions." Sha'dur answered.
"And go where?"
"One of the colonies."
"Would they show up to work the following day then?"
"Well no, of course not." Sha'dur frowned. "They'd start a new life somewhere safe."
"Sounds ok doesn't it?" Len'char nodded. "But times that by Eight Billion and what happens? What happens when everyone on the planet tries to flee, when the spaceports turn into riot scenes and when you could be murdered for your place on a ship offworld?"
"Yes, but with fifteen years you could get some sort of order to the evacuation."
"Irrelevant, since when did panic and mass hysteria listen to logic?" the officer pointed out. "And if everyone runs what happens to the economy? You wouldn't need to wait fifteen years for Dilgar civilisation to die, it'd be over in fifteen minutes."
"That's a very pessimistic view." Jha'dur observed.
"But none the less true." Len'char remarked. "The information you have poses a more immediate danger to our civilization that that does up there." He pointed to the sun. "Which is why it is imperative to keep it secret."
"And what about them?" Sha'dur raised his chin at the party. "What happens to them?"
"When the time is right we evacuate, but only when the time is right. We need to make preparation both physically and mentally, the exodus of an entire planet is no easy task."
"Perhaps we can ask the Centuari for help?" Sha'dur suggested. "We have good relations with them."
"Good relations?" the officer smiled. "The Centauri use us and we use them, if they can't get anything out of us they won't help. If word gets out we're evacuating our businesses on the galactic stock exchanges will plummet, our economy collapses and we're dead. The alien races will circle us like vultures, buying up our failing businesses and our technology before its too late, and anything they can't buy they will take by force." He spat out the last few words. "If we show weakness and ask for help we will be turned upon and destroyed."
"Maybe." Sha'dur agreed. "The aliens have long coveted our advanced weapons and our resources, our colonies will be tempting targets once we cannot defend them, and with those gone there is no escape for our people."
"You've been watching too much propaganda." Jha'dur reprimanded. "We are not under constant alien threat, the government just wants you to think we are."
"Would you like to know why?" Len'char said. "Because sooner or later our needs will conflict with those of our neighbours, specifically the League worlds. We need our people to hate them and be fearful of them so that when the time comes there will be no opposition to the action we must take."
"What action?" questioned Sha'dur.
"Our colonies." Jha'dur answered first. "They aren't big enough are they?"
"No, even if we split the population evenly with two billion on each world, even with fifteen years we couldn't develop that sort of infrastructure. Two thirds would starve to death within a few weeks, maybe all of them if fighting for the limited food breaks out." The military representative confirmed.
"Oh gods." Sha'dur collapsed back. "Its over, how many could we save?"
"It isn't over yet, the government has not been idle, we have a way to save all our people." Len'char said confidently.
"By moving them to planets that can already support those numbers, with an infrastructure of that magnitude in place." Jha'dur nodded.
"Where?" asked her brother.
"The Narn?" she thought out loud. "No, no. The League of Non aligned worlds."
"Exactly, you are as smart as they said." The officer grinned.
"I thought we weren't asking aliens for help?" Sha'dur wrinkled his nose in disgust.
"We're not asking anything." The military man stated. "We need developed worlds for or people to settle on, so we will take them. We're going to invade the league and occupy their planets for colonisation."
Sha'dur said nothing. This was a day of being left speechless by events. Jha'dur however had always worked through things faster.
"I doubt they'll let you land on their worlds." She said.
"We've already begun a military build up, in eight to ten years we'll have enough ships to overwhelm any opposition, but we predict speed will be key in this offensive, we will need to remove populations from planets quickly to give our people time to colonise without fighting."
She didn't an explanation as to what 'clearing a planet' meant in this context. In the casual sunlight beneath the shade of a tree they were discussing genocide on an untold scale. It seemed so bizarre if she'd have looked at it objectively she may have laughed, or even cried. She hadn't shed tears in a long time, and she had resolved never to do so again.
"You have methods for this?" she asked.
"We have ideas, hopefully something you can help with." Len'char said. "Between your other research. It is for the good of your people, always remember that."
Sha'dur finally found his voice again. "So that's it? The plan is to conquer our neighbours and seize their planets for ourselves?"
"It's the only way to save our people in such a short time." The man answered. "We have no other options, we must do this our our race dies. I would like to enlist your help, we could use your skills in the coming events, join us."
"And if not?" Sha'dur quizzed.
"Then nothing. We proceed as planned and nobody will believe you and your doomsday stories. You will be homeless, unemployable and ultimately powerless." He shrugged. "This isn't a threat, we don't want you to suffer, but we're offering help to you, and a chance for you to help your people, isn't that the whole point of you being here, to better our race?"
It was. Jha'dur had always wanted the Dilgar to achieve a place of greatness at the head of the galactic community. All her work had been aimed at making her people the best, even her childhood dream of granting immortality through science had its foundation in trying to serve the Dilgar people, not for her own personal glory. Now that need of her people was greater than ever, and she could have a role in helping them if she wished it, she just had to say yes.
"My vehicle is waiting." Len'char stood and looked to an expensive black transport truck waiting at the edge of the academy grounds. "If you accept my offer, come with me and we'll begin immediately. If not then I wish you well."
He began to walk away, once more entering the sunlight, even such an accepted thing taken purely for granted would someday never happen again.
"Well?" Sha'dur asked as the intelligence officer left. "Do we trust him?"
"We only have one choice." His sister said. "Either we go with him or we fail ourselves. He's given us a chance to make a difference, to do a greater service to our people than we could have dreamed. Do you see what we have now? Hope."
"Hope, what hope, we have to defeat a dozen separate alien empires first! How can we do that?"
"We are Dilgar." She said proudly. "War is our nature, we will win in the end, but the quicker the better, we can do that, you can chart new hyperspace routes to move our fleets quickly into battle."
"And you sister, what about your contribution?" he said with a hint of accusation. "He was talking about mass murder, genocide. Could you do that?"
"Yes." She said without hesitation or emotion. "If that's the price of keeping our race alive then I will personally kill every other sentient in the galaxy." She regarded her brother with a cold stare. "You know what is at stake, you know what we are risking. Whatever happens we must work for the survival of our people in their hour of need."
"History will call us demons."
"No it won't," Jha'dur smiled. "Because history is written by the victors, and we will be the victors brother, and when we are done and our people safe, there won't be anyone left to contradict us."
She looked at the party over the brook again, the young officers were done with their mock fight and had started eating with their adoring companions. She wondered absently if those soldiers would survive the coming war, if they would earn glory or run like cowards. Would they have children before then with these girls they were with, and would they also be expected to fight in the most desperate times? Either way they faced death, in war at least they had a chance of survival, but to simply sit peacefully and wait for the inevitable would doom them all.
She stood and began walking to the vehicle, her mind totally made up and her resolve iron. She smiled inwardly as her brother sighed and jogged to catch up, once more they were inseparable. She paused at the door to the truck, looking down at the green grass surrounding her shoes, looking as it slowly unbent after being stepped on and scenting the aroma of the freshly cut lawns outside the academy in the sun kissed morning. It was something worth fighting for, worth dying for, even worth being damned for. She got in the vehicle and settled back, the old Jha'dur and the life she had led was gone, left out in the hazy sun to be revisited only in dreams. She came to terms with her new life, it was going to take a long time to fully accept what she was to become, but accept it she would.
She did not protest or resist as the door slammed closed, the deafening sound echoed in the confines of the passenger compartment and the dark windows murdered the sunlight streaming in, the last rays being cut off as the door sealed shut and the darkness swept forward to engulf Jha'dur in the blackness and the cold.
Deathwalker smiled at Neroon, who seemed more impassive than usual. She put the glass down and fixed his gaze.
"It was the defining day of my race, and only a handful of us knew about it." She remarked. "you imagine it would be earthshaking, that the whole world just stops and looks up in awe at the approach of destiny, but it didn't life for the Dilgar went on much as it always had, or at least that's how it seemed. In fact the government had by then grown into a puppet of the Warmasters, they fed the people doses of propaganda to prepare them for war, they encouraged Xenophobia and feelings of nationalism turning the young people of the planet into perfectly tuned warriors, and then they recruited them in mass conscriptions which were of course warmly welcomed by the indoctrinated people." She smiled and nodded. "It was a masterful manipulation of the media, it worked beautifully, within ten years we had a massive fleet and a huge highly trained and well motivated military who hated anyone who was not Dilgar, the seeds had been sown, and all we had to do was reap the harvest."
"Yes, how very pleasant for you." Neroon said with a bored tone. "So how did the humans stop you?"
"Have you not heard me?" she snapped. "To beat the humans you must understand why they fight, its deeper than just listing how each battle went! You want to know then shut up and pay attention."
Neroon looked like he was ready to strangle her, but it passed and his impassive stare returned. Jha'dur knew she was safe, the elders of the Star Riders clan thought they could gain something from her so she was left alone and unharmed, indeed she was happy to share some of her lesser works with them, simple bio weapons and cybernetics for massive deployment against civilian populations, but her life's work was still only hers, and her plans for it and the final vengeance of the Dilgar were still held close to her chest, even the Minbari didn't know. Still, this ambitious warrior was a keen distraction, and while he feigned disinterest he was in fact paying careful attention, she smiled to know she still had some ability to hold power over another, even if only in a small way.
"So, now you know how it all started, lets move a decade forward and see exactly what happened next."
"And that was?"
She smiled. "The start of Armageddon."1992 soundtrack album by Whitney Houston / various artists
The Bodyguard: Original Soundtrack Album is the soundtrack from the film of the same name, released on November 17, 1992, by Arista Records. The album's first side (in its original LP configuration) features songs by Whitney Houston, while side 2 features the work of numerous other artists. The album was co-executive produced by Whitney Houston and Clive Davis and has become the fifth best-selling album of all time. The soundtrack was the first album verified by the Nielsen SoundScan computerized sales monitoring system to have sold more than a million units within a one-week period, the week ending December 27, 1992. The soundtrack later went on to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year and was certified 18× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America on November 2017.[10] It is the 15th best-selling album in the United States.[11]
In honor of the 25th anniversary of the soundtrack's release, Legacy Recordings and the Whitney Houston Estate released I Wish You Love: More From The Bodyguard,[12] which included a collection of never-before-released live recordings from Whitney’s historic The Bodyguard Tour (1993–1995), alternate versions of the audio recordings from The Bodyguard film, and an alternate version of a remix of "I’m Every Woman".[13]
The Bodyguard remains the best-selling soundtrack album of all time, selling over 45 million copies worldwide.[14]
Background [ edit ]
Houston served as executive producer (as she did on her previous release I'm Your Baby Tonight), giving her full control over the song selections for this album. Houston planned to record "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted" as the film's theme song, however, when they learned it would be used in the film Fried Green Tomatoes, they searched for another song. Kevin Costner, the film's co-star, thought of recording "I Will Always Love You", originally released by Dolly Parton. While recording the album, Houston insisted on using her touring band as opposed to a studio band.[15]
Music [ edit ]
The album's first half features pop songs performed by Houston.[4] Houston's cover of Dolly Parton's plaintive country ballad "I Will Always Love You" is a grand pop-gospel declaration of lasting devotion to a departing lover. "I Have Nothing" and "Run to You" are ballads featuring Houston's characteristic stentorian delivery. "Jesus Loves Me" is sung with Bebe Winans and features a pop arrangement.[5]
AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine views that the first half is characterized by urban pop songs similar to I'm Your Baby Tonight (1990), while the second half has miscellaneous tracks more "typical of a big-budget soundtrack", including an excerpt from Alan Silvestri's score, instrumentals by Kenny G, and contemporary pop and dance songs.[2] "Someday (I'm Coming Back)", performed by Lisa Stansfield, is an intense pop-disco song.[5]
Singles [ edit ]
The album is most notable for Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You" (written by Dolly Parton). The song received huge airplay, appealing to the pop, R&B, adult contemporary, and soul radio markets. The single spent 14 weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.[16] "I Will Always Love You" was successful worldwide, peaking at number one for 14 weeks in New Zealand, 10 weeks in the UK and Australia, 9 weeks in Norway, 8 weeks in France and Switzerland, 6 weeks in the Netherlands, and 3 weeks in Sweden.[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]
With the next two Top 5 singles[25] "I'm Every Woman" (a Chaka Khan cover) and "I Have Nothing", following on the heels of "I Will Always Love You", Houston became the first female act to have three songs in the Top 20 simultaneously. Two songs, "Run to You" and "I Have Nothing", were each nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song,[26] but lost out to "A Whole New World" from the animated film Aladdin. The same two songs were nominated for Grammy Awards in the category Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or for Television. Other songs garnering significant radio airplay included "Jesus Loves Me" on gospel stations, and "Queen of the Night" on pop and dance stations.
Commercial performance [ edit ]
The Bodyguard debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart and the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, behind Ice Cube's The Predator, selling 144,500 copies in its first week.[27][28] In its second week, the album topped both of the charts, with sales of 292,000 units.[29][30][31] While the album stayed the summit on the charts, it broke the record for the most one-week sales twice. In its fifth week, it sold 831,000 copies, breaking the old sales record of 770,000 set by Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion II in the fall of 1991.[32] The following week, the album once again set a record for the most albums sold in a single week, since the Nielsen SoundScan introduced a computerized sales monitoring system in May 1991; when it sold 1,061,000 copies, making it the first album to sell over 1 million copies in one week since tracking began.[33][34][35] The soundtrack stayed at number one for 20 non-consecutive weeks on the Billboard 200 chart, and spent eight consecutive weeks atop the Top R&B Albums chart, remaining on the charts for a total of 141 weeks and 122 weeks, respectively.[36][37][38] The album held the record for the most weeks at number one, and the record for the most non-consecutive chart-topping weeks on the Billboard 200 chart in the Nielsen SoundScan era[39] until 2012 when it was overtaken by Adele's 21 which spent 24 non-consecutive weeks at the summit.
The Bodyguard soundtrack was ranked #1 in the 1993 Billboard year-end charts, on the Top Billboard 200 Album and Top R&B/Hip-Hop Album.[40] In addition, the album was the first in Nielsen SoundScan history to rank among the top three albums in two consecutive years (#3 for 1992, #1 for 1993), and the best-selling soundtrack by the National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) in 1993–1994.[41][42] When the soundtrack to The Bodyguard was credited as a Whitney Houston album in Billboard's archives, she became the only artist with three albums to remain on top of the Billboard 200 chart for over ten weeksㅡWhitney Houston (14 weeks), Whitney (11 weeks) and The Bodyguard (20 weeks). Houston also broke the record for the most cumulative weeks at number one by a female artistㅡa record she still holds at 46 cumulative weeks.[43]
The album received the largest initial certification of any album for 6× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America(RIAA) on January 18, 1993.[44] The record was broken by 'N SYNC's No Strings Attached, certified 7× Platinum initially in April 2000.[45] On March 16, 1999, when the RIAA launched the Diamond Awards, honoring sales of 10 million copies or more of an album or single, the album received the award with 62 other albums initially.[46][47] It was certified 17× Platinum by the RIAA on November 1, 1999, becoming the best-selling soundtrack album of all-time in United States.[48][49][50] According to a new update from Whitney Houston's estate, particularly, Arista, The Bodyguard soundtrack has been certified 18× Platinum by RIAA on November 2017[51]. It is the first album to reach both the 10 million and 11 million sales mark in the US since 1991, when Nielsen SoundScan started tracking music sales.[52] As of October 2014, it has sold 12,140,000 copies; it is the sixth best-selling album of the SoundScan era in the United States.[53]
In 1992–1993, with the huge international success of the film The Bodyguard, the soundtrack was also a phenomenal hit worldwide.[54] It topped the albums chart in Australia for five weeks,[55] Austria for nine weeks,[56] Canada for 12 weeks,[57] France for eight weeks, Germany for 11 weeks,[58] Hungary for two weeks,[59] Italy for two weeks, Japan for two weeks,[60] Netherlands for six weeks,[61] New Zealand for eight weeks,[62] Norway for six weeks,[63] Sweden for four weeks[64] and Switzerland for nine weeks.[65] In the United Kingdom, the album didn't chart on the main albums chart because compilation albums were excluded from the main albums chart from January 1989.[66] Instead, the album reached the top on the official compilation albums chart and stayed there for 11 weeks, spending 60 non-consecutive weeks in the top 10 and for a total of 107 weeks on the chart. Through its massive success across Europe, it topped the European Top 100 Albums chart for 15 non-consecutive weeks.[67] In the UK, the album was certified 7× platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on January 1, 1994,[68] and has sold 2,138,030 copies, landing at number fifty-three on the list of UK's 100 best-selling albums of all time, announced by The Official UK Charts Company in November 2006.[69] In Japan, it was certified 2× million by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) in 1994, the first time a foreign artist achieved that feat in Japanese music history, and eventually became the best-selling foreign album with 2.8 million copies sold.[70][71] The record was later broken by Mariah Carey's #1's, certified 3× million in 1998.[71] In Germany, the album has sold more than 1.7 million, earning 3× platinum awards by the Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BVMI).[72][73] In addition, it was awarded Diamond for the sales of over 1 million in both France and Canada.[74][75] It has sold 1.1 million in Brazil, becoming the best-selling international album by a female artist,[76] and set a record for the best-selling foreign album with the sales of 1.2 million over in South Korea.[77][78] In Australia, it became the best selling album of 1993.[79] In Mexico, the soundtrack sold more than 500,000 copies, making it the best-selling English-language record in 1994.[80] To date, the album has sold over 45 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling soundtrack of all time.[14]
I Wish You Love: More from The Bodyguard [ edit ]
I Wish You Love: More from the Bodyguard is the 25th anniversary reissue of the album, released by Legacy Recordings on November 17, 2017. The album was released to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the movie, The Bodyguard, which marked Houston's film debut.[81] It includes the film versions of her six Bodyguard contributions – "I Will Always Love You," "I Have Nothing," "I'm Every Woman," "Run to You," "Queen of the Night" and "Jesus Loves Me" – as well as remixes and live performances of the songs from subsequent tours.[81]
The album's release coincided with a tribute to Houston and the music of The Bodyguard at the American Music Awards on Nov. 19 on ABC as performed by Christina Aguilera.[81] Ahead of the performance, Aguilera wrote on Instagram, “I am excited, honored and humbled to perform a tribute to one of my idols.”[82]
Track listing [ edit ]
All songs performed by Whitney Houston, except where noted.
The Bodyguard – German special edition (bonus tracks) No. Title Writer(s) Producer(s) Length 14. "I'm Every Woman" (Clivillés & Cole House Mix) Nickolas Ashford
Valerie Simpson Walden
Clivillés
Cole 10:37 15. "Queen of the Night" (CJ's Master Mix) Antonio "L.A. Reid"
Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds
Daryl Simmons
Houston Reid
Babyface 6:35
Notes
On the U.S. Edition, Kenny G's "Waiting for You" was not included; with "Theme from The Bodyguard" appearing in its track place (before "Trust in Me").
Personnel [ edit ]
"I Will Always Love You"
"I Have Nothing"
Whitney Houston – vocals
Jeremy Lubbock – string arrangement
David Foster – keyboards, bass, string arrangement, producer, arranger
Michael Landau – guitar
Simon Franglen – Synclavier and synth programming
Dave Reitzas – recording engineer
Mick Guzauski – mixing engineer
"I'm Every Woman"
Whitney Houston – vocals
Narada Michael Walden – producer
Robert Clivilles – additional vocal arrangement and production, remix
David Cole – additional vocal arrangement and production, remix
Vocal arrangement inspired by Chaka Khan
Louis Biancaniello – programming
James Alfano – programming
Chauncey Mahan – programming
Matt Rohr – recording engineer
Marc Reyburn – recording engineer
Acar S. Key – additional production recording engineer
Bob Rosa – mixing engineer
"Run to You"
Whitney Houston – vocals
David Foster – producer, arrangement, string arrangement, bass
Jud Friedman – arrangement, keyboards
William Ross – string arrangement
John Robinson – drums
Dean Parks – acoustic guitar
Simon Franglen – Synclavier and synth programming
Dave Reitzas – recording engineer
Mick Guzauski – mixing engineer
"Queen of the Night"
Whitney Houston – vocals, co-producer, vocal arrangement
L.A. Reid – producer, drum programming
Babyface – producer, keyboard, organ, bass and drum programming
Daryl Simmons – co-producer
Kayo – bass
Donald Parks – programming
Randy Walker – programming
Vernon Reid – guitar solo
Barney Perkins – recording engineer
Milton Chan – recording engineer
Dave Way – mixing engineer
Jim "Z" Zumpano – mixing engineer
"Jesus Loves Me"
Whitney Houston – vocals, producer, vocal arrangement
BeBe Winans – vocals, background vocals
Cedric J. Caldwell – arrangement
BeBe Winans – vocal arrangement, arrangement
Ron Huff – string arrangement
Richard Joseph – additional production recording engineer
"Even If My Heart Would Break"
"Someday (I'm Coming Back)"
Lisa Stansfield – vocals
Ian Devaney – producer- mixing
Andy Morris – producer, mixing
Jazz Summers – executive producer
Tim Parry – executive producer
Bobby Boughton – engineer, mixing
"It's Gonna Be a Lovely Day"
The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. – performer
Michelle Visage – featured artist
Robert Clivilles – producer, arranger, mixing, rap vocal production
David Cole – producer, arranger, mixing, vocal arrangement
Ricky Crespo – assistant producer
Duran Ramos – rap vocal production
Acar S. Key – recording and mixing engineer
Bruce Miller – additional mixing
"(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding"
Curtis Stigers – performer
Danny Kortchmar – producer
Marc DeSisto – recording and mix engineer
"Theme from The Bodyguard"
Alan Silvestri – composer, producer
William Ross – orchestrations
Gary Grant – trumpet solo
Dennis Sands – engineer
Bill Easystone – assistant engineer
Gary Carlson – technical engineer
Jim Walker – technical engineer
"Trust in Me"
Production and design [ edit ]
Clive Davis – executive producer
Whitney Houston – executive producer
Roy Lott – producer
Gary LeMel – Warner Bros. music executive
Maureen Crowe – music supervisor
George Marino – mastering
Susan Mendola – design
Ben Glass – The Bodyguard still photography, inside front cover photo of Whitney Houston
still photography, inside front cover photo of Whitney Houston Randee St. Nicholas – inside booklet photography of Whitney Houston
Ellin LaVar – hair
Quietfire – makeup
Stephen Earabino – styling
Matthew Rolston – photography (Kenny G)
Casado – photography (Aaron Neville)
Paul Cox – photography (Joe Cocker)
Moshe Brakha – photography (Sass Jordan )
Zanna – photography (Lisa Stansfield)
Ken Nahoum – photography (The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M.)
Terence Scott – photography (Curtis Stigers)
Charts [ edit ]
Notes:
A ^ In the UK, compilation albums were excluded from the main album chart from January 1989.[66] The Bodyguard Soundtrack was classified as a compilation album for chart purposes and peaked at #1 on the compilations chart, not the main albums chart.[118]
Certifications and sales [ edit ]
Notes:
On the article of Billboard magazine, the issue dated October 16, 1993, according to Arista Records and BMG International, the album's sales were said that it sold 343,000 copies. The album was certified platinum on January 21, 1993 by IFPI Sweden, but it should be 3× platinum over because platinum awards were given to albums and singles with sales of 100,000 in Sweden until September 1996.
Accolades [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]The EU continues to create divisions across the political spectrum. This time, they are coming from Labour and the concerns of some northern MPs about the party being seen as “trying to block Brexit” after Keir Starmer argued for a “transitional Bexit deal that provides maximum certainty and stability”.
This transitional deal, which includes remaining in the customs union and single market, places Labour in firm opposition to the government, with Starmer going on to say that this stance was “explicitly ruled out” by Liam Fox and Phillip Hammond. However, as well as putting Labour at odds with the Tories, this stance has also prompted dissent internally. Caroline Flint came out against Labour’s strategy and said she would vote with the government on the EU Withdrawal Bill, saying Labour’s job was “to improve the bill, not kill it.”
Flint is not the only MP to discuss breaking the whip on Brexit votes. Recently three northern MPs said they were “concerned about the perception they are trying to ‘block Brexit’ by voting against the bill”. This position presents not only a fundamental division in Labour, but also a misunderstanding of what the withdrawal bill actually does.
The bill has nothing to do with whether or not we actually leave the EU. Starmer himself has even said that Labour’s soft position on Brexit would not be an attempt to negate it – rather we will be “leaving the EU come what may.”
Instead, what the bill focuses on, is where power lies after Britain has left the EU. The bill is, in fact, a renaming of the infamous Great Repeal Bill. Whether or not it was a political decision, the semantics of this re-branding are clever, as they allow MPs voting against it to be painted as being against the act of pulling out of the EU itself.
When coupled with the shift to a soft Brexit that Labour has undergone, this can lead to divisions and difficulty within the party. Politico recently reported that “Labour remains badly split over immigration, with the parliamentary party suffering a severe north/south divide.” This schism could crudely be described as being between those MPs whose constituents voted for Brexit, and those who voted against it. Immigration, however, isn’t covered in the bill. Instead, it will be dealt with in a different paper later down the line.
The main concerns around the withdrawal bill centre on the Henry VIII clause, which allows “primary legislation to be amended or repealed by subordinate legislation with or without further parliamentary scrutiny.” In short, the government would be able to tweak the bill after it has been passed, but without needing a vote on it.
These clauses allow for laws to be written that are “only examined by parliament if an annulment motion is tabled in time. Otherwise they bypass scrutiny altogether and take effect automatically.” Labour MPs need to unite against the bill because these clauses – which fly in the face of the “take back control” mantra – promise to return power to Britain and its people but deliver it no further than Whitehall and Westminster.
Although Labour MPs have largely condemned the bill as being a government power grab, it has reopened the north/south divide on immigration policy within the party. This creates a particularly dangerous and delicate balancing act for Labour MPs whose constituents largely backed Remain. They need to find a way to effectively challenge the government’s Brexit policy, while avoiding being seen as betraying the will of their constituents, a will that may lead to divisions within the PLP.
The bill has already had something of a storied history. From its re-naming to the delays that seem to plague it, it has been reported that the bill won’t be debated this month, facing opposition from Labour as well as Tory rebels. While this does show the weakness of the government, with a Tory MP even calling the administration “pathetic,” it also gives Labour a reprieve, and a chance to mend the rupture that Brexit exposed in the party.Jehan Daruvala and Lando Norris set the pace in the two Toyota Racing Series qualifying sessions at Manfield, the duo taking the top spot by 0.03s and 0.017s respectively.
The Force India protege secured his first pole position in the series, narrowly beating fellow M2 teammates Norris and Pedro Piquet in the first session, while the Briton was only two thousandths quicker than the Brazilian.
Sophomore trio James Munro, Ferdinand Habsburg and Artem Markelov completed the top six, followed by Kami Laliberte.
17-year-old Taylor Cockerton ended up as eighth-fastest as he edged Devlin DeFrancesco and Guan Yu Zhou out for the position.
The leading trio managed to be even closer in the second session with Norris taking the top spot by less than two hundredths.
Piquet and Daruvala set identical times in second and third, the Brazilian holding onto the front row spot.
Markelov completed an M2 1-2-3-4, followed by Munro, Habsburg and Laliberte.
Guest driver Thomas Randle, who was 10th in the series last year, secured eighth with Cockerton and DeFrancesco rounding the top ten out.IGNProLeague Profile Joined April 2011 1147 Posts Last Edited: 2012-01-15 19:22:20 #1
IGN Pro League Fight Club! This is a weekly king of the hill showmatch series. Basically, there will be a 1 vs. 1 best of 9 showmatch each and every week, where the winner will earn a $500 prize and a $100 bounty on their head. For example, if a player wins three weeks in a row they will have earned $1,500 and a $300 bounty. If a NEW challenger defeats
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seen them dragged from the wheel and strung from the nearest lamp-post. And you will have seen it time and time again.
This is why they are a danger both to the cause of cycling and to cyclists themselves. While none of us is perfect, these people slip into a realm where the rules of the road are irrelevant, and common decency goes out the window. They are the ones who are increasingly cutting us all up (pedestrian, car or cyclist), pushing us aside or screaming at us because we've slowed down to allow a child or older person live.
In fact, I'd say car drivers in general deserve more credit than they get from the cycling fraternity, because I don't recall ever seeing a car driver spot a space on a fully loaded zebra crossing that's a couple of centimetres wider than his car, put his head down, cross to the wrong side of the road, and bolt through at full speed. Nor do you see many cars flash on to a footpath behind a tight knot of pedestrians and proceed to ring their bell furiously until everyone jumps out of their way. And I probably don't even need to start talking about red lights, do I?
But the physical hazards posed by the new boy racers are not the real danger to cyclists – it's the damage to the cycling brand they constitute that's truly problematic.
To the harassed pedestrian for whom he tinged bell has become a tense precursor to either an earful of abuse or near-death experience, the moron has become the norm. The new boy racers represent all cyclists. And that's why they are really dangerous, because cycling needs to progress and be embraced, but the more badly behaved and unaccountable cyclists are perceived to be, the greater the likelihood that we'll be forced into restrictive and bureaucratic measures that set the whole cause back.
Compulsory insurance is one of those cure-alls for accountability that gets regularly trotted out, which is fine in principle, but although the person who just killed your dog might be able to offer compensation, you'd still have to catch them first. Registration is another oft-proposed solution to the problem. Japan is the only country that requires all bikes to be registered. Switzerland and others phased it out because of the cost and the bureaucracy. Now, the UK loves a bit of red tape, but registering every single bike? I don't think so. And apart from that, the freedom of cycling is a big draw to many of us. Take that away and it becomes another bureaucratically laden drag. So nothing would hold the cause of cycling back more than registration.
Interestingly, while we're on the subject of Japan, it has a large cycling population and many cycling laws – all of which are completely ignored. Cyclists regularly ride on paths and, indeed, police will even direct them on to walkways if they see them on roads. And yet cyclists, drivers and pedestrians get along fine. How does it work? In a word, politeness – one of those Japanese concepts with no direct translation into English.
The unfortunate truth, as CTC points out, is that congestion is only going to get worse and that we all – drivers and cyclists – have to meet in the middle and be considerate.
"If you go to Tokyo, one of the busiest cities in the world, you don't see the type of behaviour you consistently see in London. Everyone understands that the city is hugely busy and that they have to behave accordingly. We would like to see cycle awareness training as part of the driving test because everyone needs to understand the other point of view," says CTC spokesperson Jacqui Shannon.
More popular than ever … the commuter bike hire scheme in London has been taken up enthusiastically. Photograph: Nick Ansell/PA
The organisation would also like to see Bikeability – a 21st-century version of the cycling proficiency test – as part of the school curriculum. That would help with the next generation, but it's the current crop of speeding rudeboys high on a cocktail of fury and selfishness who are the problem, and they are unlikely to think they need any training.
But enough of regulation and training, what about the laws of the highway? To me, as a cyclist, I see a car coming and I am 99% confident that it will behave in a predictable manner, because drivers are trained to stick to the rules. Surely riders could do the same? Unfortunately though, when I see another rider, I have no idea if they are going to slow down, speed up, stop, run over a pedestrian and say it was my fault or do a wheelie down the wrong side of the road.
Last year, the Metropolitan police launched Operation Safeway in response to the deaths of six cyclists who were killed on the roads in London between 5 and 18 November. Officers manned major junctions and trouble spots and handed out a total of 13,818 fines – with 4,085 going to cyclists. Of course, a driver can do far more damage in a car – or worse, a lorry – than any cyclist, but that's still a lot of cyclists jumping red lights and whizzing down footpaths. Besides, the process of holding drivers to account is easy because you have a means of identifying the miscreant and catching up with them at a later date. However, an officer witnessing a dangerous cyclist can do little more than shake his fist in their direction.
I wouldn't call myself a cyclist with a capital c, but I know many of them, and they're a sensitive bunch. So I'm writing this anonymously because I've had enough of being intimidated on the roads as it is. Maybe it's time for me to put the bike away and start walking instead.
But don't let me stop you. If you're caught up in the cycling boom and are tempted to join in the revolution, go ahead. Enjoy Le Grand Depart this weekend; get your bike and your bell and your Lycra (if you must), but don't forget the most important piece of equipment: a brain.As the students’ strike to call for the ouster of freshly-elected Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) chairman Gajendra Chauhan enters its 25th day, popular actress Pallavi Joshi has written to the I&B Ministry saying she does not want to be a part of the governing council.
Meanwhile, a press note issued by the students’ association says that Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley has hinted that the institution could be privatised if students do not cooperate with the ministry.
“When brought to the minister’s notice that an institution embodies a vision which the present society was not in a position to provide, he indicated that if students persisted in their demand for reconstitution of the society they might have to face the bleak prospect of shutdown and eventual privatisation,” the press note said.
However, FTII director DJ Narain has contradicted Jaitley on the privatisation matter saying, “The minister did not talk about privatisation or a shutdown of the institute at all. FSA totally misunderstood what the minister said in reference to the report of Geeta Krishnan committee in the late 90’s recommending privatisation of institutions including FTII which the I and B ministry did not accept. On the contrary the ministry pumped more funds to boost the FTII”, he said.
Jantakareporter.com has learnt that the students have appealed to eminent film personalities such as Vidya Balan and Rajkumar Hirani who are part of the institution’s society. The students are sticking to their demand for the ouster of BJP member Chauhan as chairman.
A lot of other eminent people of the Indian film industry including well-known cinematographer Santosh Sivan and filmmaker Jahnu Barua have also refused to be a part of the FTII society or the governing council.
Chauhan, who is known for portraying the character of ‘Yudhisthira’ on TV show Mahabharata, became chairman of FTII last month. His appointment has come under severe criticism from current and former students of the elite institution.A Brother E-Mailed me a response to Greg Stewart’s article on the Mercedes-Benz Super Bowl Ad which I had sent him.
“So we go online and speak out against this atrocity and in doing so we link ourselves to the myth. How many years had masonry survived with this type of public outcry? Unless we begin to teach masons to live the lives taught by our fraternity and stop trying to be a social icon, Masonry will continue to be ridiculed. It is only when you can show that the myth is in fact a myth and that we prove it every day by the way we live our lives, that Freemasonry will regain it honored reputation. The more we bend to clamor in public, the more the critics come after us. If we disregarded the critics they have no one to argue with, thus the argument dies for want of a debate. Sadly you and others do not understand this. But I urge you to really reflect on it. A well spent life is mightier than the sword or any media response.”
I guess I just don’t get it. At least he thinks I just don’t get it. But I would say that he doesn’t get it.
This is the attitude of Freemasons of 50 and 100 years ago – never talk about the fraternity, never mention to anyone that you are even a Freemason. Everything about Freemasonry is secret. Not one word about the Craft should escape a Mason’s lips.
This is one of the reasons Freemasonry missed many good candidates back then. A guy 50 years old would finally say to his buddy, “I have been waiting 20 years for you to invite me to join Freemasonry. How come you never asked me?”
Old time Masons never asked another to join. Those who desired to join Freemasonry had to ask a Mason. Some Masons would demand that they ask three times before they would consider recommending them.
Anti Masons that spread lies about Freemasonry are not to be answered. Leo Taxil’s Masonic hoax, even after he recanted and admitted he made the whole thing up, was still believed by many people because Freemasons never would refute it.
“Turn The Other Cheek Freemasons” do not believe that disputing or refuting lies about the Craft are a productive use of Masonic resources. They do not believe that Masons should stoop to the level of their detractors. Masons are above all that, they say. What Masons need to do is lead by example and all these crazy charges will just die the death of untruth all by themselves.
And problems within the Fraternity, well we don’t talk about them either. The refusal of some Masons to allow African Americans in their Lodges, their constant black balling of any applicant who isn’t Christian, Grand Masters expelling Master Masons without a Masonic Trial, Grand Masters closing Lodges and pulling charters without reason or recourse, are all problems that Brethren must solve without discussing these problems in public. “Airing dirty laundry” is definitely a no-no with “Turn The Other Cheek Freemasons.”
And if these problems emanate from other jurisdictions, well sticking one’s Masonic nose into other people’s business is a double no-no. That’s their business, that’s their problem.
And so stand “The Turn The Other Cheek Freemasons.” Withdraw from society, have nothing to do with it, let people do what they may but Freemasonry will live on, no matter what.
But it won’t. The younger generation will never join an organization that refuses admittance to non Whites and non Christians. It just ain’t going to happen. And who would join an organization that is in league with the Devil? And someday soon Malecraft Freemasonry will have to change its policy on women. The fact is Mainstream Masonry is dying a slow, agonizing death.
THE MERCEDES-BENZ HOAX IS A 21st CENTURY REMAKE OF THE LEO TAXIL HOAX.
Freemasonry was never designed to be a Monastic Brotherhood or a Cloistered Sect. Paul Revere is rolling over in his grave right about now. So is Joseph Warren who died at the battle of Bunker Hill fighting for liberty in America. As a Grand Master he used Freemasons to transmit anti British communications among the Patriots.
Not answering your critics is naïve and very detrimental to your cause. The big lie repeated over and over again without refutation will gradually stick. No one knew this better than Goebbels, Hitler’s Propagandist Minister.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”- Goebbels
The fact is turning the other cheek doesn’t work. This is the real world where the truth doesn’t always become self evident. Sometimes we must help the truth be known. Failure to do so only empowers our enemies. And the big lie is believed because it must be true if no one will stand up for the truth and dispute it. People interpret silence as acceptance of guilt. If you were unjustly charged with sexually molesting a child, would you remain silent in hopes the truth will win out or would you deny the charges and do everything you could to refute them?
“Turn The Other Cheek Freemasons” are hurting this beloved fraternity and are hastening the demise of the Craft.
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Like this: Like Loading...President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday agreed to pursue “real coordination” against the Islamic State in Syria, according to the Kremlin.
The two leaders spoke for the first time since Trump’s inauguration in a phone call around noon Eastern time.
Hours later, the White House echoed the Russian government, saying both men agreed on the need for "mutual cooperation in defeating ISIS."
The conversation comes as Trump is facing pressure from Congress and European allies to maintain a hard line against Moscow, including keeping sanctions in place.
But the new president is seeking to rebuild ties with Russia that have long been frayed over the Kremlin’s 2014 military intervention in Ukraine, its support for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and U.S. intelligence agencies’ assertion that Putin ordered the hacking of Democratic political groups to help Trump win the election in November.
The Russian and U.S. statements made no specific mention of whether the two leaders discussed lifting sanctions related to the Ukraine conflict and hacking, but Moscow stressed the importance of restoring “mutually beneficial trade and economic ties.”
They also agreed to “establish a partnership cooperation” on Ukraine and other conflicts in the Middle East, including Syria, Putin's office said.
The White House made no mention of Ukraine but said that he wants to pursue "efforts in working together to achieve more peace throughout the world including Syria."
Trump spoke to Putin sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. He was accompanied by Vice President Mike Pence, National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, senior counselor Steve Bannon, chief of staff Reince Priebus and press secretary Sean Spicer.
A glass of soda sat on the desk as Trump and Putin spoke on the phone, a conversation the White House said lasted an hour.
Trump spoke to a number of world leaders on Saturday as he seeks to establish new relationships and jump-start his foreign policy.
But two of the leaders he spoke with, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Holland, are both ardent supporters of Western sanctions against Russia.
The White House did not say whether Trump and Merkel discuss sanctions, but the two leaders did talk about “the Ukraine crisis.”
“Both leaders affirmed the importance of close German-American cooperation to our countries' security and prosperity,” according to the White House.
They also agreed on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s “fundamental importance” to both nations.
Updated: 6:34 p.m.TAMPA | A Tampa man is accused of scamming Apple stores out of $309,768 through a scam using fake authorization codes for debit cards.
TAMPA | A Tampa man is accused of scamming Apple stores out of $309,768 through a scam using fake authorization codes for debit cards.
The Tampa Bay Times (http://bit.ly/1rO908P ) says 24-year-old Sharron Laverne Parrish Jr. is charged with wire fraud.
A Secret Service complaint says Parrish tricked Apple clerks in 16 states into accepting meaningless override codes in a scam made possible through a practice known as a “forced sale,” “forced post,” or “forced code.”
Authorities say he pretended to call his bank when his debit card was declined. He would then give the clerk the fake code to punch into the card reader.
Secret Service special agent John Joyce says the solution is for merchants not to permit hand-keyed override codes.For so many of us when there are foods you avoid, either out of necessity or by choice, there are always very specific foods and recipes that you have to just give up longing for. The torture just becomes to much. As someone that generally avoids dairy, in more than very small amounts, I can assure you that the longing feeling I have in my heart for that stretchy pull of good cheese in a homemade mac and cheese or a slice of pizza loaded with the ooey gooey good stuff – those are quite hard to replicate. I am absolutely not a fan of the “faux cheese” alternatives, for so many reasons, mostly because I highly suspect there is very little actual food in there, so I generally just abstain. It’s fine. You just get over it. No really, you do.
The great thing is, there are plenty of wonderful, real food alternatives for dairy in other places. Coconut milk ice creams, whipped coconut cream, homemade coffee creamer, dairy-free cream cheese and even dairy-free yogurt. But, homemade dairy-free “cheesecakes”, made with cashews, these are quite possibly one of my personal favorites.
Cashew cheesecakes are something I have been making for many years now and I am still continuously amazed that I can serve these to gluten-eating, non-dairy-free folks and they are always blown away! They truly cannot believe there’s no dairy in there.
These little, bite-sized spiced pumpkin cheesecakes are perfect for fall get-togethers, a great option for Halloween parties, perfect for Thanksgiving or for whenever your little fall-loving heart desires. The fresh ginger in the crusts, brings a a lovely, warming gingersnap cookie vibe.
Serve these with a dollop or swirl of whipped coconut cream on top, maybe alongside a homemade Dairy-free Pumpkin Spice Latte to really commit to the whole Autumnal thing!Theo Walcott says he’s out of a leg brace and off crutches as he continues his rehabilitation from the cruciate ligament injury which has ruled him out for the rest of the season.
Trying to remain positive about his rehabilitation, despite the fact he is missing the Premier League climax and a World Cup in Brazil, the attacker said he’s currently focusing on the short-term and the prospect of becoming a father for the first time.
“The last two days have been good days, getting out of the brace and off the crutches,” Walcott told the Telegraph.
“I have been able to walk a bit easier. It has taken me a while to get the walking right, but it is nearly there.
“At the moment, I am taking it week by week and trying to hit targets. I can’t do much yet. I just walk in the swimming pool, getting the extension right. Extension in this injury is very important. Otherwise, I am trying to build muscle and become an absolute tank.
“There’s the baby due in May. In the space of a year, I have had three very big things happen – marriage, baby on the way and a major injury.
“My main concern is getting fit and playing well for Arsenal. I’ll obviously be supporting the [England] guys in the summer but my main concern will be my family, of course.”
The attacker also made clear he has no regrets about his taunting of Sp*rs fans when he was stretchered from the Emirates turf during the Gunners 2-0 FA Cup victory.
“Me and Tottenham, you always do that banter,” he told the Mirror. “They do it to me, I do it to them. It’s just a bit of fun really.
“I have seen some Tottenham fans since then and they have said if it was one of our players [making the scoreline gesture] I would have loved it. It’s all a bit of fun, that’s all it was.
“The stretcher guys were both Spurs fans and they actually said: ‘Theo can you stop now?’ I did stop eventually. I’ll buy them some cupcakes or something! As soon as I got to the Arsenal fans and they were throwing scarves. I stopped, yeah.”Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
July 5, 2013, 11:37 PM GMT By Alan Boyle, Science Editor
The traditional wisdom is that today's wildfires set the stage for tomorrow's healthy forests. But researchers are coming to the conclusion that in a warmer world, with more droughts and more wildfires, the traditional wisdom won't always hold true.
You wouldn't know that by looking at Yellowstone National Park, which lost a third of its forest land in a seemingly catastrophic series of wildfires of 1988. Twenty-five years later, the forests are making a stunning comeback.
"The forests regenerated so quickly and so abundantly that even we were surprised," said Monica Turner, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who has been monitoring Yellowstone since 1988. The regeneration of Yellowstone looks like a textbook case in nature's resilience to wildfires. Will that always be the case?
"We thought Yellowstone would be resilient no matter what," Turner told NBC News. "But the recent climate projections have caused us to question that assumption."
Those projections suggest that the incidence of wildfires will increase significantly by the middle of the 21st century, due to warmer, drier weather in the West. That's expected to sap the ability of forests to recover between one fire and the next. Particularly in the Southwest, wide areas of today's forest land could give way to scrublands, or grasslands. In other areas, the mix of trees will shift, favoring drought-tolerant, fire-resistant species.
Not even Yellowstone will be immune. "It might be quite different from what it was like in the 20th century," Turner said.
Circle of life
Fires have been an integral part of the forest's circle of life — not just for centuries, but for eons. Some species, such as the lodgepole pine, depend on wildfires to release their seeds from pine cones for the next generation. Other types of trees, such aspens, quickly regenerate from their roots after a fire. And still others, such as ponderosa pines, benefit from the thinning out that's done by low-intensity, surface-clearing fires.
Trees and plants such as Indian paintbrush regenerate decades later from the heart of the 1978 Ouzel Fire in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park. Scott Sticha / NPS
"The news media tend to emphasize the destructive nature of these fires, but they have some benefits as well," said fire ecologist Bill Romme, a professor emeritus at Colorado State University.
The concern arises when wildfires become too frequent, or too intense. What happens if one fire resets the circle of life for a stand of lodgepole pine, and then a second fire sweeps through before the next generation can form seeds and cones? What happens when the burned patches of a fir or spruce forest become so wide they can't be reseeded from their surroundings?
"Those are some of the things we're starting to work on now," Turner said.
Drought plays a huge role — not only during the fire, but afterward as well: The drought and fires that hit Yellowstone in 1988 were followed by a year that was hospitable to the new seedlings, and that contributed to the rapid comeback. In contrast, a rash of wildfires in 2000 was followed by another year of drought in 2001. The regeneration process for the forests affected by those later fires was "much slower," Turner said.
The projections produced by Turner and her colleagues suggest that, by 2050, the frequency and extent of Yellowstone's wildfires will accelerate to a pace three to 10 times as fast as it has been historically. "What we would expect is that the area occupied by forest would probably decline," Turner said. "That would probably happen soonest at lower treeline."
What to do?
Should forest managers return to the vigorous fire suppression policy that was in effect decades before the Yellowstone conflagrations of 1988? The researchers say no. In fact, the prevailing wisdom is that the previous policy of suppressing natural fires only set the stage for overgrowth — and eventually, extreme wildfires.
Craig Allen, a researcher at the U.S. Geological Survey, studies the aftermath of the Las Conchas Fire in New Mexico's Jemez Mountains in 2011. USGS
"This approach won’t work — indeed, it has not been working as society has been trying to suppress, and simply is not able to when extreme weather meets extreme hazard fuel conditions," Craig Allen, a research ecologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Fort Collins, Colo., told NBC News in an email.
That doesn't mean the firefighters struggling against the blazes that are ravaging the West this summer should pack up and go home. When human lives and property are at risk, putting out the fire is the highest priority. But studies have shown that low-intensity fires can reduce the incidence of high-intensity fires later. That's why current policies call for letting some wildfires burn under watchful eyes, or intentionally setting fires under the right conditions, or thinning out and cleaning up forests before fire strikes.
"They're doing the right things," Romme said, "but they're just not able to do it on as large an area as it needs, or as quickly as it needs to be done."
In the years ahead, forest management policies may have to be fine-tuned for a warmer world. "We have to be careful about learning to live with fire and increased risk," Turner said. "We might not want to encourage people to build new structures in places that are likely to burn severely. What we have to do is face what is probably inevitable."
That could pose a challenge if climate change accelerates as quickly as many scientists think it will.
"A lot of our practices based on past history just aren't going to apply," said Jesse Logan, a retired U.S. Forest Service researcher. "I think there could be some real mistakes in management if we rely completely on historical and prehistorical analysis. They may not be very helpful for formulating policy in the future. It's kind of like looking in the rear-view mirror when you're driving down the highway at 70 miles per hour. You need to concentrate on where you’re going, and not primarily on where you’ve been."
More about wildfires:
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the NBC News Science Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding +Alan Boyle to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.Because Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz doesn’t properly crease his pants or favor the infanticide of partial-birth abortion, on the pages of The New York Times, columnist David Brooks (who identifies as a conservative) openly questions Cruz’s Christian faith, and does so for the sin of Cruz doing his job as solicitor general for the state of Texas.
The case reveals something interesting about Cruz’s character. Ted Cruz is now running strongly among evangelical voters, especially in Iowa. But in his career and public presentation Cruz is a stranger to most of what would generally be considered the Christian virtues: humility, mercy, compassion and grace. Cruz’s behavior in the Haley case is almost the dictionary definition of pharisaism: an overzealous application of the letter of the law in a way that violates the spirit of the law, as well as fairness and mercy. … But Cruz’s speeches are marked by what you might call pagan brutalism. There is not a hint of compassion, gentleness and mercy. Instead, his speeches are marked by a long list of enemies, and vows to crush, shred, destroy, bomb them. When he is speaking in a church the contrast between the setting and the emotional tone he sets is jarring.
Wow. Pagan brutalism.
And here I thought we were a secular country looking for politicians who put their civic duty above their personal faith? When it comes to destroying Republicans, there just are no rules in the DC Media, other than doing what’s necessary to destroy.
I’m old enough to remember when it was racist to “other” a non-white presidential candidate like Ted Cruz through the questioning of his Christian faith. In fact, it was the New York Times itself that helped to set this standard. In fact, Republicans who don’t correct those who question Obama’s faith are smeared as racist in the New York Times.
And why ever would we question the faith of a President Obama who spent 20 years in a racist church, protects abortion like a sacrament, regularly attacks Christians vocally and through public policy, adores him some same-sex marriage, and palled around with a domestic terrorist?
Not that the Obama groupie ever would, but Brooks would never write a column using the above to question Obama’s questionable Christian faith. His DC Media pals would smear him as a racist and run him out of town. His career would be over.
The Precious Obama’s Christian faith is off-limits, but othering Ted Cruz on the pages of the New York Times is fair game.
Democrats sure got it good.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNCThe Navajo Nation Council has approved the largest spending package in its history. It’ll be funded by a settlement the tribe received from a federal lawsuit, and benefit several water and sanitation projects. Arizona Public Radio’s Ryan Heinsius reports.
The council unanimously approved the bill that would allocate $180 million to more than 100 projects throughout the Navajo Nation.
Members of the council say many communities throughout the Navajo Nation suffer from poor water quality, and believe the bill will enhance public health by cleaning up water contamination, and pave the way for economic development.
The funds would come from a $554 million settlement of a lawsuit that alleged the federal government mismanaged the tribe’s natural resources for more than a half-century. It was the largest settlement ever obtained by an American Indian tribe.
Under Navajo Nation law, the funds from the settlement must be used for infrastructure, economic and community development as well as education.
President Russell Begaye will have until next week to consider the council’s bill.Ranchers who have had to try to get their cattle through a rough drought have a new battle: cattle rustlers.
Seventeen head were stolen last week near Mansfield, the latest in a recent rash of cattle thefts from ranches in Johnson and Ellis counties.
"These guys are out on horseback stealing cattle just like they did 120 years ago," said H.D. Brittain, a special ranger with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association in Fort Worth.
Eight mostly black cows branded with a turkey track on their left hip and nine unbranded calves were stolen from Feb. 15-17.
Cattle Rustling on the Rise
Cattle rustlers recently targeted a ranch near Mansfield, while a reward is being offered, cattle rustling is becoming more frequent in recent years according to the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. (Published Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2012)
More than 30 head of cattle have been stolen from the same area since the end of last year, but that's only a fraction of those stolen each year across Texas.
In 2010, 7,500 head across the state were stolen -- triple the number just three years before.
A stolen cow can fetch nearly $1,000, while a bull can bring in $1,500.
"The way this economy is, we're going to see it continue to rise," said Brittain. "You get full market value for a cow, whether she's stolen or whatever."
There is a $2,500 reward for one of the thefts, and TSCRA's Operation Cow Thief will add a $1,000 reward for information leading to arrest of the cattle rustlers.
Anyone with information on the cattle rustlers is asked to call 817-599-5088 or 1-888-830-2333.
Convicted cattle rustlers can spend years in prison.
More:Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers AssociationBikes and cars moved along the Commonwealth Avenue bridge as its re-opens to traffic on Wednesday.
The Commonwealth Avenue and Boston University bridges are expected to reopen to traffic Wednesday morning, and trolley service on the Green Line B Branch near the Commonwealth Avenue bridge will resume, transportation officials said Tuesday evening.
Both bridges have been closed to drivers since the end of July.
“This significant milestone means that operations will transition from the intensive structure replacement work to finishing tasks such as completing the final paving work as well as installing curbing and sidewalk,” the state transportation department said in a statement. “These minor operations are expected to occur throughout the coming weeks and are not expected to significantly impact traffic.”
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Officials said there would be off-peak lane closures on Commonwealth Avenue near the bridge for the next several weeks.
The project forced lane closures on the Massachusetts Turnpike in recent weeks, but the highway returned to full capacity well ahead of schedule.
Jake Johnson can be reached at [email protected] expected, ARM is launching new CPU and graphics chip designs ahead of the Computex trade show in Taiwan. The new Mali-G72 GPU and Cortex-A75 and Cortex-A55 processors bring improvements to performance and efficiency. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The new chip designs are also the first to support ARM’s new DynamIQ technology, giving chip makers more options for pairing a group of CPU cores to meet their needs.
ARM doesn’t actually manufacture chips. Instead the company designs the tech that’s licensed by companies like Qualcomm, MediaTek, Samsung, and Apple for use in their processors. While ARM-based chips are probably best known for powering smartphones and tablets, they’re also used in smart TVs and automotive systems, as well as a number of industrial and enterprise applications, and even some servers.
Microsoft is also developing a new version of Windows 10 that runs on ARM, which means we could see more laptop and/or desktop computers with ARM processors, and the chip architecture designer says its Cortex-A75 processors provide laptop-level performance.
But the company is also playing up the flexibility of its DynamIQ solution which lets you pair a high-performance Cortex-A75 CPU core (or cluster of up to 4 cores) with a more efficient Cortex-A55 core (or a cluster of up to 8 cores) for a heterogeneous computing solution that can tap the appropriate resources on demand.
Right now we tend to see ARM-based chips using the company’s older big.LITTLE technology in a handful of configurations, such as:
8-core chips with 4 big and 4 little CPU cores
8-core chips with 8 little CPU cores
6-core chips with 2 big and 4 little
4-core chips with 4 big, 4 little, or 2 of each
But DynamIQ tech could lead to a blurring of the lines between high-end, mid-range, and budget chips with models using 1+7, 1+4, or other configurations to shake things up.
ARM says the solution could offer huge improvements to performance in machine learning and artificial intelligence and could be used in servers as well as phones, laptops, and in-vehicle systems.
The first actual chips to use Cortex-A75 and/or Cortex-A55 CPU cores should hit the market in early 2018. Rumor has it that Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 845 processor may be one of the first.
via ARM (1), (2) and AnandTech (for a deep-dive into the tech)Anonymous, the collective of cyber "hacktivists" who are known to wreak havoc on the Internets, reportedly hacked into the website of the city of Ferguson, Mo., Sunday night.
To prevent any hacking attempts, the mayor of Ferguson ordered the IT department to take down the city's servers overnight. Despite the IT department's best efforts, none of the city's email servers were working Monday morning. The action came after Anonymous threatened to leak the personal information of Ferguson police officers in the wake of the police shooting of 18-year-old Mike Brown.
Anonymous turned its sights on St. Louis Police Chief Jon Belmar and his family after Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson announced he would not release the name of Brown's killer as promised today. The St. Louis Police Department is handling the investigation into Brown's death.
An associate of Anonymous tweeted photos of Belmar's family and the home address of a Ferguson police officer. It is not known if the police officer is the same one who shot Brown multiple times on Saturday.
One of the photos tweeted from the Anonymous Twitter account showed a confederate flag on the wall behind a male who was identified as Belmar's son, Colin.
In related news, President Barack Obama called for peace and expressed his condolences to the Brown family today.
In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, Obama said:
“I know the events of the past few days have prompted strong passions, but as details unfold, I urge everyone in Ferguson, Missouri, and across the country, to remember this young man through reflection and understanding,” Obama said. “We should comfort each other and talk with one another in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds. Along with our prayers, that’s what Michael and his family, and our broader American community, deserve.”
Thanks to loyal reader @RonitaMcAfee for the tip.
More from Sandrarose.com:James Carville and MSNBC's Chris Mathews both voice concerns about the president's handling of the oil spill. Carville, Matthews rip W.H. on BP
At first, it was Rush Limbaugh who tagged the gusher in the Gulf "Obama's Katrina" — but now two lions of the left are warning the White House that the administration's handing of the environmental catastrophe is inflicting long-term political damage.
James Carville, a stalwart Obama defender — and Louisiana native — and MSNBC's Chris Mathews both voiced concerns about the president's handling of the spill, and Obama's decision to allow BP to take the lead on plugging the pipe, which has been pouring oil into the sea for a month.
Story Continued Below
Their statements came on a day when the press corps spent the better part of an hour grilling White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about the administration's response to the
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of "The car in front of you", an article written by Ian Bamsey and published in issue 054 of Race Engine Technology. If you wish to read more, you can buy the issue at www.highpowermedia.com and put 'f1technical' as voucher code to benefit a 10% reduction on your purchase price.
How did we travel from the high-boost era of the 1980s to today’s high-revving naturally aspirated Formula One engines? The journey was in two phases. The first spanned the 1990s, when engine manufacturers first started aggressively exploring the region above 12,000 rpm, steadily moving towards 18,000 rpm (which today by regulation is the engine speed limit). The second phase, over the past ten years, only briefly witnessed further speed increases, to 20,000 rpm, and was characterised by an increasing mileage requirement. Instead of having to run only one Grand Prix race, these hugely stressed engines now have to run three complete meetings. In tracing the development of the Toyota Formula One engine, we explore here in depth that second phase. In its final 2.4 litre V8 frozen-specification guise, the engine developed by TMG continues to be used to power the test car that Toyota fields for new tyre supplier Pirelli; TMG is Toyota’s motorsport facility based in Cologne, Germany, which ran the Japanese company’s Formula One programme.
The design of the V8 TMG produced for Toyota was the subject of a Dossier in RET issue 49 (1) and here, thanks to further generous cooperation from TMG, which both designed and developed it, we are able to chart its evolution from Toyota’s initial decision to enter Formula One. With all Formula One engines by regulation now frozen in specification, this is the revealing and exclusive story of how a state-ofthe- art contemporary Grand Prix power unit came about.
Introduction
The Formula One turbo era of the 1980s lasted until 1988, after which all engines had to be naturally aspirated. Initially the displacement limit was 3.5 litres, and in the early ’90s the FIA also decreed 3.5 litre naturally aspirated engines for Group C. At the time, Toyota was active in Prototype racing and it designed a naturally aspirated 3.5 litre V10 for its 1992 Group C car.
Group C racing fizzled out in 1994 and Toyota did not follow archrival Peugeot in developing a spin-off Formula One engine. Then, for 1995, the Formula One displacement limit was cut to 3.0 litres. By this stage the FIA had clamped down on fuel development, enforcing gasoline that was little better than regular roadside unleaded in terms of performance enhancement. The 1995 3.0 litre Formula One engines were a mixture of V8, V10 and V12 configurations.
As engine speed steadily rose, undoubtedly the strongest 3.0 litre engine was the Renault V10, which in 1995 produced about 700 bhp at 15,600 rpm. By 1997 the best engines had gone on to eclipse 750 bhp, for example the Ilmor V10 making 760 bhp at 16,200 according to designer Mario Illien. The rival Renault and Ferrari V10s made a comparable output.
By 1998 all Formula One engines were V10s, and that year new chassis and tyre regulations left the cars inadequately shod at the rear. That put the emphasis on preservation of the rear tyres and, from the engine perspective, weight was more significant than ever as designers strove to push the car’s centre of gravity forwards. A front-end timing drive was called for and there was a trend to linerless aluminium alloy cylinder blocks, to save weight.
The years 1998 to 2000 were also notable for the exploitation of aluminium-beryllium pistons by Ilmor Mercedes, these both saving weight and increasing thermal resistance over the regular 2618 aluminium alloy. New materials regulations for 2001 effectively outlawed that beneficial approach, decreeing 40 GPa/(g/cc) as the maximum specific strength for all components (for 2000 that figure had been decreed as the maximum for all except internal engine components).
In the meantime, having reached 800 bhp in 1999, by 2000 the Ilmor engine was running to a maximum speed of 18,000 rpm, and was then making peak power of 820 bhp at 17,500 rpm. That was the state of the art in a season for which the FIA decreed there to be a maximum of ten cylinders. That move scuppered the plans of Toyota and Cosworth, both of which had V12 projects underway.
2000-2001
When, in January 2000, Toyota switched instead to a V10 3.0 litre engine, the design team was led by Luca Marmorini, previously a Ferrari Formula One engine engineer (he remained with TMG until 2009). Soon after embarking on the design of a V10 he remarked to the author that since the Toyota race programme was not scheduled to start until 2002, the new engine could not afford to be a conservative design, otherwise progress by its rivals would surely leave it wanting.
Toyota’s initial Formula One engine was officially designed RVX-01 (Racing Vee Ten – 01). It was known in-house as the ‘B’ engine, following on from the V12 design. It had a 90º rather than the conventional 72º measure as its bank angle (this being an approach pioneered by the 2000 Ferrari V10). Linerless, it had a 95.1 mm bore, a front-end timing drive and, at the outset, its weight was 109.55 kg.
The B engine had its first dyno run in September 2000, its first track test in May 2001. In the summer of 2001 the strongest Formula One engine was almost certainly the BMW V10, which was developed to produce 880 bhp according to recently published information from the company (2). By August 2001, Toyota had engine speed 500 rpm up on initial testing and then, at close to 18,000 rpm; its as-yet unraced V10 made almost 800 bhp.
2002
The lessons of the B engine led to a redesigned C, which followed the same basic pattern and came in essentially at the same weight (109.11 kg). With this engine Toyota made its Formula One debut at the start of the 2002 season. Toyota has never published power output figures for its Formula One engines. Each year at the midseason British Grand Prix event, RET estimates the power of all current Formula One engines, not by any quasi-scientific form of measurement but by the straightforward approach of asking key engine and chassis engineers – who know their own output and go to great lengths to judge the performance of their rival units against it – to establish a consensus table. Toyota was estimated by this method to have reached 830 bhp mid-season with its first Formula One race engine. In 2002, BMW produced the first V10 to reach 19,000 rpm, and by the end of that season its output was 895 bhp.
2003
In an effort to take Toyota to the sharp end of the grid, for 2003 there was a complete redesign of the previous B/C engine. Reflecting increasing engine speed, the new D engine increased the bore from 95.1 mm to 96.8 mm, yet was nevertheless more compact. The D also had a lower crankshaft height than its predecessors, helping to lower the centre-of-gravity height. At 101 kg, it was significantly lighter than the C engine. It also offered a step up in performance.
The FIA brought in overnight parc ferme regulations for 2003 Formula One events, so a car had to race with the engine used in qualifying. While this added only a marginal amount to the required mileage, it did add the toughest period of running for any engine. Nevertheless, by mid-2003, both BMW and Honda had exceeded 900 bhp. At the British Grand Prix, RET estimated 910 bhp for those engines and 890 bhp for the D-spec, which was the first Toyota V10 to run to 19,000 rpm. It was developed to produce more than 900 bhp by the end of the 2003 campaign. BMW claims it reached 940 bhp by the end of 2003 (2).
2004
For 2004 there was a significant increase in required mileage, the engine now mandated by the FIA to run the entire race weekend. Mileage thus went from about 370-400 km (qualifying and race) to 550-700 km (the exact figure according to team usage policy, and typically about 600-650 km). In view of this, the E engine was essentially an evolution of the D engine with painstaking detail work providing the required increase in mileage. Despite that, the best part of a kilo was shaved from the weight; the E weighed about 100 kg.
The full article is published in RET issue 054 and can be purchased with a 10% reduction if you pass 'f1technical' as a voucher code on your purchase at highpowermedia.com.Our business leaders are amusing themselves at the moment sailing large and expensive yachts in various summer regattas and races and lecturing us on how our democratic choices (to elect parliamentarians) is holding back the country – “ill-equipped for life after the mining boom” is the code words used (Source). Apparently, we should not elect parliamentarians that oppose their conservative agenda to transfer increasing volumes of real income to the top-end-of-town (that is, them). Their mantra never changes – its all about them not us. This article in the New York Times (September 26, 2014) – The Benefits of Economic Expansions Are Increasingly Going to the Richest Americans – not only promotes the excellent work of MMTer Pavlina Tcherneva but is apposite to the message of today’s blog. Which brings me to a recent decision by the UK government to allow rail fares to rise well in excess of the inflation rate and the growth in wages.
The UK Guardian article (January 2, 2015) – Fare rises show why British railways should be renationalised – was one of those recurring narratives that tell us about the on-going damage that the early stages of neo-liberalism wrought.
The article resonates strongly given the dreadful privatisation of public transport in some Australian states, which would be comical if not so serious.
Rail fares have risen again in the UK (ahead of the inflation rate and the growth in nominal or money wages) even though service reliability has continued to deteriorate across the network of private train and bus services.
When I was in Italy in November I caught trains between Rome and Milan and within Rome (the metro) and was surprised how well-priced the service was compared to similar services back in Australia. The fast trains (which we do not have) are excellent in Italy. The train services and the rail infrastructure I travelled on are publicly-owned.
It seems that the UK public transport user is not so lucky. The UK Guardian article (January 2, 2015) – British commuters ‘spend more on rail travel than other European workers’ – documents how “British commuters spend a bigger proportion of their wages on rail travel than workers elsewhere in Europe” and that “travel costs continue to outpace wage growth”.
Once Margaret Thatcher’s ideological zealots started hacking into the public ownership of the rail system things have deteriorated. The UK Guardian tells us that:
After two decades of privatisation the British people pay the highest fares in Europe to travel on clapped out, understaffed and overcrowded services while the private train companies are laughing all the way to the bank. Today’s fares jump just fuels that scandal.
We also learn that since May 2010, when the Conservative government took office:
… fares have increased by 27% … while UK workers have suffered six years of falling real wages as consumer inflation has persistently outpaced pay growth since 2008.
Not to mention the several years of recession and declining national income as a result of the poor response to the GFC.
A good source of analysis of the “cost of privatised living” is provided by the UK public services advocacy group – We own it – although the reality is that “we” used to own it.
Further research by the UK group – Corporate Watch – published last year – Energy, rail and water privatisation costs UK households £250 a year – found that:
– Households across the UK could save £250 each on their electricity, gas and water bills and train fares if the services were publicly financed. – Private electricity, gas, water and rail companies pay out £12bn a year to investors and shareholders in interest and dividends. – In total, cheaper government borrowing rates could save the UK public £6.5bn: £4.2bn on energy, £2bn on water and £352m on rail.
Their full study is available – HERE.
It is not just a matter of rising fares and charges. The research clearly demonstrates that service quality – reliability, puncuality, attention to complaints etc – has also deteriorated across the privatised infrastructure services.
The vintage of the rail capital stock is now older – private companies have an incentive to run down the quality of the infrastructure they take over as the imperative for short-term profits dominate. Big W Catalogue for more.
The pay of the CEOs in the privatised companies also regularly scandalises the public. Research by the UK group – The High Pay Centre – which is a non-aligned centre that aims to “monitor pay at the top of the income distribution”, provides a comprehensive analysis of rampant corporate power and the CEO feeding frenzy.
In their report – Winners and Losers – they conclude that:
Whilst investors have done well from privatisation, many are overseas so the UK consumer pays the price and the foreign investor reaps the dividend. The biggest winners are the executives at the top of the companies who have benefited from multi-million pound pay-outs for doing a job that paid a civil servant’s wage prior to privatisation.
They also note that while the Government initially received payments for the sales of public infrastructure, they also had to “write- off many companies’ debts and take on pension obligations in order to complete the sale” and later provided significant subsidies to the privatised companies. In the case of National Rail, the Government “effectively re-nationalised” it to redress the failure.
It should be noted that the privatisation program was continued by the Labour Government in the UK as it attempted to demonstrate its neo-liberal credentials. The infestation has been on both sides of politics, which is the main problem for citizens – who do they turn to as an alternative.
Once the major assets were sold off, privatisations morphed into so called Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) and Private Financial Initiatives (PFIs) as the vehicles to provide and operate on-going public infrastructure and also public service delivery was outsourced.
In the case of rail services in the UK, the first major move was the Conservative government’s British Coal and British Rail (Transfer Proposals) Act 1993 (under John Major’s Prime ministership).
Since that time, while fares have risen more than “three times the rate of inflation”, even though the privatised operators continued to receive support from the government via subsidies.
The UK Trade Union Council released a report they commissioned from academic researchers last year (June 3, 2013) – THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY: Rail Privatisation and After – which documents the on-going transfers from the government to the privatised rail operators.
This is a familar tale around the world.
All the promises held out by the proponents of privatisation (drawn from the mainstream microeconomic textbooks) have failed to materialise:
1. “better, cheaper service for rail users requiring less subsidy” from the public purse. Wrong! Public subsidies have risen each year by billions of pounds.
2. More investment in capital infrastructure. Wrong! Privatisation has “failed to bring in adequate private investment in track or trains (pp. 24-5) so that average age of rolling stock has actually increased …”
3. The risk of operation would be transferred from the public sector to the private operator which would motivate efficiencies. Wrong! What actually has happened is that:
… risk and investment averse private companies positioned themselves as value extractors, thanks to high public subsidies. Government effectively took the operating risk, covering operating deficits and supplying investment funds.
The low-cost operations private substantial private returns “with downside risks passed to the state”.
4. Better than the public owned operation. Wrong. The evidence is that once British Rail was reorganised and funded properly so that infrastructure improved it “could achieve better than European mainland level of efficiency”. Those gains were “lost after privatisation”.
The UK Guardian article (first cited) thus concludes that:
Profits could be used to reduce our fares – instead they are handed over to shareholders. Privatisation has failed and passengers are the ones who suffer as a result.
Anyone who lives in or travels to Melbourne, Victoria and uses public transport will understand all of this – except the neo-liberal zealots who continue to deny reality.
In 1999, imbued with Monetarist religious fervour with Margaret Thatcher as their role model, the then conservative Victorian government launched on a so-called market reform agenda of public transport, which involved the privatisation of Melbourne’s train and trams, which provided the core mass transit network for the city.
Please read my blogs – Public infrastructure 101 – Part 1 and Welcome to the world of privatised electricity and canned music and The glorious gouging of the public purse – for more related discussion on this point.
Initially, following the failed British model, three overseas companies were offered ‘franchises’ with the usual promises: better services, more public patronage and revenue and lower public outlays.
It didn’t take long for the private firms to demand higher subsidies beyond those provided for in the initial public-private contracts.
The system was struggling for reliability and punctuality and investment in infrastructure lagged.
The academic research report – Putting the Public Interest Back into Public Transport – (released April 2006) notes that with the performance of the transport system becoming a political embarrassment, the State Government (by then a Labor government, which had claimed it was opposed to the privatisation – yeh, right!) “re-hired the officials who had presided over the 1999 privatisation to advise it”.
The outcome was predictable – massive increases in the public subsidies to the private operators and “the franchisees’ service obligations under the 1999 agreements” were relaxed.
Soon after (2002) and despite the increased subsidies, “the UK firm National Express announced in December 2002 that it was pulling out of its Melbourne tram and train operations”. The Government took the services back over – that is, no risk was ever transferred to the private operator.
The only thing that was transferred was the capacity to extract value under the assistance of public subsidies.
To persuade the other two operators to take over the National Express services, the State Government agreed to huge price hikes (well in excess of inflation).
Analysis shows that the promises of privatisation have never been realised in the Victoria public transit system since it was sold off.
1. Fares have risen ahead of inflation and without justification in higher costs. Value extraction remember.
2. Performance data available shows that the accepted evaluation measures – reliability and punctuality – have deteriorated since privatisation.
3. The infrastructure capacity has not kept pace with demand and with poor service delivery, patronage fell, which placed further pressure on the road networks.
4. Public subsidies have risen since privatisation in real terms.
The late Paul Mee, an academic who was a tireless campaigner for public transport based on his research evidence, produced a study in 2004 – Privatization of Rail and Tram Services in Melbourne: What Went Wrong? – which documented the early failure of the privatisations.
His data is compelling.
He also notes that the Victorian government was captured by the privatisation process. He documents the failure of the privatisation:
… winning a tender on an artificially low bid, with a view to renegotiating that bid upwards at a later stage by threatening service disruption, presuming that government will be unable to resist political pressure on service continuity …
This is exactly what happened in the UK. Upon getting the contracts, the UK operators sought to renege on the contract terms by threatening political embarrassment (for example, the case of the UK Channel Tunnel Rail Link).
More recent data available from Public Transport Victoria and published in the journal – Track Record – tells us that the reduced services and higher costs of the privatised Victorian system were not just teething troubles.
In 2002-03, Metropolitan trains were on time 95.6 per cent of the time. By 2012-13, this had fallen to 92.1 per cent.
In terms of reliability, the percentage of the timetable delivered has also fallen over the last decade.
Conclusion
Privatisation, franchising, outsourcing, PPPs, PFIs, and all the rest of the devious transfers of public wealth and funds to the private sector have systematically failed to deliver on the promises made by the consultants.
The stockbroking and legal companies and economists who advised governments in these public robberies have all done very well.
Many private firms have done very well – enjoying the best of both worlds – a captive infrastructure, ability to gouge consumers via excessive fares, no real need to keep the quality of service up to acceptable standards, and increasing public subsidies.
The microeconomic failures that have accompanied neo-liberalism are the analogues to the macroeconomic failures that I normally write about.
The two are linked of course. One of the principle justifications for the sell-offs was the alleged need to resolve fiscal crises.
Both the claims about fiscal crises (the need for fiscal surpluses) and the promise of superior services etc are erroneous.
Attacking both levels of myth-making has to be a core part of the progressive agenda.
Interview with MMT Group in Rome, November 24, 2014
Here is a short interview I did with an Italian MMT group, Il Centro Studi Economici per il Pieno Impiego (CSEPI) (The Centre for Economic Studies for Full Employment) after my presentation at the Rome 3 University on November 24, 2014.
Thanks to Aldo, Fabio, Jacopo, Gianluca, Francesca and Francisco for putting this together. It runs for 11 odd minutes.
That is enough for today!
(c) Copyright 2015 William Mitchell. All Rights Reserved.Donald Trump must be defeated at all costs this November, Bernie Sanders says.
The independent senator from Vermont described the reality TV personality as the “most dangerous presidential candidate in the modern history of this country.”
“This guy is running his entire campaign based on bigotry,” Sanders continued. “Based on trying to divide us up, based on trying to insult Mexicans, Latinos and Muslims and women and African Americans.”
Sanders reminded the audience that Trump was a leader of the “birther” movement, “which tried to delegitimize the first African American president we have ever had.” “This is a guy who must be defeated,” he added.
Over the issue of whether he’d be able to work with Hillary Clinton, who beat him in the race to become the Democratic party’s presidential nominee, Sanders admitted it was “no secret” they’d had disagreements.
“But what I intend to do, the day after Hillary Clinton is elected president of the United States, is to do everything I can to make sure she goes forward as progressively as she can,” he said.
Check Sanders’ comments out in the clip above.Ever sincefirst announced that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey would be shot in 3D with cameras recording at a speed of 48 frames a second, pundits have analyzed how much his film might impact Hollywood as a whole.
But Visual Effects Supervisor Joe Letteri, who previously worked on groundbreaking films from Star Wars to Rise of the Planet of the Apes, says that the techniques Jackson uses will reverberate in many areas of the industry.
In the past, when someone made a breakthrough like that, it would be because you had this sort of ‘a-ha! Moment,” Letteri told Celebuzz. “[Here,] there are breakthroughs in every area.”
Letteri, who spoke to Celebuzz at the New York press day for The Hobbit, said that the breakthroughs came as a result of numerous challenges the filmmakers faced in bringing J.R.R. Tolkien’s source material to life.
“You’re not able to cheat any more when you’re shooting in stereo,” he said. (It just doesn’t work in movies like this, especially when the camera is moving around everywhere.” (By comparison, in the Lord of the Rings films Jackson was able to used forced perspective, where actors would be placed at different distances within the frame to simulate the correct sizes for different species.)
“We had to make two cameras work in synchronization in two different scales on two different stages simultaneously. That was one of the biggest challenges that brought 3D to it that was new.”
Letteri also said that the choice to shoot at 48 fps not just gave them multiple challenges, but produced multiple results, specifically for folks paying to see the film in theaters.
“We found that 48 frames was a good compromise in that it really allowed us to mitigate a lot of the motion artifacts that are a problem when people are viewing in stereo,” Letteri said. “But [we could] still produce the work without having to change too much of the pipeline downstream, meaning what we would need to do to make other versions of the film for release, like the 24 frame stereo and 24 frame not stereo.
“So now I think you have about four different choices as a viewer about how you want to view the film.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens in theaters nationwide December 14, 2012. Watch the film’s theatrical trailer below, and let us know how you watched the film in the comments section!
Celebuzz Single Player No Autoplay (CORE)
No changes are to be made to this playerWere it not for the title – “South Spring Street, Los Angeles, Cal.” – would you recognize L.A. in its first starring role? After all, not a single palm tree appears in the 25-second film Frederick Blechynden shot for the Edison Manufacturing Company. Nor does a sandy beach, a sun-drenched orange grove, a Spanish mission in ruins, or any other visual trope that might identify the place as Los Angeles. It was only a matter of time – merely a few days, in fact – before a filmmaker captured an iconic Southern California scene: the Santa Monica coast. But on Dec. 31, 1897, Blechynden was content to train his lens on the passing street traffic and record a scene that might as well have been Chicago, New York, or any other North American city. Blechynden’s “animated photograph,” as the film was advertised, was meant to showcase the emerging technology of the motion picture. Motion is what mattered, not symbolic imagery.
L.A.'s Earliest Film History
Not a single palm tree appears in the first film footage of Los Angeles.
And yet the film does have something to say about the Los Angeles of 1897. The bustling street scene reveals a city that, despite its deep-seated anxieties about East Coast urbanism, was beginning to embrace the East Coast idea of having a downtown. Spring Street had not yet reached its heyday (that would come in the 1910s-20s when it was the “Wall Street of the West”) but had clearly emerged as a major commercial corridor. How Angelenos use the street itself is interesting, too. The concept of jaywalking had not yet been invented, and in the film pedestrians confidently share the roadway with horse-drawn carriages, electric trolleys, and bicycles. Finally, the film depicts a Los Angeles that appears to value its public realm, a “first Los Angeles,” to use architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne’s formulation. People crowd the sidewalks, and those in the passing vehicles seem engaged with rather than sequestered from the surrounding city. You can almost imagine a serendipitous meeting happening just off-camera. Even today, two decades into downtown L.A.’s revitalization, Spring Street rarely looks so animated.
Video courtesy of the Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division.While the British Mandate in Palestine lasted for 31 years, notorious remnants of its legacy are still felt by the Palestinians on a daily basis at the hands of the Israeli army.
For seven decades, the military occupation of Palestinians has been ongoing, but some of the repressive tactics used by the Israeli army were not necessarily Israeli.
Rather, they were first practised on the Palestinians by the British army during the mandate era.
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"Anyone who looks at the methods the British used in Palestine during the 1930s will see strong parallels with what Israel is doing today," said David Cronin, journalist and author of Balfour's Shadow.
One such tactic was punitive house demolitions, carried out as a measure of deterrence.
Another was administrative detention, or the internment of prisoners for an indefinite period of time without subjecting them to trial or charges.
The British used those tactics as a series of reprisals and collective punishments during the Arab Revolt that began in 1936, where a Palestinian nationalistic movement rose to protest British rule and the official support for the increase in Jewish immigration.
British-trained Haganah
The 1930s were marked by a strong collusion between the British and Jewish fighters, mainly from the Haganah paramilitary group, the largest Zionist militia in Palestine at the time, which would later form the central component of the Israeli army.
Cronin said that the British had helped the groundwork for the Nakba. It was after all the Haganah who were responsible for mapping out Plan Dalet, the blueprint for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
"Many of the Zionist forces who forced around 750,000 Palestinians from their homes during the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine had received British training," he said.
What the map of #Palestine looked like 100 years ago A post shared by AJ Labs (@aj_labs) onOct 28, 2017 at 9:50pm PDT
Ahron Bregman, a professor at the department of war studies at King's University, said that the British trained Haganah members in military tactics during the Arab Revolt.
"In fact, the best future Jewish military minds, such as Moshe Dayan and Yigal Allon, were trained by the British to fight against the Arabs of Palestine," he said.
Dayan would go on to lose his eye during a joint British operation against French forces in Lebanon in 1941.
He and Yigal later occupied key positions in the army and government in Israel's early history, serving in various ministerial roles.
British taught counterinsurgency
One infamous British soldier, Orde Wingate, trained and led Jewish armed units in violently quelling Palestinians in the Galilee region during the revolt.
Ahmad Samih Khalidi, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Palestine Studies, described him as "a kind of maverick and a Christian Zionist" who taught the Jewish armed units the very basics of counterinsurgency and "how to deal with the natives in a very brutal and repressive manner."
The Jewish commanders, Khalidi continued, did not just learn about tactics on the ground but also basic doctrinal issues such as pre-emption and collective punishment.
"This had a very important and formative influence, because what it did was for the first time, it took Jewish armed groups in Palestine to what was essentially a defensive position into an offensive position," Khalidi said.
Special night squads
Wingate headed a division of Haganah commanders [Moshe Dayan among them] for just five months from June to October in 1938. He trained them under the cover of darkness, hence the name that they became known for - the special night squads (SNS).
The SNSs quickly gained a reputation for their brutality. Torture and extrajudicial assassinations were commonplace, and villages suspected of withholding information, harbouring rebels or lying in proximity to rebel attacks were not spared.
{articleGUID}
"Wingate is almost revered by the current Israeli military, probably because he was a very cruel man," Cronin said.
"His troops gained infamy for rounding up men who lived near an oil pipeline connecting Palestine and Iraq, ordering them to strip and whipping their naked torsos."
The SNSs did not have a formal military chain of command, which resulted in their actions against the Palestinian rural population in the north becoming wild and uncontrollable.
One such example, compiled by professor of military history Matthew Hughes, was forcing sand into villagers' mouths until they vomited.
"British SNS brutality prompted Jewish soldiers, taught them how to deal with insurgency and insurgents and set this within a colonial legal framework of collective punishment and punitive action that normalised draconian action," Hughes wrote.
Military experience and emergency laws
The Jewish militias were bolstered by members who had military experience through their individual participation as officers and soldiers in the first world war. However, in the second world war, many Jews fought with the British army and "distinguished themselves there," Bregman said.
Khalidi said that that had proven to be highly significant in the forcible displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948, portraying the campaign as a war of independence.
"They had a well-established cadre of trained and efficient soldiers which Palestinians didn't have because by and large, with certain exceptions, the Palestinian Arabs did not join the war in any large numbers on the British side or the other side," he said.
A direct legacy of British rule in Palestine that the Israeli army has replicated is the British emergency laws applied in 1945 - which Bregman said is still in use by the Israelis to "justify their actions in the occupied territories".
The laws were initially devised to deal with the Jewish Irgun and Stern Gang militias that had revolted against the British.
"In 1967 when the Israelis occupied the remaining Palestinian territories, they resorted to many of the old British emergency laws that gave the military occupation the right to impose collective punishment such as demolishing houses," Khalidi said.
House demolitions
At the height of the second Intifada in 2002, the Israeli army demolished 252 homes in the occupied territories, rendering just over 1,400 Palestinians homeless.
A lesser-known fact is that between the years of 1936 and 1939, the British authorities had demolished 5,000 Palestinian homes.
On June 16, 1936, approximately 240 homes were blown up by the British in the Old City of Jaffa, leaving as many as 6,000 Palestinians homeless.
They were informed by air-dropped leaflets the same morning and many became destitute, having lost all their possessions with their homes.
The explanation given by Britain, according to Cronin, was for "urban renewal" purposes, but the main reason was that "its inhabitants were not deemed sufficiently obedient towards their oppressors, so they were made homeless".
Matthew Hughes wrote how the British army had cut wide pathways through the old city with explosives to "allow military access to, and control of, a rebel-held area that had previously eluded military control".
This has been copied verbatim by the Israeli army, most notably during their invasions of the Jenin refugee camp and Nablus's old city in the second Intifada, where their tanks flattened narrow alleyways, houses and other structures in their way.
Military cooperation today
While the US remains the number one country to collaborate with Israel militarily, such as financial aid, weapons procurement and joint training exercises, the relationship Britain and Israel - which had been relatively limited to intelligence sharing - has reached new levels.
One of Israel's top weapons producers, Elbit Systems, has five branches in the UK, and recently announced it wanted to treat the UK as an "actual home market", said Cronin.
In September, Elbit Systems and CAE [Canadian manufacturer of simulation and modelling technologies and training services for civil aviation and defence] signed an agreement to jointly pursue British Ministry of Defence training opportunities.
Furthermore, Cronin said that the British army has commissioned the largest drone programme in Europe, which is based on Israeli-designed weapons.
Israel, the leading seller of drones, invented drones in the 1970s and were the first to use them in 1982 against the PLO in Beirut, Khalidi said.
This means that the next time Britain goes to war, it will most likely be using Israeli-made weapons, which would have undoubtedly first be tested and used against Palestinians - a case where the student has surpassed the master.24 days of Hackage, 2015: day 6: finding utilities with Hoogle and Hayoo: MissingH, extra
Table of contents for the whole series
A table of contents is at the top of the article for day 1.
Day 6
(Reddit discussion)
It will never be the case that everything everyone will find useful will already be in the “standard library” for any language ecosystem. However, one of the coolest features of the Haskell ecosystem (which wows all non-Haskellers when I show them), is the ability to search for useful functions by type signature, using Hoogle or Hayoo. You can use other criteria also, such as names; this can be useful if you have a guess at what some useful function might be named.
There seem to be two philosophies as far as using other people’s utility libraries (or even making one’s own to share between different projects):
reuse is great, let’s do it
every dependency is a potential liability, so it’s better to reinvent, or copy and paste, rather than use something of uncertain quality or maintainability
I tend to prefer reuse, but there have been times when I have copied (and even modified) only just what I need, because I don’t want the rest of what is inside a sprawling library that depends transitively on a whole lot of stuff I don’t need. I think this is a granularity issue. Many people have proposed the idea that since we have a Web now, in theory the concept of “library” should go obsolete in favor of micro-libraries, so to speak, maybe sometimes even to the level of single standalone functions, and maybe even having a unique identifier, but this topic is outside the scope of this article. (For just one idea, check out Gabriel Gonzalez’s “The internet of code”.)
The situation is also complicated by the fact that often, so much can be reinvented with only a couple of lines of Haskell code, so why even bother looking for someone’s implementation of it?
But let’s assume for this article that you are interested in finding and using utility libraries. I show how to find some example functions and reach two utility libraries that I use, very cleverly and informatively named MissingH and extra.
List/string example
A while ago I was manipulating strings (I was given String, as opposed to Text or ByteString )
|
: Union Station, 400 South Houston Street, Dallas, Texas 75202
What: Virginia Moms Deliver Petitions to Local Target Store
When: 10:30 AM EST, Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Where: Potomac Yard Target, 3101 Jefferson Davis Hwy, Alexandria, VA 22305-3042
What: California Moms Deliver Petitions to Local Target Store
When: 10:00 AM PST, Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Where: 6600 Topanga Canyon Boulevard, Canoga Park, CA 91303
What: North Carolina Moms Deliver Petitions to Local Target Store
When: 9:30 AM EST Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Where: 1040 Hanes Mall Boulevard, Winston-Salem, NC 27103
What: Minnesota Moms Deliver Petitions to Local Target Store
When: 11:00 CST AM Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Where: 900 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, MN 55403
(More Events In Development)
Gun extremists have been demonstrating at Target stores to promote their agenda of intimidation in Texas, Alabama, Ohio, North Carolina, Washington, Wisconsin, and Virginia. Despite ongoing demonstrations, Target has still not instituted policies prohibiting open carry. Yet according to Target, mothers and women are an important part of the company's customer base – 80 to 90 percent of Target's customers are female and 38 percent of guests have children, a share the company says is higher than other discount stores.
In states where no background checks or training are required to buy semi-automatic rifles and carry them openly in public, businesses have a duty to protect their employees and patrons. Texas law – and the laws in a majority of states – allows people to openly carry loaded rifles in public with absolutely no training, permitting, or minimum age requirement. Combined with estimates that 40 percent of gun sales occur without a background check in the U.S., this means that people in most states can legally carry loaded rifles in public without ever having passed a criminal background check.
Gun extremists have held similar demonstrations at other locations and Moms petitions have led a number of companies to take swift action to stand with Moms and enforce or adopt policies that prohibit open carry to protect the safety of their employees and customers. Recently Sonic and Brinker International, which includes Chili's Grill & Bar, prohibited the open carry of guns in their restaurants. Chipotle also quickly responded to a Moms' petition by asking customers to leave their guns at home, "because the display of firearms in our restaurants has now created an environment that is potentially intimidating or uncomfortable for many of our customers." Last month Jack in the Box responded to the Moms' petition by announcing that it would enforce a prohibition of guns in its stores, stating that, "the presence of guns inside a restaurant could create an uncomfortable situation for our guests and employees and lead to unintended consequences."
Moms Demand Action previously launched petitions that garnered hundreds of thousands of signatures asking Starbucks, Facebook, and Instagram to reform the companies' gun policies to make customers and communities safer. Starbucks announced that guns are no longer welcome in its stores as a result of the campaign. Facebook and Instagram also announced changes to block illegal gun sales after 230,000 Americans signed a Moms Demand Action petition asking for stronger protections against illegal gun sales on the two social media platforms.
About Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America
Much like Mothers Against Drunk Driving was created to change laws regarding drunk driving, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America was created to build support for common-sense gun reforms. The nonpartisan grassroots movement of American mothers is demanding new and stronger solutions to lax gun laws and loopholes that jeopardize the safety of our children and families. Since its inception after the Sandy Hook Elementary mass shooting, Moms Demand Action has established a chapter in every state of the country and is part of Everytown for Gun Safety along with Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Everytown is the largest gun violence prevention organization in the country with more than 1.8 million supporters including moms, mayors, survivors, and everyday Americans who are fighting for reforms that respect the Second Amendment and protect people. For more information or to get involved visit www.momsdemandaction.org. Follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MomsDemandAction or on Twitter at @MomsDemand
ContactErika Soto Lamb: [email protected] or 646.580.5281
Stacey Radnor: [email protected] or 202-870-6668
Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140508/85895
SOURCE Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America
Copyright (C) 2014 PR Newswire. All rights reservedSometimes I get so excited about something, I can’t even verbalize it. I just want to jump up and down and yell AHHHHH and then people stare and it’s awkward. That’s how excited I am about The Oh She Glows Cookbook. I’ve been (im)patiently waiting for it to come out for months and now it’s here and AHHHHH! It’s every bit as good as I thought it would be and I know it’s going to get heavy use in my kitchen.
Very few bloggers are as humble, hard-working, and all-around awesome as Angela from Oh She Glows; if you read Oh She Glows, you’re undoubtedly familiar with the types of recipes Angela shares. Her focus is on delicious food made with real ingredients. Although I’m vegetarian, I buy a lot of vegan cookbooks and I often find myself disappointed in their reliance on faux cheeses and meats. Oh She Glows isn’t that kind of cookbook! It’s real food for real people. You’re a real person, right? Good. This book is for you then.
There are photos to accompany all 100+ recipes in this cookbook, so not only is it useful, it’s fun to thumb through too. (Who doesn’t love a big, pretty cookbook?!) Every recipe in the book is vegan and the majority of them are gluten-free as well. Angela’s enthusiasm for food and cooking shines through in every single page of this cookbook and it’s hard not to look at these recipes and feel excited too. Pan-Seared Garlic Tofu, Lentil-Walnut Loaf, and Taco Fiesta Potato Crisps are all on my must-make-soon list. (Sidenote: I have found that the best kinds of fiestas are Taco Fiestas.)
This Empowered Noodle Bowl recipe is from the Entree chapter of the book. Angela includes recipes for two different sauces–Thai Peanut and Orange-Maple Miso. Since I had the ingredients on hand for the Thai Peanut sauce, I went with that one. This recipe makes a great light dinner, but it’s also ideal for packing up into a bento and bringing to work for lunch. We loved the tangy peanut sauce and I was happy that there were more veggies than noodles in this dish–just the way I like it!
You can buy The Oh She Glows Cookbook: Over 100 Vegan Recipes to Glow from the Inside Out on Amazon.com (note that there’s a different cover for the Canadian edition–don’t panic if you’re in Canada and your book doesn’t look like mine!) and book stores just about everywhere!
Print Thai Peanut Empowered Noodle Bowl Prep Time: 25 minutes Cook Time: 5 minutes Total Time: 30 minutes Yield: 4 servings A big bowl of veggies and noodles topped with a tangy Thai Peanut Sauce from The Oh She Glows Cookbook. Ingredients For the Thai Peanut Sauce: 1 large clove garlic
2 tablespoons (30 mL) toasted sesame oil
3 tablespoons (45 mL) natural smooth peanut butter or almond butter
2 teaspoons (10 mL) grated fresh ginger (optional)
3 tablespoons (45 mL) fresh lime juice, plus more as needed
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon (37 mL) low-sodium tamari
1 to 2 teaspoons (5 to 10 mL) granulated sugar For the Salad: 4 ounces (115 g) gluten-free soba (buckwheat) noodles
Extra-virgin olive oil, for the noodles
1 (16-ounce/454-g) bag frozen shelled edamame, thawed
1 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 seedless (English) cucumber, diced
1 carrot, julienned
4 green onions, chopped, plus more for serving
1/4 cup (60 mL) fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
Sesame seeds, for serving Instructions Make the Thai Peanut Sauce: In a mini or regular food processor, combine the garlic, sesame oil, peanut butter, ginger (if using), lime juice, tamari, sugar (if using), and 2 to 3 tablespoons (30–45 mL) water. Process until combined. Make the Salad: Cook the soba noodles according to the instructions on the package. Be sure not to overcook them—they should only take 5 to 9 minutes, depending on the brand. Drain the noodles and rinse them under cold water. Transfer the noodles to a large bowl and toss them with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil (this prevents the noodles from sticking together). Add the edamame, bell pepper, cucumber, carrot, green onions, and cilantro to the bowl with the noodles and toss until well combined. Pour your desired amount of the dressing over the salad and toss to coat. (Any leftover dressing will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.) Portion the salad into 4 bowls and garnish each serving with a sprinkle of sesame seeds and some green onions. Serve any leftover dressing on the side. Notes Reprinted by arrangement with AVERY, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, A Penguin Random House Company. Copyright © GLO BAKERY CORPORATION, 2014. 4.29 https://ohmyveggies.com/thai-peanut-empowered-noodle-bowl/
Disclosure: I received a review copy of The Oh She Glows Cookbook in order to write this review, although if I hadn’t, I would have happily bought a copy for myself!A flue-gas stack is a type of chimney, a vertical pipe, channel or similar structure through which combustion product gases called flue gases are exhausted to the outside air. Flue gases are produced when coal, oil, natural gas, wood or any other fuel is combusted in an industrial furnace, a power plant's steam-generating boiler, or other large combustion device. Flue gas is usually composed of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and water vapor as well as nitrogen and excess oxygen remaining from the intake combustion air. It also contains a small percentage of pollutants such as particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides. The flue gas stacks are often quite tall, up to 400 metres (1300 feet) or more, so as to disperse the exhaust pollutants over a greater area and thereby reduce the concentration of the pollutants to the levels required by governmental environmental policy and environmental regulation.
When the flue gases are exhausted from stoves, ovens, fireplaces, or other small sources within residential abodes, restaurants, hotels, or other public buildings and small commercial enterprises, their flue gas stacks are referred to as chimneys.
History [ edit ]
The first industrial chimneys were built in the mid-17th century when it was first understood how they could improve the combustion of a furnace by increasing the draft of air into the combustion zone.[2] As such, they played an important part in the development of reverberatory furnaces and a coal-based metallurgical industry, one of the key sectors of the early Industrial Revolution. Most 18th-century industrial chimneys (now commonly referred to as flue gas stacks) were built into the walls of the furnace much like a domestic chimney. The first free-standing industrial chimneys were probably those erected at the end of the long condensing flues associated with smelting lead.
The powerful association between industrial chimneys and the characteristic smoke-filled landscapes of the industrial revolution was due to the universal application of the steam engine for most manufacturing processes. The chimney is part of a steam-generating boiler, and its evolution is closely linked to increases in the power of the steam engine. The chimneys of Thomas Newcomen’s steam engine were incorporated into the walls of the engine house. The taller, free-standing industrial chimneys that appeared in the early 19th century were related to the changes in boiler design associated with James Watt’s "double-powered" engines, and they continued to grow in stature throughout the Victorian period. Decorative embellishments are a feature of many industrial chimneys from the 1860s, with over-sailing caps and patterned brickwork.
The invention of fan-assisted forced draft in the early 20th century removed the industrial chimney's original function, that of drawing air into the steam-generating boilers or other furnaces. With the replacement of the steam engine as a prime mover, first by diesel engines and then by electric motors, the early industrial chimneys began to disappear from the industrial landscape. Building materials changed from stone and brick to steel and later reinforced concrete, and the height of the industrial chimney was determined by the need to disperse combustion flue gases to comply with governmental air pollution control regulations.
Flue-gas stack draft [ edit ]
The stack effect in chimneys: the gauges represent absolute air pressure and the airflow is indicated with light grey arrows. The gauge dials move clockwise with increasing pressure.
The combustion flue gases inside the flue gas stacks are much hotter than the ambient outside air and therefore less dense than the ambient air. That causes the bottom of the vertical column of hot flue gas to have a lower pressure than the pressure at the bottom of a corresponding column of outside air. That higher pressure outside the chimney is the driving force that moves the required combustion air into the combustion zone and also moves the flue gas up and out of the chimney. That movement or flow of combustion air and flue gas is called "natural draft", "natural ventilation", "chimney effect", or "stack effect". The taller the stack, the more draft is created.
The equation below provides an approximation of the pressure difference, ΔP, (between the bottom and the top of the flue gas stack) that is created by the draft:[3][4]
Δ P = C a h ( 1 T o − 1 T i ) {\displaystyle \Delta P=Cah{\bigg (}{\frac {1}{T_{o}}}-{\frac {1}{T_{i}}}{\bigg )}}
where:
Δ P : available pressure difference, in Pa
: available pressure difference, in Pa C = 0.0342
= 0.0342 a : atmospheric pressure, in Pa
: atmospheric pressure, in Pa h : height of the flue gas stack, in m
: height of the flue gas stack, in m T o : absolute outside air temperature, in K
: absolute outside air temperature, in K T i : absolute average temperature of the flue gas inside the stack, in K.
The above equation is an approximation because it assumes that the molar mass of the flue gas and the outside air are equal and that the pressure drop through the flue gas stack is quite small. Both assumptions are fairly good but not exactly accurate.
Flue-gas flow-rate induced by the draft [ edit ]
As a "first guess" approximation, the following equation can be used to estimate the flue-gas flow-rate induced by the draft of a flue-gas stack. The equation assumes that the molar mass of the flue gas and the outside air are equal and that the frictional resistance and heat losses are negligible:.[5]
Q = C A 2 g H T i − T o T i {\displaystyle Q=CA{\sqrt {2gH{\frac {T_{i}-T_{o}}{T_{i}}}}}}
where:
Q : flue-gas flow-rate, m³/s
: flue-gas flow-rate, m³/s A : cross-sectional area of chimney, m² (assuming it has a constant cross-section)
: cross-sectional area of chimney, m² (assuming it has a constant cross-section) C : discharge coefficient (usually taken to be 0.65–0.70)
: discharge coefficient (usually taken to be 0.65–0.70) g : gravitational acceleration at sea level = 9.807 m/s²
: gravitational acceleration at sea level = 9.807 m/s² H : height of chimney, m
: height of chimney, m T i : absolute average temperature of the flue gas in the stack, K
: absolute average temperature of the flue gas in the stack, K T o : absolute outside air temperature, K
Also, this equation is only valid when the resistance to the draft flow is caused by a single orifice characterized by the discharge coefficient C. In many, if not most situations, the resistance is primarily imposed by the flue stack itself. In these cases, the resistance is proportional to the stack height H. This causes a cancellation of the H in the above equation predicting Q to be invariant with respect to the flue height.
Designing chimneys and stacks to provide the correct amount of natural draft involves a great many factors such as:
The height and diameter of the stack.
The desired amount of excess combustion air needed to assure complete combustion.
The temperature of the flue gases leaving the combustion zone.
The composition of the combustion flue gas, which determines the flue-gas density.
The frictional resistance to the flow of the flue gases through the chimney or stack, which will vary with the materials used to construct the chimney or stack.
The heat loss from the flue gases as they flow through the chimney or stack.
The local atmospheric pressure of the ambient air, which is determined by the local elevation above sea level.
The calculation of many of the above design factors requires trial-and-error reiterative methods.
Government agencies in most countries have specific codes which govern how such design calculations must be performed. Many non-governmental organizations also have codes governing the design of chimneys and stacks (notably, the ASME codes).
Stack design [ edit ]
The design of large stacks poses considerable engineering challenges. Vortex shedding in high winds can cause dangerous oscillations in the stack, and may lead to its collapse. The use of helical faring is common to prevent this process occurring at or close to the resonant frequency of the stack.
Other items of interest [ edit ]
Some fuel-burning industrial equipment does not rely upon natural draft. Many such equipment items use large fans or blowers to accomplish the same objectives, namely: the flow of combustion air into the combustion chamber and the flow of the hot flue gas out of the chimney or stack.
A great many power plants are equipped with facilities for the removal of sulfur dioxide (i.e., flue-gas desulfurization), nitrogen oxides (i.e., selective catalytic reduction, exhaust gas recirculation, thermal deNOx, or low NOx burners) and particulate matter (i.e., electrostatic precipitator)s. At such power plants, it is possible to use a cooling tower as a flue gas stack. Examples can be seen in Germany at the Power Station Staudinger Grosskrotzenburg and at the Rostock Power Station. Power plants without flue gas purification, would experience serious corrosion in such stacks.
In the United States and a number of other countries, atmospheric dispersion modeling[6] studies are required to determine the flue gas stack height needed to comply with the local air pollution regulations. The United States also limits the maximum height of a flue gas stack to what is known as the "Good Engineering Practice (GEP)" stack height.[7][8] In the case of existing flue gas stacks that exceed the GEP stack height, any air pollution dispersion modelling studies for such stacks must use the GEP stack height rather than the actual stack height.
See also [ edit ]TEHRAN, Iran — When the Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah entered Syria for the first time, almost a year ago, the status quo was different. Syrian regime forces were losing ground to opposition rebels. Among some observers, it became conventional wisdom that it was only a matter of time before the regime fell; the rebels were at the gates of Damascus, or at least this is what they used to say.
Hezbollah, Syria and Iran form what is known as the “resistance and resilience bloc.” The view among the three is that the bloc is gaining, and is even more necessary, given the growing jihadist threat.
Therefore, any battle being fought today by any of the three or the three all together is a fight for the alliance and the bloc and not for anyone alone; it is a fight for three decades of strategic investment.
In Tehran, the war in Syria is regarded by the establishment and its supporters as a threat to national security. The news of the war is everywhere in media and permeates political discussions at all levels.
Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria is considered a top-tier national security issue here in Tehran. While the Foreign Ministry handles the diplomacy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has the lead, and a direct line to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, because the battle for Syria is also rooted in Iran’s perceived role as leading Shiite revolutionary power.
Supporters of Hezbollah and those who back the Syrian regime regard the war fought by the group as a sacred war, an existential war.
“Hezbollah is defending the resistance. They are defending every Muslim who wants to liberate Palestine. This is not a war that’s aimed at defending a regime or a president at all, it’s a war for the resistance, for Palestine,” a source in Tehran told Al-Monitor, adding that Iran sees Hezbollah’s “jihad” today as of benefit to the whole region and even those who hate the group.
There was a need to understand how things started from Tehran to Beirut to Damascus, and whether the decision came from Tehran to Beirut to Damascus, or a request was sent from Damascus to Tehran, then Beirut, or if it was just a Damascus-Beirut issue that got the blessings of Tehran.
According to Mohammad Marandi, head of Tehran University’s world studies faculty, “Hezbollah involvement comes very much later than the conflict itself. Hezbollah only became involved gradually and well after a large number of extremists came to the country via a very large network of countries from the West and the Persian Gulf,” Marandi explained.
“The notion that Hezbollah was a new chapter and started the foreign involvement isn’t true. Fatwas threatening minorities not only in Syria but in neighboring countries left Hezbollah with no choice but to respond, and this is legal with respect to international law, and they came upon invitation by the Syrian government. It was Hezbollah’s decision and Iran didn’t dictate it. I say with confidence [Hezbollah leader] Sayyed Hassan [Nasrallah] has a lot of influence in Tehran. Hezbollah makes its own decisions; Iran supports Hezbollah because they are allies, but the Iranians have nothing to do with the decision.”
It’s obvious that a different point of view in this regard exists in Tehran; many believe that Hezbollah, at a minimum, would not have intervened without Tehran’s green light.
The Reformists’ elite voiced their concern in the beginning, but many of those who had an opposing view have been less vocal as of late, at least publicly, as the war has turned in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s favor.
Tehran University professor Sadegh Zibakalam told Al-Monitor, “Unofficially, those [Reformists] don’t like Hezbollah’s policies and interference in Syrian affairs.” Zibakalam, who is himself a Reformist figure, explained that from his point of view, Hezbollah’s decision to go to Syria was coordinated with Tehran: “I don’t think that Hezbollah would have taken the decision to go to Syria independently.”
A senior Iranian official told Al-Monitor that Hezbollah’s decision had the supreme leader’s blessing, but it was prompted by the group’s needs. “After almost two years of the crisis, Hezbollah decided to enter the Syrian war,” the official said. “This was because of several elements: the situation on the borders with Lebanon and the threats imposed on Lebanese citizens, Muslims and Christians, as in Qusair.”
The official added, “Our brothers in Hezbollah said clearly that whenever there are foreign terrorist groups in Syria, then they’ll continue to fight them based on their commitments toward the resistance bloc and the Lebanese people.” He elaborated, “It’s obvious that Hezbollah will leave Syria when the situation becomes less threatening for Lebanon. I’m sure Hezbollah’s role isn’t to be compared to [that of] terrorists and radical foreign groups, because wherever it entered, [Hezbollah] played a role in calming thing and stabilizing the situation.”
What about the decision to go into Syria, was this an Iranian decision? I asked the official. “No, it’s not an Iranian decision,” he replied. “It was fully taken by Hezbollah, but surely the decision was given the [Iranian] blessing. They might ask for advice, but it’s their decision at the end of the day.”
The main objective of Iran’s decision-makers is helping end the crisis through a political solution. That’s why officials in Tehran repeat, whenever they are dealing with the Syrian dilemma, that there’s a need for cooperation within all regional powers, even though these officials, including the one we interviewed, believe that without Hezbollah, today the situation could have been dire.
“The condition is better, the regime is strong and is already regaining control of thousands of kilometers,” said the official. “This wouldn’t have happened without the full cooperation of all those who believe in the resistance strategy — Syria, Iran and Hezbollah — along with political resilience that is being practiced by our allies in Russia and China.”A shopping mall in Illinois
The carnage in retail hasn’t been this bad since an anarchist bombed Chicago’s Haymarket Square in 1886. In January, Liz Claiborne said it would shutter 54 Sigrid Olsen stores by mid-2008. Ann Taylor announced that 117 of its 921 stores would be closed over the next three years, and Talbots axed the Talbots Mens and Talbots Kids concepts and 22 Talbots stores. (Those muffled screams you hear are Connecticut preppies trying to suppress their rage.) Even Starbucks has scaled back its yearslong saturation-bombing campaign.
Blame that exhausted marathon runner, the American consumer. Fueled by cheap credit instead of PowerGel, she looked great at mile 16, but bonked at mile 23 and is now crawling to the finish line. Retail sales fell in December, putting the cap on a miserable Christmas season. Last week, the government reported that retail sales rose 3.9 percent between January 2007 and January 2008. But account for inflation and sales of gasoline, and retail sales fell in real terms in the past year. Clearly, demand is down.
And supply is up. This decade’s building frenzy produced a bumper crop of new retail space—from McStrip malls built near new McMansions to hip new boutiques in the ground floors of hip new Miami condo buildings. But the occupants for new retail space haven’t materialized. In the fourth quarter of 2007, the national retail-vacancy rate rose for the 11th straight quarter to 7.5 percent, the highest level since 1996, according to research firm Reis Inc. With new projects coming online—34 million square feet of retail space will be completed in 2008—the rate is expected to climb further to 8 percent. In the parlance of the trade, many chains are simply over-stored.
Developers opening new malls this year clearly timed the economic cycle poorly. And the cultural cycle isn’t helping matters any. The extreme consumption of this current gilded age has inspired a backlash. In December, hedge-fund billionaire Ray Dalio ran full-page advertisements in newspapers urging Americans to eschew Christmas gifts and instead make donations to charity. Maybe he’s just run out of things to buy. Or maybe he’s surfing the zeitgeist. “There’s a glut of stores,” says Judith Levine, author of Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping. “Our physical, intellectual and emotional and psychological space is filled up with consumption.” Levine laments the wholesale transformation of open spaces into enclosed retail environments (like, say, Barnes & Noble superstores, where you can buy Not Buying It). And the incessant bombardment of advertising may be inspiring a backlash that pushes people to consume less. The anti-consumer freegan movement—urbanites who try to get by through recycling, scrounging, and foraging—are taking it to the extreme. These modern Henry David Thoreaus have opted out of the whole rotten capitalist system. Working 60 hours per week and chasing job promotion “for the sake of buying the latest crap off the Sharper Image store shelf is no way to live,” says Adam Weissman, spokesman for Freegan.info. (Hey, dude, one might say the same about diving into Dumpsters in search of day-old bread and discarded futons.)
The cultural anti-retail moment will likely pass. Thoreau lasted only 26 months in his cabin by Walden Pond. The elevation of frugality into a virtue seems likely to last about as long as modern recessions do—about eight months. Still, retailers should be worrying about a real long-term threat: the Internet. The 1990s-vintage boast that e-tailers would destroy brick-and-mortar retailers all but disappeared after the NASDAQ went bust in 2001. But e-commerce has quietly been growing at a rate far higher than that of the overall economy. For the last four years, online retail sales have grown at an annual rate of more than 20 percent. In 2007, such sales, excluding travel, rose 21 percent to $175 billion, accounting for 7 percent of total retail sales. “Online retail is growing a heck of a lot faster than the rest of the pie,” says Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester Research. Last year, online sales accounted for 45 percent of computer hardware, software, and peripheral sales; 19 percent of toys and videogames; and 19 percent of baby products. In the coming years, retailers, who are integrating online sales into their business models, simply won’t need the same amount of acreage. The upshot: Demand for retail space is likely to grow at a pace far slower than that of the overall economy.
For 2008, Reis projects there will be 159 million square feet vacant—that’s 5.7 square miles, or roughly six times the size of Monaco. * But landlords shouldn’t lose faith just yet. While vacancy rates are high in some depressed markets—15 percent in Syracuse, N.Y.—there’s no imminent danger of America’s malls turning into ghost towns. The minute the credit crunch breaks, consumers will surely hit the malls with a vengeance. Americans have always excelled at adaptive reuse. Judith Levine suggests that superannuated Sears and Kmarts could be turned into municipal swimming pools or community buildings. Some empty strip malls could be repurposed into warehouses for online retailers. I’ll bet a few rogue freegans are already planning to monetize all the junk their colleagues collect by opening secondhand stores.
Correction, Feb. 19, 2008: Because of a rounding error, the sentence misstated how much retail office space could be vacant, according to an expert’s projection. The estimate of 159 million square feet is equivalent to 5.7 square miles, not 5.5 square miles as originally stated. (Return to the corrected sentence.)Advocates in the fight against tuberculosis are pleased that the top global infectious killer is mentioned by name in this year’s G-20 Leaders’ Declaration.
“The specific inclusion of TB on top of the priority pathogens listed by World Health Organization to be addressed by new efforts in R&D against [antimicrobial resistance] is a great victory of the TB community against many odds,” Dr. Mario Raviglione, director of WHO’s Global TB Programme, told HuffPost in an email.
In a HuffPost review of the last 10 years of G-20 declaration documents, the only other disease to be mentioned explicitly was Ebola, which had a separate treatise in 2014. Antimicrobial resistance, the umbrella under which TB was mentioned, was first highlighted as a global issue in 2015. The 2017 declaration lays out the importance of combating AMR’s “growing threat to public health and economic growth” through research and development, responsible antibiotic use and treatment, and the creation of an international R&D collaboration hub.
We get almost 2 million deaths, 11 million cases a year in a disease that we can diagnose, treat and cure. The world needs to be outraged more than it is. Dr. Eric Goosby, United Nations special envoy on tuberculosis
By 2050, drug-resistant forms of the airborne disease are expected to account for a quarter of the 10 million deaths due to AMR each year, according to the final report of the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, a U.K. committee chaired by the economist Jim O’Neill. More than 75 million people are expected to die of multidrug-resistant TB by 2050.
Global health experts have repeatedly warned of the growing threat of drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis, which are responsible for around 580,000 cases annually. Typical cases of TB have a cure rate of over 90 percent, but MDR-TB cases have a cure rate of around 50 percent.
Lucica Ditiu, executive director of the international Stop TB Partnership, was thrilled that tuberculosis made the final draft of the leaders’ declaration.
“I think we are going to a place we’ve never been,” she said of the momentum in the fight against TB. “This is the first time that it’s come up at this level of heads of state.”
Ditiu said the TB advocacy community hopes this momentum will continue to snowball at the ministerial conference in Russia in November, at a series of conferences in the coming year and at the first-ever U.N. high-level meeting focusing solely on TB in 2018.
As Dr. Eric Goosby, the United Nations special envoy on tuberculosis, put it to HuffPost, this momentum has been a long time coming.
“The tragedy of this disease that hasn’t been adequately amplified ― we get almost 2 million deaths, 11 million cases a year in a disease that we can diagnose, treat and cure,” he said. “The world needs to be outraged more than it is.”
Goosby noted that the current momentum is unlike anything he’s seen around the disease. He believes tuberculosis is now a part of the conversation in a way it wasn’t before ― and he hopes that will translate into greater funding and more action.
However, not all advocates see the mention as an occasion to celebrate.
“It is questionable whether the announcement of a collaboration platform to promote existing and future research initiatives can actually start to overcome the failures of today’s R&D system,” Marco Alves of Doctors Without Borders Germany said in a statement. “The G20 must now look ahead to concretely commit to adequate funding of new initiatives that ensure medical tools are accessible and affordable to all people in need, wherever they live.”
Matt Oliver, head of the secretariat for the Global TB Caucus, applauded the mention, but also pointed to the need for concrete steps.
“The recognition of TB by the G20 as a leading component of the AMR threat is a major step forward for the disease,” Oliver told HuffPost in an email. “However, a Declaration is only worth as much as the action it generates.”
Ditiu also told HuffPost that while the mention of TB is in some sense a landmark, it may be different “for people with TB ― they’re like so what. It’s literally a word in a document.”
She stressed that the next steps of engagement will be essential in combating the disease.
But Goosby remains hopeful that this could be a turning point in the fight against the world’s top infectious killer.On hearing the doorbell today, me and my housemates bound down the stairs to greet a slightly scared looking postman. Once we'd grabbed the parcel, I tore it open to reveal a sea of shiny pink! Everything was beautifully wrapped and it took a lot of self control to open the card first. Every gift was exactly perfect for me and Holly seemed to know me inside out and have thought of everything. I have enough sweets to stay suitably fat and sugared up, and I have the sweetest home made gifts! Glen the pug will join his brothers in pride of place on my bed, and the gorgeous hat will be perfect for frosty Brighton mornings. Thank you so much, and thank you for the lovely little notes too.Last night in my men’s discipleship group we went through chapter six of Disciplines of a Godly Man by R.Kent Hughes. The chapter was about the human mind and how we use it as Christians…or more like how we tend to not use it as Christians. As image-bearers of God we are blessed with extraordinary mental faculties such as emotion, reason, logic, critical thinking, curiosity, and art. No other creature in all of creation has these capabilities which makes us unique in God’s grand design. The original purpose of the human mind was to have it be used in connection with the mind of God to work for the common goal of bringing glory to God on the Earth. Man could originally perceive the thoughts and the will of God, and God even was bodily present with man. This was all sundered when we rebelled against God and sin entered the world. Since the fall mankind has used his mind for all kinds of wicked purposes. If there was one part of creation that was affected more than anything else it was the human mind. For all of our amazing accomplishments as a species we have done them for our glory, not God’s. Imagine how different the world would be if we had not fallen into sin and our minds had not been corrupted by the ubiquitous nature of sin! I believe J.C. Ryle says it best about man’s current state in his book Holiness:
I admit fully that man has many grand and noble faculties left about him, and that inarts and sciences and literature he shows immense capacity. But the fact still remains that in spiritual things he is utterly “dead,” and has no natural knowledge, or love, or fear ofGod. His best things are so interwoven and intermingled with corruption, that the contrast only brings out into sharper relief the truth and extent of the fall. That one and the same creature should be in some things so high and in others so low—so great and yet so little—so noble and yet so mean—so grand in his conception and execution of material things, and yet so grovelling and debased in his affections—that he should be able to plan and erect buildings like those to Carnac and Luxor in Egypt, and the Parthenon at
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to the twitter handle @basedMLC which he uses to spread white supremacist beliefs. He was previously known as “Blackhat16”, but has since been changed to the “odal rune” symbol, a symbol often used by neo-nazis. The article also indicates Combs runs the @16_supportAPB, a twitter account that directly represents the APB:
Bethany Sherman issued a statement to Oregon Cannabis Connection (OCC) and a few other media outlets. She states in the letter that the article is a, “Very twisted in their portrayal of events.” She denies being a part of any “neo-nazi” group and says her family (which includes her boyfriend Mathew Combs) has been mischaracterized. She also calls Eugene Antifa “ a local chapter of an extremist, domestic terrorist organization.” Sherman’s statement said, in part:
“My only crime is a thought crime, akin to 1984. I believe that the world is tapestry of beautiful colors, each one full of a wealth of cultural heritage, and that each culture has a right to be proud of their heritage, and an obligation to protect and preserve that culture. I believe that this tapestry is not exclusive of European Americans, and I find it extremely disconcerting that it is admired and revered to have “Gay Pride,” “Black Pride,” “Asian Pride,” or pride in any other cultural heritage, but if you have “White Pride,” it automatically makes you a Nazi, and you are ostracized, attacked, and lynched by your community. I admit, I am proud that I am white, and I’m not ashamed of my heritage.”
But, Sherman also had a twitter account, Mrs.Blackhat (@14th_word), which has been pulled down. That account showed her support for nationalist white supremacist views. Her description on the account stated, “#nationalist Mommy. Our children deserve to be raised in a whoolesome environment free of oppression against whites. #Pride #Cascadia #14words”
To be clear, the term 14th word is a white supremacist slogan that has been used for many years. The Anti-Defamation League explains on their website:
“14 Words” is a reference to the most popular white supremacist slogan in the world: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” The slogan was coined by David Lane, a member of the white supremacist terrorist group known as The Order (Lane died in prison in 2007). The term reflects the primary white supremacist worldview in the late 20th and early 21st centuries: that unless immediate action is taken, the white race is doomed to extinction by an alleged “rising tide of color” purportedly controlled and manipulated by Jews.”
It seems to be a denial of reality to say her “family” is not associated with neo-nazis when her boyfriend, and father of her child, is participating in a Holocaust denial rally and making nazi salutes, all of which are documented with pictures in the article. Her hashtag “Pride”, which is referring to her own “white pride” stance, is a white supremacist slogan.
Also, her “statement” (see below) was an attempt to play the victim, which seems apropos since she also believes whites are “victimized”. She even claims the companies employees are victims too, placing all the blame on Eugene Antifa for outing the couple publicly. It seems that the employees may well be victims, but as a result of her secret beliefs also shared by Combs, not the Antifa who simply shined light on reality. The article is half screen shots and lets the comments tell a large portion of the story.
Regardless of her direct involvement in any of these groups, her mere association with them is enough to call into question her statement and its veracity. Indeed, Combs’ deep involvement makes her guilty by association … in every way.
On December 5th, there was chatter of a staff walk-out, but Sherman said she sent them home.
“My staff did not “walk out”, explained Sherman in an email to OCC. “I understandingly allowed them all to go home early to process after we have a company conversation.”
That should be an interesting conversation, to be sure. As her explanation below indicates, she has resigned as CEO and offered the company for sale.
Bethany Sherman’s statement to the media:
December 6, 2017,
An article was recently put out about me, my family, and my company by Eugene Antifa, a local chapter of an extremist, domestic terrorist organization. I would like to address these claims head-on.
I am not, nor have I ever been, a “Neo-Nazi” or affiliated with any “Neo-Nazi” group or any other extremist organization. The accusations made against me and my family are very upsetting to me, and I want to make it clear that this is not who we are. The contents of this article are very twisted in their portrayal of events.
My only crime is a thought crime, akin to 1984. I believe that the world is tapestry of beautiful colors, each one full of a wealth of cultural heritage, and that each culture has a right to be proud of their heritage, and an obligation to protect and preserve that culture. I believe that this tapestry is not exclusive of European Americans, and I find it extremely disconcerting that it is admired and revered to have “Gay Pride,” “Black Pride,” “Asian Pride,” or pride in any other cultural heritage, but if you have “White Pride,” it automatically makes you a Nazi, and you are ostracized, attacked, and lynched by your community. I admit, I am proud that I am white, and I’m not ashamed of my heritage. And I admit that I have been so conditioned to feel shame about this pride that I discreetly sought community where I could. Knowing the potential ramifications of my actions, I did my best to keep them incredibly discreet. I did not share this activity or my believes with anyone in my professional community. I further admit that I also quickly realized that this was not the supportive online community I had found was not the right community for me, and somewhere near half a year ago I withdrew all communication with that community. To be clear, this community was NOT any faction of ANY “Neo-Nazi” organization. The community I’m referring to is comprised of hard working, good-hearted people like you and like me, who are forced into secrecy because they share similar beliefs, which Eugene Antifa is now proving to be true: that being White and having pride in your cultural heritage will make you the victim of hate crimes. I learned a great deal from this experience, and have learned even more in the last 24 hours since this article was published.
My hiring practices, my business partnerships, and my friendships should say enough about the fact that neither myself, nor my company has in any way acted in a discriminatory fashion against anyone for their race, religion, politics, gender identity, sexual orientation, social class, disability, or other. We just hosted our Company Christmas party and I gladly welcomed a wealth of diversity into the joyous occasion. I have donated thousands of dollars to support organizations like the Human Rights Foundation, Planned Parenthood, Red Cross, and The MS Society. I have created jobs for 15 people, I’ve volunteered hundreds of hours to organizations like Good Will, CALC, and The State of Oregon to help build and establish regulations. I have founded organizations whose aim to bring people together for the betterment of our communities. I am a human being, just like you, and I’ve worked very hard to give back and to create a safe and accessible industry for ALL Oregonians. I am the victim of a hate crime, perpetrated by an anonymous organization whose primary aim is to ruin other peoples’ lives. I have never made any such attempts at hurting any other human being, in any way (including via defamatory articles or social media posts) for any reason, nor have I EVER made any discriminatory overtures. Let’s be clear about this: Neither myself, nor my company, have ever, EVER practiced, preached, or recruited anyone to practice or preach hate or hateful rhetoric in ANY way. I hope that my community can find it within themselves to see beyond these hurtful claims at who I really am, at the work I’ve done in this community to help build it, and trust that these claims don’t fit me; that I am a good, loving person, committed to my community, and that this commitment has no shred of hate or discrimination in it.
The remarks made in this article have had a devastating effect on not only me, but on each of my 14 hardworking employees who are completely unrelated to the contents of the aforementioned article. To be clear, I still have yet to receive a single dollar in profit from OG Analytical, instead diverting the company earnings to better support my employees for 4 years in a row. I am proud that we launched a full benefits program this year, including health, vision, dental, and vacation time, and have elected to payout employee bonuses each year instead of paying out profits to owners. My employees have been dedicated to our mission of building a sustainable cannabis testing industry, which, in odd contrast, requires that we remove all bias from the work we do. By boycotting OGA, you’re not hurting me, you’re hurting the 14 hardworking people unrelated to this accusation who rely on OGA for their living.
This being said, the devastating impacts of this article are clear, regardless of any statement I could possibly make about them. Abhorrent racial epithets have covered our social media pages to the point that I took them down to save my employees and clients from further harassment. I find it difficult for me to find a path forward with the company while salvaging the hard work each of my employees has put into OG Analytical. Without these people, I could not have accomplished all the successes this company has seen in the last 4 years. In effort to save my team from further harm, I am resigning as CEO of OG Analytical effective immediately, and offering up the company for sale.
If you have further questions about these allegations, I would urge you to take them up with me directly, instead of causing further harm to my employees. My email address is [email protected] and I’m open to questions. Thank you, Bethany Sherman, Owner and CEO, OG Analytical.Co-authored by Ignacio Rivera
This weekend marks the seventh annual International Day of Action for Trans Depathologization, organized by trans activists and people around the globe who are working to confront gender injustice. The global trans movement has grown exponentially in the years since the campaign started, and the effort to move away from a pathology framework and toward one based on the affirmation of identity has been central to forging the path to liberation.
The difference between these two ways of thinking is simple but critical. In the pathology model, being trans (having an internal sense of gendered self that is fully or partially at odds with our sex assigned at birth) is seen as a birth defect, a mental illness, or another kind of medical condition. By contrast, the identity model suggests that being trans is a part of who some people are. It isn't something that needs a medical diagnosis, because there's nothing wrong with being trans. There are many parts of our identity that we don't talk about medically, like our personalities, our interests, and our sexual orientations.
Of course, it actually wasn't long ago that sexual orientation was caught in the same bind. The depathologization of homosexuality in 1973, when it was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association, and in 1990, when the same decision was made for the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases (ICD), is now almost universally regarded as a turning point in the movement to change hearts and minds about the basic humanity of lesbians and gay men in the U.S. Today, lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men are no longer positioned as sick and thus in need of, at best, pity or treatment. Rather, we are seen as a group that has been marginalized because of who we are, and one that is struggling against a discriminatory, often violent system.
But we also know that depathologization is fraught with obstacles. Within the U.S. context, where both basic rights and access to health care are often withheld based on gender identity, race, and income, the move toward depathologization threatens the most vulnerable trans and gender-nonconforming people in our communities. Securing basic health care and critical medications for all, but especially for incarcerated and impoverished trans people, is largely dependent on medical diagnoses that force the state into health care provision, irrespective of their views on trans identity.
So, ironically, the most progressive forces within the U.S. movement for trans liberation often find ourselves stuck in ambivalence, unable to join fully with the radical activists around the globe who call for an immediate end to pathologizing diagnoses in the approach to trans identity and trans-affirming care. Here in the U.S., as in many places, pushing the state to cover essential costs of trans health can be a complex dance that requires nuanced navigations of what we know about ourselves and our communities as well as what we must accept to get what we need.
This year's theme for the Day of Action is childhood diagnoses, and nowhere is this territory more contested than in the pathologization of transgender and gender-variant kids. Fervent advocates for children claim a need for retaining a "special" diagnosis for trans children. The "good guys" on the side of this debate are trans-affirming therapists and doctors who fear that the elimination of gender-incongruence diagnoses in children will leave trans kids to the vagaries of individual parents navigating a fraught, anti-trans culture. Unlike for adolescents and adults, for kids, getting a diagnosis does not grant access to otherwise often-out-of-reach trans-specific medical care. The "bad guys" are the usual suspects: anti-trans policy makers and medical personnel who are trying to block any affirmative path for trans children to grow into their genders.
The National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS), the largest existing data set on anti-trans discrimination, found good reason to be concerned about the welfare of gender-variant children. Originally created by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the survey found that of 6,456 respondents, 29 percent said they had presented as gender-variant in school settings from kindergarten through 12th grade. Within that group, 78 percent said they had been harassed, 35 percent said they had been physically assaulted, 12 percent said they had been sexually assaulted, and 6 percent said they had been expelled from their schools because of their gender identity/expression.
Worse yet, many of these people experienced this abuse at the hands of their teachers. One of the most dramatic negative findings in the NTDS was the apparent correlation between teacher abuse in K-12 and the percentage of respondents who had attempted suicide. Of those who said they had been abused by their teachers for presenting as gender-variant in grade school, an astounding 76 percent reporting having tried to end their lives at some point.
This finding attests to the urgency of the battle for depathologization. An end to the pathology framework can have a significant impact on stigma and violence in a variety of institutional settings, from schools to sports teams, churches to the workplace. And most importantly, a key learning from the lesbian and gay movement is that depathologization can have a major impact on family acceptance; there has been nothing short of a revolution in consciousness, acceptance and the integration of gay and lesbian children in mainstream U.S. family life since the removal of homosexuality from the DSM and the ICD.
Participants in the National Transgender Discrimination Survey whose families accepted them reported better health outcomes and more affirming experiences in almost every setting, whether it be the doctor's office, the workplace, a taxi cab or an ambulance. Family acceptance appears to provide a powerful protective foundation against often-harsh exclusionary practices and conditions in the culture at large. Depathologization is often a first critical step for many non-trans people to reconsider and rethink their anti-trans assumptions about their children and their lives.Hello and welcome to When’s Melee, your weekly source for Melee tournament stream information. If you have info on other events and their streams, please reach out on Twitter (linked below) or here in the comments. Also, If you missed last weekend’s Melee action, you can click here to see the results.
CEO 2016 • 6/24 – 6/25
Region: Florida (EDT)
Stream: VGBootcamp and PolarityGG (multistream link)
Featuring: Mang0, Hungrybox, Leffen, Mew2King, Plup, Westballz, Axe, Shroomed, Lucky, SFAT, PewPewU, MacD, S2J, Druggedfox, HugS, n0ne, Colbol, Wizzrobe, Laudandus, Alex19, Nintendude, The Moon, Zhu, Swedish Delight, Wobbles, Slox, Zoso, Chudat, MikeHaze, Gahtzu, Gravy, Kjh, Frootloop, and more!
» smash.gg: Brackets, Attendees | Schedule (small schedule update)| Facebook | Website
Friday – 6/24
Man On A Ledge 113
Region: PGH (PA, EDT)
Stream: PGHNEOHSmash
» Challonge | Schedule | Facebook | Smashboards | Website | NEOH/PGH Melee
Aurora Smash Heroes @ WIT
Region: Midwest (IL, CDT)
Stream: AuroraSmash
» Challonge | Facebook Group
Friday Night Turnip #8
Region: Socal (PDT)
Stream: TheSoftReset
» Challonge | Facebook
Melee at the MADE Redux #2
Region: NorCal (PDT)
Stream: TheMADEOakland
» Facebook
Four Stock Friday @ SJSU #18
Region: Norcal (PDT)
Stream: SJSUmelee
» Challonge | Facebook
Saturday – 6/25
Sunshine out of Shield
Region: PNW (OR, PDT)
Stream: EndGameTV1
Featuring: Eggz, Fat Goku, Dr. Z, Balloon, Rustin, and good production value.
» smash.gg: Attendees | Facebook
Nebulous Prime Melee #46
Region: Tri-State (NY, EDT)
Stream: NebulousGaming (hitbox)
» Challonge | Facebook | NYC Melee
SMASHZILLA 4
Region: UK (GMT±0)
Stream: (Asked)
Featuring: Overtriforce
» smash.gg: Brackets, Attendees | Schedule | Facebook
Push More Buttons
Region: Midwest (MN, CDT)
Stream: DownB (after PM they will stream melee top 8)
Featuring: Kels, ORLY, Slayer, Triple R, and more!
» smash.gg: Attendees | Schedule | Facebook
Raider Bowl VII
Region: Tri-State (PA, EDT)
Stream: VirtualWarfare
» smash.gg: Attendees | Schedule | Facebook
SMASH at TooManyGames • also on Sunday
Region: Tri-State (PA, EDT)
Stream: ClashTournaments
» smash.gg: Attendees | Schedule | Facebook
No Contest III
Region: South (NC, EDT)
Stream: FrameZeroGaming (Hitbox)
» Facebook
Sunday- 6/26
Orbit
Region: British Columbia (PDT)
Stream: Asked, waiting for response.
» smash.gg: Brackets, Attendees | Facebook
Last Week’s Results
MADD City 3 (North Carolina)
1. Redd
2. Twitch
3. Ja Momz
4. $Mike
5. Milkman / Sharkz
7. Slip N Slide / SmashDaddy
Bracket, VODs: no vods 🙁1. Redd2. Twitch3. Ja Momz4. $Mike5. Milkman / Sharkz7. Slip N Slide / SmashDaddy
To watch multiple streams at once in the most effective way, go to multistre.am or VGStreams.com
For a list of weekly weekday streams, check this /r/ssbm post. Eventually we’ll make a more organized list to which people can add.
Sam “NGtCEOBoPR” Greene can be found on Twitter @SSBMDingus.
flwns can be reached on Twitter @flwns
Logo by @FishWithItunrevoked3 is a tool to flash a custom recovery image to your Android phone. A custom recovery image allows you to perform advanced tasks on the system partition, such as flashing custom ROMs and taking a full backup of your phone (a “nandroid” backup). We recommend installing the custom recovery image for all users who want rooted phones.
It can be obtained from http://www.unrevoked.com/recovery/.
At this time, unrevoked3 works on all versions of the supported phones, thanks to work based on the exploit discovered by Sebastian Krahmer.
Windows users, please download and install these HBOOT drivers.
unrevoked comes with NO WARRANTY (express or implied), and NO GUARANTEE OF FITNESS for any particular task. Although we have attempted to minimize the risk the best we can, the authors disclaim any chance of damage to your phone. The entire risk of running unrevoked lies with you, the user.periklisdeligiannis.wordpress.com Uncategorized Ancient warfare, Anglo-Saxons, Germanics, medieval warfare, Military history, Nordic, Norway, Scandinavia, Sweden, Valsgärde, Vendel, Viking, Viking Age, Viking history
Helmet from Vendel Cemetery, burial XIV. Observe the nose-protector in the shape of the beak of a raven (a very important bird in the Scandinavian cosmology).
Vendel helmet reconstruction by Ivor Lawton (copyright).
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By Periklis Deligiannis
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The Vendel period of the history of Sweden and essentially of the whole area of eastern and southern Scandinavia (of course including modern Denmark) is the era before the Viking Age (793 – early 11th century AD). It lasted from the mid-6th century AD to the end of the 8th century and is characterized by princely burials of warlords and powerful warriors with impressive weapons. This historical period and the homonym cultural conglomerate (Vendel culture) took their name from the site Vendel at the historical district Uppland in eastern Sweden, north of Old Uppsala, the ancient centre of the Svear kings. The most characteristic cemeteries were found there. It seems that Uppland (where later the important cities of the Viking age Uppsala and Sigtuna were developed) was very important politically during the Vendel period. The area was rather the political center of the tribe of the Svears (Latin Suiri and Suirones and according to Jordanes: Suehans, Nordic: Svear, Anglo-Saxon: Sweonas, modern Swedes) who had extended to it earlier coming from Svealand, their core territory in the south. Uppland means the upper land, the land in the north.
Another very important archaeological site of the Vendel period is Valsgärde, a place about three kilometres north of Old Uppsala. The tombs excavated at Valsgärde gave findings of the same type as those of the Vendel archaeological site. Ulltuna is another important site of this period. The influence of the Vendel culture does not seem to have been strong in western Scandinavia, i.e. modern Norway (Iceland and the Faeroe Isles were not yet inhabited by Scandinavians).
The later known Nordic kingdoms or ‘nations’ had not yet been developed during the Vendel age. Scandinavia was inhabited by numerous North Germanic tribes and clans who were almost in constant war with each other. Even the sub-tribes and clans of the larger tribes were politically independent from each other, constantly fighting one another. It seems that at times powerful warlords appeared establishing ephemeral principalities or kingdoms. This is the time and the societies described in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, an epic possibly of Jute or Gott/Gotar origins (see part II).
The burials in the Vendel cemeteries contained rich weaponry from which the renowned helmets excavated there stand out. In this series of articles we present a collection of images of the original helmets and a series of modern reconstructions of them. We include the Sutton Hoo helmet in this presentation because several researchers consider the Sutton Hoo burial as a part of the Vendel general cultural conglomerate.
A Vendel-type helmet from the Ulltuna cemetery
Reconstruction of the helmet from the Ulltuna cemetery by Thorkil (copyright: Thorkil).
Map of Vendel period eastern and southern Scandinavia. The tribes noted are the ones mentioned mainly in Beowulf. The main archaeological sites are also noted, including Vendel, Valsgärde and Old (Gamla) Uppsala in Uppland (top right).
Helmet found in the Valsgärde cemetery.
Detail of another helmet found at Valsgärde.
A reenactment of a Nordic warrior wearing a reconstructed Vendel type helmet. Note the lamellar armor, an influence on the Scandinavian weaponry by the steppe peoples (Sarmatians, Alans and Huns) via the continental Germanics. The Vendel helmets had also design influences from the nomadic peoples.
A Scandinavian horseman in an ornamental plate of the Vendel period, wearing a helmet of the homonym type. Note the crest of the helmet in the form of a raven.
Helmet found at Vendel, grave I, 7th century.
A fine reconstruction of a helmet found at Vendel, grave I.
Detail of the skull of a Valsgärde helmet.
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(I’m sorry for not mentioning all the reconstructors, reenactors or owners of the reconstructed and reproduced helmets in this series of articles but I neither know them nor have the needed time to find them. If someone knows who they are, please inform me but only by reference to the official site or other reliable source. Thank you in advance).
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In the second and third part I will present more pictures of helmets and I shall deal in more detail with the tribes and the clans of Sweden, Denmark and Norway during the Vendel period.
.
Periklis Deligiannis
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CONTINUE READING IN PART II
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AdvertisementsBernie Sanders is the first primary candidate from either party to campaign in western Pennsylvania in the run-up to the Commonwealth's April 26 election.
Sanders supporters were lining up outside the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in downtown Pittsburgh before dawn Thursday.
Sanders hosted a news conference at 10 a.m. to speak about international trade deals, including the North American Free Trade Agreement's impact on North America.
Pittsburgh is a labor stronghold for decades, but less manufacturing has been occurring in western Pennsylvania through the past few decades.
Sanders referenced several plant closures, including Hershey's closing of a Peppermint Patty plant in Reading, Allegheny Technologies Inc. closing two western PA plants, and others, as a result of the work moving to other countries, like Mexico.
Sanders said 60,000 factories have been lost in the country since 2001, although not all of those factory losses have been caused by the labor agreements.
Sanders said he will continue his work to change labor agreements and deals, and if elected president, will not send trade deals to Congress that will lose jobs, close plants or lead to deregulation of financial interests.
The Vermont senator will hosted a rally at 11 a.m., before traveling to the Bronx for another rally on Thursday afternoon.
Sanders is running for the Democratic nomination against former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who leads Sanders comfortably in polls of likely Pennsylvania voters. Sanders hit Clinton on her stance on trade deals.
The primary contests have created unusually high interest in Pennsylvania, with sizable numbers of voters changing parties.
Republican John Kasich campaigned near Philadelphia the day after winning the Ohio primary.Usually on releases the first thing we do is tell you what’s new and why you should upgrade. If you are looking for this, scroll down.
This release is different. What makes Etherpad such a great project is the number of contributors that can maintain the software. This means that should one maintainer be unable to maintain Etherpad others can step in. So the first thing we want to do on this release is hat tip the contributors between 1.4.1 and 1.5. Now you know who to hire for your next Etherpad project!
Etherpad is mostly a British-German alliance. The majority of our funding comes through US organizations and Primary Technology. We’d like to see more funding arrive through donations and sponsorship. These donations have less strings attached so will keep us more independent and neutral. If you can help, please visit the donation section on Etherpad.org
@webzwo0i, @marcelklehr, @Gared, @simong, @BjarniRunar, @luto, @l-y-n-x, @beaugunderson, @cristo-rabani, @prtksxna, @0ip, TranslateWiki team
And finally Myself: @JohnMcLear
TLDR; What’s new and why should I care?
> Full Etherpad Pad Export and Import
> Bug fixes, tests, UI/UX polishing & updates of dependencies
> Speed improvements to all pages. Page load times improved by ~30%.
> Support for instance Sharding (Scaling Etherpad to multiple servers)
> Better documentation & more language support.
Nice things for users:
> Control 5 now does Strikethrough.
> Better experience at higher DPI screens (use of icons instead of fonts)
> 30% Faster page load
> Full Pad Portability (Export/Import)
While this release is mostly a bugfix & performance release we have updated about 20% of the overall Etherpad code since 1.4.1 so we have given it a major release number.
Our release schedule is heating up as we get more and more commercial support ergo more active development.
Some cool things Etherpad can do that it couldn’t before
> curl HTTP POST files right to your Etherpad Instance
> Export other HTTP block elements (Such as subscript/superscript)
> Talk to your pad
> Switch between pads without reloading the editor
Demo Etherpad
Demo Pad, have a play!The artist’s impression of Taylor Swift (Picture: Getty)
My sister has a theory.
The theory is that Taylor Swift has a song for whatever moment of your life you are going through.
What I Rent: Charlotte and Chloe, £648 each for a one-bedroom flat in Arnos Grove
Happy? She’s got it. Sad? It’s there. Whether you’re newly in love or recently dumped, she will have something for you.
The one sentiment that Taylor hasn’t ever covered for me, is the kind of low-level burning rage that sits inside you when you remember that many years ago, someone did something to you that they shouldn’t have done, that they’re not sorry in the least, and that you’re not ever going to be able to deal with it.
I don’t really want to write about it, to be honest.
I still feel stupid, and guilty, and like it was entirely my fault. Suffice to say, I was a teenager, it was late at night, I was terribly, terribly drunk in a very short white dress, with a man who was sober and fifteen years my senior.
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The man in question did things to me that I did not want to do, and was too drunk to consent to. When I was eventually sick, he stopped, and left me alone in the middle of central London with no idea how to get home.
(Picture: Irene Palacio for Metro.co.uk)
The next day, I text him to say sorry for being so drunk. I told myself I was being stupid, that I had probably wanted it, and if I hadn’t wanted it then I shouldn’t have worn that dress. I had my jeans in my handbag. I could have put them on. I didn’t. So it was my fault. And I didn’t want to make a fuss, or make it awkward in our friendship group, or spoil things for anyone.
So I pretended it was fine, and I told myself it was fine, and I cringed when I saw him but internally repeated that it was fine. I was prissy. Messed up about sex. Being stupid. It was all my fault.
Years later I learned about affirmative consent. I realised that a person who is so drunk that she is sick in her own hair isn’t able to consent.
I realised that stone cold sober men who are almost old enough to be your father aren’t supposed to treat you that way. But it was too late.
Once I tried to tell him. I saw him across a room. He smirked at me. I knew he had been talking about me to our mutual friends. He called me a liar. He said I was being manipulative. How could he possibly have done the things I was accusing him of, if I’d turned up at his parties afterwards?
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So I approached him.
Taylor Swift (Picture: Getty)
My brain froze. I couldn’t say any of it, the speech I had lain awake at night planning, the one which would make him realise what he had done and why he should be sorry. But it wouldn’t come. Not one single well chosen sentence from the speech.
I flimsily told him he shouldn’t have done it. I half heartedly told him he should care. And with one last pathetic swipe at getting those feelings out from inside me, I asked him, ‘why don’t you care?’
He sniggered.
My boyfriend lunged at him, he legged it, and everything I’ve ever wanted to ask him was left unsaid, and those feelings resettled in the back of my chest, resurfacing every time I read the account of someone else’s sexual assault, every time I heard of a man who was patently guilty walking free because convictions for sexual assault are so cripplingly difficult.
I had a mouthful of cheese when I read the quotes from Taylor Swift’s assault trial this afternoon.
Thank you, Taylor. (Picture: Twitter)
Swift is embroiled in a legal dispute with a man who wants $3 million of damages because he was fired from his job when she accused him of grabbing her underneath her skirt while taking a picture with her.
Taylor didn’t bring this in to a court room. He did. Perhaps like me, she was too young to realise what he did was wrong at the time, or perhaps also like me she felt that while it was cripplingly wrong, it wasn’t worthy of going to trial.
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During the trail, the man in question’s lawyer asked Swift if she had any feelings about Mueller losing his job because of the incident.
Taylor told him:
‘I’m not going to let you or your client make me feel in any way that this is my fault. Here we are years later, and I’m being blamed for the unfortunate events of his life that are the product of his decisions—not mine.’
I am horribly, horribly sad for Taylor that she had ended up in this situation. But I have to admit, a small part of me is glad. Because the things she said to the man who put his hand in a place he had no right to put it, are the closest I may ever come to closure.
So many of us are blamed for events which are the products of someone else’s decisions. Taylor refuses to allow that to happen.
Every single line she’s spoken in court is perfect. Each word could have been scripted. I wish beyond wish that I could have that, that I hadn’t screwed up my one and only opportunity to speak.
(Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)
Reading Taylor’s words is the closest I’ve come to feeling okay about what happened in years. I won’t ever be able to undo what happened to me, and I will probably never get the chance to give him the real speech. I can’t promise myself that if I saw him again I’d be able to get it out this time either.
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But that’s why it matters that Taylor said the things she said. Because she did say them. And she didn’t just say them for herself. She said them for every single woman, who just like me and millions others, didn’t ever get the chance to say them.
Thank you Taylor. You’ve seen me through getting hired, getting fired, meeting new boyfriends, losing new boyfriends, lonely nights and amazing parties.
I should have known that eventually, some how, you’d have my back.
Taylor Swift's comments McFarland (David Mueller’s lawyer) suggested Swift could’ve taken a break from her concert meet-and-greet if she was so shaken up by Mueller’s alleged assault. McFarland suggested Swift’s bodyguard, Greg Dent, could have intervened if a sexual assault did occur. Vogue reports the lawyer then asked Swift if she was critical of Dent for not preventing the alleged incident. Swift’s reply: ‘I’m critical of your client sticking his hand under my skirt and grabbing my ass.’ McFarland claimed that there isn’t anything visibly inappropriate happening in the photo of Swift and Mueller. Swift’s reply: ‘Gabe, this is a photo of him with his hand up my skirt—with his hand on my ass. You can ask me a million questions—I’m never going to say anything different. I never have said anything different.’ McFarland argued Swift’s skirt showed no signs of disruptment.
Swift said: ‘Because my ass is located in the back of my body.’ Mueller himself once stated (according to Rolling Stone): ‘My hand came into contact with part of her body. I felt what appeared to be a ribcage or rib. … And it went behind her, and her hand, or arm, went behind my arm.’ Swift’s reply: ‘He did not touch my rib, he did not touch my hand, he grabbed my bare ass.’ McFarland questioned why no one witnessed Mueller grabbing Taylor. Taylor said: ‘The only person who would have a direct eye line is someone laying underneath my skirt and we didn’t have anyone positioned there.’ McFarland asked Swift if she thinks Mueller got what he deserved. He was fired from his job at KYGO shortly after the incident. Mueller claims Swift’s team is the reason why he lost his job. Swift’s reply: ‘I don’t feel anything about Mr. Mueller. I don’t know him.’ Taylor was asked if she is open to the possibility it wasn’t Mueller who supposedly grabbed her. Swift’s reply: ‘He had a handful of my ass. I know it was him.’ McFarland asked Swift if she had any feelings about Mueller losing his job because of the incident. Swift replied: ‘I’m not going to let you or your client make me feel in any way
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-671-01471-4 23 The 34th Rule Armin Shimerman and David R.George III January 1999 0-671-00793-9 24 The Conquered † Dafydd ab Hugh February 1999 0-671-01140-5 25 The Courageous † 0-671-01141-3 26 The Liberated † March 1999 0-671-01142-1 27 A Stitch in Time Andrew J. Robinson May 2000 0-671-03885-0
Starfleet Academy (1994–1998) [ edit ]
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Starfleet Academy young adult miniseries explores the lives of the Deep Space Nine crew as Starfleet Academy cadets.
No. Title Author(s) Date ISBN 1 The Star Ghost Brad Strickland February 1994 0-671-87999-5 2 Stowaways April 1994 0-671-88000-4 3 Prisoners of Peace John Peel October 1994 0-671-88288-0 4 The Pet Mel Gilden and Ted Pedersen December 1994 0-671-88352-6 5 Arcade Diana Gallagher June 1995 0-671-89678-4 6 Field Trip John Peel August 1995 0-671-88287-2 7 Gypsy World Ted Pedersen February 1996 0-671-51115-7 8 Highest Score Kem Antilles June 1996 0-671-89936-8 9 Cardassian Imps Mel Gilden February 1997 0-671-51116-5 10 Space Camp Ted Pedersen June 1997 0-671-00730-0 11 Honor Bound [l] ‡ Diana G. Gallagher October 1997 0-671-01452-8 12 Trapped in Time Ted Pedersen February 1998 0-671-01440-4
Rebels (1999) [ edit ]
Star Trek: Deeps Space Nine: Rebels miniseries follows the crew of the USS Defiant as they help free an occupied world. Written by Dafydd ab Hugh.
No. Title Author Date ISBN 1 The Conquered Dafydd ab Hugh February 1999 0-671-01140-5 2 The Courageous 0-671-01141-3 3 The Liberated March 1999 0-671-01142-1
Millennium (2000) [ edit ]
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Millennium miniseries explores an alternate-timeline created after the USS Defiant is transported twenty-five years into the future. Written by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. An omnibus was published in 2002.
No. Title Author(s) Date ISBN 1 The Fall of Terok Nor Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens March 2000 0-671-02401-9 2 The War of the Prophets 0-671-02402-7 3 Inferno April 2000 0-671-02403-5 — Millennium (omnibus) 2 January 2002 0-7434-4249-0
Relaunch novels (1999–2017) [ edit ]
Interlinked novels set after the episode "What You Leave Behind".
Title Author(s) Date ISBN The Lives of Dax (anthology) Marco Palmieri, ed. December 1999 0-671-02840-5 A Stitch in Time Andrew J. Robinson May 2000 0-671-03885-0 Avatar, Book 1 S. D. Perry 1 May 2001 0-7434-0050-X Avatar, Book 2 0-7434-0051-8 Abyss ‡ David Weddle and Jeffrey Lang 26 June 2001 0-671-77483-2 Demons of Air and Darkness ‡ Keith DeCandido 28 August 2001 0-7434-1852-2 Rising Son S. D. Perry 31 December 2002 0-7434-4838-3 The Left Hand of Destiny, Book 1 J. G. Hertzler and Jeffrey Lang 14 March 2003 0-7434-2328-3 The Left Hand of Destiny, Book 2 23 April 2003 0-7434-2329-1 Prophecy and Change (anthology) Marco Palmieri, ed. 23 September 2003 0-7434-7073-7 Unity S. D. Perry 18 November 2003 0-7434-4840-5 Hollow Men Una McCormack 26 April 2005 0-7434-9151-3 Warpath David Mack 28 March 2006 1-4165-0775-2 Twist of Faith (omnibus) S. D. Perry, et al.[C] 22 May 2007 978-1-4165-3415-0 Fearful Symmetry Olivia Woods 24 June 2008 978-1-4165-6781-3 The Soul Key 28 July 2009 978-1-4391-0792-8 The Never-Ending Sacrifice Una McCormack 25 August 2009 978-1-4391-0961-8 Lust's Latinum Lost (and Found) (ebook) Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann 26 August 2014[j] 978-1-4767-7931-7 The Missing Una McCormack 30 December 2014 978-1-4767-5023-1 Sacraments of Fire David R.George III 30 June 2015 978-1-4767-5633-2 Ascendance 29 December 2015 978-1-5011-0370-4 Force and Motion Jeffrey Lang 31 May 2016 978-1-5011-1073-3 Rules of Accusation (ebook) Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann 4 July 2016 978-1-5011-1068-9 The Long Mirage David R.George III 28 February 2017 978-1-5011-3297-1 Enigma Tales Una McCormack 27 June 2017 978-1-5011-5258-0 I, The Constable (ebook) Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann 13 November 2017 978-1-5011-6974-8
Mission Gamma (2002) [ edit ]
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Mission Gamma miniseries follows the crew of the USS Defiant under the command of Elias Vaughn. Not to be confused with the Gamma (2017) miniseries, which has a similar premise.
No. Title Author(s) Date ISBN 1 Twilight David R.George III 27 August 2002 0-7434-4560-0 2 This Gray Spirit Heather Jarman 0-7434-4562-7 3 Cathedral Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels 1 October 2002 0-7434-4564-3 4 Lesser Evil Robert Simpson 29 October 2002 0-7434-1024-6 — These Haunted Seas (omnibus) David R.George III and Heather Jarman 17 June 2008 978-1-4165-5639-8
Worlds of… (2004–05) [ edit ]
Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine explores the various home worlds of the crew and residents of Deep Space Nine. Created by Marco Palmieri.
No. Title Author(s) Date ISBN 1 Cardassia and Andor Una McCormack and Heather Jarman 25 May 2004 0-7434-8351-0 2 Trill and Bajor Andy Mangels, Michael A. Martin and J. Noah Kym 25 January 2005 0-7434-8352-9 3 Ferenginar and The Dominion Keith DeCandido and David R.George III 0-7434-8353-7
Gamma (2017) [ edit ]
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Gamma miniseries follows the crew of USS Robinson under the command of Benjamin Sisko. Only one novel has been published. Not to be confused with the Mission Gamma (2002) miniseries which has a similar premise.
Title Author Date ISBN Original Sin David R.George III 26 September 2017 978-1-5011-3322-0
Voyager (1995–present) [ edit ]
Star Trek: Voyager is based on the television series of the same name.
Episode novelizations (1995–2001) [ edit ]
Based on select episodes from the television series. Caretaker (1995) was published as Voyager 1.
Title Author(s) Date ISBN Caretaker L.A. Graf February 1995 0-671-51914-X Flashback Diane Carey October 1996 0-671-00383-6 Day of Honor Michael Jan Friedman November 1997 0-671-01981-3 Equinox Diane Carey October 1999 0-671-04295-5 Endgame Diane Carey 26 June 2001 0-7434-4216-4
Original novels (1995–2002) [ edit ]
Includes numbered and unnumbered novels:
No. Title Author(s) Date ISBN 1 Caretaker (novelization) L.A. Graf February 1995 0-671-51914-X 2 The Escape Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch May 1995 0-671-52096-2 3 Ragnarok Nathan Archer July 1995 0-671-52044-X 4 Violations Susan Wright September 1995 0-671-52046-6 5 Incident at Arbuk John Gregory Betancourt November 1995 0-671-52048-2 6 The Murdered Sun Christie Golden February 1996 0-671-53783-0 7 Ghost of a Chance Mark A. Garland and Charles G. McGraw April 1996 0-671-56798-5 8 Cybersong S.N. Lewitt May 1996 0-671-56783-7 9 The Final Fury ‡ Dafydd ab Hugh August 1996 0-671-54181-1 — Mosaic Jeri Taylor October 1996 0-671-56311-4 10 Bless the Beasts Karen Haber November 1996 0-671-56780-2 11 The Garden Melissa Scott February 1997 0-671-56799-3 12 Chrysalis David Niall Wilson March 1997 0-671-00150-7 13 The Black Shore Greg Cox May 1997 0-671-56061-1 — Her Klingon Soul ‡ Michael Jan Friedman October 1997 0-671-00240-6 14 Marooned Christie Golden December 1997 0-671-01423-4 15 Echoes Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch,
and Nina Kiriki Hoffman January 1998 0-671-00200-7 — Fire Ship ‡ Diane Carey[κ] July 1998 0-671-01467-6 — Pathways Jeri Taylor August 1998 0-671-00346-1 16 Seven of Nine Christie Golden September 1998 0-671-02491-4 17 Death of a Neutron Star Eric Kotani and Dean Wesley Smith March 1999 0-671-00425-5 18 Battle Lines Dave Galanter and Greg Brodeur May 1999 0-671-00259-7 — Captain Proton: Defender of Earth Dean Wesley Smith November 1999 0-671-03646-7 19 Cloak and Dagger † Christie Golden November 2000 0-671-03582-7 20 Ghost Dance † 0-671-03583-5 21 Shadow of Heaven † December 2000 0-671-03584-3 — Shadow ‡ Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch 22 May 2001 0-671-77478-6 — No Man's Land ‡ Christie Golden 2 October 2001 0-7434-1857-3 — The Hologram's Handbook Robert Picardo 9 April 2002 0-7434-3791-8 — The Amazing Stories (anthology) John J. Ordover, ed. 20 August 2002 0-7434-4915-0 — The Nanotech War Steven Piziks 29 October 2002 0-7434-3646-6
Starfleet Academy (1997) [ edit ]
Star Trek: Voyager: Starfleet Academy young adult miniseries explores the lives of the Voyager crew as Starfleet Academy cadets.
No. Title Author(s) Date ISBN 1 Lifeline Bobbi J.G. Weiss and David Cody Weiss August 1997 0-671-00845-5 2 The Chance Factor Diana G. Gallagher and Martin R. Burke September 1997 0-671-00732-7 3 Quarantine Patricia Barnes-Svarney October 1997 0-671-00733-5
Dark Matters (2000) [ edit ]
Star Trek: Voyager: Dark Matters miniseries explores events after the episode "Eye of the Needle". Written by Christie Golden.
No. Title Author Date ISBN 1 Cloak and Dagger Christie Golden November 2000 0-671-03582-7 2 Ghost Dance 0-671-03583-5 3 Shadow of Heaven December 2000 0-671-03584-3
Relaunch novels (2003–present) [ edit ]
Interlinked novels set after the episode "Endgame".[11]
Title Author(s) Date ISBN Homecoming Christie Golden 3 June 2003 0-7434-6754-X The Farther Shore 1 July 2003 0-7434-6755-8 Distant Shores (anthology) Marco Palmieri, ed. 1 November 2005 0-7434-9253-6 Full Circle Kirsten Beyer 31 March 2009 978-1-4165-9496-3 Unworthy 29 September 2009 978-1-4391-0398-2 Children of the Storm 31 May 2011 978-1-4516-0718-5 The Eternal Tide 28 August 2012 978-1-4516-6818-6 Protectors 28 January 2014 978-1-4767-3854-3 Acts of Contrition 30 September 2014 978-1-4767-6551-8 Atonement 25 August 2015 978-1-4767-9081-7 A Pocket Full of Lies 26 January 2016 978-1-4767-9084-8 Architects of Infinity 27 March 2018 978-1-5011-3876-8 To Lose the Earth (announced) — —
Spirit Walk (2004) [ edit ]
Star Trek: Voyager: Spirit Walk miniseries follows Chakotay's first mission as captain of USS Voyager. Written by Christie Golden.
No. Title Author Date ISBN 1 Old Wounds Christie Golden 26 October 2004 0-7434-9258-7 2 Enemy of My Enemy 30 November 2004 0-7434-9257-9
String Theory (2005) [ edit ]
Star Trek: Voyager: String Theory miniseries follows the crew during a violent encounter with the Nacene. Published on the tenth-anniversary of the television series. The novels were intended to be the seminal work of the series.[1]:302
No. Title Author(s) Date ISBN 1 Cohesion Jeffrey Lang 28 June 2005 0-7434-5718-8 2 Fusion Kirsten Beyer 1 November 2005 1-4165-0955-0 3 Evolution Heather Jarman 28 February 2006 1-4165-0781-7
Star Trek Log (1995) [ edit ]
Star Trek Log was a series of novelizations based on the animated series, originally published by Bantam Books from 1974 to 1978. The reprint of the series was published specifically for the United Kingdom and Australian markets.[8]
Title Author Released ISBN Star Trek Logs 1–3 Alan Dean Foster April 1995 0-671-85403-8 Star Trek Logs 4–6 May 1995 0-671-85404-6 Star Trek Logs 7–10 June 1995 0-671-85405-4
Shatner concept series (1995–2007) [ edit ]
Created by William Shatner, and co-written by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, the concept series explores events following James Kirk's resurrection by agents of the Romulan Star Empire after the character's death in Generations. Shatner outlined the first novel while filming Kirk's final scene in 1994.[1]:156 The series is organized into three trilogies by fans: Odyssey, Mirror Universe, and Totality.
No official name has been given to the series by Pocket Books, Shatner, or the Reeves-Stevenses. The colloquial "The Shatnerverse" has been adopted by Memory Alpha and others. Characters from other films and television series appear in the novels. However, continuity within the series is independent of other book lines.
Title Author(s) Date ISBN The Ashes of Eden William Shatner June 1995 0-671-52035-0 The Return April 1996 0-671-52610-3 Avenger May 1997 0-671-55132-9 Odyssey (omnibus) September 1998 0-671-02547-3 Spectre May 1998 0-671-00878-1 Dark Victory April 1999 0-671-00882-X Preserver July 2000 0-671-02125-7 Captain's Peril William Shatner
with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens 8 October 2002 0-7434-4819-7 Captain's Blood 9 December 2003 0-671-02129-X Captain's Glory 22 August 2006 0-7434-5343-3
New Frontier (1997–2015) [ edit ]
Star Trek: New Frontier was the first Star Trek book line not to be based on a television series. The novels follow the crew of the USS Excalibur, under the command of Mackenzie Calhoun. Created by John J. Ordover. Written by Peter David. Numbering of the novels is inconsistent among primary sources. Voyages of Imagination (2006) does not number novels published after 2001.
No. Title Author Date ISBN 1 House of Cards Peter David July 1997 0-671-01395-5 2 Into the Void 0-671-01396-3 3 The Two-Front War August 1997 0-671-01397-1 4 End Game 0-671-01398-X — New Frontier (omnibus) February 1998 0-671-01978-3 5 Martyr March 1998 0-671-02036-6 6 Fire on High April 1998 0-671-02037-4 — Once Burned ‡ Peter David[λ] October 1998 0-671-02078-1 7 The Quiet Place Peter David November 1999 0-671-02079-X 8 Dark Allies 0-671-02080-3 9 Requiem † September 2000 0-671-04238-6 10 Renaissance † 0-671-04239-4 11 Restoration † November 2000 0-671-04243-2 — Cold Wars ‡ 2 October 2001 0-671-04242-4 12 Being Human 30 October 2001 0-671-04240-8 — Gods Above 30 September 2003 0-7434-1858-1 — No Limits (anthology) Peter David, ed. 21 October 2003 0-7434-7707-3 — Stone and Anvil Peter David 28 October 2003 0-7434-2957-5 — After the Fall 30 November 2004 0-7434-9184-X — Missing in Action 28 February 2006 1-4165-1080-X — Treason 14 April 2009 978-0-7434-2961-0 — Blind Man's Bluff 26 April 2011 978-0-7434-2960-3 — The Returned, Part 1 6 July 2015 978-1-4767-9092-3 — The Returned, Part 2 3 August 2015 978-1-4767-9093-0 — The Returned, Part 3 7 September 2015 978-1-4767-9095-4
Excalibur (2000) [ edit ]
Star Trek: New Frontier: Excalibur miniseries follows the destruction of the Excalibur, and the apparent death of Calhoun.
No. Title Author Date ISBN 1 Requiem Peter David September 2000 0-671-04238-6 2 Renaissance 0-671-04239-4 3 Restoration November 2000 0-671-04243-2
Strange New Worlds (1998–2016) [ edit ]
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is an anthology series of edited by Dean Wesley Smith. Each volume collected fan-submitted stories, similar to Bantam Books' The New Voyages (1976–78).
Title Author(s) Date ISBN Strange New Worlds Dean Wesley Smith, ed. July 1998 0-671-01446-3 Strange New Worlds II May 1999 0-671-02692-5 Strange New Worlds III May 2000 0-671-03652-1 Strange New Worlds IV 24 July 2001 0-7434-1131-5 Strange New Worlds V 28 May 2002 0-7434-3778-0 Strange New Worlds VI 27 May 2003 0-7434-6753-1 Strange New Worlds VII 29 June 2004 0-7434-8780-X Strange New Worlds 8 19 July 2005 1-4165-0345-5 Strange New Worlds 9 22 August 2006 1-4165-2048-1 Strange New Worlds 10 10 July 2007 978-1-4165-4438-8 Strange New Worlds 2016 (ebook) Neil Bryant, et al.[D] 3 October 2016 978-1-5011-6158-2
Corps of Engineers (2000–2010) [ edit ]
Star Trek: Corps of Engineers follows the crew of the USS da Vinci. Published as ebook exclusives on various platforms, and were later collected into print bind-ups with similar titles, but a different numbering scheme.[12] Originally published as Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers., often abbreviated as S.C.E.
S.C.E. ebooks (2000–2006) [ edit ]
No. Title Author(s) Date[j] eISBN 1 The Belly of the Beast Dean Wesley Smith 8 August 2000 0-7434-1901-4 2 Fatal Error Keith DeCandido 13 September 2000 0-7434-1902-2 3 Hard Crash Christie Golden 8 October 2000 0-7434-1903-0 4 Interphase, Book 1 Dayon Ward and Kevin Dilmore 28 February 2001 0-7434-2882-X 5 Interphase, Book 2 28 March 2001 0-7434-2871-4 6 Cold Fusion Keith DeCandido 27 July 2001 0-7434-2875-7 7 Invincible, Book 1 Keith DeCandido and David Mack 15 August 2001 0-7434-2872-2 8 Invincible, Book 2 26 September 2001 0-7434-2873-0 9 The Riddled Post Aaron Rosenberg 12 October 2001 0-7434-2876-5 10 Here There Be Monsters ‡ Keith DeCandido 15 November 2001 0-7434-2877-3 11 Ambush Dave Galanter 14 December 2001 0-7434-2878-1 12 Some Assembly Required Scott Ciencin and Dan Jolley 15 January 2002 0-7434-2879-X 13 No Surrender Jeff Mariotte 11 February 2002 0-7434-2880-3 14 Caveat Emptor Ian Edgington and Mike Collins 15 March 2002 0-7434-2874-9 15 Past Life Robert Greenberger 15 April 2002 0-7434-2881-1 16 Oaths Glenn Hauman 15 May 2002 0-7434-5671-8 17 Foundations, Book 1 Kevin Dilmore and Dayton Ward 14 June 2002 0-7434-5672-6 18 Foundations, Book 2 15 July 2002 0-7434-5673-4 19 Foundations, Book 3 15 August 2002 0-7434-5674-2 20 Enigma Ship J. Steven York and Christina F. York 23 September 2002 0-7434-5675-0 21 War Stories, Book 1 Keith DeCandido 30 October 2002 0-7434-5676-9 22 War Stories, Book 2 15 November 2002 0-7434-5677-7 23 Wildfire, Book 1 David Mack 2 January 2003 0-7434-5678-5 24 Wildfire, Book 2 23 January 2003 0-7434-5679-3 25 Home Fires Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore 14 February 2003 0-7434-7591-7 26 Age of Unreason Scott Ciencin 18 March 2003 0-7434-7592-5 27 Balance of Nature Heather Jarman 3 April 2003 0-7434-7593-3 28 Breakdowns Kieth DeCandido 17 June 2003 0-7434-7456-2 29 Aftermath Christopher L. Bennett 15 July 2003 0-7434-7058-3 30 Ishtar Rising, Book 1 Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels 28 July 2003 0-7434-7605-0 31 Ishtar Rising, Book 2 20 August 2003 0-7434-7606-9 32 Buying Time Robert Greenberger 30 September 2003 0-7434-7608-5 33 Collective Hindsight, Book 1 Aaron Rosenberg 27 October 2003 0-7434-8083-X 34 Collective Hindsight, Book 2 17 November 2003 0-7434-8084-8 35 The Demon, Book 1 Loren L. Coleman and Randall L. Bills 15 December 2003 0-7434-7609-3 36 The Demon, Book 2 1 January 2004 0-7434-7610-7 37 Ring Around the Sky Allyn Gibson 29 March 2004 0-7434-7611-5 38 Orphans Kevin Killiany 21 April 2004 0-7434-8085-6 39 Grand Designs Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore 3 May 2004 0-7434-8086-4 40 Failsafe David Mack 21 May 2004 0-7434-8087-2 41 Bitter Medicine Dave Galanter 15 June 2004 0-7434-9685-X 42 Sargasso Sector Paul Kupperberg 26 July 2004 0-7434-9367-2 43 Paradise Interupted John S. Drew 17 August 2004 0-7434-9366-4 44 Where Time Stands Still Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore 1 September 2004 0-7434-9361-3 45 The Art of the Deal Glenn Greenberg 25 October 2004 0-7434-9686-8 46 Spin J. Steven York and Christina F. York 15 November 2004 0-7434-9687-6 47 Creative Couplings, Book 1 Glenn Hauman and Aaron Rosenberg 15 December 2004 0-7434-9688-4 48 Creative Couplings, Book 2 1 February 2005 0-7434-9689-2 49 Small World David Mack 1 March 2005 0-7434-9690-6 50 Malefictorum Terri Osborne 25 March 2005 0-7434-9691-4 51 Lost Time Ilsa J. Bick 22 April 2005 1-4165-0690-X 52 Identity Crisis John J. Ordover 6 May 2005 0-7434-9684-1 53 Fables of the Prime Directive Cory Rushton 15 June 2005 0-7434-9683-3 54 Security Keith DeCandido 1 August 2005 1-4165-1091-5 55 Wounds, Book 1 Ilsa J. Bick 1-4165-0960-7 56 Wounds, Book 2 1 October 2005 1-4165-0961-5 57 Out of the Cocoon William Leisner 0-7434-9692-2 58 Honor Kevin Killiany 15 December 2005 1-4165-1059-1 59 Blackout Phaedra M. Weldon 23 December 2005 1-4165-2043-0 60 The Cleanup Robert T. Jeschonek 20 January 2006 1-4165-2044-9 61 Progress † Terri Osborne 17 February 2006 1-4165-2045-7 62 The Future Begins † Steve Mollmann and Michael Schuster 1 April 2006 1-4165-2046-5 63 Echoes of Coventry † Richard C. White 15 May 2006 1-4165-2047-3 64 Distant Early Warning † Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore 1 June 2006 1-4165-3309-5 65 10 Is Better Than 01 † Heather Jarman 1 September 2006 1-4165-3308-7 66 Many Splendors † Keith DeCandido 1-4165-3307-9
S.C.E. print books (2002–2005) [ edit ]
Each book is a bind-up of three or four S.C.E. novellas.
No. Title (Includes) Author(s) Date ISBN eISBN 1 Have Tech, Will Travel S.C.E. 1 – 4 Dean Wesley Smith, et al.[E] 1 January 2002 0-7434-3996-1 0-7434-3997-X 2 Miracle Workers S.C.E. 5 – 8 Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore, et al.[F] 29 January 2002 0-7434-4412-4 0-7434-4847-2 3 Some Assembly Required S.C.E. 9 – 12 Aaron Rosenberg, et al.[G] 3 April 2003 0-7434-6442-7 0-7434-6703-5 4 No Surrender S.C.E. 13 – 16 Jeff Mariotte, et al.[H] 29 April 2003 0-7434-6443-5 0-7434-6705-1 5 Foundations S.C.E. 17 – 19 Kevin Dilmore and Dayton Ward 24 February 2004 0-7434-8300-6 0-7434-8905-5 6 Wildfire S.C.E. 20 – 24 David Mack, et al.[I] 26 October 2004 0-7434-9661-2 1-4165-0788-4 7 Breakdowns S.C.E. 25 – 28 Keith DeCandido, et al.[J] 26 April 2005 1-4165-0326-9 1-4165-1727-8
What's Past (2006) [ edit ]
Star Trek: S.C.E.: What's Past was intended to be the concluding story for the crew of the USS da Vinci. A print omnibus was published as part of the Corps of Engineers relaunch in 2010.
No. Title Author(s) Date[j] eISBN 1 Progress Terri Osborne 17 February 2006 1-4165-2045-7 2 The Future Begins Steve Mollmann and Michael Schuster 1 April 2006 1-4165-2046-5 3 Echoes of Coventry Richard C. White 15 May 2006 1-4165-2047-3 4 Distant Early Warning Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore 1 June 2006 1-4165-3309-5 5 10 Is Better Than 01 Heather Jarman 1 September 2006 1-4165-3308-7 6 Many Splendors Keith DeCandido 1-4165-3307-9 — What's Past (omnibus) Terri Osborne, et al.[K] 24 August 2010 978-1-4391-9486-7
Corps of Engineers print books (2005–2010) [ edit ]
Print collections relaunch. Numbering continued from the S.C.E. print books.
No. Title (Includes) Author(s) Date ISBN eISBN 8 Aftermath S.C.E. 29 – 36 Christopher L. Bennett, et al.[L] 21 November 2006 1-4165-2576-9 1-4165-4992-7 9 Grand Designs S.C.E. 37 – 42 Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore, et al.[M] 3 July 2007 978-1-4165-4489-0 978-1-4165-7916-8 10 Creative Couplings S.C.E. 43 – 49 Glenn Hauman and Aaron Rosenberg, et al.[N] 11 December 2007 978-1-4165-4898-0 978-1-4165-5474-5 11 Wounds S.C.E. 50 – 56 Isla J. Bick, et al.[O] 21 October 2008 978-1-4165-8909-9 978-1-4391-1794-1 12 Out of the Cocoon S.C.E. 57 – 60 William Leisner, et al.[P] 20 July 2010 978-1-4391-4842-6 — 13 What's Past S.C.E. 61 – 66 Terri Osborne, et al.[K] 24 August 2010 978-1-4391-9486-7 —
Corps of Engineers ebooks (2006–07) [ edit ]
Novella relaunch. Published as ebook exclusives.
No. Title Author(s) Date[j] eISBN 1 Turn the Page Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore 26 December 2006 1-4165-4324-4 2 Troubleshooting Robert Greenberger 1-4165-3306-0 3 The Light Jeff D. Jacques 2 January 2007 978-1-4165-4566-8 4 The Art of the Comeback Glenn Greenberg 1 May 2007 978-1-4165-4978-9 5 Signs from Heaven Phaedra M. Weldon 29 May 2007 978-1-4165-4979-6 6 Ghost Ilsa J. Bick 10 July 2007 978-1-4165-4975-8 7 Remembrance of Things Past, Book 1 Terri Osborne 18 September 2007 978-1-4165-4407-4 8 Remembrance of Things Past, Book 2 30 October 2007 978-1-4165-4409-8
Challenger (2001) [ edit ]
Star Trek: Challenger is flagship concept series similar to New Frontier. The titular ship, USS Challenger, was introduced in the New Earth (2000) miniseries. Only one novel has been published.
Title Author Date ISBN Chainmail ‡ Diane Carey 31 July 2001 0-7434-1855-7
Enterprise (2001–2017) [ edit ]
Star Trek: Enterprise is based on the television series of the same name. From 2001 to 2003, the series was published as Enterprise, without the Star Trek prefix. The novels are not numbered.
Episode novelizations (2001–
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said. "They have a good connection within the family and they are engaged in the community."
'Interrupted' training
Lubitz had been with Germanwings, a budget airline owned by Lufthansa, since September 2013 and had completed 630 hours of flight time, the airline's media office said.
Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr told reporters that Lubitz "interrupted" his training, which he began in 2008. That break lasted several months, he said, but added that such an interruption isn't uncommon.
Spohr said he couldn't give any information about why the co-pilot had stopped and then restarted his training.
If it was for medical reasons, he said, then that information would have been private before the crash, he said, but it will be part of information gathered during the investigation.
Most of Lubitz's training took place at the Lufthansa flight training center in Bremen.
He also trained in the United States, spending six months at facility in Arizona as part of a required program to get his license, a Lufthansa spokesperson said.
Spohr said Lufthansa pilots get medical testing but do not undergo regular or routine psychological testing once they are flying. However, the airline does consider an applicant's psychological state, along with other factors, when hiring pilots, he said.
Lubitz and the captain passed a psychological test when they were hired, he said.
"We don't only look at competence but we also give a lot of room to psychological capabilities," Spohr said.
"He was 100% set to fly without restrictions," he added. "His flight performance was perfect. There was nothing to worry about."Story highlights Bass said she wants to give one of her GOP colleagues "a history lesson"
She plans to "sit down and talk to him about the McCarthy era"
(CNN) A Democratic congresswoman says she wants to give one of her Republican colleagues "a history lesson" after he faced criticism for demanding a "purge" at the FBI and Justice Department, warning that it brings back memories of McCarthyism during the Cold War.
During an interview on CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront," California Democratic Rep. Karen Bass, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, told Pamela Brown that it was "very frightening" that Florida GOP Rep. Francis Rooney had used that term, and Bass added that she plans to "sit down and talk to him about the McCarthy era" when Congress returns.
Rooney, who made the call earlier in the week, said earlier Wednesday that the FBI should oust individuals who he argued are politically compromised, but he also conceded that purge "might be a pretty strong word.
"I'm not maybe the most nuanced political person in the world."
JUST WATCHED GOP congressman defends his call to 'purge' FBI Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH GOP congressman defends his call to 'purge' FBI 02:11
Rooney further called for the House Oversight Committee to significantly expand an internal probe that had turned up messages critical of President Donald Trump in an exchange between two FBI officials during the campaign. Those officials temporarily worked as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's team in the Russia investigation.
Read MoreIt’s an off-year, and turnout is expected to be low. There’s no Obama, Clinton, or Bush on the ballot. It’s the dead of summer, and no one turns out for primaries. Oh, it’s Hollywood. Yet another special election.
All of those have been justifications in a year that has seen low turnout -- sometimes exceptionally so -- from coast to coast, be it in Tuesday’s special Senate election in New Jersey, the May Los Angeles mayor’s race, or the June special Senate election in Massachusetts.
Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s campaign team in New Jersey has every right to be fired up about what it was able to accomplish Tuesday. It hit all of its targets and got more voters to the polls in a non-presidential year Democratic Senate primary since 1982. Booker got more votes than any Democratic nominee in a non-presidential year since Bill Bradley in 1978, as he coasted to an expected victory as the Democratic Senate nominee.
Yet, just 20 percent of registered Democrats, 17 percent of voters in the combined primaries that were open to just Republicans and Democrats, and 9 percent of all voters in the state, actually went out to the polls.
And that is probably the most positive story of the year about turnout.
A myriad of issues have coalesced this year to create the circumstances for low turnout -- from voter fatigue following a long, drawn-out 2012 presidential election to a continued struggling economy, dissatisfaction with Washington at an all-time high, and congressional approval at all-time lows.
In Los Angeles, the mayor’s race saw its lowest turnout in at least 100 years. Eric Garcetti (D) won with the lowest raw vote total of any incoming L.A. mayor since Frank Shaw in 1933. Shaw was recalled in 1938 because of corruption, but even the winner in that race got 11,000 more votes than Garcetti.
In Massachusetts, in the race to replace John Kerry, who was appointed secretary of state, the election saw the lowest raw vote total in at least three decades. Its paltry 28 percent turnout is “probably the lowest” for a general election in the state’s history, according to the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s office, considering Massachusetts has only had two special Senate elections ever -- and they were both in the last three years, 2013 and 2010. In 2010, when Republican Scott Brown was elected, both he and Democratic challenger Martha Coakley each won more votes than Ed Markey (D), the 2013 winner.
(For more on the low turnout this year, see the chronology and data below.)
This is a trend, however, that is not unique to this year. Since the direct election of senators was allowed a century ago this year with the ratification of the 17th Amendment, Americans have increasingly ignored “smaller” elections like primaries, special elections, and municipal races.
“We had turnouts in these primaries that looked on par with general election turnouts,” Michael McDonald, a professor at George Mason University, who studies turnout, noted of the early 20th Century following the ratification of the 17th Amendment.
But that passion for voting has faded, and has created a reality in American politics in which the vast majority of Americans are not participating in the political process outside of major races.
And that has consequences -- from impacting the level of vitriol in the national political debate to electing more ideologically rigid candidates, McDonald pointed out.
“Part of what’s going on in national politics, has to do with primaries,” McDonald said.
With more and more people detaching themselves from the system, primaries have become increasingly activist-driven, reducing the influence of moderates -- especially in closed primaries where only Democrats or Republicans can vote -- and allows for greater influence by moneyed outside groups.
That’s something that can be seen, for example, in North Carolina, where discount store mogul and conservative donor Art Pope has been able to wield outsize influence by spending millions on low-turnout legislative and judicial races.
In 2010, Republicans took over both chambers of the state legislature and then, in 2012, won the governorship, giving them control of all three for the first time since Reconstruction. And they have pushed through a conservative agenda on issues ranging from abortion to voting rights.
Democrats have recoiled, staging protests that have seen hundreds arrested since the beginning of the year. But the influence of a few – conservative or liberal -- would not be nearly so easy to achieve if more people voted in these races that often get little attention.
“Because people aren’t tuned in,” McDonald said, “they don’t see the importance of this until it bites them.”
##
Here’s a rundown of the elections this year, by dates and by the numbers:
May 7: SC-1 special: 143,635 of 455,702 registered voters showed up, or 32%, in the race that pitted ex-Gov. Mark Sanford, who stepped down from the governorship after a high-profile affair, against Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert. That percentage is far lower than general elections statewide, but it was actually higher than the average for past special elections. Special elections in the state generally don’t see higher than 20% turnout, according to the South Carolina State Election Commission.
The last U.S. House special election in the state was in 2002 in the second congressional district that saw Joe Wilson first elected following death of Rep. Floyd Spence. Just 13% turned out for the general election, which was similar to what it was in the primary of this heavily Republican district.
Statewide general election turnout in South Carolina
2010: 52%
2008: 76%
2006: 45%
Last congressional special election
2002: 12.8%
May 21: LA Mayor: Just 419,592 of the city’s 1.8 million registered voters turned out, or 23.3%. That was the lowest percentage to elect a mayor in at least 100 years.
Incoming mayor winning vote total
2013 – Eric Garcetti, 222,3000
1938 – Fletcher Bowron, 233,427
1933 – Frank Shaw, 187,368
Source: Los Angeles Times Data Desk
June 3: NJ GOV primary: Again low turnout marked these elections. Running unopposed, incumbent Gov. Chris Christie (R) wound up getting 205,666 votes, which was only about 2,000 fewer than Booker received in the contested special.
June 11: VA primaries: With no gubernatorial candidates on the ballot in Virginia, few Democrats showed up to elect their lieutenant governor and attorney general nominees in Virginia.
June 25: MA SEN special: Just 1,179,781 of the state’s 4,251,975 registered voters showed up in the special election to replace John Kerry in the Senate. Markey won just 645,429 votes. Brown got 1,168,178, and Coakley 1,060,861.
Massachusetts Senate race turnout since 1982
2013* special: 1,179,781
2012: 3,184,196
2010* special: 2,253,727
2008: 3,102,995
2006: 2,243,835
2002: 2,220,301
2000: 2,734,006
1996: 2,600,285
1994: 2,232,206
1990: 2,424,579
1988: 2,689,857
1984: 2,595,054
1982: 2,103,780
Source: Massachusetts Secretary of State Elections Division.
Aug. 13: NJ SEN: Just 480,000 of more than five million New Jersey registered voters turned out for the combined primaries, or 9 percent. It was a closed primary, so when looking just at Democrats, it was 19.6 percent (with 2 percent of precincts still to report).
NJ Senate primary turnout history:
2013: 481,847 (9%)
2013* (GOV primary): 420,932 (8%)
2012: 485,240 (9%)
2008: 569,225 (11%)
2006: 405,883 (8%)
2002: 497,024 (11%)
2000: 773,491 (17%)
1996: 546,528 (13%)
1994: 484,959 (13%)
1990: 467,346 (13%)
1988: 952,999 (26%)
1984: 1,013,219 (27%)
1982: 847,760 (23%)
1978: 716,509 (20%)
1976: 981,329 (28%)
1972: 881,059 (26%)
1970: 591,161 (19%)
1966: 566,453 (19%)
1964: 534,027 (18%)
1960: 709,322 (26%)
1958: 756,746 (28%)
1954: 696,307 (27%)
1952: 924,816 (39%)
1948: 630,615 (29%)
1946: 684,290 (34%)
1944: 453,862 (24%)
1942: 525,537 (24%)
1940: 913,538 (41%)
1938: 792,179 (38%)
1936: 897,887 (45%)
1934: 856,242 (46%)
1930: 776,114 (43%)
1928: 781,155 (54%)
Source: New Jersey Division of Elections
As non-presidential primaries go, not to mention specials, Booker won more votes than any recent Democrat and more Democrats showed up in decades.
Non-presidential year Democratic primary turnout raw vote
2013: 352,120 - Booker: 207,891
2006: 189,994 – Bob Menendez 159,604
2002: 181,468 – Bob Torricelli 181,468 unopposed
1994: 187,045 – Frank Lautenberg 151,416
1990: 213,741 – Bill Bradley 197,454
1982: 402,959 - Lautenberg 104,666
1978: 461,369 - Bradley 217,502
1970: 314,358 - Harrison Williams 190,692
1966: 316,653 - Warren Wilentz 197,428
1958: 376,924 – Harrison Williams 152,413
1954: 281,914 – Charles Howell 230,250
1946: 183,082 – Alfred Driscoll 281,715
1942: 194,644 – William Smathers 170,621
1938: 356,254 – William Ely 286,625
1934: 335,530 – A. Harry Moore N/A
1930: 148,517 – Alexander Simpson 118,494
Source: New Jersey Division of Elections.In the early 1950s, I met an old friend of my father's, an engineer who had worked in the Soviet Union during the 1930s. The Engineer was still more or less pro-Soviet, but his manner was very different from that of the rest of my father's circle of fellow-travellers. Their political conversation was glib, full of "progressive" clichés, and, even to my young teenage ears, suspiciously superficial. The Engineer, in contrast, was not glib at all. He spoke little, and what he did say always had specificity (I ascribed this to his being an engineer), and a skeptical, decidedly bitter humour. He was a very somber character. He seemed, in short, a man who had seen a lot that the other members of my father's circle of dilettante Leftists would not understand. Perhaps what he had seen was some of the story told by Tim Tzouliadis in The Forsaken."
The book under review tells the story of a little-known and somewhat unusual group of victims of the Great Terror in the USSR. In the early 1930s, a few thousand Americans went to the Soviet Union to work, many of them in the belief that the move was temporary. Some of these individuals were idealistic Communists, who wished to contribute to the building of socialism. Others, less overtly political although perhaps vaguely sympathetic to the USSR, were leaving the USA in the depths of the Great Depression primarily to find work. Finally, another group of several hundred were employees of the Ford Motor Company. In 1929, the arch-capitalist Henry Ford, after reassuring himself that Stalin had no trace of Jewish blood, had signed a 40 million dollar deal to erect a complete Model A manufacturing facility in the USSR. The agreement called for a contingent of Ford workers to get production going and to train the Russian workforce. So, between August of 1930 and November of 1931, a giant Ford car plant was built outside of Nizhni Novgorod, an old city on the Volga some 200 miles east of Moscow. Stalin, who admired American industry, hoped that it would become the Soviet Detroit. The American workers called it "Nizhny New York," and the Soviet authorities renamed it Gorky.
For the first few years, the Americans were welcomed, and some learned Russian and put down roots of a sort. Others worked for a time and then decided to return home. At first, this was not difficult. Walter Reuther (later president of the UAW) and his brother Victor worked briefly at Nizhny Ford, and returned to the US in 1935. By then, however, many of the Americans began to encounter bureaucratic difficulties, like those described in this note hand-delivered to the new US embassy in Moscow in 1935: "After 8 months of work I decided to go back to the United States.....they told me they are not going to give me papers, because they need me as a specialist in the factory....They scared me with threats to put me in jail....They told me they would rather kill a person like me than let him out of the country." Some American workers found that the Soviet authorities, who had taken their American passports "temporarily" for safekeeping when they entered the USSR, would not return the passports. The Americans found themselves trapped. And trapped in a maelstrom typified, at the top level, by the Moscow Trials of 1936, 1937, and 1938. Before continuing with the book's story of the Americans, let us briefly recall these trials and what they meant.
The first Moscow Trial, in August of 1936, prosecuted Kamenev, Zinoviev (both among Lenin's oldest collaborators) and fourteen other old Bolsheviks for belonging to the alleged "Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre." The defendants were lamentably reluctant to confess at first, but after some special treatment, they all confessed their long-term conspiracy to assassinate the Party leaders, particularly its beloved General Secretary, the ineffable Josef Stalin. Additional evidence of the conspiracy was explained by the scholarly prosecutor Andrei Vyshinsky as follows: "Shoot these rabid dogs. Death to this gang who hide their ferocious teeth, their eagle claws, from the people! Down with that vulture Trotsky, from whose mouth a bloody venom drips, putrefying the great ideals of Marxism!... Let's exterminate the mad dogs of capitalism."
The following January, a show trial of Radek, Piatakov, and fifteen other old Bolsheviks revealed an even more far-flung conspiracy. Radek, in his confession, recounted the existence of "semi-Trotskyites, quarter-Trotskyites, one-eighth Trotskyites, people who helped us, not knowing of the terrorist organization but sympathizing with us." In June of 1937, a secret military trial condemned Marshal Tukhachevsky (a hero of the Red Army during the civil war) and other senior military commanders to death for similar offenses. In the West, the pro-Communist Left greeted the trials with breathless enthusiasm. The British Daily Worker gushed: "the trials in Moscow represent a new triumph in the history of progress." In the USA, Corliss Lamont and Lillian Hellman signed "An Open Letter To American Liberals" in support of the trials for the March 1937 issue of Soviet Russia Today.
Then in March 1938, came the trial of Nikolai Bukharin (whom Lenin had called "the favorite of the whole Party") and twenty others, called the "Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites." They too were all revealed by the prosecution to be rabid dogs, mad dogs, and vultures, as well as conspirators working since 1918, if not earlier, on behalf of Trotsky, world capitalism, Britain, Japan, and Germany. The 1938 defendants included none other than Genrikh Grigor'evich Yagoda, who had been head of the NKVD, the secret police that had arrested all the previous defendants of 1936 and 1937. Yagoda's inclusion in the new bloc of Trotskyite conspirators showed that the Great Purge had evolved into the Great Terror: it had taken on a deranged momentum of its own, such that virtually anyone (other than perhaps Comrade Stalin himself) might end up in the dock.
While the Moscow trials of Bolshevik big-shots received world publicity, the NKVD was busily arresting people all over the country, and each arrest generated more arrests by a simple autocatalytic process. Each group of suspects was invited (with the usual kinds of urging) to name more suspects; the new suspects were then duly arrested and forced to give still more names, who were in turn arrested, and so on. Ultimately, somewhere between five- and twenty-million people were caught up in the process. Some groups were more heavily represented than others, particularly Old Bolsheviks (as the Moscow Trials implied) and writers: Of the 700 Soviet writers who attended the first Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934, only fifty survived the Terror. (This history gives rise to a Soviet proverb: "If you think, don't speak; if you speak, don't write; if you write, don't publish; if you publish, recant immediately!") Of the arrested suspects, somewhere between around 800,000 and a few million were "liquidated," to use that quaintly chemical term popularized by the progressive and peace-loving USSR.
This was the society in which the American emigrants and "temporary" workers found themselves trapped. In fact, the hunt for Trotskyite-Zinovievite-Bukharinite witches was preceded several years earlier by a hunt for wreckers to blame for the failures of the Bolshevik economy. There had been purges of economic planning staff for not planning miracles, of industrial engineers for failing to achieve the prodigies claimed in Party propaganda, and of meteorologists for undermining the peoples' morale by sometimes predicting bad weather. Some of the victims were paraded in the Shakhty Trial (1928) and the Industrial Party Trial (1930), with preposterous coerced confessions and (in the latter show trial) Vyshinsky as prosecutor, veritable previews of the Moscow Trials that were to come later. The American emigrants, most of whom had depended on the likes of Lillian Hellman, Corliss Lamont, and Soviet Russia Today for their conception of life in the USSR, had no idea of what was in store for them.
By the time of the Moscow Trials, the hunt for wreckers, spies, Trotskyites, and foreign agents had all merged. Comrade Stalin himself made this clear in a 1937 speech: "First, the wrecking, diversionists and espionage work of the agents of foreign countries, among who, a rather active role was played by the Trotskyites, affected more or less all, or nearly all, our organizations --- economic, administrative and Party." Foreigners such as Americans in the USSR, particularly those working in new and therefore inefficient industrial plants, might as well have had bull's-eyes painted on the backs of their necks. Most of the Americans who had not left by 1935 ended up either liquidated or in the gulag.
Many died in the gulags, some survived, and a few of these survivors wrote about their experience themselves, or were interviewed by Tim Tzouliadis in preparation for writing The Forsaken. With such a story, the author can be forgiven for a prose style which is sometimes a little overwrought. His subjects are slightly exotic only in that this small group had actually moved from the USA to the Terror-haunted Soviet Union of the 1930s to join the millions of native victims.
As the harassment and then arrest of the Americans mounted from 1935 on, many of them made frantic attempts to gain some assistance from the American embassy in Moscow. They received almost no help (the significance of the book's title) for two richly ironic reasons. First, most of the embassy staff viewed them as Communists, and so had little sympathy for their plight. And the embassy, especially under the leadership of Ambassador Joseph Davies, concentrated on currying favor with Stalin and with the Soviet authorities, i.e. with the police state run by actual Communists in power. With the help of that very Soviet government, Ambassador Davies and his heiress wife accumulated a wonderful collection of Russian art during their tour of duty in Moscow, which they happily displayed to other socialites when they returned to the USA.
An even more brutal irony transpired after the Nazi-Soviet pact of mutual friendship in August of 1939. The Soviets demonstrated their devotion to their new friends by transferring over to the Gestapo all the German Communists in the gulag. After Hitler double-crossed Stalin by invading in 1941, the USSR and the USA found themselves allied against the USSR's former friend, the Third Reich. But even during World War II, when the USSR and the USA were allies, the Soviets refused to allow the trapped Americans out of the USSR, and the American embassy exerted scarcely any pressure on their behalf. In short, the Soviet Union deferred much less to its biggest war-time ally (which also demanded far less of it) than it had done to the Nazis during the Soviets' affiliation with them between 1939 and 1941.The realtime preemption mini-summit
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Prior to the Eleventh Real Time Linux Workshop in Dresden, Germany, a small group met to discuss the further development of the realtime preemption work for the Linux kernel. This "mini-summit" covered a wide range of topics, but was driven by a straightforward set of goals: the continuing improvement of realtime capabilities in Linux and the merging of the realtime preemption patches into the mainline.
The participants were: Stefan Assmann, Jan Blunck, Jonathan Corbet, Sven-Thorsten Dietrich, Thomas Gleixner, Darren Hart, John Kacur, Paul McKenney, Ingo Molnar, Oleg Nesterov, Steven Rostedt, Frederic Weisbecker, Clark Williams, and Peter Zijlstra. Together they represented several companies working in the area of realtime Linux; they brought a lot of experience with customer needs to the table. The discussion was somewhat unstructured - no formal agenda existed - but a lot of useful topics were covered.
Threaded interrupt handlers came out early in the discussion. This feature was merged into the mainline for the 2.6.30 kernel; it is useful in realtime situations because it allows interrupt handlers to be prioritized and scheduled like any other process. There is one part of the threaded interrupt code which remains outside of the mainline: the piece which forces all drivers to use threaded handlers. There are no plans to move that code into the mainline; instead, it's going to be a matter of persuasion to get driver writers to switch to the newer way of doing things.
Uptake in the mainline is small so far; few drivers are actually using this feature. That is beginning to change, though; the SCSI layer is one example. SCSI has always featured relatively heavyweight interrupt-handling code and work done in single-threaded workqueues. This code could move fairly naturally to process context; the SCSI developers are said to be evaluating a possible move toward threaded interrupt handlers in the near future. There have also been suggestions that the network stack might eventually move in that direction.
System management interrupts (SMIs) are a very different sort of problem. These interrupts happen at a very low level in the hardware and are handled by the BIOS code. They often perform hardware monitoring tasks, from simple thermal monitoring to far more complex operations not normally associated with BIOS-level software. SMIs are almost entirely invisible to the operating system and are generally not subject to control at that level, but they are visible in some important ways: they monopolize anything between one CPU and all CPUs in the system for a measurable period of time, and they can change important parameters like the system clock rate. SMIs on some types of hardware can run for surprisingly long periods; one vendor sells systems where an SMI for managing ECC memory runs for 200µs every three minutes. That is long enough to play havoc with any latency deadlines that the operating system is trying to meet.
Dealing with the SMI problem is a challenge. Some hardware allows SMIs to be disabled, but it's never clear what the consequences of doing so might be; if the CPU melts into a puddle of silicon, the resulting latencies will be even worse than before. Sharing information about SMI problems can be hard because many of the people working in this area are working under non-disclosure agreements with the hardware vendors; this is unfortunate, because some vendors have done a far better job of avoiding SMI-related latencies than others. There is a tool now (hwlat_detector) which can measure SMI latency, so we should start seeing more publicly-posted information on this issue. And, with luck, vendors will start to deal with the problem.
Not all hardware latency is caused by SMIs; hypervisors, too, can be a significant source of latency problems.
A related issue is hardware changes imposed by SMI handlers. If the BIOS determines that the system is overheating, it may respond by slowing the clock rate or lowering the processor voltage. On a throughput-oriented system, that may well be the right thing to do. When latencies are important, though, slowing the processor could be a mistake - it could cause applications to miss their deadlines. A better response might be to simply shut down some processors while keeping others at full speed. What is really needed here is a way to get this information to user space so that policy decisions can be made there.
Testing is always an issue in this kind of software development; how do the developers know that they are really making things better? There are various test suites out there (RTMB, for example), but there is no complete and integrated test suite. There was some talk of trying to move more of the realtime testing code into the Linux Test Project, but LTP is a huge body of code. So the realtime tests might remain on their own, but it would be nice, at least, to standardize test options and output formats to help with the automation of testing. XML output from test programs is favored by some, but it is fair to say that XML is not universally loved in this crowd.
The big kernel lock is a perennial outstanding issue for realtime development for a couple of reasons. One is that, despite having been pushed out of much of the core code, the BKL can still create long latencies. The other is that elimination of the BKL would appear to be part of the price for an eventual merge of sleeping spinlocks into the mainline kernel. The ability to preempt code running under the BKL was removed in 2.6.26; this change was directly motivated by a performance regression caused by the semaphore rewrite, but it was also seen as a way to help inspire BKL-removal efforts by those who care about latencies.
Much of the hard work in getting rid of the BKL has been done; one big outstanding piece is the conversion of reiserfs being done by Frederic Weisbecker. After that, what's left is a lot of grunt work: figuring out what (if anything) is protected by a lock_kernel() call and putting in proper locking. The "tip" tree has a branch (rt/kill-the-bkl) where this work can be coordinated and collected.
Signal delivery is still not an entirely solved problem. Actually, signals are always a problem, for implementers and users alike. In the realtime context, signal delivery has some specific latency issues. Signal delivery to thread groups involves an O(n) algorithm to determine which specific thread to target; getting through this code can create excessive latencies. There are also some locks in the delivery path which interfere with the delivery of signals in realtime interrupt context.
Everybody agrees that the proper solution is to avoid signals in applications whenever possible. For example, timerfd() can be used for timer events. But everybody also agrees that applications will continue to use signals, so they have to be made to work somehow. The probable solution is to remove much of the work from the immediate signal delivery path. Signal delivery would just enqueue the information and set a bit in the task structure; the real work would then be done in the context of the receiving process. That work might still be expensive, but it would at least fall to the process which is actually using signals instead of imposing latencies on random parts of the system.
A side discussion on best practices for efficient realtime application development yielded a few basic recommendations. The best API to use, it turns out, is the basic pthread interface; it has been well optimized over time. SYSV IPC is best avoided. Cpusets work better than the affinity mechanism for CPU isolation. In general, developers should realize that getting the best performance out of a realtime system will require a certain amount of manual tuning effort. Realtime Linux allows the prioritization of things like interrupt handlers, but the hard work of figuring out what those priorities should be can only be done by developers or administrators. It was acknowledged that the interfaces provided to administrators currently are not entirely easy to use; it can be hard to identify interrupt threads, for example. Red Hat's tuna tool can help in this regard, but more needs to be done.
Scalability was a common theme at the meeting. As a general rule, realtime development has not been focused specifically on scalability issues. But there is interest in running realtime applications on larger systems, and that is bringing out problems. The realtime kernel tends to run into scalability problems before the mainline kernel does; it was described as an early warning system which highlights issues that the mainline will be dealing with five years from now. So realtime will tend to scale more poorly than mainline, but fixing realtime's problems will eventually benefit mainline users as well.
Darren Hart presented a couple of charts containing the results of some work by John Stultz showing the impact of running the realtime kernel on a 24-processor system. When running in anything other than uniprocessor mode, the realtime kernel imposes a roughly 50% throughput penalty on a suitably pathological workload - a severe price. Interestingly, if the locking changes from the realtime kernel are removed while leaving all of the other changes, most of the performance loss goes away. This has led Darren to wonder if there should be a hybrid option available for situations where hard latency requirements are not present.
In other situations, the realtime kernel generally shows performance degradation starting with eight CPUS, with sixteen showing unacceptable overhead.
As it happens, nobody really understands where the performance cost of realtime locking comes from. It could be in the sleeping spinlocks, but there is also a lot of suspicion directed at reader-writer locks. In the mainline kernel, rwlocks allow multiple readers to run in parallel; in the realtime kernel, instead, only one reader runs at a time. That change is necessary to make priority inheritance work; priority inheritance in the presence of multiple readers is a difficult problem. One obvious conclusion that comes from this observation is that, perhaps, rwlocks should not implement priority inheritance. There is resistance to that idea, though; priority inheritance is important in situations where the highest-priority process should always run as quickly as possible.
The alternative to changing rwlocks is to simply stop using them whenever possible. The usual way to remove an rwlock is to replace it with a read-copy-update scheme. Switching to RCU will improve scalability, arguably at the cost of increasing complexity. But before embarking on any such effort, it is important to get a handle on how much of the problem really comes down to rwlocks. Some research will be done in the near future to better understand the source of the scalability problems.
Another problem is per-CPU variables, which work by disabling preemption while a specific variable is being used. Disabling preemption is anathema to the realtime developers, so per-CPU variables in the realtime tree are protected by sleeping locks instead. That increases overhead. The problem is especially acute in slab-level memory allocators, which make extensive use of per-CPU variables.
Solutions take a number of forms. There will eventually be a more realtime-friendly slab allocator, probably a variant of SLQB. Minimizing the use of per-CPU variables in general makes sense for realtime. There are also schemes involving the creation of multiple virtual "CPUs" so that even processes running on the same processor can have their own "per-CPU" variables. That decreases contention for those variables considerably at the cost of a slightly higher cache footprint.
Plain old locks can also be a problem; a run of dbench on a 16-processor system during the workshop showed a 90% reduction in throughput, with the processors sitting idle half the time. The problem in this case turns out to be dcache_lock, one of the last global spinlocks remaining in the kernel. The realtime tree feels the effects of this lock more strongly for a couple of reasons. One is that threads holding the lock can be preempted; that leads to longer lock hold times and more context switches. The other is that sleeping spinlocks are simply more complicated, especially in the contended slow path of the code. So the locking primitives themselves require more CPU time.
The solution to this particular problem can only be the elimination of the global dcache_lock. Nick Piggin has a patch set which does exactly that, but it has not yet been tested with the realtime tree.
Realtime makes life harder for the scheduler. On a normal system, the scheduler can optimize for overall system throughput. The constraints imposed by realtime, though, require the scheduler to respond much more aggressively to events. So context switches are higher and processes are much more likely to migrate between CPUs - better for bounded response times, but worse for throughput. By the time the system scales up to something relatively large - 128 CPUs, say - there does not seem to be any practical way to get consistently good decisions from the scheduler.
There is some interest in deadline-oriented schedulers. Adding an "earliest deadline first" or related scheduler could be useful for application developers, but nobody seems to feel that a deadline scheduler would scale better than the current code.
What all this means is that realtime applications running on that kind of system must be partitioned. When specific CPUs are set aside for specific processes, the scheduling problem gets simpler. Partitioning requires real work on the part of the administrator, but it seems unavoidable for larger systems.
It doesn't help that complete CPU isolation is still hard to accomplish on a Linux system. Certain sorts of operations, such as workqueue flushes, can spill into a processor which has been set aside for specific processes. In general, anything involving interrupts - both device interrupts and inter-processor interrupts - is
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take our women, children out of the town, we were persuaded not to do so.[49]
Azerbaijani filmmaker Ramiz Fataliev in his interview testified that the Azerbaijani authorities did not evacuate the civilians from Khojaly because they thought that by doing so they would invite the Armenians to occupy Khojaly.
On the 22nd of February, in the president's, prime-minister's, KGB minister's and others' presence, the meeting of the National Security Council was held… At the meeting a resolution was made not to evacuate the people from KHOJALY. It was considered that if we evacuated the population, we would invite Armenians to occupy the settlement. That is, we would ourselves incite Armenians to attack. Even the members of the Security Council didn't believe that Armenians could commit this sort of actions that resulted in genocide. They thought that if the population left the settlement we ourselves would give Khojaly up.[50]
Another important fact to note is that after the seizure of Khojaly the Armenians allowed the Azerbaijanis to claim their dead, based on which the Azerbaijanis later grounded their accusations of massacre.[51][52] As argued by Walker, the group committing a massacre would have hardly taken up any of these measures.[51]
Role of the 366th CIS regiment [ edit ]
According to international observers, soldiers and officers of 366th regiment took part in the attack on Khojaly.[53] Memorial called for investigation of the facts of participation of CIS soldiers in the military operations in the region and transfer of military equipment to the sides of the conflict. Soon after the massacre, in early March 1992, the regiment was withdrawn from Nagorno-Karabakh. Paratroopers evacuated the personnel of the regiment by helicopter, but over 100 soldiers and officers remained in Stepanakert and joined the Armenian forces, including the commander of the 2nd battalion major Seyran Ohanyan,[3] who currently serves as a Minister of Defense of Armenia. Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper reported that:
despite categorical orders of the command of the military district, some military personnel of the 366th regiment took part in military operations near Khojaly on Karabakhi side on the 20s of February. At least two such instances were recorded. And during evacuation of the military personnel of the regiment paratroopers selectively searched several servicemen and found large amounts of money on them, including foreign currency.[54]
Reports about warnings and a free corridor [ edit ]
The report of Memorial stated that the Armenian side claimed that a free corridor was provided for fleeing civilians. The Memorial report says:
According to the officials of the NKR and those taking part in the assault, the Khojaly population was informed about the existence of this 'corridor' through loudspeakers mounted on armoured personnel carriers. NKR officials also noted that, several days prior to the assault, leaflets had been dropped on Khojaly from helicopters, urging the Khojaly population to use the 'free corridor'. However, not a single copy of such a leaflet has been provided to Memorial's observers in support of this assertion. Likewise, no traces of such leaflets have been found by Memorial's observers in Khojaly. When interviewed, Khojaly refugees said that they had not heard about such leaflets. Several days prior to the assault, the representatives of the Armenian side had, on repeated occasions, informed the Khojaly authorities by radio about the upcoming assault and urged them to immediately evacuate the population from the town. The fact that this information had been received by the Azerbaijani side and transferred to Baku is confirmed by Baku newspapers (Bakinskiy Rabochiy)[55]
Armenian fighters claimed to HRW investigators that they sent ultimata to the Azerbaijani forces in Khojaly warning that unless missile attacks from that town on Stepanakert ceased, Armenian forces would attack. The report quotes the testimony of an Azerbaijani woman: "According to A.H., an Azerbaijani woman interviewed by Helsinki Watch in Baky, "After Armenians seized Malybeyli, they made an ultimatum to Khojaly... and that Khojaly people had better leave with white flag. Alif Gajiev [the head of the militia in Khojaly] told us this on 15 February, but this didn't frighten me or other people. We never believed they could occupy Khojaly""[56]
Elmar Mammadov, the Mayor of Khojaly testified that the Azerbaijani authorities knew about the attack but they took no measure to evacuate the civilians:
On 25 February 1992 at 8:30 pm we were told that the tanks of the enemy have been placed around the city in a fighting position. We informed everybody about this over the radio. Furthermore on 24 February I called Aghdam and told them, that a captured Armenian fighter has informed us on the impending attack... There was no response. I have also asked to send a helicopter for the transportation of the elderly, women and children. But no help came.[57]
The Memorial report quotes the words of Elmar Mamedov published in the newspaper Russkaya Misl (3.04.92): "We knew that this corridor was provided for the exit of the civilians..."
No witnesses interviewed by Helsinki Watch on the Azerbaijani side said that they knew beforehand of such a corridor.[26]
Victims [ edit ]
Khojaly refugees
Khojaly Massacre
The Khojaly massacre was described by Human Rights Watch as "the largest massacre to date in the conflict" over Nagorno-Karabakh.[2] Memorial, the Moscow-based human rights group, stated in their report that actions of Armenian militants were in gross violation of a number of basic international human rights conventions.[58] Estimating the number of the civilians killed in the massacre, Human Rights Watch stated that "there are no exact figures for the number of Azeri civilians killed because Karabakh Armenian forces gained control of the area after the massacre". A 1993 report by Human Rights Watch put the number of deaths at least 161,[1] although later reports state the number of deaths as at least 200. According to Human Rights Watch, "while it is widely accepted that 200 Azeris were murdered, as many as 500-1,000 may have died".[2]
Memorial stated that by 28 March 1992 over 700 captive civilians from Khojaly, mostly woman and children detained both in the city and on their way to Aghdam, were delivered to the Azerbaijani side.[58]
According to Dana Mazalova, who spoke about this issue on a press conference, the images that Chingiz Mustafayev had shown her, "have nothing in common with the videos and photographs, which the Azerbaijani side presents to the world". Mazalova claims to have seen the original footage shot by the Azerbaijani cameraman Chingiz Mustafiev of the dead bodies and says that she did not see there the signs of mutilation that were in later footage. That has the grisly implication that someone interfered with the corpses afterwards.[37][59][60] Mazalova also claimed that the free corridor existed and that Russian journalist Victoria Ivleva passed through it together with Meskhetian Turks and remained alive.[61] However Ivleva said that she did not know who Mazalova was and that Mazalova was lying when she said that Ivleva walked through this corridor.[62] In another interview Ivleva also stated that she entered the town from the opposite direction to the alleged location of the free corridor, where Meskhetian Turks lived, and they survived because they did not walk into the free corridor.[63]
Armenian news agencies claim that the Azerbaijani side regularly presents pictures of victims of other wars, such as the Kosovo War from 1998/1999, Afghanistan, earthquake victims or refugees from other regions as "Azerbaijani victims of the Khojaly massacre".[60][64][65][66] According to the Azerbaijani mass media, the Armenian side regularly presents images of victims of the Khojaly massacre as "Armenian victims of Baku Pogrom, Sumgait pogrom, Armenian Genocide", etc.[67][68][69]
Eynulla Fatullayev's case [ edit ]
The Azerbaijani journalist Eynulla Fatullayev traveled in 2005 to Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh and wrote an article called "Karabakh Diary". He claimed that he met some refugees from Khojaly, temporarily settled in Naftalan, who said that the Armenians had indeed left a free corridor and the Armenian soldiers positioned behind the corridor had not opened fire on them. Some soldiers from the battalions of the National Front of Azerbaijan instead, for some reason, had led part of the refugees in the direction of the village of Nakhichevanik, which during that period had been under the control of the Armenians' Askeran battalion. The other group of refugees were hit by artillery volleys while they were reaching the Agdam Region.[55][70]
In "Karabakh Diary" the following was written about the Khojaly corridor,
“ Having seen Khojaly, I could not hide my astonishment. This Azerbaijani town, which had been razed to the ground, has been completely reconstructed and converted into a town called Ivanovka, named after an Armenian general who had actively participated in the occupation of Khojaly. The Khojaly tragedy and the deep wounds inflicted on our soul by the Armenian expansionism on this long-suffering Azerbaijani land permeated all my meetings in Askeran [a town in Nagorno-Karabakh close to Khojaly]. How so? Can it be true that nothing human is left in these people? However, for the sake of fairness I will admit that several years ago I met some refugees from Khojaly, temporarily settled in Naftalan, who openly confessed to me that, on the eve of the large-scale offensive of the Russian and Armenian troops on Khojaly, the town had been encircled [by those troops]. And even several days prior to the attack, the Armenians had been continuously warning the population about the planned operation through loudspeakers and suggesting that the civilians abandon the town and escape from the encirclement through a humanitarian corridor along the Kar-Kar River. According to the Khojaly refugees' own words, they had used this corridor and, indeed, the Armenian soldiers positioned behind the corridor had not opened fire on them. Some soldiers from the battalions of the NFA [the National Front of Azerbaijan, a political party], for some reason, had led part of the [refugees] in the direction of the village of Nakhichevanik, which during that period had been under the control of the Armenians' Askeran battalion. The other group of refugees were hit by artillery volleys [while they were reaching] the Agdam Region....[71] ”
However, in his statement to the European Court of Human Rights Fatullayev noted that “The Karabakh Diary” was an article written in the style of a reportage, in which he had merely conveyed what he had seen himself and what he had heard from the people whom he had met during his visit, and which contained only very brief conclusions of his own on the basis of what he had seen and heard from others. Fatullayev argued that, in the article, he had merely conveyed the statements of Slavik Arushanyan, who had told Fatullayev his version of the events during the interview. Fatullayev stated that the article did not directly accuse any of the plaintiffs or any other specific Azerbaijani national of committing any crime. Likewise, it did not contain any slanderous or humiliating remarks in respect of any specific person and in respect of the people of Khojaly in general.[72][55]
Eynulla Fatullayev was sued for defamation and convicted in an Azerbaijani court to eight and a half years in prison and a penalty fee of $230,000. "Reporters without Borders" strongly condemned this decision, stating that the judgment was based on no evidence but is purely political.[73][74] The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Fatullayev must be released, because in their opinion "although "The Karabakh Diary" might have contained certain exaggerated or provocative assertions, the author did not cross the limits of journalistic freedom". The Court also noted that "The Karabakh Diary" did not constitute a piece of investigative journalism focusing specifically on the Khojaly events and considered that Fatullayev's statements about these events were made rather in passing, parallel to the main theme of the article.[55] Fatullayev was subsequently pardoned by the Azerbaijani president and released from jail.
However, after being released from prison in May 2011, Eynulla Fatullayev defended his 2005 comments which held Azerbaijani fighters and not Armenians responsible for the 1992 killings in Khojaly and added that the Azerbaijani government has long sought to use the Khojaly events to persecute its opponents, like the first president of Azerbaijan, Ayaz Mutalibov, who is still under criminal investigation for complicity in the Khojaly events. He also mentions Fahmin Hajiyev, the head of Azerbaijan's interior troops of the country who spent 11 years in prison because of the Khojaly events.[75] Hadjiyev was sentenced on charges of criminal negligence for surrendering the city of Khojaly to Armenian troops.[76]
Yet in February 2014 in a televised interview to ANS TV Fatullayev said that the Armenians perpetrated a genocide in Khojaly, and that he never questioned that, even in his "Karabakh Diary". He also mentioned that he personally joined a "Justice for Khojaly" rally in Strasbourg.[77]
Commemoration [ edit ]
Memorials [ edit ]
Khojaly Massacre was commemorated by a number of international organizations and US states, and memorials were created in various locations around the globe.
On February 2014 the ceremony of opening the monument to the victims of the Khojaly massacre was held in the city of Uşak of Turkey.[78][79][80]
In popular culture [ edit ]
The footage of Chingiz Mustafayev greatly increased the awareness of the campaign.[81] The footage of the event was also broadcast by American television channel CNN.[82]
On 11 May 2014, Arda Turan, of Atlético Madrid who is sponsored by Azerbaijan,[83] has commemorated the Khojaly Massacre.[84][85][86] Turan's ambassador activities are aimed to raise awareness about this issue and promoting world peace.[87][88] However, the sponsorship by Azerbaijan has been condemned by Reporters Without Borders[89] and Atlético Madrid admits its sponsorship deal with Azerbaijan has a political dimension, saying the intention is to "promote the image of Azerbaijan".[83]
From an Azerbaijani perspective [ edit ]
From an Armenian perspective [ edit ]
Coordinates:A rendering of the Portland Airport's future Concourse E expansion (to the right), paralleling the parking structure. Image: Portland of Portland
As a frequent Southwest Airlines traveler, I’ve had little reason to get to know the Portland Airport's Concourse E—primarily home to United Airlines and Air Canada Airlines. That also goes for Concourse E’s unique features; it’s home to a Laurelwood brewpub I’ve never patronized (and likely won’t, as HUB is scheduled to replace it in fall 2018), and also the airport’s only outpost of beloved local eatery the Country Cat, of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives fame.
But soon, Southwest regulars like me, who usually shuttle through Concourse C, will get to know the airport’s less-trafficked north side. By spring 2020, the airport will complete a six-gate expansion of the terminal, rerouting all Southwest passengers here. (The Dallas-based carrier represents about 18 percent of all PDX passenger traffic; Alaska Airlines, meanwhile, claims 40 percent.)
The five-year concourse expansion project—which will cost an estimated $215 million—is being managed by Skanska, a Swedish construction and development company and comes alongside a larger $1.3 billion project focused on the airport’s “terminal core.” (Additional improvement projects—including the creation a rental car-washing station, garage addition, and other renovations—will continue at the airport until at least 2025.) Locally, Skanska proved its aviation design chops with its 2009 construction of a new terminal for the Southwest Oregon Regional Airport. Portland architecture firm Hennebery Eddy, in partnership with Colorado-based Fentress, designed the soaring, angled expansion, which will extend the concourse an extra 830 feet—longer than two football fields placed end-to-end—to the east, parallel the parking structure.
But don’t worry, United and Air Canada passengers: since the project builds off the existing concourse, the end of the building will simply be sealed off during construction, allowing the original concourse to continue operating as normal.
The project is borne, in part, from a need to rejigger passenger flow through the airport. Says Port of Portland spokesperson Kama Simonds: "Right now, Alaska and Southwest are on the south, and that's putting a lot of strain on folks who are using the security checkpoint for [Concourses] A, B, and C."
The move essentially splits the airport’s two most popular carriers, Simonds says, which hopefully will ease that security bottleneck.
Once complete, Simonds says PDX customers can also expect a “more effective” baggage handling system, along with additional concessions, likely to be determined in 2019. The expansion also means that back in Concourse C, future Alaska Airlines passengers will only have to jockey JetBlue and American Airlines passengers for access to its popular amenities, from Hollywood Theatre’s mini-cinema to House Spirits’s tasting room and Henry’s Tavern. Cheers to that!It was 50 years ago that Ian Flemming’s James Bond character was adapted into film with the franchise’s arguably most popular and recognizable lead Sean Connery. Connery starred in 6 Bond films, including the first 5, and was succeeded by George Lazenby [1 film], Roger Moore [7 films], Timothy Dalton [2 films], Pierce Brosnan [4 films, and now Daniel Craig in his 3rd film. Whether or not Craig continues on as the infamous secret agent, despite some apparent intent to end with Skyfall [story], or if the interest of Idris Elba turns into something [story], one way or another, Bond will be living long past his 50’s.
In Skyfall, Bond decides to return to action after apparent death in order to track down and stop a threat to MI6 from M’s past.
The Daniel Craig era of James Bond was really, in my mind, the first time the franchise tried to be something else, something new. 2006’s Casino Royale was dark and gritty, a completely different atmosphere than any other installment before it, and it really worked. It is largely considered the best Bond film in ages, and I can’t disagree. The follow up, Quantam of Solace in 2008, tried to not only continue the stylings of Casino Royale but continue the story, as well, which I also don’t think has been done before, but this time the result was a muddled mess. Now, finally, the era continues after the company found itself bankrupt for a couple of years, and Skyfall doesn’t try to complete any sort of trilogy, but to be it’s own installment.
Adele’s ‘Skyfall’ takes us into a completely new Craig Bond film. This time around Craig brings a whole character to the screen. In the previous films Craig was a hard shell of a man, not accessible by his peers or employers [or the audience]. This time around there is considerable depth. This is the first time that I have seen age and physical ailments come so much into play in a Bond film. While still clearly being an incredibly in-shape man, Craig’s Bond is getting closer to retirement and has to battle through some in-the-field injuries.
Daniel Craig as the tired, graying James Bond.
The other lead role also brings something that the previous two films were missing: a real villain. Javier Bardem plays Silva, a former employee/agent for M, who has unprecedented technological capabilities along with many other skills. Bardem is probably best known for his also villainous role in No Country For Old Men for which he won an Oscar, and he brings an equally strange and disturbing character to Skyfall. Being somehow both flirty and frightening, Bardem brings a spooky range to this character, creating the most memorable Bond villain I have seen.
Judi Dench reprises her role as M, the leader of MI-6. She is classic M, for she has been doing it forever. Ralph Fiennes plays Gareth Mallory, a government employee who is brought in to find out what is happening with MI-6 and the troubles that M and Silva have brought. Filling out the MI-6 team are Ben Winshaw [who I am quickly becoming a fan of after this and Cloud Atlas] as the young, new-aged ‘Q’, Naomie Harris as fellow operative Eve, and Rory Kinner as Tanner.
This movie was able to achieve two great and completely different things: bringing classic Bond characteristics and material, and creating it’s own material. The opening sequence is a classic Bond/action-film chase scene with cars, motorcylces, and train running, yet has it’s own new touches thrown in. Not only are most all of the classic Bond moments included, but they all have their own little twist, usually comedic and always successful: the shaken, not stirred martini; the car; the girls; the gadgets; “Bond, James Bond”. All of these were really fun to see after having two films previously trying to do their own thing. There was even some Home Alone peppered in, along with plenty of explosions and gun shoot-outs to satisfy any and all action fans.
I love the way that director Sam Mendes made this movie with such big scale. The camera work and the scenery are all awesome and perfect for a Bond movie. I think this is the most visually appealing Bond movie ever, and it does so mostly without special effects, but rather spectacular locations and lighting. The story of the film also finds a personal level that really only accomplished in Casino Royale. While most other Bond films were pretty bland and straightforward, Skyfall has depth and importance in it’s story. The ending of the film is just perfect in it’s ambiguity, leaving space to take the franchise in several directions. As Bond says himself, “It’s the circle of life”.
My Rating
4/4 – Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, and Sam Mendes all combine to create Skyfall, both a classic installment in the Bond trilogy and an refreshing, top notch movie with quality visuals, story, and characters. The best Bond film I have seen.
AdvertisementsCloud seeding can be done by ground generators, plane, or rocket
[1] This image explaining cloud seeding shows the chemical either silver iodide or dry ice being dumped onto the cloud, which then becomes a rain shower. The process shown in the upper-right is what is happening in the cloud and the process of condensation to the introduced chemicals.
Cloud seeding is a type of weather modification that aims to change the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei, which alter the microphysical processes within the cloud. The usual intent is to increase precipitation (rain or snow), but hail and fog suppression are also widely practised in airports where harsh weather conditions are experienced.
Cloud seeding also occurs due to ice nucleators in nature, most of which are bacterial in origin.[2]
Methodology [ edit ]
The most common chemicals used for cloud seeding include silver iodide, potassium iodide and dry ice (solid carbon dioxide). Liquid propane, which expands into a gas, has also been used. This can produce ice crystals at higher temperatures than silver iodide. After promising research, the use of hygroscopic materials, such as table salt, is becoming more popular.[3]
When cloud seeding, increased snowfall takes place when temperatures within the clouds are between −4 and 19 °F (−20 and −7 °C).[4] Introduction of a substance such as silver iodide, which has a crystalline structure similar to that of ice,[5] will induce freezing nucleation.
In mid-altitude clouds, the usual seeding strategy has been based on the fact that the equilibrium vapor pressure is lower over ice than over water. The formation of ice particles in supercooled clouds allows those particles to grow at the expense of liquid droplets. If sufficient growth takes place, the particles become heavy enough to fall as precipitation from clouds that otherwise would produce no precipitation. This process is known as "static" seeding.[citation needed]
Seeding of warm-season or tropical cumulonimbus (convective) clouds seeks to exploit the latent heat released by freezing. This strategy of "dynamic" seeding assumes that the additional latent heat adds buoyancy, strengthens updrafts, ensures more low-level convergence, and ultimately causes rapid growth of properly selected clouds.[citation needed]
Cloud seeding chemicals may be dispersed by aircraft or by dispersion devices located on the ground (generators or canisters fired from anti-aircraft guns or rockets). For release by aircraft, silver iodide flares are ignited and dispersed as an aircraft flies through the inflow of a cloud. When released by devices on the ground, the fine particles are carried downwind and upward by air currents after release.[citation needed]
An electronic mechanism was tested in 2010, when infrared laser pulses were directed to the air above Berlin by researchers from the University of Geneva.[6] The experimenters posited that the pulses would encourage atmospheric sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide to form particles that would then act as seeds.[6]
Effectiveness [ edit ]
Whether cloud seeding is effective in producing a statistically significant increase in precipitation is still a matter of academic debate, with contrasting results depending on the study in question, and contrasting opinion among experts.[7]
A study conducted by the National Academy of Sciences failed to find statistically significant support for the effectiveness of cloud seeding. Based on the report's findings, Stanford University ecologist Rob Jackson said: "I think you can squeeze out a little more snow or rain in some places under some conditions, but that's quite different from a program claiming to reliably increase precipitation." Data similar to that of the NAS study was acquired in a separate study conducted by the Wyoming Weather Modification Pilot Project. However, whereas the NAS study concluded that "it is difficult to show clearly that cloud seeding has a very large effect," the WWMPP study concluded that "seeding could augment the snowpack by a maximum of 3% over an entire season."[8]
In 2003 the US National Research Council (NRC) released a report stating, "...science is unable to say with assurance which, if any, seeding techniques produce positive effects. In the 55 years following the first cloud-seeding demonstrations, substantial progress has been made in understanding the natural processes that account for our daily weather. Yet scientifically acceptable proof for significant seeding effects has not been achieved".[9]:13
A 2010 Tel Aviv University study claimed that the common practice of cloud seeding to improve rainfall, with materials such as silver iodide and frozen carbon dioxide, seems to have little if any impact on the amount of precipitation.[10] A 2011 study suggested that airplanes may produce ice particles by freezing cloud droplets that cool as they flow around the tips of propellers, over wings or over jet aircraft, and thereby unintentionally seed clouds. This could have potentially serious consequences for particular hail stone formation.[11]
However, Jeff Tilley, director of weather modification at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, claimed in 2016 that new technology and research has produced reliable results that make cloud seeding a dependable and affordable water supply practice for many regions.[12] Moreover, in 1998 the American Meteroligical Society held that "precipitation from supercooled orographic clouds (clouds that develop over mountains) has been seasonally increased by about 10%." [13]
Despite the mixed scientific results, cloud seeding was attempted during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing to coax rain showers out of clouds before they reached the Olympic city in order to prevent rain during the opening and closing ceremonies.[14] Whether this attempt was successful is a matter of dispute, with Roelof Bruintjes, who leads the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s weather-modification group, remarking that “we cannot make clouds or chase clouds away.” [15]
Impact on environment and health [ edit ]
With an NFPA 704 health hazard rating of 2, silver iodide can cause temporary incapacitation or possible residual injury to humans and other mammals with intense or chronic exposure. However, there have been several detailed ecological studies that showed negligible environmental and health impacts.[16][17][18] The toxicity of silver and silver compounds (from silver iodide) was shown to be of low order in some studies. These findings likely result from the minute amounts of silver generated by cloud seeding, which are about one percent of industry emissions into the atmosphere in many parts of the world, or individual exposure from tooth fillings.[19]
Accumulations in the soil, vegetation, and surface runoff have not been large enough to measure above natural background.[20] A 1995 environmental assessment in the Sierra Nevada of California[21] and a 2004 independent panel of experts in Australia confirmed these earlier findings.[22]
"In 1978, an estimated 2,740 tonnes of silver were released into the US environment. This led the US Health Services and EPA to conduct studies regarding the potential for environmental and human health hazards related to silver. These agencies and other state agencies applied the Clean Water Act of 1977 and 1987 to establish regulations on this type of pollution."[23]
Cloud seeding over Kosciuszko National Park—a biosphere reserve—is problematic in that several rapid changes of environmental legislation were made to enable the trial. Environmentalists are concerned about the uptake of elemental silver in a highly sensitive environment affecting the pygmy possum among other species as well as recent high level algal blooms in once pristine glacial lakes. Research 50 years ago and analysis by the former Snowy Mountains Authority led to the cessation of the cloud seeding program in the 1950s with non-definitive results. Formerly, cloud seeding was rejected in Australia on environmental grounds because of concerns about the protected species, the pygmy possum.[24] Since silver iodide and not elemental silver is the cloud seeding material, the claims of negative environmental impact are disputed by peer-reviewed research as summarized by the international Weather Modification Association.[25]
History [ edit ]
Louis Gathmann in 1891 suggested shooting liquid carbon dioxide into rain clouds to cause them to rain. During the 1930s the Bergeron-Findeisen process theorized that supercooled water droplets present while ice crystals are released into rain clouds would cause rain. While researching aircraft icing, General Electric (GE)'s Vincent Schaefer and Irving Langmuir confirmed the theory.[26] Schaefer discovered the principle of cloud seeding in July 1946 through a series of serendipitous events. Following ideas generated between him and Nobel laureate Langmuir while climbing Mt Washington in New Hampshire, Schaefer, Langmuir's research associate, created a way of experimenting with supercooled clouds using a deep freeze unit of potential agents to stimulate ice crystal growth, i.e., table salt, talcum powder, soils, dust, and various chemical agents with minor effect. Then one hot and humid July 14, 1946, he wanted to try a few experiments at GE's Schenectady Research Lab.
He was dismayed to find that the deep freezer was not cold enough to produce a "cloud" using breath air. He decided to move the process along by adding a chunk of dry ice just to lower the temperature of his experimental chamber. To his astonishment, as soon as he breathed into the deep freezer, he noted a bluish haze, followed by an eye-popping display of millions of microscopic ice crystals, reflecting the strong light rays from the lamp illuminating a cross-section of the chamber. He instantly realized that he had discovered a way to change super-cooled water into ice crystals. The experiment was easily replicated, and he explored the temperature gradient to establish the −40 °C limit for liquid water.[27]
Within the month, Schaefer's colleague, the atmospheric scientist Dr. Bernard Vonnegut was credited with discovering another method for "seeding" super-cooled cloud water. Vonnegut accomplished his discovery at the desk, looking up information in a basic chemistry text and then tinkering with silver and iodide chemicals to produce silver iodide. Together with Professor Henry Chessin, SUNY Albany, a crystallographer, he co-authored a publication in Science[28] and received a patent in 1975.[29] Both methods were adopted for use in cloud seeding during 1946 while working for GE in the state of New York.
Schaefer's method altered a cloud's heat budget; Vonnegut's altered formative crystal structure, an ingenious property related to a good match in lattice constant between the two types of crystal. (The crystallography of ice later played a role in Vonnegut's brother Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle). The first attempt to modify natural clouds in the field through "cloud seeding" began during a flight that began in upstate New York on 13 November 1946. Schaefer was able to cause snow to fall near Mount Greylock in western Massachusetts, after he dumped six pounds of dry ice into the target cloud from a plane after a 60-mile easterly chase from the Schenectady County Airport.[30]
Dry ice and silver iodide agents are effective in changing the physical chemistry of super-cooled clouds, thus useful in augmentation of winter snowfall over mountains and under certain conditions, in lightning and hail suppression. While not a new technique, hygroscopic seeding for enhancement of rainfall in warm clouds is enjoying a revival, based on some positive indications from research in South Africa, Mexico, and elsewhere. The hygroscopic material most commonly used is table salt. It is postulated that hygroscopic seeding causes the droplet size spectrum in clouds to become more maritime (bigger drops) and less continental, stimulating rainfall through coalescence. From March 1967 until July 1972, the US military's Operation Popeye cloud-seeded silver iodide to extend the monsoon season over North Vietnam, specifically the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The operation resulted in the targeted areas seeing an extension of the monsoon period an average of 30 to 45 days.[31] The 54th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron carried out the operation to "make mud, not war".[32]
One private organization that offered, during the 1970s, to conduct weather modification (cloud seeding from the ground using silver iodide flares) was Irving P. Krick and Associates of Palm Springs, California. They were contracted by Oklahoma State University in 1972 to conduct a seeding project to increase warm cloud rainfall in the Lake Carl Blackwell watershed. That lake was, at that time (1972–73), the primary water supply for Stillwater, Oklahoma and was dangerously low. The project did not operate for a long enough time to show statistically any change from natural variations.[citation needed]
An attempt by the United States military to modify hurricanes in the Atlantic basin using cloud seeding in the 1960s was called Project Stormfury. Only a few hurricanes were tested with cloud seeding because of the strict rules set by the scientists of the project. It was unclear whether the project was successful. Hurricanes appeared to change slightly in structure, but only temporarily. The fear that cloud seeding could potentially change the course or power of hurricanes and negatively affect people in the storm's path stopped the project.[citation needed]
Two federal agencies have supported various weather modification research projects, which began in the early-1960s: The United States Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation; Department of the Interior) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA; Department of Commerce). Reclamation sponsored several cloud seeding research projects under the umbrella of Project Skywater from 1964 to 1988, and NOAA conducted the Atmospheric Modification Program from 1979 to 1993. The sponsored projects were carried out in several states and two countries (Thailand and Morocco), studying both winter and summer cloud seeding. From 1962 to 1988 Reclamation developed cloud seeding applied research to augment water supplies in the western US. The research focused on winter orographic seeding to enhance snowfall in the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada, and precipitation in coast ranges of southern California. In California Reclamation partnered with the California Department of Water Resources (CDWR) to sponsor the Serra Cooperative Pilot Project (SCPP), based in Auburn CA, to conduct seeding experiments in the central Sierra. The University of Nevada and Desert Research Institute provided cloud physics, physical chemistry, and other field support. The High Plains Cooperative Pilot Project (HIPLEX), focused on convective cloud seeding to increase rainfall during the growing season in Montana, Kansas, and Texas from 1974 to 1979. In 1979, the World Meteorological Organization, and other member-states led by the Government of Spain conducted a Precipitation Enhancement Project (PEP) in Spain,[33] with inconclusive results due probably to location selection issues.[34] Reclamation sponsored research at several universities including Colorado State University, Universities of Wyoming, Washington, UCLA, Utah, Chicago, NYU, Montana, Colorado and research teams at Stanford, Meteorology Research Inc., and Penn State University, and South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, North Dakota, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma. Cooperative efforts with state water resources agencies in California, Colorado, Montana, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and Arizona assured that the applied research met state water management needs. The High Plains Cooperative Pilot Project also engaged in partnerships with NASA, Environment Canada, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). More recently, in cooperation with six western states, Reclamation sponsored a small cooperative research program called the Weather Damage Modification Program,[35] from 2002–2006.
In the United States, funding for research has declined in the last two decades. However, the Bureau of Reclamation sponsored a six-state research program from 2002–2006, called the "Weather Damage Modification Program".[36] A 2003 study by the United States National Academy of Sciences urges a national research program to clear up remaining questions about weather modification's efficacy and practice.[37]
In Australia, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) conducted major trials between 1947 and the early-1960s:
Only the trial conducted in the Snowy Mountains produced statistically significant rainfall increases
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do this again in this case, I will.”
Moore’s attorney Darold Killmer complained that Assistant City Attorney Thomas Bigler only turned over a flash drive containing documents just before Friday’s hearing and that Bigler asked Killmer’s firm to pay copying fees to make CDs and DVDs of more city documents.
“Where does this payment from the other side come in?” Kane asked Bigler. “I have been here 33 years and never heard of it.”
The judge told Bigler to reproduce the records and keep track of the city’s expenses in case the city prevails in the lawsuit. At that point, city officials can seek to recover costs from Moore and his attorneys.
Kane has repeatedly ordered the city to turn over the records and said Friday that he was “on edge” about the pace. Last month, Kane threatened to fine Denver $5,000 a day if it didn’t make progress in producing the documents in another excessive-force case involving one of the same police officers Moore has accused. That case was settled out of court for $225,000.
Copying the records and blacking out the names of rape victims, confidential informants and private information about police officers is a “huge undertaking,” Bigler told the judge.
There are six full-time employees and two part-timers working on preparing more than 300,000 pages of documents every day, he said.
“I do not envy you in your position to herd the cats over there (at the city) but I won’t tolerate it,” Kane said. “Maybe they can use this case to put their files in order so people can understand them.”
Kane said redacting the documents to hide names of victims and confidential informants was a waste of time because the court expects to seal them from public view.
The next court date is Nov. 10.The USA series' standout sequences wouldn't be the same without help from some unlikely musical places.
Over the course of “Mr. Robot’s” run, composer Mac Quayle has done a pretty effective job creating an eerie and ethereal (etheerieal?) backdrop to one man’s psychological self-sabotage. The ongoing trials of Elliot Alderson have been underscored by electronic-heavy instrumentals, highlighting the character in moments of triumph and moments of despair (more on that later).
As good as Quayle has been, the series has also benefited from a finely curated set of musical moments, with some of the most memorable “Mr. Robot” sequences bolstered by an impeccable soundtrack selected by music supervisors Amie Bond and Charlie Haggard. Some of these have been the numerous string of classical favorites used to set up Tyrell Wellick in various stages of upper-class crises. Others have drawn on electronic music icons that have influenced the show in more ways than one.
So as the show sets out for a new season, we’ve gathered together some of those show’s standout sequences, each of which were enhanced by some quality cuts.
LEN, “Steal My Sunshine” — A Fake Life
“Mr. Robot” is riddled with hypotheticals, from fantasy sequences about a life never lived to theoretical montages like this one. Filled with all the anti-consumerist apathy that’s the stated DNA of the show, this sequence enlists one of the poppiest tunes of this generation to go as superficial as “Mr. Robot” gets. For a show that wallows in the darkness of humanity for most of its runtime, these contrasts hit harder than they would on other series. (It’s just a shame they couldn’t somehow squeeze a mini-timejump for the line “L-A-T-E-R that week!”)
Maxence Cyrin, “Where is My Mind?” — Saving the World
In hindsight, using this song seems even more inevitable than it did in the moment. Tossing in a Pixies cover into a show dripping with “Fight Club” references seemed like a natural way to go, especially as the opening season was reaching its apex. Of course, when this episode aired, it came in the midst of the song also being used by “The Leftovers,” creating 2014’s equivalent of the Great John Denver Craze of 2017. A piano version was fitting: This scene effectively mourns the character that Elliot would never quite be able to be again.
Alabama Shakes, “Sound and Color” — That Knock
After the monumental way that Season 1 came to a close, leaving audiences with the small-scale tease of who was behind that ominous knock at the door was a solid parting touch. Even after the reveal of just who was doing the knocking (which came a bit longer into Season 2 than was most effective), this ending still stands out as one of the show’s better moments of expectation subterfuge. It also set the stage for a pretty great Season 2 promo that used Wings’ “Let ‘Em In” without needing much new footage.
Lupe Fiasco, “Daydreamin'” — Setting the Stage
Peter Kramer/USA Network
Leave it to “Mr. Robot” to pick a song that not only captures the emotional state of its central character, but also works as an easter egg for the season to come. Coming at the open of Season 2’s first episode, this trippy reworking of I Monster’s “Daydream” helped to set the stage for a season built on one giant misdirect. Skip the “Mr. Robot” credits at your own peril.
Phil Collins, “Take Me Home” — Setting Fire to the Cash
Once Season 1 ended and the show no longer had quite the same “Who is Mr. Robot?” hook to mine for mystery and drama, there was a lot of speculation as to where the show would head going forward. If you had your money on “burning piles of cash, set to the sultry strains of Phil Collins,” then you are actually Sam Esmail. Congratulations. You’ve got a pretty good career going.
Philip Glass, “Opening” – Yummy Cement
As the fractures in reality of Season 2 ripped open into a massive fault line, Elliot raking through vomit to find some non-digested Adderall pills was definitely a low point. As Elliot’s life almost literally dissolved around him, it seemed appropriate to have the operatic gravitas of Phillip Glass help drive home the point that this fella is in further over his head than even he thought. Hard to watch? Absolutely. Necessary to up the stakes for a darker, more inward-facing season of TV? You be the judge.
“Imagine a World Gone Insane” — Even the Font is Perfect
An out-of-nowhere wallop, even for a show that prides itself on catching audiences off guard, the ’90s TV opening of the sixth episode of Season 2 was a fascinating exercise in visual mimicry. But as spot-on as the grainy home video feel of that opening was, the “Full House” theme song riff elevated the whole experiment to an entirely different level. (It’s almost as good as a resurrected Gideon laughing at the headline of his own death.) For some extra details on how the impossibly earworm-y “Imagine a World Gone Insane” came together, this is a great quick interview.
The Suffers, “Gwan” — Hallway Heist
Michael Parmelee/USA Network
All the ALF shenanigans got the lion’s share of attention the week it aired. But what really put Episode 6 over the top and made it one of the best of the year was Angela’s one-take trek through FBI headquarters. The show needed a pulse-pounding, neo-soul hype track to make the audience forget what Angela most likely suspected herself: This was a horrendously ill-advised plan, but it made for a dramatic entrance.
“Mr. Robot” airs Wednesday nights at — p.m. on USA.
Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest film and TV news! Sign up for our email newsletters here.Halloween has come around once more and geeks worldwide are rousing themselves from their basements and consoles to enjoy the best Friday the 31st has to offer. It takes a lot to scare, excite or even impress a geek, however… geeky Halloween pumpkins and costumes don’t just have to be good, they’ve got to be BLOODY great!
(image via: StudentHacks, Cybernet News and Didomenico)
Geeks come in all shapes, sizes, sexes and sub-genres, but computer geeks are probably the most well known. The skull, er, skill-fully carved pumpkins above cater to the tastes of classic computer geeks with (clockwise from above left) Pi, Firefox, Linux and Windows. Note that the Windows pumpkin features a few security patches that haven’t stopped worms from appearing. At least we can be thankful they DO work against Trojans.
(image via: Walyou)
Mommas don’t let your Apples grow up to be pumpkins… unless you’re a Mac user. The quartet of Mac pumpkins above display various degrees of expertise, much like actual Mac users.
(image via: ForeverGeek and iPhone Matters)
Once the sun sets and trick-or-treaters begin to make their rounds, geeks may feel reluctant to leave their work- or play-station. Wearing a comp costume eases the pain of separation. Even so, you can take a geek out of the basement but you can’t take the geekiness out of the geek – as in the socks & sandals style of the Human Palm above left. The Human iPhone on the right at least has an excuse for wearing this literally over-the-top costume – he’s a kid.
(image via: Technabob, Kotaku and GayGamer)
From computers to computer games, and our number one gaming character, Mario! It helps potential pumpkin carvers that Mario is cartoonishly drawn to begin with. Even so, the Mario pumpkin carvers whose work is shown above definitely have their game on.
(image via: Geekadin, Loonygamers and Infendo)
Mario costumes are an annual favorite as well, though some get a little too deep into the game. That means you, Game Boy Boy!
(image via: Kotaku and MikeWebkist)
Space Invaders is another classic arcade game that, thanks to its clunky big-pixel design, lends itself to geeky pumpkin carvers intent on recapturing their mis-spent youth.
(image via: TechRepublic)
Speaking of arcade games, they make great Halloween costumes. The theme that is, not the actual arcade game itself… well, too late. Give the guy above props for building a working laptop into his Pacman costume so that other games such as Q-Bert can be played. Er, easy on the joystick please.
(image via: Innergeek, Make, World of Star Wars and Kreative Kassie)
Geeks also love sci-fi, maybe even more than games & gaming. Not just ANY sci-fi either – Star Wars is the focus of legions of ubergeeks. The selection of Star Wars pumpkins above is highlighted by Jabba the Hutt and one very mean Death Star.
(image via: EvilMadScientist)
Let’s not leave out Brit-geeks and their fave obsession, Doctor Who. The Dalek pumpkin above doesn’t look all that scary, but it does excel in geekiness as the constructor has outfitted it with a rotating turret top and drive wheels. Pop in an MP3 player and you’re set to “Exterminate!” the neighborhood kiddies.
(image via: EvilMadScientist)
The four shots above show the evolution of a store-bought pumpkin into a dastardly Dalek, while the video below shows the finished creation in action as it invades the builder’s kitchen floor.
EXTERMINATE! Daleks invade English kitchen, presumably in search of Spam…
(image via: Ufonies and Dan Coulter)
Star Trek also has its share of geek adoration – they don’t call ’em Trekkies for nothing – and the enterprising designers of the Dan Coulter”>Spock pumpkin above went to a lot of tribble (trouble, even) to get the fine details just right. It may not be logical, but that’s just how Halloween is.
(image via: Xanga, Jake and Kenna and How Stuff Works)
To close, we honor not a subject of geek interest but an interesting geek: Napoleon Dynamite! One would need some sweet pumpkin-carving skills indeed to create the designs shown above. Maybe they used nun-chucks.
(image via: Entertainment Earth, WORD and Extras For Moviess)
Trick-or-treaters too have taken to dressing up as Napoleon – Dynamite, not Bonaparte – but you really have to be a movie geek to get the Kip Accessory Kit and go out as Napoleon’s suddenly streetwise brother. The same company makes a Pedro accessory kit consisting of a wig, a mustache and a bolo tie. You provide the accent. Sweet!
(image via: Violet Eclipse)
And that wraps up Geek Halloween (Did you mean: greek halloween) for another year. Hmm, “greek halloween”… wonder what Google is hinting at?Xi Jinping: Chinese president and leader of Communist Party keeps centralised grip on power
Updated
Chinese president Xi Jinping's two years in office has been marked by a commitment to economic and political progress, while avoiding reforms which could threaten the Communist Party's grip on power.
The son of a communist revolutionary, Mr Xi's own ascendancy has been remarkable and crafted by what some analysts have described as a "flawless" leadership style.
Selected as Communist Party boss and military chief at the 18th congress in November 2012, Mr Xi was elected president in March the following year.
Forbes rates Mr Xi as the third most powerful person in the world, behind Russian president Vladimir Putin and US president Barack Obama.
Born in 1953 in Beijing, Mr Xi belongs to the ruling party's "princeling" generation. His father, former vice-premier Xi Zhongxun, fought alongside Mao Zedong in the Chinese civil war.
Mr Xi was sent to work in the north-western Chinese countryside at the age of 15 after his father was imprisoned during China's Cultural Revolution.
He went on to study chemical engineering at Tsinghua University, graduating in 1979.
Xi Jinping has stamped his leadership on the Chinese system with more firmness and authority than any political leader in a very long time. China analyst Dr Hugh White
A native of the poor, inland province of Shaanxi, Mr Xi was promoted to governor of south-eastern Fujian province in 1999 and became party boss in neighbouring Zhejiang province in 2003.
Mr Xi secured the top job in China's commercial capital, Shanghai, in 2007 when his predecessor was caught up in a huge corruption case. Later that year he was promoted to the party's standing committee.
His nickname 'Xi Dada', which translates as Uncle Xi or Daddy Xi, puts him in stark contrast to China's previous leaders including his bureaucratic predecessor Hu Jintao.
Married to famous singer Peng Liyuan, Mr Xi's public image is regularly boosted by state media which portrays him as a hardworking patriarch of the Chinese people.
Dr Hugh White, a professor at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University, said China's economic, political and strategic aspirations have "grown tenfold" under Mr Xi's leadership.
"Xi Jinping has stamped his leadership on the Chinese system with more firmness and authority than any political leader in a very long time, and so he's probably feeling pretty good about things politically," he said.
A vigorous campaign to stamp out corruption, particularly in government and military ranks, has granted Mr Xi public support and significantly consolidated his power.
"The problems among our party members and cadres of corruption, taking bribes, being out of touch with the people, must be addressed with great effort," Mr Xi said at the 2012 plenum.
Sweeping free market reforms have also been the hallmarks of Mr Xi's progressive yet relatively conservative leadership.
According to Forbes, Mr Xi has gained the title as chief of the world's largest economy, valued at $17.6 trillion.
"Mr Xi was quick to see the benefits of privatisation-friendly reforms and further signs of fresh thinking are everywhere," it said.
But Dr Paul Monk, a China expert and managing director of Austhink Consulting, said the Chinese president is ultimately "engaged in a systematic effort to recentralise power in China".
"Mr Xi's priorities, consistent with the broad priorities of Chinese leaders since Deng Xiaoping after Mao's death started putting China back on a sensible course, have been to ensure three things," he told the ABC.
"One is that the Communist Party remains firmly in the political saddle; it has resisted every suggestion and every request - both domestically and internationally - that it starts to liberalise and legitimise political dissent in opposition, that's clearly a very high priority.
"The second thing is to continue the growth of China economically because clearly, that is the foundation for everything else that might be wanted including military power.
"The third is a nationalist agenda including territorial claims. And not as Chinese propaganda would have us believe, because this is China's right in restitution for wrongs in days gone by, but rather because such nationalism is increasingly the party's means for legitimation."
'China wants to live in harmony with its neighbours'
While China's territorial claims in the East and South China Seas have long been a source of tension and hostility within the region, Mr Xi has sought to soften its aggressive nationalism.
At this week's APEC summit, Mr Xi underscored his commitment to improving foreign relations by agreeing with the leaders of the US, Japan, and the Philippines to resume political and security dialogue.
"China will continue to build friendship and partnership with its neighbours, implement the policy of harmony, security and common prosperity in its neighbourhood," Mr Xi said.
"China wants to live in harmony with all its neighbours."
According to respected China analyst Willy Lam, Mr Xi's leadership style has "by and large lived up to his own pronouncements".
"Given Mr Xi's increasing tendency to present himself as a paragon of flawless leadership, he and his entourage seem intent on erecting a personality cult that is geared toward boosting the already formidable authority of the general secretary, president and commander-in-chief," Mr Lam wrote in an article for the Jamestown Foundation.
"However, it is not clear whether Mr Xi's vintage leadership style will work in a modern, and rapidly-changing, China.
"He has yet to demonstrate his ability to learn from the fiascos created by overconfident leaders in the party's 93-year history."
Topics: world-politics, government-and-politics, china
First postedNothing quite stokes our fire like a good deal on a gadget or gizmo. Microsoft apparently knows that since they are starting a new promotion called “12 Days of Deals”. How good can any deal be before Christmas and after both Black Friday and Cyber Monday already take place? Apparently really good. On the first day you can get the Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet for $99. Did you do your double take on the price? Good. Details below on how you're going to want to be at your local Microsoft Store this Monday.
Starting this Monday (12/9), emails will be sent out daily about special online and in-store holiday offers. Microsoft is kicking things off by offering $200 off the Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet in-stores. That brings the price to $99 before tax. Insane right? That offer is the door buster offer and available to those with access to a physical Microsoft Store. Each Microsoft Store will have 20 of those units available at that price. The remaining 10 units per store will go for the price of $199. Which is still a great value on a very capable tablet.
Lawyer up and read the fine print at the source below. Otherwise you can see Monday morning at your local Microsoft Store ready to throw down a Benjamin on a new tablet. Daniel has one and is very fond of it. Its 8-inch IPS display (1280 x 800) is nice, but Intel Atom quad-core processor is what really sets this machine apart from devices like the Surface 2 or Lumia 2520. Check out our unboxing for full specs and a hands-on impression of the device.
Anyone picking this bad boy up now?
Source: Microsoft
Thanks for the tip Naveen!SASKATOON – The city is considering changes to some Saskatoon transit routes and is looking for input from riders.
The proposed changes will affect routes 1, 3, 4, 5, 11, 14, 21, 22, 23 and 25.
Officials say changes and enhancements will address routes currently experiencing reliability and capacity issues and streamline some of them to be more direct and help reduce trip times.
Other changes include increasing service frequency in areas where passenger numbers are high, adding new services and adjust routes to better reflect trip needs.
The new services will include a limited stop service from Fairhaven to downtown and the university and a feeder service from the Rosewood neighbourhood to routes 50 and 60.
There will be a chance for riders to offer input to the proposed changes at two open houses.
The first takes place Tuesday, March 11 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the cafeteria at Mount Royal Collegiate. The second takes place on Wednesday, March 12 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Alice Turner Library.
Another option for passengers to provide feedback is through a survey at Shaping Saskatoon. The deadline for completing the survey is March 30.
Feedback will then be used to prepare the final report for council for approval.The tomb of Knyaz (King) Alexander I Battenberg in downtown Sofia, a German prince who as a Bulgarian ruler supported and presided over the Unification in 1885. Photo by BGNES
Bulgaria is celebrating Friday, September 6, 2013, the 128th anniversary since the Unification of the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia.
After the medieval Bulgarian empire was conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1396 AD, Bulgaria was formally restored as a nation-state on March 3, 1878, after the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-78.
Under the San Stefano peace treaty between Russia and Ottoman Turkey, Bulgaria was set up as a state on a territory of 170 000 square kilometers encompassing the three historic-geographic regions traditionally inhabited by Bulgarians - Moesia, Thrace, and Macedonia.
Three months later, in July 1878, the Great Powers from the so called "European Concert" revised the San Stefano Treaty in the so called Berlin Congress, an outcome of their conflicting great power interests. As a result, the Principality of Bulgaria was set up in most of Moesia and the Sofia region on a territory of 63 000 square km.
About half of Thrace, or Southern Bulgaria was made an autonomous Ottoman Province called Eastern Roumelia, with a territory of 36 000 square km. The rest of the Bulgarian lands under the Berlin Treaty - including all of Macedonia and half of Thrace - were left in the Ottoman Empire.
Bulgaria's entire political and social life in 1878-1944 was marked by the desire to unify all Bulgarian-populated lands in one nation state - leading the country to participate in five wars in that period. The Unification of the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia at the time was hailed as a crucial and successful but only a partial step towards this goal.
On September 6, 1885, the Principality of Bulgaria unified with the autonomous Ottoman province of Eastern Roumelia, a few years after its liberation from Ottoman rule.
The historic proclamation was made after a march by a handful of Bulgarians from the small town of Saedinenie ("Unification") to the town of Plovdiv, removing one of the gravest injustices imposed in the wake of the Berlin Congress. The Unification was prepared by a network of secret revolutionary committees in Eastern Roumelia, and was backed by the then Bulgarian ruler, Knyaz (King) Alexander I Battenberg.
Great Britain had been the primary protagonist in downsizing Bulgaria during the Berlin Congress because it feared a large Bulgarian state with access to the Mediterranean would be under Russian influence. However, in 1885-1886, it backed informally but rather noticeably, Bulgaria's Unification, seeing that the Russian Empire at the time was against this move, which stirred diplomatic tension in the Balkans, and seized the chance to demolish Russian influence in Bulgaria.
As other Balkan countries objected to Bulgaria's Unification, Serbia attacked Bulgaria in November 1885. In a grand national effort to defend the Unification, the young Bulgarian Army, which had just been left by its senior Russian officers, repulsed the attack, and defeated the Serbs on their territory, thus making the Unification of Northern and Southern Bulgaria a fait accompli.
But it was not until 1886 when the Great Powers recognized the almost doubled state of Bulgaria with a Bulgarian-Ottoman treaty.
After the Unification of 1885, Bulgarian efforts were focused on making Macedonia and the rest of Thrace part of the country. Thus, Bulgaria backed the VMORO (Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization) and its staging of the failed Ilinden-Preobrazhenia Uprising in 1903, and subsequently took part in the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, World War I (1915-1918) and World War II (1941-1945).
The celebrations of Bulgaria's Unification Day are traditionally held the night of September 6 in Plovdiv, the city which once was the capital of the Ottoman province of Eastern Roumelia invented by the European Great Powers at the Berlin Congress in July 1878.
They will be attended by President Rosen Plevneliev and Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski.
A memorial marathon “Unification” is being held Friday morning. Plovdiv metropolitan Nikolay will lead the liturgy. Flowers and wreaths will be laid at monuments of Bulgarian national heroes.
The military roll call and fireworks start at 8:30 pm on the central Plovdiv square.
In the capital Sofia, the celebrations begin at 11:30 am at the tomb of Knyaz (King) Alexander I Battenberg, a German prince who as a Bulgarian ruler supported and presided over the Unification in 1885. The Mayor of Sofia Yordanka Fandakova will be in attendance.
Ceremonies will be held Friday morning in the northern city of Pleven and the southwestern city of Blagoevgrad.Wyoming’s House of Representatives approved legislation Monday by a 39-21 vote that paves the way for public school educators to teach students that the climate is changing as a result of human activity.
The bill, sponsored by Republican Rep. John Patton, repeals a measure that prevents the Wyoming State Board of Education from adopting a science curriculum that treats man-made climate change as scientific fact.
Wyoming lawmakers enacted the ban as a footnote to a state budget approved last March after then-Rep. Matt Teeters, a Republican, argued that teaching students that human activity — including the burning of fossil fuels — contributes to global warming would endanger the state’s coal-mining heavy economy.
The bill to end the 2014 ban now heads to the Wyoming Senate. If the Senate passes the measure, it will land on the desk of Republican Gov. Matt Mead, who approved the earlier ban on the climate science standards and questions the existence and causes of global warming.
There are currently large discrepancies in how climate change is taught in public schools, and Wyoming’s climate science fight has become a flash point in a national debate over how the subject should be covered in the classroom.
Even though an overwhelming majority of scientists say climate change is real and is caused by human activity such as the burning of fossil fuels, public opinion on global warming remains sharply divided.
The effort to undo the ban on climate science in Wyoming has attracted support from science education activists such as Climate Parents, an organization that supports teaching climate science in classrooms, and the National Center for Science Education. But the legislation has also drawn criticism from Truth in American Education, a network of activists with tea-party ties.
The bill drew support and criticism from Wyoming lawmakers during debate Monday and throughout last week. Backers of the legislation argued that students have a right to learn the most up-to-date science. “We don’t burn books in this country. We don’t try to tell people how to think,” Republican House Speaker Kermit Brown said Thursday. “Education is our friend. Ignorance is our enemy.”
Critics countered, saying that climate science casts a negative light on fossil-fuel production and that teaching it in classrooms could prove detrimental. “Do we want our children to believe that their fathers and mothers, particularly in my county, are polluting and destroying the Earth because of the energy industry that they have their jobs with?” Republican Rep. Scott Clem said on the House floor.
Patton, the sponsor of the legislation, defended his bill, saying that teaching climate science does not conflict with energy production in the state. “It’s not against the economy,” he said. “Working for knowledge … that is progressive, that is what we are in the state of Wyoming. This state is very, very proud of its educational system. It’s not broken.”
Controversy over adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards, a set of academic guidelines developed with input from 26 states and backing from organizations such as the American Meteorological Society and the National Science Teachers Association, has arisen in a number of states.
West Virginia voted to reject a version of the standards that had been edited to cast doubt on the existence of man-made climate change earlier this month.
Thirteen states and the District of Columbia have adopted the standards to date, but there has been fierce opposition in states such as Oklahoma and South Carolina, where legislators have taken steps to ban the academic guidelines.Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn
Today I’ll dissect a really sloppy article in The Telegraph:
To paraphrase Senator Everett Dirksen’s famous quote on the American military budget: a trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you are talking about real money. Central banks may not have that much in common with the Army, but they are starting to fall into the same habit of spraying vast quantities of money at a problem, despite a troubling lack of evidence that it has any real impact.
Last week, the European Central Bank president Mario Draghi extended his quantitative easing programme, and drove interest rates even deeper into negative territory. And yet, despite the billion of euros printed, inflation across the eurozone resolutely refuses to pick up.
Central banks don’t spend money in the fiscal sense; they create money and swap it for other assets.
So the ECB adopts a tight money policy in 2011 and the eurozone goes into recession. Draghi then switches to a slightly more expansionary policy in 2013 and the economy begins to recover. But because inflation is temporarily depressed by plunging imported oil prices, this somehow shows monetary policy is ineffective? I don’t get it.
Here in the UK, the Bank of England is meant to generate price rises of 2pc a year, but Chelsea FC are hitting the back of the net more frequently this season than the Bank hits its inflation target. Likewise in Japan and the US, central banks are consistently missing their official targets for inflation. What is going on?
So exactly how badly are the central banks missing their targets? By 10%? By 5%? By 1%? It does make a difference, no one expected perfection. After all, they were often 1% or 2% off during the Great Moderation.
Up until 2013 the BOJ was not trying to create inflation. Then they adopted a 2% inflation target. Here’s what happened:
Over the past two years Japan has moved from a trend rate of 1% annual deflation to 2% annual inflation, using the GDP deflator. (I wish they’d give us seasonalized data.) That seems like a huge success to me. What am I missing?
But what about unemployment? Oh yeah, that just fell to the lowest rate since the golden days of the early 1990s:
So they’ve hit their inflation target, and had huge success in lowering the unemployment rate. But isn’t that achieved by people exiting the labor force? Nope, just the opposite, Matt Yglesias recently pointed out that labor force participation in Japan is high and rising under Abenomics:
But what about the CPI? Yes, CPI inflation has been depressed recently by imported oil prices. That’s why the GDP deflator is a better indicator; it’s the price of domestically made goods matters for macroeconomic stability. (Obviously I’d prefer NGDP.)
So Japan’s hit almost exactly 2% inflation on Japanese produced goods and services, after decades of steady 1% deflation. Unemployment has fallen to a multi-decade low. Labor force participation is soaring. And yet we are to believe that Abenomics has failed solely because Japanese motorists are suffering from dramatically cheaper imported oil, and as a result Japanese real wages are rising strongly? This stuff is so silly I couldn’t make it up if I tried. Whenever I read someone suggest that Abenomics has failed I immediately write them off as non-serious.
I was wrong about Abenomics. I thought the monetary “arrow” would be a modest success, as they were on the right track but not doing enough. In fact, so far the monetary arrow has been an overwhelming success, beyond almost anyone’s wildest dreams. (The other two arrows are still in the quiver.) I’m still expecting closer to 1% inflation over the next few years, but even that would be a huge success compared to recent decades.
But how about the US? Haven’t we fallen short of 2%? Yes, but the Fed is about to raise interest rates next week precisely because they think inflation is only temporarily depressed by falling oil prices, and that we are on track to 2% inflation when that shock passes. (Yes, oil prices are still falling, but surely they can’t fall below zero.)
I suspect the Fed is too optimistic, but this has nothing to do with the impotence of monetary policy. Even economists who think QE is 100% ineffective concede the Fed could choose to not raise interest rates in December, and that this would lead to higher inflation. You might not like Fed policy, but the Fed believes inflation is right on track to being on target in a couple years. I thought the silly blather about monetary policy ineffectiveness would stop once the Fed raised rates, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
A new paper by the Bruegel Institute argues that central banks have lost their ability to control inflation. At the moment, that doesn’t matter very much, because prices are generally stable. But (and it’s a big “but”) if we can’t control inflation on the way down – and it appears we can’t – what makes us think we can control it on the way up? Once prices do finally tick up, it may turn out to be impossible to stop them. And that is worrying. By now it should be clear to everyone that the ability of central banks to control inflation has disappeared. Take the eurozone to start with. The ECB has an official target of prices rising by 2pc a year.
Clear to everyone? First one needs to present some evidence, and the author fails to do so. He also gets the ECB’s inflation target wrong; it’s not 2%, it’s “below but close to 2%”. Yes, the inflation rate is further below 2% than they’d like, but that partly due to the recent plunge in oil prices. And why would central banks be unable to prevent rising inflation? None of the theories that I know of that predict monetary policy impotence at the zero bound have any implication for preventing a rise in inflation.
Then again, it may be something more serious. In a recent paper for the Bruegel Institute, Gregory Claeys and Guntram Woolfe argue that central banks may have lost their ability to control inflation. They point out that globalisation and new technologies have already been shown to have had a powerful disinflationary impact right around the world: “The important question is whether these integration trends affect the transmission mechanisms of monetary policy and reduce the ability of central banks to fulfill their mandate.”
This isn’t just wrong, it’s doubly wrong. Positive supply shocks don’t prevent central banks from hitting their inflation target. Not in monetarist models. Not in New Keynesian models. Not in Austrian models. Not in any plausible fiat money model. Even worse, to the extent that positive supply shocks hold down inflation, they do so by boosting output growth. But growth has also been unusually low in recent years, not just in the US, but also globally. Fast rising productivity due to globalization is the least of the world’s problems.
PS. I have a post on Krugman/Cruz over at Econlog.
HT: Caroline Baum
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This entry was posted on December 08th, 2015 and is filed under Monetary Policy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.In a corporate-looking suite of the ExCeL centre, a softly spoken American tunes his guitar, clears his throat and breaks into song. The tune is a re-imagining of America's 1971 hit Horse With No Name, instead dealing with the dilemmas of exploring the universe: "I flew though the cosmos on a ship with no name..."
This is filk, a genre of science-fiction-inspired music named after a misspelling of folk, and one of the quirkier items on the agenda of the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention, which this year is being held in London.
The event brings together some of the biggest authors in sci-fi and fantasy, from Game of Thrones writer George RR Martin and Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveller's Wife, to 11-time Hugo award winner Connie Willis and British fantasy writer Joe Abercrombie. The organisers are predicting more than 8,000 visitors over the four days, making it one of the biggest WorldCons since the first convention in 1939.
Events range from author panels, to book readings, to talks exploring everything from How to Make a Dwarf Mammoth to Decontextualising Steampunk, via Gods in US Fantasy Television. On Sunday night, the convention will host the Hugos, the most prestigious awards in the world of fantasy and science fiction.
For those early risers, Friday began with a "stroll with the stars", an informal morning walk around the Docklands wasteland that surrounds the ExCeL with some of the most highly respected authors and figures at this year's convention.
Braving the gusty elements, a group of 50 wound their way through the roundabouts, Premier Inns and wire fences of the neighbouring City airport, and soon a discussion broke out about the unique world created at the convention every year.
"The thing with science fiction, it's a very different reader experience and I think this is
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: A Cry of Desperation
Modern Primitive Blocked Unblock Follow Following Dec 18, 2017
It should not come as surprise to the majority of our population that there is a fairly new phenomena that has arisen within the later half of the 20th century that pertains to the preservation of our environment. Just as light green environmental groups and lobbyists have gained traction within the mainstream, so have their more radical underground counterparts. Groups such as Greenpeace and PETA have attempted to solve our impending ecological and environmental crises time and time again through peaceful methods, but have had absolutely zero success in accomplishing this. However, unilateral organizations such as Earth First! and Deep Green Resistance have taken it into their own hands to halt the industrial complex that has been devastating the life systems on our planet for so long. Not only have these groups had a substantial amount of success in preserving the Earth and its life systems, but have gained sympathetic supporters from the general population in the process. These groups are in opposition to the mainstream environmentalist drivel that has been in circulation for so long, without accomplishing anything. The perspective taken by many of these groups and individuals is not that our system can be reformed to accommodate the other life on this planet. The problems we are facing in regards to the environment lie at the heart of the techno-industrial system as a whole. The problem of our crumbling ecological situation cannot be solved through legal means. Nothing short of the immediate destruction of the techno-industrial complex will be able to save our environment from it’s impending obliteration. We have demonized and cast out individuals such as Ted Kaczynski, who did nothing more than take this problem into his own hands. These people and organizations are here for the betterment of the planet. It makes no sense that we push the agenda that they are wrong, and must be locked up for their actions, when they are the ones who are right. They are the ones who have the courage to see the problem of our crumbling environment, and do something about it that will actually matter. The public should not look down upon these individuals and organizations as “Terrorists,” but should be able to see that these are the measures that must be taken in order for our environment to be truly saved.
One Example of an “Attack” carried out by the Earth Liberation Front
Earth Liberation Front Propaganda
Demonization and propaganda against these individuals and organizations will never truly bring them down, it will only make them stronger. Whenever one of these groups is pursued by the authorities, it only garners more attention to the cause. This is a widely observed phenomena. Not to say that this is a bad thing, but it is only aiding the cause of radical environmentalists when the government and the media attempts to demonize them. Let’s take a look at the Earth Liberation Front, which has operated internationally as a “Domestic Terrorist Organization” since the early 1990s. However, up until the early 2000s, not much was known about this group. For over two decades, this group has coordinated unilateral attacks on complexes which seek to enforce the human strangle hold upon the Earth. In the late 1990’s the group gained a significant amount of popularity within North America, with multiple arsons and bombings directed at ski resorts, power lines, and truck dealerships within the Pacific NorthWestern United States. These attacks were not directed at individuals, only the structures that allow these individuals to destroy the Earth. The goal of these attacks was to cause significant amounts of property damage, causing these destructive operations to halt their exploitative practices. Remember, nobody was killed or injured in these attacks. That was not the goal. Despite press releases from the ELF Press Office concerning the motives of these attacks, the group had become classified as a “Domestic Terror Organization.” The classification of the ELF as such only brought more attention to the cause. This is why many within the radical environmentalist community would now justify and defend the actions of the Earth Liberation Front, seeing as their motives were just and necessary in the fight towards a clean Earth. Legal actions have been taken to break down the ELF, but to no avail. Yes, the “Terrorists” such as Daniel McGowan, who were guilty of committing arsons and bombings in the state of Oregon in the late 1990s were later arrested and convicted. However, this exposure brought more people from the general public to look at these actions and justify them. Now, we can look at the Earth Liberation Front in 2017, it is larger than ever, with cells across the globe. It would have never grown to the size that it is today if the United States Government had not classified it as the most dangerous domestic terror threat in the country in 2001.
Ted Kaczynski shortly after being arrested in 1996
In another example, we can take a look at Ted Kaczynski, or “The Unabomber.” For 19 years, he led a bombing campaign across the United States that was targeted at individuals who were responsible for the destruction of the Earth, and the advancement of the technosphere. He had managed to elude the authorities for so long, with zero clues whatsoever in relation to his identity or location. The only way that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was able to catch him, was through the publishing of his 35,000 word manifesto: Industrial Society and its Future. On September 19th, 1995, the New York Times and the Washington Post published this manifesto in its entirety, in order to appeal to the Unabomber’s request, as stated in a letter mailed to both of these newspapers. This decision to publish his was very counterproductive on the part of the FBI. Not only did this decision lead to the American public becoming aware of the Unabomber’s motives, but may have sparked a new era of anti-technology and anti-industry movements. When this manifesto was released to the public, many people around the globe were able to access it through the internet, thus making the dispersal of this information very easy. In doing this, they created a whole new generation of future Unabomber’s, who are ready and willing to look past our technological facade, and rebel against it using whatever methods are possible. However, the publishing of this manifesto did lead to his arrest in 1996 in his cabin in rural Montana. His brother, David Kaczynski, was able to analyze and recognize the writing as his brother’s and subsequently reported this to the FBI. All in All, the decision of the FBI to allow the publishing of Industrial Society and its Future to the American Public was counterproductive. This manifesto has done nothing more than spawn a new generation of Ted Kaczynski’s, who are aware that technological society has done the exact opposite of liberation. It has only enslaved and weakened both us and the Earth. This feeding into the Neo-Luddite and Anti-Civilization ideologies is not necessarily a bad thing, however. Ignorance is not bliss, and it is only better for the general population to know the truth about the dangers of technological society, rather for them to be hidden within a techno-industrial masquerade of lies and deception.
If we are to define “terrorism”, we can see that it is clearly defined as “The unlawful use of violence and intimidation, in the pursuit of political aims.” Pondering this, we can explore whether or not these “Eco-Terrorists” are truly terrorists in the common sense of the word. In many of these circumstances, the attacks carried out were not directed at civilians, but at creations of the system itself. It doesn’t make much sense that one would be able to “Terrify” that which is not alive, but is a building or an industrial complex. Yes, these actions may be considered violent, and possibly using intimidation. However, in no way are these groups using “terror” to advance a political goal. On the other hand, who is the real terrorist in this instance? Is it the coercive complexes that uphold the techno-industrial system, which is used to rape the planet of all that is good, or is it those who are courageous enough to stand up to this environmental tyranny? It is the gambit of the techno-industrial system to demonize and destroy all who oppose it. Considering this, we can see that those who are labeled as “Eco-Terrorists” by the technocrats, will certainly be looked down upon by those who the technocrats influence, without thought that the true terrorist may be the technological system itself.
In addition to the fact that the government, as well as the media are only feeding into public sympathy for radical environmentalism, these complexes can do absolutely nothing to stop these operations from taking place. Hypothetically, we can say that the government passes a law that is supposed to debilitate “Eco-Terrorist” organizations. Let us say that a government passes a law which makes it harder for one to buy the materials required to build bombs or conduct arsons. In absolutely no way is this ever going to affect the ability or desire of the “terrorist” to continue doing these activities. Absolutely nobody who is already committing a punishable offense will see that these materials have been made harder to obtain, and thus means that they are unable to proceed as they were before. There are two options that will be followed in this instance. The first is that instead of obtaining materials on the free market, one would have to purchase materials from a black market instead. Yes, this is illegal. However, one would not care if it is illegal, seeing as they are already breaking the law by the mere existence of their “Eco-Terrorist” organization. The second option that will be pursued in this instance is the idea to improvise, adapt and overcome. If one already has their mind set upon an operation that will further the destruction of techno-industrialism as we know it, one will not halt their pursuit once it has been made harder to do it. The only logical way forward is for one to come up with alternatives that will allow one to accomplish the same thing, or something close to it. Hypothetically, let us say that it has been made harder for one obtain a material required to make a bomb. However, I had my mind set on the bombing of a local coal plant with a few of my comrades. We would not see this and think that there is no way that we can proceed. Of course it only makes sense that we either find a way around the obstacle, or find an alternative method. In this instance, it would make sense to find a replacement material that has the same use in the construction of explosives, or we could rescind our idea of a bombing, and resort to arson instead. There is no law that any government can pass that can possibly get between these groups and their goals. If these groups do truly believe in the complete and utter destruction of the techno-industrial system in order to liberate humanity and the Earth, then they will surely do whatever it takes to accomplish these goals. Under no circumstance will a revolution be halted due to illegality. History has shown us otherwise.
Seeing as there is nothing that can be done to prevent these attacks from taking place within the positive law spectrum, there is only one option that the public must take in regard to the rise of “Eco-Terrorism” in the 21st century. It is not unrealistic for me to say that we as a society will have to learn from the motives of these groups and individuals, and see how they are relevant in our society today. Fighting this movement is not an option. The radical environmentalist movement is based on an ideology of non-failure. Nothing can be done to stop the movement that is willing to do anything to bring about the destruction of techno-industrialism as we know it. The adaptation of our society at large to the rise of this movement will allow it to succeed. As our society becomes more and more conscious of the truth underlying this destructive game, we will slowly but surely begin to side with these groups that were once deemed “Eco-Terrorists.” The only way that we will be able to prevent the violent destruction of this system, is through the peaceful dismantlement of the system itself. However, seeing as our society is currently only willing to take legal measures to reform the system, these attacks are necessary to further the ideology that will not stop until the civilized structure that is currently being used to rape the Earth of its resources has been entirely obliterated. As our crumbling civilizational structure continues to destroy itself under the weight of humanity’s industry, public opinion will become more and more favourable towards the construction of a new, improved, and sustainable society.
To conclude, these unilateral attacks that have been taken, and will continue to take place against the techno-industrial system can not be stopped by any form of natural law. The only method that will allow the violence to cease, is the adaptation of the general public to the fact that this way of life will never be able to sustain itself, and must be destroyed in favor of something that is not as harmful to the planet which we rely on. This popularization of radical environmentalism is entirely the fault of the government, and of the media, which has brought these groups to the forefront of environmental discussion within the general population. As the government and the media attempt to expose and demonize these environmental groups and radical individuals. As the government attempts to hinder the actions of these groups through new laws, these groups only become more innovative at finding ways to break through natural law in favor of the goals that will aid the Earth, not just us, within our selfish, human-centric point of view. We must learn from these so called “Eco-Terrorists” if we are to build a better future for all life on this planet. As our failure of a civilization continues to destroy itself, the few members of society who are willing to do something about it, will continue to fight against the injustices that take place across our planet, no matter how much they are demonized and suppressed by the government. These acts of “Eco-Terror” are no more than cries of desperation as the Earth is crushed under the weight of humanity.Interviews with Monster Girls
Attention, fans of cute comedy and monster girls! Our third new print license of the day is the adorable Interviews with Monster Girls, by Petos.
Monsters of legend walk among us, going by the name “demi-humans.” Ever since he’s discovered the “demis,” one young man has become obsessed with them. So when he gets a job as a teacher at a high school for demi-girls, it’s a dream come true! But these demis, who include a rambunctious vampire, a bashful headless girl, and a succubus, have all the problems normal teenagers have, on top of their supernatural conditions. How to handle a classroom full of them?!
Vol. 1 of Interviews with Monster Girls is coming this Fall. (English title tentative.)
Stay tuned to kodanshacomics.com for another new print license one hour from now!Photo by Stefan Kistler
To oil and gas companies, the Amazon rainforest is one huge cash cow just begging to be milked. But anyone who'd rather not rid the world of 30 percent of its animal species would probably argue it's a region that shouldn't be destroyed by rich people.
However, if Deepwater Horizon and a slew of other warnings from history are anything to go by, devastating environmental damage isn't much of a concern to big oil. This year, Ecuador is set to have its 11th oil round—the 11th time the government has tried to sell off its share of the Amazon to foreign investors—and the most probable buyer is China. If the auction completes, all the nasty contamination that comes with dropping gas-guzzling machinery into the middle of a rainforest will likely threaten the lives of the area's indigenous people and the natural habitat of thousands of species of living things.
Bidders have until July 16 to place bids on 16 oil concessions, which translates to over 3 million hectares of rainforest potentially being pillaged by oil and gas investors. In the tenth oil round in 2011—when only six blocks were up for auction—sales were halted by indigenous activism. Unfortunately, Ecuador’s political situation has been hugely convoluted due to China’s investment in the region over the last few years, so it's unlikely that protesting tribes will be able to make much difference any more.
Photo by Stefan Kistler
Ecuador is one of the four main countries in South America that China has its sights set on. China has been spooning out loans primarily to Ecuador, Argentina, Venezuela, and Brazil, with repayments guaranteed by "long-term commodity sales"—which essentially means, "destroying the rainforest, dredging it of its natural resources, making the money back, and leaving everything to fester and die."
Ecuador is now in debt to China for around $8.8 billion. And yes, the Ecuadorian government maintains that this won't affect the future of oil sales in the region, but either they're lying or they're somehow planning on selling nine times more bananas annually than they do now.
Despite the fact that China's involvement in these new oil investments would directly violate their new guidelines for "environmental protection in foreign investment," they're still allowed a bid. So unless China suddenly puts on a philanthropic face—which, let's be honest, is kind of unlikely—Ecuador is set to become China's pawn until the debt is cleared.
Although Texaco is now owned by Chevron, the company spent 28 years—from 1964 to 1992—devastating the northern Ecuadorian Amazon, and expansion into the remainder of the rainforest is likely to be just as destructive. According to Lou Dematteis, a photojournalist who's spent plenty of time in Ecuador, the water in the area has been irrevocably contaminated by nearly three decades of oil and gas extraction.
“They can't drink the water—they'll get sick if they do," Lou told me. "They can't even bathe in it because it will give them cancer. They need to get water brought in from another source. The people in the southern part of the Ecuadorian Amazon facing this new round are desperately trying to avoid the same fate as those in the north.”
An oil pump in Peru. Image via
Unfortunately, it's likely that this new oil round, if completed, will put the south in exactly the same position as the north, or even Peru, its neighbor to the south. Just last month, the Peruvian government announced an environmental state of emergency after finding high levels of lead, barium, chromium, and petroleum-related compounds in the water and soil.
Rebecca Spooner from Survival International told me how the Peruvian people have been complaining for years about the low amount of fish in their rivers. Stefan Kistler from Arkana Alliance, an NGO based in the Amazon, described how one tribe in Peru is now living on an “oil dump” because their lagoon “completely disappeared after 40 years of oil contamination.” Others in Peru, he noted, no longer have the right to access the land because it's so contaminated. These problems could very easily reappear in Ecuador because, as Rebecca suggests, these oil companies have “the power to cover up these things, making it quite difficult to figure out what's actually happening.”
The ministry promises that the eleventh oil round in Ecuador will follow “strict sustainability guidelines” to ensure the protection of the forest. But if you pay any attention to the past, it's far from certain if those words will act as any kind of guarantee. Pluspetrol were responsible for 78 oil spills in the Peruvian Amazon from 2006 to 2010, particularly in the Pastaza region. A rise in birth defects and miscarriages has followed.
Narcisa Mashienta (left) and Jaime Vargas, president of the Achuar tribe of Ecuador.
The 169 International Law is the only international law in place to protect indigenous people’s rights, dictating that tribes must be consulted before anything happens on their land. However, Rebecca says that in Peru, where she is currently based, it's highly debatable whether the government has been consulting tribes at all. Narcisa Mashienta, a women’s leader of the Shuar tribe in Ecuador, revealed that what the “government's been saying, as they have been offering up our territory, is not true; they have not consulted us and we're here to tell the big investors that they don't have our permission to exploit our land."
According to Adam Zuckerman from Amazon Watch, the Ecuadorian government is in a "desperate place right now. It must give up a lot of its sovereignty to finance its development.” This is, of course, unfortunate, because it means that the importance of protecting the land is pushed ever further down the list of governmental priorities in favor of promising investment deals.
That's not to say the government doesn’t give a shit about the Amazon. Lou told me that the government has previously “come out and supported the case, but they just don’t have the money to do much about it.”
The fate of the Amazon is now in shaky hands. Balancing the survival of the pristine rainforest and paying back debts is a major challenge for Ecuador. And, according to Carlos Monge, Regional Coordinator at the Latin America Revenue Watch Institute, it is a huge mistake to continue viewing the Amazon Basin as “a space whose role in the national and world economy should be to provide energy.”
However, avoiding that mistake would require the entire world to wake up from the delusion that the Earth is an endless tap of natural resources. Which, unfortunately, isn't likely to happen any time soon.
Follow Sascha on Twitter: @SaschaKouvelis
More stuff about the environment:
No Justice No Trees
A Gang of Greek Activists Torched the Skouries Gold Mine
Toxic: NapoliGetty Images
A year ago, the NFL seemed to be poised to expand the playoffs from 12 to 14 teams, effective in 2015. And then someone apparently realized that it didn’t make much sense to expand the playoffs before the year in which the playoffs would be expanded.
So it’s now 2015, and there’s no proposal for expanding the playoffs as the league meetings commence — along with plenty of talk that there won’t be expansion of the playoffs this year. So Peter King of TheMMQB.com asked Commissioner Roger Goodell why the subject had cooled.
“I don’t think it’s cooled at all,” Goodell said. “There are a lot of factors that go into it. One, we want to be right when we do it.... It’s something that we think has got a lot of merit from a competitive side, because it would actually add more teams to the race as you get toward the end of the season. There’s the broadcasting side of it. When would you play that extra game?”
Scheduling of that one extra game per conference, where the No. 2 seed would face the No. 7 seed, also becomes a challenge, as Steelers owner Art Rooney II recently noted. Bumping a game to Monday night of wild-card weekend gives the winner limited rest for the divisional round — and it creates a potential conflict with the NCAA title game.
“We’re respectful of college football,” Goodell said of the NFL’s free farm system.
Goodell mentioned another complication that we (or at least I) hadn’t previously considered. The No. 2 seed could, in theory, end up playing home games for five straight weekends. If, for example, the team that emerges as the second best team in the conference finishes with back-to-back regular-season home games, hosts the No. 7 seed and wins in the wild-card round, hosts the divisional round and wins, and then if the No. 1 seed loses in the divisional round (which happens nearly half the time), the No. 2 seed would be looking at five home games in five weekends.
“If you have a northern climate, that’s a lot to ask of your fans,” Goodell said. “So we have a lot to balance.”
Still, dollars will drive this bus (as they always do), and there are plenty of dollars to be made by staging two extra wild-card games. The prevailing belief is that even more dollars will be made by tying the extra playoff games to the Thursday night package.
Once that happens, the other details will easily fall into place, with the college title game sliding to Tuesday night if need be and with teams that play outdoors in northern climates not finishing the regular season with consecutive home games.NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Hundreds of thousands of postal workers could soon lose their jobs, or face drastic changes to their benefits.
According to documents obtained by CNNMoney, the United States Postal Service is appealing to Congress to remove collective bargaining restrictions in order to lay off 120,000 workers. It also wants congressional approval to replace existing government health care and retirement plans.
The post office claims it needs to eliminate 220,000 positions, or more than 30% of its staff by 2015, but only 100,000 of those positions can be made through attrition. The other 120,000 must come from lay offs, according to the documents.
"To restore the Postal Service to financial viability, it is imperative that we have the ability to reduce our workforce rapidly," the USPS wrote.
The USPS is also asking Congress to change legislation that requires postal workers to get federal health care and retirement benefits. Instead, the Postal Service would replace them with its own benefit plans.
Currently, postal employees participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits program, the Civil Service Retirement System and the Federal Employees Retirement System. If given congressional approval, the Post Office would replace those with new plans that would save money, while offering comparable benefits to employees, according to the documents.
In the documents, the USPS lays out the harsh reality of the situation: mounting losses, declining mail volume due both to the recession and the shift toward digital alternatives, and the need for drastic measures to cut costs.
"The Postal Service is facing dire economic challenges that threaten its very existence and, therefore, threaten the livelihoods of our employees and the businesses and employees in the broader postal industry and overall economy" a document on workforce reduction said.
It's no secret the USPS has been struggling, but it's a move that's likely to put Postal Service unions up in arms. USPS mail volume declined 20% in the four year period through fiscal year 2010 resulting in net losses of over $20 billion.
In fiscal year 2010, the Postal Service suffered a $8.5 billion net loss, compared $3.8 billion the prior year. Last quarter, the U.S. Postal Service posted a loss of $2.2 billion. Its fiscal year ends in September.
In July, the Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe released a long-awaited "post office study" of nearly 3,700 potential closings in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
In its appeal to Congress, the USPS warns of an increasingly difficult situation -- one that has the long standing organization "facing the equivalent of Chapter 11 bankruptcy." In the document, the Postal Service warns it will be insolvent next month.
"As we continue to review our volume, revenue and financial projections for fiscal years 2012 through 2015, it has become apparent that our financial situation is becoming even more precarious."Canadian Internet watchers may recall a controversy in late 2007 when Rogers began experimenting with adding its own content to webpages that its subscribers visit. The company used the technology to alert customers about their data usage. Google was one of the targets of the experiments and the company reacted angrily:
We are concerned about these reports. As a general principle, we believe that maintaining the Internet as a neutral platform means that carriers shouldn't be able to interfere with Web content without users' permission. We are in the process of contacting the relevant parties to bring this to a quick resolution.
According to one of my blog readers, the Rogers content substitution approach is back. The image below shows Rogers warning a customer about the expiry of some parental controls. The warning is included in a Flickr page. This approach again raises concerns about Rogers interfering with the delivery of content without permission of the end user. When combined with its ongoing policy of redirecting web pages that do not resolve to a company-sponsored paid search page, Rogers own content seems to show up unasked on a regular basis.TED'S HISTORY A family tradition for over 60 years!
Ted’s Fish Fry is a family owned and operated business that has been a Capital Region tradition for over 60 years! Started by Ted Deeb, and now run by his son SK Deeb, Ted’s is an American Dream success story.
Back in the 1930’s, Ted Deeb, the son of Lebanese immigrants was a young boy, living in Troy, NY. At just 10 years old, Ted was diagnosed with a serious heart ailment, and was therefore taken out of school. In an interview back in 1978, Ted stated, “I knew that I didn’t have enough formal education to get me too far, so I decided I would have to start a business of my own. What I lacked in formal education I had to make up for in practical knowledge”. Recalling his first business experience, Ted stated, “I was 12 years old and my father ran a dry goods store. I needed some money so I asked him if I could sell some notions door to door. I took a little black suitcase filled with knickknacks and was on my way”.
Ted continued selling different products from door to door until he was 20 years old. At this time, he took a $300 loan from his sister, and bought an open-air fruit market. Ted described this business venture as his “biggest gamble”. That gamble turned out to be a success. After running the fruit stand for a couple of years, Ted purchased a building and converted it into a snack bar called “Pots and Lots”. From there, Ted moved to 447 3rd Ave, in Watervliet and opened the first Ted’s Fish Fry. Ted stated, “It just came to me. I wanted to make money. The idea for a fish fry stand came along and I capitalized on it. That’s how I got my start”.
Fast forward to today, and that Watervliet Ted’s Fish Fry is still running, along with 5 other locations in North Troy, Sycaway, Latham, Colonie, & Albany. Ted passed away on July 21, 1985, and is survived by his wife Ellen Deeb, son, SK Deeb, daughter, Donna Deeb and four grandchildren. Family and tradition are two things that go hand and hand at Ted’s Fish Fry. SK is now the president of the company, and runs all 5 Ted’s Fish Frys with the help of his son, Bill Deeb, cousin, Joe Deeb, and his wonderful managers & employees.
We continue the traditions that Ted started back in the 1940’s, which include the way that we call in each order to the cooks, and the delicious recipes that Ted mastered. Back in 1968, Ted was driving south, down to Florida and stopped to eat at a small snack bar for fried chicken. Ted was so impressed with the flavor of the chicken that he asked to speak with the cook. Ted stated, “I took the recipe home with me and after considerable experimentation; I used the chicken fry batter for my onion rings. It proved to be ‘scrumptious’ and now they are just as popular as my fish frys”. Our homemade meat sauce came from an old greek recipe, and helped put us on the market for hotdogs as well as fish frys. Today, we recently started selling mini hotdogs, loaded with the same home made meat sauce, derived from that Greek recipe.
Ted’s Fish Fry has grown so much in the past 60 years, and we continue to grow as a business and family. Our menu at Ted’s Fish Fry is also growing. We have incorporated new items such as mini hotdogs, bacon burgers, fresh salads, homemade soups, fish tacos, and much more! Whether you’re looking to pick up a quick lunch, or you want to spend the evening in our dining room with your family, Ted’s Fish Fry is sure to satisfy your needs! Remember, we are not Fast Food, we are Fresh Food, FAST!I hate throwing away leftover ingredients, therefore sometimes, like today, a baking day starts with scouting the fridge and my magic cupboard (aka the place where I keep all the ingredients that aren’t at risk of going stall if not kept at a certain temperature) and coming up with a recipe to use all those ingredients. And today is was the turn of cream cheese – I bought a bucket of silky cream cheese a few days ago and after making a Romanian cheese pie, I was left with about 1 pound of cream cheese that was going to sit in the fridge for days if I wasn’t going to use it. But boy, I’m happy things happened this way because I got to make and taste these cheesecake bars which might be one of the best cream cheese desserts I ever made and tasted!
These raspberry cheesecake bars are incredibly easy to make, you don’t need to be a professional to master a perfectly juicy, fragrant, soft cheesecake bar and there’s nothing you can’t pair them with. I used raspberries this time, but chocolate chips or other fruits are just as good.
{Raspberry Cheesecake Bars} Print Author: Olguta - Pastry Workshop Ingredients: Crust: 200g biscuits (I used some simple vanilla biscuits, but feel free to use your favorites)
100g butter, melted Filling: 550g cream cheese
2 eggs
100g sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup fresh raspberries Topping: 70g butter, softened
40g powdered sugar
1 egg
160g white flour
1 pinch salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon lemon zest Directions: Crust: Crush the biscuits in a food processor until they form a fine powder. Add the butter and mix well. Transfer the mix in a baking tray (20x20cm or a similar size) lined with baking paper and press it well on the bottom of the pan. Place aside. Filling: Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and give it a good mix. Spoon the batter over the crust and top with fresh raspberries. Place aside until the topping is done. Topping: Mix the butter with powdered sugar until creamy and pale. Add the egg and mix well then fold in the remaining ingredients. Break small pieces of dough over the filling. The dough is quite soft, but that's how it's supposed to be, don't be tempted to add more flour. Bake in the pre-heated oven at 350F for 30-35 minutes until golden brown and fragrant. Allow to cool in the pan then cut into small squares or bars. Wordpress Recipe Plugin by EasyRecipe 3.3.3077
Zilele in care fac ceva dulce incep adesea cu a cauta in frigider dupa ingrediente care mi-au ramas de la alte deserturi pentru ca mereu se gaseste cate un ingredient din care mai am cate putin. In plus, am mereu unt, oua si faina in casa si o vizita la “dulapul magic” in care se afla vanilia, scortisoara si alte mirodenii intregesc tabloul unui desert cat se poate de reusit, desi facut din resturi mai mult sau mai putin. Si de data aceasta mai aveam crema de branza, aproximativ 1/2 kg pe care imi doream sa o folosesc inainte de a nu mai fi buna de nimic. Sigur vi s-a intamplat sa va ramana vreun ingredient si sa uitati de el in frigider cateva zile apoi sa va dati seama ca trebuie sa-l aruncati. E o risipa ce poate fi evitata cu putina imaginatie. Cumparasem branza cu gandul sa fac cheesecake, dar intr-un final am facut o placinta si am ramas cu un rest pe care l-am folosit pentru a face aceasta prajitura cu topping crocant si umplutura cremoasa de branza. Zmeura aduce un plus de gust, dar la fel de bine puteti folosi picaturi de ciocolata sau alte fructe. Reteta e cat se poate de simpla, dar ce iese e atat de gustos incat indraznesc sa spun ca e una dintre cele mai bune prajituri cu branza facute de mine vreodata!
Ingrediente:
Crusta:
200g biscuiti obisnuiti (sau biscuiti cu vanilie)
100g unt, topit
Umplutura:
550g crema de branza
2 oua
100g zahar
1 lingurita extract de vanilie
1/2 cana zmeura proaspata
Topping:
70g unt moale
40g zahar pudra
1 ou
1 lingurita coaja de lamaie
160g faina alba
1 praf de sare
1/2 lingurita praf de copt
Mod de preparare:
Crusta:
Puneti biscuitii in robotul de bucatarie si pulsati pana obtineti o pudra fina. Adaugati untul topit si mixati bine apoi transferati amestecul intr-o tava tapetate cu hartie de copt. Tava necesara e destul de mica, aproximativ 20x20cm sau una similara. Presati bine biscuitii in tava si dati deoparte.
Umplutura:
Amestecati bine ingredientele intr-un bol apoi turnati umplutura peste crusta. Imprastiati zmeura deasupra si dati deoparte.
Topping:
Mixati untul cu zaharul pudra pana devin cremoase apoi adaugati oul si mixati bine. Adaugati restul ingredientelor si amestecati bine cu o spatula. Veti obtine un aluat destul de moale si lipicios, dar nu fiti tentati sa-l suprasaturati cu faina. Rupeti bucati din aluat si puneti-le peste umplutura. Dati la cuptorul pre-incalzit la 180C pentru 30-35 minute pana toppingul devine auriu. Lasati sa se raceasca in tava inainte de a taia in patrate ori dreptunghiuri ori alte forme dorite.Seungyeon, Hara, Jiyoung and Nicole, the 4 out of 5 members of KARA, previously released a statement regarding their decision to leave their management company, DSP Media. Since then, DSP has released an official statement about the issue in which they argued against some of the four members' points. Now that Goo Hara changed her mind to return to DSP, the remaining three members decided to press on with their
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attractive girl who must be a hacker because she has a strand of red dyed into her messily pony tailed hair.
Having concluded that some drug mules are in on this baby kidnapping plot, our team ventures out into meatspace to track these scoundrels and their Camaro down. Just as they find them, and are about to bring down sweet justice on their heads, something very non-cyber happens.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACPXpc5QYn0
brian [10:29 PM]
There’s a SNIPER!!
mmimoso [10:29 PM]
Sniper on a dirt bike
brian [10:30 PM]
wow.
dfish [10:30 PM]
Damn, Dawson can shoot
brian [10:30 PM]
he just shot a sniper off his dirt bike from an impressive distance with a hand gun
chrisbrook [10:30 PM]
A reminder how great some of the future episode titles are.
1. Kidnapping 2.0.
2. CMD:/Crash
3. Click Your Poison
4. L0m1s
5. URL, Interrupted
6. Fire Code
7. Killer en Route
8. Selfie 2.0
9. Crowd Sourced
10. The Evil Twin
11. Ghost in the Machine
12. Family Secrets
brian [10:30 PM]
The deceased’s finger prints were burnt off.
brian [10:31 PM]
And he had an SD memory card in his pocket
chrisbrook [10:31 PM]
Spoiler the second episode is about how Ryan and her team are called in when the hacking of a roller-coaster leads to a mass casualty incident.
dfish [10:32 PM]
The cyber count is stuck at 6 and we’re halfway through this morass
brian [10:32 PM]
words can’t explain how terrible it was when the characters were all of the sudden being filmed in a weird cyberspace
dfish [10:33 PM]
If you watched this with the sound off, it would appear to be an episode of the CSI knockoff that was in Forgetting Sarah Marshall
brian [10:34 PM]
Full disclosure: when the episode first started, I thought the guy sleeping in his glasses was Matthew Perry (Chandler Bing from Friends)
chrisbrook [10:34 PM]
That would’ve been a good cameo.
brian [10:35 PM]
Serious lack of cameos
brian [10:36 PM]
Have they actually gathered any intelligence from the Internet as the show’s title would suggest?
dfish [10:36 PM]
I expected a weird drive-by cameo from Mitnick as a barista or something
chrisbrook [10:36 PM]
They used a geotag does that count?
brian [10:36 PM]
“Oh those poor parents. They buy a baby cam to protect their child and that’s the one thing that gets him abducted.”
We learn that the bad guys are using baby monitors to conduct online video auctions of babies. In the babies’ houses. Which seems totally plausible.
mmimoso [10:36 PM]
Here’s where bearded hacker saves the day with ninja translation of the auction
brian [10:37 PM]
So many baby pics
chrisbrook [10:38 PM]
Surprised we haven’t gotten a Tor reference or weird encryption reference yet. How are they gonna get on that website to do some snooping?
Our favorite bearded hacker cyberflies to Chicago to check out the operations of the company that makes the hacked baby monitors. By holding a Toughbook near some servers in a data center, he discovers that the company has a flaw in its source code, which the bad guys are exploiting. Special Agent Ryan tells Krumitz to shut the company down.
chrisbrook [10:38 PM]
Your source code is telling me how they got in!
dfish [10:38 PM]
“You have a vulnerability in your multiview function you idiot!”
mmimoso [10:38 PM]
now we’re rolling
chrisbrook [10:39 PM]
Shut. It. Down!
mmimoso [10:39 PM]
pretty sure she needs a FISA order to shut it down
brian [10:39 PM]
Babies are going missing it’s a Steven King novel
dfish [10:40 PM]
The plot is indecipherable, but there’s so many flashy lights and bad dialogue to process, I don’t even care
brian [10:41 PM]
Patricia Arquette and army doctor are examining the holographic x-ray of the mother of the (first) abducted child, who apparently smuggled drugs in her body
Cyber cut back to gamer neighbor kid, who gets a threatening video message while playing his XBOX knockoff game console.
mmimoso [10:41 PM]
Mom. China in my video game
brian [10:41 PM]
was that kid’s gamer tag “cheeseburger1”
dfish [10:41 PM]
yes, yes it was
brian [10:42 PM]
there was just a video of baby #1 screaming on camera
brian [10:42 PM]
Patricia Arquette sternly told the hackers not to harm the baby
chrisbrook [10:43 PM]
Looks like they’re going to Jersey. Naturally.
mmimoso [10:43 PM]
Wow, those 42 minutes just flew by
dfish [10:43 PM]
And now beardo hacker is tracking him through the game console. This is some next level cheese
brian [10:43 PM]
How about those hacking graphics?
dfish [10:43 PM]
This makes Swordfish look like a documentary
brian [10:44 PM]
the one with the beard was hacking something on an XBOX when the screen went to a sort of binary recreation of the earth and two XBOX controllers rotating together
brian [10:45 PM]
Ultimately, he found the bad guys in Paterson, New Jersey.
Through fancy XBOX hacking (and bad plotting), Krumitz discovers the bad guys’ location in New Jersey.
brian [10:45 PM]
Any guesses as to why these cyber criminals are stealing babies?
mmimoso [10:46 PM]
because of bad source code at NatalCam
mmimoso [10:46 PM]
they wanted to exploit the bugs and get jobs
brian [10:47 PM]
I think it’s more complex than that…
mmimoso [10:47 PM]
I’ve been lost since the sniper killed the two meth-heads
dfish [10:47 PM]
If the screaming goat from the Geico commercials showed up in the data center I wouldn’t be surprised at this point
The cyber crime team cyber-parachutes into Paterson, N.J., complete with tactical gear and a green bouncy ball with IP-enabled cameras in it that Agent Mundo throws through a conveniently open window in the hackers’ gritty warehouse lair.
chrisbrook [10:48 PM]
Cyberball
brian [10:48 PM]
Why are the cyber-cops wearing bullet-proof vests?
dfish [10:49 PM]
Dawson threw a cyber dog toy through the window
The FBI then drives a tank through the warehouse door after the dog toy shows them a video of dudes and guns inside the warehouse.
chrisbrook [10:50 PM]
“Find the computers, get into them” Putting our favorite hacker to work!
brian [10:50 PM]
the cyber police just drove an armored truck through the wall of a warehouse and shook down some sketchy-looking ne’er-do-wells
Krumitz is now faced with a 20-character password protecting the hackers’ fancy machine. He tells the team that it’s impossible to break, so they assume that the dumb-dumb bad guys wrote it down somewhere.
brian [10:51 PM]
“We’ll probably break the encryption in 10,000,000,000 years.”
mmimoso [10:51 PM]
now they’re looking for sticky notes
mmimoso [10:51 PM]
or passwords on tattoos
chrisbrook [10:51 PM]
Literally laughed out loud when Dawson ripped that dude’s shirt off.
The head bad guy has the password tattooed on him in the form of various dates. But it takes mad brain skills from Bow Wow to put the numbers in the right order to form the password.
brian [10:51 PM]
BowWow is back
brian [10:51 PM]
He’s rhyming
mmimoso [10:51 PM]
rearrange the numbers yo
mmimoso [10:52 PM]
so much for 62 to the 20th power
brian [10:52 PM]
BowWow just guessed a 25 character password in like ten seconds
Cyber cut to the team in a car chase with some other bad guys who have one of the other stolen babies. Because the bad guys are driving a Toyota Camry, it’s a short chase that ends in a lake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs0IAOwcXb4
dfish [10:52 PM]
Now it’s Dukes of Hazzard: Cyber
chrisbrook [10:53 PM]
That car got some lift.
dfish [10:53 PM]
I had a Toyota Camry and they do not do well in car chase situations.
brian [10:53 PM]
Update: the baby (the one that actually matters) is in a car that just drove into a lake
chrisbrook [10:54 PM]
Not sure how possible it’d be to break a car window with your elbow underwater.
Agent Mundo heroically dives into the lake and rescues the baby from the car. Very un-cyber.
brian [10:54 PM]
the baby is…
brian [10:54 PM]
NOT BREATHING
brian [10:54 PM]
Patricia Arquette just kissed the baby back to life
brian [10:54 PM]
so many feels
dfish [10:54 PM]
was that the doll from American Sniper?
chrisbrook [10:54 PM]
That baby’s been through a lot. He was in Albany!
mmimoso [10:55 PM]
joyful reunion in 3-2-1…
brian [10:55 PM]
Baby is back with his parents
chrisbrook [10:55 PM]
Slow motion Patricia Arquette. Ugh.
brian [10:55 PM]
all in a day’s work for the team at CSI: Cyber
dfish [10:55 PM]
There’s some serious emoting going on. Arquette didn’t win an Oscar for nothing
And, with all of the stolen babies safe and sound, our heroes reconvene in the cyber lair to congratulate and gently tease one another. At which point Special Agent Ryan tells her team it’s time that she gets them back to their parents’ basements.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtJmlycIoaM
dfish [10:56 PM]
first parent’s basement joke at 10:55
brian [10:58 PM]
Patricia Arquette was a psychologist who got hacked and lost her patient’s files and one of her patients was murdered but she never caught the hacker/killer. This is why she is so motivated to catch the bad guys.
dfish [10:58 PM]
Fade out on Patricia sitting on the Lincoln Memorial steps
brian [10:58 PM]
two out of seven hatchets
dfish [10:59 PM]
That was even worse than I hoped it would be, and I had extremely low expectations
chrisbrook [10:59 PM]
That was very rough. Reminds me why I never watch any of these shows.The Canadian social credit movement is a Canadian political movement originally based on the Social Credit theory of Major C. H. Douglas. Its supporters were colloquially known as Socreds in English and créditistes in French. It gained popularity and its own political party in the 1930s, as a result of the Great Depression. Contents
Federal politics Edit
Alberta Edit
British Columbia Edit
Quebec Edit
New Brunswick Edit
While Social Credit never won any seats in the New Brunswick Legislature, it won 3.1% of the vote in the 1948 provincial election, the party's first. Social Credit also ran candidates in 1952 and 1956 winning 0.5% and 1.6% of the vote respectively.
Manitoba Edit
Saskatchewan Edit
Ontario Edit
Main article: Social Credit Party of Ontario In Ontario, the party unsuccessfully ran candidates in most provincial elections from 1945 until 1975, never obtaining electoral support beyond a negligible level. The party faced serious divisions in the 1940s, 1960s and early 1970s due to attempted takeovers by fascist groups and was put in trusteeship by the federal party in 1972 when the fascist Western Guard succeeded in taking control. The party continued as a registered party into the 1980s, not running candidates in the 1977 election and running only 5 candidates with interim leader John Turmel in the 1981 election. It was defunct by 1985.
Other parties EditLeftists, including AntiFA and black lives matter terrorists are already bring up how hurricane Harvey is the new Katrina or something. Now, the vile leftists are hoping the Bush Ranch in Houston suffers damage because, you know.. Karma.
Democrats, AntiFA, BLM hoping Harvey floods Bush Rance
*Harvey heads right for Bush's Ranch* Dubbya: Well shit, karma really is a bitch. — Noob Noob (@noobmaster117) August 27, 2017
Texas is currently Geroge Bush karma for Louisiana. — Ant (@NoWalksNoHits) August 27, 2017
That's George Bush karma — Té® (@monetaryplug) August 27, 2017
This is your modern Democrat party.
I don’t even like the Bush family, but come on! Are leftists really this disgusting and pathetic that they wish Hurricane (now Tropical Storm) Harvey damages the Bush Ranch and hurts the bush family? Disgusting!Express News Service By
HYDERABAD: The government of cash-strapped Andhra Pradesh on Friday began holding a two-day orientation programme for the legislators of the state Assembly at a five-star hotel here to impart best parliamentary practices to them by spending around Rs 10 lakh.
Interestingly, the first day session of the programme, which was aimed at making the lawmakers know about the proceedings of the House, took place in an ostentatious manner exactly a few days after the state government’s directive for austerity measures to contain public expenditure.
After participating in the training classes, the MLAs were taken to a guided tour to Falaknuma Palace, located in the old city of Hyderabad, in the evening. Later, the legislators were entertained in the form of cultural programmes.
Though some of the members of the YSRC and MLCs of the Congress also took part in the first day session, many of the lawmakers did not show much interest in the speeches of the speakers, who include Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu.
When former Lok Sabha secretary-general Subash Kashyap was delivering his speech, several of the TDP MLAs were not even present in the hall. The reason for this is that their boss Chandrababu Naidu was not present at that time. Interestingly, by the time Naidu returned to the hall after an official function, almost all the TDP members were present.
A majority of the members did not evince much interest to elicit information from the speakers on matters relating to rules, procedures and parliamentary practices.
At one point of time, the session appeared to be turning into a battleground between the YSRC and TDP members when some of the MLAs of the YSRC expressed their displeasure over Ministers not adhering to protocol while visiting their respective Assembly segments.
For instance, when Venkaiah Naidu tried to answer the posers of members after his address, some of the YSRC MLAs asked the Union Minister whether it was fair on the part of TDP government to ignore the members of the YSRC during official programmes.
When asked about his experience on the first day session, YSRC MLA from Addanki Gottipati Ravi Kumar told Express that he welcomed such training programmes as they would educate members about the parliamentary practices. But, at the same time, Ravi Kumar expressed unhappiness over the way some of the Ministers and ruling members were not adhering to protocol while visiting the segments of YSRC MLAs.
Interestingly, even some of the senior Ministers felt that simply organising workshops is not suffice to inculcate good parliamentary practices among MLAs.
Also Read:
Imbibe Rama’s Qualities, MLAs ToldCIA whistleblower John Kiriakou briefly explains:
The CIA told us that there was no torture program. We know that, that was a lie. The CIA told us that there was no program for extraordinary rendition and kidnapping. That was a lie. The CIA told us that there was no archipelago of secret prisons around the world. We know that, that was a lie. The CIA said that it had not hacked into the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's computer system. That was a lie.
Well, now they tell us that the Russians hacked into the Democratic National Committee email system, they offer no evidence and they tell us to take their word for it. Over the last decade and a half, the CIA has consistently lied to the American people. So, why in the world would we believe them on this?
Of course, it's not only the last decade. The whole history of CIA is basically a history of lies, deception, propaganda. Only one example, is the 1954 CIA-orchestrated coup in Guatemala
Robert White, former US ambassador to El Salvador reveals that “If you had to pick one date where US foreign policy towards Latin America went wrong, the date would be 1954 and the place: Guatemala. That was the beginning of this terrible, terrible attitude that the United States developed towards Latin America and, particularly, towards Central America, where change became our enemy.”
Guatemala was one of the few countries in Latin America that, after World War ll, actually experienced a period of democratic rule. President Jacobo Arbenz was determined to reduce widespread poverty by effecting major land reform in Guatemala. Only 2% of the owners controlled 75% of the arable land. Out of all of those, the United Fruit Company was the largest, with some 600,000 acres of property.
In the US Government, John Foster Dulles, who was the Secretary of State under president Eisenhower; his brother Allen Dulles, who was the head of the CIA - had both been law partners in the main law firm that represented United Fruit Company. Melvin Goodman, former CIA division chief says that “The feeling was we could very easily overthrow this progressive government and make it a lot easier for the United Fruit Company and other American businesses to operate in Central America.”Image copyright AFP Image caption Breathing and running is difficult at such a high altitude
A group of international cricketers has set a new world record for the highest-ever match by playing at the top of Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, in Tanzania.
The teams included former South Africa fast bowler Makhaya Ntini and ex-England spinner Ashley Giles.
The game was played at a height of 5,730m (18,799 ft) in a flat crater just below the summit.
They played 10 overs each of a Twenty20 game before clouds stopped play.
Image copyright AFP Image caption The air was freezing as the teams batted 10 overs each in the crater of the extinct volcano
"This is absolutely incredible! We are playing cricket on the summit of Africa!" Giles tweeted on Friday morning.
The current record for the world's highest game is 5,165m, played in the Himalayas at Everest base camp in Nepal in 2009.
The "Gorillas" team, led by England women's vice-captain Heather Knight, scored 82-5 to beat Giles' "Rhinos" team, who managed 64-9, the AFP news agency reports.The American political left and mainstream media pundits at large do not understand guns. They are not educated about them and they refuse to learn about them. They could not tell you the difference between an automatic or semi-automatic firearm. They don’t understand what a suppressor does or does not do. It’s safe to say most of them have not heard the term “bump stock” until this week.
What they are, however, is convinced that we need more laws to prevent mass shootings like the one in Las Vegas from happening ever again – and they will host guest after guest on their shows who are not experts in firearms, or firearm training, to lecture the American public at large about why this needs to happen.
If anyone out there on that side of the aisle is wondering why your pleas to “do something” are falling on mostly deaf ears,that would be why.
Democrats would be better off offering up legislation banning high-rise hotels in attempting to make a connection to the Las Vegas shooting than they would suppressors or background checks
It’s a largely one-sided debate happening on cable networks, and it is why those on the right – including everyday Americans and lawful gun owners not responsible for mass shootings or breaking gun laws – largely ignore what is blaring out at them from their televisions and social media.
Column after column is fired off about how much the National Rifle Association donates to congressional candidates (spoiler: it’s not much, about 200K a year). For every breathless declaration that the NRA has blood on their hands, it’s worth noting more journalists have committed mass shootings in this country than NRA members.
Firearm experts in media such as Washington Free Beacon’s Stephen Gutowski (also an NRA-certified instructor), National Review Online Editor Charles Cooke and Federalist co-founder Sean Davis are sidelined from national cable news and Sunday show appearances in favor of guests who suggest suppressors are used by hunters to prevent deer from hearing a fired shot. Gutowski, Cooke and Davis will never be invited on Jimmy Kimmel or Stephen Colbert’s shows to clear up the falsehoods being spread to mass audiences or to defend the second amendment of the United States Constitution.
The Las Vegas narrative jumped to ludicrous speed shortly after the massacre ended when losing presidential candidate Hillary Clinton demanded that we “put politics aside” right before immediately politicizing the shooting in the same tweet. She then went on to state, “Imagine the deaths if the shooter had a silencer, which the NRA wants to make easier to get.” Mrs. Clinton’s claim that firearm suppressors render guns “silent” was given three Pinnocchios by Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post. This of course didn’t matter. Kessler’s fact check went mostly ignored on social media. Clinton’s false tweet about firearm suppressors garnered more than 58,000 retweets on Twitter. Glenn Kessler’s fact check? Thirty.
Kimmel chastised Paul Ryan and the GOP Congress for not enforcing laws about guns that literally do not exist.
Within hours of the Las Vegas shooting, Senator Chuck Schumer was pushing the narrative that the GOP was ramming through legislation to de-regulate silencers. This was also a fabrication. Reporters began shouting questions at Paul Ryan about “Silencer” legislation. The 64-year-old shooter in Las Vegas did not use a suppressor but Democrats have found their shiny object to fixate on – much like the no-fly list post-Orlando – which had nothing to do with the actual tragedy at hand.
Democrats would be better off offering up legislation banning high-rise hotels in attempting to make a connection to the Las Vegas shooting than they would suppressors or background checks.
America’s foremost health care expert, Jimmy Kimmel, once again repeated long-debunked Democrat talking points in another tearful monologue (Las Vegas is his hometown so it’s hard to berate him for showing emotion). Kimmel chastised Paul Ryan and the GOP Congress (again) for not enforcing laws about guns that literally do not exist. These include the so called “gunshow loophole,” an online background check loophole and allowing mentally ill individuals (a move supported by the ACLU) from purchasing firearms. All of these claims have been debunked and yet are ignored by fact-checkers at mainstream outlets and cable news pundits. Stephen Paddock did not have a criminal background, prior record and no evaluations of suspect mental health. So what then?
New York Times Magazine’s Ana Marie Cox tweeted “Man, imagine if the right believed in unfettered access to the ballot box as much as they believed in the right to own guns.” Her sudden support of background checks and voter ID laws (two things needed to purchase a firearm in America) are a welcome surprise.
Politico reporter Dan Diamond tweeted out an email announcement from The American College of Physicians calling for a ban on all automatic and semiautomatic weapons. What Diamond did not reveal is a ban on semiautomatic weapons would include most handguns. I’m not sure members of media know this fact, and more importantly, have demonstrated zero willingness to learn. But sure, let’s put them in charge of the health care debate.
And this is where the credibility chasm exists in media as they continue to parrot Democrat narratives on guns. As the sun rose on Vegas the morning after, and before Americans could grasp the facts of what had happened, Democrat leaders including Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Schumer and their celebrity Hollywood base were already pointing fingers and placing blame without facts and without knowledge.
Law-abiding, gun-owning Americans will not be lectured to about a national tragedy they had nothing to do with, and they certainly won’t be lectured by elitists in media who refuse to understand even a basic grasp or terminology about a sacred constitutional right.
And until they do, we will refuse to have that “conversation” the left and the media keep telling themselves needs to happen.by Lukas Pustina
Previously on OpenStack Crime Investigation. I was called to a crime scene; our OpenStack based private cloud for CenterDevice. Somebody or something was causing our virtual load balancers to flap their highly available IP address. tcpdump showed me that there were time gaps between the keepalive VRRP packets. And these gaps originated on the first hop, the master load balancer.
After discovering the culprit might be hiding inside the virtual machine, I fetched my assistant sysdig and we ssh’ed into loadblancer01. Together, we started to ask questions; very intense, uncomfortable questions to finally get to the bottom of this.
sysdig is a relatively new tool that basically traces all syscalls and uses Lua scripts – called chisels – to derive conclusions about the captured sequence of syscalls. In general, it is like tcdump for syscalls. Since every process that wants to do anything useful has to use syscalls, a very detailed view of your system’s behavior evolves. sysdig is developing into a serious swiss army knife and you should give it a try; especially, read these three blog post to learn about sysdig’s capabilities which convinced me.
sysdig being the good detective assistant went to work immediately and kept a transcript about all questions and answers in a file.
$ sysdig -w transcript $ sysdig -w transcript
I was especially interested in the sendmsg syscall that actually sends network packets issued by the keepalived process.
After a syscall is invoked by a process, the process is paused until the syscall has been finished by the kernel and only then the execution of the process is resumed.
I was interested in the invocation, that is the event direction from user process to kernel.
$ sysdig -r transcript proc.name=keepalived and evt.type=sendmsg and evt.dir= '>' $ sysdig -r transcript proc.name=keepalived and evt.type=sendmsg and evt.dir='>'
That stirred up quite some evidence. But I wanted to find the time gaps larger than one second. I drew Lua from my concealed holster inside my jacket and fired a quick chisel right between two sendmsg syscalls:
$ sysdig -r transcript -c find_time_gap proc.name=keepalived and evt.type=sendmsg and evt.dir= '>' 370964 17 :01: 26.375374738 ( 5.03543187 ) keepalived > sendmsg fd = 13 ( 192.168.205.8- > 224.0.0.18 ) size = 40 tuple =0.0.0.0: 112 - > 224.0.0.18: 0 $ sysdig -r transcript -c find_time_gap proc.name=keepalived and evt.type=sendmsg and evt.dir='>' 370964 17:01:26.375374738 (5.03543187) keepalived > sendmsg fd=13(192.168.205.8->224.0.0.18) size=40 tuple=0.0.0.0:112->224.0.0.18:0
Got you! A time gap of more than five seconds turned up. I inspected the events closely looking for event number 370964.
$ sysdig -r transcript proc.name=keepalived and evt.type=sendmsg and evt.dir= '>' | grep -C 1 370964 368250 17 :01: 21.339942868 0 keepalived ( 10400 ) > sendmsg fd = 13 ( 192.168.205.8- > 224.0.0.18 ) size = 40 tuple =0.0.0.0: 112 - > 224.0.0.18: 0 370964 17 :01: 26.375374738 1 keepalived ( 10400 ) > sendmsg fd = 13 ( 192.168.205.8- > 224.0.0.18 ) size = 40 tuple =0.0.0.0: 112 - > 224.0.0.18: 0 371446 17 :01: 26.377770247 1 keepalived ( 10400 ) > sendmsg fd = 13 ( 192.168.205.8- > 224.0.0.18 ) size = 40 tuple =0.0.0.0: 112 - > 224.0.0.18: 0 $ sysdig -r transcript proc.name=keepalived and evt.type=sendmsg and evt.dir='>' | grep -C 1 370964 368250 17:01:21.339942868 0 keepalived (10400) > sendmsg fd=13(192.168.205.8->224.0.0.18) size=40 tuple=0.0.0.0:112->224.0.0.18:0 370964 17:01:26.375374738 1 keepalived (10400) > sendmsg fd=13(192.168.205.8->224.0.0.18) size=40 tuple=0.0.0.0:112->224.0.0.18:0 371446 17:01:26.377770247 1 keepalived (10400) > sendmsg fd=13(192.168.205.8->224.0.0.18) size=40 tuple=0.0.0.0:112->224.0.0.18:0
There, in lines 1 and 2. There it was. A gap much larger than one second. Now it was clear. The perpetrator was hiding inside the virtual machine causing lags in the processing of keepalived’s sendmsg. But who was it?
After some ruling out of innocent bystanders, I found this:
$ sysdig -r transcript | tail -n + 368250 | grep -v "keepalived\|haproxy\|zabbix" 369051 17 :01: 23.621071175 3 ( 0 ) > switch next = 7 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369052 17 :01: 23.621077045 3 ( 7 ) > switch next = 0 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369053 17 :01: 23.625105578 3 ( 0 ) > switch next = 7 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369054 17 :01: 23.625112785 3 ( 7 ) > switch next = 0 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369055 17 :01: 23.628568892 3 ( 0 ) > switch next = 25978 ( sysdig ) pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369056 17 :01: 23.628597921 3 sysdig ( 25978 ) > switch next = 0 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 2143 vm_size = 99684 vm_rss = 6772 vm_swap = 0 369057 17 :01: 23.629068124 3 ( 0 ) > switch next = 7 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369058 17 :01: 23.629073516 3 ( 7 ) > switch next = 0 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369059 17 :01: 23.633104746 3 ( 0 ) > switch next = 7 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369060 17 :01: 23.633110185 3 ( 7 ) > switch next = 0 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369061 17 :01: 23.637061129 3 ( 0 ) > switch next = 7 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369062 17 :01: 23.637065648 3 ( 7 ) > switch next = 0 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369063 17 :01: 23.641104396 3 ( 0 ) > switch next = 7 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369064 17 :01: 23.641109883 3 ( 7 ) > switch next = 0 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369065 17 :01: 23.645069607 3 ( 0 ) > switch next = 7 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369066 17 :01: 23.645075551 3 ( 7 ) > switch next = 0 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369067 17 :01: 23.649071836 3 ( 0 ) > switch next = 7 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369068 17 :01: 23.649077700 3 ( 7 ) > switch next = 0 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369069 17 :01: 23.653073066 3 ( 0 ) > switch next = 7 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369070 17 :01: 23.653078791 3 ( 7 ) > switch next = 0 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369071 17 :01: 23.657069807 3 ( 0 ) > switch next = 7 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369072 17 :01: 23.657075525 3 ( 7 ) > switch next = 0 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369073 17 :01: 23.658678681 3 ( 0 ) > switch next = 25978 ( sysdig ) pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 0 vm_size = 0 vm_rss = 0 vm_swap = 0 369074 17 :01: 23.658698453 3 sysdig ( 25978 ) > switch next = 0 pgft_maj = 0 pgft_min = 2143 vm_size = 99684 vm_rss = 6772 vm_swap = 0 $ sysdig -r transcript | tail -n +368250 | grep -v "keepalived\|haproxy\|zabbix" 369051 17:01:23.621071175 3 (0) > switch next=7 pgft_maj=0 pgft_min=0 vm_size=0 vm_rss=
|
ouciance towards floodgates. However, within a decade of the law’s enactment, a very different dynamic emerged. In dozens of the countries that now had “equal access” to immigrant visas, having five or more siblings was not uncommon, and the yawning difference between local and U.S. living standards was an irresistible magnet.
The right granted by the 1965 amendments to sponsor both the family you create (a spouse and children) as well as the family that created you (your parents and siblings) gave rise to Ponzi-like “chain migration,” especially from less developed countries, in which the anchor immigrant sponsors siblings who in turn sponsor spouses from the home country, who in turn have parents, siblings, and so on. Within a few decades some of the smallest Caribbean islands were sending more immigrants than some of the largest European countries. Waiting lists in some countries exceeded 20 years.
To its credit, Congress recognized during the late 1980s that the system ordained in 1965 had become dysfunctional and ordered the establishment of a Commission on Immigration Reform to fashion a solution. In the meantime, Congress increased the quotas to reduce the backlogs. Although this quota increase was seen as a temporary “fix” until the Commission could repair the system, it has remained in place for nearly two decades, triggering the largest flood of immigration in any nation’s history.
The Commission on Immigration Reform worked through the 1990s, formulating a number of recommendations, almost all of which are embodied in the RAISE Act. The Commission was bipartisan, was chaired by civil rights icon Barbara Jordan, and based its recommendations on the findings of several reports it had commissioned from the National Academy of Sciences, including studies of the economic impact of immigration on the labor market by George Borjas, a hispanic economics professor at Harvard. The bottom line on economic impact was simple—mass immigration was reducing American wages, businesses were benefitting from the cheap labor, but the net economic benefit to business was outweighed by the heavy fiscal costs of schooling and other government services utilized by low-income immigrant families.
The 1990s analysis of the National Academy was recently updated and summarized by Professor Borjas in a publically available “User’s Guide.” The bottom line, according to Borjas, has not changed. Immigration at current levels is still hurting American workers and imposing enormous fiscal costs (not to mention the pressures on our failing public schools and our crumbling infrastructure).
The Jordan Commission’s recommendations came from sources whose integrity, bipartisanship, and qualifications were unimpeachable and would be hard to reassemble in today’s toxic political environment. That should be taken into account in evaluating the provisions of the RAISE Act that originated with the Jordan Commission: namely, that we should continue allowing Americans to sponsor foreign spouses and their minor children, we should continue to accept our fair share of refugees who have no other safe place to live, and, as for the rest, we should admit the few who are so highly skilled and educated that they will compete for work only with the toffs who voted for Hillary Clinton and not with the blue-collar men and women who put their faith in Donald Trump.
William W. Chip serves on the Board of the Center for Immigration Studies, based in Washington, D.C.Bay Area economy grows at nearly triple U.S. rate
People enter the renovated marketplace in the Ferry Building in San Francisco on June 9, 2017. People enter the renovated marketplace in the Ferry Building in San Francisco on June 9, 2017. Photo: Nicole Boliaux / The Chronicle 2017 Buy photo Photo: Nicole Boliaux / The Chronicle 2017 Image 1 of / 15 Caption Close Bay Area economy grows at nearly triple U.S. rate 1 / 15 Back to Gallery
The Bay Area economy grew by 5.2 percent in 2016, nearly three times faster than the national rate, according to a report released Monday by the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.
The Bay Area’s gross domestic product was $781 billion in 2016, making the region larger than the economy of the Netherlands.
The San Jose metro area, which is home to large tech companies such as Cisco and Apple, had the strongest year-over-year growth in the state at 5.9 percent. The gains were due in large part to its local tech industry, the report said. The state of California grew 2.9 percent in 2016.
Gains in the San Francisco-Oakland metropolitan area, which ranked second in California to the San Jose area, were also driven by the tech and finance industry.
While jobs continue to spread across the state to areas previously lagging behind — including Inland Empire, Butte County and some parts of the San Joaquin Valley — job growth in the Bay Area and California has slowed down in 2017.
“It is very likely that GDP growth in the state and many regions in 2017 will be below the 2015 and (2016) levels,” the report’s authors wrote.The way the EU referendum result was split across the UK should be considered a draw, an expert on European and constitutional law has claimed.
London School of Economics' Dr Jo Murkens pointed out Scotland and Northern Ireland voted clearly to remain in the EU, while voters in England and Wales opted to leave.
He said Brexit could be therefore be avoided with willing leadership - while warning Britain's withdrawal from the EU could have devastating consequences for the country's unity.
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.
He said he could "see no way" any Prime Minister would go through with it.
“There would be no country left if we leave the EU,” Dr Murkens told the Evening Standard. “I see no way in which the UK can leave the EU and survive.”
Brexit going ahead would therefore fragment the Union, the scholar said, which has been in existence since 1707.
He added: “There’s no political will in Scotland and Northern Ireland to remain in the UK if it leaves the EU.”
Shape Created with Sketch. What has the EU ever done for us? Show all 7 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. What has the EU ever done for us? 1/7 1. It gives you freedom to live, work and retire anywhere in Europe As a member of the EU, UK citizens benefit from freedom of movement across the continent. Considered one of the so-called four pillars of the European Union, this freedom allows all EU citizens to live, work and travel in other member states. 2/7 2. It sustains millions of jobs A report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, released in October 2015, suggested 3.1 million British jobs were linked to the UK’s exports to the EU. 3/7 3. Your holiday is much easier - and safer Freedom to travel is one of the most exercised benefits of EU membership, with Britons having made 31 million visits to the EU in 2014 alone. But a lot of the benefits of being an EU citizen are either taken for granted or go unnoticed. 4/7 4. It means you're less likely to get ripped off Consumer protection is a key benefit of the EU’s single market, and ensures members of the British public receive equal consumer rights when shopping anywhere in Europe. 5/7 5. It offers greater protection from terrorists, paedophiles, people traffickers and cyber-crime Another example of a lesser-known advantage of EU membership is the benefit of cross-country coordination and cooperation in the fight against crime. 6/7 6. Our businesses depend on it According to 71% of all members of the Confederation of British Influence (CBI), and 67 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the EU has had an overall positive impact on their business. 7/7 7. We have greater influence Robin Niblett, Director of think-tank Chatham House, stated in a report published last year: “For a mid-sized country like the UK, which will never again be economically dominant either globally or regionally, and whose diplomatic and military resources are declining in relative terms, being a major player in a strong regional institution can offer a critical lever for international influence. 1/7 1. It gives you freedom to live, work and retire anywhere in Europe As a member of the EU, UK citizens benefit from freedom of movement across the continent. Considered one of the so-called four pillars of the European Union, this freedom allows all EU citizens to live, work and travel in other member states. 2/7 2. It sustains millions of jobs A report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, released in October 2015, suggested 3.1 million British jobs were linked to the UK’s exports to the EU. 3/7 3. Your holiday is much easier - and safer Freedom to travel is one of the most exercised benefits of EU membership, with Britons having made 31 million visits to the EU in 2014 alone. But a lot of the benefits of being an EU citizen are either taken for granted or go unnoticed. 4/7 4. It means you're less likely to get ripped off Consumer protection is a key benefit of the EU’s single market, and ensures members of the British public receive equal consumer rights when shopping anywhere in Europe. 5/7 5. It offers greater protection from terrorists, paedophiles, people traffickers and cyber-crime Another example of a lesser-known advantage of EU membership is the benefit of cross-country coordination and cooperation in the fight against crime. 6/7 6. Our businesses depend on it According to 71% of all members of the Confederation of British Influence (CBI), and 67 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the EU has had an overall positive impact on their business. 7/7 7. We have greater influence Robin Niblett, Director of think-tank Chatham House, stated in a report published last year: “For a mid-sized country like the UK, which will never again be economically dominant either globally or regionally, and whose diplomatic and military resources are declining in relative terms, being a major player in a strong regional institution can offer a critical lever for international influence.
“I can see no Prime Minister who would want to preside over the break-up of the United Kingdom.”
The political will in Scotland to detach from England and become independent has been strong for a number of years.
After defeat in the 2014 Scottish referendum, the Brexit vote - which altered the political status quo and galvanised support - gave nationalists a renewed opportunity to push for independence.
Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish National Party, announced plans for another independence referendum on the same day as the EU referendum results were announced.
In Northern Ireland – a region which has achieved peace after years of bitter conflict – there were also immediate calls for reunification. Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, of Sinn Fein, demanded a border poll on a united Ireland.
"The people of the north of Ireland have made it clear at the polls that they wish to remain in the EU,” said Mr McGuinness.
"This decision to drag us out of the European Union against our democratically expressed wishes has nothing to do with issues around the European institutions and everything to do with the civil war within the British Tory party.”
National leadership has also been thrown into doubt since the referendum, which sparked a leadership contest in both main parties.
Some commentators have suggested Boris Johnson also came to the same conclusion as Dr Murkens, which would provide a possible explanation for his surprise withdrawal from the Conservative leadership race on Thursday.
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 now.The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutras community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.
Written by Max Röhrbein-Kling and Johannes Kuhlmann
This is part two of our series of blog posts about our experience with bringing Galaxy on Fire 3 - Manticore to Vulkan.
Our posts follow this structure:
Introduction and Fundamentals Handling Resources and Assets (this post) What We have Learned Vulkan on Android Stats & Summary
When we started working on the Android version of our game, we decided to use Vulkan for rendering (there is also an OpenGL ES version, but that is not of interest here). This series is about our experience with implementing a Vulkan renderer and getting it to work on different devices, in particular on those running Android. So, we are mainly going to talk about the most interesting aspects of our implementation and then dive into what we learned along the way.
As we already did at the beginning of our first post, we would once more like to point out that the focus of our Vulkan renderer was to ship a game. Consequently, its design is rather pragmatic and we cannot promise that the things that worked for us will also work in another context. We do believe, though, that our implementation is still reasonably versatile and well done.
This second post is about the special considerations that went into adding support for textures, shaders and graphics pipelines during the implementation of our Vulkan renderer.
Textures
A texture, or rather VkImage, in Vulkan has the VkImageLayout property, and many operations require images to be in specific layouts. You can change an image's layout with a VkImageMemoryBarrier. There is VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_GENERAL which supports most operations, but
you are pretty much leaving performance on the table and VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_GENERAL does not support compressed image data.
Therefore, you are better off just not using VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_GENERAL at all.
A fairly simple example of how you can manage image layouts is the way we deal with textures. Here the idea is that there is a setup phase during which the texture is initialized. At the end, the image is transitioned to VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_SHADER_READ_ONLY_OPTIMAL for sampling. The texture stays in that layout until the texture is destroyed.
The setup phase is straightforward as well. The image is in VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_UNDEFINED when its memory is bound. From there, it is transitioned to VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_TRANSFER_DST_OPTIMAL which is a requirement for the vkCmdCopy() command(s) for getting data into the image to work. In the end, we do the before-mentioned transition to VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_SHADER_READ_ONLY_OPTIMAL and afterwards the texture is ready to be used.
For images used in render targets, this approach will not quite work though. In our case render targets alternate between two layouts: writing ( VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_COLOR_ATTACHMENT_OPTIMAL ) and reading ( VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_SHADER_READ_ONLY_OPTIMAL ). To stick as close to our approach with textures as possible, we decided to keep the render targets in the read layout by default. Only when a render pass binds that render target for rendering into we transition the render target into the write layout. We then transition the render target back to the read layout immediately after the pass writing to it is done.
Shaders
When planning for Vulkan support, keep in mind that you will also have to touch your asset pipeline. The main reason for this is that Vulkan does not accept shaders in the form of raw source code. According to the specification, a Vulkan implementation only has to support SPIR-V.
Before you can load a shader into Vulkan, it has to be precompiled by some kind of SPIR-V precompiler. A big advantage here is that your shaders are at least syntax-checked during the asset build and not when they are - at some point - loaded into the game. Another advantage is that it reduces loading times for shaders.
We use Google's Shaderc to precompile our shaders as it is rather easy to integrate and works well. The input here is GLSL which allows us to share our shader sources between OpenGL (ES) and Vulkan.
Another thing Vulkan does not support is reflection for shaders. With other graphics APIs, the approach often is to load a shader and then query it to find out what its inputs (and possibly outputs) are. With Vulkan, you now have to find another approach.
If you have simpler shaders or if your shaders are just a few in number, you may be able to get away with just knowing, and hardcoding, that your shaders take specific inputs.
If you have lots of shaders or maybe shaders you do not know about in advance, you will have to find another way to get the reflection data. We currently use SPIRV-Cross for this purpose. This library makes it easy to examine the precompiled SPIR-V code and retrieve the required information. This is an easy solution as it does not change the data the engine/game consumes. Just precompile the shaders, provide the SPIR-V code as the shader code and get the reflection data during runtime.
However, this approach is also rather inefficient as you will be extracting the reflection data a lot more often than you need to. And you will also be doing so at a very inconvenient time as it will just increase loading times. Additionally, beware that SPIRV-Cross requires exceptions to be enabled.
The best approach is to provide the reflection data together with the SPIR-V code as part of your assets. That way, you only extract the data once and have optimal loading times.
Graphics Pipelines
Graphics pipelines are a combination of shaders, vertex attribute descriptions and lots of settings for different parts of the rendering pipeline. What makes these pipelines difficult to deal with is the fact that their state also contains information about blending configuration, render target attachments and the viewport.
We have not found a good way to generically determine what pipelines are needed for a particular object before it is supposed to be rendered. This is difficult because, for example, new render targets that may need a completely new set of pipelines for all objects may be created at any time.
Our solution is to have our very own pipeline cache. The hash key for a given pipeline is all the data our renderer uses to generate a pipeline. Whenever an object is going to be rendered, we generate the required pipeline on the fly. This means an object may actually not show up for a short amount of time until the asynchronous pipeline generation has finished.
This approach can lead to no objects showing up at all in a new level for a short time. In order to avoid this, we try to pre-warm the cache by requesting those pipelines that we will probably need during the loading screen.
Vulkan also has the concept of a pipeline cache and even allows you to access its data to store it somewhere. You can use this stored data to pre-initialize the cache in a future run. In our case, compiling one pipeline took up to 50 milliseconds.
Unfortunately, there are various circumstances in which you cannot restore a pipeline cache from saved data. One example would be the driver making changes to the cache format. The cache format may also differ from vendor to vendor. As a result, it is sadly not feasible to ship a game with prebuilt pipelines (at least on Android).
Conclusion
Textures, shaders and pipelines are all assets you generally also encounter with other graphics APIs, but not necessarily in this form (pipelines), or they may have their own little differences and challenges (textures, shaders) with Vulkan.
We had to employ a few workarounds, like the usage of SPIRV-Cross at runtime and the caching of graphics pipelines, in order to get Vulkan to play nicely with our engine/tools setup. There certainly are better approaches that will result in better performance, but what we talked about here worked well enough for us.
In the next post, we will talk about a number of pitfalls we encountered on our Vulkan journey.Miesha Tate's top control and wrestling won her the UFC women's bantamweight championship from Holly Holm at the UFC 196 pay-per-view (PPV) just two weeks ago (see it).
"Cupcake" definitively took round two of their co-main event bout inside MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, by smothering "The Preacher's Daughter" and overwhelming her with punches. Then in round five, when it ultimately looked like Holm would capture a decision, Tate took over once more and sunk in the rear-naked choke.
It was a clear-cut finish.
That's why she's more focused on new contenders, as opposed to immediate rematches with no definitive timeline, based on her conversation with Submission Radio.
"I think it's a long time to wait [for Ronda Rousey]. Ideally, I think I'd like to fight one more time before [her return]. I know that there’s a lot of really top contenders, a lot of girls in the division, that are really chomping at the bit. I think I’ve been called out by probably everybody in the top six, if not potentially the top 10. So they’re all gunning for me, and they’re all dangerous, and they all have their different attributes to bring to the table, so I think my job as the champ is just to stay ready for whoever. I’m just going to stay in the gym, and I have to be able to beat every single one of them."
Holm had the same idea, and it did not end well.
That said, the Jackson-Wink MMA product Holm is back to working on her rear-naked choke defense down in Albuquerque, N.M., and is adamant about getting revenge. Unfortunately for her, she just might have to wait her turn.
That's because UFC president Dana White is dead set on booking a trilogy fight between Tate and Rousey, who Holm defeated last November to capture the 135-pound title. Maybe if the newly-crowned titleholder has her way, she'll give Holm a shot just as she did for her.
Who doesn't like immediate rematches?NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — South Carolina officials investigating the weekend shooting death of a black man by a police officer here released a video Thursday that for the first time showed the early moments of an encounter that would ultimately reignite anger about police misconduct.
The video, recorded on a camera mounted inside Officer Michael T. Slager’s patrol car, was released by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, which has been conducting the inquiry into the death of Walter L. Scott that led to Officer Slager’s being charged with murder and subsequently fired.
The patrol car’s recording does not show Officer Slager firing his Glock handgun at Mr. Scott as he fled after being stopped for driving with a broken taillight. But it revealed an encounter that, in its initial minutes, appeared professional and routine. A video shot by a bystander moments later captures the fatal shooting of Mr. Scott.
Only later in the recording, after Mr. Scott ran from his Mercedes-Benz toward the grassy area where he was fatally wounded, were there indications of a struggle, and any physical skirmish occurred beyond the camera’s range. Mr. Scott had a long court record, often for failure to pay child support or to show up for court hearings, and his survivors have speculated that he might have fled because of a pending warrant.When the latest campaign about the gender pay gap comes out with the lie that women get paid 9.6% less (the Fawcett Society say it's a lot more) than men 'for the same job', it is worth pointing to a number of stories this week.
There were 19 firefighters in America (all men) who lost their lives and ten firefighters injured in Birmingham (no genders yet but bound to nearly if not all men).
That is why men get paid more than women. They do not do the same jobs (one of the most Orwellian thought crime myths ever), their is a danger premium for men doing this type of work - an issue that anti-male feminists at the Fawcett Society, Guardian, TUC and others cannot deal with because it does not play to their anti-male rhetoric. They think that men getting paid more is because they are evil people.
Perhaps after all it is time of a National Equal Death at Work Day to highlight it.
Last point, if some of these firefighters were women, you can get your bottom dollar, the media would have said 19 firefighters/10 firefighters including xx women. Why, if it is about equality, make the special case?
Posted by Skimmington
PS Talking of equal pay for less work, Wimbledon is back on.Dating While (Semi) Damaged is a column about returning to the dating world after an abusive relationship, offering insight and occasional advice.
The first picture I chose was a snake named Lola and me. I’m wearing a rust-colored cowboy hat and holding a tightly coiled Lola just under my chin, my fingernails painted Barney purple, and flashing the camera a rarely genuine smile. Perpetually concerned smiling will highlight nascent wrinkles, I usually opt for the vague half-grin of the Mona Lisa in photographs. Some might have chosen this picture hoping it would be a conversation starter, attracting messages like, “Cool snake. Is it yours?” While such messages did arrive, I was not seeking them out. In fact, I did not want to attract anyone when I joined OkCupid.
I had been single for less than 72 hours. The profile was for me.
The profile was an act of catharsis — a means to rebuild self-esteem fractured by emotional abuse. I left my ex just before turning 27. He had publicly embarrassed me at a literary reading and proceeded to scream at me until 3 AM — for the egregious sin of conversing with others at the event. My friend took the photo of me holding her snake at my pre-birthday bash, part of a three-day celebration. I tend to think that, after the age of 21, you are not entitled to a “birthday weekend,” but given what I endured, I felt I deserved to welcome 27 with three days of unadulterated celebrations of myself.
I wanted to feel loved.
With abuse, love is a twisted paradox. Love can have poisonous, restrictive conditions. If you really love someone, you do not need close relationships with friends and family members. If you really love someone, jealous outbursts should make you feel flattered rather than embarrassed or frightened. If you really love someone, you should not seek validation through professional means, as your beloved’s confirmation of your skills should overshadow that. But despite its toxic nature, love is simultaneously presented as the be-all-end-all of human experiences and — given your many, many flaws — you are lucky your beloved grants you love at all. Who else would?
I left in March but tried to leave in September. When I was tenderly introducing the subject to Randall (*name changed), I mentioned wanting to focus on my career. I was not sure we were right for each other. If I was going to be with anyone, I told him, I needed someone more independent. Randall scoffed at this, offering a caustic laugh.
“I hate to break it to you. I really do,” he said, although he really didn’t, “You’re never going to find anyone who’s going to put up with this independence shit.”
Joke’s on him. When you value “this independence shit,” you don’t need to find anyone to put up with it. It took me six more months, but I left.
Need and want are two different things. While I did not need anyone romantically, I certainly wanted to feel worthy of romantic love. On the advice of a friend, I turned to OkCupid.
Online dating is a form of personal marketing, which is why so many find it inorganic and unromantic. But self-promotion forces you to ponder certain questions. Why would anyone want to date you? What do you bring to a relationship? After the abuse, answering such questions was healing. It’s similar to the glimmer of hope you feel writing a cover letter, even in the depths of unemployment, as the task forces you to play up your best qualities. You have to reflect on your self-worth. It is required.
Filling out the profile, I remembered all the things I loved about myself that Randall cut down.
I talked about being a charmingly awkward extrovert with a shameless appreciation for high and low-brow media (Hot Tub Time Machine and Network both all-time favorite films). I mentioned my unmatched talent for relating amusing anecdotes, calling myself a “female David Sedaris.” This, and carefully compiling my most flattering recent photos, led to a brief flutter of high self-esteem. There was a half-hour period where I could see no reason anyone wouldn’t want to date me.
This, of course, did not last. Abuse is toxic and traumatic, and ugly words stick with you far longer than 72 hours.
Recently, I have started meeting people through my profile. It has been difficult. A friend of mine, also an abuse survivor, personifies her fears in a being called the “Trauma Fairy.” The Trauma Fairy hovers over your shoulder whispering false warnings, murmuring incantations that make you see red flags in innocuous places. “He answered ‘Yes’ to, ‘Do spelling mistakes annoy you?’” she says, “he’ll probably negate your intelligence. He replied ‘Good’ to ‘How do you feel when you do nothing all day?’ He has no long term goals, and he’ll be threatened by your ambition.”
I combat the Trauma Fairy with a personal mantra — We expect patterns to repeat, but they don’t. Not always, anyway.
I repeat this about three times an hour most days, and about 20 times for every five minutes I spend on OkCupid.
While my post-OkCupid elation was temporary, I still value it. That pocket of time when I felt positive about myself was tremendously cathartic, and its transient nature is in part why it remains significant. Emotions are powerful and all-consuming, but they are also temporary. On a bad day, when I repeat Randall’s insults and convince myself I’m unlovable, I remember I once felt the opposite. Whatever I’m feeling, good or bad, will pass. This helps in my worst moments. It reminds me I have silenced destructive thoughts before and I can do it again.
After remembering as much, I log onto OkCupid and tweak my profile just a little.By Bill "Two Scoops" Emes
Angel Garcia, father and trainer of WBC/WBA junior welterweight champion Danny Garcia, revealed that he wanted his son to face Marcos Maidana last year.
Before Danny fought Lucas Matthysse in September, and Maidana fought Adrien Broner in December, Angel says he initially selected Maidana as Danny's September opponent. In the end, Danny faced Maidana's countryman Matthysse.
Angel says Floyd Mayweather Jr. made a smart decision by picking Maidana instead of Amir Khan for the May 3rd PPV headliner at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
"I thought Maidana would be a better choice for him, for him to have a victorious win. I'm not saying Khan is hard because he don't have no chin. But Floyd don't go in there for a knockout. Floyd don't go to the body anymore because he don't want to get countered on top. He's a smart fighter. I would have chose Maidana too, because when [Garcia] fought Matthysse they gave me [a list with] five names and I chose Maidana too, before he fought Broner. Before that I wanted Maidana," Angel Garcia told BoxingScene.com.Chris Brown appears to have criticised fellow singer Kehlani Parrish after she said she attempted to kill herself.
The 20-year-old - who has been nominated for a Grammy and recently collaborated with Zayn Malik - posted a photo of herself on Instagram.
The singer's seen in a hospital bed with an IV drip in her arm.
The caption said: "I wanted to leave this earth. Being completely selfish for once. Never thought I'd get to such a low point."
The photo has since been deleted but Newsbeat has seen a screenshot.
Since that Instagram, Chris Brown has been criticised online for appearing to mock the RnB artist.
He also voiced his support for Kehlani's ex boyfriend, Kryie Irving - an American professional basketball player for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Kehlani collaborated with Zayn Malik on his album Mind Of Mine, having written and sang on Wrong.
1Xtra included her on their Hot for 2016 list
She was a finalist on America's Got Talent and has also worked with Chance the Rapper.
On Monday there were reports about the personal lives of Kehlani, Kyrie Irving and fellow musician PARTYNEXTDOOR.
In a subsequent Instagram post Kehlani denied rumours that were circulating about her, saying that she believes in "following your heart and not lying to yourself".
"Don't believe the blogs you read. No one was cheated on and I'm not a bad person", she wrote.
She then posted a picture of PARTYNEXTDOOR, whose real name is Jahron Anthony Brathwaite, sitting next to her hospital bed. It was captioned "thank you for saving my life".
Kehlani has now deleted everything from her Instagram page.
He's continued tweeting and posting on Instagram today, although we can't post them here because of the language he uses.
Find us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeatDuring one of this lengthy radio rants last week, Alex Jones seemingly lamented the fact that his critics don’t take him seriously and outright dismiss his accusations of “false flag” terror attacks created by the U.S. government to cover up for some Bilderberg Group/New World Order/chemtrail conspiracy.
“I am not making jack crap up, okay?!” he told his audience. I’m not making nothing up. And I’m sick of people out there in denial. You’re going to lose everything, people!”
“As a man, as a parent, my spider sense is just off the charts,” he continued, asserting that “it’s like a bad James Bond villain runs America.”
In a separate clip, also flagged by Right Wing Watch, Jones predicted, with utmost certainty, that “the people running things are clearly going to stage massive terror attacks and blame it on domestic groups and they are going to try to come arrest a lot of people.” He added: “They really are going to start a civil war and anybody who doesn’t want to go along with their tyranny, they will have ISIS, Al Qaeda, blow something up and claim that they did it with you.”
Enjoy below, as clipped by RWW:
And the aforementioned prediction:
Have a tip we should know? [email protected] is the best live band? That's what we're trying to find out in this tournament and two of rock's most enduring acts are vying to advance into the semifinals.
On one side you have Pearl Jam, now into their third decade of pleasing crowds with their incredible live shows. They advanced to this point in the tournament by besting Red Hot Chili Peppers and Foo Fighters, two acts who are definitely crowd pleasers as well. Emerging from the "grunge" umbrella, the band now yields a more diverse catalog that allows them to playing epic and varied shows filled with hits, unique cover songs and deep album tracks. This frequently bootlegged band is one of the tightest rock outfits going with the ability to play just about anything and with charismatic frontman Eddie Vedder leading the way, they've become a must-see live act.
On the other side of this matchup, you'll find freshly minted Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Green Day. And much like Pearl Jam, they emerged in the '90s and their live show has also evolved over time. Green Day started as a trio powering through punk-infused favorites with ferocity. But these days, it's a more diverse catalog that Green Day have to work with and they're prone to pull out whatever feels good on any given night. With unpredictable singer Billie Joe Armstrong leading the way, the band has become a truly great live act. Having defeated Iggy and the Stooges and System of a Down en route to this Mosh Pit Region pairing, Green Day are ready to put their live show up against all comers, including Pearl Jam.
So who will advance to the Best Live Band Final Four? Do you prefer Pearl Jam or Green Day? You can vote once per hour through the deadline of Tuesday, July 28 at 10AM ET. So make your votes count in the poll below.
See All the Brackets in the Best Live Band Tournament:
Loudwire
Loudwire
LoudwireThe World Club Series promised so much on its launch in 2015 but another NRL whitewash this weekend could prove fatal for the format
If any competition sums up the state of flux rugby league is in, it is the World Club Series. In many ways it is a microcosm of the sport’s problems at elite level: it is a tournament that promised so much on its launch in 2015 but is now beginning to struggle.
The tournament’s biggest difficulty is undoubtedly the gap between the standard of the Super League and NRL sides who compete in it. Before the third instalment of the competition this weekend, English sides have yet to win a game, with a record of 0-6. It is not a ringing endorsement for the credibility of the game here or the competitiveness of the tournament.
World Club Series: Captain America takes the fight to Wigan for the Cronulla Sharks Read more
Increasingly, NRL sides are starting to feel that way too. This year a lack of interest means there are only two games – does that still qualify as a series? – as opposed to the usual three. On Saturday Warrington play Brisbane and Wigan face Cronulla on Sunday in the championship game. Another NRL whitewash could prove fatal for the format and mean the series is scrapped in favour of a one-game World Club Challenge. It is a point not lost on those at the heart of it.
“I think it’s fair to say this is a big weekend,” said Kevin Sinfield, the RFL’s rugby director, at the launch of the Dacia Skill Showroom. “Another strong year for the Australians might see it wane further but there’s always an appetite from Super League. We know we have to perform well and, dare I say it, win some games.”
But should Brisbane beat Warrington and Cronulla become world champions, where next? How do you keep the NRL sides interested when they are clearly so far ahead of Super League? The answer, perhaps in true rugby league fashion, lies in innovation.
“The more we can open the eyes of the Australians to the international club game, the better,” says the Wigan chairman, Ian Lenagan, one of the men originally behind the World Club Series concept. “If that means we have to go to them, then we go to them – or the concept goes somewhere like America.”
On a journey to try to discover what the future of a much-maligned tournament holds, North America has been mentioned more than once. It is embryonic in rugby
|
at all. Being alone with Anna the first time was a mess. The second time with Elise just made things worse. And now? No, she couldn't even think about that.
Let's not pretend for a second though that you actually do kinda want to do this.
Damn her brain for always being right. She couldn't possibly say no without coming up with some well-crafted and thorough lie, which she was incapable of doing ever. There was no getting out of this.
"Ugh fine, I'll do it."
After all, there was no way she could possibly mess up a third time.Sarah Palin's son Track Palin, 26, is facing charges after getting into a drunken altercation with a woman outside the former Alaska governor's home in Wasilla Monday night, according to an affidavit filed in the case.
The charges -- one count each of fourth-degree domestic violence assault, interfering with a report of domestic violence and fourth-degree weapons misconduct -- were reported by the Wasilla Police Department on Tuesday, the same day that Sarah Palin endorsed GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.
According to an affidavit filed in the case by Wasilla police officer Andrew Kappler, a woman called 911 just after 10 p.m. Monday to report a man had just "punched her in the face and that a firearm was involved." Around the same time, a man identifying himself as Track Palin called 911 and said the woman was drunk.
Less than 10 minutes later, police arrived at a home along Lake Lucille on the West Parks Highway, where they found Track Palin walking around outside, the affidavit says.
"I observed the male had a visible injury to his right eye and the area around his eye," Kappler said. "His eyes were bloodshot and I detected a strong odor of alcohol on his breath and person. Upon contacting Palin, he was uncooperative, belligerent, and evasive with my initial line of questions."
According to the affidavit, Palin claimed to not know where the woman was and denied the involvement of a gun, although he did tell detectives there were firearms in the house.
"Due to Palin's escalating hostility, the unknown whereabouts of the 911 caller, and officer safety, Palin was placed into handcuffs," Kappler wrote.
The woman was later found hiding and crying under a bed inside. Palin told police he and the woman had been arguing over her communication with an ex-boyfriend.
"This angered Palin," the affidavit says. "He stated that they had been arguing for most of the night."
According to the affidavit, Palin told detectives the two had gone to dinner, then to his sister's house and later to a piece of property he was considering buying. There, he said, they began to argue again. Palin accused the woman of driving drunk back to his sister's house, leaving him to walk back from the property.
The affidavit said the two later drove back to Palin's parents' house and continued to argue. Palin told police they argued verbally and that the woman "threw a 'bow," meaning an elbow, and that was how his face was injured.
The woman also said the two had been arguing for the better part of the night, and in the driveway of the Palin family home.
"(She) told Palin that she had called the cops even though she had not, in attempt to calm him down and to scare him away from 'touching her,'" the affidavit said. "Palin approached (her) and struck her on the left side of her face with a closed fist."
The woman then told police she fell to the ground in the fetal position and Palin kicked her in her knee before picking up her phone and throwing it.
According to the affidavit, the woman grabbed her phone and went inside, where she said she found Palin holding a gun with the barrel pointed near his face and saying, "Do you think I won't do it?"
"(The woman) was concerned that he would shoot himself and ran outside and around the house," Kappler wrote. She eventually hid under the bed, where she was discovered by police.
The woman said she tried to call 911 and one of Palin's sisters several times, but believed her phone was damaged when it was thrown. She was eventually able to call out using the speakerphone.
Police later found an unloaded AR-15 on the kitchen counter. Palin had a blood-alcohol level of.189 based on a breath test, the affidavit said. The woman had a bruised and swollen left eye, as well as a "small red area" near her knee, where she said Palin kicked her. Police took photographs of the trauma to Palin's face.
Wasilla police investigator Dan Bennett said Tuesday afternoon that the department had no further comment on Track Palin's arrest.
Palin was taken to the Mat-Su Pretrial Facility and arraigned Tuesday afternoon.
Palin family attorney John Tiemessen did not return messages from Alaska Dispatch News on Tuesday. However, the Associated Press reported that he replied to their request for a comment by asking for privacy "as Track receives the help that he and many of our returning veterans need."Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.
Israel’s ability to deter enemies is strong, but on the other hand terror is still a challenge, Military Intelligence head Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi said on Wednesday during remarks at the annual conference of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
“We call this period in time the ‘era of fire’ in light of the amount of missiles and rockets we face as a constant threat,” Kochavi said. “There are about 170,000 rockets and missiles that threaten Israel.”
Kochavi added that the country was “surrounded 360 degrees with active enemies. The conventional threats have not disappeared.”Speaking of the challenges of guarding Israel’s borders, however, the intelligence chief said that neighboring countries had little interest in hostilities.“The countries around us are busy with themselves, they have less funds to start a war,” he explained. “There is no question that there is a decrease in such threats but they have not given up.”Regarding Egypt, Kochavi said that “any retreat of the Muslim Brotherhood in the region is significant for Israel.”He also said that Syria had become a vacuum for the Islamic Jihad and that some of the al-Qaida militants going there to fight had bases in neighboring Turkey and could easily access Europe from the NATO member state. He stressed that very few countries in the region fully control all of their land and all of their borders.Presenting a map of the Middle East marked with areas of al-Qaida presence, Kochavi told the conference that al-Qaida fighters from around the world enter Syria weekly “but they do not stay.”A spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment, but Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly denied his country was providing shelter or backing to al-Qaida- linked groups in Syria.Kochavi declined a request by Reuters to give specific numbers, but his spokeswoman said the map showed the relative strength and location of al-Qaida bases, which appeared to be in the Karaman, Osmaniye and Sanliurfa provinces.“Syria is projecting its conflict to the whole region,” he said. “Those blotches [on the map] in Turkey are no mistake by the graphic artist, and it is a short way from there into Europe.”Taken together, the spots on the map were about half the size of the blotch in the Sinai peninsula, which Kochavi said was home to about 200 jihadists.He added that the cyber world offered a great opportunity for Israel’s growth, but the threat of cyber warfare is growing significantly and there have been many attacks on the security establishment.
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>Agents with the
have been called in to aid the investigation into
.
The fire at the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center was discovered by an on-duty police sergeant at about 2:15 a.m. today. It took firefighters 10 minutes to put it out and it damaged about 80 percent of the office it was contained to. No one was injured.
Sunday afternoon, U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton and Art Balizan, FBI special agent in charge for Oregon, visited the Corvallis Islamic center.
FBI spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele said it's standard for the agency to become involved in attacks on religious groups, but that the possible connection between the fire and the arrest of Mohamud makes their involvement even more important.
"The FBI would not tolerate any retaliation on the Muslim community as a result of that arrest," Steele said. "We have an ongoing relationship with the Muslim leaders
in Corvallis. This is of high concern to them."
More
Steele said she could not say if the fire is related to Mohamud's arrest.
The FBI is offering a reward of up to $10,000 for information that leads to the identification, arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible for the fire.
Earlier today, Yosof Wanly, the imam at the center, said no decision had been made about whether to increase security at the two-story building north of the Oregon State University campus. "That will be up to the leadership," he said.
The FBI also released this statement from Balizan:
"We have made it quite clear that the FBI will not tolerate any kind of retribution or attack on the Muslim community," Balizan said. "We are working very closely with the leadership at the mosque. We will find the person responsible for this attack and bring the full force of the federal justice system to bear. In the meantime, the FBI remains absolutely committed to protecting each and every American's right to live, work and worship in a free and safe society."
The FBI will join the
in investigating this case.The Major League Baseball draft can be an exciting or nerve-racking time for college baseball programs around the country.
Some programs experience a great deal of success leading up to the draft signing deadline. LSU, Florida, Miami and Arkansas, for instance, got a vast majority of their recruiting classes to show up on campus, with the Hurricanes getting an early Christmas present with lefthanded pitcher Andrew Suarez spurning second-round overtures from the Washington Nationals to return to Miami for his senior season.
Others such as Southern Mississippi and Florida State lost some key recruits to the professional ranks, while finally, we take an in-depth look at some of the top returning players.
WINNERS
LSU: The Tigers haven't had the best luck with the Major League Baseball draft at times during the coach Paul Mainieri era, but no pun intended, his program stuck gold this summer. The Tigers had some tense moments down the stretch with the Houston Astros making a late run at coveted lefthanded pitcher Mac Marshall. However, Marshall, ranked No. 21 nationally, remained firm in his commitment to the Tigers. The Tigers did lose heralded third baseman Bobby Bradley to the draft, but welcomes lefthanded pitcher Jake Latz (11th round), catcher Mike Papierski (16th round), righthanded pitcher Jake Godfrey (21st round), and shortstop Grayson Byrd (39th round) to Baton Rouge. The Tigers also added the services of a pair of elite prospects who weren't drafted because of signability/other issues, including shortstop Gregory Deichmann (No. 49) and righthanded pitcher Alex Lange (No. 134), among others. With these guys showing up on campus, the Tigers undoubtedly have one of the nation's elite freshman classes.
Miami (Fla.): What a summer it was for the Hurricanes. First, the 'Canes got their biggest recruit of all this summer when veteran lefthanded pitcher Andrew Suarez, a second-round pick to the Nationals, decided to return for his senior season. But, the good news didn't stop there, with the 'Canes welcoming a bulk of their signing class to campus this fall. The group, which includes eight top 250 national prospects, includes big names such as OF Justin Smith (51), OF Carl Chester (68), RHP Kevin Pimentel (105), C John Jones (193), RHP Jesse Lepore (210), SS Kirvin Moesquit (211), LHP Luke Spangler (233) and LHP Michael Mediavilla (240), among others.
Missouri: Tim Jamieson's Tigers have had a tough couple of seasons in the Southeastern Conference, but perhaps their luck is about to change with the addition of a talented freshman class. Missouri escaped the MLB Draft in good shape with the addition of righthanded pitchers Bryce Montes de Oca (14th round) and Tanner Houck (12th round), while shortstop Shane Benes, who was ranked No. 72 nationally out of high school, will also attend college at Missouri. Additionally, the Tigers welcome second baseman Trey Harris, who was ranked No. 329 nationally out of high school and talented Texas lefthanded pitcher Luke Dabney. Missouri might not get things turned around overnight, but the additions of these guys, particularly Montes de Oca and Houck, presents a big step in a positive direction.
Loyola Marymount: The Lions didn't have any signees drafted, and that includes top 100 national prospect, righthanded pitcher Tylor Megill. However, they got some terrific news from some returning players in righthanded pitchers Trevor Megill and Colin Welmon. Megill turned down overtures as a third-round pick to the Cardinals, while Welmon turned down the Pirates as a 34th-round pick. With the return of those two, along with young talents such as Austin Miller and David Fletcher, among others, the Lions could be ready to take a huge step forward in the West Coast Conference next season.
Arkansas: Outside of LSU, perhaps no team in college baseball had more to cheer about at the signing deadline than the Hogs. Coach Dave Van Horn's club scored big at the deadline. Sure, lefthanded pitcher Sam Hentges, a fourth-round pick to the Indians, was a loss. However, the Hogs scored big with the rest of their class with the additions of several, including RHP Keaton McKinney (42), OF Luke Bonfield (60), RHP Jonah Patten (155), SS Keith Grieshaber (186), C Blake Wiggins (207) and C Nathan Rodriguez (261). The future is very bright for the Hogs.
Florida: The Gators consistently recruit at a very high level, and with that often comes some heartaches at the signing deadline. That heartache were rather limited this year. UF knew it was going to lose righthanded pitcher Grant Holmes, while outfielder Alex Abbott also signed the dotted line. However, UF finished the draft in good shape and welcomes seven top 200 prospects, including C JJ Schwarz (58), RHP Alex Faedo (78), SS Dalton Guthrie (82), 1B Jeremy Vasquez (114), C Michael Rivera (181), Taylor Lane (215) and 3B Hunter Alexander (245). UF also welcomes junior college transfer Taylor Lewis, a 40th-round pick to the Rockies, who was a big-time arm for Chipola JC last spring with a 2.98 ERA in 81 2/3 innings of work.
Virginia: Boy, do the rich just keeping getting richer. Fresh off a trip to the CWS Finals, the Cavaliers have good news as they're getting a vast majority of their recruiting class on campus this fall. Yes, the Cavaliers lost catcher Devon Fisher to the MLB Draft, but welcome six top 200 prospects to campus, including OF Adam Haseley (88), LHP Bennett Sousa (103), outstanding RHP Derek Casey (122), 3B Charlie Cody (128), 1B/P Pavin Smith (137) and RHP Tommy Doyle (144), among others. Virginia definitely lost some key current players to the draft, but this freshman class should provide an instant impact.
Texas: The Longhorns should return to the College World Series in 2015 with the return of several key players, including righthanded pitcher Parker French, a 19th-rounder to the Detroit Tigers, who opted to return to college for his senior season. French gives the Longhorns a bonafide ace pitcher on Friday. Meanwhile, the 'Horns raked in their entire recruiting class, which is highlighted by C Michael Cantu (136), Travis Jones (154), Patrick Mathis (250), Kyle Johnston (330) and Parker Joe Robinson (355), as well as righthanded pitcher Tyler Schimpf, who was a 31st-round pick of the Athletics. This freshman class should give the 'Horns a solid boost.
Cal State Fullerton: Rick Vanderhook's Titans lost some current players to the MLB draft, but will get a nice boost from a strong freshman class. The Titans scored big in the draft, with all of their high school prospects opting to head to college. That talented list includes OF Scott Hurst (62), OF DJ Peters (62), Tristan Hildebrandt (201) and LHP John Gavin, among others. This bunch should really help the Titans, who will have one of the nation's elite starting rotations and overall pitching staffs in 2015. The big key to this team will be their ability to hit the ball.
Stanford: The professional ranks typically have trouble convincing prospects to turn down a college experience at Stanford, and this summer was another example of that. The Cardinal got all of their prospects drafted this summer, including elite RHP Keith Weisenberg (35), C Bryce Carter (61), LHP Quinn Brodey (152) and Colton Hock (236), among others. This infusion of young talent should help the Cardinal succeed in the spring.
South Carolina: Those wanting a glimpse at a bright future should look at what the Gamecocks have coming to campus this fall. The Gamecocks have a very, very good freshman class on their hands with lefthanded pitcher Alex Destino (53) leading the charge. Meanwhile, RHP Brandon Murray (83), RHP Braden Webb (131), RHP Jeff Harding Jr. (162), C Hunter Taylor (169) and RHP Clarke Schmidt (230) are other talented headliners. South Carolina's draft couldn't have gone much better, especially when you throw in veteran key hitter Kyle Martin returning to Columbia, S.C., for his senior campaign.
UCLA: The Bruins' spot on the list of winners could be rather short-lived. To explain, Astros top overall pick and lefthanded pitcher Brady Aiken and fifth-round selection, righthanded pitcher Jacob Nix, didn't ink contracts at the deadline, with Aiken reportedly turning down $5 million. As it stands right now, Aiken and Nix are assumed to be heading to college at UCLA, but both could opt to either head to a junior college, or sit out a year and test the waters again next summer, among other potential options. With that said, the Bruins will still welcome an intriguing recruiting class to campus this fall. Third baseman Sean Bouchard (75) is a highly touted prospect with tools, while RHP Griffin Canning (224) is someone coach John Savage and his staff feel like can make an immediate impact. The Bruins also have the luxury of David Berg's services for another season. The 17th-round selection of the Rangers decided to return for his senior season, instantly giving the Bruins one of the nation's elite relief pitchers.
LOSERS
Southern Mississippi: The Golden Eagles still welcome a decent recruiting class this fall, but lost the nucleus of the group to the draft. USM lost lefthanded pitcher Justin Steele, who signed for $1 million as a fifth-round pick to the Chicago Cubs, while catcher Blake Anderson also signed the dotted line. Meanwhile, the Eagles suffered another hit when, surprisingly, 25th-round pick, outfielder Byron Murray, elected to sign with the Giants by the signing deadline. USM also lost upperclassmen Mason Robbins and Bradley Roney to the draft this summer.
Florida State: The Seminoles definitely didn't have a summer to remember from an MLB Draft standpoint. The 'Noles lost starting pitchers Luke Weaver and Brandon Leibrandt, among others, to the draft, while also losing four of their top five recruits, including Nick Gordon, Sean Reid-Foley, Matt Raley and Carson Sands. FSU, though, does welcome some talented prospects to campus this fall, including RHP Cobi Johnson (29), RHP Andrew Karp (160) and RHP Drew Carlton (173), among others.
KEY RETURNEES
Benton Moss, rhp, North Carolina: The Tar Heels were stressing out near the signing deadline with Moss a 15th-round selection to the San Francisco Giants. Moss, though, decided to return to Chapel Hill for his senior season. His return gives the Tar Heels all three weekend starting pitchers back from last year's NCAA postseason club. The Heels also struck gold with the addition of freshman righthanded pitcher Jacob Bukauskas, who would've been a first or second-round pick if he was signable.
Christian Trent, lhp, Mississippi: The Rebels thought they had a good chance to keep the talented lefty for another season, and that happened after he was drafted in the 29th round by the Dodgers. Trent brings a hard-nosed attitude back to the club this fall. Last season, he served as one of the nation's elite Saturday starting pitchers, tallying a 2.05 ERA in 110 innings, along with 86 strikeouts and 20 walks. Ole Miss is in good shape on the mound with the return of Trent and senior righthanded pitcher Sam Smith.
Andrew Suarez, lhp, Miami (Fla.): The Hurricanes were already happy they added several high school prospects to the fold at the signing deadline, but the biggest news of the deadline was the return of the outstanding lefthanded pitcher. Suarez turned down second-round overtures, first breaking the news on Instagram. His return is huge for a Miami club losing always consistent starting pitcher Bryan Radziewski. Suarez had a 2.95 ERA in 109 2/3 innings last season, and gives the 'Canes a power, elite, arm heading into 2015.
Austin Byler, 1b, Nevada: Second-year head coach Jay Johnson hopes to take a step forward in 2015, and the return of Byler, a hard-hitting first baseman, helps make that possible. Byler turned down overtures as a ninth-round pick to the Nationals, and brings a power bat back in '15. Byler ended last season with a.326 batting average, 14 doubles, five triples, 14 homers and 47 RBIs.
David Berg, rhp, UCLA: There was always a good chance Berg, a 17th-round pick to the Rangers, would return to college for his senior season. But the Bruins coaches weren't fully believing it until the deadline passed. Well, the deadline passed and Berg is headed back to Westwood for another season. That's huge news, as the righty, who earned All-American honors two seasons ago, is coming off a campaign that ended with an impressive 1.50 ERA in 31 appearances and 48 innings of work last season. With Berg, along with weekend starters Cody Poteet, Grant Watson and James Kaprielian back in '15, the Bruins' postseason hiatus is expected to be short-lived.
Parker French, rhp, Texas: Though the Horns, expectedly, lost some key players to the MLB Draft, they also got good news with the return of veteran righthanded pitcher Parker French. French, along with Nathan Thornhill, was the heart and soul of this UT team down the stretch last season, and he's back for another campaign. French likely will start for the 'Horns next season, but there's talk he also could move into the closer role. French made 17 starts, 20 appearances, last season and had a 2.41 ERA in 104 2/3 innings, along with 62 strikeouts.
Matthew Crownover, lhp, Clemson: Looking to make a run to Omaha in '15, the return of Crownover, a weekend starter, is important for the Tigers. Crownover was a 21st-round pick to the Giants, and opted to return for another campaign. In 2014, he made 17 appearances, 16 starts, and had a 2.90 ERA in 99 1/3 innings, along with 90 strikeouts and 20 walks.
Alex Close, 1b, Liberty: The Flames had a successful 2014 season, and hope to accomplish even more next year with the return of outstanding pitcher Ashton Perritt, and of course, Close. Close is a big-time hitter for the Flames, hitting.323 with nine homers and 46 RBIs last season. Close was drafted in the 27th round by the Royals, but chose to return to LU for another season.
Aaron Garza, rhp, Houston: Don't look for the Cougars to be a one-hit wonder with the return of righthanded pitchers Jake Lemoine and Garza. Garza, a 29th-round selection of the Brewers, decided to return to college for his senior season, and his return is an important one for UH. Garza started 17 games last season and tallied a 2.92 ERA in 108 innings.
Landon Lassiter, 3b, North Carolina: Lightning struck twice for the Tar Heels in terms of good news in the MLB Draft. First, it was righthanded pitcher Benton Moss returning for another season, but Lassiter's return also is huge. Lassiter finished last season with a.305 batting average, a home run and 21 RBIs, while also tallying a.415 on-base percentage.
Kyle Martin, 1b, South Carolina: The Gamecocks hope to return to the College World Series in 2015, and the return of Martin could prove to be huge. Martin, an imposing presence, finished the '14 campaign with a team-best.336 batting average, 11 doubles, five homers and 38 RBIs. He returned to South Carolina despite getting drafted in the 20th round by the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
Matt Ditman, rhp, Rice: The Owls will have one of the nation's elite pitching staffs and starting rotations in 2015 with the return of Blake Fox, Kevin McCanna, Jon Duplantier, and others, and the return of Ditman out of the bullpen is massive. Ditman made 26 appearances (two starts) last season and had a 1.83 ERA in 68 2/3 innings, along with 77 strikeouts and 12 walks.
Zack Zehner, of, Cal Poly: The Mustangs received a lucky break when Zehner decided to return to college for his senior season. Zehner was a seventh-round pick of the Blue Jays, and is coming off a successful season, where he batted.316 with three homers. Cal Poly should be in good shape offensively with the return of Zehner and leading hitter Mark Mathias.Each of these initial experiments were been designed to clearly demonstrate a now very common problem: excessive buffering in a network path. I call this “bufferbloat“. We all suffer from it end-to-end, and not just in our applications, operating systems and home network, as you will see.
Large network buffers can be thought of as “dark buffers”, analogous to “dark matter” in the universe; they are undetectable under many/most circumstances, and you can detect them only by indirect means. Buffers do not cause problems when they are empty. But when they fill they introduce additional latency (and create other problems, possibly very severe) to other traffic sharing the link.
In the past, memory was expensive, and bandwidth on a link fixed; in most parts of the path your bytes take through the network, necessary buffering was easy to predict and there were strong cost incentives to minimize extra buffering. Times have changed, memory is really cheap, but our engineering intuition is to avoid dropping data. This intuition turns out to be wrong, and has become counter-productive.
The network is often completely congested
All modern operating systems on modern hardware (this leaves out Windows XP, which does not implement TCP window scaling and on continental U.S.delays won’t go much faster than 6Mbps, or have more than 64KB in flight at once) can trivially saturate any network up to a gigabit per second with even a *single* TCP connection. This means that bulk data transfer, in either direction on broadband links (and other internet links) will routinely saturate one hop in a path, the minimum bandwidth path from sender to receiver. In your home, this is most likely your broadband Internet connection, though as Experiment 2 showed, it can easily be the wireless link in your home router. Other protocols can also saturate a link: e.g. bittorrent, UDP based protocols, etc.
As I demonstrated, it’s really easy to saturate a 100Mbps link (on Linux or Mac OSX) in your home or office (still probably the most common ethernet switch), and even more easily, any wireless link, with bad consequences.
Congestion avoiding protocols (e.g. TCP, which is our commonly accepted touch-stone of congestion avoiding protocols, by which others are judged) rely on a low level of timely packet drop to detect congestion (or, in modern TCP stacks, packets marked by ECN bits; for various reasons, ECN is not typically used today). They regulate their sending by noticing when packets have dropped to not overfill the chokepoint on their network path. Timely congestion notification via packet drop is a fundamental design presumption of the Internet communications protocols.
Buffering is necessary
Some buffering is clearly necessary in a network: it means that short bursts of packets can be absorbed without significant loss. It is important there is space available to put packets waiting for transmission. We certainly don’t want a lot of packet loss anytime two packets happen to arrive at once, or happen to be generated nearly simultaneously on a host. And for reasons that will become clear, some applications (e.g. web browsers) are causing packet bursts.
Too much buffering is bad
Packets reach a choke point on the path, and are queued; a queue cannot drain until packets have been transmitted. If more packets come in than can be transmitted, the queue gets longer. Clearly, we don’t want the queue length to go to infinity; sooner or later we better drop some data. (Note that even with traffic classification, you still have queuing going on; just in more than one queue). There are three choices: you can drop from the tail of the queue, the head of the queue, or pick a random packet.
Two queues will grow: one on either side of the slowest hop in the network path, depending on which direction packets are flowing. The more packets queued, the higher the latency in the queue. The bottleneck, of course, may be a different hop in the path in one direction than the other.
In the experiments, you are seeing (excessive) queuing in operating systems, and in home routers. You see various behavior going on as TCP tries to find out how much bandwidth is available, and (maybe) different kinds of packet drop (e.g. head drop, or tail drop; you can choose which end of the queue to drop from when it fills). Note that any packet drop, whether due to congestion or random packet loss (e.g. to wireless interference) is interpreted as possible congestion, and TCP will then back off how fast to will transmit data.
This begs a fundamental question in a packet switched network: how much buffering is enough? Well, this is a complex question: the optimum shown by Kleinrock is the bandwidth * the delay * sqrt(Nflows). The “bandwidth delay product” is needed in order to keep enough data in flight to go as fast as it can over the transmission path; but we also need to have some space to deal with other traffic that might arrive (the number of flows). There is recent research that shows that in fact Kleinrock’s optimum is more likely an upper bound; many real routers may be able to work better with fewer packets queued.
We clearly need some buffering, but not too much. Cheap memory means we can have GOBS of buffering. In fact, many Linux network drivers are telling Linux to buffer 1000 packets in transmission! at 1500 bytes/packet, this is 1.5 megabytes! (X11 was developed on VAXes with 2MB of RAM total). This is 12 megabits. At 10 megabits/second, it’s going to take more than a second for any such queue to drain. At 1Mbps, well over 10 seconds.
These network devices cover 2 orders of magnitude of performance (both ethernet and wireless), but the buffering number was probably picked (if thought about consciously at all) to enable high bandwidth over planetary scale at highest bandwidth for a server with many simultaneous flows, but without thought about latency when the same hardware is running very slowly, on low delay paths, with just a few flows
What is more, I’ve demonstrated in these experiments two cases of bufferbloat in Linux: it’s transmit queue (the txqueuelen knob we twisted), and the transmit rings in the NIC’s (sometimes adjustable as well). Other hardware/software combinations has additional hidden buffer locations.
There is no (single) right answer
I hope the previous paragraph’s discussion makes it clear there is no single right answer possible for buffering. It is a function of bandwidth (which on both ethernet and wireless can easily vary by several orders of magnitude; further complicating wireless is the difference between “goodput” and “bandwidth”), your workload (the number of flows), and your tolerance for latency.
Next installment
Having demonstrated bufferbloat in simple experiments everyone can perform, we’ll move on to what these bloated buffers are doing to TCP in more detail and why it ends up filling the buffers at the choke point, as best I can explain (I’m not a full fledged TCP expert). I’ll include TCP traces illustrating the problem (over home broadband links). Other protocols are equally capable of causing the buffers to fill; this is not unique to TCP.
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If you registered your business entity after January 1, 2016 and meet the eligibility requirements for Senate Bill 1049; you may be eligible for a refund of the filing fees paid directly to the Texas Secretary of State. This may not apply to businesses formed via a third-party service provider. Check with the Secretary of State for eligibility.
Follow the procedures below to apply for a refund of your filing fees:Nation Wong/Zefa/Corbis
Good Housekeeping banned cigarette advertising in 1952, 12 years before the surgeon general of the United States issued a report on the health hazards of smoking. And it's quite extraordinary that, as far back as May 1928, Dr. Harvey Wiley, who was then founder and director of the Bureau of Foods, Sanitation, and Health at the Good Housekeeping Institute (and before that, champion of the Pure Food and Drug Act in Washington), cautioned readers that "cancer of the lips, tongue, and throat is much more prevalent among men than among women. I consider this due to the use of tobacco, particularly smoking."
Eighty-one years later we certainly know that what Dr. Wiley said is true. Tobacco use is responsible for more than 400,000 deaths per year in America, and medical experts are well aware of its link to lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, emphysema, and other health conditions. And in addition to the hazards posed by secondhand smoke, just recently physicians from MassGeneral Hospital for Children in Boston used the term "thirdhand smoke" to describe the toxic chemicals and gases that cling to smokers' hair, clothing, and carpet and linger long after a smoker has left the room.
There has been an outcry from some organizations and individuals against this landmark legislation because they are opposed to governmental interference in the lives of everyday citizens. Yet governmental regulation of tobacco use is not an insult to the intelligence of Americans, as some bloggers are arguing. Measures to protect the health and safety of adults and children have long proven to be effective, as in the mandating of seat-belt use. In 2008, it was reported that, partly due to high-visibility law-enforcement efforts, more Americans (83%) buckled up than ever before; the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that about 270 lives are saved for every 1% increase in seat-belt use. And it was government's promotion of the polio vaccine that helped the disease to be virtually eliminated in the United States.
Dr. David Abrams, an addiction expert formerly at the National Institutes of Health, has been quoted as saying, "It's more difficult to get off nicotine than heroin or cocaine." Who among us doesn't know someone who has struggled (and, often, failed) to kick the cigarette habit? By signing the Tobacco Bill, President Obama has enabled the government to ensure that tobacco products are less addictive for those who continue to use them and to protect children who are vulnerable and at risk for a lifetime of health consequences. We all know the dangers of tobacco use. It's now time to act.Obama’s second inauguration
21 January 2013
Four years ago, close to 2 million people converged on Washington DC
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fight income inequality, a message that resonated in liberal Washington and other Western states. Sanders won in Utah and Idaho this week.
“Don’t let anybody tell you we can’t win the nomination or the general election,” Sanders told supporters in Wisconsin, which holds the next contest on April 5. “We are going to do both.”
All three contests on Saturday were caucuses, a format that has favored Sanders because it requires more commitment from voters. They also were in states with fewer of the black and Hispanic voters who have helped fuel Clinton’s lead.
“He was just more aligned with my values. I am young and I never knew there could be someone like him in politics,” said Samantha Burton of Seattle, who said Sanders was the first candidate who had inspired her to make a donation.
Jocelyn Alt, a birthing assistant at a Seattle hospital, said she backed Clinton because she believed the times called for someone who could get things done.
“She knows how to make things happen,” she said. “I think Hillary is more likely to win against a Republican.”
After Wisconsin, the Democratic race moves to contests in New York on April 19 and a bloc of five states in the Northeast, led by Pennsylvania, on April 26.
There were no contests on Saturday in the Republican race featuring Trump and rivals U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Ohio Governor John Kasich.
Slideshow (12 Images)
On Saturday, the New York Times published a lengthy foreign policy-focused interview with Trump. The New York billionaire told the newspaper he might stop oil purchases from Saudi Arabia unless they provide troops to fight the Islamic State.
Trump also told the Times he was willing to rethink traditional U.S. alliances should he become president.When a note by a Citi FX strategist begins with the following proclamation endorsing outright fascist despotism, you know it's going to be good: "This is the first European election in which voters didn't do the right thing." Perhaps if Citi would be so kind to overrule the democratic vote, in which 55% or the majority of the people voted against the "right thing", and impose its own unelected Italian dictator, just like Goldman did in November 2011, that long EURUSD call would be happier? Then it only gets better: "Elections are more problematic than market scares or sentiment shifts as they can't be undone by printing monry" (sic). True: some things outright money debasement by central banks can't buy - for everything else there are Siberian Gulags. And the absolute punchline: "Still the outcome does not seem so dire that a bit of growth and ECB flexibility could not turn it around." Why yes, all Europe needs is a "little growth" obviously in lieu of lots of growth, but frankly it will settle for any growth - something it has been unable to do under the wise tutelage of the banker-dominated oligarchy for the past four years, as for that little "ECB flexibility" - wink wink: just where would you like those Euro Stoxx Steve?
From Citi's Steven Englander:
1) The bad news first. This is the first European election in which voters didn't do the right thing. Instead they gave surprising support to politicians who reject austerity and, in some cases, the euro. This could become a major problem if it proves contagious. The feel-good from the runup in Italian asset markets was not enough to offset the feel-bad from austerity, low growth and unemployment. If all it would take to fix this was an ECB rate cut, they would do so immediately, but euro zone politicians may need to ease fiscal constraints and find ways to quickly stimulate growth. Elections are more problematic than market scares or sentiment shifts as they can't be undone by printing monry. Still the outcome does not seem so dire that a bit of growth and ECB flexibility could not turn it around.
Outcome for the euro - negative in short term and maybe further to go, but considering that euro spent months happily over 1.40 with Berlusconi as PM, this is a set back but not a catastrophe.
2) JPY - collateral damage and position cutting. Its not as if any new JPY information came out in the middle of the Tokyo night when markets went pear-shaped. Yesterday's high to low range in EURJPY touched seven big figures. So there were either weak JPY shorts or EUR longs. The BoJ's mistake in 2009-2012 was letting bad news elsewhere lead to yen appreciation, a double hit. If the new policymaking regime is different, it will be because it will resist JPY appreciation on bad news.
Outcome for JPY - temporary JPY plus, but hard to see the incentive for the Japanese government to do anything but talk yen down and Nikkei up again – USDJPY buying opportunity.
3) Monday’s shock helps Fed Chairman Bernanke Tuesday as these developments argue that the world is not a safe place and that a QE buffer against negative economic or financial shocks needs to be maintained. Bernanke will argue for Fed exIt (Fexit?) as soon as possible but not necessarily anytime soon. Very short term I think this will give markets a boost, but data in following weeks are a risk.
Outcome for USD – Fed Chairman will likely try and talk risk appetite back into market, unwinding USD gains. The problem is that once we get past his testimony we may face some weak economic data and renewed concern that fiscal tightening is having a more negative effect than is priced into markets.
4) Positions were big drivers and concentrated positions were hit, while positionless but risk-correlated AUD and NZD were almost flat versus Friday. JPY stronger on JPY negative news. This looks like a positioning and panic induced shift rather than a real risk sell-off. The Italian election is a definite EUR negative but other than with respect to the EUR, the major impact was in markets that were heavily positioned, not where there was bad news. Hence I think that dust will settle slowly in Europe but more quickly elsewhere – GBP, JPY weakness will resume.PLATTE, S.D.-A former South Dakota highway patrolman is charged with taking nearly $70,000 from drug arrests over the past four years.
Brian William Biehl, 47, of Platte, has been arrested by complaint on one count of grand theft by law enforcement of seized property for taking $69,668 in money confiscated between May 21, 2012, and Oct. 19, 2016, court documents state.
Biehl worked as a trooper in the Chamberlain area for more than 15 years, according to the South Dakota Department of Public Safety, but is no longer employed by the department.
"While we cannot comment on the on-going criminal case, it is important for the public to know the South Dakota Highway Patrol prides itself on being a trusted public servant. Police officers are given great trust and responsibility, and for that reason we are held to a higher standard," said Col. Craig Price, superintendent of the South Dakota Highway Patrol in a written statement. "These allegations are serious. We are reviewing our policies and procedures to determine if there is anything we can do to prevent this from ever happening again."
On Oct. 21, Biehl and another trooper met with an assistant attorney general to discuss an upcoming trial, and $3,850 seized in the case was discovered missing, court documents state. Shortly after that, the troopers, along with other Highway Patrol officials, discovered $1,540 was missing from another evidence bag.
The Highway Patrol contacted the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation, and Biehl contacted his sergeant to meet on Interstate 90 near White Lake, where he allegedly admitted to taking the money.
When Biehl met with a DCI agent, he allegedly said he took the cash over four years to pay his bills because he was "short on money" and that "it's been going on for quite a while."
Biehl said all the money he took was drug-seizure money, and he took it after placing it in his evidence locker or the Highway Patrol's evidence room in Chamberlain, but he denied ever selling the drugs he seized.
Biehl said the first time he took evidence money was in 2012 after he stopped a vehicle on I-90 near Chamberlain, in which he found more than 30 pounds of marijuana and a couple thousand dollars, all of which he took for himself.
The last time he took money was Oct. 19 after performing a traffic stop on a California resident driving westbound on I-90, court documents state. In the vehicle, Biehl found some "Oxy," marijuana and 58 bottles of butane along with $4,262, $1,540 of which he allegedly pocketed for himself.
DCI searched Biehl's patrol vehicle on Oct. 25 and allegedly found several empty evidence bags, and the next day, Biehl called DCI to provide additional evidence bags.
According to court documents, Biehl said he never seized money with the intent of keeping it and kept the evidence bags so he could eventually pay everything back.
Biehl was charged by complaint by the South Dakota Attorney General's Office and the Brule County state's attorney on Nov. 4. He was arrested the same day and was released on a personal recognizance bond. The theft charge is a Class 4 felony, punishable upon conviction by up to 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine.Wal-Mart teaming up with Uber and Lyft to deliver groceries 9:46 AM ET Fri, 3 June 2016 | 00:38
Wal-Mart is testing a new way to bring products to your front door.
At the company's annual shareholders meeting in Bentonville, Ark., Friday, CEO Doug McMillon will announce a grocery delivery pilot with Uber and Lyft. The test will debut in Denver, Colo., and Phoenix, Az., over the next two weeks, and follows what the company called a "very quiet" pilot between Sam's Club and Deliv in Miami, Fla., in March.
The tie-up with that delivery company, which has scored investments with major mall operators including Simon Property Group, involves delivery of both grocery and general merchandise.
"We've been working on convenient new ways to make shopping easier for our busy customers and members. You can see this in our rapid expansion of online grocery pickup across the country," Michael Bender, an executive vice president in Wal-Mart's global-commerce division, wrote in a blog post.
That includes a grocery home delivery service that is currently offered in San Jose, Calif., and Denver, Colo.
To place an order for home delivery, a customer in one of the test locations goes online and selects the preferred delivery window.
Store associates will then select and prepare their orders, and request a driver from one of the companies to pick it up. Shoppers pay the retailer's standard $7 to $10 delivery charge online, and pay nothing to the driver when their order is delivered.The Immune System and Cancer
A Weakened Immune System Leads To Cancer...
A Strong Immune System Seeks Out and Destroys Cancer
The Immune System and Cancer - An Antibody (The Immunoglobulin)
Here are a few facts about the immune system and cancer. For most of your life, your immune system successfully fought cancerous cells, killing them as they developed. That's its job. In fact, the only job Natural Killer cells have is to kill cancer cells and viruses.
For cancer to develop, your immune system must either be worn out, ineffective, unable to kill cancer cells as fast as they normally develop, or you must be exposed to a mass of cancer causing toxins, radiation or some such thing, that increase the rate of development of cancer cells to such an abnormally high level that your immune system can't handle it.
Either way, it is vital to strengthen the immune system in your battle against cancer. Especially if you are getting medical treatments that wipe out your immune system.
Many natural supplements support the immune system. This is why so many of them are touted as being able to help you beat cancer. If someone has an immune system that is almost able to handle the cancer, even a poor immune system supplement can be enough to improve the immune system to the extent that it beats cancer.
When a supplement or procedure has been used for years, especially if it is popular, you'll hear how it has beat cancer. But what you don't know is if it worked 2% of the time or 15% of the time. Given the number of people who die from cancer, the success rate of most of these supplements is fairly low. In this report we try to find and recommend the supplements that work the best, so that you have the greatest likelihood of success. It is easy to squander money and more importantly time, on products that won't get the job done.
The other concern is to make sure you do enough to wipe out the cancer. Cancer is not something to pussyfoot around with. While it is always hopeful and great to read about how someone took just one supplement and beat their cancer, and while that could happen to you, your odds of success are much higher if you take many different supplements in order to hit the cancer as hard as you can.
In order to determine which cancer fighting supplements are the most effective ones, we energetically test them for what we call their healing power. We have found this to be the most effective way of determining which supplements are likely to be the best to use. Our experience is that this works much better than taking a guess at what is good, and what isn't as good as it sounds.
When we started doing this we were surprised at how poorly the well known supplements and procedures tested. Many had been around for years and were popular, used by many patients and naturopaths, etc. But they actually weren't highly effective. Though they are good enough to help some people, and thus over time, produced plenty of testimonials, as you see in this report, we've been able to find many stronger products. Most of them new and thus unknown.
We hope you find these testing numbers useful. We retest new supplements after they have been used a while, to check how good they are proving to be after extended use. So numbers will change and emphasis too, based on real life results.
It is all too easy to waste money, taking supplements that are not as good as they seem. This testing and these recommendations will help you determine what is, in our opinion, just okay to take, and what is very good to use. Given that many of the most well known cancer fighting supplements test in the range of 200 to 300, these new supplements are the strongest immune boosting and cancer killing supplements you can get.
Cancer Killing, Immune System Boosting, Super Supplements
Addressing the immune system and cancer, these supplements will be listed in order of their energetic testing healing power. They are much more powerful than the standard immune system supplements.
HonoKare
Honokare is an herbal extract focused on supplying honokiol from the bark of the magnolia officianalis tree along with other synergistic nutrients in a highly absorbable, liquid solution that is frequency enhanced to make it even more powerful. It's energetic test comes in at 8400. It fights cancer in several ways that do not cause an inflammatory response of the immune system's dead cancer cell removal.
Honokare first came to my attention in an article by Michele Cagan describing some of the research that has been done on honokiol. She wrote:
"When it comes to cancer, there’s more than one way to beat it, so honokiol doesn’t stop at one. Instead, it attacks cancer on multiple fronts, fighting tumors head-on. It starts by making sure the tumors can’t supply themselves with the nutrients they need to thrive. You see, like all other cells, cancer cells need food and oxygen (among other things) to stay alive. They get their supplies by creating their own blood vessel networks, a process called angiogenesis. But honokiol simply doesn’t let that happen. An early in vitro study found that honokiol could prevent that angiogenesis1 and more. This research also uncovered another anti-cancer power in honokiol’s arsenal: the ability to prevent tumor growth (formally known as antiproliferative activity) in mice with angiosarcoma, an extremely malignant and aggressive cancer that usually grows and spreads alarmingly fast. Another in vitro study2 discovered one of the key ways that honokiol helps conquer many types of cancer. It prevents a cancer-sustaining enzyme called PLD (phospholipase D) from doing its job. Left unchecked, PLD keeps cancer cells from dying off (a process known as apoptosis). So when honokiol blocks it, cancer cells die. Increased PLD activity has been linked to several cancers (breast, kidney and colon, for example) and cancer cell lines (lung, pancreatic, and prostate, to name a few). So honokiol’s ability to rein in this disease-promoting enzyme can have a remarkable effect on any cancer that relies on PLD to survive. Fight colon cancer without making yourself sicker Colorectal cancer strikes hundreds of thousands of people every year—often affecting people over 60 years old. And while this form of cancer can be treated successfully using mainstream methods (like surgery and chemotherapy), the treatments themselves can be painful and debilitating. Honokiol fights and kills many forms of cancer—but studies have shown that it does this without harming healthy cells (unlike many forms of chemotherapy). So researchers investigated honokiol’s effect on one of the most common cancers—colorectal cancer. One group of researchers studied mice with human colon cancer. They injected the mice with honokiol every other day, and the results were stunning. The honokiol blocked tumor growth without a toxic effect on the mice. In fact, this powerful natural treatment prolonged their lives 3. Prostate cancer can be complicated, but the real solution is very simple Prostate cancer takes more than one form, but most mainstream treatments only work on a single, specific form. Honokiol, it turns out, just may be able to treat prostate cancer regardless of the form: androgen status, for example, or p53 status. (Androgen status refers to hormone levels, and p53 is a gene that is sometimes altered in men with prostate cancer.) An in vitro study4 found that honokiol effectively caused apoptosis in several kinds of prostate cancer cells, both androgen dependent and independent, as well as cells with varying p53 status. Bolstered by that success, they progressed their research to an animal study. There, the scientists found that treating mice with honokiol three times a week halted prostate tumor growth. The researchers also found a higher rate of cancer cell death. And more prostate cancer cell death combined with less tumor growth is exactly what you want when fighting this disease. And unlike the mainstream options—surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and hormone therapy—honokiol did not cause weight loss or any other side effects. Honokiol takes on even ‘incurable’ cancers B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) is one of the toughest cancers to treat and beat. According to the mainstream medical community, it remains incurable. But some very insightful researchers refused to accept that. And based on honokiol’s success against other cancer cell lines, they decided to see how well it would work fighting B-CLL cells. Their intuition paid off. Their in vitro study5 found that honokiol sets off the death cycle of these cancer cells, and that the extract was more toxic toward the B-CLL cells than healthy cells. On top of that, honokiol also improved the anti-cancer effects of chemotherapy drugs (fludarabine, cladribine, and chlorambucil). And that’s not the only difficult cancer that honokiol helps conquer. According to the National Cancer Institute, “For most patients with non-small cell lung cancer, current treatments do not cure the cancer.” And squamous lung cancer fits right into that category. While current mainstream therapies remain largely ineffective, honokiol (at least in lab tests) appears to have a very deadly impact on these cancer cells. When researchers tested honokiol against squamous lung cancer cells in an in vitro study, their work paid off. The honokiol treatment set off a chain reaction that led to apoptosis, cancer cell death 6. Citations:
1 Bai, X., et al. Honokiol, a small molecular weight natural product, inhibits angiogenesis in vitro and tumor growth in vivo. J Biol Chem. 2003.
2 Garcia, A., et. al. Honokiol suppresses survival signals mediated by Ras-dependent phospholipase D activity in human cancer cells. Clin Cancer Res. 2008; 14(13)
3 Chen, F., et al. Honokiol: a potent chemotherapy candidate for human colorectal carcinoma. World J Gastroenterol. 10(23):3459-3463, 2004.
4 Hahm, E., et. al. Honokiol, a constituent of oriental medicinal herb magnolia officinalis, inhibits growth of PC-3 xenografts in vivo in association with apoptosis induction. Clin Cancer Res. 14(4), 2008.
5 Battle, T. E., et al. The natural product Honokiol induces caspase-dependent apoptosis in B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) cells. Blood. 2005.
6 Yang, S. E., et al. Down-modulation of Bcl-XL, release of cytochrome c and sequential activation of caspases during honokiol-induced apoptosis in human squamous lung cancer CH27 cells. Biochem Pharmacol. 63(9):1641-1651, 2002.
Honokare is a full spectrum, supercritical extract of five organic and wild crafted roots and barks, six organic essential oils with synergistic cofactors all infused into a Humic and Fulvic acid solubilized solution (which increases absorption and bioavailability).
Current medical research focuses on the anti-cancer properties of many of the extracts within Honokare. These include Honokiol, Magnolol, Astragaloside, Gingerols, methoxyisoflavones, beta-lapachone, lapachol, taraxacin, saponins among others.
It also works to balance and help keep stress response and stress chemicals in check. This can be a great assistance when worry blocks relaxation and even sleep. This effect can free up a lot of healing energy. Users report feeling “dark clouds” lifting from their outlook within moments of use. This effect can be tracked not only to the magnolia extracts but also to the high purity essential oil component, which brings with it the nurturing focus of tens of thousands of medicinal flowers.
Medicinal Roots and Barks
A proprietary extraction process is used to create these extracts. The process starts with whole roots and barks. This ensures complete active ingredient levels. The multi-stage extraction captures all the hot water and fat-soluble micronutrients from the five roots and barks chosen for Honokare. The focus is on Magnolia and Astragulus but includes a supportive complement of Dandelion root, Pao D'Arco bark and Ginger root.
Magnolia Bark Extracts Are Safe, Fight Anxiety - Brain Booster - Powerful Anti-oxidant
While magnolia bark has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for over 2000 years, only recently have researchers explored its components. Human, animal, and in vitro studies are confirming what traditional herbalists have already known about its safety and efficacy. Honokiol avoids immediate break-down by the liver - and crosses blood barriers that often exclude other compounds. Recent studies have found validation for honokiol as a treatment option for anxiety, cancer, periodontal disease, stroke, inflammation, and even weight loss.
Magnolia bark is generally used as an anti-stress and anti-anxiety agent. Medical research on two of its bi phenol compounds (magnolol and honokiol), indicates that magnolia’s anti-stress benefits are linked to its ability to control levels of the body’s primary stress hormone, cortisol. Myriad health benefits are associated with normal cortisol levels versus elevated cortisol. Elevated cortisol levels are associated with conditions including obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, memory problems and suppressed immune function.
Research indicates that honokiol also selectively modulates GABA receptors. GABA (gamma Aminobutyric acid) is the major inhibitory neurotransmitter for nervous tissue. Many sedatives work by targeting and attaching to GABA receptors in the brain. Honokiol has shown anti-anxiety effects while avoiding the side effects of many sedatives.
Research has shown both magnolol and honokiol to possess powerful ”brain-health” benefits via their actions in modulating the activity of various neurotransmitters and related enzymes in the brain (increased choline acetyltransferase activity, increased acetylcholine release and inhibition of acetylcholinesterase). Japanese researchers have determined that the magnolol and honokiol components of Magnolia officinalis can be up to one thousand times more potent than alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E) in their antioxidant activity, thereby offering a potential heart-health benefit and added free radical protection.
Astragulus Root
Astragulus root is one of the 50 fundamental Chinese medicinal herbs. It helps modulate the immune system and strengthens several organs while lowering blood pressure and blood sugar levels.
Astragalus is an adaptogen, antipyretic, diuretic, tonic, uterine stimulant and vasodilator. Astragalus as an adjuvant therapy has been used in the treatment of cancer, prolapse of the uterus or anus, abscesses and chronic ulcers, chronic nephritis with edema and proteinuria. Recent research has shown that the root can increase the production of interferon and macrophages and thus support normal immune function in cancer patients.
Chinese studies show that patients undergoing chemotherapy or radiotherapy recover faster and live longer when given Astragulus root extract as an adjuvant therapy. The roots of 4 year old plants is harvested in the autumn and dried for use in the extraction process. Astragulus extracts are bactericidal, hypoglycaemic, hypotensive, cardiotonic and vasodilatory.
Dandelion Root
Dandelion root works by decongesting and restoring the liver. It does this by stimulating the flow of bile. Recent scientific investigation shows that dandelion root improves the body’s ability to eliminate cancer cells. Studies show possible anti-tumor activity and antioxidant action.
Wildcrafted Pau D’Arco Extract
Pau d’Arco is a natural herb retrieved from the inner bark of the Tabebuia Avellanedae or Tabebuia Impetiginosa, known as taheebo. The taheebo tree is grown predominantly in Central and South America, but may also be cultivated in southern Florida. Pau d’Arco, also known as ipe roxo or sometimes lapacho, has been used for centuries by the Indio tribes of South America, as well as the ancient Incas and Aztecs.
Pau D’Arco tea or tinctures have had beneficial effects for the immune system and cancer victims, anywhere from alleviation of chemotherapy symptoms to complete remission of tumors. An article published by Dr. Daniel B. Mowrey on Pau D’Arco stated that “Lapacho has produced clinical anti-cancer effects without side effects.”
Ginger Root Extract
Ginger can help with nausea, digestive problems, circulation and arthritis. Relief of nausea caused during pregnancy or by motion is one of the benefits of ginger root. Ginger is also known to have the ability to calm an upset stomach and to promote the flow of bile. Stomach cramps can be eased and circulation can also be improved. Ginger supports a healthy cardiovascular system by making platelets less sticky, which in turn reduces circulatory problems. Ginger is often included in many herbal decongestants and can help to minimize the symptoms of respiratory conditions, colds and allergies.
The Extraction Process used to make HonoKare
This 12:1 extract involves a multi-stage extraction and concentration process using a time honored Traditional Chinese Medicine approach to give you the benefits of a standardized extract but with the added benefit of the coexisting compounds that may greatly enhance absorption and proper use in your body and provide your cells with balanced nutrition.
“Supercritical” extraction means Super Purity, Super Potency, Broad Spectrum, and No Chemical Solvents. There are no synthesized additives or processing agents. In fact, the supercritical process is the gentlest way to extract these delicate plant compounds to best preserve their potency and stability. Our supercritical extraction process ensures that neither you nor the environment have to contend with chemical solvents.
The Essential Oil component
Essential oils concentrate the therapeutic properties of flowers and plants and can provide therapeutic benefits in very small amounts. Most have anti-bacterial and anti-pathogenic properties and have historically been used for stimulation, relaxation, pain-relief and healing.
These are highly concentrated; it normally takes a few hundred kilos and sometimes a few tons of flowers to obtain a liter of essential oil. Thus pure organic and wildcrafted oils, undiluted, as these are, can be very expensive and of course very effective.
Another way to appreciate and understand the potency of essential oils is to look into their frequency. Everything in the universe vibrates at a specific frequency. Living creatures, plants, objects, everything has its own frequency, even disease. In 1992, Bruce Tainio of Tainio Technology, an independent division of Eastern State University in Cheney, Washington, built the first frequency monitor to determine the average frequency of the healthy human body. This was found to be is in the range of 62 to 72 Hz.
He discovered that when body frequency drops, the immune system is jeopardized. If it drops to 58 Hz, cold and flu symptoms start appearing, 55 Hz trigger diseases like Candida, and at 52 Hz, it’s Epstein Bar. Cancer is at 42 Hz and below.
The study of frequencies raises questions regarding the substances we ingest or absorb on a daily basis. Many pollutants lower our body frequency. Processed or canned foods can have a frequency of close to zero. Fresh produce has up to 15 Hz, dried herbs from 12 to 22 Hz, and fresh herbs from 20 to 27 Hz. Pure essential oils start at a frequency of 52 Hz and can go up as high as 320 Hz. Clinical research shows that essential oils have the highest frequency of any natural substance known to man. They create a condition where bacteria, virus, fungus and disease simply cannot survive.
Organic Black Cumin Oil - Recent research has verified claims that it strengthens and stabilizes the immune system and is effective in the treatment of asthma, allergies, and other immune disorders as well as numerous skin conditions ranging from acne and Rosacea to psoriasis. Black cumin has helped with bronchial spasm, spasmodic coughs, muscle pain, osteo and rheumatoid arthritis, the accumulation of fluids or toxins, poor circulation, lymphatic congestion, mumps, glandular swelling, colic, dyspepsia, flatulence, colitis, colic, indigestion, constipation, frigidity, debility, migraine, tiredness, nervous exhaustion, insomnia and lethargy.
Organic Cinnamon Oil – Now it is being used all over the world for treating a variety of health disorders including respiratory problems, skin infections, blood impurity, menstruation problems, heart disorders, etc. The most widely used part of cinnamon is its bark.
The health benefits of cinnamon can be attributed to its antibacterial, antifungal, anti microbial, astringent and anti clotting properties. Cinnamon is rich in essential minerals such as manganese, iron and calcium. It is also rich in fiber.
Organic Lemon Oil – Lemon oil is calming in nature and therefore helps in removing mental fatigue, exhaustion, dizziness, anxiety, nervousness and nervous tension.
Organic Lime Oil – Lime is so famous as a cure for scurvy, the disease which is caused due to deficiency of vitamin-C and characterized by frequent infections with cough and cold; cracked lips and lip corners; ulcers in tongue and mouth; spongy, swollen and bleeding gums etc.
Organic Orange Oil – Orange oil is being studied as a possible antibacterial agent to fight against drug-resistant bacteria. The oil has been found to have anti microbial activity against Helicobacter pylori, gram-negative bacteria that live in your stomach mucous.
Organic Peppermint Oil – Peppermint oil comprises vitamins A and C, omega-3 fatty acids, and minerals including potassium, manganese, iron, magnesium, calcium, and copper. The numerous health benefits of peppermint oil include its ability to treat several health problems. Peppermint oil benefits the respiratory system.
Humic and Fulvic Acid Enhance absorption of HonoKare's Nutrients
Humic acid, a complex plant-derived energy rich molecule, provides many nutritional benefits. It’s a foundational carbon complex with thousands of negatively charged ion exchange points. Think of it as a train with many cars. These cars are loaded with bio-available minerals and other plant-derived nutrients (and in this case it carries many of the minerals and active components from the roots and herbs) which are made available to the cells. Upon reaching the cell, the nutrients in the cars are selected as needed, and then, with numerous negatively charged cars empty, it loads itself with metallic, non-digestible minerals, and other toxins which it takes out to the trash.
Fulvic acid molecules, also derived from plants, are known to condition the cell wall increasing its permeability. This automatically boosts nutrient absorption and cellular hydration. Whenever minerals come into contact with Fulvic acid, in a water medium, they are naturally dissolved into an ionic form. Once the minerals meld into the Fulvic acid complex they become bioactive and bioavailable. Unlike Humic acids, whose molecules are large and complex, Fulvic acid is composed of very small molecules which can access tiny deposits of toxicity that the Humic and Zeolite alone cannot reach.
HonoKare works on all types of cancers. It does not directly kill cancer cells, but promotes their natural death through shutting off blood supply to cancer cells and prevent the PDL enzyme from extending cancer cell life. Thus it can be used where swelling of a tumor from inflammation would be a problem. It can also be used when you can directly kill cancer cells but as it wouldn't work as fast as the top cancer killers work, it is not featured in the swelling is ok section above.
Honokare has had a mafor upgrade in its energetic instructions. Now those instructions activate the immune system to identify and attack cancer cells. Equally important, these instructions also interfere with the ability of cancer cells to deactivate immune cell attacks on them. Both these actions are made more powerful when they are combined with a powerful immune system supplement like Honokare.
With its energetic testing rating of 8400, Honokare is a top cancer fighter. Use 2 bottles a month for early stage cancer, 3 per month for advanced -- of this 2 ounce dropper bottle per month.
GlioX
GlioX is a frequency enhanced elixir delivering instructions to your cells that help your immune system better fight cancer. It has been upgraded with a series of instructions that enable the immune system to seek out and destroy cancer cells. And it also initiates actions that prevent the cancer cells from repairing themselves and from hiding from the immune system.
A major improvement to GlioX has been the addition of instructions activating production of antibodies that locate and attach to the receptor tyrosine kinase (ROR1) proteins that are present on the surfaces of most cancer cells. The antibodies are identifying these cancer cells to the immune system, greatly improving the ability of the immune system to identify and kill these cancer cells.
Other instructions do the same with the CD19 proteins that are on the surface of many blood cancer cells.
These two actions alone make GlioX a very strong cancer fighter. They tell the immune system to destroy the cancer cells so completely that a tumor would reduce slightly in size if GlioX is used. In addition.....
A second set of additional instructions were added based on the Nobel Prize winning work showing that by deactivating the CTLA-4 signaling molecule that puts the brakes on T-Cell activation, the T-Cells do a much better job of attacking pathogens and cancer cells. GlioX now contains instructions deactivating production of CTLS-4 signaling proteins for T-Cells attacking cancer.
A number of aggressive types of cancers have waysto protect themselves. Glioblastoma brain tumors are the were studied to determine why they come back so quickly and often. These strategies are used by many other types of cancer also, especially sarcomas.
Some cancer cells have the ability to produce or turn on production of the QRPT enzyme. This enzyme breaks down quinolinic acid into NAD+ which is vital for DNA repair of damaged cells.
When more QRPT is produced, more NAD+ is made, and these cancer cells can thus repair themselves more effectively. Researchers have noted that after anti-cancer therapies have been used, there is more QRPT then normal in tumors. This enables the cancer cells in these tumors to better survive these therapies.
GlioX carries a set of instructions into the body to stop the production of QRPT in tumors.
This reduction of QRPT means that cancer cells will be less able to repair their DNA -- causing them to die a natural death once that DNA is damaged by therapies such as radiation, many chemotherapies, and the oxidative stress that Optimal C Elixir, PrugX, Ronuv and OxyDHQ cause in cancer cells.
Another mechanism that helps insure the survival of cancer cells is increased production of metalloprotease (MMP) enzymes. These enzymes facilitate the development of blood vessels to feed the cancer cells. The activity of various MMPs has been found to be up-regulated in virtually every type of cancer. Increased activity correlates with advanced stage, invasive and metastatic cancers in particular.
The more MMP there is, the worse the prognosis is.
GlioX carries instructions to stop the production of MMPs by cancer cells, and also by microglial immune system cells that can be tricked into producing MMP by cancer cells.
Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are immune system components that help identify viruses and bacteria, and recruit other immune system cells to deal with these pathogens -- using an inflammatory response.
Unfortunately, when it comes to cancer tumors, high levels of TLR activity and expression help cancer cells survive. Although TLR is useful for fighting pathogens, over-expression of TLRs has been paradoxically found in many tumors. In fact, it has been demonstrated that TLR-mediated signaling promotes tumor growth, and helps the tumors escape detection by the immune system.
GlioX delivers instructions to the body to reduce the amount of TLRs in tumors.
By interfering with these three powerful mechanisms that enable cancers to more aggressively develop and survive, and by activating the creation of antibodies to proteins found on the surface of cancer cells, enabling the immune system to find and kill these cells, GlioX is another powerful cancer fighter that has a synergy with immunotherapy
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23, 1999, p. 6C.
'Investors Finalize Majority Buyout of Johnny Rockets,' Nation's Restaurant News, November 6, 1995, p. 2.
'Johnny Rockets Adds Operations VPS,' Supermarket News, September 6, 1999, p. 30.
'Johnny Rockets Debuts in Hilton,' Nation's Restaurant News, April 3, 1995, p. 11.
'The Johnny Rockets Group, Inc. Appoints Two New VPs of Operations for East and West Coasts,' PR Newswire, July 30, 1999, p. 2590.
'Johnny Rockets Investor Ignites Unit Expansion,' Nation's Restaurant News, June 20, 1994, p. 2.
'Johnny Rockets Launches Cruise Ship Restaurant,' Nation's Restaurant News, September 13, 1999, p. 60.
Johnson, Greg, 'Noshing on Nostalgia Is Big with Consumers and Developers,' Los Angeles Times, February 4, 1996, p. 1.
Lipson, Larry, 'Dine Beat: New links in Chains,' Los Angeles Daily News, July 10, 1992, p. L45.
Lockwood Tooher, Nora, 'Proposed Providence, RI, Mall Announces Names of Its Restaurants,' Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News, April 29, 1998, p. OKRB98119116.
Loyie, Florence, 'Johnny Rockets Restaurant Finally Blasts Off; Diner Rockin' at West Edmonton Mall After Court Lifts Injunction Sought by McDonald's,' Edmonton Journal, July 16, 1993, p. B3.
Martin, Richard, 'Diner Days Add to Nostalgia Craze,' Nation's Restaurant News, August 29, 1988, p. F11.
------, 'Hot Johnny Rockets Lifts Off; Newest Entry in Rock `n' Roll Diner Revival,' Nation's Restaurant News, February 2, 1987, p. 1.
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Mehegan, Sean, 'From Burger King to Rockets' Man,' Restaurant Business, March 1, 1996, p. 118.
Montgomery, Christine, 'Take Rockets Back in Time: Food, Decor from the 1950s,' Washington Times, April 8, 1999, p. 6.
'The Old Fashioned Corner Malt Shop Comes of Age,' San Francisco Chronicle, June 24 1992, p. B3.
Rogers, David K., 'Gap Store Among Tenants for Planned St. Petersburg, Fla. Downtown Plaza,' Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News, June 3, 1999, p. OKRB9915415A.
Sigo, Shelly, 'Comedy Club Owners Consider Ybor Close to Camelot,' Tampa Bay Business Journal, August 27, 1999, p. 4.
Slater, Pam, 'Johnny Rockets Off with Sacramento, Calif., Hamburger Restaurant,' Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News, April 28, 1998, p. OKRB9811910A.
------, 'Nostalgic Eatery Rockets into Town Malt-Era Throwback for Downtown Plaza,' Sacramento Bee, November 7, 1997, p. G1.
Spector, Amy, 'Johnny Rockets Taps Shumsky To Succeed Hemmerle as CEO,' Nation's Restaurant News, June 7, 1999, p. 4.
Tannenbaum, Jeffrey A., 'Hamburger Chain Hopes Buyout Will Hasten Growth,' Wall Street Journal, January 12, 1996, p. 12.
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Source: International Directory of Company Histories, Vol. 31. St. James Press, 2000.'Pennies don't fall from heaven," Margaret Thatcher once told us. "They have to be earned here on Earth." No one would have remembered the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions, she averred. "He had money as well." The third of this vile economic triptych was this one: "There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty." These three phrases alone defined Mrs Thatcher's philosophy that only people with money were of any worth. In her Britain, there could be no room for weak values such as compassion, sharing, kindness and helping the poor. Money, and nothing else, mattered and thus the pursuit of it also defined the 1980s and the 1990s.
Inevitably, it would fail, as any belief must that is based on such an shallow interpretation of why we exist. The greed, avarice and dishonesty at the root of the western banking system were only allowed to flourish because they had been sanctified by Thatcherism and her false credo. It's just a shame that after the system imploded the worst of the money-changers are still among us while a Tory-led administration punishes the weakest in society.
"Scotland cannot be the only'something for nothing' country in the world." Mrs Thatcher would have been proud of that one as well. That this was, instead, espoused by the leader of the Scottish Labour party would have tickled the Iron Lady right down to her blue painted toenails. Quite why Johann Lamont allowed her speech writer to include such crass sophistry as this can only be guessed at.
Ms Lamont's use of the phrase "something for nothing", as well as coming straight from the grimoire of Margaret Thatcher is, at best, misleading, at worst, downright false. She used it in her flagship address last week in which she signalled that Labour would turn away from its traditional support for universal free public services. It's difficult to assess which body of Labour supporters will be most insulted and alienated. There are hundreds of thousands of workers in this country who have been paying their national insurance contributions and taxes for decades. These people have already seen one of their own, Gordon Brown, betray them by raiding their pensions. That he did this by fornicating all the while with bankers simply rubbed salt in the wounds. Now they are having to stomach a Scottish Labour leader, apparently sound in mind and body, telling them that the benefit package for which they have paid many times over is "something for nothing". Free bus passes in their old age; free personal care in their dotage; and free university tuition for their children who will similarly make a lifetime of contributions to the state is the least to which they are entitled.
It is unlikely that we will ever witness Ms Lamont metamorphosing into a tartan Thatcher. A joint economic group chaired by Cathy Jamieson and including Labour's finance spokesman, Ken Macintosh, will explore how affordable are Scotland's free public services. Scrapping free tuition fees, removing the council tax freeze and charging for prescriptions may be all that Scottish Labour will feel that they can get away with before the 2015 Holyrood election. Nor is Ms Lamont the first senior Scottish Labour politician to question the cost of free personal care. When Susan Deacon was health minister in the first Holyrood administration, she advised Henry McLeish that such a policy would be difficult to fund.
The most disturbing aspect of this shift in Scottish Labour thinking is that it acquiesces lazily to the notion that only cuts to public services can help us navigate our way through a double-dip recession. This simply highlights the utter poverty of imagination and intellect that characterises Labour's approach to curing the ills of Scottish society since the war. The wretchedly named party of the people has wilfully neglected to address, in any meaningful way, the source of the most ruinous cost to our public purse: child poverty. Instead of loftily brandishing the Christie commission report and its warnings about harsh decisions having to be made on public spending it should be seeking to reverse decades of inertia during which the incidence of child poverty in the UK, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, has risen to a level higher than most of the world's other rich countries. This costs the country around £25bn annually.
As the incidence of urban multi-deprivation in some parts of Scotland is the worst in the UK, it is reasonable to conclude that Scotland's share of that £25bn will be disproportionate. The grim outlook for Britain's growth prospects may see Holyrood's grant being slashed way beyond what was initially expected by 2017. The care bill will have to rise to cope with the increase in people living to great old age. If we could save even 5% of the Scots children who are annually choked by deprivation, the economies would allow us to meet our care costs.
Lamont's decision to lean towards the right was described as a brave one, but there was nothing brave about it. Real courage would have been to establish a commission into the causes of child poverty and then to commit her party to act on the findings. Such a commission might also do something that no Scottish education minister has ever done: develop a radical policy to improve our failing urban comprehensive schools. It would also quantify exactly how much our continuing neglect of poor children costs Scotland. I predict that the annual bill will swamp all the free care costs that are so exercising Ms Lamont. If the SNP pledged to establish such a commission and make it a cornerstone of an independent Scotland, then they will see me yet wearing a kilt and brandishing a Saltire on the day of the independence referendum.
In the meantime, you will see unicorns grazing outside John Smith House before you witness a Scottish Labour leader acting for the poor.Friday, 01 Aug, 2008 Science
Scientists are working on a special pill which might bring some of the advantages of exercise. According to a report published in the journal Cell, the researchers in the United States have developed two possible pills that can apparently build muscles, increase the energy level and burn fat.
The tests performed on mice showed that these could run 44 percent further and scientists consider that the pills can have the same effect on people who didn't even move a muscle. However, such breakthrough might raise concerns due to the fact that the pill could be misused in sport.
Taking this into consideration, the lead researcher Pr Ronald Evans, working at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Salk Institute in California, came up with a test which could indentify the drug in the urine and blood.
Pr Evans says that the new pills could be helpful in combating muscle wasting diseases or serve well for people who are at risk of conditions, including diabetes.
The two pills, dubbed AICAR and GW1516, have a certain effect on a "master gene" called PPAR-delta, which is able to monitor the activity of many other genes. Thus, the adjustment of this gene could theoretically have an effect on body building and regulation.
By genetically modifying mice in order to increase the activity of the gene, scientists managed to develop a muscle which could burn more fat than sugar. The same process led to the creation of "marathon mice", who could run a longer distance on a treadmill.
Afterwards scientists decided to cause similar effects with the help of drugs, instead of using genetic modification. The prototype was a pill dubbed GW1516, which could again create the effect of "fat burning". However, it showed not alterations in exercise performance until scientists began training the mice using long treadmill sessions.
At the end of one of the series, scientists noticed that mice that were given the drug ran 77 percent longer than mice that trained without the pill. The next step was the development of a drug called AICAR who had a somewhat different way of influencing the same muscle cell mechanism.
After taking the drug, the mice didn't need any exercises. Being only four weeks on the drug, they were able to run 44 percent further on their treadmills.
According to Professor Evans, both drugs may someday serve a purpose in humans.
"If you like exercise, you like the idea of getting'more bang for your buck'. If you don't like exercise, you love the idea of getting the benefits from a pill. Almost no-one gets the recommended 40 minutes to an hour per day of exercise - for these people, if there was a way to mimic exercise, it would make the quality of exercise they do more efficient," he said.
Colin Palmer, a professor of pharmacogenetics at the University of Dundee, claims that the idea of developing "fitness drugs" had proved controversial.
"It's basically a drug that enhances training. The thing that raises eyebrows is the concept of a drug that improves endurance training for sports professionals," said Pr Palmer.
Source:BBC News
Powered by www.infoniac.comSouthern diet linked to stroke risk HEALTH
A North Carolina restaurant serves a burger and tater tots. A new study links the Southern dietary pattern with stroke risk. A North Carolina restaurant serves a burger and tater tots. A new study links the Southern dietary pattern with stroke risk. Photo: Chuck Burton, Associated Press Photo: Chuck Burton, Associated Press Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Southern diet linked to stroke risk 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
Deep-fried foods may be causing trouble in the Deep South. People whose diets are heavy on them and sugary drinks like sweet tea and soda were more likely to suffer a stroke, a new study finds.
It's the first big look at diet and strokes, and researchers say it might help explain why blacks in the Southeast - the nation's "stroke belt" - suffer more of them.
Blacks were five times more likely than whites to have the Southern dietary pattern linked with the highest stroke risk. And blacks and whites who live in the South were more likely to eat this way than people in other parts of the country were. Diet might explain as much as two-thirds of the excess stroke risk seen in blacks versus whites, researchers concluded.
"We're talking about fried foods, french fries, hamburgers, processed meats, hot dogs," bacon, ham, liver, gizzards and sugary drinks, said study leader Suzanne Judd of the University of Alabama in Birmingham.
People who ate about six meals a week featuring these sorts of foods had a 41 percent higher stroke risk than people who ate that way about once a month, researchers found.
In contrast, people whose diets were high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish had a 29 percent lower stroke risk.
Results were reported Thursday at an American Stroke Association conference in Honolulu.
The federally funded study was launched in 2002 to explore regional variations in stroke risks and reasons for them. More than 20,000 people 45 or older - half of them black - from all 48 mainland states filled out food surveys. Over more than five years of follow-up, nearly 500 strokes occurred. Researchers saw clear patterns with the Southern and plant-based diets.
There were 138 strokes among the 4,977 who ate the most Southern food, compared to 109 strokes among the 5,156 people eating the least of it.
There were 122 strokes among the 5,076 who ate the most plant-based meals, compared to 135 strokes among the 5,056 people who seldom ate that way.
The trends held up after researchers took into account other factors such as age, income, smoking, education, exercise and total calories consumed.Feminism Unmodified: 1997 - 1999
Where we turn the soapbox over to the feminists, themselves. Compilation from the 1997 through 1999 issues of The Backlash!
Right Wing Women
"We are in the empowered state. The empowerment of women was obvious in the (1996) election: women elected the president of the United States, there is no question about it. - Betty Friedan, Women and Affirmative Action, American Enterprise Institute, December 1996
"One of NOW's most important strategies was to prevent the mass arrests of Operation Rescue demonstrators during blockades if access to the clinic could be kept open...mass arrests helped them cultivate their desired public image of being willing "martyrs" for the "unborn."" - Patricia Ireland, What Women Want Work against Parental Rights legislation or constitutional amendments is needed at the state level, wherever they may be introduced next year. - now-action-list Legislative Update, November 1996
"We have to be twice as intelligent to be in the same positions as men.... Generally, men speak from positions of aggression and ego, women from heart and soul." - Sandra St. Victor, Ms Magazine, September/October 1997
"Men do not want equality at home. A strong woman is a threat, someone to be jealous of. Most of all, she is an inconvenience, and she can be replaced." - Jane O'Reilly, Ms Magazine, September/October 1997
"The anti-PC folks claim they are fighting censorship and coercion, when in fact they themselves are censoring and coercing diligently - to support the centuries-old agenda of white male heterosexual upper-class superiority." - Casey Miller, Kate Swift, Rosalie Maggio, Ms Magazine, September/October 1997
"Let's understand that we are the angels, so we better get flying." - Robin Morgan, Ms Magazine, September/October 1997
"The moms most likely to get sued for custody are formerly battered women on welfare." - Ariel Gore, Ms Magazine, September/October 1997
"Congress should amend the new welfare law to allow women to pursue postsecondary education by allowing college study and work study to count toward a welfare recipient's work requirement." - Title IX at 25: Report Card on Gender Equity, AAUW Public Policy Issues, 1997
"So, as the Promise Keepers get into formation, feminist activists are working to unmask the religious political extremists organizing its rank and file troops.... Feminists will not be fooled by the many recent public disclaimers about this feel-good form of male supremacy with its dangerous political potential. We have seen them coming for some time." - Patricia Ireland, President of N.O.W., The Washington Post ( Archived Version ), Sunday, September 7, 1997; Page C03
"Men and women are not from different planets; women are from a poorer neighborhood." - Dr. Regina Barreca, July 1997
"True, the movement for woman's rights has broken many old fetters, but it has also forged new ones. The great movement of true emancipation has not met with a great race of women who could look liberty in the face. Their narrow, puritanical vision banished man, as a disturber and doubtful character, out of their emotional life. Man was not to be tolerated at any price, except perhaps as the father of a child, since a child could not very well come to life without a father.... But woman's freedom is closely allied with man's freedom, and many of my so-called emancipated sisters seem to overlook the fact that a child born in freedom needs the love and devotion of each human being about him, man as well as woman. Unfortunately, it is this narrow conception of human relations that has brought about a great tragedy in the lives of the modern man and woman." - Emma Goldman, The tragedy of woman's emancipation, 1910
"It would be so misleading to the jury, it would be so inflammatory to the jury, that they're probably not gonna be able to decide whether there was a rape on this occasion if they hear of the prior sexual history." - Gloria Allred, CNN, September 29, 1997
"I was preparing the ground for women's lib by always playing the victim." - Shelley Winters, Inside the Actors Studio, Bravo, August 31, 1997
"Even better news: According to the Society of Women Engineers, average earnings of female engineers under age 30 are about $2,000 a year higher than those of their male colleagues." - Caitlin Kelly, Working Woman Magazine, June 1997
"Where there are allegations of spousal abuse or abuse of a person in a dating relationship, and there are allegations of serious injury, the D.A., as a matter of public policy, should always file felony charges." - Gloria Allred, Ms Magazine, July/August 1996
"I wrote The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women from pure anger." - Naomi Wolf, Seattle Weekly, July 30, 1997
"Ironically, since Reagan's election, NOW's membership and financial resources had increased dramatically." - Patricia Ireland, What Women Want
"Hate groups are now using the Internet, public access television, and grassroots organizing to spread their message." - now-action-list NOW Legislative Update, April 1997
"My feelings about men are the result of my experience. I have little sympathy for them." - Marilyn French, The Women's Room: A Novel
"N.O.W. Takes Aim at Misogynistic Rulings which award custody of children to men who are attempting to avoid child support payments." - Dallas Rainbow NOW Chapter
"THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that NOW launch Victory 2000--The Feminist Face of Politics with the purpose of electing two thousand feminist candidates to office by the year 2000" - National Organization for Women, 1997 National NOW Conference Resolutions
"Feminism is not about changing men; it is about women walking away from men's thinking." - Susan Powter, The Susan Powter show, January 22, 1998
"Anything men can do, women can do better." - Anne Heche, MTV 1998 Movies Awards
"I'm concerned about diverting too many resources into some untested waters." - Nancy Duff Campbell, co-president of the National Women's Law Center, A.P. July 4, 1998, on the subject of the Government wanting fathers involved with their children's lives
"At the current rate of social change, women won't achieve full equality to men until the year 2270. But woemn won't be that patient." - Nancy Ramsey, president, Morning Star Imports, Fast Company, September 1999
"These days, women are feeling so dispirited about the work world that they're actually leaving their jobs. The so-called glass ceiling isn't the problem. The problem has to do with what women see when they look up at the glass ceiling. They see what they are expected to sacrifice, and they opt out of even trying to smash the glass.... They are expected to sacrifice who they are as human beings." - Helayne Spivak, Founder, president and creative director HRS Consulting, Fast Company, September 1999
"Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat." - Hillary Clinton, First Ladies' Conference on Domestic Violence in San Salvador, El Salvador on Nov. 17, 1998
"The other attention-grabber obviously available to men in an ornamental culture was sexuality - an aggressive, ever-ready, action-packed display of it. Sexual performance was the quintessential response to commercial scrutiny, to the leer of the camera lens. Susan Faludi, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man, p 532, 1999
"We know that hate crimes, violent and otherwise, are overwhelmingly committed by white men who are apparently straight." - Gloria Steinem, Consulting Editor, Ms Magazine, August/September 1999
According to the FBI Hate Crimes Report - 1999, even though Whites accounted for almost 80 percent of the population, Whites accounted for only 44 percent of the hate crimes. African Americans, who at the time comprised about 12 percent of the US population, accounted for 10 percent of the hate crimes. This is not to malign Blacks, but to expose that Steinem's statement was racist, as the rate at which Whites committed hate crimes at that time was much lower than it was for Blacks. Where the bigot, Steinem, indulges in sexist and racist stereotyping, we are better than that and do not stereotype. - Editor
Ms Magazine
In 1999 when I looked it up, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that less than 4% of all homicides involved multiple victims (i.e., victims of serial killers), and that Blacks were 8 times more likely than whites to commit homicide. Again, this is not to stereotype or in any other way to malign Blacks (I belong to a racial minority, too), but to demonstrate Steinem was ignoring per capita rates to making sexist, racist generalizations about White men. - Editor
Ms Magazine
As a human being--not to mention an American Indian--I find Steinem's sexist, racist bigotry offensive. - Editor
Ms Magazine
" Ally ) is basically a woman's show, with female-centered plotlines,...the once-compelling sex and power issues tackled in the courtroom have devolved into little more than mean-spirited attacks on women's issues." - Andi Zeisler, Editor, Bitch Magazine, Ms Magazine, August/September 1999
"I am sick from the numbers of women who are being brutalized and raped and sodomized, who are being killed, who are missing, who in a women's culture of nonviolence don't hurt the people who are hurting us. We take our own lives. We commit suicide." - Andrea Dworkin, Life and Death, p 115, 1997
"Over the past few weeks since the Columbine High massacre, we've broken through some denial about violence as a teaching tool. It's pretty clear that boys are literally learning how to hate and harm others." - Ellen Goodman, Globe Columnist, The Boston Globe, May 27, 1999
After more than 30 years of changing America's public education to conform to the feminist and progressivist agenda, now we learn they're teaching boys to hate and harm? So why are we trusting feminists and progressivists to teach our children? Note: that was intended to be sarcastic. Like so many other feminists, Goodman indulges in unwarranted generalizations to indulge in sexist stereotypes. - Editor
N.O.W. National Times
The term "tilting at windmills" comes to mind. While Corporate oligarchs of both sexes strive to concentrate more riches into fewer hands, the feminist flakes continue to rail against the social arrangement that carried us chrysalis-like from the stone age Neolithic revolution to the Industrial revolution. Today, only the poorest nations and communities can be called patriarchal because patriarchy is incompatible with high tech economies. Rather than tilt at windmills, the feminists would do better to focus their efforts on justice and fairness for everybody regardless of sex. - Editor, 1999
" Alanis Morrissette is thinking about writing a book called, Women Are from Venus, Men are Pieces of Crap." - Rosie O'Donnell, 1999 Grammy Awards, February 24, 1999
"Adultery is needed and accepted because today's couples, young and old alike, are cynical about love and more convinced than ever that relationships are primarily about passion and power. As a culture we no longer believe in the power of love." - Bell Hooks, Subversive Desire, Ms Magazine, April/May 1999
"Being sexy meant waiting and not doing, being watched rather than watching.... We had learned that to become successfully sexual, we must not seek and initiate but wait and yield.... The culture that surrounds girls signals to them that they must, sexually, forget themselves." - Naomi Wolf, Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood, pp 25-27
"The women's movement is not about biology, but about belief." - Gloria Steinem, C-Span, 10/31/98"
"An open gaze like that, at least from a man of lesser stature, would have annoyed me. But that evening, I had the opposite reaction." - former Time magazine White House correspondent Nina Burleigh on being ogled by President Clinton, July/August Mirabella magazine as quoted in CyberAlert, July 7, 1998
"Whatever their individual insecurities, there's no question that boys come of age with an entitlement so vast that displaying their boners in public is the least of it." - Andi Zeisler, Growing Up Norma, Bitch Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1998
"Mandatory sentences have leveled the playing field. Many people say that's just equal, but now women are, in fact, put in prison today at a more rapid rate than men. - Julie Stewart, president, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, Women in Prison, Ms., September/October 1998
"What we have now is something that some of my colleagues have called 'equality with a vengeance.' There is a debate amongst some feminist scholars as to whether we should continue to push toward equalization because, particularly in the area of criminal justice, equalization has hurt women." - Barbara E. Bloom, assistant professor, San Jose Sate University, Women in Prison, Ms., September/October 1998Julia Dunn spoke to some of the women involved in the All-Star Ultimate Tour to discuss the effects the Tour is having on women and Women’s Ultimate around the world.
Fifteen female athletes from all parts of the United States, Japan, Canada and Australia recently undertook a trip of a lifetime, travelling over 4500 miles to play nine elite club teams in cities across the United States. The All-Star Ultimate Tour just wrapped up its second year after being founded to address the gender gap in media coverage, and has the goal of promoting the visibility of women in Ultimate. The women who made the Tour, selected based on an application, were the leaders on their respective college teams, played each other as adversaries on the field, and came together to showcase elite Women’s Ultimate. This project forms one of the many initiatives to promote Women’s Ultimate in the world, and has given female Ultimate players around the world a set of role models.
Qxhna Titcomb, the founder of the All-Star Ultimate Tour and co-owner of Five Ultimate, organised and played simultaneously in 2015. The Tour started as a result of the increased media coverage of men in the professional leagues in the US, which suddenly gave women fewer playing opportunities. A beautifully made documentary came out in June that covered the journey of the team, and started a lot of conversations about the gender inequality in Ultimate.
“It’s kind of the first piece of media of its kind in our community,” said Titcomb. “[The focus is on] how sports are an avenue for life or reflection of life in some ways, and how it empowers us to create change.” Past documentaries, like Black Tide and Chasing Sarasota, focused on the play, the score, and the athletes. The All-Star film focuses more on the context and the impact of the Tour, and demonstrates the pure athleticism and skill along with the challenges that female Ultimate players face.
This year, after firmly establishing the Tour in people’s minds, she aimed to make change through the width of the coverage – hitting a lot of people in a short amount of time – by visiting two new cities and expanding media coverage. In addition, Titcomb aimed to increase the depth of impact – influencing a small amount of people in a large way – by hosting clinics for girls in the area to learn from inspiring role models. “If you’re trying to change, you need both width and depth in order to get the whole surface area,” she explained.Bernard Madoff's accountant David Friehling (C) leaves federal court March 18, 2009 in New York City. Friehling was arrested and charged with aiding in securities fraud in connection with the $64 billion ponzi scheme that affected 4,800 investors. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** David Friehling
— A former accountant who certified fake financial records hiding Bernard Madoff’s epic Ponzi scheme was sentenced on Thursday to one year of home confinement.
David Friehling has now become the latest defendant to avoid prison by cooperating in the case.
Friehling had agreed to cooperate almost immediately after the financial fraud — one of the largest in U.S. history — was exposed in 2008. Last year, he testified for several days against five of the firm’s insiders before a jury found them guilty of participating in the scheme.
“His cooperation has been extraordinary,” prosecutor Randall Jackson told U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
Before hearing his sentence, Friehling apologized to investors whose life savings were wiped out by the fraud. Those victims included his father and other members of his family.
“I will regret for the rest of my life the role I played in this devastating crime,” he said.
Friehling, 55, pleaded guilty to fraud in 2009. He claimed he didn’t know about the Ponzi scheme but admitted he never conducted an independent audit of Madoff’s firm as accounting rules required and knowingly used false records to reduce Madoff’s tax bills for 17 years, starting in 1991.
The day Madoff was arrested, his customers believed their accounts contained nearly $65 billion. But a bankruptcy trustee found they actually lost about $17 billion.
On Thursday, Friehling cited evidence that Madoff’s finance chief, Frank DiPascali, once asked his boss in a conversation about Friehling, “Have you been paying him off or is he just dumb?” Madoff responded that the accountant was dumb.
Friehling said hearing that was painful. But, he added, “I’d rather be regarded as dumb than crooked.”
Swain sentenced another cooperator, Craig Kugel, on Thursday to two years of supervised release. Kugel, who worked in human resources at Madoff’s firm, pleaded guilty in 2010 to tax fraud charges accusing him of authorizing salaries and benefits for people who weren’t employees.
On Wednesday, the judge sentenced Kugel’s father, David Kugel, to 10 months of home confinement. He pleaded guilty in 2011 and agreed to testify about how he helped Madoff create fake, backdated trading records beginning in the early 1970s.
The Madoff employees convicted at trial received sentences ranging from 21/2 to 10 years behind bars.
Madoff, 77, is serving a 150-year prison sentence.
(TM and © Copyright 2015 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2015 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)Formula Masters China Series runner-up Jake Parsons will race in the United States next year with Juncos Racing’s Pro Mazda division.
He will be joined by second-year Pro Mazda driver Will Owen and newcomer Nicolas Dapero in the squad’s line-up.
Australian driver Parsons won the AsiaCup series for Formula BMW cars in 2014 and also entered the last three FMCS events of the year with the Meritus operation than runs AsiaCup, picking up one win at each round and finishing fourth in the standings.
The 20-year-old returned for a full campaign in the category in 2015 and finished as runner-up to Martin Rump after another three wins early in the year.
“I’m delighted to be joining a winning team in Juncos as my career moves to America,” said Parsons, who has spent three days testing for the team so far and will do another two in the official Mazda Road to Indy test at Austin this weekend.
“I have a lot to learn but I know this is the best place to do that.
“It’s been a very smooth and positive start. The pace has already been strong and I’ve integrated well into the team.”
Owen, also 20, will spend a second season in Pro Mazda with Juncos after finishing seventh in the 2015 standings.
Before then, the American will contest the Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand in January and February with Giles Motorsport, following in the footsteps of management stablemate Alfonso Celis.
Dapero has been testing with Juncos this year while also competing in Brazilian Formula 3, where he’s scored five podiums from 10 starts.
The 17-year-old hails from Argentina like team boss Ricardo Juncos.With today's update we kick off the 6.5 PBE cycle! In addition to a slew of tentative balance changes, today's update includes a newskin, the crafting system exclusiveskin, new ability icons for, and more!Continue reading for more information!
(Warning: PBE Content is tentative and iterative - what you see may not reflect what eventually gets pushed to live servers! Manage your expectations accordingly. )
Table of Contents
New Skins
Elderwood LeBlanc and the crafting system exclusive Hextech Annie skin!
Elderwood LeBlanc 1350 RP [R version of abilities] Here's Nurse Flan with a Elderwood LeBlanc:
"Elderwood Leblanc has been re-imagined as a trickster fairy! She's a fancy magical forest dweller with a flower/butterly motif! As a little aside, internally we call the little blue bird on her horn, Chuchu! haha
Completely new model (fairy!)
New particles for abilities! (petals and sparkles!)
New recall! (she flutters around!)
New audio for abilities and recall! (magical!)
Some new animations - her wings flutter for her W and R-W, plus her recall!
Set to be 1350RP* (pricing always subject to change) As players who get the first look at this in-progress skin, it would be wonderful to hear your thoughts and feelings on the new Elderwood skin! The feedback and bugs you leave here will help us get a better idea of things we may still have to take a look at. :] See you on the Rift!" To kick off the 6.5 PBE cycle we have two new champion skins -and the crafting
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north and south in coastally trapped Kelvin waves. Unfortunately, they’re difficult if not impossible to see in Animation 3.
They are, however, visible in an animation of sea level residuals that used to be available from JPL called “tpglobal.mpeg”. JPL has since removed it from their website, but I uploaded it to YouTube. See the full animation here on YouTube. It runs from 1992 to 2002. Animation 4 is a gif animation of the 1997 portion of that video. Two downwelling equatorial Kelvin waves, streaking west to east, are visible. The first Kelvin wave didn’t kick-start the El Niño, but the second one definitely did. And the coastally trapped Kelvin waves can be seen in the animation as well traveling poleward along the west coasts of the Americas, after the second equatorial Kelvin wave slams into Ecuador.
Animation 4
On the flip side of the coin, there are ENSO-related coastally trapped Rossby waves along the east coast of Asia. Animation 5 is a continuation of Animation 4. At the end of the 1997/98 El Niño, a downwelling Rossby wave forms at about 5N-10N off the coast of Central America. The leftover warm water from the 1997/98 El Niño is then carried back to the west, where it slams into the Philippines. While not as clear as the coastally trapped Kelvin waves along the coasts of the Americas, there are a number of papers about ENSO-related coastally trapped Rossby waves along the coast of Asia. And if memory serves, there was a paper written in the 1990s about the coastally trapped Rossby wave from the 1982/83 El Niño that remained along the Asian coast for a decade, where it altered weather patterns during that time. In other words, leftover warm water from strong El Niños can impact climate for a long time.
Animation 5
A POSSIBLE CAUSE OF THE 2-YEAR SPIKE IN THE SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES OF THE EASTERN EXTRATROPICAL NORTH PACIFIC
We divided the sea surface temperature data of the North Pacific into quadrants in the “Wheres and Whys” post. Nothing stood out to say that the warming in the eastern extratropical North Pacific was simply caused by a pocket of warm water relocating from one region to another.
But the same cannot be said of the subsurface temperature anomalies of the eastern and western extratropical North Pacific for the depths of 0-700 meters. See Figure 14, which compares the NODC vertically averaged temperature anomalies for the eastern and western extratropical North Pacific, split at the dateline. The subsurface temperatures (0-700 meters) of the western extratropical North Pacific dropped abruptly in the second half of 2012 and at the same time the subsurface temperatures of the eastern portion of those extratropical latitudes warmed abruptly.
Figure 14
I suspect a pocket of warm water migrated below the surface in 2012 from the western to the eastern extratropical North Pacific…a subsurface weather event. The warm water then rose to the surface in 2013 and 2014, creating and becoming coupled with the “ridiculously resilient ridge” of high pressure in the same location, and in turn those two phenomena exacerbated the California drought.
I suspect in a year or two—after the alarmists are done extolling the imaginary calamities being caused by the elevated sea surface temperatures—that a group of climate scientists will include that shift of subsurface waters in their explanation of the blob. But will they remember to show the subsurface waters of the extratropical Pacific have cooled to the depths of 0-700 meters and 0-2000 meters during the ARGO era? See Figure 15.
Figure 15
CLOSING
There are always things to learn from press releases and interviews…interviews that some people might find alarming or might use as alarmist propaganda. We covered many in this post.
The biggest oddity about the interviews with Timmermann and Trenberth is their beliefs that global warming ceases during IPO and PDO “cool” periods and global warming occurs during their “warm” modes. While the IPO and PDO are aftereffects of the actual driving mechanism, which is ENSO, that’s not what’s odd about their beliefs. The oddity is that skeptics have been presenting that same argument for more than a decade.
Oh, we can’t forget…
There was something that Timmermann and Trenberth forgot to mention in their interviews. It was, the recent upticks in the extratropical North Pacific sea surface temperatures, and in North Pacific sea surface temperatures, and in global sea surface temperatures did little to erase the monumental differences between observed warming rates and those simulated by the models used by the IPCC. See Figure 16.
Figure 16
The surfaces of the global oceans are still warming at a rate that’s about half as fast as hindcast by climate models. Think about that for a moment. The modelers knew the actual warming rate for most of that time period, and the models still doubled the observed warming rate. That’s a failure in anyone’s book, or should be.
SOURCE
Sea surface temperature data and maps and the outputs of the CMIP5 climate models are available through the KNMI Climate Explorer. The sources of other data are linked in the post.
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RedditSeattle restaurant owner fleeced other refugees Iraqi freedom fighter turned ‘incorrigible money launderer’ caught helping undercover agent posing as pot trafficker
Hussein Alshafei, pictured in a 2002 file photo. Alshafei was convicted of money laundering then after sending funds to Iraq. He is slated to face a federal judge again Friday for new crimes. Hussein Alshafei, pictured in a 2002 file photo. Alshafei was convicted of money laundering then after sending funds to Iraq. He is slated to face a federal judge again Friday for new crimes. Photo: Grant M. Haller/Seattle Post-Intelligencer Photo: Grant M. Haller/Seattle Post-Intelligencer Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Seattle restaurant owner fleeced other refugees 1 / 5 Back to Gallery
As a broker on a money-transfer network, Hussain Alshafei relied on trust to make his living.
That trust was apparently misplaced.
A Seattle restaurateur and onetime Iraqi freedom fighter, Alshafei moved money through a longstanding, unregulated network used throughout the Moslem world, the hawala network.
Doing this cost him dearly 12 years ago, when he was imprisoned for sending money to sanctions-crippled Iraq.
This time around, Alshafei was helping no one but himself.
Federal prosecutors say Alshafei agreed to launder money for a drug trafficker – in reality, an undercover agent – and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from his clients. The Mountlake Terrace man has since pleaded guilty, without admitting to any theft, and is slated to be sentenced Friday.
The Homeland Security Investigations sting operation saw Alshafei agree to launder $126,000 for an undercover agent posing as a marijuana dealer. Prosecutors say at least $42,000 more went missing during the sting operation, presumably taken by Alshafei.
Investigators found no evidence that Alshafei previously moved drug money. Alshafei had been imprisoned in 2003 for sending money into Iraq before Saddam Hussein’s ouster; Alshafei himself fled Iraq after taking up arms against Hussein in a failed 1991 rebellion.
Writing to U.S. District Judge Richard Jones, Alshafei said he should’ve walked away as soon as the undercover agent told him he was moving drug money.
“I have no good excuse for making this error in judgment,” he told the judge.
Jones sentenced Alshafei to 10 months under house arrest as well as three years under probation. Alshafei had asked for that punishment, while prosecutors requested a short prison sentence.
Alshafei was indicted in February on money laundering-related charges. He pleaded guilty in October to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business – in his case, a hawala brokerage owned by his wife.
Assistant U.S. Attorney David Reese Jennings contends Alshafei’s crimes extend well beyond money laundering. Alshafei, the federal prosecutor said in court papers, stole more than $500,000 from his clients.
“Alshafei appeared at first to be an incorrigible money launderer, previously convicted, willing to help drug dealers transfer drug proceeds and buy more product,” Jennings said in court papers. “After investigation, however, he appears instead to be an incorrigible, greedy, and daring thief.”
The hawala system in which Alshafei operated is used throughout much of the Moslem world as a cashless money exchange. Brokers exchange debts, collecting and dispensing money without moving it.
A client hoping to move money would bring a deposit to a broker like Alshafei. That broker would then call another broker at the destination location; the brokers then exchange credits so that the second broker can make a payment.
The system is sometimes cheaper than formal channels, and operates in unstable areas of the world such as Somalia. Negotiations also allow for the use of bartered goods and non-standard exchange rates. Hundreds of thousands of hawala brokers are believed to be in business.
Prosecutors contend Alshafei often wired money to other brokers. He is said to have also had money hand-delivered.
Alshafei, Jennings claimed, used the hawala system to fleece his clients.
“Alshafei created a business with little or no visibility, transparency and accountability, thus setting a nearly perfect trap to pluck the unwary,” the prosecutor said in court papers. “He made his services available to others in his cultural community, representing that he could be trusted since he shared a history and language with them. …
“He kept few if any records, and the hawala system … is stubbornly resistant to any kind of criminal investigation, and certainly inscrutable to a civil lawsuit.”
Alshafei was in the throes of a gambling addiction when the undercover agent approached him in 2012. At the time, he was spending thousands of dollars a night at a Mountlake Terrace cardroom and other casinos.
“When the undercover agents came to me with the money, and indicated that it was from an illegal source, I took the money because I believed I needed it to gamble,” Alshafei said in his letter to Judge Jones. “Each time money was provided, I immediately spent at least part of it, and usually most of it, on gambling.
“While, of course, this is no excuse for this criminal conduct, I wanted you to know the truth.”
Born in Najaf, Iraq, Alshafei was a teen when his father was kidnapped by government agents and executed. According to defense statements, Alshafei was told his father had been “fed to the dogs.” Alshafei, at age 14, became the man of the house.
Alshafei escaped Iraq in 1991 after joining in a failed uprising against Saddam Hussein following the Gulf War.
“Although encouraged by the Americans to rise up against the Iraqi government, the Americans abruptly halted their military advance and left the American-sympathizing rebels such as Mr. Alshafei to fight the Saddam Hussein government on their own,” defense attorney Peter Offenbecher said in court papers.
“When the uprising was brutally put down by Saddam Hussein’s troops, Mr. Alshafei was forced to flee for his life,” Offenbecher continued. “Mr. Alshafei escaped and fled to the American lines, where he was taken into custody by the American forces.”
Alshafei spent the three years that followed in a Saudi Arabia refugee camp before he was allowed to come to the United States. He settled in Seattle and went to work as a janitor while also enrolling in community college.
In 2002, Alshafei and 11 others were indicted for moving money to Iraq. Doing so, they violated sanctions put in place following the first Iraq War.
Alshafei was sentenced to an eight-month jail term, even though the activity he was convicted of was decriminalized – Saddam Hussein had been deposed – before he was sentenced.
Suggestions that Alshafei's money went to Hussein's government or terrorists proved unfounded. He appears to have been the only one of the accused to serve jail time.
Released from prison, Alshafei went to work as a tow truck driver and then bought a restaurant, Cellars Grill & Lounge, in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood. Alshafei’s family has since sold its interest in the restaurant. Since his most recent indictment, Alshafei has been working as a car-service driver.
Alshafei faced up to five years in prison, though the prosecution, probation officials and his attorney all requested far shorter terms.
Probation officials, who offer a sentencing recommendation alongside prosecutors and the defense, have suggested Alshafei serve eight months in prison followed by eight months under house arrest. Prosecutors asked that Jones sentence Alshafei to at least 15 months in prison.
Jennings said Alshafei’s conduct shows the risks inherent in unregulated, outlaw financial services like the hawala.
“It is axiomatic that the temptation to steal overcomes inhibition far too often, especially when large sums of money fall into the control of people without sufficient compunctions,” the federal prosecutor told the court. “In other words, people who can steal and get away with it often do so, or try to do so.”
The defense argued that a 10-month term of house arrest is punishment enough for Alshafei. Writing the court, Offenbecher said Alshafei had been trying for years to run the business legally, and has not been convicted of defrauding anyone.
Alshafei is currently free. He is slated to be sentenced Friday morning by Jones at the Seattle federal courthouse.
Seattlepi.com reporter Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 or [email protected]. Follow Levi on Twitter at twitter.com/levipulk.Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has prolonged his Borussia Dortmund contract until 2021, sporting director Michael Zorc has said.
Aubameyang, 28, had been under contract at Dortmund until 2020 but has been linked with an exit for some time, with AC Milan his most prominent suitors.
However, the Gabon international, who topped the Bundesliga scoring charts last season, has now committed to an extension at the Westfalenstadion that is reported to include a pay rise.
"The contract runs through to '21," Zorc told Sky on Sunday. "That's still a long way away.
"One day, he will certainly leave Borussia Dortmund -- he won't end his career here. He's an extremely important player for us, and we continue to plan with him."
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has been linked with a Borussia Dortmund exit throughout 2017. STR/AFP/Getty Images
Several publications, including kicker and Bild, have reported that Aubameyang signed the extension some time ago.
On Monday, Aubameyang appeared to confirm the reports when writing on Twitter that listening to music is "better than newspaper."
He added: "It's a bit of time I extend my contract. But it's not your mistake. You didn't know as often."
Let me Listen Music!! better than newspaper. it's a Bit of Time i extend my contract🙈 but it's not your mistake, you didn't know as often ⏰⏰ pic.twitter.com/xtvazSOQgZ — Aubameyang P-E (@Aubameyang7) December 18, 2017
Earlier on Monday, Bild had reported that the new contract was signed in late 2016 but said the striker has Dortmund's assurance that he can leave the Westfalenstadion if a club were to offer a transfer fee in excess of €60 million.
Aubameyang was on target again in Dortmund's 2-1 win over Hoffenheim at the weekend. He has netted 13 goals this season, and a total of 98 in the Bundesliga since arriving from St Etienne in 2013.
He currently ranks fifth in the club's all-time Bundesliga scorer chart, and his tally of 141 in all competitions is only bettered by two players -- Zorc, who scored a total of 159 goals, and Manfred Burgsmuller, who netted 158.
Despite Aubameyang's successes at the Westfalenstadion, he has had issues during his time in Germany, with Zorc telling Sky his punctuality has been a problem.Beneath the endless announcements of Greece's "rescue" lie fundamental asymmetries that doom the euro, the joint currency that has been the centerpiece of European unity since its introduction in 1999.
The key imbalance is between export powerhouse Germany, which generates huge trade surpluses, and its trading partners, which run large trade and budget deficits, particularly Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain.
Those outside of Europe may be surprised to learn that Germany's exports are roughly equal to those of China ($1.2 trillion), even though Germany's population of 82 million is a mere 6% of China's 1.3 billion. Germany and China are the world's top exporters, while the U.S. trails as a distant third.
Germany's emphasis on exports places it in the so-called mercantilist camp, countries that depend heavily on exports for their growth and profits. Other (nonoil-exporting) nations that routinely generate large trade surpluses include China, Japan, Germany, Taiwan and the Netherlands.
While Germany's exports rose an astonishing 65% from 2000 to 2008, its domestic demand flatlined near zero. Without strong export growth, Germany's economy would have been at a standstill. The Netherlands is also a big exporter (trade surplus of $33 billion) even though its population is relatively tiny, at only 16 million. The "consumer" countries, on the other hand, run large current-account (trade) deficits and large government deficits. Italy, for instance, has a $55 billion trade deficit and a budget deficit of about $110 billion. Total public debt is a whopping 115.2% of GDP.
Spain, with about half the population of Germany, has a $69 billion annual trade deficit and a staggering $151 billion budget deficit. Fully 23% of the government's budget is borrowed.
Although the euro was supposed to create efficiencies by removing the costs of multiple currencies, it has had a subtly pernicious disregard for the underlying efficiencies of each eurozone economy.
Though German wages are generous, the German government, industry and labor unions have kept a lid on production costs even as exports leaped. As a result, the cost of labor per unit of output -- the wages required to produce a widget -- rose a mere 5.8% in Germany in the 2000-09 period, while equivalent labor costs in Ireland, Greece, Spain and Italy rose by roughly 30%.
The consequences of these asymmetries in productivity, debt and deficit spending within the eurozone are subtle. In effect, the euro gave mercantilist, efficient Germany a structural competitive advantage by locking the importing nations into a currency that makes German goods cheaper than the importers' domestically produced goods.
Put another way: By holding down production costs and becoming more efficient than its eurozone neighbors, Germany engineered a de facto "devaluation" within the eurozone by lowering the labor-per-unit costs of its goods.
The euro has another deceptively harmful consequence: The currency's overall strength enables debtor nations to rapidly expand their borrowing at low rates of interest. In effect, the euro masks the internal weaknesses of debtor nations running unsustainable deficits and those whose economies had become precariously dependent on the housing bubble (Ireland and Spain) for growth and taxes.
Prior to the euro, whenever overconsumption and overborrowing began hindering an import-dependent "consumer" economy, the imbalance was corrected by an adjustment in the value of the nation's currency. This currency devaluation would restore the supply-demand and credit-debt balances between mercantilist and consumer nations.
Absent the euro today, the Greek drachma would fall in value versus the German mark, effectively raising the cost of German goods to Greeks, who would then buy fewer German products. Greece's trade deficit would shrink, and lenders would demand higher rates for Greek government bonds, effectively pressuring the government to reduce its borrowing and deficit spending.
But now, with all 16 nations locked into a single currency, devaluing currencies to enable a new equilibrium is impossible. And it leaves Germany facing with the unenviable task of bailing out its "customer nations" -- the same ones that exploited the euro's strength to overborrow and overconsume. On the other side, residents of Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland now face the unenviable effects of government benefit cuts aimed at realigning budgets with the productivity of the underlying national economy.
While the media has reported the Greek austerity plan and EU promises of assistance as a "fix," it's clear that the existing deep structural imbalances cannot be resolved with such Band-Aids.
Either Germany and its export-surplus neighbors continue bailing out the eurozone's importer/debtor consumer nations, or eventually the weaker nations will default or slide into insolvency.
Germany helped enable the overborrowing of its profligate neighbors by buying their government bonds. According to BusinessWeek, German banks are on the hook for almost $250 billion in the troubled eurozone nations' bonds.
Now a vicious conundrum has emerged: If Germany lets its weaker neighbors default on their sovereign debt, the euro will be harmed, and German exports within Europe will slide. But if Germany becomes the "lender of last resort," then its taxpayers end up footing the bill.
If public and private debt in the troubled nations keeps rising at current rates, it's possible that even mighty Germany may be unable (or unwilling) to fund an essentially endless bailout. That would create pressure within both Germany and the debtor nations to jettison the single currency as a good idea in theory, but ultimately unworkable in a 16-nation bloc as diverse as the eurozone.
Be wary of the endless "fixes" to a structurally doomed system.
"This guy is THE leading visionary on reality. He routinely discusses things which no one else has talked about, yet, turn out to be quite relevant months later."
--Walt Howard, commenting about CHS on another blog.
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For more on this subject and a wide array of other topics, please visit my weblog.Across North America next Saturday night they’ll be dimming lights and reducing power consumption at NHL games in honour of the 5th annual Earth Hour. In Britain, they’ll cook up a banquet of Chinese food on TV, using energy-reducing methods designed by the nation’s top chefs.
Toronto composer Andrew Huang has compsed a Team Earth Hour antham, which will be performed during Toronto's Earth Hour on March 31.
In Norway, polar explorer Borge Ousland will ski across Oslo’s inner city pulling a sleigh more than twice his weight, as a tribute to 15,000 of his countrymen who’ve promised to park their cars for 3 days. Orbiting Earth, astronaut Andre Kuipers will monitor, photograph and broadcast live commentary as the world’s lights flicker out during the annual global event taking place between 8.30 and 9.30 p.m. March 31. And in Toronto, composer Andrew Huang will lead the first performance of his new Team Earth Hour anthem live at our own World Wildlife Federation-backed Earth Hour event in the Distillery District.
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Performed by the flash-mob ensemble Choir! Choir! Choir!, with lyrics contributed online by Canadians, the “secret” anthem is the first crowd-sourced Earth Hour song. The performance is one of thousands of events taking place around the world inspired by WWF’s 2012 “I Will If You Will” challenge, enabling people to tackle environmental challenges in unique ways, says Josh Laughren, Climate and Energy Director of WWF Canada. “Canadians need to take a stand against climate change, and joining Team Earth Hour is a great place to start. “Earth Hour started five years ago as a global movement with one goal in mind — creating a greener and cleaner world. We’re striving to achieve a world where everyone has access to fresh air, clean drinking water and natural resources, no matter where they live.” For the first time an unprecedented number of NHL facilities have pledged their commitment to Earth Hour by switching-off non-essential lighting for one hour.
Twenty of the league’s thirty teams will be in action that night. Participating facilities, including all of those hosting NHL games, as well as NHL headquarters in New York City, will scale-back energy used in their operations during Earth Hour.
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“For the NHL, the success of this event is about more than turning the lights off for one hour,” Bernadette Mansur, SVP of NHL Green, said in a statement issued earlier this week. “It’s about changing the way our sport approaches energy consumption. Our facilities are challenging themselves to operate more efficiently.” NHL Green is a program established in 2010 to develop measurement tools and sustainability initiatives to reduce the energy, water and waste associated with professional hockey. A spike in Canadian cities signing on to Earth Hour’s national program indicates increasing environmental awareness across the country, says WWF Canada’s communications specialist Weiwei Su. “Last year 427 cities joined the program, but this year we have 417 signed on with a week still to go.” WWF Canada hopes to achieve its 500-city Earth Day goal by Saturday, she said.[fve]https://youtu.be/Ro1XpTPXjV4[/fve]
Economic inequality inspired Occupy Wall Street, a movement that in a few short months transformed our political discourse with the concept of the “1 percent” and the “99 percent.” Today the presidential candidacy of Bernie Sanders is altering the political landscape with a call to reduce inequality.
Why does this theme resonate with so many voters? How does it intersect with other issues like social justice, national security and the environment? Is inequality irreversible?
We are living through the greatest “wealth grab” in history. But inequality is not produced by immutable forces. It’s the result of a legislative agenda promoted by the rich and executed by their political allies. The struggle to change this agenda and end inequality is inseparable from the other critical struggles of our time.
What follows are 10 facts about the 1 percent – but they’re not just statistics. They’re a paint-by-numbers picture of an economy, and a democracy, in urgent need of change.
1. Not so long ago, growth and prosperity were more widely shared in this country.
There was a time in living memory when the growth in American productivity was shared much more broadly than it is today.
As economist John Schmitt wrote in 2013, “From the end of World War II through 1968, the wages for workers in the middle, and even the minimum wage, tracked productivity closely.”
This led to the growth of a middle class whose members could meet their own needs, afford some luxuries, and raise and educate their children – often on a single working person’s income.
While many people, especially people of color, were shamefully excluded from this prosperity, the postwar American experience shows us that it is possible to promote broadly shared economic growth.
2. Then something changed.
But then, as Schmitt observes, something changed. Increases in prosperity were no longer being shared in the same way. He writes:
“Between 1979 and 2012, after accounting for inflation, the productivity of the average American worker increased about 85 percent. Over the same period, the inflation-adjusted wage of the median worker rose only about 6 percent, and the value of the minimum wage fell 21 percent. As a country, we got richer, but workers in the middle saw little of the gains, and workers at the bottom actually fell behind.”
If the national minimum wage had kept pace with productivity, says Schmitt, it would have been $22 per hour by 2013.
Instead it’s $7.25 today.
A slightly more conservative calculation from economist Dean Baker said the minimum wage would have been $18.42 per hour in 2015 had it kept pace with productivity. This graph illustrates the broadening of this gap:
3. Most of the nation’s income gains are now going to the top.
On the other end of the spectrum, income gains for the top 1 percent now dwarf those of other households. In 2011 the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that “between 1979 and 2007, income grew by: 275 percent for the top 1 percent of households; 65 percent for the next 19 percent; just under 40 percent for the next 60 percent; and 18 percent for the bottom 20 percent.”
And most of the gains since the 2008 economic crisis have gone to the wealthiest among us.
Meanwhile, in what is sometimes called “the middle-class squeeze,” the middle-class cost of living has risen significantly. Even after wages are adjusted for inflation, middle-class income has failed keep up with increases in such costs as child care, higher education, health services, retirement, and housing – expenses that disproportionately affect middle-class households.
4. Wealth inequality has returned to levels not seen since the Roaring ’20s.
Economists Emanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman found in 2014 that the concentration of wealth held by the top 0.1 percent has reached levels not seen since the 1920s:
Source: Saez and Zucman
Saez and Zucman found that in recent years there has been, as the caption to one chart puts it, “a surge in top wealth shares concentrated in (the) top 0.1 percent.”
5. The 0.01 percent – a tiny group of people – controls a vast amount of wealth.
As a result of this surge, 16,000 Americans hold as much wealth as 80 percent of the nation’s population – some 256,000,000 people – and as much as 75 percent of the entire world’s population.
The combined wealth of these 16,000 people is more than $9 trillion.
6. 536 people, $2.6 trillion dollars
A few billionaires are even wealthier. In the United States, 536 people had a shared net worth of $2.6 trillion at the end of 2015. These days even the top 0.01 percent isn’t immune from inequality.
7. CEOs are taking up a bigger piece of the pie, and workers are getting less.
Fortune 500 CEOs earned about 42 times as much on average as the typical worker in 1980. Today they earn 373 times as much.
In fact, seven of this country’s 30 largest corporations paid their CEOs more than they paid in taxes.
8. The average American household is falling behind on wages.
The median household income in the United States fell by more than 7 percent between 1999 and 2014. It’s now slightly over $53,000.
9. The average American owns less wealth than people in many other developed countries.
The median wealth of an American adult is roughly $34,316.
That’s far below that of adults in countries like Japan ($78,862), Luxembourg ($78,453), the United Kingdom ($75,734), Norway ($54,362), the Netherlands ($52,649), Switzerland ($43,700), and Australia ($47,477.)
10. More than one child in five lives in poverty.
The U.S. poverty rate for children is over 20 percent, higher than that of all other major developed countries. The only other nations in the OECD with similarly high rates are Chile, Israel, Mexico, Spain, and Turkey.
By contrast, child poverty is less than 9 percent in the Nordic countries and Austria, and is less than 10 percent in the United Kingdom. Even those rates, which are less than half the American rates, should be considered unacceptable.
Overall, more than 48 million Americans live in poverty.
The Challenge
According to experts like Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, the expansion of the financial sector has contributed significantly to the current crisis. So has the lack of jobs and growth in minority communities; lax federal oversight of banks and corporations; the stock market’s focus on short-term gains over long-term growth; the waning influence of labor unions; the offshoring of American jobs; and tax policies which have increasingly favored corporations and ultra-wealthy individuals.
Political choices are shaping a new class of super-wealthy Americans. And, conversely, the super-wealthy are shaping our political choices. A Princeton study by political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page concluded that “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”
A government controlled by wealthy individuals and large corporations will be much more likely to harm the environment and subvert democratic processes. It will cater to the defense industry abroad and the for-profit prison industry at home. It will hamper racial justice, because true equality cannot be achieved without effort and cost. Its policies are likely to foster growing instability at home and abroad, affecting virtually every aspect of foreign and domestic policy.
That is why runaway inequality is the central issue of our time. It stifles democracy and leads to a more dangerous world. We should, of course, demand that political candidates advocate the right social, foreign policy, and environmental decisions. But even the best candidates will find it impossible to consistently carry out the best policies in a society where so few have so much and so many have so little.
Here’s the good news: Today’s inequality was created by choice, which means we can make different choices. We can end the great wealth grab – by strengthening collective bargaining rights, regulating Wall Street and large corporations, fixing our tax system, and renegotiating bad deals like NAFTA while blocking such deals in the future. Ending the great wealth grab will improve life for most Americans, and will make it easier to reclaim our democracy.
It can be done. To say otherwise is to encourage a false cynicism that breeds permanent despair. It’s true that it will take a major political shift, the kind of mass movement Bernie Sanders calls a “political revolution.” But it can be done, once we understand and accept the challenge that lies before us.More polish
Kevin Pluck Blocked Unblock Follow Following May 21, 2017
This is part 10 of an N part series detailing how I make my animations.
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Last week I managed to show you how to render the x-axis which took a bit more effort than I was expecting so hopefully the y-axis won’t be so challenging especially seeing as it is a simple scalar value.
The y-axis is the concentration of CO2 measured in PPM (parts per million) with a range of about 310–400 PPM.
As an aside; to comprehend those figures here’s an image of what 400 PPM looks like:
First thing I’ve noticed about working out the y-axis is that unlike the x-axis where we know the maximum x value ahead of rendering as it’s simply a time variable we don’t know the maximum y value until it’s been extracted from the data and scaled. Not a problem, we simply draw the y-axis after the values have been plotted.
First of all we need a variable to record the maximum CO2 value:
float co2Max = 0.0;
Pop that just before the for loop in drawGraph().
Just after where the CO2 value is extracted in the for loop add:
if(co2 > co2Max) co2Max = co2;
After the for loop add:
drawYAxis(co2Max, yScale);
That’ll get red squigglies underneath it as we haven’t created drawYAxis() yet. So let’s do that just after drawGraph() :
void drawYAxis(float co2Max, float yScale)
{
}
I think a tick mark starting at 320PPM showing every 10PPM should suffice so let’s set the start value:
float co2Tick = 320.0;
Now while co2Tick is less than co2Max we want to draw a line for the tick mark and label it with the value, then increase it by 10:
while(co2Tick <= co2Max)
{
float yAxisTickPos = height - MARGIN - (co2Tick - 313.04) * yScale;
line(MARGIN, yAxisTickPos, MARGIN - 5.0, yAxisTickPos);
text(int(co2Tick), MARGIN - 15, yAxisTickPos+3);
co2Tick += 10.0;
}
Remember as the y axis is flipped for computers we need to subtract values from the height. Hmm, 313.04 is the minimum CO2 level from the data, perhaps should make that obvious by creating a global constant:
final float CO2MIN = 313.04;
That’s better:
float yAxisTickPos = height - MARGIN - (co2Tick - CO2MIN) * yScale;
The line co2Tick += 10.0 is a shorthand way of incrementing a variable by 10. Equivalent to co2Tick = co2Tick + 10.0.
Let’s give that a whirl:
That’s pretty good, but, it looks like we need to set the initial max CO2 so we get some tick marks to start with. The initial max CO2 will have to be the CO2 value that would be at the top of the graph. Pop this code just before we call drawYAxis() :
if((co2Max - CO2MIN) * yScale < graphHeight)
co2Max = graphHeight / yScale + CO2MIN;
Resulting in:
Much better.
Now we need to label the axes. The x axis is straight forward:
text("Year", MARGIN + graphWidth / 2, height - 20);
But the y axis needs to be rotated. Brace yourself as this involves some matrix manipulation. Don’t worry, we aren’t going to be multiplying matrices or doing dot products (although that would be fun). We are simply going to use these two functions: translate() and rotate().
If you imagine a grid overlaying our drawing space with the origin sitting in the top left corner then calling translate(x,y) shifts the origin along with the whole grid to your new location while rotate(radian) rotates the whole grid about the origin. After calling these matrix manipulation functions all following drawing functions will plot their points on the modified grid.
This means that
|
everyone would keep an eye on his block, sharing essential supplies." Think back to Solnit's description of the 1906 quake. The sentries' self-organization is closer to the spirit of the Oyster Loaf, the Chat Noir, and the House of Mirth than to that of the troops who occupied San Francisco.
A similar myopia marked the mainstream media's coverage of crime in Haiti. We were treated to reports that Haitians had been killed "execution-style" and left in the street, where passers-by nonchalantly let them rot. Such stories take on a different flavor if you know that in parts of Haiti where police protection is effectively absent, such exhibitions are a longstanding community practice; the dead men are criminals caught in the act, and they are being displayed as a warning to other would-be crooks. You needn't approve of such tactics to recognize that they reflect social problems that predated the quake, not a dog-eat-dog chaos that appeared only after it.By Myat Thura, KYODO NEWS - Sep 1, 2017 - 20:57 | World, All
Approaching Buthidaung town in the conflict-riddled northern part of Myanmar's Rakhine State by motor boat, a group of journalists was stunned to see thick plumes of smoke billowing out in the distance across the lush green rice paddies.
Aware of the latest clashes in the area, all aboard realized at once that what they were seeing was smoke from burning villages of either ethnic Rakhine Buddhists or Muslim Rohingya.
The journalists, from nine foreign media outlets, including Kyodo News, and eight local outlets, were on a two-day government-organized press tour from Wednesday to Maungdaw, the largest administrative town in northern Rakhine. It is home to nearly 1 million Muslims representing more than 95 percent of the population.
In the early hours of Aug. 25, Rohingya militants launched coordinated attacks on 30 police posts and an army base in three Muslim-majority townships of northern Rakhine -- Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung.
Ten police officers, a soldier and an immigration officer were killed in the initial pre-dawn attacks, with nearly 80 extremists killed in the ensuing conflict.
The attacks came just a day after the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, led by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, released its final report warning of the risk of fresh rounds of violence if the government fails to take strong and appropriate action.
A Rohingya militant group known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army claimed responsibility for the attacks. ARSA, previously known as Harakah al-Yaqin, was also responsible for deadly attacks on security forces in October 2016.
As the clashes continue, the total death toll, consisting mostly of "extremist terrorists," has climbed to nearly 400 as of Wednesday, according to updates from the military on Thursday.
From Buthidaung, a police escort led the convoy of three vans to Maungdaw town, located 26 kilometers away. The journalists on the press tour organized by the country's Information Ministry became the first to enter Maungdaw since the latest violence flared up.
Scenes of houses and shops gutted by fire awaited the reporters as they entered Maungdaw, which was tense and eerily silent.
Most of the burnt-down structures are owned by Muslim residents. The authorities believe that Muslims, not necessarily the owners, torched the properties before fleeing the town a few days after the Aug. 25 attacks.
Geared up police on alert were seen positioned at major junctions, and the town's Buddhist Rakhine residents peered out from windows as the reporters proceeded to Maungdaw's general administrative office.
No Muslims were seen in Maungdaw's central area as most live on the outskirts or in surrounding villages.
Ye Htut, the administrator of Maungdaw district, said his office was attacked with explosives around 3 a.m. on Aug. 25.
He said that in contrast to last October's attacks, the latest were more coordinated.
Several Muslim community leaders who came out to talk to the journalists at the request of the authorities said many Muslims had fled the town after the attacks or were staying indoors out of fear of being of being targeted.
"Everybody in our village wants to live in peace. We don't support these attacks," said Abdulraman, the head of Maungni village just adjacent to Maungdaw.
Most Muslims travel to the town daily from their villages outside to do business or run shops and restaurants.
However, the town is now deserted as many Muslim shops and businesses have been closed since the latest attacks as they are not coming to the town anymore. Also, a 7 p.m.-to-4 a.m. curfew imposed since last year's attacks has been extended to 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.
On Wednesday, five Rakhine Buddhists were killed around 5 km from town. The reporters were allowed to visit the scene of the attack with a security escort and talk to some witnesses.
Thein Wai, a local farmer who saw the killings from a distance, said about 10 Muslims from Zalu village wielding knifes and machetes suddenly surrounded the group of Rakhine men and dragged them into a field where they were hacked to death.
The army and police immediately arrived and fired several warning shots, he said, adding that the security forces dared not follow the attackers back to Zalu for fear of being outnumbered by hundreds of Muslim villagers.
The authorities said only four of the five bodies were recovered, as it is too dangerous to get closer to Zalu to retrieve the remaining one.
About 3,000 non-Muslim villagers -- a mixture of ethnic Rakhine, Myo and Hindus of Indian descent -- from around Maungdaw are also taking refuge in several schools and monasteries across the town. Seven Hindu civilians have been killed by the extremists so far since the attacks.
Most at the camp expressed fear and anxiety, saying they have never encountered such a perilous situation before.
Most of them are from non-Muslim villages surrounded by Rohingya villages in the area and they spoke of feeling helpless and overwhelmed after seeing the sheer number of Rohingya Muslim extremists who attacked or surrounded their villages.
They said that after the attacks broke out on Aug. 25, the Rohingya Muslims from neighboring villages began acting in a menacing manner, so they fled to town for safety.
San San Tint, 38, a housewife who fled from Laymine village to a relief camp just outside Maungdaw with her family of six, said they feared for their lives in the village.
"We were so scared to see them (Rohingya) numbering in the hundreds marching up towards our village shouting loudly. They retreated as the police opened fire. But they were gathering into a big mob all the time and so it was not safe for us anymore," she said, recounting the events of the morning of Aug. 25.
Hindu residents who fled their villages and gathered in Maungdaw echoed similar experiences.
Mulindraw, 56, a Hindu farmer of Indian descent from Yatkwat Thone village, said they have also been targeted by the Muslim insurgents simply for being non-Muslim.
"We are a minority in this area and we have been living here peacefully for a long time. But now they want to drive us out," he said.
There are some 10,000 Hindus of Indian descent in the northern part of Rakhine, and more than 5,000 in Maungdaw alone.
A 40-year-old Muslim trader in Maungni village just outside the town told the journalists that he and his people in town only want to live in peace, but acknowledged that relations between the two communities have deteriorated significantly.
"We have to rebuild confidence between communities to try to improve the situation. We have to try to bring back the normal situation. We had lived together for a long time going to the same schools and doing business together. It should be that way," said Reazuddin.Animal welfare advocates say all of the focus on secrecy is energy misspent.
"I wish the cattlemen actually wanted to stop cruelty, not the documenting of cruelty," said HSUS California director Jennifer Fearing. "One could think of a thousand ways for them to actually stop cruelty rather than waiting for people to make videos and turn them over."
"Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group funded by Charles and David Koch, billionaire brothers and influential conservative leaders...donated more than $200,000 to Indiana Gov. Mike Pence's campaign." - Maureen Hayden, Statehouse Bureau Chief for CNHI
"Sweet truth for the animals! Except for species, I become increasingly aware of the parallel to slavery, the way we treat the animals. About racism in America, John Howard Griffin (BLACK LIKE ME) writes: 'It was too much. Though I was experiencing it, I could not believe it. Surely in America a whole segment of decent souls could not stand by and allow such massive crimes to be committed.' That's how I feel about factory farming." - Marian Patience Harvey, a noteworthy Hoosier!
"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
need to stop the bullying and torture extended to all animals...privacy issues are vital, but gentleness is even more crucial in this world! please do not extend an open invitation to heap more misery on farm animals that are purposely bred for slaughter.consumption of their cadavers leads to heart attacks, breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes 1 & 2, parkinson's disease and most tragic of all, hardened hearts no longer capable of compassion.we must no longer assure a continuation of artificial insemination and butchering and perpetuation of human illness due to cannibalism.please watch those videos now available on facebook...and the films and documentaries BOLD NATIVE, FOOD INC., and EARTHLINGS. let us stop the intentional over-reproduction of sentient beings to be enslaved and treated in a holocaust fashion. time to evolve and not to politicize death over life!hoosier bill to go before house...please care...please share...please contact your indiana representatives and thanks!urge your representatives to vote against S.B. 373 because it 1) takes away basic American freedoms of speech and expression 2) whistle blower protection is already part of federal law and finally 3) what is the farm/food industry afraid of? if their operations are inhumane and/or criminal how else will the consumer be informed?please, do not care about red carpets, photo ops, tiger woods' new love affair, the pregnant princess...very much more to care about. do not be distracted or diverted from issues that truly matter...life or death, love or hate, action or inaction.stand up and speak out to make a difference...we pay taxes, and we vote. those opportunists we allow into office need to care as much as we do about what truly matters and stop answering to big money for future campaigns. all who live matter, all sentient beings...not just a few...not just a chosen few!a smart lawyer and also don have often spoken of career politicians...a really bad concept...these youngsters have studied the process at college and get bought and stay bought and never intend to go away...what was the supreme court thinking? lord!omigosh...when it appears some of our state legislators are authoring a jillion bills per week...they ain't! those are decrees from some high muckety mucks on some shining national hill. don opined that as we returned from indy...damn, he was correct!and through gerrymandering and caucusing these careerists ease into their desk sets and thereby hangs the tale! and some national interests use them like puppets! and the states are getting sucked into hell. it's like they are working at a fast food joint flipping burgers.i am so sick and tired of people politicizing animal slaughter...and those who could do something want to be thought "well" of???? those who sanction killing should never ever be thought well of, no matter what "party" they are beholden to...our voices for what is correct are growing stronger, and it is way past time for those who wish to hold office to listen and to give a damn about murder and mass slaughter. our nation should be better than this.____________________Larry Jaffe: "Amen."Mina Linda: "I agree with Susie!"Tyler A. Chase: "This is not about privacy. It's about criminals and sadists who can't seem to help themselves from torturing animals. This ban of cameras and video evidence is un American and against our basic Constitutional Rights to know what we are eating and how the animals are being treated is important. Enough of this nonsense of favoring the industries who are killing us with bad food."Jean Armstrong, "Good Luck to you and Susie on this important issue!!!"Kelly Huddleston: "Great post, Susie!"Roland Vincent: "It is so satisfying to connect with someone who shares one's values and has the battle scars to prove it! No offense about the battle scar comment - lol, just figured you've got your share!"Dee Turner: "You really have to ask yourself: What are the people in the meat industry trying to HIDE!! Apart from animal protection rights, our human right to know what goes on 'inside' is embedded in the constitution and oversight is critical. We already know about countless abuses: inferior feed, growth hormones, antibiotics in the feed to keep animals well enough through their shortened lives. The overcrowding is unacceptable, lack of sanitary conditions, the birthing stalls for sows are cruel & prevent ANY movement by pigs. Animal cruelty is rampant which undercover videos have clearly exposed in all areas of factory farming: chickens, ducks, geese, pigs, cows, goats, and horses! Beyond all of this, the slaughter has been proven to be INhumane, cruelty violations that go unpunished or corrected, abuses in shipping to slaughter, and even afterwards, the trucking industry FAILS to keep the raw meat properly refrigerated, and processing machines disinfected allowing listeria, ecoli, salmonella & other bacterial infected meat to be sold, sickening, even killing consumers. Perhaps this is why we need a complete overhaul of the entire farm/food industry & those who have violated the law must be prosecuted or nothing will ever change."Paro Babu: "true lines : 'Sweet truth for the animals! Except for species, I become increasingly aware of the parallel to slavery, the way we treat the animals. stand up and speak out to make a difference...we pay taxes, and we vote. those opportunists we allow into office need to care as much as we do about what truly matters and stop answering to big money for future campaigns. all who live matter, all sentient beings...not just a few...not just a chosen few!' love you, Susie ♥ and Roy for sharing this with us."____________________Dee Turner: "If you put this plea in Susie's blog it will reach more people who care about innocent pets. Brindi has been caged up for over 4 YEARS without having committed any crime... simply because she is an animal! Halifax 'authorities' have abused their own by laws & covered it up repeatedly, lying in court. Fighting to save her beloved dog's life has almost completely bankrupted Francesca & the endless corruption by HRM is appalling. Apr 2nd she has to be prepared for the FINAL APPEAL TO SAVE BRINDI & every single dollar will go towards the spiralling legal costs. If many give just whatever amount they can afford, it will reduce the financial woes caused by this injustice & together we could set an important precedent to stop others from this needless suffering! It has been a nightmare for Brindi & Francesca and time is running out now... THANK YOU for whatever you can do to get some support on their behalf. Godspeed!"____________________Read about movies and nostalgia, animal issues and sociopolitical concerns all discussed in my book Secrets of an Old Typewriter - print and ebook versions available (click the title to order from publisher Open Books' website). Also available in both formats at Amazon.com, or download from iTunes Meet other like-minded souls at my facebook fan page Visit my author website at www.susieduncansexton.com Join a great group of animal advocates Squawk Back: Helping animals when others can't... Or won'tEDGEBROOK — Work is nearly complete on the second phase of a painted and mosaic mural along the western portion of the path under the Metra tracks at Lehigh, Hiawatha and Kinzua avenues, organizers said.
A celebration will take place at 10 a.m. Aug. 16 to mark the work of 30 teens supervised by artists from the community and Green Star Movement that has turned the underpass, once a crumbling, graffiti-covered disgrace, into a landmark depicting the area's history and lush vegetation.
The first phase of the mural — known as the Neighborhood Connection Project — along the eastern side of underpass linking Edgebrook, Wildwood and North Edgebrook was completed last summer.
Green Star Movement, a nonprofit organization that has worked with schools and neighborhoods to create public art projects throughout the city, partnered with After School Matters to pay the teens.
Once the mural is finished next summer, it will be the largest public art project on the Far Northwest Side, said Jac Charlier, a member of the Edgebrook Community Association board of directors, who has been coordinating the three-year-long project.
The second phase of the mural depicts the 1943 opening of the underpass, which allows residents to cross the train tracks and avoid busy Devon Avenue, as well as more of the area's flora and fauna.
The mural will also honor the area's earliest settlers, members of the Potawatomi tribe of Native Americans.
Those who are interested in donating to the next phases of the mural can go to greenstarmovement.org or email Jac Charlier at [email protected].
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:ROCKLAND COUNTY, N.Y. -- A 16-year-old Bardonia boy driving a stolen car on Monday was captured by Clarkstown Police Officer K-9 Remy.
The incident occurred around 10:30 p.m. when police responded to the area of Schweizer Lane and Ludvigh Road in Bardonia for a report of a male operating a stolen 2014 gray Ford Fusion, said Officer Peter Walker.
Responding officers attempted to stop the vehicle and a brief pursuit ensued and ended in the vicinity of the Nanuet Fire Station. The unidentified teen fled on foot in the area of the railroad track behind the firehouse, Walker said.
Patrol officers created a perimeter and the teen was tracked down by K-9 Remy after a brief search. The teen refused to comply with the officer's commands and was forcibly restrained by K-9 Remy, he added.
The teen was transported to Nyack Emergency Room for a medical evaluation. After being released, he was charged with grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, reckless endangerment, and 14 summonses for violations of the traffic laws.
He is being held at the Rockland County Jail on $5,000 bail with a return court date scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 29.
Click here to sign up for Daily Voice's free daily emails and news alerts.Bloomington Democratic mayoral candidate John Hamilton clinched a win as the city’s next mayor on Tuesday.
Hamilton trumped Republican candidate John Turnbull with 3,243 votes or 77 percent of the vote. As votes started coming in on Tuesday night, Hamilton established and maintained an early lead.
Hamilton says he’s very excited about the future of Bloomington.
“I’m getting ready to roll up my sleeves and get to work in a couple of months,” he says. “We’ve had a terrific run of excellent mayors and I look forward to working with the city employees and the city council. We have a terrific council that’s been elected to address the challenges and pursue the opportunities that we have in this terrific city.”
In his campaign, Hamilton emphasized adding private sector jobs and improving the city’s digital infrastructure.
Before running for mayor, he served as Indiana Family and Social Services Administration secretary under former Gov. Frank O’Bannon. He also led the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.If you're a programmer, you'll find GNU/Linux systems quite powerful and robust. When it comes to areas like visual arts, video, business, or gaming, you'll find some tools with promising potential, but lots of bugs, quirks, and challenges. You can accomplish whatever you need in most cases, but the setup and learning curve may not be as smooth as proprietary options on proprietary systems.
In this article, based on my talk at SCaLE 14x this year, we'll cover the basics of configuring your Linux system for music making, highlighting what works best and acknowledging the challenges with recommendations on how to find help.
Getting started
Hardware
To get started with audio, we need some speakers (headphones count). To use any sounds besides those generated entirely by the computer, we want some sound input as well. Older Linux systems used OSS (Open Sound System), and older audio interfaces and computers with Firewire use FFADO, but for almost everyone today, the focus is ALSA: the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture.
Thankfully, ALSA is part of the Linux kernel, so you don't need to know much of anything about it as an end user. All you need to know is if your hardware is supported. Most computers' built-in hardware will work. For better sound and compatibility with guitars, microphones, and other music gear, a more dedicated audio interface makes sense. Any "class-compliant" interface will work, which includes many basic affordable options. A decent number of higher-end interfaces are supported as well. For options with top-notch sound quality, I've had success with the Focusrite Scarlett series. Being updated just by volunteers, the most accessible lists of supported interfaces are rarely complete or up-to-date, but friendly folks on forums and IRC can help.
Kernel setup
For the low-latency timing needed for most music making, a low-latency kernel is recommended (but not absolutely required). The best bet is to install one prepackaged as part of a music-dedicated system.
Distros and repos
A dedicated music system is not needed to start with basics. Most introductory software works on just about any stock GNU/Linux system (and anyone can tweak any system to achieve about anything, if that's something you want to spend your time on). However, dedicated music systems offer many benefits.
I use KXStudio, a superb collection of repos that can be added easily to any Debian-based (and thus also Ubuntu-based) operating system. Once the KXStudio repositories are added, a simple update and installation of the recommended items will give you a system complete with a low-latency kernel, tons of great programs, a dedicated suite of management tools, and tons of effects, plugins, and synthesizers. The KXStudio maintainers (mainly one guy, actually) do a wonderful job keeping things updated and responding to requests. Do keep in mind this is basically volunteer work done effectively full-time, so consider donating to keep this going.
Aaron's personally-customized KXStudio desktop
Other audio-focused packages and distros exist, notably AV Linux and Fedora Jam. Several other systems have been made over the years, but most are not updated or active.
Note about 100% software freedom: Although audio-focused distros Musix and Dynebolic received FSF endorsements, the most up-to-date way to have a 100% free/libre/open music system is to use the core Debian system or the FSF-endorsed Trisquel distro and add the KXStudio repos to your installation.
JACK
While ALSA works directly with the hardware, other audio layers manage all the signals from various programs and send those to ALSA. Some programs support ALSA directly, while others work with PulseAudio or system's like KDE's Phonon, which works with GStreamer or VLC backends. All this confusion basically means that your system setup interacts in different ways with different programs depending on how well they support and interact with these frameworks.
The primary music-dedicated audio system is called JACK. It provides a backend that supports arbitrary paths for audio (and MIDI, the system used for sending control signals for synthesizers) to and from any supported programs. With JACK, a synthesizer output can go into a reverb plugin and then into a recording program while a separate drum program plays. JACK can start and stop all the playback from multiple programs with any one set to be the master timekeeper.
JACK approaches the unix principle of having small programs that do one or a few things well instead of monolithic all-in-one programs. Of course, this requires serious management tools to keep it all together. KXStudio provides the Cadence suite of GUI tools, which many people use outside of KXStudio as well. The most JACK-focused, unix-principled tools come from Jon Liles, the author of the Non series. They provide separate mixer tool, recording tool, sequencer, and a session manager. A session manager is a tool that records all the different settings and connections that you have in JACK and saves them as a set so that you can close and later automatically re-open all these independent programs all set up the same way.
Setting up JACK connections with Cadence tools
Unfortunately, while the concept of JACK and modularity makes sense, the level of support and the quality of the tools is inconsistent. Some combinations work perfectly and smoothly, but some programs offer incomplete support or even no support. Some programs support JACK but their design encourages users to do everything all internally anyway.
Beginners in GNU/Linux music making should try to understand the basic concepts of JACK. This will help them to make sense of the general ecosystem of music tools which are available, whether or not they choose to embrace the modular approach.
In my next article, I'll focus on programs that support JACK but can be used independently as well.
Community support
The Linux Musicians Forum is the best place overall for getting started and getting involved. Check out also the #opensourcemusicians IRC channel on Freenode.net (and lots of projects have their own channels too, of course). The Linux Audio Wiki is a superb resource too, even though some of it can be quite dated.
In practice, setting up your system may involve some troubleshooting. On my particular laptop, for example, if I want to use reliable low-latency settings (needed for quick response when playing live with synths or effects), I need to turn off my networking and set my CPU to Performance mode. Although good guides about these topics exist (some of which I authored myself), each case varies in this complex GNU/Linux world with such diverse tools and hardware. I encourage everyone to make use of the welcoming helpful community. Nothing beats personal support. Just remember to pay-it-forward: Help improve the wikis and answer questions from later newcomers once you get comfortable yourself!
Written by Aaron WolfIraqi authorities must rein in all forces participating in the recapture of Falluja said Amnesty International today, amid reports that men and boys fleeing the armed group calling itself Islamic State (IS) had been tortured and otherwise ill-treated by government-backed militias and at least three had died as a result of torture.
Amnesty International has spoken to victims who described the torture and other ill-treatment meted out to them in detention and who claim to have witnessed killings.
“Civilians risking their lives to escape from IS atrocities must be protected and given the humanitarian aid they desperately need. Instead it seems that some are having to run the gauntlet of being subjected to further abuse and reprisal attacks,” said Philip Luther, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.
Civilians risking their lives to escape from IS atrocities must be protected and given the humanitarian aid they desperately need. Instead it seems that some are having to run the gauntlet of being subjected to further abuse and reprisal attacks, Philip Luther, Middle East and North Africa Programme Director Share this Twitter
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Local officials in Anbar province, where Falluja is located, told Amnesty International that on 5 June, 605 men and boys were handed over to the provincial council and that many of them had injuries including fractures, contusions, welts and open wounds as a result of beatings. Three bodies were also handed over, and another detainee is believed to have died after his transfer to Amariyat al-Falluja.
The detainees were from Saqlawiya, some 9km north-west of Falluja, and had been held captive for several days by individuals belonging to government-backed and predominantly Shi’a militias known as Popular Mobilization Units (PMU).
Amnesty International spoke to several survivors who described being held at a military base in Anbar province known as Mazra’at Tarek (Tarek’s farm) for about four days after they fled IS fighters on 2 June.
One detainee in his forties told Amnesty International:
“The treatment was very bad… we had nothing to drink or eat… Some people drank their urine. About four or five men would come into the room, and beat people with sticks and metal pipes. I don’t know what happened to my brother and two nephews detained with me. I don’t know if they are among the dead or still detained at the farm or transferred to another place… Even those released are suffering from wounds and dehydration. Some have lost consciousness.”
About four or five men would come into the room, and beat people with sticks and metal pipes. I don’t know what happened to my brother and two nephews detained with me. I don’t know if they are among the dead Former detainee Share this Twitter
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The detainees described being crammed into small rooms with their hands tied behind their backs, insulted for allegedly supporting IS, and kicked and beaten with various objects including rubber hoses and metal bars. They said they were also deprived of food, water and sanitation facilities.
Several claimed that a number of detainees died as a result of beatings, including with sharp metal objects on the head.
The detainees are now being held in Amariyat al-Falluja for further security screening and investigations. Several reported that their identification documents had been confiscated by the PMU.
On 5 June, Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi acknowledged in a televised interview with Iraqiya TV that “mistakes” had been committed by some fighters participating in the battle for Falluja and vowed not to tolerate human rights violations.
His spokesperson later announced the establishment of a human rights committee to investigate abuses.
“The promise of investigations into human rights abuses is a welcome first step; but more needs to be done to prevent further abuses and bring to justice those suspected of criminal responsibility,” said Philip Luther.
“Any security procedures carried out by Iraqi forces must comply with international human rights law and all those deprived of their liberty must be protected from enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment. Those who are reasonably suspected of having committed criminal offences should be promptly referred to judicial authorities and receive a fair trial that meets international standards. The rest must be released.”
Amnesty International is calling on the Iraqi authorities to conduct full, impartial and independent investigations into allegations of torture and unlawful killings by members of the PMU with a view to bringing those responsible to justice in fair trials.
Pending investigations and prosecutions, all those reasonably suspected of committing abuses should be removed from the ranks. The fate and whereabouts of those who have been disappeared must be immediately revealed.
Background
Since the start of the military offensive by Iraqi forces to retake the city of Falluja from IS on 23 May, an estimated 10,000 people have managed to escape mainly from the city’s outskirts according to UN agencies.
About 50,000 civilians are believed to still be trapped in the city amid reports of shelling and starvation in the city. Civilians who fled told Amnesty International that IS fighters have been preventing civilians from central Falluja from leaving, and have forcibly moved some civilians from the outskirts to the centre of the city.
Reports have also emerged regarding the alleged unlawful killings of 17 men and boys from Karma, about 20km north-east of Falluja, which Amnesty International is investigating.I had never heard of ‘mindfulness’ until this past Wednesday. I was confounded by its utter simplicity. As it was described to me, mindfulness is about relearning how to breath, rooting yourself in the present and rediscovering the joy of dishwashing. Then there was something about eating an M & M without biting into it, and a must-read chapter in a Buddhist book on how to eat a tangerine.
I let mindfulness slip my mind, however, until the next day when I was left alone in the house with a tray full of warm brownies. I considered the mindful way I could eat one, tasting it with every part of my body. But instead, I found myself inhaling them without a conscious thought. Rather than a tranquil exhale when all was done, I let out only an ungraceful burp. Suddenly, half the brownie tray was gone! And so was the moment.
Mindfulness is the opposite of what we primitive humans are driven to do: downing the brownies of our lives in a sort of half unconscious overdrive. Its essence, writes Arnold Kotler editor of Engaged Buddhist Reader, is that “peace is not external or to be sought after. Living mindfully, slowing down, and enjoying each breath, and each step, is enough.” Mindfulness is an important Buddhist landmark on the path to Enlightenment, a state in which greed, hate and delusion are all conquered by higher impulses. It is the way we can rein in the fly away kites of a million wandering thoughts and our reconnect with our lives.
The practice of mindfulness meditation allows an individual to begin increasing awareness. It involves sitting and holding a position for about ten minutes, and using one’s breathing as a point of focus and tranquility. The mental chatter often referred to as “monkey mind” is simply watched without judgement, as an observer would watch clouds of different shapes and sizes drift lazily by. With time, relaxed yet alert brain wave patterns become more relaxed yet alert; racing thoughts slow down, and heightened awareness of everyday experience as well as the ‘Higher Self’ emerge. For over two decades, the field of psychotherapy has incorporated mindful meditation in the treatment of disorders such as depression, anxiety, impulse issues, and even stubborn personality disorders such as Borderline Personality.
For example, mindfulness can help compulsive overeating by cuing greater self-awareness. “Whereas when people just gulp down food, they can eat a lot and not feel full” says Phap Khoi a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and co-author of “Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life.” Nutritionist Dr Cheung agrees: “By acknowledging and embracing our cravings through a few breaths, we can stop our autopilot of reaching out to the pint of ice cream or the bag of chips.”
The National Institute of Health has conducted over 50 studies to test the efficacy of mindfulness, “to help relieve stress, soothe addictive cravings, improve attention, lift despair and reduce hot flashes.” Results, however, have been mixed. A Canadian study found insubstantial results on patients with depression and anxiety. Meanwhile, other studies found that mindfulness can lessen chronic pain and reduce relapse rates in depressed patients.
Apart from the psychological benefits of mindfulness, new studies underscore its boon to overall health. A 2011 Harvard study using MRI scans of brain waves found increased brain connectivity in participants who had undergone 8 weeks of training. More specifically, brain activity jumped in areas associated with “memory, self-awareness and compassion and decreased in the amygdala–the part of the brain associated with fear and stress.” Mindfulness meditation not only lowers blood pressure, but can go as far as activating genes associated with “how the body handles free radicals, inflammation processes, and cell death” and therefore can improve overall immune function.
Beyond the growing body of scientific evidence supporting mindfulness are the personal stories of life transformation. Gaea Logan of Austin, Texas, is a great example. She suffered from incapacitating anxiety, and found mindful meditation to be like a breath of fresh air. “I can stop and observe my feelings and thoughts and have compassion for myself,” she says.
Mindful meditation has even found its way into corporate America. At Google headquarters, the Googleplex, Chade-Meng Tan teaches a class called “Search Inside Yourself.” Though it is offered four times a year, the class regularly has a waiting list of 30 people or more. Google’s position is that “healthy disregard for the impossible” is best achieved when talent and ambition is balanced with collaboration and tranquility.
If the go-go Googleplex can take time to relax and breath, so can–and should– we all.
Written by Sam Von Reiche and Tess LanganThe White House recently warned American citizens not to Photoshop this photo, issuing a lawyerly pronouncement that said, in part: “The photograph may not be manipulated in any way“:
Is that so?!
Upon learning of the White House’s directive, I immediately announced a Photoshop contest, and published a couple of early entries. Since then, readers have been busy manipulating and Photoshopping in direct defiance of the White House’s orders, and seeking out others who have done the same. Good for you! Here are some entries.
From Facebook, with a hat tip to redc1c4:
Two similar ones, also with a hat tip to redc1c4. First is from a Facebook page that is not fond of Obama:
A similar entry is from Chattering Teeth:
From Cassandra:
From My Sharia Moor:
From Jimmy Z.:
Keep ’em coming!
UPDATE: More at Twitchy. H/t Glenn Reynolds.
UPDATE x2: From SooperMexican:
He has an animated version at the link. Hat tip, again, to redc1c4.Venkatesh Rao is a researcher in the Xerox Innovation Group, and the project manager for Trailmeme, a research beta technology that allows users to blaze and follow trails through web content and the Trailmeme for WordPress plugin. He blogs at ribbonfarm.com.
As much as we focus on developing new technologies, it is also essential that we break free of certain metaphors that bind and restrict our thinking about what these technologies can ultimately achieve. The familiar "document" metaphor, among others, has cast a long shadow on how we think about the web, and is standing in the way of some innovation.
The Conceptual Metaphor
In his classic study of media theory, Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan wrote, “We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future.”
Consider these terms: page, scroll, file, folder, trash can, bookmark, inbox, email, desktop, library, archive and index. They are all part of the document metaphor, a superset of the "desktop" metaphor. Some elements, such as scroll, desktop and library pre-date the printing press, but all are based on some sort of “marks on paper-like material” reference.
It is important to understand that the document metaphor is more than a UI metaphor. It is in fact a fundamental way of understanding one domain in terms of another.
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your way out of your Bally's Total Fitness contract by lying that you were cast in the touring company of Cats, and unfortunately, most of the locations you're traveling to don't have Bally's. Or, even worse, eat the gym membership money.
For some people enjoyment might come from the same stuff they loved as a kid, for others, it's something entirely different. Only you know what's right for you.
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For me, the only thing that works is walking to an upbeat tempo or dancing. The best shape I've ever been in coincided with the most drinking I've ever done in my life. I'd go out 3-4 nights a week, and drink and dance for hours. Now that I'm older and live further from da club, I get most of my movement in by walking my two big-ass, fast-ass dogs. Although I really do miss the dancing. Perhaps it's time to crank some Whitney and groove to the beat? Well, right after this episode of Dance Moms.
Hard-Wired to Hate Exercise? [Wall Street Journal]Many people looking at the current mudslinging and lying coming from the McCain campaign have wondered what happened to the old McCain. You remember — McCain the straight talker who didn’t choose his words carefully, or McCain the maverick who was willing to buck his own party when they were wrong, call televangelists “agents of intolerance”, or point out the obvious that if you make abortion illegal, it will only force women to get dangerous and illegal abortions.
Interestingly, McCain answered that question himself. Even though McCain lost the 2000 presidential primary, his popularity was at an all time high, and he wrote in his memoirs, titled “Worth the Fighting For”:
“I didn’t decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president. … In truth, I’d had the ambition for a long time.”
In other words, when he thought the “straight talker” or “maverick” image would help him get elected, he worked to develop that image. But the 2000 election proved to him that it wasn’t enough, so he tried something else, completely throwing away his old persona for a new, more electable one.
I previously posted a video of McCain appearing in a skit on Saturday Night Live, playing a creepy husband, and people often remark about how good an actor he is. Maybe he is just a really good actor, and the real McCain is someone who will play any part and do anything, at any cost, in order to get elected.
How do you learn how to play a part full time, whatever part you think you need to win? Maybe this is something he learned while being tortured.Ahead of President Obama’s campaign trip to Virginia, Mitt Romney dispatched two Virginia House Republicans on Thursday to attack the president for sweeping defense spending cuts he signed into law.The Obama campaign retorted that many Republicans voted for the bill.
The debt limit law last August, a bipartisan deal struck between the White House and Republicans, set in motion half a trillion dollars in across-the-board defense cuts over 10 years starting 2013 if Congress fails to find savings elsewhere.
“We welcome President Obama to Virginia–the proud home of many military men and women,” said Rep. Scott Rigell (R-VA), who voted for the Budget Control Act, in a statement sent via the Romney campaign. “In his remarks on Friday, the President must address–directly and decisively–the massive, violent reduction in defense spending that is headed our way. Pink slips are looming, Virginia will be reeling come January, and our Commander in Chief is eerily silent on this issue. That, in my opinion, is a breach of his duty as head of our armed forces.”
On a conference call hosted by the Romney campaign, Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA) accused Obama of bring “a huge box of pink slips that he’s going to distribute across Virginia.” He said the military cuts are “going to have an enormous, devastating blow on Virginia,” adding that pink flips will be delivered to 200,000 individuals in the military as well as defense contractors. Forbes voted against the BCA, citing concerns with the spending military cuts.
Although most House Republicans voted for the Budget Control Act — which was the upshot of the GOP’s demand that a debt limit increase be accompanies by equal budget savings — House GOP lawmakers this year voted overwhelmingly to avoid the military cuts and instead slash poverty programs. Rigell and Forbes were among them.
President Obama says he doesn’t want the defense cuts to go through, but has insisted he won’t agree to replace them unless Republicans agree to include new tax revenues in the mix. But Senate Democrats, who have carried Obama’s message, have not offered a legislative proposal to replace the defense cuts.
“Congressional Republicans can attack the President for spending cuts that they themselves voted for, but if they dropped their insistence on the massive tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires that Mitt Romney supports, this a reality that could be easily avoided,” Obama campaign spokesman Danny Kanner told TPM. “The Administration has made it clear that sequestration would be disastrous for our national security, and that’s why Mitt Romney needs to demonstrate leadership and press his Congressional allies to put middle class military families before tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.”
The nature of the attacks from Romney’s campaign also contain the tacit admission that cuts to government spending can have an adverse effect on jobs and the economy.
This article has been updated for clarityHMO giant Kaiser Permanente plans to launch a medical school in Southern California, bucking the healthcare establishment and promoting a new generation of physicians that looks more like the community it serves.
The nonprofit health system said Thursday that it hasn't selected a site for the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine, which would enroll its first class in 2019. Many aspects of the plan, including its price tag and campus size, haven't been finalized.
But the Oakland company said that its approach will differ markedly from that of many established medical schools. It will hew closer to the company's commitment of rapidly adopting new technology and adhering to the latest medical evidence in patient care.
The unorthodox move illustrates the lofty ambitions of Kaiser's chairman and chief executive, Bernard Tyson. He strongly believes that Kaiser's model of coordinated care is the answer for what ails the U.S medical system. Teaching that approach to young doctors could accelerate change across the country, he said.
"We have the opportunity to help train future physicians on 21st century medicine and be on the cutting edge of all the changes we are experiencing," Tyson said. "Our model of care is best for the current and future diverse populations in this country."
Tyson said he explored the possibility of partnering with existing medical schools or universities and opted instead to build from scratch.
In some ways, the move extends what Kaiser already has been doing — it has about 600 physicians completing residency programs now and several thousand more do some of their training at Kaiser each year.
Kaiser studied North Shore-LIJ Healthy System's medical school in Long Island, N.Y., which accepted its first class only four years ago. The school, affiliated with Hofstra University, diverges from the traditional model of two years of classroom study followed by two years of clinical training, said Michael Dowling, the school's president and chief executive, who advised Kaiser on its plan. Incoming students are immediately sent out to train as emergency medical technicians on ambulances, for example.
"It's not a cloistered kind of arrangement where they spend time in the classroom memorizing things," Dowling said. "They're actually out in the field doing things, which we believe is the best way to learn."
Newer medical schools have increasingly shifted toward more hands-on training, Dowling said. "It's all about the move toward population health and it's all about teamwork. … The whole philosophy and culture is quite different," he said.
Maintaining the health of a large group of people is fundamental to Kaiser. It collects an upfront premium from customers to cover all of their care and has an incentive to keep patients healthy as opposed to the conventional fee-for-service model that can trigger wasteful spending.
Unlike most health insurers, Kaiser runs 38 hospitals across the country, owns hundreds of clinics and has nearly 18,000 doctors on salary at its affiliated medical groups. Kaiser operates in eight states and the District of Columbia, but nearly 80% of its 10.2 million members are in California.
Kaiser said medical education has been slow to move away from an approach centered on facilities and services, and hasn't evolved fast enough to meet patients' reliance on mobile technology to manage their busy lives. Kaiser has been a leader nationally at adopting electronic medical records and offering doctor visits online.
Diversity was another motivating factor behind Kaiser's decision. It wants to recruit more minority students and teach all doctors how to better care for an increasingly diverse patient population.
"We anticipate them going out into the communities and spending time with patients in the communities from which they come," said Dr. Edward Ellison, executive medical director of the Southern California Permanente Medical Group.
Kaiser will face tough competition from more established and better-known medical schools in pursuit of top students and faculty nationwide — including major facilities such as USC and UCLA, and a new school at UC Riverside, which opened in 2013.
Sean Pianka, 24, a first-year medical student at UCLA who has had healthcare through the Kaiser system, said the company's approach is "very efficient," but added that he had some reservations about "a school run by a company like Kaiser. That sounds a little strange."
Tuition will be competitive with other medical schools and financial aid will be provided to help "disadvantaged students," according to Kaiser. The first class of about 50 students should start in fall 2019, and enrollment will grow after that, Kaiser said.
Tyson said he was scouting for locations across Southern California but declined to be more specific. Some health-policy experts were surprised by Kaiser's announcement, but they said a medical school could help fill the company's own workforce needs as it continues to grow.
Kaiser will be creating a steady supply of physicians it can hire, though its graduates won't be under any obligation to work for Kaiser.
"Kaiser is clearly making a statement that they want to train doctors in their culture, philosophy and way of delivering care," said Steve Valentine, vice president and West Coast consulting leader at healthcare firm Premier Inc. "It won't be a fit for some students. They will still want UCLA, USC, Johns Hopkins."
Critics worry a Kaiser medical school might emphasize controlling costs, to the detriment of patient care.
Some Kaiser patients feel the care they want is limited by the HMO's system. Last year, the company paid a $4-million fine imposed by California regulators related to inadequate treatment of mental health patients.
Outside experts, Medicare officials and patient safety advocates routinely give Kaiser high marks for its preventive care and overall performance. Policymakers hold up the company as a model for how it coordinates care across its hospitals and physician offices.
Kaiser's annual revenue was $56.4 billion last year, with an operating income of $2.2 billion. The company said this month that it was spending $1.8 billion to acquire Group Health Cooperative, a nonprofit insurer in Washington state.
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Times staff writer Ron White contributed to this report.The guns were silent atop Mount Qasioun and the lights on its slopes twinkled over Damascus as president Bashar Assad of Syria welcomed a group of western visitors into his French-Ottoman palace on Monday night, presenting himself as a man firmly in control of his country.
He radiated confidence and friendliness as he ushered a group of British and American journalists and policy analysts into an elegant wood-panelled sitting room where he claimed that the social fabric of Syria was stitched together “much better than before” it had been before a chaotic civil war began more than five years ago.
It was as though half his citizens had not been driven from their homes and nearly half a million had not been killed in the bloody fighting for which he rejected any personal responsibility, blaming instead the United States and Islamist militants.
“I’m just a headline – the bad president, the bad guy, who is killing the good guys,” Assad said. “You know this narrative. The real reason is toppling the government. This government doesn’t fit the criteria of the United States.”
It was a surreal meeting for me after years of writing about a devastating and intractable war that has reduced several of Syria’s once-grand city centres to rubble and prompted accusations of war crimes. While hundreds of thousands of Syrians are besieged and hungry, here was Assad, secure in his palace because he has outsourced much of the war to Russian, Iranian and Hizbullah forces whose influence has grown to a degree that makes some of his own supporters uncomfortable.
He was on a mission to convince the West that their governments had made a mistake in backing his opponents, and that he was secure in his position as the custodian of Syrian sovereignty. Waxing philosophical, he spoke of every Syrian’s right to be “a full citizen, in every meaning of this word”, and likened intolerant versions of religion to a computer operating system that needed to be updated.
He promised that a new era of openness, transparency and dialogue was under way in Syria, and said that he was thinking ahead about how to modernise Syrians’ mentality after a war that he believed his forces were assured of winning.
Hardening stance
Assad ruled out political changes until then, and declared that he planned to remain president at least until his third seven-year term ends in 2021. Even as Assad and his inner circle tried out this new line of openness about the situation in Syria, they were hardening their stance against compromising with domestic or international opponents.
They contended that the United States was actively backing Islamic State and other extremist militants, and called allegations of war crimes against Syrian officials politically motivated, fabricated or both.
Despite “thousands of Syrians killed by the terrorists”, Assad asserted, “no one is talking about war crimes” by his opponents. In fact, the day before, the UN special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, followed by Amnesty International and other international rights groups, condemned the rebel groups’ indiscriminate shelling of government-held sections of Aleppo, attacks that have killed scores of civilians in recent days.
But it is Syrian government warplanes that have indiscriminately pounded insurgent-held residential areas daily for years; government forces that have imposed starvation sieges; and state detention facilities where thousands of people – including peaceful protesters, bloggers and other civilians arrested seemingly at random – languish without trial, often under torture.
We asked Assad about these things, of course. “Let’s suppose that these allegations are correct and this president has killed his own people and the free world and the West are helping the Syrian people,” Assad said in English. “After five years and a half, who supported me? How can I be a president and my people don’t support me?”
He gave a small giggle and added, “This is not realistic story.”
Deeper support
Indeed, Assad has managed to hold on not only because of decisive intervention by foreign fighters, but also thanks to deeper support in some quarters than many thought he had. Assad said on Monday that while much of his support came from people who may dislike his policies or the Baath Party he heads, they fear that the alternative would be extremist rule or state collapse.
“They learned the value of the state,” he said, acknowledging that this support could diminish if the war ends. “That’s what brought them towards us, not because they changed their mind politically.”
Assad’s remarks came after a two-day conference organised by the British Syrian Society, headed by his father-in-law, Fawaz Akhras, that was billed as part of a new openness and an effort to compete in what has been termed a news media war. I was among several dozen international journalists and analysts who attended the conference as a way to get into the country after more than two years of being unable to obtain a visa. There was no sign that the policy requiring journalists to travel with minders and to go through elaborate hoops to visit specific areas had changed.
But Damascus, the capital, appears less tense than on my last visit, in 2014. New bars are packed in the historic old city. After advances by pro-government forces and what the government calls reconciliation deals with besieged rebel-held suburbs, artillery fire no longer pounds those districts daily, and rebel mortar fire hits the city less frequently.
The message from government officials and Assad supporters echoed the president’s: they believe they are winning and they are ready to engage with the West, but on their own terms.
“It is up to the West to rethink about their policies,” the Syrian foreign minister, Walid Muallem, told a group of us on Monday, adding that the government would welcome, though it did not expect, co-operation from the United States.
Muallem said the government would fight to defeat any militants refusing to return to government rule – be they Kurdish groups in the northeast, or the al-Qaeda-linked groups and US-backed rebels fighting in Aleppo. He dismissed the possibility of any deal that would retain local opposition control in eastern Aleppo, saying that would “reward those murderers”.
Assad, for his part, said during our meeting that “until this moment, we still have a dialogue through different channels”, even to the United States. “But that doesn’t mean to give up our sovereignty and transfer Syria into a puppet country,” he added.
Stiff resistance
The confident statements come amid a much more complicated picture. Despite Russian air support and thousands of militia fighters from Iraq and Hizbullah, the government’s push to retake the rebel-held half of Aleppo is facing stiff resistance and counter-attacks.
The Syrian pound is worth one-tenth of its pre-war value against the dollar. Millions of Syrian children are unable to attend school. Islamic State still holds large swaths of Syria.
Assad, in a dark suit and trademark Windsor-knotted tie, met us at the top of the palace’s sweeping staircase, saying he found it “more cosy” than the official one. There were no security checks.
Hanging in the grand entryway was a painting of a distorted, grimacing figure, a signature work by Syrian artist Sabhan Adam, who draws inspiration for his “human monsters”, his website says, from “the pain, fear and phobia which our society constantly suffers from”.
Assad joked about his love of technology – “I follow the gadgets on a daily basis” – and noted with pride that 4G mobile phone technology had been introduced in Syria during the war. But he brushed off reports that he loved video games. “The last video game I played was Atari,” he said. “Space Invaders.”
Pressed on how Syria might be restructured or reformed, he said the first change needed was in its mental “operating system”, which he said was based on religion. Ideologies based on “bad interpretation” of Islam had fuelled the war, he said, rejecting analysts’ contentions that his government had accelerated the process by building mosques and funnelling jihadi fighters to Iraq during the US occupation.
“Islamisation means ‘I don’t believe in anyone who doesn’t look like me, behaves like me, thinks like me,’” he said. “Secular means freedom of religion.”
He denied the existence of political prisoners and grew steely when asked about people detained for protesting or writing against the government. “If you support the terrorists, it’s not political prisoner,” he added. “You are supporting the killers.”
He said that he had released tens of thousands of prisoners through amnesties to pave the way for “any solution in our society”, but that he had the authority to release only those who had been tried and sentenced. Asked about specific detainees whose families have heard nothing of them for years, he demanded proof, saying: “Do you have documents? Did they see them in prison?”
Assad said he was fighting to preserve state institutions and criticised western intervention. “Good government or bad, it’s not your mission” to change it, he said.
New York TimesSHOCK claims that North Korean slaves are building Russia's 2018 World Cup stadium have been called "outrageous" by FIFA.
GETTY/DENIS SINYAKOV SLAVEDRIVER: Kim Jong-un has reportedly sent slaves to work on Russia's World Cup stadiums
Norwegian football magazine Josimar reports that at least 110 North Koreans have been put to work at one venue. The venue, St Petersburg's Zenit Arena, is a totally new build, replacing the Soviet-era Kirov Stadium. And according to one source on-site, building it is netting a fortune for Kim Jong-un's regime.
DENIS SINYAKOV EXPLOITED: Men believed to be North Korean workers near World Cup 2018 venue, the Zenit Arena
“There were a only few workers from North Korea” Vitaly Mutko, Russia Deputy PM Pavel, a project manager with one of many construction firms on site, said he himself was offered 100 skilled North Korean workers by a middleman. They would work round the clock, the middleman said, for six millions roubles (£85,000) – two thirds of which would be sent back to Pyongyang. The workers themselves – who've been described as "slaves" by researchers – would get just 600 (£8.50) roubles a day from the remainder. And though he says he turned the middleman down because he was fully staffed, he claims many North Koreans are working on the site.
Inside North Korea: The pictures Kim Jong-un doesn't want you to see Since 2008, photographer Eric Lafforgue ventured to North Korea six times. Thanks to digital memory cards, he was able to save photos that was forbidden to take inside the segregated state 1 / 62 Eric Lafforgue/Exclusivepix Medi Taking pictures in the DMZ is easy, but if you come too close to the soldiers, they stop you
He told Josimar these workers start their day early and finish late, and lived in storage containers in a fenced-in area outside the stadium. In November, Russian media said one North Korean had died there, with local police saying he was killed by a heart attack. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said: "People told me he was found in one the containers they live in." Another migrant worker, 50-year-old Alsher from Uzbekistan, told the magazine he believed there were North Koreans working there.
DENIS SINYAKOV OPPRESSED: Two men believed to be North Korean enter their alleged accommodation
"I believe they were North Koreans," he said. "I can’t be certain. I didn’t talk to them. They kept to themselves." When Josimar raised the prospect of Russian cash being used for North Korea's nuclear programme, a FIFA spokesperson called the claim "outrageous". They said: "FIFA condemns any human rights violations and, if identified, would not tolerate such conditions on any of the FIFA World Cup stadium construction sites. "Lastly, the link you make between North Korean migrant workers in Russia and FIFA contributing to the nuclear weapons programme in their home country is, to say the least, far-fetched and outrageous."
Russia's World Cup Stadiums: Insane construction in pictures Vladimir Putin is pouring $10bn (£8.1bn) into the 2018 event, splashing cash on venues in 11 different cities. Daily Star Pictures brings you both concept and construction pictures of the insane stadiums. 1 / 11Over the summer, Netflix made history, receiving 14 Emmy nominations for its original TV programming. The number of nominations was not remarkable. What was unprecedented was that the nominated comedies and dramas—now recognized as the highest quality available for television—are not for broadcast television. They're not cable shows, either.
Netflix is the leading provider of on-demand Internet streaming media—and its "TV shows" are produced for the Internet. The company's 38 million subscribers can stream the new videos to their computers, tablets, and smartphones, as well as their online TV sets.
Most of the nominations Netflix garnered, including outstanding drama series, went to the hour-long political drama House of Cards, which debuted on the streaming service at the beginning of the year. David Fincher, who directed the first episode, won the Emmy for outstanding directing.
The star of House of Cards also got a nod. The prime time Emmy Award nomination for outstanding lead actor went to film and stage veteran Kevin Spacey, who told an audience at the Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival in August that TV has entered a “third golden age.”
Spacey isn’t the first to make the claim. In the last decade, TV aficionados have begun to talk of a new golden age of television beginning around the turn of the century with HBO's The Sopranos.
The first golden age of television took place at the beginning of the medium, over half a century ago—and at first glance, it could not look more different from the era we enjoy now.
In the 21st century, we have several national broadcast networks, hundreds of cable and satellite channels, and an increasingly dizzying array of video entertainment options emerging online. At the beginning of television, original prime time programming was only available on two and a half networks, CBS and NBC—with latecomer ABC the stunted offspring of NBC.
TV dramas now are cinematic in their production values, carefully edited, and serial in their narrative structure. In the first golden age, mistakes by the actors and mishaps in staging went out live to the TV audience—and the best-remembered dramas were complete, single-episode stories, written and directed as stage plays for the camera.
Perhaps most significantly, the shows that stand out today—Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Homeland, Breaking Bad, and Spacey's own House of Cards—are produced for cable networks, premium channels, and private subscription services, with little or no advertising.
In contrast, the era that first became known as the Golden Age of Television was arguably pure advertising. Sponsors not only attached their names to the TV shows they sponsored—Kraft Television Theater, Goodyear TV Playhouse, The U.S. Steel Hour—they developed shows, produced them, and paid the networks to put them on the air.
As Professor Robert J. Thompson writes in Television's Second Golden Age, "This arrangement led to some legendary stories of sponsor interference." Alcoa, producers of aluminum, would not let a tragic drama be set in a trailer park, because trailers are made of aluminum. The Mars company, makers of M&Ms, instructed the producers of one of their shows not to let the scripts mention anything that competed with Mars candies—not even ice cream or cookies! A particularly chilling example of sponsors' editorial interference took place in a program about the trials of Nazi war criminals. The American Gas Association required a reference to "gas chambers" to be removed from the story for fear that it created negative associations with its product.
But there were surprising benefits to the 1950s arrangement. In his book Television’s Greatest Year: 1954, TV critic R. D. Heldenfels points out that single sponsors were more patient than network executives, willing to wait for good ratings—or they settled for lower ratings because a show increased the sponsor's prestige.
TV producer Sherwood Schwartz goes even further, claiming that the reason the quality of television was higher in the 1950s than in the 1960s was that, in the ‘50s, "The networks were conduits and they had no control of programming. Sponsors had more power, and the creative people who created the shows had more authority" (emphasis added).
As Paul Cantor explains in “America's First Television Czar,”
When sponsors were largely responsible for developing prime-time shows, the television industry had a more free-wheeling, bottom-up structure. Just about any business was a potential sponsor, and anyone with an idea for a TV show could shop his proposal to a wide variety of prospects.
Art requires risk-taking, and while the screenwriters of the 1950s may have felt that the sponsors they wrote for discouraged certain risks, a much more serious threat to creativity would soon come from the public sector.
In the 1960s, the Kennedy administration decided that television content was the legitimate purview of the federal government. Newton Minow, JFK's chair of the FCC, instructed broadcasters to "provide a wider range of choices."
Yet, writes Cantor, "Minow’s speech resulted in centralizing power in the television industry and thus actually reducing the range of choices in programs."
Schwartz again:
Minow gave networks authority and placed the power of programming in the hands of three network heads, who, for a long time, controlled everything coming into your living room. They eventually became the de facto producers of all prime-time programs by having creative control over writing, casting, and directing.
New shows were aired that displayed the sort of social consciousness the network heads thought would please the Kennedy administration. Media professor Mary Ann Watson described the products of this brief trend as "New Frontier character dramas"—with heroes such as a dedicated public-school teacher, a New York City social worker, and even, as Thompson describes one show's protagonist, "a state legislator trying to pass social programs over the objections of the evil Speaker of the House."
But few of the politically correct dramas lasted. Instead we remember the 1960s for shows like Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hee-Haw—“arguably,” as Cantor puts it, “the blandest decade of American television."
If we agree with Spacey about the three "golden ages" of TV, then the waxing and waning of government's interference with television content over the next several decades correlates to the rise and fall of quality in the medium.
The late 1970s marked the beginning of the deregulation trend that we associate with Ronald Reagan's presidency (even though it began under Jimmy Carter), and the 1980s are now remembered as the renaissance of the TV drama for shows like Hill Street Blues and Thirtysomething.
According to Thompson,
The free-market philosophies inherent in deregulation fostered the growth of cable services that ultimately pushed the networks toward quality... Seen as just another business, network TV was given tacit leave by the FCC to do whatever it took to compete in the marketplace.
But the chill was put on this second golden age when Attorney General Janet Reno loudly announced, as Thompson puts it, “her commitment to reducing violence on television, suggesting that government legislation might be necessary if the industry was unable to shape up on its own.”
Thompson notes,
The gritty realism that characterized Steven Bochco’s 1980s TV series (Hill Street Blues) was held up to a great deal more scrutiny when Bochco went for an encore (NYPD Blue) during Bill Clinton’s first fall season as president.
Broadcast television at the end of the century may have staggered under the burden of another interventionist government, but cable TV began to grow and expand into the formats we used to associate with the networks—transforming them as it went.
Not only do cable and online programs enjoy less interference from government regulation; they can also do away with commercial interruptions.
The turn-of-the-century slogan "It's Not TV—It's HBO" was more than just a clever bit of copywriting; a premium channel's business model is entirely different from the one that dominated the broadcast industry for half a century.
“If you're not paying for television, you're not the customer,” says Jeffrey Bewkes, head of HBO's parent company. “You're the product.”
From the inception of the medium, the job of the commercial broadcast networks has been to deliver quality audiences to their customers: the advertisers.
This means that for decades, the most popular form of entertainment in America was not focused on pleasing the audience; its objective was delivering receptive consumers to the sponsors. This model remained dominant as long as the market was hampered by a federal bureaucracy that controlled broadcast licenses. But as the market has become freer, it has eroded the older model, finally allowing TV’s viewers to become customers. We shouldn't be surprised when entertainment seekers get what they pay for, whether the entertainment is free or comes at a premium.
This doesn't make the advertisers the bad guys in this story. They once acted as surrogates for the audience when a cartelized industry did not allow that audience to act as customers of their own entertainment. The sponsors simulated, in effect, some of the competition and diversity that comes from a free market.
From its beginnings, every permutation of the TV industry has involved complex trade-offs between art and commerce on the one hand, and between creative expression and government interference on the other. But whenever the medium and the market have gotten freer, art and creative expression have achieved greater leverage.
With this year’s Emmy Awards recognizing Internet shows among the best available, television has left behind the age of the airwaves, the dominance of advertising, and, we can hope, the restrictions of government interference.At 17 I have a lot to worry about: graduating from high school,
keeping in touch with friends, staying out of trouble, dealing with
sexual issues, etc. But who thought I would have pressure from
Facebook to decide whether I am male or female. Maybe this isn't an
issue for everyone, but it is for me.
I'm CJ, formerly known as Chana. I'm also "genderqueer," which, in my case, means
that I feel part-female and part-male. I'm not sure yet whether I
will transition or not. I have two sisters, a mom, and a dad. When I
went away to school, we discovered that it was fun to communicate and share
things on Facebook and see what the others were doing. (Of course,
almost every kid I know has a Facebook account, too.) My mother
requested to list me on Facebook as her daughter, but I didn't feel that that was
totally right, but neither was "son." But there was no other choice.
I either have to be a brother or a sister to my sisters on Facebook.
And that's not me. It's troubling that I can't be Facebook friends
with my family and correctly identify my relationships with them,
because according to Facebook those relationships don't exist. Or
maybe I don't exist. How strange is that?
That's why, as Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook prepare to make billions
of dollars by selling public stock, I have to wonder how much of the
public they're really open to serving. People like me who don't feel
comfortable in the bodies in which we were born aren't sure we want to
be pegged as female or male. I am just trying to decide for myself,
but Facebook forces me to follow the social norm of being a male or
female. I am working in my own way on making my inner and outer
appearance match the way I feel. I want to be able to decide on my
own time, not Facebook's. There are a lot of people like me who are
still deciding, so why should Facebook force this issue?
Some doctors are beginning to understand, and I know that my doctor
does. Even some official government forms now acknowledge that gender
identity isn't black-and-white, so to speak. And other social media
networks, like Google+ and Disaspora, do, too. But not Facebook. In
the years since Facebook arrived on the scene, it's changed its look
many times, but not the basic options about gender. That bothers me.
You'd think that a company that's trying to promote networking in
every aspect of life would acknowledge this basic issue. It took
a while for me to come out as a lesbian, and even longer to start to
understand and explain my feelings about feeling out of place as a
female. Then I had to talk to my parents about it. After that, I
wasn't sure which of my extended family members, friends, and former
teachers would understand. But recently I decided it was time to go
public. It wasn't easy, but now that I'm finally willing to make this
very personal statement part of my profile, I discovered that I can't.
This doesn't just affect me. When I stopped fighting with my younger
sister long enough to become Facebook friends with her, she wanted to
indicate that I was her sibling. But the only choices were "sister"
or "brother," neither of which fit who I am right now. Why should I
have to explain to my younger sister why I didn't respond when she
said she was my sister on Facebook? My older sister understands and
has supported me through this difficult time of figuring out who I am.
A lot of my family is also frustrated with Facebook's lack of options.
I don't have a lot of Facebook friends. I try to "friend" people I
really know and who are really open to knowing me, not people who will
talk to me once and then never again. Some of these friends live far
away. I'd like them to know about my status, but it doesn't make
sense to write out of the blue to tell them. These are people who
might learn more about me on my profile, if only Facebook allowed me
to really be me.
Simply, if Facebook offered the option of "other" for gender or
"sibling" to identify a family relationship, it would be an easy
solution for questioning or transgender people who currently wonder
whether the social network thinks we exist. It would enable my mom to
link to my Facebook profile without having to call me "daughter," which
is no longer acceptable to me, or "son," which may or may not ever be.The recovery in energy prices won't produce a mad rush into deep-water fields anytime soon, but drillers are still spending billions this year on more cost-efficient projects that can outlast cheap oil, says the executive who leads Shell's deep-water business.
Over the next two years, Royal Dutch Shell plans to spend up to $14 billion developing new and existing deep-water projects in places like the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil, but it's trying to keep costs nailed down with myriad initiatives that have, for example, reduced its offshore staff by nearly a third.
"It's the most resilient projects that will survive," said Wael Sawan, executive vice president of deep-water at Shell, in a recent interview.
For Shell, that means turning its focus to projects that can profit in deep-water fields even if oil prices fall again. It cut costs in half for its latest venture in the Gulf of Mexico, the Kaikias deep-water project about 130 miles south of the Louisiana shoreline, and expects it will be able pump oil profitably there even if prices fall below $40 a barrel.
Sawan spoke to the Houston Chronicle about how Shell has whittled down costs on a variety of deep-water projects. Edited excerpts:
Q: Shell gave the green light to start work on the Kaikias field in February. What steps did Shell take to cut costs on the project?
A: There's no one silver bullet. We moved toward simplified designs, using industry standards versus tailor-making wells, which inherently adds a
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nor local. I get no questions.
I point out that there are only three tour media present and, lo, there is a question left! Can I have it? Will local media get two? What about Daniel Leblanc, the Globe and Mail reporter who's in the same spot as I?
Nope. There'll just be four questions.
I persist.
"Go write a story about it."
So Harper wraps up, and begins taking questions. One on Duffy. One on retirement benefits. Then Andy Blatchford, Canadian Press reporter, asks: "Why do you only take five questions at your campaign events?"
Harper's answer:
"I think you're all very aware of how we've structured our press conferences. This is a long-standing policy, it was cleared with everybody. And what's important to me is that we're able to answer a range of questions on a broad range of subjects. That's why every day I speak to a different topic."
Well that sounds nice.
So then Harper took a question from a local reporter about his tax break, and then it was a wrap. No fifth question. He does, however, take the mic one more time: "Friends, nobody asked about this, but..." he then preceded to underline how fragile our economy is, answering a question that nobody asked.
Naturally, I began yelling: "Mr. Harper! I have a question. I have a question. I HAVE A QUESTION. What about that fifth question?"
And so on. Harper initially looked at me, then shuffled off to glad-hand. Staffers nervously looked at me. I think one made a beeline for me, but another staffer stopped her. Security glared at me. One supporter turned around, and said something encouraging about how he wanted Harper to answer more questions, too.
Eventually, he departed through the back door. Frustrated, I made for the exit. Teneycke was waiting for me.
"Happy? That was really classy. Really good job," he says, obviously pissed off.
This is where we're at, folks. A half-dozen reporters, the ones that are willing to shell out the hefty sum of money, will be the only ones permitted to ask national questions of the prime minister. That's the media strategy of the Conservative Party on this campaign.
Also a possibility: the prime minister didn't want to answer my question, so he spiked it himself.
Either way, that fucking sucks.
Update: After this story was published, I got this picture in my inbox. It was sent, via sms, from a number that—if you google it—is attached to a press release from one Kory Teneycke regarding the failed TV network Sun News.
Right back at you, Kory.
Follow Justin Ling on Twitter.By mid-May, the broadcast networks must make some tough calls as to which series will return for the 2017-18 TV season, and which… won’t.
As that deadline draws near, TVLine is singling out a few “bubble” shows and sizing up their prospects — based in large part on creative strides (and stumbles) and future potential, but also with a requisite nod to the cold, hard numbers that attract TV’s single-minded grim reaper.
RELATED 2017 Renewal Scorecard: What’s Coming Back? What’s Getting Cancelled? What’s on the Bubble?
Next up is a fairytale drama in need of a bit of magic.
THE SHOW | ABC’s Once Upon a Time
THE CASE FOR KEEPING | We held back on this Keep or Cut, knowing that changes were brewing for the ABC series. But now that it’s out there that any possible Season 7 would include a “reset” of sorts — adding a young male lead (played by Walking Dead alum Andrew J. West) and perhaps retaining a little more than half of the current series regulars — it’s time to get down to brass tacks. Once Upon a Time Season 6 Photos Launch Gallery Launch Gallery
The fact is, Once Upon a Time at this stage sort of demands a reset, either in the form of a fresh POV or a tweaked narrative engine, if it is to continue. Now that Emma’s “walls” are down, years after she came to accept the existence of magic and fairy tale VIPs living in Maine, her story seems about told. That said, holding onto Jennifer Morrison (one of the actors currently being wooed to renew their contract) is a must, in the name of continuity/”handing off the baton.” It’d also be great to keep around the yin to Emma’s yang, in Regina, while the current engagement storyline, if it comes to fruition, would seem to secure Hook’s standing. Losing both Snow and David — the familial touchstones that ground their daughter’s odyssey — would be a blow, for sure, but maybe their purpose can just as well be serviced by the occasional visit; ditto Rumplestiltskin.
THE CASE FOR CUTTING | Midway through writing this Keep or Cut, Nielsen issued the numbers for Episode 13 and they were not lucky, marking new series lows. As such, the pressure put on any rejiggered cast/narrative would be high; short of adding a “name” to the ensemble for Season 7, it’s hard to imagine an appreciable ratings rebound. As for Once‘s core storytelling DNA, we can think of precious few major-ish princesses or princes, witches or warlocks, left to lift from literature and add to the mix. So unless the plan is to stage some “reunion tours” for, like, Frozen‘s Elsa, or to bring to the fore heretofore peripheral characters such as Merida, Maleficent or Dr. Whale (should iZombie not get renewed), Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard may be bare.
Vote below, and then state your own case for keeping or cutting Once.NEW YORK – Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced settlements with two major national retailers, Big Lots Stores and Marshalls, to “Ban the Box” on initial employment applications at their Buffalo stores. The settlement will ensure that both companies comply with the local Buffalo law that prohibits employers from inquiring into criminal history on initial employment applications. In addition to satisfying the requirements of the local ordinance, both companies have taken the additional step of removing such inquiries from applications to any store in New York State.
“Obtaining meaningful employment is often the most crucial step towards reducing the chances of recidivism among formerly incarcerated persons,” said Attorney General Schneiderman. “That is why my office is committed to breaking down barriers that impede rehabilitation, especially those that prevent fair access to employment.”
Several municipalities across New York State, including the three largest cities in the state: New York City, Buffalo, and Rochester, have enacted “Ban the Box” legislation. These laws prohibit employers from inquiring into the criminal history of applicants on initial employment applications. The laws were passed to eliminate the possibility of job candidates being automatically disqualified from further consideration based on a prior criminal history. Instead, the law encourages employers to consider the applicant’s qualifications first and subsequently make individualized inquiries into any criminal conviction to determine whether it is relevant to the job sought or to public safety. The Buffalo law allows employers to make inquiries later on in the hiring process, when they interview a prospective applicant.
The Attorney General’s investigation found that both Big Lots and Marshalls had distributed applications for employment that made inquiries into the criminal history of prospective applicants at their Buffalo stores. Both companies have agreed to take steps to ensure that such applications will not be made available to those seeking employment at those stores. Those steps include new policies, training, and reporting to the Attorney General’s Office. In addition, Big Lots agreed to pay a monetary penalty of $100,000, and Marshalls will pay a penalty of $95,000, while simultaneously making affirmative efforts to recruit applicants with criminal histories through an organization with expertise in training formerly incarcerated individuals.
Big Lots has 64 stores across New York State, with 1,585 associates employed at those store locations. Marshalls has 75 stores across New York State.
The companies’ commitment to “Ban the Box” on initial employment applications across New York State builds off of the longstanding initiative in the Attorney General’s Civil Rights Bureau to enforce local, state and federal laws ensuring that formerly incarcerated individuals receive fair treatment in the employment process. The Civil Rights Bureau previously entered into agreements with Party City and Bed Bath & Beyond to ensure that the criminal records of prospective applicants were individually considered for relevance to the job sought. And, as with Marshalls and Big Lots, Party City and Bed Bath & Beyond also took the additional step of “Banning the Box” statewide, above and beyond what the law requires.
“A past conviction should never prevent someone from being able to put food on the table or pay their rent,” said Council Member Jumaane D. Williams, Deputy Leader and Chair of the Housing and Buildings Committee. “All New Yorkers benefit when people with criminal records are able to find jobs, and contribute to our communities. Corporations don’t get to choose which laws they follow and I commend Attorney General Schneiderman for fighting to ensure companies “ban the box.”
"Good jobs can transform people's lives and this agreement will give more New Yorkers a fair chance at transforming their own," said 32BJ President Hector Figueroa. "We welcome Attorney General Schneiderman’s work to ensure that men and women with a conviction history have the opportunity to get a good job and a bright future. This is a key part of reforming our criminal justice system."
"Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has once again taken a stand for what is reasonable and just by making sure that everyone has fair access to employment opportunities,” said Todd Hobler, Buffalo-based Vice President of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East. “Countless numbers of qualified workers have been automatically excluded from being considered for employment by criminal history screens on initial employment applications. Compliance with Ban the Box laws will not only improve opportunities for ex-offenders, but will also reduce recidivism. If an employer sits down and has a conversation with someone first, before rushing to judgment, doors will open for everyone.”
"The law is clear in Buffalo - qualified job seekers cannot be unfairly discriminated against because of their criminal record histories. Local municipalities across New York State, including New York City and Rochester, have made the decision to give people with criminal records a fair chance to find work so they can rebuild their lives after incarceration. Thank you to Attorney General Eric Schneiderman for holding employers accountable and ensuring that all New Yorkers have an opportunity to contribute to our economy," said Alyssa Aguilera, Political Director, VOCAL-NY.
“Employment discrimination against someone for being formerly incarcerated or involved in the criminal justice system is counterproductive to the well-being and safety of our communities,” said Joo-Hyun Kang, Director of Communities United for Police Reform. “Attorney General Schneiderman’s efforts to hold employers accountable are critical to advancing equal opportunity in employment for New Yorkers and the best interests of all communities. It remains equally important that racial and other forms of discrimination against job seekers be exposed and eliminated so that no discriminatory proxy prevents any New Yorker from obtaining employment.”
"Many employers in New York State value the social and economic impact that hiring individuals with barriers have on our community; and we look forward to continuing our work with the private sector to ensure that opportunities exist for anyone who wants to work," said Jeff Conrad, State Director, Center for Employment Opportunities.
"Qualified job applicants with prior convictions often find it difficult to get their foot in the door with prospective employers, denied even the opportunity to interview," said Emily NaPier, Director of Justice Strategies at the Center for Community Alternatives. "We are excited that the Attorney General’s Office has worked to make the hiring process at Marshalls and Big Lots operate more fairly by breaking down unnecessary initial hurdles for applicants with criminal history records."
This matter was handled by Assistant Attorney General Sandra Pullman and Ajay Saini in the Civil Rights Bureau. The Civil Rights Bureau is part of the Division of Social Justice led by Executive Deputy Attorney General for Social Justice Alvin Bragg.
The Civil Rights Bureau of the Attorney General's Office is committed to promoting access to equal employment opportunities and combating discrimination for all New Yorkers. To file a civil rights complaint, contact the Attorney General’s Office at (212) 416-8250, [email protected] or visit www.ag.ny.gov.The dog-ate-my-homework — er, excuse me, hard-drive-ate-our-emails excuse did just about as well in federal court as it would during an IRS audit. Judge Emmet Sullivan rejected the IRS’ response to the Judicial Watch complaint about missing e-mails from Lois Lerner and other IRS employees involved in the targeting scandal yesterday. Sullivan in effect took steps to conduct his own independent probe, issuing an order demanding specific answers — and demanding them by one week from today:
A federal judge asked the U.S. Internal Revenue Service for more information on efforts it made to recover missing e-mail from the computer of an agency official at the heart of a quarrel between Congress and the Obama administration over scrutiny of Tea Party organizations. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan’s order today giving the IRS until Aug. 22 to come up with further details on what it did to retrieve e-mail from the malfunctioning computer of Lois Lerner signals his dissatisfaction with the agency’s earlier explanation, contained in an Aug. 11 filing. The order comes in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the activist group Judicial Watch. The complaint seeks Lerner’s e-mail and other communications concerning the processing of applications for tax-exempt status.
“Asked” is a bit too generous. Legal Insurrection has the actual document from Sullivan, in which “asked” is replaced by “ORDERED” — caps in the original, although Bill Jacobson has added other emphasis and formatting:
MINUTE ORDER. In light of [26] the Declarations filed by the IRS, the IRS is hereby ORDERED to file a sworn Declaration, by an official with the authority to speak under oath for the Agency, by no later than August 22, 2014. In this Declaration, the IRS must: (1) provide information about its efforts, if any, to recover missing Lois Lerner emails from alternate sources (i.e., Blackberry, iPhone, iPad); (2) provide additional information explaining the IRS’s policy of tracking inventory through use of bar code property tags, including whether component parts, such as hard drives, receive a bar code tag when serviced. If individual components do not receive a bar code tag, provide information on how the IRS tracks component parts, such as hard drives, when being serviced; (3) provide information about the IRS’s policy to degauss hard drives, including whether the IRS records whose hard drive is degaussed, either by tracking the employee’s name or the particular machine with which the hard drive was associated; and (4) provide information about the outside vendor who can verify the IRS’s destruction policies concerning hard drives.
“ORDERED.” “Must.” “Speak under oath.” These are not really requests, and the time frame isn’t an expression of curiosity, either. Giving the IRS a single week to meet these demands after months of wrangling over Judicial Watch’s challenge implies that (a) Sullivan’s pretty convinced the IRS has these answers, which then suggests that (b) Sullivan’s getting angry over the IRS’ intransigence and opacity in dealing with the court. Either Judge Sullivan has run out of patience, or he wants the IRS to think he has.
Needless to say, this makes Judicial Watch pretty happy:
In an extraordinary step, U. S. District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan has launched an independent inquiry into the issue of the missing emails associated with former IRS official Lois Lerner. Previously, Judge Sullivan ordered the IRS to produce sworn declarations about the IRS email issue by August 11. Today’s order confirms Judicial Watch’s read of this week’s IRS’ filings that treated as a joke Judge Sullivan’s order. Judge Sullivan, in his earlier ruling, appointed Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola to manage and assist in discussions between Judicial Watch and the IRS about how to obtain any missing records from other sources. Magistrate Facciola is an expert in e-discovery, and authorized Judicial Watch to submit a request for limited discovery into the missing IRS records after September 10.
The demand to produce testimony under oath in court sets up an interesting moment, too. The IRS has provided conflicting answers to Congress about the status of e-mail and the ongoing efforts to retrieve the records of Lerner and others. At different times, the IRS has told the House Ways and Means and Oversight committees that they had the records, that the records were lost, that some of the records may still be retrievable, and that they never knew Lerner had a Blackberry — even though some of her extant communications showed clearly that she used it for e-mail. How will the IRS resolve all of those contradictions in sworn testimony, under penalty of perjury?
We’ll have to wait until at least next week to see. Whatever they come up with is likely to differ yet again from what’s come before it, and it’s doubtful that will make Judge Sullivan any happier than he is at the moment.On the same day that former Maryland guard Nick Faust’s transfer to Oregon State became official, Terps coach Mark Turgeon denied Twitter reports that two other players were on their way out of College Park as well.
Turgeon wrote in a text message to The Baltimore Sun on Wednesday that a report of rising junior guard Seth Allen asking for his release in order to transfer was “not correct.” Turgeon later wrote in another text message that tweets about rising junior forward Charles Mitchell considering doing the same were also “not true.”
Despite those denials, Allen recently told several teammates that he was leaving the program, two sources said. After meeting with Turgeon following the season, Allen also questioned whether his role was going to change next season.
Neither Allen nor Mitchell could be reached for comment.
There has been speculation that the arrival of incoming freshman point guard Melo Trimble — a McDonald’s All-American, and the highest-rated player in a recruiting class that was ranked eighth nationally by ESPN — could push Allen to his more natural position on the wing.
After missing the first 12 games last season with a broken foot, Allen was the team’s second-leading scorer (13.4 points) behind rising senior guard Dez Wells (14.9), including a career-high 32-point performance against Florida State.
Last month, Turgeon gave Faust, rising junior center Shaquille Cleare and rising sophomore point guard Roddy Peters their release from the program in order to transfer. Cleare announced last week that he was transferring to Texas.
Oregon State had initially recruited Faust out of high school (City), when he was the 37th-ranked player in the country, according to ESPN.com.
“We are really pleased to get a player of Nick’s abilities, demeanor and history,” Oregon State coach Craig Robinson said in a statement. “It’s almost as if our recruitment of him never stopped once we picked it back up.
“We are very excited. It’s going to be great for our guys, because they really enjoyed his visit. We are really looking forward for him to get here and start competing with our players.”
Faust, a 6-foot-6, 205-pound rising senior, scored six points with six rebounds, two assists and two steals when Oregon State defeated the Terrapins, 90-83, on Nov. 17 in College Park — a game attended by Robinson’s brother-in-law and sister, President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle.
Coming off the bench for more than half of the games as a junior, Faust averaged 9.3 points per game for the 17-15 Terps in the 2013-14 season.
Former City coach Mike Daniel said Wednesday that he thought Faust should have transferred after his sophomore year if he was not happy with his role with the Terps. There had been specutlation last summer about Faust leaving Maryland.
“That was the consensus desire of a lot of people,” Daniel said. “I’m a firm believer that if it’s not happening the first two years, you need to go somewhere else where you have two years to adjust and then come on and play. What hurts is that he’s only got one year.”
Faust could not be reached for comment, but his father, Anthony Faust, wrote in a text message to The Sun: “I’m so very happy for Nick."
Faust has to sit out next season in accordance with NCAA rules and will have one year of eligibility remaining. Oregon State lost its top three scorers, as well as promising freshman point guard Halice Cooke, from a 16-16 team.
“For Nick to succeed, he’s a volume shooter, he’s the kind of guy you’ve got to live or die with,” Daniel said. “In high school, you can live with a guy like that. In college, it’s different. The stakes are higher in college.
“Nick’s a good player, but he has a penchant for scoring. I tell kids, you’ve got to go where you’re comfortable, and you need to discuss this with the coach you’re going to [play for]. It doesn’t always work out.”
[email protected]
twitter.com/sportsprof56Some live music can sound so bad that it makes you long for even a mediocre Bluetooth speaker - and I'm not talking about the genre, as in "I hate rap" (which I do not) but the quality of the sound itself.
Last night my wife, her parents, her sister and husband, my niece and I all went to the opening night of The Book of Mormon at the Ellie Caulkins opera house, which is part of Denver's Center for the Performing arts in downtown Denver. The venue is exactly nine minutes from my door. For convenience it even has a large multi-story parking lot that sits directly beside the complex and only charges $10, making the complex the closest (and easiest to attend) concert hall in all of Denver. That was the good news.
The hall itself, which is called an "Opera House", is not an opera house in the traditional sense that it is an acoustically benign hall designed to support opera. No, the Ellie Caulkins is more accurately described as a "Broadway show venue" complete with sound reinforced EVERYTHING via three curved phase-array loudspeaker arrays dangling from the ceiling.
Our seats were in the second row of the Lodge, which in this venue is the third balcony. We were near the center, which offered a nice view of the whole stage. The sound, however, was worse and more abrasive than anything I've heard at any rock show. And why was the sound so bad? Chalk it up to the system's equalization.
I measured the SPLs during several dynamic peaks and while the sound was loud, peaking out around 102 dB, it was the quality of the sound, as opposed to the volume, that made it so execrable. Although I was not privy to seeing the room's equalization curves, I'm absolutely positive that if I had seen them there would have been a large boost of at least six dB at frequencies between 2000 and 4000 Hz. I understand why some one would want to do this - boosting this frequency range usually improves dialogue decipherability. Perhaps the dialog was easier to understand during quiet passages as a result of this boost, but every time the volume levels climbed above 95 dB the sound got not merely hard and peaky, but thoroughly and painfully NASTY.
I bring earplugs everywhere. The first four measures of the overture had me reaching down into my pockets for my -30dB pair. I was so glad I had them. Unfortunately, I only had one pair, so my wife had to experience the show at full volume. Every time there was a dynamic peak her hands went up to cover her ears. Yes, I felt badly for her, and if I was more masochistic and I didn't make a living with my ears I would have given her my pair. But Sir Walter Raleigh I ain't.
In the end I enjoyed the scatological nonsense that passes for entertainment in The Book of Mormon but I doubt I will want to attend another "musical" at this particular venue. It's just not that much fun to be forced to use earplugs so that I can stay in the room and watch the show. But still, I'm so glad that I had a pair of plugs on my person, otherwise I would have been forced to spend the entire evening in the lobby.
And what's the takeaway from all this? Always, always, bring earplugs with you whenever you are planning on attending any public event. You never know when you will find yourself marooned inside a hall containing an overly loud and badly equalized sound system, even in what was supposed to be an "opera house."Get the latest from TODAY Sign up for our newsletter
June 21, 2016, 4:08 PM GMT / Source: TODAY By Timothy Tukes
The summer’s new drink isn’t white, red or pink. It’s blue!
Named Blue Nun, this electric blue wine is the latest innovation by Spanish wine company Gik. According to the company, the wine is a blend of red and white grapes from four different areas in Spain: La Rioja, Castilla-La Mancha, León and Zaragoza.
Gik, a bright blue wine from Bierzo in northwest Spain, is made with red and white grapes. giklive/Instagram
So what does a blue wine taste like? Like a sweet white wine. Yes, really.
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The bright blue color is made with a pigment found in grape skin, called indigo, and a non-caloric sweetener.
The vividly colored wine was created by six 20-something Spanish entrepreneurs who wanted to do something different. Mission accomplished.
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Blue Nun is currently available in Spain and will spread to other countries, including the U.S., in the upcoming months.
Would you drink this blue wine? Tell us in the comments below.City Hall is taking major steps to shore up its sagging credit rating—steps that arguably are a good financial move but that also will help protect the city in the event of another pension-related credit downgrade.
In a speech today to the Civic Federation of Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel will outline five actions that are designed to give investors more confidence to buy Chicago bonds and other debt and give the city somewhat more control over its financial future.
Among the to-do items: ending so-called "scoop and toss" bond financing; exchanging $900 million in variable-rate paper for fixed-rate securities; and, in the biggest move, closing out the city's position on sales tax and general-obligation swaps contracts within two weeks. Doing the latter will force the city to eat a roughly $200 million market loss on the swaps. But this move will protect the city from an immediate call for payment if Chicago's credit rating drops further.
In an interview, Chicago Budget Director Alex Holt said the actions are "good news," a sign that "we're trying to reduce risk."
Holt conceded that the actions are somewhat defensive and designed to protect Chicago in the event that its bond rating, which recently was lowered to two levels above junk by Moody's Investors Service, is dinged further when the Illinois Supreme Court later this spring issues a ruling in a key pension reform case. "I suppose you could call it defensive. But the art of good decision-making is to be defensive," Holt said.
"We needed to deal with huge amounts of legacy debt," Holt continued, referring to swaps and other deals originally entered into by former Mayor Richard M. Daley. "We've got these liabilities built up. Should we just let them ride?"
Here's what city officials say is in Emanuel's speech.
1) The city will end its use of scoop-and-toss financing—in which debt is rolled over and extended rather than being regularly paid off—by the end of Emanuel's current term in 2019. Such financing has grown rapidly in Chicago's budget, to $200 million this year from $50 million in 2007. That level was scheduled to hit up to $240 million in 2016 but now will be reduced by $75 million to a net $150 million or so next year.
2) Swaps that now are $200 million under water will be terminated almost immediately.
City Hall officials say they were concerned that, if the city's debt rating is lowered any further, those on the opposite side of swap trades could demand immediate repayment. Instead, the city likely will tap its short-term line of credit and eventually refinance the money with long-term general-obligation debt.
3) The city will move to convert $900 million in variable-rate debt to fixed-rate securities.
As is the case with the swaps, the variable-rate debt could provoke a demand for immediate payment if the city's bond rating drops further. The replacement general-obligation debt will not be free, but Holt noted its last general-obligation issue, $900 million last spring, was oversubscribed, with demand for a bigger borrowing than the city wanted. The city ended up paying an average interest rate of 5 percent.
4) The city will "continue to phase out" borrowing for legal settlements, Holt said, and stop borrowing for day-to-day items such as garbage cart collection by the end of Emanuel's current term.
5) The city will continue to gradually add back financial reserves that were drawn down in the Daley years. Officials hope to save more than the average of $10 million a year so far in the Emanuel tenure, but the mayor reportedly is not now committing to a higher figure.
City Hall sources emphasize that the new moves are part of an ongoing process, following earlier efforts such as the recent ban on the new execution of swaps and the push to reduce the size of Chicago's continuing, or structural, budget deficit.
But Emanuel has been under pressure to do more. His runoff election foe, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, accused the mayor of engaging in some of the very financial practices that Emanuel himself had criticized Daley for employing.
Emanuel is expected to make a series of other speeches on second-term financial goals in coming weeks. But though they and today's news may help some, the city still will face huge problems if the Supreme Court tosses out changes in state pension plans, changes that are somewhat similar to revisions Emanuel bargained for last year with unions representing city laborers and white-collar workers.
Deals have not yet been struck with the especially underfunded systems that cover police and firefighters. Under current state law, the city will be required to begin contributing an additional $550 million a year to them in the year beginning Jan. 1.
1:10 P.M. UPDATE:
Emanuel has delivered the speech and it went as previewed. The mayor heaped a lot of praise on himself as is his wont, but the bottom line remains: “There is more we need to do. It will require more aggressive reforms and more shared sacrifice.”
3:30 P.M. UPDATE:
Civic Federation chief Laurence Msall likes what he heard today, terming the mayor's action “an important and positive step.”
Added Msall, “It's going to cost money in the short term, putting pressure on the budget. But, long term, it's very positive and will save taxpayers money.”
Here's the text of Emanuel's noontime speech:“We’d like to make that as simple for them as possible,” said Chris Balfe, the president of Mr. Beck’s media company, Mercury Radio Arts, in a blog post that will accompany the announcement on Wednesday. The channel will begin on Dish at 5 p.m. Wednesday.
Since Mr. Beck, 48, and Fox parted ways in the summer of 2011, the conventional take on Mr. Beck has been that although he was making more money online than at the cable network, he was reaching far fewer viewers than he was on Fox. There, he peaked at over three million viewers a night.
Mr. Beck, however, asserted in an interview that his company over all “now reaches more people across more platforms than ever before.” He hosts what continues to be a hugely popular syndicated radio show, free over the airwaves, as well as the nightly subscription-only show on TheBlaze TV. Mr. Beck said his company more than doubled its revenue over the last year and a half.
Cutting deals with cable and satellite companies was in the back of Mr. Beck’s mind when he adapted the streaming-movie business model of Netflix for his online network, originally called GBTV. He acknowledged that he was asking a lot of his fans to seek him out online at the outset.
Looking back a year later, he said his priority was control: both the “freedom to try new things” from a business standpoint and the flexibility to “do whatever show I wanted when I wanted” and program other shows from a creative standpoint. Online, he has done that. “Over the past year and a half, we have eliminated every disadvantage to being on traditional television,” he said.
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Still, the deal with Dish Network may be interpreted as a sign that Internet distribution alone is not sufficient, at least not yet. And it will make the network more reliant on advertising revenue and less on subscribers.
TheBlaze TV, which revealed several months ago that it had over 300,000 subscribers paying $99.95 a year or $9.95 a month, said that number was still accurate. The online network noted that it had been spending less on marketing lately and more on programming in preparation for cable and satellite TV. Mr. Balfe wrote in the blog post that he had come to believe that the payment model used by cable and satellite companies would remain in place for some time, despite efforts by outsiders to chip away at it. “It’s smart for us to take advantage of that,” he wrote.
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TheBlaze TV will seek full distribution in America’s roughly 100 million cable and satellite households, Mr. Balfe said in an interview. “We are in active discussions with other operators,” he added.
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It is an audacious goal given distributors’ reluctance to add channels and given TheBlaze TV’s independent status. But Mr. Beck is a boldface name; he has clout, and several other small TV channels have associated themselves with celebrities for similar reasons, such as Revolt, a cable channel led by the hip-hop star Sean Combs.
Along with Mr. Beck’s show, TheBlaze TV also has a nightly panel conversation about the news, a reality show about survivalists, and a show called “Liberty Treehouse” for children — in total, 35 hours of original programming a week.
On Monday it added another Fox-esque talk show, “Wilkow!” hosted by the radio host Andrew Wilkow. The network was renamed this year to bring it in line with Mr. Beck’s other media ventures, including a Web site called The Blaze. “We have gone from a company of one voice to a company filled with hosts, writers, producers and editors,” Mr. Beck said.
Mr. Beck’s voice is still the loudest; he is still a strident opponent of President Obama. His online show on Monday was emblematic: “America should not be made to suffer four more years because some radical wants to experiment with their own Marxist utopian ideas in the hopes that maybe they’ll be the first one in all of history that can make them work,” Mr. Beck said.
Mr. Beck’s network is another way for Dish to distinguish itself with content that is different from that of its rivals, DirecTV and cable providers. This week, Dish announced a deal to be the first satellite provider of the college sports-related Pac-12 Networks. Separately, the company is in a protracted dispute with AMC Networks; AMC, IFC and WE tv have been off Dish’s channel lineup since July.
Joseph P. Clayton, Dish’s chief executive, said Dish had approached Mr. Beck’s company about possibly carrying a show about a year ago. TheBlaze TV will be the first online network to make the leap from the Internet to traditional TV on Dish. “The model works because it’s the right kind of programming — it’s topical, it’s entertaining and it has strong appeal to a devoted fan base,” Mr. Clayton said.
Dish is paying a small per-subscriber fee to carry TheBlaze.
David Shull, Dish’s senior vice president for programming, declined to comment on the details of the arrangement. “This is all about revenue potential, the strong demand we see for the service and the ability to offer our customers choice,” he said.
The network will be available to customers who have Dish’s 250-channel package; customers with lesser packages will be able to buy TheBlaze TV as a $5 monthly add-on, a step toward à la carte programming for people wanting more control over which channels they pay for.
Dish and other providers already sell channels like HBO and packages of sports channels separately. “You’ll probably hear more announcements to that end,” Mr. Shull said.Hollywood actor also says he snubbed a number of superhero roles
Leonardo DiCaprio has revealed that he once turned down the chance to play Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels.
The actor confirmed that he met with George Lucas to discuss taking the role in Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith. The part eventually went to Hayden Christensen.
“I did have a meeting with George Lucas about that, yes,” he said. “I just didn’t feel ready to take that dive. At that point.”
DiCaprio also revealed that he turned down the chance to play Robin in Batman Forever and Spider-Man ahead of Tobey Maguire.
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He told Shortlist: “I never screen-tested (for the part of Robin). I had a meeting with Joel Schumacher. It was just one meeting and, no, I didn’t end up doing it. As I recall I took the meeting, but didn’t want to play the role. Joel Schumacher is a very talented director but I don’t think I was ready for anything like that.”
DiCaprio continued: “That (Spider-Man) was another one of those situations, similar to Robin, where I didn’t feel ready to put on that suit yet. They got in touch with me.”
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But the actor has not ruled out playing a superhero in the future. “You never know, you never know,” he added. “They’re getting better and better as far as complex characters in these movies. I haven’t yet. But no, I don’t rule out anything.”
DiCaprio recently refuted the suggestion that his
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game in April than in the full season in 15 of the past 21 years and for 53 percent of teams. Those extra walks and errors are apparently more damaging than one would have thought.
Batters take control of the plate! As you probably know, there has been a new record for strikeouts per team per game in 11 straight seasons. In April, we may hear about a respite. Don’t buy it. In 14 of the past 21 years, the strikeout rate in April has been lower (if just by a little, an average of 0.14 percent of plate appearances) than for the full season, as has been the case for 54 percent of teams.
Starting pitchers are even wimpier! The difference isn’t large—an average of 0.05 innings per start—but starting pitchers departed games earlier in April than they did over the full year, and this was true in all but five of the past 21 seasons.
Baseball is still dying! Every April, somebody bad at math is going to point out that average attendance during the month is below the prior year’s average, proving that baseball is too old, too slow, too boring, and too unappealing to millennials with their heads buried in their smartphones. Whatever. I don’t have numbers handy, but here are two salient facts about April baseball: It’s cold and kids are still in school. End of story.
So enjoy April baseball, starting with a whole bunch of games today. Be careful about drawing any conclusions from it, though. Especially the ones listed here.Mark Wahlberg 'Greedy' People Holding Up 'Entourage' Movie
Mark Wahlberg -- 'Greedy' People Holding Up 'Entourage' Movie
EXCLUSIVE
-- who inspired and executive produced "" -- finally revealed the REAL holdup on the "Entourage" movie... certain people are being way too greedy.There's been talk of an "Entourage" flick ever since the HBO series wrapped back in 2011... and several actors have expressed serious interest in the project, but it hasn't gotten off the ground.So,yesterday at LAX, we asked Mark when everyone's favorite Hollywood crew would finally reunite on the big screen -- and the answer we got was very interesting:"As soon as them guys stop being so greedy."Mark wouldn't specify who he was talking about, but he did explain that the "greedy" people need to look at the situation from a "long term" mindset -- "It's one of those things where if the movie's a success, we'll get to make a lot more of them and then we'll probaby make a lot of money."New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton was relaxed and happy on the course at TPC Louisiana on Wednesday afternoon.
He took a couple of swings on the driving range, gave quarterback Drew Brees a fist bump, and joked with reporters that they were going to make him late for his 1:20 tee time.
Payton and Brees were participating in Wednesday's Pro-Am with David Toms at the Zurich Classic.
And despite some late nights he's been pulling lately, he didn't seem any worse for the wear.
With the 2015 NFL draft a week away, Saints personnel have been in increasingly long draft meetings. On Tuesday night, they were at it until 10:30 p.m., taking only a brief break to look at the 2015 schedule announcement.
"I've had a chance to look at it briefly. It typically comes out when we're in draft meetings. And yesterday was just that case," Payton said. "It's kind of back and forth, home and away. I would say the early part of the schedule features more 10-win or playoff teams, just based on last year's record.... It's one of those things every year when it comes out, you take a peek at it, you look at weather, you look at travel....
"The bye, this year, is a little further back in the schedule. I don't know that there's any pros or cons based on where that sits. So you really spend your time focused more on the things that you can control. But nonetheless, it's always exciting."
Payton knows this draft is important. After a 7-9 season with no playoffs, the Saints have professed the need to hit on most of their picks. With nine total picks and five in the first three rounds, that's no small task.
"Typically this time of the year we're kind of in a final stack, if you will. The board has been set and then you're going through each position group and kind of going through the vision for each player, making some adjustments," Payton said. "So, we'll kind of do that up until the middle of next week, but it is an important draft and obviously significant in that there's just a lot of flexibility with the amount of selections."
Of course, at this point, the Saints are going to stay tight-lipped about whom they plan to take with those picks. Payton said earlier in the offseason that it's important to find defenders who could play right away. However, with Kenny Stills and Jimmy Graham now on other teams, that could mean they take a close look at wide receiver.
Last season, the Saints traded up in the first round to snag 5-foot-10, 189-pound wideout Brandin Cooks. In this year's draft, there are several bigger wide receivers who could fly off the board quickly, such as Alabama's Amari Cooper, West Virginia's Kevin White and Louisville receiver DeVante Parker.
There have been reports that the Saints are interested in Miami receiver Phillip Dorsett, a 5-10, 185-pound speedster.
Big or small, the receivers are all graded the same way, Payton said.
"We try to grade the player, we try to envision the position he plays," he said. "But yeah, you would see a various heights and weights and that would carry over to other position groups. There's certain prototypes you look for, yet you play close attention to production."
And like previous drafts, the Saints will put a premium on character, particularly after a season that saw the team struggle with leadership.
"I think that you really got to make sure that there's division of this character," Payton said. "There's like 50 shades of it. You gotta look and pay close attention to how you see the player. Every little bit of information you're factoring in. Of course, production and how they play on film, it starts there, but it's important."A beer festival held every year in Malaysia has been scrapped following complaints by Islamist groups who called it 'western' and 'un-Islamic', it has emerged.
The event, called 'Better Beer Festival 2017', had been planned for the first weekend in the country's capital Kuala Lumpur.
But an application by organisers was rejected amid warnings it would turn the city into 'the biggest centre of vice in Asia'.
A beer festival held every year in Malaysia has been scrapped following complaints by Islamist groups who called it 'western' and 'un-Islamic', it has emerged
There are plenty of beer drinkers among the sizable Chinese and Indian minorities, but protests against events deemed to be 'western' and unIslamic - such as concerts and festivals involving alcohol - are common in Muslim-majority Malaysia and are usually led by the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS).
The group warned the event could lead to criminal acts, free sex and rape.
'We can't bear it if Kuala Lumpur is known by the world as the biggest centre of vice in Asia,' PAS central committee member Riduan Mohd Nor was cited as saying in the Malay Mail Online.
'It is something that is shameful for an Islamic country like Malaysia.'
Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) said in a short statement on Monday that it has rejected the application for a permit by the organisers the event, which would have entered its sixth year.
'If the organisers continue with the event without DBKL's approval, action will be taken in accordance to existing laws,' city hall said.
The event, called 'Better Beer Festival 2017', had been planned for the first weekend in the country's capital Kuala Lumpur
Mybeer (M) Sdn Bhd, the company organising the event, said in a separate statement that they were informed by DBKL officials that the decision was made 'due to the political sensitivity surrounding the event'.
A member of PAS' central committee, Riduan Mohd Nor, said in a statement on September 10 that there is no guarantee that such events would not lead to criminal acts, rape and free sex.
Opponents of the beer festival also launched a campaign on Facebook to block the event.
Around 6,000 people had been expected to attend the two-day festival, which would have featured craft beers from at least 11 countries, according to Facebook posts by the organisers and local news reports.Sony to launch something like Apple's iTunes for PlayStation 3
Sony has finally decided to confirm its long-awaited movie download service for PlayStation 3. The new service is to be launched in the USA this summer. The European and Japanese markets will have to wait a little bit more, the President of Sony’s video game unit, Kazuo Hirai said.
Sony to launch something like Apple's iTunes for PlayStation 3
The rumors about the movie download service for PlayStation 3 appeared in 2005, when a Sony official said that the corporation was planning to develop something like iTunes for movies. Another top official of the electronic giant stated later that PS3 users would soon be able to download movies and TV shows from PlayStation Network.
The new service, currently unnamed, will apparently become a competition for Apple’s iTunes. Most likely, PlayStation 3 users will be able to download videos on their computers and then easily transfer them to PS’s flash card.
The PlayStation 3 was first released on November 11, 2006 in Japan, November 17, 2006 in North America, and March 23, 2007 in Europe and Oceania. Two SKUs were available at launch; a basic model with a 20 GB hard disk drive (HDD) and a premium model with a 60 GB HDD and several additional features (The 20 GB model was not released in Europe or Oceania.) Since then, several revisions have been made to the console's available models and it has faced stiff competition from the other seventh generation consoles. As of December 20, 2007, the PS3 is in third place in home console sales for its generation.
In response to Microsoft's success with their Xbox Live network, Sony announced a unified online service for the PlayStation 3 system at the 2006 PlayStation Business Briefing meeting in Tokyo. Sony also confirmed that the service will always be connected, free, and include multiplayer support. In addition, the registration interface can only be accessed through the PS3 system interface.
At the Tokyo Game Show on September 21, 2006, it was revealed that users will be able to download some of the thousands of PlayStation and PlayStation 2 titles from the PlayStation Network for about US$5–$15, starting with those with the smallest game data. Ken Kutaragi also announced functionality with other systems, similar to Nintendo's Virtual Console, including confirmed Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx 16 functionality. However, Sega replied that Sony had been too hasty with calling it a fact, and that it was still "under examination".
On May 8, 2007 Sony Computer Entertainment announced PlayStation Network Cards, a form of electronic money that can be used with the Store. PlayStation Network Tickets, available in units of 1,000, 3,000, 5,000, and 10,000 yen, can be purchased at convenience stores throughout Japan. Each ticket contains a 12 alphanumeric code which can be inputted to the PlayStation Network to place credits in the virtual wallet. The tickets are available through electronic kiosks at 26,000 convenience stores, including Lawsons, Family Mart, Daily Yamazaki, Ministop and Sunkus. They are also available at 26,000 post office ATM machines, although registration is required first at a special mobile website.
A similar PlayStation Network Card system based on actual cards instead of tickets was introduced in South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan in Summer 2007 and is scheduled for a Spring 2008 release in North America.The Case for Gold
By Rep. Ron Paul and Lewis Lehrman
ABOUT THE BOOK
by Mark Calabria, Director of Financial Regulation Studies, Cato Institute
The economic crisis of the past several years — including unchecked government growth and spiraling debt — illustrates the danger we face from living beyond our means and building upon unsupportable economic foundations. Warning signals were already being sounded nearly 30 years ago. In 1982, Rep. Ron Paul and Lewis Lehrman served on the U.S. Gold Commission, commissioned by Congress to evaluate the role of gold in the monetary system. Paul and Lehrman produced a landmark minority report: The Case for Gold. Published in book form by the Cato Institute that year, the report covers the history of gold in the United States, explains how the breakdown in its use as a financial standard was caused by government, and details the critical need for sound money — where prices reflect market realities, government stays in check, and people retain their freedom.
Working with a team of economists, Paul and Lehrman produced a work that is as sound and prescient today as when first published. With Paul’s ascendancy to chairman of the House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy — which oversees the Federal Reserve as well as the currency and the valuation of the dollar — we are pleased to make this classic work widely available again in electronic form, with its thoughtful analyses and prescriptions for how we can move into an era of sound money and economic stability.
While many of its most dramatic predictions did not come to pass, these predictions helped to create the case for Paul Volcker’s battle against inflation. With easy money and inflation again in the headlines, but without a Paul Volcker at the Fed’s helm, Paul and Lehrman’s analysis and arguments are again timely and will hopefully be heeded this time.
The revival of Austrian Business Cycle theory, which served as the theoretical basis of The Case for Gold, makes this re-issue particularly timely. Its authors argued that while persistent and high inflation, a weak economy, and high unemployment were the direct result of misguided Keynesian policies, the answer was not monetarism. For the basis of monetarism is still allowing a government monopoly on the issue of money. We have again found ourselves in an environment where both Keynesian and monetarist policies have failed us. The necessity for alternate options is pressing.
The Case for Gold is not simply an argument for returning to the gold standard, but more importantly, an argument for choice and competition. Preserving the ability to choose which currencies to accept, with whom to trade and on what terms, is a hallmark of a free society. Sadly these freedoms are among the many that have been compromised, if not lost completely. Paul and Lehrman remind us that when government has the ability to abuse our trust, as in the case of purchasing its own debt or debasing its currency, it will inevitably betray that trust. In a more general sense, The Case for Gold is the case for limited government, a case for applying the rule of law to our monetary arrangements, as opposed to the highly discretionary rule of man which now governs our monetary system. With the public’s renewed interest in constitutional government, it is only fitting that such an interest extends to money.
Murray Rothbard’s superb history of money and banking constitutes chapters two and three of The Case for Gold. This history reminds us that the citizens of the United States have been subjected to repeated inflations and debasements, most often in the cause of war but also to the benefit of Wall Street. Today, we again we find ourselves burdened with war debts and Wall Street bailouts. As Santayana said, “those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” If we are to avoid future debasements, and perhaps even wars and financial bailouts, an understanding of our monetary history is essential. I can think of no better place to begin one’s study of that history than Rothbard’s contributions contained here.
Paul and Lehrman remind us that the ultimate purpose of a monetary standard is not price stability, but “trust and honesty.” A gold standard is an avenue, among others, to restore our trust in government, by appropriately constraining the discretionary power of government. In an era when five unelected bureaucrats on the Federal Reserve Board can spend over $2 trillion, and deny the rights of the people and their representatives to audit such spending, we know we are again in a time where “trust and honesty” in government is in short supply. It is my hope that re-releasing The Case for Gold will help to bring public accountability back to monetary policy. Its re-release will also expand and raise the level of public debate surrounding monetary policy.Bertrand Russell was an intellectual giant of the 20th century who bore witness to his generation's painful transition from Victorian optimism to postwar trauma. He always believed that ideas could change the world. He was closely involved in many of the events that shaped world politics during the first two-thirds of the 20th century. Controversially, he opposed the first world war, and was a prominent peace activist.
In academic circles he is best known for his pioneering work in mathematics, philosophical logic and epistemology. As well as bequeathing several important ideas and theories to later generations of scholars, Russell inaugurated a style of thinking now known as analytic philosophy, which is still taught in most British philosophy departments.
Instead of examining the more technical aspects of Russell's philosophy, this series will focus on issues close to the hearts of How to Believe readers: religion and ethics; the human condition and the modern world; the purpose of philosophy. Russell was gifted writer, and wrote numerous books and pamphlets for a general audience – his History of Western Philosophy is a flawed classic that continues to introduce non-academic readers to philosophy.
Over the coming weeks we will explore Russell's views in some detail. But those views need to be understood in the context of his character, his life and his times – and Russell himself provides a riveting account of these in his autobiography. The first page of this book indicates some of the distinguishing features of his long life: his privilege, his prominence in the public eye, his testing of moral convention. We are introduced to three-year-old Bertrand in the servants' hall at Pembroke Lodge, Richmond Park – the home given to his grandparents by Queen Victoria. His parents, recently deceased, had been free-thinkers: his father wrote a lengthy book called An Analysis of Religion, and "all the British philosophers from Mill downwards" were to be found at his mother's London salon. They had left Bertrand and his elder brother, Frank, in the care of two atheist guardians (one of whom had had a relationship with the children's mother), but Chancery awarded custody of the boys to their less radical grandparents.
Young Bertrand showed an early talent for logic when he argued with his grandmother that "it was inconsistent to demand at one and the same time that everybody should be well housed, and yet that no new houses should be built because they were an eyesore." A childhood friend later remembered "Bertie" as "a solemn little boy in a blue velvet suit" who was "always kind". As a young man he so sensitive and timid that when he first stayed in Trinity College, Cambridge for his scholarship examinations he was "too shy to enquire the way to the lavatory, so that [he] walked every morning to the station before the examination began".
Russell insists that he learnt little from his university tutors: "As an undergraduate I was persuaded that the dons were a wholly unnecessary part of the university. I derived no benefits from lectures, and I made a vow to myself that when in due course I became a lecturer I would not suppose that lecturing did any good. I have kept this vow." However, he learned from his student friends to be less solemn, and acquired a sense of humour that, judging from his autobiography, never left him.
Russell's adult life unfolded in a world quite different from the one we know today. For example, in 1910 he was rejected as a Liberal parliamentary candidate because (he suggests) he professed himself an agnostic and refused to attend church occasionally for the sake of respectability. However, in 1949 he was awarded the Order of Merit and in 1950, the Nobel Prize for Literature – which marked, as he puts it, "the apogee of my respectability", and made him feel "slightly uneasy".
After the second world war Russell campaigned for a "world government" to prevent international conflict, and he became increasingly concerned by the threat of nuclear war. In 1955 he wrote a peace manifesto with the support of his friend Albert Einstein, to be signed by leading scientists on both sides of the iron curtain. This document emphasised the need for cooperation between capitalist and communist powers: it led to a series of conferences during the late 50s, and eventually to the 1963 limited test ban treaty forbidding nuclear tests above ground – in space or underwater – in peace time, a "partial ban" that Russell was disappointed with.
These political developments were accompanied by a turn in the cultural tide: the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was launched in 1958, with Russell as its president. In February 1961 the philosopher, aged 88, joined thousands in a protest march from Trafalgar Square to Whitehall, and pinned a notice on to the door of the Ministry of Defence. Later that year Russell was charged with inciting the public to civil disobedience, and jailed in Brixton prison by a magistrate who told him that he was "old enough to know better".
At the end of his autobiography Russell reflects that since his youth his "serious" life has had two distinct aspects: "I wanted, on the one hand, to find out whether anything could be known; and, on the other hand, to do whatever might be possible toward creating a happier world." Over the hardest decades of the 20th century his optimism and idealism certainly waned, but were not defeated. "I may have thought the road to a world of free and happy human beings shorter than it is proving to be," he concludes, "but I was not wrong in thinking that such a world is possible."When it comes to gay marriage, the times, they are a-confusing. For instance, we recently overheard some people extolling the virtues of marriage, and how it allowed them to finally join in family gatherings as respectable married people, instead of skulking in as shamefully unmarried partners. They reminisced about the joys of being able to walk up to coworkers and introduce their husbands, the sparkle of their wedding rings legitimizing their socially sanctioned and forever-to-be unions.
You might wonder: Were we somewhere near the extreme right-wing group Focus on the Family? Perhaps we were taking a tour of the Jerry Falwell museum, which houses his wife’s wedding dress?
No. Those words came from the mouths of gays arguing that gay marriage is necessary for the well being of the world. In fact, we hear rumors that rainbows appear every day in all the states where gay marriage is legal; that the children of gay married couples are healthier, wiser, kinder; that they can and do beat up the nasty illegitimate spawn of those who dare to remain unmarried; and that the cats of married gay men regularly crap nuggets of gold.
Gay marriage apes hetero privilege and allows everyone to forget that marriage ought not to be the guarantor of rights like health care. In their constant invoking of the “right” to gay marriage, mainstream gays and lesbians express a confused tangle of wishes and desires. They claim to contest the Right’s conservative ideology yet insist that they are more moral and hence more deserving than sluts like us. They claim that they simply want the famous 1000+ benefits but all of these, like the right to claim protection in cases of domestic violence, can be made available to non-marital relationships.
We wish that the GM crowd would simply cop to it: Their vision of marriage is the same as that of the Right, and far from creating FULL EQUALITY NOW! as so many insist (in all caps and exclamation marks, no less) gay marriage increases economic inequality by perpetuating a system which deems married beings more worthy of the basics like health care and economic rights.
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Against Equality is committed to archiving radical work from all parts of our collective queer history, which is as messy, complex, and complicated as any other. We archive pieces without censorship or exegesis because we believe that an unclouded historical overview is preferable to one that is apologetic or revisionary – after all, our collective began as an effort to combat the erasure of queer radical history and activism by the mainstream gay and lesbian community. To that end, we recognize that, sometimes, the pieces we archive demonstrate language or ideology that is not seamlessly in line with what we might consider preferable today. Rather than revise or erase, we leave all that in as part of our ongoing effort to document queer history as what it was, not what we wish it would have been. In the same way, we also ask that any submissions to the archive be exactly as they originally appeared, without revisions to language or politics.
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Further ReadingThe first to see the light are the demons. As the dawn creeps in from the quadrangle outside, pitchforked imps and terrible dragons, writhing heretics and grinning ghouls resume their centuries-old torments. But the light does not stop here. Like a monk late for service it glides through the church doorway, slowly illuminating the rest of the fresco from Hell towards Heaven. It climbs the paintings, inching up walls built when Constantinople ruled from here in the west to Persia in the east.
Beside me, in front of arguably the finest Byzantine art in the world, an elderly monk shuffles, snuffles and resumes his gentle snoring. It is the third hour of the morning service.
Two hundred and fifty miles to the east, in what was Constantinople, the Church of Hagia Sophia will already be ablaze in the August sun. But any true Greek Orthodox will tell you that darkness descended there in 1453, when the Turks took over. Here alone, on this 30-mile-long Greek peninsula, the faint echoes of Emperor Constantine’s Eastern Roman Empire still reverberate, Byzantium lives on.
To describe Mount Athos as merely an historical oddity would be to underplay it. Like the Vatican, this thin finger of land poking into the Aegean is effectively an independent country, ruled by clergy and inhabited entirely by males. Unlike the Vatican, it is not a city state, but an agrarian one. From 20 monasteries set into the foothills of a 2,000-metre-high mountain the residents have tilled the soil, tended vines and maintained a network of forest paths for at least 1,200 years.
Over four visits here, I have never quite established why and how it decided to ban women. The official line is that the Virgin ordained it — to shield the monks from temptation and ease their route to heaven. A more secular explanation is that, some time in the 11th century, the Patriarch of Constantinople discovered that the shepherds employed on the mountain to supply the monks were selling them not just wool, but also their daughters. Females, of both the human and ovine variety, were banned forthwith.
There are no shepherds here anymore. Neither is there a dairy industry: cows were also banned. It was only after a desperate appeal from the increasingly rat-infested monasteries that female cats were given special dispensation. What has resulted is a parallel land, impossible to place in the world’s timeline. Like Philip Pullman’s Oxford, where airships ply the skies but the lives of the dons remain stuck in the middle ages, this is a glimpse of a different mode of development: Europe, under theocracy.
Athos is a place where a bearded octogenarian who has not seen a woman in 60 years can venerate the bones of a two-millennia-dead saint, then pull out a mobile phone to speak to his abbot. Where a pilgrim with a wooden staff in one hand can have a digital camera in the other. And where, in the dim light of dawn matins, I can look on a church interior that would be instantly recognisable to a pilgrim from five centuries ago. Maybe this is part of the reason I come: to play the time-traveller? Somehow, though, that does not seem enough to explain why, throughout my 20s and with no spiritual interest in Orthodoxy, I found myself making repeat visits.
The rhythm of the days is familiar now. Towards the fourth hour, the light will rise further and saints will emerge, to gaze on the sinners below. Eventually, looking down from beneath the domed roof of Megistis Lavra, the greatest of all Orthodox monasteries, Jesus himself will appear, his arms raised to the heavens. But I eschew His blessing. The sun is already far enough above the old cobbled forest paths for me to see the way to the next monastery. On these pilgrim paths I can be immersed in the majesty of ancient woodland, amid the best coastal walking in the Mediterranean. It is time to leave — quietly, so the monk can sleep on.
Elsewhere too, others are stirring, the fellow travellers I will meet on my way. Setting off on a long climb from his cave by the sea is a 30-something hermit, who used to sing in a grunge band until he found a different sort of nirvana. Coming in the other direction, fresh from venerating a shrivelled foot, a group of pilgrims with staffs and sunhats are setting off. Beyond, a team of mules are grumpily roused and saddled for another day of pack-animal penance.
Athos is many things to many people. To the 1,400 monks who live here, it is a glorious theocracy, in which only the writ of God reigns. To the Orthodox church it is the vestal fire of their religion — flame that has kept flickering from the early church through the indignities of the Ottoman occupation to the persecution of communism. Orthodoxy can fall everywhere else, but so long as there are Russians here in the Russian monastery, Serbians in the Serbian, Romanians in the Romanian, its blaze will some day catch once more in the world beyond.
To the Greek people, it is both the wellspring of their spirituality and the source of their spiritual fall. In the Greek narrative, the 2008 crash began not with the financial deceit of Lehman’s but the financial deceit — allegedly — of one of the monasteries.
To women, Athos is, simply, forbidden.
Each day cruise ships laden with men and women, binoculars slung around their necks, cast off from the coastline of north-east Greece to peer at Athos. They circumnavigate the cliffs, where monasteries hang precipitously from the crags, their walls facing a sea that for most of the past millennium was more likely to bring pirates or Turks than sightseers. The closest any vessel carrying women can get is 500 metres.
Even for men-only boats, it is not easy to gain permission for passengers to step onto the Holy Mountain. Requiring an application to the Patriarch of Constantinople, success involves negotiating a Byzantine bureaucracy. My permit this time was eventually granted after applying four months earlier for a Catholic entry (ten non-Orthodox visitors are allowed a day) and then being assigned an arrival date.
Calling Athos medieval risks demeaning it as a museum, or a curiosity. And yet, it is the closest to the medieval world I have ever come, an institution with an unbroken link stretching back 1,000 years, that has seen little need to change. Indeed, its religious importance probably goes back further. There are remains of Greek temples, their stones and carvings recycled — like civilisation itself — into churches. After the pagans came the hermits, who lived here probably for centuries until, as the writer Robert Byron put it after visiting in 1927, “history opens in the ninth century”, with the first written records. It was then, in 881, that an official decree from Emperor Basil I of Macedon made the mountain a protectorate of the monks.
For those who visit, even the most pious, the pervasive sense of history is part of the attraction. While waiting for a small rickety minibus, I meet Norris Chumley, an American academic who used to be a Quaker until he found the “completeness” of Orthodoxy. For him, Athos is “a beacon, transmitting prayer and love to the cosmos. It is a nuclear reactor of prayer.” That should be enough. “And yet,” he admits, “the eye candy! We’re in a parking lot and it’s divine. It’s blessed. It’s a divine parking lot.”
This, he half-acknowledges, is a weakness — either of his, or of Athos. He tells me about a monk he has just met, called Joseph. “He walked out of this beautiful cottage. There was a beautiful sunset, over the sea. He saw it, and he said, ‘It’s all vanity. All vanity.’ Then he went back in to pray.”
Vanity is just one of the vices that are threatening to topple Athos’s status in Orthodoxy as the world’s holiest place. The monks may lead a life of simplicity but one monastery, Vatopedi, has also managed to engage in land deals of such complexity that they brought down a government.
In the early 1990s, Vatopedi was a mess. Once one of the jewels of Athos, its walls were crumbling, its library and archives in disrepair. A new abbot decided that if its spiritual health was to survive, there would have to be more worldly wealth to support it. An audit of the monastery’s holdings revealed scattered tracts of land across Greece, unloved and untended. A 20th-century response to this would have been to develop them. Vatopedi leveraged them.
Like the cautionary tales of Irish builders who became billionaires constructing estates no one would ever live in, what followed is a familiar story of the property boom. The monks lobbied government, and traded astutely. There were land swaps with the state. In the space of two decades, a moribund institution holding a worthless portfolio became a major player in the Greek property market. As Michael Lewis wrote in “The Big Short”, his book about the financial crash, a bunch of monks had wound up as “Greece’s best shot at a Harvard Business School case study”.
Then in September 2008, at the same time that the financial miracle of the preceding decade was shown to have been underpinned by murky credit swaps, the parallel financial miracle of Vatopedi monastery was found to have less than divine foundations. Parliament began to investigate those land swaps, amid claims that the monastery had done so well out of them at the expense of the taxpayer. At the holiest site in Orthodoxy, there was an unholy whiff of sharp practice.
To date there has been a full-scale enquiry, one toppled government, several resignations and indictments and one arrest — of Father Ephraim, Abbot of Vatopedi, briefly inmate of Korydallos prison, now out on €300,000 bail pending charges of money laundering. The investigations continue.
Even given the scandal, Vatopedi may still be the richest of the monasteries. But on Athos that is irrelevant. There is a rigid hierarchy here, and at the top lies Megistis Lavra, the Great Lavra. Founded in 963, it was the first monastery to be built on Athos, using a bequest from the Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas, who had promised to become a monk but never quite got round to leaving his position ruling one of the world’s great powers. On my first evening, I go straight into the trapeza, the monastery dining room.
As I sit down Bogdan, a fellow pilgrim, introduces himself. Talking is not exactly forbidden over dinner, but this is not the sort of meal one relaxes into. From a pulpit, a monk reads the gospels. When he has finished — and none of us, especially those who do not understand Greek, know when that will be — so is the meal.
In 1677 Dr John Covel, one of the first Western visitors to the peninsula, wrote of Lavra’s dinners, “the best monkish fare that could be gotten was provided, excellent fish (several ways), oyl, salet, beans, horte-chokes, beets…and we always drank most plentifully…He is no Greek that cannot drink twenty or thirty plump glasses at a sitting.” Those days are gone. Amid the austere clatter of metal bowl on marble table, 200 men rush in silence through a plate of beans and rice — there are no dairy products if there are no female animals. So Bogdan’s conversation is a surprise. “These have been here for 1,000 years,” he whispers, leaning over the vinegar to tap the marble table — a single slab, one of dozens in the room, each seating 12 pilgrims. “It was made by the emperor in Constantinople.”
Bogdan only says one other thing to me all dinner, but even through these few sentences it seems we have been deliciously transgressive. His next comment reminds me why it might be better to stick to life’s rules. He points to the ceiling; beneath the outstretched arms of loving saints, the fresco depicts some rather less holy souls being subjected to the most innovative torments a group of 16th-century monks stuck on a peninsula without women were able to devise. There are pitchforks and hell fires. “Those”, says Bogdan, “are sinners.” Then he returns to his wine.
As we file out into the evening sun, Bogdan introduces me to an old school friend from Romania, Father Silvius who, in his early 30s, has become a priest. Clergy come to Athos too — especially in August, for the Feast of the Assumption. In the Gregorian calendar, the Assumption came a fortnight earlier, but while it has the advantage of being astronomically correct, the Gregory in question was a pope. So Athos keeps Julian time for its feast days preferring, it seems, to follow a pagan emperor than a papish heretic.
Bogdan has the air of a man who might have been happier had it not been the Assumption. “The service last night went from 11 until 7,” he says. “I tricked them and left for four hours in the middle...‘Gab, gab, gab.’ There was no point.”
We go outside the monastery gate to
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raided an apothecary, she got a soda for her girlfriend, Tara, and she killed a walker. (She was trying to be brave!) Of course, such a breakthrough could only mean an ironic death, and moments later, Dr. Denise had an arrow coming out of her eye. Vulture spoke with the Emmy-winning actress about shooting her death scene, how the zombies looked so real they actually scared her, and why she’s trying not to get too attached to roles in her post–Nurse Jackie career.
You had us all at “Gotta go. Bye!”
Oy vey. I really lucked out with that one, didn’t I?
No, I think the charming part was you just did what you were feeling.
I’m really lucky that I did what I was feeling and everyone was still okay with it.
Sunday night is a big moment for your character.
Yeah. The last.
Did you know ahead of time that that was going to happen?
I did. I didn’t know how it was going to happen, but I knew going into the job that I was only going to be there for this season, and I assumed that meant that I would die, but I didn’t know how. I guess I had it in the back of my mind that it would be a zombie death.
Are you disappointed that you didn’t get a zombie death?
I would have gone either way, but in a practical sense, I thought this was probably going to be a lot easier to do. I know what it’s like to shoot something over and over again and what screaming does to the voice, so I’m very glad it all worked out in my mind, this awful death. And it was relatively painless for me. I had been on set when the character Jessie was killed and that was a late night, shooting it over and over, and she was wonderful, but it was a beast, lots of extras, that really crazy episode where the kid dies, and oy, they hang entrails on their body to blend in. This was pretty clean. I didn’t have a lot of blood to wash off at the end of the day.
What were the mechanics of shooting that scene, with the arrow?
They had previously fitted me for a prosthetic that fit over one eye, the eye that the arrow goes through. We did the dialogue and then at the very end I went and would get that put on, and my real eye would be closed underneath the piece. I remember having some trouble with equilibrium. I would come back in and do the end of the dialogue again and they would tell me when I was hit, and you just play along and choreograph falling into Daryl. They do so many more elaborate deaths there that I think this is very small potatoes for them, even if it was a big deal for me. They can bang that stuff out really quickly.
I’m still impressed by how it looked generally. Greg Nicotero in general likes to do practical effects.
The zombies actually, honest to goodness, scared me when I was around them. They look really good. It’s really fucked up. Sometimes I’d forget one was right next to me and I’d look over and I’d startle. On camera, too. I’m really hoping they didn’t do one of those blooper reels where they like to embarrass actors showing them acting dumb.
That’s perfect for your character, too, right? You’ve often played characters that have pluck, but are green. Is there something about that kind of role that attracted you?
Yeah, that’s a good point. I never thought about it. I remember always feeling lucky with Zoey on Nurse Jackie that … she was new at the very beginning. So that gave her everywhere to go. I guess I see the similarities here, too, but I think Zoey was very enthusiastic and Denise was incredibly reluctant and hesitant and fearful and did not want to have to do the things that she had to do in her new role in Alexandria. Even committing to a relationship with Tara and going out on a run — I think she was trying to stretch herself and do what she had to do to grow, and it just didn’t work out.
There’s a cruel irony in the fact that your character is on her way to overcoming her fears, kills a zombie, and gets killed at that moment of her breakthrough.
Yeah, she finally earns her stripes. She was champing at the bit for the opportunity, and she gets a soda for Tara, and down she goes.
It’s so sad.
They know what they’re doing on that show.
Where would you like to have seen her go afterward if she had lived?
I would’ve loved for her to finally feel strong and brave and courageous. I think she’s probably been a very lonely person for a long time in Alexandria, and before Alexandria, too. I think she wanted to be a doctor and the panic attacks kept her from staying in med school. In the beginning of the season she says that mostly she’s just been reading books at Alexandria so I think at this point she’s thirsty for a community and camaraderie and support. That’s part of what she was looking for when she went out with Daryl and Rosita, asking specifically to go with her.
What would she have finished saying to them?
Part of what she wanted out of this trip was to build relationships with them. She was angry. She wanted to keep trying. She was being put on the back-burner, even if it was rightfully so. I think she wanted to be a part of things finally.
Did you keep any souvenirs?
I didn’t. I took a picture of myself with the bloody arrow coming out of my eye. I’m not sure if I was supposed to do that. I certainly didn’t tell anyone. I’m not sure if I should be admitting that. I didn’t show it to anybody.
As long as you don’t Instagram or tweet it, it’s like it never even happened.
I don’t even have those accounts. I’m like an old lady.
Is this your first death scene?
I did a movie a long time ago called Series 7: The Contenders; that was really great and I think I get beaten to death by a man with his cane.
What were your feelings when you were reading the script?
This was not my first job after Nurse Jackie but one of the first jobs, so I probably was guarding against any sentimentality or getting attached, especially because it was so nice. Saying good-bye on Nurse Jackie was a really big deal, so I’m sure I was keeping myself guarded from ever having to feel anything like that again on another job, especially a death scene. I remember being grateful to the writers for giving me lovely stuff to do, especially in a cast that big with so many really juicy storylines and so many characters that I know fans care about and so many actors that are so good at what they do. I really do think this show is challenging. It’s always nice to be given any time because they have a very deep bench. I was grateful.
This interview has been edited and condensed.by Paul Markel - Thursday, April 6, 2017
For decades the Avtomat Kalashnikova was viewed as the weapon of the enemy—a symbol of the Iron Curtain and Communism. When the Soviet Union collapsed and the former communist states began to warm to freedom, the door was opened for the import of previously unavailable firearms and ammunition.
During the last two decades, American shooters have warmed to the Kalashnikov design, particularly due to the fact that imported AKs were priced right. The strength of the American dollar allowed firearms-import companies to bring rifles in from former Communist-bloc nations and sell them for very reasonable prices here in the states.
Americans also realized these rifles are easy to control and manipulate. Similarly, folks came to understand that the rifle's standard chambering of 7.62x39 mm was more than up to the task for personal/home defense. It goes without saying that high-quality, American-made ammunition should be used for personal defense. Hornady, for instance, has self-defense loads in both 7.62x39 mm and 5.45x39 mm.
Over the years, the availability of AK rifles has ebbed and flowed, as well as the price. Right now, the tide is high again, and numerous makes and models are available.
Designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov, a legend in the firearms world, the AK-47 was a triumph of battle-rifle design. Like all things Soviet, the military-service rifle had to be inexpensive to manufacture. However, it also had to be infinitely reliable, as it would be subjected to some of the harshest environments known to man.
I won't spend a lot of time on the engineering particulars or history of the AK, as that area has been covered in detail. Instead, we'll spend some time considering the particular operating characteristics of the Kalashnikov and how to most efficiently run the rifle.
Running the Gun
First of all, you control the AK just as you would an AR—or a semi-automatic handgun for that matter. The dominant hand remains on the pistol grip and fires the weapon. The off-hand does the support work, including loading/reloading and charging.
Safety Lever
Let's jump right in and talk about the safety lever. This is one area where AR shooters get frustrated. Located on the right side of the frame, the manual safety on the AK is a large, shaped-sheet-metal lever. "Safe" is the uppermost position. This also prevents the bolt from moving all the way to the rear to chamber a round. Push the safety lever down to fire. This lever was designed with the understanding that Soviet soldiers would need to operate it while wearing heavy gloves.
As 90-plus percent of the population is right handed, we'll talk about operating the safety from a "righty" perspective. With your right-hand thumb hooked around the pistol grip, place the middle finger of that hand on the safety lever. Use that finger to sweep the lever from safe to fire and back again when you are done firing.
From a "lefty" point of view, the safety is most easily operated with the right, support hand. The most efficient way to move the rifle from safe to fire using a left-hand hold is to grip the front of the magazine with the right hand. Your right thumb rests on the safety lever. When it's time to fire, the right thumb sweeps the lever down and assumes a support grip against the side of the receiver. After firing is complete, your right thumb or forefinger can click the lever back up to safe.
Charging
Charging the rifle while maintaining a constant grip with the right hand can be accomplished one of two ways: over or under. After a magazine is secured in the rifle, come up under the gun with your left hand. Using an open palm, pull the charging handle to the rear and let it go. Allow the recoil spring to do its job and seat the bolt. Personally, I find this the fastest, most efficient way to charge the weapon.
The second method for charging the gun with the support hand is over the top. Insert and a secure a magazine, then cant the rifle inboard so the ejection port faces up. Reach over the top of the receiver and vigorously charge the bolt. Again, allow the heavy recoil spring to do its job. Resist the urge to ride the bolt forward.
If, for some reason, the bolt does not seat fully, the shooter can merely tap the charging handle to completely close the action. This scenario is possible should the rifle become extremely dirty or the magazine be fouled with mud, sand or grit. I've been running an AK for nearly 20 years and can't recall a time when a clean, lubricated gun failed to properly chamber a round when the bolt was charged swiftly and deliberately.
Loading and Reloading
ARs load straight up into a magazine well like pistols. The AK loads—like most classic battle rifles—by hooking the forward portion of the magazine into the mag well and rocking it rearward. A large, ambidextrous magazine latch provides a loud click when the magazine is secured. There is little doubt in the shooter's mind whether the magazine has been seated properly. From a practical standpoint, if you do not secure a heavy steel AK magazine into the gun it will not just hang there, it will fall out.
On most AKs, the magazine latch is stiff, or tough if you will. This is not necessarily a negative since that strong spring/latch holds the magazine securely in place. Several years ago, I was taught a technique to rapidly reload the AK without depressing the magazine latch with my support-hand thumb.
First, secure a fully loaded magazine from your kit. Hold the magazine so it is angled out, bullets away from you. Use the magazine body to hook and sweep the rifle's magazine latch. When done correctly, this releases and clears the empty mag out of your way. Hook the forward edge of the fresh magazine into the well and rock it back.
If you have never tried this method, you'll be amazed at how simple it is. From a time-saving perspective, it will cut your reloading time by at least half. Whether you are running an AK for defense or sport, you will appreciate this method. Naturally this timesaving technique works equally well for right- or left-handed shooters.
Getting On Target
As for target engagement, we run the AK like any other semi-automatic rifle. Keep the stock up near the shoulder with the rifle flat and the muzzle depressed. When it's time to engage, roll the rifle up to your head, sweep the safety and drive on.
Some folks prefer to hold the fore-end with their support hand. Others like to hold on to the magazine. Either one will work. Holding onto the magazine will not foul the weapon or result in a stoppage. They aren't fragile.
If you are going to run/train seriously with an AK, wearing some type of shooting gloves is highly recommended. The safety lever and magazine latch will scrape and cut bare hands.
Maintenance
Yes, the AK design is extremely robust. There is no denying that it will take abuse. However, any rifle is still a machine built by man. Any machine, firearm or otherwise, will operate best when kept clean and well lubricated. Even the venerable AK needs oil.
Also, be aware that inexpensive, imported ammunition is often corrosive. Most AK barrels are chromed to prevent corrosion, but your bolt and other internal parts will rust. If you found an unbelievable deal on ammo, chances are high it is corrosive.
Plain or Fancy
Just as with the AR, the AK can be as plain or fancy as you like. A stock rifle should serve you well for basic shooting needs. Practical upgrades abound. One of the best things you can do for your AK is to add a muzzle brake. The Krinkov-style brake dampens recoil and it helps you stay on target for follow-up shots.
Replacing the stock and/or pistol grip on an AK is a simple process as well. Numerous companies offer AK pistol grips. Tapco offers fixed, side-folding and retractable stocks for the Kalashnikovs. Again, you can change them out on your kitchen table. Tapco also offers polymer 7.62 mm and 5.45 mm magazines.
Parting Shots
When held in skilled, trained hands, the AK can be a tremendously formidable home-defense tool. How about shooting sports? A few months ago, I attended a local 3-gun match. While the AR was well represented, two competitors were running AK-variants. The shooters had trained well with them and held their own against the Stoner designs.
Once we've gotten over the "weapon of the enemy" stigma, we can see how practical and effective the AK can be. On average you will pay half of what you might spend on a comparable AR rifle. Ammunition is readily available for training and personal defense. Despite the increases in ammunition prices across the board, the AK is still one of the most inexpensive centerfire rifles to shoot. All of these attributes make the "other black rifle" a solid choice for the American shooter.Turkish court sentences man for not removing ex-girlfriend’s photos from social media
ISTANBUL
The Court of Cassation has found guilty a man who refused to remove photos of his former girlfriend from social media, despite her demands.
A man living in Istanbul reportedly shared photographs with his girlfriend online while they were together and did not remove them after they broke up.
His ex-girlfriend made a legal complaint about him after he refused to remove the photos.
An Istanbul court ordered the man’s acquittal, stating that it could not determine whether the photos were originally shared with the woman’s consent.
The woman then appealed the ruling, upon which the Court of Cassation reversed the judgement of local court, demanding between one and four years in jail for the man for “illegal use of private information.”
The local court then objected to the Court of Cassation’s ruling, once again ordering the man’s acquittal.
Finally, the supreme board of the Court of Cassation has now again demanded that the man be given between one and four years in jail, again citing the “illegal use of private information.”To many in the tech world, the idea that patent trolls are bad for business is a no-brainer. But just how bad? Two academics who have spent a large amount of time studying the damage patent trolls do, James Bessen and Michael Meuer, have released a new study arguing that trolls are costing the economy $29 billion a year in direct costs.
If you think you recently read a different number about the costs of patent trolling—a substantially higher one—you did. An earlier study by the same two academics measured indirect costs of patent troll lawsuits, using public companies' stock prices as a proxy for the damages. That study found those costs to be about $83 billion annually.
It's not surprising that the two numbers would be different or that the first one would be significantly higher, study author Michael Meurer explained in an interview. "Based on previous research, we thought the gap between the two might be even larger than it was," he said.
The $29 billion number comes from measuring the more straightforward costs associated with fighting off patent troll suits: those include legal fees going to lawyers, and the licensing fees paid in tribute to make the trolls go away (which nearly always get paid). The findings come from a relatively small sample of 83 companies, both small and large.
The study paints one of the clearest pictures yet of the impact patent trolls—more politely called non-practicing entities or "NPEs"—are having on the economy.
Even if the numbers are inflated, there's little doubt those costs are significant. The total spending of US businesses on research and development is $247 billion per year. So even if one only considers the direct costs of patent trolls, they may be sucking up more than 10 percent of the money that could be spent on R&D.
Bessen and Meurer are the authors of Patent Failure, a 2008 book criticizing the patent system that has become a bête noire in some quarters of the patent bar.
Hit by many small trolls and a few strong ones, costs add up
Out of 250 companies that were surveyed about the costs of patent litigation, the authors got responses back from 82. Those companies defended a total of 1,184 patent troll lawsuits between them.
Most of the costs of dealing with the patent troll threat come from paying the licensing fees that trolling companies demand to settle lawsuits. The mean amount spent by large companies to end an NPE lawsuit is $7.27 million, while small-to-medium sized companies spend $1.33 million.
That number doesn't tell the full story, though. The median amount spent to pay off a troll suit is just $230,000 for large companies and $180,000 for small- and medium-size defendants. The discrepancy means that the great majority of trolls go away after getting relatively small payouts, while a few very strong entities in the patent-trolling business are able to pull off giant multimillion-dollar settlements. (Of course, the fact that low six-figure settlements are seen as the "small" ones suggests how entrenched and lucrative the NPE business is.)
The second-largest cost is, unsurprisingly, fees paid to defense lawyers. Big companies spend a mean of $1.52 million per litigation, while small- and medium-sized companies spend $420,000. Again, those compare to much lower median figures ($230,000 for large companies and $70,000 for small/medium), showing that the companies have a large number of cheaply defended cases, while a few heavily litigated cases run up big fees.
The big companies reported they had to deal with a few lawsuits that had blockbuster legal costs—the most expensive 5 percent of their cases cost more than $22 million.
"There are really two different worlds of trolls out there," says Meurer. "There's a talent in finding good patents, finding good targets, and matching the two. Just like the very best financiers go to Wall Street and get paid tons of money, I think the 'big game hunter' trolls also have a rare talent."
Some NPEs are probably looking for good patents to go after a juicy product produced by a single firm or a few firms, Meurer said. "Others are probably more comparable to frivolous litigators in other settings. They make lots of demands for payments, and wear the other side down." Both strategies appear to be working quite effectively.
Other findings of the study include:
It isn't just big corporations who are plagued by trolls; small firms are getting hit hard by troll lawsuits as well. Bessen and Meurer found that small- and medium-sized companies defended 59 percent of the NPE lawsuits. Those companies have a median revenue of just $10.8 million, and dealing with NPEs costs them more, relative to their lower revenues."The defenders of NPEs say they monetize patents and funnel it to small inventors," says Meurer. "We've known they don't funnel very much money, and we also know they're imposing costs on small inventors. This data should take some wind out of the sail of Nathan Myhrvold."
Litigation only measures part of the problem, since many trolls simply threaten suit and collect money without ever going to court. The study also asked respondents how much it cost them to deal with those threats. While the legal costs were modest, the licensing payouts were even bigger than litigated cases. Large companies paid an average (mean) of $34.4 million per non-lawsuit patent attack, while small- and medium-sized companies paid $7.85 million. It's worth noting that those numbers were based on a small sample of 46 companies that reported costs for both litigated and non-litigated cases, and have a high standard error.
Defenders of NPE litigation suggest that such lawsuits are one way of offering value to inventors, for patents they couldn't otherwise license. Bessen and Meurer deal with that argument by looking at financial results from 12 publicly traded NPE firms, and found that the payments they make to inventors whose patents they acquire are far smaller than the costs they have on defendant companies. The NPE companies spent a total of $679 million on acquiring patents from small inventors, or about 7 percent of the estimated $10 billion in costs those same 12 NPEs imposed on defendant companies over a six-year period, from 2005 to 2011.They also cite a study by Michael Risch, who notes that only 29 percent of the patents being used by NPEs originated with individual inventors. That contrasts with 43 percent of NPE lawsuits using patents that were originally held by large companies.
Data handled by a secretive source
The data that made up Bessen and Meurer's study has an unusual source: RPX Corporation. It's a San Francisco-based wheeler-and-dealer in the patent world that helps its corporate members mitigate the costs associated with NPE lawsuits. RPX is relatively new to the patent ecosystem; it was founded in 2008 and went public in 2011.
The company's model is to buy up patents that are likely to be litigated by trolls—or are already being litigated—and then licenses the patents to its corporate members, who pay a flat annual fee. While RPX is in the business of buying up patents, it has promised to never assert any patents under its control.
One possible effect of having only RPX members respond to the survey is that those companies may be dealing with higher-than-normal litigation costs from NPEs—after all, the whole reason a company would join RPX is that it wants to reduce those costs. To double-check their cost figures, the authors compared them to other databases, such as a previous study based on companies that had won fee motions, and an annual survey by a patent lawyers' group. Those sources had roughly similar figures, says Meurer. (Cost comparisons are on p. 29 of the study.)
The companies who participated in the study were all RPX members or potential members, but their identities are known only to the RPX employees who handled the raw data, not to Bessen and Meurer. So everything about the study requires trust in RPX's handling of the data.
"The respondents didn't want us to know who they were—they're worried about privacy," says Meurer. "Licensing costs are very sensitive. All the survey responses were sent to a secure server, and we had limited access."ROME — Near the beginning of an Italian soccer match in Tuscany on May 23, 2010, a man from Singapore named Tan Seet Eng spoke on the phone with a Croatian associate. He told the associate he needed at least three goals to be scored in the match between Grosseto and Reggina.
“No problem,” the associate said, explaining he had someone working for him at the match.
With that simple exchange, Italian prosecutors say, the fix was in.
The phone conversation illustrated the power of Mr. Tan, a shadowy figure living in Singapore who was called “the boss” and “the capo” by his accomplices and is suspected of fixing dozens of games as easily as he did that 2010 match in Tuscany.
The game is among about 100 matches played from 2008 to 2011 in Italy’s top three soccer leagues that are under investigation — and among 680 matches worldwide considered suspicious by European law enforcement, which reported the results of a 19-month match-fixing investigation last week. European investigators believe Mr. Tan was a common link in many of the matches.APD’s refusal to act on recommendations given by a citizen review panel suggests that the city's 16-year experiment in police oversight has failed.
Richard Munroe just wanted to talk to someone when he called 911 at 3:48 a.m. on July 5, 2015. Sobbing and drunk, the 25-year-old Austin man unloaded on the dispatcher. He hadn’t talked to his mother in months, he’d recently quit his job and had spent time in a mental hospital. He asked if police could track his address from the call, saying more than once he didn’t want the cops to come; the dispatcher assured him they couldn’t track him. “What you’re doing is what we teach people to do from the time they’re little,” the dispatcher told Munroe. “When you have an issue, if you need something, you call 911.”
Munroe realized police were outside his door when, 20 minutes into the call, his dogs started barking. He grew more upset when officers started shouting at him. Among the dispatcher’s last words to Munroe: “Let me tell them they need to slow it down.” Instead, one officer rushed Munroe with a Taser when he came out of the house wielding what turned out to be a BB gun. The officers claim they fired 23 bullets toward the house, six of which struck and killed Munroe, because they heard a popping sound and saw him raise what looked like a real gun. Just minutes earlier, Munroe and the dispatcher had talked about Fourth of July fireworks that were exploding across the city that morning.
A Travis County grand jury cleared all three officers who shot Munroe. The Austin Police Department’s internal affairs investigation concluded that they didn’t violate any department policies, and none were disciplined. The city’s investigation into Munroe’s death would have ended there if not for the Citizen Review Panel that Austin had created years earlier for an independent look at such incidents. The panel is supposed to identify problems and make recommendations the department can implement to prevent future tragedies.
The Citizen Review Panel’s analysis called Munroe’s case “an example of what not to do” during a mental health call. That’s in part because the three officers who shot Munroe only had a combined 26 months on the job. Police summoned a helicopter to fly around Munroe’s neighborhood but never called for a crisis response team or mental health officer trained to deal with people in emotional distress. Cops fired nearly two dozen rounds toward Munroe’s house without even knowing whether anyone else was inside.
In all, the city-sanctioned panel of police watchdogs submitted eight recommendations to former APD Chief Art Acevedo aimed at preventing future needless police killings. If nothing else, wrote review board chair Dominic Gonzales, Munroe’s death should be a teaching moment for the department.
Austin’s Citizen Review Panel made at least 18 different recommendations to reform policies, procedures and training at APD in letters sent to the chief throughout 2016. According to the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, which obtained those letters and shared them with the Observer this week, none of those reforms have yet been incorporated. Some of them, such as revamping department policies in order to emphasize de-escalation in mental health calls, are recommendations that the board has made time and time again.
APD hasn’t responded to the Observer’s questions about the letters.
“What good is citizen oversight if police won’t listen to it?”
Gonzales says he’s frustrated that cases like Munroe’s continue to happen, despite the panel’s recommendations. “Actually, frustrating doesn’t go far enough to describe how it feels when you continue to see this pattern, particularly with people who are mentally ill.”
To Kathy Mitchell, a policy advocate with the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, APD’s refusal to act on the recommendations suggest that Austin’s 16-year experiment in police oversight has failed. In 2001, the city created the Citizen Review Panel, along with Austin’s Office of the Police Monitor, as part of the city’s contract negotiations with the local police union. The bargain was supposed to create independent police oversight in exchange for a 22 percent pay increase for officers, according to the Austin American-Statesman. In a recent statement, Austin Police Association President Ken Casaday said the agreement created “the most transparent police department in the state, hands down.”
Mitchell and others say that transparency has not led to accountability. Watchdogs insist that police oversight in Austin isn’t working, not because review board members aren’t doing their jobs but because APD higher-ups aren’t listening. “What good is citizen oversight if police won’t listen to it?” Mitchell told the Observer.
Citizen oversight boards exist in some form in most large police departments across the state, often as the result of contract negotiations between cities and their police unions. In addition to Austin, citizens sit on panels in Dallas, San Antonio and Houston that review police shootings and allegations of police misconduct but only make nonbinding recommendations that police officials are free to ignore. Activists say Austin’s track record demonstrates the limitations of that system.
For example, Austin review board members recommended that police interview all witnesses to a police shooting, not just other cops. (In several letters, the board questioned why police didn’t take statements from civilian witnesses at the scene of a shooting.) Mitchell says none of the recommendations have made it into APD’s policy manual for officers. Some suggested changes can likely only be addressed by changing the city’s police union contract, which currently includes a rule barring officer suspensions for misconduct after 180 days have passed.
That’s in part why Austin Justice Coalition founder Chas Moore and others are urging Austin officials to make radical reforms to that contract this year, such as ending a policy that effectively sweeps some officer misconduct under the rug after enough time has passed. City officials and police union reps are in a final round of negotiations for the contract this month. Otherwise, Moore and others want city leaders to blow up the contract.
That would end the Citizen Review Panel, which Moore says isn’t working anyway. “These people get to see their internal investigation after a person is killed,” he said. “If their urgent recommendations are simply ignored, then we need a completely new approach.”Some very smart, very serious people have been spending a lot of time lately working themselves into a tizzy trying to defend their ongoing romance with the Governor of Alaska. “Okay,” they seem willing to admit, “Palin might be a little weak on foreign policy, domestic policy, energy policy, financial policy, the economy in general, the fundamental workings of the state and federal government, geography, rhetoric, history and basic grammar, but these are just gaps in her knowledge, easily fixable by a spending a few hours in front of Wikipedia or flipping through flash cards. They don’t in any way cast doubt in some fundamental way on her intellect or character.”
This is such a bizarre and indefensible thesis that one almost feels bad responding to it, as one would the taunts of children or the developmentally disabled. I had hoped that as the election subsided the Governor’s defenders would shrink away chagrined, the bitter morning light revealing the object of their affaire de coeur a false Aphrodite, her nails pasties and her luxurious hair a weave. But the choruses of “Palin 2012” have not abated and thus it becomes necessary to dispense with this whole “Palin is smart but untutored” meme once and for all.
First, Gov. Palin may be young for a politician but she is not in fact actually young. Forty-four is a lot of years to have spent walking the earth without having learned all the countries involved in the North American Free Trade Agreement (there are three, and she’s a governor for one of them.) The suggestion that she’s some sort of prodigy who just hasn’t been exposed to basic civic information is absurd. If this woman were anywhere near sharp enough to be put in charge of any major undertaking she would have picked up this information solely by osmosis after nearly a half-century.
There is also the assumption that all of these nuanced policy-related questions are somehow out of her bailiwick, as if someone sprinted up to her and demanded in-depth information about how to caulk a faucet or snake a drain. But Palin isn’t ignorant as compared with say, the head of the CIA or the Secretary of Education—she seems to lack fundamental knowledge about basic information. Her inability to name a Supreme Court decision in the Couric interview, or obviously the whole is-Africa-a-continent thing—this isn’t like being unsure of the sub-chairmen of the Pakistani senate. Any reasonably intelligent individual, interested in the workings of the society in which they operate and the world in which they reside would have been able to pick most of this stuff up. To return to the previous analogy for a moment, this is the equivalent of expecting her to know that excrement goes in the toilet and not the sink—you don’t exactly need to be Joe the Plumber to have hashed that one out.
All this, of course, is putting aside the obvious truth that she is not only a politician but also an elected official, and thus expected to be capable of coherent speech about politics in general and the government that she serves in particular. The entire purpose of a representative democracy is that the people elect an individual of appropriate intellect and character who is (or at least becomes) an expert on the issues they face. Her ignorance therefore of political issues represents not simply a disturbing lack of intellectual curiosity for the executive of a state but an actual failure on her part to faithfully discharge the duties of her office.
Against these varied and reasonable objections her defenders can offer little. At best they mistake charisma for intellect, at worst they rant endlessly about elitism, as if only latte-sipping New York theater critics consider being able to present one’s thoughts coherently a prerequisite of leadership. If possible they prefer not to enter into the debate at all, fiating simply that by virtue of having obtained her post she must be an individual of substantive intellectual standing. This is a cheap form of argumentum ad populum, and its introduction into the debate is sophistry. I have no idea why the citizens of Alaska elected this woman governor—likely they intuited she wasn’t exactly the reincarnation of Isaac Newton but felt her sufficiently equipped to cut them their oil money check. Mass democracy is a poor method of assigning merit. Hitler was elected chancellor. The people of Washington, DC elected Marion Barry governor (twice). One does not accept consensus opinion over the reporting of one’s senses and the judgments of objective reason.
It is understandable that people like Gov. Palin; she's quite likable. I kind of like her. But it's unreasonable not to recognize that the qualities one finds attractive in Palin are not the qualities that would serve the country in good stead as a national politician. Foremost amongst those traits not in the meaty section of the Venn Diagram between “Successful Leaders” and “Sarah Palin” is the ability to process and synthesize raw information. While it is true in the abstract that intellect and knowledge are not identical, in practice they are two horses that generally pull in the same harness. Ignorant people tend to be stupid, and stupid people tend to be ignorant. In my mind, any reasonable observer watching Palin’s performance since entering the national stage would have to conclude that she is both.In 2007 I took a 2-hour course on how to use kettlebells. At this course they took a video of the participants. This video shows, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I had absolutely no access to my glutes whatsoever–let alone a proper hip hinge.
Having now taught thousands of people how to do a kettlebell swing, I understand the importance of being able to access the glutes, especially in the world we live in, where we slowly crush them to death by sitting on them all day.
In Comes the Kettlebell
The kettlebell gives you a huge advantage in solving this problem. Most kettlebell movements (especially the swing) emphasize a hip hinge, and glute-dominant movement.
Some of the main movements I have clients perform with bells are:
Swing
Clean
Snatch
Squat
Lunge
Get-Up
Press
Row
Various Carries
The first 5 of these 9 movements are basically glorified glute exercises (especially the first 3 which are also hip hinges).
Not only do they require a proper hip hinge, which will lead to a healthier back and improved jumping ability, but the stretched bottom position will help the glutes fire better as you finish the full extension.
Apart from just looking fantastic in yoga pants, the glutes are the largest muscles in your entire body. This glorious set of muscles is at the very core of almost every athletic movement, from running and jumping to punching and throwing, the glutes are going to drive the power.
If we refer back to the philosophy of “pissing off the neighbors” in Simple Shoulder Solution, we know that having weak glutes can be the cause of
|
, or to provide a package name before the interpunkt, but it gets complicated when your package is heavily namespaced and so is beyond the scope of this article.
The next part of the function signature is the return argument specified in the C declaration style. Both calling and return arguments are supplied as parameters to any C function you want to call from Go. We’ll see in a moment how to write the corresponding forward declaration.
Moving on to the body of the function, assigning true to res is fairly straight forward, but the final line, FLUSH(&res) needs some explanation. Because res is not used inside the body of the function a sufficiently aggressive compiler may optimise the assignment away. FLUSH is used to ensure the final value of res is written back to the stack.
The forward declaration
To make the True function available to our Go code, we need to write a forward declaration. Without the forward declaration the function is invisible to the Go compiler. This is unrelated to the normal rules for making Go a symbol public or private via a capital letter.
A forward declaration for the True function looks like this
// True always returns true.
func True() bool
The forward declaration says that True takes no arguments and returns one boolean argument. As this is a normal Go function, you can attach a comment describing the function which will appear in godoc (comments on the function in C code will not appear in documentation).
That is all you need to do make True available to Go code in your package. It should be noted that while True is a public function, this was not required.
Passing arguments to C functions
Extending from the previous example, let’s define a function called Max which returns the maximum of two int s.
void ·Max(intptr a, intptr b, intptr res) {
res = a > b? a : b;
FLUSH(&res);
}
Max is similar to the previous function; the first two arguments are function arguments, the final is the return value. Using res for the name of the return argument is not required, but appears to be the convention used heavily throughout the standard library.
The type of a and b is intptr which is the C equivalent of Go’s platform dependant int type.
The forward declaration of Max is shown below. You can see the how function arguments and return values map between Go and C functions.
// Max returns the maximum of two integers.
func Max(a, b int) int
Passing addresses
In the previous two examples we have passed values to functions and returned copies of the result via the stack. In Go, all arguments are passed by value, and calling to C functions is no different. For this final example we’ll write a function that increments a value by passing a pointer to that value.
void ·Inc(intptr* addr) {
*addr+=1;
USED(addr);
}
The Inc function takes the address of a intptr (a *int in Go terms), dereferences it, increments it by one, and stores the result at the address addr. The USED macro is similar in function to FLUSH and is used mainly to silence the compiler.
Looking at the forward declaration, we define the function to take a pointer to the int to be incremented.
// Inc increments the value of the integer add address p.
func Inc(p *int)
Putting it all together
To demonstate using these C defined functions in Go code I’ve written a few tests which exercise the code. The code for the tests are here, and the results of running the tests are shown below.
% go test -v
github.com/davecheney/ccode
=== RUN TestTrue
--- PASS: TestTrue (0.00 seconds)
=== RUN TestMax
--- PASS: TestMax (0.00 seconds)
=== RUN TestInc
--- PASS: TestInc (0.00 seconds)
PASS
ok github.com/davecheney/ccode 0.005s
Conclusion
In this short article I’ve shown how you can write a Go package that includes functions written in C. While a quite niche use case, it may come in handy for someone and also lays important groundwork for writing packages containing functions in raw assembler.British American Tobacco's lab has been used by Australian Border Force to test evidence in black market cases
Updated
Australian Border Force (ABF) and Commonwealth prosecutors have been relying on evidence provided by Australia's biggest tobacco company to charge black market traders.
Key points: Border Force has used British American Tobacco's labs to test seized black market products
A WHO treaty limits tobacco companies' involvement with law enforcement to only what is strictly necessary
A British American Tobacco spokesman says it did not charge the Government for its services
ABF has handed seized tobacco to British American Tobacco (BAT) to be tested in its laboratory, an ABC investigation has revealed.
BAT has analysed the product and then provided documentary or expert evidence which has then been produced in court.
It raises questions about independence and integrity and potentially breaches a major global agreement.
The World Health Organisation treaty limits tobacco companies' involvement with law enforcement to only what is strictly necessary.
Tobacco companies argue they are being good corporate citizens by helping in the fight against the black market trade, but anti-smoking advocates say they are just protecting their bottom line.
Earlier this week, the ABC revealed big tobacco companies were propping up law enforcement by providing high-level intelligence and paying for surveillance technology.
There is a government agency called the National Measurement Institute that provides analysis for law enforcement.
A spokesperson for ABF said it used the agency "where possible", but conceded there were times it had relied on the tobacco companies.
"There are instances in which tobacco companies have provided assistance in identifying counterfeit or illicit tobacco and have supplied statements for court proceedings," the spokesperson said.
The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions represents the agency in most court matters and, in a statement, said it "relies on evidence obtained from investigative agencies".
"The identification of suitable experts is normally a matter for the relevant investigative agency … [and] is fully disclosed during the course of any prosecution."
BAT confirms laboratory services loaned to ABF and others
When contacted by the ABC, BAT confirmed it had loaned its facilities to more than one law enforcement agency.
"That was about establishing whether the products were tobacco products, which is important to know before they can proceed with prosecution," BAT spokesman Josh Fett said.
"We were pretty happy to help out, because the tobacco black market is huge."
He said BAT approached law enforcement with the offer, and did not charge them for the service.
"I certainly don't think there's any conflict … it's up to law enforcement agencies whose service they use and in these cases it was us," he said.
"We have a clear interest in combating and assisting anyone that's willing to fight criminals selling illicit tobacco in Australia, we don't have any issue with helping anyone we can."
Tobacco company 'drafts warrant request'
The ABC has obtained more documents showing the level of the tobacco giants' involvement in police operations.
An Imperial Tobacco PowerPoint presentation boasted its company and Philip Morris "assisted NSW Police to conduct raids" at six locations in Sydney in 2015.
"Our role … provide a brief of evidence to police," it read.
"Draft warrant request.
"Store seized product."
Imperial Tobacco emailed the presentation to New South Wales Labor MP Paul Lynch in October 2015.
"I was astonished I must say, I had no idea that the cooperation between a large tobacco company and the police was as intense as it is," he said.
"This is a relationship that's way too close."
He said NSW police needed to own up about the level of cooperation they had with the tobacco companies.
"The police have to be entirely transparent about what exactly they're doing and upfront about the reality that tobacco companies are making profit out of their activities," he said.
"Police need to behave as the police and conduct their own investigations, prepare their own briefs and execute their own warrants.
"That's not a function of the state that should be farmed out to private corporations."
Police, Imperial Tobacco decline to answer questions
New South Wales police declined to answer the ABC's questions about the cooperation and declined to specifically comment on the tobacco industry.
They sent a statement saying they regularly worked with many industries.
"Their involvement is non-operational," the said.
"Just as a member of the community may provide information to law enforcement about crime impacting the community, so too will industry."
Imperial Tobacco Australia also declined to answer the ABC's specific questions.
It also sent a statement, in which it says [the industry] will continue to provide intelligence on the black market.
"Imperial Tobacco Australia makes available to relevant enforcement and prosecuting authorities our personnel who hold expert knowledge in respect of tobacco products.
"It is our view that the cooperation of our industry with enforcement and prosecuting personnel is vital to combatting serious and organised crime that is responsible for much of the trade in illicit tobacco.
"The documents you refer to were designed to give transparency and shine a light on this alarming issue."
Topics: law-crime-and-justice, crime, tobacco, australia
First posted$350,000 in Heritage Canada funding will help complete further enhancements to iconic walkway
Photo shows pre-handrail status of the Ogden Point breakwater. The safety project was completed in 2013. Courtesy Greater Victoria Harbour Authority
Area residents and visitors helped mark the centennial of the Ogden Point breakwater with a neighbourhood breakfast on Saturday.
The celebration of the 100th anniversary of the completion of the breakwater in 1917 followed news last week that a matching $350,000 grant from Canadian Heritage, part of the federal Canada 150 funding, had been secured by the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority, which manages the site.
“We found out about this and figured the breakwater would be the perfect project to apply this to,” said GVHA communications spokesperson Jill Sawyer, noting the grant was applied for earlier this year.
The funds are designated to go toward further enhancing the breakwater experience for users, with such ideas as better lighting, a viewing platform and the commissioning of a Lekwungen carving among those being tossed about, she said.
Improvements to the breakwater are designed to dovetail into the greater Ogden Point terminal plan, which is working its way through the City of Victoria planning process.
Historically, city planners began investigating the idea of building a breakwater to protect nearby docks at Rithet’s Point (current site of the Canadian Coast Guard station) after the Panama Canal opened in 1913 and brought the potential for a greater number of ships docking in Victoria.
The need for a deepwater port to take advantage of that added traffic was acknowledged and by the time the final 15-ton granite blocks were placed for the breakwater in 1917, work had already begun on building new docks at Ogden Point.
The breakwater itself was engineered so well that only minor repairs have been needed over its lifespan. Handrails were installed along its upper walkway edges in 2013 to increase safety, and in 2015, Esquimalt and Songhees artists finished painting the First Nations mural known as Na’Tsa’Maht.
Saturday’s gathering was a positive way to celebrate the connection between the community and the iconic piece of marine architecture, Sawyer said.
“It’s really a big part of the community. We wanted [the breakfast] to be for those people who are out walking their dogs and enjoying the morning.”
The public will have a chance to see the ideas for the breakwater enhancements as the project moves forward, she added.
[email protected] creator and Inxile CEO Brian Fargo thinks the relationship between publishers and developers is anything but healthy. Speaking to Ripten, Fargo said developers are hurt by the practices of their publishers. Fargo isn't too happy with the publisher/developer dynamic.
"There is more tension than you can believe," he said. "You would not believe the stories you hear about how developers are treated by publishers these days. It is abysmal."
As for why these issues are not better publicized, Fargo said if developers spoke out, it could result in blacklisting.
"Because they are afraid to talk, because they'll never get another contract if they do. That’s why. You cannot believe…it's awful. It's really bad," he said.
Fargo pointed to Obsidian and Fallout: New Vegas as an example of an unhealthy publisher/developer relationship. He referenced the developer missing a bonus by one Metacritic point, saying bugs in the game were not the developer's fault.
"Look at the most recent one with those poor guys at Obsidian. They did Fallout: New Vegas, the ship date got moved up and, who does the QA on a project? The publisher is always in charge of QA," he said. "When a project goes out buggy, it's not the developer. The developer never says, 'I refuse to fix the bug,' or, 'I don’t know how.' They never do that. It’s the publisher that does the QA, so if a product goes out buggy, it's not the developer’s fault.
"So, [Fallout: New Vegas] goes out buggy and they didn't do the QA, their ship date got moved up and they missed their Metacritic rating by one point. Did they get a bonus? No. Do you think that's fair?"
Fargo admitted that not all publishers are guilty of mistreating developers but that he has heard numerous "horrible stories" about poor treatment. It's no surprise, then, that Fargo turned to Kickstarter for his latest project, Wasteland 2. The campaign for that game surpassed its $900,000 goal in just two days and, as of press time, stands at over $1.6 million from almost 33,000 backers. Wasteland 2 is scheduled to launch for the PC during October 2013.
"I feel so much more connected now to the public," Fargo said, of using Kickstarter to fund Wasteland 2. "Normally, when you're working for a publisher, you're trying to get your own vision across, of course. You're also jumping through hoops to make some guy or group happy, and it's not necessarily what the fans want. It's what we have to do in order to get paid. There's a bit of a disconnect. Now, I'm on the front lines, looking eye to eye with the fans and they're telling me, 'Brian this is what we want. You better deliver.' I like the process better. It's more personal and more intense."WASHINGTON (AP) — The “stamina,” the “look”: A new poll suggests voters are buying into Donald Trump’s insinuations about Hillary Clinton’s health. They’re ignoring the medical reports.
Voters — especially men — have more confidence that Trump is healthy enough for the presidency than Clinton, according to the Associated Press-GfK poll.
It’s a disconnect considering Clinton has released more medical information than Trump, and that outside doctors who’ve looked at the available data say both candidates seem fine. But it shows the political points Trump scored after the Democratic nominee’s much-publicized mild case of pneumonia.
Another gender divide: Nearly half of women but just 4 in 10 men think Clinton’s health is getting too much attention, found the poll, which was taken before the presidential candidates’ debate on Monday.
“Everybody gets sick,” said Sherri Smart, 56, of New York. She said she hasn’t decided who to vote for but wishes the candidates would discuss issues instead of sniping about who’s most vigorous.
“What’s important is, what are you going to do for me?” Smart said.
The AP-GfK poll found 51 percent of voters are very or extremely confident that Trump is healthy enough to be president. In contrast, just over a third of voters — 36 percent — had the same confidence in Clinton’s health.
Men are more likely to question Clinton’s physical fitness for the job, with 45 percent saying they’re only slightly or not at all confident compared to 34 percent of women. Men and women are about equally likely to express confidence in Trump’s health. More Democrats are confident of Trump’s health than Republicans are of Clinton’s.
Health is a legitimate issue as the nation is poised to elect one of its oldest presidents. Trump, 70, for months held off disclosing much about his own fitness while stoking questions about a woman in the White House with his assertion, repeated on national TV Monday, that Clinton lacks the look and stamina for the job. (As for his apparent sniffles during Monday’s debate, he blamed a bad microphone.)
“Stamina is a code word for maybe not physically up to the job,” said New York University bioethicist Arthur Caplan, who has called for an independent panel to certify the health of presidential candidates. “There’s something of a bias about men versus women that subtly Trump has played to, that men are more fit, tough enough to do the job.”
Clinton, 68, last year released more detail about her own health history only to buy trouble earlier this month by refusing to take a sick day until a public stumble forced her to reveal the pneumonia diagnosis. But Monday she rebutted Trump’s talk of stamina by wondering if he could match her grueling schedule as a secretary of state — traveling to 112 countries, negotiating peace deals, spending 11 hours testifying before a congressional committee.
What exactly do we know about their health? Neither has released their actual medical records, just a summary from their personal physicians with no way to know if anything important was left out.
Yet another disconnect: The AP-GfK poll found nearly 4 in 10 voters don’t consider such a release important, and another 2 in 10 say it’s only moderately important.
Trump’s gastroenterologist in December released a four-paragraph letter saying the GOP nominee would be “the healthiest individual ever elected.” Earlier this month, Trump took to “The Dr. Oz Show” to say he felt great, while releasing a bit more detail, such as his cholesterol levels and cancer screenings.
Bottom line: Trump takes a cholesterol-lowering statin medication and a baby aspirin, has some mild plaque in his arteries and is overweight — but was declared generally in good health.
Last summer, Clinton’s internist released a two-page letter detailing her family history, prior exams including lab test results, and some prior ailments that have healed — including a 2012 concussion and blood clot Clinton suffered after becoming dehydrated from a stomach virus and fainting. This month, a second letter outlined the mild pneumonia and revealed some updated check-up results.
Bottom line: Clinton takes a blood thinner as a precaution given a history of blood clots, as well as a thyroid medication and allergy relievers — but also was declared generally in good health.
Some doctors say just watching how the candidates handle a physically demanding campaign trail and the cognitive finesse needed to debate can give voters a good idea of health.
But while the public may not pay attention to cholesterol tests and EKGs, it was hard to miss that image of Clinton stumbling.
“The public is feeding off the impressions they’ve received, but that’s not borne out by the letters of health,” said Dr. Howard Selinger, chair of family medicine at Quinnipiac University.
___
The AP-GfK Poll of 1,694 adults, including 1,476 registered voters, was conducted online Sept. 15-19, using a sample drawn from GfK’s probability-based KnowledgePanel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points, and for registered voters is plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.
Respondents were first selected randomly using telephone or mail survey methods and later interviewed online. People selected for KnowledgePanel who didn’t have access to the internet were provided access for free.
Poll results: http://ap-gfkpoll.comWe’ve already heard a lot of rumors about the Samsung foldable smartphone over the years. Enough circumstantial evidence has surfaced in the past months to suggest that one might be launched next year. A listing for the handset has now been spotted on Samsung’s own website.
The device is commonly referred to as the Galaxy X. Previous reports suggest that the foldable Samsung smartphone bears model number SM-G888N0. The same is now listed on Samsung’s official website for South Korea.
Samsung foldable smartphone
We’ve previously spotted the SM-G888N0 at the Bluetooth SIG for its Bluetooth certification. It was also spotted at South Korea’s National Radio Research Agency which suggested that the handset will also be launched in Samsung’s home market.
There aren’t a lot of details available on this device right now. We did spot a firmware for the SM-G888N0 so Samsung is certainly cooking up something. This model number does not correspond to any other device in Samsung’s lineup which is why it’s linked to the Galaxy X.
It’s unclear when Samsung is planning to launch its foldable handset. The company hasn’t said anything about it so far. However, a patent application from Samsung might have revealed the user interface of its foldable smartphone.
Some suggest that Samsung is going to unveil its first foldable smartphone at CES 2018 in January. We’ll have to wait and see if that happens.Buena Vista, Michigan teachers still without pay
By Shannon Jones
31 May 2013
Teachers in the Buena Vista, Michigan public schools have still not been paid following the restart of classes May 20 in the small district outside of Saginaw.
Buena Vista schools closed May 6 after the district ran out of money to pay teachers following the decision by the state of Michigan to withhold funding. State authorities justified the action on the grounds that the district misspent funds intended for a juvenile detention program it no longer operates.
Schools were closed for two weeks, affecting the district’s 430 students and 27 teachers. The schools eventually reopened when the state agreed to release funds after the district adopted a draconian deficit elimination plan. However, teachers have so far not been paid.
While the district has promised to issue paychecks to teachers June 7, the next scheduled pay date, there appears little prospect that teachers will be compensated for the full back pay they are owed. According to a report posted on the Buena Vista Board of Education web site, the district’s state aid for the balance of the school year is about $460,000, while the cost of operating the district through the scheduled June 26 end of classes is estimated to be over $810,000.
Melinda, a Buena Vista special education teacher, told the World Socialist Web Site, “Our last paycheck was May 10 and we were supposed to be paid last Friday. We are between a rock and a hard place. If they don’t lay us off, we can’t collect unemployment. If we quit working, we can’t collect unemployment.
“I am okay financially, but I know a lot of teachers are single parents with bills to pay and kids to feed.”
Details of the deficit elimination plan revealed so far call for the consolidation of the three schools in the district—an elementary school, a middle school and the high school—into one building. Buena Vista School Board President Randy Jackson told the WSWS that the plan calls for the hiring of just eight general fund teachers and six grant-funded teachers.
Melinda added, “In order to get the money released from the state they had to propose a deficit elimination plan. It calls for an almost entirely cyber-school. There will be a district, but parents won’t want to send their children. It has been going on a long time. It gets worse every year. The state keeps cutting and cutting until there is nothing left to cut any more.”
At a school board meeting, called at the last minute for May 29, school officials revealed that the state of Michigan has initiated a preliminary review of Buena Vista school finances. The review is the first step in a process that could lead to the appointment of an emergency manager armed with dictatorial powers to impose cuts and rip up union contracts.
At the meeting, the mother of a Buena Vista 11th grade student spoke to the WSWS. She voiced angry opposition at the lack of information forthcoming from the board: “I just want to know what is going to happen to my 11th grader. Will he be able to go to school next year?
“I was as disturbed and upset as the kids were about the school’s closing. They say they only have funds to last through June. What about the rest of the year? I need answers. I am wondering if I need to pull her out, or what?”
The closure of the schools in Buena Vista, a largely working class and low-income community, had a severe impact on students in the district, causing many parents to scramble to transfer their children to other public schools or charter schools in the area.
In the face of this latest assault on public education, the Buena Vista Education Association and the Michigan Education Association are doing nothing, not even organizing a protest. Teachers have been told to continue working without being paid, with little prospect of receiving their back pay. Many teachers opted to have a portion of their pay withheld from every check in order to receive compensation over the summer months. Now it appears the district will not have the funds to cover those payments.
The situation confronting parents, students and teachers in the Buena Vista schools is only the sharpest example of the assault on public education being carried out across the state of Michigan and nationally. Schools in Pontiac, Michigan faced closure after the state withheld payments from the district, only agreeing to restore aid after a program of drastic cuts was adopted by school officials.
Recently the public schools in the state capital of Lansing decided to eliminate art, music and physical education teachers as part of a deficit reduction plan. The job eliminations were part of a package of cuts ratified by the Lansing Schools Education Association earlier this year in advance of the implementation of the state’s new right-to-work law. The Michigan Department of Education estimates there are now 108,000 students in the state who receive no arts education.
The Ypsilanti public schools are in the process of consolidating with the neighboring Willow Run schools, which will lead to the elimination of 20 percent of the jobs in the new combined district. In preparation for the consolidation, all 350 teachers were laid off and told they had to reapply for their jobs.
Since taking office, Obama has presided over the destruction of some 300,000 positions and the closure of some 4,000 public schools in the US. His administration is overseeing the dismantling of public education, forcing states to compete for federal aid by expanding charter schools and imposing attacks on teachers, such as merit-based pay schemes.The 27th annual State of the Climate report has confirmed that 2016 topped 2015 as the warmest year in 137 years of record keeping. The report found that most indicators of climate change continued to follow trends of a warming world, and several, including land and ocean temperatures, sea level and greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere broke records set just one year prior. Last year’s record heat resulted from the combined influence of long-term global warming and a strong El Nino early in the year.
This annual check-up for the planet, led by researchers from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, is based on contributions from more than 450 scientists from nearly 60 countries. It provides a detailed update on global climate indicators, notable weather events and other data collected from land, water and space. It’s published as a special supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
Notable findings from the report include:
Greenhouse gases were the highest on record. Major greenhouse gas concentrations, including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide, rose to new record-high values in 2016. The 2016 average global CO2 concentration was 402.9 parts per million (ppm), an increase of 3.5 ppm compared with 2015 and the largest annual increase observed in the 58-year record.
Global surface temperature was the highest on record. Aided in part by the strong El Nino early in the year, the 2016 combined global land and ocean surface temperature was record-high for a third consecutive year, according to four global analyses. The increase in temperature ranged from 0.81–1.01. degrees F (0.45°–0.56°C) above the 1981-2010 average.
Average sea surface temperature was the highest on record. According to four independent datasets analyzed, the record-breaking globally averaged sea surface temperature for 2016 was 0.65–0.74 degrees F (0.36–0.41 degrees C) higher than the 1981–2010 average and surpassed the previous mark set in 2015 by 0.02–0.05 degrees F (0.01–0.03 degrees C).
Global upper-ocean heat content neared record high. Heat in the uppermost layer of the ocean, the top 2,300 feet (700 meters), saw a slight drop compared to the record high set in 2015. The findings are consistent with a continuing trend of warming oceans.
Global sea level was the highest on record. The global average sea level rose to a new record high in 2016, and was about 3.25 inches (82 mm) higher than that observed in 1993, when satellite record-keeping for sea level began.
Arctic sea ice coverage was at or near record low. The maximum Arctic sea ice extent (coverage) reached in March 2016 tied last year as the smallest in the 37-year satellite data record, while the minimum sea ice extent in September tied 2007 as the second lowest on record.
Tropical cyclones were above-average overall. There were 93 named tropical cyclones across all ocean basins in 2016, above the 1981-2010 average of 82 storms. Three basins – the North Atlantic and Eastern and Western Pacific basins – experienced above-normal activity in 2016.
For more, see the full State of the Climate 2016 report, offsite linkhighlights and downloadable visuals.More than half of all New Yorkers don't have enough money saved to cover them in the event of a lost job, medical emergency, or other disaster, according to a new report by the Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development.
Click image for massive legible version)
As The Gothamist reports, nearly 60 percent of New Yorkers lack the emergency savings necessary to cover at least three months' worth of household expenses including food, housing, and rent, but that statistic isn't spread evenly across the five boroughs.
The Bronx has the highest rate of families without adequate emergency savings: in Mott Haven, Melrose, Hunts Point, Longwood, Highbridge, South Concourse, University Heights, Fordham, Belmont, and East Tremont, 75 percent of families have inadequate emergency savings. The Staten Island neighborhoods of Tottenville and Great Kills have the lowest rate, with just 41 percent of families lacking the funds necessary to cover three months' worth of expenses. Without these savings, families who face emergencies could be at risk of eviction, foreclosure, damaged credit, and even homelessness. In Brooklyn, families in Brownsville (70%), Bed-Stuy (67%), Bushwick (68%), East New York (67%), and South Crown Heights/Prospect Heights (67%) are the most at-risk—in Manhattan, an average of 67 percent of families in Harlem, Washington Heights, and Inwood lack necessary savings. In Queens, the neighborhoods with the highest percentage of these households were Elmhurst/Corona (64%), Rockaway/Broad Channel (60%), Sunnyside/Woodside (59%), and Jackson Heights (59%). Read more here...
As The ANHD report above shows, there are a litany of other statistics that, when looked at together, paint a picture of a neighborhood's potential (or lack of it) for economic opportunity: incarceration, unemployment, poverty rates for each neighborhood are included, as are each neighborhood's percentage of small businesses, percentage of households without internet, and percentage of rent-burdened households.
Now the question is - is this fake news? is this peddling fiction? Since it sure doesn't add up to the utopia that Clinton/Obama/Dems have spewed to their identity-divided supporters.Tom Hiddleston has won ELLE Man Of The Year at the ELLE Style Awards 2014.
He couldn't be with us tonight, so he sent us – and you – this message instead. No, we didn't smack him around the head to make him do it (but there's a good story behind that plaster!) And yes, shooting this VT was the most fun we've had at midnight in a hotel room in, well, forever.
It’s been a massive year for Tom, who reprised his role as the wicked Loki in blockbuster, Thor: The Dark World and recently starred in critically acclaimed Only Lovers Left Alive, as well as winning rave reviews for his portrayal of Coriolanus at London’s Donmar Warehouse.
We've been there every step of the way, with Tom playing a huge role in ELLE over the past 12 months – he interviewed our November 2013 cover star Natalie Portman and, in the March 2014 issue, we turned the camera on to Tom with an exclusive photo shoot, interview, film and special digital cover.
Tom was presented the award by actor Richard E. Grant, who recently made a brilliant cameo in Girls as well as launching his own fragrance with Liberty London.
A pretty compelling argument for making Tom our Man of the Year. And from the reaction we’ve seen on elleuk.com, Twitter and Facebook, you agree.
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<!-- End of Brightcove Player -->After four years of marriage, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Yolanda Foster and her husband, songwriter and record producer David Foster, have decided to end their marriage.
“Sadly we have decided to go our separate ways,” the couple tells PEOPLE in an exclusive statement. “We’ve shared nine beautiful and joyous years together. During that time we experienced love, friendship and the inevitable challenges that come with managing a marriage, careers, blended families and health issues.”
The reality star, 51, has three children from her first marriage to Mohamed Hadid: Gigi 20, Bella, 19, and Anwar, 16.
Foster, a 16-time Grammy award winner, has been married four times and has five daughters.
At their fairy tale wedding on Nov. 11, 2011, David, 66, told Yolanda: “Tonight, I’m the luckiest man on the planet.”
And when the couple recently put her their Malibu mansion on the market, Yolanda wrote on Instagram: “Beautiful ending to a beautiful chapter of our life,” alongside a romantic picture of David with her by their pool at sunset.
“We are grateful for the years we’ve spent together and believe wholeheartedly that we did our best,” the couple’s statement continues. “I hope that we can pave the road ahead of us with all we’ve learned and with the love and respect we will always have for one another.”Bill Cosby, left, exits the courtroom during jury deliberations in his sexual assault trial in Norristown, Pa., Thursday, June 15, 2017. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Pool Photo via AP)
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — The Latest on the sexual assault trial of Bill Cosby (all times local):
9:25 p.m.
The jury in Bill Cosby’s sex assault trial is going back to its hotel for the night after failing to resolve a deadlock that’s threatened to end the case without a verdict.
Jurors worked into the night Thursday after Judge Steven O’Neill told them to try and resolve the impasse. They’ve been deliberating for nearly 40 hours over four days.
They’ll resume deliberations Friday morning in suburban Philadelphia.
The 79-year-old Cosby is facing three felony indecent assault charges that could put him in prison for the rest of his life.
After they were directed to try to reach a verdict, the sequestered jurors deliberated for nine hours before asking to go back to their hotel. They looked more upbeat than previous nights.
Jurors had six questions in the first three days of deliberations, but none on Thursday.
___
9 p.m.
A spokesman for Bill Cosby has invited a family of four supporters to meet with the comedian as he awaits a jury’s verdict at his suburban Philadelphia sexual assault trial.
Andrew Wyatt spotted Joe Molinaro, his wife and two children outside the Montgomery County Court House earlier in the week. He says he believed a chat with the family from Plymouth Meeting would brighten Cosby’s spirits.
The couple and their 14-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter chatted with Cosby on Thursday in a room where he has been spending time while awaiting the jury’s verdict.
Joe Molinaro says “it was very surreal” to meet “the big-time celebrity.” He says Cosby was cute and clever with the children and talked to them in Italian.
Cosby is accused of drugging and molesting a woman in 2004. He denies it.
___
4 p.m.
Bill Cosby’s accuser has posted a video of herself shooting hoops in a courthouse hallway as she awaits a verdict in his sexual assault trial.
Andrea Constand tweeted the video Thursday. It shows her shooting a mini-basketball into a hoop to the tune of “Sweet Georgia Brown,” the theme song of the Harlem Globetrotters. It says, “ALWAYS FOLLOW THROUGH.”
Constand won a national title with the University of Arizona and played in a pro league in Europe before landing a job with the Temple University women’s basketball team.
It was at Temple she met Cosby, a member of the school’s board of trustees. The 79-year-old comedian is charged with drugging and molesting her at his Philadelphia-area home in 2004. He says it was consensual.
The jury says it’s deadlocked on the charges, but has continued to deliberate.
___
2:05 p
|
you are including German engineers, French fashion designers and - as it's the European Economic Area - even Swiss bankers [sic]".
"The real issue for the future is the very large numbers of low-paid immigrants from eastern Europe," he said.
He added: "The report looks backwards but doesn't look forwards.
"The professor's report does not take into account - no doubt for good reason - future health costs as migrants get older nor the pension bill, which is huge."
Career peak
It's absolutely right that we have strict rules in place to protect the integrity of the British benefits system to ensure it's not abused Government spokesman
Prof Dustmann told Today: "It is true that recent immigrants are younger but they are also much better educated.
"So they will take more out of the benefit system but they will also contribute more in the future because they have not yet reached their career peak and their full income potential.
"Of course, the more you earn, the more you pay in taxes."
A spokesman for the government said: "We welcome those that want to come here to contribute to the economy, but it's absolutely right that we have strict rules in place to protect the integrity of the British benefits system to ensure it's not abused."
He added that this was why the government was strengthening measures to ensure that benefits are only paid to people who are "legally allowed to live in Britain".
Meanwhile, a separate UCL study released on Tuesday warns that the government's target to cut net migration to the UK to the tens of thousands is "neither a useful tool nor a measure of policy effectiveness".
That report argues that actions to cut work-related, student and family migration have damaged the UK's reputation as a good place to work and study.
The 2011 census showed that 13% of the population of England and Wales was born outside the UK.One of President Trump's most prominent backers in the media is harshly criticizing his reaction to the violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va.
The New York Post took issue with Trump's statement that "many sides" were to blame, ripping into him in a staff editorial headlined "Trump badly missed the mark on Charlottesville."
“Yet'many sides' didn’t drive a car into a crowd, an evident act of terrorism that killed Heather Heyer, 32, and hospitalized many more, with some still in critical condition,” the Post’s editorial board wrote.
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"It shouldn’t be that hard to summon up a few Trumpian terms like 'losers' and'really, really bad people' to describe the hundreds of neo-Nazis, Klansmen, white supremacists and the like who descended on the college town — not after one of them has killed an innocent."
The editorial noted that members of Trump’s administration and his own family have called out white supremacists. First daughter Ivanka Trump tweeted on Sunday that “there should be no place in society for racism, white supremacy and neo-Nazis.”
1:2 There should be no place in society for racism, white supremacy and neo-nazis. — Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) August 13, 2017
James Alex Fields Jr., who came to Charlottesville from Ohio to participate in the white supremacist rally, allegedly drove his car into counterprotesters, killing one woman and injuring at least a dozen others. Fields, 20, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder, among other charges.
The white supremacist groups were protesting the planned removal of a Confederate statue.
The Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post endorsed Trump last year, but noted that he would need to act more “presidential” once he took office.
“Should he win the nomination, we expect Trump to pivot — not just on the issues, but in his manner. The post-pivot Trump needs to be more presidential: better informed on policy, more self-disciplined and less thin-skinned,” the paper wrote last April.
The newspaper has occasionally been critical of Trump since taking office, particularly for his tweets and the turnover in top White House staff.Mother's pride: First lion cubs born at London Zoo in 10 years make their debut
Two rare lion cubs who were born at London Zoo took their first steps in their new enclosure today, as their mother looked on with pride.
The 10-week-old un-named cats are the son and daughter of Lucifer, six, and Abi, 10, who was the last Asian lion to be born at the zoo.
Malcolm Fitzpatrick, curator of mammals at ZSL London Zoo, said the little lions have already started to form their own personalities.
On feline form: The tiny lion cubs make their debut at London Zoo today with mother Abi
He said: 'Left to their own devices these two youngsters would be running all over the place. The young male is especially adventurous.'
Like many siblings the mischievous pair squabble, and their keepers have spotted them playing tug-of-war with their food.
As they roamed around their new moated paddock, their mother was ever-watchful.
'Their mother Abi is very protective,' said Mr Fitzpatrick. 'Like any new mother, she is very careful.'
Keepers came up with their father's unusual name when he arrived at the zoo in 2004. His registration number at his previous zoo was 666, the Devil's number.
Double trouble: The 10-week-old cubs have already started to develop their own personalities
Lucifer has not been introduced properly to his cubs yet, having only met them through a mesh.
The curator said: 'He wants to be in there with his offspring, but we wanted to make sure the youngsters were vaccinated and had a chance to explore the enclosure before we introduced him.'
Fewer than 300 Asian lions remain in the wild, and just 90 live in captivity around the world.
Paws for thought: Abi cleans one of the tiny cubs as it takes its first steps into the public eye...
...then warns the other cub from straying too far with a nudge of her nose
They are classified as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and captive breeding is key to their survival. London Zoo is part of the European Breeding Programme for lions.
Asian lions once ranged from Greece, across the Middle East to India, but persecution has virtually wiped the breed out and they now can only be found in the Gir Forest, north west India.
Purrfect pose: One of the unnamed cubs takes a walk on the wild side in the Lion enclosure at London Zoo
Curious and curiouser: The male and female Asian lions explore their new home
They have smaller manes than African lions, making their ears more visible, and they have a pronounced fold of skin along the belly and thicker hair on the tail and elbows.
Unlike African lions, male and female Asian lions seldom associate except to mate.
Their typical prey is chital deer, but they also attack livestock which brings them into conflict with local people.
London pride: 10-year-old lioness Abi was the last lion to be born at the zoo before her cubsGresini KTM Moto3
Please click on the above image to view it larger.
Considering the amount of space here at PHOTO.GP devoted to close ups of MotoGP technology and design, I thought it was time to take a look a bit farther down pit lane to examine the craftsmanship of the elegant KTM Moto3 bike, shown here at Silverstone, 2014.
Though the engine formula is for a 250cc single cylinder 4-stroke, the KTM (as with the Honda) splits the exhaust into symmetrical pipes. Though this Moto3 bike is simpler and smaller than a MotoGP bike, its fit and finish are remarkably refined, especially considering the relatively low cost.
Consider the simple elegance of the tube frame and how the upper section mates with the engine and swing arm mounts. Lovely.
Due to the lower power, the required electronics are simpler and do not demand anything like the nest-of-serpents tangle of sensors and cables seen on MotoGP bikes. Even as one of the top designs in the Moto3 class, the KTM Moto3 bike at least looks like something you could work on yourself.
Notice the exposed rear wheel sensor wire – perhaps the adjacent Akrapovic silencer is consider protection enough for this otherwise vulnerable cable.
Elements such as the rearsets, the rear brake mechanism, and the foot peg assembly are more polished in design and manufacture than some of the lower-end MotoGP bikes I see in pit lane.
The engine and transmission show similar simplicity and efficiency of design joined with finish quality.
Some facts about the Moto3 class
(Taken from official 2015 Regulations)
Maximum engine RPM (crankshaft speed) is 13,500 rpm, controlled by the official ECU.
Each engine manufacturer may homologate a maximum of two different engine specifications per season. Manufacturers must supply all permanent contracted riders with the same specification engines, the second specification (if any) is intended for Wild Card entries only.
Each engine manufacturer must undertake to supply sufficient engines and spare parts to supply 12 riders per season if requested.
The maximum price of a single engine must not exceed 12,000 Euros. No optional parts or service contracts may be used to circumvent this price limit.
For contracted riders, the manufacturer undertakes to supply customer teams with a “Moto3 Engine Package” for the season for which it may charge a maximum of 60,000 Euros (excluding VAT, excluding freight) per rider.
The Moto3 Engine Package will be composed of:
6 engines, without throttle bodies, without gearboxes
2 throttle bodies
Gearboxes will be purchased separately as the team requires. Teams may purchase up to a maximum of 6 complete gearboxes per contracted rider per season at a capped price of 1,500 Euros each. Any additional gearboxes purchased will be charged as per the Manufacturer’s approved price list.
Engines will be sold by the manufacturer to the team and remain the property of the team, however engine distribution will be controlled by the Organiser to ensure equality of specification.
Maintenance and rebuilding of engines by teams is not permitted. Engines will be delivered to the team with official security seals in place.
In the Moto3 class the number of engines available to each contracted rider is limited to 6 engines per rider for all of the scheduled races of the season. The limit applies to practice and race at GP events only, engines for testing outside of events are not controlled.
Each wild card entry is allowed two engines per event for his exclusive use.
Continues on the next page:News > New Teen Titans Vol. 6 coming January 2017
NEW TEEN TITANS VOL 6 (Trade Paperback) (10 Jan 2017)
DC Comics (10 Jan 2017) New Teen Titans Vol. 6 Paperback – January 10, 2017
by Marv Wolfman (Author)
The Teen Titans help fellow heroes Thunder and Lightning rescue their father from H.I.V.E. And when the Fearsome Five escape prison, it's up to the combined forces of the Titans and the Outisders to battle their army of Earth Creatures. Then, in one of the 1980s most legendary stories, Dick Grayson uncovers the startling truth behind the past of his teammate Donna Troi, a.k.a. Wonder Girl. And Kid Flash leaves the team after a grim battle against the forces of Brother Blood.
Product Details Series: Teen Titans
Teen Titans Paperback
Publisher: DC Comics (January 10, 2017)
DC Comics (January 10, 2017) Language: English
English ISBN-10: 1401265766
1401265766 ISBN-13: 978-1401265762 Writer Marv Wolfman (CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS) and artist George Perez (FINAL CRISIS: LEGION OF THREE WORLDS, Avengers) craft a timeless story starring Robin, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, Cyborg, Changeling, Raven and Starfire--a group of young individuals with great powers and strong personalities.The Teen Titans help fellow heroes Thunder and Lightning rescue their father from H.I.V.E. And when the Fearsome Five escape prison, it's up to the combined forces of the Titans and the Outisders to battle their army of Earth Creatures. Then, in one of the 1980s most legendary stories, Dick Grayson uncovers the startling truth behind the past of his teammate Donna Troi, a.k.a. Wonder Girl. And Kid Flash leaves the team after a grim battle against the forces of Brother Blood. Thanks to IlkeA Tuscaloosa defense attorney arrested last month on drug trafficking charges was back in jail again today, this time charged in connection with the theft of a motorcycle.
John Tracy Fisher Jr., 48, was booked into the Tuscaloosa County Jail at noon, said Tuscaloosa police Lt. Teena Richardson. He is charged with first-degree receiving stolen property. The investigation was carried out by the West Alabama Narcotics Task Force.
Richardson said the 2000 Harley Davidson motorcycle, valued at $5,000, was reported stolen in Fayette County on April 12,2013 and was later sold in August 2016. A Fayette County grand jury indicted the original suspect on theft charges.
Then, after an investigation, task force agents received a warrant against Fisher for receiving the stolen property. His bond is set at $30,000.
Fisher, along with 42-year-old Christopher Shane Rushing, was arrested in August on methamphetamine trafficking charges. Task force investigators also led that probe, and seized 369 grams of meth during the operation.
Tuscaloosa defense attorney charged with trafficking methamphetamine Tuscaloosa defense attorney John Fisher Jr. was arrested Friday and charged with trafficking in methamphetamine, police say.
Police at the time said the investigation began when agents were informed that a suspect dropped off a backpack containing items believed to be components of a methamphetamine lab. Agents observed a second man arrive at the undisclosed location and then leave carrying the backpack.
Police followed the second man to an office located in the 1600 block of Greensboro Avenue, which is where Fisher's law office is located. Both were ultimately taken into custody.
Court records give more detail about the first incident. A deposition and charge sheet says Rushing took that backpack to the office of a bail bondsman. The bail bondsman became suspicious about the bag and opened it. Once he saw what was inside, he called the task force commander and a plan of action was developed.
The bail bondsman then called another person at Fisher's law office, and said he had a bag that he thought might contain a meth lab and that he believed he was being set up. While task force agents held surveillance around the building, Fisher showed up at the bail bondsman's office and took possession of the backpack, taking it back to his office.
Eventually, Rushing and Fisher met back at Fisher's office. Rushing was seen leaving the office with the backpack and putting it in the backseat of his car. He went back inside, and then left again to a meet a woman outside of the law office. Agents then made contact with Rushing and took custody of the backpack. Inside, they found the meth oil, digital scales with residue, a bag of meth, lithium batteries, baggies and straws with meth residue.
Agents then made contact with Fisher, who met them at the back door holding a pistol.
Police did not say how the stolen motorcycle is connected to the drug case, if at all. Fisher is set to have a preliminary hearing for the drug case on Sept. 23 in Tuscaloosa County. Walker County District Judge Henry Allred has been assigned to preside over the case because all of the Tuscaloosa County judges recused themselves.Emu 1-10 at Emu32 Start of OT quarter, clock 15:00.
OT:Akron wins toss, will defend first.
Emu 1-10 at Emu32 EMU ball on AKRON25.
Emu 1-10 at Akron25 AKINA, Kainoa pass complete to ROBERSON, C.R. for 25 yards to the AKRON0, 1ST DOWN EMU, TOUCHDOWN, clock 15:00.
STARNES, Toller kick attempt good.
Eastern Michigan 59, Akron 52
Emu 1-G at Emu35 Change of possession, AKRON ball on EMU25, 1st and 10.
Drive: 1 plays, 0 yards, TOP 00:00
Akron 1-10 at Emu25 AKRON drive start at 15:00.
Akron 1-10 at Emu25 FRYE, Charlie pass incomplete to RITLEY, Tim.
Akron 2-10 at Emu25 FRYE, Charlie pass incomplete to SCHIFINO, Jake (MIDDLETON, E.).
Akron 3-10 at Emu25 FRYE, Charlie pass complete to CHERRY, Matt for 10 yards to the EMU15, 1ST DOWN AKRON (BROOKS, Andrae).
Akron 1-10 at Emu15 HENDRY, Bob rush for 8 yards to the EMU7 (RUSSELL, Scott).
Akron 2-2 at Emu07 HENDRY, Bob rush for 7 yards to the EMU0, 1ST DOWN AKRON, TOUCHDOWN, clock 15:00.
DERR, Zac kick attempt good.
Eastern Michigan 59, Akron 59
Akron 1-G at Akron35 Change of possession, AKRON ball on EMU25, 1st and 10.
Drive: 5 plays, 25 yards, TOP 00:00
Akron 1-10 at Emu25 AKRON drive start at 15:00.
Akron 1-10 at Emu25 FRYE, Charlie pass incomplete to CHERRY, Matt.
Akron 2-10 at Emu25 HENDRY, Bob rush for loss of 3 yards to the EMU28 (PHILPOT, Kenny).
Akron 3-13 at Emu28 PENALTY EMU pass interference 9 yards to the EMU19, 1ST DOWN AKRON.
Akron 1-10 at Emu19 HENDRY, Bob rush for 15 yards to the EMU4, 1ST DOWN AKRON (HARRIS, Marvin).
Akron 1-G at Emu04 HENDRY, Bob rush for 1 yard to the EMU3 (BATEMAN, Fred).
Akron 2-G at Emu03 FRYE, Charlie pass incomplete to FORTENER, Nick (HARRIS, Marvin).
Akron 3-G at Emu03 HENDRY, Bob rush for no gain to the EMU3 (RUSSELL, Scott).
Akron 4-G at Emu03 DERR, Zac field goal attempt from 20 GOOD, clock 15:00.
Akron 62, Eastern Michigan 59
Akron 1-G at Akron35 Change of possession, EMU ball on AKRON25, 1st and 10.
Drive: 7 plays, 22 yards, TOP 00:00
Emu 1-10 at Akron25 EASTERN MICHIGAN drive start at 15:00.
Emu 1-10 at Akron25 AKINA, Kainoa pass incomplete to LLOYD, Terrance (DETWILER, Brad).
Emu 2-10 at Akron25 AKINA, Kainoa pass complete to WALTER, Kevin for 13 yards to the AKRON12, 1ST DOWN EMU.
Emu 1-10 at Akron12 ROBERSON, C.R. rush for 5 yards to the AKRON7 (MARCH, Ed).
Emu 2-5 at Akron07 AKINA, Kainoa sacked for loss of 9 yards to the AKRON16 (HAYES, Marques).
Emu 3-14 at Akron16 AKINA, Kainoa pass incomplete to ZUREKI, Kevin (MYERS, Ryan).
Emu 4-14 at Akron16 STARNES, Toller field goal attempt from 33 GOOD, clock 15:00.
Eastern Michigan 62, Akron 62
Emu 1-G at Emu35 Change of possession, EMU ball on AKRON25, 1st and 10.
Drive: 6 plays, 9 yards, TOP 00:00
Emu 1-10 at Akron25 EASTERN MICHIGAN drive start at 15:00.
Emu 1-10 at Akron25 AKINA, Kainoa pass intercepted by SMITH, Jesse at the AKRON10, SMITH, Jesse return 0 yards to the AKRON10.
Drive: 1 plays, 0 yards, TOP 00:00
Akron 1-10 at Akron10 Change of possession, AKRON ball on EMU25, 1st and 10.
Akron 1-10 at Emu25 AKRON drive start at 15:00.
Akron 1-10 at Emu25 HENDRY, Bob rush for 4 yards to the EMU21.
Akron 2-6 at Emu21 HENDRY, Bob rush for 3 yards to the EMU18 (PHILPOT, Kenny).
Akron 3-3 at Emu18 Timeout Eastern Michigan, clock 15:00.
Akron 3-3 at Emu18 DERR, Zac field goal attempt from 35 GOOD, clock 15:00.
Akron 65, Eastern Michigan 62
Drive: 3 plays, 7 yards, TOP 00:00"Bob's Burgers" fans, get ready for a real treat. You're about to take an exclusive inside look at how three members of the kooky cast were handpicked to voice the burger-loving Belcher family.
In this behind-the-scenes peek at a sit-down with the actors -- "Beers With Bob's: The Chosen Ones" -- creator Loren Bouchard talks openly with Dan Mintz (Tina Belcher), Kristen Schaal (Louise Belcher), and John Roberts (Linda Belcher) about how and why they were selected for their animated roles.
Comedian Dan Mintz, famous for his deadpan delivery, impressed famous voice actor H. Jon Benjamin (Bob Belcher) on another project so much that Benjamin suggested Bouchard bring him in on "Bob's Burgers."
"I'm working with this really funny guy," Benjamin told Bouchard. "Everybody in the writers' room makes him say stuff just so they can hear his voice." Bouchard had already cast the son's role (Eugene Mirman, who plays Gene Belcher), so he decided to add another boy (back when Tina was a boy), and that's how Mintz got the job. The character was created just for him.
[Related: Fox to Launch Late-Night 'Animation Domination High-Def' Block in July]
The casting story was less complicated for comedian Kristen Schaal, whom Bouchard had in mind from the get-go. "Louise, there was never anybody else," Bouchard told Schaal. He loves her voice so much that he even went back through every female role he'd ever cast and put Schaal's voice in. He had initially seen her do standup after "Bob's Burgers" writer Holly Schlesinger encouraged him to check her out. The rest is history.
"How was I born?" asked John Roberts. The answer was not as warm and fuzzy for him as the others. Bouchard pushed for the comedian to be involved, despite some backlash. "Everyone said, 'No, don't use him. Use someone else.' But I said, 'I'm sticking with John,'" Bouchard confessed. From the looks of it, this was the first time Roberts had heard this unfortunate news. "Why? Why would they say that? … This is terrible," Roberts said, half-joking. Oh, well -- he can take comfort in the series's success.
A new episode of "Bob's Burgers" airs Sunday, 3/10 at 9:30 PM on Fox.Get the biggest Manchester United 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
Does Van Gaal stick with 3-5-2?
There is arguably one United player from last week's win at Arsenal who deserves to be dropped (more of him later) and this week has been about Reds returning from, rather than suffering, injury.
Maligned men such as Chris Smalling, Antonio Valencia and Ashley Young all excelled at the Emirates Stadium and the prospect of consistency in defence should not be underestimated. Tyler Blackett is accustomed to playing in a back three and Paddy McNair fared well in the system, too.
The formation would also allow Angel di Maria to break forward centrally, which elicited one goal for Wayne Rooney and the Argentinean should have scored himself.
Wilson in, Van Persie out?
When even Paddy Crerand admits you have a problem, you know you are on borrowed time and it is difficult to identify a reason why Robin van Persie should retain his place on Saturday.
Aside from a paltry three goals in 11 games, he looks distracted, is failing to make the right runs and has lost his fear factor. Van Persie's performance level last season wasn't particularly high yet he still managed a credible 18 goals in 28 games.
Louis van Gaal said James Wilson has been "knocking on the door" for a start and the door must have been reduced to splinters by now.
Will Herrera return?
Michael Carrick would be unlucky to lose his place after a nerveless performance in north London, yet Hull's visit should be regarded as an opportunity for United to buck the trend of the nervy and narrow wins they've ground out since September's 4-0 evisceration of Queens Park Rangers.
Despite injury problems, Herrera could become the first United central midfielder to hit the 10-goals mark since Paul Scholes 10 seasons ago. He has two in five already and his knack for goals was reaffirmed with a fine strike in the Reserves on Tuesday night.
Carrick has brought serenity to the team since his return from injury but, with two games in four days, Van Gaal must also consider Tuesday's encounter with Stoke.
Can Smalling cement his place?
With Phil Jones still injured and Jonny Evans not yet match-fit, Chris Smalling will not have a finer chance of establishing himself in United's defence.
Before his "stupid" second yellow card at City, he had performed commandingly against Chelsea and was an unsung hero in United's resistance against Arsenal.
Smalling stood out as United's best centre-back last season yet David Moyes, like Sir Alex Ferguson, was prone to switching him to right-back. Van Gaal, at least, seems to have acknowledged there is only one place Smalling should play and it is now up to the 25-year-old to prove his worth to the Dutchman.
Three-in-a-row?
Moyes' effect on United, or lack of it, can be gauged by the fact the Reds last won three games in a row last December. Yes, Van Gaal's era has begun erratically, but the Dutchman has had to contend with an injury crisis and a major period of transition at the club.
Steve Bruce made some impressive signings in the summer but Hull have won twice in the Premier League all season, have not collected three points in almost a month and lost their last three.
Van Gaal isn't one for excuses and United will only have themselves to blame if they fail to build on those three valuable points at Arsenal.A US grassroots group is urging the public to support a set of efforts to improve food monitoring in the US against radioactive contamination.
The fallout from Fukushima that fell on the US and that which has been crossing the Pacific has been an area of concern with residents of the US and Canada. Government agencies have declared the issue to be a “non-issue” and either have opted to do no testing or rely on premature inaccurate testing such as the FDA’s very limited effort.
One of the major areas of concern has been the US intervention level of 1200 bq/kg for domestic and imported foods. This level is higher than most other countries in the world including Japan.
Our research shows there has been and still is some level of Fukushima attributable contamination to US domestic foods. Without widespread testing the extent of this will not be understood and will leave consumers with anxiety about the food supply.
Find out more about FFAN’s efforts here and on their website here.
image credit | funz.eu
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Hello, Coroutines!
At the recent C++ Committee meeting in Toronto, the Coroutines TS was forwarded to ISO for publication. That roughly means that the coroutine “feature branch” is finished, and is ready to be merged into trunk (standard C++) after a suitable vetting period (no less than a year). That puts it on target for C++20. What does that mean for idiomatic modern C++?
Lots, actually. With the resumable functions (aka, stackless coroutines) from the Coroutines TS, we can do away with callbacks, event loops, and future chaining ( future.then() ) in our asynchronous APIs. Instead, our APIs can return “awaitable” types. Programmers can then just use these APIs in a synchronous-looking style, spamming co_await in front of any async API call and returning an awaitable type.
This is a bit abstract, so this blog post make it more concrete. It describes how the author wrapped the interface of libuv — a C library that provides the asynchronous I/O in Node.js — in awaitables. In libuv, all async APIs take a callback and loop on an internal event loop, invoking the callback when the operation completes. Wrapping the interfaces in awaitables makes for a much better experience without the callbacks and the inversion of control they bring.
Below, for instance, is a function that (asynchronously) opens a file, reads from it, writes it to stdout, and closes it:
auto start_dump_file( const std::string& str ) -> future_t<void> { // We can use the same request object for // all file operations as they don't overlap. static_buf_t<1024> buffer; fs_t openreq; uv_file file = co_await fs_open(uv_default_loop(), &openreq, str.c_str(), O_RDONLY, 0); if (file > 0) { while (1) { fs_t readreq; int result = co_await fs_read(uv_default_loop(), &readreq, file, &buffer, 1, -1); if (result <= 0) break; buffer.len = result; fs_t req; (void) co_await fs_write(uv_default_loop(), &req, 1 /*stdout*/, &buffer, 1, -1); } fs_t closereq; (void) co_await fs_close(uv_default_loop(), &closereq, file); } }
You can see that this looks almost exactly like ordinary synchronous code, with two exceptions:
Calls to asynchronous operations are preceded with co_await, and The function returns an awaitable type ( future_t<void> ).
Very nice. But this code snippet does too much in my opinion. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a reusable component for asynchronously reading a file, separate from the bit about writing it to stdout? What would that even look like?
Hello, Ranges!
Also at the recent C++ Committee meeting in Toronto, the Ranges TS was forwarded to ISO for publication. This is the first baby step toward a complete reimagining and reimplementation of the C++ standard library in which interfaces are specified in terms of ranges in addition to iterators.
Once we have “range” as an abstraction, we can build range adaptors and build pipelines that transform ranges of values in interesting ways. More than just a curiosity, this is a very functional style that lets you program without a lot of state manipulation. The fewer states your program can be in, the easier it is for you to reason about your code, and the fewer bugs you’ll have. (For more on that, you can see my 2015 C++Con talk about ranges; or just look at the source for a simple app that prints a formatted calendar to stdout, and note the lack of loops, conditionals, and overt state manipulation.)
For instance, if we have a range of characters, we might want to lazily convert each character to lowercase. Using the range-v3 library, you can do the following:
std::string hello("Hello, World!"); using namespace ranges; auto lower = hello | view::transform([](char c){ return (char)std::tolower(c);});
Now lower presents a view of hello where each character is run through the tolower transform on the fly.
Although the range adaptors haven’t been standardized yet, the Committee has already put its stamp of approval on the overall direction, including adaptors and pipelines. (See N4128 for the ranges position paper.) Someday, these components will all be standard, and the C++ community can encourage their use in idiomatic modern C++.
Ranges + Coroutines ==?
With coroutines, ranges become even more powerful. For one thing, the co_yield keyword makes it trivial to define your own (synchronous) ranges. Already with range-v3 you can use the following code to define a range of all the integers and apply a filter to them:
#include <iostream> #include <range/v3/all.hpp> #include <range/v3/experimental/utility/generator.hpp> using namespace ranges; // Define a range of all the unsigned shorts: experimental::generator<unsigned short> ushorts() { unsigned short u = 0; do { co_yield u; } while (++u); } int main() { // Filter all the even unsigned shorts: auto evens = ushorts() | view::filter([](auto i) { return (i % 2) == 0; }); // Write the evens to cout: copy( evens, ostream_iterator<>(std::cout, "
") ); }
Put the above code in a.cpp file, compile with a recent clang and -fcoroutines-ts -std=gnu++1z, and away you go. Congrats, you’re using coroutines and ranges together. This is a trivial example, but you get the idea.
Asynchronous Ranges
That great and all, but it’s not asynchronous, so who cares? If it were asynchronous, what would that look like? Moving to the first element of the range would be an awaitable operation, and then moving to every subsequent element would also be awaitable.
In the ranges world, moving to the first element of a range R is spelled “ auto it = begin(R) ”, and moving to subsequent elements is spelled “ ++it ”. So for an asynchronous range, those two operations should be awaitable. In other words, given an asynchronous range R, we should be able to do:
// Consume a range asynchronously for( auto it = co_await begin(R); it!= end(R); co_await ++it ) { auto && e = *it; do_something( e ); }
In fact, the Coroutines TS anticipates this and has a asynchronous range-based for loop for just this abstraction. The above code can be rewritten:
// Same as above: for co_await ( auto&& e : R ) { do_something( e ); }
Now we have two different but closely related abstractions: Range and AsynchronousRange. In the first, begin returns something that models an Iterator. In the second, begin returns an Awaitable of an AsynchronousIterator. What does that buy us?
Asynchronous Range Adaptors
Once we have an abstraction, we can program against that abstraction. Today we have a view::transform that knows how to operate on synchronous ranges. It can be extended to also work with asynchronous ranges. So can all the other range adaptors: filter, join, chunk, group_by, interleave, transpose, etc, etc. So it will be possible to build a pipeline of operations, and apply the pipeline to a synchronous range to get a (lazy) synchronous transformation, and apply the same exact pipeline to an asynchronous range to get a non-blocking asynchronous transformation. The benefits are:
The same functional style can be used for synchronous and asynchronous code, reusing the same components and the same idioms.
Asynchronous code, when expressed with ranges and transformations, can be made largely stateless, as can be done today with synchronous range-based code. This leads to programs with fewer states and hence fewer state-related bugs.
Range-based code composes very well and encourages a decomposition of problems into orthogonal pieces which are easily testable in isolation. (E.g., a view::filter component can be used with any input range, synchronous or asynchronous, and can be easily tested in isolation of any particular range.)
Another way to look at this is that synchronous ranges are an example of a pull-based interface: the user extracts elements from the range and processes them one at a time. Asynchronous ranges, on the other hand, represent more of a push-based model: things happen when data shows up, whenever that may be. This is akin to the reactive style of programming.
By using ranges and coroutines together, we unify push and pull based idioms into a consistent, functional style of programming. And that’s going to be important, I think.
Back to LibUV
Earlier, we wondered about a reusable libuv component that used its asynchronous operations to read a file. Now we know what such a component could look like: an asynchronous range. Let’s start with an asynchronous range of characters. (Here I’m glossing over the fact that libuv deals with UTF-8, not ASCII. I’m also ignoring errors, which is another can of worms.)
auto async_file( const std::string& str ) -> async_generator<char> { // We can use the same request object for // all file operations as they don't overlap. static_buf_t<1024> buffer; fs_t openreq; uv_file file = co_await fs_open(uv_default_loop(), &openreq, str.c_str(), O_RDONLY, 0); if (file > 0) { while (1) { fs_t readreq; int result = co_await fs
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sex abuse in his diocese [PA Wire]
Bishop John Magee faced criticism over his handling of allegations of sex abuse in his diocese [PA Wire]
"As I depart, I want to offer once again my sincere apologies to any person who has been abused by any priest of the diocese of Cloyne during my time as bishop or at any time," he said.
'Decades of abuse'
Magee, aged 73, had been a senior figure in the Vatican, previously serving as a private secretary to three successive Roman Catholic popes before being assigned to Cloyne.
He had apologised when the report into clerical child abuse by National Board for Safeguarding Children was first published at the end of 2008, but refused to resign.
Ken Murray, an Irish journalist, told Al Jazeera the image of the Catholic church in Ireland had "taken a bashing" over sex abuse allegations.
"This is yet another bad day for the image of the Catholic church in this country," he said.
Irish government-ordered investigations have documented decades of child abuse and cover-ups in the Catholic church.
Three reports published between 2005 and 2009 have documented how thousands of Irish children suffered rape, molestation and other abuse by priests in their parishes and by nuns and brothers in boarding schools and orphanages.
Irish bishops did not report a single case to police until 1996 after victims began to sue the church.
On Saturday, the pope apologised for decades of abuse, but took no action against bishops blamed for cover-ups.
Magee's resignation is the second from an Irish bishop to be accepted by Rome.
Donal Murray, former bishop of Limerick, had his resignation accepted within 10 days when he offered to quit last December.
He was criticised in an investigation into the Dublin Archdiocese over failures to report child abuse.President Donald Trump's first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, has officially opened his new lobbying firm that peddles access to the administration of his former boss.
Avenue Strategies was co-founded by Lewandowski and Barry Bennett, the former campaign manager for Ben Carson who went on to work for Trump, according to Bloomberg on Thursday. Lest there be any doubt as to Avenue Strategies' angle for its clients, Bennett told Bloomberg that "we’re not here to compete with guys who are lobbying Capitol Hill. We're here to lobby the administration."
Advertisement:
Trump’s K Street Office Is Open for Business https://t.co/XRvlk7M2Ae — Corey R. Lewandowski (@CLewandowski_) January 19, 2017
Although having a former campaign manager offer lobbyists access to the White House goes against Trump's promise to "drain the swamp," Lewandowski and Bennett insist that this didn't apply to all lobbyists — just the lobbyists conservatives happen to dislike (there is evidence to support that "drain the swamp" was always anti-liberal rather than anti-corruption).
"I think what Donald Trump said was, Washington lobbyists have used their special access to the detriment of the American people," Lewandowski told Bloomberg. "Our goal here is to help companies grow and expand, which falls directly in line with the goals of this administration."
For what it's worth, despite Lewandowski and Bennett both being fired from Trump's campaign, Trump's own comments suggest that they will indeed be able to deliver the insider access they claim to possess. "Corey is a terrific and talented guy, and I wish him well," Trump said in a statement to Bloomberg Businessweek.
When Lewandowski first announced his new lobbying firm in December, he didn't mince words about the fact that it existed to peddle access. "After considering multiple opportunities within the administration, I informed (Trump) and his team I think I can best help him from outside the formal structure of the government," wrote Lewandowsk in a statement at the time.
The new firm is half a block from the White House.I promised a post last week about the varying conservative Catholic responses to Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation, and I’ve decided it might be useful to use Damon Linker’s broadside against the pope’s critics as an introductory device. Linker’s piece draws on his own religious psychology as a Catholic convert, and particularly a desire for authority and certainty that he’s since outgrown or let subside, to portray conservative Catholics (myself among others) as order-obsessed absolutists desperate to believing in an unchanging, unchangeable Catholicism:
I became a Catholic (from secular Judaism) in the midst of a personal crisis. I longed to find an absolute moral Truth and craved a sense of belonging with others who recognized and ordered their lives according to that Truth. Catholicism is perfect for people with such yearnings. It tells them that the Roman Catholic Church is the church of Jesus Christ most fully and rightly ordered through time. Its magisterial authority can be traced back to St. Peter and the rest of Christ’s original apostles. It publishes a 900-page Catechism filled with elaborate, absolute rules laying out in minute detail how God wants us to live. It governs itself according to an intricate code of Canon Law that first began to be formulated nearly two millennia ago. For someone who feels troubled by a culture in a constant state of instability and change, the Catholic Church can feel like a rock in a stormy, windswept sea. Finally, something is steady, permanent, unchangeable, fixed, immobile. The church’s very stability can end up looking like the strongest sign and confirmation of its divinity. Everything changes! But not God and his church. For someone drawn to Catholicism by the promise of order and stability, any sign of change in the church will be unwelcome, threatening. The fact that social and cultural mores shift and develop around it is an argument for retrenchment and improved outreach to a world tempted by sin in new ways. It certainly isn’t a sign that the church should adjust its teachings on faith and morals, accommodating them to the latest trends. Any such adjustment would risk diluting the Truth, and (perhaps just as bad) serve as a potentially fatal concession that the church’s teachings can be fallible. Once that door has been opened, there may be no way to close it. Remove even a single brick from the foundation, and the whole edifice could come crashing down.
Is this what conservative Catholics believe? Well, in some ways, yes. For many conservatives, the perduring consistency of Catholicism on certain important issues does seem like one of the strongest reasons to believe in the church as a divinely-founded institution. And if I may adapt Linker’s metaphor a little, conservatives do tend to see certain areas of Catholic moral teaching as a kind of seamless garment that could be unraveled by pulling hard enough on certain threads.
Though of course this view is hardly confined to conservative Catholics. Many a liberal op-ed on How the Church Must Change starts out by suggesting that teaching X (on divorce, homosexuality, etc.) needs to be revamped and proceeds to acknowledge (or celebrate) the fact that this revision will also imply a wholesale abandonment of teachings Y and Z and P and Q as well. Hence the conservative sense — I would call it a suspicion, but it’s rather more than that — that when we’re asked to concede that the church could get something wrong, the people doing the asking often really want us to concede that the church has gotten almost everything wrong, from sexual ethics to sacramental theology to the idea of a priesthood to the person of Jesus of Nazareth himself, and that actually some combination of Arians, Gnostics and Protestants were right about most of the controversies of the Christian past.
Now Linker might respond (depending on where he sits theologically these days) that this is still a false choice even if our fears are understandable, and that conservative Catholics shouldn’t let the radicalism of some our interlocutors justify a perfect intransigence against any change at all. Which is fair enough. Except that one might ask … when exactly have conservative Catholics really shown a perfect intransigence against any and all change?
Let’s make a partial list of the changes that most conservative Catholics have accepted — sometimes grudgingly, sometimes enthusiastically — in their church since the 1960s. A transformation in the church’s attitude toward liberal democracy and religious freedom. A transformation in the church’s attitude toward other Christian churches and non-Christian religions. A total renovation of the church’s liturgy, one with inevitable implications for sacramental life, theology, biblical interpretation, the works, that was staggering in hindsight but accepted at the time by everyone except a tiny minority. A revolution in sacred architecture, albeit one that stalled out once it became apparent that it was, you know, kind of terrible. Massive shifts in church rhetoric around issues of personal morality (sexual morality very much included) even where the formal teaching remained intact. Stark changes in the way the church talks about sin, hell and damnation, and openings (again, including among conservative Catholics) to theological perspectives once considered flatly heterodox. Clear changes, slow-moving or swift, in the Vatican’s public stance on hot-button issues like the death penalty and torture (and perhaps soon just war theory as well). The purging or diminution of a host of Catholic distinctives, from meatless Fridays to communion on the tongue to the ban on cremation to … well, like I said, it’s a partial list, so I’ll stop there.
So whatever the conservative religious psychology, however strong the conservative craving for certainty and stability, nobody looking at the changes wrought in the church over the last fifty years could possibly describe conservative Catholicism as actually committed, in any kind of rigorous or non-negotiable sense, to defending a changeless, timeless church against serious alteration. (Indeed, this is a point that traditionalist Catholics make about the mainstream Catholic right at every opportunity!)
Rather, conservative Catholicism has been on a kind of quest, ever since the crisis atmosphere of the 1960s and 1970s, to define certain essentials of the faith in a time of sweeping flux and change, while effectively conceding (to borrow Linker’s architectural image) that reformers can rearrange and remove the bricks of Catholicism so long as they don’t touch those crucial foundations. For a long time this conservative quest was lent a certain solidity and rigor and self-confidence by John Paul II and Benedict XVI. But the advent of Francis has made it clear that conservative Catholicism doesn’t have as clear a synthesis as conservatives wanted to believe, and that in some ways the conservative view of the post-Vatican II church is a theory in crisis — or the very least that it lacks a clear-enough account of itself, and of what can and cannot change in its vision of Catholicism, to navigate an era in which the pope himself does not seem to be “on side.”
And it’s this uncertainty, to come around to my original intention for this post, that’s left conservatives both perplexed and strikingly divided in their responses to the pope’s exhortation on marriage. First, because the move that’s being pressed by liberals around divorce, remarriage and the sacraments has been very deliberately couched in precisely the language that was used to justify many of the changes listed above: The distinction between the pastoral and the doctrinal that supposedly defined the reforms of Vatican II, the idea that the way the church practices the faith can change so long as the official teaching doesn’t. And since this is a distinction that conservatives have tacitly accepted on a great many issues, in the divorce-remarriage-communion debate they have found themselves defending, not a comprehensive theory of a church that cannot change, but a very specific explanation for why this change in particular differs from all the other changes that they’ve embraced or swallowed hard and learned to live with.
That difference has been defended on roughly the grounds I noted above: That the church’s understanding of marriage is so close to the heart of Catholic moral and sacramental theology, and the pastoral and doctrinal so closely intertwined therein, that liberalization on this point would lead to a great unraveling (and a severing of the church from its own past) in a way that other alterations (past and potential) would not. And this argument has been, relatively speaking, a success, in the sense that it persuaded a great many prelates to effectively oppose the will of the pope himself at the last two synods, which limited Francis’s ability to make the kind of explicit changes that Cardinal Walter Kasper urged, with a papal blessing, on the church.
But only relatively speaking, because if Pope Francis was blocked from going the full Kasper, he still produced a document that if read straightforwardly seems to introduce various kinds of ambiguity into the church’s official teaching on marriage, sin and the sacraments — providing papal cover for theological liberalism, in effect, without actually endorsing the liberal position. It’s not the first time this has happened; as Joseph Shaw notes, it’s very easy to find “examples of Popes and other organs of the Church issuing documents which seemed, if not actually motivated by a rejection of traditional teaching, then are at least motivated by a desire not to be in conflict with those who reject it.” But it’s the first time it’s happened recently on a controversy of this gravity, on an issue where conservative Catholics have tried to draw a clear line and invested so much capital … and I think it’s fair to say that they (that we) don’t know exactly how to respond.
Do conservatives simply declare victory, because the worst didn’t happen, the full theological crisis didn’t come, and it’s important to maintain a basic deference to papal authority (itself a big part of the JPII-era conservative synthesis) so long as no doctrinal line is explicitly crossed? Do they acknowledge the document’s deliberate ambiguities, as my own treatment did, when doing so might give aid and comfort to liberals who are eager to make the most of any perceived shift? Do they deny that any real ambiguity exists, not out of pure deference to Francis but because given conservative premises this document should be read in the context of prior documents, not as a stand-alone, and if you read it that way there’s no issue, no rupture, everything’s fine? Do they stress the technicalities of what counts as magisterial teaching to make the document’s seeming ambiguity less important or less binding? Do they attack the document (and the pope) head-on, on the theory that conservative Catholicism’s essential problem is its vulnerability to constant end-arounds, constant winking “pastoral” moves, and that these need more forthright opposition?
Conservatives have tried all of these strategies and more. Some sincerely believe that the letter of the document is a defeat for liberals and that anxious Catholic pundits are overstating the problems with its spirit. Some think the problems with its spirit are real but also think the church will be better off if conservatives simply claim the document as their own and advance the most orthodox reading of its contents. Some think the best course is to downplay the document’s significance entirely and wait for a different pope to clarify its ambiguities. Some (mostly journalists, as opposed to priests or theologians) think it’s important to acknowledge that this pope has significantly strengthened liberal Catholicism’s hand, and to describe that reality accurately and answer his arguments head-on where they seem to cut against the essentials of the faith. Some think that this document, indeed this entire pontificate, has vindicated a traditionalist critique of post-conciliar Catholicism, and that the time has come for a complete rethinking of past concessions and compromises, past deference to Rome. Some are ambivalent, uncertain, conflicted, unsure of what comes next. Some have shifted between these various perspectives as the debate has proceeded. (And this long list excludes the many moderately-conservative Catholics who didn’t see a grave problem with the Kasper proposal to begin with, or who have simply drifted in a more liberal direction under this pontificate.)
I do not have an answer, alas, to all of this uncertainty. But I do think it’s important to acknowledge its existence, rather than taking a kind of comfort, as some conservative Catholics do, in being accused of Total Inflexibility in Defense of Absolute Truth by writers like Damon Linker. For good or ill (or for good in some cases, and ill in others), that has rarely been an accurate description of the conservative position in the modern church, and it clearly isn’t accurate at the moment. Conservative Catholicism isn’t standing athwart church history yelling stop; since (at least) the 1960s it’s always occupied somewhat more unstable terrain, and under Francis it’s increasingly a movement adrift, tugged at by traditionalism and liberalism alike, and well short of the synthesis that would integrate fifty years of rapid change into a coherent picture of how the church can remain the church, what fidelity and integrity require.
Which will come, I’m sure, by 2216 A.D. or so. Until then, conservative Catholics will remain (by definition) more dogmatic than liberals. But rumors of our righteous certainty, our “retrograde intransigence,” are likely to remain greatly exaggerated.Let me say this upfront: X-Men Days of Future Past is emblematic of the worst extremes of digital movie making. Colors are overly strong to the point of being unnatural (a certain blue character looks more like a Na’vi than Rebecca Romjin’s version), while the rest of the image is washed out and dark. Due to an apparent creative misstep with the shutter speed (if you have any other theories, I’d love to hear them), motion has become a smidgeon too quick and un-life like, looking like a less extreme version of the controversial high frame rate we saw on the Hobbit movies. X-Men and X2: X-Men United are full of beautiful filmic images, and there’s a stylish panache to the visual throughout each. So why does Days of Future Past look closer to a behind the scenes video reel than a 200 million dollar tentpole? Key scenes felt robbed of a majesty they otherwise would have had, and although the average audience member might not consciously notice these problems, they can certainly feel them. Thankfully it didn’t stop X-Men: Days of Future Past from being one of the most enjoyable films to hit this summer.
Summarizing the plot for Days of Future Past is difficult. There are multiple timelines, past and future, and an ensemble cast unlike any assembled for a big budget film. Not far off from Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel, almost every scene is a hello and a goodbye to a major star, here in leather or in makeup. The plot combines the cast from the first three X-Men films (plus spin-offs) with X-Men: First Class, leading to story that allows for acting giants Sir Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, and James Mcavoy to take turns stealing scenes. These aren’t just stars: they’re top mark talent, and the number of nominations between them is staggering. Borrowing a page from the James Cameron school of time-leap plotting, the future—which is the timeline with the veteran cast—is war ravaged and deformed. We see it in shades of shadow and gloom, and the sense of fun Singer must have had while creating his dystopia is palpable.
In this timeline, mutant and human alike are hunted and quarantined—not unlike the concentration camps that bore Erik Lensher’s seething hatred towards oppression. Instead of shock troops and swastikas, wicked-cool but deadly robots called sentinels police the world, and only the worst of humanity remains. Their design is reminiscent of Evangelion, and they have the uncanny ability to adapt to whatever mutant they’re fighting and turn that power to their advantage—if they’re hit with fire they turn into ice. They’re adroit in their brutality and relentless in their pursuit. Fight scenes with the sentinels immediately rank with the series best, and show Singer’s effortless understanding of this universe. He’s a conductor, and each mutant power is an instrument. Portals open and close as fire and ice shoot between them, and these sequences are composed of longer takes that heighten their showmanship. They’re undisputedly thrilling, and mark a union of creativity and production value that’s lacking in most summer tentpoles.
Before the film hits the ten minute mark we’ve been told director Bryan Singer and screenwriter Simon Kinsberg’s time travel rulebook, only to be told immediately afterwards there are exceptions to these rules. The original cast needs to venture into the past to prevent their grisly future, but due to a timey-wimey limitation, only Wolverine’s consciousness can travel to the past. It’s a testament to the film that what could have been a typically imperceivable web of time travel shenanigans somehow feels immediate and simple. There are surely problems with the continuity, but I was never provoked to question them—Singer masterfully gives the illusion that all the puzzle pieces fit.Shockingly, Evo 2013 is less than three weeks away! Last minute registrations continue to trickle in, but we have enough of an idea for attendance that we can finally publish the tournament schedule. Here are the broad strokes.
We will devote Sunday to the Finals in five games: SF4AE, UMvC3, Injustice, Smash, and KOF13. The final order and scheduling of the finals on Sunday is still being determined.
The Finals for ALL games will be streamed live and shown on-site on one of our two tournament stages.
We’re confident that this schedule is solid, but it may change ever so slightly based on our final attendance numbers.
Here are the gory details. There are only a few days left to signup for Evo, so if you’re attending be sure to sign up here! There will be no on-site tournament registation.
Tournament Schedule
Click the image for a larger version.
Schedule by Tournament Game
Super Street Fighter: IV
Pools, Friday 8 AM Quarter and Semi Finals, Friday: 6 PM Tournament Finals: Sunday (TBD)
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Pools, Saturday 8 AM Quarter and Semi Finals, Saturday: 6 PM Tournament Finals: Sunday (TBD)
Injustice: Gods Among Us
Pools, Saturday 8 AM
Quarter and Semi Finals, Saturday: 4 PM
Tournament Finals: Sunday (TBD)
Super Smash Bros Melee Pools, Friday 8 AM Quarter and Semi Finals, Saturday: 10 AM Tournament Finals: Sunday (TBD)
King of Fighters XIII Pools, Saturday 8 AM Quarter and Semi Finals, Saturday: 2 PM Tournament Finals: Sunday (TBD)
Tekken Tag Tournament 2
Pools, Friday 8 AM Semi Finals, Friday: 12 noon Tournament Finals: Friday, 2 PM
Persona 4 Arena Pools, Friday 8 AM Semi Finals, Friday: 2 PM Tournament Finals: Friday, 4 PM
Mortal Kombat 9 Pools, Friday 8 AM Semi Finals, Friday: 4 PM Tournament Finals: Friday, 6 PMT-Money wrote:
I posted a couple photos in an above post, unless by weight loss you mean deliberate muscular dystrophy. I knew the enjoyment of running isn't based on how you rank worldwide, but I was curious since I got the mile the week after a 5K without ever doing hills or 400m repeats, so I was wondering if that meant any appreciable potential with proper speed work.
It seems like you're too new to the sport to fully know where you're potential lies and having a coach would benefit you as far as finding you're best event. That being said you can't teach speed, it's much easier to train up for endurance. I don't think you've really given us enough to go off of to be able to place you in any event that well.And as far as the weight thing for a competitive distance runner you would be way on the heavy end. It doesn't matter whether you're muscular or not. Carrying unnecessary weight will slow you down. For comparison I'm in the 2:teens for the marathon am a couple inches taller than you and weigh about 20 lbs less. I'm really skinny by normal people standards but for runners at my level I'm far from an outlier as far as body type.I would say trimming down some would help with pretty much any non sprint, and would make a tremendous difference in the distance events.Join Curt Clark (@CurtClark) and Malory Beazley (@Survivor__Bitch) on Reality TV RHAP-Ups as they talk through the events of Week 6 in the Big Brother UK house.
In this week’s coverage of Big Brother UK, Curt Clark (@curtclark) and Malory Beazley (@survivor__bitch) discuss the events of Armageddon Week on the houseguests and the potential impact on the game moving forward.
With so much having happened this week, Malory and Curt almost forgot about Marlon Wallen’s “instant eviction” in the house, but neither of them were terribly surprised nor disappointed that it happened. They discuss how it was a strange time in the house, with everyone seemingly getting along and Marlon somewhat drifting from the Cool Kids to the Outsiders group. The perfect time for things to get shaken up by Armageddon. With houseguests nominated normally, nobody suspected that the nomination reveal was going to also be an eviction, and that Marlon would end up leaving in his underwear.
Immediately on the heels of this, three new houseguests moved in: Zoe Birkett, Pavandeep “Pav” Paul and Biannca Lake. Both Curt and Malory instantly became Zoe fans, with her straightforward and down-to-earth attitude, and Curt really liking her condemnation against people who are “getting it on” in the bedroom (and the reaction this drew from Steven Goode and Kimberly Kisselovich). Malory was not a big Pav fan, as the week progressed, although Curt is hoping he stirs things up a bit more than he has.
And then there is Biannca.
Malory and Curt both saw Biannca’s presence in the house as disturbing and one-note…and while she was constantly flashing her “assets” (which Curt wanted to name “Big” and “Brother”), it got old quickly, and seemed a little desperate…as did her constant advances toward Winston Showan. Malory and Curt went back and forth on how much of Biannca’s behavior was an act, but Curt notes that she did seem hurt or put off when she found out she wasn’t Winston’s type and that he wasn’t interested in her. Ultimately, both Malory and Curt were glad that she was chosen to go…but neither has much hope that Pav is long for this world.
The big drama that came along with the new houseguests was Biannca’s determination to reveal to everyone that Danielle McMahon is “not who she says she is” outside the house. This seemed to really eat at Danielle over the week, but Malory and Curt both loved Chris Wright’s speech in the diary room, where he declared that he doesn’t really care about what she’s done in the past or outside the house…that he is judging her based on how she’s treated him in the house and he finds the whole thing ridiculous. Other drama arose during the True/False task, where it came out that Danielle was in a documentary called “Webcam Girls,” that Ash Harrison’s mom won’t be asking Helen Wood about over for dinner…and that Kimberly’s actions in bed with Steven are making their way through Twitter.
Ultimately, the three new houseguests had to select someone to be evicted, but unknown to them, they weren’t going to get a chance to do so until after one of them (whoever received the least votes “to save”) was removed from the house. This ended up being Biannca…which ultimately led to Pav and Zoe selecting Danielle as the next evicted housemate (despite an apparent agreement earlier to evict Ashleigh Coyle). They had all wanted Kimberly to be the main target, but as we’ll see, this was not an option on eviction night.
There was some discussion as well of the couples in the house, with both Malory and Curt enjoying the on-going relationship between Mark Byron and Christopher Hall, although both think that Christopher is more into Mark than Mark is into him. Both also found it interesting that Ash and Helen finally made out. However, the big relationship story was the ever-evolving showmance between Steven and Kimberly, with them breaking out into arguments throughout the week. It was all capped off by the news that Kim was not present during the live eviction for health reasons (which made her immune to the eviction)…and which led to Curt and Malory’s first spoiler section, where they discussed how Kimberly had opted not to return to the show! Malory is interested to see the impact that this has on Steven, and Curt wonders whether Steven will spiral back into control, or if he’ll lose it even more than he seems to have already.
Both Curt and Malory are wondering what next week’s Power Trip twist will be…and whether Kimberly’s premature departure will have any impact on Big Brother‘s plans!Following an all day hearing in the Auckland District Court, Kim Dotcom left the building a free man today. Officially broke and unable to comment on his case due to a news blackout, the Megaupload founder will have to wait until tomorrow to discover if he'll be put back behind bars.
Last week during a hearing at the Auckland District Court, Crown Prosecutor Christine Gordon said that following an apparent breach of conditions an application had been made to revoke Kim Dotcom’s bail.
The allegations, which are reportedly serious enough to put Dotcom back behind bars, resulted in the Court ordering tightened restrictions preventing the entrepreneur from using helicopters, traveling by boat, or going more than 80 kilometers from his Coatesville mansion.
The details of the allegations were set to be revealed this Monday during a second bail hearing but a day earlier a new affidavit containing more allegations led Dotcom’s lawyer Ron Mansfield to request and receive a delay until Thursday.
Dotcom arrived in good time for this morning’s hearing. Pulling up at the Auckland District Court in his familiar Mercedes G-Class, Dotcom exited the vehicle while ignoring questions from the waiting press.
“Mr Dotcom, are you worried about the prospect of returning to jail?” one reporter asked.
Wearing his trademark all black and carrying a small towel and water bottle, within seconds a somber Dotcom was inside, passing metal detectors and riding up an escalator to the next floor.
What happened next is largely cloaked in mystery due to a media blackout imposed by the court.
What we do know is that the hearing was due to begin at 10:00 and the topic would be whether to extend or revoke Dotcom’s bail. The Crown alleges that Dotcom breached his bail conditions and it now appears those claims date back to events in 2012, potentially almost three years ago.
The hearing took place before Judge Nevin Dawson. A veteran of Dotcom cases, at one point Dawson cleared the courtroom so that private discussions on how Dotcom should be cross-examined could take place.
More than seven hours after it began and having failed to reach a conclusion on Dotcom’s bail, the hearing was terminated around 5pm. It will resume lunchtime tomorrow with Dotcom potentially learning his fate before the end of the day.
Dotcom has been on bail since February 2012 following the raids a month earlier on his Coatesville mansion. His extradition battle with the United States has been running ever since and has now been delayed until 2015 to allow the Megaupload founder to put together a new legal team.
Although the companies involved have remained tight-lipped, Dotcom revealed this week that his high-profile New Zealand-based legal team quit after he ran out of money.
“I’m officially broke right now,” he told a digital technology conference in London this week. According to the entrepreneur, to date he’s spent $10m on his defense.Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett's popularity, or lack thereof, has just hit a new low. A Public Policy Polling survey released Tuesday found his approval rating has slid to 24 percent, making him the least popular governor of the 43 states PPP has polled recently. Nearly two-thirds of Pennsylvanians disapprove of Corbett, including 51 percent of his Republican peers. If next November’s election were held today, Corbett would lose by double-digit margins to a wide array of Democratic challengers.
The poll is no outlier. Survey after survey finds that Corbett—who cruised into office two years ago as a conservative, corruption-busting prosecutor—is widely reviled in a state that, so far, has never failed to re-elect an incumbent governor.
But why? How has a mild-mannered governor like Corbett so enraged Pennsylvania’s typically placid electorate? Corbett’s own failings—from his reclusive nature to his bumbling legislative strategy—are mainly to blame. But it is also clear that Pennsylvanians, a largely moderate lot that have voted Democrat in the last six presidential elections, have little taste for truly conservative governance. In a purple state that has been steadily swinging left in recent years, Corbett looks increasingly anachronistic.
By temperament, Corbett is an establishment Republican, not a Tea Partier. But there isn’t much daylight between Corbett’s policies and those of the party’s right wing. He signed Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge, is fighting gay marriage in the courts, has aligned himself with the state’s growing fracking industry, and has decimated education funding. Recently, it is the school cuts that are most hurting Corbett in the polls. Three years ago, a Franklin and Marshall poll found that only four percent of Pennsylvanians considered education the state’s most pressing problem. In September, education was the top priority in the survey, with 21 percent.Jack King, who served as NASA’s “Voice of Apollo,” died on June 11. (Photo11: FLORIDA TODAY File)
MELBOURNE, Fla. — NASA has lost its "Voice of Apollo."
Cocoa Beach resident Jack King, who called the countdown and liftoff from Kennedy Space Center of the first moon landing mission, died Thursday at age 84.
The cause was congestive heart failure, his daughter said.
A Boston native, King arrived at Cape Canaveral as an Associated Press reporter in 1958 and two years later became NASA's public information chief here during the Mercury program, as the space race and what would become Kennedy Space Center were just ramping up.
He called launch of the Gemini 4 mission 50 years ago, and many that followed, but is best known for the Apollo 11 launch in 1969, which NASA estimates has been heard by more than a billion people.
In a steady voice broadcast by TV and radio networks on July 16, 1969, King reported that the astronauts felt good as the final seconds ticked away, and that the Saturn V rocket's engines had ignited shortly after 9:30 that morning.
"Liftoff, we have a liftoff," he said. "Thirty-two minutes past the hour, liftoff on Apollo 11. Tower cleared."
The call was "spot on," said Bill Harwood, a CBS News correspondent who began reporting from the cape in 1984 with United Press International.
"The world was literally tuned in," said Harwood, of Merritt Island. "The pressure was enormous. This was the first human flight to the moon, but you do not hear that in his voice. He was very calm. I think that really added to the whole experience."
KSC Director Bob Cabana also remembered King's reassuring demeanor during the countdown.
"Jack was a true professional and helped us understand in common English the complexities of spaceflight," Cabana said. "He was great at communicating what we do at NASA and he will be missed."
Mike Curie, NASA's news chief at Kennedy Space Center, who provided countdown commentary on NASA TV for numerous shuttle missions, called King an icon.
"He lived human spaceflight and loved it," said Curie. "He was an inspiration to me and many of my peers."
King left Florida for Houston in 1972 to the become public affairs director at NASA's Johnson Space Center. He helped negotiate a communications plan for NASA's first cooperative mission with the Soviet Union, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975, which included the first live TV coverage of a Russian launch.
He later held senior public relations positions at the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration, Occidental International Corp. and a Washington communications firm before returning to work for lead space shuttle contractor United Space Alliance. He retired from USA in 2010, the year before the final shuttle mission.
King called powerful people in the media and in politics friends, attending three presidential inaugurations, said his daughter, Beth King Post, also of Cocoa Beach. But she said he preferred to work behind the scenes, didn't take himself too seriously and was known for his dry sense of humor.
Outside work, he was a devoted Boston sports fan who enjoyed a regular gathering with friends at Bernard's Surf in Cocoa Beach and later Rusty's at Port Canaveral.
He was a great supporter of Cocoa Beach and, of course, loved the space program, said Post.
"To him, the space shuttle was spectacular and all ventures into space were, but there was nothing like the Saturn V," she said. "When he talked about that Saturn V lifting off, and the way that the press center windows shook and the power of the rocket boosters going up, there was just nothing like it."
In addition to Post, King is survived by a son, Harold "Chip" King, and five grandchildren. Another son, Billy, died in 2012, and his wife of 39 years, Evelyn, passed away in 2005.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1S8qNUOSABRES RECALL GERBE, MANCARI by Staff Writer / Buffalo Sabres
Buffalo Sabres GM Darcy Regier announced today that forwards Nathan Gerbe and Mark Mancari have been recalled from the Portland Pirates (AHL) on an emergency basis.
This is the third recall of the season for Mancari, who leads Portland in scoring with 68 points (26+42) in 69 games. Mancari has two points (1+1) in four total games with the Sabres this season. Mancari, 24, was selected by Buffalo in the seventh round (207th overall) of the 2004 Entry Draft.
Gerbe scored two points (1+1) in two games in his only previous recall to Buffalo this season. He is currently third on the Pirates in scoring with 39 points (11+28) in 44 games. The 22-year-old Gerbe was selected by Buffalo in the fifth round (142nd overall) of the 2005 Entry Draft.
Buffalo’s next game is Monday at Boston. Game time is 7 p.m. on Versus.
View LessCity Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young called Monday for a hearing on whether the city should charge passengers a fee to ride the Charm City Circulator, the popular bus service that now connects more than 4 million Baltimoreans and
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carbon and mining taxes would be repealed by the time Australia hosts the G20 summit in November. And he's called on the opposition to co-operate with the reforms. ''We've had a bit of talk from the Labor Party about it, wanting to say yes about sensible reforms,'' Mr Abbott said.
''I say to the Labor Party and its leader, if you're serious about co-operating, if you're serious about strengthening our economy and delivering on jobs, show it.'' Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says he can restrict Prime Minister Tony Abbott to one term. Credit:Michael Clayton-Jones Told of Mr Abbott's rebuke, Mr Shorten, who is in Brisbane campaigning for Labor candidate Terri Butler in the February byelection in Kevin Rudd's former seat of Griffith, said he was not cocky to suggest Labor had a chance of winning the next election. "Just how arrogant does Mr Abbott have to be?" Mr Shorten told ABC radio on Wednesday. "The only way he wouldn't have had a go at me is if I said there's no way I can win the next election. "It's not cocky to disagree with Mr Abbott."
Mr Shorten will officially launch Ms Butler's campaign for Griffith on Wednesday night. She is running against the popular local Liberal National Party candidate and former president of the Australian Medical Association, Bill Glasson. To undermine the reputation of Dr Glasson, Labor is trying to link the federal candidate to Queensland Premier Campbell Newman, who Mr Shorten said had slashed the state's health budget. Mr Shorten mentioned Dr Glasson's recent support for the proposal to ask patients to pay a $6 fee every time they visit the doctor. "People in the rest of Australia may not be aware, but the Newman government really has slashed the health system in Queensland," Mr Shorten told ABC radio. "There's red hot anger, I have to say, spending the last four days up on the streets of Brisbane.
Loading "You have to be here to appreciate the level of anger there is by ordinary Queenslanders against the LNP government." Follow us on Twitter— Attorneys for victims of Hamas suicide bombings from 2000 to 2004 are accusing an international bank of financing terror, sometimes allegedly running the money through a branch on Madison Avenue.
The suit filed in 2004 accused Arab Bank of violating the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows victims of U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations to seek compensation. The U.S. State Department designated Hamas a terrorist group in 1997.
As WCBS 880’s Ginny Kosola reported, hundreds are suing the bank for allegedly laundering money to fund the group’s suicide bombings.
Hamas Victims Suing Arab Bank For Allegedly Funding Terrorism
Lawyers for the victims hope to convince a jury that the bank helped Hamas finance a “death and dismemberment benefit plan” for martyrs.
“We showed the documents from the bank’s own files that showed they knew they were doing banking with Hamas. In fact, documents that have been under seal the last many years, that for the first time are being disclosed in public, and I think the public is going to find it very shocking,” Attorney Mark Werbner said.
The attorney for the Jordan-based bank, Shand Stevens, defended the company in Brooklyn Federal Court Thursday, saying the company never knowingly handled money that paid for the bombings.
“I’m not going to comment on the specific evidence but I will say the allegations we have made are not focused on individual transactions but on Arab Bank account holders,” Gary Osen said, who represents more than a third of the approximately 300 plaintiffs, victims and their families.
He says the bank never sent transfers to people on terror watch lists and if any money was sent to them, it was an error, Kosola reported.
“I think the jury is already starting to see records that in black and white show this bank was intentionally dealing with Hamas terrorists,” Webner said.
The case had stalled in recent years as the bank fought demands that it turn over customer account information and other financial records, arguing that doing so would violate banking secrecy laws in Jordan and elsewhere. In 2010, a judge issued sanctions against the bank for its “recalcitrance” in withholding evidence, a penalty that would allow the court to instruct the jury that it could infer that it knowingly worked with terrorist organizations.
Arab Bank has hundreds of branches around the world, including in Palestinian territories.
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(TM and © Copyright 2014 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2014 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)A federal minister is backtracking after remarking in an interview with a CBC reporter that northern Canadians don't pay taxes.
The comment was by made by Canada's minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour, MaryAnn Mihychuk, during a taped phone interview with a reporter in Iqaluit.
The focus of the interview was on student summer jobs in Nunavut.
During the course of the conversation, Mihychuk started talking about how important it is that people get social insurance numbers so they can apply for tax breaks.
"For some Indigenous folks, some communities, only half the population has a SIN number. You need the SIN number to file your tax," she said.
Then as an aside, she added: "You don't have to pay tax usually if you're up North."
'That's not what I meant'
When the reporter called Mihychuk back later that afternoon and asked her to clarify the comment, she said it was a "complete misunderstanding."
"If I said that, that was not what I meant," she said.
Mihychuk said she was talking about some people on First Nations reserves in northern Manitoba (she represents the constituency of Kildonan — St. Paul in that province). She then said she was referring to low-income Canadians who don't apply for tax benefits they're entitled to.
Mihychuk said she's aware of the persistent myth that Inuit, Métis and First Nations don't pay taxes, but was adamant that that was not what she was saying.
"I don't want anyone to think that I was trying to make any kind of generalities. I just was trying to do a shout out to those people who may not have social insurance numbers."
Mihychuk said she's concerned that people who are unemployed may not pay taxes and as a result, they may not know that they're eligible to receive Canada's child tax benefit.
She pointed to her long history of work in the North and said she's aware that people in the northern territories pay taxes.
"I did not mean to imply, and I would be upset if somebody thought I was trying to make that a race issue or anything," Mihychuk said.
"I think we see far too much ignorance and racism and it's a serious problem in Canada."
First Nations people who are recognized as status Indians under Section 6 of the Indian Act may be eligible for some tax exemptions. However, Inuit and Métis people are excluded from the Indian Register and are regular taxpayers.North Carolina's so-called ag-gag law is in the legal crosshairs. Activists with groups backing government accountability, food safety, and animal rights lodged a federal lawsuit Wednesday in a bid to block enforcement of the measure that became law January 1.
Further Reading There are laws making it illegal to collect data on open land
The lawsuit follows challenges to similar anti-speech laws in Idaho and Wyoming.
Laws in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, and Utah are backed by big agricultural entities and are designed to cover up unsafe or illegal farming practices. Activists said that the North Carolina measure, which was approved over the governor's veto, is perhaps the most restrictive and could bar undercover investigations of all private entities, including nursing homes and daycare centers.
"The Anti-Sunshine Law's legislative history confirms that the statute's aim is to keep whistleblowers from exposing employers' and property owners' hidden conduct to the public," according to the lawsuit. "In the words of one of the bill's supporters, the law's goal is to allow employers and property owners to engage in activities of public concern without fear of an 'expose.'"
Gov. Pat McCrory vetoed the bill in May. State lawmakers, however, overrode his veto.
"I am concerned that subjecting these employees to potential civil penalties will create an environment that discourages them from reporting illegal activities," he said.
According to a legislative summary, the bill provides for civil damages of up to $5,000 daily per violation. Among them, the violations include:
An employee who enters the nonpublic areas of an employer's premises for a reason other than a bona fide intent of seeking or holding employment or doing business with the employer and, without authorization, captures or removes the employer's data or any other documents for the purpose of using the information to breach the person's duty of loyalty to the employer. An employee who enters the nonpublic areas of an employer's premises for a reason other than a bona fide intent of seeking or holding employment or doing business with the employer and, without authorization, intentionally creates or produces an image or sound occurring within an employer's premises and uses the recording to breach the person's duty of loyalty to the employer. Knowingly or intentionally placing on the employer's premises an unattended camera or electronic surveillance device and using that device to record images or data.
The federal court suit was brought by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals; Center for Food Safety; Animal Legal Defense Fund; Farm Sanctuary, Food & Water Watch; and Government Accountability Project.
Five months ago, Idaho's pro-agribusiness law that barred the secret recording of livestock was deemed unconstitutional by a federal judge who ruled that the so-called "ag gag" law violated the First Amendment. Idaho's law carried a maximum one-year jail penalty and up to a $5,000 fine for first offenders for filming or audio recording at a farm without the owner's consent.
Wyoming's legislation is also facing a federal lawsuit, which is ongoing. Wyoming lawmakers adopted legislation making it illegal to gather data on open space—such as performing water quality tests or taking photographs—for the purpose of reporting to the government harmful farming practices, environmental degradation, or other ills.
The Wyoming legislation forbids regulators from even acting upon evidence of wrongdoing if the data was gathered without a landowners' permission, even if the data was gathered on public land. And it gives private landowners fodder to sue for trespassing. The legislation was crafted after the Western Watersheds Project collected data that revealed water pollution and federal grazing violations. Those revelations prompted Wyoming regulators to include three streams on a list of water bodies violating state environmental quality standards.Presiden-elect Rodrigo Duterte
PRESIDENT-ELECT Rodrigo Duterte said Saturday night he would apologize to the families of drug users who cannot kick the habit because they are “as good as dead” once he takes office on June 30. Speaking before his supporters who braved the heavy rains at the One Love, One Nation Cebu thanksgiving party, the president-elect expressed his plan to kill at least 10 drug addicts a day to lower the number of drug users in the country. “This will be finished. Six years. You just think if I will kill 10 per day,” Duterte told crowd.“If I couldn’t convince you to stop, I’ll have you killed... If you’re into drugs, I’m very sorry. I’ll have to apologize to your family—your father, mother, spouse and children—because you’ll surely get killed. Believe me. If I won’t kill you, many will be like you,” the president-elect said. Duterte’s vow to kill 10 drug offenders a day would mean a total death count of 21,900 by the time he steps down from office in 2022. On Saturday, incoming Philippine National Police director-general Chief Supt. Ronald dela Rosa revealed that some of the 35 mayors who are being investigated for their alleged involvement in the narcotics trade come from Davao province. Duterte cited statistics from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency to emphasize the severity of the problem. “According to PDEA, [there are] three million-plus drug addicts in the country today... Let’s just assume that [they are] in every barangay… You have a problem because they can be also thieves, rapists or just dysfunctional,” he said. “The problem is once you’re addicted to shabu, rehabilitation is no longer a viable option,” he added.Duterte said that while many critics have slammed the recent killing of suspected drug lords as “embarrassing,” he said the crimes committed by drug pushers and addicts are the “bigger embarrassment.” Earlier this month, Duterte said there are politicians as well as three police generals who are into illegal drugs. He warned them to resign before he becomes president or he will humiliate them publicly. An end to the drug problem, he said, was the only way the country could attract investors. “Our only chance is investments so that many businesses would enter. But I have to make this country peaceful. Because of drugs, there is rape, criminality, robbery—I have to control the source,” he added. Taking a different tack, Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista offered basic skills and technical education and even seed capital for drug users and pushers who surrender and give up the illicit drug trade. On Friday, Bautista gave drug users in Quezon City seven days to surrender to the authorities but warned those who ignored his plea. Quezon City police have rounded up 738 drug users and peddlers since they launched a new anti-drug campaign. With Rio N. ArajaThis is fun. The offensive talent that is available in the player pool for the last two positions covered - shortstop earlier in the week and third base today, is just unbelievable. With a variety of pairings possible, a fantasy owner in 2017 drafts could conceivably start their squad with a 3b/SS combo and end up with 60-70 home runs and 20-30 stolen bases. If you're a 75/75 HR/SB after 3-rounds type of drafter, these two positions, plus an outfielder, could be the way you're leaning in your early preparation. Even if you decide to wait at third base, there's a large group of talent available later on - Jake Lamb, Alex Bregman, Nick Castellanos & Maikel Franco, who all carry a varying degree of floor and potential upside. To sum it all up, third base is strong and will offer a variety of ways to fill the position in 2017.
The projections you see below are based upon Ray's 2017 Early Third Base Rankings. If you're new to this series, feel free to take some time and catch up on the other positions we've covered so far.
2017 Catcher Rankings: Projected
2017 First Base Rankings: Projected
2017 Second Base Rankings: Projected
2017 Shortstop Rankings: Projected
DISCLAIMER:
It is important to note that while a set of projections might add up to a dollar value when converted using a variety of methods that would rank a certain player above another, that doesn't necessarily mean the projection is correct and the ranking is incorrect. With a ranking things such as consistency and the odds of more or less playing time can be the difference between one spot in a ranking list and another. When converting projections straight over to dollar values, this can be lost at times. Using both projections and rankings from your favorite sources is an ideal way to build an appropriate expectation level for the coming season.
As always, please share any thoughts or questions in the comments below.History Is to Repeat Itself a guest Feb 22nd, 2012 65 Never a guest65Never
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rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint text 8.20 KB Chapter 5 - Dobby's Admonition The crew stood in their circle of confusion for a moment after Max and NAD left the scene. Just as they began to break formation, a stereotypical puff of smoke errupted in the center. As the smoke cleared, they faced the image of Judge Dredd gone rouge. "Durr! I'm El Mysterio, the new spooky ghost on this submarine!" he announced. El Mysterio paced around the inside of the circle, assessing the crew members as he continued. "I'm so spooky that..." "BOO!" he yelled in Cedric's face. "Scared?" Cedric had drawn back, more startled than frightened. He blinked a couple times before regaining composure. "Here's the thing you should know about El Mysterio," El Mysterio continued, continuing to pace the circle. "El Mysterio is so badass that he don't fuck around. He just goes and fucks shit up everywhere. He goes every day, straight up gangsta, ass boss hog mothafucker!" El Mysterio did his best to mimic NAD's smirk. "The best part is you can never kill me... Because I'm Never Fully Dead. Pretty badass, right?" The crew stared at him, blankly. "So if you don't want to fuck around with El Mysterio, gimme all your wenches so I can fuck 'em like a boss hog gangster! Best part is, none of you will never guess who I am, even though I know all of you in real life!" El Mysterio let out a belly laugh. "Pretty original right?" "This isn't me, for those of you who are wondering." The crew looked from EM, to NAD, and then back to EM. "I legitimately prefer you over Never Always Dead," Ranon concluded. NAD shrugged. "El Mysterio is more swaggeriffic, but EM and NAD are infantsauce compared to infantsauce. Koobaxion was fucking up shit before it was cool." Ranon looked a bit unsettled. It was actually HE who had been fucking up shit before it was cool. Cedric stole his schtick. Ranon's thoughts were interupted by his preference speaking. "Max is such a cool guy!" El Mysterio swooned. "He's so charming and funny! You all should upvote his account all over the place, because of how charming he is. And in such great shape! Man, I sure do love Max. Really." V shook his head in disgust. "Fuck you, faggot!" called Eric. "In great... shape?" Cedric repeated in disbelief. NAD smirked Max's smirk. "Yeah, if 'round' is a shape," he muttered under his breath. NAD closed his eyes and took a moment to interpret everything that had happened so far. First off, he had almost explicitly laid out for Max who he was, but Max couldn't name him. Maybe he was still in shock. Maybe Max was in denial that he was alive, or back to life, after he had killed him. Maybe the experience was so traumatic, Max had tucked it away into the folds of his fat-- Did I say fat? I meant unconscious....and didn't remember that he had ever existed at all... NAD also pondered how long it would take the crew to realize he had magically reappeared on the wrong side of the hall, after walking off with Max chasing him. Perhaps Max had caused an epidemic of slow reactions and realizations. NAD noted that he would keep this in mind, and later spell things out more clearly. It was sad how they didn't recognize obvious things, like how Nantucket was to Charles as Khrinan was to NevAlDe. But really, how could they not notice him coming and going like that? Then again, as they say, "The only way you can leave a room twice is if nobody sees you come back in." El Mysterio was undoubtedly materialized electric energy, like Charles and Nantucket, but who created him? NAD was made in the image of Max, and EM - NAD suppposed - was made in the image of him. NAD felt a little honored to be copied, as copying is the highest form of flattery, but also was a bit insulted that his clone turned out to be an un-classy, unsophisticated douche bag. Sometimes EM spoke like a normal person, but most of the time, he spoke in a 4chan dialect. Because of this, NAD was forced to believe that EM was the result of a collaborative effort of two people. Perhaps it was the lovers, Alex Pollak and Summer Zuber. "I feel like this submarine is full of people pretending to be people," Ranon mumbled. Suddenly, a new face appeared. "So who are all of you?" she asked. "I was searching for Fall Out Boy and you guys came up. What's going on? V flailed his arms in excitement. "THE CYCLE IS REPEATING ITSELF!" The girl raised an eyebrow, but smiled. "I'm Kassy, by the way..." NAD looked the girl over, suspiciously. There was no way this girl was real. She was too new. She was too perfectly timed. As the Moscow Rules state, "Once is normal, twice is a coincidence, but three times is enemy opposition." It seemed like the crew was creating "Casey" alts just to freak him out. I mean, what the hell was with the name "Kassy?" El Mysterio pushed the limits with a fake crush on Max. NAD's thoughts were interrupted as V spoke. "Hi, Kassy. I'm V, and I'm an addict." With all eyes on him, Viesulas Sliupas gave a guilty smile. "...Wait, no, that's wrong..." Cedric shrugged. "Hey, at least it's a real person this time." "It's not," NAD assessed. "It's not me, but it's not a real person." Cedric looked at him, cockeyed. "Proof?" he demanded. NAD sighed. Were they really this blind? "Name 'Kassy'?" NAD began. "There's no such thing as female redditors." He threw his hand, as if to slap her, and his hand went through her. Her image flashed binary code before stablizing again. NAD quickly analyzed the digital information. "Lonelyifonly. Redditor for 17 days. 1 link karma. 1 comment karma," he recited. "Only one post on a sub other than ruleastwokings? Seems suspicious..." NAD's eyes narrowed. "Probably someone's alt. I'm just surmising. I could be wrong." "This is completely retarded," the other Max snapped. "Why are all these girls suddenly on board?" "Scott probably let them in," Cedric scoffed. NAD stepped forward, not telling the complete truth. "I don't know about the others, but I have a key..." Still, Cedric had a point. Scott WAS notorious for flirting with anything that moved... If the AIs were Casey's creations, Scott was most definitely the one who let her in. Suddenly, a lightbulb in V's head went off. "Oh yeah, where is Scott?" There was an awkward silence. It was true. The conversation had fallen quiet without Scott's snarky remarks. He should have been out to bitch about the body in the hallway the second it was found. Pondering heads snapped back into reality and turned to the supply closet door as it clicked shut. "Infantsauce? Is that you?" the other Max called. "No, it's probably just another Max," Cedric smirked. "Half true. It's me," Khrinan's voice answered. Sure enough, NAD was no longer in the circle. Cedric was about to ask why NAD was in the closet when the sexiest man alive, Patrick Tibor, strutted into the scene, swinging his hips seductively. "Um... Scott's dead in the storage room, by the way..." The crew stared at him, curiously, spewing things like, "What?" and "How?" "He knew he was going to die." Eyes shifted from Patrick to the supply room door. "He did?" the other Max inquired, curiously. From the other side of the door, Khrinan answered calmly. "I told him he was going to die. He responded with, 'Well shit.'" In an attempted vengence, V screeched and launched himself at the door. There was a muffled "thud" from the impact. Then V bounced back, blank-faced. "Ow..." He tried the handle. Ranon stepped up. "Excuse me, V..." He politely cleared his throat. "Will all occupants of this closet please move away from the entry way!" Then, with a swift Sparta kick, the hinges snapped and the door neatly toppled to the ground. The crew peered in; it was empty. Scott's murderer had disappeared without a trace. Ranon pulled on his detective hat and smiled his most charming smile. "Gentlemen, we have a case on our hands!"... Who could NAD be? It couldn't be Scott. Scott was dead. It was time to think. Who would want Scott dead? (Well, who wouldn't want Scott dead?) (But seriously... Who would kill Scott?) Easy. Alex Pollak would. Khrinan saw these thoughts circulating in the crew members heads and sadly let herself out the escape chute. He never listened to her admonitions, though she had warned him before. "You're next."
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Chapter 5 - Dobby's Admonition The crew stood in their circle of confusion for a moment after Max and NAD left the scene. Just as they began to break formation, a stereotypical puff of smoke errupted in the center. As the smoke cleared, they faced the image of Judge Dredd gone rouge. "Durr! I'm El Mysterio, the new spooky ghost on this submarine!" he announced. El Mysterio paced around the inside of the circle, assessing the crew members as he continued. "I'm so spooky that..." "BOO!" he yelled in Cedric's face. "Scared?" Cedric had drawn back, more startled than frightened. He blinked a couple times before regaining composure. "Here's the thing you should know about El Mysterio," El Mysterio continued, continuing to pace the circle. "El Mysterio is so badass that he don't fuck around. He just goes and fucks shit up everywhere. He goes every day, straight up gangsta, ass boss hog mothafucker!" El Mysterio did his best to mimic NAD's smirk. "The best part is you can never kill me... Because I'm Never Fully Dead. Pretty badass, right?" The crew stared at him, blankly. "So if you don't want to fuck around with El Mysterio, gimme all your wenches so I can fuck 'em like a boss hog gangster! Best part is, none of you will never guess who I am, even though I know all of you in real life!" El Mysterio let out a belly laugh. "Pretty original right?" "This isn't me, for those of you who are wondering." The crew looked from EM, to NAD, and then back to EM. "I legitimately prefer you over Never Always Dead," Ranon concluded. NAD shrugged. "El Mysterio is more swaggeriffic, but EM and NAD are infantsauce compared to infantsauce. Koobaxion was fucking up shit before it was cool." Ranon looked a bit unsettled. It was actually HE who had been fucking up shit before it was cool. Cedric stole his schtick. Ranon's thoughts were interupted by his preference speaking. "Max is such a cool guy!" El Mysterio swooned. "He's so charming and funny! You all should upvote his account all over the place, because of how charming he is. And in such great shape! Man, I sure do love Max. Really." V shook his head in disgust. "Fuck you, faggot!" called Eric. "In great... shape?" Cedric repeated in disbelief. NAD smirked Max's smirk. "Yeah, if 'round' is a shape," he muttered under his breath. NAD closed his eyes and took a moment to interpret everything that had happened so far. First off, he had almost explicitly laid out for Max who he was, but Max couldn't name him. Maybe he was still in shock. Maybe Max was in denial that he was alive, or back to life, after he had killed him. Maybe the experience was so traumatic, Max had tucked it away into the folds of his fat-- Did I say fat? I meant unconscious....and didn't remember that he had ever existed at all... NAD also pondered how long it would take the crew to realize he had magically reappeared on the wrong side of the hall, after walking off with Max chasing him. Perhaps Max had caused an epidemic of slow reactions and realizations. NAD noted that he would keep this in mind, and later spell things out more clearly. It was sad how they didn't recognize obvious things, like how Nantucket was to Charles as Khrinan was to NevAlDe. But really, how could they not notice him coming and going like that? Then again, as they say, "The only way you can leave a room twice is if nobody sees you come back in." El Mysterio was undoubtedly materialized electric energy, like Charles and Nantucket, but who created him? NAD was made in the image of Max, and EM - NAD suppposed - was made in the image of him. NAD felt a little honored to be copied, as copying is the highest form of flattery, but also was a bit insulted that his clone turned out to be an un-classy, unsophisticated douche bag. Sometimes EM spoke like a normal person, but most of the time, he spoke in a 4chan dialect. Because of this, NAD was forced to believe that EM was the result of a collaborative effort of two people. Perhaps it was the lovers, Alex Pollak and Summer Zuber. "I feel like this submarine is full of people pretending to be people," Ranon mumbled. Suddenly, a new face appeared. "So who are all of you?" she asked. "I was searching for Fall Out Boy and you guys came up. What's going on? V flailed his arms in excitement. "THE CYCLE IS REPEATING ITSELF!" The girl raised an eyebrow, but smiled. "I'm Kassy, by the way..." NAD looked the girl over, suspiciously. There was no way this girl was real. She was too new. She was too perfectly timed. As the Moscow Rules state, "Once is normal, twice is a coincidence, but three times is enemy opposition." It seemed like the crew was creating "Casey" alts just to freak him out. I mean, what the hell was with the name "Kassy?" El Mysterio pushed the limits with a fake crush on Max. NAD's thoughts were interrupted as V spoke. "Hi, Kassy. I'm V, and I'm an addict." With all eyes on him, Viesulas Sliupas gave a guilty smile. "...Wait, no, that's wrong..." Cedric shrugged. "Hey, at least it's a real person this time." "It's not," NAD assessed. "It's not me, but it's not a real person." Cedric looked at him, cockeyed. "Proof?" he demanded. NAD sighed. Were they really this blind? "Name 'Kassy'?" NAD began. "There's no such thing as female redditors." He threw his hand, as if to slap her, and his hand went through her. Her image flashed binary code before stablizing again. NAD quickly analyzed the digital information. "Lonelyifonly. Redditor for 17 days. 1 link karma. 1 comment karma," he recited. "Only one post on a sub other than ruleastwokings? Seems suspicious..." NAD's eyes narrowed. "Probably someone's alt. I'm just surmising. I could be wrong." "This is completely retarded," the other Max snapped. "Why are all these girls suddenly on board?" "Scott probably let them in," Cedric scoffed. NAD stepped forward, not telling the complete truth. "I don't know about the others, but I have a key..." Still, Cedric had a point. Scott WAS notorious for flirting with anything that moved... If the AIs were Casey's creations, Scott was most definitely the one who let her in. Suddenly, a lightbulb in V's head went off. "Oh yeah, where is Scott?" There was an awkward silence. It was true. The conversation had fallen quiet without Scott's snarky remarks. He should have been out to bitch about the body in the hallway the second it was found. Pondering heads snapped back into reality and turned to the supply closet door as it clicked shut. "Infantsauce? Is that you?" the other Max called. "No, it's probably just another Max," Cedric smirked. "Half true. It's me," Khrinan's voice answered. Sure enough, NAD was no longer in the circle. Cedric was about to ask why NAD was in the closet when the sexiest man alive, Patrick Tibor, strutted into the scene, swinging his hips seductively. "Um... Scott's dead in the storage room, by the way..." The crew stared at him, curiously, spewing things like, "What?" and "How?" "He knew he was going to die." Eyes shifted from Patrick to the supply room door. "He did?" the other Max inquired, curiously. From the other side of the door, Khrinan answered calmly. "I told him he was going to die. He responded with, 'Well shit.'" In an attempted vengence, V screeched and launched himself at the door. There was a muffled "thud" from the impact. Then V bounced back, blank-faced. "Ow..." He tried the handle. Ranon stepped up. "Excuse me, V..." He politely cleared his throat. "Will all occupants of this closet please move away from the entry way!" Then, with a swift Sparta kick, the hinges snapped and the door neatly toppled to the ground. The crew peered in; it was empty. Scott's murderer had disappeared without a trace. Ranon pulled on his detective hat and smiled his most charming smile. "Gentlemen, we have a case on our hands!"... Who could NAD be? It couldn't be Scott. Scott was dead. It was time to think. Who would want Scott dead? (Well, who wouldn't want Scott dead?) (But seriously... Who would kill Scott?) Easy. Alex Pollak would. Khrinan saw these thoughts circulating in the crew members heads and sadly let herself out the escape chute. He never listened to her admonitions, though she had warned him before. "You're next."THIS was NOT what I expected. Not in my wildest of dreams would I have expected so large of a box of wonderful heavy surprises! And I adore them! My goodness, my Tim Burton Santa went ABOVE AND BEYOND what was expected to gift me this trip through the Chocolate Factory with gifts inspired by Charlie's voyage! Complete with an Oompa Loompa too! I now have enough sugar to last me YEARS (literally -- I go through sweets slowly, though I do adore them).
It was interesting: the mail delivery person buzzed my apartment but didn't come to deliver this HUGE box until a bit later in my day and I was surprised at the size and value (as listed on the customs form).
And then I opened it and discovered that I was to be taken on a trip through my Chocolate Factory a la Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory complete with a golden ticket, a squirrel, awesome retro glasses, candy making tools, a cotton candy sheep, and more! I adore the touch of humor provided by the toothbrush at the end -- it's totally the Tim Burton movie!
Thanks again for all of the awesome that this gift provides! I'm ever so thankful! You made me laugh so very much!Most people take drugs. From our morning coffee, to our wind down wine, to the occasional line or puff for a good time. Illicit drug use is a majority experience and the majority of that is unproblematic. It’s common amongst conventional, successful, and privileged people. And most common amongst rich, university educated young people.
The paper-thin line that separates legal and illicit substances is as confounding as it is cruel; the law deems convicted illicit drug users criminals, so we treat them as such. We use demeaning labels, like ‘junkie’ and ‘deadbeat addicts’, to separate them from the nice people who take drugs.
Applying criminal penalties to people who possess and use drugs causes more much more harm than it prevents. It makes criminals of people who aren’t, leads to the stigmatisation of people who use drugs, and creates barriers to treatment and rehabilitation. Our government refuses to reshape policy to respond to evidence and statistics, outcries from alcohol and drug experts, and needless drug related deaths. So what is the basis of our drug policy?
What Needs To Change
In Victoria alone, there have been four previous amendments to the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substance Act 1981 since 2010. Each change claimed to reduce or prevent drug-related harms in the community. And yet there remains no evidence that these interventions have been effective at reducing drug-related harms in the community.
Australia’s drug policy is outrageously flawed and outdated, and it’s dragging people who use drugs down with it. Drug use can be safer through standard dosages, transparent labelling and no contaminants. Drug use can be as positive as possible by decriminalising and de-stigmatising people who use drugs and instead addressing the drivers of problematic drug use. Drug use can be more ethical by taking drug profits from organised crime and funnelling them into services like schools and health care, and promoting personal responsibility among people who use drugs. Drug use can be more honest if we provide drug and health education that teaches the pleasures and excitement alongside the potential harms of use.
The evidence shows that Australians love consuming drugs; since 2014 we have had some of the highest proportion of recreational drug users in the world. At the same time, arrests have been steadily rising for the last decade to more than 90,000 arrests per year. About two thirds of those — more than 60,000 arrests each year — are for cannabis use. With poor, marginalised, and street based drug users bearing the brunt of the force and nice
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much of the industrial world for quite some time.
While the case for investment applies almost everywhere – possibly excepting China, where infrastructure investment has been used a stimulus tool for some time – the appropriate strategy for doing more differs around the world.
While the case for investment applies almost everywhere, the appropriate strategy for doing more differs around the world
The US needs long-term budgeting for infrastructure that recognises benefits as well as costs. Projects should be approved with reasonable speed. The government can contribute by supporting private investments in areas such as telecommunications and energy.
Europe needs mechanisms for carrying out self-financing infrastructure projects outside existing budget caps. This may be possible through the expansion of the European Investment Bank or more use of capital budget concepts in implementing fiscal reviews.
Emerging markets need to make sure that projects are chosen in a reasonable way based on economic benefit.
What is crucial everywhere is the recognition that in a time of economic shortfall and inadequate public investment, there is for once a free lunch – a way for governments to strengthen both the economy and their own financial positions. The IMF, a bastion of “tough love” austerity, has come to this important realisation. Countries with the wisdom to follow its lead will benefit.
The writer is Charles W Eliot university professor at Harvard and a former US Treasury secretaryMichael Starr makes the case for ‘Elementary’:
I was initially skeptical (so what else is new?) prior to watching “Elementary” on CBS. A show in which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic British detective, Sherlock Holmes — the one we all know and love — never existed?
Please.
Oh, and we’re supposed to believe the Sherlock Holmes who exists in “Elementary” (Jonny Lee Miller) is, like Conan Doyle’s creation, a British-born recovering drug addict — only here he’s been transplanted to New York, where his brilliant deductive reasoning (and OCD) makes him an invaluable asset as a consultant to the NYPD?
Well... yes. I quickly bought into the premise lock, stock and barrel — and the series is terrific.
What makes “Elementary” so good — at least in the context of its suspending-belief TV universe — are the performances of its stars, both Miller and Lucy Liu, who plays Holmes’ sidekick, Dr. Joan Watson. She’s an ex-surgeon who abandoned medicine after an unfortunate incident and has morphed from Sherlock’s “sober companion” to his salaried crime-solving partner.
Their on-screen chemistry (no romantic overtones — yet) is palpable. Miller somehow imbues Holmes — arrogant and condescending — with just the slightest bit of vulnerability, making us like and admire him in spite of ourselves while Miller fires off his elaborate, florid dialogue effortlessly (or seemingly so).
Watson herself is no shrinking violet, softening Sherlock’s verbal blows with an “are you kidding me?” stance while, in her own sly way, getting all up into her partner’s grill — while respecting his ethereal brilliance.
The show is fun and fast-paced, in spite of its over-the-top plots, and features a winning supporting cast (Aidan Quinn as world weary NYPD Capt. Tommy Gregson and Jon Michael Hill as top-notch, slightly cynical Det. Marcus Bell).
Kudos to series creator Robert Doherty for adding a new wrinkle to a familiar pop-culture mainstay.
Sara Stewart makes the case for ‘Sherlock’:
I cringe at the term “Cumberbitch,” but I’m not going to lie — the impending arrival of the third season of “Sherlock” on Sunday does make me a bit teenage-girl-shrieky inside. As the BBC’s version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s quirky detective, Benedict Cumberbatch is so right for the part it’s almost painful to watch anyone else try (apologies to RDJ and Johnny Lee Miller).
It’s not (just) his aristocratic, weirdly reptilian good looks or the Alan Rickman-lite voice — Cumberbatch just exudes effortless, amused intelligence. He’s the embodiment of the high I.Q. of the show, whose banter is so quick a non-Brit would be well advised to watch with closed captioning on (I’m still not sure I got every word from the last two seasons).
In a world oversaturated with reboots, sequels and updates, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ creation is the rare worthwhile revisit: a contemporary rendition of the world’s greatest detective, meshing the utility of modern technology (texting often figures prominently) with a deliciously Victorian sense of leisure (Sherlock spends off hours at 221B Baker St. not on the Internet but playing the violin, doing questionable science experiments or just staring off into space).
And the rest of the cast is equally impeccable. Has there ever been a part more well-suited to the twitchy, double-takey Martin Freeman? (Well, other than “The Office”?) Marvel as his John Watson discovers Sherlock’s back from the dead; the scene is a thing of comic beauty. Then there’s his brother Mycroft, played to simpering perfection by Gatiss himself, who very nearly walks off with Sunday’s episode.
Plus, you have to respect a show that so clearly adores its obsessive audience right back: Sherlock’s return features not one but two fan-fictiony kisses between characters — which I’m not going to spoil for you, don’t worry. The episode’s title, “The Empty Hearse,” is the name of a group of Sherlock admirers (in the show) piecing together their hypotheses about how he pulled off his fake suicide, just like we’ve all been doing here in the real world.
This show is for full-on nerds, my friends. And as Sherlock siren Irene Adler put it last season, “Brainy is the new sexy.”Lovebird visitors to the Pont des Arts, a footbridge in Paris, typically mark the occasion by fixing a padlock to its handrail and tossing the key into the Seine to symbolize their eternal devotion. Yesterday evening, police evacuated the bridge after a 2.4-meter section of railing collapsed under the weight of their adoration.
From the Agency France-Presse:
"The bridge was immediately evacuated and closed," local police told AFP. An architect and local officials rushed to the site and a barrier put in place to stop further access. Police said the bridge would be re-opened by Monday.
The locks started appearing in 2008, and authorities and activists alike have asked visitors to cease the practice since then, citing concerns about weight and aesthetics. The Paris city government warned about the potential for collapse in 2010:
Frequent inspections are carried out in search of segments of bent grating that must be removed and replaced. Two railings were replaced in July and one in August. Is the Passerelle des Arts to become a victim of the lovebirds who wish to solemnise their enduring love?
Perhaps the collapse will serve as a warning to NYC visitors, who recently began attaching love locks to the Brooklyn Bridge. Said Department of Transportation spokeswoman Nicole Garcia last month:
"When a minor component such as a hand railing is impacted by the number or weight of the locks, these custom elements of this national landmark must be removed and a replacement must be newly fabricated, further increasing costs."
[Image via AP]She’s talking up her personal story and reaching out to women. McMahon 2.0: Ready to rumble?
STRATFORD, Conn. — At a recent campaign stop here, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate talked to potential supporters about her hopes for her grandchildren, her modest upbringing and the tough financial times she faced after marrying and having children at a young age.
This wasn’t the same hard-shelled Linda McMahon — the tough talking former World Wrestling Entertainment boss who spent $50 million of her personal fortune and still failed to ride the 2010 Republican wave into the Senate last time around.
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( Also on POLITICO: McCaskill gets her foe)
“I met my husband in church, we were married when we were kids,” she told the crowd at a modest restaurant called Off The Hook. “The day before I graduated [from college], I found out I was pregnant with our first child. We had no job, no money, no insurance. So I get what that’s all about.”
Call it Linda 2.0.
McMahon has spent the past two years figuring out what went wrong in the 2010 election against Sen. Richard Blumenthal — a year when Republicans won big throughout the country and she outspent her opponent by a huge margin. The Linda of 2012 is more toned down. She’s talking up her personal story, reaching out to women and holding low-key, low-dollar fundraisers to get voters “invested” in her. She’s got a brand new campaign team and hired heavyweight Republican strategist Chris LaCivita to help.
And even though she’ll be an underdog here in deep blue Connecticut, McMahon’s political makeover and her money has made this one of the sleeper races to watch in the Republican effort to take control of the Senate.
It remains to be seen whether Connecticut voters will buy it — her name recognition is strong but a recent Public Policy Polling survey showed 48 percent of voters had an unfavorable view of McMahon versus 42 percent who had a favorable impression.
“It’s ironic that Linda McMahon is trying to rehab the image she spent $50 million brandishing into voters’ minds last cycle. The bottom line is she is a fundamentally flawed candidate, and no PR strategy can change that,” said former Blumenthal communications director Ty Matsdorf, now a senior adviser with the Democratic super PAC American Bridge 21st Century.
McMahon’s campaign doesn’t need help from outside groups or the national parties. Her money, combined with an intense rebranding effort, could make the race to fill retiring Sen. Joe Lieberman’s seat more competitive than Democrats originally expected. So far this cycle she’s spent almost $9 million, much of it on advertising highlighting the wrestling magnate’s personal story.
McMahon is up against former Rep. Chris Shays in Tuesday’s Republican primary. But polls show McMahon up at least 30 points and she has her sights set squarely on the general election — she’s already gone up with ads attacking her probable Democratic opponent, Rep. Chris Murphy. Murphy won big at the Democratic convention and is way ahead in the polls against his primary opponent, former Connecticut State Secretary Susan Bysiewicz.
Murphy is a popular Democratic congressman representing the most Republican district in the state. But he’s not as well known as Blumenthal, who won statewide office as attorney general for two decades. The congressman said McMahon is the same candidate she was in 2010 and the “new Linda” is just a schtick to get votes.
”She’s a very smart marketer. She didn’t build a billion-dollar wrestling empire without knowing how to learn from her mistakes and adjust her marketing techniques,” Murphy said.
( Also on POLITICO: GOP freshmen run away from incumbency)
The latest Quinnipiac poll showed Murphy leading McMahon, 46 percent to 43 percent.
“It’s pretty neck and neck right now,” said Quinnipiac pollster Douglas Schwartz. “The question will be, does [McMahon] use her millions to define Murphy before he’s able to define himself to a statewide electorate? But it’s also possible an onslaught of ads could backfire: voters last time found her excessive amount of advertising to be more annoying than informative.”NAMA has tabbed a Singapore developer to build nearly 650,000 sq ft of office space in the centre of Dublin.
NAMA has tabbed a Singapore developer to build nearly 650,000 sq ft of office space in the centre of Dublin.
The agency said it had chosen Oxley Holdings as the preferred bidder for a 2.35 hectare site at 72-80 North Wall Quay, next to the proposed new HQ of the Central Bank.
The agreement will see Oxley buy a long leasehold interest with the right to develop and manage and sell the site. NAMA will retain the freehold.
As part of Oxley’s plans, the company will develop about 645,000 sq ft of office space which would hold about 5,500 workers. The company will also construct 200 apartments there.
Oxley will submit a planning application early next year with construction set to begin by the start of 2016.
This is Oxley’s first investment in Ireland. The firm beat off five other bidders including Irish and international developers. The tender process itself was known as “Project Wave”.
The North Wall Quay site is located within “Block 8” of the Docklands Strategic Development Zone (SDZ) Planning Scheme and has been designated under the SDZ as a block with a “focus on employment”, NAMA said.
NAMA chief executive Brendan McDonagh said the deal will “facilitate the provision of much-needed high-quality Grade A office space that will lead to further job creation, investment and economic activity in the Dublin Docklands, while maximising the value of this site for NAMA”.
Oxley boss CEO, Ching Chiat Kwong meanwhile said his firm was “delighted by the opportunity to invest in Ireland and to deliver a top quality commercial and residential development in Dublin”.
NAMA has retained the freehold on the site and will earn from the ground rent there for the foreseeable future.
Industry experts believe the freehold would be attractive to pension funds and the like when NAMA decide to sell it on.
Oxley is one of the biggest developers in the world. It very active in London, working with Sean Mulryan’s Ballymore to develop the Royal Wharf site in the city’s docklands. That 37-acre site is one of the biggest developments in the city with planning permission for some 3,400 houses and apartments, as well as a school and a host of commercial and retail properties.
Online EditorsYour college football team has looked kind of bad at some point in September. So turn to the name you trust to get you to mid-October with nothing but leaping touchdown hip bumps and finger guns and 28-point first quarters. Rely on the Baylor Bears and their scheduling brilliance to carry you above the carnage that awaits all who foolishly dare.
Please consider:
Neither Clemson, Florida State, Iowa, Temple nor Toledo has a great offense. The same for Cal and Memphis on defense. TCU has only once had both an offense and a defense at the same time, and that was against Texas.
Michigan State was showing cracks even before it almost gave up a 21-point comeback to Purdue. Ohio State's gameplan appears to be exploring the playbook for three perilous quarters before just letting Ezekiel Elliott cook.
Alabama and LSU might not have quarterbacks, not that it's clear they need them. Northwestern and Utah have great wins, but are only decent statistically. Florida and Oklahoma each needed one of several Tennessee collapses to stay unbeaten. Oklahoma State is unbeaten, but after two straight weeks of weird ref stuff.
Almost everyone else has a loss. Oh, and Bama has one too. (I don't really have any complaints about Houston, Navy or Texas A&M yet, but bear with me.)
And then there's No. 3 Baylor, outgaining FBS opponents by 4.48 yards per play, the largest margin in the country by far. Baylor's outgaining teams by about as many yards per play as teams like Boston College, Missouri, Northwestern and Pitt are gaining per play.
The Bears are averaging a 42-point victory, with the closest result a 28-point win over a Texas Tech that's taken Big 12 co-favorite TCU to the wire and beaten an SEC team (do not look up which SEC team I'm referring to).
Your first retort to this is that not all FBS teams are equal.
Baylor's scheduling preferences make such FBS-only stats almost pointless. When Baylor victim SMU loses to FCS James Madison, what was the meaning of all those big numbers? I mean, Baylor beat Rice, but so did Texas*!
* By 39 fewer points.
Baylor's out-of-conference schedule is, as it's been for years, a skillet full of small state schools for Art Briles to set on the campfire, a series of cardboard cutouts on which the Bears' five-star receivers can practice alley oops.
This year's includes Lamar, a recently renewed program that had warmed up the week prior against an NAIA school. Baylor put one of the country's greatest rosters against an OOC schedule that is (a.) mostly composed of a former NBA Draft prospect and (b.) might as well include his alma mater, which just beat Kentucky Christian.
NBA.com
Baylor's many future NFL players have spent three-fourths of their season competing against teams that might not rank in the country's top 100.
Combine that with the Big 12's traditionally backloaded schedules, and you get Baylor vs. clay pigeons for a month. Over the last three years, Baylor's average score through its first four games is 63.1-17.5.
That's awesome, man. When you find something you love doing, do it. Baylor loves annihilating weak teams, running a few wind sprints each Saturday in September and hitting conference play unbeaten, healthy and confident. Who are we to deny Baylor this?
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Your second retort: this will all cost Baylor come Playoff time, just as it did last year.
It's true that we did just spend an offseason shouting about Baylor's schedule, but remember that the Bears would've ranked in the top four last year if they hadn't lost at West Virginia in a penalty-soaked travesty of a game. They would've ranked in the top four if Ohio State's backup quarterbacks had lost again at any point or hadn't put a historic beatdown on Wisconsin at the buzzer. They suffered at least as much for lacking a 13th game, which is out of their control, as they did for playing a weak OOC, according to the committee itself.
Baylor ranked No. 5 in the very first Playoff rankings, ahead of many teams with burlier schedules, and unless that happens again, I see no reason to call that a trend.
The committee has talked about rewarding teams with brave schedules, but its metrics aren't sophisticated enough to really punish Baylor. Nothing exceptional happened last year that would seem to affirm the committee's stated stance; teams were still largely ranked by number of wins. So it's hard to say why we've all adopted the idea that the committee will be more impressed by dialing up a valiant loss than by depressing some destitute university, other than wishful thinking.
(A 12-0 Baylor would probably finish 2015 with at least three committee-ranked wins anyway, btw.)
To be totally clear, I'm only making fun of Baylor a tiny bit. The Bear September is the product of an excellent team playing a schedule that is beautiful for everyone but fans who'd prefer to see Baylor play good teams. If I were an AD and didn't have to worry about playing big-money games, this is the schedule I'd give my team to play, and my coaches would write me direct messages of gratitude.
There's a good case against ranking the Bears in your Playoff bracket just yet, the numbers worry about how their defense will hold up against the meat of the Big 12, and they might have a special teams problem. But it's October, and no team has looked less bad, which is good.This article is about religion in the history of China and religion in the People's Republic of China. For religion in the Republic of China, see religion in Taiwan
Hubei. Public worship ceremony at the Great Temple of Yandi Shennong, in Suizhou
The government of the People's Republic of China officially espouses state atheism,[3] though Chinese civilization has historically long been a cradle and host to a variety of the most enduring religio-philosophical traditions of the world. Confucianism and Taoism, later joined by Buddhism, constitute the "three teachings" that have shaped Chinese culture. There are no clear boundaries between these intertwined religious systems, which do not claim to be exclusive, and elements of each enrich popular or folk religion. The emperors of China claimed the Mandate of Heaven and participated in Chinese religious practices. In the early 20th century, reform-minded officials and intellectuals attacked all religions as "superstitious", and since 1949, China has been governed by the Communist Party of China, an atheist institution that prohibits party members from practising religion while in office. In the culmination of a series of atheistic and antireligious campaigns already underway since the late 19th century, the Cultural Revolution against old habits, ideas, customs and culture, lasting from 1966 to 1967, destroyed or forced them underground.[4][5]:138 Under following leaders, religious organisations were given more autonomy. The government formally recognises five religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Protestantism and Islam (though the Chinese Catholic Church is independent of the Catholic Church in Rome). In the early twenty-first century there has been increasing official recognition of Confucianism and Chinese folk religion as part of China's cultural inheritance.
Folk or popular religion, the most widespread system of beliefs and practices, has evolved and adapted since at least the Shang and Zhou dynasties in the second millennium BCE. Fundamental elements of a theology and spiritual explanation for the nature of the universe harken back to this period and were further elaborated in the Axial Age. Basically, Chinese religion involves allegiance to the shen, often translated as "spirits", defining a variety of gods and immortals. These may be deities of the natural environment or ancestral principles of human groups, concepts of civility, culture heroes, many of whom feature in Chinese mythology and history. Confucian philosophy and religious practice began their long evolution during the later Zhou; Taoist institutionalised religions developed by the Han dynasty; Chinese Buddhism became widely popular by the Tang dynasty, and in response Confucian thinkers developed Neo-Confucian philosophies; and popular movements of salvation and local cults thrived.
Christianity and Islam arrived in China in the 7th century. Christianity did not take root until it was reintroduced in the 16th century by Jesuit missionaries. In the early 20th century Christian communities grew, but after 1949, foreign missionaries were expelled, and churches brought under government-controlled institutions. After the late 1970s, religious freedoms for Christians improved and new Chinese groups emerged.[8]:508, 532 China is also often considered a home to humanist and secularist, this-worldly thought beginning in the time of Confucius.
Because many, perhaps most, Han Chinese do not consider their spiritual beliefs and practices to be a "religion" and in any case do not feel that they must practise any one of them exclusively, it is difficult to gather clear and reliable statistics. According to scholarly opinion, "the great majority of China's population of 1.4+ billion" takes part in Chinese cosmological religion, its rituals and festivals of the lunar calendar, without belonging to any institutional teaching. National surveys conducted in the early 21st century estimated that some 80% of the population of China, which is more than a billion people, practise some kind of Chinese folk religion or Taoism; 10–16% are Buddhists; 2.53% are Christians; and 0.4% are Muslims. Folk religious movements of salvation constitute 2–3% to 13% of the population, while many in the intellectual class adhere to Confucianism as a religious identity. In addition, ethnic minority groups practise distinctive religions, including Tibetan Buddhism, and Islam among the Hui and Uyghur peoples.
History [ edit ]
Proto-Chinese and Xia-Shang-Zhou culture [ edit ]
dǐng 鼎 (ritual cauldron) with tāotiè 饕餮 motif. According to Didier, both the cauldrons and the taotie symmetrical faces originate as symbols of Di as the squared north Squared鼎 (ritual cauldron) with饕餮 motif. According to Didier, both the cauldrons and the taotie symmetrical faces originate as symbols of Di as the squared north celestial pole, with four faces.
Luoshu square. The Luoshu, the Hetu, liubo boards, shì 式) and luopan for fengshui, and the derived Tibetan chart for bloodletting based on thesquare. The, theboards, sundials Han diviner's boards (式) andfor, and the derived compass, as well as TLV mirrors, are all representations of Di as the north celestial pole.
Prior to the formation of Chinese civilisation and the spread of world religions in the region known today as East Asia (which includes the territorial boundaries of modern-day China), local tribes shared animistic, shamanic and totemic worldviews. Mediatory individuals such as shamans communicated prayers, sacrifices or offerings directly to the spiritual world, a heritage that survives in some modern forms of Chinese religion.
Ancient shamanism is especially connected to ancient Neolithic cultures such as the Hongshan culture.[14] The Flemish philosopher Ulrich Libbrecht traces the origins of some features of Taoism to what Jan Jakob Maria de Groot called "Wuism", that is Chinese shamanism.
Libbrecht distinguishes two layers in the development of the Chinese theology and religion that continues to this day, traditions derived respectively from the Shang (1600–1046 BCE) and subsequent Zhou dynasties (1046–256 BCE). The religion of the Shang was based on the worship of ancestors and god-kings, who survived as unseen divine forces after death. They were not transcendent entities, since the universe was "by itself so", not created by a force outside of it but generated by internal rhythms and cosmic powers. The royal ancestors were called di (帝), "deities", and the utmost progenitor was Shangdi (上帝 "Highest Deity"). Shangdi is identified with the dragon, symbol of the unlimited power (qi), of the "protean" primordial power which embodies yin and yang in unity, associated to the constellation Draco which winds around the north ecliptic pole, and slithers between the Little and Big Dipper (or Great Chariot). Already in Shang theology, the multiplicity of gods of nature and ancestors were viewed as parts of Di, and the four 方 fāng ("directions" or "sides") and their 風 fēng ("winds") as his cosmic will.
The Zhou dynasty, which overthrew the Shang, was more rooted in an agricultural worldview, and they emphasised a more universal idea of Tian (天 "Heaven"). The Shang dynasty's identification of Shangdi as their ancestor-god had asserted their claim to power by divine right; the Zhou transformed this claim into a legitimacy based on moral power, the Mandate of Heaven. In Zhou theology, Tian had no singular earthly progeny, but bestowed divine favour on virtuous rulers. Zhou kings declared that their victory over the Shang was because they were virtuous and loved their people, while the Shang were tyrants and thus were deprived of power by Tian.
John C. Didier and David Pankenier relate the shapes of both the ancient Chinese characters for Di and Tian to the patterns of stars in the northern skies, either drawn, in Didier's theory by connecting the constellations bracketing the north celestial pole as a square, or in Pankenier's theory by connecting some of the stars which form the constellations of the Big Dipper and broader Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor (Little Dipper). Cultures in other parts of the world have also conceived these stars or constellations as symbols of the origin of things, the supreme godhead, divinity and royal power.
Shang and Zhou graphemes for Di and Tian ① ② ③ ④ ⑤ ⑥ Dì Běijí). Otherwise, according to John C. Didier this and all the other graphemes ultimately represent Dīng 口 (archaic of shàng to signify "highest". The crossbar element in the middle represents a carpenter's square, and is present in other graphemes including 方 fāng, itself meaning "square", "direction", "phase", "way" and "power", which in Shang versions was alternately represented as a wū ("shaman"). Dì is equivalent to symbols like wàn 卍 ("all things") and Dingir/An ("Heaven").[27]
❷ Another version of the Shang grapheme for the nominal Dì.
❸ One version of the Shang grapheme for the verbal dì Dì. It may represent a fish entering the square of the north celestial pole (Dīng 口), or rather dìng, i.e. the Dì and thus framing true north. Also dǐng dì.
❹ Shang grapheme for Shàngjiǎ Shangdi.
❺ The most common Zhou version of the grapheme Tiān ("Heaven") dīng 口) head.
❻ Another Zhou version of the grapheme for Tiān. ❶ One version of the Shang grapheme for the nominal k :帝 ("Deity", "deities", "divinity"), which according to David W. Pankenier was drawn by connecting the stars of the "handle" of Ursa Major and the "scoop" of Ursa Minor determining the northern culmen (北极). Otherwise, according to John C. Didier this and all the other graphemes ultimately represent口 (archaic of k :丁, which also signifies the square tool), the north celestial pole godhead as a square. The bar on top, which is either present or not and one or two in Shang script, is the k :上to signify "highest". The crossbar element in the middle represents a carpenter's square, and is present in other graphemes including 方, itself meaning "square", "direction", "phase", "way" and "power", which in Shang versions was alternately represented as a cross potent ☩, homographically to 巫("shaman").is equivalent to symbols like卍 ("all things") and Mesopotamian ("Heaven").❷ Another version of the Shang grapheme for the nominal❸ One version of the Shang grapheme for the verbal k :禘, "to divine, to sacrifice (by fire)". The modern standard version is distinguished by the prefixion of the signifier for "cult" (礻shì) to the nominal. It may represent a fish entering the square of the north celestial pole (口), or rather k :定, i.e. the Square of Pegasus or Celestial Temple, when aligning withand thus framing true north. Also k :鼎 ("cauldron", "thurible") may have derived from the verbal❹ Shang grapheme for k :上甲, "Supreme Ancestor", an alternate name of❺ The most common Zhou version of the grapheme("Heaven") k :天, represented as a man with a squared (口) head.❻ Another Zhou version of the grapheme for
Latter Zhou and Warring States [ edit ]
By the 6th century BCE the power of Tian and the symbols that represented it on earth (architecture of cities, temples, altars and ritual cauldrons, and the Zhou ritual system) became "diffuse" and claimed by different potentates in the Zhou states to legitimise economic, political, and military ambitions. Divine right no longer was an exclusive privilege of the Zhou royal house, but might be bought by anyone able to afford the elaborate ceremonies and the old and new rites required to access the authority of Tian.
Besides the waning Zhou ritual system, what may be defined as "wild" (野 yě) traditions, or traditions "outside of the official system", developed as attempts to access the will of Tian. The population had lost faith in the official tradition, which was no longer perceived as an effective way to communicate with Heaven. The traditions of the "Nine Fields" (九野 Jiǔyě) and of the Yijing flourished. Chinese thinkers, faced with this challenge to legitimacy, diverged in a "Hundred Schools of Thought", each proposing its own theories for the reconstruction of the Zhou moral order.
The background of Confucian thought [ edit ]
Large seal Small seal rú, meaning "scholar", "refined one", "Confucian". It is composed of 人 rén ("man") and 需 xū ("to await"), itself composed of 雨 yǔ ("rain", "instruction") and 而 ér ("sky"), graphically a "man under the rain". Its full meaning is "man receiving instruction from Heaven". According to [37] Olden versions of the grapheme 儒, meaning "scholar", "refined one", "Confucian". It is composed of 人("man") and 需("to await"), itself composed of 雨("rain", "instruction") and 而("sky"), graphically a "man under the rain". Its full meaning is "man receiving instruction from Heaven". According to Kang Youwei Hu Shih, and Yao Xinzhong, they were the official shaman-priests experts in rites and astronomy of the Shang, and later Zhou, dynasty.
Confucius (551–479 BCE) appeared in this period of political decadence and spiritual questioning. He was educated in Shang-Zhou theology, which he contributed to transmit and reformulate giving centrality to self-cultivation and human agency, and the educational power of the self-established individual in assisting others to establish themselves (the principle of 愛人 àirén, "loving others"). As the Zhou reign collapsed, traditional values were abandoned resulting in a period of moral decline. Confucius saw an opportunity to reinforce values of compassion and tradition into society. Disillusioned with the widespread vulgarisation of the rituals to access Tian, he began to preach an ethical interpretation of traditional Zhou religion. In his view, the power of Tian is immanent, and responds positively to the sincere heart driven by humaneness and rightness, decency and altruism. Confucius conceived these qualities as the foundation needed to restore socio-political harmony. Like many contemporaries, Confucius saw ritual practices as efficacious ways to access Tian, but he thought that the crucial knot was the state of meditation that participants enter prior to engage in the ritual acts. Confucius amended and recodified the classical books inherited from the Xia-Shang-Zhou dynasties, and composed the Spring and Autumn Annals.
Philosophers in the Warring States compiled in the Analects, and formulated the classical metaphysics which became the lash of Confucianism. In accordance with the Master, they identified mental tranquility as the state of Tian, or the One (一 Yī), which in each individual is the Heaven-bestowed divine power to rule one's own life and the world. Going beyond the Master, they theorised the oneness of production and reabsorption into the cosmic source, and the possibility to understand and therefore reattain it through meditation. This line of thought would have influenced all Chinese individual and collective-political mystical theories and practices thereafter.
According to Zhou Youguang, Confucianism's name in Chinese, basically 儒 rú, originally referred to shamanic methods of holding rites and existed before Confucius' times, but with Confucius it came to mean devotion to propagating such teachings to bring civilisation to the people. Confucianism was initiated by Confucius, developed by Mencius (~372–289 BCE) and inherited by later generations, undergoing constant transformations and restructuring since its establishment, but preserving the principles of humaneness and righteousness at its core.
Qin and Han dynasties [ edit ]
The Qin (221–206 BCE), and especially Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), inherited the philosophical developments of the Warring States period molding them into a universalistic philosophy, cosmology and religion. It was in this period that religious focus shifted to the Earth (地 Dì), regarded as representative of Heaven's (celestial pole's) power. In the Han period, the philosophical concern was especially the crucial role of the human being on earth, completing the cosmological trinity of Heaven-Earth-humanity (天地人 Tiāndìrén). Han philosophers conceived the immanent virtue of Tian as working through earth and humanity to complete the 宇宙 yǔzhòu ("space-time").
The short-lived Qin dynasty, started by Qin Shihuang (247–220 BCE), who reunified the Warring States and was the first Chinese ruler to use the title of "emperor", chose Legalism as the state ideology, banning and persecuting all other schools of thought. Confucianism was harshly suppressed, with the burning of Confucian classics and killing of scholars who espoused the Confucian cause. The state ritual of the Qin was indeed similar to that of the following Han dynasty. Qin Shihuang personally held sacrifices to Di at Mount Tai, a site dedicated to the worship of the supreme God since pre-Xia times, and in the suburbs of the capital Xianyang. The emperors of Qin also concentrated the cults of the five forms of God, previously held at different locations, in unified temple complexes.
The universal religion of the Han, which became connected at an early time with the proto-Taoist Huang–Lao movement, was focused on the idea of the incarnation of God as the Yellow Emperor, the central one of the "Five Forms of the Highest Deity" (五方上帝 Wǔfāng Shàngdì). The idea of the incarnation of God was not new, as already the Shang royal lineage regarded themselves as divine. Their progenitors were "sons of God", born by women who "stepped on the imprinting" of Di. This was also true for royal ancestors of the early Zhou dynasty. The difference rests upon the fact that the Yellow Emperor was no longer an exclusive ancestor of some royal lineage, but rather a more universal archetype of the human being. The competing factions of the Confucians and the fāngshì (方士 "masters of directions"), regarded as representatives of the ancient religious tradition inherited from previous dynasties, concurred in the formulation of Han state religion, the former pushing for a centralisation of religio-political power around the worship of the God of Heaven by the emperor, while the latter emphasising the multiplicity of the local gods and the theology of the Yellow Emperor. Besides these developments of common Chinese and Confucian state religion, the latter Han dynasty was characterised by new religious phenomena: the emergence of Taoism outside state orthodoxy, the rise of indigenous millenarian religious movements, and the introduction of the foreign religion of Buddhism.
The cult of the Yellow Emperor [ edit
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50.6% 9.4 1.4 28.6% Kristaps Porzingis 21.0 50.2% 7.3 1.1 50.0%
If and when Jackson leaves the Knicks, he will leave his legacy behind. That legacy won’t be the title he hoped for. And it won’t be a Warriors-like offensively dominant club. Phil Jackson will leave behind, perhaps, the greatest draft pick of his NBA career. Kristaps Porzingis.
photo via llananbaAn 11-week election campaign is definitely its own circle of Hell. I was bored by week three, and at week seven yearn for the cool embrace of death.
Given the mountain of bullshit involved, it's easy to forget that a contest like the 2015 federal election comes along once in a generation. For the first time in history, the NDP is a serious contender to form the government in Ottawa (even if they have to sell their soul to get there). Halfway through the marathon, there's still no clear sense who will come out on top. As far as elections go, unless you were in Alberta last spring, it doesn't get any more dramatic than this.
Of course, because this is a parliamentary election and not a presidential one, the high personal drama between Stephen Harper, Thomas Mulcair, and Justin Trudeau is largely a red herring. The national campaign matters, but the election will really be fought and won in each of the 338 ridings across the country.
Some of these races will be extremely boring. Some will be tight, bloody battlegrounds that'll be kingmakers on October 19. Others might just be legendary faceoffs—like in Edmonton Centre, where the former head of the city's Chamber of Commerce is facing off against the head of the Alberta Federation of Labour. Front-row tickets to the class struggle: fuck yes.
But the race to watch in 2015 isn't actually all that crucial to the national outcome. It's the race to watch because it's such a fucking gongshow.
The riding of Avalon, on the east coast of Newfoundland, is in the middle of its own generational election. Former Liberal MP Scott "alleged sexual harassment" Andrews is running for re-election as an Independent against his old party. The Conservatives sabotaged their own star candidate before the nomination even closed as part of a nine-year-old war with the island. Union warhorse Jeannie Baldwin is hoping to make a breakthrough for the NDP in the riding against her scattered opponents. And LGBTQ activist Jennifer McCreath is making waves as the first openly trans person to appear on a federal ballot.
It's a clusterfuck. And while there are a lot of moving pieces, there's a good chance Andrews could win this election. In a political system where Independents are rarely able to run the electoral gauntlet, let alone while dogged by allegations of frotteurism, this would be no mean feat.
NEWFOUNDLAND DOGS
Running from the coast of Placentia Bay to Paradise on the edge of greater St. John's, the riding of Avalon is the only political region in the province to straddle the many solitudes of Newfoundland life. Bay and town, Liberal Protestant North and Conservative Catholic South, proud Confederates and Republican holdouts; behold the thrumming heart of the old Newfoundland cosmopolitanism.
The riding itself is young. It was drawn up in 2003, cobbled together out of Bonavista-Trinity-Conception and St. John's East and West. More than many other ridings in the province, Bonavista-Trinity-Conception liked to send strong, fighting Newfoundlanders to Ottawa—including a couple of premiers. Frank Moores did a stint there in the late 1960s before he rode home to slay Joe Smallwood, and it briefly hosted Brian Tobin when he abruptly quit as premier to make a play for Jean Chrétien's job. John Efford, the baymen's champion, held the post when it became Avalon in 2003 and was re-elected handily in 2004. Even when it went Conservative in 2006, part of Fabian Manning's appeal was an aura of fearless independence. He was banished from the provincial Progressive Conservative caucus in 2005 when he stood up for crab fishers in his district against Danny Williams' planned production quotas, and he rode that grassroots support into federal office.
But Manning strayed too far from that reputation in Ottawa and it cost him. Part of what brought him down was a notorious video of Manning applauding the prime minister about the 2007 budget that "shafted" Newfoundland and Labrador. (Although the two Senate appointments he got for losing back-to-back federal elections probably helped ease the pain.)
Regardless of partisan stripe, Avalon loves a pit bull. Not so much a lap dog.
Scott Andrews enjoys Canada Day with local children. Photo via Andrews' campaign website
A CAREER POLITICIAN ON THE RUN AGAIN
Scott Andrews grew up inside the Liberal party. His father was a big time Liberal back in Joey's day, and Andrews has been living and breathing the thick fog of provincial Liberalism as long as he's been alive. He got involved with the Young Liberals after Clyde Wells took over the ailing province in 1989; by the time Tobin came around, he was YL President. He worked in the provincial opposition office for a spell after Williams banished the party to the wilderness in 2003, and before he made the leap to federal politics, he served as the provincial party's Executive Director.
Andrews always had his fingers in Liberal business. There has never been a moment in the last 20 years where he wasn't involved in party affairs. And you don't spend that long working in the party apparatus without learning a thing or two about playing the game.
When Andrews first ran for town council in Conception Bay South, he got more votes than any other councillor in the history of the town. From the outside looking in, Andrews was a model parliamentarian, quietly checking career accomplishments off a list. Before his suspension from caucus, he was the Liberal party's critic for ethics.
Careful to avoid Manning's mistake, he publicly dissented from Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff in 2009, voting against the party's support of another federal budget that cut transfer payments to his province. He's also the only MP from Newfoundland and Labrador ever to get a Private Member's Bill passed into law. Bill C-464, "Zachary's Law," makes it easier for the courts to justify denying bail to people accused of serious crimes in order to protect their children.
Getting tough on criminals to save the children! If you knew nothing about the man (whose personal resemblance to This Hour Has 22 Minutes' Jerry Boyle is uncanny) and only saw his record, you'd think he was the island's Family Values politician.
In an age less sensitive to rape culture, Andrews may have been able to coast along as a Liberal backbencher, steadily greasing reception rooms and the gears of his electoral machine, for as long as he wanted. But he fell afoul of the post-Ghomeshi sea change, and his career ground to a halt last November when Justin Trudeau abruptly suspended him from caucus pending an investigation into sexual harassment allegations from an unnamed NDP MP.
There are no official details, but the Canadian Press reported at the time that Andrews allegedly followed his colleague home, forced his way through her door, pinned her against a wall and ground his crotch against her. She asked him to leave and he did, but he allegedly called her a "cockteaser" (among other things) after the event. We also don't know what findings were contained in the investigation's final report last March. But whatever it was proved enough for Trudeau to boot Andrews from the party. (To be clear though, Andrews has not been charged with any criminal wrongdoing.)
For his part, Andrews accepted Trudeau's decision, neither confirming nor denying the allegations. But he shirked all responsibility for any wrongdoing by chalking up the incident(s) to a woman misinterpreting his "jovial Newfoundland friendliness." Fair enough—let it never be said that Newfoundlanders aren't a friendly bunch. But most of us still manage to avoid accidentally getting accused of being a gross piece of shit.
Despite this rebuke from the party to which he devoted his life, Andrews refused to resign. Then, after a few months of radio silence, he issued a mass mail-out to the riding blasting Trudeau for denying him his "Charter rights, innocent until proven guilty, natural justice or the right to face my accuser." This missive also doubled as a straw poll, asking his constituents whether or not they'd support him in a bid for re-election as an Independent. The response must have been good, because Andrews tossed his figurative fedora into the ring shortly after the writ dropped in August, bringing along his wife Susan as campaign manager.
This is less shocking that it appears at first sight. Say what you will about the man—and there's clearly a lot to say—but Andrews isn't stupid. He's made a living playing the game, and playing it well. He wouldn't be running if he didn't think he had a pretty good shot of going back to Ottawa.
And by looking around the riding at the competition, he's probably right.
Ken McDonald smiles at something. Or maybe he's grimacing? Photo via McDonald's campaign website
THE LIBERALS ARE SEEING RED
Ken McDonald is not worried about Scott Andrews. The Liberal candidate appears positively jolly in his many campaign photos on Twitter, having a laugh while hammering in campaign signs or shooting the shit with people on their porches. He's especially chummy with his provincial counterparts, bumming around the St. John's Regatta or playing through a few rounds of golf at party fundraisers in the capital. And so he should be: the NL Liberals are expected to sweep the House of Assembly in November's election, and McDonald intends to ride that wave as far as possible.
(Nevermind that this local support is less a genuine enthusiasm for the Liberal party than it is a burning disdain for the governing Progressive Conservatives, but the fickle tastes of the provincial electorate is a story for another day.)
Splitting the Liberal vote doesn't bother McDonald. "I am convinced that the party trend will be stronger than it will be for the individual as an Independent," he told CBC back in May (he also apparently said this to Andrews' face). This is a pretty reasonable assumption. His riding has a strong Liberal tradition—before Fabian Manning's two-year interregnum, the last time Avalon/Bonavista-Trinity-Conception elected a Tory was Morrissey Johnson for a single term in 1984. Before that, it was Frank Moores in '68. And the province has never sent an Independent to Ottawa.
But Andrews is no ordinary Independent. He is a lifetime Liberal organizer and, until his recent expulsion, he was a major player in local party politics. In the provincial leadership race in 2013, Andrews helped bring tax-evader Paul Antle to a close finish against eventual winner Dwight Ball. This was after Andrews joined the campaign a few months late; had he been in on the ground floor of the campaign, it's possible that Antle would now be the province's incoming premier.
No one in polite company will admit it, but Andrews was a powerful force in regional Liberal politics. Despite all appearances, the man is like an outport Frank Underwood, a local political chessmaster. As an organizer, Andrews took a direct hand in working and talking with volunteers. He built a lot of personal loyalty with a lot of Liberals in Avalon over the past seven years.
In a Newfoundland campaign, working in the nuts and bolts of the operation alongside ordinary people is a tremendous advantage. This kind of insider knowledge is what makes or breaks a campaign, and Andrews arguably has more inside knowledge of the riding and how to campaign there than the rest of his opponents combined.
The Liberal riding association in Avalon is accordingly filled with Andrews loyalists. This puts McDonald in a bind. If he comes out attacking Andrews too harshly, he risks alienating sympathizers in his ranks and driving them to his opponent. But it's also hard to see how he can win by ignoring one of his biggest competitors, especially given that Andrews is going to be slamming Trudeau and the Liberals every chance he gets.
The real question for both campaigns is whether or not this split among the staffers also holds among the base. But unlike his opponent, Andrews is now free to fraternize with former partisan enemies. He's been spotted glad-handing at more than one provincial Tory event. Free agency in politics can cut both ways.
Ken McDonald is a great candidate on paper. But so was Michael Ignatieff. Counting on the strength of the Liberal brand against all comers has been the grave of more than one aspiring MP.
Danny Williams, former premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, quite possibly saying something rude about Stephen Harper. Photo via Wikimedia Commons
THE TORIES SING THE BLUES
Speaking of graves: the other side of this story is that the Conservative Party in Newfoundland is dead. The governing party have largely written the place off since shortly after their first victory in 2006. You can't really blame them. It's been a pretty rough ride for Stephen Harper.
The story is long, but not complicated. In late 2004, premier Danny Williams threw a temper tantrum over the possibility that the province's sudden oil wealth might mean we'd get less money from our equalization payments, so he tugged at our soft-nationalist heartstrings by pulling the Canadian flag down from every government building in the province. Prime Minister Paul Martin caved like a cheap set of bleachers, and Williams ascended his throne as the Newfoundlandic god-king foretold in ancient prophecy.
After the final collapse of Martin's government triggered the 2006 election, Harper wrote to Williams with a promise to uphold this sweet federal bargain. But Ontario had fallen on hard times of its own and its voters were more than a little miffed about Newfoundland's generous deal. And because Ontario is infinitely more valuable in the calculus of federal politics, Harper wasted no time in breaking his promise to the Rock. Williams was outraged, and ordered his subjects to vote Anything But Conservative in the next election. The provincial PC party went as far as to register "ABC" as a third party with Elections Canada and drop over $80,000 on trashing the federal government.
It didn't make much difference nationally, but it worked at home. Five years after Williams' retirement, the Conservative party is still banished from the banks of Newfoundland. (Labrador elected Peter Penashue in 2011, but he resigned in 2013 over illegitimate campaign donations and lost the subsequent by-election. He's running again this year.)
But despite these rocky conditions, Tories have always found fertile soil in Avalon. Fabian Manning may have been annihilated by Andrews in 2008 thanks to Williams' ABC campaign, but he made a respectable comeback in his 2011 rematch and, had the 2013 boundary changes been in place at the time, he actually would have won by almost 2000 votes. The riding—particularly along the Southern Shore—has deep Tory roots, and it was never out of the question that they could draw another strong showing, especially in 2015. With Andrews disgraced and the Liberal camp divided, a strong candidate could have delivered this seat.
The Tories had that candidate in Ches Crosbie. Son of legendary firebrand John Crosbie and an accomplished lawyer in his own right, Crosbie had the name, profile, and oligarchic blood that could have won the day. But instead, the CPC's greenlight committee inexplicably canned the guy.
No one is really sure what happened. The official story is that Crosbie was disqualified because he briefly appeared as "King Harper" in a mock-Shakespeare play at a fundraiser where he delivered a one-line reference to the Duffy trial. Others speculated that it was because Crosbie's law firm is representing residential school survivors in a class action suit against the federal government, and that the case is still before the courts—although Crosbie himself says this is not the case. For his part, after calling the Conservative party down to the dirt, John Crosbie suggested the whole thing is part ofa conspiracy orchestrated by Senator David Wells in a bid to consolidate his grasp on the province's patronage system. (Wells denies this.)
Most likely, the real reason is that the feds were worried Ches' apple didn't fall far enough from John's tree. The Conservatives would rather lose the seat than deal with a loose cannon like a Crosbie in their caucus, ranting and roaring out of turn. ("For ten years or however long the present prime minister's been there, only one voice carries and that's his, but it wasn't like that when I was a minister," John Crosbie recently reminisced with iPolitics.)
Party leaders in this country don't want MPs who take their craft as parliamentarians too seriously. They just want people who can manage the voters back home and then show up to vote how they're told. This is the only account that can explain Peter Penashue or Piss Cup Guy being greenlighted for the Conservatives while Ches Crosbie was told to fuck off.
Whatever actually happened, not only did the Conservatives torpedo their best shot at winning a seat in Newfoundland and Labrador, but they managed to alienate one of the province's truly great Tory dynasties. Instead, they have drafted Lorraine Barnett from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency to put her name on the ballot, fall on her sword, and give body to the fiction that the party hasn't abandoned the riding.
"The allegations against Mr. Andrews are disturbing and I really don't think he's laid his cards on the table, I don't think he's come clean to people," Barnett told CBC.
She is one of four women running against Andrews in this election.
Barnett is hoping that the divisions in the Liberal party will work in her favour. This is unlikely. Not only is Andrews positioned to capture a large swathe of the Liberal vote, but there is a good chance he can cut into the traditional Tory vote too. There are more than a few conservatives in the riding who are pissed off about what happened to Crosbie and who've warmed to the cut of Andrews' jib now that he's cursing that punk Trudeau. And there's definitely a sizeable chunk of people who believe he really did get a raw deal from the Social Justice Warriors in the Liberal and NDP caucuses who they see as too eager to pervert due process in their sexual harassment witch hunt.
It may be that Andrews is ultimately brought down by the disturbing allegations against him. But that challenge is not going to come from the right.
Bold lighting colour scheme, Jeannie Baldwin. Photo courtesy Baldwin's campaign website
ORANGE YOU GLAD YOU DIDN'T VOTE SCOTT ANDREWS? (NOT SORRY)
The NDP in this race is a wildcard. More than the other two major parties, the NDP stands to gain the most from national polling trends (for now). And as the former Atlantic Regional VP of the Public Service Alliance Canada union, Jeannie Baldwin has the street cred to be a star candidate for the social democrats. But it's hard to say at the outset whether the party has a shot.
Historically, the NDP have never been a contender, either before or since the riding became Avalon. In 2011, as Jack Layton's Orange Wave surged across the country, the NDP in Avalon actually lost votes compared to their showing in 2008. Despite an overwhelmingly working-class character, rural Newfoundland and Labrador has never really warmed up to the federal (or provincial) New Democrats.
But the makeup of the riding has changed a lot since the last election. A fifth of the old St. John's East riding, the sprawling suburbs of Conception Bay South and Paradise, have been shuffled into Avalon. St. John's East elected Jack Harris in 2008 and 2011 by some of the largest margins in the country, and they look poised to do so again in 2015. It goes without saying that Harris will be a shoe-in for cabinet if Mulcair forms the government. Had these areas been part of Avalon in the last election, the NDP would have doubled their vote.
Part of voting (or not voting) NDP in this country seems to boil down to psychology. The party's surge federally is thanks in no small part to Rachel Notley's stunning victory in Alberta last spring. Suddenly a taboo seems to have been lifted and people across Canada feel like it's safe to cast their vote for a Dipper. Given that the new parts of Avalon have voted NDP before and the sky didn't fall, they'd probably be okay with doing it again.
But it's hard to say how many of Harris' votes will carry over in the new riding. After more than 25 years of political service, Harris has become a Newfoundland statesman, larger than any one party or region. The other St. John's NDP MP, anti-Confederate (this means something else in Newfoundland) journalist Ryan Cleary, won by a significantly smaller margin in the last election despite being tailor-made for the St. John's/Mount Pearl champagne socialist demographic.
While they have a beachhead established in Paradise and CBS, the party will have to work hard to maintain it without Harris' name recognition. Baldwin's campaign will have to build up and out from the St. John's suburbs. The provincial party will be little help, since they're busy recovering from self-inflicted burn wounds and struggling to avoid irrelevancy in November's provincial election. If anything, they'll be focusing most of their campaigning in St. John's. Plus, the NL NDP tanked in the last two provincial by-elections held in the riding (Carbonear-Harbour Grace in 2013 and Conception Bay South in 2014), so maybe some distance might do the federal campaign a bit of good.
That's not to count Baldwin out. As a major regional figure in one of the country's more powerful labour unions, she certainly has the professional background to organize the shit out of a political campaign. She outgunned Jenny Wright for the NDP nomination by a large margin, and Wright (the executive director of the St. John's Status of Women Council and organizer of the province's first SlutWalk, whose victory would've been the most emotionally satisfying way to see Scott Andrews eat shit) was no slacker.
Baldwin will have a solid machine behind her, staffed with union battleaxes and, depending on how the Liberal vote splits in the denser parts of CBS, there may be enough of a window for her to squeeze through to victory. But she has a limited profile outside the labour movement, and beyond the St. John's suburbs, the strength of the NDP vote gets pretty questionable.
But there is wisdom in the crowd. If it looks like Tom Mulcair is poised to form government in the runup to election day, the riding might be willing to get in on the ground floor of a brand new day in Ottawa.
They'd be hard pressed to find a better way to stick it to both the Liberals (past and present) and the Tories than that.
Now this is a good campaign photo. Photo via Byrne-Puumala's campaign website
IT'S NOT EASY BEING GREEN
Krista Byrne-Puumala is a great Green candidate. She's young and obviously vibrant. She ran a renewable energy company that installed solar panels in Ontario and interned as the Environmental Coordinator for the city of Mount Pearl for six months. She's active in promoting food sustainability in Newfoundland and Labrador, which is an issue the province desperately needs to tackle.
Unfortunately, no one here will ever vote Green because they're against the seal hunt, and Newfoundlanders love the seal hunt. Sorry.
A TRANS RIGHTS TRAILBLAZER TAKING ON ALL COMERS
If you lived in or around St. John's in the summer of 2009 and don't remember the iconic cover The Scope (RIP) ran about Jennifer McCreath, you're a fucking scrub. The shot of McCreath in a bikini, rising out of the icy waters at Topsail Beach like a boss, is a historic piece of provincial photojournalism. She ran five marathons in 2009 shortly after reassignment surgery, and won gold at the World Outgames in Denmark that July, becoming "the first formally recognized transsexual in world history to run a marathon."
McCreath doesn't fuck around, and this general aura of fearlessness is part of the reason why she's the first openly transgender candidate in Canadian history to appear on a federal ballot. (Second, if you count Québec NDP candidate Micheline Montreuil, but the party dropped her from its roster in 2007 before an election was called.)
Born in Nova Scotia before moving to Toronto as a child, she came to St. John's in 2007 to take a job as a senior policy analyst with the provincial government. She opted to begin her transition in Newfoundland, putting trans issues on the public radar eight years ago through a series of interviews with local broadcaster NTV.
Transitioning isn't easy—especially when you're a public figure in a pretty close-knit place. But McCreath found Newfoundland pleasant and welcoming, telling The Scope in 2009 that:
"In Newfoundland, I would say in general, people are open and accepting of diversity. Even if there's not necessarily a lot of diversity... People here often can understand what it feels like to be different... People can appreciate someone who's a little different who's struggling to gain societal acceptance. They know I'm still a human being."
Since then, she has been a prominent figure in local activism. She was a founding member of St. John's Pride Inc. (she broke with them in 2012 over their handling of trans issues, but reconciled in 2014), founder of the East Coast Trans Alliance, and she even ran for deputy mayor of St. John's in 2013.
Jennifer McCreath, just runnin' a marathon like nobody's business. Photo via Facebook/Jennifer McCreath
Now she's running for Strength in Democracy, the young brainchild of disaffected NDP MP Jean-François Larose and one-time Bloc Québecois leadership hopeful Jean-François Fortin. Strength in Democracy (known as Forces et Democratie in Québec) is basically a metastasized Bloc. Rather than outright separatism, they want a decentralized federalism, empowered and engaged citizenship, and better regional representation in Ottawa. Not unlike Preston Manning's Reform Party, they are a rebellious upstart looking to help Canadians throw off the straitjacket of heavily-scripted, leader-driven party discipline that has come to dominate the House of Commons. Unlike Preston Manning's Reform Party, they're a protest party in search of a base.
But that said, it's not outrageous that a pro-region protest party in the vein of the BQ would strike a chord on the east coast. Take away the overt references to French-Canadian nationalism, and'sovereignty' as a general political concept has always made intuitive sense to Newfoundlanders. Like Québec, we have a fierce sense of nationalist alienation (and unlike Québec, an independent Newfoundland state is still—just barely—within living memory). We know what it's like to feel like the bastards upalong don't actually give a shit about giving you a raw deal.
Whether these feelings are legitimate or not is beside the point. They exist, and as the Danny Williams saga demonstrates, they drive more of our politics than many people would care to admit. And in this vein, McCreath is the perfect fit. It's hard to argue that anyone is better suited to kick down the doors of the House of Commons and demand they start respecting our distinct society than Newfoundland and Labrador's original trans rights trailblazer.
But calling it an uphill battle is an understatement. Fringe parties often fare worse than Independents in elections, and at the moment there is no ready source of Newfoundland nationalist ressentiment for McCreath's campaign to exploit. And while McCreath has more immediate name recognition than most of the other candidates, she can't hold a candle to Andrews in the riding. The man has spent the better part of seven years insinuating himself into his constituents' lives through a religious devotion to birthday card mailouts and pancake breakfasts.
And there's definitely more than one unenlightened enclave in Avalon that isn't ready to make some Come-From-Away their MP. Being trans is fine, but being a Mainlander? God preserve you, my friend.
Protest parties are a long shot, but they can offer a valuable service—they can give a voice to independent-minded voters while still offering the organization, however fragile, of a political party. This might be especially useful in Avalon, where anyone wanting to flip the bird to the major parties isn't stuck relying on Mr. Alleged Sexual Harassment to be their mouthpiece.
Avalon Peninsula. Photo via Flickr user Yankech gary
THE TIDE ROLLS OUT
Avalon is on track to make history. They're either about to elect their first NDP MP and start breaking the rural ice for the S.S. Social Democracy, or they're about to re-elect a maverick MP with a chip on his shoulder about party (and—allegedly—personal) discipline.
In the grand scheme of things, the stakes are not that high. The outcome of the race in Avalon is unlikely to have any big impact on government in Ottawa. Even if we get a minority government, it's unlikely that its life will rest in the hands of an east coast backbencher.
But just because the Ultimate Fate of Canada doesn't hang in the balance, there are other reasons to care about what happens in this riding. For one, the sheer absurdity of the showdown makes it the most colourful race in Canada right now. It's not every day that a high-profile Canadian sex scandal intersects with a decade-long Conservative family feud, the breakthrough of an NDP government, and the political face of a province's trans community. If the CBC had any money left, they could probably turn this into a killer TV miniseries with one of those Doyles.
It's impossible to say, this far away from voting day, what will actually happen. All things being equal, this should be a contest between the Liberals and the NDP over a place Stephen Harper left for dead nearly a decade ago. But here instead we have a dark horse candidate who has a real shot at upsetting the usual dynamics of Canadian politics in the worst possible way. It may very well be that Scott Andrews has a preternatural gift for electioneering. But if he really is reaffirmed to office on October 19th, someone is going to need to sit down with the riding and have a long, uncomfortable conversation about sexual harassment on Parliament Hill.
There's a lot going on here, and if you love the Rock like I do, it's going to be a nail-biter to see how it all goes down. All I know is that if there's an all-candidates debate between here and the polling booth, I'm making the rules for the drinking game.
And you'd better believe there's going to be a hell of a lot of Screech.
Lead photo via Flickr user Dean. Follow Drew Brown on Twitter.Biochar Enhances Crop Yield, Enriches Soil & Protects Water
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Persistency in Soil— It is undisputed that biochar is more persistent than any form of organic matter commonly applied to soil. Because of biochar's long-term persistence in soil (more than 2,500 years and counting), all the associated benefits of nutrient retention, water retention and overall soil fertility are longer lasting than with common fertilizers alone. Biochar, comparitively inert, doesn't break down like other organic soil amendments and resists chemical and microbial degradation, especially when buried.
Biochar reduces soil acidity decreasing liming needs but does not actually add nutrients. Biochar made from manure is the exception; it retains a significant amount of nutrients from its source. Because biochar attracts and holds soil nutrients, it reduces fertilizer requirements - something common organic matter cannot do. As a result, fertilization costs are minimized and fertilizer (organic or chemical) is retained in the soil for far longer. Chemical fertilizers are typically fossil-fuel based, thus biochar provides additional indirect climate change benefits by reducing fertilizer needs.
Enhanced Crop Yields— When added to soil, biochar improves plant growth and enhances crop yields, increasing food production and sustainability in areas with depleted soils, limited organic resources, insufficient water and/or access to agrochemical fertilizers. Not all soils react the same to biochar and it frequently can take up to a year to see results. On poor soils with low carbon content, many studies have shown biochar can increase crop yields up to four times, like the corn plots pictured on the right and below.
Research presented at a recent American Chemical Society annual meeting suggests that biochar plus chemical fertilizer yields increased growth of winter wheat and several vegetables by 25-50% compared to chemical fertilization alone. Soil Science Society of America experiments found that biochar supplemented with fertilizer outperformed fertilizer alone by 60%.
It is important to note that not all biochar is the same. The key chemical and physical properties of biochar are greatly affected by the type of feed stock being heated and the conditions of the pyrolysis process. For example, biochar made from manure will have a higher nutrient content than biochar made from wood cuttings. However, the biochar from the wood cuttings is likely to have a greater degree of persistence over a longer period of time. The two different chars will look the same but will behave quite differently.
Click here for a printer friendly version.Left-wing rapper and anti-fascist Pavlos Fissas, aka Killah P, who was murdered in Athens last night
Last night, 34-year-old antifascist and left-wing rapper Pavlos Fissas was stabbed to death in Athens while he was surrounded by a group of 30 thugs in Golden Dawn shirts and military pants. The victim, whose stage name is MC Killah P, had been watching a soccer match with his girlfriend.
The Greek media is reporting that the murder came about after fighting between the fascists and antifascists, but according to eyewitnesses there were no clashes. The source—a local woman with no stated political allegiance—said that while Fissas was surrounded by the fascist mob, the murderer pulled up in a car, parked in a hurry, jumped out and attacked him straight away—details that point toward a premeditated attack. Fissas was stabbed twice in the heart, and once in his stomach. He died later in the hospital. The murderer was arrested later and confessed to both the murder and the political nature of his act.
The same sources allege that a group of police officers at the scene did nothing to stop what was happening—according to the left-wing Athens-based website Left.gr, police told onlookers that they could not intervene because the assailants were “too numerous.” The attacker was eventually arrested by an officer and his car was taken away. Two hundred antifascists gathered at the scene later, and calls for protest marches all around Greece were put out.
The Golden Dawn claims that the perpetrator isn't a member of their organization and is threatening anyone who implicates them in the murder with lawsuits. However, police sources have confirmed to Kathimerini newspaper reporter Jean Souliotis that his party membership card was found in the trash outside his house. According to sources, he is associated with the Piraeus branch of the Golden Dawn.
As far as Golden Dawn violence goes, this was an extreme incident, but not an isolated one. There seems to have been a resurgence in Golden Dawn attacks of late, to the extent that you wonder if this is a calculated strategy to escalate tensions between the far-right party and its political opponents. Late last Thursday night, 30 Greek Communist Party (KKE) members were putting up posters in the streets of Perama, when a group of 50 masked individuals wearing Golden Dawn insignia attacked them with iron bars and wooden sticks with nails through them. Nine KKE members were hospitalized.
When I spoke to Sotiris Poulikoyiannis, President of the metalworkers union and one of those attacked, he told me, “When they came for us, they were shouting, ‘We’re running this place, this harbour is ours.’ They were well prepared and equipped, they had sticks with nails in the end—this wasn’t a random attack. The two people in charge of the group even identified themselves.”
The scene of the murder. Photo via.
It doesn't look like a coincidence that the attack came after a speech by two Golden Dawn MPs in the area. One of them, Yiannis Lagos, told his activist branch, “You choose how you want to move forward, and we’ll back you up." This had echoes of a speech he made last year, after which an attack was unleashed upon some Egyptian fishermen. On both occasions, no charges of incitement to violence were brought against him, and it's unlikely that any will brought against Golden Dawn after Fissas' murder.
Curiously, while the Golden Dawn has been ramping up the violence it has also been flirting with relative respectability, by courting New Democracy—the large center-right party that is in the government at the moment. New Democracy kept quiet about the attack on the communists in the domestic media, only condemning it in Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine. Last week, high-profile Greek journalist Babis Papadimitriou asked, “If SYRIZA [a left party] can work with KKE, why can’t a more serious Golden Dawn support a conservative alliance, like what happened in Norway?” Several MPs and advisors have hinted at the possibility of a potential
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3 april 2014 16:13Casino owner Steve Wynn seems to have crapped out with some recent comments he made about the poor.
Wynn, the CEO of Wynn Resorts (WYNN), said during his company's investor day presentation late Wednesday that wealthy gamblers who come to his high-end casinos don't want the less fortunate hanging around with them.
"Rich people only like being around rich people," he said. "Nobody likes being around poor people, especially poor people." Wynn added that he was trying to make his company like a Chanel or Louis Vuitton of the gambling world.
Wynn Resorts was not immediately available for further comment about Steve Wynn's remarks.
But Wynn is notoriously outspoken and no stranger to controversy. A Democrat, Wynn told investors during a conference call in 2011 that the Obama administration is "the greatest wet blanket to business, progress and job creation" in his lifetime.
Related: Nevada casinos hit by massive losses
And in 2014, Wynn had a feud with Hollywood star George Clooney after Clooney claimed that Wynn called Obama an "a--hole." Wynn has denied he said that.
Wynn's most recent controversial remarks come at an interesting time for the company though.
Wynn Resorts has beaten long odds to be one of the hottest stocks of 2016.
Shares are up nearly 45% -- despite continued weakness at its casino in the Macau region of China and sluggish demand in Las Vegas.
Related: Macau's economy shrank 20% in 2015
There has also been a nasty battle for control of the company between him and his ex-wife -- former board member Elaine Wynn. Steve Wynn, who founded the company, has traded barbs with his ex-wife in court documents and press releases for many weeks.
But Wynn Resorts has a long way to go before it gets anywhere close to the lofty levels it traded at just a few years ago. The stock plunged nearly 25% in 2014 and lost more than half its value last year.
So Wynn Resorts still faces long odds -- especially since it has some ambitious expansion plans that could take a bite out of profits.
Wynn Resorts has a second casino in Macau opening later this year. It is also developing a casino just outside of Boston and announced plans for yet another casino in Las Vegas -- complete with a 38 acre lagoon, beach and boardwalk.
No word yet on whether or not tourists and Sin City residents will need to verify that they have a seven-figure income before setting foot on that boardwalk though.As for Mike D’Antoni’s offense? Well, Lamar absolutely thrived in Phil Jackson’s Triangle offense, but I believe he could be effective in D’Antoni’s as well.
D’Antoni likes the idea of a stretch four, and although Lamar isn’t the best shooter, his versatility and ability to do so many things on the court can be an asset for the system. Essentially, Odom is able to operate from farther away from the basket than Pau Gasol was last season when D’Antoni tried to have him do that. Also, as stated earlier, Odom and Gasol have a strong chemistry and Odom was often the guy who was able to bridge the ball from the back court into the post–which was another problem the Lakers faced at times last season.
Many of you may still be worried about Odom’s potential at this juncture of his career, but I’m still willing to bet that he’ll still be quite productive.
Lamar has never been a player who has relied on his athleticism or speed, but rather on his skill level. Basically, at age 34, he’s physically not a whole lot different than he was when he was 30; his game has always been smooth instead of flashy or hyper-athletic.
Is he the type of athletic specimen the Lakers so desperately use right now? Not at all, but the Lakers are hard-pressed to find someone like that in this free agent season.
However, Odom is a pass-first type of player, which is always welcomed on a team, and no player is quicker than the ball when it comes to offense versus defense.
Delving more into the offense, although Mike D’Antoni eventually gave in to posting the ball more frequently as opposed to running pick-and-rolls to death towards the end of the season, he’ll still want to run some pick-and-rolls.
Where Odom fits into that is the fact that he can both create and finish on pick-and-roll plays; he can play on both sides of those.
Oh, and I’m sure that D’Antoni will love the fact that Odom can rebound and push the ball in one swoop.
Back to the passing, though. Can you imagine the type of half-court passing display that can be put on with the likes of Steve Nash, Kobe Bryant, Lamar Odom, and Pau Gasol on the floor together?
Defensively, Odom’s length can still be used on the likes of quick guards all the way down to tall centers.
Perhaps the biggest selling point on both sides, however, is simple: Familiarity.
Odom has played alongside Kobe and Pau, won with them, and the group knows each others’ respective game and tendencies.
They also get along well off the court, which seems to be a huge factor in decisions like this, as of late.
At the core of it all, it’s a move that would likely be welcomed by the players, coaches, management, and the fans.
That’s enough of what I think, though. What do you all think? L.O. or no?
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Did you see our video about the Lakers possibly using their Amnesty on MWP? If not, check out our video below and don’t forget to click here to subscribe to our YouTube Channel!Trump’s Attack on Public Land Threatens America’s Degrading Natural Beauty
Kobi Azoulay Blocked Unblock Follow Following Dec 4, 2017
Valley of the Gods in Bears Ears National Monument (Katherine Frey / The Washington Post).
In an era where oil spills, agriculture, and development are constantly desecrating the natural world, visiting public lands can feel like going back in time. It allows visitors the opportunity to see what the American landscape was like before the industrial revolution, when humanity’s connection with nature degraded as the environment did too.
Of course, it isn’t all about us. These lands provide wildlife with a final frontier where they can live their lives peacefully, mostly free from human interference. It is the least we could do after taking their home, destroying it, and killing their ancestors in the process.
Interestingly enough, when it comes to Donald Trump’s decision on Monday to issue executive orders shrinking Bears Ears National Monument by over 80 percent, and Staircase-Escalante National Monument by almost half, he is also disrespecting Native Americans who suffered that same fate.
These National Monuments are rife with Indigenous culture and history. Numerous tribes have ancient artifacts at these monuments, and many still hold ceremonies there to honor their ancestors and the land they consider sacred. It is also where Native Americans go to get traditional natural resources.
“We survive off that land,” Jonah Yellowman of the Navajo Nation said. “Where I live, we don’t have any trees. Also, we use different kinds of plants and herbs for basket weaving — people survive on that. People use it for hunting.”
Monday’s executive orders open up about 2 million acres of land to potential oil and gas drilling, which is a notorious source of pollution. It will break up wildlife habitats, radically transform the landscape, and put the air and water at risk of being poisoned. Indigenous Americans sustainable impact on the land pales in comparison to the destruction that fossil fuel extraction will cause.
This is just one example of the Trump Administrations full-fledged attack on America’s pristine public lands.
In August, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke completed his review of 27 National Monuments. He recommended that 10 of them be altered to allow for activities such as grazing, logging, mining, and commercial fishing, while four of them (including Bear Ears and Staircase-Escalante) should be shrunk in size. These activities would almost certainly shake-up the ecological balance that currently exists there, and probably drastically so.
Tucked inside of last week’s GOP tax bill was another assault on protected land. A provision of the bill opened up a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling for the first time. While it remains to be seen whether this will be included in the final bill, it is just another action in the Trump Administration’s pattern of protecting fossil fuel interests at the expense of the environment.
Even one of the seven natural wonders of the world is at risk. The Trump Administration has asked for a review of a uranium mining ban in the Grand Canyon watershed. All of these attacks on public lands are extremely threatening to our environment, but if successful, this assault on one of the most breath-taking landscapes in the world would be a symbolic shot in the heart for the American soul.
Photo of Grand Canyon via National Park Foundation
This administration is not just trying to physically attack our public lands, they are also trying to make them harder for us to see.
The National Park Service has proposed more than doubling the price of entrance at 17 National Parks — including some of the most popular such as the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Yosemite. By raising the price, they make it harder for low-income Americans to see our country’s natural beauty. The less people visiting these parks and gaining a personal connection with the land, the easier it becomes to steal them from us.
Most of us live in urban areas separate from the natural world, but luckily we still have the privilege to visit public lands and return to our roots. If the Trump Administration has its way, future generations will be even more deprived of this natural beauty than we are today.
“God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, diseases, avalanches and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.” -John Muir
Edit: The original photo for this article incorrectly displayed Monument Valley, rather than Bears Ears National Monument.As required by Kansas law (the Personal and Family Protection Act (“PFPA”)), concealed carry of handguns shall be permitted on University campuses (except the Kansas City, Kansas campus of the KU Medical Center in the Health Care District), including all buildings and public areas of buildings owned or leased by the University that do not have adequate security measures, except in specified restricted access areas within buildings. Open carry of firearms and possession of weapons other than concealed handguns shall be prohibited on all University campuses, except for police instructors and their students who carry their service or training weapons openly as part of authorized police training conducted at the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center’s (“KLETC”) Yoder campus. Nothing in this policy shall be read to prohibit the possession of weapons on University campuses (1) as necessary for the conduct of Board of Regents approved academic programs or University approved activities or practices, including those conducted by the Reserve Officer Training Corps faculty and their enrolled students and by the KLETC police instructors and their enrolled students, or (2) by University police or security officers or other law enforcement officers as defined by K.S.A. 75-7c22. The University of Kansas, Lawrence, campuses, and the University of Kansas Medical Center campuses (except the Kansas City, Kansas campus of the KU Medical Center in the Health Care District) shall develop campus specific procedures for the safe possession, use, and storage of such weapons.
Concealed Carry
Beginning July 1, 2017, any individual who is 21 years of age or older and who is not prohibited or disqualified by law and who is lawfully eligible to carry a concealed handgun in Kansas shall not be precluded from doing so on University campuses, including all facilities owned or leased by the University, except (1) on the Kansas City, Kansas campus of the KU Medical Center in the Health Care District; (2) in buildings and public areas of buildings for which adequate security measures are provided or, (3) in a specified restricted access area of a building. Within such restricted access areas, concealed carry will be banned. Individuals who are not employees of the University may be authorized access through a restricted access entrance only pursuant to a University screening process that is compliant with the provisions of the PFPA.
Safety Measures
Each individual who lawfully possesses a handgun on any of the University campuses on which concealed carry is allowed shall at all times have that handgun in the person’s custody and control and shall be wholly and solely responsible for carrying, storing and using the handgun in a safe manner and in accordance with the law, Board of Regents policy and University policy. This responsibility shall include the obligation at all times to keep it secure and concealed from view when not in use for purposes provided by law.
Every handgun carried by an individual into any University building in which concealed carry is allowed must be secured in a holster that completely covers the trigger and the entire trigger guard area and that secures any external hammer in an un-cocked position through the use of a strap or by other means. Handguns with an external safety must be carried with the safety in the “on” position. The holster must have sufficient tension or grip on the handgun to retain it in the holster even when subjected to unexpected jostling. Semiautomatic handguns must be carried without a chambered round of ammunition. Revolvers must be carried with the hammer resting on an empty cylinder.
The Director of the KLETC shall implement appropriate measures and procedures regarding concealed carry on the Yoder campus to assure the safety of students and instructors during training.
Nothing in this policy shall be interpreted to require individuals who lawfully possess a handgun to use it in defense of others.
No person shall use the fact or possibility that he or she is carrying a concealed weapon with the intent to intimidate another person except in defense of self or others.
Except for law enforcement officers, no person shall carry a firearm of any type, whether concealed or openly, into any secured area located in the offices and facilities of the University police (K.S.A. 75-7c20(g)).
The implementing procedures of the University of Kansas, Lawrence, campuses, and the University of Kansas Medical Center campuses shall include detailed provisions regarding how and where to report suspected violations of this policy, how faculty, staff and students shall be notified of the laws and policies pertaining to concealed carry on campus, and shall also provide interested students, faculty and staff with information about any known locally or regionally available firearm safety instruction.
Federal and State Restrictions on Firearms
The following state and federal laws apply to possession and use of firearms, including the carry of concealed handguns.
Kansas law states that the only type of firearm that an individual can carry while concealed is a handgun;
An individual in possession of a concealed handgun must be at least 21 years of age (K.S.A. 21-6302(a)(4));
A firearm cannot be carried by an individual under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or both, to such a degree as to render the individual incapable of safely operating the firearm (K.S.A. 21-6332);
A firearm cannot be carried by an individual who is an unlawful user of and addicted to any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act, codified at 21 U.S.C. § 802) (K.S.A. 21-6301(a)(10));
A firearm cannot be carried by an individual who is or has been a mentally ill person subject or has been subjected to involuntary commitment (K.S.A. 21-6301(a)(13));
A firearm cannot be carried by an individual with an alcohol or substance abuse problem subject to involuntary commitment (K.S.A. 21-6301(a)(13));
A firearm cannot be carried by an individual who has been convicted of a felony crime (K.S.A. 21-6304(a)) or convicted in any court of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year (18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1));
Automatic firearms and sawed off shotguns cannot be carried (K.S.A. 21-6301(a)(5));
A cartridge which can be fired by a handgun and which has a plastic-coated bullet with a core of less than 60% lead by weight is illegal (K.S.A. 21-6301(a)(6));
Suppressors and silencers cannot be used with a firearm (K.S.A. 21-6301(a)(4));
Firearms cannot be fired in the corporate limits of a city or at a dwelling, or at a structure or vehicle in which people are present, except in self-defense (K.S.A. 21-6308a and 21-6308(a)(1)(A));
A firearm cannot be carried by a person who is a fugitive from justice (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(2));
A firearm cannot be carried by an individual who is an illegal alien (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5)(A));
A firearm cannot be carried by an individual who has been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(6));
A firearm cannot be carried by an individual who has renounced his or her United States citizenship (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(7));
A firearm cannot be carried by an individual who is subject to a court order restraining the person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or child of the intimate partner (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8)); and
A firearm cannot be carried by an individual who has been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9)).
Open Carry Prohibited
Except as otherwise specifically provided in the Policy Statement above, open carry of any firearm anywhere on any of the University campuses is prohibited. Each entrance to each building and facility on each campus shall be conspicuously posted with appropriate signs indicating that openly carrying a firearm into that building or facility is prohibited. Additional signs may be posted as appropriate.
Except in those instances where necessary for self-defense or transferring to safe storage and except as otherwise provided in this policy, it shall be a violation of University and Board of Regents policy to openly display any concealed carry handgun while on campus.
Regardless whether an individual is otherwise lawfully eligible to carry a concealed handgun, it shall be a violation of University and Board of Regents policy to commit any of the following offenses on University campuses:
Possess a firearm under the influence of alcohol or drugs, as defined by K.S.A. 21-6332, and amendments thereto;
discharge a firearm in violation of K.S.A. 21-6308, and amendments thereto;
discharge a firearm within or into the corporate limits of any city in violation of K.S.A. 21-6308a; or
otherwise possess, store, transport, trade, sell, or in any other way use a firearm in violation of any applicable law, including the Restrictions on Firearms specified above.
Beginning July 1, 2017, an individual who lawfully possesses a concealed handgun on any campus where concealed carry is allowed shall at all times have that handgun in the individual’s possession and control, and shall either keep it on his/her person with safety mechanism, if any, engaged, or stored 1) in any secure storage location provided by the university specifically for that purpose, 2) at the individual’s residence, or 3) in his or her vehicle. If stored in a vehicle on campus, the handgun must be secured and concealed from view. For any dormitory or scholarship hall that does not have adequate security measures, each resident who lawfully possesses a handgun on campus and elects to store the handgun in the room to which he or she is assigned when not carrying it on the individual’s person in a concealed fashion shall secure the handgun in a secure storage device that conceals the gun from view. Such storage devices shall be provided by the individual who possesses the handgun and must meet minimum industry standards for safe-keeping of handguns.
Adequate Security Measures
Beginning July 1, 2017, the University of Kansas, Lawrence, campuses and the University of Kansas Medical Center campuses that are not located in the Kansas City, Kansas Health Care District shall determine whether and to what extent otherwise lawfully possessed concealed handguns will be prohibited by provision of adequate security measures, permanent or temporary, at each public entrance to buildings or public areas within campus buildings. Each public entrance to each building where concealed carry is prohibited as provided in this paragraph shall have adequate security measures and all entrances, including restricted access entrances, shall be conspicuously posted with appropriate Attorney General-approved signs indicating that carrying a concealed handgun into that building is prohibited. Additional signs may be posted as appropriate. If the University of Kansas, Lawrence, campuses and the University of Kansas Medical Center campuses that are not located in the Kansas City, Kansas Health Care District prohibit concealed carry pursuant to this paragraph, they will submit to the Chancellor or her designee a list of the buildings and public areas of buildings so designated, the rationale therefor, and a description of the adequate security measures to be provided. The University will consolidate the list and, pursuant to Regents policy, submit it to the Board of Regents office for review and approval by the Board of Regents Governance Committee.
The list shall be provided at the time such buildings and public areas are first identified as requiring adequate security and, as buildings or public areas of buildings are added to the list, at the time so amended. Once the Board of Regents Governance Committee has approved a building or area for provision of adequate security measures, re-approval of that building or area is not required.
Safety and security considerations may warrant the University of Kansas, Lawrence, campuses and the University of Kansas Medical Center campuses that are not located in the Kansas City, Kansas Health Care District implementing adequate security measures on an as-needed, temporary basis in order to address a specific concern. These as-needed, temporary measures will be reported to the Chancellor or her designee in order to assure compliance with Board of Regents policy requiring that the University’s annual security report to the Board of Regents include information regarding all instances in which adequate security measures were implemented on an as needed, temporary basis during the previous year and the reasons therefor.
Screening Process for Restricted Access Entrances
At the discretion and upon the approval of the Chancellor (or, if authorized by the Board of Regents, the Chancellor’s designees), and in accordance with the PFPA, persons who are not employees of the University of Kansas may be granted access through a restricted access entrance upon issuance of an identification card that (1) includes the person’s name and photograph and specifies that the person has been authorized access to a specific area through a restricted access entrance, and (2) contains the person’s acknowledgement in a notarized statement that weapons are prohibited in restricted access areas and that violation of the prohibition may result in revocation of authorization to enter through the restricted access entrance. The EVC of the KU Medical Center campuses that are not located in the Kansas City, Kansas Health Care District and the Provost for the Lawrence campuses shall develop for approval by the Chancellor screening criteria for admission of individuals to enter a University building or area through a restricted access entrance. Such criteria shall be in accordance with the PFPA.
Violation of Policy
Any individual who violates one or more provisions of this policy may be issued a lawful directive to leave campus with the weapon immediately. Any individual who violates the directive shall be considered to be in trespass and may be cited accordingly. Any employee or student of the University who violates one or more provisions of this policy shall be subject to discipline in accordance with applicable University codes of conduct. Any individual who violates state or federal law may be detained, arrested or otherwise subjected to lawful processes appropriate to the circumstances. University faculty, staff, and students are encouraged to report suspected violations of the concealed carry law and this policy to the appropriate campus threat assessment team, identified in each campus’s implementing policy, or by immediate notification to University Police by calling 9-1-1. University officials and or Police will investigate and determine if the display or possession of the firearm is a violation of law or Board of Regents or University policy.
Notice
Notice of and reference to this policy and to the Board of Regents weapons possession policy shall be given in the implementing weapons procedures of the University of Kansas, Lawrence, campuses and the University of Kansas Medical Center campuses as well as in housing contracts. To the extent adequate security measures are used to prohibit concealed carry into stadiums, arenas and other large venues that require tickets for admission, the tickets shall state that concealed carry will be prohibited at that event.Not all that long ago, downloading pirated movies was something left to technically savvy folks who knew their way around a BitTorrent client. Originally launched in 2014, Popcorn Time, often described as a Netflix for pirates, instantly changed that by providing an easy to use and intuitive platform that lets users stream movies from within a web browser or a smarpthone app.
DON’T MISS: We Have Some Bad News About the iPhone 6s
With the arrival and growing popularity of Popcorn Time, digital piracy has naturally seen a discernible spike across many parts of the globe. In Norway in particular, piracy levels are up 17% year over year. According to a Mediavision report recently referenced by TorrentFreak, “750,000 Norwegians from a five million population are now obtaining video from illegal sources.”
Put differently, a whopping 15% of the Norwegian population have watched pirated video content within the last year, a startling figure largely attributable to Popcorn Time, this according to a property rights group within Norway.
As one would expect, Norwegian authorities are none too thrilled with the drastic uptick in piracy. Consequently, there have been rumblings of lawsuits being brought against Norwegian ISPs at some point in the not-so-near future
Interestingly enough, Netflix is all to aware of the threat that services like Popcorn Time presen. During the company’s January earnings report, for example, they referenced the service by name while noting that piracy remains an ongoing strategic threat to their core business.
“Piracy continues to be one of our biggest competitors,” the report said. “This graph of Popcorn Time’s sharp rise relative to Netflix and HBO in the Netherlands, for example, is sobering.”
Compounding matters is that PopCorn Time is the handiwork of a team of anonymous developers, a fact which makes keeping the service at bay all the more challenging.JULY 28, 2017
MIAMI CANNABIS WALK 5k
WALK FOR A CAUSE • FRIDAY, JULY 28, 2017
Support the use of Cannabis for curing an ailment of a family member or friend. Join the Miami Cannabis Walk and help spread the understanding of cannabis as medicine.
Friday Evening July 28th 2017 we embark on a 5k walk around Wynwood with a mission to create awareness and to show support for the use of cannabis as medicine. After crossig the finish line, a concert featuring local artists and DJs will take place at the end of the walk. All paid walkers will get a Race Bib and access to the after Concert.
THE WALK
Walkers will be sent in waves.
Advanced Walkers doing the 5K will be the first to depart from the Start Line.
Remember that the course is non-competitive.
Please stay within the designated path and course.
A race clock will be provided, but since this is not a timed walk, we encourage you to check the timer as you pass the start and finish lines if you’d like to track yourself.
Doors, Registration & Music begins at 420pm
Walk Starts at 710pm.
The Party Continues after the walk til midnight.
MUSIC BY:
DJ OSCAR G. OTTO VON SCHIRACH. EDGAR V. LAZARO CASANOVA. CHINO DREADLION. DMS12. DAVID MARQUEZ. GOR-D
PARTICIPATE AS AN INDIVIDUAL OR A TEAM: There is no requirement to be on a team in order to participate in the MIAMI CANNABIS Walk, but we do encourage you to do so as we know that it can be a key to success when raising awareness and funds for the fight to use Cannabis as Medicine.
More information will be updated from now until the event.
FRIDAY • JULY 28, 2017 • WYNWOOD :
RAIN OR SHINE : NO REFUNDS
We reserve the right to refuse admittance to anyoneTHE CREDIT TRAP THE CREDIT TRAP Part 1: How rising home values, easy credit put your finances at risk Part 2: Why banks are boosting credit card interest rates and fees Part 3: Credit cards' soaring rates bite consumers Part 4: Sliding economy raises questions about credit scores Part 5 : Checking accounts are targets as banks find ways to boost fees Part 6: Banks' 'courtesy' loans at soaring rates irk consumers More Even as regulators crack down on abusive mortgage and credit card practices, another type of lending threatens to mire consumers in a credit trap. It's called "courtesy overdraft" and has long been used by banks to automatically pay transactions that account holders don't have the money to cover — and then charge them a steep fee. For years, banks have made it easier for customers to overdraw their checking accounts, aided by a cottage industry of consultants who make big money by helping to wring fees out of consumers, a USA TODAY analysis finds. But what began as a customer service has often become an important revenue driver for banks at the expense of the most vulnerable consumers, according to bank memos reviewed by USA TODAY and interviews with industry insiders. "This practice has gone awry and needs to be fixed," says Alex Sheshunoff, a key consultant who once advised banks to pay, not return, overdrawn transactions. "This is something everyone should be trying to find a solution to, not fighting." VIDEO: See a video version of this story at ABC News Nightline Today, each of the nation's 10 largest banks allows consumers to overdraw with checks, debit cards or at ATMs, a 2009 USA TODAY survey reveals. Large banks also reserve the right to process large transactions first, triggering more overdraft fees by emptying the account more quickly. Some even charge consumers before they overdraw by deducting a purchase when it's made, rather than when it clears, pushing the account into the red sooner. President Obama signed legislation in May limiting certain credit card practices — such as rate increases on existing debt — that have pushed consumers deeper into distress in a sliding economy. The government also wants to create a consumer protection agency to supervise loans. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is examining the fairness of certain overdraft practices. It's unclear whether those efforts will be enough to rein in overdrafts, now the single-largest driver of consumer fee income for banks. In 2009, banks are expected to reap a record $38.5 billion from overdraft fees, nearly twice the $20.5 billion they stand to collect from credit card penalties such as late and over-limit fees. Banks say consumers can avoid overdrafts by keeping track of their money. Consumers contend, though, that banks' policies make it challenging to avoid fees. Faith Gordon, 48, recently sued BB&T bank for allegedly "delaying and rearranging" transactions to maximize overdraft fees. Gordon, of Atlanta, says banks should change their practices and "be fair to us customers." BB&T spokesman Bob Denham says the lawsuit "lacks merit." The bank "categorically (denies) delaying the posting of items to create overdrafts," he adds. Eric Halperin of the Center for Responsible Lending says regulators should examine bank overdraft rules because they "parallel" much-criticized card policies. Banks are raising fees and imposing similar policies on checking accounts and credit cards, such as charging more for multiple transgressions. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. says if banks cover a $20 purchase and charge a $27 fee, the loan has a 3,520% annual percentage rate (APR) if paid back in two weeks. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said if the Fed doesn't curb overdraft abuses, he'll "pursue legislative action." Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., has sponsored legislation requiring banks to get consumers' permission to cover overdrafts, disclose APRs and pay transactions in a way that doesn't increase fees. Banks are lobbying heavily against restrictions. Why? "Overdraft fees are the mother lode of (deposit) fees," says Michael Moebs of Moebs Services, an economic research firm. "If it weren't for overdraft fees, 45% of banks and credit unions wouldn't have made money in 2008." 'Bastardized' revenue As consumers rein in spending during the recession, overdraft income is growing at a slower pace. But it's growing nonetheless as large banks — many of which received billions of dollars in government aid — get more aggressive about fees. Wachovia, for instance, is discouraging employees from refunding overdraft fees. A 2007 bank memo obtained by USA TODAY tells employees that the fees "make up a big percentage of our revenue and is (sic) a HOT button among leadership." Wells Fargo, which owns Wachovia, says it educates customers but also has a "responsibility to shareholders" to collect overdraft fees. Bank of America now allows consumers to overdraw 10 times a day, up from five last year. Even so, the bank is charging a lower fee if consumers overdraw by less than $5 a day. Spokeswoman Anne Pace says the bank wants to help customers but must adjust policies if costs rise. Yet Brad Nickum, a consultant who advised some of the largest banks on credit card and overdraft income, says profits — not costs — generally drive bank fees. "We've got this bastardized revenue stream that gets a disproportionate amount from a small portion of the customer base," Nickum says. The 10% of checking accounts with the lowest balances generate about 40% of overdraft revenue, estimates Andrew Dresner, a partner at payment consulting firm Oliver Wyman. Sarah Davis, 25, paid $600 in fees over three days because of a smaller-than-expected paycheck and her bank's policy of allowing repeated overdrafts. She says she understands that banks need to make money. But "when (the policy) starts to affect the people working minimum-wage jobs, then it's not the most socially responsible," says Davis, a part-time employee at a bookstore. Scott Talbott, chief lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable, representing large banks, says it's "unfortunate that low- and moderate-income Americans find themselves (using) overdraft services more often." But when banks pay overdrafts, consumers can save money, Moebs says. That's because some merchants charge for returned checks. The penalties, along with banks' own charges, can cost more than the fee levied if the bank paid the transaction. Banks also point out that consumers can sign up for less-expensive overdraft services such as a transfer from savings. Moebs fears that if banks are restricted from charging overdrafts, some may go out of business while others could bounce overdrafts, marring consumers' credit records. Overdrafts weren't always such a profit center. Some banks used to sort through bounced checks daily, figuring out which to cover based on their relationship with customers. Others refused all overdrawn transactions. In the 1960s, Gerald F. Fitzgerald, founder of Suburban Bancorp of Palatine, Ill., was one of the first to begin paying more overdrawn transactions rather than bouncing the checks. He says he did so as a service to "good" customers. The trend gained momentum in the 1990s when banker Sam Davis joined Strunk & Associates consulting firm. He looked into how banks could profitably extend small-amount loans to consumers. In 1996, the firm rolled out software nationwide that made it easier to automatically pay overdrafts. Firms such as Pinnacle Financial and John M. Floyd marketed similar programs. Also in 1996, a Supreme Court decision and a bank regulatory rule effectively gave the industry authority to raise certain fees as much as they wanted. A new law forced some government benefit recipients to set up electronic deposit. Direct deposits made overdrafts less risky because banks could recover debts on consumers' next pay day. The Truth in Lending Act, signed into law in 1968, sanctioned overdrafts, Moebs says, by defining them as credit, but not as loans subject to disclosures about interest rates. These events created "fertile ground" for overdraft-fee abuses, which consulting firms spread through the industry, says Chi Chi Wu of the National Consumer Law Center. Some consultants offered banks ways to boost overdraft and credit card revenue. A 2001 "checklist" from Profit Technologies — a firm that has worked with 19 of the USA's 20 largest banks — has more than 600 strategies. Some are cost-cutting ideas such as printing a dispute form on the back of credit card bills to curb phone calls. But most relate to income from fees. One strategy listed to boost overdrafts: "Allow consumers to overdraw their... accounts at the ATM up to the bank's internally set limit." To increase credit card fees, banks can "delay crediting of payments not received in bank provided envelop (sic) or for which payment coupon is not received for up to 5 days," and "remove bar coding from remittance envelopes," slowing the payment. Patrick Fox, president of Profit Technologies, says the document USA TODAY obtained "look(s) like our work." The list, he adds, is a "collection of (bank) practices," but the firm doesn't necessarily recommend each one. Still, the practices confirm consumer groups' greatest fear. "We always thought what (the industry) was doing was deliberate. Now we know it is," Wu says. Because consultants typically make money when banks do — firms take up to one-third of banks' first-year profits on a recommendation, court records show — they have incentive to pitch aggressive fee strategies. In the 1990s, Earnings Performance Group, a consulting firm, estimated PNC boosted its revenue by about $7 million a year when it took the firm's advice to pay more overdrafts, court records say. PNC later sued EPG, saying another overdraft strategy failed to yield an additional $5 million a year, as promised. READ: PNC's complaint against EPG. Gerald Smith, a founder of EPG, which closed last year, says PNC calculated the benefits "incorrectly" and wouldn't let the consulting firm check the results. Smith says that while some consulting firms and banks are too aggressive with overdraft policies, EPG tried to recommend plans that were "fair" to customers but would bring the "most revenue" to banks. Davis of Strunk & Associates says courtesy overdraft is a "value (consumers) are very willing to pay for." Yet E. Adam Webb, an Atlanta lawyer who has sued several banks, says consultants pushed banks into "a race to the bottom" with overd
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56, is leaving Here & Now to be an instructor in the journalism program at the College of the North Atlantic in St. John's. His last show will be Dec. 23 and he starts his new gig in the classroom on Jan. 4.
"I grew up working at the CBC," said Crowe, who began his career as a casual production assistant in Montreal when he was 23.
Debbie Cooper, Ryan Snoddon and Jonathan Crowe get ready for Tuesday's broadcast, knowing the announcement that was minutes away. (CBC)
His early days in Newfoundland and Labrador were spent covering sports, everything from bench-clearing brawls at Memorial Stadium to the provincial games, to baseball in Montana.
"We went everywhere there was a Newfoundlander shooting a puck or throwing a ball," he said.
Crowe moved into news, and trained as a videojournalist before moving to the Here & Now host chair in 2005.
"I wake up wondering, 'What are we going to do today?' I like going to work."
Crowe said he will miss doing interviews, meeting people, travelling and being on the air. "I'll probably miss being in the public eye."
Jonathan Crowe and Debbie Cooper have been a team since 2005 and joke they are 'work-wife' and 'work-hubby.' (CBC)
Excited about 'new challenge'
Crowe's decision to change careers came in August of 2016, when a teaching job was posted at CNA and a friend encouraged him to apply.
"I just got more and more excited about a new challenge," he said. "In a perfect world, the opportunity would be four years from now. But it was too good to pass up."
Jonathan Crowe over the years 2:20
Crowe said he is looking forward to mentoring students and hopes to be working "hands-on." He will also be studying for an education diploma.
"And there will be a suit sale at my house very soon," he joked.
Always up for a challenge, Jonathan Crowe joined mountain climber TA Loeffler's training regimen in a run up Signal Hill. (John Pike/CBC)
Breaking up a team
Crowe's departure from the broadcast team comes as a "bit of a shock" to Debbie Cooper, who calls him her "work hubby."
It's also "disappointing" for meteorologist Ryan Snoddon, who said he can't help feeling "selfish" to see a good buddy and fellow prankster leave the show.
"We have a really good thing going, a good rapport," said Snoddon. "It's not too often do you get to work with your really good buddy. You can't make that up."
Stunts like this to promote FeedNL day showed the fun side of the Here & Now hosting team. (CBC)
Snoddon and Cooper agree that the teaching job is an opportunity that doesn't come along every day, and is too good to pass up.
"He brings a wealth of experience — technical, journalistic, presentation," said Cooper. "He'll be an asset to the journalism program."
Jonathan Crowe, who spent his early years covering sports, interviews Alex Faulkner, who was the first NHL player from the province, and Sandy Faulkner Ash, left, who was inducted into the Newfoundland and Labrador Sports Hall of Fame. (CBC)
Crowe, whose three decades in broadcasting include interviewing disgraced politician Ed Byrne after the spending scandal in the House of Assembly and covering tragedies such as the 2001 drowning of three teenagers in Pouch Cove, said his fondest memories were made behind the scenes.
"You work with some of the smartest people, the greatest characters," he said. "The best moments didn't get on the air."Emergency workers in Emerson, Man., were called to help at least 21 refugees who crossed the Canada-U.S. border in the wee hours of Saturday morning.
Refugees entering from the U.S. are walking through open farmers' fields to pass through the border into Manitoba near the town.
The town's emergency measures co-ordinator, Bill Spanjer said the refugees came in two groups.
Emerson-Franklin Reeve Greg Janzen said emergency crews found 21 asylum seekers in total. He said he's been told a bus dropped off one group of 16 people alone.
"They're housing them all at customs," he said Saturday afternoon.
Janzen said there was at least one family that crossed the border with their children.
A group of five was located approximately six kilometres north of the customs office on Highway 75, and the larger group appears to have crossed at Noyes, Minn., he said.
Janzen had initially told CBC 27 refugees had entered into Manitoba on Saturday, but later clarified and said he had misspoken.
Manitoba RCMP confirmed Saturday afternoon in a news release they had detained 21 people who entered into Canada.
Both groups called 911 right after they crossed the border triggering a response from RCMP and the local fire department.
"These people basically call 911 as soon as they cross," Spanjer said. "It's not the locals who are calling 911, it's the actual asylum-seekers who are calling 911."
At a Thursday meeting in Emerson, from left to right, Rita Chahal, executive director of the Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council, Emerson Reeve Greg Janzen, RCMP media relations officer Tara Seel and Jeryn Peters, a Canada Border Services Agency chief of operations in Emerson. (CBC) Spanjer said the municipality is waiting to hear from Canada Border Services Agency whether the community centre needs to be open to provide the refugees a place to stay.
On Thursday, the border town of 671 held an emergency meeting with members of the Canada Border Services Agency and Mounties to talk about concerns over a recent surge of refugees passing through.
"In the short term, you're not going to see any immediate change," Spanjer said. "The meeting was more called to decide as to who is responsible for what, and lay the processes out on the table, so that everybody knew what the process was."
According to the Canada Border Services Agency, 403 people entered Canada near the town over a nine-month period last year, up from 340 in the 2015-16 fiscal year and 68 in 2013-14.
22 last weekend
Last weekend, 22 people made the journey — 19 on Saturday and three on Sunday — according to the RCMP.
It was the largest group the CBSA says it's ever seen in such a short time span.
Last week, another 10 refugee claimant files were opened, said Rita Chahal, executive director of the Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council.
"I certainly think people are taking their lives in their hands trying to do this in the middle of winter," Spanjer said Saturday.
"Even with the temperatures warming up, they're still subject to frostbite if they get stuck or lost out there. But that's a chance that they certainly appear to be willing to take."
At 6 a.m. it was –17C in Emerson.
Jacqueline Bonisteel, an immigration and refugee lawyer, discusses why people are crossing the Canada-U.S. border to apply for refugee status in Canada 6:40
Read CBC's full coverage of refugees crossing the U.S. border into ManitobaZpacks™ Carbon Fiber Staff
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Our Carbon Fiber Staff is an extremely lightweight, extremely strong alternative to trekking poles. It folds down for easy packing, and can also be folded to the correct height for every single one of our tent models, including the tall Altaplex.
The main advantage of a staff over trekking poles is you can use it with two hands when you need to, but keep one hand free when you don't. You can also use your full upper body strength to help lift or lower yourself on steep trails.
Features: Strong enough to easily support an adult's weight vertically. The staff can be used to hop across small streams or gaps, or to aid in lifting or lowering your body weight on steep inclines. The staff is much stronger than a typical trekking pole. The staff can withstand moderate horizontal pressure, but avoid putting your full body weight on it horizontally.
Thick internal carbon fiber ferrules give the staff strong joints. The lower joints are also wrapped with Dyneema Composite Fabric tape for added strength against splitting.
The staff has a woven texture which naturally gives it good grip. You can quickly shift your hands up or down to any position as the terrain changes..
The lower end cap is made with 1/4" of solid titanium which will never wear through.
The full 60" (152 cm) length is useful for getting leverage with both hands, and also for reaching out to lower yourself down ledges. You also have the option to remove a top section and use it like a really sturdy 48" or 52" trekking pole if you prefer.
The staff folds down to three even 21.5" (54.5 cm) sections for convenient packing.
1 year warranty against defects in materials or workmanship on all Zpacks gear.
Tested on a 1,900 mile Te Araroa thru-hike in New Zealand. This short video is intended only to show the strength of the staff. Jumping across large gaps with it is dangerous and not recommended. Use at your own risk.
Folding Mechanism: The staff sections are held together by non-stretchy Dyneema Cord. The cord has a small knot which catches in a groove under the rubber end cap to lock the staff in place. To lock or unlock the staff, remove the rubber end cap and pop the knot in or out of the groove. It needs to be pulled tight!
If you ever notice that the sections are not held tight together, just re-tie the knot so that it is snug.
Specifications: Diameter:.825" (2.1 cm)
Full Length: 60" (152 cm)
Packed Length: 21.5" (54.5 cm)
Section Lengths (not including ferrules): 7.5", 11.5", 19", 21.5"
(19 cm, 29 cm, 48 cm, 54.5 cm)
Some Possible Folded Lengths: 21.5, 33", 40.5", 48", 52", 60"
(54.5 cm, 103 cm, 122 cm, 132 cm, 152 cm)
Staff Weight: 7.5 ounces / 212 grams Reviews and Customer Testimonials:
Please email us with feedback (good or bad) if you have any!
John Abela discusses his staff in his Zpacks Carbon Fiber Staff Review "Loving the carbon hiking staff. One of the best purchases I’ve made in a long, long time.
I’ve put this thing through the paces, handles my 230 lbs and ruck with no issues so far." -Brandon J. "If you have a place for reviews I'll write a great one. I'm highly satisfied with the backpack, and that carbon staff is just bad ass. Only problem with the staff is now my wife wants one, ha ha." -Erik H. "I have put the staff through some serious off trail trials and it's working out wonderfully. I posted a review of the Carbon Staff on my site with video of me crossing the Big Muddy on the wild east side of Mt. Adams. Great product, and although I will still be using my trekking poles as I have for decades, the staff goes with me anytime off trail or scrambling is involved." -Stephen B. "I got the hiking Staff a couple months ago and absolutely love it! Now I'm ready for a backpack!" Rob M. "Your carbon fiber staff is awesome. I never liked using hiking poles before. But the fact that your staff is longer, much more stable and can be held at varying levels made it great! It is super for hopping over small rivers. And most of all and very unexpectedly so: It made my life so much easier on difficult terrain with very big boulders in the rain where I basically had to jump from boulder-top to boulder-top for around 30km. It made superb additional balance. The possibility of really putting weight on it made it feel like a third and very welcome leg." -Sandro F. "Hello Zpacks! I am currently thru hiking the AT using your carbon fiber hiking staff. The staff has been absolutely WONDERFUL and everyone who sees it seems to want one. It works incredibly well and I really prefer using it over 2 trekking poles." -Kirtland D. "This thing is awesome. It has worked especially well for me on steep descents, where I’ve been able to put my full weight on it. It instills confidence when using it as a support for a tall shelter, and I don’t have to worry about using a trekking pole extender. Over a few hundred miles of use, this has quickly become one of my favorite pieces of gear. Thanks Zpacks, I can’t recommend this product highly enough!" -Matt H.Introduction to ASP.NET Core
In this article
By Daniel Roth, Rick Anderson, and Shaun Luttin
ASP.NET Core is a cross-platform, high-performance, open-source framework for building modern, cloud-based, Internet-connected applications. With ASP.NET Core, you can:
Build web apps and services, IoT apps, and mobile backends.
Use your favorite development tools on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Deploy to the cloud or on-premises.
Run on.NET Core or.NET Framework.
Why use ASP.NET Core?
Millions of developers have used (and continue to use) ASP.NET 4.x to create web apps. ASP.NET Core is a redesign of ASP.NET 4.x, with architectural changes that result in a leaner, more modular framework.
ASP.NET Core provides the following benefits:
Build web APIs and web UI using ASP.NET Core MVC
ASP.NET Core MVC provides features to build web APIs and web apps:
Client-side development
ASP.NET Core integrates seamlessly with popular client-side frameworks and libraries, including Razor Components, Angular, React, and Bootstrap. For more information, see Razor Components and related topics under Client-side development.
ASP.NET Core targeting.NET Framework
ASP.NET Core 2.x can target.NET Core or.NET Framework. ASP.NET Core apps targeting.NET Framework aren't cross-platform—they run on Windows only. Generally, ASP.NET Core 2.x is made up of.NET Standard libraries. Apps written with.NET Standard 2.0 run anywhere that.NET Standard 2.0 is supported.
ASP.NET Core 2.x is supported on.NET Framework versions compatible with.NET Standard 2.0:
.NET Framework 4.7.1 and later is strongly recommended.
.NET Framework 4.6.1 and later.
ASP.NET Core 3.0 and later will only run on.NET Core. For more details regarding this change, see A first look at changes coming in ASP.NET Core 3.0.
There are several advantages to targeting.NET Core, and these advantages increase with each release. Some advantages of.NET Core over.NET Framework include:
Cross-platform. Runs on macOS, Linux, and Windows.
Improved performance
Side-by-side versioning
New APIs
Open source
We're working hard to close the API gap from.NET Framework to.NET Core. The Windows Compatibility Pack made thousands of Windows-only APIs available in.NET Core. These APIs weren't available in.NET Core 1.x.
Recommended learning path
We recommend the following sequence of tutorials and articles for an introduction to developing ASP.NET Core apps:
* There is a new web API tutorial that you follow entirely in the browser, no local IDE installation required. The code runs in an Azure Cloud Shell, and curl is used for testing.
How to download a sample
Many of the articles and tutorials include links to sample code.
Download the ASP.NET repository zip file. Unzip the Docs-master.zip file. Use the URL in the sample link to help you navigate to the sample directory.
Preprocessor directives in sample code
To demonstrate multiple scenarios, sample apps use the #define and #if-#else/#elif-#endif C# statements to selectively compile and run different sections of sample code. For those samples that make use of this approach, set the #define statement at the top of the C# files to the symbol associated with the scenario that you want to run. Some samples require setting the symbol at the top of multiple files in order to run a scenario.
For example, the following #define symbol list indicates that four scenarios are available (one scenario per symbol). The current sample configuration runs the TemplateCode scenario:
#define TemplateCode // or LogFromMain or ExpandDefault or FilterInCode
To change the sample to run the ExpandDefault scenario, define the ExpandDefault symbol and leave the remaining symbols commented-out:
#define ExpandDefault // TemplateCode or LogFromMain or FilterInCode
For more information on using C# preprocessor directives to selectively compile sections of code, see #define (C# Reference) and #if (C# Reference).
Regions in sample code
Some sample apps contain sections of code surrounded by #region and #endregion C# statements. The documentation build system injects these regions into the rendered documentation topics.
Region names usually contain the word "snippet." The following example shows a region named snippet_FilterInCode :
#region snippet_FilterInCode WebHost.CreateDefaultBuilder(args).UseStartup<Startup>().ConfigureLogging(logging => logging.AddFilter("System", LogLevel.Debug).AddFilter<DebugLoggerProvider>("Microsoft", LogLevel.Trace)).Build(); #endregion
The preceding C# code snippet is referenced in the topic's markdown file with the following line:
[!code-csharp[](sample/SampleApp/Program.cs?name=snippet_FilterInCode)]
You may safely ignore (or remove) the #region and #endregion statements that surround the code. Don't alter the code within these statements if you plan to run the sample scenarios described in the topic. Feel free to alter the code when experimenting with other scenarios.
For more information, see Contribute to the ASP.NET documentation: Code snippets.
Next steps
For more information, see the following resources:Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Users of CCleaner are being urged to upgrade to the latest version
A security company has issued a warning after its software was compromised by malicious hackers.
Piriform told users a booby-trapped version of its CCleaner software had been made available in August and September.
Millions of people use the CCleaner program to remove unwanted junk from Android phones and Windows PCs.
Piriform's owner, Avast, said it had managed to remove the compromised version before any harm had been done.
It appears that it was only the Windows version of CCleaner that was compromised.
Cleaning up
If the malicious hackers who had managed to subvert the software had not been spotted, they could have remotely taken over the devices of the 2.27 million people who had downloaded version 5.33 of the program, said Paul Yung, from Piriform.
Mr Yung said the company had spotted some "suspicious activity" on 12 September that led it to discover version 5.33 had been "illegally modified" before it had been made available to the public.
The modified version was available for about a month.
The modifications made infected machines contact some recently registered web domains - a tactic often used by cyber-thieves who then use this route to install more damaging software on compromised devices.
The impact of the infection had been limited, said Mr Yung, because relatively few people automatically updated the CCleaner software.
Anyone who had downloaded the compromised version of CCleaner was now being moved to the latest uninfected version, he said.
"To the best of our knowledge, we were able to disarm the threat before it was able to do any harm," said Mr Yung.
He apologised for any inconvenience that had been caused and said the company's investigation into the attack was "ongoing".
Separate analysis by Cisco's Talos security group suggests whoever was behind the attack on CCleaner had managed to get access to the server Piriform used to host new versions of the software.
Talos researcher Craig Williams told the Reuters news agency the attack had been "sophisticated" because it had targeted a trusted server and sought to make the booby-trapped version look legitimate.
"There is nothing a user could have noticed," he said.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
April 29, 2016, 10:31 AM GMT / Updated April 29, 2016, 10:47 AM GMT By Alastair Jamieson
Belgium is to issue iodine tablets to its entire population as part of a revised nuclear emergency plan, a measure unveiled just months after it emerged that ISIS-linked bombers spied on a top scientist and hoped to build a "dirty bomb.”
A dose of iodine, which helps to limit the effects of radiation on the body, will be made available to all 11 million people in the small country, Health Minister Maggie De Block told reporters Thursday.
The move, which has yet to be finalized by officials, was triggered by a review of emergency plans initiated in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown in Japan, De Block said.
However, it also follows the discovery in that a senior researcher at a Belgian center which produces a significant portion of the world's supply of radioisotopes had been spied upon by a terror cell.
Secret film of the scientist was found Nov. 30 during a raid on the home of Mohamed Bakkali, an ISIS-linked suspect who has since been charged with involvement in the Paris attacks that killed 130 people and wounded hundreds more.
Last month it emerged the film was recorded by brothers Khalid and Ibrahim El Bakraoui, who were among the bombers responsible for the March terror attacks in Brussels.
There have also been concerns at the security of Belgium’s creaking nuclear energy plants, including two 40-year-old reactors.
Many foreign governments — and some states, including California and New York — issue iodine tablets, which work by filling the thyroid gland and preventing the absorption of radioactive iodide.
Belgium had originally planned to issue the tablets to people living near its Tihange and Doel nuclear plants but will now widen the distribution area so that the whole country is included. Belgium covers an area of 12,000 square miles — roughly the size of Maryland.
Belgium's Tihange nuclear plant as seen from a nearby cemetery. JULIEN WARNAND / EPA, file
“Before, the iodine pills were only been given to people living in a perimeter of [14 miles] — now we are going to take measures for people within [62 miles],” De Block said. “We will provide iodine pills in the whole country."
She added: “It is not linked with the safety of our nuclear plants. The recommendation came after Fukushima … because obviously after Fukushima, we have more information regarding nuclear risks."
Although other countries have taken similar measures, experts are divided on its effectiveness.
The substance in the tablets, Potassium iodide, can’t protect the body from other radioactive elements and can cause side effects including gastro-intestinal upset, allergic reactions, rashes, and inflammation of the salivary glands, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says the distribution of iodine pills should be “considered” by individual states rather than “required,” according to Canada’s Nuclear Safety Commission.
Some countries, such as France and Sweden, pre-distribute iodine pills while others, such as Germany, stockpile them tablets at certain locations to be distributed in the event of an emergency.EDMONTON - After four decades of Conservative rule, Albertans on Tuesday handed a landslide victory to Rachel Notley’s NDP, shattering the Tory dynasty and leading many to wonder: How did this happen? In the days leading up to the election, even the most seasoned political observers refused to call it for the NDP, despite overwhelming public opinion polls, packed NDP political rallies and a sea of orange campaign signs across the province. This was partly because the polls proved so wrong in the 2012 election and partly because it was impossible to guess what voters in key battlegrounds like Calgary would do. Mainly, though, it was because nobody could believe they were about to witness the death of a dynasty. And it was a spectacular demise. The NDP won a solid 53-seat majority. The Wildrose will form the official Opposition with 21 seats. The Conservatives have been reduced to 10 seats. One seat is undecided because of a tie. One is now vacant following the resignation Tuesday of leader and former premier Jim Prentice. The Liberals and Alberta Party have one seat apiece. Alberta has a radically different government. Now, the post-mortem begins. “This was not about 2015,” Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt said. “This was about the last 10 years of Alberta politics all catching up to them.” The stunning collapse can be traced to 2007, when then-Premier Ed Stelmach called a controversial royalty review into the energy sector. The expert panel concluded Albertans weren’t getting their “fair share” from energy development and recommended an increase in royalty rates. Alberta’s oilpatch was outraged. Stelmach ignored the concerns and hiked rates in January 2009, the peak of the global recession. Angry oil companies poured money into the upstart Wildrose. Donations skyrocketed from $230,000 in 2009 to $2.7 million in 2011. The party elected Danielle Smith as leader: A smart, telegenic libertarian with a storied work ethic and a sharp tongue. By late 2010, she had the Wildrose leading the Tories in rural Alberta. With a credible alternative entering from the right, Stelmach’s caucus cracked over a proposed deficit budget and he resigned in early January 2011, making way for Alberta’s fifth consecutive Conservative Premier — Alison Redford. Smith famously lost to Redford in the spring 2012 provincial election, but her extraordinary opposition set the stage for dynastic ruin by creating an unshakable narrative of Tory entitlement and corruption that would ultimately trigger the NDP’s landslide. “They dodged the bullet in 2012, but the root causes were still there, and in fact continued,” Bratt said. “Redford pulled this rabbit out of the hat and it got worse.” Before the 2012 election, Smith hammered the Tories over the so-called “no-meet” committee — which never met but paid MLAs $1,000 a month — and over multimillion-dollar severance payments for politicians. After the election, with 17 seats in the legislature and the research staff that came with them, the Wildrose broke or leveraged scandal after scandal, from plans for a so-called “skypalace” atop Edmonton’s renovated Federal Building, to lavish international travel and high staff salaries.
In the “tobaccogate” affair, Redford was accused of hiring her ex-husband’s law group to fight Alberta’s $10-billion lawsuit against big tobacco — a job that could come with a multibillion-dollar payday. The Tories were accused of hiding the deaths of children in care, of cruelly closing a home for Albertans with disabilities, of using political influence to help friends jump to the top of health-care waiting lists. One Tory MLA pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitutes while on government business. Day after day, year after year, Smith’s Wildrose — aided by the smaller opposition parties — fuelled the corruption narrative with every bit of bad news. Time after time, Tories fumbled the public relations ball, dodging responsibility for multiple news cycles until public pressure forced a reckoning. Both the chief electoral officer and the ethics commissioner investigated alleged illegal donations, including a $430,000 “bulk donation” from a company controlled by Edmonton billionaire and Oilers owner Daryl Katz. There was the billion-dollar sole-source contracts debacle, headlined by Tory-connected communications firm Navigator. (The principal of that firm, Randy Dawson, would go on to run Prentice’s 2015 election campaign.) The Redford government took on the unions, with attempts to restrict the right to strike, force binding arbitration on salary negotiations and reform pensions. Unions took them to court and won. In late 2013, Redford spent $45,000 to fly to Nelson Mandela’s funeral in South Africa, a price tag that included a private $10,000 charter home to swear in her new cabinet — money she only paid back under threat of caucus revolt. Ultimately, her international travel and controversial use of Alberta’s taxpayer-funded fleet of airplanes triggered an auditor’s investigation that condemned both Redford and her administration. He blamed it on the Tory premier’s “aura of power.” By the time Redford stepped down in March 2014, the script for the party’s downfall was largely written. Through sheer force of repetition, Albertans had begun to believe that Peter Lougheed’s natural governing party was corrupt, entitled and in need of a good, clean sweep. Jim Prentice knew this when he inherited the mantle on Sept. 6, 2014. That’s why he immediately shuttered the provincial airline and sold off the fleet, reopened the home for the disabled and passed a Government Accountability Act, proclaiming all the while that Alberta was under “new management.” He swept the four byelections, installing two hand-picked allies into key cabinet posts. Then, things started to unravel. Prentice wildly misjudged Albertans by introducing Bill 10, which would have forced high school kids to fight school boards in court for the right to form gay-straight alliances, or be segregated in meetings off school property. He welcomed 11 Wildrose floor-crossers into his caucus, including leader Danielle Smith, routing his opposition and consolidating his hold on power. It would be months before political observers would fully understand the implications of this political checkmate, but it was immediately apparent that Albertans, newly accustomed to a vigorous opposition, were not too pleased at its dismantling. “Prentice failed to understand the significance of Wildrose to Albertans,” Bratt said. “To voters, that opposition represented the only real check on the PCs’ ancient, entrenched and far-reaching power base.
The Wildrose “defection was seen as opportunistic and underhanded. Further, the move alienated the left-leaning coalition that came together to vote PC in 2012 to keep Wildrose out of power.” Prentice went on to unilaterally overturn a funding decision by an independent legislative committee and cut the budget for investigating deaths of children in care. A Calgary Herald investigation revealed the Tories inked a secret, multimillion-dollar deal to fix a mountain golf course operated by party insiders. As oil prices continued their precipitous slide, Prentice started warning Albertans that tough times were coming. On March 4, he told CBC radio host Donna McElligot that: “In terms of who is responsible, we need only look in the mirror. “Basically, all of us have had the best of everything and have not had to pay for what it costs.” Infuriated Albertans ravaged the new premier, pointing out the Tories had governed for four decades and set nothing aside from our energy wealth for a rainy day. The spring budget, tabled March 26, would become Prentice’s election platform and his undoing. The plan, which wasn’t passed before the election was called, collected $1.5 billion in additional taxes from Albertans’ wallets with a new and unpopular health-care premium, 59 tax and fee hikes on everything from cigarettes to birth certificates, and a new progressive income tax on the wealthy. Still, it forecast a record $5-billion deficit. Crucially, Prentice refused to raise corporate tax rates, despite a government survey that showed the vast majority of Albertans wanted corporations taxed at a higher rate, too. Then he called an election a year early. While he did not break the letter of the law the government had passed a short time before, he certainly broke the spirit of it. It was a decision Prentice stood by, even after the party suffered a massive defeat Tuesday. “Neither I nor the government I led were elected to make the tough choices and tough decisions that were required by our current circumstances,” he said. The Tory nomination process that followed was blighted by scandal. One candidate was accused of offering a $10,000 bribe, launched a million-dollar defamation law suit and is now the subject of a criminal investigation. Another would-be nominee launched a separate defamation suit after he was punted from a nomination race. Text messages released in the final week of the campaign revealed the sitting justice minister knew a third candidate was being “set up” for failure. The candidate, Jamie Lall, was ousted from the race. There were recounts, parachuted candidates and high-profile resignations of the former party president and veteran volunteers during the nomination process. The campaign did not go well. The Wildrose, with newly minted Leader Brian Jean at the helm, was supposed to be decimated, but polls immediately showed the party remained strong in rural Alberta and the south. So too Rachel Notley’s NDP, which appeared to have Edmonton sewn up as early as the first week of the campaign. Boxed in by the pledge to run on the budget, the Tories had little flexibility. Much of their plan had already been announced. Prentice’s early message — that both Jean and Notley were extremists — was quickly shelved in favour of an attack on the NDP.The Presidential Election isn’t the only important vote this year. In Denver, residents have the opportunity to vote on a new and extremely important cannabis ordinance. Denver’s Neighborhood-Supported Cannabis Consumption Pilot Program (known as “Ordinance 300” or NSCCPP for short) will be on the ballot on November 8, 2016. The campaign has been going non-stop here in Denver, Colorado for the past few months and is full steam ahead just one month prior to the election. If you support being able to consume cannabis somewhere other than your home, back porch, or in a back alley behind your favorite bar, you might want to pay attention here.
What is Ordinance 300 or NSCCPP?
Ordinance 300 would allow adults 21 and over to consume cannabis in private, regulated, neighborhood-supported consumption areas. It’s supported by the Democratic Party of Denver, New Era Colorado, State Senator Irene Aguilar, and State Representative Jonathan Singer, as well. The NSCCPP is meant to strike a balance between cannabis consumers in Denver and the neighborhoods they live in, pre-empting a territorial battle over who gets to consume cannabis where. It’s pretty smart, really, when you think about it – after all, as cannabis becomes increasingly popular, accepted, and consumed, it’s only natural to start regulating where and when it can be consumed – just like alcohol and tobacco, but much less harmful to communities.
What Does Ordinance 300 Do?
The NSCCPP puts the power in the hands of the communities and neighborhood organizations, allowing them to be involved in permit approval for local cannabis-oriented business establishments – the approved permits must also be balanced by popular community support. Northglenn, and north Denver suburb, just voted to allow cannabis businesses in, but the NSCCPP would allow the oversight of law enforcement, fire and health coding authorities, and proper licensing authorities to make sure cannabusinesses are pulling their weight in a way that is safe and profitable for the them as well as the communities they work in. The main goal of the NSCCPP or “300” is to ensure that cannabis can be consumed safely in a supervised location, just like alcohol.
Why is Ordinance 300 Being Voted on Now?
If you’ve been in Colorado for a few years, you may recall something called cannabis clubs, or dispensaries with comfy chairs, cozy fireplaces, and chatting clientele consuming the cannabis products they’d just purchased on site. You may also recall that the Colorado state government and law enforcement raided many of these dispensaries or “clubs,” stating that Colorado cannabis laws did not provide for them. They were all shut down, and the NSCCPP is an attempt to regulate this type of industry in order to allow for private social venues to consume cannabis – just like consuming alcohol.
What Does Cannabis Tourism Have to Do with Ordinance 300?
The cannabis tourism industry is growing exponentially, especially in Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska – but where can tourists go to consume their cannabis when they don’t have a private residence? It can do nothing but help the tourism economies and state economies of these four states to allow cannabis consumption in monitored and regulated spaces with consenting adults – this also prevents people from taking cannabis back illegally across state borders to their home states. By allowing cannabis consumption in regulated spaces, consumption in illegal places like parks, apartments, and hotel rooms will go down. It’s a win-win for legal cannabis states, law enforcement, and even states where cannabis remains illegal.
What Will NSCCPP Do for Me?
If NSCCPP is approved by voters, cannabis could be consumed on bar or restaurant patios where approved by their communities, so you could go out, have some nachos, enjoy a margarita, and smoke a joint with your date on your anniversary. Sounds pretty amazing, right? What’s better than smoking a j with your honey on a breezy, autumn afternoon in Denver? You got it – smoking it on the porch of your favorite restaurant with other like-minded patrons and enjoying some delicious Denver delicacies at the same time. Think back to when Denver’s patios allowed smoking all the time; now picture sweet cannabis smells wafting from those same porches; in reasonable amounts, of course. We want to be able to taste our delectable foods as well as our luscious cannabis, and enjoy the company of other people at the same time.
Why Should I Vote “Yes on 300”?An armed suspect led UF Police on chase through UF's campus during the early morning hours of Sunday. The University of Florida Police Department received information indicating that an individual, armed with a knife and potentially a firearm, was seen on Fraternity Row at approximately 1:52am on Sunday. Alerts were sent out to students and faculty, through the UF alert system.
The suspect brandished a knife during an altercation on a Regional Transient System (RTS) bus and fled on foot on the UF campus. The suspect was described as an Asian male wearing blue jeans and a flannel shirt. He was also said to be clean shaven.
The individual was located and was arrested by UFPD officers at 2:15am on Sunday. The suspect, James E. Connes, 19 year old Santa Fe College student, was charged with aggravated assault, improper exhibition of a dangerous weapon, and destruction of evidence. Connes was booked into the Alachua County Jail.Blog exclusive:
Sausage rings in the shape of the Olympic symbol are not allowed. That’s right. A butcher in Dorset, a county in southwestern England was forced to remove said “offending” rings in the shop’s window. Just as a
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blanket proclamation that married people should stay married is only of any interest because of the implication that all those millions of people who have gotten divorced would have been better off if they just stayed married. (A parenthetical aside allows for one exception: "…therapists are clear that…if a spouse is in physical danger, he or she must leave.")
Where is the definitive evidence that, as long as they are not getting beaten to a bloody pulp, married people should just stay married? There isn't any.
Here's the problem. No study has ever definitively shown that people are better off staying married than. Nor is there compelling evidence that people end up better off if they get married than they would have been if they stayed single.
I'll start with the argument about staying married. To get solid scientific evidence as to whether people are better off divorcing or staying married, you would need to get a sample of couples considering divorce, then randomly assign half of them to stay married and the other half to divorce. Ethically, that's undoable.
Random assignment is at the heart of scientific research that tries to establish a causal relationship and not just some murky correlational link. If people instead choose for themselves whether to stay married or get divorced, then the people who choose to stay married will probably differ in important ways than the ones who choose to divorce, and their marriages probably differ, too.
Let's say, for example, that the people who choose to divorce are in marriages marked by more intense conflicts than the people who choose to stay married. Then imagine studies showing that the people who stayed married were healthier than those who divorced. Time wants us to believe that they are healthier because they stayed married. But maybe there is a different explanation – for example, that their marriages were less painful to begin with.
Suppose some people contemplating divorce read the Time cover story and decide to just stay married. It is entirely possible that they will end up even less healthy than they would have if they divorced. Maybe they know themselves, their partners, and their marriages better than Time does. Maybe whatever it was that left them contemplating the big step of ending a marriage was affecting their, and moving on actually was the healthiest decision.
Publishing articles such as this one is not a morally neutral act. Time is doling out advice, not knowing whether its counsel is actually wrong and could lead to harm. And it is borrowing from the credibility of science in so doing. (Along the way, Time is also shaming and disparaging single people and their children, but that's the topic of my other article on this cover story.)
Although it is not possible to do the kinds of studies necessary to support the claims that Time is making, other relevant studies have been published. It may be useful to look at them, keeping in mind that their results can only be regarded as suggestive and never definitive.
Among the many studies of marriage are several longitudinal studies that follow the same people for many years. In one of the longest-running studies (ongoing for more than 20 years), adults in Germany have been asked about their satisfaction with their lives once a year, every year, starting at age 16. Researchers have plotted the results for people who got married and stayed married. If Time is correct in its claims, then those people should become more and more satisfied over the course of their marriages, even if the early years were not that great. In the words of the gerontologist Time quoted, "Couples who have made it all the way later into life have found it [marriage] to be a peak experience, a sublime experience…"
That sounds good, but it is not what the findings showed. The people who got married and stayed married became a bit happier at first, around the time of the wedding, then went back to being about as satisfied with their lives as they were when they were single. (You can see some graphs of the results in Singled Out.) So even among this very select group – the people who chose to marry and who stayed married the entire time – marriage apparently did not end up the "peak experience" that Time tells us it would. They ended up no happier than they were way back when they were single.
A study from the Netherlands produced similar findings, though it took the Dutch couples longer to settle into their pre-marriage level of. In an American study, couples were not followed for as many years as they were in the other studies. Again, though, any apparent benefits of marrying showed up in the first few years. For example, across everyone who got married and stayed married, there were no improvements in health compared to when they were single. To find any apparent health benefits, the authors had to restrict their analyses to those who were married no more than three years.
All three of these long-term studies suggest just the opposite of the story Time is telling, that if you just stay married, things will get better and better. They didn't. And that's from the very biased sample of just those people who chose to stay married. We don't know what would happen if all the people who chose to divorce had stayed married instead.
Where is the definitive evidence that single people should get married because that will make them happier, healthier, more connected interpersonally, and more likely to live a long life? There isn't any.
The June 13, 2016 Time article, like so many others before it, is filled with inaccurate or misleading claims, all of which are wrong in the same way: They make married people seem better than they really are, and single people worse.
Here's an example: "Studies suggest that married people have better health, wealth and even better than singles, and will probably die happier."
I won't dispute the part about wealth. Married people who stay married do end up wealthier, not because they are such paragons of financial virtue, but because the federal gifts them with more than 1,000 unearned benefits and protections, many of which are financial, simply for being married. They also get discounts on insurance, memberships, and a wide variety of products and services, subsidized by the single people who are paying full price.
But the rest of it, about getting married and getting better health, better sex, and dying happier? No.
Here's another statement. Can you see why it is even more egregious than the first? "Most scholars agree that the beneficial health effects are robust: happily married people are less likely to have strokes, heart disease or, and they respond better to and heal more quickly."
There is a weasel word in there: "happily." Now Time is not just comparing currently married people to single people. (That's already a totally rigged comparison, as it pretends that the people who got married, hated it, and got divorced should be set aside. Why let their bad experiences ruin the adulatory story that is being told about marriage?). It is comparing only those people who are happily married to all single people, regardless of whether they are happily single. If undergraduates, in their very first research methods course, proposed a comparison like that on another topic, they would get laughed out of class. But Time published it as a statement from Science.
I've debunked the claims about the supposed superiority of married people so many times, it has become truly tiresome. So I'll mention just a few points here. As I noted above, longitudinal studies show that people who get married and stay married end up no happier than they were when they were single. And that's a wildly biased assessment, because it includes only those people who got married and chose to stay married. Remember, the advice Time is peddling is to get married. But if you get married, you may end up among the great big chunk of people who end up divorced. In longitudinal studies such as the German one, people who are headed toward divorce do not even get that initial bump in happiness around the time of the wedding. They are already becoming less happy than when they were single and not within striking distance of their wedding.
Time thinks the later years are especially wonderful. But again, it is wrong about that. In the American study, the authors compared people who had been married more than three years to those staying single. The married people were not advantaged in any way. They were not happier, healthier, or less depressed, and they did not have higher. The only significant difference favored the single people: They had stronger social ties with their and.
[I have lots more to say about the false but relentlessly-perpetuated claim that getting married makes people better off socially, emotionally, and psychologically. If you are interested, read Chapter 2 (and some of the others, too) in Singled Out; my updated and even more powerful arguments in Marriage vs. Single Life: How Science and the Media Got It So Wrong; the one key chapter from that book (plus an intro) in The Science of Marriage: What We Know That Just Isn't So; or my very brief version in this article in the Washington Post.]
In fairness, Time does include a one-sentence quote from me in its article, and I'm for that:
Bella DePaulo, a scientist at the University of California at Santa Barbara, argues that all studies of marriage are flawed: "If you want to say that getting married and staying married is better for your health than staying single," she says, then you need to compare the people who chose to stay married with those who chose to stay single. I don't know of any studies that have done so."
Read the entire article, though, if you can get past the pay wall, and I think you will find that my message is not Time's. The magazine is solidly on the side of married people, and has been for decades. If getting married really did transform miserable, lonely, sickly single people into happy, healthy, and connected married people, then we single people would just have to suck it up. But it doesn't. Time magazine, it seems to me, is peddling pro-marriage ideology under the guise of science.(Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports)
Monday is reportedly the big day when the NCAA will make a decision on the best way to fill bowl slots if 80 teams do not reach the six-win mark.
According to a report from CBS Sports, the NCAA Football Oversight Committee has a conference call scheduled to figure out what it will do if it needs to assign teams with only five wins to bowl games. There are currently 71 bowl eligible teams, meaning there are nine slots available to fill the 41 bowl games with two weeks remaining in the season.
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There are 13 teams with a 5-6 record and one game left on their schedule. South Alabama, 5-5, has two more games on its schedule.
The report says that the NCAA could choose teams based on their Academic Progress Rate. There is also a chance that some bowls “may not be played,” though that scenario is unlikely.
From CBS Sports:
Language remains unclear from three-year old legislation that basically took the NCAA out of regulating bowls. When the NCAA backed out, it retained the right to dictate how spots would be filled if there weren't enough bowl-eligible teams.
Those involved generally believe the NCAA will settle on populating bowls with sub-.500 teams based on their rank in the Academic Progress Rate. The 12-year-old metric ranks teams on their graduation rates. Football as a whole historically has the lowest APR among mainstream NCAA sports.
The solution will be “more art than science,” said one person involved in the process. The NCAA and committee waited until this point in the season because the situation is clearer.
In addition to the 14 five-win teams, there are also four teams – Texas, Kansas State, Georgia State and Louisiana-Lafayette – with four wins and two games remaining.
The following teams can clinch bowl eligibility with a win this weekend:
Story continues
AAC: East Carolina (5-6) vs. Cincinnati (6-5), Tulsa (5-6) at Tulane (3-8)
ACC: Virginia Tech (5-6) at Virginia (4-7)
Big Ten: Indiana (5-6) at Purdue (2-9), Nebraska (5-6) vs. Iowa (11-0), Minnesota (5-6) vs. Wisconsin (8-3), Illinois (5-6) vs. Northwestern (9-2)
C-USA: Old Dominion (5-6) vs. Florida Atlantic (2-9)
MAC: Buffalo (5-6) vs. UMass (2-9)
MWC: San Jose State (5-6) vs. Boise State (7-4)
Pac-12: Washington (5-6) vs. Washington State (8-3)
SEC: Kentucky (5-6) vs. Louisville (6-5), Missouri (5-6) at Arkansas (6-5)
Sun Belt: South Alabama (5-5) at Georgia Southern (7-3)
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Sam Cooper is a contributor for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!Do you have a question about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Submit it online or fill out the form below.
What happens to someone after they’re excommunicated from the LDS church?
There are probably as many answers to that question as there are people who have been excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Some excommunicated members eventually rejoin the Church (such as Maxine Hanks, one of the September Six ). Some continue attending their local LDS ward faithfully but never get re-baptized (for example, Lavina Fielding Anderson, another of the September Six). Some disassociate themselves with the Church and find another faith home. Some turn away from organized religion entirely. Some even have their excommunication reversed posthumously, as was the case with Helmuth Huebner after World War II. Some accept the decision calmly as an expected outcome of their actions. Some are devastated by what they view as an act of spiritual violence or unrighteous dominion. Others go on to live happy and fulfilled lives outside of the Church.
There is an appeals process that some excommunicated members, such as the recently excommunicated Kate Kelly, choose to use. The details of the appeals process are found in the portion of the Church Handbook of Instructions that is only available to those in certain leadership positions, but it’s my understanding that the decision of a disciplinary council can be appealed to the next level of church leadership. If the disciplinary council was convened by a bishop (the leader of a local congregation called a ward), it can be appealed to the stake president (who supervises several congregations). A decision made by a stake president is appealed to the First Presidency, the governing council of the Church consisting of the President and his two counselors.
As far as the Church is concerned, those who are excommunicated are no longer members and their names are removed from the membership roll. They cannot wear the temple garments that are markers and reminders of temple covenants. The Church will not accept tithing or other donations from them. While they may attend Sunday worship services, they may not offer public prayers, participate in the sacrament (a weekly ordinance, similar to communion, which includes partaking of bread and water in remembrance of Jesus), or give talks (like short sermons) during Sunday meetings as members do.
Ideally, those who are excommunicated are surrounded by supportive friends, family, ward members, and Church leaders who continue to love and associate with them, regardless of their membership status. Unfortunately, sometimes excommunicated members of the Church are ostracized or shunned by those who used to sit next to them on the pews. Love and sincere friendship should be the guiding principles when interacting with anyone going through a difficult experience and excommunication should be no different.I'd like to give a very warm welcome back to our HOW this week, Michelle! Michelle guest blogged on Happy Herbivore last November, sharing how she stayed healthy on a mostly plant-based diet while attending high school, participating in several extracurricular activities, and having cooking to cook all her meals herself (since age 14!). She was quite the inspiration!
Before and after her post, Michelle and I had corresponded a few times via email, mostly about how she could talk to her family so they would be more supportive of her decision. Michelle, like many teens, wanted to be plant-based so badly, but her parents didn't agree it was the best choice for her, which complicated things. I encouraged her to talk to her parents and help educate them.
Then, this past May, Michelle wrote me with exciting news — she'd completed her transition to a 100% plant-based diet and had been 100% for four months. Even better, her parents were fully supportive of her decision! Now 100% plant-based for more than 8 months, Michelle talks about her journey and the positive changes she's noticed since making the switch!
HH: You were diagnosed with an eating disorder a few years ago. Can you tell us a little bit about that and its role (if any) with your transition to a plant-based diet?
Ever since my father's second divorce 9 years ago, I've been in a constant battle with my weight and body image. The excess weight began to creep on during my 2nd grade year due to our dependency on fast food and the lack of an immediate maternal figure (my mother lived in the area, but my father tried to keep her out of me and my brothers' lives as much as possible).
I was taunted by my peers about my weight throughout elementary school, as well as by my new stepmother, brother, and sister. The pain was almost unbearable.
Then by the beginning of the summer of 2010 [Note: After Michelle finished 8th grade], I fell into a mild depression that progressively became worse. I compensated by over-exercising and consuming 1,000 calories or less/day, being obsessed with keeping track of every morsel I ate, its ingredients, etc. The weight started coming off, although not in the healthiest manner. By the end of the summer (August), my parents realized something was wrong when they took me to get my sports physical. I was hanging in at the bottom of the healthy range for my height and weight, but was in the danger zone for being underweight and malnourished if I continued down the same path. I tried to fix the damage on my own, but my mindset was so skewed that I had no idea where to start.
A couple months later (October 2010), I was taken to Texas Children's Hospital in the Houston Medical Center to find out that I was diagnosed with an eating disorder (the doctors never specified what it was, but I know it was a mix of anorexia and orthorexia, or "perfect eating").
HH: How did you find out about plant-based eating and why did you want to try this new lifestyle approach?
When I first ran across Happy Herbivore in May 2011, I had no intention in becoming plant-based. Simply, I was tired of eating the same boring beans and rice or salad for the meatless meals I ate at least once a day every week. Once I began preparing more meals from the Happy Herbivore Cookbook and this blog, I began to slowly lose interest in meat and I spent most of my winter break researching about how to live a whole-foods, plant-based lifestyle, which included reading The Engine 2 Diet. At the turn of the new year, I gave up cow's milk, cheese, and ate significantly less fish. However, I continued to eat yogurt and seafood a few times a week to keep my parents' suspicions about another eating disorder from reappearing.
HH: How were you able to go plant-based with your parents' support? What changed?
After 2 months of struggling to be able to move forward with becoming 100% plant-based, I convinced my mother to take me to see Rip Esselstyn speak at a Houston area Whole Foods on February 20th. After talking to Rip, I decided to not let my parents (specifically my father) halt my journey and cut out the last culprit: my beloved Fage Nonfat Greek Yogurt.
HH: Has it been difficult to stay plant-based as a high school student?Are your friends supportive?
Honestly, I haven't found it too difficult to stay plant-based whatsoever. I started preparing my own meals the summer before my freshman year, so I was used to balancing homework, choir rehearsals, and track practice with cooking 3 meals a day.
In the evening while waiting for my dinner to cook, I would put together my sandwich or salad for lunch the next day. Another thing that has helped is keeping it simple and not trying to prepare glamorous meals unless time allowed. I always keep frozen brown rice, potatoes (sweet, white, or red), frozen vegetables, and canned low-sodium beans around in case I have a day where I'm tied up and only have 10 minutes to put something together.
My friends are quite supportive and are always interested in what I bring every day for lunch. I always get comments, such as "Your lunch looks so colorful and healthy!" or "That salad looks great." I'm not a "pusher" for trying to get my friends to go plant-based, but from time to time, I would make Happy Herbivore muffins, cupcakes, or cookies to share on a friend's birthday (So far, someone has yet to NOT love a dessert I have brought).
HH: You mentioned before that your Dad wasn't supportive in the beginning, has that changed at all?
Once we visited with the Registered Dietitian I had been seeing at Texas Children's to discuss going plant-based, he felt more confident that I was doing what was best for my well-being. At first, my dietitian gave the go-ahead for vegetarianism but not veganism because of possible effects of not getting enough B12, such as permanent and irreversible neurological damage. I wasn't pleased with this answer, so I stuck with being plant-based but agreed to begin taking a B12 supplement.
HH: Have you experienced any benefits since adopting a totally plant-based diet?
My studies have become less tedious, and even though I'm not a natural athlete in any way, I've noticed several positive changes in my athletic performances as a swimmer and thrower.
HH: Finally, do you have any advice for teens and young girls (or guys!) that struggle with body image,eating disorders, or who want to go plant-based but are scared or have resistant parents?
The biggest thing I'd have to say is to make sure your intentions for going plant-based are in the right place. Yes, going plant-based for the environment and animal rights is a great reason, but don't do so to starve yourself and live off of vegan junk. As long as you're eating whole, plant foods and staying active, you shouldn't need to worry about the way you perceive yourself. Everyone comes in all shapes and sizes and everyone is beautiful in their OWN way.
For parents' sake, educate them with as much plant-based nutrition as you can. Assure them that eating a plant-based diet is the best thing you can do for yourself, both mentally and physically. (The Complete Idiot's Guide to Plant Based Nutrition is amazing!) If you're an athlete, show them that there are professional athletes that are plant-based.
Thank you Michelle for bravely sharing your story—you are an inspiration and a young woman destined for greatness!As the population of the province grew, attracted by potential economic gains thanks to Calcutta’s link to the wider British empire, the British decided to sub-divide Bengal to more easily govern it. The province underwent two or three “partitions” before being officially partitioned in 1947, during Indian/Pakistani independence. Generally, the partitions and combinations angered one community or another (as land, power, and people are inseparable). But the big wrench was the 1947 partition.
At this point Indians had to answer the question, based on Pakistan’s departure, are we a country of Indians (despite Pakistan’s removal, and adjusting for the north-south divide) or are we a country of Hindus (because of Pakistan’s removal, though allowing for a north-south regionalism). Pakistan, until 1971, had it easy – “we are a country of Muslims” – united. Of course, in practice the government was dominated by Punjabi Muslims in West Pakistan. In 1970-1971, when East Bengal managed to elect Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as a Prime Minister, he wasn’t allowed to take his position. Bangladesh, with India’s help, gained its independence in 1971 after enduring a civil war that killed millions and accusations of atrocities against the Pakistani Army and Bengali collaborators (bringing us to the trials against the JIB leadership). However, Bangladesh now had an existential crisis – what defines the state? Are they Bengalis? Perhaps not since West Bengal state (primarily Hindu) is part of India. Are we Muslims? Perhaps not since we just broke away from “Pakistan”.Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2012 October 9
Simeis 147: Supernova Remnant
Image Credit & Copyright: Rogelio Bernal Andreo (Deep Sky Colours)
Explanation: It's easy to get lost following the intricate filaments in this detailed mosaic image of faint supernova remnant Simeis 147 (S147). Also catalogued as Sh2-240, it covers nearly 3 degrees or 6 full moons on the sky. That's about 150 light-years at the stellar debris cloud's estimated distance of 3,000 light-years. Anchoring the frame at the right, bright star Elnath (Beta Tauri) is seen towards the boundary of the constellations Taurus and Auriga, almost exactly opposite the galactic centre in planet Earth's sky. This sharp composite includes image data taken through a narrow-band filter to highlight emission from hydrogen atoms tracing the shocked, glowing gas. The supernova remnant has an estimated age of about 40,000 years, meaning light from the massive stellar explosion first reached Earth 40,000 years ago. But the expanding remnant is not the only aftermath. The cosmic catastrophe also left behind a spinning neutron star or pulsar, all that remains of the original star's core.They’re coming. The 2,000 young foreign workers making up the 31st wave of the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme (JET) have received their acceptance letters and are preparing for their arrival in July and August.
Since its modest start in 1987, JET has grown into one of the world’s largest international exchange programs. Nearly 65,000 people from 65 countries have worked in Japan for up to five years under the project.
Participants perform one of three roles. Assistant language teachers (ALTs) work in schools, team-teaching with a licensed teacher. Coordinators for international relations (CIRs) have Japanese language proficiency and work in local government offices to assist with grass-root international activities. A handful of sports exchange advisers (SEAs) coach and help plan sport-related projects.
Interested observers typically divide into either JET-lovers or haters. Supporters, underlining the word “exchange” in the program’s title, defend it for helping internationalize Japan. Critics, pointing to the word “teaching,” attack it for failing to improve students’ English proficiency and wasting money.
How much money? A spokesperson for the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations (CLAIR), which oversees the administration of JET, couldn’t gather the required figures from the relevant ministries before press time, but a 2015 Japan Association of Corporate Executives report estimated national and local governments spend ¥40 billion annually on the program.
JET’s multiple goals result from competing aims of the three government ministries responsible. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), formerly the Ministry of Home Affairs, came up with the idea and controls the purse strings. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) instructs schools on team-teaching. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) recruits participants from around the world. The quasi-governmental CLAIR oversees administration. It also has close connections to MIC; CLAIR’s present chair of its board of directors is a retired MIC vice minister.
Japan today is a different country from the Japan of 1987, which created JET partly in response to trade tension with the U.S. But none of the four organizations involved has undertaken a comprehensive evaluation of JET. Therefore, it’s impossible to objectively determine if its successes outweigh its failures.
Swapping black ships for JETs
The Home Affairs Ministry conceived the plan for JET as a top-down attempt to get communities to open their gates to foreign nationals. As JET’s website explains, it is “aimed at promoting grassroots international exchange between Japan and other nations.”
Only 800,000 foreign residents lived in Japan when JET started. Many participants received assignments in rural mountain villages or remote islands, often being the first foreigners the residents had met.
Therefore, some claim success in the goal to internationalize Japan. Toshihiro Menju, managing director of the Japan Center for International Exchange, argues in a Nippon.com article that participants “made a great contribution to changing attitudes toward other countries and their citizens across Japan.”
Proof of such internationalization, however one defines the term, appears elusive. JET alumna Emily Metzgar, associate professor at Indiana University’s The Media School and author of the soon-to-be-published book “The JET Program and the U.S.-Japan Relationship: Goodwill Goldmine,” says, “MIC’s performance with respect to meeting its goals for participating in JET hasn’t been, as far as I know, evaluated in a way available to the public for review.”
The uniqueness of JETs has also faded, making it more difficult to investigate their impact. In addition to Japan’s now-2.23 million foreign residents, the number of visitors increased from 2 million in 1987 to over 24 million in 2016, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization.
Nor is JET even the main source for classroom ALTs. MEXT figures show schools used 18,484 ALTs in 2016 but only 24.5 percent were JETs. Those hired directly by boards of education, through dispatch and outsourcing firms or other programs, made up the rest.
While budget cuts often get cited as the reason behind switching from JET to private ALTs, local-allocation tax payments transferred from the national to local governments subsidize JETs. Prefectures using JET ALTs can receive up to ¥246 million. Small cities and towns can get a lump sum of ¥1.18 million plus ¥4.7 million per JET, with the majority of that latter total going toward the participant’s salary. One Shimane Prefecture city estimated that with tax transfers, they paid only 10-20 percent of the cost for their five JET ALTs. Using dispatch company ALTs leaves the tax money on the table and 100 percent of the cost comes out of the prefectural or city budget.
Perusing city assembly minutes and other sources, you get the sense that reducing civil servants’ workload is a more important reason for communities shunning JET. Even after 30 years, many teachers, schools and cities still apparently find managing foreign staff troublesome. Arranging apartments, using CLAIR templates to write English contracts, having to discipline problem employees, and generally being responsible for young foreigners with little Japanese ability often proves an unwelcome nuisance.
Using disposable dispatch-company ALTs became the solution. Government bureaucrats, recognizing the problem, announced plans in 2014 to create 450 JET Coordinator positions, also funded through local-allocation taxes. Coordinators spend 20 hours a week offering support to about 10 ALTs each. The need for special coordinators shows the JET Programme has failed to open the gates of Japanese communities quite as wide as MIC bureaucrats had hoped it would.
We don’t need no education
With over 90 percent of JET participants working as ALTs in classrooms, their contribution to English learning attracts the most attention — much of it unwanted.
In theory, Japanese teachers work in tandem with foreign assistants to create and teach useful and engaging communicative lessons. In reality, overworked teachers often don’t have the time required to properly co-plan a team-teaching lesson — especially when dealing with an inexperienced ALT fresh off the plane. The common practice of rotating an ALT around different schools throughout the week or month makes planning even more difficult.
The practical difficulties should come as no surprise to MEXT officials, since they introduced team-teaching on a mass scale with no idea of its effectiveness. Japan’s father of team-teaching, an education ministry bureaucrat named Minoru Wada, acknowledged in a 1994 essay that it “began without any form of pedagogic research to validate it as an effective educational innovation.”
Other education ministry officials didn’t want JET to get off the ground in the first place. David McConnell, a professor of anthropology at the College of Wooster in Ohio, explains in his book “Importing Diversity” that ministry officials delayed approval for months. To avoid threatening the status of Japanese teachers, MEXT officials insisted on classifying participants as “assistants” and that little emphasis would be placed on recruiting trained teachers. They then fought to keep participant numbers low.
MEXT administrators subsequently showed little desire to ensure their team-teaching experiment worked. In a 2004 interview with a university professor, Wada lamented MEXT’s neglect of team-teaching, protesting, “Overall, I’m afraid team-teaching has been ignored.” Today, MEXT still doesn’t require any training in team-teaching for future Japanese teachers of English. This results in the 30-year-old complaint that too many ALTs work as breathing tape players.
Naoki Fujimoto-Adamson, associate professor at Niigata University of International and Information Studies, says there has been a lack of studies into how effective team-teaching is for raising English proficiency, but she adds, “I believe that students’ motivation to learn English definitely improves through team-teaching lessons.”
Some critics of untrained JET ALTs say money would be better spent sending Japanese teachers abroad. MEXT bureaucrats considered it but decided sending large numbers of teachers overseas and hiring substitutes would prove too costly. Nevertheless, they sent small numbers abroad through programs such as Regional and Educational Exchanges for Mutual Understanding (REX). Starting in 1990, REX sent young teachers overseas to teach Japanese. Never growing very large, MEXT cut it with little fanfare in 2013.
Others defend sending exchange-program youths into schools. “I think there’s something unique and special about the opportunity to work in the Japanese public school system,” says Steven Horowitz, a JET alumnus and creator of the JETwit website. “The Japanese education system is about socialization as much as it’s about education. To be directly involved in that process is to understand and connect with Japan and Japanese culture in a way that is difficult, if not impossible, to match in any other way.”
It’s also unfair to blame JET ALTs for Japan’s English proficiency woes when you consider their limited classroom role. MEXT’s 2016 data shows junior high schools use ALTs in only 22.1 percent of total English class time. The figure drops to 9.7 percent for high school classes.
Making friends in high places
The strongest defense of JET comes from those who view it as a diplomatic soft-power tool. MOFA officials agreed to support JET because they believed participants would increase their understanding of Japanese society and return home sympathetic toward Japan.
In his book, McConnell identified MOFA’s goal as JET’s greatest success in its first decade. Nearly 20 years later he believes it remains so, explaining, “It’s created a cohort of young people in many countries who, if not pro-Japan, at least understand the realities of life in Japan far better than the average citizens in their respective countries.” He adds that many JET alumni went on to become academics specializing in Japan or career diplomats.
Metzgar says, “the JET Programme has been wildly successful as a public diplomacy effort for Japan.” Calling it a “vital diplomatic tool,” she explains: “Because it’s created a generation of people with interest in and knowledge of Japan, it’s done a great deal to promote Japan abroad. Ending the program might serve short-term term political interests at home, but it would do so at the cost of Japan’s long-term interests abroad.”
This diplomatic role of ex-JETs faces competition from a larger source of foreign nationals with Japanese experience — international students. According to the Japan Student Services Organization, 22,000 foreign students attended Japanese universities the year JET was founded. Thirty years later there are 152,062 foreign students — and nearly 210,000 including those enrolled in Japanese language schools.
A soft-power ‘happy accident’?
Despite claims of its diplomatic value, the Foreign Ministry’s strategy to benefit from 65,000 Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme alumni remains inchoate. With responsibility for the program split, no ministry took charge of gathering quantitative data on JET applicants, participants or alumni. Bureaucrats know little about who participates in JET and why, or what happens after they return home.
Emily Metzgar, author of the upcoming book “The JET Program and the U.S.-Japan Relationship: Goodwill Goldmine,” believes the extent to which participants wanted to remain connected to Japan was a “happy accident.”
“It took the government time to realize what an amazing resource this is and figure out ways to tap it,” she says — especially in a way that doesn’t leave ex-JETs feeling exploited.
According to Steven Horowitz, who has served in JET Alumni Association (JETAA) leadership roles since 2000, “The Japanese government hasn’t really been in a position to harness the soft power of JET alumni until the JET alumni community really found its own footing.”
The independent JETAA has 53 chapters in 16 countries but until recently was highly decentralized. Horowitz says JETAA’s experience responding to the March 11, 2011, disasters “led to greater awareness of the need for some way to organize more centrally and establish a unified identity.”
Back to the future
By 2019, JET participant numbers will rise from the current 5,000 to 6,400, just over the peak figure reached in 2002. Many will assist in elementary schools.
In 2020, English becomes an official subject in grades five and six and foreign language activity classes mandatory for grades three and four. There are no plans for any drastic reforms, according to a CLAIR spokesperson.
¥3.36 million Annual pretax salary for a first-year participant. Rises to ¥3.6 million in second year, ¥3.9 million in third, and ¥3.96 million in fourth and fifth
¥5-6 million Approximate annual cost to employ one participant and pay for their airfare, salary, health insurance, training conferences, etc.
20-30% Success rate for U.S. JET applicants
4,952 Number of participants in 2016 (4,536
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’s visit will “be an open acknowledgment of India’s close ties with Israel, and also pave the way for the transfer of high-end agricultural technologies that will benefit Indian farmers.”
Ahead of Modi’s trip, Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar will visit Israel in May. Notably, Modi will not visit the Palestinian territories in July; instead, PA President Mahmoud Abbas will visit India this spring. The Indian government has said it believes the prime minister’s standalone visit to Israel will further “underline the significance of India’s special ties with the Jewish nation.”Last week, Sally Morgan -- a performer who bills herself as "Britain's best-loved psychic" -- sued the publisher of the Daily Mail for £150,000 for printing an article suggesting that she and other self-proclaimed psychics might be using trickery rather than mystical powers when they appear to talk to the dead.
Maybe the Mail's article (by magician and former psychic Paul Zenon) really did damage Sally Morgan's reputation so much that she needs the money. The irony is that just after that article was published, when the allegations that "Psychic Sally" was a cheat were front-page news, our organization along with peer organizations in the UK offered her $1,000,000 and the chance to clear her name, simply by proving her powers were real. Yet, she declined. Why?
If Sally Morgan is not a fraud, then the preliminary test we proposed to prove her powers should be easy. The test -- devised by Professor Chris French, Simon Singh, and the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) -- was based on the same routine she performs every time she takes the stage: looking at photographs of deceased persons and communicating with their spirits to learn their names.
Since 1996, The James Randi Educational Foundation has offered $1 million to any psychic who can prove their powers are real under fair conditions that prevent cheating. When challenged, many psychics have made excuses for why they won't put their powers to the test, saying they don't need the money or that they don't want to use their powers for financial gain. Neither of those excuses can work for Sally Morgan, since using her "powers" for financial gain is her full-time job, and she's telling a judge she needs £150,000 from the Daily Mail because Paul Zenon questioned her authenticity.
So what's Sally Morgan's excuse for turning down the chance to prove herself for $1 million? She never gave one, preferring instead to respond to the offer with the threat of a lawsuit.Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org) The Science and Environmental Policy Project
THIS WEEK: By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Data Integrity: For several years, some commentators who deal with historic temperature data in their daily work, such as Joe D’Aleo of ICECAP, have stated that warming trends suddenly appeared in areas in which there were no such trend previously, such as the state of Maine. Until about 2011, the government published data showed no trend from 1900 to present. Suddenly, government published historic data showed a warming trend of about 3 degrees F. Tony Heller (who goes by Steve Goddard) has followed this issue, graphically showing that trends appeared in recently published historic data, where earlier historic data showed none.
Writing in Climate, Etc., the blog by Judith Curry, John Bates made several disturbing assertions regarding questionable data changes and archiving data at the US National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), now called the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). Bates is a meteorologist who spent his professional career at NOAA and the last 14 years at NCDC (now NCEI) as a Principal Scientist, where he served as a Supervisory Meteorologist until 2012. “He was awarded a U.S. Department of Commerce Gold Medal in 2014 for visionary work in the acquisition, production, and preservation of climate data records (CDRs). He has held elected positions at the American Geophysical Union (AGU), including Member of the AGU Council and Member of the AGU Board. He has played a leadership role in data management for the AGU.”
The specific issue was the 2015 Karl, et al. study that claimed there was no pause in global warming. The study claimed that switching from mostly temperature measurements taken at the ship cooling water intake to mostly ocean buoy measurements at the surface introduced a cooling bias to sea surface temperature data. Others believe that, if anything, the switch would cause a warming bias to the data due to the thermal gradient in the oceans.
A 2013 review of studies for the prior shift from sea buckets to ship cooling water intake recognized that there may be large errors in both types of measurements. Intake temperatures tended to warmer than near-simultaneous bucket temperatures. For example:
“One of the most observation-rich bucket-intake comparisons ever conducted was that of James and Fox (1972). They analysed 13,876 pairs of near-simultaneous bucket and intake temperatures obtained aboard VOS ships between 1968 and 1970. Although of global distribution, reports were mainly from the North Atlantic and North Pacific shipping lanes. From a compilation of all observations, intake temperatures averaged 0.3 ◦ C warmer than bucket readings. Considerable spread was found in the individual differences with 68 % falling within ± 0.9 ◦ C and the largest differences exceeding ± 2.5 ◦ C.”
The historic data is too vague to draw any firm conclusions. Adding ocean buoys to the mix does not resolve issues of measurement error and data integrity among the types of measurements.
More importantly, Bates asserts that Karl, et al. did not follow proper procedures for archiving data and published adjusted land surface-air data before an adjustment mechanism was fully tested. In so doing, it not only violated policy of NCEI; but also, it violated the policy of the publisher of the paper, Science, requiring data be properly archived for replication by other researchers. This adjustment mechanism may be a source of bias in land surface-air data showing warming trends where none had existed before.
If the assertions by Bates are correct, this is a serious issue. The data sets used by NCEI may be infected by introduced biases, intentional or not. These data sets provide a basis for those used by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City (NASA-GISS).
On February 5, British journalist David Rose reported comments by Bates in the Daily Mail causing a controversy that some groups tried to dismiss as petty. Writing in The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF), David Whitehouse (he is not specifically identified as the author) asserts that the errors are significant.
It will be interesting to see how the new administration and Congress respond to these assertions. An array of articles can be found under Challenging the Orthodoxy, Defending the Orthodoxy and Measurement Issues – Surface.
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Quote of the Week. “…Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.”– Dwight Eisenhower, 1961 [H/t Fran Manns]
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Number of the Week: 5
New Climate Denial? On Climate Etc., Judith Curry has an interesting post on an article in The Atlantic: “How the New Climate Denial is Like the Old Climate Denial: Both are excuses for inaction.” The article discusses the issue by describing the exchanges between Scott Pruitt and several Senators. Pruitt is the nominee to head the EPA. The article asserts that Pruitt’s response “acknowledge climate change is happening while moving uncertainty downstream, into the ‘details.’” To buttress this argument, the article states:
“This rhetoric is out of step with the latest science. The most recent IPCC report expresses 95 percent confidence that humans are the main cause of most global warming observed since the 1950s. According to one paper summarized on NASA’s Global Climate Change website, ‘97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities.’ The list of scientists and agencies in agreement goes on and on.”
Of course, the main issue is the certainty expressed by many government entities and NGOs that CO2 is the major cause of climate change. These entities largely dismiss other human influences, such as change of land use, and natural variation. Simply, we cannot separate the influence of CO2 from other human influences and separate CO2 from natural variation. Efforts to stop climate change by curbing CO2 emissions are unrealistic. To complicate issues even further, many entities greatly shorten the time frames needed for projected effects to occur.
It is important to recognize that government policies need to be established on realistic expectation, not wild speculation or exaggeration. If exaggerated figures are used for sea level rise, government announcements can paralyze meaningful economic development. It is the measured rate of sea level rise that is important, not the fact that sea levels are rising, or speculation of what may happen at far greater rates than measured.
This is particularly true in tectonically stable, low-lying areas such as Florida. During the last interglacial, major parts of south Florida were inundated, but the process took thousands of years. This period is far beyond the meaningful horizon for local planning of development. Practical application of this scientific knowledge is needed. Unfortunately, the storylines, scenarios, by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) interpreted by US government entities, greatly exaggerate the rate of rise to as much as 7 feet by end of the century. Their use is a disservice to the public. See links under Seeking a Common Ground.
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Carbon Tax: Former US Secretaries of State George Shultz and James Baker, both of whom served under President Reagan, argued for a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. They use Montreal Protocol as the key example of what can be done. The Protocol is probably the worst environmental initiative undertaken under Reagan. It was built on laboratory experiments that showed that Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) can reduce ozone. Ozone helps protect life from Ultraviolet (UV) Light, which can lead to eye cataracts and blindness.
A dramatic seasonal depletion of the ozone layer over Antarctica led to the adoption of the Montreal Protocol calling for drastic cuts in CFCs. But, the necessary field experiments were not conducted: Was UV light hitting the earth’s surface increasing? After over 30 years, the issue is still not settled.
By contrast, laboratory experiments show that increasing carbon dioxide in today’s atmosphere may cause slight warming, probably immeasurable. The rest is built on speculation, not hard evidence. Using an international agreement built on inadequate evidence is hardly justification for another agreement, or a tax, built on inadequate evidence. See Article # 1 and links under Questioning the Orthodoxy, and Cap-and-Trade and Carbon Taxes.
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Systems Engineers: One can have empathy towards engineers who design extensive systems that are vulnerable to the weather. In recent years, some of these systems are not only vulnerable to the whims of nature; but also, to the whims of politicians. The energized, electronic grid is one such system. To achieve reliable electricity at a designed frequency, engineers must balance generation of electricity with consumption, within narrow tolerances. Deviation can crash the system. Weather events, such as storms can disrupt the system. Now, thanks to the whims of politicians (as in South Australia), too much erratic wind power generation can disrupt the system. The level of wind power is determined by politicians who have little regard for the reliability of the system. Yet, when the system fails, the politicians blame others or that it was hot weather or cold weather that caused the failure. See links under Energy Issues – Australia
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Too Much Water? California has an outstanding system of water storage and delivery for flood prevention, irrigation, and urban use. However, due to political decisions it was not completely built as designed. Also, before the recent drought, based on questionable regulations and laws, significant court decisions required diversion of water from storage and irrigation into the ocean to “protect” fish. Thus, thousands of acres of farm land on the western section of the San Juaquin valley suffered, especially fruit and nut orchards, which require years to establish.
Ironically, the USDA Economic Research Service figures show that tree nuts are the second major US agriculture crop exported, with about 72% of the crop exported between 2011 and 2013. (Cotton was number one with about 77% of the crop exported.) California is the major producer of almonds, walnuts, and pistachios, with an estimated value of $7 Billion (2016). Political restrictions and the drought hurt California nut production.
Now the whims of nature are heading the other way. Many of the major reservoirs are near capacity and well-above average seasonal capacity. California’s second largest reservoir is threatening to overflow in the emergency spillway for the first time since it was opened in 1968. It is behind the earthfill embankment dam, Oroville, which is the tallest dam in the US at 770 feet (230 meters) (Hoover Dam is 726 feet (221 meter)). The normal spillway is damaged, and fear of erosion limits its use.
This winter, the snow pack is unusually heavy in the Sierra Mountains and the spring melt has not yet begun. It will be a challenging spring for the engineers responsible for releasing water in a timely manner to control flooding. It will be interesting to watch the political finger pointing if any problems arise. See links under Changing Weather and https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/fruit-tree-nuts/
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Additions and Corrections: Several readers asked about the source for the statement that some southern states have a pH as low as 4. One of the sources was a 1984 article published by the American Society of Microbiology. The text stated: The Okefenokee Swamp, located in southeastern Georgia and northeastern Florida, is one of the largest freshwater wetlands in the United States. The Okefenokee Swamp is an acidic (pH 3.1 to 4.4), black-water, peat-accumulating environment consisting primarily of forested swamp and open marsh prairies. [Boldface Added] The abstract stated a pH of 3.7, which was taken to be an average. Thirty-seven species of amphibians live and lay eggs in the Okefenokee.
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Number of the Week: 5 According to Jo Nova, South Australia has had 5 major black-outs since the state went black in September. The latest one affected about 90,000 customers. The total population of the state is about 1.7 million. It takes dedicated effort and a great deal of public money to turn a stable electrical grid into an unstable one. See links under Energy Issues – Australia.
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NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC
Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate
S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008
http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf
Overcoming Chaotic Behavior of Climate Models
By S. Fred Singer, SEPP, July 2010
http://www.sepp.org/science_papers/Chaotic_Behavior_July_2011_Final.doc
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science
Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, 2013
https://www.heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-II/CCR-II-Full.pdf
Summary: http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/ccr2a/pdf/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts
Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, 2014
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/ccr2b/pdf/Full-Report.pdf
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-IIb/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus
By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, NIPCC, Nov 23, 2015
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/
Download with no charge
https://www.heartland.org/policy-documents/why-scientists-disagree-about-global-warming
Challenging the Orthodoxy
Climate scientists versus climate data
By John Bates, Climate Etc. Feb 4, 2017
https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/climate-scientists-versus-climate-data/
Exposed: How world leaders were duped into investing billions over manipulated global warming data
By David Rose, Mail on Sunday, Feb 5, 2017
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4192182/World-leaders-duped-manipulated-global-warming-data.html
Former NOAA Scientist Confirms Colleagues Manipulated Climate Records
Press Release, Committee on Science, Space, & Technology, Lamar Smith, Chairman, Feb 5, 2017
https://science.house.gov/news/press-releases/former-noaa-scientist-confirms-colleagues-manipulated-climate-records
Response to critiques: Climate scientists versus climate data
By Judith Curry, Climate Etc. Feb 6, 2017
https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/06/response-to-critiques-climate-scientists-versus-climate-data/
Congress Investigates Federal Climate Study After Whistleblower Exposes Fake Science
The scientific community and media outlets that claimed Trump will silence scientists are now attacking one of their own for speaking up.
By Julie Kelley, The Federalist, Feb 10, 2017
http://thefederalist.com/2017/02/10/congress-investigates-federal-climate-change-study-after-whistleblower-exposes-fake-science/
Don’t Be Distracted by Nit-Pickers: This Is Serious
By David Whitehouse (?), GWPF, Feb 6, 2017
http://www.thegwpf.com/dont-be-distracted-by-nit-pickers-this-is-serious/
Even more on the David Rose bombshell article: How NOAA Software Spins the AGW Game
Guest essay by Rud Istvan, WUWT, Feb 7, 2017
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/07/even-more-on-the-david-rose-bombshell-article-how-noaa-software-spins-the-agw-game/
[SEPP Comment: Showing significant changes in trend for 3 states: Maine, Michigan, and California. For each state, no or insignificant warming became pronounced warming.]
Defending the Orthodoxy
Federal scientists say there never was any global warming “pause”
By Chris Mooney, Washington Post, June 4, 2015
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/06/04/federal-scientists-say-there-never-was-any-global-warming-slowdown/?utm_term=.f18754a0491a
Link to paper: Possible artifacts of data biases in the recent global surface warming hiatus
By Thomas R. Karl, et al. Science, June 26, 2015
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6242/1469
Questioning the Orthodoxy
Salvaging the Unsalvageable: HFCs and the UN Climate Change Fiasco
By Tim Ball, A Different Perspective, Dec 29, 2016
http://drtimball.com/2016/salvaging-the-unsalvageable-hfcs-and-the-un-climate-change-fiasco/
Thumb on the scale of temperature trends?
By Matt Ridley, Rational Optimist, Feb 9, 2017
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/noaas-pausebuster-study/
Climate Doomsayers Can’t Get It Right
By Larry Bell, Newsmax, Feb 6, 2017
http://www.newsmax.com/LarryBell/cooling-experts-scientific-suvs/2017/02/06/id/772147/
House Committee To ‘Push Ahead’ With Investigation Into Alleged Climate Data Manipulation At NOAA
By Michael Bastasch, Daily Caller, Feb 6, 2017
http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/06/house-committee-to-push-ahead-with-investigation-into-alleged-climate-data-manipulation-at-noaa/
After Paris!
EU must shut all coal plants by 2030 to meet Paris climate pledges, study says
Europe will vastly overshoot its carbon emissions target for coal unless it closes all 300 power stations, says think-tank Climate Analytics
By Arthur Neslen, The Guardian, Feb 9, 2016
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/09/eu-must-shut-all-coal-plants-by-2030-to-meet-paris-climate-pledges-study-says?utm_source=Daily+Carbon+Briefing&utm_campaign=b244cfa7b9-cb_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_876aab4fd7-b244cfa7b9-3034
Seeking a Common Ground
The new ‘climate denial’
By Judith Curry, Climate Etc. Feb 10, 2017
https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/10/the-new-climate-denial/#more-22824
Link to Article: How the New Climate Denial is Like the Old Climate Denial: Both are excuses for inaction”
By Meehan Crist, The Atlantic, Feb 10, 2017
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/02/the-new-rhetoric-of-climate-denial/516198/
Review of Recent Scientific Articles by CO2 Science
How Four Plant Species of Australia Respond to Declining Rainfall
D’Agui, H., Fowler, W., Lim, S.L., Enright, N. and He, T. 2016. Phenotypic variation and differentiated gene expression of Australian plants in response to declining rainfall. Royal Society Open Science 3: 160637. Feb 10, 2017
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V20/feb/a7.php
“D’Agui et al. write that their results demonstrate a capacity for ‘rapid adaptation to climate change through phenotypic variation and regulation of gene expression,’ which findings further suggests that ‘some species and ecosystems might be more resilient to climate change than we currently believe,’ with ‘adaptive evolution through natural selection and/or heritable phenotypic plasticity as results of epigenetic processes within a relatively short time frame,’ which in their case was but a single plant generation.”
A Host of Problems Associated with CMIP3 and 5 Climate Models
Mayer, M., Fasullo, J.T., Trenberth, K.E. and Haimberger, L. 2016. ENSO-driven energy budget perturbations in observations and CMIP models. Climate Dynamics 47: 4009-4029. Feb 8, 2017
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V20/feb/a5.php
One Thousand Years of Summer Temperatures in Northeastern Canada
Naulier, M., Savard, M.M., Bégin, C., Gennaretti, F., Arseneault, D., Marion, J., Nicault, A. and Bégin, Y. 2015. A millennial summer temperature reconstruction for northeastern Canada using oxygen isotopes in subfossil trees. Climate of the Past 11: 1153-1164. Feb 7, 2017
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V20/feb/a4.php
[SEPP Comment: Recent warming is not unprecedented and the possible cause for variation is statistically associated with solar radiation.]
Models v. Observations
Study: El Niño forecasting reliability during the period 2002-2011 declined
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Feb 2, 2017
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/02/study-el-nino-forecasting-reliability-during-the-period-2002-2011-declined/
Link to paper: Modulation of Bjerknes feedback on the decadal variations in ENSO predictability
By Fei Zheng, et al. Geophysical Research Letters, Dec 26, 2017
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL071636/abstract;jsessionid=AF62096E2AA5BAAAB40EF7E5A00903E5.f04t01
Model Issues
Instability of GHCN adjustment algorithm
By Paul Matthews, Climate Scepticism, Feb 6, 2017
https://cliscep.com/2017/02/06/instability-of-ghcn-adjustment-algorithm/
[SEPP Comment: The author noticed a possible instability of the GHCN (Global Historical Climatology Network) adjustment algorithm as early as 2012.]
Measurement Issues — Surface
Comparing historical and modern methods of sea surface temperature measurement – Part 1: Review of methods, field comparisons and dataset adjustments
By J.B.R. Matthews, Ocean Science, July 30, 2013
http://www.ocean-sci.net/9/683/2013/os-9-683-2013.pdf
[SEPP Comment: According to the review, ship intake depth may range from 0 to 10 meters (0 to 33 feet).
Vostok: warming or cooling by 2 °C per century has been frequent enough and natural
By Luboš Motl, The Reference Frame, Feb 4, 2017
http://motls.blogspot.com/2017/02/vostok-warming-or-cooling-by-2-c-per.html#more
[SEPP Comment: Raising the issue of precision of Antarctic ice cores, Motl states that the cores indicate warming and cooling periods was three times rate of the 20th century.]
Changing Weather
Lake Oroville Near 100% Full, Emergency Overflow Imminent
By Roy Spencer, His Blog, Feb 10, 2017
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/02/lake-oroville-near-100-full-emergency-overflow-imminent/
Link to Press Release: Lake Oroville Releases Slowed to Avoid Erosion: No Threat to Dam or Public
By Staff Writers, California Department of Water Resources, Feb 10, 2017
http://www.water.ca.gov/news/newsreleases/2017/021017oroville.pdf
Link to news account with photos: Lake Oroville Nears Limit, Close to Flowing Over Emergency Spillway
By Dan Brekke, KQED News, Feb 11, 2016
https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/02/07/engineers-assess-spillway-problem-at-oroville-dam/
La Nina’s Demise Means Predicting Summer Weather Just Got Harder
By Brian Sullivan, Bloomberg, Feb 9, 2017
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-09/la-nina-s-demise-means-predicting-summer-weather-just-got-harder
Changing Climate – Cultures & Civilizations
Climate change drove population decline in New World before Europeans arrived
By Staff Writers, Indianapolis IN (SPX), Feb 01, 2017
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Climate_change_drove_population_decline_in_New_World_before_Europeans_arrived_999.html
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
Black carbon in the Arctic blamed on Russia
Study traces black carbon sources in the Russian Arctic
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Feb 4, 2017
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/04/black-carbon-in-the-arctic-blamed-on-russia/
Link to paper: Siberian Arctic black carbon sources constrained by model and observation
By Patrik Winigera, et al. PNAS, Jan 30, 2017
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/01/24/1613401114
Acidic Waters
Microbial Biomass and Utilization of Dissolved Organic Matter in the Okefenokee Swamp Ecosystem
By Robert Murray and Robert Hodson, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, American Society of Microbiology, 1984
http://pubmedcentralcanada.ca/pmcc/articles/PMC239749/pdf/aem00161-0097.pdf
Questioning European Green
Europe Reminded Of Its Power Grid Vulnerability As Brussels Blacks Out!
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Feb 10, 2017
http://notrickszone.com/2017/02/10/europe-reminded-of-its-power-grid-vulnerability-as-brussels-blacks-out/#sthash.MuhjVq9Z.dpbs
Cap-and-Trade and Carbon Taxes
The Carbon Tax Proposal that Never Dies Despite the Lack of Any Need for It
By Alan Carlin, Carlin Economics and Science, Feb 9, 2017
http://www.carlineconomics.com/archives/3390
Carbon tax push from former GOP officials faces long odds
By Staff Writers, Electric Light & Power, Feb 9, 2017
http://www.elp.com/articles/2017/02/carbon-tax-push-from-former-gop-officials-faces-long-odds.html
Cronyist Argument for Carbon Taxes Exposed
By Daniel Mitchell, CNS News, Feb 2, 2017
http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/daniel-mitchell/cronyist-argument-carbon-taxes-exposed
Former GOP Officials’ Carbon Tax Plan Is A Lot Like One Hillary Clinton Considered
By Michael Bastasch, Daily Caller, Feb 9, 2017
http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/09/former-gop-officials-carbon-tax-plan-is-a-lot-like-one-hillary-clinton-considered/
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
China to launch trading of green certificates for solar and wind power to cut subsidies on renewables
Pilot scheme from July 1 reflects fall in renewable energy production costs and aims to ease burden on state investment in sector
By Staff Writers, Reuters, Feb 3, 2017
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2067849/china-launch-trading-green-certificates-solar-and-wind
Energy Issues – Non-US
BP Energy Outlook 2017
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 7, 2017
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/02/07/bp-energy-outlook-2017/#more-26308
Link to report: BP Energy Outlook, 2017 Edition [Out to 2035]
By Spencer Dale, et al, BP Group Chief Economist, 2017]
http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/energy-outlook.html
Energy Issues – Australia
As The Lights Go Out, Blame Game Escalates Over Green Energy ‘Worship’
By Rosie Lewis, The Australian, Via GWPF, Feb 10, 2017
http://www.thegwpf.com/as-the-lights-go-out-blame-game-deepens-over-green-energy-worship/
Energy At A Crossroads: Fossil Fuels Renewed
By Graham Lloyd, The Australian, Via GWPF, Feb 6, 2017
http://www.thegwpf.com/energy-at-a-crossroads-fossil-fuels-renewed/
It’s that bad — talk of “declaring emergencies” and nationalizing South Australian electricity
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Feb 10, 2017
http://joannenova.com.au/2017/02/its-that-bad-talk-of-declaring-emergencies-and-nationalizing-south-australian-electricity/
Paved with good intentions
By Martin Livermore, Scientific Alliance, Feb 10, 2017
http://scientific-alliance.org/node/1036
“In May 2016, the last coal-fired power station in South Australia was switched off, as part of the state’s efforts to meet its latest (self-imposed) target of a 50% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2025. South Australia was hailed as a leader in climate change policy, with others sure to follow their example.”
Rolling blackouts ordered in SA in 40C heat [104 deg F]
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Feb 9, 2017
http://joannenova.com.au/2017/02/rolling-blackouts-in-sa-in-40c-heat/
South Australian electricity is coming your way
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Feb 7, 2017
http://joannenova.com.au/2017/02/south-australian-electricity-is-coming-your-way/
South Australia Faces Energy Crisis After Power Cuts Were Ordered In Scorching Temperatures
By Staff Writers, Business Insider Australia, Feb 9, 2017
http://www.thegwpf.com/south-australia-faces-energy-crisis-after-power-cuts-were-ordered-in-scorching-temperatures/
Behold SA and Be Scared, Very Scared
By Tom Quirk, Quadrant, Feb 11, 2017
http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2017/02/al-bound-south-australia/
Energy Issues — US
The causes of the recent decrease in US greenhouse gas emissions
By Roger Andrews, Energy Matters, Feb 8, 2017
http://euanmearns.com/the-causes-of-the-recent-decrease-in-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions/#more-16990
“Since their peak in 2007 GHG emissions in the USA have decreased more in absolute terms than in any other country. The results of this review suggest that approximately 40% of this decrease was caused by the replacement of coal with gas in generating plants, 30% by improvements in the efficiency of internal combustion engines and 30% by growth in low-carbon renewables. Another major contributor was the 2008-9 global recession, although its impact can’t reliably be quantified. Had economic growth continued at historic rates between 2007 and the present US GHG emissions would now be substantially higher than they are.”
[SEPP Comment: Graph 7, Shows the US constant dollar economic growth from 1950 to 2014. Past recessions were a blip, with little sustained impact. The 2008-09 recession was a sustained drop. This suggests the political response to the recession made it worse than past recessions.]
Washington’s Control of Energy
Energy Transfer to Get Dakota Access Pipeline Approval From U.S.
By Meenal Vamburkar, Andrew M Harris, and Ari Natter, Bloomberg, Feb 7, 2017
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-07/u-s-army-corps-to-grant-dakota-access-oil-pipeline-easement
Overnight Energy: Construction resumes on Dakota Access pipeline
By Timothy Cama and Devin Henry, The Hill, Feb 9, 2017
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/overnights/318825-overnight-energy-dakota-access-construction-restarts
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
The Future of Fossil Fuels: Dark or Bright?
By John Constable, GWPF, Feb 7, 2017
http://www.thegwpf.com/the-future-of-fossil-fuels-dark-or-bright/
Nuclear Energy and Fears
New Nuclear Is Struggling
By Staff Writers, The American Interest, Feb 5, 2017
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/02/05/new-nuclear-is-struggling/
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
Energy & Environmental Newsletter
By John Droz, Jr. Master Resource, Feb 6, 2017
https://www.masterresource.org/alliance-for-wise-energy-decisions/energy-environmental-newsletter-2-6-2017/
California Dreaming
Californians are paying billions for power they don’t need
We’re using less electricity. Some power plants have even shut down. So why do state officials keep approving new ones?
By Ivan Penn and Ryan Menezes, Los Angeles Times, Feb 5, 2017
http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-capacity/
Friday Funny: In California, ‘children just aren’t going to know what drought is’
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Feb 10, 2017
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/10/friday-funny-in-california-children-just-arent-know-what-drought-is/
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BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE:
Climate Change Stops Play!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 8, 2017
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/02/08/climate-change-stops-play/
One Man’…
By Staff Writers, Climate Change Predictions, Feb 8, 2017
http://climatechangepredictions.org/uncategorized/7747
“People should eat less meat to help combat the effects of climate change, the world’s leading expert on global warming has claimed.
“Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said people should aim for one meat-free day a week, before scaling down their consumption even further.
“Dr Pachauri, whose panel won a Nobel Peace Prize last year, said: ‘Give up meat for one day a week initially, and decrease it from there. In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity.’”
The Telegraph, 8 Sep 2008
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ARTICLES:
1. A Conservative Answer to Climate Change
Enacting a carbon tax would free up private firms to find the most efficient ways to cut emissions.
By George P. Shultz and James A. Baker III, WSJ, Feb 7, 2017
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-conservative-answer-to-climate-change-1486512334
SUMMARY: Mr. Shultz was secretary of
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Paris since February and estimates he ranks somewhere between 169 and 170.The anthropological analysis of Paccherotti’s remains underlined the presence of many characteristics related to castration: high stature, open epiphyseal lines in the hips, lower cortical bone density related to vertebral fractures. That “castrati” were particularly tall has been known since antiquity22, even Aristotle observed that “all animals, if operated on when young, become bigger than their unmutilated fellows”23. At the beginning of the XX century, the Skoptzy, a Christian sect practicing male castration, were measured and they appeared to be taller than their peers24. The persistence of the epiphyseal lines was also found in the iliac crest of another castrato singer, Farinelli5, and can be considered as a typical marker in young age castrati (Fig. 3). Tandler and Grosz at the beginning of the XX century described the failure of closure of the epiphyses in the skeleton of eunuchs25,26. Sex hormones preserve bones, at least in part, by regulating the development and death (apoptosis) of osteoclasts and osteoblasts; this adjustment is permitted by the modification of cytokine production and of the sensitivity of bone marrow progenitor cells to cytokines themselves. For example, the production of interleukin-6 (IL-6) by the osteoblasts is inhibited by estrogen and androgen. After menopause or following castration in men, bone loss increases by 10 times, largely due to overproduction of IL-6. The estrogen deficiency seems to delay osteoclasts apoptosis, while promoting the osteoblast: it follows an imbalance between reabsorption and bone formation. In addition, the delay of osteoclasts apoptosis could be responsible for an increase in the depth of the cavities of resorption, and, consequently, of the trabecular perforation resulting from estrogen deficiency27. It is known the existence of a hormonal crosstalk between bone and testis; it includes testosterone and vitamin D that, released by the testes, affect bone remodeling and the bone-derived hormone osteocalcin that may control testosterone production28.
Characteristics of castration’s bone loss are vertebral fractures, as revealed with the CT scan (L1 and L2), but also the micro-CT found a decrease in cortical bone density, especially in long bones as tibiae and humeri (Fig. 8). The CT scan demonstrates a diffuse osteoporosis affecting both the cortical and the cancellous bone. This is different from senile osteoporosis, where remnants of a normal bone would be seen as microfractures as well as repairs. In fact, X-ray’s results are remarkable because of the relative absence of osteoporotic microfractures. This suggests a long-standing adaptation.
Figure 8: Tibia with a decrease of cortical bone density. Full size image
Bone mineral density progressively decreases after castration, particularly in the first few years, causing osteoporosis29. As in Pacchierotti, a study by Stepan et al., found a progressive loss of the lumbar bone density after orchiectomy29. Kock, studying the men of Skoptzy sect with X-ray, found that kyphosis was common because of osteoporosis30. The same kyphosis was observed by Wagenseil in 20 out of the 31 Chinese eunuchs31.
Osteoporosis is clearly proved also in experimental rats. One-year-old castrated rats developed pronounced femoral osteoporosis 4 months after castration32. Finally, orchiectomy for prostate cancer is frequently followed by severe osteoporosis33.
In the study of Farinelli5, it was found, in a fragment of the frontal bone, a severe hyperostosis frontalis interna (HFI) that the authors related to the castration of the singer, but there were no signs of this pathology in the skull of Pacchierotti. Since the HFI can have different aetiologies34, we can assume that HFI is not always correlated with castration. Moreover, Kock, in the already mentionedstudy on Skoptzy, reported that in all of them was evident the thinning of the bones of the skull30.
Pacchierotti’s activity as singer determined some changes in his body and bones. We discovered modifications in the insertion of three important respiratory muscles: scalenus posterior, serratus anterior and serratus posterior superior. Pettersen in different studies found equivalent modifications of scalenus and serratus in professional opera singers by measuring the electromyographic activity35,36.
Pacchierotti’s cervical vertebrae were all strongly eroded, as demonstrated by the osteophytic lipping revealed from the CT scan. According to Miller et al.37, who measured by Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) pitch-related adjustments in ten healthy volunteers, high note humming was accompanied by increased craniocervical angles. In singing, the position of the atlas with respect to the true vertical (P < 0.001), the axis (P < 0.001) and the C4 vertebra both with respect to the horizontal (P < 0.001), and the axis with respect to the cranium (P < 0.001), were all significantly different to those at rest38. This prolonged condition in Pacchierotti, combined with his osteoporosis, can account for the eroded states of his cervical vertebrae. Di Carlo carried out a systematic X-ray study of cervical spine of three populations of subjects (professional singers, beginning singers and non-singers), which showed deformations of cervical spine after many years of intensive singing39.
According to research in phoniatrics40,41, the ideal posture of the neck in a singer is with the back of the neck elongated compared with the position of the shoulders, so that the rotation of the neck-head is not limited. This technique also permits to avoid passive tilting, lifting or stretching of the laryngeal box, allowing that freedom of management of the glottal-upper glottal system that promotes a greater ease of development of harmonics. An incorrect posture at this level has an influence not only on the stamp, but also on the respiratory dynamics. A correct postural attitude requires the cervical spine to be maintained in an erect position, in nuchal elongation, avoiding the lordosis, the extension and lifting of the jaw. This particular posture determined the progressive erosion of Pacchiarotti cervical vertebrae. A correct postural alignment of the head and neck, in fact, is a necessary element in the optimization of voice production38. Finally, the great bodily size of Pacchiarotti, in particular of his chest, was positively associated with the power of his voice, described as an “extensive soprano”41.
In conclusion, this research describes, for the first time, the occupational markers and the hormonal effect of castration on a whole skeleton of a castrato singer integrating the knowledge about castration in men and animals and its effects on the skeleton. It provides also an enlightening description of the occupational markers of professional singers.
“Today we can but guess what the great singers of the past can have sounded like; but one might hazard a guess that of all the castrati, could we hear them, Pacchierotti would please us most”42.The second day of trial continues for a Lachine teenager charged with terror-related offences after robbing a convenience store to allegedly get money for a plane ride overseas to join a jihadist group.
The teen has already pleaded guilty to armed robbery. He now faces two charges of terror-related offences. Federal prosecutors allege he committed the robbery for the benefit of an unspecified terrorist organization.
On Wednesday, Judge Dominique Wilhelmy was shown the rest of a video recording of the teen's interrogation by police the day of his arrest, Oct. 7, 2014.
You work for non-believers. You are an apostate - Accused teen, from interrogation video shown in court
At the time, the accused was 15.
During the interrogation, the accused can be seen launching into a rant about his vision of Islam.
"You're a traitor," he yells at RCMP investigator Brahim Soussi in the video.
"You work for non-believers. You are an apostate."
The teen also says he's against democracy.
"I have the right to go to a miscreant and take his things," he continues in the video.
"It's considered the spoils of war and I am at war."
The accused often interrupts Soussi, saying he doesn't want to talk anymore.
"I have reasons why I did what I did," he replies when asked about the robbery.
"Non-believers won't understand. Only Muslims will."
The teen then refuses to answer any more questions, ending the interrogation.
Teen's father testifies
On Wednesday, the accused's father testified about the day his son was arrested.
He told the court that he didn't find out his son had been arrested until police arrived to search his home.
He said he was told he couldn't see his son and that his son had refused his presence.
Day 1 of trial reviews arrest with detective
The teen, who is now 16, was arrested at a private high school in Lachine in October.
On Tuesday, Sgt.-Det. Claudio Del Corpo testified the grade 10 student was brought to the principal's office to be placed under arrest in connection with the armed robbery of a convenience store.
I have the right to go to a miscreant and take his things - Accused teen, from interrogation video shown in court
A search warrant being carried out at the family's home in Lachine and later an RCMP investigation into the teen's alleged ties to a terrorist organization.
In the first half of the interrogation video, played for the court on Tuesday, the teen appears calm and talks about his family and school.
He declines to answer some of the questions including what websites he usually visits.
"There's no question that you did this," Del Corpo tells the teen on the recording, referring to the crimes he's accused of committing. "But why?"
"I won't answer," the teen replies.
During the interrogation, Del Corpo suggests the accused had been visiting websites tied to terrorist organizations since 2012 while attending a private high school on a bursary.
The prosecution said the court will later hear from a police investigator who found the flag and logo of ISIS saved on the teen's computer, as well as experts on topics including jihadists and the "situation in Syria."
The prosecution has said it would seek an adult sentence if the accused is found guilty.
The accused cannot be named because he is being tried in youth court.A woman says she was recently mistreated by Kingsway Mall security officers when she tried to help a homeless man, but mall management stand behind the officers’ actions.
Marlene Willier said she regularly frequents the mall, occasionally offering a hot meal to the homeless or destitute hanging around outside.
“I go there just to talk to people, help out with a little money if they need some if they are down and out,” she said.
Willier said last Sunday she met a man outside who looked like he could use some kindness.
“It was snowing, it was cold, he looked hungry. He looked really pitiful, freezing out there,” she said.
After talking for a while, Willier invited the man into the food court to join her for a meal. They sat and talked for hours before she decided to take some money out of a cash machine to help the man.
But as they walked to the second floor to an ATM, Willier said they were met by two security officers who said the man she was with had been banned from the mall.
“They said you are with him and you are just as guilty as he is,” Willier said.
After explaining herself to security, Willier and the man were asked to leave. At that point, security officers issued her a 24-hour ban from the property.
“She decided to get very involved in the conversation, would not accept the security’s explanation of what’s happening. That’s where the 24-hour ban came in to place, just to calm things down,” Jelena Bojic, spokeswoman for Kingsway Mall, said Tuesday.
Willier said they left willingly, but stopped for a cigarette outside in the parkade before parting ways.
That’s where security guards put both of them in handcuffs and escorted them to two separate locked rooms, holding them until police arrived, she said.
“It was scary and I was so insulted. They didn’t believe me when I told them the truth,” she said, adding, “I couldn’t even wipe my tears. I was handcuffed from the back.”
When police arrived, they let her and the man go with a warning, but not before mall security searched through her belongings, issued her a $287 ticket for trespassing and banned her from the mall for six months, she said.
While the incident may have been traumatic for Willier, Bojic said the mall has reviewed the incident and determined the security officers acted appropriately.
“Our security officers — and we have reviewed the footage — have handled themselves very professionally, very calmly,” Bojic said, adding it is protocol for security officers to handcuff people who have been detained until the police arrive.
Bojic said the mall takes the allegation seriously and that Kingsway Mall property manager Seana Almer has reached out to Willier.
That said, the mall stands by their security officers.
“They’ve acted most professionally and with dignity. We reviewed the footage. All of our security officers undergo training to make sure that when they interact with the public in difficult situations they treat everybody with respect,” Bojic said.
Willier said while she is upset by her treatment, she intends to keep making regular visits to the mall and buying the occasional meal for those in need. She’ll just have to wait six months to do it.
twitter.com/ClaireTheobald
[email protected] Google Detects and Warns about Premium SMS Messages
Billions of text messages are sent each year. Though the service is incredibly dated by modern technological standards, the SMS has persisted as among the most popular methods of communication. Google is pushing hard to get carriers on board with a new standard known as Rich Communication Services (RCS), but with so many competing messaging interfaces it will take some time before the ubiquitous text message is put to rest.
Since there are so many users sending and receiving SMS messages each and every day, it’s a lucrative market for unscrupulous actors looking to make a quick buck. Premium SMS messages were for a long time abused to spam messages to unwitting users who are unaware that each message they receive is charged to their monthly bill. Thankfully, carriers banded together to do the right thing (for once) and refused to charge customers for reverse SMS scams. Today, though premium SMS services aren’t really used by most people, certain services like mobile ticketing provide users an easy way of paying certain bills via text message. On Android devices, whenever you send your first SMS to a recipient that charges for receiving messages, you’re met with a warning.
Google warns you before you send a premium SMS to certain recipients. Much like setting other default options, you’re able to set Android to remember your choice for future messages to that same recipient. In case you accidentally set a default you need to undo, you are able to control the text messenger app’s permission to handle Premium SMS messages by going to Settings –> Apps –> Permissions (hit the gear icon) –> Special Access –> Premium SMS Access. But how exactly does Android know when to warn you that you’re sending a message to a premium SMS service? We decided to look into this obviously very important question to find out.
Google’s SMS Blacklist
As it turns out, Google maintains a publicly-viewable database of SMS short codes that it blacklists. The list is sorted by country so it only checks for premium SMS services that are actually utilized in your country. For example, here is the list for the United Kingdom:
<!-- United Kingdom (Great Britain): 4-6 digits, common codes [5-8]xxxx, plus EU: http://www.short-codes.com/media/Co-regulatoryCodeofPracticeforcommonshortcodes170206.pdf, visual voicemail code for EE: 887 --> <shortcode country="gb" pattern="\d{4,6}" premium="[5-8]\d{4}" free="116\d{3}|2020|35890|61002|61202|887|83669|34664|40406" />
What’s listed under each country is a regular expression that is checked against before each text message is sent. If the number you are sending to matches one of the numbers in this regex, then you will be warned that the service you are sending a message to may charge you for the message. You’ll notice that under each country listed, though, not all of the premium SMS services may be listed. Instead, Googlers are constantly updating this database based on the most up-to-date reference information they can find for each country. As evidence for this, the last update to this database was made on October 14th, 2016. Though the list is not comprehensive, it’s still nice that Google maintains a list to ensure that you really meant to send that one premium text message.
That’s all for today. We hope you’ve learned something new, and if you have anything you want us to look into, feel free to reach out to the Portal team on the e-mail addresses listed on our profile pages!HARARE, Zimbabwe — An activist from Bridgewater faces 20 years in prison over a Twitter post about the president of Zimbabwe.
Martha O'Donovan, 25, was in court on Saturday morning for her tweet that called President Robert Mugabe a "sick man." The tweet included a picture showing the 93-year-old with a catheter. The government claims the message represents an attempt to undermine the authority of Mugabe.
She was arrested on Friday at her home in Harare, the African nation's capital city. According to her legal team on Saturday, her application to dismiss the case was denied and she has to remain in jail until at least Nov. 15. Her lawyers will apply for bail on Monday.
O'Donovan is from the Martinsville section of Bridgewater, according to her Facebook page, and a graduate of Bridgewater-Raritan Regional High School.
The New York University graduate works for the Magamba Network, a network working to bring change the political situation Zimbabwe using, according to its website, "new media, activism and innovation."
Earlier this year, she presented a talk at a Re:Publica digital culture conference on "How Zimbabweans Rebel Online."
She also manages a pop-up bar called Mar's Bar.
A lawyer for O'Donovan, Rose Hanzi, told the court that her arrest was illegal because police did not explain the reasons for it. The arresting officer was being questioned in court.
The charge of subversion carries up to 20 years in prison. O'Donovan also is charged with undermining the authority of or insulting the president
O'Donovan has denied the allegations as "baseless and malicious."
It was the first arrest since Mugabe last month appointed a cybersecurity minister, a move criticized by activists as targeting social media. Zimbabwe was shaken last year by the biggest anti-government protests in a decade. Frustration is growing in the once-prosperous southern African nation as the economy collapses and the president, in power since 1980, is already running for next year's elections.
The group representing O'Donovan, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, says it has represented nearly 200 people charged for allegedly insulting Mugabe, the world's oldest head of state, in recent years.
"This arrest marks the start of a sinister new chapter in the Zimbabwean government's clampdown on freedom of speech, and the new battleground is social media," said Amnesty International's deputy regional director, Muleya Mwananyanda. The statement said Zimbabwe authorities tracked tweets to O'Donovan's IP address.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
Do you know Martha O'Donovan? Contact reporter Dan Alexander at [email protected] once spent three years inserting extremely slender glass electrodes into rat neurones. I was trying, mostly in vain, to understand how neurones’ properties change when they are stimulated, a phenomenon that might underlie certain kinds of memory. In order to minimise vibration and electrical noise, my experiments were conducted under austere conditions: in the middle of the night, on an air table, inside a Faraday cage, and with all non-essential equipment – including lights – turned off. On good nights, if I pushed through until 2 or 3am, I would get a few minutes worth of useful data, but most of the time I crawled into bed with nothing to show for 20 hours of toil.
That may sound like a particularly masochistic form of time-wasting, but in fact it was one of the most fulfilling and formative periods of my life. I learned how to ask questions about the world, how to answer them, and how to stick at things in the face of repeated failures. I also learned how to convince others that my ideas were sound.
Still, I came to the conclusion that a research life wasn’t for me. Not because it wasn’t enjoyable – despite all the hardships, it was – but because I lacked the patience to be a good experimentalist. I knew that I could contribute more elsewhere.
There followed a career that has so far encompassed journalism, management consulting, science publishing and software startups. I like to think I have been moderately successful, thanks in no small part to my scientific training. But when I broke the news to my supervisor that I would be pursuing a career outside research I felt like a traitor – and he agreed.
Isn’t the point of a scientific PhD to train and accredit the next generation of researchers and professors? That’s certainly the common sense assumption, but common sense is wrong. According to figures from the Royal Society, only 3.5% of science PhD graduates end up pursuing longterm careers in university research, and fewer than 0.5% eventually become professors. A larger number end up in industrial or governmental research. The overwhelming majority – over three-quarters – pursue careers in other walks of life.
It is much closer to the truth to say that the purpose of a PhD course is to provide scientifically-trained people to work outside science.
Are we wasting students’ time and taxpayers’ money? On the whole, no. The skills I mentioned are useful in many professions, and our society needs to be more, not less, scientifically and technically literate. But it is worth asking why we train so many PhDs, and not all of the reasons are good ones.
From the point of view of a lab head, for example, each graduate student is a source of cheap, clever labour that can do the grunt work needed to make the next discovery (see my first paragraph). For those who take pride in the sheer size (rather than the quality) of their research groups and bibliographies, students also help boost those all-important numbers.
Such effects have important negative consequences, not only for the people concerned but also for the research process itself. Among other things, they reduce the incentive to improve human productivity through intelligent use of technology.
While we’ve seen amazing progress in certain areas such as genome sequencing and combinatorial chemistry, scientific software lags behind. Other domains and other labour-saving research technologies have tended to come out of commercial and privately-funded research organisations rather than universities.
The centres for doctoral training at Imperial College London, part of EPSRC’s initiative which has been expanded by the UK government over the last year, places a strong emphasis on real world skills, not just research results, by directly involving employers.
We need to rethink the way in which we nurture new PhDs. If most of them are to live lives outside academia then they need to be trained accordingly.
Timo Hannay is managing director of Digital Science – follow them on Twitter @timohannay and @digitalsci
More like this:
• Stop the deluge of science research
• ‘DIY labs offer an agile alternative to university-based research’
Join the higher education network for more comment, analysis and job opportunities, direct to your inbox. Follow us on Twitter @gdnhighered.“Traveling through hyperspace isn’t like dusting crops, boy!”
–Han Solo
Smuggling is a high risk, high reward line of work. In exchange for the freedom to enjoy the open skies and the money it takes to survive, Smugglers willingly undertake dangerous, sometimes illegal, jobs with employers that can be capricious and unsavory. Every leap into hyperspace, every approach to a planet, every interaction with a buyer or seller is full of risk.
Available now at local retailers and in our online store, the Fly Casual sourcebook for Star Wars®: Edge of the Empire™ features new guidelines to help GMs add more risks (and a few rewards) to Smuggling adventures. These include expanded rules on hyperspace travel and details for how to run quick-draw showdowns. In today's article, developer Max Brooke provides an overview of these integral aspects of any Smugglers’ tale. We'll also touch on how GMs can help a group of Smugglers find work and eventually determine how much they should get paid.
Making the Jump
Here's Max:
Thanks to the miracle of the hyperdrive, space ships can soar between the stars with astounding speed, completing journeys that once could have taken millennia in a matter of days. However, thanks to shifting hyperlanes, complexities introduced by mass shadows, and countless other factors, jumps across the interstellar void are far from safe. The calculations involved are enormously complex. Even the slightest error can mean the death of everyone aboard.
Fortunately for PCs and GMs, Fly Casual provides guidance on how to make Hyperspace Travel exciting without bogging down the game. New modifiers for the Astrogation check factor in the circumstances of departure and the route. Expanded options are given for spending advantage, triumph, despair and threat results on these checks, and a list of travel times is provided for many of the galaxy’s most common trading lanes and smuggling routes. Astrogation checks with sufficient advantage or threat can get the travelers to their destination early or help chart new hyperlanes, while threat and despair on the check can cast the ship adrift in uncharted space or even cause a collision with a mass shadow. Any jump is slightly dangerous, but a good Pilot backed by a skilled crew can take advantage of secret routes and shortcuts to arrive ahead of schedule or where the Imperials least expect it.
Quick Draws
Showdowns are an important part of the Star Wars mythology, and Fly Casual provides GMs with the resources for quick-draw duels. These rules provide additional options for combatants squaring off in a showdown, from the moment the parties involved begin to size up and intimidate each other to the thrilling point when someone draws and shoots. A showdown can be added to the beginning of a longer battle or be used for a conflict that ends after a single shot. While these rules are especially useful alongside characters with the new Gunslinger specialization, GMs should find them useful when crafting all sorts of Smuggler stories.
Thanks, Max!
Finding Work and Getting Paid
Beyond the expert flying and the shootouts, a smuggling job begins with the search for work and ends only when you get paid – or when you don’t. Fly Casual therefore offers suggestions for GMs about how to make the beginning and end of a job just as suspenseful and action-packed as the middle. A smuggling job might begin with characters meeting an underworld contact in a seedy location, receiving a coded transmission from the Rebel Alliance, or discovering that an old friend could use a little help.
With solid skills, a good crew, and a little luck, you’ll be able to deliver your cargo to its buyer intact and on time – but getting paid for your delivery is an adventure in itself. Your pay may very well depend on a Negotiation check, so Fly Casual includes a table of Payout modifiers that helps translates the results of that check into credits or cargo rewards. Of course, you may fail to deliver the goods you promised when you promised them, so there are also options for what to do when the cargo arrives late or in an undesirable condition. In the worst case scenario, a team of Smugglers may have to face the wrath of their employer empty-handed. Fly Casual gives some ideas about what to do if that happens, from staging a shootout to deepening an Obligation, and how to keep the story moving forward to the next, hopefully more successful, smuggling job.
Shoot Faster and Fly Better
Travel through hyperspace is almost inevitable on a smuggling job, and blaster duels are common in this line of work – especially when a deal goes bad. With the new guidelines introduced in Fly Casual, your Edge of the Empire gaming group will be able to find a job, speed through the stars, draw quickly, shoot first, and, in the end, get paid.
Pick up your copy of Fly Casual today!The Virginia House of Delegates voted to confirm Tracy Thorne-Begland, the state's first openly gay judge, to a full six-year term on the Richmond General District Court Tuesday, after social conservatives scuttled his nomination last May.
The vote was 66 in favor, 28 against and one abstention. In May, Thorne-Begland received 33 votes in favor, 31 against, and 10 abstentions, with 26 members not voting. (He needed 51 votes in the 100-member body.)
Thorne-Begland still faces a Senate vote, but the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that the House was where he faced the strongest opposition.
Thorne-Begland, who lives with his partner and two children, was discharged from the Navy under the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy in 1992 after coming out.
In May 2012, the House of Delegates defeated Thorne-Begland's nomination based on his sexual orientation and discharge. Delegate Bob Marshall (R), who called him "an aggressive activist for the pro-homosexual agenda," questioned how he could rule fairly, citing a potential barfight between a homosexual and a heterosexual. Thorne-Begland said he would refrain from political activity in his role.Justice and Defence Minister Alan Shatter has refused to rule out Ireland buying more Israeli weapons – despite continuing controversy over its policy towards Gaza.
Justice and Defence Minister Alan Shatter has refused to rule out Ireland buying more Israeli weapons – despite continuing controversy over its policy towards Gaza.
Ireland has spent over €14m on Israeli weapons in recent years despite UN claims that it committed war crimes during its previous invasion of Gaza, and the use of Irish passports by Israeli secret service as cover in murder and political assasination.
However, on Wednesday Mr Shatter said that the principle of competitive tendering for Government contracts has to be used by the Department of Defence for the acquisition of defensive equipment.
He told Sean Crowe of Sinn Fein that central to the procedures was the requirement to allow fair competition between suppliers after tenders are advertised on the e-tenders website or the European Defence Agency's electronic bulletin board.
"Such tender competitions are open to any individual company or country in accordance with the terms of all UN, OSCE, and EU arms embargos or restrictions. "There are no such restrictions or embargoes in place on Israel or Israeli companies," Mr Shatter said.
The Israeli arms industry has done well in securing conracts in Ireland.
In one of the more recent successes a company based in Haifa, Elbit Systems Ltd, won a multi-million euro contract to supply surveillance equipment for a new fleet of RG-32M armoured vehicles built in South Africa.
Others included the purchase of a small fleet of Israeli Orbiter unmanned aerial vehicles – spy planes – for €780,000 used by the Army in Chad and by the Army Ranger Wing.
The elite special forces unit also uses the Israeli developed Cornershot, which allows a weapon to be fired around corners.
Another Israeli company, Rabintex Industries Ltd, won a €2.5m competition to supply 12,000 helmets, a success trumpeted in a newsletter from the Israeli embassy in Dublin.
The country also supplied Ireland with an artillery fire control system valued at €1.5m, while two orders were placed with Israeli Military Industries in 2005 for 5.56mm ammunition for the Army's Steyr Aug rifles.
However, after the use of false Irish passports by an assassination squad from Mossad, Israel lost out on multi-million euro contracts to supply more then 20 million bullets to the Defence Forces.
The lucrative series of deals, in one case worth up to €3m for the supply of 10 million bullets in a single tender, instead went to Belgium and other countries.
Sunday IndependentI am very excited to be introducing ][ Game’s first PlayStation Network game: Dyad.
Dyad is an abstract racing game that has influences in many genres including racing games, fighting games, puzzle games and classic arcade shooters.
Dyad does away with the traditional racing game mechanics of break and accelerate and replaces them with puzzle-like mechanics. You must interact with your enemies in unique and varying ways in order to gain speed.
I’ve always loved the visceral feel racing games provided, especially the WipeOut series, and I wanted to translate that feeling into a puzzle game. In most racing games, each track has an ideal ‘racing line’ which players must memorize and translate into muscle memory in order to be successful – I remember months of repeating tracks in WipeOut XL for the PSX! With Dyad I replaced the mental process of memorizing a racing line with various combo mechanics. Dyad begins with very basic comboing rules centred around the polarity of enemies, and continuously adds new mechanics throughout the course of the game. You race quickly in Dyad by making smart decisions, not by memorizing static tracks.
While discussing the contrasting differences in the mechanics in Dyad versus traditional racing games, we found a very strong correlation between the mental process of playing and learning Dyad to meditation. Dyad subtly plays off the meditation theme in order to aid you, and maybe get you thinking about new and different things you wouldn’t expect from a game. Without giving away too much, you’re also on a quest in Dyad… similar to the quest a particle might take in the Large Hadron Collider.
I really wanted Dyad to be something anyone could enjoy; by “anyone” I mean literally “anyone,” not “anyone” in the context of casual games. Dyad is a very deep hardcore racing/puzzle game, but it’s designed to be enjoyed at many levels. The audio and visuals were designed to be appealing both actively and passively. I’ve shown Dyad at several public gaming and non-gaming events and people will stand around watching and listening without any idea what they’re seeing. New players and casual players get a lot out of the unique, intuitive mechanics, and hardcore players can really dive in to maximize their performance.
We’ve been hard at work on Dyad for the past 3 years and I’m very happy with it, and it will only get better as it gets closer to completion. Dyad runs at 60fps at 1080p on the PlayStation 3. Thanks for checking it out! I’ll post again on the PlayStation blog when we’re ready to release.A Palestinian teen has been shot dead in the occupied West Bank after allegedly trying to stab an Israeli soldier, raising the death toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in recent violence to 179.
The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed the death of 17-year-old Na’eem Ahmed Yusef Safi, who was shot by Israeli forces east of Bethlehem on Sunday.
Earlier in the day, two other Palestinian teens had been shot and killed by Israeli forces in the northern part of the occupied West Bank near the town of al-Araqah. The Palestinian Health Ministry identified those two as Nihad Waked and Fuad Waked, both 15 years of age. No Israeli soldier was killed or sustained injuries in the attack that Israelis alleged the pair attempted.
On Saturday, Israeli regime forces killed a Palestinian woman who purportedly tried to stab an Israeli soldier in the West Bank city of al-Khalil (Hebron).
Since the start of October 2015, at least 179 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in what is regarded as the third Palestinian Intifada (uprising).
Tensions heightened in the Palestinian territories in August 2015, when Israel imposed restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East al-Quds.
The Palestinians say the Tel Aviv regime seeks to change the status quo of the holy Muslim site.
On Thursday, a UN human rights expert slammed Israel for using excessive force against Palestinian protesters amid ongoing tensions between the two sides in the occupied territories.
Makarim Wibisono, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said the upsurge in violence was a “grim reminder” of the unsustainable human rights situation in the Palestinian territories.Mariya Yao is a mobile product designer and founder of Xanadu.
When you think of typical gamers, you probably conjure up the image of hordes of teenage boys holed up in a basement, staring blanking at a TV screen for hours on end. If this is the case, you’re dead wrong about the gamer population. Turns out women make up almost half of the gaming audience – 47 percent in 2012 – and there are far more female gamers over the age of 18 than there are male gamers under the age of 17.
Robin Hunicke, an award-winning game developer and cofounder of game startup Funomena, will tackle the issue of women in games in a breakout session at the GamesBeat 2013 conference on Oct. 29-Oct. 30.
So, why are women still considered to be a minority in the gaming world? While many factors are at play, one of the biggest drivers of the gender disparity is the dearth of women involved in making games. The vast majority of game developers are men. As a result, it’s no surprise that many games address male perspectives and expectations to the exclusion of women’s. Popular hit titles like Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty rarely feature playable female lead characters yet often receive criticism for presenting females as weak, oversexualized eye candy.
What results from having so little diversity in an industry? Hunicke, a long-time game designer and a co-creator of games like Journey, said in an interview that she has a favorite example from the auto industry. An all-male team of car engineers was tasked with designing a new seat belt. After much careful collaboration, they finally put their prototype into testing … and proceeded to decapitate every single female crash dummy. The engineers hadn’t thought to accommodate body sizes that weren’t male.
Successful games appeal to broad audiences. “We don’t stereotype book readers or TV watchers as being mostly male or female, so why should we do that with gamers?” Hunicke said. After all, “games are just a different form of interactive content
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-finalists at this year’s Roland Garros are the usual suspects. There is however one young gentleman (boy) who stands out. A 23 year old next-gen star from Austria who has been giving us constant reminders over the last couple of years that he is here. And he is here to stay. Barring the fact that he is a Chelsea fan, there is not much wrong with him. His powerful one handed backhand gives you every reason to believe that he is here to take the tennis world by storm. His appetite for tennis never seems to die out. Having played all throughout last year barring the Olympics, he notched up a staggering 27 tournaments. The name to remember ladies and gentleman is Dominic Thiem.
Last night, Dominic Thiem thrashed, bullied and annihilated the world #2 Novak Djokovic. The former champion from Serbia looked out of sorts and flabbergasted. He had absolutely no answers to Thiem’s kick serve which worked ever so well. To put things into perspective, this will be the first time since 2011 that Djokovic will drop out of the top 2 rankings.
This piece however is not about the Serb. This is an accolade to Thiem. With victories against Nadal and Federer (2016) on clay already in his bag, the young Austrian proceeded to dominate the world #2 in their quarter final match at the French Open. The state of the events were so one sided that Djokovic was bageled in the third set (for the first time at a GrandSlam since 2005).
Much of Thiem’s success can be attributed to the legendary coach Gunter Bresnik. He convinced Thiem to give up the two handed backhand and worked with him into developing a powerful one handed version of the shot. Bresnik (for those who aren’t aware) was Boris Becker’s coach back in the day and played a very important role in developing Becker into the star player that he went on to become.
Image source: SB Nation
Standing at 6 feet tall and over 170 pounds, Thiem’s game play is physically quite demanding. His big stroke follow through means his whole body frame moves with him when he is in full swing. That does make him a tad injury prone if he is not careful about managing his body at a young age. A strong, hard-hitting baseline game is strength along with a good top spinning serve; and he is not one to hold back when it comes to searching for winners. A strong mentality, a good head on his shoulders and a great future ahead of him, Thiem is part of the reason there is hope for men’s tennis after the big 4 of Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray call it a day.
Thiem has a 34-12 record on the season, second only to his next opponent, Rafael Nadal who is now 41-6 overall in 2017. Nadal is now 100-2 in best-of-five sets Clay Court matches having reached his 25th major semi final. The greatest clay court player ever looks set to consolidate his tally of 9 Roland Garros titles. There is a little evidence to show that Nadal will slip up. Or that Thiem can pull off the biggest upset of his career. But judging on his recent form, he can certainly give the Spaniard a run for his money. However, having come this far and with a huge reputation that is scaling new heights by every passing tournament, one thing for certain is that in Dominic Thiem, we certainly have a new Grand Slam Champion waiting to take his throne.
Here’s wishing the rising star Dominic Thiem good luck for tomorrow’s semis.
Featured image source: Indian ExpressMedia playback is not supported on this device Sam Allardyce: Ex-England boss says 'entrapment has won'
Ex-England boss Sam Allardyce has said "entrapment has won" after newspaper allegations led to him stepping down as manager of the national side.
Allardyce left in disgrace after just 67 days after The Daily Telegraph said he advised undercover reporters posing as businessmen how to "get around" player transfer rules.
He said it was a "silly thing to do".
But when asked if it was his last job in management, the 61-year-old said: "Who knows? We'll wait and see."
"Unfortunately it was an error of judgement on my behalf," added the former Sunderland manager. "I've paid the consequences. Entrapment has won on this occasion and I have to accept that."
The Daily Telegraph defended its investigation.
"We began looking into corruption in English football last year after receiving information about specific managers, officials and agents - before Allardyce was appointed England manager," said a spokesperson for the newspaper.
"We have an obligation to investigate important stories that are clearly within the public interest and adhere to our industry codes of practice in doing so."
Earlier, Allardyce told Sky Sports he had only attended the meeting with the undercover reporters as a favour to friend and agent Scott McGarvey, who he says was hoping to land a job out of it.
Media playback is not supported on this device Frank de Boer & Football's shortest managerial reigns
The former Bolton, West Ham, Newcastle, Notts County and Blackburn boss was appointed England manager in July after Roy Hodgson left the role following the side's last-16 defeat by Iceland at Euro 2016.
The Football Association called his conduct "inappropriate" and said his contract was ended by mutual consent.
Speaking to reporters outside his home on Wednesday, Allardyce said: "The agreement was done very amicably with The FA and I apologise to those and all concerned in the unfortunate position I've put myself in."
Allardyce also wished "all the very best" to England Under-21s manager Gareth Southgate, who will take charge of the national side for the next four games, as well as the players and staff.
England's next match is a 2018 World Cup qualifier against Malta at Wembley on Saturday, 8 October. Malta lost 5-1 to Scotland earlier this month.
What did Allardyce do?
Media playback is not supported on this device FA chairman Greg Clarke: "The things he said were inappropriate for a manager to say"
Allardyce was filmed telling undercover reporters it was "not a problem" to bypass rules on third-party player ownership and claimed he knew of agents who were "doing it all the time".
Third-party ownership - when someone other than the buying and selling club owns a stake in a player, typically an investor - has been banned by the FA and world football's governing body Fifa.
The practice has also been described as a form of "slavery" by Michel Platini, the former president of European football's governing body Uefa.
The Telegraph investigation also claimed that a £400,000 deal was struck for Allardyce to represent the Far East firm the reporters claimed to work for and to be a keynote speaker at events, though Allardyce stressed he would have to "run that by" his employers, the FA, first.
Allardyce also referred to his predecessor Roy Hodgson as "Woy", making fun of his manner of speaking, criticised Gary Neville, one of Hodgson's assistants, and made comments about FA president Prince William. He also described another member of the Royal family, Prince Harry, as a "naughty boy".
Further details of the Telegraph's wide-ranging investigation are published in Wednesday's edition of the paper, including a claim that eight past and present Premier League managers received illicit payments for transfers.
Five of the eight, who have not been named, have denied the allegations while three are yet to comment, the paper says.
Will he get compensation?
Allardyce was just two months into a two-year deal as England boss with a salary understood to be worth £3m a year.
Despite only being in charge for one game, the Daily Mail reported that he had received a "seven-figure pay-off" from the FA.
However, former FA chief executive David Bernstein said he hoped this was not the case, telling BBC Radio 5 live: "The hubris of it all is extraordinary.
"This is a man earning £3m a year. I wonder whether there's a pay-off or not. I hope not, because I don't think 50 or 60 days' work merits a pay-off.
"There's no question he brought the FA and football into disrepute and that's not acceptable. I have very little sympathy."
Who said what?
Media playback is not supported on this device Sam Allardyce: Alan Shearer says England at rock bottom
"It's been a hugely disappointing couple of days for English football. It's very, very sad what's happened to Sam and it could happen to any of us. Sam innocently has paid the price. Privacy can only be found within the four walls of our own home." Steve McClaren
"I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm staggered at the misjudgement from a guy who said this was his dream job." Ex-England striker and BBC pundit Alan Shearer.
"I like Sam. I feel sorry. I know it was his dream job. I like him and respect him." Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho.
"I've got a little bit of sympathy for him, but he gave the FA no choice." Former Wales midfielder Robbie Savage.
"If you want to be the England manager you have to be whiter than white and the Telegraph investigation shows he wasn't. This guy is being paid around £3m a year, why was he grubbing around trying to find £400,000 from somewhere?" Former FA chairman Greg Dyke.
"I don't think fans will be annoyed that he is explaining how to get around rules, I think it is more that he was chasing money around the world when the focus should have been on the England job." Former England defender Danny Mills.
"We have been clear that we expect the highest standards of governance and transparency from sports governing bodies, here in the UK and on the international stage. In this context, the recent allegations regarding English football are very concerning and we will be discussing the matter with the football authorities." Sports Minister Tracey Crouch.
What next for England?
After just one match in charge - a 1-0 win over Slovakia in England's opening game of their World Cup 2018 qualifying campaign - Allardyce becomes the national side's shortest-serving full-time manager.
The FA said it would begin its search for a new England manager while Southgate takes charge for the Malta game as well as World Cup qualifiers against Slovenia and Scotland plus a friendly with Spain. Allardyce was due to name his next squad on Sunday.
Former England striker Michael Owen has backed Southgate to perform well as caretaker and secure the job permanently.
"If he wins all four games it will take a brave man to say 'let's change it now'," said Owen. "Possession is nine tenths of the law, isn't it?"
Bookmakers have named Bournemouth boss Eddie Howe, Crystal Palace's Alan Pardew and former Hull manager Steve Bruce, as some of the other main candidates for the vacant position.
Another is the USA's German coach Jurgen Klinsmann, who on Wednesday distanced himself from the role.
Read more: Candidates for the England job
Analysis
BBC Sport chief football writer Phil McNulty
Allardyce went abroad on Wednesday, visibly devastated he had engineered the downfall of his long-held dream to manage England after only 67 days.
Once the dust has settled on an episode that provides much personal humiliation for him, will one of English football's most durable managerial figures ever contemplate a return to the game?
He did not rule it out - and the smart money will be on several chairmen not ruling it out in the future either.
As the season progresses and teams drop into trouble, there will undoubtedly be a call for the sort of relegation-avoiding expertise Allardyce has shown throughout his career, not least at Sunderland last season.
It was his work with the Black Cats that smoothed his path to England - and it will not be forgotten when the spectre of strife and relegation rears its head for clubs as the season goes on.
Yes, Allardyce's credibility is currently broken but a manager who can prevent a club's relegation can save them millions. And there will always be a chairman out there who will believe Allardyce's baggage comes with a price worth paying.Journalists fighting spread of fake news raise concerns over possible conflicts of interest and say site has refused to disclose needed data
Journalists working for Facebook say the social media site’s fact-checking tools have largely failed and that the company has exploited their labor for a PR campaign.
Several fact checkers who work for independent news organizations and partner with Facebook told the Guardian that they feared their relationships with the technology corporation, some of which are paid, have created a conflict of interest, making it harder for the news outlets to scrutinize and criticize Facebook’s role in spreading misinformation.
The reporters also lamented that Facebook had refused to disclose data on its efforts to stop the dissemination of fake news. The journalists are speaking out one year after the company launched the collaboration in response to outrage over revelations that social media platforms had widely promoted fake news and propaganda during the US presidential election.
Facebook promised to tackle fake news. But the evidence shows it's not working Read more
Facebook has since revealed that it facilitated Russia’s efforts to interfere with US politics, allowing divisive political ads and propaganda that reached 126 million Americans.
“I don’t feel like it’s working at all. The fake information is still going viral and spreading rapidly,” said one journalist who does fact-checks for Facebook and, like others interviewed for this piece, was not authorized to speak publicly due to the continuing partnership with the company. “It’s really difficult to hold [Facebook] accountable. They think of us as doing their work for them. They have a big problem, and they are leaning on other organizations to clean up after them.”
Facebook announced to much hype last December that it was partnering with third-party factcheckers – including the Associated Press, Snopes, ABC News, PolitiFact and FactCheck.org – to publicly flag fake news so that a “disputed” tag would warn users about sharing debunked content. A Guardian review this year found that the fact-checks seemed to be mostly ineffective and that “disputed” tags weren’t working as intended.
Now, some of the factcheckers are raising concerns, saying the lack of internal statistics on their work has hindered the project and that it is unclear if the corporation is taking the spread of propaganda seriously.
Another fact-checking source said it was rare to see the fact-checks actually lead to a “disputed” tag on Facebook, raising questions about how the tool was functioning. Factcheckers said they had queries about how often the tags were placed on articles, what effect they had on the content and what sites were most often targeted – but said that Facebook had not provided information.
“We’re sort of in the dark. We don’t know what is actually happening,” said Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter, which verifies Facebook’s third-party factcheckers.
He said he appreciated that there “are a lot of people at Facebook who really care about this” but, he added, “the level of information that is being handed out is entirely insufficient … This is potentially the largest real-life experiment in countering misinformation in history. We could have been having an enormous amount of information and data.”
A Facebook spokesperson said that once an article had been labeled as false, its future “impressions” dropped by 80%.
“Our work with third-party fact-checkers is not just meant to educate people about what has been disputed – it also helps us better understand what might be false and show it lower in News Feed,” the spokesperson said in an email, adding that the data informed its algorithms to “more quickly and accurately detect future false stories”.
Facebook has also launched a “ related articles ” initiative and other features meant to promote articles about similar topics, including reports from factcheckers, the spokesperson said: “We’re giving people the information they need to make informed decisions about whether or not to read, trust, or share.”
One of the factcheckers said it seemed clear that Facebook was opposed to internally hiring large numbers of journalists and experts to do the difficult fact-checking work necessary to clamp down on fake news in a meaningful way.
“The relationship they have with fact-checking organizations is way too little and way too late. They should really be handling this internally. They should be hiring armies of moderators and their own fact-checkers.”
Some fact checkers said they also felt the paid relationships with Facebook were creating a conflict, in effect silencing those in the best position to investigate the way the platform facilitates fake news.
“By offering this money, which journalistic outlets desperately need, it’s weakening our ability to do any fact-checking of these disinformation purveyors like Facebook,” said one third-party factchecker. “They are basically buying good PR by paying us.”
The journalist noted that Facebook users could still easily purchase ads without scrutiny. Facebook “have been and will continue to take money to spread disinformation”, the reporter said, adding: “They’re trying their best not to affect their bottom line.”
Aaron Sharockman, executive director of PolitiFact, said some of the factcheckers had been frustrated with the limits of the tools, noting that fake news writers can easily put their debunked content on different websites or links, allowing the articles to continue posting without “disputed” tags.
“They are able very easily to spread misinformation to different URLs,” he said.
While Sharockman said he would also like to see more transparency from Facebook, he said he was pleased that the company was continuing to collaborate with journalists: “I think to go from nothing to where we are now is good progress.”
How did the news go ‘fake’? When the media went social | Claire Wardle and Hossein Derakhshan Read more
Recent research has also raised fundamental questions about the effectiveness of tags labeling disputed stories. A Yale University survey found that the tag had a minimal impact on whether a user believed a headline was true, and that the presence of the tags could make users more likely to believe other fake stories are true, simply because they did not have the tag.
“It is possible that it is doing more harm than good, and it’s unlikely that it’s doing much good,” said David Rand, a psychology professor and co-author of the study.
(Facebook responded that the research was not based on data from real Facebook users and noted that it was an “opt-in study” based on paid survey respondents.)
In the case of an article that falsely claimed the shooter was linked to anti-fascist groups, multiple factcheckers debunked the piece.
It was still shared more than 260,000 times on Facebook.
Contact the author: [email protected] a small teaser last week, the team behind Halo fan game Installation 01 have released their first Q&A video, discussing elements of the game’s multiplayer. Answering questions from fans, the team talk about how players can customise their Spartan, whether they are designing a more Bungie or 343-esque Halo game, among other things.
Head down the virtual gun range with our list of the PC’s top shooters.
While still in the stages of pre-alpha, Installation 01’s multiplayer will look familiar to anyone who has played a Halo game. The design team are trying to follow the design standards set by Bungie, using Halo 3 as its template, rather than the modern entries by 343. While they are considering adding in elements like Halo 5’s sprint in custom games, Installation 01 is primarily focused on continuing Bungie’s design legacy. As such, the weapons are not hitscan based like in Halo 5, but traditional projectile weapons like the ones seen in Halo 3. The team initially started with hitscan weapons, but it made guns like the Sniper Rifle way too accurate.
For armour customisation, Installation 01 allows Spartans to customise their helmet, chest, arm and leg armour, with players then being able to choose their primary, secondary and visor colours. So far, only the Mark V and Mark VI armour are in the game, but the art team are planning armour variants, alongside possible cosmetic attachments and armour skins.
There are plans for both skill and in-game credit unlocks for armour pieces, with Spartans unlocking new armour as they level up. Speaking of level ups, Installation 01 plans to have a ranking system similar to that seen in Halo 3 and Reach, where players have both linear and skill based ranks.
This Q&A also shows off the Installation 01 website, which harkens back to the old Halo website that fans were so fond of back in the days of Halo 3 and Reach. It plans to have stuff like file sharing for custom games and replays, an extensive forum, along with the ability to customise your Spartan armour through this dedicated website. This will also be the place where you download the Installation 01 launcher, meaning that the game is planned to run independently from a service like Steam. All game updates will come through this launcher, centralising everything to do with Installation 01.
Everything seems to be progressing nicely for Installation 01, but time will tell on whether it will morph into its own game, or stay as a Halo fan project. While all of the assets are hand-made by the Installation 01 team as to not violate Microsoft’s Game Content Usage Rules, there is a question of whether it will go the route of Galaxy in Turmoil and become a brand new IP.
Make sure to keep checking the Installation 01 website, as that will be the place to get all the latest news and eventually access the game, once it is available to the public.Jahnay New York 21 hours ago How about poisoning our air and water. Let's make life really
unbearable. By the way, take away birth control as well as health
care, housing and food assistance. The NRA can present every man,
woman and child with a weapon with a silencer. Maybe ammunition
can be taxed for this 'giveaway'. Flag
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harrybythebeach Miami 1 day ago This is really the worst part of his presidency. Flag
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operacoach San Francisco 1 day ago Oh, the poor fossil fuel industry. They can't destroy the planet fast enough? Flag
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MB Brooklyn 1 day ago When you legislate from the executive branch, this is what happens. Next time, maybe the dems will try passing some actual laws by the actual Congress. And please don't whine about the obstructionist repubs. Politicians are there to deal. Obama's supreme arrogance stood in the way of getting anything done. It still amazes me that he's so revered. Eight years and all he has to show for it is obamacare? (Which should really just be called what it is - The Great Medicaid Expansion).
Pathetic. Flag
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Curtis Flowers 1 day ago 48 steps backward, eh!
Go Trump! Master of Nothing, Lord of Vanity, Beggar of Acceptance, Loser at Large. Flag
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Mark Richmond 1 day ago Remember this who voted for the clown, that your children and their children will suffer the consequences while you lie smoldering in your graves. They will blame you and NOT the government. Flag
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paula is a trusted commenter new york 1 day ago Please note: this is not just Donald Trump and his ignorance. And it has nothing to do with his voters. This is the will of well-educated, well-heeled clear thinking -- greedy people. They value money over the natural world, peace among nations, enough food and clean water for all, and a decent future for their grandchildren. Trump you can explain. His cabinet and the lobbyists -- you can't. Flag
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manfred marcus Bolivia 1 day ago What an insult to sanity, to sensible regulations to assure our freedom via some discipline in protecting Mother Earth. Trump is an awful liability to our health, unscrupulous and irresponsible in allowing polluters to get away with'murder'. Flag
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L'historien Northern california 1 day ago vote. Flag
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SLBvt Vt 1 day ago Polluting our lands, a moron president, lying healthcare/tax reformers, unsupported education, tech world that thinks they are above it all, guns galore...
Russia need not bother-- we are already our own worst enemy. Flag
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Bob Philadelphia 1 day ago All those people who voted for Mickey Mouse every Presidential election have finally gotten their wish. Flag
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Jack Huntington Beach, CA 1 day ago Russian meddling was, and is, significant but what about Koch brothers meddling? It's amazing how much of this deregulation comes straight from their agenda. The Koch brothers have called for the elimination of the EPA for years and have donated millions to Pruitt. Flag
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Jackie Yardley, PA 1 day ago Scott Pruitt is doing more to harm the average American citizen than anyone in the Trump administration. Meeting daily wth industry executives? Why? Isn't his job to protect the environment, which belongs to all of us? These damaging actions need to be more widely publicized.
This country has been fighting for environmental protections for 50 years and the results are measurable. I agree with others that there have been some set backs along the way, but we have fought too long and hard for this narrow-minded, shill for industry to take us back to the 1960s. Flag
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LS NYC 1 day ago Should be shared with every millennial who is concerned about the environment - but didn't bother to vote in the 2016 presidential election Flag
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Bevan Davies Kennebunk, ME 1 day ago It will take a generation to reverse this blatant destruction of the environment. How many children will get asthma, suffer from lead poisoning, or succumb to some form of carcinogen in the air or water? Our world is becoming a dystopian nightmare. Flag
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LG Texas 1 day ago As far as I can tell there is only one perspective here - the Human. Where are the rights of nature and the other biology that lives on this planet? What about their rights? Who speaks for the animals in who are just trying to live their lives out on this Earth no different than us? Flag
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guanna Boston 1 day ago I am looking forward to the day when Americans Erase Trump from our politics and history. Flag
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John New York 1 day ago It seems the EPA is an environmental disaster. Trump must not care about his youngest son or his grandchildren. Of course not, it has become clear that he only loves his lonely self. SAD. Flag
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poslug Cambridge 1 day ago Where are all those suburban women so concerned about their children that a vaccine is a threat? Where are their voices on chemical poisoning of those offspring? Where are those offspring's grandparents on same? Where are the religious leaders since these poisons are clearly anti Biblical? Where are all the people who have jobs in non coal industries who have fewer jobs? Crazy. Evil too. Flag
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bob ardsely, ny 1 day ago Re: "Mr. Pruitt initially delayed the compliance deadline for a 2015 national ozone standard, but reversed course after 15 states and the District of Columbia sued."
You may want to point out the Administration is still delaying the compliance deadlines for the ozone standard. The deadline for setting air quality designations for the 2015 ozone national ambient air quality standard was October 1, 2017. So far, no designations, and thus a de facto delay in implementing this standard. Flag
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Mikhail Mikhailistan 1 day ago The principle of equity demands there be parity between the environmental policy of the USA and the rest of the world.
The US economy -- with its globalized supply-chains -- is responsible for massive environmental degradation in countries with far weaker regulatory and enforcement systems -- one of the principle reasons American multinationals exploit these jurisdictions, outsourcing their polluting production activities.
Why should Americans enjoy an exceptionally pristine environment when their lifestyles and purchasing decisions are disproportionately responsible for environmental degradation globally?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but hopefully these recent incredibly short-sighted and destructive policy decisions will serve to catalyze action -- and globally, across all environments impacted by poorly-regulated supply chains feeding American consumer appetites. Flag
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P.Gorman Sydney, Australia 1 day ago So the horrendous effects of these rollbacks don't disappear, I would love to see some universities start immediately to organize research on how each rollback affects both the general population and each specific population. It is understandable how the insidious effects of these moves will fade from our view and we won't know the long term effects. We can't let that happen. Flag
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SaveTheArctic New England Countryside 1 day ago Today, I talked with a trump voter who very much regrets his vote. He can see that trump is dividing this country. The Repubs are misjudging the electorate on how many of them appreciate clean air and water. This man is a hunter and fisherman and regularly hikes with his family. He said he can see the climate changing.
Democrats need to reach out to these voters who regret their vote for trump. And there must be a lot of them! Flag
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Circumspect Ithaca 1 day ago How come I keep hearing and reading that President Trump hasn't accomplished anything or gotten anything done since his term began??? This is NEWS!! Flag
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Recommend Share this comment on Facebook Share this comment on Twitter LG Texas 1 day ago He may have accomplished something, but its more like deconstructed and destroyed. Flag
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Recommend Share this comment on Facebook Share this comment on Twitter Dazed, Confused & Befuddled Washington 1 day ago So now, whom is the one creating fake news, could it be Donald J Trump to distract us from his nefarious acts? We have a grifter for a president. Flag
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GvN Long Island, NY 1 day ago This really scares the crap out of me. Until I read this piece I was under the impression that the Trump administration didn't get much done. Apparently they are flying far reaching changes well under the public radar, helped by the fact that we get bombarded by one outrageous Trumpact after the other. Getting these environmental protection rules in place took decades, mainly because of fighting the Big-Bucks. It will again take decades to get overturned rules back in place again, too late for us older folks and too late for our children.
A desperate plea to The New York Times; Please keep these articles with big fat letters on your front page! Free journalism seems to be the only thing left to keep us from descend back into the eighteen hundreds and the ascent of a new breed of robber barons. Flag
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Loading...by Lukasz Guminski
Monitoring Performance in Microservice Architectures (PDF) 18.98 MB Download
Microservice systems have very different characteristics from previous architectures. Whereas the system as a whole may live for a long time, its components – the containers – do not. They live and die quickly.
This new situation presents new challenges to many areas of software engineering. One of them is monitoring – how can an operator make sure that a system remains healthy if existing monitoring tools are unable to function in this new reality?
In this post I will explore the challenge, and present my ideas on how we can apply the knowledge of physics and biology to build more intelligent monitoring solutions.
The Challenge – Invisible Containers
Let us consider Service X, which is composed of 3 short-lived containers. In the following figure, the graphs on the left plot their real performance over time, and on the right is the data that has been recorded by a traditional monitoring system:
The typical frequency of sampling – every 1-10 minutes – which was suitable for monitoring physical servers and virtual machines, is clearly insufficient to monitor containers. Some of them, like Container B in this example, are so short lived that they go unnoticed. This means that if we use them to build a large micro-service system, a substantial part of it would remain unmonitored, un-monitorable, or both.
To fix this, we might think about increasing the frequency of sampling. The situation then looks like in the next figure:
But what seems like a working solution – Container B is now visible – does not scale to production, particularly in environments where containers serve a single request/job and then disappear. Such ephemerality would require sampling at a frequency greater than 1 Hz (more than one sample per second), which would produce an enormous amount of data. I dare to say that the monitoring system would be more complex than the system it monitors.
The problem must be solved in a different way.
Evolution
A true solution can be found if we take a close look at evolutionary trends, and analyze where they point us to. That is the reason why in this section I am going to look at the history of monitoring solutions with a focus on their intelligence. More specifically, on contextual awareness – a notion which will be explained in the process.
Class 0 (Context-Less Monitoring)
I believe that a monitoring solution becomes functionally complete if it is able to perform two operations: collect information and alert if there is an anomaly.
If we accept this, then ping – a well-known administration utility – turns out to be the simplest functionally complete implementation that satisfies the criteria: it collects information on the round-trip time of ICMP packets sent to a given host and if the time exceeds a predefined threshold value (the timeout), it reports this as an anomaly.
This approach has a tendency to generate many false alarms, as an alert is sent every time the threshold is exceeded, which is not always an indication of a serious problem. In the past, however, various tools existed that relied solely on thresholds. I will refer to them as Class 0 solutions, as they began the history of monitoring solutions. Soon, though, more advanced solutions appeared.
Class 1 (Stateful Monitoring)
Nagios was one of the first representatives of the new class. The difference between it and the previous generation lied in the way it detected anomalies. More specifically, in the amount of contextual information that was used in the process.
First, let’s again have a look how Class 0 solutions like ping operate. The decision logic is in fact quite primitive: they look at the state of the infrastructure as it is at the moment of observation, then the information is compared with a threshold value to decide if the state is healthy or not. In other words, raw measurements without any additional context are sufficient for the monitoring systems to react, and the reaction is very deterministic.
Nagios was different. From the very beginning, it offered the mechanism of state flapping detection, which means that crossing the threshold value was not a sufficient reason anymore to trigger an alert. Instead, Nagios compared the current sample with the information on past values of the measurement, to ensure that this was truly an anomaly deserving attention. The memory of past samples provided historical context, a valuable source of information for all sorts of advanced anomaly detection algorithms. In more advanced implementations the memory could also be used for pattern detection, and if such patterns occurred (e.g. regular nightly backups that consume lots of resources) the decision logic could decide that something, which at first glance looked like an anomaly, was in fact harmless and therefore omit alerting operators.
The easiest way to explain the difference between Class 1 and Class 0 is to see what happens when measurements start to oscillate around a threshold value (so called state flapping). A Class 0 system reacts every time the threshold is exceeded, which floods operators with alerts. Class 1 system uses historical context to realize that the state is unstable, and only produces an aggregated alert from time to time.
The awareness of historical context results in more intelligent decisions and therefore more accurate alerting. The advantage is so significant that nowadays almost all market products work in a similar way: both traditional Ops tools (Icinga, Shinken, Zabbix, Sensu) and container-friendly products (Prometheus, New Relic, Dynatrace, Sysdig Cloud, Scout, DataDog). I will call this type of monitoring Stateful Monitoring, or simply Class 1 monitoring.
Class 2 (Syntactic Monitoring)
Class 1 monitoring solutions are more intelligent than Class 0 tools, but they both have an intrinsic limitation. Generally speaking, they do not understand the correlations between components. Such correlations exist if there are functional or structural dependencies between components, e.g. two containers competing for I/O bandwidth of a physical host that runs them. As a consequence, if the relationship is experiencing any problems (e.g. starvation), it is the operator’s responsibility to correlate the facts and draw their own conclusions. Naturally, the involvement of human operators dramatically affects the time of recovery.
This is not the case for the next class of monitoring solutions, which have just started appearing on the market. These not only understand the historical context like Class 1 solutions, but they also learn the syntactic (i.e. structural) context and actively use that knowledge. For instance, if related components degrade one after another (“domino effect”), instead of triggering a series of alerts, they generate only one.
The difference in the behavior of Class 2 and Class 1 systems can be observed when components have dependencies – for instance if a system consists of a database and many front ends that depend on it. A failure of the database immediately
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American Songbook 3 (2004), Thanks for the Memory: The Great American Songbook, Volume IV (2005), and Fly Me to the Moon... The Great American Songbook Volume V (2009).
Other rock and pop artists who have used the work include Keith Richards, Carly Simon, Bette Midler, Gloria Estefan, Barry Manilow, Caetano Veloso, Pia Zadora, Queen Latifah, Joni Mitchell, Boz Scaggs, Robbie Williams, Sting, Tom Waits, Ray Reach, Pat Benatar, Morrissey, Norah Jones, Nicole Henry and Rufus Wainwright.
In 2012, Sir Paul McCartney joined this list with the album Kisses on the Bottom. John Stevens, a 2004 American Idol contestant, also recorded these songs. Steve Tyrell has forged a successful solo career with his interpretations of songs from the Great American Songbook. His version of "The Way You Look Tonight" for Father of the Bride (1991) was noticed and kept in the film at the insistence of its star, Steve Martin; this led to Tyrell recording several Songbook albums, including A New Standard, Standard Time and Bach to Bacharach. In 2014, Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett released a collaborative album, Cheek to Cheek, made up of songs from the Great American Songbook. Bob Dylan released the albums Shadows in the Night (2015)[22][23] and Fallen Angels (2016),[24] and has announced the release of a triple album of Great American Songbook selections, Triplicate, scheduled for March 2017.[25]
Radio [ edit ]
British broadcaster Michael Parkinson devoted a considerable part of his BBC Radio 2 programme Parkinson's Sunday Supplement, which aired from 1996 to 2007, to this genre of music.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Do you know where the President of the United States of America is today, October 13th, 2017?
Donald Trump isn't hard at work trying to make sure every American receives quality affordable Health Care. He's not on Capital Hill helping to simplify the tax code and give the working class a break. And surpassingly, he's not even at one of his resort properties or luxury golf courses wasting away his first term.
Donald Trump is actually addressing a registered hate group. Yes, you read that correctly. The President of the United States is addressing–with open arms–a registered extremist organization.
He is now the first President to speak at this hate group's gathering according to Independent UK.
Trump is Friday's keynote speaker at the Value Voters Summit. The organizers gave this convergence of anti-LGBTQ extremists a cute name to disguise their hatred, but it only takes a few seconds of research to expose the group.
The summit is organized by the Family Research Council, a group the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified as one of the 917 hate groups currently operating within the United States. You can track the other hate groups using the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hate Map.
In a fundraising email to supporters, Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council said, “The videos are titled 'It Gets Better.' They are aimed at persuading kids that although they'll face struggles and perhaps bullying for 'coming out' as homosexual (or transgendered or some other perversion), life will get better. …It's disgusting. And it's part of a concerted effort to persuade kids that homosexuality is okay and actually to recruit them into that lifestyle."
Perkins has also been quoted saying, "Those who understand the homosexual community—the activists—they're very aggressive, they're—everything they accuse us of they are in triplicate. They're intolerant, they're hateful, vile, they're spiteful..... To me, that is the height of hatred, to be silent when we know there are individuals that are engaged in activity, behavior, and an agenda that will destroy them and our nation."
The group regularly uses suedo-science ("fake science") to make outlandish claims about the queer community. On many occasions equating homosexuality with pedophilia and extreme violence.
The same man who–on the campaign trail–was pictured holding an upside down pride flag with "LGBT+ for Trump", made history as the first Republican candidate for President to address the queer community on the floor of the Republican Convention, and made promises to keep queer people safe from violence and terrorism, is now joining forces with the Family Research Council.
Donald Trump is no friend of the queer community. He is a liar, a phony, a white supremacist sympathizer, and now an anti-LGBTQ extremist leader. Are you really that surprised?The Iterated prisoners dilemma (IPD) has been an active area of study since the 1980s following Robert Axelrod’s computer tournaments. With a team of over 50 contributors I am one of many who have built a Python library that allows for sustainable study of it: github.com/Axelrod-Python/Axelrod. This library is now coming of age and a number of research projects are making use of it. This blog post will describe two related pieces of work. Recent (2012) research as well as the results of Axelrod’s original tournaments have lead to a belief that simple strategies do just as well (if not better) than more complex ones. The two papers I’m going to describe show that’s not really true.
This is joint work with a number of talented people:
The two papers in question are:
Both of these papers look at using a family (referred to as archetypes in the second paper) of strategies and training them using reinforcement learning algorithms.
Reinforcement learning refers to a collection of algorithms that train a model by exploring a space of actions and evaluating consequences of those actions: good actions are typically chosen more often than bad actions as the algorithm is allowed to “walk through” the state space. The reinforcement learning algorithms we have use are genetic algorithms and particle swarm optimisation algorithms.
There are a number of strategy archetypes described in the second paper but here’s a diagrammatic representation of a particular type of one of them called a LookerUp strategy:
This strategy was first written about by Martin Jones: mojones.net/evolving-strategies-for-an-iterated-prisoners-dilemma-tournament.html.
The idea of that strategy is that it maps a given state of a history of recent plays and the early plays of the opponent to an action: whether to cooperate or defect.
The reinforcement learning algorithm (in this case a genetic algorithm) aims to learn what best mapping to use.
We do this for two settings:
A Moran process: an evolutionary model of invasion and resistance across time during which high performing individuals are more likely to be replicated. A tournament: very similar to Axelrod’s famous tournaments of the 1980s.
This corresponds to the two papers.
In the first paper we observe a number of neat things:
The trained strategies, with no input from us, evolve the ability to have a handshake: they recognise themselves. This seems particularly important in a Moran process of resisting invasion: where a single individual of another type is introduced.
The size of the population is important. In a lot of theoretic work, Moran processes are only studied for \(N=2\) however we observe a boundary as to the performance of strategies across the case \(N=2\) and \(N>2\). This could have important ramifications from the point of view of theoretic studies.
In the second paper we consider not only a standard tournament with 200 turns but also a noisy tournament in which noise is injected. For the standard tournament the trained strategies outperform the designed ones. In the case of noise there is one particular strategy that has not seen much attention in the literature called “Desired Belief Strategy” that outperforms everything else (the trained strategies still do very well).
What’s interesting to note is that a family of strategies called Zero determinant strategies which have attracted a lot of recent interest due to the fact that they theoretically best any given individual do not do well in environments with complex opponents: Moran processes and/or large tournaments.
This is the largest numerical study of this type carried out (nothing comes close in terms of Moran processes) and I’ve only covered some of my personal highlights above. It would not have been possible without the Axelrod library which not only let us run the tournaments and Moran processes but also gives us access to a large strategy space (close to 200) with which our archetypes can be trained. It’s also been helpful to be able to Cardiff University’s hardware to run the numerous simulations.
The links above are on the arxiv pre print server and we are currently working to submit to leading journals.
EDIT: Here’s a link to a blog post Marc Harper wrote about the papers: marcharper.codes/2017-07-31/axelrod.html.Harvard Fellowships Have Always Been a Joke
When Harvard University’s Institute of Politics (IOP) was established in 1966, its first honorary associate was former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Thirty-eight years later, as a low-level employee of the Harvard Kennedy School (now called “HKS”), working as a senior research associate in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs while (very slowly) completing my doctoral dissertation from Brandeis University, I was given the task of shepherding around McNamara for a day. He was at HKS to attend a public event where he would be interviewed while watching clips of Errol Morris’s documentary The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara.
I recall the 87-year-old McNamara as being extremely gracious to me but also nervous about how the audience might react to the event. In November 1966, a group of students and nonstudents had angrily confronted McNamara just after he had spoken with Henry Kissinger’s class. Earlier, more than 1,600 students and 52 faculty members had signed a petition demanding that McNamara debate the prominent Vietnam War critic Robert Scheer at the then-Kennedy Institute. The institute’s head, professor Richard Neustadt, refused to sanction the debate on the grounds that it could “embarrass” McNamara and make it difficult to attract high-profile national figures in the future.
Ultimately, the 2004 public event was a respectful and open exchange of ideas. However, there is one clip of the Morris documentary that resonates even more today than it did then. McNamara had been the lead analyst of the B-29 bombers assigned to the Pacific theater under the command of Maj. Gen. Curtis LeMay during World War II. After describing the millions of Japanese civilians intentionally targeted and killed, McNamara tells Morris: “LeMay said, ‘If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.’ And I think he’s right. He and, I’d say, I were behaving as war criminals.” He adds, “What makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?”
McNamara’s admission that he presided over war crimes did not lead the IOP to retroactively rescind his status as its first honorary associate nor from honoring him as such after his death in 2009. And, in that way, it sheds important light on Friday’s declaration by HKS dean Douglas Elmendorf that he was withdrawing the invitation to Chelsea Manning to serve as a visiting fellow at IOP.
Elmendorf did so on the grounds that it could be perceived as an “honorific” and that such invitations must balance what can be learned from a person with “the extent to which that person’s conduct fulfills the values of public service to which we aspire.” Friday’s statement came after former acting CIA Director Michael Morell’s resignation as a nonresident senior fellow at the Belfer Center, and current CIA Director Mike Pompeo’s cancellation of a public HKS talk, in protest of Manning’s visiting fellow position. Pompeo notably declared, “Wikileaks is an enemy of the United States, akin to a hostile intelligence service,” a position at odds with his repeated embrace of WikiLeaks last year when it published negative information about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
As someone who spent half a life in various universities and research institutions, I am constantly amazed at the public discourse over what allegedly occurs within these places. Most nonresident or non-academic visiting fellows attend their respective institutions infrequently, contribute little in the way of publications, and leave almost no lasting imprint. They utilize the position as a break from their preceding jobs, often in an effort to expand their social networks and rebrand themselves. The institutions use the fellows’ public profiles to increase awareness about themselves and to raise money from prospective donors. For both, it is less an honorific than a tacit exchange of prominence for access but without the guarantee of any office space.
When former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura was an IOP fellow, he would sit in the HKS courtyard chomping on an unlit cigar and decrying the two-party system and the war in Iraq. Although I peppered him with wrestling questions, I mostly recall students being in disbelief that a U.S. Navy sailor and macho action movie star could be so openly opposed to an ongoing American war — he even routinely called George W. Bush administration officials “war criminals.” He was very bright, swore often, and thought unlike anyone else I have ever encountered at such a well-regarded institution. The HKS students and staff were lucky to have him, and he was lucky and grateful to be there.
The truth is that massive research universities such as Harvard function much like large holding companies. They develop tenured professors at thematic colleges as part of their core business practice but also encourage smaller, more nimble research programs staffed by outside experts for limited terms. The former establish the enduring identity of the university, while the latter provide fresher and often more “real-world” perspectives. The HKS leadership has made a judgment about who will be permitted to provide that perspective. Given the wholly unique insights that someone like Manning could contribute, I think it is the wrong call.
But the more important lesson to draw is that such titles don’t merit the honor that institutions attempt to bestow them with in the first place. It is unlikely within a few weeks that anybody at Harvard will remember who was invited, declined, or assumed a Harvard fellowship position. It is also entirely appropriate that we would forget.
Photo credit: Dennis Van Tine/Sipa USA (Sipa via AP Images)Facebook is going to be in your face even more than before. The arrival of the ‘Facebook Phone’ and the eventual availability of the latest it has to offer on all Android platforms, means the current obsession with monitoring the lives of others and recording every moment of your own existence, will be made even easier, a default adjunct to daily life. Whilst the ethics and risk of the possible collation of the ensuing Tsunami of personal information now flooding into the central Facebook databases might raise obvious concerns, as a neuroscientist I’m most worried by what this latest ‘advance’ will mean to us as individuals.
Humans occupy more ecological niches than any other species on the planet because of the superlative ability of our brains, compared with those of any other animal, to adapt to the environment: a process known as ‘plasticity’. So if the human brain will adapt to whatever environment in which it is placed, an environment where you are constantly on the alert to the actions and views of others, will surely be changing your mindset in correspondingly new ways. How will the 21st Century human brain, with its clear evolutionary mandate, react to this latest development in what has been dubbed ‘The Digital Wildfire’?
Already privacy appears to be a less prized commodity among the younger generation of ‘Digital Natives’: apparently 55 per cent of teenagers have given out personal information to someone they don’t know, including photos and physical descriptions. Meanwhile over half send out group messages to typically over 500 ‘friends’ at a time, fully aware that each of these friends could then pass on that information to their network of further hundreds... It has become more important to have attention, to be ‘famous’. The trade-off for such disclosure and indeed fame is, and always has been, loss of privacy. So why have we previously treasured privacy so much, but now are holding it in increasing disregard?
Perhaps because until now, privacy has been the other side of the coin to our identity. We have seen ourselves as individual entities, in contact with the outside world for sure, but at the same time always distinct from it. We have interacted with that outside world, but only in the way and at the times we have chosen. You have secrets, memories and hopes to which no one else has automatic access; a private life, distinct from a professional one, as well as a multifaceted one of individual friendships where we vary what and how much we confide in someone else. Above all you have an inner narrative, an ongoing thought process that is yours alone: until now.
Another new feature of ‘Facebook Home’ will be ‘Chat Heads’, which means that when anyone contacts you on your mobile, a little ‘bubble’ featuring a picture of that person will appear with the text. These illustrated ‘bubbles’ will appear on the mobile screen, no matter what you are currently doing on your phone, allowing constant maintained ‘illustrated’ contact. But if you’re anchored increasingly in the present, consequently constantly catering for and to the demands of the outside world, that inner narrative might be now even harder to sustain. The mind might remain more child-like, reactive and dependent on the behavior and thoughts of others.VHP today backed the view that all Hindu women should bear four children and also sought to justify the remark by a seer that each Hindu family should have 10 children, saying it was made in the context of the "demographic imbalance being created in the country".
The right-wing body said that the country should either have a two-child norm for all communities or Hindu families should each have three-to-four children. It also called for the Uniform Civil Code to be applied in India.
"I don't agree with Hindus having 10 children, but every Hindu family should have 3-4 children... Or there should be a two-child norm for all communities.
"There should not be implementation of one-sided or lop- sided policies... There is a secular demand that a common civil code should be applied in the country," said VHP joint general secretary, Surendra Jain.
In the light of comments by Swami Vasudevananda Saraswati, a seer known to be close to RSS, that there was "no harm in Hindus producing even 10 children", Jain said that the remark "was made in the context of demographic imbalance being created in the country".
"One should understand the context in which it is stated. The way demographic imbalance is taking place, it is not just a matter of concern for the country but the entire world. It seems due to demographic imbalance what happened in Kashmir Valley can be repeated anywhere in the country. That is why this issue is being raised," he said.
Jain's reference was to Kashmir Valley having a majority Muslim population.
The right-wing organisation also said it will carry on with its agenda of 'Ghar Wapsi' and that nothing could deter it from doing so as it has been continuing with it for many years now.
However, it clarified that its agenda was not against the government.
"Our issues are not based on support or opposition of any government. If government supports us, well and good, but our issues will continue. Our issues are not meant to make or break any government. This government is doing its work. We have no issues with it. There is no clash... Their agenda is different, ours is different," said Jain.
Justifying 'Ghar Wapsi', he said that through it, VHP "only reconnects people with their roots" and does not want to get into the race of allurements by bringing people back to the religion of their forefathers.
"It (Ghar Wapsi) is a sign of progressiveness, it is not a regressive trend," Jain said.
On the issue of conversions, the VHP joint general secretary claimed that Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat have laws on conversion under which 'Ghar Wapsi' is allowed.
Citing the example of Kashmir Valley, Surendra Jain said that in certain districts in states like Assam, Bengal and Bihar, demographic imbalances were emerging.
He, meanwhile, also referred to Mahatma Gandhi and noted yesteryears' novelist Acharya Gurudutt saying that both of them were against conversion.
He also lashed out at opposition parties in Parliament for making 'Ghar Wapsi' a major issue during its recently- concluded winter session. The opposition parties used it as a issue to prevent Parliament from working smoothly, he said.
"For them, the issue is not conversion, but finding issues to stall Parliament," Jain said.With production underway on Star Wars: Rogue One, you can bet we’re going to start getting more news about the first Star Wars Anthology film very soon, maybe even with some official announcements at Comic-Con this week.
But in the meantime, a new rumor has surfaced about casting for the next installment of the new trilogy that kicks off with Star Wars: The Force Awakens this winter. Reportedly Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen (Ip Man) has landed a role in Star Wars: Episode VIII, continuing Hollywood’s trend of inserting a famous Asian actor or actress into their biggest blockbusters for more international appeal at the box office.
However, considering the source and what we know about both Rogue One and the forthcoming Episode VIII, we’re not sure if the details of this particular rumor are true. Find out more about Donnie Yen in Star Wars after the jump, but beware of potential spoilers!
First of all, the report comes from Hong Kong tabloid Apple Daily, which is already a big red flag. You can count on one hand the number of times a tabloid got any legitimate movie news correct. Second of all, the report says Yen will be playing a Jedi and will be shooting scenes with Harrison Ford as early as next month.
Since we don’t definitively know the status of the Jedi in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, there’s no way to know if it makes sense for Yen to play a Jedi in Episode VIII. However, logistically, hearing that Yen will be shooting scenes with Harrison Ford next month doesn’t make any sense, mostly because Episode VIII isn’t anywhere near beginning production yet.
But Twitch (who brought this tabloid report to our attention) does add that they had heard Star Wars: Rogue One director Gareth Edwards were looking at a number of Chinese actors for a role in the spin-off. And considering that film just started shooting last week, that would make more sense.
Other names in consideration for the role supposedly include Jet Li, Stephen Chow, Tony Leung, Chiu Wai, Daniel Wu, Wang Leehom and Chang Chen. Those are all similar action star names, but again, it wouldn’t be hard make this rumor more interesting by having those names handy. Of course, there aren’t supposed to be any Jedi in Star Wars: Rogue One, so if Yen or any of these other Asian stars do end up with a role, don’t count on any of them wielding a lightsaber.
Keep in mind that this is nothing more than a rumor right now, and we can probably safely say that Yen won’t have a role in Episode VIII as a Jedi. But there’s a better chance that he might have a role in Star Wars: Rogue One. We’ll have to wait and see what happens as the Star Wars universe continues to expand.Former Donald Trump confidante Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to a felony charge of lying to the FBI will help special counsel Robert Mueller keep his job, Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman argued in a provocative new column for Bloomberg View.
“The fact that the lies concern Russia makes it politically harder for Trump to fire Mueller or to pardon Flynn than if the charge had involved Flynn’s other legal woes over his unreported lobbying for Turkey,” Professor Feldman explained. “And because Trump has let it be known that he is considering firing the special counsel, Mueller must do more than simply prosecute if he doesn’t want to be fired. He must shape public perception of his investigation to reduce the probability — by suggesting that his firing would itself be an act of obstruction of justice by the president.”
Both of the lies explained in the court documents involve conversations with Russia’s then-ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak.
“The really interesting issue here is that Flynn bothered to lie at all about these contacts with Kislyak. And the $64,000 question is, why did he lie?” Feldman wondered. “One possibility is that Flynn lied because he was trying to hide a longer course of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.”
“The more contacts Mueller can show, the closer he is to a narrative that shows conspiratorial cooperation between Russia and Trump,” Feldman explained. “Flynn’s specific plea makes it harder for Trump to fire Mueller or pardon Flynn. The more Russia information emerges, the more any act of firing or pardon would look like obstruction of justice by the president.”The 2008 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 62nd season of Formula One motor racing, recognised by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) – the governing body of motorsport – as the highest class of competition for open-wheel racing cars. It featured the 2008 Formula One World Championship. The season was contested over eighteen rounds, which started in Australia on 16 March and ended in Brazil on 2 November. The 2008 season saw the debut of the Singapore Grand Prix, which was held at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, in Marina Bay, Singapore and was the first Formula One race held at night. The European Grand Prix moved to a new venue at the Valencia Street Circuit, in Valencia, Spain
Lewis Hamilton won the Drivers' title by a point – by overtaking Toyota's Timo Glock on the final corner of the final lap of the final Grand Prix of the season to claim the required 5th-place finish – from Brazilian Felipe Massa while Massa's teammate, the 2007 world champion, Kimi Räikkönen was ranked third, with two wins. Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro won the Constructors' title.[1] In winning the title, Hamilton became the youngest driver ever to win the title (a record since supplanted by Sebastian Vettel's winning of the 2010 Drivers' title) and the first black driver to do so. He was also the first British champion since Damon Hill in 1996.[2]
Eleven teams competed in the championship, although Super Aguri withdrew on 6 May from the 2008 Formula One season due to financial troubles, completing four races. New technical rules for 2008 included the banning of traction control after it was re-introduced in 2001. Fernando Alonso won the first race held in Singapore; however, only after teammate Piquet deliberately crashed to cause a Safety Car period which helped Alonso's strategy. When Piquet admitted this to the press in 2009 Renault team-principal Briatore resigned. Some journalists dubbed this "Crashgate".
This was the last season for the Honda team before they pulled out of F1 later in December due to the global economic crisis. Then, Ross Brawn bought the team and renamed it to Brawn GP in February 2009 using the Mercedes-Benz engines. This was also the last Formula One season to race with grooved tyres, used since 1998, before slick tyres returned to Formula One in 2009.
It was the first time in the history of Formula One that all teams used the same two drivers throughout the season and it was the first time that all the race cars drove without traction control since the beginning of 2001.
Teams and drivers [ edit ]
There was a total of seven teams signed up to compete in the championship through an agreement with Formula One Management, with the other four major manufacturers in the Grand Prix Manufacturers' Association (GPMA) having signed a Memorandum of Understanding at the 2006 Spanish Grand Prix. All teams in both groups have two spots each on the 2008 grid. The following teams and drivers competed in the 2008 FIA Formula One World Championship:[3] Teams competed with tyres supplied by Bridgestone.
† All engines were 2.4-litre V8 configuration.
New entries [ edit ]
On 14 February 2006 the FIA president Max Mosley announced that all teams interested in competing in the 2008 World Championship would have a seven-day window during which they would have to submit an application to compete.[36] All eleven current teams applied, as well as several others. On 28 April 2006 the FIA announced that all of the current teams' applications for the 2008 season were granted, along with a new team Prodrive, fronted by the ex-BAR and -Benetton principal David Richards. There were 21 applications in total, several new teams applying included European Minardi F1 Team Ltd, Jordan Grand Prix, Direxiv and Carlin Motorsport. However, despite the Prodrive application being accepted, Richards later announced that the team would not race in 2008 due to a dispute over the legality of customer cars.[37]
Team changes [ edit ]
Rumours about the possible sale of the Spyker team had been abundant in the paddock throughout the last few months of the 2007 season. Only a year after Spyker bought the team from Midland, Indian businessman Vijay Mallya bought the team for €88 million, several million more than Spyker paid. [38] On 24 October 2007, Mallya was granted permission to change the team's name to Force India. Force India had a driver announcement ceremony in January 2008 where it was revealed that Sutil would be second driver partnered by first driver Giancarlo Fisichella and test driver Vitantonio Liuzzi. [32]
On 24 October 2007, Mallya was granted permission to change the team's name to Force India. Force India had a driver announcement ceremony in January 2008 where it was revealed that Sutil would be second driver partnered by first driver Giancarlo Fisichella and test driver Vitantonio Liuzzi. On 28 April 2006, rallying and motorsports technology firm Prodrive were officially granted entry to Formula One when the FIA announced the list of entrants to the 2008 Formula One World Championship. While a total of 21 teams applied for entry, the FIA had always maintained that only 12 teams would be granted entry, meaning only one new team would line up on the grid in 2008. FIA president Max Mosley revealed that Prodrive had found the finances to support their bid. Also, Prodrive's chief executive, David Richards, has experience as a Formula One team principal". [39] However, on 23 November 2007, after lengthy negotiations between FIA president Max Mosley regarding customer cars, Richards announced that Prodrive F1 would not compete in the 2008 Formula One World Championship, as the legal situation left no time for the team to be set up. [40]
However, on 23 November 2007, after lengthy negotiations between FIA president Max Mosley regarding customer cars, Richards announced that Prodrive F1 would not compete in the 2008 Formula One World Championship, as the legal situation left no time for the team to be set up. During the 2008 season on 6 May, the Super Aguri team folded and withdrew from Formula One. The team was in dire financial straits at the end of 2007 as the team did not receive a payment on a sponsorship deal.[41] Super Aguri rejected a buyout offer in January 2008 from an Indian consortium led by the CEO of the Spice Group, on the condition Indian driver Narain Karthikeyan drove in the line-up, because it meant demoting or cutting one of the team's 2007 drivers.[42] Despite this Super Aguri were unable to sign any contracts until agreements had been reached with their sponsors.[43] Sato and Davidson were confirmed on 10 March.[44] Super Aguri announced that a major deal had been made with Magma Group to solve the team's financial problems, however this fell through, and on 6 May 2008, Super Aguri withdrew from the Formula One World Championship.[45] It affirmed a prediction at the start of the season by Max Mosley saying the team would not make it to the final race in Brazil.[46]
Driver changes [ edit ]
Double world champion Fernando Alonso left McLaren after a single season to rejoin Renault. He was replaced at McLaren by Heikki Kovalainen, who had replaced Alonso at Renault the previous season. Giancarlo Fisichella, Renault's other driver from 2007, moved to the newly renamed Force India team, in place of erstwhile Spyker driver Sakon Yamamoto, who became Renault's test development driver. Fisichella's place at Renault was taken by the team's test driver Nelson Piquet Jr. (son of the three-time World Drivers' Champion Nelson Piquet).
After an unsuccessful test for Force India in December 2007, Ralf Schumacher left Toyota to drive for Mücke Motorsport in the DTM series. 2007 GP2 champion Timo Glock, who had also been the test driver for BMW Sauber, returned to a Formula One race seat in place of Schumacher. Christian Klien, previously the test driver for Honda, and the Estonian driver Marko Asmer took up test driver roles at BMW Sauber.
Sébastien Bourdais, who won his fourth consecutive Champ Car title in 2007, joined Toro Rosso in 2008, replacing Vitantonio Liuzzi, who moved to Force India as their test driver.
Season calendar [ edit ]
The FIA World Council approved the 2008 schedule on 24 October 2007. Singapore was Formula One's first ever night race.[47]
Calendar changes [ edit ]
Rule changes [ edit ]
A standard Electronic Control Unit was supplied by Microsoft MES, a joint venture between Microsoft and McLaren Electronic Systems. [53]
Traction control and launch control banned along with several other electronic aids including engine braking reduction. [54]
An engine freeze to last five years was started in 2008, [55] with the first unscheduled engine change of the season not leading to the usual 10 place grid penalty. [56]
with the first unscheduled engine change of the season not leading to the usual 10 place grid penalty. Fuel of the cars must have been made up of at least 5.75% biological materials. [57]
Gearboxes to last four races, 5 place grid penalty for a gear box change. If a driver did not finish a race, he was allowed to change the gearbox for the next race without receiving a penalty. [58]
Improved cockpit protection. [59]
The use of a spare car was restricted. Each competing team would not be allowed to have more than two cars available for use at any time. In this context, a car was considered as such if it was a partially assembled survival cell, fitted with an engine, any front suspension, bodywork, radiators, oil tanks or heat exchangers. [58]
Bridgestone would be the official tyre supplier for the 2008–2010 seasons. [60] They would also be marking their extreme wet weather tyres with a white line in the central groove to differentiate it from the softer wet weather tyre compound. [61]
They would also be marking their extreme wet weather tyres with a white line in the central groove to differentiate it from the softer wet weather tyre compound. No competing team was allowed to carry out more than 30,000 km (18,641 mi) of testing during the 2008 calendar year.[58]
Qualifying [ edit ]
The first part of qualifying lengthened to 20 minutes, and final part of qualifying shortened to 10 minutes. Teams taking part in Q3 would no longer be allowed to add fuel back to the car after qualifying to eliminate 'fuel-burn' phase.
A minimum lap time for each qualifying session was implemented from Round 3 in Bahrain to stop cars coasting back to the pits at dangerously low speeds as seen in Round 2 in Malaysia. Both Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen were demoted five grid places after the stewards decided that they had impeded Nick Heidfeld and Fernando Alonso. The minimum lap time was different for each race. For example, it was 1:39 in Bahrain.
From 8 May 2008, the FIA announced that, following Super Aguri's departure from Formula One, the qualifying procedures changed. Rather than six drivers being eliminated at the end of Q1, only the five lowest-qualified drivers would be eliminated. This increased the likelihood that one of the midfield contenders would drop out, as only the top 15 drivers would go through to Q2. At the end of Q2 five rather than six cars would be eliminated as well.[62]
Pre-season testing [ edit ]
The first multi-team test session started in Jerez on 14 January 2008. Ferrari, McLaren and Toyota all tested their 2008 cars. Williams tested a modified version of the FW29 whilst Renault and Red Bull tested their 2007 entries. Honda, Toro Rosso, Super Aguri and Force India also attended. BMW Sauber was not in attendance as they were launching the F1.08.[63] Testing then moved to Valencia on 22 January. Renault and Williams were the only teams on the track for the first day of testing. They were both testing their 2008 challengers.[64] They were joined by every other team except Super Aguri for the next three days. 1 February saw testing move to Barcelona. Again, all teams but Super Aguri were in action. The first day of testing saw Kazuki Nakajima crash his FW30.[65] It also saw racist abuse directed at Lewis Hamilton.[66] Williams withdrew from testing on day three to try to fix the problem that caused Nakajima's crash. Meanwhile, on 4 February, Ferrari and Toyota moved to Bahrain to continue testing the F2008 and TF108.[67]
On 12 February testing returned to Jerez. Red Bull and Williams were the only teams in action on the first day.[68] The second day of testing saw all teams but Ferrari and Toyota (who were still in Bahrain) attending. After postponing their SA08 launch and cancelling testing at Valencia, Super Aguri turned up to test their SA07B interim car for the first time.[69]
Testing moved to Barcelona on 19 February. The first day of tests got underway in rain with Williams, Red Bull, Renault and Toyota present. Nico Rosberg topped the time sheets for Williams. BMW were instead testing on their own in Jerez.[70] Super Aguri did not turn up despite promising a Q&A with the media. They blamed circumstances beyond their control. On the second day Ferrari turned up and topped the time sheets with Felipe Massa on another wet track. McLaren joined on the final day and Williams finished on top with Nakajima. The final multi-team test began on
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and in general, women under 50 are twice as likely to die from heart attacks as men of the same age. That could be because even when women—particularly young, healthy women—experience the same symptoms as men, doctors are still more likely to dismiss them.
Such was the case for Los Angeles resident Lori Kupetz, who began experiencing "blinding" chest pain in 2005, when she was 38. The cardiologist she saw insisted that her pain was not caused by a heart condition; in the year that followed, she was referred to numerous specialists (gastroenterologists, neurologists) and eventually was told that all she needed was antidepressants. Rather than taking that advice, she made her way to the Cedars-Sinai Women's Heart Center in L.A. (now known as the Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Center), where doctors conducted more specialized tests and found three blocked arteries in her heart—her main aorta was 99 percent blocked—and rushed her into emergency triple-bypass surgery. "I was a walking time bomb," Kupetz says. "Had I listened to the doctor who told me to go on antidepressants, I would not be here today."
"Women are still invisible," Dr. Werbinski says. "We call it: 'Add women and stir.'"
There are also many diseases and conditions that are alarmingly more prevalent among women, and medical science has not discovered why. Women are up to four times more likely to have migraines and chronic fatigue, three times more likely to be diagnosed with autoimmune disorders, and twice as likely to have Alzheimer's, rheumatoid arthritis, and depression. Another puzzling finding: Nonsmoking women are three times more likely to get lung cancer than nonsmoking men, according to a comprehensive 2014 report by Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, called "Women's Health Can't Wait." Further, a February 2017 study by Cancer Research U.K. predicts that in the next 20 years, cancer rates will rise nearly six times faster in women than men.
Women of color are at an even greater disadvantage. Black women are twice as likely to have strokes and are much less likely to survive them than white women. They are also more likely to receive the wrong treatment for breast cancer, to be diagnosed at more-advanced stages, to have bigger tumors, and to die. Cardiovascular disease is more common and deadlier in both black and Hispanic women. Hispanic women are also more likely than white women to develop diabetes.
All women are especially at risk when it comes to medications. A 2001 Government Accountability Office report found that eight out of the 10 prescription drugs removed from the market between 1997 and 2000 posed greater health risks for women. Overall, female patients have a 1.5 to 1.7 times higher chance of having an adverse drug reaction. Research suggests that women metabolize drugs differently from men and thus may require distinct doses, yet dosages are rarely broken down by sex. Failing to do so can have disastrous results. In 2013, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cut the recommended dose of Ambien and other sleep aids containing zolpidem for women by half after numerous instances of women sleepwalking, sleep-eating, and even sleep-driving—some car accidents were reported—while using the drug.
What makes all of this particularly frustrating is that the way female patients are treated isn't an accident—it's by design. Even though science tells us men and women are biologically distinct, medicine largely views us as one and the same. "You think when you are getting care that whether you are a man or a woman is factored into the diagnosis and treatment, but it's often not," says Dr. Janine Clayton, director of the Office of Research on Women's Health at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the biomedical research facility run by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. That's because doctors aren't trained to treat patients that way. Medical schools use curricula informed by what happens in the body of a 154-pound man, and instructors rarely discuss sex differences in their lessons. It's also because, until recently, research was overwhelmingly conducted exclusively on male cells, male mice, and men, and what doctors know about preventing, diagnosing, and treating disease continues to be pulled from such studies. "It was a blind spot," Clayton says. "There hasn't been a really scientific understanding of how important sex is—that this is a basic biological variable that affects us down to the cellular level." The lack of appreciation for sex differences in both education and research is largely to blame for the bias women may face when seeking diagnoses and for the lower-quality care female patients are likely to receive. "Women are not just men with boobs and tubes," says Dr. Janice Werbinski, a gynecologist and executive director of the Sex and Gender Women's Health Collaborative. "We can actually harm women by not researching them correctly and knowing the differences."
Historically, women's health was dubbed "bikini medicine," because medical professionals acted as though the only thing that set women apart were those body parts that could be covered with a bikini. As a result, medical research was rarely conducted on female subjects. In 1977, the FDA recommended excluding female subjects of childbearing age from participating in clinical research (the idea was that researchers risked damaging a fetus if a woman became pregnant during a study). Female mice were also largely excluded because of the misconception that menstrual cycles rendered them too variable to study.
Back then, research findings in men were applied to women without concern that the treatment or drug might not work for them. In 1989, a landmark Harvard University study that found taking aspirin every other day reduced the risk of heart attack by 44 percent in people over age 50 was widely accepted and prescribed in both genders even though it was conducted solely on men ages 40 to 84. (When researchers at Brigham and Women's published its Women's Health Study in 2005, we learned that aspirin does not prevent heart attacks in women under 65 like it does with men.) That was also the heyday for diagnostic guidelines that we now know don't work in women. The "gold standard" test to detect artery blockage, for example, often doesn't reveal plaque in women, as it is more diffuse and harder to see. Similarly, because aortic aneurysms are more prevalent in men, screening guidelines only applied to them, even though aneurysms grow faster and are more likely to rupture in women. At one point, female patients were even much less likely to be placed on kidney-transplant lists because the method doctors used to determine eligibility favored men.
In 1990, the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues warmed people to the idea that men's and women's bodies are worthy of distinct examination. In August of that year, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland) introduced the Women's Health Equity Act, a package of 20 initiatives aimed at improving women's health outcomes and advancing research. It didn't pass, but its existence prompted NIH to create its Office of Research on Women's Health. Three years later, the NIH Revitalization Act was enacted and required that women be considered as participants in research on human subjects. Today, around half of all human subjects in NIH-funded clinical research studies are female.
Stocksy
That should be cause for celebration, but the attempt to fix the gender imbalance in research didn't go far enough. Some key ailments have not received enough focus. An editorial published in the American Heart Association's Circulation journal in 2015 cited reports that show female subjects are "woefully underrepresented" in cardiovascular research, even though heart disease is the number-one killer of women. "I can't overstate the need for sex-specific diagnostic testing and treatments," says Dr. Noel Bairey Merz, medical director at Cedars-Sinai Women's Heart Center. "If you were going to try to do one thing that made a really big difference for women's health, you would crack that nut." In addition, twice as many women than men suffer from depression, yet fewer than 45 percent of studies on the condition use female animals. Similarly, 70 percent of people with chronic pain are women, yet 80 percent of pain studies are conducted on male mice or men. (It's no surprise, then, that men are more likely to be prescribed painkillers; by contrast, women are more likely to be given sedatives.) Drug studies, often funded by pharmaceutical companies, are of particular concern. In 2015, when the FDA approved flibanserin, the so-called female Viagra, it cautioned against drinking while using the pill. Just one problem: The study on the interaction between flibanserin and alcohol was conducted on 25 human subjects—23 of whom were male— even though the drug is prescribed only to women. Even when women are included in studies, researchers often fail to report their findings by sex. Lumping both genders together in the results means there's no way to tell how women fared relative to men. "Women are still invisible," Werbinski says. "We call it: 'Add women and stir.'"
There's also overt sexism to overcome. This is especially true among concussion patients. Women suffer concussions at a higher rate than men, have a larger number of symptoms, and take longer to recover, according to statistics compiled by awareness group Pink Concussions. But most of the research on traumatic brain injury has been done on men, and public awareness of the condition is largely based on the experiences of male football players. Maybe that's why athletic trainers are less likely to recognize concussions in female athletes and why women are less likely to get proper concussion treatment. "My doctors didn't take my injury seriously," says Baltimore resident Alicia Jensen, 20, who experienced severe headaches every day for months after suffering a concussion during a high school soccer game. "I had to convince them of how hard I was hit by the ball—I felt like I had to exaggerate just to make them believe me." What Jensen describes is known in the medical community as "Yentl syndrome," the notion that women have to prove they are as sick as men or have to mirror their symptoms to receive the same level of care. (The term was coined in 1991 by Dr. Bernadine Healy, the late cardiologist and first female head of NIH; she named the syndrome after Yentl, the heroine of a 19th-century short story who disguised herself as a man in order to go to school.)
"I felt like I had to exaggerate just to make them believe me."
NIH is combating such assumptions by incentivizing researchers to take a harder look at women. As of January 2016, in addition to requiring funding applicants to include female human subjects in research trials, the agency now mandates that grantees study both sexes of animals and cells as well, or include a "strong justification" for why they are not. The new guidance also encourages reporting results by sex, and to spur action on that front, Clayton of the NIH's Office of Research on Women's Health says her team is working with medical-journal editors to develop publication standards that will favor studies that do. Many experts are heralding the sex-specific direction NIH is moving in and hoping the agency's status as the nation's largest single public funder of research will inspire others to follow its lead. "NIH funds $33 billion in research a year," says Dr. Marjorie Jenkins, director of medical initiatives and policy advancement in the Office of Women's Health at the FDA, which is also working to address the issue. "When they set the mandate to study both genders, it's a game changer."
Marley Hoggatt, 31, knows the literal pain that can come from doctors who are quick to dismiss female patients. In 2012, while working as a community development specialist for Girl Scouts in Amarillo, Texas, she started getting excruciating migraines two or three times a month. She went to her regular doctor, who asked if she was stressed at work and prescribed an antidepressant. When that didn't work, Hoggatt was referred to a neurologist, who asked about her love life. "He said, 'Well, how is your home life? How is your relationship with your boyfriend?'" Hoggatt remembers. "He recommended a counselor to talk about my 'boy problems.'"
She suffered for two years (often taking "six ibuprofen at once just to try to function") before seeing Dr. Joanna Wilson, an Amarillo-based internist. Wilson ordered an MRI that uncovered one herniated disc and two bulging discs, as well as a pinched nerve, in her neck. "They had been there for years, and no one had bothered to look," Hoggatt says. "I was furious." Wilson referred her to physical therapy, and now she gets one or two migraines a year. "I used to think, Maybe I should just be tougher. So I'd be throwing up on the bathroom floor from the pain, thinking, I should be tougher," Hoggatt says. "When I found out there was an actual physical thing wrong, it was such a relief, because it meant I wasn't just a hypochondriac or a sissy—it was real."
Wilson sees patients like Hoggatt all the time. They often come to her after having seen countless other physicians. "If someone makes the effort of going to doctor after doctor, and all they are given is a pat on the head and told, 'Oh, sweetie, you'll be OK—you just need to smile more,' that is a failure of the physicians," she says. "I will assume the patient has a real disease and do my very best to discover the real physical cause." That makes her somewhat rare among medical professionals. "Unless other doctors have made a concerted effort to reeducate themselves," Wilson says, "they are probably not aware of the majority of sex and gender differences."
Hoggatt's experience made it clear to her just how crucial it is to have a doctor who takes women's concerns seriously. These days, she helps design curricula at the Laura W. Bush Institute for Women's Health at Texas Tech University. Since its founding in 2007, the institute has been on the forefront of the push to include sex-specific instruction in medical education. In 2011, it surveyed faculty members at 159 medical schools across the U.S. and Canada. Of the 44 colleges that responded, 70 percent said they had not formally integrated sex differences. "It's the best-kept secret that we are teaching one-sex medicine," says Jenkins, who served as the institute's chief scientific officer before joining the FDA. "We need our students to come out of medical school asking, first and foremost, 'Does sex matter?' and 'Will it make a difference in how I treat my patient?'"
While at Texas Tech, Jenkins and her team developed a curriculum that schools can use to incorporate sex differences into instruction. In 2015, they presented the materials at the first national symposium of gender-based medical education, which was attended by representatives from 111 schools. Ten medical schools, including the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine and Northwestern University, are now using Texas Tech's curriculum. The institute also offers continuing education credits for practicing doctors who want a crash course in sex differences. "I always ask my students," Jenkins says, "'Wouldn't you want your doctor to know the difference?'"
The good news is, a growing number of medical professionals are answering yes to that question. "We now know it's really not good science to apply findings from males to females," says Clayton of NIH's Office of Research on Women's Health. "And we certainly know it's not good medicine to apply anything we learned from a study of only men to women." Luckily, it doesn't always take much to make an impact. When Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore implemented a simple checklist requiring doctors to review blood-clot prevention for every patient, women went from being nearly 50 percent less likely than men to be given blood-clot preventive care to receiving roughly equal care.
Still, medicine moves at a glacial pace—it can take 20 years or more for a scientific discovery to result in a new medication or treatment. Thus, it will likely be decades before advancements made today result in better care for women. In the meantime, women must be their own advocates. "What we're telling women is, every time you go to the doctor, ask, 'Has this treatment or drug been tested on women?'" says Teresa Woodruff, director of Northwestern University's Women's Health Research Institute. "Continue to advocate so physicians have to ask, they have to look it up." She adds, "I think the more people are a little bit outraged, the faster change will occur."
This article appears in the May 2017 issue of Marie Claire, on newsstands now.This post was originally published on Mashable.
Confession Bear, one of the go-to "advice animal" memes on Reddit, is typically used as a medium for admitting minor quirks, such as embarrassing TV addictions or intimate bathing practices.
One Redditor, previously known as "Naratto", took the meme a step further on Saturday by using the image to confess to an apparent murder.
"My sister had an abusive meth addict boyfriend - I killed him with his own drugs while he was unconscious and they ruled it as an overdose," he wrote.
Many Redditors were left wondering if the post, titled "Finally Have The Guts To Say It", might be more than just a dark joke. According to the Daily Dot, users tracked down Naratto's personal details - real name, date of birth, previous jobs, social media accounts - within minutes of the post going live. One user apparently even forwarded the comments to the FBI.
Naratto deleted the account shortly afterward, then posted a follow-up saying his comments were only partially true. That post, and his account, were soon deleted as well.
A handful of users equated the confession with TV crime drama Breaking Bad, where a character was killed in a similar way, hinting that it might in fact be a joke.
At time of writing, there was no official word if the FBI - or any authorities - would be looking into the matter.
Mashable is the largest independent news source covering digital culture, social media and technology.FILE - In this Oct. 3, 2012 file photo, Republican presidential candidate former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama talk after the first presidential debate at the University of Denver in Denver. The razor-thin race for the White House has overshadowed the fight for control of Congress. But the stakes are high in the Senate contests. With Republicans expected to retain control of the House of Representatives, a Republican Senate would give the party full control of the U.S. government if Romney wins the presidency. If Obama is re-elected, he hopes to have a Democratic-controlled Senate to counteract the Republican House, advance his agenda and defend his signature legislative victory, his health care overhaul, which Republicans have vowed to repeal. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)
With the November 6 election fast approaching, there has been a deafening silence on the part of the two major presidential candidates ringing out across the nation in the area of poverty. As someone recently relocated from Southern California to Southern New Mexico, I was sadly surprised to learn that there are numerous rural American communities along the border with Mexico that lack the basic types of infrastructure, such as electricity, clean water, and sewage, that most Americans take for granted. These communities also contain some of the most deeply impoverished individuals and families in the United States.
These invisible communities, known as "Colonias," occupy a region within about 150 miles of the U.S.-Mexico Border, across the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. While the number of communities recognized as "Colonias" appears to vary slightly by source, there appear to be minimally 1,500+ communities designated as such by the governmental and non-governmental entities that keep track of this issue. The number of people impacted is likely in the hundreds of thousands. The story of how these areas came into being is a complex and frustrating one, since the issue has received little major media attention over the years. The number of Americans having more than $100 million in assets in 2011 was a mere 2,928 people, yet they have arguably received the lion's share of attention in the media, and among major political candidates.
What is most surprising here is how an issue that impacts the lives of so many people has escaped discussion by either major presidential candidate. We have heard much discussion of job creation, job loss due to "outsourcing," foreign policy, "terrorism," and a number of other issues, but the subject of poverty in the United States has not been a major topic of discussion for either candidate. The people living in the "Colonias" tend to lack the kind of political or social influence that garners the attention of politicians or media. There are number of reasons for this, with their lack of economic resources and lack of visibility being most likely chief among them.
While there are honest and well-meaning efforts being undertaken to address the lack of infrastructure, and to a smaller extent, develop avenues of economic opportunities for the people living in the Colonias, the lack of political and media attention has allowed the pace of development move very slowly. Add to that the understanding that the largest majority of people living in the Colonias are Hispanic and Indigenous peoples, and one can begin to fully appreciate the complexity and adversities inherent to the situation. While any event impacting Wall Street brings lots of media attention, the ongoing lack of basic necessities of life for hundreds of thousands of people barely gets a mention by media outlets outside the Southwestern United States.
The ongoing question for those of us concerned about this crushing poverty is fairly straightforward and simple: Are either of the presidential candidates going to do anything to address the situation? Given the fact that neither of them even appears to be interested in taking this situation on as an issue in their campaigns, the outlook is not overly hopeful. Both candidates seem willing to discuss the safety of diplomats living in dangerous regions of the world, and protecting the interests of business around the world, yet they seem to be less inspired to publicly address an issue that is impacting a large number of residents within the very borders of this nation.
Few people see the impact of poverty as "urgent." Yet, (and at the risk of raising some ire among readers), when a hurricane strikes a heavily populated region of the United States causing death, injury, temporary loss of power, clean water, and sanitation to many, a cry rightfully goes out to address that situation immediately. Hundreds of thousands of people live without power, safe water, or sanitation, as an ongoing reality. Unfortunately, no similar cries for immediate action arise. The actual number of people suffering extreme consequences as a result of the lack of such basic services is very hard to measure. A child that dies of disease contracted from lack of safe water, lack of sewage treatment, or lack of adequate medical care is not normally seen as having died because of "poverty." As a result, we really do not have any notion of how many people suffer extreme consequences, perhaps even death, owing to living in poverty in the Colonias, or any other poverty stricken areas of the nation for that matter.A major new study has found that left-wingers and Muslims are responsible for the overwhelming majority of anti-Semitic hate crime in several different European countries.
The study, Antisemitic Violence in Europe, 2005-2015, was conducted by Johannes Due Enstad of the Oslo-based Center for Studies of the Holocaust and the University of Oslo and was joint published by both institutions.
When asked the question, “Thinking about the incident where somebody attacked or threatened you in a way that frightened you because you are Jewish – who did this to you?”, respondents overwhelmingly said that the perpetrators were Muslim or left-wingers.
In France, 53% of the cases were perpetrated by Muslims, 18% by left-wingers and just 4% by right-wingers.
In Sweden, respondents said 51% of the hate crimes were perpetrated by Muslims, 25% by left-wingers and 5% by right-wingers.
In the UK, 36% of anti-Semitic incidents were perpetrated by Muslims, 14% by left-wingers and 7% by right-wingers.
Only in Germany did respondents cite more right wing attacks (11%) compared to left-wing attacks (9%), although the clear majority of hate crimes (34%) were reported to have been committed by Muslims.
“Right-wing extremists, who are often associated with antisemitism, in fact constitute a clear minority of perpetrators, concludes Enstad. “Respondents in all four countries most often perceived the perpetrator(s) to be “someone with a Muslim extremist view”.
“It is also worth noting that in France, Sweden and the UK (but not in Germany) the perpetrator was perceived to be left-wing,” he adds.
The study also reveals that almost 50% of Jews in France have considered leaving the country because they fear for their safety.
Enstad notes that the one country that stands out in which Jews feel the most comfortable in displaying their identity is Russia, which is the only one of the six countries in which the majority of perpetrators of anti-Semitic violence are not Muslims.
New York Times bestselling author Bruce Bawer responded to the study by noting how authorities in Germany and Sweden have attempted to hide clear statistics in order to shield Muslims from blame.
“If the Western media were interested in the facts, Enstad’s report would receive wide circulation and explode a few myths. I would not hold my breath,” he writes.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor at large of Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com.You are recommended to join the BRIOCHE MEMORIES SUPPORT GROUP
About this Pattern:
This pattern features ‘no purling’ and a built-in I-cord edging. Yarn tails are hidden inside the applied-icord, detailed instructions as to where each yarn tail should go, are provided in the pattern. A special, unique to this pattern set-up method is used, a link to a short clip demonstrating the technique is given in the pattern.
This is a 20-page long step-by-step guide with photos and illustrations that requires a fair bit of reading. (And please be warned that it does take some time to finish a square, the set-up of each square involves making an I-cord or an applied I-cord, as you may know, that can be a time-consuming business.)
I recommend viewing the pattern on your computer/electronic devices to take full advantage of all the embeded links and hyperkinks.
The detailed explanations and remarks are intended to help you unserstand the process. Once you have got hold of the technique and the construction, you won’t have to refer to the pattern often.
Apart from a blanket, depending on the material used, this pattern is also suitable for making cushion covers, placemats, rugs and even dishcloths.
Materials:
For each ~7.5 x 7.5cm/3x3” square, you’ll need,
Sock yarn in fingering weight ~ 3-4g
OR Cotton yarn in sport weight ~5g
Please feel free to contact me for any comments or questions!
I may not be able to answer your questions right away due to the time difference but I will get back to you as soon as I can. I am most active on Ravelry 9- 11 am & 9-11pm (Central European Time).
Please feel free to email me at [email protected] if you want a quick response. Thank you =D
Happy Knitting!Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
March 29, 2016, 11:15 PM GMT / Updated March 30, 2016, 2:45 AM GMT By Alex Johnson
A year after a family of four was seriously sickened following a fumigation at a U.S. Virgin Islands resort, Terminix agreed Tuesday to pay $10 million in fines and restitution for using a pesticide that's been banned for more than 30 years, federal authorities said.
Stephen Esmond, Theresa Devine and their two teenage sons were exposed to methyl bromide in March 2015 when a local Terminix office fumigated the unit below theirs while they were on vacation on the Virgin Islands resort of St. John. The Environmental Protection Agency banned methyl bromide — a highly poisonous, odorless gas — for residential use in 1984.
According to documents filed in U.S. District Court in St. Thomas, Terminix "knowingly" applied fumigants including methyl bromide at the Sirenusa resort in St. John in October 2014 and in March 2015, when the Esmond family was visiting.
The gas made its way to the Esmonds' unit, seriously injuring all four members of the Delaware family, the documents say.
Terminix was also charged with using the banned pesticide in 12 residential units in St. Croix and another in St. Thomas from September 2012 to February 2015.
Terminix and its local subsidiary pleaded guilty to four counts of violating the federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act and agreed to pay $8 million in fines, $1 million in restitution to the EPA for clean-up costs and $1 million to fund community service projects in the Virgin Islands, according to the plea agreement, which must still be approved by a federal judge.
"When you break a law that protects public health, there are real victims and real consequences, as this case tragically shows," Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator of the EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, said in a statement Tuesday.
A representative of the Esmond family said neither the family nor their attorney would have any comment.Just got an email from PSA, they are doing some AWESOME deals on ammo! Deals are live at Midnight! Free shipping and they DO SHIP TO NJ! Just need to email them a copy of FID.
Edit: Thanks @Krdshrk Limit 5 of the $20 rebates. Link to Rebate.
Deal Price Shipped on 223 and 300AAC 300rd bulk pack, $89.99. Price after rebate: $69.99!! $.23 per round or $4.66 per box of 20!
Deal Price on 9mm 500rd bulk pack, 89.99. Price after rebate: $69.99!! $.1399 per round or $6.99 per box!
Deal Price on 22lr 1600rd bulk pack, $59.99. Price after rebate: $39.99!! - $.024 per round or about $13.50 per brick!
Looking over Brownells some more... they have the same price on 22LR and free shipping with coupon code, so if PSA runs out, Brownells does have it as well. Linky Here
Deal Price on 12GA Buck 100 shells, $59.99. Price after rebate: $39.99!! Less than $.40 per shell and a nice ammo can!
Deal Price on.45acp 300rd bulk pack, $89.99. Price after rebate: $69.99!! Less than $.24 per round or $11.65 per box!
All of the available deals are here. If placing an order, please go through our links here as it helps the forum.Images of a Great African Park. Antelope The Kruger National Park is home to many different species of animals, from Eland to small antelope such as Duiker and Steenbok. Impala are the most common antelope in the park with Kudu being the second most common. If you are lucky, you may see rare antelope such as Sable and Eland which are revered in many African cultures. During the rut, which takes place between April and June, adult impala males establish territories, which they defend by chasing away rival males. Guttural roars followed by protracted snorts can be heard throughout the day and night, as the dominant male defends his territory against intrusions by neighbouring males. If territorial displays are not effective in fending off rivals, the males resort to horn-clashing duels to determine dominance. A herd of impala approaches water. For impala, gathering together in a herd has many advantages: many pairs of eyes and ears are constantly alert to danger, and the chances of being caught by a predator are greatly reduced. In the Kruger Park there are approximately 10 000 impala herds with an average herd size of 11 animals. Impala gather at a water hole in acacia country near Lower Sabie. They have a marked preference for areas where there is a regular supply of water, short grass and dense thickets of shrubs and trees. These conditions are normally encountered near rivers where a concentration of larger animals, such as elephant and buffalo, further improves the habitat for impala. Impala are prolific breeders and are the most abundant mammal in Kruger, but these medium-sized antelope drink less than one quarter of the water consumed by the Elephants in Kruger National Park. Kudu are nonselective browsers and feed on no less than 150 species of trees and shrubs. They avoid trees with a high tannin content in their leaves, and favour acacia and combretum species. Although they prefer the same trees that are sought after by giraffe, competition between the two species is minimised by feeding at different heights. This beautiful large antelope is the most widely distributed of 20 antelope species in Kruger Park, but is most common in the Central Region where its favourite food plants are found in abundance. Although Kudu drink when water is available, in times of drought they are more susceptible to a lack of adequate browse than they are to a lack of drinking water. The female weighs about 160 kilograms, but males are much larger and weigh on average 250 kilograms.
A kudu bull displays the longest horns of all the antelope that occur in Kruger. At the age of nine months a male kudu sports two short horns, which begin to grow and curve with age to form the corkscrew shape typical of mature bulls. The record length of 181 centimetres is more than twice that recorded for a close relative, the nyala. There have been several observations of jousting kudu bulls interlocking their spiral horns and being unable to disengage. Unable to disentangle their horns or flee, the helpless contestants soon fall prey to predators. Herds of female waterbuck and their young occupy a home range that coincides with the territories of several males.
Relative to their small population size, more waterbuck are killed by Lion than any other antelope in Kruger, and 60 to 80 per cent of deaths can be attributed to these predators. Waterbuck are uncommon throughout their range in South Africa and currently number a modest 1 400 in Kruger. They favour open woodland near water. Of the 77 species of African antelope, only the waterbuck has a distinctive white ring around the rump. Grasses of a high nutritional quality and a regular supply of water are both essential habitat requirements for these animals. Cattle egrets, the only members of their family that are not closely dependent on water, feed on grasshoppers and other insects disturbed by large antelope. The regal sable, arguably the most beautiful antelope in the Park, has specific habitat requirements that include tall grassland and open woodland. An increase in zebra herds and prolonged drought has caused a considerable decline in sable in recent years. Blue wildebeest favour short grasses and need to drink less than other grazers such as zebra and buffalo. Although wildebeest are dependent on water, the severe drought of 1992/93 had little effect on their population, currently estimated at about 13 000. A blue wildebeest bull maintains his dominance by means of ritual displays intended to intimidate any intruder. When another bull approaches, the territorial bull's rocking-horse gait and swishing tail are meant to dissuade his competitor. If this display fails, the bull drops to his knees and engages in horn-clashing sparring (opposite below). No injuries result from these contests as the impact is absorbed by the bull's solid horn bosses. One of the bulls eventually surrenders and is chased off the territory by the victor. Males are territorial and even where herds migrate over long distances, temporary territories are established. In the Kruger Park bushbuck are associated with dense riverine bush, and the road between Skukuza and Lower Sabie offers the best sightings. They are solitary antelope and occupy home ranges that often overlap. Unlike most antelope species, bushbuck are exceptionally tolerant of each other and territorial displays are a rare phenomenon. The smallest of the antelope most commonly seen in Kruger, steenbok show a marked preference for the open plains in the eastern region of the Park, formed on volcanic basalt. There is some sexual dimorphism, with only male steenbok having horns, and the females being slightly larger than the males. A nyala male displays the stripes and horn shape typical of this antelope family. Nyala occur mainly north of the Letaba River, especially along the Shingwedzi and Luvuvhu rivers. Only males have horns. Females are a reddish ochre in colour and can be confused with young kudu. The roan antelope is classified as an endangered species in South Africa. Following the harsh drought of 1992/93, roan antelope nearly became extinct in the Park, and the population fell from 452 in 1986 to 44. Kruger mostly contains habitats that are marginal to their requirements, as roan survive better on wetter savannas. They occur only in open woodland with a well-developed cover of tall grass. By Nigel Dennis & Michael Brett.
Enquiries / Questions During the rut, which takes place between April and June,, which they defend by chasing away rival males.Guttural roars followed by protracted snorts can be heard throughout the day and night, as the dominant male defends his territory against intrusions by neighbouring males. If territorial displays are not effective in fending off rivals, the males resort toto determine dominance.A herd of impala approaches water. For impala, gathering together in a herd has many advantages: many pairs of eyes and ears are constantly alert to danger, and the chances of being caught by a predator are greatly reduced. In the Kruger Park there arewith an average herd size of 11 animals.Impalain acacia country near Lower Sabie. They have a marked preference for areas where there is a regular supply of water, short grass and dense thickets of shrubs and trees.These conditions are normally encountered near rivers where a concentration of larger animals, such as elephant and buffalo, further improves the habitat for impala. Impala are prolific breeders and are the, but these medium-sized antelope drink less than one quarter of the water consumed by the Elephants
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/ month for one operator independent of number machine they have. Operators can also promote separate machines on a geographical level using promo campaigns, which cost $1/day/machine.
Sales volume
Before this moment we mostly talked about costs of running bitcoin machines. Let’s look at revenue side of the business. Here are some metrics reported by operators.
Revenue
Operators reported on average a machine brings roughly $30K a month in transaction volume. Some operators reported it is lower in the $20-25K for machine, some operators reported higher values (some up to $100K per machine). We find volume of $30K quite a realistic to receive at a good location with enough visibility and promotion on the internet.
Many factors can influence the transaction volume, including the population density and bitcoin-awareness level. Of course, in highly-populated areas like NY machines will be used much more often than somewhere in the low population city.
While keeping bitcoin ATM map updated, there is a trend in behavior mentioned recently, when operators switch locations of ATMs. Previously it was mostly because location closed / owner didn’t prolonged lease, however, now it is more and more often when operator changes location, because it is not bringing enough volume and operators are searching for more profitable location. So generally operators know how much an ATM can bring realistically (based on other installations they have) and are trying to find optimal locations. Sometimes moving machine just couple of districts away changes usage picture drastically.
Location awareness
Many operators reported that a newly installed machine reaches its normal turnover approximately in 1-2 months. Which is not consistent with 6 months we wrote in another article in Volume section, which means after couple of month at a location it is more or less clear whether it is a good spot for bitcoin ATM or not, and if not it is a good idea to try to move it to another location.
Buy/Sell ratio
Normally bitcoin ATMs are used for buying bitcoins with cash today, rather than selling. Previously (mid 2016) operators reported the estimation of between 80/20 – 90/10 for buy/sell volume comparison on the two-way machines in operation. This trend has changed since then with increase of sell share, e.g. in 2018 operator and also representative of General Bytes (second largest cryptocurrency ATM provider as of May 2018) confirmed that sell volume is 25-30%, hence ratio changed to roughly 70/30.
Average transaction size
Buy transaction size is reported at $100-350, with an average among different operators at $175. Average sell bitcoin transaction was reported in the interval $150-$500, with an average among those who reported it at about $250 per transaction. Important to note here, that all operators who reported sell transaction average size mentioned it higher than average buy bitcoin transaction size.
Change in volume based on price fluctuation
Sell bitcoin to machines is not popular (usually ~10% of volume), while transaction size is higher than for buy orders. Some operators reported slightly increased volume in transactions at machine due to price increase happened in May-June 2016 (from no change in volume to 20% increase by others), however most of the volume increase or buy/sell ratio change was coming from increased sell bitcoin volume. The point here is that while share for sell transactions is low, in some periods it can increase, and it is good to cover this part of demand. So if you are planning to operate only one-way machines, we highly recommend to reconsider and to have at least several two-way machines (e.g. 1/3 of all your machines).
Monthly transactions number
This parameter can be calculated based on volume and average ticket size reported above ($30000*0.9/175 + $30000*0.1/250 ~ 166 txns, or 5 txns / day). However, similar question was included into the survey and some operators reported it separately. The number reported is in 100-150 interval, with average about 130 transactions per month per machine, which is close to calculated value.
Other costs
Mostly this section of survey was not filled by operators. Some reported that there are other extra costs, without providing details what are the costs exactly.
Hopefully this post can help in evaluating bitcoin ATM potential. We plan to post another article of calculating profits for running 1 bitcoin ATM and a network of 10 machines. Check our blog periodically for new updates.
If any questions — feel free to ask in comments or send a message at email ([email protected]).
If you are an operator, who was not covered by this survey and would like to contribute by sharing your figures — you are welcome to do so by sending an email and this article will be updated accordingly.
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You can find bitcoin ATM locations on our map.
Subscribe to our Twitter account to get latest news from bitcoin ATM industry @CoinATMRadarMike Rizzo made his weekly appearance with Grant Paulsen and Danny Rouhier on 106.7 The Fan on Wednesday, and as he has all season, the Nationals GM defended Manager Matt Williams in the face of scrutiny about his bullpen management. Earlier in the day, Williams defended his decision to go with Casey Janssen instead of Jonathan Papelbon in the ninth inning of a tie game on Tuesday.
Rouhier asked Rizzo if he thinks Papelbon has been used enough since he was acquired at the trade deadline.
“Well, he’s pitched in the situations that he pitches in,” Rizzo said. “He’s one of the consummate closers in the game, and when the ninth inning comes and he’s on the mound, I feel really, really good about it. There just hasn’t been a lot of opportunities for him to do what he does, and that’s to close out games and save games and be there when the last out of the game is made. … There hasn’t been enough opportunities, to my liking, for him to pitch more often, but opportunities when he has pitched, he’s pitched extremely well for us, like we thought he would.”
[Fancy Stats: Williams is mishandling the Nats’ bullpen]
Paulsen followed up by asking Rizzo whether he agreed with Williams’ decision to pitch Janssen for a second consecutive night in Tuesday’s ninth inning instead of calling upon Papelbon to face the heart of the Cardinals’ order. Sure, Papelbon is the Nationals’ closer, but there’s no lead for him to protect if Janssen gives up a run (or three) as he did Tuesday.
“We’re 55-5 when we have the lead after seven innings, we’re 43-2 when we have a two-run lead after seven innings, so Matt Williams did a masterful job last night, in my mind, putting people in a position to succeed,” Rizzo said. “The sixth and seventh inning that Matt managed was unbelievably well-crafted. He got us to the point where he pushed all the right buttons, put in the lefties for the lefties, got the matchup he wanted and in a real tough situation brought in Blake Treinen because he’s a ground ball pitcher and you’re trying to induce the double-play ball.”
Treinen got Jhonny Peralta to hit into an inning-ending double play to preserve the Nationals’ one-run lead after six innings and Felipe Rivero worked a perfect seventh after the Nationals added an insurance run.
“We go into the eighth inning with our two studs on the mound, [Drew] Storen and Papelbon, ready to take the eighth inning on, the ninth inning on and we go home,” Rizzo continued. “We’re 43-2 in those instances. So, put guys in position to succeed, hey, it’s baseball, it happens, guys don’t succeed all the time. Mariano Rivera gave up the game-winning hit in the 2001 World Series, I always say that. If he can fail, anybody can fail in the bullpen, and we just didn’t get it done. There was ample opportunity to score more runs, there was ample opportunities to make plays defensively that we didn’t make, some bad decisions, and we lost to a really, really good baseball team. But, as far as putting guys in position to succeed, that was done. I thought he did a great job of getting us to the eighth inning with a two-run lead. That’s where we want to be. If we’re there tonight again, the eighth inning with a two-run lead, I’ll be extremely happy and feel extremely good about it, and that’s the way we constructed the team and this bullpen, and that’s how we’re going to run with it.”
[Two leads, two collapses and what they might mean for 2016]
Rizzo took issue with the criticism Williams faced Monday for not using Storen late in a close game, despite the fact that Storen told Williams he was unavailable.
“No one asked the question and he gets ripped for not using a player that is unavailable to pitch that day, so there’s a lot of information that goes into these things, and there’s a lot of stuff that is known by the ballclub and not by the general public, and that’s the way it should be,” Rizzo said. “And that’s fine. Critiquing the manager, that’s what this thing’s all about. We’re all arm-chair managers and Monday morning quarterbacks and that type of thing, and that’s what makes the game so beautiful, is that we can follow along and manage with him.”
When asked whether he endorses the idea that closers, such as Papelbon, should only pitch in the ninth inning, no matter the situation (or deficit in the National League East standings), Rizzo noted that Cardinals Manager Mike Matheny faces the same criticisms despite owning the best record in baseball.
“Managers have to manage according to what they have with the ballclub that night,” Rizzo said. “That night is the key component to each and any question, is who’s available that night, who’s pitching well, how many times has a guy been up, is he available to pitch, is he pitching strong, is the matchup good and that type of thing, and I don’t think there’s a hard and fast way, by the book of managing A, B, C, D. No. I think Matt showed that last night. … I thought he did a masterful job of getting us to a point of putting his people in a position to succeed and we just didn’t get it done.”A woman in a striped shirt and headscarf sits in a dark room and lets loose in rapid-fire Arabic: “Imagine to what point they’ve terrorized people!” A former schoolteacher, she has been ostracized and intimidated by the rebels for refusing to trade in her long-worn pants for a dress or skirt. Each day she stands in protest outside headquarters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in northern Syria. “They can’t imagine that I’m wearing pants,” she says, then takes a stab at the jihadist fighters. “How can pants be sinful and not a mask?” The film, just four minutes long, is simply titled “The Woman in Pants.”
This is one of the favorite films of Charif Kiwan, the co-founder and producer of an anonymous organization of Syrian filmmakers who call themselves the Abounaddara Collective. “This woman represents the desire of society to free itself,” he says. “We share this fight, [though] she is fighting alone, every day she is demonstrating alone.”
Each Friday since 2011, the Damascus-based collective has posted a single video from one of its innumerous contributors. There’s a man arguing that the sun revolves around the earth. An artisan carving an inlaid wooden box. Cleaners at dawn preparing a mosque for a handful of worshippers. Some show fighting, gunfire echoing in the dark frames, but there is a stipulation that sets the collective apart from other documentation of the war: no bodies of the dead or injured can be shown.
Five of the group’s shorts premiered recently at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York City. They call their style of documentation work “emergency cinema.” One, a close-framed confessional, watches as a Free Syrian Army fighter describes killing a man he knew to be innocent. “With a gun in my hand, I wept,” he says, eyes red and cigarette smoke billowing. The short, Of God and Dogs, won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Short Film at Sundance this year.
“We don’t have just Assad—a gentleman, always smiling, very polite—or the jihadist,” Kiwan says. “We have between those two actors, we have a society, ordinary men and women who are fighting for democracy...our fight is to show you that the main battle in Syria is between dictatorship and freedom.”
The filmmakers aim to show the Syria untold by news networks, and buried under documentation of bloody battles and dead fighters that floods YouTube. The shared humanity and humility conveyed by conflicted soldiers, activists, and everyday civilians adds another layer of complexity to the conflict—not only that real people are behind the refugee and casualty numbers, but that everyday life continues to some extent.
The collective formed before the country was thrown into turmoil, with the intent of documenting Syrian society, and maintained that goal as the situation changed, gathering an untold number of self-taught filmmakers to document the war via stories away from the frontline.
Kiwan says he hopes the films portray enough universality that its characters could be identified with elsewhere, in a nation far from war-torn Syria by viewers with little knowledge of the conflict.
“Despite massacre and tragedy we have the feeling that we are succeeding, maybe, we are starting to share something with a viewer around the world—and, we hope,” says Kiwan.
The collective operates under almost entire anonymity. Only Kiwan and one of the filmmakers—a young man named Osama al-Habali who hasn’t been heard from since his arrest two years ago—have revealed their names. “We decided to be anonymous to protect ourselves from the regime but also from the celebrity,” he explains. “We wanted to be free and go everywhere without being recognized by people.”
Kiwan demurs from sharing his personal details, but reveals he was an unsuccessful filmmaker before the uprising began and is now living outside the country under asylum.
Documenting the war is a dangerous task. If government soldiers catch you with a camera, Kiwan says, you are considered a terrorist. But the collective as a whole is not concerned about being targeted by the regime. “He has enemies more important than us.”
Even Kiwan doesn’t know the exact number Syrians on the ground making films for the group. When videos come in, the members of the collective debate and edit online until they come to the mutual agreement of completion. Just a small core group including Kiwan runs the logistics. They post the submissions on Vimeo, where the channel has a collection of 242 shorts.
“It’s really a miracle,” Kiwan says of the group’s cohesion. “We have zero funding, we just have strong desire to be different, to tell the story, to try to find a new narrative, and to be authentic. I don’t know why people are still committed and still working without any kind of salary or recognition, but maybe because of the mystery, because of recognition [the collective] gets around the world now, it makes us proud, and I guess it’s enough.”
The only point of contention between filmmakers and the collective’s pseudo-leadership is over the ban on graphic images. “We don’t have the right to show our people in a way that it’s not dignified,” Kiwan says, noting that American media shied away from similar images after the September 11 attacks. “Sometimes it’s very, very hard because we need to show the world that our regime is killing us.”
It’s not uncommon, he says, for contributors in embattled areas to send in footage of massacres, which are rejected. “They are so angry they tell us, ‘Are you kidding? We need the world to see the crime, please stop your stupidity.’ Sometimes it’s very difficult to tell our colleagues that we understand, but we cannot.”
This documentation is taxing, but Kiwan says he knows that the collective’s methods can reach people across the world and, someday, there will be an end to the bloodshed. When that time comes, he hopes to build a school of cinema so Syria’s younger generations can learn about society and subversion through filmmaking.
“I am very tired, we are very, very tired. I lost some of my colleagues, [the filmmaker] Osama is in jail, some are really depressed, some tried suicide,” he says. “It’s very hard to keep fighting...but we keep fighting, we don’t have a right to give up.”Two leading debit card providers have announced a reciprocal agreement that will let companies use each other’s tokenized credentials to ensure secure payments.
Visa and Mastercard have partnered to promote wider adoption of digital tokens in the companies’ digital wallets, Masterpass and Visa Checkout. Starting next year, both companies will be able to request tokenized credentials from each other when customers make transactions online, in-store or via the app.
The contract will allow Visa to request tokenized Mastercard payment credentials from Mastercard for provisioning into Visa Checkout, and for Mastercard to request tokenized Visa credentials from Visa for provisioning into Masterpass.
Tokenization is a technology that allows making payments without providing sensitive information, such as cardholder’s account numbers and expiration dates.
“By allowing each network’s respective wallet service to leverage the token solutions of the other network, this agreement will ensure that each network’s wallet solutions can continue to stay open – and can add the extra security of using tokens in place of real card numbers,” James Anderson, executive vice president of Digital Payment Products at Mastercard, wrote in a blog post.
“We’ve seen a fantastic response to Masterpass from both banks and merchants alike, and see this agreement as another positive development in the product’s continued adoption.”
The new agreement complies with the companies’ strategies to further develop their virtual payments systems. Visa and Mastercard have been both working on making their APIs open to a range of token requestors.
As Anderson wrote, Mastercard is committed to support all types of commerce and serve the full range of consumer needs. Masterpass was developed as an open digital wallet to let customers and banks store cards from Mastercard as well as other brands, including Visa.
Two year ago, Mastercard launched its tokenization service, MDES, to enable secure digital payments. The demand for the service has significantly increased since then and about 700 issuers worldwide are connected to the service.
Both networks seem to be interested in the blockchain technology. Visa is now involved in a project together with BTL Group aimed at using blockchain for interbank payments.
Not to stay behind its main competitor, Mastercard added three blockchain APIs to its developer website. Announced in October, the initiative was taken to allow developers get free access to a core blockchain API, smart contracts API and fast pay network API.
MasterCard enabled users to run their own blockchain nodes, define transaction types and manage participation in a blockchain network. Furthermore, the company offered a possibility to write custom scripts, do real-time reconciliation and execute settlement.
A few days ago, social networking giant Facebook unveiled its payments platform becomes available in Europe. The company received an e-money license from the Central Bank of Ireland what will enable it to operate in Ireland and all the other 27 EU member states.A lethal virus that causes diarrhoea and vomiting in pigs has entered the United States and has been found in 14 states. With the country’s US$97-billion pork industry standing to lose millions of dollars in the event of a mass outbreak, scientists are working to track the virus and prevent its spread, even as they try to understand how it passed through biosecurity defences in the first place.
“How this virus got here, that’s the million-dollar question,” says James Collins, director of the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at the University of Minnesota in St Paul.
The pathogen, a type of coronavirus called porcine epidemic diarrhoea virus (PEDV), was first identified in the United Kingdom in 1971, and it caused mass epidemics in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s. As pigs there developed immunity, the virus petered out and now causes only occasional, isolated outbreaks. It has since spread to Asia, where it has been considered endemic since 1982, causing substantial economic losses to pork producers. The virus can spread quickly by a faecal–oral route and infect entire herds. And although adult pigs typically recover, PEDV can kill 80–100% of the piglets it infects. The virus poses no health threat to humans.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) had tried to keep PEDV and other diseases out of the country by restricting imports of pigs and pork products from certain nations, such as China. But on 10 May, the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at Iowa State University in Ames confirmed that PEDV had infected pigs in Iowa, the leading producer of US pork. The lab then screened samples taken earlier from other states and found a case from Ohio submitted on 16 April that is now the earliest known US detection of PEDV, according to Gregory Stevenson, a pathologist at Iowa State. The fact that the virus has now spread to 14 states in total is a sign that the outbreak is still flaring and could become an epidemic (see ‘Pig virus on the wing’).
SOURCE: US Department of AGRICULTURE
“It’s a real threat,” says Lisa Becton, a veterinary surgeon and director of swine health information at the National Pork Board, an industry group in Des Moines, Iowa.
To understand the virus’s enigmatic US entry, scientists are sequencing viral DNA isolated from pigs and comparing it with PEDV variants from elsewhere in the world. Researchers are also trying to create rapid diagnostic tests and vaccines to prevent the virus from spreading. The National Pork Board has approved $800,000 to fund research and education.
But PEDV must first be grown in labs — a notoriously difficult exercise because the pathogen thrives in the specific conditions found in pig guts. Researchers in Europe and Asia have already managed to infect cells, but only after years of working with the virus. In the United States, the same import restrictions that were set up to help to prevent PEDV from entering the country have made it difficult to import the necessary lab materials for working with the virus, such as vaccines, infected cells and pig antibodies.
“What’s hampering the research is that we don’t have reagents,” says Linda Saif, a virologist at Ohio State University in Wooster. Access to the virus and good tests in hand “would have helped us identify which herds have been exposed, and one could have imposed more stringent control measures”, she says.
The USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames is one of just a few US facilities to have grown the virus successfully. But it had a head start: the lab imported the virus around 15 years ago from Asia, after a lengthy security-clearance process, in preparation for just such an outbreak. Lab scientists have spent recent months tweaking cell-culture protocols, and plan to distribute the virus to researchers on request in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, other research groups have focused on detecting viral DNA in sick pigs and on sequencing viral genes. In August, a team led by Douglas Marthaler, a scientist at the University of Minnesota’s Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, will publish the sequence of a virus genome taken from a Colorado farm. They found it to be 99.4% identical to a Chinese strain of PEDV. On the basis of that sequence, many researchers suspect that the virus originated in China, but Marthaler says that he is surprised by the level of similarity, because he would have expected the US virus to have evolved more in the time since it arrived.
In any case, he says, the potential origin of the virus does not say anything about the route that it took to reach the United States. Canada, the main source of pigs entering the United States, does not import pigs from China either. And although researchers know that the virus can be transported in faeces, they do not know how long it can survive outside pigs’ intestines, so it is unclear if a dirty boot, a contaminated package or an illegal import carried PEDV into the country.
Vets say that pig farmers are now restricting access to farms, and are cleaning pig manure more carefully off their clothes and trucks as they move between barns. And researchers still hope that they can elucidate the virus’s international and domestic path by looking for subtle evolutionary changes in viral genome sequences of samples from Asia and different US states.
Saif, who has feared such an outbreak for decades, wonders what the virus will do next. Agriculture experts speculate that it may be more stable in cooler temperatures, and thus more dangerous, making the current outbreak a mild precursor to what could come in the winter. “We have to be vigilant,” says Saif.Many details of the soccer-stadium deal have yet to be finalized, making it difficult to precisely gauge public opinion. (D.C. Office of City Administrator)
On Monday, we published results from our recent poll of District residents finding that a solid majority, six in 10 residents, opposed a plan backed by Mayor Vincent C. Gray to build a stadium for the city’s pro soccer team, D.C. United. Those findings were met with disappointment, frustration and anger in some quarters — particularly among Gray aides and D.C. United fans, who felt the poll question’s wording was unfair and biased against the proposed deal.
City Administrator Allen Y. Lew wrote a letter to The Post, published Thursday, taking exception to the question’s phrasing — which referred to “using city funds to help finance a new soccer stadium” — saying the proposed deal does not use city funds to “finance” a stadium in any meaningful way. Had residents known more details of the deal, Lew said, they would have felt differently about it.
We welcome criticism and opportunities to improve the quality of our research, which is why we publish the full wording and order of all Post polls. In this case, we believe the poll’s survey question is fair in testing residents’ support for the city to offer financial help to a new soccer stadium. This, of course, is what the question asks:
(Scott Clement/The Washington Post)
While the degree and type of financial help the city provides has yet to be determined, we believe proposals to spend up to $150 million of city funds to purchase land, then leasing it to the team at $1 per year certainly qualifies as the financial help encompassed by the question.
Quality survey research on policy balances the need to ask clear questions that capture the core of a proposal with the need to track support over time. The soccer stadium question was a repeat from a 2008 survey, which found 36 percent favored and 60 percent opposed the use of city funds to help finance a soccer stadium. The fact that current results are nearly identical — 35 percent favor and 59 percent oppose — provides strong evidence that attitudes on this broad issue are stable.
Because the same broad language was used when The Post queried about a baseball stadium in 2002, finding 48 percent in favor, 47 percent opposed, it’s possible to say support for committing city funds to help build a soccer stadium is substantially lower than it was for a baseball stadium. This lower support is sensible, given that only 2 percent of D.C. sports fans in a 2011 Post poll said soccer was their favorite sport to watch, and 19 percent said they cared “a great deal” or “somewhat” about professional soccer.
Also note, in order to capture the public’s opinion of the soccer stadium without coloring their response with impressions of the baseball deal, we asked the soccer stadium question before, not after, we asked about the Nats stadium.
Sometimes more specific questions can produce differing results, though providing many details also runs the risk of confusing respondents or introducing bias. If we were to craft a very specific question about the proposed deal in a balanced way, we might ask —
There is a proposal to use up to $150 million in city funds to buy land where a new stadium can be built for the District’s Major League Soccer team, D.C. United. The city would maintain ownership of the property and rent it to the team for $1 per year, while the soccer team would pay to construct the actual stadium. Do you support or oppose this proposal?
This question illustrates some drawbacks of asking a balanced question that is more specifically tailored to a policy proposal. We don’t think this is a clearly better approach or would necessarily produce higher or lower support for the city’s plans, though the impact is unknown without additional research.
For example, a wording experiment embedded in our January poll question asking whether the Nationals stadium was a “good” or “bad” investment for the city produced strikingly small differences. A random half-sample of respondents was informed of the stadium’s estimated $650 million cost to the city, while the other half was not. But the percentage of respondents in each half-sample saying the stadium was a “good” investment differed only by a single percentage point: 71 percent among those informed of the cost, 72 percent among those who were not.
Differences in results due to question wording are possible and often unpredictable, which makes speculation about how a slightly different question might have produced much different results dicey without randomized experimentation. Given the lopsided nature of attitudes toward financially aiding a soccer stadium, though, differences in the question would need to be substantial to alter conclusions about support for the city proposal.David L. Strickland understands the government regulation of vehicles more than anyone. As the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) during the Obama years, he oversaw major changes to the way the government pushed for more nimble technological solutions to make cars safer, cleaner, and more connected. He thinks autonomous vehicles (AVs) are about to usher in a major breakthrough for our society—no matter who’s in the White House.
As the counsel and spokesperson of the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets—a group that includes five of the autonomous world’s most influential players: Google, Uber, Lyft, Volvo, and Ford—Strickland is now the most important lobbyist for an industry that was a few policy recommendations away from radically changing the way we live. Until, that is, the 2016 presidential election, which ushered in an age of uncertainty around the country’s transportation policies.
I met Strickland at Los Angeles’ auto show—a celebration of car culture in the birthplace of car culture—which has ended up becoming the most forward-thinking auto show in the U.S. Over the last few years, the show has added special emphasis on low-emission and shared vehicles, recently rebranding the entire show as AutoMobility LA to acknowledge its increasingly nontraditional mobility solutions.
It was worrying to many in attendance that after all this progress, our new presidential leadership was almost certainly destined to throw the industry backwards into the dark ages of single-passenger vehicles and fossil-fuel consumption.
But Strickland was far more optimistic. It comes down to safety and pushing for better solutions to achieve safety, he said, which he had championed in his role at NHTSA and continued to focus on at the self-driving coalition. He was bullish on the fact that the industry was still moving forward.
Saving lives is not a partisan issue
Almost 40,000 Americans die in car crashes each year, over 90 percent of which are caused by human error. This is a crisis that touches every single American, in every congressional district, in every state. “There are no Democratic or Republican roads,” says Strickland.
Another encouraging fact is that the Secretary of Transportation position, historically, has not been determined by party affiliation. “If the president wants to make a bipartisan pick, DOT is usually where it happens,” says Strickland. Ray LaHood, for example, was a Republican representative from Illinois appointed by Obama to head the DOT before Secretary Anthony Foxx.
Perhaps more importantly, the leading advocates for autonomous vehicles in Congress are still in office. “Everyone that we’ve worked with, we didn't lose anyone,” says Strickland. And he’s looking forward to working with incoming members who are focused on energy and commerce issues, namely to help make the connection for how AVs can help the country decrease emissions while boosting the economy.
Obama’s AV policy was more “guidance” than regulation
The new autonomous vehicle rules put forth by President Obama earlier this year had one very important quality that might prevent them from getting scrapped, says Strickland—they’re just suggestions. Unlike the Clean Power Plan, the United Nations climate treaty, or universal healthcare, the AV rules were not an executive order, and therefore not on the President-elect’s hit-list of Obama policies to undo in his first days in office.
Additionally, Republicans have a tendency to vote for policy that puts the federal government in a more hands-off position, which means that any additional regulations, especially ones for technology that hasn’t been deployed yet, will likely not be passed immediately. “The fact that it’s guidance should help more in stability and transition,” says Strickland. “It probably has more of a chance surviving in a Trump administration.”
There’s also the fact that the guidelines really do rely on the actions of automakers—which means lots of opportunities for new jobs, he says. “Having this lesser regulatory approach really leans on the private sector for how we get this deployed thoughtfully and safely.”
Autonomous vehicles won’t take jobs—they’ll create new ones
One tweet that kept surfacing in my feed after the election was a map that compared the states that voted for Trump with the states where “truck driver” was the most popular occupation—it was almost exactly the same map.
I asked Strickland how the coalition responded to worries that autonomous trucking would obliterate jobs in rural America, and his answer surprised me.
“We’re actually 50,000 drivers short,” says Strickland, noting that trucking companies have been desperate to hire more employees. “I think autonomous trucks will actually help us close that gap, in the short term.”
But we shouldn’t be worried about eventually putting truckers out of jobs, and ATMs are the perfect example, he says. Everyone thought an “automated teller” would put human tellers out of jobs, when in fact, it freed bank workers from spending their days on mundane tasks like cashing checks so they could focus on providing new, expanded services to clients. “Whenever you have new technology you always find jobs that are lost which are gained in another part of the industry.”
He also points to how AVs could actually give more Americans access to jobs—namely seniors and people with disabilities—which would bolster the economy in many communities. “We see this as a growth opportunity in so many industries.”
Infrastructure investment could mean something good
Strickland was one of the drafters of a comprehensive Federal Highway Administration bill in 2005 which attempted to modernize the country’s transportation system with a focus on safety, equity, and environmental stewardship. He thinks another transportation bill is, in general, a very good idea. “Investing in infrastructure is the most important thing we can do as far as building for our economic future,” he says. “We are living off the investment from the 1950s in the Eisenhower administration and we’ve been patching it ever since.”
How that kind of investment will impact self-driving could also be huge. “If we get a highway bill, we do have a platform and opportunity to think about self-driving as a pure ecosystem,” he says.
But it isn’t just about resurfacing highways and better lane paint, he notes, it’s also about urban planning decisions that can incentivize the use of self-driving tech—carpool lanes, congestion charging, and removing parking lots from dense neighborhoods. And if you’re resculpting cities for AVs, that money could all come from an infrastructure bill. “If cities want to do zones for deployment, for example, this is a fabulous opportunity.”
AVs could help bridge the rural vs. urban divide
Another major topic of conversation post-election has been how rural communities have been left behind by policies that favor big cities. Obviously autonomous vehicles have been championed by big, dense cities which see them as a panacea for gridlock. But what about people who don’t live in those cities. And what about people who love to drive?
Widespread self-driving adoption is not right for every city, agrees Strickland, but in a big-picture way, we have to think of it like investments in high-speed rail or a better interstate system. “If we invest in it as a country, we lift up a number of a communities across the country.”
Plus, he sees a myriad of benefits for people who live outside of cities. “Even someone driving a Ford F-150 can flip on self-driving mode on the way back to the ranch and take care of other things,” says Strickland. That turns the argument for self-driving vehicles into a productivity argument. It doesn’t matter your background; AVs can help get Americans back hundreds of hours per year lost to driving and sitting in traffic.
Cities will start to think about AVs like bike share
When Strickland was NHTSA administrator over a decade ago, he focused on building livable communities. “How we can figure out a way to get people to use less energy by planning and building communities where people work, workshop, entertain themselves—all in a more compact space,” he remembers.
His team looked at Paris’s successful bike share and began recommending bike share as a good way to achieve more livable cities. And something incredible happened.
“Those places that got bike share, all of a sudden they had almost a quadrupling of economic impact,” he says. “All of a sudden every city mayor was calling us up and saying ‘We gotta get that bike share!’”
Self-driving tech brings a lot of the same opportunities as bike share, says Strickland. “They were an engine for growth that also fulfilled the mission for a more livable city.” This is another reason that self-driving tech might likely be embraced by the masses—it all comes back to boosting the economy.
2017 is going to be a big year for self-driving cars no matter what
Looking forward, the big theme for next year is for the coalition to start to sell their idea to the public. “People are concerned about safety but they don't put safety as their number one priority,” says Strickland. That’s why self-driving companies are hyperfocused on putting their projects out in public. “How they sell it is all dependent on consumer acceptance,” says Strickland. “It’s about getting people in the vehicles.”
That’s why advocates are focusing on the work that Uber is doing in Pittsburgh, and Local Motors with its minibus Olli, and a new autonomous shuttle service that was just approved in Northern California—these are the opportunities that will start to introduce all Americans to the possibilities and benefits of self-driving tech.
While these public deployments will happen no matter who is in the White House, says Strickland, it’s not too far-fetched to imagine that President Trump’s legacy might be delivering the needed autonomous vehicle infrastructure to the country. “If he wants to call himself a ‘builder,’ it’s a natural place to go.”Last week while I was busy snubbing Stock Car Extreme, Condor: The Competition Soaring Simulator, Deer Hunter: The 2005 Season, and countless other quality simulations,
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562,635 and 21,726,996 bp interval, are particularly promising candidate genes for pod-color variation in cacao because variants in MYB transcription factors are known to cause variation in berry pigmentation in grapes [46, 47]. While MYB6 is less characterized, MYB113 is in a small clade known to act in complexes with basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) proteins to activate genes encoding enzymes acting in late stages of flavonol biosynthesis. MYB variants cause pigmentation variation in potato, tomato, and pepper [48], as well as in kale [49]. Pigmentation in apple skin and flesh is also regulated by MYB transcription factors [50]. Moreover, when genes encoding the R2R3 MYB transcription factors (cloned from apple) are transformed into tobacco, they induce the anthocyanin pathway, when co-expressed with bHLH proteins [50]. MYB gene evolution is thought to involve duplication events [51]; a single gene cluster of three MYB genes is involved in berry pigmentation in grape [46], and three genes of this type (including MYB113) are tandemly arrayed in Arabidopsis. The gene cluster in grape that is involved in berry-color variation includes the VvMYBA1 gene (homologous to TCM_019192), VvMYBA4 (homologous to TCM_019261), and VvMybA2. Mutations within VvMybA1 or VvMybA2 cause berries to be pigmented white/green instead of the wild-type purple color [52]. As described above, the MP01 recombinants narrow the region of interest to genes located between 20,562,635 and 21,126,449 bp on chromosome 4 (Figure 4c). Within this region, only one of the two MYB transcription factors is present: TCM_019192, which is homologous to VvMybA1. We refer to this gene as TcMYB113, and it encodes a protein with 275 amino acids sharing 61% identity with grape VvMYBA1 (see Additional file 2, Figure S8 for protein-sequence comparison). In the Criollo genome [11], TCM_019192 is annotated as two genes: Tc04_t014240 and Tc04_t014250. This difference may be attributed to the strict evidence-based Matina 1-6 version 1.1 annotation procedures that we used (see above).
Resequencing of additional genotypes and haplotype phasing of resequenced data The availability of a high-quality reference genome greatly facilitates resequencing data analyses of additional genotypes. Five parents of the mapping populations (MP01: CCN 51 and TSH 1188,; T4 Type 1: Pound 7 and UF 273 Type 1; T4 Type 2: Pound 7 and UF 273 Type 2), and eight additional genomes (KA 2 101, K 82, LCTEEN 141, NA 331, PA 51, mvP 30, mvT 85, and Criollo 13) were resequenced (see Materials and methods). Reads were phased for the region surrounding the pod-color mapping interval (between 20,561,460 and 21,386,830 bp) on chromosome 4 (see Materials and methods). We identified 21,225 SNPs and 1,879 putative insertions/deletions (indels) within this region. Phasing of the reads permitted generation of haplotype sequences and, consequently, identification of the alleles associated with pod color, specifically for the three candidate genes. The phased resequencing data from 13 genotypes plus the Matina 1-6 (version 1.1) sequence were used to generate clusters based on the haplotypes for the two MYB genes and APO4 (see Additional file 2, Figure S9). The haplotypes for TcMYB113 appear to cluster in agreement with the haplotype they induce or the haplotype of the phenotype of the clones they represent; this is not the case for TcMYB6 or APO4, in which green and red haplotypes are positioned within the same cluster (see Additional file 1, Figure S9). These results corroborate the association between TcMYB113 and pod-color variation across multiple resequenced unrelated samples with diverse genetic backgrounds. The phylogenetic relationships between the haplotypes also indicate that the haplotypes of the Criollo 13 green-pod genotype are closest to the cluster of red-pod-associated haplotypes (see Additional file 2, Figure S9). This suggests that the TcMYB113 alleles that are associated with red pod color in this study originated from the Criollo genetic group. In fact, only a single allele was found for MYB6 and APO4 in the red pod-associated haplotypes from the mapping population parents (see Additional file 2, Figure S9), but their sequence is identical to the one from the resequenced green-pod Criollo 13. This indicates that the red-pod parents of the mapping populations may have inherited a large segment of chromosome 4 from a Criollo genotype, and in fact, the Criollo genetic group was previously identified as the most likely source of the red-pod gene [7].
Sanger sequencing, association mapping, and putative functional effects of polymorphisms found within TcMYB113 1 1 2 1 1 1 53 54 5 2 55 56 57 54 5 5 54 The resequencing data shows specific SNPs in TcMYB113 within coding regions in the alleles associated with red pod color, which are at positions 20,878,747, 20,878,891, 20,878,957, 20,879,122, and 20,879,148. We corroborated this result by Sanger sequencing of the three candidate genes studied and by association mapping (see Additional file, Table S23). The association-mapping analysis was performed using 73 SNPs generated via Sanger sequencing (see Materials and methods) and 95 other SNPs from chromosomes 1 to 10 in 54 genotypes with green pods and 17 genotypes with red pods from diverse genetic backgrounds. Without accounting for genetic structure, the most significant P-values from the Fisher test were for the following SNPs (from highest to lowest significance): 20,878,891; 20,875,691, and 20,879,148 (see Additional file, Table S23). SNPs at these positions permitted differentiation of alleles that are associated with the green-pod Criollo genotypes from those associated with the red-pod trees of Criollo origin (see Additional file, Figure S10). The least significant of these (position 20,879,148; see Additional file, Table S23) results in an amino-acid change from serine to asparagine at codon 221 of the TcMYB113 protein in the alleles associated with red pod color. This residue occurs outside of the R2R3 DNA binding domain, but within the C-terminal region that varies substantially between MYB family members, making the structural consequence of this substitution difficult to predict. When genetic structure was taken into account in the association-mapping analysis, the significance of the association between this SNP and pod color was considerably lower (see Additional file, Table S23). The second most significant SNP (position 20,875,691) was detected via Sanger sequencing in the TcMYB113 5' untranslated region (UTR), located 25 bases upstream of the ATG start site (see Additional file, Table S23). The function of this SNP is difficult to infer; however, mutations occurring near translation start sites are known to affect protein-translation rates []. The SNP that was most significantly associated with pod color (position 20,878,891) is a synonymous mutation found within the coding region of TcMYB113. Intriguingly, this SNP is positioned within a target site for a dicot trans-acting small interfering RNA (tasiRNA) derived from TAS4 (TRANS-ACTING siRNA 4) TAS4-siR81(-) as identified by Luo et al. [] (Figure; see Additional file, Figure S8). TAS-derived siRNAs post-transcriptionally downregulate protein-coding transcripts in a manner similar to microRNA (miRNA)-directed repression []. MYB113 regulation in Arabidopsis additionally involves miR828, which acts both to cleave TAS4 to generate the interfering small RNA TAS4-siR81(-) [] and also, independently, to silence MYB113 []. We identified not only the TAS4-siR81 site, but also a conserved miR828 target sequence within TcMYB113 (Figure), suggesting that these regulatory mechanisms are highly conserved in cacao. However, we detected no polymorphism within the miR828 target sequencewhich overlaps with the highly conserved R3 domain (Figure). The activities of both TAS4 and miR828 ultimately regulate anthocyanin biosynthesis through MYBs in Arabidopsis []. Conservation of and natural variation in this regulatory loop is yet to be explored in other plants. Resequencing data of the region 4 kbp upstream of TcMYB113 also revealed SNPs associated with the red pod-inducing haplotypes we had identified (see Additional file 2, Figure S11). However, because these SNPs are also present in the resequenced green-pod genotype Criollo 13, these mutations in the putative region containing the promoter of TcMYB113 are unlikely to be functionally associated with the red-pod phenotype.Using Perlin Noise to Generate 2D Terrain and Water
This post is going to be the Perlin noise tutorial that I've always wanted to see. By the end of it, we'll procedurally generate 2D terrain and water with GLSL.
Why Another Perlin Noise Write-Up?
Perlin noise was invented in the eighties and has since been used countless times to generate natural-looking visual effects in films and games.
If you google "perlin noise", you will get a trove of articles and code. However, in my opinion, a beginner will have a hard time figuring out how it really works. I think that a lot of articles on the subject don't provide enough context, jump into too much detail too quickly and use scary terminology like "surflets". I've even stumbled upon some articles presenting blurred white noise as perlin noise, which is not the case!
And that's why I decided to try and write a more beginner-friendly article on the subject, that starts from a simple and easy to understand case, and builds up towards a more advanced one. Hopefully, people who read this tutorial won't have to struggle any more!
Noise Is a Function
Before we go any further, I want to make sure a simple, but very important point is understood: noise is a mathematical function, just like the sine or the exponent. The gray, amorphous, lumpy fog that you see in most pictures is just one of the possible graphical representations of said function. The reason I want to make this explicit is that some people may think about calculating noise in terms of pixels being affected by neighbor pixels, which really isn't the correct way to think about Perlin noise.
Most of us are familiar with mathematical functions of a single variable (again, sine for example), but functions can depend on multiple variables. It's fairly easy to visually represent a function of two variables. For a function of three variables, you can imagine the time, t, as the third variable, and the graphical representation would be animated: the values of the function along the z at each point (x, y) would change with the passage of time.
Now, if you image-search for perlin noise, what you'll usually see is the graphical representation of a two-dimensional function, where lighter pixels correspond to higher values at particular x and y coordinates. But the thing is, perlin noise doesn't have to be two-dimensional. The concept can be extended to any number of dimensions. But more importantly for us, it can be reduced to just a single dimension! And, for us mere mortals, it's much easier to understand how the one-dimensional case works. Armed with that knowledge, we'll be ready to tackle the more complex cases. That is the approach that this post is going to take.
Requirements for the Noise Function
Regardless of dimensionality, the noise function must be continuous, smooth and random-looking. Of course, there are strict mathematical definitions for what things like "continuous" and "smooth" mean, but you needn't worry about that right now - just go with your intuitive understanding.
In the one-dimensional case, the graph of a function possessing the above-mentioned properties will look like a neat squiggly line. Our first goal will be to construct such a function.
It should be noted that there are multiple methods to construct a function fitting these criteria, Perlin's technique is just one of them.
Constructing the Noise Function of One Variable
As promised, we're going to consider the single-variable case first. Thus, our noise function n is defined in the domain of real numbers, R.
Now, let's imagine that for each integer, a value of either 1 or -1 is chosen randomly. For a given integer i, we're going to denote the corresponding randomly chosen value as g(i). We'll call these values gradients.
The noise function is defined as follows:
n(p) = (1 - F(p-p 0 ))g(p 0 )(p-p 0 ) + F(p-p 0 )g(p 1 )(p-p 1 )
Where:
p 0 = floor(p) (largest integer smaller than or equal to p)
(largest integer smaller than or equal to p) p 1 = p 0 + 1 (smallest integer larger than p)
(smallest integer larger than p) g(p 0 ) and g(p 1 ) are the gradients at p 0 and p 1 respectively
and are the gradients at p and p respectively F(t) = t3(t(t-15)+10), a fade function, the purpose of which will be explained a bit later
As you can see, it's just interpolating between two values, g(p 0 )(p-p 0 ) and g(p 1 )(p-p 1 ), with the interpolation parameter given by applying the fade function to p-p 0. The noise function turns out to have a number of interesting properties (the rigorous proof of which isn't within the scope of the article):
The values of this function at integer points are zero (this property is actually easy to see)
(this property is actually easy to see) The value of the function will decrease as its argument approaches an integer for which -1 was randomly chosen as the gradient value.
as its argument approaches an integer for which was randomly chosen as the gradient value. Conversely, the value of the function will increase as its argument approaches an integer for which 1 was chosen as the gradient value.
as its argument approaches an integer for which was chosen as the gradient value. The function is continuous and smooth
Explained in a handwavy kind of way, the technique boils down to randomly specifying the desired kind of growth (positive or negative) in the neighborhood of each integer point of the function's domain and then fitting a nice smooth curve that satisfies the growth requirements, with the caveat that the function's values must be 0 at integer points.
Of course, showing is better than telling, so I suggest you play with the following interactive demo to get an intuitive sense of how the function works (javascript must be enabled):
Fade Function Explained
I still owe you an explanation for that "fade function" polynomial. I won't go too deep into it for the sake of brevity, but I'll try to give you an idea.
First, try unchecking the "apply fade function" checkbox in the demo and observe the results. Doesn't look very smooth, does it? Look at these sharp corners!
Without the fade function, our noise becomes constant 0 between integer points with the same gradient values. On the surface, it's easy to see why: if you just plug in the same gradient values for p 0 and p 1 into the expression for noise without the fade function, it'll be zero. But there's a bit more to it than that, and we'll need just a bit of calculus to explain it.
Before we proceed with the explanation, we need to strictly define what it means for a function to be "smooth". A function is called Ci-smooth if it has continuous derivatives of up to i-th order (in case your calculus is rusty, or these words don't sound familiar at all, I suggest consulting your favorite calculus textbook or Wikipedia).
Now, if you don't apply the fade function to the interpolation parameter and instead use p-p 0 directly, the resulting function will not be smooth enough. You can try doing it yourself: replace F(p-p 0 ) with just p-p 0 in the noise function definition, simplify the expression and try working out the derivative. The equation for the derivative between p 0 and p 1 is going to look like (some constant value)*p + (some other constant value), in other words it'll be a straight line. The constants depend on p 0 and p 1, so the derivative for the overall noise function will look like a bunch of various straight lines. We don't even have a continuous first-order derivative, so our function isn't smooth at all!
Basically, applying the fade gives our noise function continuous higher-order derivatives which makes it look nice and smooth. Instead of varying the interpolation parameter from 0 to 1 linearly, the fade function varies it along an s-shaped curve.
Assigning a Random Value to Each Integer
Before we move on to the implementation, something needs to be mentioned about how we're going to randomly pick gradient values for each integer point of the noise function's domain. The way it's done in the "classic" implementation (and the way you'll most likely encounter in other Perlin noise write-ups) goes something like this:
An array P of integers from 0 to 256 is permutated at random. Of course, this isn't done at runtime; usually the random permutation is simply hardcoded. Also, it is repeated 2 times in a row, so that Perlin ends up containing 512 elements (this is needed to simplify the next step).
of integers from 0 to 256 is permutated at random. Of course, this isn't done at runtime; usually the random permutation is simply hardcoded. Also, it is repeated 2 times in a row, so that Perlin ends up containing 512 elements (this is needed to simplify the next step). A value is looked up from P based on the point the gradient of which we're trying to determinine (i.e. for single-dimensional case it will be P[x & 0xff], for 2-dimensional it will be P[P[P[x & 0xff] + (y & 0xff)]], etc.)
based on the point the gradient of which we're trying to determinine (i.e. for single-dimensional case it will be P[x & 0xff], for 2-dimensional it will be P[P[P[x & 0xff] + (y & 0xff)]], etc.) The value from the previous lookup is used to look up into an array of uniformly distributed gradient values
I don't want you to dwell on this too much though, because it is an implementation detail that is not critical to understanding how the overall technique works. Different methods can be used for this. For example, if you're trying to implement Perlin noise in a shader using WebGL, you cannot use the described method because WebGL shaders can't use variable indices with arrays. Instead, you can read the values from a texture filled with random RGB values, and it'll pretty much work the same.
Implementation
Now we've got everything ready to implement one-dimensional perlin noise. I'm going to use GLSL for this, because then I can paste the code into Shadertoy which is very handy for online demos like this. The code should be portable to other languages with minimal changes though.
The fade function is straightforward, so I'm not going to explain it.
float fade(float t) { return t*t*t*(t*(t*6.0 - 15.0) + 10.0); }
Now comes the grad function. It returns a gradient value for a given integer p. We're using WebGL and can't do variable indexes into arrays, so we're going to sample from a random RGB texture and return 1 if the red channel is > 0.5, and -1 otherwise.
float grad(float p) { const float texture_width = 256.0; float v = texture2D(iChannel0, vec2(p / texture_width, 0.0)).r; return v > 0.5? 1.0 : -1.0; }
The texture needs to be repeated (i.e. both TEXTURE_WRAP_S and TEXTURE_WRAP_T options need to be set to REPEAT ) so that values that are greater than the pixel size of the texture (or even negative values) can be used with texture2D.
and options need to be set to ) so that values that are greater than the pixel size of the texture (or even negative values) can be used with. The texture needs to use nearest-neighbor filtering.
Finally, here's the function that computes noise:
float noise(float p) { float p0 = floor(p); float p1 = p0 + 1.0; float t = p - p0; float fade_t = fade(t); float g0 = grad(p0); float g1 = grad(p1); return (1.0-fade_t)*g0*(p - p0) + fade_t*g1*(p - p1); }
Finally, let's take a closer look at the main function of the shader where we actually use the noise function.
void mainImage( out vec4 fragColor, in vec2 fragCoord ) { const float frequency = 1.0 / 20.0; const float amplitude = 1.0 / 5.0; float n = noise(fragCoord.x * frequency) * amplitude; float y = 2.0 * (fragCoord.y/iResolution.y) - 1.0; /* map fragCoord.y into [-1; 1] range */ vec3 color = n > y? vec3(1.0) : vec3(0.0); fragColor = vec4(color, 1.0); }
Making the Noise Look More Interesting
At this point, we've covered the core of what makes Perlin noise work. Now is the time to apply it to make something interesting-looking. The trick is to sample the noise function multiple times, with different frequencies and amplitudes, and add the results up. That is called "fractal noise".
The bulk of the shader stays the same, the only part that changes is the main function:
void mainImage( out vec4 fragColor, in vec2 fragCoord ) { /* Add up noise samples with different frequencies and amplitudes. */ float n = noise(fragCoord.x * (1.0/300.0)) * 1.0 + noise(fragCoord.x * (1.0/150.0)) * 0.5 + noise(fragCoord.x * (1.0/75.0)) * 0.25 + noise(fragCoord.x * (1.0/37.5)) * 0.125; float y = 2.0 * (fragCoord.y/iResolution.y) - 1.0; /* map fragCoord.y into [-1; 1] range */ vec3 color = n > y? vec3(0.0) : vec3(1.0); fragColor = vec4(color, 1.0); }
By manipulating frequencies and amplitudes, you can control how the result looks: lower frequencies give you gently sloped hills, while higher frequencies with higher amplitudes give you more jagged, spiky look. Play with the demo yourself:
Intermission: Scrolling 2D Terrain!
Using the stuff covered that we covered so far, it's easy to put together a simple demo that endlessly flies you past a 2d mountain range! The demo below uses the time counter (shadertoy-specific) for scrolling, and it uses different factors for it on the foreground and background mountains to achieve a nice parallax effect.
Jump to the Second Dimension
Hopefully by now you have a solid understanding of the the one-dimensional case. You should be well-equipped then to deal with the two-dimensional case.
At this point I should explain why we call those random values corresponding to integer points "gradients". In mathematics, the term gradient is used to refer to the direction in which a function experiences the fastest growth at a given point. In other words, "gradient at a given point p" answers the question: "from a given point p, which direction should the argument go in order for the function to grow the most?". In case of single-variable functions, the argument can either go forwards (corresponding to gradient value of 1) or backwards (corresponding to gradient value -1). In the case of two-dimensional functions, the gradient has to be a unit 2d vector, because the argument can change in any direction on the XY plane.
So the first thing we should do is modify our grad function to give us a random two-dimensional unit vector:
vec2 grad(vec2 p) { const float texture_width = 256.0; vec4 v = texture2D(iChannel0, vec2(p.x / texture_width, p.y / texture_width)); return normalize(v.xy*2.0 - vec2(1.0)); /* remap sampled value to [-1; 1] and normalize */ }
The noise function requires a little more changes. But first, let's recap what we did to calculate noise at point p in the 1D case:
We determined the integers p 0 and p 1 surrounding the point p
and p surrounding the point p For both p 0 and p 1, we calculated the product between the gradient at that point, and the difference between p and that point.
and p, we calculated the product between the gradient at that point, and the difference between p and that point. Finally, we did an interpolation between the values calculated in the previous step
Determine the four integer points on the plane p 0, p 1, p 2 and p 3 surrounding the point p ("lattice points")
, p, p and p surrounding the point p ("lattice points") For each of those four lattice points, calculate the dot product between the gradient at the lattice point and the direction from the lattice point to the point p
Do something similar to bilinear interpolation: interpolate between the dot products corresponding to the top two lattice points, then interpolate between the dot products corresponding to the two bottom lattice points. Finally, interpolate between the results of the previous two interpolations.
So, overall, the idea is pretty much the same as in the 1D case, it's just that scalar values have become 2D vectors!
Here is the code:
/* 2D noise */ float noise(vec2 p) { /* Calculate lattice points. */ vec2 p0 = floor(p); vec2 p1 = p0 + vec2(1.0, 0.0); vec2 p2 = p0 + vec2(0.0, 1.0); vec2 p3 = p0 + vec2(1.0, 1.0); /* Look up gradients at lattice points. */ vec2 g0 = grad(p0); vec2 g1 = grad(p1); vec2 g2 = grad(p2); vec2 g3 = grad(p3); float t0 = p.x - p0.x; float fade_t0 = fade(t0); /* Used for interpolation in horizontal direction */ float t1 = p.y - p0.y; float fade_t1 = fade(t1); /* Used for interpolation in vertical direction. */ /* Calculate dot products and interpolate.*/ float p0p1 = (1.0 - fade_t0) * dot(g0, (p - p0)) + fade_t0 * dot(g1, (p - p1)); /* between upper two lattice points */ float p2p3 = (1.0 - fade_t0) * dot(g2, (p - p2)) + fade_t0 * dot(g3, (p - p3)); /* between lower two lattice points */ /* Calculate final result */ return (1.0 - fade_t1) * p0p1 + fade_t1 * p2p3; }
2D Water!
If you render 2D noise in the exact same way we did with the 1D noise in the mountains example, but vary the y coordinate with time, you can get a neat effect, resembling rising and falling waves in a body of water. If you also vary the x coordinate with time, you'll get the appearance of rolling waves. You can enhance the effect even further, if you advance the x coordinate for larger, low frequency waves at a slower rate than for smaller, high frequency waves. Check out the demo below:
3D Noise
At this point, you should be able to figure out how to extend the noise function to 3 variables yourself. The only difference now is that the interpolation becomes more involved: the lattice is now three-dimensional, so there are now 8 integer points surrounding the point p. You do the same interpolation as in the 2D case twice: once for the top 4 vertices, once for the bottom 4 vertices, and finally you interpolate between those two results.
Here is the modified version of the noise function.
float noise(vec3 p) { /* Calculate lattice points. */ vec3 p0 = floor(p); vec3 p1 = p0 + vec3(1.0, 0.0, 0.0); vec3 p2 = p0 + vec3(0.0, 1.0, 0.0); vec3 p3 = p0 + vec3(1.0, 1.0, 0.0); vec3 p4 = p0 + vec3(0.0, 0.0, 1.0); vec3 p5 = p4 + vec3(1.0, 0.0, 0.0); vec3 p6 = p4 + vec3(0.0, 1.0, 0.0); vec3 p7 = p4 + vec3(1.0, 1.0, 0.0); /* Look up gradients at lattice points. */ vec3 g0 = grad(p0); vec3 g1 = grad(p1); vec3 g2 = grad(p2); vec3 g3 = grad(p3); vec3 g4 = grad(p4); vec3 g5 = grad(p5); vec3 g6 = grad(p6); vec3 g7 = grad(p7); float t0 = p.x - p0.x; float fade_t0 = fade(t0); float t1 = p.y - p0.y; float fade_t1 = fade(t1); float t2 = p.z - p0.z; float fade_t2 = fade(t2); float p0p1 = (1.0 - fade_t0) * dot(g0, (p - p0)) + fade_t0 * dot(g1, (p - p1)); float p2p3 = (1.0 - fade_t0) * dot(g2, (p - p2)) + fade_t0 * dot(g3, (p - p3)); float p4p5 = (1.0 - fade_t0) * dot(g4, (p - p4)) + fade_t0 * dot(g5, (p - p5)); float p6p7 = (1.0 - fade_t0) * dot(g6, (p - p6)) + fade_t0 * dot(g7, (p - p7)); float y1 = (1.0 - fade_t1) * p0p1 + fade_t1 * p2p3; float y2 = (1.0 - fade_t1) * p4p5 + fade_t1 * p6p7; return (1.0 - fade_t2) * y1 + fade_t2 * y2; }
Similarly to what we did in the 2D case, we can move a 2D slice through the 3D noise by varying the third argument with the time counter and get an animated image. With some coloring we can get an effect reselmbling lava or maybe the surface of a glowing star. Demo:
That's It!
Now you too can use perlin noise for your game, demo or whatever it is you're making! The code should be fairly easy to adapt to your language of choice. If you have questions or found something incorrect, let me know in the comments.
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Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.There are a lot of voters who think most politicians will say whatever it takes to get elected. I had coffee with a friend just this morning who dismissed Mitt Romney’s latest shift on abortion—he told the Des Moines Register that “There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda”—the same way. No big deal because politicians do it all the time.
That sort of blanket cynicism blinds people to just how outrageously shameless and morally hollow Romney is willing to be. It’s gotten so bad that the following rule is no exaggeration: If Romney’s lips are moving and he’s talking about abortion, he is lying.
Oh, sure, he put enough weasel words in that one statement that he could argue it’s not a complete lie. Although Romney wrote in the National Review last year that he would “advocate for and support a Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to protect unborn children who are capable of feeling pain from abortion,” he can claim that he’s not familiar with an existing piece of legislation that does just that. Similarly, the Romney-Ryan campaign website says, “As president, [Romney] will end federal funding for abortion advocates like Planned Parenthood.” But Romney doesn’t have to make that part of his agenda. He simply has to sign the bill a GOP-controlled Congress sends to him.
But littering your speech with so many weaselly qualifiers that you can tell everyone that you’ve left yourself open to adopting their position is no virtue. The nation rightly mocked Bill Clinton for parsing the definition of “is.” And when your defense is that you haven’t technically lied, you’ve lost any claim to moral rectitude."Attempts to find things like, ‘crime,’ ‘criminal activity,’ ‘indictment,’ have been filtered out by Google" in favor of Hillary Clinton.
Is America’s most popular search engine trying to make us forget about Hillary Clinton’s email woes?
The hosts of Fox & Friends explored this angle in a June 16, 2016, segment that started with a video clip contrasting autocomplete predictions for searching "Hillary Clinton cri" on Google, Yahoo and Bing. After watching the video, which was from a website called SourceFed, Fox News’ chief judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano accused Google of hiding Clinton’s problems.
"The clip that we just ran is the result of a very extensive test, an examination, about whether or not attempts to find things like, ‘crime,’ ‘criminal activity,’ ‘indictment,’ have been filtered out by Google, and we know that it has," Napolitano said.
We wanted to find out for ourselves if Google manipulates search suggestions in favor of Clinton.
Napolitano did not return emails seeking comment.
The SourceFed video, posted on YouTube June 9, shows how certain terms, when searched with Clinton’s name, don’t autocomplete as suggestions underneath the search bar.
For example, when users search "Hillary Clinton cri," the suggested searches are "Hillary Clinton crime reform," "Hillary Clinton crisis," "Hillary Clinton criticizes obama 2008" and so on.
No suggestions for "Hillary Clinton crime" itself.
However, Bing and Yahoo bring up "crimes" and related returns when you search "Hillary Clinton cri."
What’s going on?
Searching for the truth
SourceFed clarified its original video with another one June 10, which included comment from Google denying the accusation. CNN Money also put its two-cents in the mix, saying Google’s algorithm was set up to filter-out offensive information.
In a statement, a Google spokesperson says the filter "operates according to the same rules, no matter who the person is."
"The autocomplete algorithm is designed to avoid completing a search for a person’s name with terms that are offensive or disparaging," the statement says. "We made this change a while ago following feedback that Autocomplete too often predicted offensive, hurtful or inappropriate queries about people."
The statement linked to a Vox article that refutes the idea Google is manipulating autocomplete in favor of Hillary Clinton. The article says that most people who are accused of crimes but were not convicted will not show up in suggestions.
We wanted to test Vox’s theory, so we searched "Casey Anthony cri" and "George Zimmerman cri." Both were suspects in criminal murder investigations and were acquitted. The autocomplete yielded no suggestions.
We wanted to try other presidential candidates and common allegations against them.
When we searched "Donald Trump fraud," no suggestions came up. When we searched "Bernie Sanders communist," two suggestions appeared, but only when we spelled out "communist." "Bernie Sanders arrest" didn’t yield any results either.
A search of ‘Donald Trump rac’ does yield arguably offensive suggestions.
Experts told PolitiFact that Google’s autocomplete algorithm is not out-of-the ordinary for popular search engines.
"Google is the market leader among search engines by far, so its actions have a much larger impact than those of other search engines," said Susan Worst, a lecturer in computer science at Boston University said. "That it would be leading the way in modifying its autocomplete algorithm is not unusual at all."
Worst cited an instance last year when Google made corrections to its algorithms after its photo recognition project delivered racist results to users.
For many years, autocomplete algorithms were based on what others have typed in the past, but the possibility of Google changing its algorithm to detect offensive term suggestions isn’t that surprising, said Marti Hearst, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. She said major search engines update algorithms frequently to assimilate to the "changing online environment."
"Algorithms have to be clever to show the best few choices, according to very complex
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The secret behind internet erotica icon Chuck Tingle: his own life may be the best story he's ever written
Share The secret behind internet erotica icon Chuck Tingle: his own life may be the best story he's ever written
This is a story of stories — specifically, three stories about the same individual (or group of individuals, depending on which story you choose to believe).
In the first story, a lone writer looking to carve out a niche in the internet decides to satirize the untidy, anything-goes state of self-published erotica.
Surprise! The satirical gay porn — published under the name Chuck Tingle — goes viral, and pretty soon the author garners a cult following of sincere fans. He beefs up his online persona. Then, because every good second act needs a villain, a group of bullies attempt to mock the writer for their own ignominious purposes.
But the joke’s on them: The writer strikes back using a savvy satirical touch, and the bullying backfires. At the happy conclusion, a newfound appreciation of the writer, his feminism, his love of social progress, and even his terrible erotica spreads across the internet. The author is celebrated for facing off against the worst elements of humanity and emerging victorious. His pen name comes to represent wit, ingenuity, and a belief in human kindness.
The moral of this first story is that it doesn’t matter if no one knows who Chuck Tingle is, because Chuck Tingle is all of us.
But that’s not the only story.
The second story is a much longer tale, and not always a happy one.
In this story, a boy with high-functioning autism grows up in a repressive conservative household in a deeply religious state. His early forays into sexual experimentation, expressed through his first attempts at writing, earn him punishment from his parents. Later, a house fire destroys all of his work. He puts the experience out of his head.
As an adult, he moves away from home, relocates to a medium-size town out West. He works various jobs, marries, settles down, and raises a son who is his pride and joy, though he still needs live-in assistance from time to time.
But then tragedy strikes: His wife leaves him, and later, the person hired to help care for him after her exit dies in a traumatic car accident, drowning in a frozen lake. Our hero is haunted by both of these losses, but he moves on, largely assisted by his loyal son, who grows up but lives at home to help his father.
Some time later, the father is identified as having a mild form of schizophrenia. He often dreams of living as other people, and even as other objects. He struggles with depression and self-harm, but he stays relentlessly positive and works hard; he takes up taekwondo and gets a PhD from a correspondence college. After this achievement, he needs a new hobby.
“Dad,” his son suggests, not long after his father’s 43rd birthday. “Why don’t you go back to writing?”
Chuck Tingle, public mystery
(There’s still a third story. But we’ll get to that later.)
The public’s perception of Chuck Tingle, author of I’m Gay for My Living Billionaire Jet Plane and Pounded in the Butt by My Own Butt, is that he isn’t real. The Chuck Tingle who claims to live in Billings, Montana, to have a firm-abbed son named Jon, and to believe that “love is real for all who kiss”... that Chuck Tingle, most people will agree, is an elaborately constructed satirical persona.
The narrative goes like this: Someone out there is crafting self-aware, over-the-top gay erotica that combines sharp sociopolitical commentary with a bizarrely simplistic writing style, and publishing it via Amazon under the name of Chuck Tingle.
Technically, the subjects of Tingle’s erotica can be sorted into four categories: dinosaurs, Bigfoot, unicorns, and what the author calls “living objects,” which can be anything from national monuments to political campaigns.
The list of things that Tingle’s narrators have had sex with includes, but is not limited to: the state of California; glazed donuts; the Dress; Bigfoot pirates; a gay unicorn biker and a gay unicorn colonel, though not simultaneously; Donald Trump’s attempt to avoid plagiarism accusations; Starbucks Christmas cups; a billionaire triceratops; a T. rex comedian and a clan of triceratops rappers (stand-ins for Bill Murray and the Wu Tang Clan); ghost boats; velociraptors from outer space; a secret-agent brontosaurus; the White House; the British pound; a plane; a train; a vampire night bus; his own books; press about his own books; existential dread; his own concept of linear time.
In other words, Tingle’s humor can be characterized as a strong mix of the anthropomorphic and the highly political. In his writing, the two elements coexist.
For example, in Creamed in the Butt by My Handsome Living Corn, Tingle opens by addressing the growing politicization of the agriculture industry; his main character, a farmer, is growing weary of being wooed by corporate interests. Half a page later, he’s ogling a very attractive ear of corn on the cob. (“I... stare at him, completely taken aback by the vegetable’s shockingly good looks.”)
Within the narrative of Chuck Tingle as a self-aware performance artist, the objective is to lampoon bigotry, homophobia, and other conservative mentalities — and it works wonderfully.
Of course, this narrative assumes the whole thing is meant as a joke.
But what if it isn’t?
A brief history of Chuck Tingle’s presence on the internet
Tingle’s first work of self-published erotica, My Billionaire Triceratops Craves Gay Ass, was posted to Amazon in December 2014 and almost immediately went viral. A month later, BuzzFeed was celebrating his body of work, and international media outlets passed along their reactions — some amused, some mocking — to his tongue-in-cheek titles and memorable stock photo covers.
Tingle refers to all of his books, which could be more properly classified as short stories, as “Tinglers.” His fans are all “Buckaroos.” He typically describes the subjects of his gay male erotica as “hard bucks” — while stressing that “lady bucks” can be hard bucks as well — and encourages hard bucks to be “hard buds” together. Though the quality of his writing varies wildly, certain themes remain constant throughout: Hard buds will generally be pounded by various objects, and Tingle’s narrator will deliver an optimistic, philosophical moral about love and togetherness.
Tingle’s profile increased dramatically over the summer of 2016, after Tingle found himself in the middle of an ongoing, highly politicized fight between various contingents of sci-fi and fantasy writers volleying over the Hugo Awards. As a way of delegitimizing the awards, an alt-right faction known as the “Rabid Puppies” decided to nominate one of Tingle’s books, Space Raptor Butt Invasion, as a joke. The public reaction to this tactic varied; some authors wanted Tingle to withdraw from consideration so that other “real” writers could be nominated.
But Tingle didn’t withdraw; he fought back, creating a website designed to skewer the Rabid Puppies phenomenon, labeling them “devils,” and boosting the profile of several of the female authors they were attempting to marginalize. He dubbed the leader of the Puppies, a notorious racist internet troll called Vox Day, as “THE MAN WITH NO EYES AND WIENERS FOR HAIR.” He also included a donation link to the Billings Public Library.
As a response to a difficult situation, Tingle’s attitude was generally considered so classy — yet in character — that he instantly won fans across the literary community. His fame has only grown since.
The greatest trick Chuck Tingle has ever pulled is convincing lots of people he doesn’t exist
Tingle has given dozens of interviews. Almost universally, his interviewers have assumed that Chuck Tingle is a fully constructed persona and proceeded accordingly.
But the interviews also read incredibly straightforwardly; whoever Chuck Tingle is, he may be in on the joke about himself, but he’s also steadfast in, well, just being Chuck Tingle.
In fact, he’s more or less insistent on it:
thank you for understanding me https://t.co/ybPN5tlRvg — Chuck Tingle (@ChuckTingle) July 13, 2016
TRUTH IS... chuck is true story with a strange way. truth is chuck is REAL MAN in billings who loves his son and wants to prove love is real — Chuck Tingle (@ChuckTingle) August 21, 2016
In August, LitHub writer M. Sophia Newman pointed out that a huge clue to Tingle’s identity has been lying around on Reddit for months: In December 2015, Tingle’s son Jon did an Ask Me Anything session to accompany his father’s, and the result was a very matter-of-fact look at a man who, Jon claims, is neurodivergent and exactly who he says he is:
To answer the first question that I always get, Yes, my father is very real. He is an autistic savant, but also suffers from schizophrenia. To make it very clear, my father is one of the gentlest, sweetest people you could ever meet and is not at all dangerous, although he does have a history of SELF harm. To answer the next question, yes, he is aware of the humor in many of his titles, although he would never just come right out and say it. Dad has a hard time understanding many things, but I would not let him be the butt of some worldwide joke if I didn't have faith that he was in on it in some way. [Regardless], writing and self publishing brings him a lot of joy.
This claim that Tingle is autistic and schizophrenic has been met with a wide range of reactions, from Newman’s straightforward acceptance of it as fact to insistence from other writers that this, too, is part of the act.
And that’s a natural reaction — after all, Tingle’s persona is so highly developed, how can it not be fully a satire?
Yet both Tingle and his son insist that the person the internet has embraced as satire is 100 percent real.
Reading Chuck Tingle as sincere is an eye-opening experience
In an email interview, Jon told me that his father “has developed a way of presenting himself that works as a kind of mask.” But while the presentation may be a mask, Jon says what’s underneath it is genuine.
“I read things online sometimes about him having ‘only one joke’ of a new current event pounding someone in the butt, but there is no way those people have actually looked into what my dad is creating,” Jon says. “There is a lot more to it, as far as openness and positivity and love, and I don’t think that is ever a fad.”
When Tingle talks about himself and his work, there’s no tongue-in-cheek language at all. He seems sincere in wanting to “prove that love is real for all who kiss.” He often refers to this objective — which is more or less his life mantra —and other positive life choices as “a good way.”
This language pops up again and again in his writing and conversation, in a very conscientious and affirmative way. “[The] REALITY OF WORLD,” Tingle told me in an email, “is that love is real even if devils say it’s not.”
Recently, Tingle appeared on the popular podcast associated with the romance blog Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, hosted by blogger Sarah Wendell. Listening to that interview is startling; hearing Chuck Tingle in the flesh, so to speak, is initially a disconcerting experience.
“The Tingle podcast really is extraordinary, and I found it personally very inspiring,” Wendell told me via email. “It definitely changed the way I think about him and about his work.”
Here’s how Tingle responded when Wendell asked him about dealing with the Rabid Puppies’ attempt to troll the Hugo Awards by nominating him:
When you see the way they act and then answer with love, it only amplifies your love. I've been trying to prove love for a very long time, and what it takes is to prove love in the face of devils, to amplify that message. So maybe if you think of it, like, if you had a chemistry set, and you thought to yourself, well maybe if I mix the components I can make an even bigger volcano, and then you realize that maybe the part that makes the biggest volcano is when devils strike and you prove love. Because anybody can prove love when you're just walking down the street... but it's even harder to prove love when the devil's banging on your door. And that's when it's most important because then when you prove it and the whole world sees, it includes a wave of good days ahead, and that is important.
Tingle’s odd symbolism heightens the elegance of his rhetoric, which is essentially religious: His mission is all about grace, unconditional love, and tolerance, disguised as a defense against “devils.” He also seems to have an extreme capacity for empathy. “It makes it easy to prove love when you realize that most devils have to be devils around themselves all day,” he told Wendell.
In an email, Wendell told me she left in technical details like asking Tingle for permission to record, which she usually cuts from the beginning of the podcast, in order to give her listeners a chance to “adjust to the cadence of his voice and his language and manner of speaking.” She said she had no expectations that Tingle, if he was indeed using a persona, would “break character,” but by the end of the recording session she hadn’t attained any additional clarity on whether Tingle was real or not.
“I honestly do not know, either before or after,” Wendell said. “I have no idea whether he is as he presents himself in interviews or if it's a persona.”
Whether it’s real or not, Chuck Tingle’s world is a remarkable one
On Twitter, Tingle has crafted an elaborate and solidly consistent narrative about his life. He lives with his son Jon (always referred to as “son name of Jon,” and often described as physically attractive in some way) in a nice residential neighborhood somewhere in Billings. He likes spaghetti and chocolate milk and habitually meditates in the morning to think up new “Tinglers.” He and Jon routinely make trips to the corner Starbucks, where Tingle talks to his friend Sam. As he put it in his email to me, “i have learned i am an interesting man!”
when i go to starbucks with son (name of jon he is handsome) everyone says 'oh chuck what are you writing what are you working on?' and i say 'it is a story about butts and butt holes' and they say oh that sounds good because they want to knoe about my CELEBRITY LIFESTYLE so that is a good way.
He also studies magic — all kinds, “except for dark magic it is too scary and also it is of THE VOID (this is a terrible place).” He does spells and talks to birds:
i have done many spells around the neibhorhood like SLICK LOOK and MAIL TIME and i have also talked to birds to see if they understand the world in a diffrent way than i do (they have this way) and this is true magic... and then I SMILE because they tell me the secerts ofwhat is GOING ON IN BILLINGS. this is how i keep up to date.
Tingle told me he often sees the ghostly image of his wife Barbara; he frequently describes her as “talking like marbles,” or sees her peering up at him from the frozen lake in which she drowned. (In reality, according to Jon, the original Barbara is alive and divorced from Tingle, and the woman Tingle refers to as “Barbara” is his deceased caretaker. The detail of who, if anyone, actually died in a frozen lake remains unclear.) He frequently mentions Jon’s manly physique, always insisting that it’s just fatherly admiration.
Then there’s Tingle’s recurring enmity with a local “villain” in Billings, a man named Ted Cobbler who seems to be a typical 20-something white dude. In his Reddit AMA, Jon confirmed that “Ted” was real, and described him as a regular guy who’s very “patient,” but Tingle sees Ted differently: He told me that one of his biggest accomplishments after his role as father and writer is “saving the neighborhood from ted cobbler as he is always trying to act like he owns the place.”
ted cobbler is a devil and i have foiled many of his plans like WEEKEND GHOST PARTY and BASEBALL IN PARK these are ways that he creates chaos on the block also he is a dark wizard. so i am proud to save billings from this menace.
Tingle’s Ted Cobbler fixation is deep; when I asked him how he celebrated Labor Day, Tingle replied, “i SAW A BBQ NEXT DOOR at ted cobblers house it was a horrible way! and then he was casting a dark magic spell and then i watched him from the sidewalk like hawks on a dog! this was mostly my day but i think that it was okay because the neighborhood was in a safe way.”
The sort of language Tingle uses in these exchanges should be familiar to followers of his Twitter account, which frequently reads like a surreal Twitter bot:
thank you for understanding me as a skinless man trapped between timelines — Chuck Tingle (@ChuckTingle) August 2, 2016
in billings night a lonesome train calls and i think of all people having fun on it while im here under the bed learning my body in the dark — Chuck Tingle (@ChuckTingle) September 4, 2016
But as with all of Tingle’s writing, the tone of these tweets changes drastically when read literally. According to Jon in his AMA, Tingle’s tweets about wanting to remove his skin are a very real manifestation of his father’s desire for self-harm; it’s why, Jon says, he keeps a close eye on Tingle’s Twitter account.
Jon has indicated that his father’s interest in trains and planes is more than abstract — he says Tingle has actively attempted to live as various objects in the past.
Tingle confirmed to me that he’s not joking about any of this rhetoric:
when devils say "you cant live as a buck or a ladybuck" i say YOU CAN LIVE AS ANYTHING YOU WANT EVEN A PLANE OR A CAR this is not a poking joke this is to say LOVE IS REAL YOU ARE PERFECT AS WHOEVER YOU WANT TO BE EVEN IF YOU WANT TO BE THE CONCEPT OF TIME.
Tingle’s desire to live as other objects and explore anthropomorphic eroticism with them is not all that unusual: Otherkin (people who want to live as other animals or fantasy creatures) are numerous, and “objectkin” exist, though the concept is typically seen by the “-kin” community as trolling.
Tingle’s fixation with living objects is also part of why so many people see Tingle himself as a troll. But Tingle’s fascination with “learning the body” — a Tingle-ism usually referring to sexual and gender exploration, with or without other people — seems to imply both a dysphoria and a genuine desire to learn other bodies. His explanation of this mentality is connected to his belief that multiple timelines exist within the universe.
“For a week,” Tingle told me, “i was living as MANIFESTATION OF ALL TIME and i understood the beginning and end of all things. this is an eye opening experience for all involved but it was too difficult to become myself and LEARN MY BODY so instead i decided to be chuck again. “
If you take Tingle at face value, it can be incredibly difficult to parse which parts of his presentation are sincere and which are satirical. Jon told me that sometimes his father’s “uncanny comedic flair” can be difficult for him to follow in their day-to-day life, but that his father has a keen eye for satire and performance art.
“It really blows my mind the way that he’s able to turn these things that are huge mental hurdles for some people into a source of joy and comedy,” Jon says.
Jon also says that some of his father’s more difficult fixations have faded because of his new career. “His obsession of becoming other things... has actually died down quite a bit now that he’s now getting recognized for just being mostly himself. It’s pretty great to see his progress.”
Tingle echoed this sentiment, obliquely: “When i started writing tinglers i did not TROT as much as i do now,” he said, “because it makes good days ahead to know that there are buds getting hard in a normal way to your books.”
How do we reconcile the satire with the man behind the mask?
Tingle is extremely self-aware, and aware that lots of people think he’s a work of fiction. “Mostly bucks say good things about man name of chuck and this makes me glad,” he tells me, “but sometimes they say i am a bad man like i am poking jokes in a mean way. this is not the case i am only trying to PROVE LOVE with tinglers.”
Jon is mostly comfortable with the idea that people think his father isn’t real. “My dad is a huge Andy Kaufman fan,” he says, “so I think he personally really likes the performance art idea. It’s just ironic that he’s found a way to make people think he’s performing by simply being himself.”
Jon also struggles with the dilemma of knowing who his father is. Sometimes, he says, even he can’t tell when his father is joking or playing a role. And this is coming from someone who already knows that Tingle is a smart, high-functioning person who struggles with mental illness (or so Jon says) — which raises the question of how the rest of us should read Tingle’s work.
“It’s a delicate balance for me, but I think it’s important to recognize that people like my father aren’t just ‘crazy,’” he says. “My dad’s situation is very unique, and he is special in his own way; it’s part of who he is, but it’s also not the only thing that he is. I would rather the public conversation was not about him being on the spectrum, because I think that everything he has done and accomplished can stand on its own without that being some kind of qualifier.”
Jon tells me that his father’s achievements are all his own — when it comes to Tingle’s writing, Jon usually provides some initial help in fleshing out the story idea and getting it started, and then his father is “off and running... doing it all by himself.”
He also says his own friends and his father’s community of friends have been extremely supportive: “My friends think it’s the most amazing thing ever. They love all the attention that [my] dad is getting and always ask him about the next book he’s working on or what kind of interview he just did.”
“It’s really great because it genuinely makes my dad feel cool, which is something that I think he has always wanted but never really had.”
At long last, we’ve reached the third story, one in which a single individual, or a group of individuals, invented a character and placed that character at the center of an elaborate, completely fictional tale.
This story is... messy.
Unless you’ve read Jon’s Reddit AMA, or the LitHub post by Newman that unquestioningly accepts what Jon’s AMA says, you — like most of Tingle’s fans — wouldn’t know that Jon claims his father is non-neurotypical.
Consequently, criticism of any of Tingle’s narratives has been similarly sparse. And fans who do learn of the neurodivergence detail are faced with the question of whether to accept it as sincere. In one Tumblr post that initially celebrated Tingle’s neurodivergence, Tumblr user sqbr chimed in with the skeptical position that if we accept everything else about Tingle’s work as satire, it’s likely that his non-neurotypical status is also satire — which, as sqbr noted, “sucks”:
I am reasonably sure the autism and schizophrenia are meant to be jokes, part of the over the top “Chuck Tingle” persona, not aspects of the real writer behind him. Which sucks.... I guess there could be an “autistic savant with schizophrenia who can’t deal with the real world and thinks they’re a plane but manages to write wacky porn of a publishable standard, maintain a weird but enjoyable twitter account, and effectively troll racists”. But signs point strongly to it being a fictional character.... And if I’m right, that means we all have to deal with the real person behind Chuck Tingle being really good in some ways and really awful in others. But that’s often the case with real people.
In other words, if Tingle and his son both exist and are telling the truth, Tingle’s story is an inspiring tale of a real-life neurodivergent hero. But if Tingle is fully a performance artist — or if a person or group of people created both him and his son — then they’ve invented a character who struggles daily with neurodivergence as well a number of mental health issues, and who turns these struggles into hyperbole and humor in order to conquer them. And they’ve done so, presumably, all as a joke, in order to heighten the absurdity of his persona.
If that’s the case, Tingle’s story becomes cruel, calculating, ableist, and insidious — nothing like the love-proving character at its center. And once you grow skeptical of that character, it’s easy for the house of cards you’ve mentally constructed, the one that’s necessary to keep the legend of “Chuck Tingle, man-loving wizard” intact just as it is, to collapse (which is exactly the effect an admirer of Andy Kaufman might hope to achieve).
Again and again, I am challenged by my own preconceptions of what I think a sincere Chuck Tingle must be like. Consider Tingle’s recurring incestuous jokes about his own son’s manly physique — I wonder how those can originate from a real dad rather than a purely satirical persona. And once you start to pull on the less plausible threads of his story, the whole thing starts to fall apart.
For starters, Tingle only recently began doing audio interviews, like Wendell’s; during them, he speaks with a very distinctive voice and speech rhythm. (He, or someone cosplaying as him, also recently appeared on camera on his YouTube channel, complete with a bag over his head and clad in a taekwondo outfit.) But Tingle declined to be interviewed either on the phone or in person for this story, and offered to field questions for Jon through the same email address, rather than providing separate contact info for his son.
There are other particulars I find challenging, too. For instance, the summary of Tingle’s story Glazed by the Gay Living Donuts describes “gay dessert action, including anal, blowjobs, facials, rough sex, bukkake, and a frosted donut gangbang.” It’s the word “bukkake” that gives me pause; I’m reluctant to believe that the Tingle I’ve come to “know,” the one who seems so fixated on the minutiae of his everyday life, could so casually deploy a Japanese erotica term for group facials. Even though erotica is technically his profession, it’s the sort of tiny detail that makes me question everything I’ve learned.
Then there are Tingle’s YouTube videos — a handful of comedy videos, parody book trailers, and “special reports.” The narrator of the earlier videos, which date from a year ago, speaks in a cadence that’s wholly unlike the cadence and tone that “Chuck Tingle” used when the author was a guest on Wendell’s podcast, and on this British radio show. He also speaks differently than the narrator of his more recent “meditation” videos, who sounds like the Tingle Wendell interviewed.
Jon explained to me that his dad has occasionally used different voices deliberately — in an attempt to achieve an “announcer” tone in some of the YouTube videos, for example — while insisting that no one helped Tingle narrate or produce anything involving audio of his voice. Still, I have doubts. It seems clear based on Tingle’s reluctance to reveal himself that he might want to mask or change his voice, but it’s also the kind of thing a troll, or a group of people working together to create a fictional character, would do.
Finally, there’s the matter of Tingle’s educational degree — which Tingle claims is a doctorate in “holistic massage” he received from DeVry University. When Wendell asked Tingle about earning this degree on her podcast appearance, here’s how he responded:
Dr. Tingle:... When I went to DeVry I would wake up in the morning and see a, a Word document on my computer, and then, then they would have questions from different, different people from all over, saying, oh, hey, how do I prove love? What is going on? Maybe I need a massage here, or is there a problem with my back? And then I would type them into Word, and then son Jon would come say, come in the room and say, oh, Chuck, did you answer your questions? Did you have a good day? And I would say, yes, son, I, I answered all my questions, and then, am I any closer to, to getting my Ph.D.? And he would say, oh, well, I’ll go send these off and see, see what the, the answer is, and that’s, that is what I did before I published Tinglers, and that was a good way for me to be a happy buckaroo and spend my days, and then, then Jon would, Jon would help me do that, and then one day Jon said, oh, guess what, Chuck? Congratulations! You got your Ph.D. now. You’re a doctor — Sarah: Wow! Dr. Tingle: — ’cause your answers were so good!
A spokesperson from DeVry told me that the university does “not have, nor have we ever had, a degree in ‘holistic massage.’... Our degree programs have focused around technology, business, and health care technology.”
It’s too easy to observe that if Tingle is lying about this, he could be lying about other things; DeVry, long a subject of easy mockery due to its for-profit status, obviously fits quite neatly into Tingle’s persona. And there’s no reason to believe he didn’t graduate from DeVry or some other institution, but in a discipline other than holistic massage.
But if it’s a lie — if it’s all an elaborate lie — then not only is some stranger catfishing pretty much everyone on the internet, but that person has deliberately made a mockery of people who are on the autism spectrum, people with schizophrenia, and people who struggle with self-harm or who battle suicidal ideation. And not just the idea of them, but their speech, mannerisms, fantasies, experiences, and coping mechanisms.
No one wants to hear that third story. But since no one actually knows who Chuck Tingle is, this page in the book stays open.
All three of these stories are accompanied by an intriguing postscript: Billings’s most famous son is totally unknown in Billings — population 109,000.
Online, Chuck Tingle routinely refers to the thousands of media outlets that have written articles about him as “BILLINGS NEWSPAPER.”
thank you to BILLINGS NEWSPAPER name of @voxdotcom for UNDERSTANDING real love and making books kiss the sky https://t.co/zyz0e6mLSh — Chuck Tingle (@ChuckTingle) May 26, 2016
It doesn’t matter what your outlet’s actual name is or where it’s located: To Tingle, you are BILLINGS NEWSPAPER, all caps required.
The actual Billings newspaper, the Billings Gazette, has never written about Chuck Tingle or even mentioned him in passing.
Meanwhile, Tingle constantly promotes the cause of the Billings Public Library system, suggesting donations and generally championing it as an important part of the community. But despite several calls to the library, I couldn’t find anyone on staff who knows who Tingle is.
The library’s director, Gavin Woltjer, told me he’d just learned about Tingle’s existence a few days before I called in September; he clearly knew very little about Tingle, refused to comment on Tingle’s support of the library, and seemed deeply annoyed that a random erotica author was being discussed in connection with the library.
But it’s hard to blame people like Woltjer for not rushing to embrace the Chuck Tingle mythos. There’s not just room for skepticism in such a case as Tingle’s — skepticism is practically a requirement. It’s incredibly hard to reconcile the sophistication of Tingle’s satire with the simplicity of his message and mannerisms, with the over-the-top anecdotes he shares about his own life, and with the many facts that don’t add up.
Jon — assuming, of course, that he exists, and isn’t just another character created by whoever created Tingle — stresses that it would be a disservice to the reader to try to separate Chuck Tingle the man from Chuck Tingle the online persona. “People like my father are too often turned into single-note stereotypes by the world around them, and I like that my dad defies that,” he says. “He’s a complex person, just like everyone else.”
“It’s complicated, obviously,” he says, “but I suppose the important part is that I love him exactly the way he is. He’s a really amazing man.”
And in the end, maybe love really is all that matters to Tingle and his fans. On some level, as Wendell explained to me, “The books are real, and the delight and joy people find in them is definitely real, so whether he is a satirized persona or not makes very little difference.”
Chuck Tingle’s entire ethos is about acceptance — whether it’s acceptance of queer identity and love or acceptance that you want to shag an airplane. Perhaps the only way to navigate the mystery of who Tingle is (or isn’t) is to accept that he somehow embodies all of these stories at once.
And that may be the very best way of all.The mayor, a Democrat, is leaving elective office just as her national star is rising; this summer, she became the first black woman to head the United States Conference of Mayors. But her tenure in Baltimore has been rocky, especially since the unrest that followed Mr. Gray’s death after he suffered a spinal cord injury in police custody. The death set off a wave of looting, arson and violence — the worst riots the city had seen since 1968.
“There’s a feeling that she has been weakened politically by the unrest of this spring,” Kurt L. Schmoke, who was the first African-American to be elected Baltimore’s mayor, said in an interview earlier this week. But he added that in Baltimore, where the Democratic primary is tantamount to the general election and candidates can win with a plurality, “it is very difficult to beat an incumbent mayor.”
Still, several Democrats were already trying, and Friday’s announcement may prompt more to jump in. Three have formally announced their candidacy: Sheila Dixon, a popular former mayor who was forced out of office in 2010 because of a scandal; State Senator Catherine E. Pugh, who ran unsuccessfully against Ms. Rawlings-Blake in 2011; and Carl Stokes, a longtime member of the City Council.
“I was extremely surprised — caught off guard, frankly. I had no idea that she would do this,” Mr. Stokes said Friday. “I appreciate the fact that she had the wherewithal to say, ‘The city’s really on edge, we’ve got six trials coming up, we’re going to have a contentious campaign, maybe the best thing for me to do is step aside.’ ”
Nick Mosby, a member of the City Council and the husband of Marilyn J. Mosby, the state’s attorney for the city of Baltimore, who is prosecuting the six officers, said Friday that he was “seriously considering” entering the race. Wes Moore, a best-selling author and Army veteran, is also being mentioned as a potential candidate.Image caption Patrick Stuebing and Susan Karolewski did not know each other as children
A brother and sister from Germany who had an incestuous relationship, arguing they had the right to a family life, have lost their European court case.
Patrick Stuebing and Susan Karolewski had four children together, two of whom are described as disabled.
The European Court of Human Rights said Germany was entitled to ban incest.
Stuebing, who was convicted of incest and spent three years in prison, did not meet his natural sister until he tracked down his family as an adult.
He had been adopted as a child and only made contact with his natural relatives in his 20s.
The siblings grew close after their mother died.
Three of their four children are now looked after in care.
The couple insist that their love is no different to any other.
'Partially liable'
The law against incest is based partly on the increased likelihood of disabled children being produced by the union.
Two of the couple's children do have disabilities.
However, their lawyer argued that there is also a greater risk when disabled people have children, or with older women, but such circumstances are not banned.
Stuebing claimed his rights to private and family life had been violated.
But the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said the German prohibition of incest for brothers and sisters does not violate the fundamental right to protection of family life.
It noted that German courts did not convict Stuebing's sister because she has a personality disorder and was "only partially liable" for her actions.BOSTON -- Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees moved into fifth-place on the all-time home-run list, ahead of his former teammate and mentor, Ken Griffey Jr., with a solo home run in the Yankees' 6-2 win over the Red Sox at Fenway Park on Friday.
Rodriguez led off the fifth inning with a blast off Boston's Clay Buchholz that sailed over the left-field bleachers and into Lansdowne Street, his second home run of the season and the 631st of his career. It was the fourth solo home run the Yankees had hit in the game -- Russell Martin followed with another in the sixth inning -- and extended their lead to 5-1 after five innings.
It also left Rodriguez trailing just Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and Willie Mays, who he trails by 29 homers, on the all-time list. He caught up to Griffey's career total of 630 home runs with a third-inning solo homer in the Yankees' home opener on April 13.
"Obviously, Griff is special to me, because we came up together
|
, almost mystically, snow, as if it was Duane sending us a message: 'Hey, you guys finally got that tune.'"
"Jessica" The song's main melody consists of two keyboards and Betts's electric guitar harmonizing. Problems playing this file? See media help.
The band had laid down "three or four" track recordings for Brothers and Sisters when Betts brought "Jessica" to the studio. Dudek accompanied Betts on guitar, in order to illustrate both the rhythm guitar and the melody. Leavell noted the song presented a challenge, since earlier instrumentals were more serious in nature: "How do we make this a little more intense and make it work as an Allman Brothers song?" Dudek had worked out harmonies with Betts and believed he would be recording with Betts, but Betts dissuaded him, noting that he had already played harmonies on "Ramblin' Man" and that critics might believe him to be in the band if he played harmonies on "Jessica". Dudek instead played the acoustic rhythm guitar, while Leavell played harmonies on piano. "I was very disappointed, but there was nothing I could say about it," said Dudek later. The song would wind up with two keyboards and one guitar. In the studio, the musicians worked on the song's arrangement, which took six days. Leavell created the transition between the piano and guitar solos. Betts later likened the song's creation to architecture, noting that it is "meticulously constructed, and every aspect has its place."
Leavell disagreed with the notion that Dudek co-wrote the song, noting that Betts created the melody of the song and its rhythm. In contrast, Dudek claims Betts walked with him into manager Phil Walden's office, demanding he receive songwriting royalties for Jessica. "I didn't understand all that exactly at the time, but in retrospect, I should have got 50 percent. Because it wasn't a completed song until I gave him the bridge section, the part that goes to the G chord," remembered Dudek. Drummer Butch Trucks questioned Dudek's account, noting that they all spent time crafting the arrangement. "I wasn't there, so I can't say what Les did or didn't do, but I take that with a grain of salt. Look at the track records of what each of them has written besides Jessica. I think it could be a group credit almost, and if any one person would have a writing claim it would be Chuck Leavell, who added a tremendous amount to 'Jessica'," said Trucks. Leavell acknowledged this: "I could say I co-wrote it, because I made a lot of suggestions, but I don't think that's fair." After Dudek left Capricorn Records to tour with the Steve Miller Band, he was let out of his contract, which involved no credits on the publishing deal for Brothers and Sisters. He maintains that Betts apologized to him about "the whole 'Jessica' thing" years later, claiming Capricorn said they did not have to pay him.
Composition [ edit ]
The tune is in the key of A Major, with the main guitar solo using the key of D Major. The signature melody line, as with all of Dickey Betts' instrumental compositions, is played harmonically among various instruments, in this case, Betts taking the melody on guitar, Chuck Leavell playing the top harmony line on the Fender Rhodes electric piano, and Gregg Allman playing the bottom harmony line on the Hammond organ. Leavell also plays grand piano on this tune, playing a solo around the 2:30 mark. At 3:45 the song modulates up a fourth and Betts plays his guitar solo in the key of D Major. The acoustic guitar is played by Les Dudek. The tune resolves back to A Major for the return of the main theme.
The original version on Brothers and Sisters clocks in at 7:30, although there is a shortened single edit, which cuts out some of the main theme at the end of the piece, trimming it to 4:00 exactly. This version is the one heard on most classic rock radio stations, and any kind of various artist compilation on which "Jessica" has been featured. However, most Allman Brothers compilations use the full 7:30 version.
Reception [ edit ]
Commercial performance [ edit ]
The song peaked best on Billboard's Easy Listening chart, where it peaked at number 29 on March 9, 1974.[8] Although "Jessica" rose no higher than number 65 on the Hot 100, it later became a staple of classic rock radio.[9]
Critical reception [ edit ]
Initial reviews of the song in 1973 were very positive. Bud Scoppa of Rolling Stone wrote, "To my ears, this is the most effective instrumental the Allmans have ever recorded: It breaks the band's recent tendency toward humorlessness while demonstrating vividly that this group can elaborate brilliantly on a motif without once falling into obvious blues or rock & roll patterns."[10] Billboard singled it out as one of the "best cuts" from the album,[11] and it was mentioned as a highlight by Janis Schacht of Circus. "The jazzy sound is not only effective, it's aesthetically beautiful. Chuck Leavell's piano work is much on a par with Nicky Hopkins' work for the Rolling Stones. It moves, it boogies, it carries the piece along with incredible style and is met halfway by Dickie Betts' clean, sweeping guitar lead."[12]
It has continued to receive praise in recent years. A January 2006 Wall Street Journal article referred to the piece as "a true national heirloom."[13]
Awards and nominations [ edit ]
A later recording of "Jessica", a live recording included on An Evening with the Allman Brothers Band: 2nd Set (1995), won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance at the 38th Annual Grammy Awards in 1996.
Chart performance [ edit ]
Cover versions [ edit ]
In popular culture [ edit ]
The tune is perhaps most famous as the opening theme to the original BBC TV show Top Gear and for the 2002 format of the series, albeit a modernised cover version.[18] In one episode, James May recreated the tune using nothing but exhaust notes from several cars, while in another episode the tune in its full version was heard to be played over the radio when the three presenters tested in America (Series 12, Episode 2). At the last episode's end of the 18th series of the show, Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash played his version of the tune.[19] "Jessica" is also used for most international versions of Top Gear, including the US version which used it as its theme only during the first season.
The tune was also featured in the movies Field of Dreams, Did You Hear About the Morgans?, Fear and Lassie, and was used as the opening theme tune for the Dr. Dean Edell radio show.
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Sources [ edit ]Watch out, SpaceX, there’s a new commercial rocket in town. After a few delays due to weather and a technical glitch, the Antares launch vehicle lifted off on its maiden flight on 21 April. The launch sets the stage for a second company to begin resupply missions to the International Space Station.
Since the space shuttles retired in 2011, NASA has been contracting with private firms to deliver cargo – and soon hopefully astronauts – to the space station. California-based SpaceX became the first private firm to officially resupply the ISS last October. Its Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida carrying a Dragon capsule filled with cargo and science experiments.
Antares, built by spaceflight company Orbital Sciences of Dulles, Virginia, lifted off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia, at 22.00 GMT.
Swan song
Antares was designed to deliver the company’s Cygnus cargo craft to the ISS. For the test flight, the rocket climbed high into a clear blue sky carrying a mock cargo ship with the same mass and dimensions as Cygnus, to avoid putting the real thing at risk.
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About 10 minutes into the mission, the Cygnus dummy successfully separated from the rocket and went into a temporary orbit. It will fall back to Earth in about two weeks and disintegrate upon re-entering the atmosphere. The dummy contains instruments that will collect data about the launch, to be transmitted back to mission managers before re-entry.
When the real Cygnus flies, it will carry about 2 tonnes of cargo per trip. The Dragon capsule can deliver a payload of 3 tonnes. The two craft have comparable capabilities, claims Mark Pieczynski of Orbital Sciences. But while Dragon can return from its missions loaded with cargo, no Cygnus craft will ever make it back to Earth. These craft will leave the ISS filled with trash and will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.
Orbital’s agreement with NASA includes this trial launch and a full demonstration mission in which the rocket will bring a real, loaded Cygnus craft to dock with the ISS, perhaps as early as June. If all goes well, the company is contracted to make a total of eight cargo missions to the station over the next three or four years.0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
While millions of Americans are underpaid and worried about the future of their health care, the Secret Service spent $13,500 for golf cart rentals at Trump’s own New Jersey club where he is vacationing for two weeks.
USA Today reported:
The New York vendor providing the golf carts to the Secret Service has daily, weekly and month rental rates. Weekly rates range from $500 to $900 a cart, depending on the model and monthly rates range from $750 to $1,200 a cart.
The agency also signed two rental contracts with the same company in June, each worth $5,400.
Additionally, the Secret Service spent $35,185 on rental contracts earlier this year down in Florida, when Trump was regularly visiting Mar-a-Lago before it closed for the season.
That brings the grand total spent on golf cart rentals so far this year to $59,585.
Donald Trump believes that exercise is a waste of energy, so takes golf carts everywhere. While other leaders walked during the G-20, Trump followed behind in a golf cart. Trump’s laziness means that the Secret Service also has to rent golf carts to keep the President safe. The cost of those golf carts is coming out of our pockets.
Trump may have turned down the presidential salary, but he and his family are on pace to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds on their lavish lifestyle. It would be cheaper for taxpayers if they paid Trump a salary and forced him to foot the bill for his own excessive expenses.
If Democrats take back control of all or part of Congress next year, there are early indications that they are going to crack down on Trump’s waste of taxpayer dollars.
Instead of getting a president to lead the country, the United States has a freeloader in chief that is making hard working Americans pick up the tab for his do nothing presidency.
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:Follow us: @CapSportsReport on Twitter | The Capital Sports Report on Facebook
By Anthony Caruso III | Publisher
Amazon, not Twitter, will livestream Thursday Night Football. It’s a one-year deal worth reportedly $50 million.
Amazon will livestream 10 games this season that will be carried by CBS and NBC. The online store beat out Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, according to ESPN, for the rights.
Twitter reportedly paid $10 million for the same service last year.
The 10 games will be part of its Amazon Prime video service. This will thus limit the viewers to only Amazon Prime subscribers.
CBS and NBC will air five Thursday Night Football games apiece. Both of these networks have an option to stream their games online, as well.
However, if you are a Verizon Wireless subscriber and have the NFL Mobile app, you will be able to watch the games for free.
For those that do not have Verizon Wireless, an individual can purchase Amazon Prime for $99, or $10.99 per month.
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AdvertisementsCornyn said the issue of gun control had been 'politicized so much.' Cornyn introduces NRA-supported background-check bill
The Senate’s second most powerful Republican is pitching his own plan to prevent the mentally ill from obtaining firearms — and he’s gotten the National Rifle Association to endorse the measure.
The new legislation from Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn tries to patch some holes in the current national background checks system by encouraging states, through the promise of federal funding, to send more information on mental-health records to the national database.
Story Continued Below
Cornyn’s bill would also create a path for people who may be mentally ill to be ordered into treatment by a judge without being involuntarily committed. That provision, the Texas senator said, would boost access to treatment options to strike at some of the root causes of gun-fueled violence, such as the recent shootings at a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana, by a man who authorities say had a history of mental illness.
Still, under Cornyn’s legislation, the person getting treatment wouldn’t be officially determined to be mentally ill and could, in theory, still purchase firearms. Under current law, a person would have to be adjudicated as mentally ill in order to be barred from purchasing a gun.
In a small roundtable with reporters on Wednesday, Cornyn said the issue of gun control had been “politicized so much” and that his legislation tries to strike a middle ground. Aside from the powerful NRA, which helped quash a background-checks bill two years ago, Cornyn’s legislation is also endorsed by the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the National Association on Police Organizations.
“We’ve known mental health was a key component to addressing this problem in so many instances,” Cornyn said. “And yet, rather than actually try to make progress in dealing with people who are mentally ill, we’ve had these broader debates about the Second Amendment and about infringing the rights of law-abiding, sane citizens.”
The measure doesn’t increase existing federal funding for the current background checks database or mental health programs. But it would redirect some of the existing cash to states that send more information to the national system, which is run by the FBI.
Overall, the bill authorizes about $195 million per year for the federal database — the National Instant Criminal Background Check System — and other related programs, Cornyn said.
“We know because the background check system depends on the voluntary participation and compliance of various states, that there’s a lot of variety in the ways that the states upload their background check information,” the Senate’s No. 2 Republican said. “So what this will do is to make sure that it’ll clarify the scope of the mental health records that the states must share and upload on the background check system.”
Meanwhile, the third-ranking Senate Democrat, New York’s Chuck Schumer, proposed legislation earlier this week that would deal with issues similar to those raised by Cornyn.
Flanked by actress and comedian Amy Schumer (a cousin), the senator outlined legislation that, like Cornyn’s bill, would push states to submit key mental health records into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The July 23 shooting occurred at a screening of Amy Schumer’s latest movie, “Trainwreck.”On Saturday, Donald Trump will sit down for an interview with Wayne T. Jackson, a pastor in Michigan as part of his tentative black outreach efforts — and black Republicans are fuming.
For one thing, they say, Jackson isn’t conservative and doesn’t support Trump. But Jackson also presided over a ordination ritual some time ago that became a source of viral controversy.
The video published in 2013 shows Jackson mounting two male bishops on the ground as part of an “consecration” ceremony; the video drew scrutiny, with some criticizing it as sexual, and others saying it wasn’t sexual, but had no place in the church. Now it’s leading some conservative black Republican evangelicals and strategists to question the Trump campaign's commitment to black outreach.
In interviews with black Republicans, several speaking on the condition of anonymity said they didn’t understand why the Trump campaign decided to go with Jackson, an unknown in black Republican circles. “We feel like they’re being ignored, that the campaign just doesn’t want to work with us.”
RNC strategist Telly Lovelace fielded a flood calls from black Republicans wanting to express their displeasure with the campaign's decision. Lovelace, two sources said, responded saying it was just that — the campaign's decision. Reached by BuzzFeed News, Lovelace declined to comment. A phone call to Jackson’s church was not answered and the voicemail inbox was full.
Jackson’s interview with Trump will be shown on Jackson’s Impact Network, which bills itself as as the only black “founded and operated national Christian TV network.” Jackson’s church is no longer called Impact Ministries International (churches often change names). Now called Great Faith Ministries, Jackson says he doesn’t support Trump, but that he owes it to his viewers and to Trump to allow him to address black voters. He told The Detroit News he plans to ask Trump if he is a racist.
Black conservatives have a litany of names they believe the campaign should have reached out to, including Rev. Gary Plummer, a prominent Detroit pastor who is the director of missions for the Church of God In Christ, and Rev. Roland Caldwell of Burnette Inspirations Baptist Church. At the same time, they understood that part of Trump’s strategy is to not spend the ad dollars in favor of free media like what Impact Network offers.
“You’ve got people in Detroit like Rev. Keith Butler who is a known entity national and locally, with credibility and credentials with Republicans,” said Raynard Jackson, the founder and chairman Black Americans for a Better Future PAC. “For the campaign to go with to self-professed Democrat who stated that he is not a Trump supporter of Trump is problematic.”
The selection showed the Trump campaign didn’t vet properly, said Rev. Ralph Chittams, the senior vice chairman for the Republican Party of the District of Columbia and an associate minister with the Forest Hill New Redeemer Baptist Church. Trump's campaign did not immediately respond on Thursday to an email message seeking comment on either the sentiment in this story or the video.
“In my network, our question is why would Mr. Trump, in his first foray reaching out to the black community go talk to this clown, the humping Bishop?” Chittams told BuzzFeed News. “To me, there’s no sexual connotation to what he did. But find me one seminarian who doesn’t think it wasn’t pure and utter foolishness that has no Biblical foundation whatsoever.”
Evangelicals have long criticized the ordination ritual, saying it had no biblical grounding.College Preseason Power Rankings (Men’s Division): #10 – #1
The top 10 teams heading into 2016!
See the rest of the Top 25 in our first installment.
We are excited to present the second installment of this year’s preseason College Power Rankings in the Men’s Division! These rankings are based holistically on a number of factors: last year’s performance, roster changes, conversations with coaches, the “eye test”, and assorted other factors.
10. Georgia Jojah (2015: T-9th at Nationals, 3rd in Southeast)
2015 was a resurgent year for Georgia as they clinched a bid to Nationals in the tough Southeast region and won a pair of games at the show. Looking back over their season, it’s hard not to be impressed — many of their regular season losses came to Pitt, UMass, and UNC Wilmington, the three teams that stand at the top of these preseason rankings.
Although Elliott Erickson departs, the team has good continuity, returning Sam Little, Parker Bray (the team’s leading scorer at Nationals), Riley Erickson, and a crop of excellent young players (Nathan Haskell and Sebbi Di Francesco, notably). The older Erickson’s plus cutting abilities will need to be replaced, but few teams have the wealth of young talent that Georgia does. Haskell even matched Erickson in assists at Nationals.
Where does Georgia fit into the Southeast echelon?
9. Oregon Ego (2015: 2nd at Nationals, 2nd in Northwest)
It would be a bit disingenuous to say we know what to expect from Oregon this season. So many questions surround this team after the departure of All-America stalwart Dylan Freechild. A year ago, the team was small and leaned heavily on Freechild (and his backfield partner Trevor Smith) for offensive disc movement and production, especially against top opponents. Freechild had 37 assists for Oregon at Nationals. The next closest player had 13. Can anyone fill his shoes?
2015 College Breakout Player of the Year Adam Rees is back and is the strongest candidate to be that guy for Oregon (it’s worth noting he was the player with 13 assists). Connor Matthews (22 goals at Nationals) is a year wiser and remains one of the elite cutters in college. Chris Strub and Colton Clark will also be big contributors.
Still, expect an adjustment period as the team learns to play without the electric talent of Freechild on the field.
8. Washington Sundodgers (2015: 3rd in Northwest)
Washington was one of the big stories of the 2015 regular season, but they came up short at Regionals after looking like the clear #2 team behind Oregon.
Yet there is hope for them: 2016 could be even better. Khalif El-Salaam of Seattle Mixtape fame returns in his senior season, Dongyang Chen is back after a season with Seattle Sockeye, and the team faces only modest turnover; Jonny Stacey is the big loss.
Sophomore Steven Benaloh will look to build on an outstanding rookie season and maintain a steady presence in the backfield for the Sundodgers.
The fact is that El-Salaam has the tools to be one of the best in the country this season and will be on the early Player of the Year watchlist. If he can dial in some of the turnovers and tighten up decision making, he could lead Washington to new heights.
7. Wisconsin Hodags (2015: T-13th at Nationals, 2nd in North Central)
Legacy program? Check. Returning lots of talent? Check. History of winning? Double check.
Wisconsin is in a peak year, folks, and they’re going to be good. The team has at least 10 seniors and 5th years, including standouts Craig Cox (2nd Team All Region ’15), Avery Johnson, and Ross Barker (the team’s leading scorer at Nationals). The continuity could reap dividends in an area they struggled in mightily a year ago: offense.
The team’s defense has long been its calling card and they did not disappoint last season, sporting one of the Division’s best defensive units. But the team’s offense really couldn’t keep up and bled breaks against good teams. If they can find a sharper offense in 2016, they will be a sleeper semis pick.
6. Colorado Mamabird (2015: T-5th at Nationals, 2nd in South Central)
Chew on this: Colorado has such a deep program that they routinely put most (if not all, in some cases) of their incoming freshmen class on the B-team. Expect the same this year as veteran heavy team takes the field.
At the moment, it sounds like Stanley Peterson will not return to the Bird in 2016, certainly a blow. But lots of strong players do return, including Pawel Janas, Oak Nelson, Wes Chow, and Jeremy Harker. Mark Rauls also returns to the team after a year away; he will add instant spark to the backfield.
Colorado’s biggest concern may be the lack of a true takeover player. They are one of the deepest teams in the country, though — they get to call up sophomores who spent a year in AAA, to steal a phrase from coach Brent Zionic. We’ll see what they can do this year.
5. Central Florida Dogs Of War (2015: T-3rd at Nationals, 2nd in Southeast)
Let’s not forget: UCF has made it to at least the semifinals of College Nationals in two of the last three years. While they may not be a team you think of when someone says ‘dynasty,’ they have a chance to become one of the best teams of the last five years with another strong season in 2016.
UCF rode their physicality and bombastic attitude through Pittsburgh and onto semis at Nationals this past year; will that same style define them this year?
Reports are that Jeremy Langdon is coming back for a fifth year. Fellow 1st Team All Region player Michael Fairley is definitely back. So is breakout player of the year runner-up Stuart Little and a host of other strong role players. The biggest question mark? The loss of their top handler talent Alex Bullock and Brawley Adams.
Expect a different looking offense this season, but the same hard-nosed UCF.
4. UNC Darkside (2015: 1st at Nationals, 1st in Atlantic Coast)
Many teams would be gutted by the loss of a player like Jon Nethercutt. “Nutt,” Ultiworld’s Offensive College Player of the Year and the 2015 Callahan winner, will surely be missed and the entire offense may need to be retooled in his absence. But UNC has such an embarrassment of riches that it shouldn’t knock them down too far at all.
Aaron Warshauer and JD Hastings highlight this year’s senior class. Warshauer is a tall, strong cutter who could well be the centerpiece of their offense. Hastings, in contrast, is a quick, short handler cover nicknamed, appropriately, the ‘muscle hamster.’
Where this year’s UNC team will rise and fall is with their sophomore and junior classes, though. Norman Archer, Nick Macleod (yea, this guy!), Matt Gouchoe-Hanas, Nathan Kwon…the list of rising stars goes on and on.
Could this team even get back to the finals?
3. UNC Wilmington Seamen (2015: T-9th at Nationals, 2nd in Atlantic Coast)
A blistering regular season fizzled out at Nationals as UNCW came up short against Pittsburgh in the prequarters in an epic rematch. UNCW will be back, though, and perhaps even better than they were a year ago.
Jack Williams and Xavier Maxstadt both return for the Seamen. Charlie Lian is back. Quality starters like Erik Esposto, Austin McGrayne, and Matt Mason fill in around them. This team is going to be tough to beat.
They do lose the hard throwing Luke Hancock, but may gain some quickness in the backfield. They also lose breakout 2015 star Cale Ward, who is not attending UNCW this year. The team will also look to alleviate some of their overuse issues from last season (seen by some on the team as a reason for their Nationals meltdown) by playing in two fewer tournaments this spring.
With two POTY candidates in Williams and Maxstadt, the ceiling for UNCW is the highest its been in years.
2. UMass Zoodisc (2015: T-5th at Nationals, 1st in New England)
My goodness this UMass team is going to be scary this year. Almost everybody is coming back after a year in which the team went to the quarterfinals at Nationals. POTY shortlister Jeff Babbitt leads the way, but he’s surrounded by top talent like Ben Sadok, Ben Tseytlin, 2015 Rookie of the Year Brett Gramann, and the red-hot Conor Kline.
Kline gets his own paragraph. He came somewhat out of nowhere to lead Club Nationals (yes, Club) in goals scored with Sub Zero. He has been on an absolute tear this fall. Could he eclipse other elite deep cutters like Connor Matthews this season? He seems poised to blow up.
UMass also picks up one of the country’s best rookies in Tannor Johnson, who played for Ironside this past season.
UMass’ biggest shortcoming still appears to be depth. But they are a bit deeper than they were last year, and that might be just enough to vault them towards a possible Championship run.
1. Pittsburgh En Sabah Nur (2015: T-5th at Nationals, 1st in Ohio Valley)
Should Pittsburgh keep landing the number one spot in the preseason rankings each year, despite coming up quite short at Nationals now two years in a row? It’s a reasonable question, but it’s hard to argue that they shouldn’t be here.
Last year, we talked about the big four: Max Thorne, Marcus Ranii-Dropcho, Pat Earles, and Trent Dillon. If you can believe it, three of the four are coming back. Only Ranii-Dropcho departs.
In fact, Pitt is hardly losing anyone: the other big loss is Tyler Kunsa, a key offensive handler.
But with three unbelievable players in Thorne, Earles, and Dillon — all who have a realistic shot at making POTY lists later this year — Pitt is again the team to beat. Role players like Christian Pitts, Carl Morgenstern, and Jonah Wisch only add to the team’s depth.
Pitt struggled to develop much of a defensive identity last season and, when Nationals rolled around, their vaunted offense wasn’t sharp enough to carry them through the gauntlet like it had most of the season. If they can solidify a defensive rotation and find a way to punch in one or two more breaks a game, Pitt could be a juggernaut.FBI Director James Comey testifies before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last year. (Michael Reynolds/European Pressphoto Agency)
The New York Times reported, “Senior White House and Justice Department officials had been working on building a case against Mr. Comey since at least last week, according to administration officials. Mr. Sessions had been charged with coming up with reasons to fire him, officials said.”
If this is true — that Sessions was charged by President Trump (no one else would have the authority) to figure out reasons to fire Comey — then the question hanging over the presidency is: What was the real reason? If the reason was not that Trump, after all that talk about “locking up” Hillary Clinton and praise last October for Comey’s letter reintroducing the Clinton email investigation into the campaign, suddenly realized Comey had behaved improperly under Justice Department rules, then the rationale is a lie. The letters from Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein are therefore part of a pretext for firing the FBI director engaged in an investigation of the president and his campaign’s conduct.
President Trump informed FBI Director James Comey he had been dismissed on May 9, stemming from a conclusion by Justice Department officials that he had mishandled the probe of Hillary Clinton's emails. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)
Former ambassador and White House ethics lawyer Norman Eisen explains, “The reasons given by the president and White House for the firing are clearly pretextual.” Eisen points out that the reasons stated in the letters for firing Comey “are contrary to the president’s and Attorney General Sessions own prior statements, and... the firing was contemporaneous with the revelation of the existence of a grand jury and of subpoenas.” He adds, “Clearly, the president is attempting to hamper an investigation that affects him, and those who were and are around him–and brazenly lie about it.”
In other words, if Sessions and Rosenstein cooked up a false reason to get rid of Comey because the president was displeased with Comey’s investigation, this is nothing less than a baldfaced attempt to interfere with a legitimate investigation of the executive branch. The president has the right to fire the FBI director, so this likely would not rise to the level of a criminal offense, according to several legal experts, including former Justice Department officials, with whom I spoke. However, in the constitutional sense, a scheme to mislead the American people and prevent discovery of his possible misconduct violates his oath of office. If he is engaged in such conduct, he is no longer acting to enforce and execute the laws of the United States.
What is critical here is why the president fired Comey and whether he cooked up a cover story to conceal his motivation. The inquiry into what the president, Sessions and Rosenstein were up to cannot be conducted by the executive branch. Either Congress interrogates them, or a prosecutor who cannot be fired by the president or the Justice Department is needed.
To add to the mound of suspicious facts, CNN reported Tuesday night:
Federal prosecutors have issued grand jury subpoenas to associates of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn seeking business records, as part of the ongoing probe of Russian meddling in last year’s election, according to people familiar with the matter. CNN learned of the subpoenas hours before President Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey.
The subpoenas represent the first sign of a significant escalation of activity in the FBI’s broader investigation begun last July into possible ties between Trump campaign associates and Russia. The subpoenas issued in recent weeks by the US Attorney’s Office in Alexandria, Virginia, were received by associates who worked with Flynn on contracts after he was forced out as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014, according to the people familiar with the investigation.
We do not know whether this played any role in Comey’s firing.
Using one law enforcement body (or set of individuals) to stop another from investigating presidential wrongdoing was the nub of Watergate and the ensuing impeachment proceedings. We do not know whether that is what is at issue here, but Congress has no alternative but to determine why the president acted and why he acted now. That should entail questioning under oath of any persons aware of or involved in the firing process and ultimately an accounting by the president of his own actions.
Every single Republican must make a decision: Insist on full-throated, independent investigation of the firing, or be party to a possible cover-up. Every candidate for office in 2018 must be asked a question: If it is determined that Trump fired Comey to interfere with the Russia probe, would that representative vote for impeachment/senator vote to convict? Yes, it really has come to that.Resisting night life temptations on the road is a key to success for any professional sports team. And the New York Post suggests the Orlando Magic flunked that test this week.
According to the Post, Magic players partied into the wee hours the night before their 108-86 blowout loss to the Knicks on Wednesday.
The Post says the Magic's Glen Davis and Jason Richardson were spotted in the private wine room of Philippe New York and then got together with Dwight Howard, Chris Duhon and Quentin Richardson at the Greenhouse club. The Post says the Magic players were ordering bottles of champagne and stayed until 3 a.m.
Among the celebrities at Wednesday's blowout were Kate Upton, Jeremy Piven and New York Giants Victor Cruz and Justin Tuck.
The Magic also had a pair of blowout losses on the road in January, by 31 points at Boston and by 26 at New Orleans. Howard had a particularly rocky game against the Knicks, with only 12 points and five rebounds, way under his season averages of 20.9 and 14.5.
"We didn't play as well as we needed to play, but we've got another game Friday," Howard told the Orlando Sentinel, looking forward to (the) game against Dallas. "We've got a chance to make it up. We'll see these guys (the Knicks) next week, so we're going to have a chance to get it back."Watch the very first episode of Tom Philips' new webseries here
THE STORY: Hey, check it out...it's a video series that would absolutley not exist without your Patreon support!
When my buddy Tom Philips came to me years ago, he wanted help getting his game reviews to a wider audience. He was also covered in a combination of honey & LEGO's. He looked like a big, sticky bear that had broken into a toy store, and he smelled like a guy who'd played Halo Wars for 96 hours straight.
As an old college friend of mine, I took pity on Tom Philips. I passed his clips along to Maddox and Dick out of the goodness of my heart, and also, because he was my drug dealer.
But now, look at him! Tom is starring in his very own YouTube webseries, and will soon relaunch his website with Denzel's help. Tom also stopped wearing his fedora around – unrelated, but still great news!
Tom wanted me to thank someone, whose name he scrawled out on the back of a Gamestop pre-order slip for "FNAF World" – Professor Joe. Joe produced, shot and edited every single one of these, and from what I gather, was the man who approached Tom in the first place about bringing these to YouTube. Thank you, Joe!
We're working on 7 more of these, so stay tuned. The art for this very first episode was done by Pikachai – follow her on twitter here!
And finally, I cant stress this enough: hiring artists, hiring a video editor, buying lighting, buying a giant chinese greenscreen...all of this costs cash. None of this would be possible without your help, you goddamn beautiful coconuts, you.
Thank you.Download the PDF here.
Please note that this analysis is done for academic interest only.
Please do not parade the results for your propagandas This article can be downloaded as a PDF.
The media landscape of 2013 is a very new one. The 13th General Elections of Malaysia had taken on its own life on social media websites like Facebook and Twitter, what with hashtags like #ubah and catchphrases like ‘ini kalilah”. This author had watched the Malaysian General Election with a certain perverse obsession, despite having nothing to do with it.
There were rhetorics abound, made by supporters of both parties. Ridiculous claims and promises – objectively unsustainable ones – were made by the ruling party. Slogans were shouted on traditional media and on social media. There were ceramahs and there were concerts. Then came Election Day. By Election Day, the situation had turned out to be what I consider fairly ugly. Look out for fraud, people were told. Look out for phantom voters, such as Bangladeshis, derogatively called ‘Banglas’, who were hired by the ruling party, Barisan National to play phantom voters. Many allegations and rumours of citizen arrests circulated around Facebook and Twitter.
As with any election, comes the counting. During the counting period, there were again, many anecdotal stories about blackouts followed by sudden increase in ballot boxes;
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that Danley will be interviewed again this week and he suggested she could have prevented the massacre, which left 58 dead and hundreds injured.
“It could have been prevented on many levels,” Lombardo told KLAS’ George Knapp. “Marilou Danley, his brother, anybody that may have had some modicum of information that would have presented this individual’s state of mind, but apparently right now we don’t know that.”
NEWS ORGANIZATIONS FILE LAWSUITS ALLEGING LAS VEGAS OFFICIALS ARE VIOLATING PUBLIC RECORDS LAW
Danley was in the Philippines at the time of the attack and Paddock wired $100,000 to an account in the country days earlier, according to past reports.
No motive for the Oct. 1 shooting has been revealed yet, but Lombardo said that since September 2015, Paddock – a high-rolling gambler – had lost a significant amount of wealth.
“I think that might have a determining factor on what he determined to do,” Lombardo said.
The sheriff said Paddock was narcissistic, had some bouts of depression and was very status-driven, based on how he liked to be recognized in the casinos and by his family and friends, which was starting to decline.
Paddock fired off more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition from his room at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino and had access to over 4,000 more, Lombardo told KLAS.
The shooting spree stopped after, according to Lombardo’s belief, Paddock realized the authorities were closing in.
“I believe the suspect believed the wolf was at the door and took his own life,” Lombardo said.
A hard drive that was missing from one of Paddock’s laptops found in the room after police entered has still not been recovered.
“The hard drive was not located in the room,” Lombardo said. “We may never know where that hard drive is. It could have been removed years ago.”
FULL COVERAGE OF LAS VEGAS SHOOTING
Security footage obtained by police from Mandalay Bay is still being investigated and Paddock was not seen in the presence of any other individuals while moving around the property, Lombardo added.
The sheriff also said “conspiracy theories and thinking that we are trying to hide stuff or are conspiring together to hide stuff is ridiculous.” He also blasted Internet trolls accusing the victims and their families of faking the injuries and deaths.
“I’m amazed at people’s mental state to post the stuff that they post,” Lombardo told KLAS. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I wish I could locate some of these individuals or have them present themselves to me personally and I’ll show them what happened out there.”We always told to "dress for success" and "dress for the job you want, not the one you have," but implementing those ideas is easier said than done. To help, we've broken down the science for choosing new clothes and tallied tips for debuting your wardrobe without causing too much of a stir.
Photo by bark.
While the cut, style, and fit of your clothes is important, the first thing most people are going to notice is the color. The color can have a serious psychological impact on the person looking at you, so depending on how you want to present yourself it's good to know the basic rules.
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How We Perceive Colors and the Effect They Have on Your Presentation
Color theory isn't an exact science, but we do know a few things about how colors often affect the way we're seen. These aren't always specific to clothing, but the cognitive effects they trigger can be applied to clothing. It's not solely about people's perception of you, color can have an affect on how you perceive yourself as well. The colors you wear might not exactly make you more successful, but they can make you feel that way.
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Red: Red universally means stop, excitement, or danger, and one study suggests it might actually scare people a little. In another study, red is thought to evoke worry, distraction, and self-preoccupation. That might actually help us understand why, in a survey last year, a typical CEO was likely to prefer magenta over other colors. However, chances are you're not interested in scaring the pants off your coworkers just yet, so steer clear of red and magenta toward the beginning of the process.
Blue: Blue is typically associated with calming effects, and the same idea can be applied to clothing. Some studies have shown it can have an effect on the creative mood of the person looking at it, and theoretically, wearing blue might have a positive effect on the creativity of your coworkers.
Darker Tones: Darker colors like black, navy, gray or brown supposedly give off an authoritative message. Dressing in darker clothing might influence others around you and give off the impression that you know what you're doing.
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Lighter Tones: Lighter colors like earth tones, pastels, or yellows typically appear less intimidating. That's not a bad thing, it can also mean people perceive you as being gentle, friendly, and approachable. Lighter hues also allow you to blend in more and maybe help disguise any changes to your wardrobe you're looking to make.
Even the color of your eyeglasses can change the way people view you. In a study from National Cheng Kung University, it was found that the color of frames had different connotations. For instance, green frames presented a vulgar impression, whereas black gives the impression of stability.
The Style Still Has an Effect
Just because color plays an important role doesn't mean style doesn't. In fact, in one study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, it was found that our perception of ourselves changes enough that our language does too:
Results show that participants who were dressed formally used more formal adjectives than casual ones to describe themselves. The opposite was true in participants wearing casual clothes. In addition, formally dressed participants responded faster to formal than to casual adjectives, while this difference was reversed in casually dressed participants.
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The effect is going to change depending on how you define casual and formal. If you're more of a t-shirt and jeans type and you're looking to make the leap into a polo shirt, the people around you will likely notice and you too might notice a change in your own demeanor, even if it's not a traditional definition of formal.
Many surveys have found most big industries prefer a conservative approach to dressing. The Harvard Business Review notes that 37 percent of men believe that if you don't look the part of your leader, you're not going to get a leadership role yourself. As with any job, it's good to gauge your surroundings and have an understanding of how people tend to dress, but that doesn't mean you can't improve your presentation a little.
Photo by Ace Armstrong.
How to Integrate These Tips into Your Wardrobe without Stirring Up Too Much Attention
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If you're reading this, chances are you're not the type to run out, purchase a bright red blazer, and then head into work tomorrow. Instead, you might be looking for a subtle means to upgrade your wardrobe without drawing a ton of attention to yourself. We know that dressing even just a little bit nice engenders more confidence, but it's also likely to bring about a few snide remarks from co-workers and friends.
As far as the science is concerned, this would mean implementing your changes gradually based on colors, not just styles. For instance, if you want to start wearing button up shirts, but don't want to draw attention to yourself, stick with lighter, neutral colors. The same goes with your pants and shoes. Image consultant Crystal Gardner agrees and offers these suggestions:
Subtle changes are the easiest and safest to make when looking to change ones image. I suggest playing with colors and accessories. Colors can be brought into the wardrobe as layering pieces under blazers, sweaters, stockings, and scarfs. Right now color blocking is a great trend that takes adding color into consideration. Some of the current colors of the season include: neons, bold blues, purples, reds, greens, and orange. Accessories are another great way one can change their image. Costume jewelry can add elegance and sophistication, retro shaped eyewear can create a trendy upbeat look, belts can add different looks and accentuate the body in certain ways, shoes are also another great accessory to add some punch to a new look. I personally love the oxford flat which has been seen in many colors and patterns this year. It's a classic with a new twist. The best part about these little updates is they are very affordable, you aren't buying a complete new wardrobe.
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The subtle, piece-by-piece method isn't your only option, if you prefer to jump in headfirst, image consultant Milena Joy of Milena Distinctive Image Consulting suggests a more upfront approach:
CEO's and great leaders aren't wallflowers, they stand out and they dress with confidence. Changing your look and people's reaction to you is all about consistency. If you consistently look put together, polished and sophisticated, than there won't be much to talk about for long. You may have to suffer through one day of reactions from co-workers, but soon your new look will become the norm. If you try to ease into the new look, then each piece, each change will be a new opportunity for someone to make an obvious comment, therefore putting you in an awkward self-conscious position. We advise that you jump into your new look with both feet (in your tailored pants of course) and make the decision to dress for a more successful you and never look back.
Photo by DaveBleasdale.
Have you ever completely changed your image? How did it go?Share
The author’s 1967 Triumph GT6 Mk I. Photos by the author.
Driving old British sports cars on a regular, almost daily, basis is much the same as driving an old Chevy or Plymouth. As long as its mechanicals are maintained properly, there’s no reason why any old car can’t be driven daily. After all, isn’t that the purpose of owning old cars – to enjoy their unique and entertaining driving experience as frequently as possible?
Well, old British cars aren’t any different than those cars that were built in America. Despite the opinion that domestic electronics built by Delco, Mopar and Motorcraft are superior and more reliable, the Lucas electrics can be just as reliable, they only require more maintenance. Regarding suspensions, brakes and engines, I’d say they are equal in terms of durability.
Quite often when I drive my original 1967 Triumph GT6 MKI, my neighbors are amazed that I’m driving a car that old, and that often. They always have this strange look on their faces when they see me driving down the block. But when I tell them that old cars, regardless of make or model, were once used and driven every day back when they were new, and that just because they are now 40-plus years old doesn’t mean that they aren’t up for the same task, their faces go blank. They just don’t understand.
Back in the mid-’90s when my daily driver was a 1964 Pontiac Le Mans, a car that I drove five days a week from Brooklyn, through Manhattan, and into northern New Jersey where I worked, the uninformed thought I was insane. Not surprisingly, to me at least, not once did that old Pontiac ever break down or leave me stranded. Mechanical parts are not like people; they don’t know how old they are. All they require is vigilant upkeep and the proper adjustments and lubrication, and all will be well.
Now that my GT6 is my only old car that’s registered and insured, I always make sure that the various fluids are topped up, the hoses and belts are tight and don’t have any cracks, the filters are clean and all the electrical connections are tight and free of corrosion. It’s the same care and attention that owners of old Dodges and Buicks will give, too. Safeguarding cars against premature failure of components may require more attention the older the car is, but the process really isn’t much different or any more difficult than if that “old” car was a 2003 Cadillac or Lincoln. What’s more, the more often old cars are driven, the better they perform, because all their bearings, seals and other mechanical components are kept well lubricated. Like the saying goes, use it or lose itA federal judge ordered Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio and his department to stop racial profiling against Latinos, the Arizona Republic reported on Friday.
U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow said in his ruling that evidence showed Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office “aggressively protected its right to engage in immigration and immigration–related enforcement operations even when it had no accurate legal basis for doing so.”
Snow issued an injunction barring Arpaio and his deputies from, among other things, using “race or Latino ancestry” to determine whether to pull over vehicles with Latinos inside; subjecting Latinos to prolonged traffic stops without evidence they were violating federal or state laws; and arresting Latinos without proof that they were undocumented immigrants.
The ruling concluded a class-action civil suit brought against Arpaio and his office by the American Civil Liberties Unionn (ACLU) that grew to represent every Latino driver pulled over in Maricopa County since 2007. Instead of seeking monetary damages, though, the plaintiffs called for those practices to be legally curtailed.
The plaintiffs’ case hinged on a combination of statistical data pointing to a higher likelihood for Latino drivers to be stopped by the department, as well as past statements by both Arpaio and his constituents regarding undocumented immigrants.
According to the ACLU, one witness for the plaintiffs, Temple University researcher Ralph Taylor, found that officers were 46 to 53 percent more likely to stop Latinos during “crime suppression sweeps” ordered by Arpaio compared to regular operations. Traffic stops involving Latinos were also 21 to 25 percent longer than regular stops.
“Facts are facts, statistics are statistics, and they can be interpreted,” Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox told KPHO-TV. “But I thought they were very telling.”The Obama Administrations continued refusal to criticize Israel for its ruthless killing of aid workers off the coast of Gaza highlights a fundamental problem with the way in which the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in America is portrayed.
The premise upon which the debate is based on is fundamentally flawed, and in some cases overtly racist. The American media and the intellectual classes operate within the logic that Israel is the victim of Arab aggression and is simply defending itself from hostile neighbors - the Muslim countries are anti semitic and hell bent on the destruction of Israel and cannot ever be negotiated with. Israel, the story goes, is a democracy and an ally of the United States, and therefore justified in anything it does to protect itself.
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There is one inconvenient truth that shoots a deadly arrow in this narrative, and it isn't an easy one to swallow.
The truth is that the creation of the Jewish state was based on the theft of land from an indigenous people. While Jews would prefer to believe that their country is a'miracle in the desert', for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, it is an everlasting nightmare.
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The pro Israel narrative continues with its portrayal of Arab aggression, noting the wars in 1948, 1967 and 1973 as proof that the country was under perpetual attack. While it is true that the Arab nations attacked Israel after it declared itself a nation in 1948, it must be remembered that if Mexican immigrants declared a state of Mexico in Arizona, it is unlikely the U.S government would not see it as an act of aggression and take immediate military action.
The wars in 1967 and 1973 were started by Egypt and Syria, not the Palestinians, and the Israelis used it as an excuse to annex more Palestinian land (Gaza, the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights and the West Bank), an act illegal under international law. The Palestinians, as always, suffered the consequences of competing empires.
The continued occupation of the Palestinian people and the relentless expansion of the Israeli state is a text book definition of colonization. The Palestinians have a right to resist this occupation, and the onus is on Israel to stop it so that peace talks can resume.
The use of terrorism against civilians is, in my opinion, never justified. The Palestinians should find more productive ways of promoting their cause and take the moral high ground. But to continue the ridiculous story that Israel is the victim prevents serious dialogue from happening and destroys any real chance of peace.
While Israel will never disappear, it can and must live in harmony with its neighbors. If it continues to ignore its own history and the pain and suffering it has inflicted on a largely defenseless people, it will continue to be the target of terrorism and hate.
As a Jew, I am ashamed that the enormous suffering of our people has led to the victimization and brutalization of another. The truth about Israel was not an easy one for me to accept. I grew up believing in its virtue and superiority over its heathen neighbors, but the reality I discovered, was not so black and white. The Palestinians are not blameless in this unfortunate episode in history, but they are most certainly the victims. The Palestinians did not kill 6 million Jews or subject them to thousands of years of persecution. The Europeans and Russians did that, and the Palestinians are paying a price for it.
It isn't right, and it must end. And the Jewish people must speak out about it because they are the only ones who can stop it.The Prime Minister’s personal papers for the year 1986, held at Churchill College, reveal the significant and ongoing fallout from the Westland affair – which prompted the resignation of Defence Minister Michael Heseltine, who went on to challenge Thatcher for the Tory leadership in 1990.
The affair was bruising disagreement between Thatcher and Heseltine over a proposed rescue package for the UK’s last helicopter manufacturer – Westland. Heseltine favoured a European-based rescue package, while the PM favoured a US deal, with both sides using the press to brief against the other. Heseltine famously stormed out of a Cabinet meeting and resigned on January 9, 1986, accusing the Prime Minister of having lied during the course of the conflict.
Included in the 1986 papers is the text of a letter Thatcher drafted to Heseltine just three weeks before his eventual resignation – but did not send; an ultimatum to either toe the line or give up office. It ends bluntly: “In this situation, no Minister should use his position to promote one commercial option in preference to another – so long as he remains in Government.”
“The important thing about this letter of course is that it was never sent,” said Chris Collins of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation. “Throughout the crisis, Thatcher was wary of any course of action that might finally provoke Heseltine’s resignation or gather sympathy for him once he actually had, putting her in an uncomfortably and uncharacteristically defensive position. She knew she was dangerously isolated in Cabinet and among the Tory press where Heseltine had many friends.”
In many respects, 1986 was defined by Westland. Much happened in its shadow or was judged a consequence of it. It was also a genuine contest for power in the Conservative Party, one that Thatcher came close to losing.
“It’s no accident that Westland anticipated her final demise in 1990,” added Collins. “Many of the people were the same, the issues too. An argument in cabinet could not be contained and blew out into the street – with rivals chancing their arm against a dangerously isolated leader. The truth is that she was deeply conflicted, angry as hell but painfully aware of her vulnerability.”
Included in the archives, a day after the resignation, is a warning from her Political Secretary, Stephen Sherbourne, that she must be seen to be in control of events as they unfolded, not merely a bystander. “People want Prime Ministers to be in charge and they expect that from you,” says his letter.
Also among the papers being released today are those which reveal the scale of opposition for her support of President Reagan’s April bombing of Libya – including that of Norman Tebbit, Conservative Party Chairman, and historically one of Thatcher’s key supporters.
The clear and continuing discord between the pair makes for uncomfortable reading according to Collins, with Tebbit and other leading figures such as Deputy PM Willie Whitelaw, Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe and Chancellor Nigel Lawson among those vocal in their opposition to giving the US administration what they considered to be a ‘blank cheque’ in prosecuting its bombing campaign against Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya.
American F-111 bomber aircraft stationed at RAF Lakenheath were used in the raids on the Libyan capital Tripoli, which proved highly controversial in Britain. The raids gained major exposure thanks to the reporting of BBC journalist Kate Adie who was considered to have covered the story coolly and critically from Tripoli.
Lobby briefing note following Michael Heseltine's resignation 1 of 6 Thatcher's letter to Heseltine (unsent) warning him about collective responsibility over the Westland affair 2 of 6 A letter sent to the Prime Minister from Rover 3 of 6 A note from Stephen Sherbourne outlining concerns over Number Ten's stance over Libya 4 of 6 An archived letter from 1986 detailing plans for a test drive of the new Rover ahead of a press event at Downing Street 5 of 6 Margaret Thatcher 6 of 6 Prev
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The BBC coverage enraged Tebbit who launched a prolonged counterattack which alarmed Number Ten in both its style and substance. Once among Thatcher’s closest allies, by 1986, their relationship had deteriorated remarkably.
“Number Ten was keen to fight the next election at least in part on the issue of defence where Labour was vulnerable,” added Collins. “Anything that kept Libya in the headlines jeopardised that plan.”
Tebbit’s attacks on the BBC became so severe, and riled Home Secretary Douglas Hurd so much, that Nigel Wicks, Thatcher’s Personal Private Secretary, warned the PM that Tebbit’s ‘obsession’ with the BBC coverage risked repeating elements of the Westland affair all over again – going against the collective responsibility of the Government when things had appeared to be settling down.
Alongside larger worries about national and international affairs, the papers for 1986 also record the concerns of Mrs Thatcher’s advisors when it to plans for the Prime Minister to test drive the new Rover 800 in Downing Street – all in the name of lending a hand to the ailing car manufacturer British Leyland.
“There were predictable worries,” added Collins. “Her press secretary Bernard Ingham remembered a previous Rover test drive when the firm had delivered a red car. Officials were also worried that the Prime Minister’s driving skills might not be up to scratch!”
A quiet rehearsal was arranged at Chequers, with the car towed secretively under cover, while plans for the Downing Street drive were formalised. In the end, perhaps buoyed by her experience at Chequers, Mrs Thatcher not only drove the car along Downing Street, but also reversed it, pulling off the manoeuvre flawlessly in front of the assembled press.
Rover, rather cackhandedly, later attempted to sell her a discounted car under their “VIP Preferential Purchase Scheme”. The offer was never taken up.
Andrew Riley, Archivist of the Thatcher papers at the Churchill Archives Centre, said: “Margaret Thatcher’s personal papers for 1986, released for the first time today at Churchill Archives Centre, provide unique insights into a year which ultimately proved to date a little over half way into her Premiership. Of course, no one knew in 1986 just how long she would stay at Downing Street but for the first time the issue of “succession” had been dramatically raised.
“Her political troubles are well documented in the release, especially the dramas of the Westland crisis and her isolation within Cabinet on a number of key foreign policy issues. The release gives a chance for a fresh look at the major political news stories of 1986 and a chance to understand something of the stress of the Prime Minister’s year.”SAN JOSE, Calif. – The San Jose Earthquakes announced today that Jamaican midfielder Khari Stephenson has returned to the club, signing after one season away with Real Salt Lake. The club also announced that is has waived midfielder Walter Martinez. Per league and team policy, terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Stephenson, 33, is an 11-year professional with experience in Europe and MLS. He began his career with the Kansas City Wizards in 2004, making nine appearances in two years before departing for Sweden. The lanky center midfielder spent one season with GAIS before moving to AIK, another Swedish outfit. In 2008, Stephenson joined Aalesunds FK of Norway, making 39 appearances during three seasons in the Tippeligaen.
Following his five years in Europe, Stephenson signed with the Earthquakes on Aug. 11, 2010. He scored one goal and had one assist in 11 appearances while helping San Jose reach the MLS Cup Playoffs for the first time since the return of the club to MLS in 2008. A year later, he tallied five goals and four assists while starting 27 of his 31 games. Stephenson had another two goals and three assists in 27 appearances a year later during the Earthquakes’ memorable run to the 2012 MLS Supporters’ Shield. After that campaign, Stephenson was picked up by Real Salt Lake during Stage 2 of the 2012 MLS Re-Entry Process. He signed with RSL on Feb. 22, 2013 and went on to record one goal and one assist in 19 games.
Martinez, 31, scored two goals and had two assists in 15 appearances for the Earthquakes. He originally signed with San Jose on March 15, 2013 after three seasons in China. Among his highlights with the Earthquakes was a game-winning goal against Seattle Sounders FC on July 13 at Buck Shaw Stadium, a match that San Jose won 1-0.
Transaction: San Jose Earthquakes (MLS) – San Jose Earthquakes sign M Khari Stephenson, waive M Walter Martinez.
Khari Stephenson
Position: Midfielder
Jersey Number: 9
Height: 6-1
Weight: 185
Born: January 18, 1981 in Kingston, Jamaica
Hometown: Kingston, Jamaica
College: Williams College
Last Club: Aalesunds FK (Norway)Share
Linksys on Wednesday introduced two new networking products: the EA9300 Wireless AC router and its very first cable modem/router combo, the CG7500. The former EA9300 stand-alone router is a tri-band solution, meaning it broadcasts two 5GHz connections and one 2.4GHz connection. The CG7500 combo unit only offers two connections and serves as a replacement for your ISP’s supplied modem.
According to Linksys, the stand-alone router is capable of speeds of up to 750Mbps on the 2.4GHz band and up to 1,625Mbps on each 5GHz band. However, to see those maximum speeds, the connecting wireless devices must include three internal antennas to capture the three streams broadcast by the router.
While those numbers sound uncommonly high, consider that the router broadcasts three streams per 2.4GHz/5GHz/5GHz connection (3x3x3). In turn, each stream has a maximum channel width and waveform (modulation). On the 2.4GHz front, a stream with a channel width of 40MHz and a 256-QAM modulation can achieve 200Mbps per second. However, the new router uses a 1024-QAM modulation, increasing the speed to 250Mbps. The 5GHz bands also use a 1024-QAM modulation to hit 541.67Mbps per stream.
Typically, we see devices packing only two internal antennas getting a maximum 2.4GHz speed of 400Mbps and a maximum 5GHz speed of 867Mbps. However, all of these speeds are theoretical anyway, and devices won’t hit those maximum numbers unless the user is in a sterile, interference-free environment. Here’s a more detailed diagram:
2.4GHz @ 750Mbps = 250Mbps + 250Mbps + 250Mbps
Modulation Channel Width Max Speed 64-QAM (5/6) 40MHz 150Mbps 256-QAM (5/6) 40MHz 200Mbps 1024-QAM (5/6) 40MHz 250Mbps
5GHz @ 1,625Mbps = 541.67Mbps + 541.67Mbps + 541.67Mbps
Modulation Channel Width Max Speed 64-QAM (5/6) 80MHz 325Mbps 256-QAM (5/6) 80MHz 433.3Mbps 1024-QAM (5/6) 80MHz 541.67Mbps
As for other features, the new router features a quad-core processor clocked at 1.8GHz, 512MB of system memory, 256MB of internal storage, four gigabit Ethernet ports for wired devices, one gigabit Ethernet port for the modem connection, two USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A ports, and six external antennas.
The CG7500 modem/router hybrid is compatible with Comcast Xfinity and Charter Spectrum broadband services up to 300Mbps. On the wireless front, it’s also a three-stream device, although its speeds aren’t quite as robust. On the 2.4GHz end, the CG7500 reaches up to 600Mbps (3 x 200Mbps), while the 5GHz band reaches up to 1,300Mbps (3 x 433.3Mbps).
The new modem/router combo is based on Intel’s Puma 6 processor built specifically for version 3.0 of the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification, which is what enables cable TV and broadband data transfers. The chip is “flexible and high-performing,” enabling download speeds of up to 960Mbps even though the modem/router hybrid is locked to 300Mbps broadband plans.
The CG7500 includes four gigabit Ethernet ports, one F-Type female cable connection, and one USB 2.0 port. The device is available now for a one-time purchase price of $200, which eliminates the rental fees associated with using a broadband provider’s modem. The stand-alone EA9300 router is also available for a heftier $300.the satellites are more reliable than the weather stations, especially because they don't depend on complicated and subtle procedures of homogenization (and things like the urban heat islands) the troposphere, and not the surface, is where the CO2 greenhouse global warming theory is actually predicting the most visible signal, so it's the place where we should look if we want to have the best chance of validating the hypothesis!
Two months ago, it has been ten years since this weblog was founded. Two months later, a group of fraudulent proponents of the climate hysteria founded RealClimate.ORG, a domain designed to spread misinformation about the climate issue.I never planned to celebrate the 10th birthday because I find such celebrations stupid and I am shy – but if you want to drink some whiskey at home, be my guest! After these ten years, this blog run by one person (but made so inspiring and kind by many of you, thank you!) has welcomed the same number of visitors as RealClimate.ORG which is run by a dozen of folks, about 50% of the "global community" that wants to force the mankind to pay trillions of dollars. Not bad.Congratulations to the 10th birthday of RealClimate.ORG.Lacking the Lumoesque shyness, modesty, and focus on the beef, the RealClimate.ORG website has published not just one but three Meanwhile, their friends celebrated, too. All of them flew to Peru, Lima and set a new world record in the money wasted for a hysterical climatic conference. Their Greenpeace comrades, also in Peru, damaged and desecrated the Nazca lines by an ancient civilization that have been carefully protected for 1,500 years. (Ironically enough, the most irreversible damage has been done by the Greenpeace officials' footprints, too. The Peruvian government normally demands special shoes etc. for all the visitors.) The similarity of this vandalism to the liquidation of heritage by the Islamic State is way too obvious.The Peruvian government is suing Greenpeace and because of the pricelessness of these geoglyphs, the Latin American nation undoubtedly has the moral right to liquidate the disrespectful terrorist organization. But my realism prevents me from believing that this outcome will actually materialize. But I want to discuss the previous RealClimate.ORG blog post – one about a... widget. Stefan Rahmstorf wrote a rant for RealClimate.ORG whose title wasIt's pretty comical that a group of people who demand trillions of dollars to be wasted for the pseudoscientific fantasies and who claim to define the mainstream pick the 137th most important piece of software on a blog of a climate skeptic as their target.But it's simply the case that Anthony Watts' climate blog has traffic that exceeds that of RealClimate.ORG – or my blog – by a factor of fifteen. Among many other things, Anthony Watts also maintains a "climate widget"that you may find in the right sidebar of The Reference Frame, too. The RealClimate.ORG men who are getting tons of money are dreaming that they will earn a footnote in Anthony Watts' memoirs, or something like that, so they decided to analyze the widget. Here is the summary of Rahmstorf's criticism:Well, I happen to strongly disagree with all these criticisms. In other words, if someone created a widget that would respect these criticisms, it would be much more misleading than Anthony Watts' widget. Let me say a few details about the individual points. WUWT published its own reply to the RealClimate.ORG criticism of the widget.Watts is criticized for using the monthly data. Why doesn't Rahmstorf like the monthly data? Well, the answer is obvious and he openly admits it. He doesn't like it because the monthly temperature anomalies oscillate and the "global warming trend" that he would like to amplify and emphasize largely gets lost in the noise. So it's bad, isn't it?The problem with this criticism is that the monthly oscillations are completely real and different temperature datasets agree about them more precisely than they agree about the trend. In this sense, these wiggles are more real than the "global warming" itself! The monthly noise is completely verifiable. Indeed, in combination, the data imply that the trend visible in recent decades doesn't really exceed the normal noise. And you know what? It just doesn't.Any averaging of the data designed to show a simpler, smoother, perhaps nearly linear curve would be fraudulent. Such a manipulation with the data would convey the message that there is a clear underlying trend in the temperature data. But there is no clear underlying trend in the temperature data. The previous sentence has a very clear meaning: the amount of trend-like warming e.g. in 35 years is comparable to the noise – or at least, it isn't substantially greater than that.So the temperature data are pretty nicely compatible with their interpretation as "noise", especially if you choose some pink noise (noise of an appropriate "color"). This correct conclusion may only be obtained if we carefully look at the relative magnitude of the noise and the hypothetical underlying trend. It is very clear that any method to artificially suppress the noise is fraudulent because it makes the signal-to-noise ratio look greater than it actually is.Rahmstorf says that the surface data, and not the lower troposphere temperature data, should be plotted because "the surface is where we live". The difference between the surface-based and troposphere-based datasets isn't too large but let's assume that we care about the difference.Why does Rahmstorf prefer the surface data? Because they show a slightly higher underlying trend – still negligible for all practical purposes.Why is it more relevant to draw the troposphere's temperatures? There are at least two reasons:When we look in the troposphere, we see a trend that is compatible with the interpretation of noise and that is 2-4 times smaller than what is routinely predicted by the global warming hysterics. So the predictions are falsified, the would-be science behind the hysteria has been discredited, and it's arguably inconvenient for those who have been spreading this hysteria for years.But this disagreement is not the fault of Anthony Watts' widget.I must make one more comment about Rahmstorf's assertion that "no one lives in the troposphere". His alternative is to plot the global mean temperature near the surface but no one lives at the "average of the whole globe", either! Everyone lives at some particular place of the surface at every moment and if we plot the local weather, we will get much higher variations – even relatively to the monthly oscillations that Rahmstorf disliked – and indeed, the "global warming" would become almost entirely invisible. After all, 30% of weather stations saw a cooling in the last 100 years or so.You know, I don't consider the hypotheses that the fluctuations in the solar activity significantly influence the climate on Earth to be settled. Clear evidence doesn't exist in one way or another. The Sun surely has some impact – but whether it was producing a temperature change in the last 40 years that is comparable to the apparent "trend-like" temperature change during that period is as open a question as a similar question for CO2.But the point is that many users of the widget are interested in the Sun and its possible role in climate change. And the widget correctly conveys the idea that both CO2 and the solar activity may influence the climate and we may want to study both of them. None of the two graphs is accurately (and not even approximately) mimicking the shape of the global mean temperatures.At the end, it is rather likely that neither CO2 nor the solar activity are extremely important. That's surely what e.g. Richard Lindzen would tell you. It's a fallacy to try to attribute the climate change and look for an "external" and deterministic explanation. The wiggles in the temperature graph are likely to be random numbers produced by the internal complex processes in the Earth's atmosphere (and oceans) that are largely unpredictable.But given the apparent correlation of the solar activity with some cold periods in the history and because of the known candidate theories that allow the solar activity to modulate the climate, it is surely fair for the widget to show some of the "solar weather" – after all, this phrase contains the word "weather", too.The graph on the widget shows both the global mean temperature (in the troposphere) and the (nearly linearly increasing) CO2 concentration. They have different units so of course the relative scale on the y-axis is a matter of conventions.However, the widget uses a simple convention that maximally uses the area in the whole rectangle reserved for the graphs.And there's one more reason why the relative scale in Watts' widget is nearly perfect: the line representing the CO2 concentration may actually be read as
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’t think you’re missing out too much.
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I got an unexpected lesson in the power of the U.S. dollar during a visit to Tashkent, the dreary capital of Uzbekistan, several years back. While heading into town from the airport, my babbling taxi driver kept one hand (barely) on the steering wheel while his other shoved a stack of local currency, the som, into my face. He insistently urged me to trade the money for dollars. After checking in at the grim Hotel Uzbekistan, a nattily clad porter showed me and my wife to a room, fiddled with a broken TV set, and then reached into his jacket pockets for large bricks of som. He, too, persistently begged me for greenbacks. In Uzbekistan, the dollar ruled.
So it has been throughout the world, from North Korean souvenir shops to Ethiopian bazaars, for the past six decades. Government officials measure the health of national economies by how many dollars are stashed away in their central-bank vaults. The international prices of everything from crude oil to cocoa beans are denominated in dollars. The dollar is a universal medium of exchange because it is liquid, readily available and backed by the largest economy in the world. There has been little reason for global commerce to function any other way. (See pictures of the global financial crisis.)
Until now. As the world reels from the worst recession since the 1930s a recession triggered by faulty U.S. economic stewardship a vociferous chorus of critics is calling for a coup to topple King Dollar. In late March, Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of China's central bank, said the global economy would be better off with a "supersovereign" reserve currency, in place of one issued by a specific nation in other words, the dollar. "The frequency and increasing intensity of financial crises," Zhou said, "suggests the costs of such a system to the world may have exceeded its benefits." Zhou recommended turning Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), the unit of account used by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), into the premier international currency. Then a U.N. panel of economists led by Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel laureate, concluded that a reformed financial system with a new No. 1 international currency would help bring greater strength and equity to the global economy. Stiglitz told reporters there was a "growing consensus that there are problems with the dollar reserve system," which he described as "relatively volatile, deflationary [and] unstable." (See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.)
Arguments against the status quo have their merits. Over the past two years, global dependence on the dollar has been at the heart of the world's nastiest economic problems. Early in 2008, a weakening dollar was a factor in spiking prices of energy, commodities and food, which placed a disproportionate burden on the limited incomes of the poor. The dollar-dominated system has also allowed the U.S. to finance its budget and trade deficits at a low cost, which perpetuated the global imbalances that contributed to the current economic crisis. A system like the one proposed by Beijing, argues Deutsche Bank economist Jun Ma, would make it possible "for China and many other countries to avoid being victims of the systemic risks generated by domestic economic problems and policy mistakes in issuing countries of major reserve currencies."
There is also the possibility that the dollar, after its recent show of strength, will again weaken in value against other major currencies, eroding its attractiveness as a reserve currency. Confidence in the health of the U.S. economy, and therefore the U.S. dollar, could plunge because of continued large U.S. current-account deficits, an unstable banking sector and a recession-busting, expansionist monetary policy. The budget deficit, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates will reach $1.8 trillion this fiscal year, or 13% of GDP, is reaching heights not seen since World War II. (See the top 10 worst business deals of 2008.)
The dollar has also been supported recently by the deleveraging taking place within the U.S. financial system. Desperate for cash, U.S. financial institutions have been liquidating foreign assets and repatriating the funds, pushing up the value of the dollar. As that process plays out, a key support of the dollar's value could be removed. Currency markets are clearly jittery. In late March, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner sent the dollar tumbling when he said he was "actually quite open" to China's proposal for a greater role for SDRs. The dollar lost 1.3% against the euro within 10 minutes of Geithner's unexpected comment. (The greenback recovered a short time later, after Geithner said he expected the dollar to remain the top global currency.) "The chance of a very abrupt fall in the dollar is quite possible," says Harvard University economist Jeffrey Frankel.
See pictures of the dangers of printing money.
See pictures of the world's most expensive cities at LIFE.com.Torrential rains, storms, hailstorms and strong winds were felt across northern Italy over the weekend, forcing the closure of roads and creating substantial damage to infrastructure. Urban centres such as Milan and Bergamo experienced thunderstorms all weekend while two towns, Enego and Vittorio Veneto, have already declared a state of emergency.
A 13-year-old boy of Moroccan nationality has been declared missing after he was washed away by strong currents in the Adda river - a tributary to the Po, Italy's largest river - in the municipality of Lodi, near Milan.
The flood follows a week of record high temperatures and extreme weather conditions across Italy. In Bolzano, which sits at the feet of the Alps, temperatures reached 38C last week before 64 millimetres of rain fell in a few hours. Fire fighters responded to 120 emergencies in Bolzano alone, according to La Repubblica.
In Catania, the heel of the archipelago's boot-like shape and the other end of Italy, families in some parts were evacuated as a precaution last week.
The rains have seen rivers overflow and flood throughout northern regions, from Piedmont to Veneto and Lombardy. Hailstorms destroyed camping grounds, garages and homes in the northeast.
According to Coldiretti, an Italian farmers association, the torrential weather conditions have also affected the annual prosecco harvest, with entire vineyards destroyed. A spokesman for Coldiretti said "hail grains like ping pong balls" had fallen all weekend.
READ MORE: Why Italy wants Unesco heritage status for its Prosecco hills
The storms across northern Italy follow a week in which whole areas of the south were placed on red alert, the highest warning for extreme weather conditions.
READ MORE: One dead as rain wreaks havoc in southern Italy
In some areas of Catania, more than 200 millimetres of rain fell in less than 24 hours last week. Cars were swept off the road and at least one person was reported dead. Four earthquakes also struck the central Italian region of l'Aquila midway through last week.
Weather forecasts predict temperatures in the high 30s Celsius again this week, with only mild showers expected.On the public radio show This American Life, host Ira Glass notes the widening chasm between the two parties:
"Everyone knows that politics is now so divided in our country that not only do the two sides disagree on the solutions to the country’s problems, they don’t even agree on what the problems are. It’s two versions of the world in collision."
Even the frequency of key words used in the two documents is indicative of the parties' drastically contrasting perspectives. Take the mention of "God" for example: In the Republican party platform it appears 10 times. In the Democratic platform: once (added in only after lengthy debate). Likewise, mention of "the Constitution"(or some variation thereof, like "constitutional") is referenced 60 times in the Republican platform as compared to just six in the Democratic one. And while Democrats make multiple references to the "climate change" and the urgency of addressing it, there is not single mention of it in the entire Republican platform.
Click the image above to download the PDF. Excepts are taken directly from the platforms of both parties platforms, illustrating some of the widest divides on a range of major national issues. Download the PDF above or browse through the interactive version below.
Not sure what side you're on? Take this Procon.org party platform identity quiz.WASHINGTON — Pharmaceutical companies that manufacture or distribute highly addictive pain pills have hired dozens of officials from the top levels of the Drug Enforcement Administration during the past decade, according to a Washington Post investigation.
The hires came after the DEA launched an aggressive campaign to curb a rising opioid epidemic that has resulted in thousands of overdose deaths each year. In 2005, the DEA began to crack down on companies distributing inordinate numbers of pills such as oxycodone to pain-management clinics and pharmacies.
Since then, the pharmaceutical companies and their law firms have hired at least 42 officials from the DEA — 31 from the division responsible for regulating the industry, according to work histories compiled by The Washington Post and interviews with current and former agency officials.
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‘‘The number of employees recruited from that division points to a deliberate strategy by the pharmaceutical industry to hire people who are the biggest headaches for them,’’ said John Carnevale, a former director of planning for the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy who now runs a consulting firm. ‘‘These people understand how DEA operates, the culture around diversion and DEA’s goals, and they can advise their clients how to stay within the guidelines.’’
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The DEA’s Diversion Control Division, tasked with preventing prescription drugs from reaching the black market, wields enormous power. It can suspend or revoke the licenses of doctors, pharmacies, and pharmaceutical companies that fail to comply with federal law.
From 2000 to 2015, nearly 180,000 people have died of overdoses from prescription painkillers in what public health authorities have called an epidemic.
It is not unusual for corporations to hire federal employees away from the government. Their expertise and inside knowledge can be invaluable, but there are laws and regulations to slow the ‘‘revolving door’’ in Washington and prevent conflicts of interest.
The restrictions include a lifetime ban on participating ‘‘personally and substantially’’ on a ‘‘particular matter’’ the official handled while at the federal government. There also is a two-year ban on switching sides on a wider array of matters that were in the employee’s official purview. State bar associations impose additional post-employment restrictions for government lawyers.
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An industry spokesman said former DEA diversion officials are hired for their expertise.
‘‘Our industry is highly specialized, and the function of drug-diversion experts even more so,’’ said John M. Gray, chief executive of the Healthcare Distribution Alliance, which represents drug distributors. ‘‘As such, for these individuals who want to continue to grow in their areas of expertise, it is logical for them to pursue government and industry roles that are closely aligned with their professional experience.’’
While the Post did not find evidence that the officials violated conflict-of-interest regulations, the number of hires from one key division shows how an industry can potentially blunt a government agency’s aggressive attempts at enforcement.
The DEA diversion officials who have gone to the industry since 2005 include two executive assistants who managed day-to-day operations; the deputy director of the division; the deputy chief of operations; two chiefs of policy; a deputy chief of policy; the chief of investigations; and two associate chief counsels.
‘‘It’s obvious that they targeted the office,’’ said Joseph T. Rannazzisi, who ran the diversion division for a decade before he was removed from his position and retired in 2015. ‘‘If you want to understand how we were doing our investigations, the best way to do it is to take our people who are doing the investigations and put them in place in your company. It’s not difficult to understand why you would take these guys. They know the law.’’
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Most of the officials went to work for the pharmaceutical industry and law firms within weeks of leaving the DEA. The Post found that several high-ranking DEA supervisors from outside the diversion division also took top jobs with industry: four special agents in charge and three assistant special agents in charge of field operations in some of the nation’s largest cities.
‘I don’t feel like I took off the white hat and put the black hat on.’ Larry P. Cote, who left the DEA to be a partner at a law firm that drug makers hire
The DEA said in a statement that former employees must follow the law and ethics regulations in taking jobs in the private sector.
‘‘Many who serve in government possess expert knowledge in a wide variety of fields. It is not uncommon for former government officials to use or rely on such expertise when they transfer to the private sector following their public sector service,’’ DEA spokesman Rusty Payne said in the statement. ‘‘Employees who leave DEA and other government agencies for private sector work are expected to abide by the applicable laws and ethics rules that govern their private sector activities.’’
At least five of the 31 DEA employees were hired by McKesson, the nation’s largest drug distributor.
McKesson has been the subject of two publicly disclosed DEA enforcement actions, which resulted in $163 million in fines after allegations that the firm failed to report hundreds of suspicious orders for millions of pain pills from Internet pharmacies and others.
‘‘McKesson has put significant resources towards building a best-in-class controlled substance monitoring program to help identify suspicious orders and prevent prescription drug diversion in the supply chain,’’ the company said in a statement. ‘‘It is only natural that this team is comprised of a broad range of experts, including individuals who have spent time at DEA, as they bring deep knowledge of effective strategies to prevent diversion. Our team is deeply passionate about curbing the opioid epidemic in our country.’’
Only a few former DEA officials agreed to be interviewed. Those who did said they followed federal ethics guidelines.
‘‘I don’t feel like I took off the white hat and put the black hat on,’’ said Larry P. Cote, who left as the associate chief counsel of the diversion division in May 2012 to become a partner at the law firm Quarles & Brady, which advises some of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical companies. ‘‘That’s really not what’s going on. It’s trying to get the best people in place to make sure that companies are staying compliant. And frankly, that benefits the DEA as much as it benefits the companies.’’
Cote said he obtained an ethics opinion from the DEA that advised him on which cases he could and could not handle in the private sector.
Ethics experts said revolving-door issues have been a long-standing concern across the government. President-elect Donald Trump recently criticized the revolving door at the Pentagon, for example, saying high-ranking officials ‘‘should never be allowed to go work’’ for defense contractors.
Scott H. Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group in Washington, said the trend at the DEA is “disturbing.”
‘‘It’s also another reminder of how well the revolving door is greased and how the revolving door can negatively impact government operations. It’s not a surprise that DEA isn’t as vigilant as it once was when so many ex-feds are working for the companies that they once investigated.’’
Once senior employees leave for jobs in the industry, they are in positions to help pharmaceutical companies comply with the complex laws and regulations that govern controlled substances. But ethics experts said they also can exploit weaknesses are aware of within the DEA.
Josephine Peterson contributed to this report.SACRAMENTO – It’s an old cliché, but one doesn’t find beer distributors gunning each other down in the town square in battles over market turf. Whisky distillers don’t dump pollutants in streams and rivers – and bars and restaurants that serve cocktails tend to be safe places that follow modern building codes. People rarely go blind drinking hooch that some disreputable “distiller” made in a bathtub.
Alcoholism causes terrible problems, but since the end of Prohibition Americans have made their peace with booze. It’s been harder convincing policy makers to take a similar approach with marijuana, even though the War on Drugs has left a trail of destruction that’s as troubling as the ill it seeks to combat. Conservative icon William F. Buckley warned years ago about the toll that war would take on civil liberties and budgets, but few heeded his warnings. When will politicians learn?
Fortunately, voters are learning that the relatively benign drug of marijuana is best dealt with using a tax-and-regulatory approach rather than SWAT teams and prosecutions. The federal government is behind the times, of course, with Attorney General Jeff Sessions blathering about weed in a way that would make members of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union proud, if there were indeed still members of that group.
Californians voted last November by a 14-point margin to legalize recreational uses of marijuana. It wasn’t that controversial, having the backing of the California Medical Association, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and GOP Congressman Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach. California is one of several states that legalize recreational use. Twenty-nine states plus the District of Columbia legalize weed in some form. Even Arkansas passed a medical-marijuana measure.
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Addressing local and global challenges It’s been a long process watching this illicit industry morph into a legal one, which should be a wakeup call for those who think that one year into any presidency is going to lead to any serious swamp-draining in any area of public life. Regulatory rollbacks can take a very long time. Sadly, the marijuana legalization process has been excruciatingly slow given that marijuana use wasn’t particularly taboo even when I was in high school 40 years ago.
It’s been more than 20 years since Californians voted to legalize medical marijuana with the passage of Proposition 215. That was a good idea even though it created bizarre scenarios. It’s widely known that one need only claim “anxiety” to get a prescription, which then opens the door to products sold at dispensaries. That never really bothered me. If it weren’t for regulatory workarounds, there would be far fewer freedoms in this country.
But it wasn’t until last year that the California Legislature finally got around to establishing rules for dispensaries that were operating in a legal gray area since 1996. Again, the voters led the way. When it seemed obvious that Proposition 64, the recreational legalization measure, would be on the November 2016 ballot, legislators realized they finally needed to clarify the legal framework for medical marijuana, because that would become the template for recreational sales.
And now, with legal sales of recreational products coming online, the state government just issued 276 pages of regulations to deal with the budding weed market. This is California, so the tax bite will be steep – and the rules govern every aspect of marijuana’s sale and delivery.
Adults may purchase up to an ounce of marijuana. Weed may not be delivered via drone or bicycle and must be tested for various chemicals, according to news reports. There are limits on additives such as caffeine and THC (the high-causing compound) levels in edibles. Many rules are perfectly reasonable, but there’s a current debate over the size of allowable marijuana grows. Some state officials are upset that the new regulations don’t limit the size of marijuana farms.
Local governments are wrestling with limits and even bans on marijuana sales, which shouldn’t be a surprise given that cities still regulate and debate the number and locations of liquor stores and tobacco sellers. Police worry that illegal grows may continue given that marijuana is still illegal elsewhere – and California could be a source of illegal exports.
Before the initiative passed, I wrote about longtime marijuana activists who opposed legalization efforts. Some did so because they feared that the new highly regulated and taxed regimen would be too heavy-handed and oppressive. Some attitudes may reflect an old saying about the “Baptists and the Bootleggers” who united to support Prohibition – the first for moral reasons, the second to protect their established market share.
The debates often overlook an obvious fact. Marijuana isn’t called weed for nothing – it grows easily and is widely available, legal or not. For all the flaws in the state’s evolving legalization process, it’s still better than the Prohibitionist alternative. Maybe one day soon, marijuana businesses will be totally mainstream – and will be stuck complaining about high taxes and overregulation like the rest of us.
Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. He was a Register editorial writer from 1998-2009. Write to him at [email protected]: Millennials Love Kik, Snapchat and Other Messaging Apps: Pew
Young people were more likely to say they went online "almost constantly" — 36 percent of people aged 18-29, and 28 percent of the 30-49 group. Any older than that and the numbers drop off considerably.
Those with more education and those with more income also reported going online more frequently, and black respondents jumped on the Internet slightly more often than their white or Hispanic counterparts.
Related: Obama Pledges to Bring Broadband Internet to Poor Households
Of course, when equipped with a smartphone or tablet, the numbers rise as well: 87 percent of mobile device owners go online daily, compared with just 65 percent of those without.
Pew's survey was conducted by phone with 2,001 Americans aged 18 and older, in June and July of this year.Photos courtesy of Bolt Thrower
Ten years ago, a British death metal band called Bolt Thrower released an album called Those Once Loyal. In the grand universal scheme of things, it wasn’t that big of a deal. That same year, Hurricane Katrina drowned New Orleans; over eight hundred US troops were killed in Iraq; over eighty thousand people died after an earthquake in Kashmir; North Korea let it slip that the Hermit Kingdom possessed nuclear weaponry; the Provisional IRA finally laid down its arms, and the indomitable Rosa Parks left this mortal coil. Those were big deals; a death metal album (even a really good death metal album) was no more than a flyspeck in comparison.
But once we alight from that global stage, and circle back down towards smaller, more manageable milestones, Those Once Loyal becomes a Big Deal once again. The ten-song work was the inadvertent swansong of a band at the top of their game. It was never meant to be the final Bolt Thrower album at all, merely the eighth link in a killchain that began with 1988’s In Battle There Is No Law (yes, there were a handful of demo recordings that surfaced prior to that, but we’re talking full-on albums here). Bolt Thrower is an institution now, but at the time of the album’s release, they were merely a whole lot of people’s favorite band.
Continued below.
The band had already begun recording their next foray into battle-hardened death metal supremacy when suddenly, there came word of an unforeseen turn of events. In 2008, Bolt Thrower announced that they’d binned the recordings for their then-upcoming new album, for the very frank and simple reason that they just weren’t good enough. They didn’t feel that they could top Those Once Loyal, and so they didn’t waste anyone’s time by trying. As the band said in a collective statement, “From day one we made it clear that we'd stop recording when we felt we'd written the ultimate Bolt Thrower album, we just never knew when that would be, we kind of took for granted that each release would get better and better. But we have realised now that our last release, Those Once Loyal turned out to be that album, and basically the new stuff we have written just doesn't match up to it. We have a lot of pride in our back catalogue, and we refuse to turn into one of the many bands (like the ones we grew up listening to) who end up releasing crap, and we're also not prepared to compromise by instead releasing an album of cover versions or a 'best of' album.”
It's hard to blame them for thinking it'd be impossible to top Those Once Loyal, because it's about as perfect a death metal album as any fan of the genre could wish to hear. The guitar tone alone has launched a thousand imitators, and the band's deep roots in thrash and punk inform even the most bludgeoning of riffs with an upbeat looseness primed for maximum headbangability. Longtime vocalist Karl Willetts returned to the fold following the departure of Dave Ingram, layering full-throated roar and haunting WWI imagery atop Baz Thomson's and Gavin Ward's trademark merciless mid-tempo chug and customarily devastating mid-song breakdowns, Martin Kearns's commanding drums, and Jo Bench's powerful basslines. It's formulaic in the most satisfying way possible—Bolt Thrower''s sound is utterly unmistakable, and the ace production job on this album makes that more apparent then ever. There aren't any bad Bolt Thrower albums, but it's easy to see why the band considers this one their best.
My soft spot for Bolt Thrower goes beyond the music itself, as I’d suspect the case may be for quite a few other people, too. It’s more personal than just owning a few records or ticket stubs. To start, I was born in 1988, the same year their iconic debut album dropped. As a young metalhead growing up in the middle of nowhere, discovering Jo Bench’s existence hit me like a bolt of lightning; they were the first truly extreme band I came across that featured a woman in a role other than that of a singer. I worshipped Angela Gossow, too, but was especially drawn to Bench’s no frills, get-shit-done demeanor and shitkicker boots. She didn’t dress up, which resonated with me as a tomboyish teenager—she was there to fucking play, and was completely uninterested in being anyone’s pinup girl as she laid down the thunder with her BC Rich Ironbird.
Now there are tons of women in the spotlight (and there were of course others back then, too; I just wasn’t lucky enough to have discovered them yet) but Bench will always hold a hallowed place for me. Bolt Thrower were there for me once I entered adulthood, too. In a stroke of profound luck a decade or so later, after a legendary 2012 London gig with Autopsy and Discharge that offered tickets for a mere 6 quid—less than ten dollars American—I ended up having a drink with the man who’d end up capturing my heart and moving across an ocean to put up with my shit forevermore. In battle there may be no law, but occasionally, there is romance.
Bolt Thrower in 1992.
At the heart of it all, the widespread reverence so many people feel for this scrappy band from Coventry. If there’s ever been a band that’s stayed loyal to their ideals through thick and thin, it’s Bolt Thrower. Cheap t-shirts, cheap concert tickets, label battles, punk ethics stretched down to the marrow—they’re almost as beloved for their ethos as for their churning, world-eating riffs, and Those Once Loyal’s unexpected coronation as the last of the line is a sterling example thereof. Bolt Thrower’s self-imposed triage system saved their fans from struggling with the bloody reality of desperation, of that harsh moment when you come to realize that band you really love and believe in is just in it for a paycheck. The band has soldiered on as an occasional live entity (even embarking on a few far-flung tours). Rumors of that mythical ninth album surface upon occasion, but as of the time of this writing, there’s little hope that new material will be written.
And that’s okay. Bolt Thrower bowed out with grace, sending their dead home in a closed coffin instead of propping it up listlessly on life support like so many others of their generation have seen fit to do. In refusing to betray their fans or their own principles, their discography was granted a warrior's death. They went out like Bubba, instead of clinging feebly to a facsimile of existence like Lieutenant Dan. There is honor in that kind of exit—honor, valor, and pride.
Kim Kelly is making a last stand for humanity on Twitter.In the view of Ms. Duffy and other experts on congressional elections, Mr. Stevens, who is locked in a very competitive race with Mark Begich, his Democratic opponent, can still prevail if he is able to win the case, which is scheduled to begin on Wednesday. A guilty verdict could end his rather amazing political career.
In the meantime, Mr. Stevens is going to have to count on television advertising, video links and surrogates in his re-election fight because the trial is going to keep him in Washington and off the campaign trail for at least the next month.
Though a number of House members have gone before the dock recently, criminal charges against sitting United States senators are rare. According to the Senate Historical Office, Mr. Stevens is the 11th to have been indicted. Of those, four senators have been convicted.
The first was John Smith, an Ohio Republican, who was accused of conspiring with Vice President Aaron Burr to commit treason. He was found not guilty, and the Senate fell just one vote short of expelling him, though he resigned his seat at his state’s request in 1808.
The last to go through a full trial was Senator Harrison A. Williams, Democrat of New Jersey, who was convicted of bribery and conspiracy in 1981 and faced certain expulsion by the Senate before he resigned and served nearly two years in prison.
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Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, was indicted for official misconduct by a state court in Texas in 1993, but she was ordered acquitted in 1994 as her trial opened and the prosecutor essentially folded his case.
Through the years, a handful of other senators have faced charges for such things as taking bribes in exchange for a postmaster’s position or pressing claims in return for money. But the Stevens case appears unique, with such a prominent senator trying to win an acquittal on the eve of the election.
As some Senate Republicans eye the prospects of national attention being focused on the case next week, some of them are understandably nervous, since the notoriety surrounding Mr. Stevens could rub off on other Republican candidates facing re-election in a tough year. It might also remind voters that two other Republican senators got in a bit of trouble recently — Senator Larry Craig of Idaho, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in a sex sting at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, and Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, who was named as a customer of an escort service that the police said was a prostitution front.
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The political fortunes of Mr. Stevens have taken a bit of an upward turn lately as his poll numbers have improved, though Mr. Begich, the mayor of Anchorage, still leads in surveys and has strong party backing from Washington. Some of the Stevens bump has been attributed to the decision by Senator John McCain to add Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska to his ticket.
With the media spotlight shining brightly on Ms. Palin, Mr. Stevens may be benefitting from the perception among some voters in Alaska that the media and the Washington establishment are picking on Ms. Palin and by extension her state and its other political figures.
Mr. Stevens has said he did nothing wrong and is asking Alaskan voters to give him the benefit of the doubt after a career spent funneling tens of billions of dollars back home, work that earned him the nickname “Uncle Ted” and saw the federal dollars labeled “Stevens money.” But he first has to persuade a District of Columbia jury that he broke no laws.
Given the odd circumstances, it is impossible to predict how things will shake out. But there is one possibility that would ultimately leave his fate in the hands of his colleagues — an unsettling prospect for some. Mr. Stevens could be convicted and still win re-election. Should he chose to try to remain in the Senate, his colleagues, including lawmakers who have worked with him for decades, would then have to decide whether to try to expel him.
Or it may never get to that.“Girls” star Adam Driver has emerged as the frontrunner to play Batman’s crime-fighting partner Dick Grayson, aka Nightwing (formerly Robin), in Zack Snyder’s superhero sequel “Batman vs. Superman,” two individuals familiar with the project have told TheWrap.
Warner Bros. had no comment.
Driver boasts a unique look that fits the rumored description of Nightwing — Grayson’s post-Robin alter-ego — as a “young John Hawkes,” as first reported by Latino Review. At 6’3”, Driver could hold his own against 6’4” Ben Affleck, who will play an older and world-weary Batman.
A source tells TheWrap that at least two other actors may be in the mix to play Grayson, the Caped Crusader’s former sidekick, who’s been estranged from Bruce Wayne for years in the movie, according to Latino Review.
See photos: 10 Horrible Marvel Movies — Before It Took Over the World
Henry Cavill is set to reprise his role as Superman alongside his “Man of Steel” co-stars Amy Adams and Laurence Fishburne.
Driver — who did a stint in the Marines after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — is a new favorite on the Warner Bros. lot, where he made a strong impression on the studio’s Greg Silverman with his performance in WB’s dysfunctional family comedy “This Is Where I Leave You.” Shawn Levy directed the 2014 release, in which Driver plays the brother of Tina Fey, Jason Bateman and Corey Stoll and the son of Jane Fonda.
Also Read: What’s the Deal?: Fans Should Give Ben Affleck a Chance as Batman (Video)
Warner Bros. has been busy searching for “Batman vs. Superman’s” female lead, who is expected to serve as a love interest for Batman. Olga Kurylenko is the frontrunner, though Gal Gadot (“Fast & Furious 6”) and Elodie Yung (“G.I. Joe: Retaliation”) have also tested for the part and remain in contention. It’s unclear whether the coveted role is that of Wonder Woman or her alter ego Diana Prince, who is expected to make a brief appearance along with fellow DC Comics character the Flash.
Warner Bros. will release “Batman vs. Superman” on July 17, 2015.
Also Read: ‘Batman Vs. Superman': Watch Gotham and Metropolis Duke It Out on the Football Field (Video)
Since his breakout, Emmy-nominated turn as Adam Sackler on “Girls,” Driver has worked with Clint Eastwood on “J. Edgar,” Steven Spielberg on “Lincoln” and the Coen brothers on “Inside Llewyn Davis.”
Driver next stars opposite Mia Wasikowska in John Curran’s “Tracks” and will soon be seen alongside Daniel Radcliffe and Mackenzie Davis in CBS Films’ romantic comedy “The F Word.” He has also reteamed with “Frances Ha” director Noah Baumbach on “While We’re Young.”
Driver is represented by the Gersh Agency.Want these election updates emailed to you right when they’re published? Sign up here.
This weekend was a letdown for those of us hoping for new, high-quality national polls to test how last week’s debate affected the campaign. The only new national polls we received were updates to the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times and UPI/CVoter tracking polls, both of which have actually moved slightly toward Donald Trump, but they still contain a mix of pre-debate and post-debate data. Meanwhile, an ABC News/Washington Post poll showed Hillary Clinton expanding her favorability rating gap with Trump — her numbers are bad, but his numbers are worse. But that poll apparently didn’t actually ask respondents who they were voting for.
So forecast-wise, we’re in the same place that we were on Friday: It’s pretty clear that the debate helped Clinton, but there’s some doubt about the magnitude of her bounce. It’s plausible that she’s gained only 1 or 2 percentage points, increasing her lead over Trump to about 3 points overall. That’s what our models have accounted for so far, enough to make her a 67 percent favorite according to our polls-only forecast and a 64 percent favorite according to polls-plus. Or her bounce could prove to be larger than that, especially given that Trump has woken up to — or stayed up all night tweeting about — a host of bad stories in the week since the debate.
There was one poll that caught our eye, though, and it was from New Mexico. The survey, from Research & Polling Inc. for the Albuquerque Journal, showed a competitive three-way matchup, with Clinton at 35 percent, Trump at 31 percent, and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson at 24 percent. Because New Mexico hasn’t been polled much, the survey had a fair amount of influence on our forecast, reducing Clinton’s chances of winning New Mexico to 82 percent from 85 percent in the polls-only model.
Most of the time, Trump would be the beneficiary of a Clinton loss in New Mexico. But the model also assigns Johnson, the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee, an outside chance — 2 or 3 percent — of winning the state. That could lead to an Electoral College deadlock that looks like this:
In this map, via 270towin.com, Clinton has 267 electoral votes, Trump has 266, and Johnson has New Mexico’s five. With no candidate possessing an Electoral College majority, the election would go to the House of Representatives, with Clinton, Trump and Johnson all eligible to receive votes.
Each candidate might be able to make a claim to legitimacy, of sorts. Trump might argue that the outcome showed that voters had profoundly rejected the status quo — and what could be a bigger rejection of the status quo than a President Trump? But more importantly, he’d have a sympathetic audience, since Republicans are likely to control the majority of congressional delegations. Clinton would probably have won the popular vote in this scenario, since she’s more likely to win the popular vote while losing the Electoral College than the other way around, according to our forecast. And Johnson might try to position himself as some sort of compromise choice.
It’s a somewhat
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REPLAY BY-ELECTION DAY EVENTS BELOWThirteen people have been found guilty of espionage and promoting extremist organisations in the UAE, sources revealed today.
The Abu Dhabi Court of Appeal issued judgments in six security cases yesterday, with jail terms ranging from 18 months to 15 years handed down to the defendants.
Fines were also issues ranging from 6,000 dirhams ($1,600) to one million dirhams ($270,000) in addition to court fees and the cost of deportation after their jail term has been served.
The court sentenced a 28-year-old military officer to 15 years in prison for spying for Iran. He was convicted of passing classified military information to Iranian agents working at the Iranian embassy in Abu Dhabi.
Read: Human rights organisations reject UAE policies in the region
The court also sentenced a 46-year-old Sudanese woman to ten years’ imprisonment and deportation on charges of assisting the Emirati military official to transfer classified information to Iranian clients.
Four Jordanians were also jailed for ten years each after being found guilty of setting up pages on social media platforms which strengthen support for terrorist groups which threaten the UAE’s interests. The men were fined one million dirhams each.Agreement understood to hinge on additional funding for Northern Ireland as sources say deal could come this Tuesday
Negotiators on the deal between Theresa May and the Democratic Unionist party aimed at sustaining a minority Conservative government into Brexit talks are hoping to reach an agreement by Tuesday, DUP sources have indicated.
It could be finalised as the deadline also looms for the DUP, Sinn Féin and the other Northern Ireland parties to find an agreement of their own to restored devolved power sharing in Belfast.
The DUP’s leader, Arlene Foster, told Sky News on Monday: “We’re back in London again and my hope is that we will be able to finalise the deal between ourselves and the Conservative party.”
“I think that this agreement will bring the prospects of doing a deal at Stormont closer because this will have a positive impact in relation to Northern Ireland,” she said, adding that a second deal on power sharing in the province could be reached this week too.
As the prime minister struggles with mounting complex problems, including party splits over the terms on which to leave the EU and talk of a possible leadership challenge, Downing Street has remained tight-lipped on any proposed “confidence and supply” deal, instead saying it will be announced when it is signed and sealed.
The Guardian understands that the crux of the Tory-DUP deal in London rests mainly on an economic package for Northern Ireland including increased capital spending on health and education, the granting of special lower corporation tax status for the region and the possible abolition in the province of air passenger duty tax.
One controversial element that the DUP wants built into the deal is the extension of the Military Covenant to Northern Ireland. The covenant promises to give priority medical treatment, and special help with housing and school places for children of former and current members of the armed services.
Sinn Féin has opposed the extension of the covenant to Northern Ireland, given the British Army’s role in the Troubles. But Irish government sources on Sunday said they were “reasonably optimistic” that aside from the Tory-DUP deal the Stormont-based parties could also form their own deal ahead of the 29 June deadline on devolution talks. “It’s still game on,” one Irish source said.
With the deal appearing to be edging closer to completion over lengthy talks, it was still facing criticism even within the Conservative party. Lord Patten, a former party chairman, called the DUP “toxic” and warned that any agreement would look as if the Conservatives have become “nasty” again if it was too favourable to Northern Ireland.
Patten told ITV’s Peston on Sunday: “The DUP is a toxic brand and the Conservative party has got itself back in to the situation where there’s a danger of it looking like the ‘nasty party’, to borrow from Theresa May. What the DUP want to do is to sell their votes at every opportunity, and this on the assumption that somehow Northern Ireland has been disadvantaged by public spending over the years. I mean, tell that to the Marines, Northern Ireland has got a lot of public spending over the years.”
“Every vote you will have to find some way of paying for it and then explain to the Scots and the Welsh and people in the north-east why they can’t have the same thing too,” he said.
Patten said there was little prospect of the DUP bringing down the government because it would not risk allowing Jeremy Corbyn to gain power.
“If there isn’t an agreement with the DUP, are the DUP going to bring down a Conservative government in order to bring in Mr Corbyn, who has a certain relationship with the IRA in the past? “Of course they’re not,” he added.
Westminster sources said May’s team have grown increasingly exasperated with the negotiations and with the way they have been briefed to the media. “Someone is feeding a ‘hopes rise, hopes fade’ narrative which does no one any good. It keeps the DUP at the centre of the story but to what end?” the source asked.
Responding to the DUP’s claims that a deal could come by Tuesday, a Downing Street spokesman said talks are ongoing. “When we have a deal, we will publish it,” he said.
With uncertainty still remaining about the government’s parliamentary support, the question of Theresa May’s future was still under intense discussion on Sunday. Senior Conservatives declined to rule out ever standing for the party’s leadership, adding to the speculation about May’s leadership since the general election when the Conservatives lost an overall majority.
Brexit secretary David Davis did not deny reports that colleagues had urged him to stand for the leadership in a private meeting, but told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show that any such move would have a catastrophic effect on EU negotiations.
Priti Patel, the international development secretary, declined to rule herself out of being the next leader of the Conservatives but disagreed with suggestions that May would not be the party’s leader at the next election.
Asked whether she would want to lead the party, Patel told ITV’s Peston on Sunday: “I am talking about getting on and doing a good job.”
Conservative former minister Ken Clarke, who is in his 47th year as an MP, told Sky’s Sophy Ridge the current state of the Tory party is unlike anything he has seenduring his parliamentary career.
“I have seen nothing like this,” he said. “You can make some comparisons with the late 1970s, you can make a few comparisons with the Major government where we didn’t have a majority by the time we finished, but the background – Brexit, the economy, changing demands on public service – there’s been nothing like this at all. Quite unique.”
Labour, attempting to capitalise on the instability in the Conservative party, is planning to table a series of amendments to the Queen’s speech by Tuesday. There is speculation that the party could work closely with the Lib Dems and the SNP to keep key parts of EU legislation.
As the deadline looms for the Stormont talks, there were calls from church leaders in Northern Ireland for all parties to settle on a power-sharing deal. In a letter signed by a wide range of church leaders, the five main parties were urged to consider the good of the whole region before rejecting any deal.
“While we acknowledge the complexities involved in reaching an agreement, we want to express our continued concern that, without an agreed budget and with no executive ministers in place, the most vulnerable are at greater risk, while crucial decisions on education, health and welfare are not being taken,” the letter read.
“Furthermore, with no Executive there has been comparatively little co-ordinated local input into the Brexit discussions and even less detailed preparation for what lies ahead for Northern Ireland and the island as a whole.”Transgender woman says attack is adding fuel to her message Copyright by KXAN - All rights reserved Stephanie Martinez talking to staffers at the capitol. (KXAN Photo/Erin Cargile) [ + - ] Video
AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Two brothers have been arrested and charged with attacking and robbing a transgender woman in Austin.
Mugshots have not been released for 26-year-old Raymond and 17-year-old Rayshad Deloach, pending a photo lineup. According to his arrest warrant, Rayshad admitted to police Stephanie Martinez was a target because she's transgender.
Martinez said she first connected with one of the brother's on the social media networking site MocoSpace, and then they exchanged phone numbers and started talking and flirting over text messages.
She told police she communicated multiple times about being transgender, and agreed to meet up. According to Martinez, when she went to an apartment complex both brothers got in her car, told her they had a gun and instructed her to drive.
Martinez said she eventually stopped where they told her to, got out and was punched in the face multiple times and had her purse stolen.
Copyright by KXAN - All rights reserved Raymond Deloach, left, and Rayshad Deloach (Austin Police Department Photos)
Copyright by KXAN - All rights reserved Raymond Deloach, left, and Rayshad Deloach (Austin Police Department Photos)
"Emotionally I've been all over the place," said Martinez. "The memory that comes back the most is when I close my eyes and I picture him over my head with a log."
She kept her commitment to testify at a hearing on the bathroom bill less than 24-hours after the attack. Martinez said she showed up to the State Capitol at 7 a.m. Friday, and returned Monday to step foot in every lawmaker's office to share her story.
"This is kind of a hard thing to talk about," she told staffers in Rep. Garnet Coleman's office, D-Houston. "But as you see I have some nice bruising around my mouth and I have no denture in today, and that is because I was attacked on Thursday."
Martinez calls herself an activist and has been on a mission to educate people about transgender rights for years. She said it is not unusual for people to reach out to meet up.
"I have changed how I will do it," said Martinez. "I realize that it's not always safe to just go meet somebody somewhere."
Right now, she believes the Capitol is the best place to be advocating for transgender rights. Martinez will be heading back to the Austin Police Department Tuesday to meet with detectives again.
She considers this a hate crime, but does not know if police or prosecutors have made that distinction.
Austin police tell KXAN they should be able to provide more information on the case Tuesday.Six gang members barred from having guns found a way to get them, and the weapons were used in an “ongoing gang war” in St. Paul, authorities said Thursday as they announced federal charges.
The rivalry between HAM Crazy and other gangs has led to several gang members on both sides being shot or killed, according to the indictment, which was unsealed in full Thursday.
The indictment alleges that six members of HAM Crazy, which stands for Hoes and Money, conspired to illegally possess at least nine firearms between January 2014 and April.
The announcement of charges comes during a year of significant concerns about gun violence in St. Paul.
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Highland Park Middle School online threat began with argument at school, police say Reports of “shots fired” in St. Paul were up 75 percent during the first four months of the year compared with the same period in 2016. But, as police said they focused resources on the problem, the rate began trending down. As of mid-December, reports of “shots fired” were up 31 percent compared with the same time last year.
“There are plenty of ways to settle disagreements between groups, but gun violence is not a method we will allow,” said Kirk Howard, acting special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ St. Paul field division. “The communities of St. Paul deserve better … and (we) hope this indictment provides a word of warning to others who are inclined to be involved in this dangerous behavior.”
The federal charges were filed against Marvell Voshon Jefferson, 23, of St. Paul; Carmelo Manuel Marrero, 23, of Maplewood; Casey Jemar Davis, 23, of St. Paul; Shelby Delane Ashford Jr., 23, of Columbia Heights; Phillip Dwayne Jackson, 23, of Lino Lakes; and Nakia Marquire Martin, 24, of Moose Lake. They are each charged with conspiracy – felon in possession of a firearm, and some have additional charges.
INDICTMENT: GUNS OBTAINED FOR VIOLENCE AND THREATS
Members of HAM Crazy “claim” parts of St. Paul’s East Side as their “gang turf” and their “main purpose … is to maintain their territory, power, status, and reputation through the use of violence and intimidation against rival gangs, such as the Hit Squad,” according to the indictment from a grand jury. “To that end, HAM Crazy members, including the defendants, obtained, jointly possessed, and used firearms.”
They obtained the guns through thefts, trades and cash exchanges, and HAM Crazy members share the guns “to commit acts of violence, to intimidate rival gang members, and to avoid arrest and prosecution,” the indictment continued.
Information wasn’t available late Thursday about how many cases HAM Crazy members were suspected in, but instances of them shooting at rival gang members — and sometimes hitting their target — has been in the double digits, said Cmdr. John Bandemer, who oversees the St. Paul police gang and gun unit. In addition to the six charged in federal court, he said other HAM Crazy members have been charged in firearms cases in state court.
“Too many families are impacted by gun violence in St. Paul,” Police Chief Todd Axtell said in a statement Thursday. “We welcome these indictments as they hold gun violence suspects responsible.”
Gang members also use social media, such as Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat, “to disrespect, antagonize, threaten, and intimidate rivals by, for example, brandishing firearms and making explicit and implicit threats against rivals,” including by posting photos and videos, according to the indictment.
ONE GUN FOUND IN AREA OF SHOTS-FIRED CALL
The indictment lays out various instances of the men being in the vicinity of guns, possessing them or brandishing them in videos.
In March 2015, Jefferson, Jackson, Martin and other HAM Crazy members “were filmed in a rap video in part at the El Rio Vista Rec Center” on St. Paul’s Robie Street, “an area … claimed as part of the territory of rival gang Hit Squad,” the indictment said.
The video was posted on YouTube and shows Martin pointing a gun at the camera, and Jefferson and Jackson “making threats against rival gang members, including references to at least three rival gang members or associates who had been murdered by a HAM Crazy member and East Side affiliates,” the indictment said.
In January 2014, police found a semiautomatic pistol with an altered serial number in a vehicle that Ashford was driving in the “immediate vicinity of a shots-fired call,” according to the indictment. There were three other HAM Crazy members in the vehicle.
Ashford was charged with a firearms offense in that case in Ramsey County District Court in 2014, and he served prison time, said Aaron Morrison, Ashford’s attorney.
“I think it’s a shame that he’s facing additional prison time for something he’s already taken responsibility for,” Morrison said Thursday.
Ashford, Marrero and Davis are also charged federally with aiding and abetting a felon in possession of two guns, one of which had an extended magazine, in April of this year.
Ashford was already charged in Ramsey County in connection to that incident and the case is working its way through the court system, Morrison said. He said he believes it’s “not a great use of (prosecutors’) discretionary charging authority to basically punish someone twice.”
Matthew Mankey, an attorney representing Davis, said it’s early in the process and he hasn’t seen police reports or other evidence yet, but he noted that people are “innocent until proven guilty.”
Attorneys for the other men couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Five of the men have made initial appearances in federal court. One man, Marrero, remained at large on Thursday afternoon.It is no longer an option, but a requirement, for any football player to be in top shape coming into training camp and Canadian Football League players are not exempt. The Alouettes’ regular-season schedule doesn’t begin until June 24 — St-Jean-Baptiste Day, a day of rest for Quebecers — but the team has been preparing for the season since January.
This year’s CFL schedule was released on Feb. 18 and the league did its best to drum up excitement, but Alouettes rush-end John Bowman wasn’t too pleased, tweeting “3 games in 11 days … Again #PlayerSafety.”
“In a league where it’s only nine teams you should find a way, in my opinion, to space out games,” Bowman told the Montreal Gazette this month. “Three games in 11 or 12 days is not good enough for me.”
The three-game stretch Bowman singled out is between July 25 and Aug. 4. The Alouettes will be playing three times in 11 days, including once on four days’ rest. The Als will visit the Toronto Argonauts on July 25 before hosting the Saskatchewan Roughriders on July 29 and the B.C. Lions on Aug. 4. Montreal is the only team in the CFL scheduled to play on four days’ rest this season, said Paulo Senra, the league’s director of communications.
Bowman, 33, has played in the CFL since 2006 and has been with the Alouettes his entire career. The five-time all-star led the league in 2015 with a career-high 19 sacks and recorded a sack in all but four of the 15 games he played in.
Bowman said it can take three to four days to recover from a game, but the travelling and practising, with little rest in-between, doesn’t help.
“It’s not a lot of recovery time for your body,” he said. “In order to perform well, you’ve got to rest.”
Last season, the Alouettes played a game on four days’ rest, and lost cornerback Jonathan Hefney in the process, albeit to a freak injury. During a game in Ottawa, Hefney collided head-on with Redblacks receiver Patrick Lavoie and sustained a “severe complex neck injury,” ending his season.
The CFL’s collective agreement states “in part” that no player should participate in a game, regular season or playoff, “within 120 hours of a previous game.” Yet, the exception to that rule is that players are “allowed on two occasions” to play within that 120 hours, provided it isn’t less than 96 hours.
When asked if he had been injured while playing on short rest, Bowman knocked on a table — closer to marble than wood — and said he is fortunate to have only missed five games because of injuries during his career.
“I’ve seen guys with tired legs unable to pick up their legs, unable to run,” said Bowman. “When your muscles are tired that’s when you overexert them, you pull a (hamstring), that’s when you pull a quad.”
Bowman said players discuss the issue of short weeks in the CFL schedule, but won’t go public with their concerns out of fear they might be released or might be labelled for speaking out. He said other teams have also complained “much worse” than his tweet.
“Football is a once-a-week kind of sport,” Bowman added.
The league begins the schedule-making process by asking teams about stadium availability before applying optimization software, which provides several versions of the schedule, and then selecting one that fits best for all teams.
“Player safety is a priority for us at the CFL when designing our schedule, and we make our best attempts to minimize the difference in days of rest between clubs across a season,” Senra said.
Each CFL team gets two bye weeks per season, Senra noted, in the hopes of minimizing “short turnarounds” from game to game. Last year, the league said it had five instances where teams played three games on short rest. According to Senra, 12 of the 15 games were played “locally” or within proximity of their last contest.
Scott Flory spent 14 seasons as an offensive lineman with the Alouettes before taking over as president of the Canadian Football League Players’ Association, a position he has held for the last two years.
Flory remembers playing short weeks during his career and echoed Bowman’s sentiments that the “intricacies” and preparation necessary for football make it a one-game-a-week sport. But he also feels that this year’s schedule is consistent.
“I make sure that when the schedule, before it’s sent out, we get a copy of it and we just make sure that it adheres to the collective agreement, and the schedule does,” said Flory.
Alouettes player representative Marc-Olivier Brouillette agreed with his teammate about the danger of playing football on short rest, noting how the game takes a toll physically and emotionally — and that even a week might not be enough to recover.
“It’s almost like being in a serious car crash,” he said.
Brouillette said there are many “moving parts” when it comes to CFL scheduling and it’s a topic that might be discussed during the CFLPA’s annual general meeting, which began Thursday in Las Vegas.
“It’s the hand we were dealt,” he said. “No matter what business you’re in, somebody’s going to be dealt the short end of the stick.”
Brouillette said the CFLPA should approach the topic by seeing how much influence it can exert on scheduling, while stressing the importance of working with the league to find a solution.
“Until I know exact specifics of the reason as to why we were scheduled that way, it’s difficult for me to pass judgment on whoever did have to make that decision,” said Brouillette. “So for us to say that (the CFL) must have it out for us, I don’t think that’s the right way to approach the situation.”
“My concern is, and I raise it with the league, is just about making sure it adheres the collective agreement and making sure there’s adequate time between games,” said Flory. “We don’t want guys playing consistently short weeks.”Google launched its Chrome Web Store yesterday alongside its announcement of the Chrome OS pilot program. Google seems to think that the modern Web, which is increasingly capable of delivering desktop-like application experiences, needs an application delivery channel, even though there is nothing to actually deliver—except URLs.
The way that users consume applications in the desktop and mobile world is fundamentally different than they way that they do it on the Web—where paywalls are often reviled and there is little distinction between content and software. In such an environment, does the application store model make any sense? We are not convinced.
A lot of commercial websites use ad-based business models or take a freemium approach, offering a baseline set of functionality for free and allowing users to get more by paying recurring annual fees. Google wants to open the door for more conventional single-payment purchases, allowing Web developers and content producers to sell their material on the Web the same way that they do it on cell phones.
When you want to deliver a native mobile application to a smartphone user, there are a lot of advantages to using an application store. You have a seamless vehicle for deploying your software and subsequent updates, obviating the need for your user to download and install a package. It gives you basic analytics tools for measuring the number of users. It also makes billing painless by avoiding the need for individual users to thumb-type in their credit card number.
It's not clear, however, if having a standardized retail channel is as unambiguously advantageous in the context of a desktop browser. There is no actual software to deliver and no updates to manage and roll out. You don't need a store for analytics because you are tracking the traffic to your actual website. All the store does is handle billing and add a glorified bookmark to the user's browser. The billing problem has already been solved on the Web a hundred times over. You can use PayPal or any other similar mechanism (unless you are Wikileaks) and it won't be a significant deterrent to sales.
As the company behind the Android Market, Google has a first-hand view of the mobile application gold rush. It's not surprising that the search giant wants to try to adapt that model to work in the browser, but we're not convinced that the Chrome Web Store's support for conventional billing will somehow encourage native application developers to start porting their software to the Web. The ability to erect a simple pay wall in front of your Web application so that you can charge a few dollars for access just isn't all that novel or compelling.
If a Web app is easily accessible and offers some functionality for free, it can more easily build an audience. The way people consume software on the Web is by clicking through a link and deciding if the destination has value. There is no overhead in doing that. A user can put a query into a search engine to find Web destinations meet a certain need and then open half a dozen in browser tabs and pick the one that looks the best. It's not like a mobile environment where the overhead of having to download and install an application gives users a reason to read customer reviews and refer to top app lists.
Google's approach to enabling commercial Chrome apps might be a bit more interesting if Google were to offer really robust micro-transaction services that application developers could integrate into their actual software (Google's recent acquisition of Jambool is an interesting development in this space), but even that could be offered as part of Google Checkout and doesn't really rationalize building a whole marketplace.
The only really compelling use case of the Chrome Web Store as a commercial distribution channel is to snag some impulse purchases of Web-based games. EA appears to be enthusiastic about that opportunity and has partnered with Google to get its free "Poppit" balloon game included as part of Chrome 9 (we would make a joke about Chrome OS getting its very own crapware, but it's probably just a link like every other "installed" application).
Aside from gaming, the idea of an application store in a Web browser—where installation is little more than bookmarking—seems counterintuitive and leaves us with the impression that the entire exercise is a solution in search of a problem. The Web itself is already a great way to deliver content and services--arguably one of its greatest strengths. We see no reason to drag the conventional app store paradigm into a medium where it just doesn't fit.Jenson Button says he wants McLaren-Honda to turn its attention to getting more power from its engine, even if it is at the expense of reliability, following a disappointing Belgian Grand Prix.
Though Honda's much vaunted upgraded power unit ran relatively trouble free over the course of the weekend, it remains down on power compared with its rivals, preventing both Button and Fernando Alonso from mounting a sustained challenge in the race.
Leading Button to label his race as 'embarrassing', the former champion has called on McLaren and Honda to now focus striving for more power, even if it meant more technical issues in the meantime.
"I'd rather have more effort on power. I think that's the aim we have right now - the aim is power - that's always been the aim. Reliability is second really, because I think we'd like to see ourselves quicker and less reliable - I wouldn't have an issue with that.
"The performance is something difficult to find, reliability is probably a little bit easier. Everyone is working hard, but this is tough this weekend, not only were we slow but I had the problem."https://athanasiuscmdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/interview_025_boniface_on_pope_bonifaceviii_dissolution_christendom.mp3
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Today Boniface of Unam Sanctam Catholicam rejoins us to talk about his blogger namesake, Pope Boniface VIII, his life and how politically he ushered in the end of the Medieval Papacy and the prestige it enjoyed from great Popes like Innocent III an Gregory VII, and more to the point, the beginning of the dissolution of Christendom. We also discuss the authority and implications of his famous Bull Unam Sanctam, and the positive aspects of Boniface VIII’s papacy in the establishment of Jubilee years.
NB: This was originally recorded on the feast of Christ the King on the Traditional Catholic Liturgical Calendar, but is actually published closer to the Feast of Christ the King on the 1970 Calendar.
If you like this or any of our podcasts, interviews, etc., which are provided for free, please consider donating as little as a $1. God bless you.
Books
The Rending of Christendom: Primary Source textbook
Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII
References
Unam Sanctam
1911 Catholic Encyclopedia Article on Boniface VIII
Sicilian Vespers
Agevin = Supporter of Charles of Anjou (i.e. French)
Guelphs and Gibbelines
Papal Interdict
Excommunication
Papal Legates
Edward I
Philip IV, “the Fair” of France
Analysis of The Bull Unam Sanctam
Inauguration of the Jubilee year
We also mentioned St. John Fisher a little bit. Here is a book treating the history and times of St. John Fisher in great detail, where you can see the discussion of Praemunire and many of the things that begin in Boniface VIII’s time in great detail:
St. John Fisher: Reformer, Humanist, Martyr by E.E. ReynoldsTexas Tech reportedly has hired North Texas defensive line coach Kevin Patrick, a former standout player at the University of Miami in the early 1990s.
The Palm Beach (Florida) Post reported the move.
Patrick spent the last two seasons at North Texas, whose staff broke up with the firing Dan McCarney. Patrick was a holdover on the staff of newly hired North Texas head coach Seth Littrell, but he would fill one of three remaining openings on Kliff Kingsbury's Tech staff.
Tech has been looking for a defensive line coach since Mike Smith was one of three assistants let go at the end of the 2015 regular season.
Patrick, 44, went to high school in West Palm Beach, Florida, and played on two national championship teams at Miami during his career from 1989-93. He had 10 sacks and received all-America recognition in 1993. He was just inducted into the university's athletic hall of fame in April.
Patrick was an assistant from 1996-98 and again from 2008-12 at South Florida, where he helped develop Jason Pierre-Paul, George Selvie and Terrell McClain, all of whom are now in the NFL. He was the Bulls' defensive ends coach from 1996-98 and their defensive line coach from 2008-13.
In 2009, Rivals.com named Patrick one of the top 25 recruiters in the nation and the top recruiter in the Big East Conference.
During a decade away from coaching, according to his bio on the USF athletic website, Patrick owned and managed a medical billing company with annual business of $5 million to $6 million.
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@AJ_DonWilliamsNorth Korea fired what appeared to be multiple land-to-ship missiles off its east coast on Thursday, South Korea's military said.
The projectiles were launched Thursday morning from the North Korean coastal city of Wonsan, South Korea's Office of Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
The missiles flew about 200km, it said.
Isolated but nuclear-armed, North Korea has test-fired a missile almost every week for the past few weeks.
"North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship missiles, this morning from the vicinity of Wonsan, Gangwon province," the South's military said.
OPINION: Is war coming to North Korea?
The Japanese government also confirmed the missile launches, according to the Kyodo news agency.
"We have not confirmed any immediate effect to our nation's security, at this point. We will continue to coordinate with the United States and South Korea to gather and analyse information, and maintain a high level of alert," said Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida.
The statement by South Korea said the launches were immediately reported to President Moon Jae-in but gave no further details
The missile tests - and Pyongyang's threat to stage its sixth nuclear test - have prompted calls for tougher United Nations sanctions and a warning from US President Donald Trump that military intervention was an option under consideration.
The launches come less than a week after the UN Security Council passed new sanctions on the reclusive state, which said it would continue to pursue its nuclear and weapons programme without delay.
Pyongyang has slammed the latest UN sanctions as "mean".
North Korea has conducted dozens of missile tests since the start of last year, as well as its fourth and fifth nuclear bomb tests.
It has said it is working to develop a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching mainland United States, presenting Trump with perhaps his most pressing security threat.
READ MORE: North Korea fires missile in third test in three weeks
The head of the US Missile Defense Agency, Vice Admiral James Syring, said on Wednesday that the technological advances demonstrated by North Korea in its ballistic missile programme over the past six months had caused him "great concern".
Syring told a hearing of the US House Armed Services Committee that it was incumbent on his agency to assume that North Korea today could "range" the US with an ICBM carrying a nuclear warhead.
"I would not say we are comfortably ahead of the threat; I would say we are addressing the threat that we know today," Syring said.
"The advancements in the last six months have caused great concern to me and others, in the advancement of and demonstration of technology of ballistic missiles from North Korea. It is incumbent on us to assume that North Korea today can range the United States with an ICBM carrying a nuclear warhead."
North Korea's weapons tests are meant to build a nuclear and missile programme that can stand up to what it sees as US and South Korean hostility, but they are also considered by analysts as ways to make its political demands clear to leaders in Washington and Seoul.
OPINION: Will China intervene in North Korea?
These demands include the removal of nearly 30,000 US troops in South Korea meant to check North Korean aggression.
Professor Yang Moo-jin, of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told AFP news agency: "North Korea has been stepping up missile tests... in order to project an image to the world that international sanctions can never bring it to its knees.
"It is also expressing displeasure of the arrival of a US nuclear submarine in South Korean".
The 6,900-tonne USS Cheyenne, whose home port is Pearl Harbor, arrived in the South Korea port of Busan on Tuesday.Technology is transforming how we see the past
Historian Richard Bulliet appears to have spent much of the 1960s and 1970s poking holes into punch cards. He was studying the growth of Islam across the Middle East and was taking family information from biographical compilations, and making it machine readable – essentially creating a massive family tree. “I coded this data in ways that enabled me to search and recover repeated technical terms or family relationships as these matters evolved over five centuries.”, he told me. It was made possible thanks to the structure of Islamic names containing the father and paternal grandfather’s name (Both “ibn” and “bin” mean “son of”), as well as some long dead elders having the foresight to keep detailed records.
Having compiled his data, he was able to then compute it and draw new conclusions that would shift the thinking in his field.
“As it turned out, the study of conversion to Islam up to that point had focused on the first two centuries of Islam. My analysis pointed to the early third century [of Islam] as the midpoint in a process that spread out over four or more centuries”, he says, adding that. “The excellent fit between my proposed chronology and the political, institutional, and intellectual history of Middle Eastern Islam led to my chronology becoming generally adopted in the field.”
This new insight was all thanks to quantitative analysis rather than traditional historical methods. “I don’t believe there was any way of arriving at this result in a more convincing fashion by the traditional technique of collecting rare, and often hyperbolic, textual references and guessing at the impact of legal or governmental actions”, he explains.
Big Data
Fast forward 50 years and data has changed everything. “Big Data” is the increasingly passé buzzword that technology pundits like to use to describe the on-going revolution in computing brought about ever increasing storage space and processing power.
To talk about “Big Data” is to talk about the future - with much speculation going into how algorithms will improve how Netflix recommends a film, how Uber will plan our journeys or how Facebook will decide what is the most important thing for us to see when we wake up in the morning. But data isn’t just used to predict the future: This sort of data-driven, quantitative analysis of large datasets can also be used to look back in time too.
Huge swathes of our past are slowly but surely getting digitised as old books and scanned and organised. It stands to reason that surely once the historians get to work it could completely transform our understanding of our past? If Richard Bulliet was able to change our understanding of Islam in the digital stone age, just what are the datasets and tools of the 21st century capable of?
The Correlates of War
The Correlates of War Project is an attempt by historians and political scientists to take a quantitative look at the history of war and conflict. The project hosts a stack of spreadsheet-readable data on wars through history.
How this data is presented is obviously going to be contentious. Unlike scientific measurements, it isn’t easy to stuff a complex web of human behaviours and interactions into a box and describe it as a number, as there are too many questions: What’s the difference between a really small war and a mass killing, for instance? And is it possible to define whether it is the state or a non-state actor operating in countries that lack a strong central government? Not to mention, umm, how exactly do you define what a country is, in a meaningful sense, over a long period of time? The historians compiling the data have obviously had to apply some human judgement - but have also stuck to a series of rules (such as
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with pickled apricot or baked cod roe, deep-fried pork cutlets, vegetables simmered in sweet soy sauce. But you don't have to cook Japanese food — or make cute cutouts — to reap the benefits of the bento.
Cookbook author and Japan expert Debra Samuels says the five main elements of a bento are color, texture, seasonality, presentation and nutrition (and let's not forget portion control — how much can you cram into those little compartments?). She says many Japanese believe that including five colors on your plate — red, yellow, green, white and black — means you have a balanced meal.
Many cultures — including our own — carry lunch in a box. In India, children and workers take tiffins — stacked stainless steel boxes filled with rice or bread, curry and vegetables. Korean dosirak offer jubilant heaps of bibimbap or perhaps sushi-like rolls called kimbap. Many American parents pack those Buzz Lightyear lunchboxes with organic, whole grain, gluten-, antibiotic- or trans fat-free foods. But all of these lack what are perhaps the most distinctive features of the bento: organization and an appetizing aesthetic.
Face it, PB&J wrapped in plastic — whether it's organic or not — just isn't that appealing. Maybe that's why my kid-size containers — bought especially for school lunches — still come back half-full of the snap peas, blueberries or tabbouleh I put in them. What if you could make that food fun and appetizing, though? Even without the hearts and flowers?
It doesn't have to be complicated. Just think of naturally hand-held foods. A wrap filled with meat and crunchy, colorful vegetables becomes a lunch cone. Slice it sideways, and it's pinwheels. Farmers markets, supermarkets and even some big-box stores are filled with gorgeous and delicious kid-size vegetables like mini zucchini and summer squash, fingerling potatoes, clementines, bell-shaped yellow and red cherry tomatoes, slender Persian cucumbers, tiny sweet peppers, and yellow, orange and purple baby carrots (real ones — not the ones lathed into bullets at the factory). Eggs provide easy, affordable, colorful protein — "cheap and cheerful," as a British friend says. You can boil them, turn them into an omelet or an herb-stuffed patty, all of which are delicious cold. Cheese comes in single-serving sticks and rounds, with varieties from mozzarella to cheddar and even chevre.
And then there's the box itself. Like the food, the boxes in Japan can be works of art. Delicate cedar vessels and boxes of wicker and willow evolved from the simple wrapping of bamboo leaves and falconers' feed bags that are thought to be among the original bento boxes. The boxes can be slickly lacquered and painted with scenes. But today, a Japanese office worker is more likely to carry a sleek aluminum container with built-in gel packs or vacuum-insulated boxes. For children, there are boxes in the shape of frogs and pandas, boxes decorated with their favorite cartoon figures, even boxes that look like stacked Legos.
Through the miracle of the Internet, many of these items are available online. One company even makes a bento — and that's what they call it — with colorful insert containers. Sleek, clean, the ultimate green lunch.
A little color. Some crisp, beautiful vegetables. Just a few minutes of attention to feeding your eyes before your stomach, and lunch suddenly becomes a whole new experience. Just remember to say itadakimasu — "I humbly receive."
Note: Recipes that accompany this story may not be visible on all mobile devices. You can find them at npr.org/recipes.August 16, 2016
by Cleantech Canada Staff
TORONTO—An ambitious infrastructure project is poised to connect 17 of the 25 unconnected small towns in remote areas of Northern Ontario to the province’s electrical grid.
A consortium of nearly two dozen First Nations communities, alongside partners Fortis Ontario and RES Canada have been selected by the Ontario government to build nearly 2,000 kilometres of new transmission lines through the rugged terrain between Lake Superior and Hudson Bay. Sanctioned by the province late last month, Wataynikaneyap Power and its partners plan to stretch the province’s existing electrical infrastructure beyond Pickle Lake and Red Lake, Ont.—both already hundreds of kilometres north of Thunder Bay—to Sandy Lake and Sachigo Lake, Ont. near the Manitoba border.
Designed to eliminate the costly diesel generators currently in use, as well as hook 10,000 Ontarians up to more reliable power, the project would cut emissions and save the provincial and federal governments millions of dollars each year once the infrastructure is in place. Currently, diesel is shipped into the isolated communities via ice roads, or in a pinch, by air, and heavily subsidized by both tiers of government.
Still, the project will not come cheap. Wataynikaneyap estimates the 1,800 kilometres of new transmission lines and related infrastructure will cost $1.35 billion to build.
The long-term rewards, however, both economic and environmental, have helped get the project off the ground. A PwC Canada study found the plan will translate to $1.07 billion in direct savings over a 40-year period, as well as up to $1.9 billion when the environmental benefits of ditching diesel generation are factored in.
According to Margaret Kenequanash, chair of Wataynikaneyap Power, the grid expansion is a “transformational project” that will also have a wide range of benefits across Northern Ontario.
“Relying on expensive, environmentally-unfriendly diesel fuel to provide power for basic needs like food, shelter and water, as well as limited generating capacity, has come at a huge price for our communities,” Kenequanash said in a recent statement.
“First Nations ownership will not only ensure responsible development of infrastructure in our traditional homelands, but the project will maximize the health, safety, environmental, social and economic benefits for those First Nations communities that have been unable to provide adequate infrastructure and services to their people,” she added.
Following last month’s announcement Wataynikaneyap is now responsible for applying for “Leave to Construct” the transmission lines and perform the necessary environmental assessment work with the Ontario Energy Board (OEB).
The power company hopes to have all the pieces in place to begin construction in 2018. Work will then be carried out in two stages. The first includes reinforcing the existing electrical infrastructure to Pickle Lake, while the second will expand the grid north along two separate lines to Sandy Lake and Sachigo Lake. Under the current build schedule, all 17 communities will be able to ditch diesel generation by 2024.
Meanwhile, the Ontario government said it is working on plans to connect five of the remaining eight unconnected communities to the province’s grid.
Nationwide, there are approximately 200,000 Canadians in 300 off-grid communities.Based on the info written in the documents, the CIA pre-installed ExpressLane in the systems of newer partners. For older ones, it gets installed by an agent personally visiting a partner site under the guise of installing a software update. ExpressLane disguises itself as a harmless exe file in Windows' System 32 folder, but it actually collects files of interest. When an agent inserts a thumb drive to run the fake software update, ExpressLane automatically uploads the compressed and encrypted files it gathered.
That thumb drive will also install a "kill date" that disrupts the system by a certain date, forcing the partner to call the CIA for service. This tactic guarantees agents can collect data even if a partner refuses the shady software update. It's unclear what the CIA plans to do with all that biometric data -- it could be using them for a secret operation, but it could also be collecting them for no particular reason. Either way, the more info it gathers, the more powerful it becomes, so it's not really surprising for the agency to ensure that nobody can keep secrets from it.GOP strategist Rick Wilson put up a blistering tweetstorm on Monday night, ripping into the “clickservatives, Trump fellators, fanboys, grunting MAGA mouthbreathers” who offer unconditional support to President Trump.
Wilson took notice of how NewsMax CEO Chris Ruddy announced that the president is thinking about firing Robert Mueller as the special counsel for the ongoing investigations into Russia’s election meddling. Wilson agrees with Ruddy that firing Mueller would be a major misstep for Trump, though Wilson doubted that the president’s supporters would care because crushing their political enemies is the only thing that matters, regardless of the consequences or fallout.
To that end, Wilson wrote that Trump supporters should just stop pretending to care about the law or political precedent, and swear fealty to what they are truly loyal to:
Certainly one of the better tweetstorms we’ve seen!
1/ Fire Mueller. Do it. Fire Mueller. Do it, because it’s time for the final divorce between the clickservatives and any pretense they…. — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
2/ …believe in the rule of law. Let’s just *get it the fuck ON* and end this shabby pretense that we still live in a nation of laws. — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
3/ So clickservatives, Trump fellators, fanboys, grunting MAGA mouthbreathers, SING OUT now. — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
4/ I really want to know. Is there anything he can do that strikes your conscience? Is there any sin, any excess, any affront? — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
5/No? GOOD. That makes it easy for all of us. — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
6/ Just go ALL IN. Get a TRUMP logo tramp stamp. Name your kids after him. Pledge fealty for you and all the generations of your offspring. — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
7/ Stop pussyfooting around the edges. Come right out and say it; all you care about his that he pisses off people you hate. — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
8/ So come on…Pledge loyalty and obedience to Trump, not America or the Constitution. You’re already SO CLOSE. — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
9/ Call for Mueller to be fired, Comey to be imprisoned, Wilson to be eaten by wild dogs. — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
10/ You’re already filled with atavistic lust for the purge, the long knives, the broken glass, the whiff of grapeshot. — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
11/ You excuse EVERYTHING because duh librul media or whatever bullshit fantasy you believe he fulfills. Go all the way! — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
12/ So, let’s just have the supine, ten-dollar hooker clickservatives write a million “But Comey” gruntpieces for a little fig leaf. — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
13/ So you can pretend there’s a reason for letting Trump’s utterly obvious corruption slide, not just an excuse. — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
14/ So fire Mueller. Call for it. Be on the record. While you’re at it, call for permanent immunity for Trump for all crimes. — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
15/ Why not? He’ll piss off the media, and that’s worth everything, right? What’s a little authoritarianism in exchange? — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
16/ Ohhhh, I know. You’re SO MAD someone in the media or culture doesn’t agree with Esoteric Trumpism in every detail. — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
17/ Is Trump honest? Is he a conservative? Is he a Constitutionalist? Does he believe in the rule of law? Who cares? He makes duh rawr. — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
18/ Embrace his utter fucking degeneracy and third-world generalissimo act. It’s the new you! Ride with it! — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
19/ Trump juche is real conservatism. It’s the real path for the GOP. Forget laws and principles, and just vow eternal loyalty. — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
20/ So fire Mueller. Call for it. Be on the record. Let’s just get it done, because I’m sure you’re tired of all these petty laws… — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
21/ …and norms and guardrails that stop Kim Jong Don from truly Making the Democratic Peoples Republic of Trumperica Great Again. — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
22/ Teach your kids that the laws are for people other than the President. That’s Donald Trump was rid of those troublesome priests. — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
23/ Embrace unlimited state power, the end of legal accountability, and the ruthless will to power was the only metric of leadership. — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
24/ What could possibly go wrong? — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
25/ So endeth. — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 13, 2017
[Image via screengrab]
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Have a tip we should know? [email protected] kick off its celebration of Black History Month, Google turns to a 19th century artist who burned so bright that her twin gifts of blazing talent and steely determination could not be denied even in the face of her era's discrimination.
Time and again, sculptor Edmonia Lewis — nicknamed "Wildfire" — faced obstacles and setbacks, yet she persevered as if her greatness were already cast.
Lewis was orphaned at age 9, when she was adopted by maternal aunts and joined their Mississauga tribe.
She endured bitter racial bias at Oberlin College, which she began attending at age 15; she was falsely accused of poisoning classmates and was beaten, and was ultimately denied the chance to graduate.
She then was refused apprenticeships in Civil War-era Boston, until she encountered the well-connected sculptor Edward Brackett, whose clients included well-known abolitionists.
And she would then run a small art studio in Rome (a space formerly used by neoclassicist Antonio Canova), eschewing assistants because she was often without the means of fellow expat artists in Italy.
Yet she would shine as the first woman of American Indian and African-American descent to discover international renown in the arts.
Wednesday's Google Doodle, by artist Sophie Diao, salutes Lewis and her great work "The Death of Cleopatra," which rests today in Washington at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. (Her work "Forever Free" resides nearby, with the Howard University Gallery of Art.) And the ribboned "Google" wording shines bright, befitting Lewis's nickname.
Lewis is also freshly represented in Google's "Arts & Culture" section, which spotlights some of her most iconic marble works, including "Anna Quincy Waterston," "Old Arrow Maker," "Poor Cupid" and "Young Octavian," as well as sculptures inspired by the words of Longfellow, whom she met in Rome.
Mary Edmonia Lewis was born near Greenbush, New York, circa 1844, and died in 1907.
Her great "Death of Cleopatra," carved in 1876, was believed lost to history till more than a century later, when it resurfaced like a Phoenix, fittingly rediscovered by a fire inspector. It was donated to the Smithsonian in 1994.
Lewis shines as brilliant as a cultural beacon, entirely befitting an American trailblazer.By Blaise Jones
Sharks have a plethora of senses that allow them to maintain their mastery of the oceans. Their eyes, ears, and noses are amazingly adapted to their environments, allowing them to see, hear, and smell, respectively, almost anything in their environments. However, sharks aren’t limited to just five senses, like humans. Sharks possess body parts that give them abilities other animals, like humans, do not possess such as the lateral line.
A Series of Tubes
As its name implies, the lateral line runs down the side of the animal. The lateral line starts as a series of pores that connect the water outside the shark’s body to a channel that runs beneath its skin. This is the actual line. The line itself is filled with a gel-like substance and millions of sensory cilia attached to nerve endings that transmit the sensory data gathered by the lateral line directly to the shark’s brain. But what exactly is this sensory data that’s collected?
Good Vibrations
The purpose of the lateral line is to detect vibrations in the water, which can provide a wealth of information to the shark even in complete darkness. The ocean is an amazing conductor of vibrations and sound waves that are transferred as ripples of water pressure and are affected by differences in temperature and water density. Sound can actually bounce between these temperature and density differences, allowing for the pressure waves to travel for miles.
The ears and lateral line of a shark can detect the slightest difference in the water caused by these echoing pressure waves.
More than a Feeling
However, despite sharing similar functions and even using the same type of sensory cilia, the lateral line can do something a shark’s ears cannot. Lateral lines are able to sense the changes in pressure waves of the surrounding water in relation to the shark’s own body.
As the shark moves through its environment, countless currents brush against its skin. These very same currents and pressure waves come into contact with objects in the shark’s environment and are changed by this contact. The shark’s lateral line is able to sense these minute differences and the animals are able to “feel” the environment around them. This allows sharks that have been blinded or are swimming in dark water to know the location of every object and animal around them.
Similar to echolocation used by many animals, including the narwhal and orca, the sharks’ ability to sense its environment thanks to its lateral line is a sensory experience no human has ever experienced.
“[Like] feeling the wind on our faces and skin when we’re outside,” was the closest explanation shark expert Steve Parker used to describe the sensory ability of the lateral line. Now imagine using that feeling to navigate an obstacle course in the dark.
SOURCES:
“The Encyclopedia of Sharks” by Steve Parker
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sound.html
http://www.elasmo-research.org/education/white_shark/hearing.htmThe George Clooney-directed 'Suburbicon' and Miles Teller's veteran drama 'Thank You for Your Service' also open this weekend.
Lionsgate’s Jigsaw earned $1.6 million in Thursday-night previews at over 2,400 locations.
The film sees the Saw horror franchise get a fresh makeover with a new storyline and new characters. Michael and Peter Spierig direct the eighth installment, which picks up a decade after the death of the eponymous murderer as police investigate a rash of slayings matching Jigsaw's signature fatal puzzles. Matt Passmore, Callum Keith Rennie, Cle Bennett and Emily Anderson star in the R-rated movie. It opens in 2,941 theaters (including Imax locations) this weekend and is expected to debut at $20 million or more.
DreamWorks and Universal’s Thank You for Your Service grossed $280,000 in Thursday screenings in 1,760 theaters. Miles Teller leads the ensemble cast as an Iraq War veteran who struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder while trying to integrate back into family and civilian life. American Sniper scribe Jason Hall makes his directorial debut with the adaptation of David Finkel’s 2013 book. Amy Schumer and Haley Bennett are also featured in the movie, which is tracking to open in the $3 million-$4 million range from 2,054 theaters.
Paramount’s Suburbicon earned $180,000 in Thursday screenings at 1,614 locations. George Clooney directs the crime-comedy starring Matt Damon, Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac. Written by Clooney, Grant Heslov and the Coen brothers, the racially tinged film tells the story of a seemingly perfect white family whose suburban home is invaded in the summer of 1959. Their not-so-nice side is exposed when their new African-American neighbors are blamed for the crime. It is based on a true story of a couple in Levittown, Pennsylvania, in the 1950s. Despite high-profile stops at the Venice and Toronto film festivals, the movie is tracking to open in the $5 million-$7 million range from 2,045 theaters.
Open Road’s All I See Is You, debuting in 250 theaters, stars Blake Lively as a woman who was blinded as a child but later undergoes a successful corneal transplant to restore her sight. However, she then discovers that clarity of vision exposes the cracks in her marriage to her husband, played by Jason Clarke. Marc Forster directs the psychological thriller, which also features Yvonne Strahovski and Danny Huston.Study shows that work increases resilience among survivors
Though just two of Hirono’s 5,418 residents lost their lives in Japan’s mega-earthquake and tsunami, a new study shows that the survivors are struggling to keep their sanity.
One year after the quake, Brigham Young University professor Niwako Yamawaki and scholars from Saga University evaluated the mental health of 241 Hirono citizens. More than half of the people evaluated experienced “clinically concerning” symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Two-thirds of the sample reported symptoms of depression.
Those rates exceed levels seen in the aftermath of other natural disasters, but what happened in Japan wasn’t just a natural disaster. Leaked radiation from nuclear power plants forced residents of Hirono to relocate to temporary housing far from home.
“This was the world’s fourth-biggest recorded earthquake, and also the tsunami and nuclear plant and losing their homes – boom boom boom boom within such a short time,” said Yamawaki, a psychology professor at BYU. “The prevalence one year after is still much higher than other studies of disasters that we found even though some time had passed.”
Yamawaki got the idea for this study while shoveling mud from a damaged Japanese home one month after the tsunami flooded coastal towns. She had just arrived for a previously scheduled fellowship at Saga University. During her off-time, she traveled to the affected area and volunteered in the clean-up effort. One seemingly stoic homeowner broke down in tears when Yamawaki and her husband thanked her for the chance to help.
“She said ‘This is the first time I have cried since the disaster happened,’” Yamawaki said. “She just said ‘Thank you. Thank you for letting me cry.’”
Back at Saga University, Yamawaki collaborated with Hiroko Kukihara to conduct a study on the mental health and resilience of survivors. Their report appears in the journal Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences.
Participants in the study lived in temporary housing provided by the Japanese government when Hirono was evacuated. With an average age of 58, the people are noticeably older than the populations of normal Japanese towns. Yamawaki suspects that young people were more likely to permanently relocate elsewhere in Japan following the disaster.
The researchers didn’t just measure the rates of mental illness; they also performed a statistical analysis to learn what fostered resilience among the survivors. Eating right, exercising regularly and going to work all promoted resilience and served as a buffer against mental illness.
“Having something to do after a disaster really gives a sense of normalcy, even volunteer work,” Yamawaki said.
As the researchers got to know survivors, they heard from so many that they missed seeing their former neighbors. The mass relocation outside the radiation zone broke up many neighborhood ties.
“Japanese are very collectivistic people and their identity is so intertwined with neighbors,” Yamawaki said. “Breaking up the community has so much impact on them.”
While it’s hard to fathom the scope of the devastation in the coastal region of Fukushima, most survivors believe something like this will happen again. If so, this new study provides a blueprint for how to help them put their lives back together again.Tortoise, a 115-foot, eco-friendly superyacht built in 2015 by Arcadia Yachts, is essentially a fiberglass floating fortress—and it is currently available for charter in the Mediterranean. For about $112,000 per week, plus expenses, guests can escape the winter blues and find solace aboard with its contemporary interiors lavishly designed by the renowned Italian firm Poltrona Frau, known for its decadent leathers.
Dressed in an ocean-like turquoise-and-white motif, the yacht also brings the outdoors in, through floor-to-ceiling windows that allow the sun to dance across the roomy interiors. Six cabins (each with a private veranda) are broken down to a master suite, two twin cabins, and three double cabins, accommodating up to 12 guests. The gym, television room, and deck Jacuzzi are all popular hideaways. Guests also can choose to play in the water with a plethora of adrenaline-producing toys, including a WaveRunner, wakeboard, and water skis. (Inquiries: Ocean Drive, +33 493.63.16.71, [email protected]; www.oceandrive.fr.)Conservative activist and radio host Jesse Lee Peterson responded to this weekend’s deadly attack by a member of a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville with a WorldNetDaily column claiming that the violence was the result of some white men taking up the “false-identity politics of most blacks and leftists” after “white, straight, conservative Christian men of power” have come under attack for so long.
Peterson, who is black, complains that “white men take a timid, people-pleasing, apologizing approach toward their wives in the home, and toward angry blacks and others in the world” and so now they are getting angry. He adds that Dylann Roof, the man who shot and killed nine worshipers at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, “was angry about black-on-white crime and the false mainstream narrative of white ‘racism.’”
I have warned for more than 27 years that we are in a spiritual battle of good versus evil. White people are under attack – especially white, straight, conservative Christian men of power. The children of the lie hate them because they represent good. They love truth, freedom, responsibility, the values that make America great.
Evil already wiped out black and Hispanic men – separated them from their families and deluded their thinking. Evil, too, has chipped away at whites, the last men standing in the way to stop evil from completely taking over America.
But white men have forsaken their responsibility to lead their wives and children in the right way, and to tell the truth in the world without anger, fear or apology.
Instead, white men take a timid, people-pleasing, apologizing approach toward their wives in the home, and toward angry blacks and others in the world. Their fear and weakness toward the children of the lie only makes them a greater target for evil.
Younger whites see the anti-white male and anti-truth attacks and become angry. Since their parents failed to show strength, they do not see the right way forward. They turn away from their weak fathers and from God.
Anger is out of control in America today. We all know that the left has fully embraced anger and victimhood. But the right too has anger, revealing itself in fear.
Thank God that Donald Trump is president. He is a unifier who sets an example of strength without anger, telling the truth boldly and showing real love for America.
…
Media and politicians decried “white supremacists,” but hardly a peep about Antifa or black violence.
The media and politicians have long ignored, downplayed and excused unprovoked black and leftist violence against whites, conservatives and Trump supporters. Since whites and conservatives have said nothing for so long, now some whites are coming out in the wrong way – taking on the anger and false-identity politics of most blacks and leftists.
You become like what you hate. Because blacks are kept angry by being endlessly told about supposedly “racist” attacks against other blacks in the past, and because they put their false identity in blackness rather than in what’s right, blacks have been attacking whites in disproportionate interracial violence and aggression for decades, but we only hear about white “racism.” Now whites are coming out in smaller numbers and attacking people in some instances as well – we saw this most notably with Dylann Roof, who was angry about black-on-white crime and the false mainstream narrative of white “racism” (which doesn’t exist and never has).
I have interviewed and exhorted Alt-Right figures, including Richard Spencer, Christopher Cantwell and others, not to go with anger and blame, not to put their identity in physical things such as “white identity,” but in what’s right, or they will suffer spiritually the way blacks, liberal women, radical homosexuals and others do.
…Around the release of Cop Out, Kevin Smith wasn’t pleased with critics. His buddy comedy was widely panned in reviews, leading Smith to wonder why studios would show movies to critics for free so that they could “shit all over it.” A few years later, Smith said he was going through a “crazy emotional moment” and made his peace with film critics by accepting the fact that it’s not possible for everybody to like his movies.
The writer-director said the third act of his upcoming movie, Yoga Hosers, is an apology to some of those reviewers. Below, learn more about Kevin Smith’s apology.
Yoga Hosers recently screened at Fantasia Fest. As was the case at the Sundance Film Festival, the reviews out of Fantasia weren’t overly positive about Smith’s latest. The Yoga Hosers trailers wouldn’t make anyone think the film is a response to critics, but according to Birth.Movies.Death.‘s Andrew Todd, it’s a major, misguided, and hamfisted part of Smith’s script. To him, Yoga Hosers “asks how little Kevin Smith really cares.”
On Twitter, Smith wanted to show how much he cares by responding to the review, insisting that the intent behind the film’s depiction of critics and haters is an apology:
SPOILERS! The 3rd act of @YogaHosers and what it really means is decoded in this attachment! Sounds stupid but true! pic.twitter.com/7AwMFDzd5o — KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) July 31, 2016
It is a bit peculiar seeing a filmmaker explaining what their movie is actually about — and the events that take place in the third act — before it even hits theaters, but it’s easy to see where Smith is coming from. Even if a director’s or artist’s work suggests otherwise, nobody enjoys hearing or reading they “don’t care,” especially if it couldn’t be further from the truth. If Smith genuinely didn’t care, he wouldn’t have spent the time making Yoga Hosers in the first place.
Here’s the official synopsis for Yoga Hosers:
Colleen and Colleen are BFFs AF. Manitoba is where they go to school together, do yoga together, play in a band together, and work together at a boring convenience store. Life is whatevs, but also on fleek. That’s kinda what being 15 and a half is all about. #RealTalk So when two older guys invite the Colleens to a senior party, the girls are determined to go no matter what—even if that “what” is a terrible, secret evil that threatens to destroy everything decent and polite about Canada. Can Colleen and Colleen save the day and go viral? Will those senior boys prove squad-worthy?
Yoga Hosers opens in select theaters on September 2nd.While the old-school images might seem odd, the new production method and a barrage of features both seen and unseen will make the licenses, officials say, virtually impossible to forge. Most critically, they say, the new licenses are laser engraved on rigid polycarbonate, replacing the current process of printing photos on more flexible material, which they say can be much more easily altered or fabricated. (While the photos at the D.M.V. will still be taken in color, the engraving is done in grayscale, hence the Ansel Adams feel.)
The new cards are so stiff that they sound like a compact disc when dropped. Personal data is also engraved, as is a “ghost image,” a small, second portrait of the driver that will float in a transparent window and will be visible from the front and the back. All of the elements are then fused together into what the department calls “a solid, monolithic structure that cannot be separated into layers and tampered with.”
After the success of a similarly designed United States passport card, New York is the second state to adopt this technology, which incorporates black-and-white images into a full color design. The first, in 2009, was Virginia. Since then, Pam Goheen, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, said the department had not seen a “credible” forgery of a Virginia license, adding that those who tried had failed miserably.
“They’re really awful,” she said.
Still, the change in New York has generated some controversy.
A losing bidder for the license contract, De La Rue North America, has sued the Department of Motor Vehicles, contending that an eight-year deal with CBN Secure Technologies Inc., a United States subsidiary of the Canadian Bank Note Company, was granted unfairly. The contract for the production of the new licenses is worth up to $88.5 million, but department officials believe the actual cost could be closer to $70 million.BEKESCSABA, Hungary (Reuters) - The annual Bekescsaba Sausage Festival is the place to taste and find out secrets of Hungary’s spicy kolbasz sausages, but strict vegetarians and anyone who sticks to the rule that it’s best not to ask how a sausage was made might want to steer clear.
A competitor with sausages on his cap, drinks during Europe's biggest sausage festival in Bekescsaba, 240 km (149 miles) southeast of Budapest October 29, 2011. REUTERS/Laszlo Balogh
From butchering a pig, complete with blowtorch for searing the bristles, to grinding the meat, mixing it with spices and squeezing it into long, filmy sausage casings that fit just so over the nozzle of a purpose-built stuffing machine, pig to plate is on display with little left to the imagination.
“Any foreigner who ever once tasted the Hungarian sausage will always ask me: ‘That sausage, can you please bring me that sausage again?’,” said Gyula Bodrogi, a Hungarian actor and member of the jury that judges the best of the day’s kolbasz.
And people do love it. The 15th year of the four-day festival in a rural area of southeastern Hungary, near the Romanian border, drew an estimated 100,000 visitors over the end-October holiday weekend, winding up Monday.
While others celebrated Hallowe’en and All Saints Day, many Hungarians and Romanians spent time well-fed at what organizers say is the biggest eating and drinking event in eastern and central Europe — a food-focused flipside to Germany’s beery Oktoberfest.
People come for the weather, which this year was sunny and mild, for music from local and regional rock and folk bands, for dancing, crafts, amusement-park rides, beer, wine and the ever-present, potent and often homemade “palinka” fruit brandy.
But most of all they come for the kolbasz (“sausage,” in Hungarian), made according to a century-old recipe with pork, paprika, garlic, caraway seeds, but also various tricks of the trade, and available in sizes and shapes from finger-sized to monsters more than a meter long, ranging in texture from dry to moist and in spiciness from mild to mouth-destroying.
Visitors also get to watch and cheer on about 500 roughly 10-person teams making the kolbasz from scratch, competing in a good-natured, carnival-like, palinka-fueled atmosphere.
“There are other festivals but this atmosphere, this crazy good spirit, the teams are unrivalled anywhere else,” said Jozsef Nemeth, deputy president of the sausage-judging jury.
The sausage-making contest provides a focus for the festival, and a chance for oneupmanship among sausage makers.
“The spirit of a beautiful woman is in our sausage,” said Ferenc Bordacs, dressed in the long, skirt-like garment of the Hungarian “puszta” plains, with hat to match. He came with a team from Debrecen, in eastern Hungary to make sausage in Bekescsaba’s socialist-era Sports Hall, where bright smiles made up for the somewhat dingy lighting and period decor.
Other contestants, more modestly, said their sausages contained special blends of paprika, garlic, or top quality pork, or maintained their team was best at mixing it all up.
“Let’s do it, guys,” Bence Szabo, 23, team leader for a group of university friends, many of them now software programmers in Budapest, said as about eight hands — covered in clear plastic gloves — kneaded the contents of a big plastic bin full of about 10 kg (22 lb) of freshly ground pork meat, plus salt, paprika and whatever they thought was good.
When the meat and seasonings are thoroughly mixed, it is squeezed through a sausage maker, into clear casings and proudly displayed on each team’s table, for the judges to come by and decide who made the day’s best kolbasz.
It all happens in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, with one table helping out another, sharing ingredients and palinka, and anything else anyone needs, until the entire festival feels like one huge, if somewhat tipsy, family.
PIG BUTCHERED, RIGHT THERE
Outside the Sports Hall, in a roped-off area, a team of six butchers from the Serb meat company Agropupak, in Kukujevci, Serbia, showed a crowd of several hundred people, including youngsters who possibly never had been on a farm, where the raw ingredients of sausage come from by butchering a pig.
The pig was dead on arrival, but the Serbs did everything else, from shaving the bristles to cutting up the carcass.
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kinds, Valencia firecrackers and rockets, whose sale is illegal."
This may not exactly constitute wiretapping, but the surveillance of social networks – albeit significantly less sophisticated – is equally telling of the way the state uses these tools to spy on activists and dissidents, not just the criminals and terrorists they claim to be targeting.
The blurring of the line between “activist” and “terrorist” is, of course, something plenty of governments have been trying to achieve for decades.
Kostas Sakkas.
In Greece, squats were linked to terrorism and hooliganism to justify evictions, and anarchists are routinely charged with terrorism offences and jailed under draconian terrorist laws. The case of Kostas Sakkas stands out as an example of the lengths that a government is willing to go to literally exterminate their activist opposition. This combination of mass surveillance and increasingly rigorous anti-terrorism laws has set up a dangerous environment for righteous dissent around the globe.
With Brazil witnessing a surveillance scandal just as the recent riots kicked off, with France labelled "as bad as the US" when it comes to spying on citizens and with the UK, well, in much the same position as France, it's of utmost importance to move on from the idea of, "I've got nothing to hide."
Our governments and their surveillance methods need to become transparent and held to account. Because I doubt you like the idea of an officious bureaucrat listening into your phone conversations from Whitehall, let alone having access to every piece of correspondence you have with everyone in your life.
Follow Yiannis on Twitter: @YiannisBab
More stories about the increasing amount of surveillance technology keeping tabs on you:
Yes, the NSA Can Spy on Every US Citizen
Why the NSA's Critics Might Secretly Want It to Exist
Are Surveillance Drones the Future of CCTV?Without breaking a sweat, the so-called work-walker can burn an estimated 100 to 130 calories an hour at speeds slower than two miles an hour, Mayo research shows.
Enthusiasts began following Dr. Levine’s example, constructing treadmill desks that range from sleekly robotic set-ups to rickety mash-ups that could be Wall-E’s long-lost kin. But the recent introduction of an all-in-one treadmill desk from Details may inch work-walking into the mainstream, as dozens of businesses invest in the hardware to let their employees walk (and, ideally, lose a little weight) at work.
Since last November, about 335 Walkstations, have been sold nationwide to companies including Humana, Mutual of Omaha, GlaxoSmithKline and Best Buy.
The Walkstation, which Dr. Levine helped develop, costs about $4,000 and comes in 36 laminate finishes with an ergonomically curved desktop. Its quiet motor is designed for slow speeds, said David Kagan, director of marketing communications at Details, a division of Steelcase.
STILL, to most, work-walking is “a freaky thing to do,” said Joe Stirt, 60, an anesthesiologist in Charlottesville, Va., who works and blogs in his off hours while walking up to six hours a day in his home office.
Mr. Stirt’s site, www.bookofjoe.com/2007/10/treadmill-works.html, is one of some dozen work-walking blogs, including www.treadmill-desk.com and treadmill-workstation.com.
“I know lots of people who are using them,” Dr. Stirt said of the treadmill desks. “But there are probably a hundred times more who we don’t read about on the Internet.”
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There is even a burgeoning social network (officewalkers.ning.com), with around 30 members, that Mr. Rhoads started in March.
To the uninitiated, work-walking sounds like a recipe for distraction. But devotees say the treadmill desks increase not only their activity but also their concentration.
“I thought it was ridiculous until I tried it,” said Ms. Krivosha, 49, a partner in the law firm of Maslon Edelman Borman & Brand.
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Ms. Krivosha said it is tempting to become distracted during conference calls, but when she is exercising, she listens more intently.
“Walking just takes care of the A.D.D. part,” she said.
Still, work-walking can require crafty maneuvering. When colleagues drop in on Bruce Langer, another work-walker, he pivots, then keeps striding backward while facing them.
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“It’s more polite and, from a workout standpoint, it works different muscles,” said Mr. Langer, a vice president of Tealwood Asset Management in Minneapolis.
In 2005, Salo, a professional placement firm in Minneapolis, contacted Dr. Levine after fashioning its first treadmill unit. (Employees called the cobbled-together unit “the Frankendesk.”) By 2007, Salo had become a test site for early Walkstation models and now has 16.
At Mutual of Omaha’s 150-person call center in Omaha, four Walkstations have been in use since July as part of a small company study to figure out whether work-walking could maintain productivity while reducing employees’ cholesterol, weight and blood-sugar levels. Sixteen subjects of different ages, weights and fitness levels work-walk two hours a day, said Peggy Rivedal, the manager of employee health services. A similarly diverse control group works the old-fashioned way.
After leaving the military two years ago, Kirk Hurley, 40, a customer service representative at Mutual of Omaha, gained 75 pounds. In two months of work-walking two hours a day, he has lost 16 pounds.
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“You don’t really feel the physical strain on your body because your mind’s occupied with your work,” he said.
Treadmill desks will not likely replace the sit-down kind any time soon. In corporate settings, they are usually in open areas where employees can just jump on. At a few firms, including Salo, they have replaced conference tables.
SOME business colleagues arrive at meetings with walking shoes in hand, said Amy Langer, a Salo founder (and Mr. Langer’s wife).
But not every employee has the enthusiasm to keep work-walking day after day. Take the trial Walkstation at Humana, a health insurer in Louisville, Ky.
After a year on site, the treadmill is in use about 60 percent of the workday, mostly for conference calls, said Grant Harrison, the vice president of consumer innovation. Many workers, he said, may “try it out, but they don’t make it a part of their daily life.”
Nor does everyone have the coordination to walk and work, said Andrew Wood, the director of ergonomics and corporate services for Muve, a weight-management consultancy affiliated with the Mayo Clinic.
“If you can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, this may not be the workstation for you,” Mr. Wood said. But it should be a piece of cake for most people, he added.
James O. Hill, an obesity researcher and the director of the University of Colorado’s Center for Human Nutrition in Denver, shares this opinion: “There are not very many people who can’t walk,” he said. “You should have a doctor’s note to not walk.”
Will work-walking free you from the gym forever? Not if you’re seeking serious weight loss or peak cardio-respiratory fitness. “Walking on the treadmill could be enough to prevent weight gain, but it’s not going to melt the pounds off,” Dr. Hill said.
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Still, something is better than nothing, say workwalkers like Mr. Rhoads.
“At least a little bit of exercise will just be part of my day and part of my working,” he said. “The one thing I always do is work.”Christiana Figueres calls for rapid emissions cuts to avoid 'doom and gloom' events such as the NSW bushfires
The Coalition government is set to pay a “high political price” for its Direct Action climate change plan, according to the United Nation’s climate chief.
Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said the government’s approach could be “a lot more expensive” than pricing carbon and called for rapid cuts in emissions to avoid the kind of “doom and gloom” represented by the New South Wales bushfires.
“What the new government in Australia has not done is step away from its international commitment on climate change,” Figueres told CNN. “What they are struggling with is not what they are going to do but how are they going to get there.
“They are going to have to pay a very high political price and a very high financial price because the route they are choosing to take to get to the same target agreed by the last government could be a lot more expensive for them, and for the population.”
The Coalition has set a fixed amount of $2.5bn over the forward estimates to pay for its Direct Action plan, which would involve incentives given to businesses to cut emissions, as well as activities such as storing carbon in soils.
Independent analysis has shown that it may have to spend billions of extra dollars in order to meet the bipartisan target of at least a 5% reduction in emissions by 2020, based on 2000 levels.
Greg Hunt, the environment minister, has indicated parts of the Direct Action plan could be implemented without legislation, due to a potentially hostile Senate that won’t change until July next year.
Figueres said that she supported putting a price on carbon, echoing senior figures at the OECD, IMF and World Bank, who have all stated over the past week that carbon pricing is the most cost-efficient way of reducing emissions.
“We are already paying price of carbon,” she told CNN. “We are paying the price with wildfires, we are paying the price with droughts, we are paying the price with all sorts disturbances to the hydrological cycle.
“What we need to do is put a price on carbon so we don’t pay the price of carbon.”
Figueres added that the world needed to take “vigorous action” to help avoid the “doom and gloom” scenario illustrated by the NSW bushfires, insisting that there needed to be zero net emissions by 2050 to avoid dangerous climate change.
“We have very little time left and we are closing the window upon ourselves,” she said. “But we do have time. The trajectory of emissions is still rising so we need to get to our global peaking point this decade and then get our trajectory down.”
Figueres said Australia wouldn’t suddenly move to a “magical world” that doesn’t have fossil fuels but that the future involved a more “balanced and healthier” energy mix.
“There will always be a base load provided by fossil fuels,” she said. “The issue is, however, that those fossil fuels, coal in particular, cannot pursue business as usual. They have to invest in carbon capture and storage, they need to become much more efficient, because most of the plants are horribly inefficient, and they need to invest in the new technologies of the future.”Rome — A pope is also the bishop of Rome, and on Thursday, Benedict XVI had his last encounter with the clergy of his diocese in a packed session with the priests of Rome staged in the Vatican's Paul VI audience hall.
It was a long-planned encounter to talk about Benedict's experiences at the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), where the young Joseph Ratzinger served at all four sessions as a theological expert. In the context of the last 72 hours, however, it also became an emotional send-off for the first bishop of Rome in centuries to renounce his office.
Seated at a table on the hall's stage, Benedict spoke extemporaneously, without a prepared text. He began by thanking the clergy for their support.
"Even if I now withdraw myself, I'll stay close to you just as I'm sure you'll be close to me," Benedict said, "even if I remain hidden for the world."
It was a remarkable session, with Benedict displaying an informality and sense of humor rarely seen in public.
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The pope recalled that when he was a young theologian, Cardinal Joseph Frings of Cologne asked him to help prepare a speech laying out a vision for Vatican II, which set out a program for reform. Frings later brought Ratzinger with him to Rome, and as they approached the Vatican for a ceremony, Frings was nervous that his speech may have gone too far.
"This may be the last time I ever wear the purple," he told Ratzinger, meaning that perhaps he'd be deposed as a bishop.
Instead, Benedict said, Pope John XXIII embraced him and said, "Your Eminence, thanks for your speech. You said exactly what I wanted to, but I couldn't find the words."
That anecdote brought laughter and applause across the hall.
Benedict went on to recall other memories from the council, including meetings with various lions of the conciliar period -- theologians, prelates and other luminaries.
"It was an experience of the universality of the church and the concrete realities of the church, which aren't simple," he said.
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Benedict's overview of how Vatican II evolved basically summarized the highlights of most standard histories. The best-prepared beforehand, he said, were the bishops of France, Germany, Belgium and Holland, and they took control of the council's early stages, setting the stage for the reforms to come. The opening act was formed by debates over the liturgy, building on a renewal that had started under Pope Pius XII, which opened on to other subjects.
"I was happy it began with the liturgy, because that way the primacy of God was made clear," Benedict said.
"The first substantial act was to talk about God and the adoration of God in the communal liturgy centered on the body and blood of Christ."
Benedict went on to sketch some of Vatican II's big ideas on the liturgy:
Restoring Easter and the spirit of Easter to the center of Christian life, especially the encounter with the risen Christ
Intelligibility of worship
Active participation in the liturgy
"These principles were sometimes misunderstood," Benedict said. "Intelligibility doesn't mean banality."
The pope said a permanent formation is needed to truly grasp what "intelligibility means."
Benedict then turned to Vatican II's teaching on the church, saying that the post-World War II period brought a renewed focus on the church in Catholic thought.
"The church is not an organization, something to structure institutionally, but an organism. It's a vital reality, something that has to enter into my heart," he said.
Benedict noted the irony that the idea of "we are the church" also grew up in this context. That phrase has been used by some of Benedict's fiercest critics on the Catholic left; "We are Church" is the name of Europe's largest Catholic reform movement.
Yet Benedict insisted that it doesn't refer to "some group that declares itself to be the church," but rather to the personal insertion of believers into the greater community of the church.
Benedict turned to the topic of collegiality, meaning shared authority in the church among the bishops rather than being exclusively concentrated at the top.
'Sometimes it's been seen as a power struggle," he said, "but in reality, it's a matter of complementarity." He said there should be a balance.
Benedict also reflected on the term "People of God," saying the council meant to link it with the concept of communion, which finds its highest expression in the Eucharist.
Turning to divine revelation, Benedict said debates over the relationship between scripture and tradition were "conflictual." Bible scholars, he said, wanted more freedom to explore the texts without being subjected at every turn to the magisterium, meaning the teaching authority of the church.
"The church is the living subject of scripture," he said. "Without the church, scripture is just a book open to diverse interpretations and can't offer a last word with clarity."
Benedict expressed admiration for the "delicacy" with which Pope Paul VI tried to strike a balance during the council, helping to navigate its tensions.
Benedict recalled from memory the Latin formula on revelation that the council adopted.
Today, the pope said, biblical exegesis tends to read the Bible apart from the church, relying solely on the historical-critical method. Instead, he said, it must be read from within the church and in the light of faith.
"There's much to do to arrive at a reading truly in the spirit of the council," he said.
On ecumenism, Benedict said the push for Christian unity seemed an obvious priority, "above all after the passion of Christians during the time of Nazism."
Benedict said that in the later stages of the council, bishops from other parts of the world played a stronger role. The Americans, he said, were especially involved in the push for recognition of religious freedom.
"We can't go home without a declaration on religious freedom in our bags," the pope recalled his American colleagues saying.
Benedict praised Gaudium et Spes for outlining the relationship between Christian eschatology and social progress.
The pope also described the tensions inside Vatican II over the document on relations with other religions, Nostrae Aetate.
Cardinal Agostino Vallini, vicar of the Rome diocese, greeted Benedict, telling him that the Roman clergy reacted to his decision with both "sadness and respect," as well as "admiration and regret."
Clearly emotional, Vallini said they "truly love" the pope and promised to pray for him.
Benedict ended by lamenting the way the council was sometimes popularly understood.
"The council for journalists was set in the categories of the media of today, the categories of politics. It was seen as a power struggle, and it was natural that they took the side of those positions closest to the world they live in."
Specifically, Benedict cited ideas such as decentralization of the church, more power to the bishops, and the phrase "People of God" as shorthand for greater power for the laity, as points that loomed large on this agenda.
Benedict suggested that media presentations of the council often led to misinterpretations and excesses.
"This council of the media was accessible to everyone, and it created many problems. It created many miseries... seminaries closed, convents closed, the liturgy banalized. The real council had great difficult being realized, because the virtual council was more powerful.
"Fifty years after Vatican II, we see how this virtual council burst things apart," he said. "We have to work for the real council, with the Holy Spirit, to be realized."LUCENA CITY, Philippines—The Alpha Phi Omega fraternity has been mobilizing its more than 100,000 members here and abroad to support their beleaguered brother, Vice President Jejomar Binay, in this critical chapter of his political career.
Mel Adriano, a Manila-based businessman and former APO national president, said Saturday he was in the United States to accept declarations of support for Binay from more than 30 APO-Philippines alumni associations in North America.
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“We support VP Jojo Binay not only because he is an APO brother but because he is the most qualified and has the track record of getting things done,” Adriano said in an interview on Facebook.
Binay has been a member of APO since his college days in the University of the Philippines Diliman in the 1960s.
APO claims to have more than 360 collegiate chapters in the Philippines.
Binay never fails to credit the fraternity’s support for his victory in the 2010 vice presidential election.
Adriano said all APO members across the country, college residents and alumni members, most of them professionals, have reaffirmed their commitment to support Binay.
“They [are] active on social media, spreading the truth about the false allegations and lies at the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee,” Adriano said.
Adriano was referring to a Senate blue ribbon subcommittee inquiry into allegations of corruption against Binay, centering on the alleged overpricing of the P2.28-billion Makati City Hall Building II, which was constructed when he was the city’s mayor.
Former Makati Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado, the principal witness in the inquiry, has accused Binay of taking 13 percent of the cost of all municipal infrastructure projects in kickbacks and concealing assets, including an 8,877-square-meter property in Comembo village in Makati and a 350-hectare farm in Rosario town, Batangas province.
The disclosures at the inquiry have hurt Binay’s standing in early presidential opinion polls, although he remains on top with a voter preference rating of 31 percent in the latest Social Weather Stations survey.
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Adriano said APO members’ support for Binay was “voluntary” and “from the heart.”
“They are not paid like other groups,” he said.
Most APO members interviewed by the Inquirer said the Senate inquiry was politically motivated, intended to tarnish Binay and take him out of 2016 presidential race.
They said several polls had shown that Binay had a comfortable lead over his putative rivals, particularly the Liberal Party’s presumptive standard-bearer, Interior Secretary Mar Roxas.
Binay has transformed his political coalition United Nationalist Alliance, the vehicle he used to launch his vice-presidential campaign in 2010, into a political party in preparation for a presidential run in 2016.
In the Southern Tagalog and Bicol regions, APO members have also been mobilized to counter the “black propaganda” against Binay, Joselito Joy Merjudio, chairman of APO-Southern Luzon, told the Inquirer.
Merjudio, who is based in Pagbilao, Quezon, said some APO lawyers have volunteered to go radio and television hopping to explain and expose to the public the political demolition being waged by some senators against the vice president.
He said they also have plans to hold public forums to enlighten the citizenry about the “lies and concocted allegations” against their fraternity brother.
“Most chapters in Southern Luzon have also been busy accepting declarations of support for Brod Jojo from different community organizations and APO local chapters and alumni groups,” Merjudio said.
The latest Social Weather Stations poll showed that 79 percent of Filipinos want Binay to attend the hearing and directly address the allegations of corruption against him.
Mejudio said he too believed that Binay should attend the Senate hearing.
“But the subject of the hearing in his presence should be confined to the issues. There should be no ‘ad libs’ from committee members,” Merjudio said.
But Cavite Gov. Jonvic Remulla, Binay’s political spokesman, insisted that Binay would not attend the “farcical proceedings” of the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee because its inquiry was “not in aid of legislation but in furtherance of political persecution.”
Remulla said Binay would rather go directly to the people to air his side.
Binay is scheduled to be in this city on Oct. 28 tas a guest at a conference of the Quezon Federation of Senior Citizens at the Quezon Convention Center.
The Senate Blue Ribbon subcommittee has been looking into allegations that Binay and his family have unexplained wealth, allegedly from receiving kickbacks in the overpriced Makati parking building and other infrastructure projects while he was mayor. Binay vehemently denied the accusations.
The Senate inquiry is being spearheaded by Senators Aquilino Pimentel III, Alan Peter Cayetano and Antonio Trillanes IV.
The Senate is also conducting a probe into Binay’s alleged ownership of a 350-hectare estate in Rosario, Batangas.
He is also accused of failing to declare various estates in his Statement of Assets and Liabilities Net worth.
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MOST READThe books under review—by Cheryl Higashida, Dayo F. Gore and Erik S. McDuffie—all discuss the work of Black women writers and activists from the Old Left. Alan Wald traces common themes that to show how these activist women articulated the dynamics of race, class and gender as “triple oppression.” Download the PDF.
Black Internationalist Feminism:
Women Writers of the Black Left, 1945-1995
By Cheryl Higashida
Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2011, 250 pages, hardback $50.
Radicalism at the Crossroads:
African American Women Activists in the Cold War
By Dayo F. Gore
New York: New York University Press, 2011, 229 pages, paper $23.
Sojourning for Freedom:
Black Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Feminism
By Erik S. McDuffie
Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2011, 311 pages, paper $23.95.
HARRIET TUBMAN, THE former slave turned Abolitionist, once said: “Every great dream begins with a dreamer.”(1) The concurrent publication of three evocative and absorbing studies of the “freedom dreams” of African-American women associated with the mid-20th century Communist movement is something of an event.(2)
Through an examination of the archival record, combined with numerous oral histories and close readings of political and literary texts, Black Internationalist Feminism, Radicalism at the Crossroads and Sojourning for Freedom provide at their very best some compelling history with engaging portraits. All are indispensable reading for the project of intellectual decolonization of the Cold War era, a subject still marred by historical obfuscations traceable to the polarized thinking of the time.
As an ensemble, these books tell a hugely ambitious, wide-ranging story, one that is almost always a delight to read. The remarkably detailed chronicles are dense-with-thinking in the elaboration of at least three themes held in common, with some variations:
1) All three reject the declension narrative of the Old Left as a movement destroyed or rendered impotent in the post-World War II years; they forward an anticipatory narrative of linking Communism’s hard-fought battles to the coming political upsurge of the 1960s and after. In this sense they enrich Jacqueline Dowd Hall’s 2005 thesis of “The Long Civil Rights Movement”(3) by revising what Dayo Gore describes as “the historical periodization that ignores Cold War black radicalism [in order to] uncover its connections to later decades of activism, including African American civil rights activism after 1955.”(4)
More specifically, the three reinforce the argument of Nikhil Pal Singh’s 2005 Black is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy on behalf of the existence of “a more or less consistent tradition of radical dissent” from the Great Depression forward.(5)
2) All regard the paramount intellectual bridge between Black women activists of the Old Left and later developments to be a hitherto hidden history of “intersectionality,” today’s preeminent sociological method in feminist studies.
Intersectionality, first fully elaborated in the late 1980s, refers to the examination of interactions among manifold dimensions and modalities of social relationships and social formations that contribute to social inequality.(6) Higashida et al argue that the post-World War II Communist Party’s concept of the “triple oppression” of Black women workers (that is, by race, class, and gender, all of which must be addressed) was a decisive anticipation of intersectionality.
Higashida and McDuffie also observe, with somewhat differing emphases, that the term “triple oppression” initially emerged in Party circles in the 1930s, although all three are unanimous that the formulation achieved a pre-eminent expression in a 1949 Political Affairs essay by Claudia Jones, “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman.”
The concept was subsequently articulated through activism, especially the Women’s Committee for Equal Justice (an offshoot of the Communist-led Civil Rights Congress), and the brief organization of Sojourners for Truth and Justice in 1951. The first was formed around the political defense case of Rosa Lee Ingram (convicted in 1947 for killing a white man in self-defense), and the second protested Cold War racism.
Higashida and McDuffie find a further manifestation of the “triple oppression” argument in the statement of the Combahee River Collective (1974-80), a Black feminist lesbian organization, while all three point to its presence in the pages of Freedomways magazine (1961-85), an African-American political and cultural journal supported by but broader than the Communist Party.
Higashida alone pursues the evolution and transformation of this thinking in works of imaginative literature published through 1995, tracking the interaction between a sympathy for national liberation movements and a growing critique of heteronormativity.
While her most brilliant chapter addresses Lorraine Hansberry’s Les Blancs, she also provides impressively original readings of Alice Childress’s A Short Walk (1979), Rosa Guy’s The Sun, The Sea, a Touch of the Wind (1995), Audre Lorde’s later poetry, and Maya Angelou’s last three volumes of autobiography.
3) Through their examination of the biographies of several dozen Black pro-Communist women, overlapping in a few instances, the authors confirm the intellectual shallowness of over-arching applications of the political category of “Stalinism.”
Despite its clarifying potential when used in a sophisticated manner to treat an ideology, social system or political organization, “Stalinism” can be an oversimplifying lens through which to evaluate the thinking, personalities and life activities of diverse individuals, not to mention works of the artistic imagination.
A few of the names in these books will be familiar from earlier studies — obviously Party leader Claudia Jones (1915-64) and playwright Lorraine Hansberry (1930-65), outstanding Communist revolutionaries who died painfully young. But some of the other fascinating key players have hitherto appeared in historical studies and oral histories as human jigsaw puzzles, the pieces of their lives and activities scattered over time and nearly lost.
The list of protagonists begins with Grace Campell (1883-1943), perhaps the first Black woman Communist; Williana Burroughs (1882-1945), a teacher who worked frequently in the Soviet Union; Audley Moore (1898-1966), a Harlem Communist leader who became an initiator of the Republic of New Afrika; and Esther Jackson (b.1917), a founding editor of Freedomways.
These and dozens of others constituted a tradition of pro-Communist Black women, even as the authors emphatically teach us that each activist and writer held membership in multiple communities, some unspoken. This diversity is demonstrated by indicating their different routes into and in some cases their trajectories out of the Communist movement; their contrasting organizational roles and commitments; and their various personal lives, in a few instances recalling the early 20th century “New Woman” (a term for independent career women who pushed the limits of male dominated society), or even suggestive of a lesbian-feminism avant la lettre.
Problems of Political Terminology
One of the most vexing challenges faced by the authors of these books is to identify the appropriate political terminology for describing the protagonists during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. One can understand the desire to use familiar and currently fashionable language to render a subject pertinent to a present-day readership, but an anachronistic vocabulary can diminish distinctions in historical periods marked by dissimilar strategic options and kinds of consciousness about one’s identity. Over-reliance on modern expressions can also make it seem as if one is writing backwards through contemporary definitions or treating the past as simply a future waiting to happen.
McDuffie opts for “Black Left Feminists,” a formula he borrows from literary scholar Mary Helen Washington and which he finds superior to the paradigm of the “radical black female subject” used by Carole Boyce Davis in her Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones (2008).
Prior to the 1960s, however, none of the women would have called themselves “feminists” (a politics they associated with middle-class white women, often seen as racist and even anti-Semitic), or “Black” (judged to be offensive and as a rule replaced by “Negro”). Politically they described themselves as “Communists” or “Progressives,” a controversial component of but hardly synonymous with the “Left.”
Higashida refers to the women in her study as “Black Internationalist Feminists,” and her first and third terms-of-choice become increasingly comfortable as she is largely concerned with creative writing after the 1960s and 1970s. But there is a snag in that the “internationalism” of the pro-Communist tradition was originally circumscribed by Soviet foreign policy. It is always a mistake to confuse well-meaning political aspirations with the realities of actual practice; one’s analysis morphs into hagiography.
Regrettably, for the pro-Communist tradition, “Internationalism” in 1936 in Spain meant following the Soviet orientation of crushing the indigenous social revolution; in 1939 in East Central Europe, endorsing the USSR’s subjugation of the population of half of Poland and then moving north to attack Finland; in World War II, subordinating the colonial revolution (such as in India) and the rights of the internally-colonized (most obviously Japanese-Americans) to the racism of the Grand Alliance; and so on.
Although pro-Communists after World War II were usually on the mark in their exposés of Western colonialism, a kind of “selective internationalism” persisted in the 1950s and 1960s through the perpetration of the misconception that certain self-proclaimed “socialist” regimes (China, North Korea) and affiliated political parties objectively represented the long-term interests of all the oppressed.
Dayo Gore manages to avoid many of the tripwires of the terminology quandary by frequently using plainer phrases such as “CP-affiliated black women activists.”(7)
On the other hand, it is Higashida who puts forward the most thought-provoking divergence of opinion in these books by centering her argument around the dialectic of gender and national liberation as it evolved to the end of the 20th century. In her outlook, the strength of Jones’ “triple oppression” argument is that it was rooted in a revival of the Communists’ “Black Belt” thesis following the 1946 expulsion of Party leader Earl Browder.(8)
Higashida regards this theory as a foundation, more apparent in Freedomways than in the anti-nationalist Combahee River Collective statement, for the freedom dreams of a “nationalist internationalism.” Her group of Black women writers would increasingly foreground this ideal as a component of their struggle against heterosexism and patriarchy.
A Janus-Faced Legacy
The effort to find a balance in judging the Janus-faced legacy of Communism is more often than not a thankless task. Pro-Soviet Communism in the United States was a courageous vanguard against racism, colonialism and class exploitation that simultaneously lauded a police state regime under Stalin.(9)
Faced with the palpable McCarthyite repression of the 1950s, non-Communist Party political activists at the time should have prioritized civil rights and liberties especially in relation to the persecuted minority of “Reds.”
But 50 years later, a radical scholar has the different task of finding some means to treat these mostly-deceased pro-Communist protagonists with proper respect while not being afraid to identify embellishments, flaws and self-delusions in some of their diagnoses. Every effort to tell this story seems to be off-balance in its own ways.
To be sure, the authors of these three books show once again that the Communist Party was not politically seamless or its interventions entirely stage-managed; to say its members were wrong in their judgments is not to declare them malleable instruments or dupes. McDuffie, for example, argues that the Southern Negro Youth Congress, led by Communists such as Esther Jackson, in effect supported the Pittsburgh Courier’s campaign for “Double V” (victory against international fascism and domestic racism) in opposition to the Party’s national line which held that “Double V” was detrimental to national unity.(10)
Gore shows that the all-Black women’s organization Sojourners for Truth and Justice, which had a strong Party presence, was itself controversial in the Communist movement.(11) By introducing the voices of Black Communist women, these scholars set a new agenda for understanding the movement, demonstrating the presence of a kind of dissenting Marxism in the domestic arena of practical Party work.
However, when it comes to adherence to Soviet foreign policy and the view of the USSR and its “Dear Leader” Stalin as the chief agent of world peace and justice, the books show us only conformity, whether one looks to institutional policy, rank-and-file practice, or these same voices. Even among those African Americans who departed the Party, in 1956 if not earlier, the horrible facts of Stalinist oppression are never cited as a reason for the separation — the books report only grievances around lack of attention to anti-racism or personal gripes.
One would like to see some sympathetic speculation about this phenomenon in regard to the psychology of at least a few individuals, the kind that produced the heart-felt, richly textured explorations of the Communist experience available in George Charney’s A Long Journey (1968) and Junius Irving Scales’ Cause at Heart (1987). Perhaps the truth was too upsetting to be fully registered; former Communists, like others, are prone to self-redacting, editing and erasing memories.
“Not Without Contradictions”
Like all of us who have felt passionate commitments at certain points, the fascinating activists and writers featured in these books were handcuffed to history. But writing in the new millennium, the three authors are least rewarding when they replicate too closely the potentially explainable blind-spots of those protagonists who remained loyal to the Communist worldview.
McDuffie provides necessary critical distance when he skeptically scrutinizes the oral history of Audley “Queen Mother” Moore in relation to her bolting the Party during the Cold War; he claims that her move
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want to make sure that we can continue to move towards less emphasis on nuclear weapons."
But he insisted: "I'm going to preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure that the American people are safe and secure."
White House officials said the new strategy, called the Nuclear Posture Review, would include the option of reconsidering the use of nuclear retaliation against a biological attack if a country developed a capability that made the United States vulnerable to a devastating strike.
The announcement opened a frenetic nine days of nuclear diplomacy aimed at making major progress towards reducing weapons. After the signing ceremony in Prague, Mr Obama will next week host 47 world leaders in Washington for a summit on nuclear security.
Bates Gill, head of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, welcomed the new policy as evidence that Mr Obama was "making good on his commitment to work towards a world without nuclear weapons".
He lamented that the absence of a "no first use" declaration but said: "By deciding not to pursue new nuclear weapons, the US will forego next-generation weapons and the expansion of missions which such new weapons might fill."Makeshift REGISTER_GLOBALS a guest May 24th, 2012 1,729 Never a guest1,729Never
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Plaid Cymru should consider adopting the Welsh National Party as its English name, according to a party review.
Commissioned after disappointing results at last year's Welsh assembly election, the review says Plaid needs to deal with a perception that it is a party for Welsh speakers.
It says Plaid should be clearer about its goal of Welsh independence.
There has been a "lack of clarity" over Plaid's constitutional policy, it says.
The review by party grandees started after Plaid lost its status as the assembly's second-largest party and slipped behind the Conservatives at last May's election.
They heard feedback that Labour presented itself as the Welsh party while Plaid was seen as the Welsh speaking party.
On the potentially controversial name change, the review says: "A question that needs to be considered is whether or not the party adopts the name Welsh National Party as its English name. It is suggested that the party considers this matter."
While Plaid Cymru has set the political agenda in Wales over many decades it has not capitalised on the increase in Welsh identity Jocelyn Davies, Plaid Cymru AM
It says Plaid needs to "clarify its understanding of what it means by decentralised socialism" and differentiate itself from what it calls the "statist approach of the other parties and in particular the Labour Party".
Plaid should set out a "route map" towards its constitutional goal of an independent Wales within the EU - an ambition formally adopted as party policy last year.
Constitutional goal
Failing to articulate the party's vision might give the impression that Plaid is not prepared to discuss its principal constitutional goal "which, in turn, can give rise both to confusion and suspicion regarding the party's constitutional agenda".
The findings of the review - led by Plaid's economic policy adviser, Eurfyl ap Gwilym - comes as four candidates bid to succeed Ieuan Wyn Jones as leader. Mr Jones announced he would stand down in the wake of the election.
Mr Jones told BBC Wales that the proposal for a new English name was "one small sentence in a substantial report" that recommends changes to the party's direction, structure and messages.
The review - called Moving Forward - says 2011 "was a year both of achievement and disappointment" when Plaid lost seats in the Senedd, but also as Wales voted in favour of direct law-making powers for the assembly.
Plaid AM Jocelyn Davies, one of the six review members, said: "While Plaid Cymru has set the political agenda in Wales over many decades it has not capitalised on the increase in Welsh identity and the growing support for the people of Wales having greater control over their own affairs."
She said Plaid was in danger of having "magnolia policies - offend no-one, excite no-one".
The lack of electoral progress has been a "major problem" with "no sustained political or organisational effort" in seats where Welsh speakers are a minority, the review says.
It makes 95 recommendations, include suggestions to improve policy formation, building coalitions with other parties, campaigning and the party's structure.
Plaid said it would not publish the report online, but hard copies would be sent to members who would also be able to download it from a private area of the party's website.OKLAHOMA CITY -- For the first time since 1925, the original state flag of Oklahoma will be flown over the State Capitol as part of the centennial celebrations of the Oklahoma Capitol building.
The original flag, which is designed with a white star on a red field with the number 46 in blue, was adopted as Oklahoma’s flag in 1911 by then-Governor Lee Cruce but was retired when a new design was adopted in 1925. The 46 is significant in that Oklahoma was the 46th state, admitted into the union in 1907.
For fans of the original state flag, the idea of the “red flag” flying above the capitol is an exciting one that nods to Oklahoma’s unique history.
“I think it’s great. It’s really neat that the original state flag will fly above the Capitol once more,” said David Glover, a vexillologist (expert in symbolisms in flags) and local activist. “It is such an iconic and visually-striking flag. The flag will be 5 feet by 8 feet, and it’s being made by Liberty Flags in Tulsa, which I think is important. The Oklahoma flag is being made right here in Oklahoma.”
Glover was the catalyst of legislation that created new license plates displaying the 46 flag two years ago. During the 2015 legislative session, one of the bills to pass the legislature and be signed into law by Gov. Mary Fallin was House Bill 1269, authored by State Rep. Dennis Casey (R-Morrison) and Sen. AJ Griffin (R-Guthrie), which is for the “Oklahoma Original State Flag License Plate.” Former State Rep. Joe Dorman (D-Rush Springs) originally sponsored legislation to create the 46-star flag plate, complete with the Oklahoma state motto. the Latin phrase "Labor Omnia Vincit," which translates as "Work Conquers All."
The 46 Star "red flag" license plate on Red Dirt Report's "Lil' Dust Devil" Mini Cooper. (Andrew W. Griffin / Red Dirt Report)
“I think the red flag fell out of favor. Red flags were associated with communism and Marxism for a while, and a red flag was also used to indicate Spanish influenza, so red flags had a negative connotation for a while,” Glover said. “There were a few people in Oklahoma who knew about the original state flag and liked it. When the license plates became available, I think that generated a whole lot of interest too. By the way, I did get plate No. 1 when the plates became available.”
The decision to fly the original flag as one of 28 state flags to be displayed over the next two weeks was an easy decision to make, said Jana Miller, senior advisor for communications for the governor’s office.
“It made sense to fly the original flag for the celebration,” Miller said. “When the flags come down, they will be donated to different dignitaries throughout the state.”
The reintroduction of the original state flag at the Capitol is part of several events announced today by Gov. Mary Fallin to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Capitol building. In addition, the governor will host a ceremony to highlight the centennial and will include a time capsule to be interred at the newly-renovated lower level of the Capitol building and opened in 100 years.
The artifacts to be included will be displayed at 1 p.m. Monday, June 26 at the Capitol’s fourth-floor rotunda before the 2 p.m. commemoration ceremony.
Due to the construction at the Capitol, the time capsule will not be permanently installed until the renovation nears completion. The artifacts donated to the time capsule represent all facets of Oklahoma and its people.
According to a release from the governor’s office, other items to commemorate the building’s 100th birthday include commissioning a painting of the Capitol that will hang in the Capitol upon completion, a guest book for Oklahomans to sign and offer thoughts and hopes for the next 100 years that will be included in the time capsule, and flying at the Capitol for two weeks, starting June 19, the original state flag that was in use when the Capitol was built. Relatedly, OETA will be re-broadcasting its special program on the Capitol building, “Stateline: Oklahoma Rising”, at 7 pm on Thursday, June 29.
In 2013, the Oklahoma Century Chest, which was created and buried in 1913 was created, a time capsule similar to the one being interred this month. Items from the Century Chest are now on exhibit at the Oklahoma History Center with never-before-seen photographs, documents, and American Indian artifacts. Oklahoma pioneer Angelo C. Scott's speech delivered at the burial of the chest in 1913 is also included. In addition, the exhibit contains dozens of messages prophecies and letters from the pioneers of 1913 to their descendants 100 years later.
“Our beautiful Capitol building was completed on June 30, 1917,” said Fallin in the release. “It has been an honor to work in the ‘People’s House’ during my political career, and an honor to oversee preserving and protecting it for future generations. As The Oklahoman editorialized when the cornerstone was dedicated in 1915, ‘It is your state capitol. Your civic pride helped to make it possible. It was builded [sic] for you and your servants of Oklahoma officialdom. It is yours.’ Through this celebration of 100 years and the painstaking restoration taking place, we can honor our great state, our great people, and our proud heritage.”
The commemoration celebrations are funded through private funds raised by the Oklahoma History Center at an event. All the living Oklahoma governors, including Fallin and past governors George Nigh, David Walters, Frank Keating, Brad Henry and David Boren (in absentia), will host the events.Voters in last week's midterm election appear to have voted more liberally on ballot measures than on the candidates -- even in more conservative states and on more conservative measures.
We looked at 125 of the measures, propositions and constitutional amendments that appeared on ballots last week to gauge how voter opinions on them compared to the candidates higher up on the ballots. States approved ballot measures that would expand the minimum wage or legalize marijuana even as they voted overwhelmingly to elect Republicans to the Senate and the state House, as numerous reports have indicated. We wanted to figure out the extent of that apparent conflict.
The 125 measures were on the ballot in 40 states. We gave each measure a rating -- conservative, neutral or liberal -- based on its content. Most of them were neutral, which included bond measures and anything that seemed as though it could go either way or received strong bipartisan support. For each state, we also figured out the partisan split in the highest statewide office on the ballot. (In Missouri and Washington, we averaged House ratings for each party.)
The ballot measures broke down like this.
Then we compared the margin of support for the politically charged measures with the margin of support for the candidate under consideration. So Alaskans picked Dan Sullivan (R) to replace Mark Begich (D) in the Senate by 3.2 points and backed marijuana legalization, a liberal proposal under our definition, by 4.6. So, Alaskans voted 7.8 points more liberally on marijuana legalization.
On the 16 conservative ballot measures, voters were 4.7 points more liberal than their candidate voting. On the 26 liberal measures, they were 15.2 points more liberal. (The medians were 12.5 and 18.6, respectively.)
You'll notice that the graph uses "more Democratic" and "more Republican." We're comparing apples and oranges a bit here, because we are comparing liberal vs. conservative politics with Democrats vs. Republicans. As the example of marijuana probably proves, those categories don't always overlap cleanly. Not to mention that a different set of considerations comes into play when one is evaluating candidates: who the person is, his or her background, and even partisanship. That almost certainly colors those decisions.
One last note. Contrary to expectations, most of the initiatives -- 87 of the 125 -- received more than half of the vote. This doesn't mean that those 87 passed; some, often spending-related measures, needed a two-thirds majority. Neutral ballot propositions were more popular overall, receiving 15 net points of support, on average. Conservative measures averaged at plus-12. And liberal propositions were at plus-11. But because they did, in fact, often pass in more Republican states, it made a bigger difference in our above calculations.Notes obtained under freedom of information show Department of Fisheries among groups to criticise the drumline proposal
A local surf club was the only key stakeholder to support all aspects of the Western Australian shark cull before the policy was announced, according to documents shown to Guardian Australia.
The documents, which were obtained by lawyers for Sea Shepherd in December after a four-month freedom of information application process, show consultation notes relating to 23 stakeholders including government departments and Surf Life Saving WA.
Only one of the groups consulted, the Margaret River boardriders club, supported all aspects of the proposed cull.
According to government documents a total of 41 groups were consulted about the proposal in December 2013. Lawyers for Sea Shepherd originally requested all consultation notes but narrowed their request to 23 organisations they thought likely to support the policy after being told the original request was too broad. Those omitted from the request included academics and marine biologists who had spoken publicly against any proposed shark cull.
The premier, Colin Barnett, and the then fisheries minister, Troy Buswell, announced the drumline policy on 10 December 2013, just over two weeks after 35-year-old surfer Chris Boyd was killed by a great white shark at Gracetown, near Margaret River. It was intended to run for three years but was quashed by the Environmental Protection Authority in September.
The three-month drumline trial, which began on Australia Day 2014, snagged 172 sharks but no great whites.
Barnett has previously said Boyd’s death was the “catalyst” for the policy. He maintained the cull had the support of the “silent majority”, despite a poll finding 82% of Australians opposed killing sharks.
But the released consultation documents show that even those the government reached out to for comment on the proposal did not support it. Most of the released documents are presented as notes taken by government staff of stakeholder comments.
Among those opposed to the cull was the Department of Fisheries, which also criticised the imminent threat policy. Handwritten notes taken of a consultation with Fisheries staff show the department “would not support drumlines” and that they were a “possible attract (sic) of sharks”.
Surf Life Saving WA said the program could “increase anxiety” among beachgoers and recommended better communication and education about the level of risk. “Risk of shark attack v other threats is so low,” Surf Life Saving WA said. “But dealing with primal fear. Education needs to target the psychological primal fear of humans.”
The letter from Margaret River boardriders club, addressed to Buswell, said the proposal had been discussed at a meeting on 2 December 2013, a fortnight after Boyd died. Both Boyd and the break he was surfing were well known to the club, which now holds an annual surfing competition in his memory.
The club said it supported the drumline policy and the killing of sharks deemed to be an “imminent threat”, and said WA risked “a reputation worldwide as ‘the death coast’” if the government didn’t act. “The state has a duty of care to protect human life from imminent threat, which it is failing to act upon, at a terrible cost,” it said.
The club posited that great white shark numbers in south-western Australia had increased from 10,000 to 100,000 since the species was protected in the late 90s. “We note that most marine biologists are unwilling to speak in favour of targeted culling, however they are not living in the real world of daily shark sightings and regular attacks and human death,” it said.
Consultation notes attributed to Fisheries said there was no accurate population data for great white sharks but suggested environmental factors, such as a warming ocean, were pushing food sources south, resulting in an increase in sightings and fatal attacks. Notes from another conversation with Fisheries said: “Environmental tourist won’t come to WA if we go down this path.”
Commercial fisheries who were consulted said they had concerns about the tender process for monitoring the drumlines and the lack of government consultation. One commercial fisher said the policy had the potential to damage shark stocks by taking breeding females, which are more likely to be close to shore.
The city of Bunbury and the shire of Augusta-Margaret River also raised concerns about the consultation process.
Beach signs – similar to those used in Newcastle this week – were recommended by the majority of stakeholders. But as Newcastle shows, signs do not stop everyone from using the water.
A Sea Shepherd shark campaigner, Natalie Banks, said the documents scuttled Barnett’s oft-repeated claim that the “silent majority” supported the cull. “We have now got further information from the key stakeholders that shows that many of them said they had concerns about the policy, and only one fully supported it,” Banks said.
“That one submission seemed to outweigh all the others. Are they just trying to appease this one group of people who are clearly in the minority?”
In a statement to Guardian Australia, Barnett said the government had been “open and transparent” about the drivers of the drumline program. “While the government did consult before and during the trial, the driver of the program was the state’s ultimate responsibility to public safety,” he said.
Barnett said the government would “continue to address its duty of care” under its shark hazard mitigation strategy, which still allows the killing of a shark deemed to be a “serious threat”.Exclusive: The U.S. press coverage of the Ukraine crisis has been stunningly biased and one-sided, placing virtually all the blame on Russian President Putin. One of the worst offenders in this journalistic travesty has been the New York Times, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
As part of the New York Times’ sorry descent into becoming a propaganda sheet for the U.S. State Department, the Times’ front-page story on the Ukrainian presidential election offered a near perfect distillation of Official Washington’s false narrative on the crisis.
“The special election was called by Parliament to replace Viktor F. Yanukovych, who fled Kiev on Feb. 21 after a failed but bloody attempt to suppress a civic uprising, and whose toppling as president set off Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea,” wrote David M. Herszenhorn, one of the most consistently biased reporters on Ukraine.
Very little about the Times’ summary is either accurate or balanced. It is at best a one-sided account of the tumultuous events over the past several months in Ukraine and leaves out context that would enable a Times’ reader to get a more accurate understanding of the crisis.
Indeed, that false narrative, which has now become engrained as American conventional wisdom, has itself become a threat to U.S. interests because, if you believe the preferred storyline, you would tend to support aggressive counter-measures that could have dangerous and counter-productive consequences.
Beyond that, there is the broader risk to U.S. democracy when major news organizations routinely engage in this sort of propaganda. Just in recent years, the U.S. government has launched wars under such fake pretenses, inflicting casualties in faraway lands, engendering profound hatred of the United States, depleting the U.S. Treasury, and maiming and killing American soldiers.
That is why it’s important for journalists and news outlets to do all they can to get these kinds of stories right and not just pander to the powers-that-be.
Ukraine’s Real Narrative
Regarding Ukraine, the real narrative is much more complex and nuanced than the New York Times described. The origins of the immediate crisis date back to last year when the European Union rashly offered an association agreement to Ukraine, a proposal that elected President Yanukovych considered.
However, when the International Monetary Fund insisted on a harsh austerity plan that would have made the hard lives of the Ukrainian people even harder and when Russian President Vladimir Putin offered a more generous aid package of $15 billion Yanukovych turned away from the EU-IMF deal.
That provoked demonstrations in Kiev from Ukrainians, many from the west, who favored closer ties to Europe and who were tired of the endemic corruption that has plagued Ukraine since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and since the “shock therapy” capitalism that saw a handful of oligarchs plunder the nation’s wealth and resources.
Though most protesters appeared motivated by a desire for better governance and a hope that an association with Europe would improve their economic prospects, a significant percentage of the crowd on the Maidan came from neo-Nazi and other far-right movements that despised Yanukovych and his ethnic Russian political base for their own reasons, dating back to Ukraine’s split in World War II between pro-Nazi and pro-Soviet forces.
The increasingly disruptive protests on the Maidan were also egged on by U.S. officials and pushed by U.S.-funded non-governmental organizations, some subsidized by the National Endowment for Democracy, whose neocon president Carl Gershman last September had termed Ukraine “the biggest prize” and a key step in undermining Putin inside Russia.
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, a neocon who had been an adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, personally urged on the demonstrators, even passing out cookies at the Maidan. In one speech, she told Ukrainian business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their “European aspirations.”
Nuland also was caught in an intercepted phone conversation with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt explaining whom she wanted to see running the government once Yanukovych was gone. Her choice was Arseniy Yatsenyuk or “Yats.”
Sen. John McCain, another prominent neocon, rallied the Maidan protesters while standing near a Svoboda party banner honoring Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, whose radical paramilitary force had helped the Nazis expel and exterminate tens of thousands of Poles and Jews during World War II.
The Putsch
Contrary to Herszenhorn’s boilerplate paragraph, the violence was not entirely from the embattled government. Neo-Nazi militias, which had secured weapons and organized themselves into 100-man brigades, launched repeated attacks on the police, including burning some policemen with firebombs.
On Feb. 20, as the violence worsened, mysterious snipers opened fire on both demonstrators and police, killing some 20 people and escalating the confrontation dangerously. Though the Western press jumped to the conclusion that Yanukovych was to blame, he denied ordering the shootings and EU officials later came to suspect that the attacks were done by the opposition as a provocation.
“So there is a stronger and stronger understanding that behind snipers it was not Yanukovych, it was somebody from the new coalition,” Estonia’s Foreign Minister Urmas Paet told European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, as reported by the UK Guardian.
On Feb. 21, Yanukovych sought to tamp down the violence by signing an agreement with representatives of Germany, France and Poland in which he accepted early elections (so he could be voted out of office) and agreed to reduced presidential powers. He also pulled back the police.
However, when the police were withdrawn, the neo-Nazi militias completed their putsch on Feb. 22, seizing control of government buildings and forcing Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their lives. In effect, the storm troopers controlled the Ukrainian government.
I was told by an international diplomat who was on the ground in Kiev that the Western countries felt there was no choice but to immediately work with the shaken Parliament to put together an interim government, otherwise the “thugs” would remain in charge.
So, Yanukovych was hastily impeached through an illegal process that circumvented the Ukrainian constitution, and the Parliament picked a new government which ceded four ministries, including national security, to the neo-Nazis in recognition of their crucial role in the coup.
To head up this interim government, Yatsenyuk was named prime minister and one of his first orders of business was to enact the IMF austerity plan that Yanukovych had rejected. The intimidated Parliament also approved a ban on Russian as an official language, although that scheme was later dropped.
In other words, the Times misleads its readers when it summarizes the events by simply saying Yanukovych “fled Kiev on Feb. 21 after a failed but bloody attempt to suppress a civic uprising.”
The Aftermath
After the coup, ethnic Russians in the east and south were outraged that their elected president had been removed violently and illegally. In the southern peninsula of Crimea, the local parliament voted to arrange a referendum on secession in order to rejoin Russia, which had controlled Crimea dating back to the 1700s.
Russia did not “invade” Crimea since Moscow already had some 16,000 troops stationed in Crimea under an agreement with Ukraine for Russia to retain its historic naval base at Sevastopol. Russian troops did back up the local Crimean authorities as they planned their referendum which showed overwhelming public support for secession.
It became another U.S. conventional wisdom that the referendum was “rigged” because the turnout was high and the vote in favor of secession was 96 percent. But exit polls showed a similarly overwhelming majority of around 93 percent and no serious person doubts that most Crimeans favored escaping from the failed Ukrainian state.
Russia then agreed to accept Crimea back into its federation. So, while the Crimean referendum was surely hastily organized, it reflected the popular will and was central to the Russian decision to reclaim the historical peninsula.
Yet, the Times summarized those events as “Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea,” creating the image of Russian troops swarming across the border and seizing the territory against the will of the people.
If Herszenhorn’s paragraph were the first time that he or the newspaper had offered such a misleading account on Ukraine or other international hotspots, one might excuse it as just a rushed and careless synopsis. But the summary is only the latest example of the Times’ deeply biased pattern, marching in lockstep with the State Department’s propaganda themes for years.
The Times’ failures in the run-up to the disastrous Iraq War were infamous, particularly the “aluminum tube” story by Michael R. Gordon and Judith Miller. The Times showed similar bias on the Syrian conflict, including last year’s debunked Times’ “vector analysis” tracing a Sarin-laden rocket back to a Syrian military base when the rocket had less than one-third the necessary range.
But the Times’ prejudice over the Ukraine crisis has been even more extreme. Virtually everything that the Times writes about Ukraine is so polluted with propaganda that it requires a very strong filter, along with additives from more independent news sources, to get anything approaching an accurate understanding of events.
Since the early days of the coup, the Times has behaved as essentially a propaganda organ for the new regime in Kiev and the State Department, blaming Russia and Putin for the crisis. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Will Ukraine Be NYT’s Waterloo?”]
Embarrassing Gaffes
In the Times’ haste to perform this function, there have been some notable journalistic gaffes such as the Times’ front-page story touting photographs that supposedly showed Russian special forces in Russia and then the same soldiers in eastern Ukraine, allegedly proving that the east’s popular resistance to the coup regime in Kiev was simply clumsily disguised Russian aggression.
Any serious journalist would have recognized the holes in the story since it wasn’t clear where the photos were taken or whether the blurry images were even the same people but that didn’t bother the Times, which led with the scoop.
However, only two days later, the scoop blew up when it turned out that a key photo — supposedly showing a group of soldiers in Russia who later appeared in eastern Ukraine — was actually taken in Ukraine, destroying the premise of the entire story.
Herszenhorn himself has been one of the most biased Times’ reporters. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine, Though the US ‘Looking Glass.’”]
Now, since Ukrainian voters with the exception of those in the rebellious eastern provinces have selected a new president, billionaire businessman Petro Poroshenko, the question is whether the twisted and distorted U.S. narrative will stop President Barack Obama from taking pragmatic steps to defuse the crisis.
Poroshenko, who has done past business in Russia and knows Putin personally, appears ready to deescalate the crisis with Ukraine’s neighbor. After Sunday’s election, Poroshenko vowed to repair relations with Russia and Putin, who himself has made conciliatory comments about respecting the election results.
“Most probably the meeting with the Russian leadership will certainly take place in the first half of July,” said Poroshenko,. “We should be very ready tactically in approach to this meeting, because first we should create an agenda, we should prepare documents, so that it will not be just to shake hands.”
Poroshenko also has voiced a willingness to accept greater federalism that would grant a degree of self-rule to the provinces in eastern Ukraine. And, there are tentative plans for Obama and Putin to meet on June 6 in Normandy around ceremonies honoring the 70th anniversary of D-Day.
Despite these few positive developments, the violence in eastern Ukraine continues to escalate with scores of ethnic Russian separatist rebels and pro-Kiev troops killed in clashes around the Donetsk airport on Monday.
Still, the major remaining obstacle to some reconciliation of the Ukraine crisis may be the deeply biased reporting at the Times and other mainstream American news outlets, which continue to insist that the story has only one side.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.View Caption Hide Caption Bosh erupted after getting C.J. Washington called him for a foul in the third quarter. (Screencap from Fox Sports Sun broadcast)
For all the weird things that happened in the Heat’s win over Philadelphia tonight — there were plenty of them — how about Chris Bosh losing it over foul call in the third quarter?
[Miami Heat avoid humiliation against 76ers with nine straight defensive stops at the end] [The beautifully reckless shot-blocking approach of Hassan Whiteside] [Miami Heat’s schedule toughens up with LeBron James, Kevin Durant headed to town]
As 76ers forward Jerami Grant drove left against Bosh, Bosh had his left hand on Grant’s waist and got called for the foul by referee C.J. Washington. Stunned by the whistle, Bosh turned around to Washington and screamed, “Who?”
It did not end there. Washington went to the scorer’s table to report the foul, and Bosh followed to let him know exactly what he thought of the call. That got him his first technical foul since 2013-14.
When asked after the game what happened, Bosh replied, “I didn’t agree with his call.”
He did not remember how long it had been since he got one for yelling at a ref.
“A few years, maybe,” he said. “I don’t know. I just—Like I said, I didn’t agree with his call.”
Then he burst into laughter.
As Bosh was expressing himself, Luol Deng jumped in and started pulling him toward the bench.
“No, I didn’t need to be restrained,” Bosh said. “It just makes it look bad when somebody tries to restrain you. What do you think I’m gonna do? I’m not gonna get two techs. I’m a passionate player, and sometimes when you have a disagreement, it’s animated. I think it got everybody fired up.”
The best part of re-watching the video from Fox Sports Sun is Tony Fiorentino’s deadpan analysis that, “He obviously feels he didn’t foul on that play.”British soldiers show the Americans how it's done as they host Highland Games in Afghanistan (all washed down with haggis and Irn-Bru)
Morale boost for forces after recent deaths of three comrades
They're thousands of miles from Scotland but that didn't stop soldiers, sailors and airmen stationed in Afghanistan letting off steam and celebrating their own Highland Games.
They used rocks from the desert as improvised'shots' at the fun event, held at Camp Leatherneck in Helmand Province, with armed forces from the UK and the USA taking part.
It came as a morale boost for the forces, taking place days after two soldiers from 2 SCOTS and another from the 51st Highland 7th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland (7 SCOTS) were killed in Helmand
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has anything substantiative to say about it.The claimed "Foley & van Dam" trick, if it exists, can't be found online.I can't find it in the VirtualDub source, if it's in there.It's not in AGG."Phaeron" and "SubMux" clearly know their stuff, but haven't provided detail."Kasuha" is an asshole, having apparently done it 20 years ago by accident in his sleep and now considers it beneath him. Piss off.There is a promising article "Bresenham' Line Generation Algorithm with Built-in Clipping" by Yevgeny Kuzmin. Unfortunately it's a formal paper, which means the people who have it aren't sharing it.I found a C++ file of graphics functions for students of a particular computer science course here: http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~adelong3/cs3388-2.. One of them is a clipped Bresenham line drawing function which says it is based directly on the Kuzmin paper. I ported it to Java with minimal effort and it does work, but the code is not very clean or understandable. I can't use it as-is without knowing its copyright status and can't rewrite it because the mathematics of it are indecipherable.There is a forum thread here: http://www.developpez.net/forums/d718873.. (in French) which seems to vaguely suggest the same idea as mentioned by whoever the author of the blog post on this page is: clipping half a pixel inside the boundary of the clip rect. Well, it's not worded that way, but it amounted to exactly the same code when I tried to implement it. It didn't work, anyway.If anyone else in existence understands the secret they're not shouting it from the online roof tops.So, I'm still stuck. Whatever I try, it always crashes, or goes into an infinite loop, or draws the wrong line, or clips slightly too much or too little, and I'm sick of it. Perhaps a brute force search or genetic algorithm could eventually discover the correct formulae to calculate the clipped coordinates and error value by accident, but I haven't the patience for it.It seems like such a simple problem. I need only 1-pixel lines. Solid-colored. No anti-aliasing. I just need to clip them correctly. But trying to do that opens the doors of hell.To anyone else who finds this, my advice is: Give up. I did.
Michael - 31 01 14 - 21:39
I found a solution which at least works for the Commodore Amiga hardware line drawing with the Blitter (which uses the Bresenham algorithm). Please have a look if you are still interested. If it works for you, feel free to use it anywhere, but mention my name and the URL (CC BY-SA 4.0). See http://www.schwinde.de/blog/index.php?a=..Katherine of Valois was the daughter of King Charles VI of France and his wife Isabelle of Bavaria. She was born at the Hotel of St. Pol (a royal palace in Paris) on October 27, 1401. Early on there had been a discussion of marrying her to the son of Henry IV, but the King died before negotiations could begin. The new king, Henry V, also proposed the match, but demanded a large dowry and acknowledgement of his right to the throne of France.
Henry V went to war with France and even after the English victory at Agincourt, plans for the marriage continued. Katherine was said to be very attractive and when Henry finally met her at Meulan he became enamored. In May 1420, a peace treaty was made between England and France and Charles acknowledged Henry of England as his heir. Katherine and Henry were married at the parish Church of St. John.
Katherine went to England with her new husband and was crowned as Queen in Westminster Abbey in February 1421. In June 1421, Henry returned to France to continue his campaigns.
By this time, Katherine was several months pregnant and gave birth to Prince Henry on December 6, 1421 at Windsor. The boy and his father would never see each other. During the siege of Meaux, Henry V contracted some sort of illness and died on August 31, 1422, just before he would have turned 35 years old. Katherine was not quite 21 and was left a widow and Dowager Queen of England.
Charles VI died a couple of months after Henry V, which made the young Henry VI king of both England and France. Katherine doted on her young son during his early childhood.
However, Katherine was still young and might wish to remarry, which was of concern to the Protector, the king's uncle, Henry Duke of Gloucester. In the Parliament of 1427-8, a bill was introduced setting the rules for the remarriage of a Queen Dowager. The bill stated that if the Queen and a new husband married without the King's consent, the husband would lose his lands and possessions, although any children from the marriage would still be members of the royal family and would not suffer punishment. Another rule was that the king's permission could only be granted once he had reached his majority. At the time the bill was written, the king was only six years old.
Katherine lived in the king's household, presumably so she could care for her young son, but it also carried the benefit that the councillors could watch over the Queen herself.
Despite all of this, Katherine did remarry in secret, sometime in 1431 or 1432. Her new husband was Owen ap Maredudd ap Tudur of Wales. Somewhere at this time, the Queen stopped living in the King's household and in May 1432 Parliament granted Owen the rights of an Englishman. This was important because of Henry IV's laws limiting the rights of Welshmen.
There are many tales, most unsupported, of how Katherine and Own met. Owen was probably born in about 1400, and may have gone to war in the service of Henry V's steward Sir Walter Hungerford in 1421 in France. We don't know for sure what position Owen held when he met the Queen, but he was most likely keeper of the Queen's household or wardrobe.
Despite all the romantic embellishments by later writers, it seems that Owen and Katherine were attracted to one another and were legally married in the early 1430s. At some point, an English bookkeeper or scribe (possibly confused by the Welsh patronymic naming scheme) recorded Owen ap Maredudd ap Tudur as "Owen Tudor".
Owen and Katherine had at least four children, although their only known daughter died young. Edmund, Jasper and Owen, the three sons born to the couple, were all born away from court.
Katherine entered Bermondsey Abbey, possibly seeking a cure for an illness that had troubled her for some time. She made her will just three days before her death on January 3, 1437. She now rests at Westminster Abbey in Henry V's Chantry Chapel.
After the Queen's death, Owen and Katherine's enemies decided to proceed against Owen for violating the the law of the remarriage of the Dowager Queen. Owen appeared before the Council, acquitting himself of all charges and was released. On his way back to Wales, he was arrested and his possessions seized. He tried to escape from Newgate jail in early 1438 and eventually ended up at Windsor Castle in July of that year.On Monday, a 2016 Huffington Post article titled “North Korea Proves Your White Male Privilege Is Not Universal” was updated following the death of its subject, Otto Warmbier. Although some bold wording is no longer seen in the article, the article has kept all of the controversial parts that led many to blast its insensitivity when it was first published.
The current version of the article, which as of now is still up on Huffpost, has writer La Sha beginning with saying how shocked she was by the sentencing, but quickly turning to victim blaming. She questioned his actions, saying:
"That kind of reckless gall is an unfortunate side effect of being socialized first as a white boy, and then as a white man in this country. Every economic, academic, legal and social system in this country has for more than three centuries functioned with the implicit purpose of ensuring that white men are the primary benefactors of all privilege. The kind of arrogance bred by that kind of conditioning is pathogenic, causing its host to develop a subconscious yet no less obnoxious perception that the rules do not apply to him, or at least that their application is negotiable."
She later goes on to compare Warmbier to the Aurora and Charleston shooters, writing:
"When you can watch a white man who entered a theater and killed a dozen people come out unscathed, you start to believe you’re invincible. When you see a white man taken to Burger King in a bulletproof vest after he killed nine people in a church, you learn that the world will always protect you."
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In her final paragraph, she goes as far as to compare the U.S. justice system with that of Communist North Korea, stating:
"I’m a black woman though. The hopeless fear Warmbier is now experiencing is my daily reality living in a country where white men like him are willfully oblivious to my suffering even as they are complicit in maintaining the power structures which ensure their supremacy at my expense. He is now an outsider at the mercy of a government unfazed by his cries for help. I get it."
The writer La Sha claims she uses her writing to “deconstruct oppressive ideologies and systems”, but she seems to be perfectly okay with constructing hurtful and offensive attitudes.NASA Launch Manager Tim Dunn of the Launch Services Program recapped today’s launch attempt. The hydraulic system problem developed en route, after takeoff, in the last 25 minutes prior to the initial 8:30 a.m. launch time. The hydraulic system in question was not for the L-1011 aircraft itself, but for the system that allows the Pegasus XL rocket to release from the aircraft. That system was not meeting its prescribed pressures, indicating a problem with the hydraulic pump.
“The team did a lot of valiant troubleshooting in the air,” Dunn said. “Everyone wanted to have another launch attempt today, so we continued right up until the L-4 minute point.”
Weather also posed problems at times during the countdown, Dunn pointed out.
“The pilots flew around, under and over a lot of precipitation and bad clouds,” he said.
Should the team resolve the hydraulic pump issue in time for a Tuesday morning launch attempt, the launch window is the same as today’s, and weather is improved, with an 80 percent “go” forecast.Unidentified show and actors
Photos of the most memorable stage kisses stories told to Playwrights Horizons
Theater exists only for a moment, but it also goes back for thousands of years. This week, Oscar Wilde and the Group Theatre come back to life; Almost, Maine makes a triumphant return to New York; Oprah Winfrey reaches back for her Broadway acting debut. Details below.
Also below: My reviews of Bronx Bombers on Broadway, and Charles Busch’s latest cross-dressing farce, The Tribute Artist.
The Week in New York Theater, February 3 – 9, 2014
Monday, February 3
New cast members for Wicked on Broadway starting February 25: Christine Dwyer as Elphaba, Jenni Barber as Glinda, Justin Guarini as Fiyero, Mary Testa as Madame Morrible
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Is filmed theater a new art form, asks Rachael Castell of Digital Theatre. http://bit.ly/1doEhVO
If a playwright writes outside his or her race/gender, is it “cultural appropriation”? Jacqueline E. Lawton considers
Bilingual screening of West Side Story on February 23rd at the United Palace of Cultural Arts will feature an introduction by Lin-Manual Miranda interviewing Rita Moreno!
My review of Almost, Maine
Almost, Maine, returning triumphantly to New York City for the first time since it flopped here in 2006, is one of those plays that has reached such legendary status that it’s a must-see for the theatrically inclined regardless of its actual content.
Full review of Almost, Maine
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“We can separate artistic pain, the experience of feeling deeply, from leading a painful life.” ~ writer Dorthe Nors.
Do the arts favor the rich? NO, says this report.
Instead of using arts research to prove our work is valuable, let’s use it to improve our work, says Nina Simon.
Neil Patrick Harris is returning to Broadway in Hedwig and the Angry Inch — which is why he says he’ll be too busy to be host of the 2014 Tony Awards.
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Oprah Winfrey (seen at left in her role in “The Butler) is in talks to make her Broadway acting debut in a revival of Marsha Norman’s “’Night, Mother,” opposite Audra McDonald, as a mother who tries to stop her daughter from committing suicide.
George C. Wolfe would direct the production, which is aiming for the 2015-16 Broadway season. The playwright was the book writer on “The Color Purple,” which Winfrey produced — a musical that she is talking about reviving.
Mare Winningham and Reed Birney join Patrick Page and John Cullum in the cast of Harvey Fierstein’s Casa Valentina, which opens on Broadway April 23rd.
Yannick Vézina @BroadwayVez:Can’t wait for this show!!
An artist’s humanity,not race/gender, qualifies them to tell ANY character’s story, says Anjali Bhimani, an actress who appeared in Mary Zimmerman’s The Jungle Book.
Vaclav Havel’s final play, The Pig, a “performance feast” (including dinner) translated by Edward Einhorn, will run at 3LD Art & Technology Center, March 6th to 29th.
Top Hat, Astaire/Rogers film turned UK musical, coming to NYC in March, helmed by Chris Gattelli (Newsies), as “developmental lab”
Theater artists fear to speak out about anything. Why?
Jon Jon Johnson @>DCJonJon My guess is that we’re taught that we’re ‘replaceable’ because ‘the show must go on’. Why endanger our positions?
walkinglife desperateforwork
garliacornelia we want to keep our jobs. They are few and far between, so we will out up with a lot.
Jamil Khoury@KhouryJamil This is where self producing comes in but not replicating the bad behavior of others when in power.
Jonathon Hunter I agree job loss is a concern, but also within an organisation the behavior can run deep. Complaining doesn’t solve it.
My review of Bronx Bombers
You almost have to admire the chutzpah of the producers of “Bronx Bombers,” a dramatically inert play about the Yankees that was poorly received when it ran briefly Off-Broadway but nevertheless now has opened in Broadway’s much larger Circle in the Square Theater. They apparently aim to make their show not just critic-proof, but immune to the opinion even of regular Broadway theatergoers.
Full review of Bronx Bombers on Broadway
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The Group Theatre, Revisited
Eighty-three years after the first play presented by the Group Theatre debuted on Broadway, it has debuted again, Off-Off Broadway, produced by the ReGroup Theater, which aims to bring back the 23 plays that the Group ensemble performed in its ten years of existence.
The House of Connelly by Pulitzer-winning playwright Paul Green remains a shocking play—indeed, it is in some ways more shocking now than it was in 1931, when Group co-founder Lee Strasberg directed a cast that included Stella Adler, Franchot Tone and Clifford Odets (who had exactly one line.) Strasberg and Adler became famous acting teachers, Tone a movie star, Odets a major American playwright and then a Hollywood burnout, and the Group Theatre became…”legendary”—for having developed “Method acting” in America, and for believing theater should make a difference in the world. Full article in Howlround about ReGroup’s production of The House of Connelly
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Does it matter that a white guy wrote a play about black guys, asks Andrew White (!) of Looking Glass Theater.
Producers plan to launch a Kickstarter campaign to raise $500,000 in order to make Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 into a movie.
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Diahann Carroll has withdrawn from Raisin in the Sun “due to the vigorous demands of the rehearsal and performance schedule.” (?)
Her statement: “The pace of filming movies and TV projects is quite different than the extensive amount of time preparing and appearing ‘live’ on Broadway eight times a week. I enjoyed working with Scott Rudin, Denzel Washington, Kenny Leon and an amazing cast and I wish them well.” Carroll, 78, has performed on Broadway in three productions, the last one “Agnes of God” in 1982. LaTanya Richardson Jackson will take over the role of Lena Younger. Jackson, wife of actor Samuel Jackson, was last on Broadway in the 2009 revival of August Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.”
Oscar Wilde’s first play, “Vera, or The Nihilists” is being revived by an all-male cast at HERE — for the first time, say Femme Fatale Theater, in 131 years. My preview
My review of The Tribute Artist
Don’t call him a drag queen. “I’m a celebrity tribute artist,” Charles Busch says, in the role of his latest creation, Jimmy, who has lost his job at the Flamingo Hotel’s Boys Will Be Girls Revue in Las Vegas, because nobody is interested anymore in impersonations of Julie Andrews or Pearl Bailey….. Jimmy puts on his dead landlady’s dresses and assumes her identity, in order for Rita to sell the house. The plan is supposed to be make them both rich. Busch thus sets into motion the mechanics of an old-fashioned farce, which becomes increasingly busy…As crafty as he is as a writer, and spot-on in his comic timing as a performer, two hours of a silly, convoluted plot may be too much to ask of an audience aging along with him.
Full review of The Tribute Artist
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Like this: Like Loading...Cord-cutting is, as we know, a real trend. It’s not what the majority of viewers do — huge numbers of consumers subscribe to cable, satellite, or fiber TV service — but it’s definitely on the rise. And one new analysis thinks the cable industry could be losing at least $1 billion a year in revenue from customers who say “so long.”
A new study, the Wall Street Journal reports, estimates that in a 12-month period, at least 800,000 subscribers are going to cancel their pay-TV service, or cut the cord.
Cord-cutting is more of a trickle than a flood, other surveys — and, for that matter, quarterly financial reports — have shown. Companies each tend to lose a few tens of thousands of viewers per quarter, but tens of millions of households still subscribe to something.
Still, those small quarterly losses for each individual company add up across the board. And analysis firm cg42, which ran the study, estimates that pay-TV companies can lose about $1,248 per cord-cutter per year.
Every subscription is different, of course, and each cord-cutter has to look at their own bill, do their own math, and decide what their content budget is going to be.
But cg42, surveying more than 1,000 U.S. customers, found that the average cord-cutter is saving more than $100 a month as compared to what they paid for cable. The average pay-TV subscribe in the study was paying about $187 before they gave up and cancelled services; after cutting the cord, that becomes a monthly average of $83. Meanwhile the “cord-nevers” — mostly younger adults who go out and form households without ever paying for TV, and so who can never cancel it — spend about $71 on the combination of broadband access and streaming services.
More: Does cutting the cord always automatically save you money?
Do the math on those assumptions — $1,248 times 800,000 — and you do indeed come out just shy of $1 billion that the cable industry no longer gets.
“The consumer is discovering they don’t need the mean, evil cable company to get the content that they want, and they can get it for a better deal,” cg42 said. And no, live sports are not alluring enough to change anyone’s minds. 83% of the cord-cutters the company surveyed said they can get most or all of the content they want without a pay-TV subscription; for the cord-nevers, that was 87%.
Also a bad sign for cable: the longer consumers go without, the less they miss it. Especially as workarounds — like next-day viewing online, or purchasing a season of a current show from a service like Amazon or Hulu — become easier, cheaper, and more prevalent.
And yes: Netflix remains the giant elephant in the streaming room. 94% of survey respondents who don’t pay for cable said that they have Netflix subscriptions; Amazon Prime was the next-most-used paid service, hitting about half.
Cord-Cutting Could Cost Pay TV Industry $1 Billion in a Year, Study Says [Wall Street Journal]EXCLUSIVE: Joseph Gordon-Levitt will make his next film Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, the Dimension Films sequel to the stylish noir drama that Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller are directing based on Miller’s graphic novel. I’m told that Gordon-Levitt will play the role of Johnny, a part that the filmmakers originally offered to Johnny Depp. He’s one of the core characters in overlapping story lines that feature returning players like Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Bruce Willis, Rosario Dawson, along with newcomers that include Dennis Haysbert. Other tough guy actors will be added, with Gangster Squad‘s Josh Brolin among the potential names I’ve heard.
At the same time, the canoodling that was going on between Gordon-Levitt and Marvel Studios over the lead in Guardians Of The Galaxy has come to an end. He won’t be starring in the film and Marvel is evaluating its other candidates. Sin City 2 is already shooting, and Gordon-Levitt will mix in his work as he moves through a busy month.
He’ll be at the Sundance Film Festival where his feature directorial debut, Don Jon‘s Addiction, makes its world premiere. Gordon-Levitt also wrote the script and stars with Scarlett Johansson. He’s also hosting the Sundance Awards ceremony that closes the upcoming festival in Park City, Utah. Gordon-Levitt is coming off a strong 2012, where he starred in The Dark Knight Rises and ended the year with Looper and Lincoln. He’s repped by WME.WASHINGTON, April 1 (UPI) -- Russian and Chinese naval weapons designers know they lack the resources and the technology to match the awesome power of U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups ship for ship and plane for plane. So instead, for decades, they have opted for asymmetrical solutions to the problem of killing U.S. super carriers. And they have come up with some lethal weapons.
Russian military systems designers look to be able to produce large numbers of weapons based on relatively simple designs that are cost-effective and robust on the battlefield. And when confronted with U.S. weapons systems that they cannot match directly like stealth bombers or nuclear-powered super aircraft carriers, they look for asymmetrical solutions that enable them to use their own areas of expertise.
Therefore, although Russia has still to demonstrate it can successfully build and operate a modern, 21st century-era large aircraft carrier, it leads the world in designing and producing relatively cheap missile systems designed to "kill" such carriers at scores, and even hundreds of miles distance. The U.S. arsenal has no weapons to compare with the Russian-built Moskit 3M80 -- NATO designation SS-N-22 Sunburn -- ramjet-powered cruise missile or the new, even more advanced SS-N-27 Sizzler.
These weapons fly two and a half times faster than U.S. ones. American cruise missiles are subsonic, but Russian-made ones can fly at well over Mach 2, or more than twice the speed of sound -- with speeds estimated at 1,500 mph to 1,700 mph at close to ground level.
Russia has sold the technology to build the Moskit to China, which manufactures it as the Hai Ying or Sea Eagle HY2. It can carry an almost 500-pound warhead, and it can deliver a tactical nuclear weapon. The threat of the Hai Ying is so great that it has effectively barred operational access to the Taiwan Strait to U.S. aircraft carriers in time of high tension. China has also supplied the Hai Ying to Iran.
It is striking that four-star Adm. William Fox Fallon, who has just resigned as head of U.S. Central Command, has expressed his caution and reluctance about going to war with Iran. Fallon is the U.S. Navy's leading expert, and therefore probably the top authority in the world, about using aircraft carrier-based air power to strike land-based targets. His previous position was running Pacific Command with great distinction, and that theater includes China and Taiwan.
Fallon's caution is clearly based in part on the fact that U.S. carrier battle groups would have to be operated with great discretion and skill to protect them from the threat of Iran's Sunburns.
The threat that the Moskit SS-N-22 Sunburn -- and now its younger more advanced sister, the SS-N-27 Sizzler -- pose to U.S. aircraft carriers is very similar to the one that German battleships' 15-inch, or 381mm, plunging shell-fire fired from long range posed to British battlecruisers in World War II. The Bismarck, as previously noted in this series, sank the legendary and enormous, but only lightly armored, HMS Hood with a single long-range shell that detonated its powder magazine.
Respected analyst David Crane, writing in Defense Review in November 2006, concluded bleakly, "Bottom line, our aircraft carriers are vulnerable against the latest Russian and Chinese torpedo and missile tech, and with the current U.S. naval defense philosophy, that situation isn't likely to change anytime soon."
It is difficult to disagree with this prognosis.Again I have to apologise for not posting....it's my own damn fault for choosing a biochem major :P Now I can feel guilty about not posting, as well as feeling guilty for not studying! Oh, the joy ;) In all seriousness though, photographing people around campus brightens my day. Everyone is always nice, and I've had many interesting encounters. As I said, brightens my day. And look that even sat perfectly underneath the one before.....creepy.
Seemed to really go for a lot of the hipster chic type thing... it must be the cold weather.
I spotted Claire powering along Eastern Avenue like a woman on a mission. Confidence stands out from a distance like nothing else. Striped pants obviously don't hurt.
Casually photographing crotches because you know, pretty colours. I absolutely adore this outfit - perfect casual but chic.
Saba always looks stylish and stunning, and it's been a pleasure to watch her style develop over the last two years. Love the red (typical of me).
The impact of a simple, coloured coat. Didn't notice until after that it was buttoned off kilter. Not sure if unintentional or intentional nonchalance.
Georgie, in stunning camel pants and that kind of nonchalant chic attitude. Note the mismatched socks, with one matching her jacket, and the other kind of matching her scarf.
Fell in love with the sweater and the socks. So cute :)
Julia, with a stunning trench coat again making a straight-forward outfit that much more chic.
Callie, in an oversized coat, skinny pants, shiny shoes, and a cosy looking beanie.
Nurul, sporting perhaps my favourite sweater ever. So cute :) Likewise, I love the impact made by Nurul wrapping her hair up in a scarf - gives an already chic ensemble a sleek edge.
I love colourful, homemade sweaters (made by Catriona's Mum). Especially one like this, that stands out from so far away - a colourful beacon on an otherwise cold and drab day.
I love Jessie's calf length skirt, so floaty and feminine. The socks and ankle boots, along with the white blouse tie it all together nicely too.
I apologise for the shocking lighting here, I really need to get better with that. Kate is another girl from my degree, and as with Saba, it's been a pleasure to see her sense of style.
I apologise for the odd colouring, but it was either go with a vintage feel, or make the colouring absolutely abysmal. Sorry Kate... next time I see you I'll do a better job :)
And that's it for now... I have photo's from this last week waiting to be posted though, so expect those soonish :) Thanks for your patience, as always, and thanks for reading!AMHERST — A 22-year-old Newton native killed in a weekend bicycle crash near the Amherst College campus was remembered Monday as an artist who had a soft spot for animals and a contagious smile.
Livingston I. H. Pangburn, most recently of Granby, died Sunday of injuries sustained in a collision with a truck that was turning onto a campus road near the corner of Dickinson and College streets. Mary Carey, communications director for the Northwestern District Attorney's Office, said Pangburn was bicycling east on College Street (Route 9) at the time of the crash, reported around 4 p.m.
The unidentified driver, who was not injured, stayed at the scene after the crash, Carey said. Pangburn was pronounced dead at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield.
The accident remains under investigation by the Amherst Police Department, the Massachusetts State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section, and state police detectives attached to the Northwestern District Attorney's Office.
Amherst police on Monday afternoon referred questions about the case to the Northwestern District Attorney's office. Carey, reached by phone Monday afternoon, said she had received no further updates on the investigation, including information about whether any citations were issued.
Given the name Olivia at birth, Pangburn more recently adopted the name Livingston and was widely known by the nickname 'Liv,' said his partner, Michaela Schwartz.
Schwartz, who lived with Pangburn in Granby, said Pangburn was a 2009 graduate of Newton North High School who went on to study sculpture at Hampshire College, with plans to graduate in May 2014.
Schwartz described Pangburn as "one of the greatest humans of this century" – a kind, gentle artist with a love for animals ("anything alive, really," she added) and an interest in ending injustice in the world.
"He loved to ride his bike, drink good coffee, enjoy the beautiful outdoors, and draw," Schwartz wrote in an email Monday. "His heart was full and giving, and he brought joy to the lives of all of the people that loved him."
"His smile was contagious," Schwartz added.
For a time, Pangburn maintained an active presence on YouTube, uploading videos of original songs performed on guitar and vocals; spoken word poems; and video diaries on a number of topics. In a November 2009 video, Pangburn offered a heartfelt reflection on the news that a friend's father had received a terminal cancer diagnosis.
In addition to Schwartz, Pangburn leaves a twin sister, Margaret, of Amherst; a mother, Claudia W. Hoover, of Newton; and a father, David A. Pangburn, of Harvard. Pangburn's brother, Nathaniel A. H. Pangburn, died in February at the age of 26.by Thomas Donoghue
I think I’m going to break this down in a nutshell. No fancy talk. If you want an in-depth analysis of the State Legislature’s recent transportation efforts, look no further than the Peach Pundit. But for the purpose of this article, I’m going to focus on one particular part of the Peach Pundit’s analysis:
“In order to maintain local flexibility and control, counties and cities will each have the right to place up to 3 cents/gallon by vote of a city council or county commission. If the local governments wish to place additional cents on sales of gasoline a referendum from the local voters would be required.
All proceeds raised locally under this option would be required for use on transportation projects. This would help counties and cities focus on local priorities, either on their own or by partnering with the state for major improvements, as Forsyth County recently did to expand GA 400 using a local bond referendum.”
It’s like this: Had the TSPLOST referendum passed, the one percent sales tax would have garnished an annual return of $250 million a year for the metropolitan ten-county Atlanta area. That’s a lot of money. Think of it this way: the Eastside BeltLine Trail costs about $5 million per mile. That $5 million includes the underground utilities to hook up a street car on the fly, but with no amenities for the pedestrian and/or cyclist—no street lights, benches, and the like. The Southwest BeltLine Trail will cost about $10 million a mile because it’s getting all the bells and whistles that the Eastside Trail did not receive. From bizarro world, where the TSPLOST passed, the City of Atlanta and Atlanta BeltLine Inc. could have probably built the entire BeltLine loop, streetcars and all in about five years. But we don’t live in bizarro world, we live in the real world where we got bupkis.
With the State Legislature’s proposal, each municipality would be able to legally add three cents per gallon of gas as a way of paying for transportation. Here’s part of the catch: the city governments have to pass this tax—the state constitution says so—which leaves the State free and clear and provides the Republican majority with their no-taxation record, leaving the municipal government’s city council holding the bag while the State pawns the blame off on the city. Thanks.
The real kicker is that the three cent gas tax would only garnish roughly $1.1 million a year for the City of Atlanta. Next to a piece of an annual $250 million, the gas tax doesn’t even compare. The way I see it is, with TSPLOST we could have the BeltLine in five years, but with the gas tax we could have a mile of sidewalk every two years. There is no comparison.
Second to the three cent gas tax is another three cent gas tax that the State is allowing municipalities to pass, only this time the raise has to go to referendum. We in the metro Atlanta area know how the voters feel about a vote to raise taxes. The TSPLOST taught us that. This is a classic case of Republican’s kicking the can down the road and not doing a damn thing as they pass and sign bad economic development policies and laws.
You’re probably wondering then, “Why does the state even need to get involved if it’s the municipalities that are passing the laws?” The fact is: the entire state is beholden to the Georgia constitution: “The motor-fuel tax is the largest excise tax, contributing about 4 to 5 percent of state revenues. The Georgia constitution specifies that the state must spend whatever amount is raised by the motor-fuel tax on roads and bridges.” Simple as that. The state has to let our cities spend our money in our neighborhood—which, coincidentally, has been the southern rally cry since, I don’t know, 1776. It’s nice to know they’re finally getting around to practicing what they preach.
To remedy the metro Atlanta economy and transportation woes, $1.1 million isn’t going to cut it. In fact, $1.1 million won’t even scratch the surface. One of these days, the Republican majority has to actually govern and make the hard, correct choices for our state. But I suspect the day they do will be the last day they have a say in this State government for a long time, and they know it too.
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AdvertisementsUPDATE (15:17 2nd February 2015): Added comment from Yacuna regarding changes to deposit and withdrawal limits for unverified customers.
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UK-based cryptocurrency exchange Yacuna has waived all trading and withdrawal fees in a bid to boost the ecosystem, the firm says.
In a statement on the move, Yacuna CEO Andrei Martchouk said: “We want to support blockchain technologies until they dominate the market and do not wish to leech on our customers in the current environment.”
The only fees now in place are those that apply for speedier methods of fiat bank deposits, details of which can be found here.
Deposit and withdrawal limits have also been adjusted so that customers awaiting verification are able to deposit and trade cryptocurrencies immediately.
Benjamin Last, a spokesperson for the company, said: “If you are a basic customer (verified email only) you can withdraw only €100 worth of EUR/GBP, but €60.000 worth of cryptocurrencies. This is per calender year. There is no change to withdrawal limits after verification, which is basically unlimited.”
Yacuna offers customers the ability to trade bitcoin, litecoin and dogecoin with fiat currency. It recently launched faster fiat currency deposits via SOFORT banking and a beginners’ buying service at Yacuna-Direct.com.A member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) who was embedded with Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) was killed on Saturday by an Islamic State booby trap near the Tal Afar airport, which is to the west of Mosul, according to Iranian media. The PMF, the umbrella organization of Iraqi-Shiite militias fighting the Islamic State that is dominated by IRGC-backed groups, has claimed new gains near Tal Afar during the past week. The death of Guard member Kheirollah Ahmadi underscores Iran’s involvement in Iraq.
The IRGC has released little details about the slain operative. During the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), Ahmadi served with distinction in a sabotage battalion and the Hunayn Battalion – of the IRGC Ground Forces’ Hazrat-e Nabi Akram Corps – according to reports citing a Guard commander. That same commander introduced Ahmadi as a member of the Hunayn Battalion, indicating that he was active duty prior to his Iraq deployment. The IRGC has deployed both active duty and retired officers to Syria and Iraq.
The Nabi Akram Corps is stationed in the predominantly Shiite-Kurdish Kermanshah province in western Iran. In the past, members from the provincial unit and that battalion have deployed to
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example, that the Fed's "liabilities are $4.5 trillion" and its "assets are $57 billion," which makes it "leveraged three times greater than Lehman Brothers was when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt." So the Fed would be "insolvent," he argued, if we didn't "give 'em a pass" because "they've got a printing press." This is all kinds of ignorant. First off, as Cullen Roche points out, the Fed's assets are actually $4.487 trillion. Its capital is $57 billion. And there'd be a lot more capital if the Fed hadn't given the Treasury $500 billion of its profits the past decade. Indeed, it'd only be "leveraged" 8, and not 80, to 1 if it'd kept all the money it'd made.
But this is besides the point. It doesn't matter how "leveraged" the Fed is. It doesn't even make sense to talk about it. Leverage, after all, is how much money a bank is borrowing. But a central bank doesn't borrow money. It prints money. So its "leverage" is meaningless. Think about it this way. When the things a bank has bought are worth less than the money it's borrowed, it's insolvent—and if its lenders figure that out, they'll push it into bankruptcy by asking for their money back all at once. So we care about leverage because more of it makes this easier to happen. But what would it take for this to happen to a central bank? Well, suppose the Fed's assets, in this case, Treasury and mortgage bonds, lose so much value that it's technically insolvent. Who would the "lenders" asking for their money back even be?
The answer is... everyone who has dollars? Or none of them, more likely. The Fed's liabilities, you see, are the dollars it's printed and the dollars that banks have on deposit with it. These are pretty good liabilities to have—the best ones, actually—since currency pays zero interest and central bank deposits only pay 0.25 percent (and the Fed could make that zero, like it was before 2008, whenever it wants). So it's not like the Fed is going to default on its mostly nonexistent debt payments that it can make fully nonexistent at will. Nor are people going to rush to trade their dollars in for, let's humor Rand Paul, gold, just because the Fed's bonds have lost more money on paper than it has on hand. The Fed's "capital" is an accounting fiction that depends on how much money it's sending to the Treasury and how much money the Treasury is sending to it—and that has nothing to do with the value of the dollar itself. That last part is the only thing that could make people want to turn in their dollars for euros or pounds (but probably not Bitcoins): if the dollar was already crashing because of high, out-of-control inflation. But that's the opposite of the world we live in now, with inflation at just 0.7 percent and heading even lower as oil prices keep dropping.
Rand Paul seems to understand approximately none of this. He and others in the the GOP have, for years, brayed about high inflation that didn't exist and currency depreciation that wasn't happening, even taking the unprecedented step of publicly warning the Fed off its stimulus efforts, all while the real problems were too-low inflation, and, more recently, a stronger dollar that's put a crimp on the recovery. But despite this, Paul wants these people who have been, to put it charitably, wrong about everything to have more of a say against the ones who haven't. And it's all in the name of "transparency" that the Fed is already providing plenty of, which Paul would know if he actually read something about it anywhere other than the usual Austrian suspects. The worst part, though, is that we know what an economy with the kind of tight money that Republicans prefer looks like right now. It's called "Europe," and it has twice as much unemployment as we do. But hey, empirical evidence doesn't matter, right? Let them eat first principles!
That's the kind of crazy that would make charlatans and cranks both say Rand Paul is giving them a bad name.Hooker Dane Coles and centre Ryan Crotty will rejoin the All Blacks squad for their final match in the Rugby Championship against South Africa on Saturday.
Coles missed New Zealand's Test against Argentina in Buenos Aires at the weekend, after returning home for the birth of his first child.
The All Blacks beat Argentina 34-13 to clinch the Championship title with one round remaining.
Crotty has recovered from a broken cheekbone, suffered during New Zealand's 51-20 win over Australia earlier in the tournament and played last weekend for his Canterbury province.
Keven Mealamu stepped up in the place of Coles as hooker for the All Blacks and rookie Nathan Harris made his debut from the bench in La Plata.
Coles will now board another long haul flight to Johannesburg and arrive a few hours after the team on Monday.
"Dane Coles [is] coming to South Africa," All Blacks coach Steve Hansen told the New Zealand media before the team departed Argentina.
"The baby has been born. He had a wee boy."
It now seems likely Coles, after establishing his presence as first choice hooker, will start against the Springboks at Ellis Park, with Mealamu providing back-up.
"We haven't decided about that yet," Hansen said.
Brodie Retallick's head knock will be assessed on arrival in South Africa, but the All Blacks will not bring over additional locking cover, even if he is ruled out.
Sam Whitelock and Jeremy Thrush are the only other second row options with blindside flank Steven Luatua offering a contingency plan.
"I can't tell you any more than last [Saturday] night," Hansen said of Retallick.
"He got a smack in the back of the head at one of the rucks. He didn't feel 100 percent so we took him off.
''The doc will assess him tomorrow [Monday] once we get there and see how he copes with the travel. They'll go through the normal concussion stuff.
"We're only allowed 30 players. At this stage Steven will cover him and Ryan Crotty is coming over so we can't bring anyone else."
After watching the Boks run over the Wallabies in the final 10 minutes of their flattering 28-10 bonus point win in Cape Town at the weekend, Hansen felt the South African's fitness levels had lifted.
"It was a pretty intense Test match and they hung in there," he said.
"They belted each other for a long time and right at the end the Aussies caved in. You'd have to say they are [getting fitter]."
Source: stuff.co.nz
PV: 45Polka music hits another benchmark with The Chardon Polka Band’s World War Polka, an album that features polkas like you’ve never heard them before. The band’s unique edge and attitude shine through as they combine polka with rock, punk, hip-hop, and gospel. Included in this album are polka covers of familiar tunes like Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It”, Beyonce’s “Single Ladies”, and The Who’s “Squeezebox”. Old school polka fans still get their fix with tunes like “The Julida Polka”, and “The Mountain Climber Polka”. The band has rounded out this album with several of their own compositions like “Punks At The Bar”, “Polka Round Your Sweetheart” and “You Can’t Drink Beer In Outer Space”.
Whether you call it a punk polka, noise pollution, old school meets new, or just plain fun… Polka lovers of all varieties are sure to dig World War Polka.A 28-year-old California man has pleaded guilty to a single count of criminal copyright infringement for being part of an in-theater camcording group known as IMAGiNE, whose goal was mostly internet cred, not money.
Sean Lovelady faces a maximum 5-year term when sentenced later this year. Under the terms of his Wednesday plea, he agreed to cooperate (.pdf) with the authorities for a potentially reduced term.
Lovelady, one of four men indicted (.pdf) last month in connection to the scheme, was accused of audio-recording films such as Friends With Benefits and Captain America: The First Avenger. Others in the group would record the film at a theater with a camcorder. Then the sound and video would be combined into a full-featured movie, the authorities said.
While the group allegedly took an undisclosed amount of "donations" via PayPal for their services, the main motive appears to be street cred, the authorities said.
"The conspirators informally identified themselves as the IMAGiNE Group and sought, among other things, to be the premier group to first release to the internet copies of new motion pictures only showing in movie theaters," according to the indictment in the Easter District of Virginia.
Other films the group recorded and uploaded included The Men Who Stare at Goats, Avatar, Clash of the Titans, Iron Man 2, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, and, among others, The Green Hornet.
Assistant Attorney General Breuer said in a statement that the group "sought to become the leading source of pirated movies on the internet."
That's a bit over-the-top, given that camcorder releases are of much lower quality than copies ripped from DVDs, don't look very good even on laptop-sized screens and are a poor replacement for a theater experience.
The authorities said the group utilized servers in France, Canada and the United States to offer in-theater-only movies from websites like unleashthe.net, pure-imagination.us and pure-imagination.info.
The indictment said the group accepted donations "to fund expenses, including the cost of renting servers used by the conspirators, and to accept payments for the unauthorized distribution and sale of pirated copies of copyrighted works."
The indictment alleges that the IMAGiNE Group's websites included member profiles, a torrent tracker, discussion forums and a message board.Three weeks ago tomorrow, Donald Trump surprised a lot of people by announcing a new policy via Twitter: “Please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military.”
Almost immediately, it became obvious that the president had tweets, but no policy. The White House struggled to defend the discriminatory ban; service chiefs dismissed it; and the Joint Chiefs effectively ignored it, leaving the status quo in place.
Yesterday, as the Washington Post reported, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis left open the possibility that at least some transgender service members could continue their military careers, despite what Trump said on Twitter.
Mattis, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, said that he and his staff are still studying the issue, including how having transgender service members affects other members of their units. The Pentagon chief, asked whether transgender people now in the military will be forced out of their service, pointed to a statement that Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued a day after Trump’s announcement last month. Dunford said that openly transgender people will be allowed to continue to serve until there is guidance from the president on how to proceed.
The oddity of the circumstances is hard to miss. The Commander in Chief publicly declared that the United States military “will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity.” No one knew exactly what that meant, so everyone simply put the declaration aside.
Three weeks later, there’s still no clarity as to what Trump was talking about, so his ban is in limbo: it exists on Twitter and in the president’s mind, but in practice, according to Mattis, the Pentagon has decided to “study” the issue.
In Grown-Up Land, officials tend to examine an idea before a president starts banning Americans in uniform from military service, but in the Trump administration, the order of events is apparently reversed.
For his part, the president told reporters last week, in reference to his ban, “It’s been a very difficult situation. And I think I’m doing a lot of people a favor by coming out and just saying it.”
We still don’t know what “it” he was referring to.Download raw source
Delivered-To: [email protected] Received: by 10.220.100.81 with SMTP id x17cs92305vcn; Thu, 23 Dec 2010 17:59:19 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.100.58.9 with SMTP id g9mr5337339ana.189.1293155958234; Thu, 23 Dec 2010 17:59:18 -0800 (PST) Return-Path: <[email protected]> Received: from smtp02.myhostedservice.com (smtp02.myhostedservice.com [66.129.85.153]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id w17si25168372anw.97.2010.12.23.17.59.18 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Thu, 23 Dec 2010 17:59:18 -0800 (PST) Received-SPF: neutral (google.com: 66.129.85.153 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of [email protected]) client-ip=66.129.85.153; Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=neutral (google.com: 66.129.85.153 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of [email protected]) [email protected] Received: from exmb01.netplexity.local (172.29.251.43) by smtp02.myhostedservice.com (172.29.211.12) with Microsoft SMTP Server (TLS) id 14.0.702.0; Thu, 23 Dec 2010 20:59:14 -0500 Received: from MBX01.netplexity.local ([172.29.251.92]) by exmb01.netplexity.local ([172.29.251.43]) with mapi; Thu, 23 Dec 2010 20:59:17 -0500 From: Mary Pat Bonner <[email protected]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2010 20:59:16 -0500 Subject: Thanks Thread-Topic: Thanks Thread-Index: AcujDitaGe0hJljhQ0uqA9ZZxPRKWg== Message-ID: <D8A72943A4200045A620F28CED197D3734695B57E1@MBX01.netplexity.local> Accept-Language: en-US Content-Language: en-US X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: acceptlanguage: en-US Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable MIME-Version: 1.0 Return-Path: [email protected] Thanks for reaching out David,=20 The following is a business memo based upon a discussion I had with my lawy= er yesterday about what will create the least problems legally for me and f= or you, my thoughts on what is workable for me and the input you have given= me throughout our numerous conversations on what you want. =20 The goals of this memo are as follows: =20 1) To eliminate conflict -- To not create a scenario where I am responsible= for the budget of the IE and therefore in conflict with you all the time = on if we are hitting your goals. 2) To help you to begin aggressively raising funds immediately, -- so as t= o get in as much money in the door as early as possible in early January s= o we can begin operating 3) To give you the flexibility to hire whoever you want whenever you want t= o IE's fund-raising without having any tension or conflict with me about i= t. 4) To give you and me the ability to say that the IE is not paying high pri= ced consultants with donor funds. 5) To give me the financial security and incentive to continue to raise as = much money as possible for the C3 and C4 and my part of the IE. 6) To give me the comfort to know that donors I have introduced you to are = not being turned over to other fund-raisers. 7) To allow us to do this "together" which you and I have always agreed tha= t we want. =20 Based upon my lawyers advice, I actually think we can do something quite si= mple. =20 We would leave the C3 contract alone knowing that we might have some donors= who will give to the IE instead of the C3 thus affecting my commission. I= have simply decided to not worry if my commissions goes down -- it is fine=, I will make it up in other ways.=20 We would leave the C4 contract alone but we would use the rule we have alwa= ys used. "If a donor comes into the C4 who is not one of "our people" (so = introduced by someone else) - I will simply not charge for them. I have c= onfidence in this because actually the easiest thing about or relationship = for 6 years is that we have virtually never had contention over the payment= on a contribution. On the IE -- I would solicit a predetermined list of donors (which would in= clude all of the funders that are "our" list that we work with you on now -= current donors and real prospects). We could be paid as little as the law= yers would allow. You could then hire a fleet of fund-raising consultants across the country = to do a very deep dive into multiple states to get as many other donors as = possible to give. =20 Additionally, this structure would allow people like Susie McCue the confi= dence to give her names and solicit for us since I would not be being paid = for or adding her people to my lists to solicit. I believe that this would allow you and I to have a SIMPLE work relationshi= p: since for the IE -- basically I will only be working on a predetermined= list that are clearly our prospects together. I will then give you a s= trategy for each prospect on the predetermined list and you can change it a= ny way you want, and decide where you want to ask for the donation go and t= hen I can just implement. Under this scenario I will continue to prospect new funders - but only for = the C3 and C4 thus eleviating any conflict with you other IE fund raisers o= ver who knows a given prospect better or would have a better chance getting= them. They can just do everyone else. I believe this scenario is very simple, alleviates all opportunity for tens= ion, gives us the best opportunity to continue to work together easily, all= ows us to again have fun working together, and allows you to have an advis= or whose motivation you can again trust completely since everything is pre-= decided on my part of the fund-raising and you basically control the strate= gy with each of the people on "our" list from the beginning.=20 Additionally, it gives you the flexibility to have you help me with as much= political and big picture strategy around the IE and you want since it wil= l be clear from the beginning what I am doing and therefore also clear I am= not angling for anything. I hope this meets your goals and can again put our work relationship on tra= ck. Mary Pat PS. Please feel free to share this with Matt and Dave if you want to. Sin= ce they were both in the lawyers meeting - they can see if there is any int= ersection between their thoughts and this.=NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors said several witnesses in the criminal securities fraud case against notorious former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli are concerned about retaliation and have received threats from him in the past.
Martin Shkreli, former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals LLC, prepares to testify before a House Oversight and Government Reform hearing on "Developments in the Prescription Drug Market Oversight" on Capitol Hill in Washington February 4, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
Prosecutors cited the concern about witness intimidation in a brief filed late on Thursday in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, as they sought to delay a related U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit.
The brief opposed a bid by Shkreli, 32, to take depositions and to obtain evidence in the SEC’s civil case, saying doing so would result in the early disclosure of information not normally available to defendants until late stages in criminal cases.
Among the reasons for putting the SEC case on hold, prosecutors said, was the “well-founded concern of witness intimidation based on defendant Shkreli’s past behavior.”
Shkreli’s lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, called those arguments “preposterous.”
“While his keen ‘intellect’ can at times be intimidating to mere mortals, nothing else about (Shkreli) is intimidating at all,” Brafman said in an email on Friday.
Shkreli, who gained notoriety as the head of Turing Pharmaceuticals when it raised the price of a drug to treat a parasitic infection to $750 from $13.50, was indicted in December and sued at the same time by the SEC.
Both cases allege Shkreli engaged in a Ponzi-like scheme, defrauding investors in his hedge fund MSMB Capital Management and misappropriating $11 million in assets from Retrophin Inc (RTRX.O), where he was then chief executive, to repay them.
Shkreli has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.
In Thursday’s brief, prosecutors cited evidence that Shkreli, 32, “has taken steps to intimidate or threaten individuals in the past,” including by engaging in a “campaign of harassment” against a former Retrophin employee in 2013.
Several witnesses cited Shkreli’s harassment of that employee as the reason they believe he may retaliate against them, prosecutors said. Several also said Shkreli has previously threatened them in personal and business disputes, prosecutors wrote.
At least one witness told authorities that Shkreli, in early 2015 while knowing he was under criminal investigation, reached out to him or her “and suggested that the witness agree to a false version of certain events,” prosecutors wrote.Police arrested the former pastor of First Baptist Church in Los Alamos Friday for allegedly distributing and possessing child pornography.
LAPD Courtesy Paul Cunningham Buy this photo
Paul Cunningham, 54, was arrested and charged with one count of possession and one count of distribution of pornography.
Cunningham was a minister at First Baptist Church at 2200 Diamond Drive, but had recently resigned.
The Los Alamos Police Department was apparently tipped off to Cunningham’s activities Feb. 11, when Los Alamos County Sheriff Marco Lucero and Deputy Sheriff John Horne brought a “zip” file to LAPD Sgt. John Rodriguez’ attention. The file was from a Det. Brian Adams of the Westminster Colorado Police Department. Adams, was conducting a child pornography case in his jurisdiction when he came across Cunningham’s IP address (an address assigned by an internet service provider).
He suspected Cunningham was sending child pornography files to a suspect in Colorado.
LAPD then contacted the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office. At 8 a.m. March 4, armed with a warrant from District Court Judge Sarah Singleton, its team of special investigators and officers from the LAPD searched Cunningham’s home in the 4000 block of Brisa del Bosque for more evidence. The team confiscated an Xbox game console, a black Hewlett Packard Laptop, a Kodak EasyShare Z740 camera, an iPhone, a thumb drive and a Go Pro camera. They also confiscated a silver Apple laptop computer and an iPad.
On April 27 and 27, Sgt. Rodriguez was called to the New Mexico Regional Forensics Laboratory to review the files extracted from the computers.
“Twenty-two of the images were shared through several social media sites. These computers were located at the residence of Paul Cunningham through the execution of a search warrant," Sgt. Rodriguez said in his report.San Francisco Building Moratorium
A street sign hangs outside a new apartment building on Mission Street, Tuesday, June 2, 2015, in San Francisco. Finding a place to live has become so expensive and emotional that city supervisors were considering a 45-day moratorium on luxury housing in the Mission District, which has long been one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the city. Portland's Metro regional government hosted a discussion about lessons the area can learn from San Francisco.
(The Associated Press)
One of the many signs people in Portland are concerned about the cost of area housing: there wasn't an empty seat in the audience for a Metro panel discussion on the subject, and it was Friday at 8 a.m.
The regional planning agency hosted Kim-Mai Cutler, a reporter formerly of Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal who now writes for TechCrunch. At nearly 13,000 words, Cutler's "How Burrowing Owls Lead to Vomiting Anarchists (or S.F.'s Housing Crisis Explained)" provides a comprehensive look at what's gone wrong in San Francisco, where the median rent price, according to Zillow, is $4,600.
It's not quite that bad yet in Portland, where the median rent is $1,700. But costs are rising fast, and organizations like the Community Alliance of Tenants have declared a "renter state of emergency." Metro invited Cutler with the hope of learning from San Francisco's troubles and preventing the situation in Oregon from growing worse.
Joining Cutler were economist Joe Cortright, of City Observatory; Elisa Harrigan, the affordable housing initiative program officer at Meyer Memorial Trust; and developer Eli Spevak, of Orange Splot LLC. Willamette Week reporter Aaron Mesh served as moderator.
Cutler began the event with a presentation on how and why the Bay Area became so unaffordable over the last 40 years. The panel discussion followed, and the group took questions from the audience at the end.
Here are four ideas that stood out:
People are moving back into cities, but supply can't catch up
Suburban homes used to sell at a 9 percent premium above homes in Portland, Cortright said. Less than a decade later, the opposite is true: Portland homes now sell at a 7 percent premium.
"The cause of what's going on is there's a huge and increasing demand for urban living in the United States.... [People] are doing what a lot of urbanists hoped they would do," Cortright said. But the supply of urban spaces, he added, hasn't increased "anywhere nearly rapidly enough."
In the Bay Area, the problem has been exacerbated by immense industrial growth in the Silicon Valley suburbs where large tech firms make their headquarters. Those towns, Cutler said, haven't allowed for the construction of housing to keep up with the companies' thousands of new employees.
"When suburbs...limit the amount of growth," Cutler said, "the growth goes somewhere else and into the urban core."
The panel's consensus: rent control and inclusionary zoning don't work
Rent control does work, Cortright said, for those who have rent-controlled apartments - but only them.
"It drives up the price of housing everywhere else" by further constraining the market-rate supply, he said.
And in Portland, developers have built more affordable housing in the Pearl District and Old Town in 10 years - 2,200 units as of 2014, below the city's goal of more than 2,400 - than all of San Francisco got as a result of inclusionary zoning since 1992.
Inclusionary zoning is a policy by which jurisdictions require all housing developments to include a certain number of affordable units.
"If there was a silver bullet," Harrigan said, referring to one panacea-like solution, Portland would have done it by now.
Cutler, with support from other panelists, proposed a land-value tax. It would be assessed on the underlying value of a property regardless of how well it is used or improved. Cities could then dedicate those revenues toward building affordable housing.
The 'elephant in the room,' according to one panelist? Parking requirements
"We have inclusionary zoning for cars," Cortright half-joked.
He said forcing parking requirements on developers constrains the supply of housing. Fewer units get built, which drives up the prices of houses and apartments.
"Stop taxing houses to subsidize cars," he said. Property taxes, after all, pay for police officers and firefighters, who spend significant time dealing with traffic control and car accidents, he added.
Cortright was also in favor of abolishing free parking in certain neighborhoods in an effort to get people out of their cars and onto public transit and bicycles. The conversation about affordability, he said, needs to focus not just on housing but on lifestyle, as well.
What about NIMBYs?
It's an old idea: the "Not In My Backyard" crowd supports smart growth, density, transit-oriented development and affordable housing, as long as it doesn't happen in their neighborhood.
But are efforts to preserve neighborhood "character" causing Portland's dwindling stock of affordable homes?
"In many cases the objections" to projects that would bring housing to a neighborhood can seem "a little extreme," Cutler said.
And though a city can't build its way out of a housing crisis, Spevak said, "we have to let developers build more homes." Increasing the supply can prevent prices from rising as fast as they are now, he said.
Spevak thinks city officials and developers can find ways to "creatively and discreetly slip small homes into the existing fabric."
But he cautioned against characterizing neighborhood activists with broad strokes.
"There are a lot of folks in the neighborhoods who are willing to take on additional homes," Spevak said.
-- Luke Hammill
[email protected]
503-294-4029
@lucashammillNiall Burns ×
A founder member of Subrosa Group, Niall drives the strategic growth and business development of the company, employing his extensive international experience in strategic and operational management and training across Europe and the Middle East.
Niall has over 24 years operational experience, formally as a member of the UK’s elite Special Forces and Royal Marines and subsequently in the private sector as senior security manager for the Brunei Royal family.
Establishing his own company enabled Niall to expand his security expertise to include International Business Intelligence, Risk Management, Specialist and Cyber Security, all services now available to Subrosa Group’s extensive portfolio of clients.
Operational successes have been many and varied, but include being seconded to King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, initially as Security Manager and subsequently as Emergency Management Manager to set up and train a crisis management team running alongside a business continuity plan.
Niall has taken the company from a start-up security firm to a multi-division global network providing expertise, strategic planning, consultancy and personnel to multi million pound projects worldwide, a testament to Niall’s deep and essential understanding of cultural differences, impressive business acumen and international contacts.
Niall is a proactive member of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals, the Association of European Threat Assessment Professionals and ASIS. Niall is also a contributor for CNN, BBC and ITN, often brought in to offer expert opinion on security and counter terrorism issues.SINGAPORE - Teenage blogger Amos Yee is back in prison for three weeks, after the judge who heard his case on Tuesday morning called for a reformative training report.
The 16-year-old had been found guilty on May 12 of uploading an obscene image and making remarks intending to hurt the feelings of Christians in a video.
District Judge Jasvender Kaur called for a report to assess if Yee is physically and mentally suitable for reformative training. She said: "Rehabilitation is the fundamental tenet of our justice system."
She had initially asked for a probation suitability report after Yee's conviction on May 12. This would have left the teenager without a criminal record.
Clad in a yellow T-shirt, a tan cardigan and track pants, Yee arrived at 9.30am with his parents and showed his middle finger to the media as he passed them.
When asked by The Straits Times before the start of the session how he was feeling, Yee said he was "fearful" but did not elaborate.
During Tuesday's hearing, the prosecution again called for Yee to be sent for reformative training, as he has not cooperated with his assigned probation officer. They also highlighted how Yee has once more made public the image and video that got him into trouble in the first place.
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Hay Hung Chun said: "His conduct, and the latest developments, amplify the need for rehabilitation and appropriate counselling."
He pointed out a jail term or a fine would have no rehabilitative effect on Yee and would therefore not be "tenable, because we cannot be popping back into court every other day."
Reformative training is a rehabilitative sentencing option for young offenders aged under 21 who are found to be unsuitable for probation.
A stint at the Reformative Training Centre lasts between 18 and 30 months, and includes structured rehabilitation programmes, foot drills, and counselling. Offenders will not have contact with adult prison inmates.
The defence argued, however, that reformative training was a disproportionate punishment to Yee's offence, and pushed instead for a short jail term.
Yee's lawyer Alfred Dodwell said his client was "quite ready to go in" to remand. "We have advised him as to the law and the consequences of not obeying the law, but it is the absolute right of the client to do as he pleases. If he doesn't take (the video and the post) down I can't force him to. He feels very strongly about this."
The obscene image had the faces of Singapore's founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and former British premier Margaret Thatcher superimposed on it. Yee was also found guilty of deliberately hurting the feelings of Christians in the YouTube video, which criticised Mr Lee.
Yee had initially made private both the video and the blog post with the image after Judge Kaur ordered him to do so on May 12, but the prosecution noticed on May 21 that they had been made public again.
On Monday, June 1, Yee uploaded the image onto his Facebook page as well. He also made a series of defiant posts refusing to remove the offending material.
"...to the chagrin of numerous people, I have not 'learnt my lesson', nor do I see any 'lesson' that needs to be learnt," he wrote.
The crowd at Tuesday's hearing was thinner than in previous sessions. Although about 13 people were queuing outside Court 7 at 8.30am, only about 20 seats were filled in a gallery that had been packed to the brim in earlier hearings.
Among those present was activist blogger Roy Ngerng and Reform Party secretary-general Kenneth Jeyaretnam. Yee's former bailor Vincent Law, whom Yee had falsely accused of molesting him, was absent.
Yee's father Alphonsus Yee said that his son was "mentally prepared" to enter remand. He and Yee's mother Madam Mary Toh declined to speak further to reporters.
Yee's case will next be heard on June 23.
[email protected] CI reports that Zack Snyder's Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice will be the first film from a major studio to get a 100 gigabyte triple layer disk Blu-Ray release. The large capacity of the disk is reportedly needed to encompass Snyder's three-hour "Ultimate" directors cut of the movie. The ultra-HD set will be two disks and will also feature the regular theatrical version of the movie. (Read David Gigg's review of the theatrical version here).
The DVD release will have several special features as well. There will be a featurette on of each of the movie's three heroes: Superman: Complexity and Truth, Batman: Austerity and Rage and Wonder Woman: Grace and Power. Additional features include: The Warrior, The Myth, The Wonder (a featurette that will delve into the history of Wonder Woman in anticipation for her upcoming movie), Uniting the World's Finest, Gods and Men: A Meeting of the Giants, Accelerating Design: The New Batmobile, The Might and the Power of a Punch, Batcave: Legacy of the Lair, The Empire of Luthor and Save the Bats. Whew, that's a lot!
The DVD will go on sale on July 19th in the US and August 1st in the UK. The list price for the set is 44,95, but it's currently available for pre-order at Amazon for 26.96.
I'm glad the DVD makers didn't skimp on the features for such a big release and the Wonder Woman featurette sounds especially interesting. I'm curious whether the 3-hour version will be better than the one we got in cinemas or if added length will excacerbate the film's problems. What do you think of the DVD release? Are you excited?
Read: Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice - Review: Day Vs Night..... Style Vs Content
Read: Batman vs. Superman Finished Showing in North America with a Gross of $330 MillionIt has finally happened. The first four-day Test match is currently underway at Port Elizabeth in South Africa. However, it may seem that four days is ample for this strong South Africa side to dispatch Zimbabwe. Indeed, the tourists are sitting precariously at 30/4 at stumps, after South Africa declared on 309/9. Aiden Markram led the charge with his superb 125, while Morne Morkel and Vernon Philander did the damage with the ball under lights. This, though, should not distract from the real issue at hand – the prospect of four-day Test cricket becoming a regular event.
The ICC are trying everything to ensure that Test cricket survives, but this is a step to far and could ultimately lead to its destruction.
Embed from Getty Images
Day-Night Tests Do The Job
In a bid to make Test cricket more accessible, the ICC implemented day-night Test cricket. It’s primary purpose was to allow spectators to come to the ground after a day at school or work. This has been fairly successful since its inception, perhaps with the exception of the Edgbaston Test between England and the West Indies. An important side effect of day-night Test cricket has been that wickets have tumbled under lights. Indeed, the pink ball has been observed to move drastically under lights and it is undoubtedly
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officers' "Miranda cards" which contained the text of the warning, for reading to arrestees. He was stabbed to death during an argument in a bar on January 31, 1976.[13] A suspect was arrested, but he, unlike Miranda, exercised his right to remain silent. With no evidence against him, he was released.[14]
Another three defendants whose cases had been tied in with Miranda's – an armed robber, a stick-up man, and a bank robber – either made plea bargains to lesser charges or were found guilty again despite the exclusion of their confessions.[15]
Reaction [ edit ]
The Miranda decision was widely criticized when it came down, as many felt it was unfair to inform suspected criminals of their rights, as outlined in the decision. Richard Nixon and other conservatives denounced Miranda for undermining the efficiency of the police, and argued the ruling would contribute to an increase in crime. Nixon, upon becoming President, promised to appoint judges who would be "strict constructionists" and who would exercise judicial restraint. Many supporters of law enforcement were angered by the decision's negative view of police officers.[citation needed]
Miranda warning [ edit ]
After the Miranda decision, the nation's police departments were required to inform arrested persons or suspects of their rights under the ruling prior to custodial interrogation.[16] Such information is called a Miranda warning. Since it is usually required that the suspects be asked if they understand their rights, courts have also ruled that any subsequent waiver of Miranda rights must be knowing, intelligent, and voluntary.[17]
Many American police departments have pre-printed Miranda waiver forms which a suspect must sign and date (after hearing and reading the warnings again) if an interrogation is to occur.[18][19]
Data from the FBI Uniform Crime Reports shows a sharp reduction in the clearance rate of violent and property crimes after Miranda.[20] However, according to other studies from the 1960s and 1970s, "contrary to popular belief, Miranda had little, if any, effect on detectives' ability to solve crimes."[10]
Legal developments [ edit ]
The federal Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 purported to overrule Miranda for federal criminal cases and restore the "totality of the circumstances" test that had prevailed previous to Miranda.[21] The validity of this provision of the law, which is still codified at 18 U.S.C. § 3501, was not ruled on for another 30 years because the Justice Department never attempted to rely on it to support the introduction of a confession into evidence at any criminal trial.[citation needed]
Miranda was undermined by several subsequent decisions which seemed to grant exceptions to the "Miranda warnings", challenging its claim to be a necessary corollary of the Fifth Amendment. The exceptions and developments that occurred over the years included:
United States v. Garibay (1998) pointed out an important matter in regards to expansion of Miranda. Garibay barely spoke English and clearly showed a lack of understanding; indeed, "the agent admitted that he had to rephrase questions when the defendant appeared confused."[23] The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled a "clear error" when the district court found that Garibay had "knowingly and intelligently waived his Miranda rights" due to the defendant's low I.Q. and poor English language skills.[24] The court investigated many facets of his waiver and discovered that Mr. Garibay was missing all items that they were looking for: he never signed a waiver, he only received his warnings verbally and in English, and no interpreter was provided although they were available. With an opinion that stressed "the requirement that a defendant 'knowingly and intelligently' waive his Miranda rights", the Court reversed Garibay's conviction and remanded his case.[24]
Miranda survived a strong challenge in Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428 (2000), where the validity of Congress's overruling of Miranda through § 3501 was tested. At issue was whether the Miranda warnings were actually compelled by the Constitution, or were rather merely measures enacted as a matter of judicial policy.[citation needed] In Dickerson, the Court, speaking through Chief Justice Rehnquist, upheld Miranda 7–2 and stated that "the warnings have become part of our national culture". In dissent, Justice Scalia argued Miranda warnings were not constitutionally required. He cited several cases demonstrating a majority of the then-current court, counting himself, and Justices Kennedy, O'Connor, and Thomas, as well as the Chief Justice (who had just delivered a contrary opinion), "[were] on record as believing that a violation of Miranda is not a violation of the Constitution".[citation needed]
Over time, interrogators began to think of techniques to honor the "letter" but not the "spirit" of Miranda. In the case of Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U.S. 600 (2004), the Supreme Court halted one of the more controversial practices. Missouri police were deliberately withholding Miranda warnings and questioning suspects until they obtained confessions, then giving the warnings, getting waivers, and getting confessions again. Justice Souter wrote for the plurality: "Strategists dedicated to draining the substance out of Miranda cannot accomplish by training instructions what Dickerson held Congress could not do by statute."[25]
Berghuis v. Thompkins (2010) is a ruling where the Supreme Court held that a suspect's "ambiguous or equivocal" statement or no statements do not mean that police must end an interrogation.[26] At least one scholar has argued that Thompkins effectively gutted Miranda. In The Right to Remain Silent, Charles Weisselberg wrote that "the majority in Thompkins rejected the fundamental underpinnings of Miranda v. Arizona's prophylactic rule and established a new one that fails to protect the rights of suspects" and that
But in Thompkins, neither Michigan nor the Solicitor General were able to cite any decision in which a court found that a suspect had given an implied waiver after lengthy questioning. Thompkins persevered for almost three hours before succumbing to his interrogators. In finding a waiver on these facts, Thompkins gives us an implied waiver doctrine on steroids.[1]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Lastly, there is always trusted prayer and meditation. Typically when meditating, people try to stay silent or recite a mantra, but we're going to do things a little differently. This is generally what I do to tap into my client's energy before a session or tune into what I need to be doing that day. Simply ask a question, and then use the meditation as an opportunity to wait for answers. At this point I receive answers almost instantly, although it often used to take me 10 minutes or more.
Sometimes the messages are easy, such as, "Bring joy to everyone you see and focus on smiling at strangers today." Other times, the guidance is much more detailed. No matter what, it's always beautifully divine.
Remember, always search for guidance from the highest and purest light, and be in complete gratitude for the information you receive.
Pinpoint your brand of intuition with this psychic-approved primer, and learn more about your spiritual guidance squad here.The Vikings have agreed to terms with cornerback Captain Munnerlyn to a three-year deal and re-signed defensive tackle Fred Evans on a one-year deal, according to two NFL sources. The team will also sign cornerback Derek Cox to a one-year deal, according to another NFL source.
Munnerlyn will receive up to $15 million with $7 million guaranteed. He arrived on Wednesday night and was expected to meet with the Bucs and Jets if the two sides couldn’t reach a deal on Thursday.
"I had other visits set up but the number that Minnesota offered me was the number I was looking for," Munnerlyn said on a conference call Thursday. "I was like, 'Man, instead of leaving this offer out there I'm just going to take this. I think this team is on the up. They got a lot of talent."
Munnerlyn, 25, spent all five NFL seasons in Carolina. Listed at 5-9, 195-pounds, Munnerlyn returned five of his seven career interceptions for touchdowns. Munnerlyn had career highs in tackles (74), sacks (3 ½) and tied a career high in pass deflections (12) last season.
He said head coach Mike Zimmer's scheme sold him to sign to Minnesota.
"It's the defensive side -- I wanted to be comfortable," Munnerlyn said. "I think it's the same defense we run in Carolina, the same style and the same scheme. They broke down a couple things that I liked, and I was like, 'Man, this is just like Carolina.'
The Vikings wanted a four-year deal, but Munnerlyn signed a three-year deal so he could recieve his third contract before turning 30.
Munnerlyn expects to start and shift to nickel when called. He said he's had a similar role over the last three years with the Panthers.
"I'm kind of used to doing it, and I kind of like it," Munnerlyn said. "At first I didn't see how those guys covered guys in the slot. I was like, 'Man, it's very tough.' But it takes patience and time to get it, and I think I've got it down."
Munnerlyn, a seventh-round pick, said he's always had to prove people wrong about his height and whether he could play outside corner. He said when he first got into the league one of his Panthers' coaches showed him footage of former Vikings cornerback Antoine Winfield. Munnerlyn said he's since attempted to emulate Winfield's play on the field.
"I started watching film on him, and I kind of stole some of his game and brought it into my game," Munnerlyn said. "I don't hit as hard as he do. He can really bring it when he tackles, but I try and make the tackles when they come at me and make plays just like him."
Cox, 27, is listed at 6-1 and 195 pounds. He spent last season with the Chargers but was cut this month after signing a four-year, $20 million deal last year. Cox, who was a third round pick by the Jaguars in the 2009, appeared in all 16 games last season and recorded one interception and 34 total tackles. Cox has 13 career interceptions.
The Vikings now have eight corners on the roster with Munnerlyn and Cox. They already have Xavier Rhodes, Josh Robinson, Marcus Sherels, Robert Steeples, Shaun Prater and Kip Edwards under contract at the moment.
The signings also means that Chris Cook, who is an unrestricted free agent, likely won’t return to the Vikings. He’s visiting with the 49ers at the moment, according to the Sacramento Bee.
Cook, the Vikings’ second round pick in 2010, didn’t record an interception in four seasons. He’s dealt with a number of injuries throughout his career and missed a career-low four games last season. Cook was also inconsistent when he was on the field despite his size, 6-2 and 212 pounds, and athleticism to play cornerback.
Munnerlyn
Evans' signing shouldn't impact whether the Vikings continue to pursue unrestricted free agent defensive tackle Henry Melton, who is visiting with the team at Winter Park at the moment.
Evans' signing will help add depth at the position. The Vikings only had four defensive tackles, including Linval Joseph, under contract before Evans re-signed.
The Vikings have been active in free agency establishing their defensive line. Evans will be the third addition on the defensive line along with Griffen and Joseph.
If the Vikings strike a deal with Melton during his visit, the team would be two-deep at defensive tackle and signal the end of Kevin Williams' tenure. He's spent all 11 seasons with the Vikings since he was drafted with the ninth overall pick in 2003.The National Broadband Network (NBN) has agreed to destroy photographs taken by one of its employees during last night's police raids on Labor Party offices.
Key points: ABC understands NBN representative attended AFP raids and took photographs of documents
AFP says photos should not have been taken, NBN agrees "under duress" to destroy them
Labor seeks written assurance images have been destroyed
Australian Federal Police (AFP) investigators examining the leaking of documents about the NBN were last night joined by a company representative when they raided the office of Labor frontbencher Stephen Conroy and the homes of two Labor staffers in Melbourne.
The ABC understands the representative, acting as a "special constable", took photos of 34 or 35 documents that are subject to parliamentary privilege.
It was believed the AFP has acknowledged this should not have happened, and the NBN has now agreed "under duress" to destroy the files.
Labor is writing to the AFP seeking written assurances the files have been destroyed.
Earlier on Friday Opposition Leader Bill Shorten effectively accused the Turnbull Government of orchestrating the raids.
Mr Shorten said he accepted the AFP's assurance that the police acted independently of the Government, but he suggested the Government asked NBN Co to refer the leak to the police.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Mr Shorten's comments were a shameful attack on the AFP.
Earlier on Friday a spokesman for NBN confirmed the investigation relates to the "ongoing theft of intellectual property", following a report to the AFP last December.
The leaks were damaging for the company because the documents suggested it was lagging behind expected timeframes for work to be complete.
A statement from the company went on to address those reports.
"NBN has a proven track record and has, over the last two years, met or exceeded its key targets as set by the board," it said.
"While risks do exist, the company is confident it can continue to meet or exceed all company targets including the build schedule, activations, and financial budget."Looks like the debate of the century is off.
Donald Trump announced late Friday that he no longer wants to debate Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, after saying earlier this week he’d be willing to do it.
In a written statement, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee cited the “rigged” Democratic process – along with the fact that Sanders is almost certain to finish as their runner-up, and complaints about whether enough of the proceeds would go to charity – in turning down the debate proposal.
“Based on the fact that the Democratic nominating process is totally rigged and Crooked Hillary Clinton and Deborah Wasserman Schultz will not allow Bernie Sanders to win, and now that I am the presumptive Republican nominee, it seems inappropriate that I would debate the second place finisher,” Trump said.
“Likewise, the networks want to make a killing on these events and are not proving to be too generous to charitable causes, in this case, women's health issues. Therefore, as much as I want to debate Bernie Sanders -- and it would be an easy payday -- I will wait to debate the first place finisher in the Democratic Party, probably Crooked Hillary Clinton, or whoever it may be.”
Sanders teased Trump over the decision on the sidelines of a California campaign stop. He told reporters late Friday that the Republican comes across as a “tough guy” and asked, “What are you afraid of?”
Sanders later issued a statement saying: "I hope that he changes his mind once again and comes on board."
Earlier in the day, the Sanders campaign said they had two offers from TV networks to host a Sanders-Trump debate – both including a “major contribution to charity” – and were ready to do it.
“We are prepared to accept one of those offers and look forward to working with the Trump campaign to develop a time, place and format that is mutually agreeable,” Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver said. "Given that the California primary is on June 7, it is imperative that this all comes together as soon as possible.”
The feverish speculation about a Trump-Sanders showdown started when Trump said Wednesday on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” he’d be willing to do it – if enough money went to charity.
Sanders immediately said he was up for the challenge. The Sanders camp was also eager to set up a debate after Clinton declined a Fox News invitation to a Democratic primary debate before the California contest.
Trump's proposal led to backchannel discussions about the possibility of a Trump-Sanders showdown. Trump as recently as Friday afternoon, at a campaign event in Fresno, Calif., said he wanted to face off against Sanders “so badly.”
He also said he wanted to give over $10 million for women’s charities but “networks want to keep money for themselves.”CANADA
This submission was prepared by Kay Cahill FRSA, BSc (Econ) and Jennifer Copley BFA BEd. of the Infodemons Information Consultancy (Canada) and edited by Kevin Cahill
Canada is a kingdom, also called a dominion, whose head of state is a Queen, Elizabeth 11. She is also Queen of the United Kingdom and of 32 other countries and territories. Canada was taken from France for the Crown of Great Britain following a battle near Quebec in 1759. The country retains a strong French influence especially in Quebec province, and has two official languages, English and French.
Population of Canada. 2005 census, 32.2 million people. The capital of Canada is Ottowa. Population of the capital 1,063,044. Canada is an independent kingdom and a member of the Commonwealth. Canada became a Dominion in 1867 and received a new Constitution in 1982 by way of amendment to the Canada Act of 1867. Total area of Canada: 2,467 million acres Of this area 2,247 million acres is land and 220 million acres are fresh water. The Europa World Yearbook 2004 describes Canada’s land area as the second largest in the world, after Russia.
The ownership factor is 1. The Queen is the sole legal owner of all the land of Canada. The private “holdership” factor, based on freehold tenure of housing is 67%. For all other land it is less than 9.7%, with over 90% of Canadian land remaining as Crown leasehold, administered for the Crown by various agencies and departments of the government of Canada
GNI in 2005 was $28,390 and Canada ranked 21 in the World Bank list
In the Economist Quality of Life survey Canada scored 7.59 and was ranked 21 out of 111 countries.
About 79% of the Canadian population is urban and there is no basic poverty in Canada.
There are 75.9 acres per person in Canada.
How Canada is owned
All physical land in Canada is the property of the Crown, Queen Elisabeth 11. There is no provision in the Canada Act, or in the Constitution Act 1982 which amends it, for any Canadian to own any physical land in Canada. All that Canadians may hold, in conformity with medieval and feudal law, is “an interest in an estate in land in fee simple”. Land defined as ‘Crown land’ in Canada, and administered by the Federal Government and the Provinces, is merely land not ‘dedicated’ or assigned in freehold tenure. Freehold is tenure, not ownership. Freehold land is ‘held’ not ‘owned’.
Canada, a vast territory dominating the north of the North American continent, was colonised by the British from 1497 when Cabot left Bristol and reached New Foundland. Subsequently, most of Canada fell under French control. In 1759, at the result of a single battle at Quebec, Britain took Canada from the French. In 1867 Canada became the first Crown colony to obtain self government within the Empire as a Dominion. Throughout most of the 19th century, it was the stated policy of the American political parties to annex Canada. They were prevented from doing so only by the threat of British sea power. Canada is now, with Britain, America’s closest ally, despite some differences. The policy of annexing Canada has been shelved because not even America could afford the bill from the Crown, about $16 trillion. Canada is a federation of 13 provinces.
Land in Canada
Just 9.7% of the land of Canada is privately held. The majority of the land, 90.3%, is Crown Land, otherwise known as Public Land. Of this, 50% is Crown land administered by the Provincial governments and 40.3% is Crown land administered by the federal government.
Canada is on of the greatest land resources on the earth, and one of the most beautiful. There is more unused land in Canada than almost anywhere else on the planet. To give an indication of the relative size of Canada’s provinces are here ranked opposite the countries they are closest to in size with their associated populations.
Province Acreage Country Acreage Size rank in the world Population Of the comparative countries Newfoundland/Labrador 100,127,885 Paraguay 100,510,720 59 5,356,000 Prince Edward Island 1,398,586 Brunei 1,424,640 166 350,000 Nova Scotia 13,794,110 Croatia 13,971,840 125 4,442,000 New Brunswick 18,015,566 Panama 18,660,480 117 3,116,000 Quebec 381,042,037 Mongolia 385,501,760 19 2,504,000 Ontario 265,977,204 Bolivia 271,464,960 28 9,025,000 Manitoba 160,070,638 Afghanistan 161,134,720 41 22,930,000 Saskatchewan 160,870,995 Afghanistan 161,134,720 41 22,930,000 Alberta 157,707,374 Somalia 157,568,640 42 9,480,000 British Columbia 233,440,018 Tanzania 233,536,000 31 29,984,000 Yukon 119,211,665 Turkmenistan 120,611,840 52 4,859,000 Northwest Territories 332,622,792 Peru 317,584,000 20 27,148,000 Nunavut 517,227,249 Mexico 485,407,360 15 104,214,000 Totals 2,461,506,119 2,428,511,680 Total Population 31,660,294 Census 2000. 246,338,000
The total acreage here is based on the sum of the Canadian provinces as officially cited in the Canadian Government web site. (2,467,264.640 acres) There is a difference of about 6 million acres between this total and the official size of Canada as cited in the Europa World Yearbook. This is a difference of 0.2% and is accounted for by variations in survey methods.
Principal uses of land in Canada:
National Parks
There are 43 National Parks in Canada, which cover a total of 55,465,548 acres, or 2.2% of the total area of Canada.
Agriculture
Farms cover a total of 166,798,546 acres in Canada. There are a total of 246,923 farms, with an average size of 674.5 acres. 235,131 farms covering a total of 62,359,984 acres are privately held. The remainder, covering 104,438,561acres, are rented or leased from others.
Private homes
There are a total of 11,562,975 dwellings in Canada. Of these, 7,417,525 are held in freehold tenure by the resident homeowner. 64% of Canadians hold their own home. Mining
Mining companies operate in all Canadian provinces. The main minerals mined are gold, copper, zinc, lead, coal, oil and natural gas. Most mining land is leased, on Crown leases.
Forestry
Forest and All Other Wooded Land in Canada
Provincial Portion by Province:
Province Forest Land Owned by Each Province in acres Newfoundland/Labrador 48,967,807 Prince Edward Island 56,833 Nova Scotia 3,148,054 New Brunswick 7,373,464 Quebec 185,092,726 Ontario 153,412,035 Manitoba 84,681,170 Saskatchewan 53,936,988 Alberta 80,386,572 British Columbia 152,300,085 Yukon 55,782,825 Northwest Territories 79,996,154 Nunavut 2,320,269
Federal (Total/Aboriginal/Other)
Province Forest Land held by the Federal Government in Each Province in Acres Aboriginal Land Other Federal Total Newfoundland/Labrador 0 237,216 237,216 Prince Edward Island 0 2,471 (672,112) Nova Scotia 22,239 266,868 289,107 New Brunswick 4,942 323,701 328,625 Quebec 607,866 378,063 985,929 Ontario 1,210,790 573,272 1,784,062 Manitoba 301,462 1,153,957 1,455,419 Saskatchewan 306,404 2,050,930 2,357,334 Alberta 570,801 6,278,811 6,849,612 British Columbia 560,917 1,087,240 1,648,157 Yukon 0 528,794 528,794 Northwest Territories 0 2,401,812 2,401,812 Nunavut 0 0 0
Private land (Total/Industrial, Nonindustrial)
Total Privately held Land in acres Industrial Nonindustrial Other Total Newfoundland/Labrador 165,557 0 217,448 383,005 Prince Edward Island 0 0 610,337 610,337 Nova Scotia 2,293,088 5,011,188 7,304,276 New Brunswick 3,170,293 4,462,626 0 7,632,919 Quebec 2,720,571 20,165,831 2,471 22,870,873 Ontario 1,564,143 11,836,090 155,673 13,555,906 Manitoba 0 2,456,174 271,810 2,727,984 Saskatchewan 0 0 3,644,725 3,644,725 Alberta 0 2,641,499 37,065 2,678,564 British Columbia 0 4,398,380 0 4,398,380 Yukon 0 0 0 0 Northwest Territories 0 0 0 0 Nunavut 0 0 0 0
Unclassified: 19,768 acres total (17,297 acres in Quebec and 2,471 acres in Alberta)
45% (45 percent – 1,031,889,600 acres) of Canada’s land area is forested.
71% of the forested land is held by provincial governments, 23% by federal and territorial governments, and 6% is privately held by approximately 425,000 private owners consisting of individuals, families, communities, and forest companies.
Forest companies often manage forests and engage in logging activities in a partnership with the government, rather than holding forest land in Canada. The government, or the public, actually holds the forest and simply leases it to various companies who do the logging and management in many cases.
Forest companies hold just over 1.5% of Canada’s wooded land.I’m all about celebrating process oriented art, especially messy tactile experiences! My Cuisinart has been roaring away this past week shredding soap and mixing paint as I perfected this recipe for bathtub puffy paint. Using a cake frosting tip and a squeeze bottle, my three year old daughter created some fantastic 3D art in the tub! Clean up was a cinch. Handling the shower head and watching the colors run under the water spray was part of the fun!
I’ve got a kiddo with sensitive skin so I used her Johnson’s Buddies soap to yield 1 cup of finely grated soap flakes. A lot of recipes call for Ivory soap, but I don’t think this is a brand specific thing – especially if you gradually add the water in the next step. Make sure it’s hot!
Worried about your porcelain tiles or white bathtub? These are the liquid watercolors I used for this project. They are super-duper concentrated and for about $13, this package has us more than two years, a few drops are all you’ll need!
Use your blender, food processor or mixer to get a thick and sticky consistency. A bit of foam is fine, but slowly add the water or else you’ll wind up with bubbles…and only bubbles. The 3/4 C of water is a suggestion, stop once you’ve got a thick but squishy texture (I know, I’m just SO technical and descriptive). I tried two methods for mixing the dye in – ziploc bags and tupperware with popsicle sticks. Take my advice and put the frosting tip in BEFORE you mix it if you are going to ziploc bag route.
Mixing in the tupperware allowed Claire to slowly watch colors blend, a practical lesson in color theory. We used our trusty liquid watercolors to dye the paint. Food coloring would work just as well but these watercolors seem to wash off everything and I wasn’t taking chances with white marble tile.
I took the picture below standing on the edge of the tub and looking down. Look at those colorful snakes and flowers! The thickness of the paint really let the texture stand out.
Claire seemed to find the most success by moving the paint towards the tip and then using her thumb to push it out. Pipe away kid!
Once the paint was emptied from the bags, Claire went on a fingerpainting bonanza happily squishing colors between her fingers and smearing large circles on the wall. She then hosed down the tiles with the shower head and I’m happy to report (to my husband’s delight) that no colorful stains were left behind.
What a fun afternoon activity! I wound up with a clean kid AND a clean tub after a painting session, how often can you say that?
If you try this, don’t forget to share your photos on the Chalk In My Pocket Facebook page, I’d love to see your twist on our projects!
And PS – if you haven’t seen it already I had an EPIC CRAFT FAIL when I tried to turn this recipe into molded bath soap. It’s rather hysterical and if in need of a good laugh that’s the place to get it! Looking for more artful adventures and craft tutorials? Check out my C R E A T E tab above.
Worried about your porcelain tiles or white bathtub? These are the liquid watercolors I used for this project. They are super-duper concentrated and for about $13, this package has us more than two years, a few drops are all you’ll need!Ever since I announced my decision to sign with the Cleveland Cavaliers last Friday, there has been a great deal of speculation about my prospects for winning a championship with my new team. People have said that in leaving behind the Miami Heat, a true powerhouse of talent and success, and joining a less experienced and less talented roster, I have greatly diminished my odds for winning an NBA Finals.
To these people, I have only one thing to say: I’m not afraid of losing in Cleveland. The only thing that I’m afraid of is jumping into the air for a slam dunk and then never coming down.
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Will the Cavs dominate the league the way the Heat did? Of course not. We’re certainly going to lose games, and chances are that a championship will be a long time in the making—and I’m not worried about that in the slightest. What I am worried about is leaping up to slam dunk a basketball, and just continuing to float past the net, through the ceiling of Quicken Loans Arena, and into the sky, never to return to Earth. This frightens me more than the scoreboard of any basketball game ever could, and always has.
The truth is, you can win championships through hard work and perseverance, but once you’re in outer space and floating farther and farther away from Earth, no amount of hard work is going to fix that.
Think about how terrifying that would be. I’d be driving to the hoop, and I’d leap into the air to dunk the ball, and I’d just keep going up and up and up, abandoned by gravity and doomed to rise into the sky forever. It could happen slowly—I would gradually float away like a balloon, tearfully begging for help while my teammates tried in vain to get me down; or, it could happen with terrifying speed—I might launch into the ether like a rocket and continue shooting skyward with tremendous velocity until I was just a tiny speck in the sky.
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Would a disappointing first season in Cleveland be unfortunate? Yes. But it’s certainly not worse than spending the rest of your life floating helplessly through the recesses of space.
The truth is, you can win championships through hard work and perseverance, but once you’re in outer space and floating farther and farther away from Earth, no amount of hard work is going to fix that. Even if NASA sent astronauts to come save me, I would probably be too far away for them to reach me. I would likely be doomed to drift through the cosmos forever, with nothing but a basketball clutched to my chest.
Let me be clear: I will continue to dunk balls for the Cavaliers. However, every single time I do, I will be haunted by the fear that my feet might never touch the ground again. Losing in Cleveland would be terrible, but jumping up for a slam dunk and never coming down would be far, far worse.Joel Hamilton was in his old studio in the American Midwest when the great floods of 1993 hit: “I watched, personally, with a flashlight in my teeth, as the meter bridge of my console went under water.”
“It was incredible – They were the kinds of floods that people read about in National Geographic. When the [Missouri river] overflowed, it backed up through the sewer system of Kansas City and all the low-lying areas were brought to the same level as the river.”
“Everything went under,” he says. “The water level was 7 feet over my head in the control room.”
Joel and his partners were able to run some of their equipment up to safety on the second floor, but despite their efforts, these flash flood rose in minutes, and almost everything of major value was submerged.
It was a scene not unlike that of hurricane Sandy, which ravaged the East Coast this October. The great floods in the Midwest cost billions, left scores dead and some towns reporting ongoing flood conditions for as long as 195 days. But as colossal of a tragedy as they were, the official costs and death toll of Sandy have been higher still.
When Hamilton and his crew were hit by flash floods in ’93, a local engineer named Mike Miller walked them through the process of recovering much of their water-damaged gear. This year, when studio owners in his new community of Brooklyn were hit hard by Sandy, he paid the favor forward, using what he learned from Miller to help his neighbors reverse some of the damage done to their gear.
It’s hard to imagine if you haven’t seen the results for yourself, but Hamilton claims studio owners who act fast may be able to recover 65%-85% of their equipment, even when that gear has essentially been sitting at the bottom of river full of silt and debris.
What follows is Joel’s own step-by-step guide on how, with a bit of work, large quantities of flood-damaged gear can be restored.
How To Bring Drowned Gear Back To Life
Step 1: Flood Out the Flood Water
“A flood is the absolute worst situation possible, because it puts water into your room with such amazing force and then it recedes incredibly gently and delicately,” Joel says.
“You’ve basically pressurized a piece of gear with toxic Gowanus saltwater or whatever it may be, but then that water slowly drains out, perfectly coating every single surface and component with corrosive salt and silt and pollution.”
According to Joel, the very first thing to do is to wash out that corrosive floodwater, and all of its residue, with clean freshwater – even if it’s just from a hose or a tap.
“First of all, don’t listen to neurotic Gearslutz-type techs who will freak out and say ‘you can’t use tap water because it will leave a residue!’ Clearly they’ve never seen someone who’s fallen into the Gowanus canal be rushed to the hospital, or seen what saltwater can do to a piece of metal.”
The steps that follow are for extreme conditions only. If you’re faced with a small spill on a single piece of gear, the best bet is to power it down, and get it to a qualified tech, fast.
“If you spill coffee in your console, obviously you don’t dip the whole thing in a pool. But when you’re dealing with flood damage of a whole studio worth of gear, you basically have to do a military-level triage where you get the dirt and polluted water out of the gear with any kind of clean, fresh water, which is generally going to be simple tap water. That first rinse can be in the shower or in the bath tub. It’s just got to run clean.”
“And keep it wet – The sooner you can get that thing soaked with fresh water, the better,” because as soon as it starts to dry, metal will start to corrode and dirt and residue will cake on tightly.
“But do not turn the pots,” Joel adds, “and do not flip any switches. Just leave them in the same state they were in when you removed it from the flooded area.”
Step 2: Pat Dry, Then Apply WD40 to Displace Water
The next step is to get the gear as dry as possible, as fast as possible, in order to discourage rust and corrosion.
First, pat your equipment dry, inside and out, using cloth or paper towels. Then “you’ve got to displace the remaining water with anything you can get.”
“It doesn’t have to be super-expensive – You can just dust the gear with WD40. Spray it all over, especially in the nooks and crannies, paying special attention to make sure it displaces the water that gets stuck in the PCB.”
“Also make sure to apply it to anything metal that you don’t want to corrode, even the screw heads and the rack eears.”
“You have to get this off later,” so it doesn’t form a gummy surface that traps dirt, “but at least it halts the process of the water corroding everything,” and buys you some time so you can still hose down the next piece of gear.
Step 3: Dry One Piece While You Wash Down The Next
“Turn on every single electrical heater and heat source that you have,” says Hamilton.
“People will say to use cold rooms to limit the corrosion, but when you’re doing a fast triage of an entire studio’s worth of stuff, the key is getting the stuff clean, displacing the water, and heat-drying it with good air circulation.”
“We had two dehumidifiers and a
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to keep it out of the scrutinized budget). Since inflation was officially low for most of the decade, this vast increase in Federal spending cannot be explained as inflation; adjusted into real dollars (adjusted for inflation), it is still 40% pre-war, pre-bail-out levels.
Yes, Medicare spending is rising at 6%-7% annually, regardless of which political party is in power, and Social Security spending is outsripping the system's tax revenue income. But clearly, a National Security State with few if any meaningful restraints on its spending (no "anti-terrorist" dictatorship shall go unrewarded/unfunded, etc.) or influence has added trillions in spending with little oversight or accountability.
The same can be said of the endless trillions squandered bailing out the banks and related financial Elites, including the quasi-Federal agencies (Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac) that funded the criminal enterprise known as the housing bubble/bust.
If the majority of the additional Federal spending was in fact squandered to boost the revenues, earnings and political influence of Elites, fiefdoms and special interests, then the taxpaying citizenry footing the bill did not receive any measurable benefit from all this additional debt. As Doug observed, the taxpayers are in effect borrowing vast sums from the loan sharks and not even getting to spend the money on themselves: the money was squandered on Elites, supposedly on behalf of the taxpayers, who must pay interest (i.e. the vig, "vigorish") on the fast-rising debt.
As Doug asked: how is this not a criminal enterprise?STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish mobile telecom gear maker Ericsson said it had signed a patent license deal with Apple Inc over technology that helps smartphones and tablets connect to mobile networks, sending its shares up much as 8 percent.
The deal ends a year-long dispute with Apple, one of the biggest legal battles in mobile technology and Ericson said it would pave the way for cooperation between the companies on future technologies.
Ericsson had said in its filing to a U.S. district court in January that Apple’s license to use the technology developed by the Swedish firm had expired, and that two years of negotiations had not led to a new deal.
Ericsson on Monday estimated overall revenue from intellectual property rights in 2015 would hit 13 to 14 billion crowns ($1.52-$1.64 billion) up from 9.9 billion in 2014 as a result of the agreement.
An Apple spokesman in Europe had no immediate comment, referring to a January statement by the firm where it said it had deep respect for intellectual property and was willing to pay a fair price for rights to patents.
While Ericsson did not specify exactly how much the Apple deal would contribute to sales and earnings, UBS analysts said in a research note it believed the deal meant a catch-up payment of 3.6 billion crowns for 2015, including a one-off sum of 0.5 billion covering items such as legal fees.
UBS estimated the agreement would boost Ericsson’s operating profit by 13 percent in 2015 and 10 percent in 2016, providing 775 million crowns per quarter in licensing fees.
NOKIA BOOST
Ericsson Chief Intellectual Property Officer Kasim Alfalahi said the agreement was broad, covering the latest 4G-LTE generation of mobile technology, as well as the earlier 2G and 3G technologies.
“It means we can continue to work with Apple in areas such as 5G radio network and optimization of the network,” Alfalahi told Reuters, but declined to provide further financial details.
Investment bank ABG Sundal Collier said in a note to clients it believed the deal meant Apple would be charged around 0.5 percent of its revenue on iPads and iPhones by Ericsson.
Ericsson shares were up 5.6 percent by 1227 GMT, on track for their biggest one-day gain in 17 months.
Shares in Finland’s Nokia, which by the end of January will get an arbitration verdict over how much South Korea’s Samsung will have to pay it in patent licensing fees, rose 2.4 percent.
Ericsson’s deal with Apple echoes a January 2014 patent agreement with Samsung, which also followed a legal dispute.
Ericsson filed the complaint against Apple over mobile technology license payments, responding to a lawsuit filed by the iPhone maker that month.
An Apple logo is seen inside the Apple Store in Palo Alto, California November 13, 2015. REUTERS/Stephen Lam
In a statement, Ericsson said the agreement included a cross license covering both companies’ patents and resolved all pending patent-infringement litigation between the companies.
Analysts had estimated that if the dispute with Apple went Ericsson’s way, the U.S. firm would have to pay it between 2-6 billion Swedish crowns annually, based on estimates of levels of handset sales and royalty payments per phone.
Ericsson has more than 100 patent licensing agreements and holds about 37,000 patents for mobile communication.Earlier this election cycle, Bernie Sanders’ Dank Meme Stash became the one of the first left-leaning meme spaces to attract media coverage. The Facebook group’s membership exploded, riding the popularity of everyone’s favorite septuagenarian socialist. The group is noteworthy enough to have its own Wikipedia page, which estimates the group has about 442,000 members. Even splinter groups like “I Got Banned From Bernie Sanders’ Dank Meme Stash” house thriving communities of thousands of members.
Perhaps most notably, the page’s visibility has increased the popularity of other groups that propogate progressive, anti-capitalist, irreverent leftist humor.
Bro, We Are communist. Problem?/Facebook
This election cycle, the seedy quasi-fascist underbelly of the internet has bubbled to the surface in the form of the “alt-right.” This web subculture, full of Donald Trump acolytes, has began to generate mainstream concern; they were even recently labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. These circles communicate through memes but use codes and anonymity to coordinate more aggressive levels of hate speech, trolling, and online abuse, like the brigading of Leslie Jones that led to conservative writer Milo Yiannopoulos’s Twitter ban.
The alt-right, however, don’t make up the whole picture of political discourse on the internet. “Alt-left” meme groups and pages provide a respite from Red Pill-swallowing, fedora-tipping corners of the internet. Facebook pages like “Anarchists for Bernie Sanders” or “Bro we are communist. Problem?” and even seemingly apolitical Weird Facebook pages like “Lettuce Dog” have spread memes criticizing capitalism, patriarchy, and the prison-industrial complex. These leftist Facebook pages joke about capitalism in a tone partly derived from the the Onion, laughing at the economic emptiness of American life and liberal hypocrisy.
Lettuce Dog/Facebook
Wings of the “alt-left” meme world stretch into communism or even Stalinism. Some of these pages might only ironically praise dictators through memes, but for millennials of a certain ideology, sharing taboo anarchist memes might scratch an itch to tell irreverent, politically incorrect jokes while exaggerating their beliefs. #FeelTheSmashySmashy became a clarion call for those to the left of Bernie Bros, who had had their doubts about electoral politics since the beginning:
Anarchists for Bernie Sanders/Facebook
These memes are borne out of a frustration with the limited political options available in 2016. Trump terrifies, Clinton underwhelms, and Jill Stein doesn’t have a chance. Through a classic Homer “slink away” meme, the “Anarchists for Bernie Sanders” page demonstrated how some of his supporters have been radicalized by his loss:
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Chapo Trap House host Will Menakar recently described this demographic as the “Dirtbag Left,” differentiating this sense of humor as “a kind of scurrilous and funny approach to left-wing politics that is in marked contrast to the utterly humorless and bloodless path that leads many people with liberal or leftist proclivities into the trap of living in constant fear of offending some group that you’re not a part of, up to and including the ruling class.”
Many of these “dirtbags” might not even be as leftist as the memes they post but are nonetheless bitter over staying closeted about even their most reasonably progressive political views—and can step out of the closet through these memes in a way they can’t at work:
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In contrast to the outright abusive alt-right, most left-wing Facebook groups are helmed by moderators who assert their right to curate the content within the group and moderate. The mods of “Political Charts Sharing Club” succinctly stipulate in their rules that “[i]f you violate the rules your stuff will get deleted and if you seem like a jerk we will ban you.” While brigades don’t happen, a reactionary who wades into these groups might get verbally slammed and become a punchline if they frequently try to troll with conservative or libertarian opinions:
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Even outside these pages, members use memes to communicate their politics, especially during online debates. A thread like, “Comrades help. I need communist memes to piss off a conservative” can yield pretty funny stuff that makes its point, advocating for some pretty radical policies.The political orientation of these page mods has influenced the stewardship of their Facebook pages in the wake of Facebook deleting meme pages without warning. The mods of about thirty different left-leaning Facebook pages have been organizing, using the hashtag #FreeTheMeme “to rally fans to file FTC (Federal Trade Commission) complaints against Facebook for ‘fraudulent’ content review policies and a misleading community guidelines. The FTC is a governmental entity that regulates private companies and protects consumers against fraud and monopoly, so let’s give zucc a taste of his own medicine.”
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Of course, the true socialist meme revolution likely can’t occur until the alt-left frees itself from the hypercapitalist prison of Silicon Valley platforms and infrastructure. But once they find a way to inject their dank memes directly into the body politic, well…Leeds United transfer target Matt Mills is keen on a move to Elland Road and a reunion with Whites chief Brian McDermott – who managed him at former club Reading.
Mills’ days at Bolton Wanderers look numbered, with the Lancastrians ready to sell the 26-year-old to provide boss and former United striker Dougie Freedman with cash to help fund a summer recruitment programme, with West Bromwich Albion centre-half Craig Dawson top of their shopping list.
Mills only joined the Trotters from Leicester City for an undisclosed fee – thought to be in the region of £2m – last July.
But the Swindon-born defender is expected to move onto pastures new once again, having not started a game for Freedman’s side since December 8, when he suffered a thigh injury in a 2-2 draw at Huddersfield Town – his only appearance in 2013 coming as a late sub in the reverse fixture against the Terriers in early April.
According to reports, a bid of £1m could prompt a sale.
Former United boss Neil Warnock made an abortive move to bring in Mills on loan soon after taking over in February 2012, when the big defender was out of favour at Leicester. Mills’ weekly wage packet, comfortably in excess of five figures, scuppered hopes of any business then and represent the big sticking point to a potential deal now – with the defender still having two years of his Reebok Stadium deal to run.
But Mills, according to sources close to him, is intent on reviving his career with a familiar face in McDermott, having worked under him at the Madejski Stadium during the 2009-10 and 2010-11 campaigns.
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He is understood to be prepared to reject rival interest if it means he could secure a move to West Yorkshire.
Despite being signed by ex-Royals manager Brendan Rogers in the summer of 2009 from Doncaster Rovers, it was under McDermott and assistant-boss Nigel Gibbs – now together at United – that the centre-half prospered.
Mills was given a new lease of life under McDermott, who took over initially as caretaker manager in December 2009 and was a vital cog of the side who went within ninety minutes of being promoted to the Premier League, only to lose out to Swansea City in the Championship play-off final in May 2011.
That proved Mills’ last game for the Berkshire club ahead of his big-money £4.5m switch to Leicester, with the stopper penning a letter to Royals fans shortly after his move expressing his gratitude both to them and McDermott and his coaching staff.
Speaking at the time, Mills, who said that his move was prompted by a desire to play in the top-flight said: “My first few months at Reading didn’t pan out as the move I expected and wanted, but that all changed when Brian got the job and Gibbo became assistant manager.
“They gave me a new lease of life, and the opportunity and coaching they gave me has honestly made me the player I am now.”
After a stop-start past two seasons with first Leicester and now Bolton, Mills now wants to resurrect his career under McDermott at United.1. The bicentennial of the War of 1812 is a much bigger deal in Canada than in the United States.
Although it produced patriotic icons such as “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Old Ironsides,” the War of 1812 is often lost in the American memory, overshadowed by its epic bookends—the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Not so in Canada, where the war is credited with forging a national identity as Canadians united to repel a series of American invasions. While an ambivalent U.S. Congress declined to even create a national bicentennial commission, the Canadian government committed nearly $30 million to bicentennial events, including dedication of a new national war monument.
2. American leaders expected that Canadians would greet them as liberators.
Political and military leaders in the United States expected that conquering Canada, a British colony with one-twentieth its population and many American-born émigrés, would be, as former President Thomas Jefferson wrote, “a mere matter of marching.” Indeed, many Americans assumed that Canadians would be eager to join the United States. As U.S. Secretary of War William Eustis declared, “We can take Canada without soldiers. We have only to send officers into the provinces and the people, disaffected toward their own government, will rally around our standard.” Rather than welcoming them with open arms, however, Canadians took up arms to successfully repel the Yankee invaders.
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3. The War of 1812 produced its own Paul Revere, except this folk hero warned the British that the Americans were coming.
Born in Massachusetts and the daughter of a Revolutionary War patriot, Laura Secord might be an unlikely Canadian icon. But on the evening of June 21, 1813, the 37-year-old wife of a Canadian Loyalist soldier and mother of five learned of secret American plans to ambush a nearby British outpost. With her wounded husband bedridden, Secord hiked the next day through 20 miles of swamps and forests to warn the British. As a result of her trek, the Americans were routed at the Battle of Beaver Dams.
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4. “The Star-Spangled Banner” was set to the tune of an English drinking song.
Following a fierce night of British bombardment, the Baltimore dawn of September 14, 1814, revealed the huge American flag still fluttering over Fort McHenry. In a burst of patriotic pride, lawyer Francis Scott Key penned four verses he dubbed “Defence of Fort McHenry.” Within weeks, it was published with sheet music under a more lyrical title, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The song, which became the American national anthem in 1931, was set to the melody of an English drinking song, “To Anacreon in Heaven,” and musicologists believe Key had this tune in mind when he wrote the lyrics.
5. During the war, New Englanders considered seceding from the United States.
The concepts of states’ rights, nullification and secession so associated with the South were actually first voiced by the North during the War of 1812. New England fiercely opposed “Mr. Madison’s War” from the very start, and the region suffocated under British naval blockades. By 1814, the starving citizens of Nantucket pledged neutrality, the Massachusetts governor sent a secret emissary to negotiate a separate peace with the British and some New Englanders even advocated secession. In the final weeks of 1814, 26 delegates from across New England meeting behind closed doors at the Hartford Convention ultimately decided not to call for secession, but they heartily endorsed states’ rights and nullification.
6. Before the British set Washington, D.C., ablaze, the Americans torched a capital city.
Throughout the war, British and American forces were equal-opportunity arsonists. More than a year before British forces incinerated their national capital, American forces in 1813 sacked York (present-day Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada. After an ammunition explosion at a garrison killed 300 Americans, irate U.S. forces responded by burning York’s provincial parliament and other public buildings. A British imperial lion looted by the Americans is still possessed by the U.S. Naval Academy.
7. A serendipitous thunderstorm and a lethal tornado saved Washington, D.C., from further destruction.
British troops marched into Washington, D.C., on August 24, 1814, and set the White House, Capitol and other federal buildings afire. The following day, the arson continued until a drenching two-hour thunderstorm extinguished the flames. The massive storm spawned a rare tornado that blew roofs off buildings, buckled a bridge over the Potomac River and even lifted two cannons off the ground. According to the National Weather Service, flying debris from the tornado killed more British soldiers than American guns did during their brief occupation of the nation’s capital.
8. After being torched, Washington, D.C., was nearly abandoned as the national capital.
In September 1814, a homeless Congress returned to a broken and dispirited Washington, D.C., and met in makeshift quarters. With a cash-strapped government facing a costly reconstruction, the first item of business was a proposal to return the capital to Philadelphia. After weeks of spirited debate, the House of Representatives narrowly rejected the measure by an 83-to-74 vote.
9. The biggest American victory came after the signing of the peace treaty.
On Christmas Eve 1814, American and British envoys in Ghent, in modern-day Belgium, signed a peace treaty that would end the War of 1812 once ratified. News of the Treaty of Ghent was still weeks away from arriving in the United States, however, when future President Andrew Jackson spearheaded a decisive victory over the British at the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815. The war didn’t officially end, however, until Madison inked his name on the Senate-ratified treaty on February 17, 1815.
10. It’s unclear who, if anyone, won the War of 1812. It’s clear, however, who lost.
In the rematch of the American Revolution, the two sides played to a draw, with the Treaty of Ghent reverting to status quo ante bellum. Little changed for the two signatories, but for Native American tribes, many of whom had fought alongside the British to block American expansion, the war left a terrible legacy. With Native Americans weakened and without the protection of a European power, the war set the stage for American expansion westward in the decades to come.Many readers will be familiar with the famous Sokal hoax paper, in which physicist Alan Sokal wrote a nonsensical article on the “hermeneutics of quantum gravity” and got it published in a sociology journal. Other more recent examples of accepted papers include a completely computer-generated mathematics paper and a repeated request to be removed from a mailing list.
Now it seems that climate science has fallen for a similar joke paper. The journal Progress in Human Geography (impact factor 5, which is quite high) has published an article Glaciers, gender, and science: A feminist glaciology framework for global environmental change research.
Excerpts below are taken from just the first 3 pages of this 24-page masterpiece, plus a final quote from the conclusions. HT David Rose and Barbara Hewson.
“Glaciers are key icons of climate change and global environmental change. However, the relationships among gender, science, and glaciers – particularly related to epistemological questions about the production of glaciological knowledge – remain understudied.”
“Merging feminist postcolonial science studies and feminist political ecology, the feminist glaciology framework generates robust analysis of gender, power, and epistemologies in dynamic social-ecological systems, thereby leading to more just and equitable science and human-ice interactions.”
“A critical but overlooked aspect of the human dimensions of glaciers and global change research is the relationship between gender and glaciers.”
“Through a review and synthesis of a multi-disciplinary and wide-ranging literature on human-ice relations, this paper proposes a feminist glaciology framework to analyze human-glacier dynamics, glacier narratives and discourse, and claims to credibility and authority of glaciological knowledge through the lens of feminist studies.”
“A combination of feminist postcolonial science studies and feminist political ecology provide the intellectual foundation for feminist glaciology.”
“Feminist glaciology is rooted in, and combines, both feminist science studies and postcolonial science studies to meaningfully shift present-day glacier and ice sciences.”
“The response to simplistic ‘ice is just ice’ discourse is not merely to foreground or single out women and their experiences – that would simply perpetuate binaries and boundaries and ignore deeper foundations. Rather, it is a larger integration of human approaches and sensibilities with the existing dominant physical sciences. Global environmental change research must pluralize its ontologies, epistemologies, and sensibilities.”
Updates:
The “research” was carried out on a $412,930 NSF grant, full details here.
One of the authors seems to be proud that his article is the ‘most-read’ at the journal.
In reply, the journal says that the paper will only be freely available for two weeks, so make sure you download a copy and save it now for future reference.
5 March: The paper now seems to have “gone viral”, with a blog post about it at WUWT, plus various other blogs, several threads at reddit, and CFACT, Reason, etc, BH, even the WSJ.
10 March: The story continues to run:
Feds Paid $709,000 To Academic Who Studies How Glaciers Are Sexist
For the Silliest Academic Research Paper, the Oscar Goes to……
Feminism and icebergs: a new low in climate ‘science’
Climate Deniers Mock ‘Feminist Glaciology’ Study
I Read the Famous Feminist Glaciology Paper So You Don’t Have To
And there are thousands of references to the paper on twitter.
NYT and Fox News.NEW YORK -- Hall of Famer Rich "Goose" Gossage says Roger Clemens should never make it to Cooperstown.
Gossage said Thursday during a radio interview that he believes Clemens has lied about his steroid use, labeling the seven-time Cy Young Award winner as a cheater unworthy of the Hall of Fame.
"Are we going to reward these guys for cheating?" Gossage asked Michael Kay and Don La Greca on ESPN New York 98.7. "Even though he was found innocent, it was because of the bad testimony. No one believed (Brian) McNamee and (Andy) Pettitte kind of changed his thing, 'Did I really hear what he told me.' "
Clemens has yet to respond to Gossage's comments.
Clemens was acquitted Monday on all charges that he obstructed and lied to Congress in denying he used performance-enhancing drugs. However, the verdict has not settled the matter in sports circles as to whether Clemens cheated in the latter stages of his career.
A crucial barometer comes this fall, when Clemens' name appears on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time. Gossage clearly is not convinced of Clemens' innocence, comparing the trial's outcome to the controversial 1995 verdict in the O.J. Simpson murder trial.A report on Siloconera is saying that Techland have coined the "Dead World" trademark, strongly suggesting that a bigger, bloodier sequel to Dead Island is in the works. In spite of the fact that Techland put out the wrong version of the game on release day, Dead Island ended up doing quite well. It filled the deserted open world zombie survival niche quite nicely with some horrendous gore and a big, beautiful island. You can find out what we thought in our Dead Island review.
Techland have since released a number of chunky patches, fixing the many launch bugs, balancing the zombies and adding new weapons. A strong modding community have added some unique twists to the Dead Island formula, and can see the best results of their efforts in our round up of the top ten Dead Island mods.
While it's unlikely that Techland will expand the zombie apocalypse to encompass the entire globe, you'd expect an even bigger play area with the 'World' tag. What would you like to see from a Dead Island sequel?For many, gold and silver coins are considered assets. They are hoarded for later. However, in Utah, gold and silver coins might become acceptable as legal tender. (This means that the tax on gold and silver transactions, which sees them as assets, would be done away with.) The measure has passed the Utah state legislature and waits only for the governor’s signature. If he signs, Eagle and Buffalo coins will be accepted as money. (Watch out, though. Foreign gold coins will not be allowed; no spending your Krugerrands at Utah shops.)
The gold and silver coins issued by the government would be recognized for their value to a collector. This means that it goes beyond just the face value of gold and silver coins issued by the federal government. The Salt Lake Tribune reports on the difference between the value of the metal in the coin and its face value:
Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, said, for example, that a 1960s John F. Kennedy half-dollar coin — 90 percent silver — would have bought three gallons of gasoline with its face value in the mid-60s. But the value of the silver in it today would buy about five gallons of gas, while the face value of the coin would buy only a fraction of a gallon.
Here in Utah, lawmakers and many citizens are concerned about the Federal Reserve and the way inflation erodes purchasing power with a fiat currency system. So, in addition to accepting gold and silver as legal tender, the bill also arranges for a study on whether or not to establish some sort of metal-backed money system.
Is It Practical To Switch to a Gold or Silver Standard?
Because of inflation, distrust of the Federal Reserve and many other issues, many are wondering if it is time to switch back to a currency that is based on some sort of metal standard — probably gold. The idea is that a gold standard (or even a silver standard) would reduce inflation, and would provide more “real” value for money.
No one would want to carry gold coins in their pockets, but money they did have would have to be covered with gold reserves, or silver reserves, or some combination. There’s only one problem with the idea of putting us on a gold standard: There is too much money already circulating. What we have in circulation so far exceeds current reserves that switching would be utter chaos.
Another issue is that our fiat currency system goes beyond circulating bits of paper. Our monetary system is entirely based upon information. Few of my clients issue my checks. Their banks have a computer that tells them how much money they have. Then, their banks exchange information with PayPal, which in term exchanges information with my bank. Viola! There is “money” in my account.
Trying to back all of the information that passes through our system daily with some tangible asset would be very difficult. The fact of the matter is that right now, our economy is almost entirely based on the perception of money — the idea of it being there. All of our exchange is based on the perception that we will accept the information in the computer as a mode of exchange.This story appears in the September 2016 issue of National Geographic magazine. Your National Geographic Society membership helped fund recent excavations at Holmul and La Corona, Guatemala.
The ancient city of Holmul isn’t much to look at. To the casual observer it’s just a series of steep, forested hills in the middle of the jungle in northern Guatemala, near the Mexican border. The jungle here in the Petén Basin is thick and warm but drier than you might expect. And silent, except for the drum of cicadas and the occasional calls of howler monkeys.
Take a closer look, and you may notice that most of these hills are arranged in massive rings, like travelers huddled around a fire on a cold night. An even closer look reveals that parts of the hills are made of cut stone, and some have tunnels carved into their sides. In fact they’re not hills at all but ancient pyramids, left to decay after the collapse of the Maya civilization a millennium ago.
The site was a thriving settlement during the Classic Maya period (A.D. 250-900), a time when writing and culture flourished throughout what is today Central America and southern Mexico. But it also was a time of political upheaval: Two warring city-states were locked in perennial conflict, grappling for supremacy. For a brief period one of those city-states prevailed and became the closest thing to an empire in Maya history. It was ruled by the Snake kings of the Kaanul dynasty, which until just a few decades ago no one even knew existed. Thanks to sites around this city-state, including Holmul, archaeologists are now piecing together the story of the Snake kings.
View Images Masks from the tombs at Calakmul were meant to ease the passage of the Snake elite into the next world. Royal visages made of green jade, more valuable than gold to the ancient Maya, evoked the annual agricultural cycle and regeneration. CONACULTA, INAH, MEXICO (BOTH) PHOTOGRAPHED AT (LEFT TO RIGHT): NATIONAL PALACE, MEXICO CITY; MUSEO DE SITIO DE COMALCALCO, MEXICO
Holmul isn’t a big, famous site like nearby Tikal, and it was mostly ignored by archaeologists until 2000, when Francisco Estrada-Belli arrived. An Italian-born Guatemalan, he’s ruggedly handsome with scruffy hair and a relaxed demeanor. He wasn’t looking for anything fancy, such as Classic-era written tablets or ornate burials—just some insight into the roots of the Maya. One of the first things he found was a building a few miles from what appeared to be Holmul’s central cluster of pyramids. In it were the remnants of a mural portraying soldiers on a pilgrimage to a faraway place.
Oddly, parts of the mural had been destroyed, apparently by the Maya themselves, as if they’d wanted to erase the history it depicted. Hoping to understand why, Estrada-Belli tunneled into several nearby pyramids. Ancient Mesoamericans built their pyramids in stages, one on top of the other, like Russian nesting dolls. When the people of Holmul added a new layer, they preserved the one beneath, which has allowed researchers to tunnel in and see previous structures almost exactly as they were left.
In 2013 Estrada-Belli and his team worked their way into one of the larger pyramids, tracing an ancient staircase to the entrance of a ceremonial building. Climbing up through a hole in the floor, they discovered a 26-foot-long frieze, marvelously preserved, above the entrance to an ancient tomb.
Stucco friezes are very rare and fragile. This one depicted three men, including a Holmul king, rising from the mouths of strange monsters flanked by underworld creatures, entwined by two giant, feathered serpents. The artwork was iconic and strikingly vibrant.
As Estrada-Belli gazed at the frieze, he noticed a series of carvings at the bottom. Kneeling down, he saw a ribbon of characters, or glyphs, listing the kings of Holmul. Near the center was a glyph that he knew at once was the most electrifying discovery of his career: a grinning snake.
View Images A relief from La Corona, Guatemala—once the ancient city of Saknikte—shows future Snake King Yuknoom Cheen II playing ball during a visit. Hieroglyphics give the date: February 11, 635. GUATEMALAN MINISTRY OF CULTURE AND SPORTS. PHOTOGRAPHED AT LA CORONA LAB, GUATEMALA CITY
“Among the various glyphs, I saw the [name of the] Kaanul,” he says. “Before this we were anonymous; Holmul was anonymous. And then, all of a sudden, we were in the middle of the most exciting part of Maya history.”
The story of the discovery of the Kaanul, or Snakes, and their effort to create an empire begins in Tikal, the city of their most hated enemy. Just as Tikal dominated the Maya lowlands for centuries, it has dominated Maya archaeology since the 1950s. The sprawling city once had a population approaching 60,000, and its elegant buildings surely dazzled visitors in A.D. 750, much as they do tourists today.
It also had hundreds of beautifully carved tombstone-like blocks called stelae. Using the inscriptions on them, scientists reconstructed Tikal’s history until its fall in the ninth century. But there was an odd gap—roughly from 560 to 690—when no stelae were carved and little else was built. Baffled by this 130-year break, archaeologists called it the Tikal hiatus and chalked it up as a mystery of the ancient Maya.
Archaeologists began filling in the gap in the 1960s, when they noticed an odd glyph scattered around various Classic sites—a snake head with a clownish grin and surrounded by markings associated with royalty. In 1973 archaeologist Joyce Marcus recognized it as an emblem glyph—words for a city and ruling title that served as a sort of coat of arms. She wondered if it could be related to the Tikal hiatus. What if some unknown warriors had conquered the city? If they had, where would such a force have come from, and wouldn’t archaeologists be familiar with it?
Explore the Holmul Frieze Dig deeper into a dynastic saga that spans 200 years and at least six generations. A 26-foot-long frieze in the city-state of Holmul depicts a complex religious scene with an inscription that suggests close ties with the Snake dynasty. The central figure is the Holmul king who died around 590 and was buried in the tomb the frieze adorns. Maneuvering in the close confines of an excavated tunnel, scientists used a 3-D scanner to acquire precise measurements and produce this detailed digital replica. Clicking on the right arrow will make all 15 notes appear in order. NG Staff. Source: 3-D MODEL BY ALEXANDRE TOKOVININE, CMHI, PEABODY MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY; 3-D model powered by Sketchfab
The jungles of the Petén are hot and parched in the dry season and nearly impassable in the wet season. They’re infested with poisonous plants and insects and menaced by armed drug runners. Nevertheless Marcus explored them for months, visiting ruins and collecting photos of glyphs. Everywhere she went, she saw references to the grinning snake, especially around the ancient city of Calakmul, in what’s now Mexico, near its southern border.
“These satellite sites were mentioning this city in the center. So in that way it was kind of like a black hole,” Marcus says. “It was the hub of a network of sites around it that were equidistant from Calakmul.”
When she got to Calakmul, whose two central pyramids were easily visible from the air, she was amazed by its size—roughly 50,000 people once lived there. Stelae were strewn everywhere, but most of them were blank. The limestone was so soft that centuries of erosion had wiped them clean. She found only two snake glyphs in the city.
The mystery of the snakes prompted a young British researcher, Simon Martin, to assemble all the information he could about the snake glyphs from Calakmul and smaller sites. He used hints of battles and political intrigue from around the Maya world to form a picture of the Snakes and their dynasty.
“We only really know about Tikal from Tikal. Whereas in Calakmul’s case, we know about them from everybody else,” Martin says. “It just sort of coalesced out of the mist. Little by little the significance of all these random appearances began to point in the same direction.”
CALAKMUL FROM ABOVE Take in the grandeur of Calakmul as you swoop over and around its 180-foot-tall pyramid in this soaring aerial video.
Video by David Coventry, Guillermo Cortés, and Jacobo Cortés
Eventually Martin and archaeologist Nikolai Grube published a book called Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens, which described the intertwining histories of the kingdoms of the ancient Maya world. At the center of that world, for one shining century, were the Snakes. Like Marcus, Martin says the Snake kingdom was a sort of black hole—one that sucked in all the cities around it and created what might have been a Maya empire. Of course there are still many questions about the Snakes: how they lived, ruled, and fought—and even whether some of them were real.
At the end of the fifth century
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