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association that has done anything like this,” Chris Haerich, a spokesperson for the Professional Association for Customer Engagement, told TIME. (Haerich’s non-profit trade group represents telemarketers, although they don’t like the term.)
Rasman of Premier Health, Inc. said his human agents playing Samantha West’s keys act as brokers for health insurance companies in the U.S. like United Health Care. To get into his company’s system, according to Rasman, you have to enter your contact information into one of the many websites offering health insurance quotes.
The first TIME editor who heard from Samantha West did no such thing.
Haerich said she thought Samantha West—not the advanced artificial-intelligence but the software with pre-recorded statements deployed by telemarketers with non-American accents—fell under the category of “robocall.”
The call likely violated some provisions of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, according to Haerich. The first call to the TIME editor did not include an automated “opt out” mechanism, which is required by law (“Dial 9 to be placed on our do not call list,” for instance, might have done the trick.)
But the peculiar thing about Samantha West isn’t just that she is automated. It’s that she’s so smartly automated that she’s trained to respond to queries about whether or not she is a robot by telling you she’s a human. I asked Haerich if there is a regulation against robots lying to you.
“I don’t…know…that…,” she said. “That’s one I’ve never been asked before. I’ve never been asked that question. Ever.”The City of Surrey is poised to hit the limelight after reeling in the producers of major films like Star Trek and Mission Impossible to create a film and television studio in Newton.
Surrey Mayor Linda Hepner said California-based Skydance Media is converting the former Pacific Newspaper printing press building in Kennedy Heights to a five-stage sound studio that can accommodate a production staff of up to 400 people. The studio is slated to produce programming for Netflix this fall on a show about a city of the future, called Altered Carbon.
“I’m really excited about it. We’ve tried for a long time to get a studio here and I’m pleased with the calibre we got,” Hepner said.
Calling her city “the premier metropolitan centre south of the Fraser,” Hepner told attendees at her second annual state of the city address Thursday that Surrey is poised to become a centre for smart technology, innovation, and economic growth. Besides the film studio, the city has announced it will move ahead with a new clean technology global innovation zone at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Cloverdale and a “child safety village,” with child-sized buildings in Newton to educate youngsters on road safety, avoiding drugs and gangs and “making good life choices.”
The city is also in discussions with private helicopter companies in a bid to create a network of helipads in both north and south Surrey to serve the growing demand for links with cities like Vancouver, Victoria and Kelowna. Hepner noted these plans should “come as no surprise” for her burgeoning city, which is the second largest in B.C. with 530,000 people.
“With a city growing as fast as ours, our work is never done,” she said.
“But what we are doing today is laying down a firm and stable foundation that will shape the social, economic, and environmental requirements of Surrey for years to come.”
A film and television studio will bring Surrey closer to the ranks of other Metro Vancouver areas like Burnaby, the North Shore and Vancouver ― the third-largest film production centre in North America ― which are already cashing in on the $2-billion film industry sweeping B.C. Although it’s only five months into the year, Hepner noted Surrey has already issued 52 permits, up from the 31 issued during the same time last year, which broke filming records with 97 permits and 193 days of filming.
The city says Skydance estimates it will bring in $100 million per year of regional economic spinoffs at full production; its deal with the Netflix series is slated to run over the next eight years.
Hepner noted a Coca-Cola commercial filmed in Cloverdale a few years ago drew busloads of tourists to the area, and if the Netflix series became as popular as, say, Game of Thrones, it could put Surrey on the Hollywood North map.
A Chinese investor has also approached the city, she said, looking to build another studio.
“There’s economic spinoffs in every direction, whether it’s food or hairdressing or rental equipment. The studio will make a big difference even in the sheer number of people here. That’s a huge economic spinoff industry itself,” Hepner said. “In Vancouver, people can’t even get into the studio space.”
Indeed, Vancouver last year saw some 353 productions in the city, providing $710,000 in revenue from film and street-use permits alone.
This included 26 features films ― 10 more than in 2014 ― 158 commercials and 309 television episodes. Payroll stubs suggest more than $143 million was paid in wages in 2015, while 30 per cent more film permits were issued in January this year than last.
Meanwhile, Hepner said Surrey has also invested $334 million in capital projects, including two new aquatic centres in Guildford and Grandview Heights, expansion of the Surrey Museum, a new Cloverdale ice arena, a second YMCA, a multi-purpose facility in Clayton and flood control improvements in low-lying areas.
“Surrey is a city full of possibilities and is primed to be a centre for technology and innovation for the region,” Hepner said in her speech.
“Our potential for job and economic growth is tremendous. The bottom line Surrey is being recognized both at home and abroad as a city that builds global connections.”
But as Surrey grows into its big-city britches, Hepner acknowledges it is also facing big-city problems, particularly crime. Property crime and violent crime are trending downward, she said, but more effort is needed to “put an end to the violence associated with illegal drugs.”
The city has hired 100 new police officers, with another 16 coming this year, as well as a first director of public safety, and there are plans to release a new integrated public safety strategy this fall.
“I certainly have big city issues to deal with,” she said.
“Unfortunately, as good as the latest statistics and trends might be, we all know that a single shot fired by a gang member shatters our image of public safety and pushes any otherwise positive trends to the back pages of our newspapers. It means we need to come down hard on those who show such a complete disregard for our neighbourhoods … and any city anywhere in B.C. or Canada.”
[email protected]
Twitter.com/ksinoskiKUALA LUMPUR, June 18, 2015:
The poor standard of English in the country has been brought into question again, following pictures of several poorly constructed English language test questions being circulated on social media.
The posting on Monday made by Facebook user Nadia Fauzi revealed several multiple-choice questions in a test that was constructed with grammatical errors.
“What time is the concert starts?” was among the questions asked in the test.
Nadia, who is the mother of one of the students, who sat for the exam, lamented the poor standard of English set in the school which she described as a “high-performing school” and one of the top schools in the Federal Territory.
It was also learnt that the school that her child attended was Sekolah Kebangsaan Bukit Damansara.
In her posting, Nadia also slammed the school teacher who decided to punish her child for correcting the mistakes.
“This is how bad our English standard is in schools. And when my son corrected her, the teacher called him stupid and said that she’s right and he’s wrong. Wow.
“I won’t say anything to her about this because I know (for a fact) that she will penalise him even more.
“She had the cheek to deduct one mark from him for bad handwriting, but she doesn’t think that her paper is all screwed up? This is so embarrassing! ” read the post which has gathered 26 likes and 326 shares as of 3pm today.
Facebook user Azlina Megat describes the English language paper as “horrifying”.
While another Facebook user Ng Eu Gin shared his thoughts with Nadia by saying that situations such this one puts an undue burden on parents to correct the child’s understanding of power and authority, since questioning the teacher reflects one’s rudeness.
Angry netizens, however, slammed the teacher and the school for due lack of professionalism and poor education standards.
Some were also seen to be agreeing that Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin should take serious action on the standard of English being taught in the country’s schools.
On June 10, Muhyiddin who is also deputy Prime Minister, announced in Parliament that students needed to be prepared for the English paper in SPM as it would be compulsory to pass the subject next year.
It was reported that Muhyiddin also said that the government remained committed to emphasising the increase in proficiency of the English language in schools, despite having no plans to change the medium of instruction in national schools from Bahasa Malaysia to English.TSA administrator Peter Neffenger spent Thursday saying his goodbyes after only a year and a half at the post, a casualty of the disarray in some parts of the Trump transition process. Team Trump called him only in the last two weeks to ask him to stay—too late to change his plans, U.S. officials tell The Daily Beast.
Widely hailed as competent and innovative by Congress, Neffenger is a retired admiral and a political independent. He’s also the fifth chief of the Transportation Security Administration in as many years. Congressional sources disappointed over his departure say they may draft legislation to set terms for the TSA role, akin to the 10-year term for the FBI director.
The missed opportunity to keep Neffenger at his post reflects the late start the Trump transition team got when it dropped New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as its transition lead just after the election—and also reflects the sharp-elbowed jockeying among Trump advisers and campaign staff as they scramble to fill the thousands of soon-to-be empty posts after an election they didn’t expect to win. Outgoing Obama administration officials fear the staffing melee will leave the new administration unprepared to cope with a crisis, but Trump transition officials—and Democrats who’ve gone through transitions before—say it’s par for the course, and that Washington, D.C.’s standing bureaucracy will keep government running until the top posts are filled.
Neffenger sat down for an exclusive interview earlier in the week, before The Daily Beast learned he’d been asked to stay. He outlined an ambitious program of how he’d tried to turn around an agency riven with bad morale and poor performance. But the programs he set in motion—from retraining TSA agents to better spot suspicious objects, to streamlining how to speed new technology into use to screen passengers—are less than a year old, and GOP enthusiasm for what he’s done apparently reached Trump Tower too late.
“The administrator deeply appreciates the support he has been receiving, but his current plan is to depart with the outgoing administration,” Neffenger’s spokesman Richard Ades emailed Thursday, refusing to confirm that Trump aides had requested Neffenger stay, to provide continuity like a handful of other senior Obama administration officials related to national security.
For instance, the State Department coordinator of the campaign to fight the so-called Islamic State, Brett McGurk, will be staying for a few more months to help the new team, as will Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Tom Shannon, as State Department spokesman John Kirby confirmed to reporters Thursday. Incoming White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Thursday that others who will stay on include Adam Szubin as acting undersecretary for Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence.
Trump spokesmen did not immediately respond to requests for comment about Neffenger.
When Neffenger arrived in 2015, the TSA was reeling from an Inspector General report that found multiple lapses. Agents had failed 67 of 70 security tests, including failing to spot undercover investigators who got through checkpoints items that were potential weapons.
The former Vice Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, Neffenger was incident commander of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He still feels the aches and pains of fast-roping onto moving ships in his younger years, when he was part of a synchronized team that took pride in its work. That history is why one of the first things he targeted to fix was the esprit de corps among the demoralized work force tasked with screening roughly 2 million passengers a day.
He made them all re-take an oath of office, and rebrand themselves—and the TSA—as what he called “an intelligence-driven, adaptable counterterrorism agency,” rather than the people who make Americans’ attempts to travel from A to B miserable.
He also convinced Congress to stop bleeding off TSA’s budget to pay for other things, stopped the shrinkage of the ranks of agents, and allowed anyone who was part-time to apply for full-time jobs.
Of the infamous long lines under his tenure, he said that was all about not having enough staff.
“We didn’t have enough people to man the checkpoints. We could staff about 60 percent of the peak at the top 30 airports,” he said.
He said thanks to Congressional funding, TSA is now fully staffed at those peak hours, and thanks to outreach to airlines, TSA now tracks when planes are arriving or departing from heavily trafficked airports and tries to staff for surges of passengers accordingly.
“We look at the top 30 airports, checkpoint by checkpoint hour by hour,” he said. “You still get long waits but they don’t last all day long.”
He also made everyone, from managers to front-line agents, learn how to do the one thing at TSA that everyone hates.
“I made everyone in the agency learn how to do a pat-down. That just comes from my military background,” he said. “There’s not a thing you ask your people to do that you haven’t done by the time you’re in command.” Not everyone liked it, but he said it helped managers understand what they were asking of their people, and why it takes a toll on agents as well as passengers.
He said there were management practices that had to be changed—the inspector general report had found many personnel complaints of unfair treatment, so he set up a system to track the complaints and let whistleblowers know what was being done.
“You can’t fix everybody overnight,” he said. “You can convince them there’s a process that’s going to take care of them and treat them fairly.
He also established a TSA Academy to try to institutionalize lessons learned across the force, and instituted a rolling stand-down of agents to retrain them in how to use the scanners to spot suspicious objects in luggage or on people.
“We put a lot of pressure on the workforce to move people through, but we hadn’t trained them on the effectiveness of the equipment,” Neffenger said.
He said it was too soon to tell if those changes made the agents more effective.
A U.S. official briefed on recent covert testing said the training hasn’t yet produced a higher rate of spotting objects that are possible weapons, but the official said it would take a combination of better technology and higher skill levels among the agents—something Neffenger was working on. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the covert testing results.
The retired admiral said transportation remains a fixation for terrorist groups—both Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula and the increasingly capable ISIS. He ticks off other recent transportation-focused violence, from the destruction of Metrojet Flight 9268 over northern Sinai in 2015, later claimed by ISIS, to last year’s attacks on the airports in Turkey and Brussels.
Neffenger was actually in Brussels the day the airport and metro were both attacked, and witnessed firsthand the destruction that killed more than 30 people.
While he’s heard of no credible threat aimed at Washington, D.C., on this Inauguration weekend, he said the new mode of rapid radicalization leading to action makes it hard-to-impossible to predict threats in advance.
“The activity level and dynamics are higher than they’ve ever been,” he said. “There’s a lot more threat reporting than we used to see. There’s just more players involved.”
That’s why TSA looks for patterns of travel rather than religion or ethnic background—a point of view that may have put Neffenger on the wrong side of the incoming administration.
“We look at where you are traveling to and from—are you coming out of places that are…generating bad things and connected to people affiliated with terror groups. That’s the kind of thing that’s going to get you on a watch list,” he said. “That’s independent and irrespective of your personal background.”
Neffenger says he wrote a TSA roadmap of “what did I do and how did I get there” to hand over to his successor, though since Team Trump hasn’t yet named one, that task will fall to his deputy, Huban Gowadia who will be acting administrator until a new one is named.
His parting advice is to think of an airport like a breathing entity of interlocking systems that have to speak to each other when they spot something odd rather than thinking of layers, one handing off to the next.
And there will always be risk.
“What constitutes a perimeter for the airport? Post Brussels attack, they had the barrier outside,” Neffenger said. “But there’s always outside the perimeter and you will always have a vulnerable crowd.”Update: Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s reps have denied the rumor for the time being. The original story follows:
The future for Marvel’s movies is very mysterious. With three untitled films dated for release in 2016 and 2017, many fans have been speculating about what is to come in “Phase 3.” Doctor Strange is one of many characters who has been rumored for a Phase 3 movie, mostly due to Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige’s very public interest in the property.
Now, Latino-Review is reporting the rumor that Marvel Studios wants The Dark Knight Rises star Joseph Gordon-Levitt to play the titular character in the film. Levitt was previously considered for the Star-Lord role in Guardians of the Galaxy, which does lend some credence to this rumor, but do keep in mind that this isn’t official and that talks with the actor may not have even begun.
What do you think of the rumor? Do you want to see Levitt as Doctor Strange? Sound off below!
(Photo Credit: Nikki Nelson/WENN.com)Cameroon midfielder Marc-Vivien Foe has died after collapsing during an international match in France.
The 28-year-old fell to the ground unchallenged in the 72nd minute of a Confederations Cup semi-final against Colombia in Lyon.
He was treated on the pitch before being stretchered off and receiving further treatment, including mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and extra oxygen.
Foe spent last season on loan at English club Manchester City from French club Olympique Lyon and also played for RC Lens.
Medical staff are believed to have tried to restart his heart for 45 minutes but without success.
"The player was still alive when he was taken to the medical centre in Gerland Stadium in Lyon, where he died," said Alfred Mueller, Fifa's Swiss medical officer for Lyon.
"It is too early to determine the exact causes of his death."
An autopsy will be carried out to determine the cause of his death.
FOE'S CAREER 1994: Makes Cameroon World Cup squad 1997: Joins French side Lens from Cameroon's Canon Yaounde 1998: Breaks leg, missing World Cup and potential move to Man Utd 1999: Joins West Ham for £4m 2000: Moves to Lyon for £6m 2002: Member of Cameroon's African Nations Cup-winning side and World Cup squad; July - joins Manchester City on loan 2003: Plays 35 times for Man City, scoring nine goals, including the last goal at Maine Road Marc-Vivien Foe profile
After paying a tearful tribute to Foe, France beat Turkey 3-2 in the other Confederation Cup semi-final.
Fifa president Sepp Blatter said: "Fifa and the whole family of football are shattered by this unbelievable tragedy.
"On their behalf, I wish to convey our sincerest condolences to his family and loved ones, to Cameroon football and his club, and express all our support at this painful time.
"Football has lost a remarkable player and a remarkable man."
Blatter also said that the Confederations Cup final between France and Cameroon will definitely go ahead on Sunday.
France captain Marcel Desailly had questioned whether or not the game should take place.
"I would totally understand if the Cameroon team refused to take part in the final," he said.defence groups loosely connected to the anti-balaka against the ex-Slka faction of UPC Union pour la paix en Centrafrique over the control of transhumance routes and natural resources.
One of the outcomes of this process has been the blockage of transhumance routes and loss of grazing land to agricultural expansion and the increased southward movement of pastoralists has led to increased conflict with local communities.
Mireille Gansel's lyrical and evocative Translation as Transhumance, itself beautifully and elegantly translated by Ros Schwartz, is a moving tribute to the art of translation as a kind of humanism, a desire not just to understand another language but to inhabit it, to see it from the inside, not as Other but as being as close to oneself as one's own "native" language.
Tornay (1981) discusses close relations between the Nyangatom and the Toposa, since Nyangatom transhumance occurs in South Sudan, among their friends the Toposa.
Changes in pasture and cow milk compositions during a summer transhumance in the western Italian Alps.
B Le projet du code des collectivites territoriales presente au gouvernement debut 2018 Interroge sur les mecanismes de lutte contre la transhumance politique, le ministre a precise que la Loi organique portant regime electoral "a interdit" ce phenomene et qu'en coordination avec la Haute instance independante de surveillance des elections (HIISE), "cette question sera abordee" dans le Code communal et de wilaya qui [beaucoup moins que]sera sous forme de loi organique unifiee intitulee Loi relative aux collectivites locales".
Results indicate that despite significant increases in production, pasture quality has not deteriorated suggesting the classic transhumance systems used in these areas are sustainable.
The book begins with an overview of the geographical, prehistoric, and historical setting, and gives a theoretical framework defining pastoralism, pastoral nomadism, transhumance, and tribalism.
Chemical and microbial measurements of fermented camel milk ''Gariss" from transhumance and nomadic herds in Sudan.
Translation as Transhumance by Mireille Gansel, translated by Ros Schwartz.
C'est que les partis, de tout bord qu'ils soient, ne jouent pas leur role de production d'idees, de valeurs, de programmes, cultivant, en revanche, une mauvaise image, un deficit de credibilite, un manque d'ideologie definie, une absence d'ethique, trahison et transhumance.In a letter that will be sent to the national Olympic committees that are sending athletes to the Sochi Games, the IOC is reminding all participants to refrain from engaging in demonstrations, political gestures, or protests while in Russia. ESPN reports:
The memo will focus on Rule 50 in the Olympic Charter, which states: "No kind of demonstration or political, religious, or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas."
"We will give the background of the Rule 50, explaining the interpretation of the Rule 50 to make the athletes aware and to assume them that the athletes will be protected," IOC President Thomas Bach said in an interview with The Associated Press.
The charter says the IOC can take action against — even expel — athletes who violate Rule 50, but the committee has said the rule would be "interpreted and applied sensibly and proportionately."
It remains unclear what will happen to athletes who decide to wear a rainbow flag pin or American Apparel's new Principle 6 protest merchandise while at the Games.
Athlete Ally and AllOut, the activist groups behind Principle 6 responded to the IOC's announcement today.
Said Andre Banks, Executive Director of All Out: "If IOC President Thomas Bach truly cares about principles, he should speak out against the discriminatory Russian laws that clearly violate Principle 6 of the IOC's Charter. These laws not only stigmatize the gay community, they have also ignited a wave of anti-gay violence around the country. It's time to change the Olympic bidding process to ensure that the honor of hosting the Games only goes to countries that respect basic human rights."
Added Hudson Taylor, Executive Director of Athlete Ally: "The 34 Olympians who have joined our campaign feel it is their duty to uphold the Olympic Charter and act in the face of any form of discrimination. Equality is not about politics, it's about principles. The Principle 6 Campaign uses the language of the IOC's founding document to give athletes, fans and global supporters a way to celebrate the Olympic values of non-discrimination and show solidarity with LGBT Russians. How could the IOC object to that?"SALEM, OR -- Oregon War Veterans Association (OWVA) just learned that Jeff Maxwell, the Western Oregon University (WOU) Student who was illegally arrested and subsequently suspended from school for carrying a concealed weapon was just told that he cannot attend ANY Oregon University.
Michelle Sandlin, admissions director of Oregon State University, told Maxwell today that he would not be allowed to attend OSU, even though they admitted him recently- after he was suspended by WOU.
Maxwell has a concealed handgun permit, and is permitted to carry a handgun according to Oregon Law, and the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution. Western Oregon University has since withdrawn their charge against Maxwell for carrying a handgun, but came up with a trumped charge about his carrying a knife and having an unloaded hunting rifle in his locked vehicle. All charges were dropped by the Sheriff’s office as inappropriate, but WOU officials stand by their ruling and punishment of Maxwell.
Jess Barton, the Salem attorney retained by OWVA to represent Maxwell, who is a veteran Marine and member of the association, told OWVA’s executive director, Greg Warnock, that, “Oregon law affords Jeff Maxwell a full and fair opportunity to establish that WOU wrongfully suspended him based on his mere possession of items that ordinary and constitutional law deem lawful....” Barton, a seasoned appellate attorney is confident in winning the case for Maxwell.
Barton will file a petition for judicial review at the Oregon Court of Appeals this month, to force the university to redress their wrong official action taken, as well as ask for penalties and attorney fees. Restitution will also be sought now, since Maxwell has lost his GI Educational Benefits, including housing and other expenses when he was suspended. He also lost the tuition and fees and book charges for last semester, which he prepaid.
OWVA and their legal counsel is representing Maxwell in this case because “we believe that the U.S. Constitution, and Oregon Statues trump the policies of the university system, and we are shocked at the humiliating treatment WOU has dished out to a responsible, veteran Marine, who broke no laws what-so-ever,” reported Warnock to Melica Johnson, from KATU News recently. “WOU’s immature, irresponsible and illegal actions will unfortunately cost the State of Oregon an enormous amount of money in damages- when they have no money to spare. It is shameful.”
In addition to filing a petition for a State judicial review in the Oregon Courts, OWVA and the Oregon Firearms Federation are supporting federal charges against WOU and the Oregon University System (OUS), for violations against Maxwell’s civil rights. The Law firm of BOPP, COLESON & BOSTROM, a very successful firm out of Indiana, have been retained by OWVA and will provide counsel in this case as needed.
For more information, please contact:
Jess Barton
Attorney at Law
[email protected]
Phone (503) 391-6283
Greg Warnock
Executive Director, OWVA
[email protected]
Phone (503) 689-4145If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to have cheeky chin wag with Ambrose Kenny-Smith then wonder no longer my friends. This week I had the pleasure of chatting to The Murlocs front man about their latest album Old Locomotive, touring life and the skating career that almost was.
For those who are familiar with the works of The Murlocs, Old Locomotive comes off the back of a stellar album, Young Blindness. Their captivating mix of psychedelic rock and blues seems to have struck a chord in not only the Australian music scene, but the US and European as well.
If you haven’t plugged into these guys yet, stop what you’re doing and grab a damn pair of headphones! Other suggested listening devices include your crackling car speakers, your dad’s record player or alternatively, just blast your tunes in the quiet carriage back from Sydney; everyone deserves their daily dose of Uncle Murl.
Now please, sit back and relax; prepare to take in all that is The Murlocs and my awkwardly worded questions.
Young Blindness was such a phenomenal album; how do you think that Old Locomotive stacks up?
Old Locomotive in a way is the next step forward in the sense of rock and roll. Our formula of songwriting seems to have come to its home now with this one. I feel it’s a definite progression from Young Blindness. This style has become our own way of identifying ourselves. In a way that is hard to shake off. Hopefully our next venture after this will become bit more experimental.
What was the initial inspiration for Old Locomotive?
In the beginning it was just a bunch of songs that we had been gathering for quite a while. My main inspiration for The Murlocs is early Captain Beefheart and The Animals. It always has been and will most likely always will be.
Do you think that working with King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard has affected or changed the vision of The Murlocs?
The Murlocs vision has always been very clear and natural from the beginning. Although, playing with King Gizzard has helped grow and guide my confidence in song writing and creativity.
Was it surreal getting to open for the Pixies earlier this year?
The Pixies were a huge influence on me from the age of about 10. When we found out we got the slot I went back and revisited a bunch of their albums again. Such an amazing band! It was a real honour.
The film clip for Noble Soldier is fantastic (if not a little terrifying), how did the idea for the clip come about?
It sort of snowballed into what it is. The director Alex Mclaren and myself were bouncing ideas back and forth for quite a while so it eventually went out of control. I’m glad with how it all turned out though. Even if the overall message of it all got a bit lost along the way it was fun making it.
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Now you’ve been announced for Splendour in the Grass later this year, are you nervous to take on such a huge festival?
Last year with gizzard was lots of fun. We haven’t got to play any festivals for quite some time so we’re all looking forward to it!
I did a bit of digging and found out that you used to skate professionally. What made you change direction from skating to the music industry?
I was never a professional but I was sponsored for skateboarding from the age of 10 or so. Playing music came a few years before that so I was always juggling them both. For a long time, I could never decide which one to pick and do it properly. I could never make up my mind up. I guess music won? haha
You’ve just been announced to play Snake Pit on the Central Coast; Do you plan on testing out the mini ramp while you’re there?
I’m pretty rusty on a mini ramp these days but I might have a half-arsed go at some point maybe?
Have you ever been to Newcastle and what is your current impression of the city?
I’ve only been once to Newcastle and it was with gizzard about 3 or 4 years ago. We played The Small Ballroom too. I can’t recall much as we were only there for the show and left. Hopefully I’ll get to check out more of it this time around. My current impression and only knowledge that comes to mind at the moment is The Gooch Palms and my skater friend Beau Reid. They’re all nice people so I assume everyone else is too!
What’s the most outrageous thing to ever happen on tour?
Probably when Cal tried to ask John C Reilly for his autograph twice in the same night. Also that time when we met Bill Clinton on the street of Visalia, CA a week later.
One last question… If you weren’t called The Murlocs, what would your band name be?
The Shit Chairs
– Bree Smith
Bree is a Newcastle import who survives off British television and hummus. She spends the majority of her time chasing bands up and down the east coast. Never without a set of headphones, you’ll often find her lost in a wormhole of related artists on Spotify. One day she hopes to impress people by being able to play more than one song on guitar.CLOSE Jonathan Tisch, co-chairman at Lowes Corporation, and Bloomberg's Shannon Pettypiece examine fourth-quarter results from Wal-Mart as the retailer lowers its annual sales forecast and look at what their numbers say about the U.S. economy. Bloomberg
Customers at Walmart's Black Friday shopping event on Nov. 26, 2015 in Rogers, Ark. Walmart reported fourth quarter earnings, which include the holiday season, on Thursday. (Photo11: Gunnar Rathbun, Invision for Walmart)
Walmart (WMT) said Thursday its fourth quarter earnings fell 7.9% due to higher operating expenses and lower sale driven by factors like warmer weather and weaker sales of smartphones and the latest television sets.
The world's largest retailer also lowered its estimate for sales growth in fiscal year 2017, which began in February. It's now expected "to be relatively flat," compared to the previous estimate of 3% to 4% growth. "This change reflects the impact from recently announced store closures globally, as well as the continued strengthening of the U.S. dollar," said CEO Doug McMillon.
Investors reacted by lopping 3% off Walmart stock, down $1.99 to close at $64.12 a share.
One factor that will dampen earnings by 30 cents a share this year, but build employee morale, is the second phase of pay boost for U.S. hourly workers. On Saturday, Walmart will start paying higher wages, ensuring all those hired before Jan. 1 will make at least $10 an hour. "It's awesome to give a raise to more than 1 million people on the same day," McMillon said.
Walmart, headquartered in Bentonville, Ark., reported net income of $4.57 billion for the three month period ended Jan. 31, compared to $4.97 billion in the year-ago period. McMillon says the chain is making improvements in its stores and trying to simplify the online shopping experience.
Per-share earnings, after adjusting for some items, were $1.49 vs. $1.61 in the same quarter last year. That beat analyst estimates of $1.44, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Total revenue fell 1.4% to $129.7 billion. After adjusting for currency exchange rates in the countries where Walmart operates, total revenue was $134.4 billion, an increase of 2.2%, it said.
"We are seeing momentum in our Walmart U.S. business as we continue to lap positive comps, and our international business is healthy and growing," Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said in a statement. "We are pleased with fundamental trends that are allowing us to improve our stores."
U.S. retail sales have been hampered in the fourth quarter by unseasonably warm weather, as consumers held off buying cold weather gear and apparel. Customers weren't buying as many new smartphones or the latest breed of high-definition televisions. And meat and dairy profit margins sank. But sales from U.S. Walmart stores that have been open for at least a year grew for the sixth consecutive quarter, up 0.6%. Comparable sales for its neighborhood stores, which are smaller than other Walmart locations, increased about 7%.
"The quarter was somewhat of a mixed bag," said Brian Yarbrough, an analyst at brokerage Edward Jones. "There were more negatives than positives and we continue to believe the company is going to have a difficult time driving same-store-sales growth of 2% plus over the longer term. Due to the investment in higher wages and more store labor, we believe the company could need to show same-store-sales growth of 2.5% to 3% to leverage expenses and we are not convinced that can happen over the longer term."
With heightened competition from online retailers, Walmart has been working to improve customer experience in stores and developing ways to better integrate online and in-store shopping, such as curbside pickup of online grocery orders. It also redesigned shelf layout at some stores and is working to move goods faster from suppliers.
Grocery has been a point of emphasis for Walmart as the market has become more competitive. In addition to being the largest retailer, Walmart is also the largest grocer in the U.S. The company is employing more department managers and seeking to ensure that popular fresh produce and organic products are consistently stocked. The online grocery order service is now available in 20 markets in the U.S. and will be expanded, said Neil Ashe, Walmart's CEO of global e-commerce, in a conference call Thursday. "We're going to focus on developing digital relationships with customers," he said.
Walmart's e-commerce sales growth for the quarter slowed to 8% from 10% in the third quarter, after adjusting for currency rate changes. "While we are disappointed by the continued slowdown in e-commerce, we believe the results reiterate the need for continued investment to better position the company in the changing retail landscape," wrote Robert Drbul,an analyst at Nomura, in a note to investors.
Walmart is also closing 269 stores worldwide, including 154 in the U.S, as it shifts focus to supercenter stores and e-commerce. The move cut its fiscal 2016 per-share earnings by 20 cents, it said.
For fiscal year 2016, Walmart's total revenue fell 0.7% to $482.1 billion. Net income sank 10.2% to $14.7 billion.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1TsbppCVisual effects supervisor Gary Hut
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, and a decision was allegedly made to have Exner reach out to her new friend Giancana.
” ‘I think I may need his help in the campaign,’ Jack said,” per Exner. “He wanted the meeting as soon as possible and gave me a few dates that were good for him.”
FROM COINAGE: This Is How Much It Would Cost to Paint the White House (And More Crazy Facts)
Exner eventually said she arranged around 10 meetings between Kennedy and Giancana, one of which she believed even took place inside the White House. Exner told PEOPLE that Giancana once bragged to her that Kennedy would never have been president “if it hadn’t been for his efforts on Kennedy’s behalf in Cook County, Illinois.” An overwhelming turnout for Kennedy in Cook County enabled him to carry Illinois by a slim 8,858 votes.
In addition, she transported secret envelopes between the two men, which she told PEOPLE she believed to be about the CIA’s collaboration with the Mafia to assassinate Cuban Premier Fidel Castro.
Dangerous Liaisons
As Kennedy’s focus on the presidency intensified, Exner’s relationship with him began to implode. Around the same time, she realized she was being followed by federal agents tasked with investigating Giancana. She said, “I called Jack immediately to tell him that the FBI had been to see me, asking all sorts of questions about Sam. I told him I had said I knew nothing about Sam’s business affairs. Jack reassured me. He said, ‘Don’t worry. They won’t do anything to you. And don’t worry about Sam. You know he works for us.’ “
The affair ended later that year. Kennedy was killed the next.
Over a decade later, Exner was subpoenaed to testify in front of the Senate. She lied.
“If I’d told the truth, I’d have been killed. I kept my secret out of fear,” she told PEOPLE in 1988, adding, “Look what happened to Jack, and to Sam, who was murdered in his house while under police surveillance.”
Giancana was shot seven times in the head – just before he was to be called to testify. His killer never found. Another mafioso, John Roselli, did testify before the Senate about the CIA’s attempts to kill Castro. The next year, his body was found in an oil drum floating near Miami.
RELATED VIDEO: Would JFK Jr. Have Run for President?
“I became paralyzed with fear and started sleeping with a gun under my pillow,” admitted Exner.
So why speak out decades later?
“For the past 25 years I have been terrified to tell the truth about my relationship with Jack Kennedy. In fact, I’ve gone to great lengths to keep the truth from ever coming out, which is probably the only reason I’m alive today. With the exception of Sinatra, all the key figures involved in my story have been murdered,” she told PEOPLE almost 30 years ago.
But devastatingly ill with metastatic cancer, Exner – then 54 – said, “My doctor gives me about three years to live, and I want to put my life in order so that I can die peacefully. For that reason, I must now tell the truth.”
She would live much longer though, eventually losing her cancer battle in 1999.
Meanwhile, the mystery surrounding JFK’s shocking assassination — and whether the mob played a role in his death — endures.Jessica Drew, aka Spider-Woman, is making her second appearance in a Marvel Legends lineup. She first appeared back in ToyBiz’s Marvel Legends Series 15, otherwise known as the M.O.D.O.K. build-a-figure series. And, man, was the figure almost awesome. These days, not so much, but back then? Yeah. To be honest, the head sculpt on the original figure still holds up. Enough about the past and on to the future! Or the now!
Hasbro blessed collectors with an update of Jessica Drew, Spider-Woman, righting the wrongs of figures gone bad of the past. Drew is based on the Moonstone buck from the Thunderbolts box-set with new hands and a new head. I think these are Scarlet Witch hands, and I don’t recall them being used before. But then I have that short-term memory thing. Spider-Woman looks fantastic and it’s great to have an update of this raven-haired character of the Marvel Universe.
The reason that I refer to Spider-Woman as Jessica Drew is that there have been about a hundred characters walking around the Marvel Universe calling themselves Spider-Woman. It’s easier to call her by her real name rather than costume name. Jessica Drew first appeared in Marvel Spotlight in 1977. She was a part of the ongoing “use that character name before the other guys did” era of comics, but she did seem to have staying power. Her own series started in ’78 and lasted until ’83. But it would take another 20 years before she really took off, in the hands of Bendis. Yes, I hear the Internet’s mixed emotions trolling through, but Bendis did make Drew relevant again as a part of the Avengers.
And it’s been great. There are some great stories featuring Drew, and she’s really taken off on her own. She even has a new costume (she didn’t need one) and a new comic. Yes, a new costume. I know there is this whole thing about costume redesigns going on, especially for female characters as we bring them kicking and screaming out of the bikini-era of the ’70s. But Drew had a great costume from the start and really didn’t need to be modernized, in my opinion. It’s a simple costume and pops on the page. Luckily for us, Hasbro made her in her classic costume.
There isn’t much to say new about the figure that hasn’t been said in previous reviews of this buck. It’s a good, solid sculpt, based somewhat on the Frank Cho side of art, which is good, and it looks like a healthy athletic female. I love it. Along those lines, there isn’t much to say about the articulation that hasn’t been said before. It’s all there as before and works. Here is the breakdown:
Rocker ankles
Hinged ankles
Double-hinged knees
Swivel thighs
Ball hips
Ball Chest
Ball shoulders
Swivel biceps
Swivel elbow
Hinged elbow
Swivel wrist
Hinged wrist
Ball head
She comes with some accessories: the Thanos build-a-figure pieces as well as webbing for under her arms. There are two webbings, one relaxed for her arms at her side and the other expanded for flying modes. They pop in and out and I’ll probably be popping them into a bag for storage now that I’ve done this review. They really have no value.
Without a doubt, I recommend this figure. It’s on a great base figure, it’s an iconic character in her iconic costume, and it’s a must-have for your Avengers lineup. Plus, she dated Hawkguy, and you need to have that on your shelf! You can pick her up today at:
BigBadToyStore
DorkSide Toys
Entertainment Earth
Amazon.com
Like this: Like Loading...Also named in the search warrant is United Pharmacy of Los Angeles and pharmacist Farid Pourmorady of Beverly Hills, the owner of United. Court documents indicate the DEA's investigation began in 2015 and targets a "drug trafficking organization" (DTO) that includes United and "multiple physicians whose prescriptions are filled at United, focusing in particular on Tennant."
"The crimes perpetrated by the DTO include the sale of powerful prescription narcotics such as oxycodone and fentanyl, along with other dangerous and addictive controlled drugs often sought in combination with narcotics, based on invalid prescriptions issued by practitioners including Tennant," the documents say. "United has been submitting millions of dollars in fraudulent Medicare prescription drug claims, namely, claims for the cost of filling invalid narcotic prescriptions, including those issued by Tennant."
The search warrant identifies about $2 million in prescriptions written by Tennant that were filled at United for just five patients, three of whom live out-of-state. Tennant told PNN in a phone interview that the allegations were bizarre.
"I have no financial relationship with anybody. My clinic is fundamentally almost a charity," he said.
Tennant is a revered figure in the pain community because of his willingness to see patients with intractable chronic pain who are unable to find effective treatment elsewhere or have been abandoned by their doctors. At 76, Tennant could have retired years ago, but regularly sees about 120 patients at his modest pain clinic in West Covina, a Los Angeles suburb. Many patients travel from out-of-state to see him, and some are in palliative care and expected to die within a year.
Tennant, along with his wife and office manager, Miriam, jokingly refers to their clinic as a “mom and pop” operation, although in actuality he practices on the frontlines of pain management and has developed treatment protocols for difficult and incurable conditions such as adhesive arachnoiditis, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD).
Those treatments sometimes require high doses of opioid pain medication, but they also include hormone replacement, anti-inflammatory drugs and other therapies that help patients reduce their use of opioids.
Tennant says he carefully screens his patients and follows all regulations. He has been an outspoken critic of efforts to limit opioid prescribing and recently appeared on a Las Vegas TV station saying the federal government doesn't care if pain patients suffer and die.
“I understand what (DEA is) after. They figure if they go after the big guy, then no one will prescribe,” Tennant told PNN. “If they’re going to hurt me, no doctor is going to be willing to prescribe or do anything. That’s what they’re attempting to do. They’re attempting to neutralize me if they can. And I think there needs to be an outcry.
"The time has come. Is this country going to treat pain patients or not? Are they going to let people die in pain or are they not?"
Ironically, the raid on Tennant’s offices and home occurred the day after he testified in Montana as a defense witness in the trial of another doctor accused of negligent homicide in the overdoses of two patients. The Tennants arrived home Tuesday night to find the front door to their home had been kicked in by DEA investigators.
“It seems like a coincidence, doesn’t it?” Tennant said.
Insys Payments
Tennant acknowledges getting about $126,000 from Insys Therapeutics, payments that were primarily for speaking at events sponsored by the company.One of the last surviving World War II veterans to witness the Darwin bombings says the diggers involved never got the recognition they deserved.
Tasmanian Brian Winspear can still picture the sun glinting off the bombs like confetti as hell rained down on the city 75 years ago.
Sirens blared as the then 21-year-old air gunner bolted for the trenches close to the RAAF hangar when the first of 188 enemy aircraft appeared on the horizon. Japan’s deadly campaign brought a distant war to home soil, and the Northern Territory had become the frontline.
The 96-year-old digger has travelled thousands of kilometres back to ground zero to mark Sunday’s anniversary of the NT’s darkest hour.
Yet three quarters of a century on, Mr Winspear says the story has stayed in the shadows.
“At the time there was no publicity whatsoever, the government was so ashamed of being caught with their pants down with no defence,” he said in Darwin on Friday.
Once in the trenches, Mr Winspear put a tin helmet on and a cork between his teeth “to stop concussion” as planes flew overhead. He said he could see the pilots grinning.
“It was bloody hell,” he said.
“As we looked up the sun glinted on the bombs... it was just like confetti.”
Mr Winspear is among 29 diggers who made the pilgrimage to Darwin to ensure the cost of war is never downplayed again. “For goodness sake, don’t forget to remember,” he said.
■ Get your 56-page Bombing of Darwin commemorative magazine with the Sunday TerritorianCLOSE About 200 golf courses have closed in Michigan since the early 2000s, including these five. Here's what they look like today. JC Reindl/Detroit Free Press.
Buy Photo The closed Sunnybrook golf course in Sterling Heights is photographed on April 7, 2016. (Photo: JC Reindl, Detroit Free Press)Buy Photo Story Highlights Michigan lost about 200 golf courses in past 15 years
Attention spans now strain to last for 18 holes
Michigan's economy has largely rebounded, but its golf course business has been trapped in a bunker lately as the baby boom generation gets older and millennials seem less interested in the time commitment of 18 holes.
Although Michigan still ranks in the top 5 nationwide for number of golf courses and is the top state for public courses, each year more course owners are selling to real estate developers or are forced to close for financial reasons. Meanwhile, very few new courses are getting built.
The problem for the game stems from previous golf course oversaturation in the state, coupled with more recent generational shifts in leisure pursuits of young people. Golf can be a huge time and financial commitment.
"Some of these clubs that are struggling and losing members want to get the young members in," said Kevin Frisch, who works with Travel Michigan to promote golf, "but they're not the same young members that they were 30, 40 years ago."
Michigan, like other parts of the country, experienced a course-building boom during the 1990s and into the 2000s as baby boomers fully embraced the game. This bubble was fueled by golf industry exuberance, developers who viewed courses as standard amenities in residential projects, and the tangible but ultimately brief Tiger Woods-related surge in the sport's popularity, according to interviews with multiple Michigan golf experts.
The number of courses peaked in Michigan in the early 2000s with more than 970 public and private courses, according to past reports by the National Golf Foundation. Michigan ranked No. 3 in the country in 2001, behind only California and Florida, where golf is played year-round.
By January 2015, Michigan was down to 790 golf courses -- fourth place behind New York. The foundation last week declined to share its latest report with the Free Press, but a source who has seen the 2016 rankings said Michigan fell to 773 courses with just a hairsbreadth lead on fifth-place Texas.
Meanwhile, some private country clubs have lowered their initiation fees or run once-unthinkable promotions to boost membership.
To attract younger customers, a few courses such as Fox Hills Golf and Banquet Center in Plymouth and Fellows Creek Golf Club in Canton have experimented with a game called FootGolf that is a combination of golf and soccer and can be played on existing greens.
"It brings a totally different clientele out to the golf course," said Julia Grelak, sales director at Fox Hills.
Michigan golf course architect Raymond Hearn said he thinks the state could lose another 30 or so courses each year for the next two to three years before golf club supply finally matches up with the reduced demand. Many of the courses now closing are small mom-and-pop businesses whose owners barely survived the recession and know they face increasingly uncertain financial prospects as fewer young people take up the game.
"I'm not trying to be a grim reaper, but some of these courses have been hanging on by the skin of their teeth for the last eight years," said Hearn, president of Holland-based Raymond Hearn Golf Course Designs. "I don't think they can do it any longer."
Buy Photo The entrance to the now-closed Rogell Golf Course in Detroit on April 7, 2016. (Photo: JC Reindl, Detroit Free Press)
Michigan -- like other parts of the country -- became over-holed by the early 2000s. Those who follow the golf industry cite a National Golf Foundation report, “Strategic Plan for the Growth of the Game," which called for building "a course a day" in the U.S. every year in the 1990s until 2000 to satisfy the anticipated growth in demand for golf. This report proved highly influential in Michigan and across the country.
The number of golf courses nationwide surged from 12,846 in 1990 to 15,487 by 2000, according to the foundation's data. Courses surpassed the 16,000 mark by 2005, plummeting to 15,372 by 2014.
"What we're seeing is some right-sizing going on," said David Graham, executive director of the Golf Association of Michigan.
The golf foundation did not respond to messages seeking comment last week.
Real estate boom
Helping to inflate Michigan's golf course bubble were some real estate developers, who saw a new course as de rigueur in every new upscale development.
"They were doing it because they were looking at golf as an amenity to sell real estate... but not all of the people who were buying homes played golf," said Frisch, the Travel Michigan promoter and owner of Fusion Media Strategies in Gaylord. "There were a lot of real estate developments with golf that went under."
New housing also has been a popular redevelopment option for struggling golf courses -- or financially stable courses whose owners accept a generous deal to sell.
The Bogie Lake Golf Club in White Lake Township, which closed in 2003, was carved into residential homes called The Hills of Bogie Lake. The popular, family-owned Bald Mountain Golf Course in Orion Township closed nearly two years ago and, following local controversy and a lawsuit, the 18-hole course is to become a 338-lot Pulte Homes development called Bald Mountain. The Prieskorn family that sold the course did not return a message seeking comment.
"Lots of golfers who come through here grew up playing that course when they were kids," recalled Dave Garman, who works in sales at Carl's Golfland in Bloomfield Hills. "The greens were always very fair -- very playable -- it was affordable golf and it was a walkable golf course."
"Bald Mountain wasn't ever going to be in the class of any of the country clubs or Oakland Hills," he added, "but paying $25 for a round of golf is tough to pull off at Oakland Hills."
In Royal Oak, the city-owned Normandy Oaks Golf Course closed in 2014 after several years of losing money. The course dated to the early 1970s when it opened as an overflow course for another nearby municipal club. The city recently sold 10 acres of Normandy Oaks for $3.85 million to Robertson Brothers Homes, which plans to build a 125-lot house and townhouse development for middle-class families.
The 54-hole Maple Lane Golf Club in Sterling Heights, known for its tightly-packed fairways and owned since the 1920s by the Roehl family, sold last year to Moceri Cos. homebuilders. Firm partner Dominic Moceri said last week that they plan to reduce the club to 27 holes within the next two to four years and build a residential golf course community.
The number of houses in the future community has yet to be decided, he said. Meanwhile, the firm is putting about $500,000 into course and clubhouse improvements at Maple Lane.
"We're going to put the Moceri brand and quality behind it," Dominic Moceri said of the planned development.
Golf courses make nice cemeteries
Recent losses include the 18-hole Rogell Golf Course in northwest Detroit, which closed in 2013 after 99 years of operation. The public course, named for the late Detroit Tigers player and longtime City Councilman Billy Rogell, was owned by the City of Detroit until 2004, when it sold for $2 million to Greater Grace Temple.
The church continued operating the course until it was no longer economically feasible, said Martin Hardy, chief of staff at the Temple. The church had a deal to sell the course to a cemetery company, but it fell through after the city, amid neighbors' protests, denied the necessary zoning permit.
Now the church is in negotiations with another potential buyer for the golf course. Hardy couldn't say what the would-be buyer wants to do with the land, but he said it would not involve a cemetery.
"The Rogell Golf Course was a very popular course at one time in history, and a very challenging course," Hardy said. "But what happened with us is what's happening all over. The golf course business is not what it used to be and our primary business is not running a golf course."
On the western side of the state, the 27-hole River Bend Golf Course near Hastings closed in 2012 and was bought and turned back into farmland by the same family who originally built it 50 years ago. The course's last owner, Denny Storrs, said the course was still financially viable, but he had just turned 65 and was open to retiring when he received the farmer's attractive offer for the 185-acre property.
Storrs said the course had been getting less play in recent years and was suffering from an overproliferation of golf courses. His playing fees were $25 for 18 holes and every formerly private course around him has since become a public course.
"There are so many golf courses in this area that when the economy got tough, the private courses started letting people on and the higher-end public courses then had to lower their fees," he said last week. "So it pinched everybody."
"There is another 18-hole golf course right here in town less than a mile from us, so they were able to absorb our membership and it made them stronger," Storrs said.
Buy Photo The closed Sunnybrook golf course in Sterling Heights is photographed on April 7, 2016 (Photo: JC Reindl, Detroit Free Press)
Do millennials even like golf?
The last owner of Sunnybrook Golf and Bowling along an industrial corridor in Sterling Heights made a similar decision.
Randy Shank said his 27-hole course and its attached 58-lane bowling center and 60-room motel was still in good financial shape when it closed last fall. Business had improved from its recessionary lows.
But he received a buyout offer he couldn't refuse, he said, given the precarious long-term outlook for golf. Sunnybrook is now being redeveloped for manufacturing uses.
Shank said he was growing nervous because potential players in their 20s and early 30s -- dubbed millennials -- don't seem to be taking up golf like earlier generations. They also seem less excited about the time investment for 18-hole outings and league play.
Ultimate Michigan bucket list: 2 Michigan golf courses you have to play
He recalled his recent visit to a high-end driving range in Las Vegas aimed at younger people that presents golf more as a social activity than a sport. That type of setup might be the future, he said.
"Our golf leagues were 18 weeks and they have a hard time committing to 18 weeks," said Shank, who said he thinks six-week leagues might appeal better to millennials.
Commerce Township charts new course
The El Dorado Country Club and Links at Pinewood in Commerce Township both closed around 2007. They were purchased by the township's Downtown Development Authority, which cut a new roadway and spearheaded ongoing commercial and residential projects for the golf course lands, including a new Wal-Mart.
Buy Photo Housing construction taking place on the former Links at Pinewood golf course in Commerce Township on April 7, 2016. (Photo: JC Reindl, Detroit Free Press)
The Links at Pinewood was a newer course and the more popular of the two, and it was said to be in decent financial shape when the development authority bought it.
"It was one of the Up North-feel type courses with the tall pines that you just don't find in this area," recalled Dan Shaw, a manager at Oak Management, which ran both Links of Pinewood and the El Dorado.
Buy Photo The yardage markers for the former Links at Pinewood golf course in Commerce Township. The markers are outside the township hall, which used to be the golf course clubhouse. Photographed on April 7, 2016. (Photo: JC Reindl, Detroit Free Press)
Commerce Township has since repurposed Links of Pinewood's clubhouse and made it the township hall. The old hole yardage markers are now lined up outside the hall like gravestones.
In a similar manner, the old El Dorado clubhouse, bar and banquet hall is now the Commerce Township Community Library. The only surviving mementos of that building's previous life are golf cart trails and two golf balls embedded in concrete around a back entrance.
Hawks and alligators
While the courses are gone, many golfers retain fond memories.
"Losing one of these courses is like closing a family member," said John Collier, 72, of Farmington Hills, who used to play several of metro Detroit's now-closed courses.
He will never forget the time at Detroit's Rogell Golf Course when a hawk swooped down from a tree and nabbed his ball on the 10th hole. The hawk carried the ball up to the tree, eventually dropping it closer to the hole. Collier accepted his good fortune and played on.
"I've seen all kinds of things like alligators on the greens in Florida, monkeys on the greens in the Caribbean, but this was the first time that happened to me," said Collier, a former Free Press photographer.
It can be tempting for golf courses facing financial pressures to try and save money on maintenance and renovations. But such decisions can exacerbate their problems, said Hearn, the course designer.
"They're just doing nothing and they're slowly decreasing their maintenance budget each year, and that is the worst thing to do," he said. "Finally the patrons start noticing, and it's like a slow death march until they go out of business or sell at a very reduced rate."
A new innovation?
Even as more courses close across the state, this summer will see the opening of a rare, all-new golf course in Michigan. But it will be a course like no other.
The Forest Dunes Golf Club outside Roscommon is preparing to debut North America's only 18-hole, fully-reversible golf course on June 27. The course, designed by Tom Doak of Traverse City, is named The Loop and can be played clockwise one day and counterclockwise the next. It will be Forest Dunes' second 18-hole public course.
"We are not just building a golf course. We are building the world's only reversible golf course," said Lew Thompson, an Arkansas trucking magnate who bought the Forest Dunes club in 2011. "Just building a regular golf course right now would probably not be a good idea in Michigan or any other state."
Buy Photo Golf course map (Photo: Detroit Free Press)
Contact JC Reindl: 313-222-6631 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JCReindl.
Total number of golf courses in U.S.
1990: 12,846
1995: 14,074
2000: 15,487
2005: 16,052
2010: 15,890
2014: 15,372
Source: National Golf Foundation
Top 5 states with most golf courses (public and private)
1. Florida
2. California
3. New York
4. Michigan
5. Texas
Source: National Golf Foundation
Top 5 states with most public golf courses at end of 2015
1. Michigan (660)
2. Florida (640)
3. California (625)
4. New York (577)
5. Texas (553)
Source: National Golf Foundation
Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/1S4kSkkA senior Israeli diplomatic source revealed on Monday that if Jonathan Pollard is released in November as has been reported, he won't be allowed to come to Israel for fear he will receive a hero's welcome.
"The Americans are very worried of a situation in which Pollard will be received as a hero in Israel, and therefore they likely will prevent Pollard from leaving American territory," the source told Yedioth Aharonoth.
US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Saturday that she won't interfere in the possible release of Pollard, and denied that the move was timed to assuage Israeli concerns over the Iran nuclear deal.
Pollard has been jailed for 30 years - half of his life - after using his role as a US naval intelligence officer to pass intelligence to Israel about regional security threats to the Jewish state. He was handed a life-sentence, unlike spies from other allied or even enemy nations that got off with a tiny fraction of his sentence.
He is up for parole in November after 30 years as part of the legal structure of his imprisonment, and Israeli politicians, such as Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home), have said the potential release is unrelated to the Iran deal. And yet, a previous parole hearing was held in July 2014 and rejected on the basis of a now declassified document, that critics say included largely trumped up charges against Pollard.
Lynch echoed Shaked's statement.
"It would have been extremely far-thinking of people 30 years ago to sentence Mr. Pollard and set this mandatory release date to coincide with the Iran deal. And if they were able to pull that off I would be quite impressed."
Explaining the latest parole hearing in November, she said, "our sentencing structure has changed in the late '80's and early '90's to where now a life sentence is in fact a life sentence. But under the law in which he was sentenced and the laws of our country which we abide it's not really a recommendation needed from us."
US Intelligence Director James Clapper spoke about the potential release last Friday, and indicated ongoing hostility against Pollard.
"I think that within the (intelligence) community he's viewed very negatively. Even though a lot of the people who were around when all of this happened have left the community. But there's still I think an institutional memory of it and it's quite negative," said Clapper.
The "negative" feeling towards Pollard was most controversially expressed by US Vice President Joe Biden, who in late 2011 said Pollard would only be released "over my dead body."So we saw over the last two weeks that Cet mac Mágach is a pretty badass fella. So let’s see how he dies. Also this gives me the chance to add to the list of death tales. One day I’ll do them all!
Once upon a time Cet mac Mágach traveled into Ulster in order to slay an Ulsterman. Best place for him to go, really. This was because Cet was a very unimaginative man and he never had a day, since his childhood, when he wouldn’t try and kill an Ulsterman. I suppose you have to have a hobby. After a fine old time in Ulster he turned his chariot westwards, the three clumps of nine heads banging on the side of his chariot as he went. The Ulstermen set Conall Cernach on his trail (you remember him as the one who killed Cet’s brother in Scéla Mucce, right? Cool.) The trail was pretty easy to follow as it was winter and the snow lay thick on the ground.
Conall and his charioteer had only driven as far as Breifne when they came upon an abandoned house, half buried in the snow. On further investigation the house turned out not to be as empty as they first assumed. The smoke from a cooking fire rising out of the top, the hobbled horses and chariot with “I AM CET MAC MAGACH” written in blood on the side should have really given it away. On seeing the Cet evidence, Conall pulled grimaced and started to get back in his chariot.
“Yeah, this is Cet. I think we’d better just go back home. He’s a real badass, you know. Savage and fierce.”
“Seriously?” replied his charioteer. “We’ve come all this way to find Cet and now that we’ve got him, you’re just going to go home? One, he’s an enemy of Ulster so you should get all up in his business. Two, even if he does beat you, there’s no shame in dying by his hand. As you said he’s a badass.”
“Look, you know my policy, unnamed charioteer. I will not die by just one man’s hand. There’s no honour in that. I tell you what I will do, if it’ll make you happy. I’ll mess these horses up a bit.”
Then Conall cut locks out of the manes of the horses and stuck them on the front of Cet’s chariot. Then he went back eastwards, his heroic duty having been fulfilled.
Cet’s charioteer came out of the house and seeing the horses slightly shorn, called out to his master. “Woe, Cet! Something’s happened, although I am not entirely sure what. But in these stories it’s usually bad.”
“There’s no need to be crying out,” said Cet. “This is a sign from Conall. It’s a good thing that he spared the horse, since now we can reconcile each other and strike up a great friendship.” (I know by now you’re used to it, but there’s a lot in these tales that rests on assertions or knowledge of customs and semiotics that seem a bit obscure now. As always the advice is ‘just go with it’.)
“This is no good, Cet. You can’t be friends with a man who has so consistently made a laughing stock out of the men of Connacht. It just won’t do. You’ll have to take the fight to him. Do him in for messing about with your horses.”
So they set off after Conall and caught up with him at Cet’s Ford (Wonder how it got that name?).
“Now I’ve found you, Conall,” said Cet. “You won’t escape alive from this day.”
“Funny,” said Conall, “I was going to say the same thing to you.”
The two heroes met in the ford – classic location for a show-down in medieval Ireland. The clash of their swords, the striking of their spears on the shields, the whinnying of the horses and the encouraging shouts of the charioteers filled the land for miles around. Some people in the region went deaf. Eventually the two heroes parted and collapsed on either side of the ford. Cet was dead before he hit the ground but Conall was only mortally wounded.
He cried out to his charioteer, as he lay bleeding on the side of the river. Conall asked that he be taken back to Ulster before the men of Connacht could find him in such a state. The hero was so big though, that his charioteer could not lift from where he lay, his feet trailing in the river.
“This is a disaster,” said Conall. “That I should be killed by a man in single combat. How many times have I said that I will not let just one man have the honour of killing me? I would rather someone comes to finish me off now, than to have the kingship of the whole world.”
His charioteer thought that this last was a bit melodramatic but he did not have a chance to say anything before Bélchú of Breifne chanced upon the dying hero. Surveying the tragic scene he said “This is Cet and this is Conall, dead in the ford. The whole of Ireland will rejoice now that these two nightmares are dead. Good riddance to a pair of ruinous psychopaths.” As he was saying this he rested the butt of his spear on what he thought was the corpse of Conall.
“Get that bloody spear off me, you oaf,” said Conall as he knocked the offending implement away. “I’m not dead yet.”
“You’re alive?”
“No thanks to you.”
“Oh I see. You want me to finish you off so that you can maintain your stupid promise not to be killed by one man alone. Well, I’ll not do it. You’re already dead as it is. Your body just doesn’t know it yet.”
“You’re such an old woman, Bélchú. You wouldn’t dare cut my cloak.”
“Alright, Conall great hero of Ulster,” Bélchú kneeled down next to the body. “I’ll not kill you now, but here’s what I will do: I’ll take you back to my house and heal you up. When you’re whole again, then I’ll fight and kill you.” So saying Bélchú took Conall on his back and started for his house. Conall was so large, however, that his legs were dragging along the ground all the way.
The doctors came and patched Conall up. After they had left, promising that the Ulster warrior would be right as rain in no time, Bélchú started having second thoughts. When Conall returned to full strength, could he really take him in single combat? So he devised a ruse – and we all know how well ruses tend to go. He gathered his sons around him and told them of his plan “We need to do away with Conall before he fully heals. Tomorrow night I will leave the house open. You all should sneak in and kill Conall in his bed.”
With this piece of expert cunning put in motion, the sons went away. On the next night Bélchú got up to open the house.
“Where are you going, Bélchú?” asked Conall from the bed. “You’ve been such a good host I wouldn’t want you sleeping outside on my behalf. Come and share this bed with me.”
Bélchú knew the rules of hospitality as well as anyone and so could not refuse his guest. He closed up the house and thought how he would spring his plan the next day. After Bélchú had fallen asleep, Conall himself got up. He opened up the house and hid himself in a corner. As the night wore on the sons of Bélchú came in the open house and stabbed the man sleeping in Conall’s bed. Little did they know that they had killed their own father. Luckily they were not left with much chance to mourn as Conall sprung on them from the shadows, hacking at their heads until the walls of the house were covered with their blood. Conall eventually returned to Ulster in triumph, carrying their four heads with him.
Another classic mix of comedy and death. Plans often go awry and sometimes the reasons given for heroes’ actions are hard to determine. As with all death tales there is much more than the advertised death. Indeed this raises a question about titling tales: is this really the death tale of Cet or is it rather another triumphant episode in the life of Conall?
As ever why not look at some Irish or a more literal translation.
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also been on record as refusing to support his own party.
Even after Donald Trump essentially won the GOP nomination for president, for instance, Jeb petulantly insisted that he would never vote for Trump. And at the end of September, Jeb reiterated his refusal to support the party by insisting that Republicans should stay home in November because, in his estimation, not voting would make a “powerful political statement.”
Jeb’s super rich, establishment donors have followed their preferred candidate’s lead, too. One Bush donor pledged to donate a whopping $2 million to Hillary’s Latino outreach program to help her get elected in November.
Still another Bush has also been reticent to support the party’s nominee. Texas Land Commissioner and Texas GOP Victory Chair George P. Bush, Jeb’s son, initially said he would never vote for Donald Trump. But only a few months later it appears he softened his stance by saying it is important to stop Hillary so Republicans should “swallow a bitter pill” and vote Trump.
But not everyone in the Bush family orbit have turned against the Republican Party. Recently no less than 50 Bush appointees came out with a bold and forceful endorsement of Donald Trump.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at [email protected] has hired former NBC News and CNN anchor Campbell Brown as the head of its news partnership team, as it steps up its efforts to combat the hysteria over “fake news.”
“This month I will be joining Facebook to lead its News Partnerships team. This is a different role for me, but one where I will be tapping my newsroom experience to help news organizations and journalists work more closely and more effectively with Facebook,” Brown wrote on her Facebook page.
“I will be working directly with our partners to help them understand how Facebook can expand the reach of their journalism, and contribute value to their businesses. That also means making sure there is ongoing feedback from publishers as Facebook develops new products and tools for news organizations,” she continued.
Brown has been involved in a number of causes since leaving CNN in 2010, primarily in education reform. In 2014, she founded the non-profit organization Partnership for Educational Justice, which is generally critical of the actions of teachers unions. She also serves on the board of the International Women’s Media Foundation, which promotes the role of women in the media.
She is also married to Dan Senor, who advised Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. However, the pair were both involved in the anti-Trump movement.
When Facebook advertised for the role, the company said were looking for an “experienced news executive [who] will be a public-facing voice of Facebook and its role in the news ecosystem.”
As head of Facebook’s news partnership team, Brown will oversee the forging of Facebook’s partnerships from preferred media organisations, whose news coverage will consequently be promoted by the site.
Brown will also manage Facebook’s efforts to combat “fake news,” as the company prepares to fact check news stories with the aid of partisan fact checkers such as ABC News, Politifact, and Snopes. If a story is deemed to be fake, Facebook will consequently mark it with a red flag to warn users the source might not be credible.
You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at [email protected] of “Of Mice and Men”, the 1937 novella by John Steinbeck, will recall the character of Lennie Small, an oafish, dim-witted man whose physical strength is ill matched to his love of rabbits. On November 29th, in a remarkable example of law imitating art, a hearing at the Supreme Court will put Lennie back in the spotlight. The question is whether the fictional man’s intellectual profile should help determine the fate of Bobby Moore, a real-life Texan awaiting execution.
Mr Moore, a man of limited intellectual capacity, was sentenced to death in 1980 after killing a grocery store clerk during a bungled burglary in Houston, Texas. Aged twenty at the time, Mr Moore had not enjoyed a happy or productive childhood. He failed first grade—twice—and was promoted to second grade only to “keep him with children of a similar age”. Subsequent years remained a struggle. Mr Moore, unable to keep up with the lessons, was often relegated to drawing pictures while other students were doing classwork. He endured taunts of “stupid” from classmates, teachers and his own father. In fifth grade, a racially charged incident on a school bus left Mr Moore with gashes in his face and head that may have caused brain damage and exacerbated his deficits. He failed every subject in ninth grade and dropped out of high school. Disgusted, Mr Moore’s father sent the teenager packing, telling him to leave the house for good.
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In the wake of Atkins v Virginia, a Supreme Court ruling from 2002, Mr Moore’s lawyers challenged his death sentence. In Atkins, the justices had determined, by a 6-3 vote, that executing “mentally retarded” individuals amounts to “the needless imposition of pain and suffering” in violation of the 8th Amendment bar on “cruel and unusual punishments”. In 2014, Mr Moore was removed from death row after a judge concluded, based on expert testimony, that his mental impairment qualified him for exemption under Atkins. But a panel of judges at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed that ruling a year later. In consulting the “definition of intellectual disability presently used by the AAIDD [American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities]”, Judge Cheryl Johnson wrote, the trial court had mistakenly used a newfangled standard.
Since Atkins leaves it up to the states to decide who counts as intellectually disabled, Ms Johnson noted, and since the Texas legislature had not weighed in, the rule in the Lone Star state should be traced back to a 1992 standard the court had relied upon in Ex Parte Briseño, a 2004 ruling. According to this definition, which the court suggested was based upon the character in Mr Steinbeck’s novel, neither a low IQ nor a deficit in “adaptive behaviour” qualifies an individual as intellectually disabled unless the latter is directly traceable to the former. “Most Texas citizens might agree that Steinbeck's Lennie should, by virtue of his lack of reasoning ability and adaptive skills, be exempt”, Judge Cathy Cochran wrote. But lawbreakers who are less impaired than the fictional farmhand, she suggested, should not be released from "an otherwise constitutional penalty".
In Ms Johnson's estimation, Mr Moore showed plenty of signs of basic intelligence. He “took it upon himself to earn money from the neighbours and then used the money to buy food” for his siblings, she noted. In committing his crime, he showed the ability to “hide facts” and “lie effectively in his own interest”. And he “doggedly pursued his desire to obtain new appellate counsel” after his conviction in 1980. So despite his IQ scores hovering in the low 70s, Ms Johnson concluded, Mr Moore does not meet the Texas standard for intellectual disability. He is “a person capable of functioning adequately in his everyday world with intellectual understanding and moral appreciation of his behaviour”.
This assured assessment of Mr Moore’s ability to carry out basic life functions is starkly at odds with the professional judgment of a psychologist who reviewed his file. And the judge’s casual observations about Mr Moore bear little relationship to updated, unanimously agreed upon standards of intellectual disability. In an amicus brief, the American Psychological Association (APA) identifies several problems with Texas’s regime. First, Ms Johnson “refus[ed] to recognise...diagnostic advances” in clinical standards since 1992, turning a blind eye to more recent diagnostic manuals with updated definitions. Second, the Texas criminal court ignored the Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Hall v Florida, which eliminated Florida’s IQ score cutoff of 70; Mr Moore’s IQ score “between 69 and 79” is, by itself, “sufficient...to diagnose significant limitations in intellectual functioning”. And Ms Johnson's armchair observations about Mr Moore’s capacities, the APA argued, are “unsupported by any scientific or medical evidence and inconsistent with the...standards used by mental health professionals”. In short, behavioural deficits and compromised intelligence—not complete incompetence—are the hallmarks of people with intellectual disabilities.
In a shifting political climate where respect for scientific consensus is no longer a sure bet, Texas maintains that it can choose from a range of standards for intellectual disability, including one drawn from the pages of a novel. Next week, the Supreme Court will probe whether the state is justified in putting people to death based on ideas that are disavowed by mental health professionals—and used nowhere else in America.New York, NY, May 22, 2017 … Right-wing extremists have been responsible for plotting at least 150 acts of terror in the United States over the past 25 years, according to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). These attacks and attempted attacks, many of them deadly, illustrate the consistent and serious threat that right-wing extremists pose to all Americans.
The report, from ADL’s Center on Extremism, serves as a potent and timely reminder that recent events like the white supremacist who travelled to New York City with the alleged intent of engaging in a spree of attacks against African-Americans are not isolated or rare examples of right-wing violence. Rather they are the latest in a long string of terror incidents connected to right-wing extremists. Right wing terror attacks or plots have taken place every year in the past quarter century.
“As we look at the spectrum of hate in America today, it is clear right-wing extremists have become much more visible and quite emboldened," said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO. “This consistent threat requires consistent resources so we can reduce domestic terrorism through countering violent extremist (CVE) efforts. Our work combating these dangerous extremists is far from over.”
A Dark & Constant Rage: 25 Years of Right-Wing Terrorism in the United States analyzes 150 terrorist acts committed, attempted, or plotted by right-wing extremists. More than 800 people were killed or injured in these attacks, which surged during the mid-to-late 1990s and again starting in 2009. The report reveals that white supremacists (64 incidents) and anti-government extremists such as militia groups and sovereign citizens (63 incidents) were responsible for the vast majority of the terror episodes.
Right-wing extremists choose many targets for their anger, most frequently homing in on government, law enforcement, racial and religious marks.
“Both white supremacists and anti-government extremists oppose the government and they are also both hostile to law enforcement,” said Mark Pitcavage, Senior Research Fellow at ADL’s Center on Extremism. “The most common religious targets are Jews and Muslims, while the most common racial targets were African-Americans, including multi-racial targets. But right-wing extremists have also targeted infrastructure, businesses—even crowded public areas. They have a lot of hate to go around.”
In addition to the terror incidents listed in the report, right-wing extremists also regularly commit other acts of violence, from assaults to murders. ADL’s research has found that from 2007 to 2016, a range of domestic extremists of all kinds were responsible for the deaths of at least 372 people across the country. Seventy-four percent of these murders came at the hands of right-wing extremists such as white supremacists, sovereign citizens and militia adherents.
ADL’s Center on Extremism fights extremism, terrorism and all forms of hate in the real world and cyberspace with unmatched capabilities in research, analysis, investigation, and online monitoring. Recognized as the foremost authority on extremism, the Center provides resources, expertise and training which enables law enforcement, public officials, community leaders and internet and technology companies to identify and counter emerging threats.Stroke remains the second most common cause of death and the third most common cause of disability worldwide. Approximately 80 % of strokes are attributable to the occlusion of a blood vessel (ischemic stroke), whilst the rest is mainly associated with vessel rupture (hemorrhagic stroke) [3]. When a blood vessel that irrigates the brain tissue is occluded, ischemic brain damage is triggered by excessive release of the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate as a result of energy failure and ion gradient collapse, resulting in a reversal of glutamate uptake via glutamate transporters. Excessive glutamate-evoked Ca2+ entry via NMDA receptors further promotes cell death by triggering an excitotoxic cascade that involves the activation of Ca2+-dependent enzymes, the disruption of mitochondrial function, and cell necrosis or apoptosis. Ischemic brain injury is exacerbated by a robust inflammatory response that involves a local reaction, as well as an influx of blood-borne cells with production of inflammatory mediators, including cytokines, chemokines, proteases, reactive oxygen species, and vascular adhesion molecules (reviewed in [4]). For the acute phase of ischemic stroke, the only pharmacological treatment is the recanalization of the occluded vessel with thrombolytic therapy with tissue plasminogen activator. However, owing to its narrow time window, < 5 % of stroke patients receive this treatment. Although the use of mechanic thrombectomy is helping to expand this window, it is still imperative to pursue the search of new therapeutic targets amenable to pharmacological manipulation for stroke patients [5]. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is another important focal form of acquired brain injury that occurs when a sudden trauma damages the brain. It is usually caused either by closed or by open, penetrating head injury, and is often the result of car accidents, firearms or falls [6]. Since its pathophysiology shares many of its mechanisms with stroke, we will address these 2 pathologies together. Both pathological conditions should be completed with the study of spinal injury, but owing to space constraints, we will not address the effects of cannabinoids in spinal injury here.
Cannabinoids have been proposed as promising neuroprotective agents for the treatment of stroke and TBI [7]. This possibility has been predominantly investigated in experimental models of both disorders in laboratory animals, although some of the studies supporting this promise have been conducted with the cannabinoid administered before the cytotoxic insults, a fact that is not possible to reproduce in the case of humans, so the results of these specific studies should be taken with the necessary caution. For stroke, most common models are those caused by middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) in rats or mice, either permanent (pMCAO) or followed by reperfusion [transient MCAO (tMCAO)], as well as in vitro models of oxygen/glucose deprivation. In the case of TBI, damage is most commonly caused either by closed (concussion) or open head injury (stab wound). The cannabinoids having beneficial effects in these models included 1) dexanabinol (HU-211) [8, 9, 10, 11], which is a synthetic compound having a chemical structure of a classic cannabinoid but no activity at cannabinoid receptors; 2) nonselective synthetic cannabinoid agonists such as HU-210, the active enantiomer of HU-211 [12], WIN 55,212-2 [13, 14], TAK-937 [15, 16], and BAY 38-7271 [17, 18]; 3) phytocannabinoids such as Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC) [19], which binds not only CB 1 R and CB 2 R, but also cannabidiol (CBD), which has no affinity at these receptors but was highly active against brain ischemia [20, 21, 22]; 4) endocannabinoids such as 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG), in particular in TBI induced by closed head injury [23, 24, 25], but also in experimental ischemia [26], and also anandamide [27] and its related signaling lipids palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) [28], oleoylethanolamide [27], and N-arachidonoyl-L-serine (AraS) [29]; and 5) selective CB 2 R targeting ligands such as O-3853, O-1966, and JWH-133 [30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35]. Most of these studies were conducted with the cannabinoid administered at least after the cytotoxic insult [12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35]. In most cases, the benefits obtained with these cannabinoid-related compounds (e.g., improved neurological performance, reduced infarct size, edema, BBB disruption, inflammation and gliosis, and control of immunomodulatory responses) involved the activation of CB 1 R (e.g., HU-210 [12], WIN55,212-2 [13, 14], TAK-937 [15, 16], BAY 38-7271 [17, 18], Δ9-THC [19], and PEA [36]) and/or CB 2 R (e.g., AraS [29], O-3853, O-1966, and JWH-133 [30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35]). Similar findings derive from experiments using mice with a genetic deficiency in CB 1 R or, to a lesser extent, CB 2 R. For example, CB 1 –/– mice showed increased infarct size and neurological deficits after tMCAO, concomitant with a reduction in cerebral blood flow and NMDA excitotoxicity [37], and a similar greater vulnerability was also found in TBI models [24], then supporting the protective role of CB 1 R against both pathological conditions. In the case of CB 2 –/– mice, results were controversial, with a study reporting larger cerebral infarction and a worsened neurological function after tMCAO [30], but others describing no differences using permanent MCAO [32, 33], despite the notable effects found in pharmacological experiments with compounds selectively activating the CB 2 R [30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35]. These types of agonists are particularly interesting for a possible therapeutic application in stroke and TBI because of the lack of psychoactivity of their selective agonists. In addition, their strong anti-inflammatory profile appears to be one of the most consistent mechanisms leading to reduction of the lesion, by actions affecting resident, vascular, and peripheral cells. It is also important to remark that the benefits of certain cannabinoids in acute stroke and TBI also involve effects on other pharmacological targets, such as the blockade of NMDA receptors (e.g., HU-211 [8, 9, 10, 11]), the activation of 5-HT 1A receptors (e.g., CBD [20, 21, 22]), and the activation of transient receptor potential vanilloid-type 1 receptors (e.g., PEA [36] and AraS) [29]). It is also possible that part of these beneficial effects may be related to the hypothermic effects of cannabinoids, but it is well known that such effects are CB 1 R-mediated [12, 38, 39]. Lastly and apart from the acute phase, both stroke and TBI have in common a chronic phase characterized by severe functional sequelae. This late phase offers, at least theoretically, a broader window for promoting repair and decreasing disability, in which there might be some room for cannabinoids based on their capability to induce proliferation of neural progenitors cells [40, 41], their differentiation and migration at lesioned sites (Moro et al., unpublished results), or the differentiation of oligodendrocyte precursor cells to produce remyelination [42]—all these possibilities have already been investigated in experimental brain ischemia.
The neuroprotective and neurorepair effects of cannabinoids in stroke and TBI may be facilitated by the responses experienced by endocannabinoids and their receptors and enzymes during the progression of both pathological conditions. This may be the case, for example, of the transient accumulation of 2-AG at the site of injury in experimental TBI [23]. By contrast, in the neonatal rat brain, the exposure to concussive head trauma induced a moderate increase in the levels of anandamide and other N-acylethanolamines, but not of 2-AG and other 2-monoacylglycerols [43, 44]. Further studies demonstrated that these elevations are endogenous responses addressed to limit brain damage, as the inhibition of 2-AG and anandamide hydrolysis reduced brain damage and improved functional deficits in parallel to a reduction of proinflammatory responses in the mouse brain after TBI [45, 46]. Similar elevations of anandamide, 2-AG, and N-acylethanolamines have been detected in experimental cerebral ischemia [47, 48, 49, 50]. As far as the cannabinoid receptors are concerned, most studies showed an upregulated expression of both CB 1 R and, in particular, CB 2 R in stroke, with neurons (for CB 1 R) and microglial/macrophages, astrocytes, and neutrophils (for CB 2 R) being the most common cellular substrates for these responses [33, 51, 52, 53, 54]. However, some studies described downregulatory responses of both receptors at very early times after induction of ischemia [33, 55]. Upregulation of CB 2 R with no changes in CB 1 R have been found in TBI [56].There was a Russian spy in the FBI for 15 years, and even he warned of election tampering Starting in the Reagan Administration, Robert Hanssen was a mole Allen McDuffee Blocked Unblock Follow Following May 26, 2017
Robert Hanssen spied for the Russians for over twenty years. (FBI/Wikimedia)
On February 18, 2001, after Robert Hanssen returned his visiting friend to the airport, he drove back toward home in Vienna, Virginia and stopped at Foxstone Park. He stuck a piece of white medical tape on the sign outside the entrance of the park. Hanssen then walked through the cold park to a wooden footbridge and placed a sealed black garbage bag in a secret spot near the base of the bridge. In a matter of moments, Hanssen briskly, but inconspicuously, darted back to his car. But before he could reach it, he was swarmed by a team of FBI officers who were pointing guns in his face and yelling, “Freeze!” As the FBI agents clapped handcuffs on Hanssen, he had only one question: “What took you so long?” So long, indeed. Hanssen had already been caught spying once for the Soviet Union, just three years after he joined the FBI in 1976. But it wasn’t the intelligence community that caught him. It was his wife, Bonnie, who discovered that he was dealing with the Russians after finding him scurrying to cover up some documents in the basement of their home. When she pressed Hanssen, he told her that “he was just tricking the Russians and feeding them false information,” she later told The New York Times. “He never said he was spying. I told him I thought it was insane.” But Hanssen, who had recently been assigned to the counterintelligence unit to focus on Soviet activity, was not tricking the Russians. He was a Russian spy and had been working for Soviet military intelligence since 1979. In that short time, he had already sealed the fate of Gen. Dmitri Polyakov, one of the most important agents to the United States, who had been spying for the American intelligence community since the early 1960s. Soon after Hanssen informed the Russians, Polyakov was forced into retirement and later executed. As a conservative Roman Catholic, Bonnie Hanssen demanded they see a priest to discuss Robert’s activity. Robert P. Bucciarelli, a priest affiliated with Opus Dei, a conservative Catholic organization they had joined several years earlier, called on Hanssen to donate the money from the Soviets to charity, vow not to spy again, and confess his sins and ask God for forgiveness. Do these things and and the Hanssens would have Bucciarelli’s blessing to not report the matter to the FBI. Although Hanssen had spent most of the $30,000 he received from the Soviets by that point, he began making small payments to a charity affiliated with Mother Teresa’s Catholic charity. The debt Hanssen was repaying nearly bankrupted the family of eight, but he assured Bonnie that he was making good on the plan.
Hanssen’s drop site in Foxstone Park near Vienna, Virginia. (FBI)
On October 4, 1985, Hanssen sent a letter addressed to a KGB officer in Washington, DC. Inside was another one marked “Do not open. Take this envelope unopened to Viktor I. Cherkashin.” Cherkashin, Moscow’s chief counterspy at the Soviet embassy, was a KGB colonel adept at handling double agents. Inside that second envelope was an anonymous offer to send a trove of classified papers to the KGB in exchange for $100,000. It also proposed a plan to keep selling similar secrets. “They are from certain of the most sensitive and highly compartmented projects of the U.S. intelligence community,” wrote the sender, who identified himself as “B.” “All are originals to aid in verifying their authenticity.” “B” also named three KGB officers who had been recruited by the U.S. Soon after, the three officers were recalled to Moscow where two were executed and one placed in a labor camp. That initial communication sparked sporadic exchanges of information and cash between Hanssen and the KGB that lasted until December 1991. Hanssen was particular about how he should be addressed and how he would conduct his business. He used other aliases, such as Ramon Garcia and Jim Baker, but his handlers were instructed to only address him as “Dear Friend.” When Moscow contacts suggested different drop sites or to meet Soviet agents face-to-face, he declined. “I am much safer if you know little about me,” he wrote in 1988. “Neither of us are children about these things. Over time, I can cut your losses rather than become one.” By 1991, Hanssen began to feel he could become one of those losses and cut ties with his Moscow contacts, making his double agent persona dormant for eight years. In 1999, he made contact once again, but different power dynamics with new players were in place after the fall of the Soviet Union — a condition Hanssen had not properly navigated. A disgruntled Russian intelligence operative provided the FBI with a fingerprint Hanssen left on one of his dead drop black garbage bags, as well as a tape recording from one of his rare phone calls with a Russian agent. The FBI also obtained the complete original dossier the KGB had on Hanssen. In 2000, the FBI began a full surveillance operation against Hanssen. Part of the scheme was to give him an obscure assignment with a small team who knew it was a mole hunt. Counterintuitively, that meant giving Hanssen access to more classified and top secret information to see if that would cause him to slip up.
FBI agents outside Robert Hanssen’s home in Virginia, Feb. 20, 2001. (AP Photo/Doug Mills)Image caption Aseel Muthana (left) and older brother Nasser (right) are believed to be in Syria
Imams from around the UK have called on young British Muslims to stay away from the civil war in Syria.
The nationwide campaign is instead encouraging giving to Syria through legitimate charities.
The message is going out ahead of Ramadan, which begins this weekend.
It comes after a video emerged showing two young Cardiff men urging others to join a jihadist fight in Syria - where tens of thousands have died in three years of war - and in Iraq.
If you want to help, please don't go out there. Don't expose yourself. Qari Asim, Makkah Mosque
The men are believed to be among 500 Britons fighting in Syria for the militant group Isis (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant).
'Violence not condoned'
The video, thought to have been filmed in Syria, features Nasser Muthana and Reyaad Khan, both 20 and from Cardiff, along with Abdul Rakib Amin, aged about 25 and from Aberdeen.
Mr Muthana's younger brother Aseel Muthana, 17, has also joined them.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption ACC Nikki Holland says police need community help to prevent radicalisation
Young men like them are being drawn to Syria by "the slaughter of innocent people" they see on the news and on the internet, according to the Muslim Council of Britain's assistant secretary.
"They dearly want to change the situation," Ibrahim Mogra, who also serves as an imam in Leicester, told the BBC.
"And sadly some of these young people are vulnerable to being hoodwinked by people who have a way with words to try to recruit them to pick up arms.
"But we want to make sure - absolutely clear to our young people - that violence is not condoned by Islam.
'Connect with prophets'
At a sermon a few streets from the brothers' home, the local imam said parents should take responsibility for their children.
Sheikh Zane Abdo from the South Wales Islamic Centre said children should be "connecting with the prophets" - not using social media like Facebook or WhatsApp.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Sheikh Zane Abdo: Parents must be responsible for their children's education
Earlier, the young men's father, Ahmed Muthana, said police in Wales had failed to win the trust of local Muslims.
But South Wales Police Assistant Chief Constable Nikki Holland told the BBC: "People realise the police can't keep a hold of everybody, but the police are doing the best job they can."
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Reyaad Khan, Nasser Muthana and Abdul Rakib Amin appear in the video
Meanwhile, at the Makkah Mosque in Leeds, Qari Asim said: "If you want to help, please don't go out there. Don't expose yourself, don't put your lives at risk and the lives of other people."
The imam urged worshippers who wanted to help their fellow Muslims in Syria over Ramadan to raise money in the UK and donate through official organisations regulated by the Charity Commission.
Image copyright Mosque handout image Image caption Mr Asim was honoured for his services to inter-faith relations in 2012
But speaking to the BBC's Asian Network in Leeds one local mother said: "I can't think of any particular person or group that would emphasise the need to go out there for fighting so I'm not worried for my son."
However she said she was concerned there were people prepared to travel to the Middle East to take up arms.
'Groomed'
Earlier this week, Mr Muthana told the BBC he was "heartbroken" by the video featuring his son, while the family of Mr Khan said he had been "brainwashed" into supporting violent extremism.
He criticised the government's anti-radicalisation Prevent strategy in Cardiff, which he said failed because it was made up of mainly white officers.
But Sir Peter Fahy - national police lead for the programme - said responsibility for young Muslims' actions lay with their parents.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Ahmed Muthana told the BBC's Hywel Griffith he blamed the authorities for not doing more
"This responsibility cannot be transferred to the police or indeed any other agency," he insisted.
"If families believe their sons or daughters have gone missing and may be abroad or thinking of going abroad, they should tell the police.
"But they should also look out for the signs at an early stage, especially when people suddenly become more interested in politics or more extremist religious ideologies or are mixing with what they see as the wrong crowd."
Mr Abdo, the local imam in Wales, has said he believed the men had been "groomed" by people they had met outside of their mosque.
"These are young men who are very sincere, they want to do something good," he said.
"But you can be sincere and you can be sincerely deluded in what you want to do, and they have been groomed to think a particular way."CLOSE File video: Yoga instructor facing sex abuse charges
Lindsey Ann Radomski (Photo: MCSO)
The attorney for a 33-year old yoga instructor accused of having oral sex with a 15-year-old boy at a Bar Mitzvah earlier this year said he believes his client was drugged while at the party.
Scottsdale police arrested Lindsey Ann Radomski in March on suspicion of 21 felonies, including sexual conduct with a minor, sexual abuse and indecent exposure after they alleged she had a sexual encounter with seven underage boys.
A grand jury recently declined to indict Radomski and the case was returned to Scottsdale police, according to Sgt. Ben Hoster, a Scottsdale police spokesman.
ROBERTS: Would yoga instructor face charges if she was a man?
MONTINI: Double standard for woman accused in child sex case?
Radomski told police she did not remember the alleged incident, according to court documents.
Jocquese Blackwell, Radomski's attorney, said Wednesday that his client could not recall what happened that night because someone at the party gave her a "date rape drug." Blackwell said he does not know who gave Radomski the drug.
Radomski disputes police accounts, Blackwell said, and she wants to speak publicly about the case but he's advised her against it.
That the investigation was returned to Scottsdale police without indictment was "not a surprise to me," Blackwell said, "not at all."
The criminal inquiry of Radomski is ongoing and Scottsdale police detectives can either follow the Maricopa County Attorney's Office's suggestions for additional investigation or take the case to Scottsdale city court, Hoster said.
If the case goes to city court, Radomski would face misdemeanor charges, Hoster said. Scottsdale police had also submitted two counts of misdemeanor indecent exposure against Radomski.
A search warrant affidavit shows detectives gathered biological samples from Radomski. As of Tuesday night, Blackwell had yet to receive word on whether the DNA analysis had been completed.
Scottsdale police alleged in court records that Radomski recently had breast augmentation surgery and exposed herself to adults and children at a Bar Mitzvah celebration attended by 80 to 100 people.
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After the other adults had left the party or had gone to sleep, police said, Radomski invited seven boys into a room and let them fondle her breasts.
All but one of the boys left the room, and investigators said Radomski performed oral sex on a 15-year-old.
The next day, when the mother of one of the boys called Radomski to confront her, police allege that Radomski recalled exposing her breasts at the party but did not remember anything that took place in the room because she had been drinking, according to court records.
Radomski later told police it was possible that she had engaged in sexual activity with the boys in the room but also said alcohol clouded her memory, according to court documents.
Jerry Cobb, a Maricopa County Attorney's Office spokesman, declined to discuss grand jury deliberations when asked for comment Tuesday, citing department policy.
Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/1M3gpd0What is Tachiyomi?
“Tachiyomi”, in Japanese language, literally means “to stand and read” or “standing and reading”. It means the act or practice of going to a bookshop and reading the magazines or books or Mangas while standing. Most of the bookstores, out of Japan, are comparatively not so much open to the idea of a customer practicing ‘Tachiyomi‘. Acceptance level for this kind of practice is much higher in Japan compared to other countries, especially more for Magazines, nowadays, than for Mangas. We generally see Mangas put under sealed plastic covers to avoid Manga geeks from reading the entire issue for free. Furthermore, we will read more on “What is Tachiyomi App?” and “How To Download Tachiyomi App?”
Have you come across this sign saying – ‘立ち読みをご遠慮ください。’? This question is for the ones who read Japanese and also visit bookstores. This sign means ‘please refrain from standing and reading’, but is very rarely spotted, and book owners don’t make a big deal a scene out of it.
I have also noticed how sales representatives, or you can say an unfriendly guy, pops out of nowhere, from between the shelves, and knocks you with a question, such as, “Would you be buying this book?” Other little decent ones ask you, “Can I help you with any book?”, which is still better than the first creepy one. Not so much the case in Japan, but only comparatively.
What is Tachiyomi App?
Tachiyomi App or Tachiyomi Android App is a ‘free and open source’ Manga reader for Android users. It is like how the name of the app is intended to be — like walking in a huge bookstore with plethora of books to read from, picking up a manga issue and reading it while still standing, with the interactions that occasionally happen with other Manga readers in the store. It is mostly known to avid Manga readers compared to newbies who are still kept busy with apps such as Manga Rock, Manga Reader, Crunchy Roll, etc.
Its online and offline reading feature lets you avoid interruptions from reading even when the internet is down. It provides you categories to organize your library, makes filtering chapter very easy, and allows multiple viewers and settings to configure the reader as per your comfort and ease. MyAnimeList Support is the golden egg for this app. The decent feature of this app is its ability to resume from the next unread chapter. Furthermore, you can go ahead and schedule searching for more and better updates of this app.
How To Download Tachiyomi App?
I have provided a step guide on “How to download Tachiyomi App on your Android devices”. Follow the instructions carefully
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and absolutely destroyed others. It had a very flat sound and some people just weren't suited to it. Some needed a really bad mic to sound good. In terms of Rick, it worked fantastically well because he had such a great and powerful voice — if you stood beside him when he sang, it sounded exactly like the records — whereas when I subsequently tried it with Holly Johnson it didn't work at all and he desperately wanted to go back to his original mic.”Comcast to buy AT&T Broadband By David Lieberman, USA TODAY NEW YORK It's over. Comcast won. After a six-month fight, AT&T directors voted unanimously late Wednesday to merge their No. 1 cable company, AT&T Broadband, with the No. 3 operator. They'll create a new giant, AT&T Comcast, that would have $19 billion in annual revenue and 22.8 million subscribers clustered in major markets, including Philadelphia, Detroit, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco. They'll run an operation with Comcast, which also controls QVC, E Entertainment Television, the Golf Channel, and some regional sports services. Read more From our archive AT&T mulls offers for broadband unit
Four firms submit AT&T Broadband buyout plans
Debt may push AT&T into sale of cable unit Tech Extras Sign up for Tech’s free e-mail newsletter
Search USA TODAY for earlier stories on this subject The stock deal values AT&T Broadband at $52 billion. In addition, AT&T Comcast will take over $20 billion in AT&T debt. It is a defining moment for the cable industry, and it promises broad impact for cable consumers. Among other things, AT&T Comcast vows to accelerate its deployment of competitive local phone services via its cable lines. The deal also virtually ensures that the remaining pieces of AT&T a company whose name used to be synonymous with phone service will be split up and sold. When the cable deal closes, CEO C. Michael Armstrong will move to AT&T Comcast, where he'll be chairman. "AT&T Broadband and Comcast can accomplish more together than we could alone," Armstrong said in a statement. But Comcast President Brian Roberts will be CEO, and effectively in charge. His family will own about a third of the voting shares. Comcast's last-minute agreement to let Armstrong chair the merged company appeared to have put its bid over the goal line Wednesday night. Comcast also accommodated AT&T by embracing phone services. Up to now, Comcast has said that it wanted to wait for new technologies using Internet standards that might enable it to offer phone service without the expense of buying circuit switches. "The size of our telephony footprint, combined with AT&T's expertise and leadership in the telephony space, will enable us to accelerate the deployment of telephone services to many new markets," Roberts said in the release. Consumer advocates are wary about the arrangement. The new company will reach 34% of all cable and satellite subscribers, higher than the Federal Communications Commission's limit of 30% (which is currently being challenge in court). "A combination of that size will have the ability to determine who makes it in programming," says Consumers Union's Gene Kimmelman. He will ask the FCC to require AT&T Comcast to sell systems to bring its reach down to 30%. AT&T's Armstrong had hoped to restore the clout of the fading long-distance giant after 1997 when he became CEO. He spent close to $100 billion buying Tele-Communications and MediaOne in the hope that these cable companies would provide a platform to build a nationwide AT&T-branded local phone service. That dream died in 1998 when other operators refused to go along with his plan. Comcast put AT&T Broadband in play in July with an unsolicited stock offer, then valued at $44.5 billion. AT&T quickly rejected it, saying that the offer which came to about $4,100 per subscriber was too low. But that bid got things rolling. Under pressure from investors, who had seen AT&T's stock price plummet 70% since March 2000, Armstrong tried to win higher offers from other companies and financial backing to keep the cable unit with AT&T. In the end, the board had merger proposals from Comcast, AOL Time Warner and Cox, and was talking to Microsoft about a possible investment. At midday Wednesday, directors were said to have soured on AOL's plan to blend its 12.7 million subscribers with AT&T's 14.4 million customers. They feared that a merger of the two biggest cable companies would not survive federal antitrust scrutiny. The Cox offer was complicated by the company's ownership of TV stations in markets where AT&T has cable systems, including Atlanta and Seattle. Federal rules prohibit a company from owning a TV station and cable system in the same community. And prospects for AT&T to keep its systems independent faded after Microsoft placed new conditions on a possible investment, estimated at about $3 billion, in the operation. It wanted AT&T to offer Microsoft's MSN Internet service on all of the company's high-speed cable lines. That's on top of an earlier requirement that AT&T use Microsoft software to operate its interactive TV decoder boxes. To keep the deal tax-free for AT&T, its investors will own more than a majority of the shares 56% of the equity and 66% of the votes. The board will have five members from AT&T, five from Comcast, and two new members picked jointly by the companies. For more than a year AT&T executives have tried to convince Wall Street that there's a compelling reason for them to hang onto their cable business. But it has been a tough sell. Although cable has a brighter future than AT&T's core long-distance business, it isn't clear how the systems fit into an overall strategy. AT&T stayed out of the programming business. So unlike AOL Time Warner, Comcast, and Cablevision Systems, it can't claim the most common synergy using the distributionlines to promote channels. Armstrong initially had a much bolder idea with his plan for the nationwide, cable-based local phone business. Lately Armstrong has said that cable is attractive enough by itself. Although the core business retransmitting TV channels is mature, he argued that the billions he spent to buy TCI and MediaOne and upgrade their systems to handle two-way communications would put AT&T Broadband into the forefront of the convergence revolution. He saw consumers willing to rush to buy lucrative new services led by digital cable, high-speed Internet connections, and phone hookups. And AT&T was well-positioned to ride the wave. Its 14.4 million subscribers are concentrated in 12 of the 25 biggest markets, including the corridor from Boston to Hartford, Conn.; the San Francisco Bay area; Chicago; Seattle; Miami; Denver; Dallas; and Atlanta. With 1 million local phone customers, AT&T has far more than any other cable company. But even investors who accepted Armstrong's long-term vision questioned how fast it would materialize and whether AT&T had the management skills to make it pay off sooner rather than later. They grew nervous as the company, which had borrowed heavily to become a cable power, struggled to pare expenses and integrate the systems. Many feared that AT&T was thinking like a phone provider instead of a cable operator. AT&T and Cox are the only cable companies that have invested heavily in the circuit-switches needed to offer phone services via cable. Most other operators are waiting for engineers to perfect the potentially less expensive technology that routes calls using Internet-like digital packets instead of switches. Meanwhile AT&T Broadband's expenses took a toll on earnings. Only about $8.47 of each subscriber's monthly payment early this year found its way into cash flow. That put AT&T far behind its peers. AOL Time Warner, Comcast and Cablevision Systems each collected more than $20 a month in cash flow, and other operators were close behind. Investors grew impatient as AT&T shares plummeted. Hoping to focus investor attention on cable's potential, and away from AT&T's long-distance woes, Armstrong made plans to offer a tracking stock for its cable business. That set the stage for Comcast's startling announcement in July that it would offer $44.5 billion in stock for AT&T Broadband. "The vision of a converged communications company really is not something that's been proven to work," says Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff. "That was Mike Armstrong's vision." Contributing: Andrew BackoverNew York state could soon have the first bitcoin exchange regulated as a bank in the U.S., Reuters reported.
The bitcoin company itBit recently filed for a banking license in New York, the state’s top banking regulator confirmed. If itBit’s application is approved, which could happen within weeks, the company would be able to expand its financial service operations.
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Bitcoin exchanges allow users to swap the digital currency. Various start-ups have been trying to bring more legitimacy to exchanges, which have come under fire after several major outlets fell victim to massive cyber thefts.
Last year, Mt. Gox — the world’s largest bitcoin exchange at the time — went bankrupt, after hackers reportedly made off with nearly half a billion dollars worth of bitcoins. The online currency has also been accused of facilitating widespread money laundering.
“Some highly publicized failures and potentially illegal activity have focused attention on virtual currencies and have highlighted the need for a sound regulatory framework for virtual currencies,” itBit chief executive Charles Cascarilla told New York’s state banking regulator in an October letter, according to Reuters.
ItBit’s exchange operates in Singapore, but the company recently moved its main headquarters to New York City.
Benjamin Lawsky, New York state's superintendent of financial services, has been a leading advocate of increasing oversight and regulation of digital currencies.
Lawsky is considering additional guidelines and oversight in 2015 that would enhance the reporting requirements and security standards for companies using bitcoin.A PRO-INDEPENDENCE rally and a Loyalist demonstration planned for the same landmark location on the same day have been banned amid police fears of clashes and disorder.
Glasgow City Council has taken the decision to deny Hope Over Fear, organised by supporters of former MSP Tommy Sheridan, permission for a rally in the city's George Square after another pro-Union group made a rival bid.
The authority said it had received advice from Police Scotland that the two events clashing could spark public order issues.
It said as a result it had declined both applications.
The Square witnessed ugly scenes on the evening of the referendum result after hundreds of Loyalists gathered, sparking disorder across the city centre.
The Herald understands the rival application had been made by a Lothians-based Loyalist who claimed 3000 people would be attending the event.
The applicant had requested a "Union Flag Day party to celebrate the first anniversary of the sovereign will of the people to remain in the United Kingdom".
The Hope Over Fear event was due to conclude at 5pm, with the other rally commencing an hour later.
However, police made clear that although there was no overlap having two events with rival standpoints created an issue and that as there would be inevitable sensitivities over granting one and not the other it was preferable for both to be declined.
Police Scotland informed the city council there would be a "significant risk or potential for disorder" if both went ahead. The decision to decline was then taken by council officers, rather than any politicians.
But in a message to supporters, Mr Sheridan has called for defiance of the ban and urged them to gather in George Square on September 19 to mark the first anniversary of the independence referendum.
Blaming the Labour administration in the city for the decision, he said: "We call on the Yes community across Scotland to converge on the square, Freedom Square, to listen to the live music, the inspiring speeches, wave our flags and show the world we are still Yes and we seek a second referendum as soon as practically possible and politically unavoidable.
"Get there by train, bus, bike or car but lets collectively defy the Labour unionists on Glasgow City Council and demand our right to rally and our right to freedom."
The Herald also understands the council would be powerless to act if Mr Sheridan's supporters did gather and that any action would have to be carried out by the police,
A previous Hope Over Fear rally in April was also refused permission to use George Square by the council, which said the bid was turned down after two separate applications were made by different parts of the group. However, it went ahead.
A council spokesman said: “Two different groups both asked to use George Square to hold separate rallies on September 19 this year.
“After taking advice from police, who raised public order concerns, we have decided to decline both requests to use George Square on this date.”
A Police Scotland spokeswoman said: "We did have some concerns about both events proceeding on the same day and made some initial observations to Glasgow City Council to that effect.
"The final decision for the event lies with Glasgow City Council."
Read: Gail's Gab: my outrage at the council refusing to allow the indy rally to go ahead in George SquareIn what is seen as a knee-jerk reaction to the violence that took place in Jammu and Kashmir over the last few days, the state government has ordered all WhatsApp groups running "news" should be registered,
"The Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir, Dr Asgar Hassan Samoon, directed the operators of social media news agencies to obtain proper permission from the concerned Deputy Commissioners for posting news on social media news groups, along with sources," said a government press release on Monday.
It is not clear how the government would differentiate "news" groups from informal WhatsApp groups. If it manages to pull this off, Mehbooba Mufti's government would be be the first in the country to issue a registration certificate to run a WhatsApp group.
The statement warned the government will act against those who do not comply. The move comes after the Handwara incident in which five people were killed in clashes with security forces over the alleged molestation of a girl.
The decision to gag media platform is not new in the Valley. In 2010, Omar Abdullah's government banned content from local cable channels for "fomenting trouble" by running "unverified" news reports.
The news on close monitoring of social media activity took the netizens by surprise, with many ridiculing the move as "curfew on social media".As I wrote on Saturday, the Obama Administration has authorized a new U.S. arms sale to the Bahraini monarchy. This comes just months after a Congressional and public outcry that led the administration to suspend a prior $53 million arms sale to Bahrain.
Members of Congress, journalists, and Amnesty International were all outraged over the last proposed arms sale. That’s because Bahraini protesters continue to be tear gassed, beaten, and even killed while exercising their human rights of free speech and association – rights that include the freedom to criticize one’s government.
Regarding this new arms sale, here are the top four questions that the Obama administration must answer immediately:
1. Why was the arms sale kept secret from the public?
Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy leaked the news of the arms sale on Friday. He also reported that U.S. arms sales under $1 million don’t have to be publicly disclosed. So the Obama administration didn’t publicly mention it. But why? At a time when the Bahraini government continues to crack down on protesters, why did the Obama administration keep the contents of this arms sale — or multiple arms sales — secret?
2. What is in the arms sale?
U.S. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said that the arms sale “includes spare parts,” arms for Bahrain’s “external defense”, and that “none of these items can be used against protesters.” But the last time the U.S. State Department said that arms were being sold to Bahrain for “external defense” – the arms package contained humvees. This came after the Bahraini government had already used tanks to surround a hospital where wounded protestors had been treated. The public needs to know what the Obama administration is selling to Bahrain. Ammunition? Replacement parts for ships? Vehicles to transport soldiers? Landing gear for cargo planes? Tanks?
3. How many secret arms sales are there?
In his above mentioned piece, Rogin implied that the Obama administration could hypothetically turn the suspended $53 million arms sale into 53 or more separate arms sales under $1 million each — and that none of them would have to be reported. Is that what is happening? How many unreported U.S. arms sales to Bahrain are happening now — or are slated to happen in the future?
4. How does this secret arms sale square with the President’s State of the Union address?
In his State of the Union address last week, President Obama referred to the “wave of change” in the Middle East. He also described what U.S. foreign policy would be: “We will stand against violence and intimidation. We will stand for the rights and dignity of all human beings –- men and women; Christians, Muslims and Jews.”
It remains to be seen what is in this latest arms sale (or sales) to Bahrain. But at a time when Bahrainis are experiencing human rights violations at home, it doesn’t look good to be handing their government additional military equipment.
Follow Sanjeev Bery on Twitter @SanjeevBery and FacebookRep. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a leading defender of government surveillance programs, reacted with outrage when he found out the FBI had listened in on conversations between the Russian ambassador and a top Trump official.
“I expect for the FBI to tell me what is going on, and they better have a good answer,” the California Republican told the Washington Post. “The big problem I see here is that you have an American citizen who had his phone calls recorded.”
Telephone conversations between Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak led to Flynn’s resignation.
The fact that communications from the Russian delegation in Washington are closely monitored should surprise no one. The FBI routinely uses the NSA’s eavesdropping techniques to monitor the delegation — for obvious intelligence and counterintelligence reasons — and as a former top intelligence official in the Obama administration, Flynn must have known that his conversation would be intercepted.
Yet after the news of Flynn’s resignation, several traditional surveillance defenders rushed to the defense of his privacy rights as an “American citizen.”
The surveillance-touting Wall Street Journal in an editorial Monday dropped its usual use of the term “intelligence professionals” to question whether “U.S. spooks” had a court order to listen to Flynn’s conversations.
What’s particularly ironic about Nunes’s comments was that he seemed to be ignoring one of the biggest gaps in U.S. surveillance law — one which he has personally defended — that allows the government to spy on millions of Americans without any sort of probable cause by targeting their communications with people overseas.
“The concept that many Americans’ communications are incidentally recorded when speaking to foreign targets is Foreign Intelligence 101,” said Jake Laperruque, senior counsel at the Constitution Project. “It’s hard to believe a competent intelligence committee chair doesn’t understand this.”
The Wall Street Journal has also celebrated the law that contains the loophole and after its reauthorization in 2013 praised Obama as an “unapologetic asserter of Presidential powers.”
In 2015, Reps. Zoe Loefgren, D-Calif., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., introduced an amendment that would have required the FBI to get a search warrant in the exact situation Flynn is facing: when they rely on capabilities of the NSA to target international communications that involve Americans.
But rather than expressing concern then, Nunes sent a letter to his colleagues opposing the measure. “When the Intelligence Community acquires the communications of CT [counterterrorism] or CI [counterintelligence] targets abroad, among the most critical issues is to determine if they are communicating with persons in the United States,” he wrote.
In an email to The Intercept, a spokesman for Nunes tried to walk back the congressman’s earlier statement, saying his concerns were about whether Flynn’s identity could have legally been “unmasked” due to minimization procedures built into the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
The minimization procedures call for the redaction of names of “U.S. persons” when they are caught up in international surveillance. But they allow the identity of U.S. persons to be unmasked whenever it is necessary to understand the communication — which is almost certainly the case with Flynn’s call.
“This seems to be an excuse that either doesn’t comprehend or want to acknowledge how broadly the FBI can fully access any Americans’ incidentally recorded communications under FISA,” Laperruque said.
This is hardly the first time that foreign intelligence wiretaps have gotten U.S. persons in trouble. The FBI has relied on NSA-collected information in a number of criminal cases — and has even repeatedly failed to provide legal notice to defendants that the evidence used in their case was acquired that way.
It’s also not the first time that NSA hawks have — if briefly — leapt to the defense of privacy rights when the privacy being violated involved them or their political allies.
Last year, for example, Sen. Marco Rubio — who has argued for expanding and permanently extending many of the NSA’s surveillance programs — responded with shock and outrage upon learning in 2015 that the NSA was spying on the Israeli government and swept up some of his own communications in the process.
The problem for these newfound surveillance critics is that if they want to demand protections for Americans caught up in the NSA’s web, they have to do so for all Americans — not just their political allies.(Reuters) - An Arizona man already accused of aiding two gunmen in an attack on an event in Texas drawing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed had also inquired about using pipe bombs and explosives during the 2015 Super Bowl in Phoenix, court documents said.
Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem, also known as Decarus Thomas, is seen in an undated booking photo released by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in Phoenix, Arizona. REUTERS/Maricopa County Sheriff's Office/Handout
Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem, also known as Decarus Thomas, was charged on Wednesday with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, in addition to his indictment earlier this year on conspiracy and weapons charges in connection with the failed attack on the event in the Dallas suburb of Garland, according to the court papers.
His roommates Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi of Phoenix were killed by Garland police after they opened fire with assault rifles outside the May 3 cartoon drawing event. The original indictment said Kareem supplied the two gunmen with arms and helped them prepare for the attack.
The new charges accuse Kareem of showing support for the Islamic State militant group in social media posts, researching travel to the Middle East to train with terrorists and seeking to make explosives that could be used during this year’s Super Bowl, the most-watched U.S. sporting event.
In court documents, Kareem was accused of practicing with firearms in the Arizona desert and watching Jihadist videos.
Kareem has pleaded not guilty to the original conspiracy and weapons charges. It was unclear how he would plead to the new accusations.
His attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.
None of the approximately 150 people attending the event in Garland in May were hurt.
The contest was intended to satirize Islam’s Prophet Mohammed. It came months after gunmen killed 12 people in the Paris offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in what was said to be revenge for its cartoons depicting Mohammed.
Such portrayals are considered offensive by Muslims.
After the failed Garland plot, U.S. investigators said the organizers represented an evolving model of “lone wolf” militants who are radicalized partly through long-distance engagement with organized militants but also initiate actions independently.If you have nothing of value to sell from home then retail arbitrage might be a better option for you. Many people partake in arbitrage to earn a little extra money, and for some, it has even become their full-time job. Retail arbitrage is the buying of goods at a low price and then selling them on a different platform at a higher price. Sales in shops provide ideal opportunities to pick up products for next to nothing. These can then be sold on eBay or Amazon for higher amounts, making you a nice profit.
If you are a budding photographer and would like to be paid for your craft then you should consider setting up your own photography website. This is a great way to not only promote your services as a photographer but also to sell your images. You can charge visitors a fee to download your images. Or, if you’d rather, turn your site into a paid membership site, with free downloads of all images for paying subscribers.
The children’s birthday party business is a multiple-million dollar industry, with the average American spending $500 per party. The book Start Your Own Kid-Focused Business tells you everything you need to know to get your own kid biz off the ground: from insurance costs to food and beverage selection to arranging unforgettable entertainment that gets lots of smiles and lots of referrals from happy customers.
Know how much content to post. This advice goes both ways. On the one hand, you don’t want to shove unwanted content in someone’s face and turn them away from your platform. But if you don’t post enough, you could be missing out on potential opportunities. So find a good schedule that works for your business -- and for each platform you use -- and stick to it.
Daily Surveys can be taken one or more times per day. This is indicated in the survey description. Other targeted surveys can be taken as you see them. Be sure to complete these when you see them. Some surveys may accept a limited number of responses from people matching your demographics, and can sometimes disappear quickly. New surveys come out all the time too!
Ever since the idea of online auctions came into existence, the online selling market has been on the rise. Many are interested, but don’t know how to get started. There are still all kinds of ways to make money by selling online, whether you’re selling what you already have or buying and selling like a store. Before we get started, here are a few general tips when selling anything online:
If you have anything you want to sell, then EBay is the place you need to seriously consider doing it first. Personally I’m not a fan of the site because of the work it takes to build up a reputation. If you’re willing to grind through that process, you’ll be rewarded with many privileges – people have gotten rich selling books about how they got rich selling everything on EBay: Click here for a few tips from the pros.
That said, lot's of people are making extra money by publishing their own books on Amazon. For instance, my friend Bob published a few books on Amazon on how to make money blogging and has done very well. The first book provided basic tips for a small price, but his next book, Pro-Blogging Secrets, is offered at a premium price and he also has an online course.
The market for drones is expanding. Companies hire out work like aerial inspection, photography and land mapping. So if you’re already a drone enthusiast, why not put your aircraft to work? You first need to register it with the Federal Aviation Administration and obtain a license from them for commercial use. Then, you can apply for gigs as a drone pilot. Learn how to start making money with drones.
Another great way to earn money from your home office is to sell your skills or knowledge by teaching classes. For instance, if you’re an exercise guru, you might start an exercise class in a large spacious area in your home. People are willing to pay to learn about many fields of knowledge, from cooking and gardening to soap or candle making. Playing a musical instrument, child birthing, dancing, dog training, yoga, and even foreign languages are all great topics for expert classes.
“I love being a part of TTEC@home because of the flexibility of the schedule. There are way more benefits to working from home than most people realize. I save money on transportation and clothing. I save time. I have a tax write-off. And I have less anxiety. The bonus of working with TTEC is that I’ve met some great people and have learned new skills.”
Being an online freelance writer is one type of skill that you can use to make money online. But there are a wide variety of other skills that can be used in a similar manner. Every website and blog on the Internet needs technical skills. This can include graphic design, web design, search engine optimization, social media marketing and promotion, content editing, and so much more.
Thanks to the internet, there are plenty of ways we can make extra money from home. In fact, making money online from the comfort of your home, no matter where you live, is far easier than most assume. You do have to navigate the so-called guru gauntlet. Sure. That is if you're looking to scoop up an offer from today's vast pallette of never-ending webinars, trial programs, and sales funnels that seem to pop up everywhere we turn.
I really like the idea of writing poorly written ads. It seem like it can be easy and you can make a small profit. I know that use to work at a school and we got our extra money from writing grants. People can write grants to start a business so I am in the process of trying to write my own grant to start a community program for teens. its a litte extra money and I still get to do what I love. If you have any kind of hobby you can prob. turn that into some income if you can get creative. Good luck
Starting a podcast, like making a YouTube channel or blog, comes down to telling interesting stories and building an engaged audience. I’m probably sounding like a broken record by now, but you need a niche that you’re interested in and there’s already a demand for. Come up with a list of topics you’d like to talk about and then search iTunes charts, Google Trends and other podcast research sites like cast.market to see what’s currently out there and popular.
Really good article with some great tips. Affiliate marketing has the potential to earn lots of money and I'm hoping I can make it happen. I have tried the matched betting and it DEFINITELY works. The one thing I would say is that you need to check that any bets have been accepted by the bookmaker. I have had on occasion bets which look like they have been accepted but don't register in my account. Always go into your account and check outstanding bets or your bet history.
There are a variety of tasks that you may be asked to perform. This can include delivering documents, delivering food or restaurant meals, taking pictures of a building for a real estate developer, taking pictures of a menu in an upscale restaurant, or even delivering auto-parts. If you have a good working car (or even a good bicycle), time on your hands, and a lot of energy, this can be a real opportunity to make money online.
“I love working for TTEC@home. I get to interact with and help others from the comfort of my own home. (Have you ever been in Houston traffic rush hour? That says it all!) Plus, they have some of the most amazing people I’ve ever had the privilege of working with. They aren’t just here to draw a paycheck. They truly care about their co-workers. I work many miles from the brick and mortar buildings, but I have a sense of security that my coworkers have my back and I’m not alone.”
High-ticket consulting or coaching: You could sell your own high-ticket consulting or coaching products from your website. You'll still need a website, merchant account, sales funnel, lead magnet and many other items. But you can easily earn a substantial amount of money from each individual customer, making it well worth the arduous setup required.
If you can find and restore items like furniture and appliances, you can make a substantial amount of money. You can acquire the items on Craigslist, or even at garage sales or estate sales, restore them, and then list them for sale on the site. You may also be able to market certain items on eBay, particularly if they are small, unusual, but high in price.You’ll almost certainly need at least an undergraduate degree to qualify for many online teaching jobs for K-12 online schools, universities, and other virtual education organizations. Often, employers prefer some experience in teaching students online. For jobs at the college level or higher, a post-graduate degree is a common requirement, along with professional experience in the pertinent subject area. Requirements can vary for tutors; for example English as a Second Language or ESL certification may be required to teach English to people who speak other languages, though you may not need to be bilingual.Are you an animal lover at heart? How about making some extra money just by taking a dog for a walk or boarding a cat for the weekend? You can advertise your own pet-sitting business on social media, put up signs throughout your neighborhood, or use a website like Rover. They let you set your schedule and adjust your fees as you see fit. If you do use Rover, keep in mind that they take a cut of what you make.(3)2. InboxDollars – InboxDollars is similar to Swagbucks, since you’re going to be taking surveys, shopping, etc., so if you want to maximize your return, sign up with both websites. They also offer a search engine that pays you (like Swagbucks) and you get $5 just for signing up. I won’t continue to list survey sites one after another down the list, but if you want to get paid to take surveys, also check out GlobalTestMarket, E-Poll Surveys and Survey Club.This is a more technical way to make money online then most of the other strategies given. But you can get an excellent course on how to make it happen with Steve Chou’s Create a Profitable Online Store program. Steve and his wife have built a highly successful online store – selling wedding napkins – and he’s anxious to provide insider secrets to people who sign up for his course..A website called AchieveMint gives you points for engaging in healthy activities, like exercise, tracking your eating habits, or even taking health related surveys. Points can be redeemed either for cash (10,000 points are worth $10) or for Amazon Gift Cards. The app actually connects with other health apps, like Fitbit and MyFitnessPal, to track your progress.“I love working for TTEC@home. I get to interact with and help others from the comfort of my own home. (Have you ever been in Houston traffic rush hour? That says it all!) Plus, they have some of the most amazing people I’ve ever had the privilege of working with. They aren’t just here to draw a paycheck. They truly care about their co-workers. I work many miles from the brick and mortar buildings, but I have a sense of security that my coworkers have my back and I’m not alone.”Above-ground subway service shutting down at 4 p.m.; bus service suspended at noon By Benjamin Kabak By· Published in 2016
Update (1:15): The MTA has announced that, as of 4 p.m., subway service on above-ground lines will be halted, but the agency will run limited service underground. This is in line with Transit’s cold weather/snow plan. Keep an eye on MTA.info for updates.
As more snow than expected piles up, Gov. Andrew Cuomo did some governin’ today as he announced that the MTA will be suspending all bus service as of noon on Saturday. Currently 1800 workers are toiling to keep the subways running, and the MTA expects to maintain some service on all lines. It’s possible that outdoor lines — especially those running in trenches rather than along elevated lines — will see service scaled back. The MTA’s winter weather plan is in effect, and there are delays or service changes on nearly every line as nearly all express trains are running local. Weekend work has, of course, been canceled. I’ll update this post as news develops.Bitcoin is often likened to the Internet, and arguably for good reason. The currency is a new, permissionless technology, championed by a small group of computer experts that say it will change the world in ways we can’t yet even imagine. That’s just how people talked about the Internet in the early nineties.
However, as with bitcoin, the hype has been accompanied by doom-mongering and naysaying.
Here are seven smart and stupid things people said about the Internet that have relevance for how we think about bitcoin today.
Let’s start with the stupid, because, hey, they are more fun.
1) Newsweek: ‘The Internet won’t change anything’
“The truth is no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.”
Clifford Stoll’s infamous 1995 Newsweek piece might be the most myopic article ever published. The article, which you can read yourself if you’d like a laugh, takes aim at every potential use for the Internet people had suggested and dismisses it out of hand. Sound familiar?
To his credit, Stoll later, and with good grace, admitted the article was a pile of trash, saying “of my many mistakes, flubs, and howlers, few have been as public as my 1995 howler.”
But he did add something that’s worth keeping in mind when people mindlessly repeat phrases like the dogecoiners’ slogan “straight to the moon”.
“At the time, I was trying to speak against the tide of futuristic commentary on how The Internet Will Solve Our Problems.”
Perhaps, though, the most interesting part of his piece is a reference to there being no trustworthy way of sending money over the Internet. Depending on your opinion of the banking system, you might say it took until 2008 to solve that problem.
2) ‘What is the Internet anyway? … What do you write to it, like mail?’
The video above is an unaired segment from NBC’s ‘Today Show’ in 1994 and exemplifies perfectly the bemusement and confusion people felt towards the Internet.
People didn’t know what it was, what they would use it for, or even how to use it (lots of people still don’t know how to use it, if we’re totally honest).
Bitcoin today is the same, much of the confusion stemming from a focus on mining in initial mainstream discussions of the technology. Instead of being seen as a platform for permissionless innovation, as this Vox video eloquently put it, it’s thought of as a get-rich-quick scheme.
No doubt, most people reading this will have heard some variation of “what is bitcoin anyway? … Do you just make money with your computer?”
3) ‘I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse’
In 1995, the same year Clifford Stoll offered his analysis of the future of the Internet, Robert Metcalfe, who invented Ethernet, declared in an InfoWorld column that the Internet was totally screwed.
To be fair to Metcalfe, he did offer a list of reasons, which ironically includes, in a sense, the non-existence of bitcoin:
˝As if to make up for the shortage of real money to finance Internet commerce, several companies have been trying to mint digital money. They have, however, failed to streamline financial activity – there are now more, not fewer, middlepersons. Therefore, transaction costs, at 50 cents each or more, remain way too high. Without efficient microp
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state of affairs.
Denninger's biased and establishment preference for a monetary sovereign serves only to harm his analysis because it undeniably closes him off from alternative, and usually superior, free-market monetary arrangements. More damaging, however, is the fact that it places him outside of the mainstream in free banking circles and squanders his remaining quasi-libertarian credibility as a champion of markets.
Follow author on Twitter.This might have been the best gift i ever received! It really brightened up my day. My Santa made (!!!) me a book about goats! I absolutely love goats and I'm a graphic designer so this gift was just perfect. I found it in the mail when i left my place for the weekend. I took it with me on the train and tried not to open it before i arrived at my destination. Of course i failed, i opened it in the train and had a good read and a big smile on my face the whole 2 hours.
Sorry for the bad quality photo's :(
To my Santa, Thank you so much for all the time and effort you put in this gift. I promise you, it didn't go to waste on me. I'm showing the book to all my friends and so far, they've all loved it too. I think you did a great job on the design! especially regarding you did it in such short time. Thanks for the letter as well, that really added a(n even more) personal touch.''What they are wanting to do in terms of euthanasia is dictate to people who are suffering the indignity and pain of a terminal illness that they shall suffer and to deprive those persons of their ability to ask their doctors to, with their families, help them have a dignified end when there is no hope of recovery,'' Senator Brown told ABC television.
He said a similar majority of voters supported legalised abortion and same-sex marriage - two other policies advocated by the Greens but opposed by the Catholic Church.
''I welcome the Catholic Church or the Presbyterian Church or the Buddhists or anyone having a say in that - we are a free and open democracy - but it really opens up to public attention the fact that the Greens are a 21st-century party trying to drag the other parties out of their last-century thinking on so many issues.''
Senator Brown was responding to a pointed election guide the church is sending to Victoria's 488 Catholic schools and 300-plus parishes, which urges Catholics to ask election candidates: ''Will you oppose any attempt to legalise euthanasia and assisted suicide, whatever it may be called? What is your attitude towards abortion?''
Archbishop Hart told The Age the church did not want to ''bucket'' any political party, but said: ''Our society will be judged by how we treat our weakest and most vulnerable - those in the womb and those who are very, very old.''Persona Q: Shadow Of The Labyrinth Has Orpheus Kai As A DLC Persona
By Spencer. June 5, 2014. 1:25am
Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth has downloadable sub-personas. Next week, players will be able to get Kaguya from Persona 4: The Golden for free. The level 16 persona has a unique skill called Moon’s Blessing which stops one attack each turn. The skill has a three turn duration.
Orpheus Kai from Persona 3 will be available on June 18, also as a free download. In Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, Orpheus Kai is level 26 and has Harp of Regeneration which recovers HP and removes negative status effects for all allies each turn. This effect has a three turn duration too.
Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth is slated for release this fall in North America.War-torn countries and disaster areas that need to observed by officials require sturdy drones. That’s where the nearly indestructible GimBall comes into play.
Engineers with Switzerland’s Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne have developed a unmanned aerial vehicle with a roll cage that can bounce off obstacles in flight.
The device, which was unveiled last year, has been improved by putting it through numerous test flights.
The Journal of Field Robotics said the GimBall proved virtually indestructible during initial tests, even during flight, according to Vice Media’s technology blog Motherboard.
The GimBall works by utilizing a free-rotating camera stand called a Gimbal System, a propeller, a stabilization system, a camera and a roll cage, the Motherboard blog reported. The GimBall is unique in that the outside frame rotates and absorbs shock upon contatct, with minimal effect on its propeller.
The drone’s design is already turning up in commercial models, Motherboard reported.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.The town of Dolothia was established when five families were unceremoniously banished from a nearby nation. The exact circumstances of this banishment were never explained to me, and I didn't press the issue.
After The PCG Herald heard about the town's struggle to survive in the wilderness, I was dispatched as a field reporter to document its early years. What I found was a harsh reality where 10-year-olds work fields in driving rain and snow, a bad harvest kills families, and a single misstep leaves the town frozen during winter. In the end I was embedded in Dolothia for 25 years, chronicling its struggles and triumphs in photos and timelapse gifographs. This is the life of a Banished town.
In this high overhead view, the town expands in fits and starts over the course of 25 years, slowly expanding beyond its humble beginnings. Click here to view at 720p.
The first year of the town saw rapid expansion, food shortages, and an early, brutal winter.
Everyone's sick of wheat, and some of the children are getting scurvy. The town builds a new trading post to attract merchants traveling downriver and, hopefully, purchase new seeds, exotic food, and livestock.
A huge surplus of plums, and a serious lack of fun things to do at the end of the day, spurs the establishment of the town's first public house. Plum ale isn't anybody's idea of a good time, but it gets you drunk. That's what matters.It's been almost three years since a gunman detonated a bomb in Oslo and then stormed a small summer camp off the coast of Norway, killing 77 people and cementing a record as the worst mass shooting in modern memory. This month, the country revealed plans for a memorial to the tragedy—and it's beautiful.
Designed by a Swedish artist named Jonas Dahlberg, the plan is more land art than architecture. On the island of Utøya, where the gunman gained access to a summer camp by dressing in a police uniform and showing a fake ID on July 22, 2011, Dahlberg proposes creating a massive gap of water and air. By slicing a huge section of the island's landmass away, he would create a steep fjord through the site where the shooting occurred—a void that he describes as "a wound or a cut within nature itself."
According to Dahlberg, the idea emerged during his first visit to the island.
"I noticed how different the feeling was of walking outside in nature, compared to the feeling of walking through the rooms of the main building," he explains in a statement. "The experience of seeing the vacant rooms and the traces of extreme violence brought me—and others around me—to a state of profound sadness."
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But, outside, things felt different, as though nature was already in regeneration. "Although we stood directly on the very place where many people had lost their lives, nature had already begun to obscure all traces," he explains.
So he came up with an idea: Rather than building a monument or structure, he would focus on nature itself. A 70-foot-wide gap carved out of the island, separating the headland from the main island, would serve as the ideal spot to reflect and memorialize.
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On the jagged edges of the cut, the names of those who died in the attacks would be inscribed into smooth stone. "The names will be close enough to see and read clearly, yet ultimately out of reach," he says. "The cut is an acknowledgement of what is forever irreplaceable."
Public memorials are a difficult proposition. Too bombastic or saccharine, and you run the risk of alienating visitors. Too diminutive or abstract, and you run the risk of failing to provide a space to mourn and remember. Dahlberg's design is the perfect balance: It will literally transform the landscape of the island forever—but by putting visitors out in nature, it will also give people the freedom to take what they will from the experience.
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In the end, Norway's approach could serve as a vanguard for other memorials to mass shootings—and the people who are torn between wanting to remember them and trying to forget. [Bustler]COPYRIGHT NOTE: Please DON'T reproduce stuff from these pages WITHOUT PERMISSION. And if you do, please give us credit ( brianmay.com)!! and a LIVE link. ` Cheers! Bri - Also applies to FOREIGN LANGUAGE sites,'NOT'for FACEBOOK or SOCIAL MEDIA
As always, the opinions expressed in these pages are purely and personally those of myself, Brian; they are not the official views of Queen, or of any other organisation or individual.
Hearing the news from England that badgers are now to be slaughtered without any independent monitoring - I feel sick to the stomach.
Gotta say - we've had amazing shows on this tour, but last night in Melbourne was my favourite so far. Incredible inspiring audience.
**Sat 30 Aug 14** MELBOURNE - AND - NEWS BADGERS TO BE SLAUGHTERED Direct link to this
Please help save this Mama bear from the ignorance of Man.
Thanks Sydney for a great night! And thanks to our great and lovely pal Lady Gaga
My stick selfie of the day - with our lovely guest Lady Gaga
Sorry no last night's video selfie stick epic. I messed up! No vid. But we recorded the whole show so you may still see it! Great Sydney audience last night - thanks Guys! Expect a big surprise tonight!
**Wed 27 Aug 14** WE RECORDED THE WHOLE SHOW (SYDNEY 26 NOV) Direct link to this
I have a deep suspicion of Zoos - but in Sydney I saw a lot of happy rescued animals and some very caring people.
Photo by In Love With ADAM @InLoveWithADAM2 · Aug 24 This is what PROUD means!!!
Rare beauty of Sydney. These are the real colours, I promise - no photoshopping was done!
I couldn't sleep last night. The Case for Phasing Out Experiments on Primates The Hastings CentreMNT
CHICAGO (May 21, 2016) – U.S. Men’s National Team head coach Jurgen Klinsmann has named the 23-player roster that will compete in the historic 2016 Copa America Centenario.
The roster includes 15 players from the 2014 FIFA World Cup squad, and a total of 18 who have already appeared in Qualifying for Russia 2018. Veterans like team captain Michael Bradley and Clint Dempsey marshal the group boasting loads of experience. With an average of 37 caps, there are five players with 50 or more and an equal number with five or less. Meantime, John Brooks, Bobby Wood and DeAndre Yedlin lead a youth contingent that includes five players who are 23-years-old or younger.
"This roster really was put together based on what we saw over the last year, and it’s one that makes us the strongest team possible to compete in Copa America and to hopefully surprise a lot of people,” said Klinsmann. “We feel that these 23 going into the very special Copa America, they really deserved to be there,” said Klinsmann. “Obviously when you get down and you decide on the final 23-man roster, there are very close, tight decisions to make. The moment when you decide, it’s about definitely who you feel the strongest about.”
The MNT opens the tournament facing fourth-ranked Colombia on June 3 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. Four days later, the U.S. Takes on regional rival Costa Rica in Chicago at Soldier Field. The team completes Group A play against Paraguay on June 11 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. All of the USA matches will be broadcast live on FS1, UniMas and UDN.
The U.S. will play three warm-up games heading into the Copa America Centenario, beginning with its first meeting against Puerto Rico on May 22 in Bayamon (12 p.m. ET; FS1, UniMas, UDN). Following the trip to Puerto Rico, the USA will face Ecuador on May 25 at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas (7 p.m. CT; ESPN2, UniMas, UDN) [TICKETS] and Bolivia on May 28 at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kansas (7 p.m. CT; FS1 and Univision networks) [TICKETS].
U.S. Roster by Position:
GOALKEEPERS (3): 1-Brad Guzan (Aston Villa), 12-Tim Howard (Colorado Rapids), 22-Ethan Horvath (Molde IK)
DEFENDERS (8): 5-Matt Besler (Sporting KC), 3-Steve Birnbaum (D.C. United), 6-John Brooks (Hertha Berlin), 20-Geoff Cameron (Stoke City), 21-Timmy Chandler (Eintracht Frankfurt), 23-Fabian Johnson (Borussia Moenchengladbach), 14-Michael Orozco (Club Tijuana), 2-DeAndre Yedlin (Tottenham Hotspur)
MIDFIELDERS/FORWARDS (12): 15-Kyle Beckerman (Real Salt Lake), 11-Alejandro Bedoya (Nantes), 4-Michael Bradley (Toronto FC), 8-Clint Dempsey (Seattle Sounders FC), 13-Jermaine Jones (Colorado Rapids), 16-Perry Kitchen (Heart of Midlothian), 10-Darlington Nagbe (Portland Timbers), 17-Christian Pulisic (Borussia Dortmund), 18-Chris Wondolowski (San Jose Earthquakes), 7-Bobby Wood (Hamburg SV), 20-Gyasi Zardes (LA Galaxy), 19-Graham Zusi (Sporting KC)
U.S. ROSTER NOTES:Three siblings, raised by a Hindu woman and her Buddhist husband, have never neglected Islamic teachings such as praying, fasting and studying the Muslims' holy book al-Quran. — AFP pic
KUALA LUMPUR, July 18 ― A Hindu woman and her Buddhist husband have brought up and ensured that three Muslim children staying in their house adhere to Islamic teachings.
C. Cheniah, a 65-year-old native of Jertih, Terengganu who married a Chinese Buddhist, became the guardian of her Muslim convert sister's three children since they were young, Malay daily Berita Harian reported today.
Cheniah said her sister converted to Islam when she married a policeman, but later separated from him and passed her three Muslim children to her to be cared for.
The three children now aged 20 to 24 have been living with Cheniah for over 23 years, while her sister who lives in Kuala Lumpur frequently visits, she said.
“The life of the Malay society in this city caused me to greatly respect Islam and that is why the three siblings are trained to be close to the teachings of Islam,” she was quoted saying.
Cheniah, who is also nicknamed Mek Nab and reportedly practises Malay culture, said the three siblings have never neglected Islamic teachings such as praying, fasting and studying the Muslims' holy book al-Quran.
“So in our house there are Muslims, Hindu and Buddhist, but the teachings of Islam are still prioritised,” she added, having noted that her Buddhist husband also encouraged the three siblings to be close to Islam.
Norehan Mohd Nor, 24 and the eldest of the three siblings, reportedly felt comfortable living together with her Hindu aunt despite their different religions.
“Besides preparing Malay cuisine for us, she also places emphasis on Islamic teachings for us and will get angry if we neglect to pray and fast,” Norehan was quoted saying.The Holden Racing Team star, one of 10 race winners in a wide open 2016 championship, says pain has become a part of his day-to-day life since the accident.
Supercars star James Courtney has gone under the surgeon's knife as he faces a lifelong battle with the injuries suffered in last year's freak pitlane accident.
Courtney had nerve endings in his chest and back burnt by a surgeon on the Gold Coast on Tuesday to numb crippling pain which had dogged him throughout this year's championship.
The 2010 Supercars champion suffered five broken ribs, a punctured lung and a damaged sternum last August when debris struck him in the chest after being blown loose by the wash of a Navy helicopter at Sydney Motorsport Park.
Tuesday's operation is the same one Courtney underwent in the aftermath of the accident and appears to be one he'll have to endure throughout his life to manage his pain.
READ MORE: Kiwi motor racing boss dies
"They burn the nerve and that kills it so you don't feel the pain," Courtney told AAP.
"It makes the area numb until it (the nerve) grows back."
The Holden Racing Team star, one of 10 race winners in a wide open 2016 championship, says pain has become a part of his day-to-day life since the accident.
With the longer drives of this year's endurance events at Sandown and Bathurst fast approaching, the decision was taken to undergo the procedure and give him some comfort.
"It hasn't been ultra-pleasant," he said.
"It's just something I've got to deal with now... they did it before Gold Coast last year and they were hoping that it would be fine but just the severity of it and the way it's all happened, it's probably going to be like this forever."
Courtney, who is still believed to be seeking compensation over last year's accident, says he is set to be fit for the next stop of the Supercars calendar in late August at Sydney Motorsport Park.
He says he has no concerns about returning to the track where he suffered his injuries.
"I'm not going there freaking out or anything," he said.
"It's just a constant reminder of the pain-in-ass period it has been."
Sign up here for the Rio Olympics: Going for Gold newsletterAnother possible conflict of interest involving Port Authority chairman David Samson has come to light, according to a report on NorthJersey.com.
While Samson's law firm worked for NJ Transit, he cast a vote authorizing the Port Authority to lease a park-and-ride lot in North Bergen to the transportation agency for $1 a year, the report said.
Later Wednesday, Darrell Buchbinder, general counsel for the Port Authority, released a letter addressed to Samson that stated due to a "clerical inadvertance" Samson's recusal was not correctly noted in the minutes to the Feb. 9. 2012 meeting.
Before the 49-year lease was approved, NJ Transit paid the Port Authority $900,000 a year for the Hudson County lot. Commuters pay $9.50 per day for a parking space and a round-trip bus ticket to the Port Authority bus terminal in Manhattan.
NJ Transit paid Wolf & Samson as much as $1.5 million to "advise" it how to generate additional revenue from its parking facilities, the Record reported.
In March 2012, Samson was among the Port Authority commissioners who voted to approve a $256 million renovation of the Harrison PATH station. The vote came just three months after a developer represented by Samson's law firm proposed converting a nearby warehouse into luxury apartments.
Samson's law firm was also at the center of a controversy in Hoboken. That city's mayor, Dawn Zimmer, claimed she was twice approached by the Christie administration to persuade her to approve a three-block development project sought by the Rockefeller Group, which was represented at the time by Wolff & Samson. She alleged the administration threatened to withhold Sandy funds because she refused to expedite the project.
Samson's firm has pulled in nearly $5 million from government contracts since Chris Christie became governor four years ago. Two former Christie administration officials work there as well.
RELATED COVERAGE
• NJ Transit moves forward in effort to privatize parking lotsGet the biggest Arsenal 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
Theo Walcott is relaxing his demand to be Arsenal’s main man as his latest contract discussions continue to drag on, writes Steve Bates in Singapore.
The 26-year-old says he is content to play in any of the forward roles — as long as he can get central from there to score.
England international Walcott has previously made it clear he wants to be key supplier of goals but as he moves into the final year of his current deal he says: “I’ll play anywhere, but it’s well documented where I want to play.
“Up front there is a lot of competition, but in the modern-day game the three up front tend to change around a lot.
“You see it with England, Barcelona and Real Madrid. We have that trust in each other. Everyone can do that role, so it’s not a problem. I’m always going to be judged on goals. I’ve been very happy with my goal record — when given the opportunity.”
The England star gave another glimpse of the threat he offers when fit and firing, scoring the first goal as the Gunners won the Barclays Asia Trophy with a 3-1 victory over Everton in the National Stadium here on Saturday.
In pictures — Arsenal win the Asia Trophy:
He added: “I enjoy scoring, I want to score for this club and it’s a nice feeling. I haven’t set a target yet for the season but when you are that winger/striker you need to be on 15s and 20s I think, so the goal in Singapore was a good start.”
Injury restricted Walcott – a potential target for Chelsea and Liverpool - to just 14 Premier League appearances last season but he was bang in form just as the campaign ended, scoring a hat-trick in the league finale against West Brom and netting the opener against Aston Villa at Wembley as the Gunners retained the FA Cup.
“I didn’t want last season to end, because I’d only just got back. It’s frustrating when you have been out for such a long time - it is difficult to get into a winning team,” he said. "This is my first pre-season for two years, so I want to work hard and get fit because I think this team can go very far.”
Aside from fitness issues, though, the star is said to be concerned over the amount of game time he can expect if he re-signs.
In pictures — Arsenal's 2015 FA Cup victory parade:
But the speedy attacker made it clear Arsenal are on the up. And he’d like to be a part of the equation if they guarantee him a pay hike from £90,000 to £120,000-a-week and a regular platform.
“My agent has talked to the club, I enjoy playing for Arsenal, so I am just letting them crack on with things and I’ll continue playing my football,” explained Walcott.
“If it happens, it happens. We’ll just play the waiting game and see what happens but I’m sure it won’t be long.
"And if it’s not sorted before the season starts I’d be comfortable with that, definitely. It’s not in my thought process at all and I think that’s the best way to be.
(Image: Getty)
“You don’t want to dwell on it, you want to play well and if it happens, it happens. I won’t let the delay affect the way I’m going to be playing this season. I can’t let that affect me, I want to do well for this club.
"This squad, for me, is one of the best I’ve been involved in. I want to be part of that. There is something special in this group of players. We have got to keep this group together as well.
“I think successful teams stay together for a long time so I think this team can be very successful. We’ve won two FA Cups now and the next big step is obviously challenging for the League. And if we had shown our form in the second part of the season from the start it could have been us.
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“But ‘if’ is the word you don’t want to use in sport. We need to make sure we do it from the start.”
Coming up for ten years at Arsenal in January, Walcott joked: “Maybe we are talking about testimonial times! I’m happy here, of course. I have shown it. I’ve always played with a smile on my face and always enjoyed playing for this club.
“It is one of the best groups I have been involved with and I want to stay involved with that squad.”As Twitchy readers know, it was Peak Twitter last night after Tucker Carlson wiped the floor with Newsweek’s Kurt Eichenwald during an interview on his Fox News show that was chock full of cuckoo pants. Post-interview, Eichenwald completely lost it on Twitter with a forty-six (FORTY. SIX) tweet meltdown, one of which accused President-elect Trump of “amphetamine” use.
seriously, WHY WON'T YOU HEED THE SAGE COUNSEL OF OUR HIGHLY-ACCOMPLISHED MEDIA?!!?! — ThatsHowYouGotTrump (@AceofSpadesHQ) December 16, 2016
Heh. Eichenwald then swiftly deleted all of the tweets. But, wait! He returned later with more ranting, including a tweet allegedly posted by his wife claiming that Eichenwald had a seizure due to a GIF sent to him. If true, hopefully his wife put down the Twitter and got him some help.
As for the interview itself?
"You're filibustering with this weirdness," Carlson says Eichenwald, who is indeed acting somewhat like an odd bird. — andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) December 16, 2016
Carlson:"I've never had an interviewer like this in my life." — andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) December 16, 2016
Besides being awesome, a photo stood out. People are loving this Tucker Carlson face.
Eichenwald did indeed say he got a message from the CIA, Carlson then made this face pic.twitter.com/n2uMGVRdq4 — andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) December 16, 2016
@KFILE Tucker has certainly perfected his "I'm Eichenwald's psychiatrist during a session" impression. — AutumnalVibe (@AutumnalVibe) December 16, 2016
Perfect.
This face is pretty good too.
Tucker Carlson, Kurt Eichenwald face off extremely weird. Carlson started reading Eichenwald's tweets. Then Eichenwald held up this book pic.twitter.com/LWRkwmMEhx — andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) December 16, 2016
And of course, there is this:
Bizarre Interview – Tucker Carlson -vs- Kurt Eichenwald (Newsweek Editor)… https://t.co/SNkDQfd2Uw pic.twitter.com/02Eg6E6onK — The News24 (@NewsEp24) December 16, 2016
Kudos for keeping a straight face for so long first! As for Eichenwald, this photo comparison says it all:
Me at the beginning of 2016 vs me at the end of 2016 pic.twitter.com/9tsLXm5eZ5 — #HashtagsMatter (@AdsByFlaherty) December 16, 2016
Oh boy. As we noted earlier, the one on the left is his Twitter bio photo. Curious!
Related: Kurt Eichenwald frantically deletes post-Tucker Carlson interview meltdown tweets; We’ve got them!; UPDATE: He’s still going (crazy); UPDATE: Claims seizureONEONTA, Alabama -- Some Alabama farmers say they are planting less produce rather than risk having tomatoes and other crops rot in the fields a second straight year because of labor shortages linked to the state's crackdown on illegal immigration.
Keith Dickie said he and other growers in the heart of Alabama's tomato country didn't have any choice but to reduce acreage amid fears there won't be enough workers to pick the delicate fruit.
Some farmers lacked enough hands to harvest crops because immigrants fled the state after Gov. Robert Bentley signed the immigration law last fall, and some told The Associated Press they fear the same thing could happen this year.
"There's too much uncertainty," said Dickie, who farms with his brother on a ridge called Straight Mountain, about 40 miles northeast of Birmingham.
On nearby Chandler Mountain, another prime farming area, Jimmy Miller said he cut back on produce because of possible labor shortages and instead planted more cotton and peanuts, which can both be harvested by big machines called combines that require minimal labor.
It's unclear how many farmers are changing their planting patterns this year because of the law and whether consumers might see food shortages on the produce aisle at supermarkets. Some growers say they aren't making any changes from years past, and neither the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries nor the Alabama Farmers Federation has compiled statistics yet for the year.
But Mac Higginbotham, an expert with the federation, said this growing season is important for the state's farmers, about 1,100 of whom grow labor-intensive produce.
"I think this year will really show how much of a labor shortage is actually out there and it will reflect in the produce availability (and) prices eventually," he said.
State agriculture officials said the law has created chronic labor shortages since it was passed last year by the Republican-controlled Legislature, where sponsors said they wanted to drive illegal immigrants from the state by making it difficult for them to live in Alabama.
Aside from requiring all employers to register with a federal citizenship-verification system called E-Verify, the law barred residents from conducting basic business transactions if they lacked citizenship papers and required schools to check the citizenship status of new students.
Federal courts have blocked parts of the law in response to lawsuits by the Obama administration and others, prompting Bentley and GOP leaders to support what they say are tweaks to the law. The Legislature has blocked efforts to repeal the law, with Republican backers saying they want Alabama to still have the nation's toughest law on illegal immigration once the legislative session ends in a few weeks.
Georgia has a similar law on the books, and farmers there have had similar concerns about finding a work force to pick crops like Vidalia onions. Some farmers there have also said they were scaling back their acreage, fearing they wouldn't find the workers to pick the crops.
While some immigrants who left the state last fall in fear of the law have since returned, farmers said they still don't know whether there will be enough workers to harvest crops. A major squash producer in north Alabama is cutting back production and moving some crops to Tennessee because of uncertainty over the law, said John Aplin, a fourth-generation farmer who serves on the state board that oversees farmer markets statewide.
Aplin, who grows tomatoes and about 200 other varieties of produce on 200 acres near the Florida line, said he planted his regular crops and is hoping he can get them out of the fields when his first large tomato harvest begins later this month. Like other farmers, Aplin said he has had little luck finding Alabama natives who could or would perform the grueling field work that Hispanic immigrants have done for years.
"They'll work a morning and come up at lunchtime and say, 'I'm done,'" said Aplin.
Dickie, whose K&D Farms raises tomatoes on about 40 acres of rolling farmland, is eliminating one entire field from production this year in hope of having enough workers to harvest the rest. Sitting on a tractor during a break, he said he hopes the cutback is large enough to compensate for a second year of labor shortages.
"If it's not I guess we'll sell out and find something else to do," he said.In this Feb. 24, 2017 photo, Chinese lawyer Yu Wensheng pauses during an interview at his office in Beijing. A group of Chinese lawyers is suing the governments of Beijing and its surrounding areas for not doing enough to get rid of the smog. They are asking for compensation and for the authorities to apologize for adversely affecting their lives. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
BEIJING (AP) — Lawyer Cheng Hai has an itemized list of compensation demands from Beijing authorities over the city’s smog: 65 yuan ($9) for having to buy face masks, 100 yuan ($15) for seeing a doctor for a sore throat and 9,999 yuan ($1,500) for emotional distress.
Fed up with what they consider halfhearted efforts to fight air pollution, Cheng and like-minded lawyers are putting China’s legal system to the test by suing the governments of the capital and its surrounding regions.
“Some people might think that air pollution is inevitable with economic development, but they are wrong,” said Cheng, 64. “We have laws to protect air quality, and major pollution can be avoided if they are fully enforced.”
The lawsuits demonstrate the mounting frustration of China’s middle class at the country’s notoriously bad air, a topic that is expected to be discussed at the upcoming annual meeting of the country’s parliament three years after Premier Li Keqiang declared a “war on pollution” at the same event.
The dissatisfaction comes even as authorities in the capital are closing factories, getting rid of coal-fired boilers and taking older, heavier-polluting vehicles off the road.
Official data show those measures are having some effect, with Beijing showing year-on-year improvements since 2013.
Yet the city’s average reading of the tiny particulate matter PM2.5 — considered a good gauge of air pollution — is still seven times what the World Health Organization considers safe.
“We are the victims of smog and we are entitled to ask for an apology and compensation from the government,” said another of the lawyers, Yu Wensheng, 50, from Beijing.
The suits, which accuse authorities of failing to deal effectively with the smog, are important to show that the government is not above the law, said Yu.
“If the government is not restricted by law, then what else can restrict it?” said Yu, who has spent time in detention accused of supporting Hong Kong pro-democracy protests in 2014 and for speaking up in support of detained rights lawyers.
Along with Beijing, the group has attempted to sue the neighboring province of Hebei and the port city of Tianjin. The region generally suffers the worst pollution in China and forms a front line in the central government’s battle against the scourge.
The lawyers say their cases are more about drawing attention to government inaction rather than winning a settlement.
China is grappling with serious pollution resulting from three decades of breakneck growth that vastly improved living standards for many, but took a disastrous toll on the environment.
As people became more aware of the health issues associated with smog, the declaration of a “war on pollution” at the National People’s Congress in 2014 resulted in measures to reduce pollutants in the air, including capping coal consumption. However, a particularly heavy bout of smog at the beginning of this year still triggered pollution “red alerts” in more than 20 cities.
Beijing plans to spend $2.7 billion on fighting air pollution this year, part of which would be used to close or upgrade more than 3,000 polluting factories, replace the use of coal with clean energy on the outskirts of the city and phase out 300,000 high-polluting older vehicles, according to the city’s acting mayor, Cai Qi.
Despite efforts to enlist the public in the anti-pollution struggle, China’s authoritarian Communist government heavily discourages protests and other forms of independent action, and at least one of the initial five lawyers in the case appears to have withdrawn his lawsuit under pressure from local authorities.
The Beijing press office said the government hadn’t received any notices about the lawsuits and was unable to comment. The governments of Hebei and Tianjin didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection has been sending out inspection teams to check on how well local governments are implementing smog control measures. On Monday, it announced that the lists of companies that have to halt production during periods of heavy pollution drawn up by three lower-level governments under Beijing and Hebei included companies that were already no longer operating.
A Beijing court has already twice rejected attempts by the lawyers to file cases, while a court in Hebei province’s capital, Shijiazhuang, has yet to respond to a case filed more than two months ago. Similar attempts to file suits in previous years have also been derailed, and while a change in the law has allowed some environmental NGOs to bring cases against polluters since 2015, they are discouraged to do so by the high costs of investigating and proving environmental damage, and potential threats and harassment from those they’re suing.
Wang Canfa, the director of a center that helps people bring lawsuits relating to pollution, said it would be difficult for the plaintiffs to establish a link between the governments’ actions and the harm they have suffered.
“In this circumstance, the governments are not the ones that inflict harm, rather it is the companies that discharge emissions, and individuals who drive cars, who are the polluters,” said Wang, who teaches at the China University of Political Science and Law.
Still, the lawyers appear to feel it’s worth the risks and frustrations to make their point.
Another of them, Lu Tingge, who filed the Hebei case, said his mother suffers respiratory illnesses and the pollution makes it difficult for her to breathe.
He’s asking for 10 yuan ($1.50) in compensation for masks, 5,000 yuan ($730) for “spiritual damage” and an official apology for the harm to his life and work.
“I know my chances of winning are small,” said Lu, 47. “But I just want to make people understand that the government bears the main responsibility for dealing with smog and air pollution.”
___
Associated Press researcher Yu Bing contributed to this report.Frank, his bandmates and crew have involved in a traffic collision in Sydney.
Frank Iero has been involved in a "serious traffic accident" in Sydney, Australia.
A bus apparently crashed into the back of the van he and his crew were travelling in, resulting in two injuries and one person being airlifted to hospital.
There are conflicting reports on Iero's condition at the moment, with one Australian news agency reporting that Frank has been injured, and 9News reporting that he escaped injury.
Frank Iero And The Patience were due to play Sydney's Metro Theatre tonight
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bottom line is that we all need to stay aware, we need to stay organized and we need to understand that TPP isn’t dead until it’s actually dead. But we can win this. If we can keep TPP from coming up for a vote in the unaccountable lame-duck session of Congress that follows the election, it is unlikely to survive.
The key is to get House Democrats on record before the election as opposing TPP, and then getting them to lobby the 28 Democrats who supported the “fast track” Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) to oppose a vote after the election. These 28 are: Terri Sewell (AL-07); Susan Davis (CA-53); Sam Farr (CA-20); Jim Costa (CA-16); Ami Bera (CA-07); Scott Peters (CA-52); Jared Polis (CO-02); James Himes (CT-04); Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-23); Mike Quigley (IL-05); John Delaney (MD-06); Brad Ashford (NE-02); Gregory Meeks (NY-05); Kathleen Rice (NY-04); Earl Blumenauer (OR-03); Kurt Schrader (OR-05); Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01); Jim Cooper (TN-05); Rubén Hinojosa (TX-15); Eddie Johnson (TX-30); Henry Cuellar (TX-28); Beto O’Rourke (TX-16); Gerald Connolly (VA-11); Donald Beyer (VA-08); Rick Larsen (WA-02); Suzan DelBene (WA-01); Derek Kilmer (WA-06); Ron Kind (WI-03).
Hillary Clinton could help kill TPP by demanding the President Obama withdraw TPP from any possibility of consideration in the “lame duck” session of Congress.Michael Flynn just became an even bigger problem for Donald Trump and several key players in his administration. As it’s gradually come to light that Flynn had been on the take from Russia and Turkey during the campaign, and that the government had warned him not to do so years ago, the Trump White House floated the claim that it hadn’t bothered to vet Flynn because he had already been vetted by the Obama administration. But that’s now blowing back on them in a big way.
It was already bizarre for the Trump administration to claim that it had relied on the Obama administration’s prior vetting of Michael Flynn, as Obama fired Flynn back in 2014. That alone should have logically warranted Flynn being subsequently re-vetted when the Trump White House decided to make him the National Security Adviser this year.
Not My President • Impeach Trump Now
Sure enough, on Friday night, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow reported on-air that the Trump White House did vet Michael Flynn; she got the information from NBC News reporter Andrea Mitchell. This confirms the Trump administration knew Flynn was dirty at the time it appointed him.
Contribute to Palmer Report
As Maddow explains, that means that everyone from Donald Trump to Mike Pence to Jeff Sessions to Sean Spicer has lied in one way or another about Flynn’s criminal status. Palmer Report pointed out yesterday that the Democrats may have been setting a trap for Pence all along when it came to Flynn (link).
Watch Rachel Maddow break the newns on her MSNBC show in this video:
NBC News: Trump transition did vet Mike Flynn. https://t.co/YgYYlH26hf — Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) April 29, 2017
Not My President • Impeach Trump NowThe IT job market in India is seemingly crashing. There are reports that the information technology firms in India are in the middle of one of the largest job cuts ever seen in this Industry. Nearly 2 lakh jobs are at stake, with big-ticket companies looking to both hand over pink slips to incumbent employees and hire fewer talent.
The number of layoffs this year is set to be twice that of last year, with inability to adapt to new technologies, inadequate growth, rise in costs (and subsequent fall in profits) and the use of automation tools which reduce the number of employees needed the main reasons behind the same.
Seven of the biggest IT firms in the country are in the process of laying off more than 56,000 engineers. This number is only set to grow as companies have been unable to deal with newly elected US President Donald Trump's nationalist-protectionist policies.
Also Read: LG G6 vs Samsung Galaxy S8: A new era in smartphone design
As a result of Trump's new policies, many IT companies are in the process of hiring US citizens and asking Indian H-1B Visa holders to return back to India. According to Livemint, Infosys has announced plans to hire 10,000 US citizens over the next two years and Wipro has already hired over 2,800 US citizens in the past 18 months.
Job cuts at Cognizant
Cognizant seems to be the worst hit as the company is planning on cutting off as many as 6,000 jobs - representing a whopping 2.3 per cent of its total workforce.
The company is reportedly struggling with adapting to new technologies and digital services and is laying off employees in lower-end jobs which are becoming redundant because of automation.
The number of layoffs this year is set to be twice that of last year due to inability to adapt to new technologies, inadequate growth and rise in costs
Cognizant has also reportedly placed close to 15,000 employees in the lowest category - Bucket 4. That is, they have put them on notice by giving them the lowest ratings possible.
A spokesperson told Livemint that performance-based reviews this year are consistent with past ones and that the company has not conducted any layoffs.
Job cuts at Tech Mahindra
Software services company Tech Mahindra, which ranks fifth amongst Indian IT firms on the basis of revenue, has also reportedly let go of more than a thousand employees this month.
A Tech Mahindra spokesperson said. - "We have a process of weeding out bottom performers every year and this year is no different".
Job cuts at Snapdeal
In the middle of Flipkart acquisition rumours, the struggling e-commerce player is reportedly planning to cut a huge 30 per cent of its workforce as a result of poor growth, reduced revenue and incurring losses. More than 1,000 employees are expected to be affected by this decision.
Job cuts at Infosys
Reports claim that Indian IT colossus Infosys is planning to lay-off as many as 1,000 employees in the coming months. The employees in question are said to be those working as project managers, senior architects and in other high level-positions.
As a result of Trump's new policies, many IT companies are in the process of hiring US citizens and asking Indian H-1B Visa holders to return back to India
In fact, Infosys has already started laying off employees. Last month, the IT giant asked 500 plus employees to leave on the ground of 'non performance'.
In a bid to warn employees, Infosys has also reportedly placed more than 3,000 senior managers in the 'employees needing improvement' category.
Job cuts at DXC Technology Co
DXC technology is also in the midst of a three-year plan to reduce overheads and cut the fat. The company is planning to reduce the number of offices in the country from 50 to 26 and is also planning to lay-off 10,000 of its 170,000 strong work-force.
Job cuts at Aircel
Cutthroat competition and Jio's disruptive pricing policy has impacted almost all of the telecom operators in the country badly. The struggling telecom operator reportedly fired 700 employees in February - which account for more than 10 per cent of its Indian workforce.
Job cuts at Wipro
Wipro has also reportedly started the process of making the organisation leaner and more decentralised by reducing unwanted and excess managers and executives.
A Wipro spokesperson reportedly said: "Performance appraisal may also lead to the separation of some employees from the company and these numbers vary from year to year".
Wipro is planning to trim the fat by removing unnecessary layers such as project leaders which the company feels are not needed anymore as a result of automation.
Job cuts at Tata Teleservices
Tata Teleservices, which along with Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) has a presence in 19 telecom circles in the country has reportedly fired as many as 600 employees in sales and other similar sectors.
According to Gadgets Now, the lay-offs have been done at multiple locations and the sacked employees are being offered a severance package consisting of just one-month's salary.
Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) on the other hand is reportedly not planning to initiate any layoffs this year.
Also Read: Samsung Galaxy C7 Pro review: Good but not enough to beat the bestAlberta man charged in murders of Hailey Dunbar-Blanchette and Terry Blanchette. Click here for details UPDATE:
EDMONTON — A candlelight vigil meant to lend hope and support in the search for a missing two-year-old girl in dissolved in grief Tuesday night, as RCMP informed the crowd in Blairmore, Alta. that investigators had discovered the remains of Hailey Dunbar-Blanchette.
READ MORE: Outpouring of grief over death of two-year-old Hailey Dunbar-Blanchette
As an official with victims services made the tragic announcement, one young woman crashed into a friend’s arms and sobbed. Others sniffed quietly and wiped away tears.
RCMP said they found the toddler’s body in a rural area near Blairmore. They also announced Tuesday night the Amber Alert, which was issued shortly after 2 p.m. MT Monday, had been dropped.
READ MORE: Timeline –Abduction of 2-year-old Hailey Dunbar-Blanchette
“The RCMP extends its deepest condolences to Hailey’s family. This is a sad day for the citizens of Blairmore and all Canadians who have held this little girl in their thoughts and prayers since Monday,” said RCMP Supt. Tony Hamori.
“Our goal now is to complete the investigation into Hailey’s death and the death of her father, Terry.”
WATCH: Full news conference held by RCMP Tuesday night
The RCMP said earlier Tuesday they took a 22-year-old man into custody in relation to the girl’s disappearance. He was also a suspect in the death of the girl’s father, 27-year-old Terry Blanchette, whose body was found inside the family home.
RCMP said the man remained in custody Tuesday night for questioning and charges were pending.
READ MORE: What we know so far about Terry Blanchette and daughter Hailey
“Police will provide the identity of the suspect after charges are laid in these matters,” said Hamori.
READ MORE: Technology making Amber Alert system more effective
The mayor of Crowsnest Pass said his heart goes out to the little girl’s family.
“This is obviously not the outcome our community was hoping for. This is going to devastate our community and it’s going to take us a long time to heal from this,” said Mayor Blair Painter.
“It’s heartbreaking, devastating news to hear this right now.”
Hailey’s godmother described the little girl as “the most energetic kid you’d ever see.”
“She’s running, she’s laughing, she does a scrunchy-face…she scrunches up her nose and gets so excited,” said Rebecca Harrington, who said she’s close with both sides of the family.
READ MORE: ‘Her dad was the highlight of her life’: Godmother pleads for missing Alberta girl’s return
RCMP are no longer looking for the public’s assistance in locating the white van that was seen near the Blairmore home early Monday morning.
The RCMP will provide another update on the investigation at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
Watch below: Video coverage of the abduction and death of Hailey Dunbar-Blanchette, and murder of her father
Blairmore is about 220 kilometres southwest of Calgary in the Crowsnest Pass area near the B.C.- Alberta boundary.
With files from The Canadian Press“AFTER God had carried us safe to New England, and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God’s worship and settled Civil Government, one of the next things we longed for and looked for was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity.” So ran the first university fundraising brochure, sent from Harvard College to England in 1643 to drum up cash.
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America’s early and lasting enthusiasm for higher education has given it the biggest and best-funded system in the world. Hardly surprising, then, that other countries are emulating its model as they send ever more of their school-leavers to get a university education. But, as our special report argues, just as America’s system is spreading, there are growing concerns about whether it is really worth the vast sums spent on it.
The American way
The modern research university, a marriage of the Oxbridge college and the German research institute, was invented in America, and has become the gold standard for the world. Mass higher education started in America in the 19th century, spread to Europe and East Asia in the 20th and is now happening pretty much everywhere except sub-Saharan Africa. The global tertiary-enrolment ratio—the share of the student-age population at university—went up from 14% to 32% in the two decades to 2012; in that time, the number of countries with a ratio of more than half rose from five to 54. University enrolment is growing faster even than demand for that ultimate consumer good, the car. The hunger for degrees is understandable: these days they are a requirement for a decent job and an entry ticket to the middle class.
A Special report on universities
There are, broadly, two ways of satisfying this huge demand. One is the continental European approach of state funding and provision, in which most institutions have equal resources and status. The second is the more market-based American model, of mixed private-public funding and provision, with brilliant, well-funded institutions at the top and poorer ones at the bottom.
The world is moving in the American direction. More universities in more countries are charging students tuition fees. And as politicians realise that the “knowledge economy” requires top-flight research, public resources are being focused on a few privileged institutions and the competition to create world-class universities is intensifying.
In some ways, that is excellent. The best universities are responsible for many of the discoveries that have made the world a safer, richer and more interesting place. But costs are rising. OECD countries spend 1.6% of GDP on higher education, compared with 1.3% in 2000. If the American model continues to spread, that share will rise further. America spends 2.7% of its GDP on higher education.
If America were getting its money’s worth from higher education, that would be fine. On the research side, it probably is. In 2014, 19 of the 20 universities in the world that produced the most highly cited research papers were American. But on the educational side, the picture is less clear. American graduates score poorly in international numeracy and literacy rankings, and are slipping. In a recent study of academic achievement, 45% of American students made no gains in their first two years of university. Meanwhile, tuition fees have nearly doubled, in real terms, in 20 years. Student debt, at nearly $1.2 trillion, has surpassed credit-card debt and car loans.
None of this means that going to university is a bad investment for a student. A bachelor’s degree in America still yields, on average, a 15% return. But it is less clear whether the growing investment in tertiary education makes sense for society as a whole. If graduates earn more than non-graduates because their studies have made them more productive, then university education will boost economic growth and society should want more of it. Yet poor student scores suggest otherwise. So, too, does the testimony of employers. A recent study of recruitment by professional-services firms found that they took graduates from the most prestigious universities not because of what the candidates might have learned but because of those institutions’ tough selection procedures. In short, students could be paying vast sums merely to go through a very elaborate sorting mechanism.
If America’s universities are indeed poor value for money, why might that be? The main reason is that the market for higher education, like that for health care, does not work well. The government rewards universities for research, so that is what professors concentrate on. Students are looking for a degree from an institution that will impress employers; employers are interested primarily in the selectivity of the institution a candidate has attended. Since the value of a degree from a selective institution depends on its scarcity, good universities have little incentive to produce more graduates. And, in the absence of a clear measure of educational output, price becomes a proxy for quality. By charging more, good universities gain both revenue and prestige.
What’s it worth?
More information would make the higher-education market work better. Common tests, which students would sit alongside their final exams, could provide a comparable measure of universities’ educational performance. Students would have a better idea of what was taught well where, and employers of how much job candidates had learned. Resources would flow towards universities that were providing value for money and away from those that were not. Institutions would have an incentive to improve teaching and use technology to cut costs. Online courses, which have so far failed to realise their promise of revolutionising higher education, would begin to make a bigger impact. The government would have a better idea of whether society should be investing more or less in higher education.
Sceptics argue that university education is too complex to be measured in this way. Certainly, testing 22-year-olds is harder than testing 12-year-olds. Yet many disciplines contain a core of material that all graduates in that subject should know. More generally, universities should be able to show that they have taught their students to think critically.
Some governments and institutions are trying to shed light on educational outcomes. A few American state-university systems already administer a common test to graduates. Testing is spreading in Latin America. Most important, the OECD, whose PISA assessments of secondary education gave governments a jolt, is also having a go. It wants to test subject-knowledge and reasoning ability, starting with economics and engineering, and marking institutions as well as countries. Asian governments are keen, partly because they believe that a measure of the quality of their universities will help them in the market for international students; rich countries, which have more to lose and less to gain, are not. Without funding and participation from them, the effort will remain grounded.
Governments need to get behind these efforts. America’s market-based system of well-funded, highly differentiated universities can be of huge benefit to society if students learn the right stuff. If not, a great deal of money will be wasted.Despite having faced delays, which forced the car from competing in this year’s African 6 Hour, the build of the new Pilbeam MP100 has continued, with the LMP2 car on schedule to be completed by the end of this month. (En Français)
Led by South African-based Zoo Racing, the prototype is now in the assembly phase, according to team representative Greg Mills.
“The new bodywork transforming the original Pilbeam MP93 into the MP100 is currently, as the photos indicate, under final preparation, with the plugs largely completed and the moulds now underway,” Mills said. “Once the body is completed, we plan to test again through until early November.
Mills said the bodywork is being manufactured by Pretoria-based Aerosud, a leading South African defense company and aerospace contractor to Boeing and Airbus.
The car could make its on-track debut later this year, if all goes to plan.
“We would like to race the car in the Asian Le Mans Series before the end of the year, depending on Pilbeam’s progress with the required new homologation,” Mills said.
“As an alternative, we have an invitation to race the new edition in South Africa in the planned 3-hour at Killarney in Cape Town in December.”
The team is understood to be targeting a future entry to the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Pilbeam last competed in the French endurance classic in 2007.A video uploaded to YouTube shows disturbing footage of a man on the ground being beaten by a Philadelphia Police officer, while other officers try to hold the man down.
The video begins with four Philadelphia police officers tackling a man on a sidewalk. As the man is on the ground, one officer in particular continues to beat the man on his head, back, arms and chest repeatedly with a metal-looking police baton.
The man being beaten, 29-year-old Askia Sabur, was standing outside a Chinese restaurant when police pulled up and asked him for his ID, according to Sabur’s attorney Evan Hughs. When Sabur turned to walk back into the Chinese restaurant, the police jumped out of the car and tackled him, Hughs told NBCPhiladelphia.
Police tell NBC Philadelphia that Sabur was blocking the store's doorway and when they asked him to move, he refused and hit one of the officers.
“I didn’t do nothing wrong,” Sabur says repeatedly in the video.
At first friends yell at Sabur in the video to stop resisting the police, even though he’s already on the ground. But as the officer continues to beat Sabur, the people watching yell for the officer to stop.
“Yo, he’s not fighting! He’s not even fighting!” voices from the crowd shout.
The beating lasts for the duration of the 2-minute and 29-second video. At one point the officer pulls back and blood is visible on his shirt.
According to Hughes, the incident happened in the 19th police district. Sabur’s sister, Naimah Wilson, told NBC Philadelphia that it happened on Sept. 3 at about 9 p.m..
Police brought Sabur to Mercy Hospital after the incident, where he was treated for head trauma and a fractured left arm, according to Wilson. Wilson said that her brother was simply talking to men in the neighborhood while waiting for his Chinese food.
Now, Sabur is charged with aggravated assault, robbery and attempting to take an officer's equipment, firearm, but internal affairs is investigating the case to see if the use of force was within police guidelines, according to Philadelphia Police spokesperson Lt. Frank Vanore.
“There’s things that happen before the video and obviously things that happen after and we’ll have to get the whole picture together,” says Vanore.Security breaches are very common. To make matters worse, when it comes to users’ passwords it is frequent that no reasonable precautions were taken to ensure that they can’t be easily extracted from the breached data.
People tend to use the same password, or simple variations of it in multiple sites. This makes it easier for one to remember a password, but it also means that when that password is exposed, an attacker can potentially get access to the other websites where that password was used.
The thing is, there’s no reason for this to be so common nowadays. Even though the science around cryptography is fairly complicated, the algorithms are easy to use and are readily available.
This blog post is an attempt at explaining what good qualities a stored password should have and which algorithms can be used to get there.
So what qualities should a stored password have? First, only the user should know it. There cannot be a way of getting to the password after it is stored.
That rules out saving the password in clear text, but it also rules out encrypting it.
This might sound like common sense, but unfortunately there’s been examples of fairly prominent online business that would just email you the password in clear text if you use their “Forgot password functionality”.
The example I’m thinking of right now is Tesco, one of the biggest supermarket chains in the UK and Ireland. A few years ago, when pressed about it, they said that they were encrypting the passwords. This is not a good idea since if there’s a security breach and the cryptographic key that was used to encrypt the passwords were to be discovered, the attackers would have access to all of the users’ passwords.
So if encrypting the passwords is not a good idea, what alternative can we use?
Hashing
Maybe we could hash the passwords. But first, what is hashing?
The idea behind hashing is that you can take any input and produce an output that has a specific size and from which you cannot “extract” original input.
For example here’s the output of the SHA1 hashing algorithm in base64 for the string “hello world”:
22596363b3de40b06f981fb85d82312e8c0ed511
And here’s the SHA1 hash for “hello world!”:
f951b101989b2c3b7471710b4e78fc4dbdfa0ca6
And here’s the SHA1 hash for a video file with 700Mb:
1b2803f08a8f2ba251a557cd61f1a38b07427011
Two very similar inputs produce completely different hashes, and irrespectively of the size of the input the output always has the same size.
Hashing algorithms are typically used for detecting duplicate data. Imagine you are storing video files and you want to determine if a certain video file has already been stored.
If each time you need to store a new video file you first compute its hash, you can then compare the video file’s hash with previously stored hashes. If there is already a hash that is the same as the video file you are trying to save that means it’s a duplicate, if not, you can save the video file with the hash. The advantage of doing this is that it is much faster to compare two hashes than two video files.
Another common use case for hashing is to detect if data has been corrupted while being transmitted.
For example, if a file needs to be transmitted through a medium that is not very reliable, before the file is sent a hash of it is created. Then, the file is sent together with the hash.
On the receiving end the hash is computed again and compared with the hash that was transmitted. If they don’t match it means the file was corrupted.
Some examples of hashing algorithms are MD5, SHA1, SHA256 and SHA512 just to name some common ones.
The qualities that the output of these algorithms have seem like they are very appropriate for storing passwords. Given a password, compute it’s hash and store that.
When the user tries to login, compute the hash from the password the user entered in the login form. If that hash matches the stored one, then it’s the right password.
Unfortunately, there’s a catch here. Hashing is supposed to be very fast. In its original use cases (e.g. duplicate detection, validating that data has not been changed/corrupted) it needs to be very fast.
That makes it a bad match for storing passwords because if it’s fast to compute that means many hashes can be generated in a short period of time. Which means that if you want to figure out what password was used to generate a particular hash, you can try many candidate passwords in a short period of time to see if any produces a hash that matches the one you are looking for.
Because most passwords people pick are somewhat predictable (e.g. words that you can find on a dictionary or simple variations of them), if an attacker manages to get access to a password’s hash, most of the time finding that password becomes an exercise of computing hashes of words in a dictionary until finding a match.
A way to speed up the process of getting a password from a hash is to use data from previous breaches, namely the most commonly used passwords. By pre-computing the most common passwords it is possible to just do a lookup search from the hash to the password. If an attacker manages to get access to a website’s database where the hashes are stored, it is very likely that this process will reveal a significant number of passwords.
This method of looking up passwords by using pre-computed password hashes is called a rainbow table attack. You don’t even need to generate the hashes yourself, there are pre-computed hashes readily available online for purchase. They are not too hard to find.
HMAC
If we can’t stop people from using the same passwords all the time is there something we can do to make hashing more secure?
What if we just appended a random string to the passwords?
We can store the random string with the hash of the password + random string combination. When the user tries to sign in, we append the random string with the password the user entered and recompute the hash. If they match the password is correct.
For example, if the password is “cutecats”, instead of computing the hash of “cutecats”, we can compute the hash of “[email protected]!Q^x” and store HASH("[email protected]!Q^x") and [email protected]!Q^x.
It is very unlikely you’ll find [email protected]!Q^x in a rainbow table.
An effective way to counteract a rainbow table attack is to generate a random string per password. If you consider the alternative of just having a random string for all passwords an attacker could still pre-compute all the hashes once and use them to try to get to the passwords.
If there’s a random string per password it means that the attacker can’t reuse any previously computed hashes.
The random string appended to the password is commonly know as salt).
Although we could just use an hashing algorithm to perform these operations, for example SHA256(password + salt), there are reasons for not doing it. Imagine that the password is “cutecats” and the salt is “1salt”. Now imagine that the password is “cutecats1” and the salt is “salt”. These two combinations will generate the same hash. This is suboptimal.
There’s another algorithm that combines two inputs and generates an output with the same properties of the previously mentioned hashing algorithms. It’s named HMAC which stands for Hash-based Message Authentication Code. Using HMAC, “cutecats”, “1salt” and “cutecats1” and “salt” generate different outputs.
Before we go into what HMAC is, lets talk about MAC (Message Authentication Code) and what it’s used for.
Imagine you want to communicate with someone over the internet and although you don’t mind if someone is listening to your conversation, you want to make sure that the conversation is not tampered with (i.e. no one can send a message as one of the two people participating in the conversation). A hash of the message wouldn’t do the trick here. A hash only guarantees that the message wasn’t corrupted, if a bad actor has access to the message and can alter it, that means that he can compute a new hash for the altered message. To the receiver of the message it would look like everything was ok.
A Message Authentication Code addresses this issue by using a secret that is known only by the parties that take place in the communication. Using Alice and Bob as an example, if Alice wants to send a message to Bob she’ll compute MAC(secret, messageToBob) and send that together with messageToBob. Bob, when he receives the message will repeat the process and compare the MAC code he generated with the one he received from Alice. If they match Bob can be confident that not only wasn’t the message altered, but it was sent by Alice, since she’s the only other person who could’ve generated a valid MAC.
In case you are wondering how Alice and Bob can agree on a secret even when there might be people listening to their communications have a look at Brief(ish) explanation of how https works, where you’ll find an example of the Diffie–Hellman algorithm that is used exactly for this.
That is MAC. What about HMAC (Hash-based Message Authentication Code)? It’s just an implementation of MAC that allows us pick from several different hashing algorithms to compute the MAC, for example there’s HMAC-SHA256 where the hashing algorithm used is SHA256, of HMAC-SHA1 where the hashing algorithm is SHA-1, etc.
How can we then use HMAC to store passwords? We could, for example, pick SHA256 and compute HMAC-SHA256(password, salt) and store that together with the salt.
Solved? Unfortunately, no.
Although rainbow table attacks wouldn’t work here, today’s hardware allows us to generate these hashes so quickly that it becomes feasible to just use passwords from a list of commonly used password or even do a brute force attack, i.e. for example compute HMAC-SHA256(testPassword, salt) where testPassword is “a”, then “aa”, then “ab”, up to all combinations of characters, numbers and symbols until a certain length.
To give you an idea, a high end graphics card that you can go buy today, for example a NVIDIA GTX 1080, can do ~4450 million SHA256 hashes per second). It is possible to have several of these cards in a single computer, so that number can be made much much higher.
Key Derivation
So if HMAC does not work, then what?
The idea of using a salt and a password is a good one, the only reason that it doesn’t work is because computing HMAC is so fast that it is possible to guess the password in a reasonable amount of time. To do this the attacker would only need the password’s hash and the salt (which would happen in the case of a breach) and good enough hardware that was capable of generating many hashes per second.
Maybe there’s a way to make the process more computationally expensive?
What if we do HMAC(password, salt)=hash1 and then HMAC(password, hash1)=hash2 and repeat this a large number of times, for example 100.000. That would significantly slow down the process. Trying out passwords one by one, or a brute force approach be not be reasonable anymore.
There are a few algorithms for doing just that, and they do a little more than just repeat HMAC. They are called Key Derivation function algorithms.
The idea behind key derivation is that given a key you generate one or more keys from that original key that have certain properties. For example, the AES-256 encryption algorithm requires a key with 256 bits.
It is not reasonable to ask a user to generate an exactly 256 bit key by hand. That key would be extremely hard to memorize.
That’s one of the uses of key derivation. It’s a way of going from a key, for example the password the user thinks up, to another key that has a specific size.
But apart from that these key derivation have the property of, with the right configuration, being very computationally expensive.
For example PBKFD2 (Password-Based Key Derivation Function 2) can be configured to use a password, a salt, a particular HMAC algorithm and the number of iterations the HMAC should be applied. There is also bcrypt and scrypt that can also be used in a similar fashion.
As an example here’s how using PBKDF2 in dotnet core would look like, with a 128 bit salt, 100.000 iterations and an output key size of 128 bits (16 bytes).
const int saltSize = 128 / 8; const int outputKeySize = 128 / 8; const int numberOfIterations = 100000; var password = "cutecats"; using (var rng = RandomNumberGenerator.Create()) { var salt = new byte[saltSize]; rng.GetBytes(salt); var derivedKey = KeyDerivation.Pbkdf2(password, salt, KeyDerivationPrf.HMACSHA256, numberOfIterations, outputKeySize); Console.WriteLine($"The salt in base64: {Convert.ToBase64String(salt)}"); Console.WriteLine($"The 'hash/derived key' in base64: {Convert.ToBase64String(derivedKey)}"); }
To run this example you need to install the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cryptography.KeyDerivation nuget package.
If you are wondering why I picked a 128 bit salt size or a 128 bit output key I don’t have a good answer for that, but a good rule of thumb is that it should be less than what the hashing algorithm produces, for example we used SHA256 which produces a 256 bit output or 32 bytes.
By the way, “cutecats” is a horrible password, you should use a password manager like LastPass, 1Password or similar to generate passwords for you. That’s because even if a password is stored correctly, if it’s something like “cutecats” or for example a word you’d find in a dictionary then, even if it takes 1 second to try each password, an attacker might find it just by guessing and having a little patience.
So that’s it, I hope I’ve helped explain why we should use passwords with a reasonable length, combinations of several numbers, symbols and characters and why they should not be stored in a way that can be easily “reversed” back to the the original password.
It's only fair to share... LinkedinFor reasons that were quite clear well before the Afghan “surge” began (see here and here), America’s Afghan adventure is now ending without achieving its goals. The prospects for a civil life in Afghanistan are likely to become even more remote than they were before we intervened. Indeed, some experts think the ground work has been laid for an even more destructive civil war than that which occurred after the Soviets left Afghanistan with their tail between their legs in 1989. Only time will tell how bad things will be, but it is a virtual certainty that events will be ugly and murderous.
One would expect a healthy accountable democratic government, intent on learning from its errors, would be inclined to seek an understanding of how it got itself into such a mess.
For example, will there be soul searching lessons-learned exercise by a military that repeated most of the strategic and tactical blunders it made in Vietnam. To wit: it dumbed down strategy into a mindless attrition strategy driven by body counts and assassinations in the name of winning hearts and minds. It substituted high-cost contractor-intensive technologies for low-cost tactical smarts in a guerrilla war. It over-relied on air power and killing from a safe distance. It allowed its reactive obsessions with force protection to the displace tactical initiative of small unit commanders. And perhaps most decisively, it relied on a fatally flawed grand strategy to quickly create a huge, materiel-intensive, indigenous army out of whole cloth, trained and equipped in the US military’s image. Don’t expect to hear any questions about these issues in the Presidential debates. And don’t expect to see any serious introspection by a military – industrial – congressional complex (MICC) intent on perpetuating its lucrative business-as-usual.
Will there be an accounting at home for our complicity in causing this human disaster? US complicity in the Afghan nightmare reaches back more than thirty years to the Carter Administration’s successful efforts in the summer of 1979 to sucker the Soviets into invading Afghanistan. The idea was simple, according to President Carter’s national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski: Fan the fires of Islamic extremism (with the help of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) in Afghanistan to increase the Soviet leadership’s paranoid fears about a spillover of religious unrest into the Soviet Central Asian republics. The leadership’s obsessive fear would increase the likelihood of a defensively motivated preemptive Soviet invasion, and
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it was an amazing feeling."
Clifford Spence sang the honour song for the pair to welcome them to Treaty 1 Territory.
In an exchange, Spence performed at the festival in Chile in February with the Summer Bear Dance Troop, which is run by Barbara and Clarence Nepinak.
A delegation from Chile was greeted with an honour song at the Winnipeg airport Saturday morning. 0:56
"It was a great show, they really made us feel at home," he said. "It's a good thing for us; we learn about them and they learn about us."
The Nepinaks presented the special guests with traditional medicine, tobacco for Pereira, and sage, which is a woman's medicine, for Jose Soto.
At the festival in Chile, Barbara Nepinak performed a water ceremony with other Indigenous people from around the world.
Barbara Nepinak gives a bundle of sage to Marie Jose Soto, who is from Chile, as a welcome gift. (Jillian Taylor/ CBC) She said they didn't discuss how they do their ceremonies ahead of time and she was shocked to see they were almost the same.
"We all stepped forward at the same time and poured some [water] into the land," she said. "The commonalities we have, we didn't all speak the same language, but we sure understood what we were doing."
Christian Hidalgo-Mazzei, Folklorama's agency producer, said they have relationships with other festivals and do these types of exchanges as a learning experience.
"They basically want to learn about a bigger festival," he said explaining that the one in Concon is just five years old.
The plan is to take the Chileans around to different pavilions so they can see how things are run. Hidalgo-Mazzei said he is looking forward to showing off the multiculturalism of Folklorama.
"A lot of people forget why this festival exists," he said. "They look at it as entertainment, but really it's there for the preservation of intangible cultural heritage, like to share and practice and do what you do."The Bellevue Haggen Northwest Fresh will close its doors within the next six to eight weeks, according to published reports.
The Haggen, located at 15751 NE 15th St. in the Crossroads neighborhood, was remodeled into Haggen Northwest Fresh from a Top Food and Drug in 2011. It will close along with the Shoreline store, according to reports in the Seattle Times and the Bellingham Herald, the hometown paper of the grocery store chain's headquarters.
The company had remodeled the underperforming stores with its new Northwest Fresh concept, but it was not enough to turn the stores around, according to a company press release issued to the two papers.
"Instead of closing these stores when they were struggling as TOP branded stores, we decided to do all we could do to try and turn these stores around," co-president Clement Stevens said in a news release, according to the reports. "We invested in both remodeling and rebranding, dedicating our collective resources to give these locations one last chance. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we were unable to turn these stores around."
The store is expected to close in the next six to eight weeks, the Times reported.
The Bellingham Herald reported that Haggen has closed five stores so far this year, including stores in Tacoma, Lacey and Federal Way.
We know that Bellevue Patch readers love Haggen. What do you think about the closure and where will you shop?
Patch Associate Regional Editor Margaret Santjer contributed to this report.Clemson PG suffers knee injury, out against Georgia
Shelton Mitchell Pos: G Height: 6-4 Weight: 200 Hometown: Waxhaw, NC (Vanderbilt HS)
Years Played: 2015 - 2018
Clemson point guard Shelton Mitchell sustained a non-contact knee injury in practice and will undergo a procedure today according to the Clemson Basketball Twitter account.
Mitchell will miss the Georgia game and was expected to be a big-time contributor this season with his passing ability running the point guard position. It's a tough break for Brownell and Co. because I was hearing great things about Mitchell throughout the offseason. No word yet on how long he will be out during the season.
He sat out last season after transferring from the Commodores, where he started 11 of 31 games for the Commodores. Mitchell averaged 4.3 points and 3.3 assists per game but also led Vandy with 103 assists.
I'll be back — Shelton Mitchell (@SMitchell_4) November 8, 2016
Shelton Mitchell sustained a non-contact knee injury in practice Tuesday & will undergo a procedure today. He will not play Friday vs UGA. — Clemson Basketball (@ClemsonMBB) November 8, 2016D.G. Yuengling and Son Inc. has reached a settlement with the federal government regarding allegations that its two eastern Pennsylvania breweries discharged unacceptable levels of waste into a local water system.
The U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday announced that a consent decree resolving the matter has been filed in federal court in Harrisburg.
The feds say in a news release that the decree calls for Yuengling to pay a $2.8 million penalty and also spend about $7 million to improve environmental measures at its breweries near Pottsville.
However, a Yuengling executive on Thursday said the necessary improvements have been in the works for several years and are already complete.
The company built a wastewater treatment facility at its downtown Pottsville brewery, which dates to the 1830s and is the oldest brewery in America, says Wendy Yuengling, the company's chief administrative officer.
The facility started operating in March and the company has been in compliance with the Clean Water Act ever since, Wendy Yuengling says.
Yuengling allegedly violated provisions of the act "numerous times between 2008 and 2015" by discharging waste that should have been pretreated at the breweries into the Greater Pottsville Area Sewer Authority system, the two federal agencies say in the joint news release.
Wendy Yuengling says there was nothing toxic or dangerous in the waste; it was organic material such as sugar and yeast, byproducts of the brewing process.
But she did acknowledge the improvements were necessary. Although the feds pin the violations on both the downtown Pottsville brewery and Yuengling's newer brewery just outside of Pottsville, it's the downtown one that was the source of the problems, Wendy Yuengling says.
It previously didn't have its own wastewater treatment plant prior to March. That created problems as demand for Yuengling products increased, driving up production at the plant, she says.
"We struggled at that point because we were producing a lot of beer out of an old plant with no treatment facility," Wendy Yuengling says. "We were only in 18 states and we knew we'd continue to grow."
In addition to the newer brewery just outside of Pottsville, Yuengling also now operates a brewery in Tampa, Florida.
Yuengling has long been a hometown favorite in the Lehigh Valley even though it is based about 45 miles northwest of Allentown. The brewery's flagship beer, Yuengling Lager, is simply referred to as "Lager" at most local bars in the region.
Yuengling-themed bar and grill opens
Its popularity has also grown rapidly outside eastern Pennsylvania. In April, the Brewers Association, a nonprofit trade group, named Yuengling the No. 1 craft brewing company in the nation based on 2015 sales.
Although the company says the discharges from the breweries weren't toxic, EPA Regional Administrator Shawn M. Garvin says in the news release that the occurrence of discharges still represents serious violations "posing a potential risk to the Schuylkill River, which provides drinking water to 1.5 million people."
"This history of violations and failure to fully respond to orders from the Greater Pottsville Area Sewer Authority and EPA to correct the problems resulted in this enforcement action," Garvin says.
Wendy Yuengling says matters involving the community's safety and well being are a paramount concern to the company.
"Environmental responsibility is very important to us," she says. "We intend to be around a long time and keep this business for future generations."
Nick Falsone may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @nickfalsone. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.Alvin Wang Graylin is the China President of Vive at HTC, and I had a chance to talk with him at CES this year about what’s happening in China. He provided me with a lot of cultural context, which includes support from the highest levels of Chinese Government to invest in companies working on emerging technologies like virtual reality and artificial intelligence. There were a flood of Chinese companies at CES showing VR headsets, peripherals, and 360 cameras. On average, the VR hardware from China tends to be no where near the quality of the major VR players of the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Sony PSVR, or Samsung GearVR, but there were some standout Chinese companies who are leading innovation in specific area. For example, some highlights from CES include TPCast’s wireless VR, Noitom’s hand-tracked gloves, and Insta360 with some of the cheapest 360 cameras with the best specs available right now.
After CES, I was convinced that if you want to understand what’s going to be happening in the overall VR ecosystem, then it’s worth looking to see what’s happening in China. The VR market in China is growing, and there is a lot more optimism for technological adoption and enthusiasm for having VR arcade experiences. Education in China is also very important with the one-child/two-child policy, and Graylin says that if VR can be proven to have a lot of educational impacts then the government will act to get VR headsets in every classroom. Once VR is in the classrooms, then it’ll help convince more parents to buy one for the home if they believe it’ll help their education.
LISTEN TO THE VOICES OF VR PODCAST
http://voicesofvr.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Voices-of-VR-506-Alvin-Wang-Graylin.mp3
In an extensive round-up VR growth in China from Yoni Dayan, he mentions a moonshot project called Donghu VR Town, which is a proposed “city built in the south of the country, designed with virtual reality intertwined in every aspects from services, healthcare, education, to entertainment.” Here’s an untranslated promotional video that shows off what a VR-utopian city might look like:
It’s debatable as to whether Donghu VR Town would be a successful experiment if built, but it reflects a desire to innovate. Graylin said China doesn’t want to just be the manufacturing arm of the world, but that it wants to become a leader in virtual reality as well as in artificial intelligence, as can be seen in this Atlantic article detailing how Chinese universities and companies are starting to surpass American ones in researching and implementing AI.
China is a complicated topic and ecosystem, but after having a direct experience of the TPCast wireless VR, Noitom VR gloves, and the great-looking and high-res stereoscopy from a Insta360 camera at CES, then I think that it’s time to really look to China as a leader in innovation. If China really does go all-in on VR and AI and continues to investing large sums of money, then that type of institutional support is going to leap-frog China as one of the leading innovators in the world. I’ve already have started to see this at CES this year and at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence where there was a very healthy representation from China, and the thing to watch over the next couple of years is any big educational infrastucture investments by the Chinese government as well as the evolving digital out-of-home entertainment hardware ecosystem.
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Music: Fatality & Summer TripSAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz said after a week without electricity, patients’ lives are in danger.
"My concern right now is with those that we might not get to in time. Yesterday, we walked two people into a hospital. One of them had not had dialysis in six days so he was already, you know, right in the edge of life," Cruz said while choking back tears at the Luis Muñoz Marin Airport where she was unpacking cargo sent from Chicago.
"The other one had an oxygen tank and the little power plant that they had was running off. We really found her gasping for air," she added.
Centro Médico, Puerto Rico's main medical center, has been on and off the grid since Hurricane Maria struck last Wednesday. Officials earlier this week celebrated the restoration of the hospital’s electricity, but on Tuesday morning generators were buzzing through the hallways again.
Centro Médico’s nursing director said gasoline shortages are compounding the hospital’s problem because staff can’t report to work while patients flock to the hospital.
“I have more than 100 people in the emergency room. The problem is that we are receiving lots of patients because other hospitals can't. It's something unprecedented, but we will get through it,” Gomez said.
Arturo Cedeño, medical director of Aguadilla's Good Samaritan Hospital, claimed authorities have not kept their promises made to hospital employees that they would get priority in obtaining gasoline. Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said Puerto Rico has enough fuel, but the problem is distributing across the island over impassable roads. Pump gas lines are still crowded and people are willing to wait four hours for $25 worth of gas.
Meanwhile, Good Samaritan is running out of medicine.
“Some drugs are beginning to become scarce,” Cedeño, the medical director, told a local newspaper.
Puerto Rico’s Secretary of Health Rafael Rodriguez temporarily authorized drug refills without a new prescription.
But most pharmacies do not have power to access systems, as Awilda López found out.
“I’m paying my mother's medicine cash but I'm running out of money,” López said.
Secretary Mercado told The Daily Beast that he was aware of all the queries, but the total loss of communications on the island is hampering efforts.
“Having no communications with the hospitals is something I can't cope with right now,” he confessed, likening the task ahead to a military mission.
Even National Guard forces couldn’t reliably communicate.
“This has without a doubt been the worst disaster that has ever happened on U.S. soil,” he said, adding that a study after the hurricane study revealed that 80 percent of the hospitals in the island reside in flooded zones.
“What worries me right now is that all of the the hospitals that are in Arecibo have been closed,” he said of Puerto Rico’s biggest municipality that typically serves about 600 patients a day.
Most patients in emergency rooms have minor health problems, Mercado said.
FEMA Director Brock Long said Tuesday afternoon that the USNS Comfort, a hospital ship capable of carrying more than 1,000 medical personnel, has been deployed.
Back in San Juan along the normally bustling Isla Verde avenue, it was disturbingly quiet.
Locals and tourists poked into dark windows along the street dotted with restaurants and five-star hotels. A line of people were waiting outside to a supermarket and were being let in one by one. It wasn’t long before fast food restaurants and gas stations all closed. By 10 a.m., even the popular Smoke Shop was pulling the metal blinds shut.
“My boss told me to close and didn’t know when he would reopen,” store manager Alejandra Zayas said, adding, “the street is bad.”
Daniel Lopez, a tourist from Spain, said his family had run out of cash and were holed up at a friend’s apartment with broken windows.
“I went to the Spanish Consulate for help,” Lopez said. “The building was empty. The security guard told me the consulate just split and had no intention of returning.”
All five-star hotels were off limits, blocked by heavily armed guards at the gates. Owners have rented them out to the relief agencies. Even membership access to use the internet was denied.
“The manager ordered the hotel closed to anyone other than the FEMA people living here,” a guard at the Intercontinental said.
At a no-frills hotel at the end of Avenida Isla Verde, Gaetano and his friends complained of price gouging.
Ya nos se puede, todo a aumentado, no se odemos continuar! Ladrones! they said in Spanish. “We can’t take it much more, prices are going through the roof, we can’t continue. Thieves!”
Inside the hotel, the lobby was teeming with desperate foreign tourists exchanging information on what flights were leaving.
“We have no cash left,” said Orly, who along with his mother and friend were stranded by the hurricane. “I finally got my mother on a plane this morning.”
At the only ATM still open on Avenida Isla Verde, residents waited three hours in line.Houston redshirt sophomore cornerback Howard Wilson will be entering the 2017 NFL Draft, per sources.
Wilson, a 6-1, 180-pound corner, appeared in all 13 games as a freshman for the Cougars, one of just four freshman to do so. Wilson missed the entire 2015 season with an injury but returned to the starting lineup for a defense that finished in the top 15 in total yards allowed in 2016.
MORE: Mock Draft 2017
Wilson has a similar body type and plays a similar style to that of Will Jackson, Houston's first-round cornerback a year ago. But Wilson has started just one season at the college level and has plenty of footwork, anticipation and on-field discipline issues that will give teams pause before drafting him as high.
Wilson's decision to leave school early may be tied to Tom Herman's decision to leave for the Texas Longhorns job earlier this month.
Wilson is projected to be drafted between the third and fifth round of the 2017 NFL Draft.A new study claims that as many as 40,000 Christians -- including Muslims who wish to convert to Christianity -- are being attacked and harassed by Muslims in migrant homes. According to the report, "Now in European asylum homes they are finding more and more that they are in as much danger from radical Muslims in Europe as they were in their home countries."
"The government of Iran continues to engage in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, including prolonged detention, torture, and executions based primarily or entirely upon the religion of the accused." — Report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Thousands of Christians are fleeing Eritrea due to extreme persecution. A report describes Eritrea as "one of the world's fastest emptying nations" and the "North Korea of Africa." The majority of the 40,000 who fled to Italy last year are Christians.
"We will show the Armenians and the Christians who we are... We have been ordered not to leave any Armenians in the area." — Islamic rebels, Aleppo, Syria.
More reports of the brutal treatment that Christians and other minorities experienced at the hands of the Islamic State (SIS) emerged during May. One account told of a couple who, after their children were abducted by ISIS militants, answered their door one day to find a plastic bag on their doorstep. It contained the body parts of their daughters and a video of them being brutally tortured and raped.
Another Christian mother from Mosul answered the door to find ISIS jihadis demanding that she leave or pay the jizya (protection money demanded as a tribute by conquered Christians and Jews, according to the Koran 9:29). The woman asked for a few seconds, because her daughter was in the shower, but the jihadis refused to give her the time. They set a fire to the house; her daughter was burned alive. The girl died in her mother's arms; her last words were "Forgive them."
The Islamic State reportedly beheaded another Christian leader on February 18. No media reported it, except for one Italian paper in May: "There are reliable reports are that Father Yacob Boulos, was beheaded by the terror group' militants after he prayed on the altar of his church. He was punished for his faith."
According to another report,
"In yet another disturbing example of the genocide facing Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East, on 12-13 May a group from Islamic State (IS) entered a town near the city of Hama in Syria, populated only by Christians and Alawites, killing an as yet unspecified number of men, women and children. Men were beheaded, whilst women were raped and then murdered. Many children were also killed. It is not yet clear exactly how many people have been killed."
A local Christian leader said,
"Where are the leaders of the West, Ban Ki-Moon (Secretary-General of the United Nations), the EU, WHO (World Health Organization), and other Christian organisations? How long will my nation tolerate and stay. We don't hold arms and weapons, but we are melting like a candle! Is it possible for our voice to reach to all others?"
Father Douglas Bazi, an Iraqi priest, who was kidnapped by ISIS in 2006 but later escaped, recounted his experiences as a captive:
"They destroyed my car, they blew up my church on [sic] front of me. I got shot by AK-47 in my leg. The bullet is still in my leg. And I [have] been kidnapped for nine days. They smash my nose and my teeth by hammer. And they broke one of my back discs."
He was released after his church paid for his ransom, but eventually had to flee the region after continued persecution by ISIS. "To be Christian in Iraq, it's an impossible mission," said Father Bazi, adding, "But even so, I'm not actually surprised when they attack my people. I'm surprised how my people are still existing. Please talk about our stories. Let the world know what happens to us."
The rest of May's roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes, but is not limited to, the following:
More Muslim Slaughter of Christians
Uganda: A Christian pastor was poisoned to death by a Muslim. Micah Byamukama, 61, pastor of a Baptist Church, died on May 15, after ingesting an insecticide that a Muslim, Ahmed Mupere, had put into his food. Mupere is believed to have been upset that the pastor challenged his belief in jinn, supernatural creatures attested to in Islamic literature, including the Koran. "The true God is the God of the Lord Jesus Christ, who conquered the power of Satan including the Islamic Jinn... the Islamic Jinn are acts of Satan and should be denounced," the pastor had apparently said. Soon, unidentified persons believed to have been hired by Ahmed attacked and wounded the pastor with knives.
Five days after the knife attack, Mupere, pretending not to be angry, came to visit the pastor, a widower with no children. According to the report, "Feigning reconciliation as he dined with the pastor from a shared dish, Ahmed secretly put poison on the food and stopped eating as Pastor Byamukama continued." Shortly thereafter, the Christian man began having stomach pains, was rushed to the hospital and was soon declared dead.
Earlier, the pastor had told his neighbor, "Ahmed took a little food with me and then stopped. When I asked him why not continue with the food, he said he had eaten at his home, and that he wanted [to] go back home because it was getting late." A nurse said he died from ingesting a highly toxic insecticide. Once investigations began, Mupere fled. The incident is the latest in a series of attacks, including other poisonings, by Muslims against Christians in eastern Uganda.
Separately in Uganda, a Muslim man strangled his wife to death for leaving Islam and converting to Christianity. Awali Kakaire, 34, began to suspect that his wife Mariam Nakiriya, 30, was a Christian a month earlier, when the local imam asked him why his wife and children had not been attending the mosque or madrassa (Islamic school). According to one of Kakaire's sons: "Our father questioned us why we have stopped attending the madrassa, but we told him that we were busy with school work as our mother had instructed us This made my father to cool down his tempers." Then, on May 8, Kakaire awoke at 6 a.m., and after his Islamic cleansing ritual, woke his wife to join him in morning Islamic prayers: "Our mother refused, and our father started strangling her as she cried for help," his son said. After killing her, Kakaire left the house only to return two hours later and force his five children, ages 5 to 12, into a hole he had dug in a nearby garden.
"We resisted and began screaming, and neighbors arrived immediately, but he had already dumped us into the hole that he had dug. Seeing the neighbors, he tried to flee but he was overtaken and then began to be questioned by those who surrounded him."
Kakaire was heard shouting "My family has no respect for Islam." Thanks to some Muslim accomplices, Kakaire managed to escape the murder scene.
Syria: Up to 200 Christians were reportedly killed during sustained bombardments of the city of Aleppo. Between April 22 and April 30, approximately 1,350 rockets hit the Christian region. The attack killed 132 people, half of them women and children. Another 65 were killed on May 3, and hundreds more injured. Islamic rebels had earlier, on April 22, issued a direct threat against Aleppo's large community of Armenian Christians, and warned, "We will show the Armenians and the Christians who we are... We have been ordered not to leave any Armenians in the area."
Bangladesh: "Fighters from the Islamic State assassinated a doctor who called to Christianity in Kushtia, western Bangladesh," ISIS announced in a brief statement issued in Arabic. Doctor Sanaur Rahman, 58, was riding home on his motorcycle along with his friend when they were attacked by machete-wielding terrorists. Rahman was hacked to death, while Zaman was critically wounded in the attack. The doctor was popular in his village because he used to treat and offer medicine to poor people free of charge and ran a free clinic on Fridays.
Congo: Muslim terrorists killed scores of villagers in the east of the Christian-majority nation. The attackers carried machetes and axes into a village in North Kivu province during the evening of May 3. According to the local administrator, "the enemy managed to get past army positions and kill peaceful residents in their homes, slashing their throats. The 16 bodies are in front of me, killed by machete or axe." Another source said that as many as 38 were slaughtered, including two Evangelical Christian leaders and their wives. According to the report,
The MDI [Muslim Defensive International] has repeatedly attacked the majority-Christian population in eastern DRC for years. Kidnapping and murder are common. It is alleged to have support from the Islamic government of Sudan... The MDI is known to have attracted foreign recruits and to have forced Christians to convert to Islam. The local population in the related area is overwhelmingly Christian (95.8%) and the impact on them has been immense.
In a letter released a year ago, Congolese Bishops denounced a "climate of genocide" and the passivity of the Congolese government and the international community: "Does the situation have to deteriorate even more before the international community takes measures against jihadism?" asked the Bishops in May 2015.
Philippines: Islamic jihadis attacked the "Crusaders" of the Catholic-majority nation. The recently-established ISIS branch in the Philippines claimed responsibility for a terror attack on a military position on Basilan Island. The attack killed one soldier and injured another. Basilan Island has long been a stronghold of local Muslim terror organizations that aim to topple the government and establish a Sharia-compliant government.
Muslim Rape and Humiliation of Christian Women
Bangladesh: A 26-year-old Catholic high school teacher was raped on May 12 by her Muslim principal and his friend, Shariful Islam. Afterwards, they threatened to post the video of the rape on Facebook, if she reported them. According to parish priest Fr. Domenic K. Halder, "The girl is very frightened. We pray for her, she is still in hospital." Hundreds of Christians also protested in the streets of Dhaka and demanded justice.
Egypt: On May 20, a 70-year-old Christian woman was stripped naked, savagely beaten, spat upon, and paraded in the streets of Minya to jeers, whistles, and yells of "Allahu Akbar," after a mob of some 300 Muslim men descended on her home. Her crime was that her son was accused of having a romantic relationship with a Muslim woman, an intimacy that is banned under Islamic law, Sharia. It is the same body of teachings that prescribes collective punishment to non-Muslim "infidels." Seven Christian homes were also torched during the attack. Earlier that day her husband and she had gone to local police and complained that they were being harassed and threatened by neighborhood Muslims. The police responded by also threatening and ordering them out of the station. A few hours later, the attack occurred. It took the same local police over two hours to appear, giving the mob "ample time," as one Christian clergyman put it, to riot. Minya's most senior Christian cleric, Bishop Makarios, said during a televised interview concerning 70-year-old woman's ordeal, that if a Muslim man were pursuing a Christian woman, the police response "would not have been anything like what happened.... No one did anything and the police took no preemptive or security measures in anticipation of the attacks."
Uganda: After a 22-year-old Christian woman accused a mosque leader of murdering her father earlier in the year, local Muslims responded by beating and raping her. The woman, whose name was withheld, said she was beaten and raped on April 19 for telling a court what she had witnessed. She was found unconscious in a pool of blood, with cuts on her body. One of the three Muslims who assaulted her told her, "We shall kill you today because you are the one who made our sheikh to be imprisoned." According to the woman, speaking from a hospital bed,
"I was able to identify the sheikh because we are neighbors, and my father had been questioning him about the Islamic faith not leading one to salvation with God. The sheikh had said to him, 'You have no respect of our religion, and we have come for your life today.' They started strangling my father as well as hitting him on the head with a big stick. When my father fell down, I managed to escape through the window."
Muslim Attacks on Christian Churches
Tanzania: Another church was burned to the ground. The Roman Catholic church in the Kagera region is the third church in four months to be burned down in the nation. According to a local pastor, "Since 2013 we have had over 13 churches torched here in Kagera and no-one has been held accountable. This is not acceptable."
Fortunatus Bijura, a priest at the church, said: "Those who think that destroying our church means we won't pray, they are wrong... We have a big tree near the church and will continue meeting there for prayers." Tanzania is approximately 35% Muslim.
Pakistan: The government announced its plans to demolish four historic churches in order to make way for the construction of a metro train. On May 3, Christians gathered in front of the Lahore High Court to protest the decision. "These churches were built pre-Pakistan and these all [sic] churches are located at very expensive and prime locations which politicians and Islamists are jealous of," said Nasir Saeed, director of the Center for Legal Aid. "They cannot stand that Christians have such prime property and... so try to use any excuse to grab the land and belittle Christians." While the community is still mourning their loved ones who perished during the Easter Sunday attack on Christians that left 69 dead and more than 340 injured, Saeed said they now face a new threat to their churches: "There is no respite for them and one problem after the other seems to follow Pakistani Christians," he said.
Muslim Attacks on Christian Apostates, Blasphemers and Preachers
Pakistan: A fatwa, or Islamic decree, was issued against a Christian after Muslims accused him of watching an anti-Islamic video on his phone. Imran Masih was last reported on the run after a $10,000 bounty was put on his head. As a form of collective punishment, fellow Christians in his village were prevented from buying food from Muslim shopkeepers and given three options: "convert to Islam, leave the village forever, or hand over Imran so he can be burnt alive." Speaking of this incident, a Pakistani human rights activist said,
I cannot believe that such things are still happening in this world. Such treatment towards Pakistani Christians is a slap on the face of the Punjab and central government, and to all those who never tire of telling the world that minorities are protected and enjoying equal rights in the country. I don't understand how watching a video on the internet can be criminalised as an act of blasphemy.... I believe this is not an act of blasphemy and if people still think Imran has committed blasphemy then he should be punished according to the law. No one has any right to take the law into their own hands, harass local Christians, threaten them, burn Imran alive or force Christians to convert to Islam or leave the village. Such conditions from lay people make a mockery of the law. The Government of Pakistan must take this matter seriously, provide protection to the local Christians, and those who are breaking the law should be dealt according to the law.
Left: The house of Imran Masih in the village of Chak-44, Pakistan. Masih was last reported on the run after Muslims accused him of watching an anti-Islamic video on his phone and a $10,000 bounty was put on his head. Right: The Catholic Church in the village. (Images source: World Watch Monitor)
Separately in Pakistan, police arrested a Christian man in Punjab province for allegedly posting messages on his Facebook account that were considered blasphemous by Muslims. According to Liaquat Usman's wife, "My husband stopped some [Muslim] boys from teasing girl students. A couple of days ago the boys manhandled Usman. Instead of arresting the boys, police arrested Usman saying a complaint against him has been lodged for committing blasphemy." Initial investigations showed that the "blasphemous" messages were posted on Usman's Facebook account a year earlier, and that someone else living abroad tagged them on his account.
Germany: A new report claimed that as many as 40,000 Christians -- including Muslims who wish to convert to Christianity -- are being attacked and harassed by Muslims in migrant homes. According to the report,
Many converts [to Christianity] wished to do so in their homelands, but in places like Iran and Afghanistan the penalty for leaving the Islamic religion can be death and so they fled to Europe. Now in European asylum homes they are finding more and more that they are in as much danger from radical Muslims in Europe as they were in their home countries. The most prevalent form of abuse was verbal insults with 96 people saying that had received abuse or threats. Eighty-six said they had been physically assaulted and 73 said they had been subjected to death threats against themselves and family members. Three quarters of the migrants also said they had been victims of multiple attacks. The perpetrators of most of the attacks were fellow migrants who look down on converts and believe them to be apostates. Perhaps, more interestingly was the prevalence of Muslim security guards who participated in the attacks. Almost half of those surveyed said they had received abuse from security guards and in the German capital of Berlin the figure rose to two-thirds.
Azerbaijan: Christian activists called attention to the plight of a frail Christian evangelist from Azerbaijan who has spent a year behind bars in neighboring Georgia on what his supporters say are "trumped-up charges" for the possession of drugs. If convicted, the man could face 14 years imprisonment. The Azeri evangelist says he has been framed by people who are angry about his evangelism work among Muslims. Local sources said "His health is very bad and he needs urgent help -- medical, spiritual and materially." Fears also exist that the man will not be able to return safely to predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan after an eventual release from prison. According to a human rights organization,
Officially, the country is secular and religion is tolerated. However, the level of surveillance is so incredibly high that Christians in Azerbaijan do not know whom to trust anymore. Persecution of Christians has gone up markedly since last year due to ever-increasing government controls," added Open Doors. Another sign of the government pressure is the fact that Azeri Christians find it easier to evangelize in countries like Georgia and Iran than in their own country.
Muslim Hate for and Violence against Christians
Syria: The Islamic State released an online video on May 16, showing an ISIS fighter desecrating the graves of Christians and showing off the damage that was done to the Christian cemetery. The video was allegedly filmed in the city of Deir ez-Zor. The ISIS militant is shown touring the cemetery, showing shards of stone and wood, while in the background are destroyed headstones and corpses of Syrian soldiers -- some torn to pieces -- who apparently tried to stop the desecration.
Eritrea: Thousands of Christians are fleeing the nation due to extreme persecution, according to a report which describes Eritrea as "one of the world's fastest emptying nations" and the "North Korea of Africa." The majority of the 40,000 who fled to Italy last year are Christians. The report added that "all evangelical and independent churches have been closed." Dawit, who was among hundreds of Christians jailed and tortured for his faith, said:
"There is no law and no justice. When I was living in Eritrea I was arrested because of my Christian faith. That's why I left. In Eritrea almost every Christian faces imprisonment. That's why I was in prison."
Berhane, another Christian who managed to escape said:
"We believe there are over 300 Christian prisoners at the moment. Most of them have been in prison for over ten years and they are suffering for lack of food and proper hygiene and proper medical care and even some of them have lost their lives."
Turkey: United States ally and NATO member Turkey is aiding and abetting the Islamic State and other terrorist groups in Syria that kill Christians, by providing them with aerial cover and "safe haven," said Mindy Belz, an activist and senior editor of WORLD magazine:
We have to have a new approach to our ally, Turkey. Turkey is a country that is in transition and is becoming more and more radicalized. There is strong evidence, as I interviewed people at the border who had escaped to Lebanon. I sat down with them in Beirut. They were up at the border when Turkey shot down the Syrian jet that crossed the border [in 2015].
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of decreasing spending on European welfare and social security, and increasing spending on defence. The ultimate objective of such border control is to stop the victims of persecution, civil war and forced migration from reaching Europe. But, of course, this is not openly acknowledged. Instead, [this] is justified as vital for the maintenance of Europe's security against the dual threat posed by traffickers and terrorists.
Border protection: objectives and outcomes
The EU Council's border control programme is not solely an EU affair. In fact, it is a programme that, if it is to be effective, requires substantial external support. To this end, a whole list of non-EU countries are being brought into the managed migration process. At the European Council Seville Summit, heads of state and government endorsed the Council's border protection programme and committed the EU to the integration of immigration policies into the Union's relations with third countries, through a targeted approach which makes use of all appropriate EU external relation instruments, including development policy, to address the underlying causes of migratory flows.... In December 2002, the European Commission, warning that migration was a'major strategic policy for the European Union'... The Commission spoke of'strengthening third countries capacity to manage migratory flows' through EU-backed schemes aimed at the'management of external borders' and the creation of migration projects in third countries. But European Commissioner for External Affairs, Chris Patten, added that 'the struggle against illegal immigration is now a strategic priority of the EU and aid programmes should be reviewed towards the aim of adjusting them to those new priorities. However, such an approach, according to the European Commission, 'necessitated coaxing third countries to cooperate before penalising those resistant to or incapable of cooperating.'
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Cooption of non-EU countriesThe European Council is also pushing out its 'integrated border management' policies into non-EU countries, principally Turkey and Morocco. Just as with eastern Europe, integration into EU border control programmes will have a profound effect on countries which have not developed their own border control mechanisms, and now must do so, not for their own benefit, but for the benefit of their richer European neighbours.
In September 2002, ministers of the member states of the Council of Europe, met with representatives of the governments of Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria to discuss 'the orderly management of migration flows'.
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The background to these measures is the EU's concern about the increasing movement of sub-Saharan Africans... Research by the International Labour Organisation suggests that, each year, some 80,000 people from various African countries, notably those beset by civil war or dictatorships, find their way to the Maghreb.
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a visit of ten European experts to Morocco...concluded Morocco...did not have the capabilities to deal with mass movements from the sub-Saharan African countries of Nigeria, Mali and Liberia.
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This strategy will be enforced through programmes and policies aimed at:
Exporting border controls to eastern Europe:...
Coopting Morocco and Turkey into EU border protection programmes: This will be done through financial inducements, including increased development aid. To the same end, negotiations have already started with other countries, such as Algeria and Tunisia.
Massive investment - pioneered by the defence industry, in new technology and research in order to protect the inner core of EU nations from migratory movements.
Formulation of a new policy towards countries deemed to be the source of migratory flows: Albania, China, Morocco, Russia and Turkey and other countries are to be forced to adopt a series of measures to prevent people entering and leaving at pain of economic and political sanctions.
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Resources are also being ploughed into developing surveillance and detection programmes capable of predicting refugee movement, profiling potential 'illegal immigrants' and 'averting refugee flows'. A system of common risk assessment, whereby attempts are made to determine the type of person likely to be an illegal immigrant and the likely method used to enter the EU, has been introduced. Surveillance of refugee movement and averting refugee flows are deemed to be vital components of Europe's post-September 11 security needs. Philippe Busquin, EU Commissioner for Research, argues that the 'Global Monitoring for Environment and Security' project, in which the use of satellites, originally designed for tracking coastal erosion, air pollution and climate change, will be used... to track refugees outside the EU's borders, is essential if Europe's security needs are to be met.
http://www.irr.org.uk/2003/march/ak000016.html At this point, you should recall that the article, 'ID Cards - A World View,' made extensive reference to the use of ID cards in tracking mobile and migratory populations, for example, in India, China and Africa. OK, so much for what other people say - what does the EU say about itself? Now we have the background story, we can understand the terminology in EU documents. COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS
Brussels, COM(2008) 611/3
STRENGTHENING THE GLOBAL APPROACH TO MIGRATION: INCREASING COORDINATION, COHERENCE AND SYNERGIES
1. INTRODUCTION
The Global Approach to migration can be defined as the external dimension of the European Union's migration policy. It is based on genuine partnership with third countries, is fully integrated into the EU's other external policies, and addresses all migration and asylum issues in a comprehensive and balanced manner. Adopted in 2005, it illustrates the ambition of the European Union to establish an inter-sectoral framework to manage migration in a coherent way through political dialogue and close practical cooperation with third countries.
...Nevertheless, it is now time to strengthen the EU's external migration management so that it can become better coordinated and more coherent.
The Communication of June 2008 on A Common Immigration Policy for Europe highlighted the need to strengthen the Global Approach to ensure a coherent, common European migration policy4, reiterating the principle that effective management of migration flows requires genuine partnership and cooperation with third countries and that migration issues should be fully integrated into the EU's development cooperation and external policies, as well as incorporate issues emerging from them.
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2.2. Fight against irregular immigration
The EU offers assistance for strengthening border management in third countries, for capacity building for border guards and for migration officials, for financing information campaigns on the risks of irregular immigration, for improving reception conditions, and for developing the use of biometric technologies to make travel or identity documents more secure. FRONTEX and the Immigration Liaison Officers Networks have been instrumental in achieving progress in this regard.
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Accordingly, the Commission proposes to:
- Acquire and provide timely and updated information on changes in migratory routes towards the EU by promoting reliable comparable data to be collected in both sending and destination countries, exploring new scientific methodologies, and making full use of new technologies, such as the electronic mapping system.
- Provide assistance to key third countries to strengthen their migration management, e.g. sharing experiences on border control issues, training of border guards and the exchange of operational information.
- Support third countries in the adoption and implementation of National Integrated Border Management Strategies in line with EU standards.
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- Intensify, with the active involvement of origin and transit countries, particularly in the European Neighbourhood Policy context, joint operations and cooperation in setting up a border surveillance infrastructure under the European Border Surveillance System (EUROSUR).
- Encourage due attention to the human trafficking issue in the political and cooperation dialogue with partner countries and with regional organisations such as the African Union, ECOWAS, SADC, ASEAN and ASEM.
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2008/oct/eu-com-global-migration-2008-611-3.pdf The paper goes on to describe the intense diplomatic effort required to put all of this into place: - Ouagadougou Action Plan of November 2006... Cotonou Agreement...
Ministerial conference on migration and development in Rabat in July 2006, setting up a framework for comprehensive action, followed by concrete initiatives, workshops and a second ministerial Conference in Paris in November 2008. The Global Approach also inspired the Ministerial Conference of Tripoli (November 2006), which, for the first time, ushered in a common approach between the European Union and the whole of Africa. The first ever Euromed ministerial meeting on migration in Albufeira (November 2007) set priorities in the form of concrete cooperation initiatives. The EU-Africa summit in Lisbon (December 2007) translated the common approach into concrete terms by the adoption of the EU-Africa Partnership on Migration, Mobility and Employment.
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2008/oct/eu-com-global-migration-2008-611-3.pdf Lastly, the paper describes some of the bodies involved in this multi-lateral effort: - Finally, the EU and its Member States should adopt a higher profile and actively engage in promoting the Global Approach in various multilateral, global and regional cooperation frameworks such as the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD), that will hold its next session in Manila in October and will provide an opportunity for the EU to present a coherent and consolidated position, the United Nations and its relevant specialised agencies, the G8, the OECD, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the International Organisation for Migration, the World Bank and regional development banks, as well as the regional consultative processes.
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2008/oct/eu-com-global-migration-2008-611-3.pdf For yet more detail on EU involvement in "third nations," this recent document discusses schemes in more detail, such as EU support for biometric ID card schemes in Morocco and Cape Verde. These documents do also go on at length about laudable aims, such as : -development, providing meaningful employment and stopping human trafficking. Unfortunately these are Òwindow-dressingÓ and do not withstand even casual examination. For example, there is an aim to secure "development" and "worthwhile employment," so people do not need to migrate; this would read better if we did not already know about World Bank plans for urbanisation, and the prior intention to force them into service to the Western economy. Development is not about benefiting these people - it was always about securing fresh supplies of cheap labour and outsourcing for lower production costs. When the document talks about fighting human trafficking, are these really agreements to "help the victims of human trafficking," or they just agreements to repatriate illegal immigrants? Why are the priorities so heavily skewed towards stopping only the people-smugglers who help migrants to cross our borders, not stopping the worldÔs trade in forced, trafficked labour? Some commentators have claimed that there is more human slavery in the world today than at any point in history. 300,000 Indians and Bangladeshis used as slave-labour in Dubai alone? Or the trafficked workers exploited by US construction companies in Iraq? Statewatch and the European Civil Liberties Network have written about how the EU has systematically criminalised legitimate refugees, riding roughshod over the protections guaranteed them in international law. The EU is becoming a militarised, "securitised," fortress state where human rights are being diminished and under threat.022: And Now For Something Completely Different! - Jun 12, 2012
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User comments:Nearly 80% of U.S. dairy cows have their horns removed each year to protect their handlers and fellow cattle. But the practice, which is both painful and expensive, has come under increasing scrutiny from animal rights activists. Now, science may be coming to the rescue: A group of researchers announced last week that they successfully edited the genomes of dairy cows to make them hornless. The scientists used the transcription activatorlike effector nucleases DNA editing technique to introduce a natural allele linked to hornlessness into dairy cow embryos. Five healthy calves were born, all without horns (including 2-month-old Spotigy, above), the researchers report in a letter in Nature Biotechnology. The allele—called POLLED—is much more common in beef cattle than dairy cows; as a result, just 25% of beef cattle have to go through the painful process of dehorning. But naturally introducing the gene into a population would take decades, so scientists hope their technique can become a cheaper and quicker alternative.BP, Transocean and Halliburton all violated federal safety regulations leading up to last year's Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a federal investigation concluded, in findings that could be crucial for the Justice Department investigation and numerous lawsuits surrounding the disaster.
“The loss of life at the Macondo site on April 20, 2010, and the subsequent pollution of the Gulf of Mexico through the summer of 2010 were the result of poor risk management, last‐minute changes to plans, failure to observe and respond to critical indicators, inadequate well control response, and insufficient emergency bridge response training by companies and individuals responsible for drilling at the Macondo well and for the operation of the Deepwater Horizon,” the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management concluded.
Photos: BP gulf oil spill in 2010
The report, released Wednesday, was the result of a joint investigation conducted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Coast Guard into the causes behind the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig the night of April 20, which killed 11 men and resulted in a leak that spewed nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over several months. Each entity did a separate report that the agencies issued jointly Wednesday, but the Ocean Energy Management report delves into the decisions made in the weeks leading up to the disaster and those made that evening that converged to touch off the well blowout and rig explosion.
Photos: Gulf oil spill, a year later
The report’s conclusions about a global failure to observe the best safety practices and to communicate effectively in such a dangerous undertaking as drilling a deepwater well echoed findings released earlier in the year by a presidential commission investigating the disaster.A very happy new year to all of you!
We here at the Manehattan Project hope that the holidays treated you well. As for us, ironically half of us were sick during most of them and the other half spent a bit more time in Fallout 4 when we should have been working in GoE. Such is the way of gamers. But don’t worry, we’re almost completely back on track. We’ve made some internal changes to the way we’re handling the workload that should bring things to fruition much sooner.
At the moment, I’m happy to say that we even have a general goal for launch. While we’re not ready to share that just yet, know that this is coming. Soon, the Manehattan Project will invite you to head back to New Pegasus and save two worlds.
It’s in that vein that I’m here today. We have a couple important openings I’m sure you will be interested in.
Artist: The MLP and Fallout: Equestria community is filled with gifted and talented artists. Thankfully, many folks have given us permission to use their material, giving us the opportunity to create some truly awesome customized items for GoE 1. But there’s still a lot of work to do. We’re looking for someone with experience in GIMP, Photoshop or a similar program. It doesn’t need to be extensive. There are two sides of our artistic endeavors:
Retextures : We’re looking for folks who are adept at changing existing in-game elements to fit the FO:E asthetic. For example, you would change the primary image file for the signs says “Overseer” to “Overmare.” There are a lot of little changes that need to be made and we need someone to make this happen. We’re also looking for people to create higher-resolution versions of the existing material (such as foodstuffs and drinks).
: We’re looking for folks who are adept at changing existing in-game elements to fit the FO:E asthetic. For example, you would change the primary image file for the signs says “Overseer” to “Overmare.” There are a lot of little changes that need to be made and we need someone to make this happen. We’re also looking for people to create higher-resolution versions of the existing material (such as foodstuffs and drinks). Original Artwork : We’re also looking for individuals to create original artwork for the various skill books, magazines, Ministry posters and other Fallout: Equestria-style material. We need them to be high-resolution (at least at Fallout 4’s level) so we can reuse them for GoE 2. There’s a lot of freedom in this role, but we do have a few critical projects. You’ll be working hand-in-hand with our Lead Artist, Littlepip/FancyCat. In addition, if you already have some art like this (or know of people with art like this), please let us know in the comments!
PMV/Visualizer/YouTube Effects Artist (After Effects): This is a completely new position we’re just announcing today! We’re looking for someone with some minor experience in After Effects. We have several big trailer projects (including a totally epic Launch Trailer for GoE 1) along with our music announcements. Heck, if you want to even add some cool effects to the audiobook videos, that would be great! All you need to have is After Effects and a willingness to make epic things.
Those are the two big roles we have open at the moment. If you’re interested, please drop us an application!
Thanks to Reddit, we have our new Calamity tentatively cast already. Polyphonic is over the moon about this potential candidate. In addition, massive work has been done on the Rock Farm Sector 3.
Let me just say that the Rock Farm is by far the most complex and ambitious level I’ve ever designed. It’s utterly MASSIVE. (It’s six stories tall with numerous labs and facilities on each level!). There’s an enormous amount of custom material. I’ve actually created unique Maneframes for the Ministry of Arcane Science, the Ministry of Technology and joint MAS/MWT Maneframes for this, complete with custom glow colors and actual ministry logos. That’s all with a completely recolored purple glow version of the glowing blue utility set from “Old World Blues.”
It’s epic. Seriously.
That’s all we have for this week. But now that the holidays are over, the kid gloves are coming off. We’re making this happen. We’re going to give you an awesome reason to head back to New Pegasus…and make you wonder just what we have in store for you in GoE 2 in Buckston.
Until next week folks, have fun and stay safe!
-Novel Idea
Featured Image by “ToasterRepairUnit” can be found at http://toasterrepairunit.deviantart.com/art/Ask-Littlepip-Tradition-344640128Oh dear, now this is an interesting twist in the ongoing BART vs. Anonymous saga: After posting a list of demands and calling for the transit agency to fire public information officer Linton Johnson and police chief Kenton Rainey, hackers claiming to be associated with the loose Anonymous collective have posted some, how to put this... compromising photos allegedly of Mr. Johnson.
The photos depicting Johnson exposing himself by pulling down a pair of gym shorts while wearing a t-shirt reading "STIFF" were posted to a simple website (the site's been taken down, but you can still see a cached version here) [Warning: NSFW!] this afternoon with a stern message for the BART spokesman:
If you are going to be a dick to the public, then Im sure you dont mind showing your dick to the public.... Umad Bro? #Bartlulz
No word yet on where the hackers dug up the photos, although they did include a link to Johnson's personal website which contains a couple personal photo albums like "New Years in Rio." Meanwhile, Jim Allison, another spokesman for the transit agency condemned the release of the photos, telling SFWeekly, "They are not only unethical, but illegal." He also told the paper his agency stands by their decision to shut off cell service.
That said, don't most San Franciscans have nude photos of themselves out there? He has nothing to be shamed of, folks.
Johnson became the target of many of Anonymous' attacks after taking credit for the cell phone shutdown prior to the planned protest on August 11th.FADE IN:
INT. DARK, NOIR-ESQUE ROOM
A bunch of cops break in and find CARRIE-ANNE MOSS. She's dressed in leather, because she is FEMALE in a SCI-FI THRILLER.
POLICE OFFICER
I think we can handle this one little girl.
She jumps up and the shot freezes. We spin around her for no real reason except that it looks extremely COOL. We feel the sudden urge to buy Khaki pants. She kicks all of the ASSES of the cops and runs. HUGO WEAVING chases after her.
HUGO WEAVING
I'll get you. That's for syuuuuuuuure.
She gets away.
INT. KEANU'S ULTRA-HIGH-TECH ROOM
KEANU REEVES sleeps at his computer, listening to a cool song that will NOT be on the soundtrack. His computer turns itself on.
COMPUTER
Hello Keanu. Follow the white rabbit.
KEANU REEVES
Dude..
Suddenly, there is a KNOCK on the door. Keanu answers it.
KEANU REEVES
Whoa.
SUPER-LEET-HACKER-DRUGGIE GUY
Give me some stuff that I am paying you for. I am so noir.
KEANU REEVES
(handing him the disk)
Dude.
SUPER-LEET-HACKER-DRUGGIE GUY
Hey, want to come with us to a cool dance club whose lighting can increase the noir-factor of this movie even more?
KEANU REEVES
No way.
He sees the GUY'S GIRLFRIEND'S little white rabbit.
KEANU REEVES
Whoa. Uh.. rock on, dude.
He follows them to the club "tech-noir."
INT. DARK, NOIR-ESQUE CLUB
CARRIE-ANNE MOSS
I have the answers. Follow me.
KEANU REEVES
Excellent!
INT. DARK, NOIR-ESQUE BUILDING
LAURENCE FISHBURNE sits in a chair.
FILM CRITICS
This is another one of those stupid action movies, isn't it? I've been complaining for years and years how action movie plots aren't interesting or creative and this will be another one.
KEANU REEVES
Hey, dude. What is the Matrix?
LAURENCE proceeds to explain the plot, which is very CREATIVE and INTERESTING and makes the AUDIENCE think.
FILM CRITICS
I don't understand it. This movie's plot is too contrived and it isn't explained well enough. I hate action movies and there's nothing you can do to please me, so there! Where are my prunes?
LAURENCE begins to train KEANU on how to fight so that the WACHOWSKI BROTHERS can do the Hong-Kong fight scenes they've dreamed of.
INT. DOJO
Cool music plays in the background. It will also not be on the soundtrack. KEANU makes comical motions and gets into typical martial arts poses. His lanky body looks uncomfortable as hell doing this.
LAURENCE FISHBURNE
(scowling)
I will scowl now, as that's what I always do.
They train and KEANU learns how to fight well and use his abilities so that he can kick HUGO WEAVING'S ASS, which is important because HUGO can move in and out of whoever he wants so any kung-fu fight against him is USELESS.
INT. SUBWAY
The gang is being chased into the subway by the evil HUGO. KEANU has lost all of the eight trillion guns he had, but he's still wearing his black trenchcoat and eight trillion dollar sunglasses, so he's still very BAD ASS. The group members need to each pick up the phone one at a time in order to exit. LAURENCE exits. CARRIE-ANNE is next.
CARRIE-ANNE MOSS
I just wanted to take this time to tell you something.
KEANU REEVES
Dude?
CARRIE-ANNE MOSS
I know we're being chased and all... by a killing machine... that can completely destroy us..
KEANU REEVES
Dude.
CARRIE-ANNE MOSS
But.. I don't care. I think now is the best time to say something which I won't explain. I was told something about my life. All of it came true except one thing. This one thing. The one thing of which I am currently thinking. This one thing which is so vitally important that I had to mention it to you while we're being chased.
KEANU REEVES
What?
CARRIE-ANNE MOSS
I can't tell you now, we're being chased. I'll tell you when you get out.
She leaves and HUGO shoots the phone.
HUGO WEAVING
You weren't going to call with 1-800-COLLECT, were you?
KEANU REEVES
Dude!
HUGO WEAVING
Are you ready to fight me? You seem somewhat unsyuuuuuuuuuuuuuure.
They proceed to shoot each other for a bit, then the FAKE guns run out of FAKE bullets, none of which actually exist, but they run out anyway because KEANU needs to show off all the kung-fu he trained for before making the film.
They have a Hong-Kong style fight scene. Both of them kick each others asses for about 20 minutes. KEANU finally wins!
AUDIENCE
HOORAY! GO KEANU!
Suddenly, another HUGO WEAVING steps out of a subway train door, making the last 20 minutes entirely pointless, but cool-looking nonetheless.
KEANU runs like HELL.
INT. DARK, NOIR-ESQUE ROOM
KEANU is about to pick up the phone. HUGO WEAVING stops him.
HUGO WEAVING
First, you must prove you believe you are the One by kicking the shit out of me. It's a test you must endyuuuuure.
KEANU kicks the SHIT out of HUGO. He makes him explode and then gives him the finger and breaks his sunglasses and kicks him in the TESTICLES and decapitates him and shoves his head back up his own BUTT. Vicariously through KEANU, The AUDIENCE feels very BAD ASS. They immediately buy SUNGLASSES and TRENCHCOATS and see if they can fall backwards in slow motion to dodge BULLETS.
FILM CRITICS
What the hell was all that? Not only was the plot absurd, but it had those mindless typical action movie fights. Either I'm an idiot and don't realize that this is a sci-fi ACTION movie or the film just plain sucks, now which one do you think is right? Has anyone seen the stick I had up my ass? I can't find it.
The credits roll. All of the songs that actually ARE on the soundtrack are now played.
ENDOn the top, very rare picture, you can see Designer Geoff Wardle working on a preliminary 1998 Saab 9-3 scale model in 1993, just one year before the launch of the Saab 900 NG. The NG 900 was principally the work of Norwegian designer Einar Hareide and Björn Envall (head designer for 9000), and evolved from their first prototype, the EV-2.
Influenced by General Motors (GM), in 1994 the “New Generation” (NG) SAAB 900 SE, based on the Opel Vectra chassis, was introduced. While this design contained styling cues reminiscent of the classic Saab 900, the Saab 900 NG was fundamentally a different car. The second or ‘new’ generation Saab 900 (also referred to as the GM900 or NG900 among enthusiasts) was built on GM’s GM2900 platform as a replacement for the “classic” first-generation Saab 900.
Full-size styling model for the hatchback and wind tunnel scale model for the convertible:
The Saab EV-2 Prototype was an internally released concept car that built to set the design direction for the new generation Saab 900 (NG900), which went on to be produced from 1994 until 1998
The engine, gearbox, suspension, electrics and electronics were all developed by Saab for the new vehicle and after 4 short years of development and testing the “new generation” Saab 900 debuted in July of 1993 in Trollhattan and arrived in 1994 and marked a clear departure of the classic Saab 900 era that lasted 15 years.
More about this project can be found on this page.With confidence and high spirits, Democratic lawmakers and gay rights advocates on Monday kicked off their third consecutive year of fighting for an end to conversion therapy for minors in Virginia.
By Diana DiGangi | Capital News Service
With confidence and high spirits, Democratic lawmakers and gay rights advocates on Monday kicked off their third consecutive year of fighting for an end to conversion therapy for minors in Virginia.
The controversial treatment, also known as reparative therapy, is aimed at turning homosexuals into heterosexuals and is based on the view that homosexuality is a mental disorder. Conversion therapy is also performed on those questioning their gender identity.
“This is snake oil,” Del. Patrick Hope, D-Arlington, said. “Conversion therapy can’t work, it never has worked, it’s not based on any science whatsoever. The physicians, the medical community–they have told us that. This is damaging to minors, specifically to minors.”
The practice is currently legal in Virginia. It is banned in Washington, D.C., and four states–most recently in New Jersey, with the support of Republican Gov. Chris Christie.
In recent years, conversion therapy has been denounced by several mental health organizations, including the American Psychiatric Association. A 2010 study at San Francisco State University concluded that LGBTQ youth who experienced rejection of their identity by their family were on average eight times more likely than other adolescents to attempt suicide.
For the General Assembly’s current session, which began last week, Hope has filed House Bill 427, which would prohibit health care professionals in Virginia “from engaging in conversion therapy with any person under 18 years of age.”
Two similar bills have been filed in the Senate: SB 262, by Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Mount Vernon; and SB 267, by Democratic Sens. Rosalyn Dance of Petersburg and Donald McEachin of Richmond.
Hope and Surovell held a press conference Monday, saying their bills would protect minors from a therapy that many medical experts see as harmful. The legislators said their goal is to protect children who are not mature enough to choose the treatment for themselves.
“If this were adults that were consciously choosing to go through this kind of therapy, to some extent to me, that’s a little different,” Surovell said. “But this [conversion therapy] is largely applied to children.”
The two Democrats said they hope to reach across the aisle on this issue in the 2016 legislative session.
“If you do support protecting children, there’s no reason this should not pass,” Hope said. “I’m hopeful and cautiously optimistic that this is the year where this law finally passes.”
Speakers at the news conference continually referred to conversion therapy as a form of consumer fraud– the same rationale for making it illegal in New Jersey. Hope called the therapy “fraudulent, a hoax, anti-consumer.” Surovell added, “To me, this is akin to bleeding people to cure them of a fever–to putting leeches on people’s bodies.”
President Obama last year backed the call to end conversion therapy. In response, the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality, which supports the practice, released a statement defending conversion therapy.
“No ethical licensed professional would agree to counsel with an adolescent client who was being forced into therapy,” the organization stated. “No one is asking or expecting contented gay citizens to change anything. The freedom of a gay teen to choose a therapist that honors his or her goals and values is unchallenged.”
Matthew Shurka would dispute that. Originally from New York, he underwent conversion therapy from age 16 to 21 in four different states, including Virginia, because his father objected to his sexual orientation.
Shurka now travels the country as an advocate for ending conversion therapy. At the press conference, he questioned how much freedom adolescents truly have when it comes to the decision to undergo such treatment.
“Minors who love their parents and trust their parents are being brought to state-licensed doctors who say they can cure them of homosexuality,” Shurka said. “And children then go into it, like myself, and give it their best to cure this, so they can be loved by their family and loved by their community and accepted, which is what every child really wants.”
Shurka, now 26, has stated in interviews that he has forgiven his father for reacting to his homosexuality with conversion therapy. He believes conversion therapists play on parents’ fears.
Banning this type of therapy should not be a partisan issue, Shurka said.
“It’s not about Republicans and Democrats; it’s not about party lines,” he said, “It’s about having workability for an entire population, for an entire state, for all Americans to be able to live together and be safe. Not a single medical curriculum in the country teaches conversion therapy.”
James Parrish, executive director for Equality Virginia, phrased the need for bipartisan cooperation in a more urgent way.
“It’s amazing to me that in year three, we are still talking about this bill,” he said. “Youth who undergo conversion therapy kill themselves. It’s that simple. Anyone in the General Assembly who says they support child safety or children should support these bills.”
Surovell and Hope said they hope that this will be the year their bills make it into law. Legislation banning the therapy died last year in committee on a 7-8 vote.
“This is the third year in a row, and in regard to gays and lesbians, hearts and minds are changing on a daily basis,” Surovell said. “Every year, I see more and more crossover votes on this issue.”In this Oct. 11, 2016 photo, a western lowland gorilla, Bebac, gets an ultrasound at the Primate, Cat & Aquatics Building at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, in Cleveland. Zoo officials in Cleveland say one of its two western lowland gorillas has died Friday, Jan. 6, 2017. The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo announced the death of 32-year-old Bebac on its Facebook page. (Kyle Lanzer/Cleveland Metroparks via AP)
CLEVELAND (AP) — One of the Cleveland’s zoo’s two male western lowland gorillas died on Friday, zoo officials said.
Cleveland Metroparks Zoo first announced the death of 32-year-old Bebac on its Facebook page.
Zoo Executive Director Chris Kuhar called Bebac one of the zoo’s iconic animals in an interview Saturday. Dozens of tributes along with photos of Bebac taken
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England Development has chosen Romulus for the development. Businesses that locate in our community often take advantage of Romulus' reputation as a transportation hub, including access to both I-94 and I-275.”
David Muller is the business reporter for MLive Media Group in Detroit. Email him at [email protected] or follow him on TwitterA new Dartmouth College study sheds light on the brain cells that function in establishing one's location and direction. The findings contribute to our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying our abilities to successfully navigate our environment, which may be crucial to dealing with brain damage due to trauma or a stroke and the onset of diseases such as Alzheimer's.
"Knowing what direction you are facing, where you are, how to navigate and your spatial orientation at a given moment are really fundamental to survival," says Professor Jeffrey Taube, the study's senior author.
The study appears in the journal Science Express. The study's co-lead authors are Shawn Winter, a Dartmouth postdoctoral fellow in Psychological and Brain Sciences, and Benjamin Clark, an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico who received his PhD in Psychological and Brain Sciences from Dartmouth.
The Dartmouth researchers study the neural mechanisms underlying our sense of location and directional heading, which forms the basis of our perceived spatial orientation in the environment. Knowing your spatial orientation is essential for being able to navigate to a goal. In the past few decades, researchers have discovered a number of cell types in the brain that respond in relation to where you are (so-called place cells) and your perceived directional heading (so-called head direction cells).
More recently, a third cell type was discovered that is activated at multiple places in the environment: If you monitored the location of all these active places, you would find that they formed a repeating, grid-like pattern in a hexagonal array. These "grid cells" were identified in a different brain area, the entorhinal cortex. Researchers were excited about this discovery because theoretically these grid cells could account for how we can keep track of where we are at any given moment and how we update this perception as we move through our environment. Based on how these cells fire, they could also inform us of how far we have traveled and our precise path. The 2014 Nobel Prize in physiology/medicine was awarded to the two laboratories that discovered place cells and grid cells.
Scientists have been investigating how the grid cell signal is generated. The Dartmouth experiments addressed what types of information go into forming this signal. They use microelectrodes to record the activity of cells in a rat's brain that make possible spatial navigation. They found that if they inactivate or turn off a key brain area that contains head direction cells, then the grid cell signal in the entorhinal cortex is disrupted, without affecting the place cell signal in the hippocampus.
"These results indicate for the first time that although the grid cell signal is about places, the head direction cell information is critical for generating the grid signal," Taube says. "These findings contribute to our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying our abilities to successfully navigate our environment.""Look Daddy, the nice lady at the reception drew this symbol on my chest for me! She made me look like a dragon! Roooooaaar!"During a visit to an important Dust research facility, Yang and her sister were separated from their father and uncle during a sudden attack by the Red Claw. The two sisters ran further into the facility to escape the invading criminals. Neither one in their panic noticed the warning signs next to the busted door they entered. A momentary misstep by Ruby caused her to trip and fall behind her sister just as containment doors closed between them.Not wanting to abandon her sister, Yang searched for a release mechanism, wandering into the nearby rooms. She quickly found herself in a room filled with strange Dust-like crystals inside hundreds of sealed glass vials. Alarms blared as the room sealed and locked its doors as explosions rocked the building. To her horror, Yang watched as the crystals flew from the shelves and bathed the room in mystic energy, searing the artist's designs into her skin.Filled with a perpetual rage, Yang is often the first into battle, accompanied by a rain of fire. Even within her family, Ruby is the only one who seems to be able to fully placate Yang's natural frenzied state. However, when the symbol on her chest begins glowing, finding her sister just might not be an option.Other team members:The first team, Team PBPW:Joint Session of Congress (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
If you asked one hundred people what is wrong with America, what caused it and what steps should be taken to repair the damage, you could well get one hundred different answers.
I'm sure the preponderance of the replies would deal with politics in one way or another; don't spend enough, spend too much, too conservative, too liberal, wrong priorities, bunch of crooks, don't know, don't care, do nothing bunch of dolts who personally prosper by spending our money.
And so much of the above, on both sides of the ledger, are the absolute truth. If the scales were balanced today, the State of Texas probably couldn't hold the transgressors, past and present.
But this being a republic, our politicians don't just walk into office and start plying their dubious trade. They are duly elected by we the people and we the people continue to send the same old reprobates, party hacks and powerbrokers back again and again, expecting a groundswell of change, and all we get is a "Wham bam, thank you, ma’am. I'll see you next election.”
These people are not going to affect change. They're too happy with things the way they are.
Every day on Capitol Hill, the lobbyists make their endless rounds, passing out tickets to sporting events, invitations to prestigious dinners and "goy to be seen" shows at the Kennedy Center.
And that's only what’s swimming on top of the water. Wonder what’s going on down where the sharks live?
But regardless of how devious, crooked and unproductive a politician may be, he or she doesn't get into office without being put there by the voters of their district, and therein lies the rub.
Every election cycle the politicos up for reelection go among the great unwashed and tell them what wonderful things they can accomplish if they can only be elected one more time.
And then, you know what happens, they're going to forget about their promises as soon as the last vote is counted, and that's exactly what they did the last time you helped put them in office. So why do you keep on voting for them?
It’s as clear as a Montana sky that the reason our congress and senate cater to the teacher’s union is not to further education, but to pad their vote count. They keep throwing billions of dollars at the problem, and Johnny still can't read or write, add or subtract, and it’s a pretty safe bet that Johnny can't tell you when the War of 1812 was fought.
Is this fair, to let our children go out in the world with a seriously inadequate education, unable to ever advance above mid-levels, just so a bunch of rich fat cats can spend another few years wasting our tax dollars?
Why should only the children of the affluent be able to choose the school they attend? Why shouldn't all families have the right to send their children to a school with the academic levels, religious teachings and ability to discipline they want their kids to be exposed to?
If you ask a liberal, most of them will tell you that it would destroy the public school system, and that's what my British friends would call “balderdash.”
Analogy: Say that General Motors – who builds some of the most quality cars on the planet – would, by an act of Congress, become the only automobile company allowed to operate in the U.S., taking Ford, Chrysler and all the other domestic and foreign car makers out of the equation.
What do you think would happen in the absence of competition?
What would GM lose by lowering their excellent standards a little to make the folks in the board room happy and squeeze a few more dollars out of each sale?
And the next time and the next time and so on, lowering options, horsepower and safety standards until the only car Americans could buy would be something you wouldn't drive to a dog fight today.
So, instead of destroying public education, competition for students would raise the standards of public education, conversely, what it would affect is the vote-heavy teachers union.
And no, I'm not knocking unions. I happen to belong to two very fine ones and have for many decades.
The difference between the unions I belong to and the teachers union is that the American Federation of Musicians and AFTRA-SAG don't promote mediocrity, can't, and would never try to force a bandleader to hire a musician that can't play or force a producer to hire an actor that can't act.
It's that simple. When you're the only game in town – or at least the only one many people can afford – laxity, incompetence and indifference creep in and quality goes downhill.
There are thousands of quality teachers in the public system, but a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and there are way too many of those. There are at least enough to make American students score poorly in the international arena.
Our federal government is riddled with incompetence, and most disturbingly, treason. Divulging secrets and taping confidential conversations are against the law and carry heavy penalties.
This is another sign of the mediocrity that has been tolerated in our government. They were hired by somebody.
Want a change?
What do you think?
Pray for our troops, our police and the peace of Jerusalem.
God Bless America
Charlie Daniels
Charlie Daniels is a legendary American singer, song writer, guitarist, and fiddler famous for his contributions to country and southern rock music. Daniels has been active as a singer since the early 1950s. He was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on January 24, 2008.
DONATEFor those of us who live in countries different from where our funds come from, whether it’s a salary or a pension, the banking situation can be complicated. Even if you are able to move all your money into a bank in the new country, you might hesitate to do that if it doesn’t feel 100% stable or its exchange rate fluctuates regularly.
For this reason, many of us keep an account or two back in our native country, and also open new accounts in our adopted country. This seems like an ideal situation, until you realize that transferring money back and forth between the two banks (and countries) usually comes with substantial fees and commissions that can be as high as 10% if you are unlucky. There are ways around these fees for some people, or at least strategies to keep them as low as possible.
1 – Open a multi-currency bank account
Known for its expat services in particular, HSBC is among the banks that allows its customers to keep accounts in different currencies at the same time. They offer over 20 different currencies, which compares to most other international banks that only operate in the major currencies of the USD, GBP, Yen, and Euro.
You’ll need to maintain a decent balance to qualify, and of course there are some fees, but for most people they will be far lower than having to transfer money between currencies and banks with any regularity.
2 – Maintain high enough balances in both countries
Not a solution for those who live hand to mouth, or even close to it, this might be the best stategy for most people who don’t want to get rid of their old banks. My American brother has lived in Germany for about 15 years now, and he keeps most of his money in his German bank, but he still keeps an American account that our mother is a co-signer on.
Most of his expenses and pretty much all of his income is in Euros, but he still likes to buy some things from the United States and he travels there about once a year. So what he’s always done is kept enough money in the US account so he has enough that he doesn’t have to transfer funds more than once a year. Obviously, if he had to transfer money each time he wanted to spend dollars, there wouldn’t be much point to any of it. In his case it’s a couple thousand dollars, which earns interest and is plenty so he only pays fees once every year or two.
But don’t try to make money as a currency trader
I’m not sure why, but I’ve been keeping close track of many of the world’s currencies for about twenty years now. It’s something that fascinates me, I guess. When people have money in two different currencies at the same time, it can be very tempting to try to time the market by trading when one seems higher than it should be. I’ve even known a guy, who had no financial background at all, who decided he was going to make his living as a forex (foreign exchange) trader while he lived in Costa Rica.
As this recent article points out in greater detail, this is a bad idea. My friend in Costa Rica made almost a thousand dollars in a few weeks by trading on margins, and then things turned drastically in the direction he bet against, and all of his profit, and his original investment, were gone. He never mentioned forex to me after that.
I’m pretty good with money and I’ve literally been following this game for decades, and I know enough to know it’s a lousy way to try to make a profit, much less an income. It’s a zero sum game, minus commissions, so only a few people win while most lose and the banks earn their fees. You’d be betting against foreign bankers and investment brokers who earn part of their living by taking advantage of short term movements that might seem counter intuitive to you or me.
For example, as the US prints more and more money (quantitative easing), many people expect the value of the US dollar to keep sinking, but after years of this it still hasn’t. With the Euro about to collapse many people were sure its value would plummet, but it hasn’t. Japan and the UK actually have worse national debts than the US, but Japan’s currency kept going up, and the UK’s soared as well, though now it’s down about 25% from its recent peak. If you knew that all of this was going to happen then you might be the only one in the world. If you didn’t, it’s not a good time to start gambling now.
CommentsOn Sunday, pockets of Chennai received up to 7 cm rain.
With heavy rain expected in most parts of Tamil Nadu today, schools and colleges will be shut in Puducherry, Chennai and adjoining districts Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur. However the cyclone threat is over, say authorities.The cyclonic depression is moving across the Bay of Bengal. It is expected to cross between Puducherry and Karaikal this noon.Under the influence of the cyclonic depression, rainfall is expected in most parts of Tamil Nadu with heavy to very heavy rainfall over north coastal Tamil Nadu and Puducherry in the next 24 hours.Authorities in Puducherry say they've identified many safe shelters."We expect the landfall to be between Puducherry and Cuddalore. We've ensured enough stock of food grains and medicine too. Eight task forces are monitoring on the ground," said Puducherry Collector D Manikandan.Isolated heavy rainfall is also expected in south coastal Andhra Pradesh, south interior Karnataka and Kerala during the next 24-48 hours.Fishermen in Tamil Nadu have been advised not to venture out to sea in the next 24 to 48 hours "as the sea will be rough to very rough," a Met department official said. Till Monday morning, pockets of Chennai received up to 14 cm rain. The northeast monsoon, which has brought the wet spell, had set in over the southern region on October 29.Kucka set for Trabzonspor
By Football Italia staff
Milan midfielder Juraj Kucka is expected in Turkey on Thursday, where he will complete a €6m transfer to Trabzonspor.
According to CNN Turk, Kucka will land in Istanbul at 15:30, although it is not clear if the time reported is CET or local.
The Slovakian, who had also attracted interest from Torino, Atalanta and Fiorentina, represents a profit for the Rossoneri, who paid Genoa just €2m for him in 2015.
Kucka made 67 appearances for the Diavolo, scoring five goals, but was deemed surplus to requirements for next season by Coach Vincenzo Montella.
Calciomercato speculates as many as 12 players could leave San Siro this summer, with Milan having already splashed out on six new faces.
Trabzonspor could complement Kucka’s arrival with that of Gary Medel after the Turkish club claimed they had agreed a fee with Inter for the defensive midfielder.About us Subscribe The Global Public Square is where you can make sense of the world every day with insights and explanations from CNN's Fareed Zakaria, leading journalists at CNN, and other international thinkers. Join GPS editor Jason Miks and get informed about global issues, exposed to unique stories, and engaged with diverse and original perspectives.
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Annie Schmidt, 21, went missing last month after her social media posts indicated she was going hiking Oct. 16. Search efforts in her home state of Oregon were called off Oct. 26.
Jon Schmidt posted Friday night that dog teams found human remains and the Schmidt family "can positively identify the clothing and personal items found at the site as belonging to Annie."
Schmidt also thanked those who spread awareness of his daughter's disappearance.
"There is no (adequate) way to thank our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ for the support we have felt through you. You have searched with us, prayed with us, hoped with us, fasted with us, supported us and sacrificed for us," the Facebook post read.
The Multnomah County Sheriff's Office said in a statement Friday that "human remains (have) been discovered off of a trail near the Tooth Rock Trailhead in the Columbia River Gorge."
"Search and rescue crews and (sheriff's) detectives worked through the afternoon to recover the remains," the agency said.
The remains were put in the custody of the Oregon State Medical Examiner's Office. Police said no other details would be released Friday.
Schmidt said police won't release more information until they have "conclusive evidence."The internet has left us with unprecedented skepticism toward innocence. In the age of Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner, it seems literally impossible for any public figure to exist without at least one skeleton clawing its way out of the closet. We even expect simple pleasures, like reggae-inflected Swedish pop group Ace of Base, to have a few secrets kicking around.
Well, they've got one.
Ulf Ekberg, a founding member of Ace of Base, started his career as a neo-Nazi skinhead.
Not only that, he created a platform for his ideals through his Nazi punk band, Commit Suiside, which sang songs with "explicit racist lyrics." How explicit you might ask? Here's a little example:
"Män i vita kåporna på vägen tågar. Vi njuter när vi huvudena av niggrerna sågar/ Svartskalle, vi hatar dig! Ut, ut, ut, ut! Nordens folk, vakna nu! Skjut, skjut, skjut, skjut!"
Translation?
"Men in white hoods march down the road, we enjoy ourselves when we're sawing off niggers’ heads/ Immigrant, we hate you! Out, out, out, out! Nordic people, wake up now! Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot!"
In addition to performing with Commit Suiside, Ekberg was also a member of the Sweden Democrats, a political party that has publicly "rejected" any ties to neo-Nazism. This is interesting, considering the fact that the group was founded by Nazis, and active members still maintain connections with contemporary hate groups. For example, Anders Klarström, the former head of the Sweden Democrats. Funny enough, Klarström was also a member of Commit Suiside with Ekberg. Around the time that the band disbanded in 1986, Klarström was convicted of illegal firearms possession, as well as sending death threats to a Jewish theater director and entertainer named Hagge Geigert, who was publicly outspoken against racism and neo-Nazism. At the time, Klarström referred to Geigert as a "Jew pig," and threatened to burn him.
Ekberg's response has been fairly noncommittal. In a 1997 documentary, he is quoted saying "I told everyone I really regret what I did. I've closed that book."
In 1998, a small Swedish record label called Flashback Records released Uffe Was a Nazi!, a limited-edition collection of Ekberg's output with Commit Suiside. The cover is a photograph of Ekberg giving the Nazi salute. Although only 1,000 CDs were produced, it was an extremely damaging attack on Ekberg's Nazi past and has become a major collector's item. Uffe Was a Nazi! includes five songs, like "Rör inte vårt land," which translates to "Don't Touch Our Country," and "Vit makt, svartskalleslakt!" which translates to "White Power, Black Skull Slaughter." It also, amazingly, finds the band rethinking the white-power, skinhead-punk act Skrewdriver's "Smash the IRA," translating the lyrics to German and renaming it "Smash the VPK." The VPK, or "Left Party," is a socialist and feminist party in Sweden:
Here's how Ekberg found his way into Ace of Base. In August of 1990, a Gothenburg musician named Jonas Berggren was hours from playing a show with his band, who'd been performing for several years as either CAD, Tech-Noir, or Kalinin Prospect. At the last minute, their bass player decided to ditch the show to go watch the Rolling Stones on the other side of town, so Berggren asked his friend Ekberg to fill in. A few weeks later they dubbed their new lineup Ace of Base, and the rest is history: "All That She Wants" blows up, Happy Nation/The Sign sells 23 million copies, and the group becomes one of the decade's most beloved pop acts.
It's unclear whether or not Berggren, or the rest of Ace of Base, knew about Ekberg's previous dalliances with neo-Nazism when they asked him to join. For some reason it's not really spoken about today, so when you tell your friends about this stuff, you can expect some jaws hitting the floor. Ekberg's response has been fairly noncommittal. In a 1997 documentary, he is quoted saying "I told everyone I really regret what I did. I've closed that book. I don't want to even talk about it, that time does not exist in me any more. I closed it and I threw the book away in 1987. I took the experience from it, I learned from it. But that life is not me. It's somebody else."
Today, according to his website, Ekberg is "a visionary leader and an eminent businessman." Ekberg is still in Ace of Base, but he's also working for a strategic-marketing company called Result, which has teamed with partners like BMW, Fiat, IBM, and LinkedIn. In 2002, Ekberg founded another entertainment-marketing company called Legion Network (now defunct), and worked with Canon, Motorola, and Nokia. From 2002 to 2005, he was an advisor to Nokia on their global music and fashion strategy.
But things get even more cryptic. Ekberg is also an active member of the German Marshall Fund's Asia Program think tank. Keep in mind, the GMF was formed in the spirit of (and named after) the Marshall Plan, the post-WWII, US-led economic-incentive program geared toward preventing the spread of Soviet communism and opening up recovering nations to democracy.
What does all this mean? It's simply incredible that this stuff hasn't gotten out, especially since it's hidden directly in plain sight. While researching this article, I spoke with many other journalists who had never heard this story. In fact, I've never heard anyone make reference to this secret history ever in my life. Not to get all Conspiracy Theory about it, but I just can't imagine a full recovery from this sort of hatred. What's also frightening is that Ekberg has now carved himself a position of extreme authority and influence. For many years, he was directly responsible for the ways in which brands and consumers connect, and is currently involved in a grant program specific to geopolitical ideology.
Did Ekberg use Ace of Base's success as an opportunity to wipe the slate clean and erase his neo-Nazi past? I'm not sure, and part of me doubts it, but at press time, I can safely say I'll never be able to enjoy "The Sign," "Don't Turn Around," or "All That She Wants" in the same way, ever again.
Ben is VICE's Music Editor, and the Editor-In-Chief of Noisey. You can follow him on Twitter right here - @b_shap
Thanks to Ezra Marcus, for helping with research, and to Maggie Mustard, for a million ideas.The 7th edition of HLTV.org's Top 20 players of the year powered by EGB.com is starting tomorrow! We aim to bring you stories about each player's performances throughout 2017, including their highs and lows, and the reasons why they earned a place on this list of CS:GO stars.
Exactly eight years since the inaugural edition of the series, we will begin another calendar year by presenting you our Top 20 players of 2017. As always, we will publish one article per player with a dissection of their yearly performance, but due to the earlier start of the ELEAGUE Major this year, there will be a slight change in the timing of our first four articles.
As the main portion of the Major is set to start on January 19, we naturally want to reveal our #1 player the day before the big action begins. In order to achieve that, we will have to speed up the process a little bit by revealing two players per day on January 1 & 2 (one earlier in the day and one later).
The list will be updated right here every time a player is revealed, and you will be able to find the full ranking once it's all over.
Once again breaking the record in the number of "Big events" with 17, this was another year where it became extremely hard to select 20 of the very best, this way leaving out some names who would rightfully be considered stars in some previous editions.
Like last year, each player will receive a special medal with their name and placing on it
As this is a list of top performers over the year, putting up MVP-worthy displays has always been a way for players to stand out, which we recognized by selecting the MVP (who earned a medal) and a few EVPs (Exceptionally Valuable Players) of each noteworthy event and included that in our analysis process.
We continue to use individual statistics as a base for our ranking, thus only considering a player's measurable impact inside the server. In addition to the MVP and EVP recognitions, the ranking considers various parameters, such as how much damage players dealt, how much impact they made with multi-kills, opening frags or clutches, how consistent they were and how they performed in big playoff series and at the biggest events.
Without giving away many clues about who's on the list, we can say that DreamHack Masters Malmö was one of the two events where the most of our Top 20 members were in attendance, while each of them played at no fewer than 5 non-Major "Big events".
In case you're new to the series or you forgot who the stars of years past were, you can check out our previous editions here (2012 was not covered as it was a transitional year between CS 1.6 and CS:GO):
We would like to thank EGB.com, who are once again proud partners of the Top 20 series, and together with them we wish you a Happy New Year and hope you'll enjoy what's to come in the following 18 days.Little props buzz at different pitches, lifting drones into the chilly air over César Chávez Park on a gray, breezy day in Berkeley, California. A dozen pilots prep equipment on the open grassy space that juts into the San Francisco Bay, replacing prop blades or setting up their first-person-video (FPV) rigs.
“Who just turned on?” calls out Elliott Kember, who’s getting video interference. “Someone’s on my channel.”
Nearby, a series of PVC poles wrapped in foam pool noodles demarcate a make-shift racecourse a couple hundred feet in length. There are several hairpin switchbacks, two 90-degree turns, and a low arch, all marked in bright orange so the pilots can see them through cameras mounted on their specialized drones.
The group, a Meetup called FPV Explorers & Racers, formed last summer. They get together about once a week, usually on Sundays, to hang out and fly drones.
With their gear finally ready, four racers set their drones on starting mats beneath the arch. Each dons goggles that show real-time video from keychain cameras mounted on their crafts. Somebody counts down from three and the drones lift off and rip around the first turn.
They’re fast — most can exceed 50 mph — but what’s more impressive is their acceleration. They corner like a drift car; body rotating to face the direction they want to go while the drone is still sliding sideways through the air. The racers sit on the ground or in folding chairs, concentrating only on the controllers in their hands and the horizon.
“We look like Ray Charles playing the piano,” remarks Kember.
It’s a race to four laps, but really, it’s a race of submission. One drone crashes into the ground, tumbling like a downhill skier; another gets lost and flies off course. (FPV has virtually no peripheral vision so if a pilot loses sight of the route markers it’s very difficult to find them again.) The two remaining contenders fly around the course a few times before one — Kember’s — laps the other and is declared the winner by consensus.
FPV racing is the hot new thing in competitive drone flying. Over the past year or so, more and more pilots have started building racers. The crafts are typically small, compact quadcopters, measuring less than 10 inches diagonally from rotor to rotor.
It’s taking off partly because it’s fast, fun, and accessible. People can imagine doing it themselves, says Carlos Puertolas, who is described by many as the best drone racer in the Bay Area, if not the world. The technology is getting cheaper and easier; a pilot now can get his or her start for a few hundred dollars, and out-of-the-box racers are starting to become available.
Puertolas, who is sponsored by Luminier, flies their frames, produces video, and consults on design for the racing quads the company makes. But still he recommends building your own: “There’s nothing wrong with getting one that is already built, but you get a lot of knowledge from building it yourself, not only to be able to repair it but to be able to troubleshoot the problems that you have, and understand what’s wrong.”
Last fall, European enthusiasts calling themselves Airgonay became internet famous for videos featuring FPV drones ripping around a course, set up in a French forest, at nearly 70 mph. Like FPV Explorers in the U.S., the group is made up of people from varied backgrounds and professions who get together whenever they can to race informally.
“This is actually our lunch break. This is what we do every day,” says Airgonay founder Hervé Pellarin, who does marketing for FPV companies Fat Shark and ImmersionRC. “You don’t need much space to organize something very amazing for the pilots, as an experience. Just a piece of forest, trees, and path, and you can have fun all day.”
Like many racers, Pellarin overpowers his drones, substituting larger motors and rotors and higher voltage four-cell batteries for the standard three, which enables greater speed and thrust. Whatʼs more, it means the drones can maneuver quicker, lifting over and accelerating around obstacles.
“We think [racing] has real meaning,” Pellarin says. “We’re sick of hearing about drones just because they’re a toy of the NSA, or carrying bombs, or killing people. Drones can be fun; drones can be a mechanical sport for the next century. It requires skills, it requires engineering, it requires piloting.”
Such competition can also lead to real advances in design, mechanics, and technique. Leagues and contests offer a sort of Darwinian incentive to building better drones, and require competing against — or collaborating with — people with different ideas.
Eli D’Elia and Marque Cornblatt, better known as the founders of the drone fighting ring Game of Drones, have gotten the bug as well. “FPV racing is a real visceral experience. It basically makes anybody who can do it kind of like Superman for 5 to 10 minutes,” says D’Elia, who has a long history in action sports and in video games. To him (and many others), drones are bringing these worlds together. “In my mind, it has completely replaced video games, and has become my new addiction,” he says. “If I could fly all day, first person video, I would.”
When D’Elia and Cornblatt first started battling, there was an immediate need to rethink the drones so they wouldn’t get quite so devastated upon collision. “It was kind of like the crucible of drone combat sports that birthed Game of Drones,” says Cornblatt. “You saw every kind of engineering solution you could imagine, really high tech, really low tech. The problem was, no matter what, they all fell apart.”
They tried frames of laser-cut cardboard, waterjet-cut carbon fiber, and Home Depot hardware; and they eventually realized they needed something truly durable: a military-grade polymer alloy body, which they now sell. “It’s through the fighting, it’s through the racing, and it’s through going out every weekend and experiencing the challenges for the consumer that we’ve come up with a list of objectives that we really plan on solving,” Cornblatt continues. He figures they can simplify drone racers down to a low profile, slick, crash-resistant sliver.
If they do, they’ll be competing against Hovership’s
|
records]
One organization that advocates for comprehensive immigration reform and undocumented immigrants has gone so far as to start mapping the many places that it believes Trump has taken his presidential campaign and fomented a brand of hate that makes harassment and even violence likely. That's its theory.
This is mine: The misinformation campaign around Obama, his place of birth, his citizenship, his loyalties, his faith and the crimes and threats to national security that Obama is supposedly unwilling to tamp out -- it all began years ago. Donald Trump has been one of its leading voices, and no part of that question at his New Hampshire event -- heard or unheard -- should have come as a true surprise.
And despite it all, we engage in another meaningless exercise in mass outrage -- that will likely lead to another bump in the polls for Trump.Toronto Coun. John Parker is apologizing for a tweet in which he said he enjoys his job because it affords him the opportunity to meet "hot chicks."
"I understand that offence has been taken to remarks that were not intended in an offensive way. But nonetheless, I'm unhappy that offence has been taken and I'm unhappy that I was the cause of it, and I apologize for that," Parker said Tuesday, one day after he said he had no intention of apologizing for his actions.
"I think I'll be aware of the hazards of slow news days," he said when asked if the incident would temper his enthusiasm for tweeting.
Parker sent out the offending tweet after attending a Heritage Toronto event Monday to unveil a number of plaques honouring some of the city's notable past citizens, including Marshall McLuhan.
"Delighted and honoured to help unveil eight new Toronto heritage plaques and meet hot chicks in the bargain," he wrote. "I love my job."
The tweet was erased despite his initial refusal to apologize. Parker, known for his light-hearted tweets, blamed the media for making city hall a place where fun won't be tolerated.
Mayor Rob Ford, however, was not impressed, calling the tweet "inappropriate."
"I'll talk to John and I'm sure he'll apologize," Ford said Monday.
Ford called Parker about the tweet, but the mayor's staff couldn't say for sure if he spoke to the councillor.The fact-checking site PolitiFact serves a valuable purpose when it actually performs its stated function: to "help you find the truth in American politics" by "fact-check[íng] statements" from political and media figures. But it undermines its own credibility when it purports to resolve subjective disputes of political opinion under the guise of objective expertise. That's precisely what it did yesterday in this incredibly sloppy and often factually false analysis of Ron Paul's condemnation of the new AUMF and detention authorities embedded in the pending Levin/McCain bill. What matters here more than PolitiFact's obvious, specific errors is the reason they were led to such error: namely, reliance on supposedly neutral, ideology-free "experts" who are anything but that.
PolitiFact rated as "mostly false" Paul's argument that the new explicit standards in Levin/McCain defining the scope of the War on Terror are so vague and broad that they allow virtually anyone to be targeted by the President with force or detention; to support his claim, Paul cited the fact that, under this new language, the President is explicitly authorized to use force not only against members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban (as the original 2001 AUMF provided), but also against anyone who "substantially supports" those groups or "associated forces." As Paul put it in his supposedly false statement: "It's (now) anybody associated with (those) organizations, which means almost anybody can be loosely associated -- so that makes all Americans vulnerable."
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Paul is far from the only person making this argument. The ACLU (see p. 10) -- along with countless lawyers for detainees -- have repeatedly argued that these expanded AUMF standards are so vague and broad as to allow the President virtually unfettered discretion to detain or otherwise use force against anyone he wants, on the ground that almost anyone can be said to provide "substantial support" to an "associated force." Just last week, Mother Jones' Kevin Drum observed about the new AUMF in Levin/McCain: "From now on, military force will be perpetually pre-authorized against anyone who'supports' any group 'associated' with something that looks like al-Qaeda. In other words, pretty much anyone at all." And here is what Seton Hall Law Professor and long-time detainee lawyer Jonathan Hafetz told me today in explaining how this expanded interpretation of the AUMF is already giving rise to exactly the dangers about which Paul warned and could be even worse in the future:
As to "associated forces", among the most outrageous uses thus far has been the Uighurs, whom the government detained for years based on their alleged membership in an (associated) Uighur independence group. Another concern is expanding AUMF-detention authority to new groups operating in other regions besides Afghanistan (e.g., Horn of Africa) on the theory that they are "associated" with AQ. [Levin/McCain] thus helps entrench the notion of a global war on terror. One though could imagine some very frightening scenarios. Could the military arrest and detain a person arrested at his home in say Cleveland, Ohio, for writing a $20,000 check to a group that supported AQ? Or a doctor in New Jersey who sent medical supplies to an organization in Ethiopia, for example, that provided humanitarian aid to a group in that country that was deemed to be affiliated with AQ? The answer is probably yes, under the most aggressive views of the [the new bill].
Given how abusively War on Terror powers have been used by the U.S. Government, it is far more rational to be concerned about such abuse than to dismiss it. In sum, Paul expressed a view widely shared by actual experts who work in this field, as well as commentators (such as Drum) who reside far from his libertarian views. Are all of them, along with Paul, spouting "mostly false" factual statements?
* * * * *
PolitiFact has two grounds for labeling this argument "mostly false," the first of which can be dispensed with very quickly. They claim that the broad standards in this new AUMF about which Paul complains are not really new, because they are identical to how the Obama DOJ is already interpreting the 2001 AUMF. That's true as far as it goes -- I made that exact argument on Thursday in explaining that Obama officials believe and often argue that they already possess the powers this new proposed AUMF expressly grants -- but it doesn't go very far at all.
PolitiFact seems unaware of the fact that the Executive Branch doesn't determine what the law means. Just because Obama lawyers argue that the 2001 AUMF should be read to vest powers beyond the express language of the 2001 AUMF doesn't mean that's actually what the law permits (just as the fact that Bush lawyers claimed torture and warrantless eavesdropping were legal didn't mean it really was). And while some courts have accepted this broad interpretation, the question is by no means settled; having Congress codify a broader definition would certainly bolster that interpretation -- otherwise they wouldn't do it.
Rather obviously, what Paul (and many other critics of this bill) are saying is that the new, explicit expansion of the AUMF by Congress is dangerous -- even if Obama lawyers have already adopted it -- because the definition in this new bill is both so broad and vague as to entail very few limits on the President's ability to detain or use force against whomever he wants. And that is completely true; at the very least, it's a viable opinion, shared by numerous actual experts, which PolitiFact has no business branding as "mostly false."
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* * * * *
But the real import of PolitiFact's analysis is that it relies entirely on two supposedly neutral legal "experts": The Brooking Institution's Benjamin Wittes and University of Texas Law School's Robert Chesney, both of whom co-founded and write together on the "Lawfare" blog (along with former Bush DOJ lawyer Jack Goldsmith). That duo mocks as "nonsense" and "preposterous" Paul's view that these new AUMF standards vest the President with dangerous levels of discretion. They ridicule Paul's concerns even as Chesney admits that "Paul fairly points out the lack of a definition of associated forces." PolitiFact then blindly relies upon what these two experts told them to declare Paul's concerns to be "largely false."
The notion that these two individuals -- or anyone like them -- are entitled to be treated as neutral, ideology-free experts is what is "preposterous nonsense." But this is a common means of deceit in our political discourse: depicting highly biased, ideologically rigid establishment advocates as some kind of neutral expert-arbiters of fact, even though they're drenched in all sorts of biases and ideological objectives.
I recently wrote about this with regard to the conceit of establishment journalists that they are "objective" even though they ooze all sorts of obvious, serious establishment biases. Identically, Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong, among others, recently pointed out that a slew of economists typically referred to as "technocrats" -- as though they are merely ideology-free, objective administrators and experts -- are, in fact, hard-core ideologues. This is exactly true of the two "experts" on whom PolitiFact relies to conclude that there is nothing particularly worrisome in the new AUMF language, and it's true of most "national security and Terrorism experts" paraded by media outlets to justify the government's conduct.
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Just on the level of credentials, in what sense is Wittes -- who, just by the way, is not a lawyer and never studied law -- more of an expert on these matters than, say, Ron Paul or Kevin Drum? And why are the pronouncements of Robert Chesney that this AUMF language is not dangerously permissive more authoritative than the views on the same topic of ACLU lawyers or Professor Hafetz, who say exactly the opposite? Both Wittes and Chesney are perfectly well-versed in these issues, but so are countless others who have expressed Paul's exact views. Why is the Wittes/Chesney opinion that these AUFM standards are perfectly narrow and trustworthy -- and that's all it is: an opinion -- treated by PolitiFact as factually dispositive, while the views of Paul and those who agree with him are treated as false? That is preposterous nonsense.
But this is the cult of contrived neutrality that dominates so much political and media narrative. One of these objective experts, Wittes, works for a think tank lavishly funded by Haim Saban, who described himself this way:
On the issues of security and terrorism I am a total hawk. I'm a Democrat for the reinforcement of the Patriot Act. It's not strong enough. The A.C.L.U. can eat their heart out, but they are living in the 1970's. We should all have ID's. You betcha. What do you have to hide? Some friends of mine on the left side think I'm crazy.... I'm a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel.
Wittes -- unsurprisingly -- has a long history of cheerleading for some of the worst War on Terror excesses and those who committed them, as well as advocating for even more extreme measures than we've seen so far. Identically, Chesney has expended substantial energy over the years publicly defending many of the most controversial aspects of the Bush/Cheney -- now Bush/Cheney/Obama -- War on Terror. The name of their blog -- "Lawfare" -- is a word used to mock the notion that law should interfere with the glories of war. There is nothing less surprising in the world than the fact that these two dismiss as paranoia and hysteria concerns over the government's excessive detention powers.
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This is how this contrived neutrality scam typically functions. Wittes and Chesney are not pure neocons, which is why they are able to parade around as objective arbiters. But they are every bit as ideological as Bill Kristol; it's just a mildly different ideology. What they are are standard defenders of government prerogatives, dutiful servants of political power, wholesale cheerleaders for American exceptionalism, masquerading under the banner of "centrism." They are full-throttled believers in the War on Terror. One can agree or disagree with them all one wants, but one cannot reasonably depict them as even slightly more neutral or objective than Ron Paul, and they are certainly not above-the-fray arbiters who can descend down and authoritatively resolve political disputes.
This contrived neutrality is a common scam in our political discourse, and it frequently shapes our national security and civil liberties debates. There is a whole insular, rotted culture based in Washington -- they refer variously to themselves as the Foreign Policy Community or "natsec" experts and they're found at think tanks, a small set of academic institutions (which serve as feeders for government agencies), and establishment media outlets -- who have endless, amiable, self-flattering debates with themselves within an extremely narrow range of opinion. But even when they feign disagreement, it's all grounded in the same common nationalistic assumptions. What they are, above all else, are devotees to political power. They're the classic royal court courtiers and hangers-on. They'll question the tactics of American foreign policy endlessly (are we fighting this war the right way?), but never the ends, and most especially never America's right to do what it wants in the world and the right of its government to seize ever more power in the name of those wars. They're free to express those views, but -- like the bevy of bias-ridden establishment journalists, economic "technocrats," and the sham Terrorism expert community -- they're anything but neutral, objective and ideology-free.
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One trick they use to prevent anyone from talking about the embedded biases and operating dynamics of their insular culture is to proclaim these discussions off-limits on the ground of incivility. The last time I wrote about the Brookings culture and funding sources, Wittes wrote a series of petulant posts declaring that he would never again engage or mention me (since then, he has responded to what I've written several times while childishly refusing to use my name, even once re-printing a response to a column of mine from a cowardly "senior administration lawyer" insisting on (and receiving) anonymity who did the same: "He Whose Name Must Not Be Mentioned"). They try to create rules in the name of civility where you are forced to accept and honor their expertise and objectivity -- you must simply ignore and never mention the cultural, financial and careerist incentives they have to spout pro-government, authoritarian views (recall what Les Gelb said about why they often are pro-war) -- so that their expertise, objectivity and good faith remain unquestioned.
If you do anything other than pretend that they are Beacons of Bias-Free Objectivity -- if you analyze the mandated orthodoxies in their world and the cultural pressures to accept and spout those orthodoxies -- then you're engaged in unfair "personal attacks" and will prompt outcries from the fellow devotees of their National Security priesthood. You're not permitted to question their objectivity or expertise. We're all supposed to pretend that war cheerleaders at Brookings and similar think tanks are honorable "scholars" and good faith, ideology-free experts -- like the leading Democratic Saban-funded cheerleader for the Iraq War and now leading agitator for the Iranian Threat -- or else we're proving how crass, gauche and mean we are: how unSerious.
This is the scam of contrived neutrality and objective expertise which PolitiFact fell for in condemning Ron Paul's perfectly rational statements as "mostly false": Ben Wittes and Bobby Chesney said there was nothing to worry about and such concerns about detention abuses were "preposterous"! What more proof do you need? The objective "centrist" expert hath thus decreed it, and thus is it proven.When Dean Kathy Shailer meets with first-year students Thursday, her main priority will be to explain why a mandatory $180 art history textbook doesn’t contain any art.
The open discussion was arranged after a petition was started by OCAD University students wanting their money back for Global Visual and Material Culture: Prehistory to 1800.
Nearly 300 students had signed the petition.
The course, which shares its name with the textbook, is a first-year history course studying art, beginning with the earliest recorded creative expressions of human culture to the Industrial Revolution, according to the course description on OCAD’s website.
In a letter to students, Ms. Shailer says the joint use of the textbook and an online component, which contains the artwork, was needed to keep costs down. She says a printed version, including art, would cost $800.
“I really dislike the fact that we need to go online, and move back and forth from two different eBooks, in order to get images for one physical copy of a book that has no images in it,” says a student named Asim in a post on the OCAD petition. “It is definitely a waste of my time and money as a first-year student!”
We wanted a text that prepares OCAD U students for OCAD U programs
“$180 for an inconvenience just isn’t worth it,” writes Ralph.
The University of Toronto uses a different textbook for its art history class. Gardener’s Art Through The Ages, now in its 14th edition, is available in the University of Toronto book store for $151.20. The textbook is of comparable length and content, and contains artwork.
Ms. Shailer says that a textbook unique to OCAD is needed for this course.
“We wanted a text that prepares OCAD U students for OCAD U programs,” says Ms. Shailer in her letter.
The textbook is custom to OCAD, containing portions of two different textbooks: Art History, 4th edition by Stokstad and Cothren, and Graphic Design History: A Critical Guide, 2nd edition by Drucker/McVarish. Art History typically retails for $144 and Graphic Design History for $92.
Students became aware of the artless art history textbooks on the first day of classes, when they were notified by a teacher’s assistant. The teacher was not in class that day.
“It was a [teacher’s assistant] distributing information, and didn’t have the full story,” says Brent Ashley, an IT specialist and blogger whose daughter is in the class. His blog post gained the attention of Techdirt, a popular American tech blog.
“The students took it from there.”
The lack of information led many students to believe that OCAD had not been able to get the copyright to the artwork in time for classes to begin, a rumour dispelled by Ms. Shailer in her letter.Ubisoft takes to Facebook to officially confirm the development of Beyond Good & Evil 2, and reveals which studio Michel Ancel is working with to develop the game.
For fans of the cult hit Beyond Good & Evil, the last decade has been a whirlwind of emotions. The sequel, Beyond Good & Evil 2, has gone through many stop-and-goes, yet there has been very little concrete information on the game in the years since its initial announcement. However, this past week has been a change of pace, with series creator Michel Ancel teasing that the sequel is in development with posts on his Instagram account. Ubisoft has now officially confirmed Beyond Good & Evil 2, and has revealed the studio Ancel is working with to develop the game.
When it comes to the development of Beyond Good & Evil 2, Michel Ancel is cooperating with a studio that he is very familiar with. The team at Ubisoft Montpellier, who worked on Rayman Origins and Legends with Ancel, will be helping him realize his vision for the long-gestating sequel. Unfortunately, further details on the game are unavailable at this time.
There are a number of theories and rumors surrounding Beyond Good & Evil 2 that Ancel and Ubisoft will need to address in the coming months. Firstly, based on the first piece of concept art that Ancel revealed on his Instagram account, many have theorized that the new game will actually be a prequel to the original, as opposed to a direct sequel. That concept art appears to depict a young Pey’j – Jade’s anthropomorphic pig-uncle – on the shoulder of a man that is presumably Jade’s father, teasing that the new game will explore Pey’j’s origins.
Theories on the game’s plot aside, there is one big rumor surrounding it that may be confirmed or denied within the next few weeks. The rumor cropped up earlier this year that Nintendo is funding the development of Beyond Good & Evil 2 for Ubisoft, in exchange for the game being exclusive to the Nintendo NX. We have yet to see any concrete evidence for this rumor, but Nintendo has carved out similar deals with other games, like when it secured Bayonetta 2 as a Wii U exclusive a couple of years back.
So, there’s certainly a possibility that Beyond Good & Evil 2 is an NX exclusive, and with Nintendo expected to unveil its new console any day now, fans should find out soon enough one way or another. In the meantime, it would be nice if Ancel and Ubisoft explained how exactly development on Beyond Good & Evil 2 is being handled, considering both Ancel and Ubisoft Montpellier are currently busy with other projects.
Before the announcement of Beyond Good & Evil 2, Ancel was hard at work at the ambitious open world game Wild. Ubisoft Montpellier, meanwhile, has been assisting Ubisoft Paris in the development of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands, arguably the company’s biggest game in 2017. It’s possible that this split in attention will cause Beyond Good & Evil 2 to take longer to develop, but for the sake of the fans that have been waiting almost a decade for the sequel, hopefully that’s not the case.
Beyond Good & Evil 2 is in development for unspecified platforms.
Source: Beyond Good & EvilA leading climate scientist has apparently admitted to obtaining and disseminating documents from the anti-climate-change Heartland Institute.
On his blog on the Huffington Post, Peter Gleick, president of the Oakland, California-based Pacific Institute, says that he was sent one of the documents by an anonymous source. After receiving this, he says, “in a serious lapse of my own professional judgment and ethics, I solicited and received additional materials directly from the Heartland Institute under someone else’s name”.
Gleick offered his apologies and expressed “deep regret” over his actions. The Heartland Institute has already threatened to pursue legal action over the leaks.
In a statement issued yesterday after Gleick’s confession, Heartland’s president Joseph Bast said, “We are consulting with legal counsel to determine our next steps and plan to release a more complete statement about the situation tomorrow.”
Nature has not yet been able to obtain a comment from the Pacific Institute or from Gleick.
See also: ‘Climate-gate’ researchers enter Heartland debateHe's been open about his demons after battling alcoholism for much of his adult life.
And Ben Affleck was seen heading for another session at the Rehab Recovery Center in Los Angeles on Tuesday after a turbulent few days, which had seen him issue a public apology after becoming embroiled in a groping scandal.
The actor, 45, appeared to be in good spirits as he stepped out of a chauffeured luxury SUV, smiling as he made his way inside the building.
Back to it: Ben Affleck was seen heading for another session at the Rehab Recovery Center in Los Angeles on Tuesday after a turbulent few days
The father-of-three dressed comfortably in grey sneakers and jeans, a blue leather bomber jacket and a blue Tutankhamen graphic tee.
The Oscar-winning star was sporting heavy salt and pepper stubble and wore his short hair unkempt.
Affleck has been frequently visiting the center over the past few weeks as he continues to battle his demons after completing a stint in rehab for alcohol addiction in March.
He wrote on Facebook at the time: 'I have completed treatment for alcohol addiction; something I've dealt with in the past and will continue to confront. I want to live life to the fullest and be the best father I can be.
Battling demons: The actor, 45, appeared to be in good spirits as he stepped out of a chauffeured luxury SUV, smiling as he made his way inside the building
Regular visitor: The father-of-three dressed comfortably in grey sneakers and jeans, a blue leather bomber jacket and a blue Tutankhamen graphic tee
It's been a trying few days for the actor after he issued a public apology for groping former One Tree Hill star and MTV correspondent Hilarie Burton during an MTV TRL appearance in 2003.
Hilarie made her allegations last Tuesday, just hours after Ben took to Twitter to condemn disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein for his alleged sexual assault and harassment scandal.
Former Weinstein protegee Ben said he was'saddened and angry' over the'sickening' claims.
His statement was slammed by a number of people - including Weinstein accuser actress Rose McGowan, who called Ben a liar.
Ben was quick to reply, tweeting: 'I acted inappropriately toward Ms. Burton and I sincerely apologize.'
The same day make-up artist Annamarie Tendler took to Twitter to claim that Ben 'grabbed her a**' at a Golden Globes party in 2014 and demanded an apology.
Happy and relaxed: The Oscar-winning star was sporting heavy salt and pepper stubble and wore his short hair unkempt
A source told E! on Thursday that his estranged wife Jennifer Garner 'is very annoyed' with Ben because of the unwanted attention it has brought to their three children.
The former couple - who split in 2015 after almost 10 years together - raise daughters Violet, 11, and Seraphina, eight, and son Samuel, five.
Ben has not been seen with his girlfriend, Emmy-winning SNL producer Lindsay Shookus, 37, since the scandal erupted.
More than 30 women have now come forward with allegations of sexual harassment against Hollywood producer Weinstein, the man once described as 'God' of the film industry.
The accusations, including from some of the world's most famous actresses, range from inappropriate massages to rape over a three-decade period.
Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Cara Delevingne, Kate Beckinsale, Lea Seydoux, Rose McGowan, Ashley Judd and Rosanna Arquette are among the high-profile names to have come forward.Climate scientists across Canada are preparing to shutter research projects and lay off staff as time runs out on the federal program that supports their work.
The break comes despite the Trudeau government's repeated emphasis on the need for science-based decision-making in response to climate change.
For researchers who have welcomed recent statements from Ottawa about the importance of climate research after years of anemic funding from previous governments, the looming gap is a source of disappointment and some surprise.
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Read more: Canadian researchers rally around funding recommendations
"All the right words are there, but somehow research groups are going to be dismantled within a few months and nothing is going to appear to prevent this," said René Laprise, a professor and climate scientist at the University of Quebec at Montreal.
Dr. Laprise is among dozens of academic researchers whose work is funded through the federal program called Climate Change and Atmospheric Research (CCAR), which expires this year. The $35-million program is the main conduit for federal money allocated to atmospheric research in Canadian universities.
CCAR was launched during a period of turmoil after the Harper government cut its predecessor, the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences. The transition led to irreparable breaks in data collection and drove students and research associates to leave the country or give up on atmospheric research.
"The termination … demonstrated the major negative impacts of not continuing funding for this critical scientific area," said Gordon McBean, a professor emeritus at the University of Western Ontario and the foundation's former chair.
Now, climate scientists fear a similar disruption is about to happen.
Of the seven projects CCAR supports, six are to run out of money at the end of the year. A seventh, the Canadian Sea Ice and Snow Evolution Network, received permission to continue for an extra year with no additional money.
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When this year's federal budget did not contain a replacement for CCAR, researchers realized they would be pulling the plug on projects that have taken years to build up.
"We were hoping there was going to be a follow-on program, but none has been announced," said Jim Drummond, a professor at Dalhousie University and principal investigator for the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL), on Ellesmere Island.
PEARL, which conducts observations of the atmosphere in the High Arctic and is Canada's most northern civilian research facility, became a cause célèbre for science advocates when it was threatened by Harper government cuts in 2012. Dr. Drummond said it faces a potential repeat of that.
"By fall, we'll be having to dust off the shutdown plan and see what we have to do in order to mothball the facility," he said.
Dr. Drummond added that he would try to use other funding sources to continue science activities at PEARL in hopes that next year's budget provides stable funding. But the uncertainty means he and his colleagues cannot commit PEARL to participate in an international science effort called the Year of Polar Prediction in 2018.
For Dr. Laprise, a specialist in regional climate modelling, there is currently no alternative to letting go his team of PhD-level research assistants whose positions are paid for by CCAR.
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"It's already too late by more than six months," Dr. Laprise said. "I have three employees. One has left and the other two are actively looking."
Dr. Laprise presented his group's work at a recent meeting of the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society in Toronto and described its potential to inform climate adaptation plans for specific areas of the country. But he also lamented that he would have no opportunity to compete for a new round of funding to continue the effort.
"Somehow, governments over the years never seem to realize how disruptive the break in continuity is for research groups," he said.
CCAR is administered by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council. A spokesperson for the council said climate researchers can seek grants through other funding programs open to all academic researchers. Climate scientists say those options are ill-suited to supporting the national networks of researchers established under CCAR. And climate science is a poor fit for government programs that require scientists to seek industrial partners as an incentive for commercialization.
The latest federal budget sets aside $73.5-million over five years, starting in 2017-2018, to Environment and Climate Change Canada and Natural Resources Canada to establish a Canadian centre for climate services. The centre's stated mandate includes improved access to climate science. But Mark Johnson, a spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada, said the new centre is not intended to replace CCAR.
Paul Kushner, a climate scientist at the University of Toronto who heads one of the CCAR-funded projects, said the issue was not simply one of channelling money to researchers but of establishing a long-term mechanism that allows better strategic planning and allocation of resources.
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"This style of having one funding call every five or six years just makes it impossible to have a stable, sustainable research program in climate," he said.Ice Cream Bread
Hold the phone guys- we’re feeling extremely proud of ourselves! Because…. (*drumroll*)… we made bread! We don’t know about you (but we’re feeling 22! No? Taylor Swift? Anyone?) but to us bread is like the holy grail of the baking world. It’s just so impressive- only the pros do it. None of our friends ever make bread. If we ever get homemade bread it’s because someone who’s been baking since before we were were born (hi mom!) made it. We love fresh baked bread, but traditional recipes take much more time and practice than cookies or brownies. Until now.
That’s right folks – we’ve done it again! Yet another two-ingredient recipe made with love straight from us to you. This time instead of pancakes or candy bark, it’s for bread. But not just bread- ice cream bread! We found this super easy two-ingredient bread recipe on Pinterest via Buzzfeed and decided to give it a shot for your reading (and snacking) pleasure! Because surely ice cream and flour doesn’t magically come together to make bread, right? We set out to crack the case…
First grab your ingredients. Only two! You’ll need:
2 cups (1 pint) of regular ice cream (according to the original article you aren’t supposed to used low-fat). We used Dulce de Leche and Strawberry, but you can use any flavor you want.
1 1/2 cups of self-rising flour
Leave the ice cream out to soften (about 30-45 minutes). Scoop your flour into a mixing bowl.
Now scoop in your ice cream and mix until it’s well incorporated.
Pour the batter into a greased 8×4 loaf pan.
Bake the batter in a 350 degree oven for about 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
That’s it! Just like our other two-ingredient shenanigans, we really liked this super-easy recipe. Surprise: it actually did bake like bread! We must admit- we had our doubts with this one. We thought we would finally get to disprove a shenanigan, but no such luck today. This one is bona-fide and kitchen-worthy.
Keep in mind this is bread though, not cake. It isn’t as sweet as you would imagine having a whole pint of ice cream in there and all. It serves well with Nutella or jelly spread on top as an indulgent breakfast or delicious snack. We particularly recommend the making it with strawberry ice cream- the strawberry chunks throughout the bread made it really stand out.
What favorite ice cream flavor will you try?
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Check out some of our other baking shenanigans:
Oreo Bark Black Bean Brownies Cookie Cupcakes
Plus, be sure to follow us on Pinterest to see what we might try next!In the heat of midsummer 1942, deep in a forest in the heart of Poland, Briar Rose arrives at a castle that has fallen into the hands of an evil army. Corrupted by dark deeds and choked by a poisonous mist, the castle will soon come to be known as Chelmno extermination camp. And in that place of death, Briar Rose is plunged into a deep sleep….
Ever since she was a child, Rebecca has been enchanted by her grandmother Gemma’s stories of Briar Rose. Becca would have sworn the stories were made up, but on her deathbed Gemma extracts from Becca a promise to fulfill three impossible requests: find the castle, find the prince, and find the spell-maker. Her vow sends Becca on a remarkable journey to uncover the truth of Gemma’s astonishing claim: I am Briar Rose.
Jane Yolen’s graceful retelling of the German folktale of “Briar Rose”—also known as “Sleeping Beauty”—sets the story amid forests patrolled by the German army during World War II. Yolen confronts the deeply tragic events of the Holocaust with lyrical prose and rich characterizations that tell a tale of good and evil, hope and despair. Tor Teen’s new edition of Briar Rose is available April 19th—read Yolen’s new preface to the novel below!
HOW BRIAR ROSE BECAME…
The road to writing and publishing can sometimes be rocky, sometimes smooth, a bit fairy tale-ish in itself. But a writer must distrust both the rocky and the smooth, and walk the middle road, which is all about the characters and the story.
I had just finished writing a different Holocaust novel—The Devil’s Arithmetic--several years earlier and swore to myself never to do another. That was because of the research. I’d spent years doing it, finding myself in a place that was dark, bloody, inhuman, awful; a place where the stories were mostly tragedies. And yet those stories also had their share of honor, courage, sacrifice, and love. I was wrung out emotionally and spiritually from the research and the writing.
But then my dear friend, the editor of the fairy tale novel series, Terri Windling, and I had lunch. She said she needed a Sleeping Beauty retelling for her list.
Now I, have always found parts of that story highly disturbing (read the older, Italian version to see what I mean).
However, as we were talking, I suddenly remembered something I’d seen in the research for The Devil’s Arithmetic. Watching the movie Shoah I’d heard about the concentration camp “Chelmno” which was set up in a schloss, a castle. Barbed wire surrounded the place, and people—mostly Jews—were gassed there. And I told Terri about this and how it seemed to me to be the perfect match for the story of Sleeping Beauty: girl/woman in castle, wire/briars, gassed/sleep. The Nazi Commandant the wicked fairy.
She said, “Write me that book!” and paid for lunch.
The smooth road. Distrust it.
I went home, thinking, What have I done to myself. Thinking: More horrific research. Thinking: Piece of cake, perfect metaphor.
I took out all my old research books, the histories, the biographies, the autobiographies, the newspaper and magazine articles. Nowhere was there a mention of Chelmno. I went to the Smith College and Amherst College libraries (I live nearby), and there was nothing about a concentration camp in a schloss.
Worried that I’d misremembered, I bought a copy of Shoah and paced through it again. All nine hours. Found the mention of Chelmno, wondered if perhaps I’d been spelling it incorrectly, went back to research… and still nothing.
Remember, this was 1987-8. Very little Internet around. I wasn’t even on a computer yet, though my husband was a computer scientist at the University of Massachusetts.
Rocky road. Distrust it.
And then fate gave me a little shove. I was at a Jewish Book Fair in New York City at the 92nd Street Y, signing copies of The Devil’s Arithmetic. I had a break for lunch and needing something to read while I ate (doesn’t everybody?), went around the publishers’ booths collecting stuff. One thing I picked up was a brochure for a new Jewish Encyclopedia. It showed what various entries would look like and had chosen to display three from the beginning of the alphabet. I sat down, began reading and—I’m not making this up—the C entry was for Chelmno. A jaw-drop moment later and I stashed that carefully in my pocketbook. I couldn’t wait to get home to call my editor and
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w/ Wipeout, Koev Halev and Blud & friends
8PM – 12AM
Metro Gallery
1700 N Charles St, Baltimore
Featuring: Boy Harsher, Wipeout -band-, Koev Halev, and Blud & friends.
Buy Tickets Here
Vague Output presents: TOO MANY WIRES III
9PM – 2AM
The Crown
1910 N Charles St, Baltimore
A packed night of live techno, electronic body music and industrial at The Crown
Mx. Silkman (DJ) Cleveland https://soundcloud.com/mxsilkman Aerin Ercolea, resident/ cofounder of IN TRAINING, Cleveland’s premiere queer electronic night
Unikove (LIVE) Cleveland https://soundcloud.com/unikove Ominous dungeon techno from the Rust Belt. grimy, black smoke, locked in a cage
Extended Release (LIVE) https://soundcloud.com/dvoid666 Trip the light sleazy
BASTET (LIVE) https://soundcloud.com/ambershoshana Moldy mesmeric afterparty
LK (DJ) founder of monthly Pity For The Self events Baltimore
Enjoy!
Lindsey
AdvertisementsUser Info: KYcarl KYcarl 7 years ago #1
-Highlight over a car you have not found/driven yet
-While highlighting it, press A (will not make a sound or anything)
-Go to the cases menu and select Homicide desk Free Roam
-The car you selected should be in the parking lot to your left (across the street from Police Station front door)
-It seems to only work for 2 door vehicles and 4 door vehicles, but NOT service vehicles
-If the vehicle is not in the parking lot, look in the surrounding area. If you don't see it, simply repeat this process.
This seemed to get me my last few cars that I needed so hope this helps. "You should never underestimate the predictability of stupidity." -At the main menu, go to Extras Go to the Vehicle Showroom-Highlight over a car you have not found/driven yet-While highlighting it, press A (will not make a sound or anything)-Go to the cases menu and select Homicide desk Free Roam-The car you selected should be in the parking lot to your left (across the street from Police Station front door)-It seems to only work for 2 door vehicles and 4 door vehicles, but NOT service vehicles-If the vehicle is not in the parking lot, look in the surrounding area. If you don't see it, simply repeat this process.This seemed to get me my last few cars that I needed so hope this helps.
User Info: VasDeferens VasDeferens 7 years ago #2 How can I help, Detective? Patching you through now. If this is legit, we might have our first true candidate for the Cheats section. Congrats!
User Info: DatDavid DatDavid 7 years ago #3 Sounds too good to be true.
User Info: KYcarl KYcarl (Topic Creator) 7 years ago #4 "You should never underestimate the predictability of stupidity." Try it out. I spent a whole day (seriously; time I got off work until I went to sleep) looking for one car, the Lincoln Model K Convertible Roadster, to no avail. I used this trick, it was in the parking lot the first time. I went on to do it for another couple I had left on my list, they too worked. Note that I did have to restart it a few times, but to get my final 6 cars took me a total of 12ish minutes.
User Info: Supernova36 Supernova36 7 years ago #5
Had a Plymouth 4-door unlock.
Just going to try it again to verify it wasn't a fluke. You're damn right I'm not taking this topic seriously. I was all ready to be trolled, but I just tried it and can confirm it works!Had a Plymouth 4-door unlock.Just going to try it again to verify it wasn't a fluke.
User Info: ClTlZENSNlPS ClTlZENSNlPS 7 years ago #6 -Snips
Fact: Bears eat beets Good Lord.
User Info: Supernova36 Supernova36 7 years ago #7
Anyway, I've tried it 3 times, and it worked 2/3 times. I also don't really have any way of knowing if I unlocked the car I actually pressed 'a' on, or if it's just the same Class (both have been 4-doors, after I pressed 'a' on one of the locked 4-doors). You're damn right I'm not taking this topic seriously. Sorry for double posting, but this really could take hours off people's time to 100% completion if they're going for it.Anyway, I've tried it 3 times, and it worked 2/3 times. I also don't really have any way of knowing if I unlocked the car I actually pressed 'a' on, or if it's just the same Class (both have been 4-doors, after I pressed 'a' on one of the locked 4-doors).
User Info: KYcarl KYcarl (Topic Creator) 7 years ago #8
http://lanoire.wikia.com/wiki/Vehicles
The vehicles are in the same order as they are shown in the showroom, so you will know exactly which one you're looking for. "You should never underestimate the predictability of stupidity." If you use this list:http://lanoire.wikia.com/wiki/VehiclesThe vehicles are in the same order as they are shown in the showroom, so you will know exactly which one you're looking for.
User Info: Supernova36 Supernova36 7 years ago #9 something about this is definitely working..
A few points:
- It doesn't always seem to be the car you press 'a' on, but it is always one in the same class.
- I have had it not work a few times, 2 times were with a locked Sports car, however it did work to unlock 1 sports car, so I don't think it's the class.
- It doesn't work with service vehicles.
Based on that, I think what is happening is that it populates the car park with whatever class you choose, and it just happens that I've had a lot of one I didn't have unlocked. My reasoning for this is that I had quite a few 4-door cars locked, and as a result they would appear often, whereas I now have only 1 Sports car still locked, so there is less chance of it appearing.
All pure speculation, but either way, this is a much quicker way to unlock missing cars than trawling around the city. You're damn right I'm not taking this topic seriously. Ok, I've unlocked about 8-10 new cars now, soabout this is definitely working..A few points:- It doesn't always seem to be the car you press 'a' on, but it is always one in the same class.- I have had it not work a few times, 2 times were with a locked Sports car, however it did work to unlock 1 sports car, so I don't think it's the class.- It doesn't work with service vehicles.Based on that, I think what is happening is that it populates the car park with whatever class you choose, and it just happens that I've had a lot of one I didn't have unlocked. My reasoning for this is that I had quite a few 4-door cars locked, and as a result they would appear often, whereas I now have only 1 Sports car still locked, so there is less chance of it appearing.All pure speculation, but either way, this is a much quicker way to unlock missing cars than trawling around the city.Everybody feels pain differently, and brain structure may hold the clue to these differences.
In a study published in the current online issue of the journal Pain, scientists at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have shown that the brain's structure is related to how intensely people perceive pain.
"We found that individual differences in the amount of grey matter in certain regions of the brain are related to how sensitive different people are to pain," says Robert Coghill, professor of neurobiology and anatomy at Wake Forest Baptist and senior author of the study.
The brain is made up of both grey and white matter. Grey matter processes information much like a computer, while white matter coordinates communications between the different regions of the brain.
The research team investigated the relationship between the amount of grey matter and individual differences in pain sensitivity in 116 healthy volunteers. Pain sensitivity was tested by having participants rate the intensity of their pain when a small spot of skin on their arm or leg was heated to 120 F. After pain sensitivity testing, participants underwent MRI scans that recorded images of their brain structure.
"Subjects with higher pain intensity ratings had less grey matter in brain regions that contribute to internal thoughts and control of attention," says Nichole Emerson, a graduate student in the Coghill lab and first author of the study. These regions include the posterior cingulate cortex, precuneus and areas of the posterior parietal cortex, she says.
The posterior cingulate cortex and precuneus are part of the default mode network, a set of connected brain regions that are associated with the free-flowing thoughts that people have while they are daydreaming.
"Default mode activity may compete with brain activity that generates an experience of pain, such that individuals with high default mode activity would have reduced sensitivity to pain," Coghill says.
Areas of the posterior parietal cortex play an important role in attention. Individuals who can best keep their attention focused may also be best at keeping pain under control, Coghill says.
"These kinds of structural differences can provide a foundation for the development of better tools for the diagnosis, classification, treatment and even prevention of pain," he says.VANCOUVER (The News Desk) — The Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia will officially cease operations next month, Dean Robert Helsley announced during a press conference earlier today.
“The rape chant controversy has dealt a blow to the business school — one from which, I’m afraid, we can’t recover. That’s why, starting this October, the business school will officially cease all operations forever,” Helsley told assembled press.
The dean cited mass student transfers as the primary reason for the move.
“As you know, over the last few days, every B. Comm student transferred to other faculties. Every single one. It’s difficult to run a business school without any students,” said Helsley.
Campus facilities manager Rob MacDonald told reporters that the Henry Angus building, former home of the Sauder School of Business, will be slowly dismantled over the next few months.
“Pieces of the business school will be carried down to Wreck Beach, placed on barges and floated out into the ocean,” explained MacDonald. “Former Commerce Undergraduate Society members will be charged a modest fee of $275 for the demolition.”
The move follows a heated debate in the United States Senate, where a motion for air strikes on Sauder was voted down earlier this morning.
“This changes very little. We are still open to the possibility of military strikes,” President Barack Obama told press in response to the announcement.
The move also provoked reactions from conspiracy theorists, who claim that this is all a black flag operation executed by the University of Toronto.
“Dean Helsley assumed his position exactly one year ago to this day — the very same day that a cyborg was seen escaping from a U of T lab and heading towards a Harry Rosen store. What I’m saying is that Dean Helsley is a U of T cyborg plant,” speculated UBC President Stephen Toope. ♦
Photo via Glotman SimpsonWritten by
Motor yacht Archimedean is new, revolutionary design with a contemporary style inspired by the simple elegant purity of Archimedean solids. Superyacht Archimedean is the latest design from the award winning architectural studio Innovation Imperative.
Measuring 38 metres in length over all, Archimedean boast a beam of 7.2 metre and a 5 cabin layout, with elegant, minimalist interior. The original brief was to design a stylish and modern build-able high performance superyacht like no other; a yacht of true distinction both in terms of the exterior styling and the consistent interior design.
Most important aspects of the motor yacht Archimedean by Innovation Imperative is her striking and contemporary interior and exterior styling, coupled with exceptional performance.
Based on simple and elegant geometric proportions, the strong but simple form sets the yacht apart from any other on the market.
Incomparable and uncompromising, The Archimedean could become the Schröder House equivalent of the yacht world; a distinctive, modern a some would say ‘radical’ approach in a time of relative design conservatism. It has the makings of a design classic.In this post I will use ScriptCraft to create static visualizations in Minecraft for a couple well-known sorting algorithms.
Sorting Algorithms
Sorting algorithms are a popular branch of algorithms. For young computer scientists sorting algorithms are the vehicle for learning important concepts in the field such as Big O notation and time-space tradeoffs. For older computer scientists, this family of algorithms are still interesting enough to devote time for research and analysis (e.g. Library Sort). And yet despite the ubiquity of these algorithms I doubt most of us have developed strong intuitions on how they work, or have simply forgotten–myself included.
Static Visualizations
A few years ago, Aldo Cortesi, a New Zealand coder, made a case for static over animated visualizations as the tool of choice for understanding the flow of sorting algorithms. His argument is that these animated visualizations are initially unclear and take longer to understand. We have trouble with these animations because humans estimate distances in space well, but are generally poor at estimating distances in time, so why when trying to teach potentially confusing material would we play to our weakness? Static visualizations play to our strength.
Below there are three sorting algorithm visualizations along with a few notes. Look at each picture from right to left to follow the flow of each algorithm. If you hadn’t already guessed from the pictures we are sorting colored wool and using Minecraft’s internal IDs for each block. A list of all block IDs can be found at MinecraftInfo.
Bubblesort
A simple sorting algorithm. If your list is small and your data mostly sorted, then there is certainly nothing wrong with this little algorithm.
Notice:
When a line of wool is swapped with another the most it moves is by one line.
Towards the end of the rectangle (towards the left) there is a stretch where no wool is swapped and yet the algorithm is still “sorting”.
Shell Sort
Discovered by Donald Shell in ’59. Compare the picture above with that of Bubblesort and you should notice:
Swaps between rows can move wool more than one line (unlike poor old Bubblesort)!
The visualization has a shorter width than that of Bubblesort. This is due to the fact that Shell Sort took fewer passes sorting the same data.
Quicksort
Discovered by Tony Hoare in ’60. Quicksort is popular because it is usually very fast in practice.
Notice:
There is a pattern where first wool swaps are made from farther away, but then are followed by swaps with closer lines of wool. This is because Quicksort takes a bigger uglier problem (like sorting a lot of wool) and divides into smaller similar problems (sorting just a little bit of wool). The smaller problems are easier to solve and can be recombined to create a solution for the original big ugly problem.
The orange wool does not appear at the very top like in the previous sorts. (Don’t worry it’s there, but for some reason Minecraft doesn’t always show the blocks I render with ScriptCraft).
More Visualizations
After your done reading this post I sugget you visit Cortesi’s sortvis site to see more sorting algorithm visualizations. If you are interested in creating your own sorting algorithm visualizations in Minecraft you can find the JavaScript code I used as a Gist. You’ll need ScriptCraft installed which is a little painful, but once installed you can do plenty of other neat things like creating L-system fractals.
Suggestions
Is there a topic you would like to see covered here? I want to hear your input. Send me an email with any suggestions for future posts.
AdvertisementsBay Area country club gulps over 2 million gallons of water a week
Menlo Country Club topped a list of excessive irrigation water users released Thursday, Nov. 5, 2015, by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, slurping up 320,842 gallons a day in September — or enough to supply 7,825 typical San Francisco homes with water. less Menlo Country Club topped a list of excessive irrigation water users released Thursday, Nov. 5, 2015, by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, slurping up 320,842 gallons a day in September — or... more Photo: Google Photo: Google Image 1 of / 60 Caption Close Bay Area country club gulps over 2 million gallons of water a week 1 / 60 Back to Gallery
It takes a lot of water to feed the lush lawns that drape in vibrant folds across the Menlo Country Club’s golf course on the edge of Woodside. And, apparently, a crippling drought is seen as no reason to pull back on the spigot.
The exclusive, gated club topped a list of excessive irrigation water users released Thursday by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, slurping up 320,842 gallons a day in September — or enough to supply 7,825 typical San Francisco homes with water.
That was 66,322 gallons more than the utilities commission allotted the club under drought-inspired cutbacks.
The Chronicle obtained the overuse roster through a public records request. By law, the list includes only those who were ordered, not simply advised, to shrink their water usage. For the San Francisco utility — which sells water throughout the region, not just in the city — that order pertains to about 800 customers with special irrigation accounts for landscaping.
Those customers were told in 2014 to trim their water use by 10 percent compared with 2013, and this year to cut back 25 percent. The list released Thursday detailed those who went over the limits in June, August and September, and it was immediately clear that violators came from across the demographic map.
Most going over the limits in San Francisco were businesses, nonprofits and public agencies — ranging from UCSF Medical Center to a Safeway in the Marina. There were luxury high-rise apartment towers and the Mercy Housing agency for poverty and affordable housing. Other offenders included Caltrans, the Institute on Aging, the state Department of Parks and even BART’s 24th Street Station.
A few over the line
Few individual homeowners were on the roster, but among them were the late comedian Robin Williams’ former wife, philanthropist Marsha Garces Williams, and former Chevron Corp. Vice Chairman and Director J. Dennis Bonney. They both used a lot of water, though they exceeded their allotments by relatively small amounts.
In September, there were 208 violators, who had to pay double for every gallon they used over their target. Still, it was clear on that and the other lists that some couldn’t exactly be called water hogs. A good many had innocent explanations.
The Brandeis Hillel Day School, for instance, went 9 gallons over its allotted target of 40 gallons a day in September. UCSF came in No. 1 on the list in June by going a whopping 84,424 gallons a day over its 19,600-gallon limit at its sprawling Mission Bay campus — but that was because of a big water leak that later got fixed.
UCSF spokeswoman Jennifer O’Brien said the leak was disappointing, and noted that the environmental-award-winning university “is among the greenest urban hospitals in the nation.”
Similar consternation sprang from the University of San Francisco, which made the September list three times — at three different locations — for using a total of nearly 1,000 excess gallons a day.
“I’m very surprised,” said spokesman Gary McDonald. “We just put timers on the showers of the residence halls and opened an office of sustainability with a full-time director, which advises on how to conserve resources, including water.
‘We’ll take care of it’
“We’ve got signs on our lawn that say, ‘Brown is the New Green,’ and our lawn is dry. If we’re over, we’ll take care of it.”
The Giants baseball team made September’s list by going over its 2,519-gallon daily allotment at a small park it maintains across McCovey Cove from AT&T Park by 1,770 gallons. The overage was blamed on leaks.
“We’ve had trouble with people stealing irrigation equipment there,” said team spokeswoman Staci Slaughter. “We’ve fixed it.”
But the biggest user of water, by far, was the Menlo Country Club, whose September bill topped $100,000. That month, the club — which sits at the border of Redwood City and Woodside — slopped way over its daily allotment of 254,509 gallons.
Explanations were tough to get, and there’s a wide range of estimates for how much water a typical golf course needs.
A Chronicle reporter was stopped at a security post just beyond the private club’s stately brick sign and entrance off Interstate 280.
From the roadway, the fairways and putting greens beneath redwood trees and oaks appeared a brilliant green. Much of the rough between holes, however, was brown, revealing a possible bid to save water. The club also has several tennis courts and at least one pool.
The sun shone brightly on the golf course and the temperatures were agreeable to an afternoon on the links, but few were swinging clubs.
General Manager Chris Robinson, who rolled out in a golf cart to speak briefly at the main entrance, said the club maintained a policy of not talking to the media.
One person associated with the course, who asked for anonymity, noted that many golf courses in the region remain green but aren’t being scrutinized.
Vibrant golf course
Just down the street from the club, Elward Thomas, 74, said he hadn’t given the vibrant golf links much thought, even though he’s been doing his part for the drought by taking shorter showers, washing his car less and letting his lawn wither.
“I thought because it was a golf course, they were allowed to water to keep their greens green,” Thomas said. “But if they were made aware that they should cut back, they should be no different from anyone else.”
Kevin Fagan and Kurtis Alexander are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. E-mail: [email protected], [email protected] Twitter: @kevinchron @kurtisalexanderBulletstorm Review (360)
*Warning: not for the easily offended! This review is written in the language of Bulletstorm*
So you want to read a Bulletstorm review all this time after its released do ya? Well you son of a dick, this game is full of so many angry redknecks and cus words you’d think you were watching that speech from Full Metal Jacket on re-peat. This review is gonna be short and to the point, like your sushi-dick. What’s that? This review is late? Well shut your trap or I WILL kill your dicks.
There’s a lot of balls out awesomeness to Bulletstorm. There’s also a lot of dialogue so bad you’ll want to tear off your scrotum and make it into a balaclava. I’m sure most of you will have played it by now, but for those that haven’t you need to prepare yourself by ripping off your ears or stuffing them with some sound-absorbing material of some sort. Possibly dicks. Only by focusing on the fun of the basic gameplay and ignoring the loathsome characters and the so-bad-its-really-bad dialogue can you enjoy the game.
From the opening minutes it’s made clear that the protagonists of the game will be hard to like. You’re introduced to a bunch of shipmates who quickly die off and soon after you are left with just one preachy, annoying teammate to accompany you throughout the game. Your promise to save him is a clumsy plot devise intended to illustrate the redemptive tone of the game, but you never feel much like a hero. The high point of characterisation in the game is the antagonist Sarrano, a crazed military general who probably spends most of his time tormenting Private Piles when he’s not saying the word “Dick”. He’s presented in such an over the top manner that he’s hard to dislike and in comparison to the gruff, surly and un-amusing attitude of your main character, your sympathies don’t necessarily lie with the heroes of the game.
The singleplayer campaign is short and fun and the world it presents is a wonder to explore. Paced well with some genuinely stunning set pieces, it’s a glorious weekends gaming. Towards the end it tends to drag though as you tire of being in the company of such repellent characters and the repeated false endings elicit groans rather than excitement. Worst of all, the ending is awful leaving the game wide open for a sequel and offering no satisfactory conclusion whatsoever.
The reason that the story and characters are so disagreeable is the lack of humour present throughout. Lurching wildly from poe-faced seriousness to infantile dick jokes, the tone is all over the place. All of this would be forgivable if the game was funny, but unless you’re a twelve year old boy that thinks the words “dick” and “fuck” are the ultimate comedic punch lines to every joke then you’re out of luck. If the game does provide laughs, it’s in the ridiculous environmental deaths you can inflict on your enemies.
Once you distance yourself from the narrative of Bulletstorm and redefine it as a huge, kinetic, explosive playground you realise the strengths of the game. Different weapons interact with your laser-leash and kick and slide abilities to produce numerous different effects. Simply shooting an enemy in the head is great, but shooting him in the crotch, kicking him into the air in slow motion followed then shooting a drill into his chest to pin him to a wall like a spinning Catherine wheel is better. Each of these different types of deaths have different names and points values and collecting them all quickly becomes a game in itself.
The feel of the game is perfectly balanced. Movement is fast and responsive and the weapons feel satisfying. It’s no surprise that the gunplay feels so polished and gratifying; People Can Fly’s last game was the equally enjoyable Painkiller.
It’s not just the weapons that make the game feel good. There are lots of little decisions that contribute to the feel of the game. You can slide ridiculous distances. When running you don’t get tired and slow down. Kicking or leashing enemies puts them into slow motion. All of these little touches contribute to the ridiculous grin you end up wearing as you play, at least until someone starts talking again.
Weapon upgrades come fast and it’s easy to have all weapons fully upgraded, especially if you are getting bonus points for creative kills. During less frenetic battles you tend to find yourself lining up creative kills rather than actually shooting enemies. These parts reminded me of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, where you spent most of your time kicking enemies off cliffs or dropping barrels on their heads.
Even in the combat there’s a few problems though. I found it hard to tell where enemies were attacking from and often turned around to see an enemy who had been stabbing me in the back of the head. Your allies get in the way in some sections and contribute very little in combat and seeing as they’re such terrible characters anyway, you wish you were on your own most of the time. As you struggle with these minor issues the storyline brings up simple puzzles which add little to the game and only ever have one very simple solution.
Once the main game is finished there’s some incentive to go back and find hidden objects or collect all of the deaths, but it’s unlikely this will pull many players back in. The multiplayer meanwhile held no appeal for me with its core points based ethos working poorly with random teammates online. It’s something different, but I can’t imagine there will be many people to play within a few months.
The one remaining thing to say about Bulletstorm is that it is drop dead gorgeous. It’s rare to see a 360 or PS3 game that’s so stunning looking. While most sci-fi shooters go for the gritty or (let’s be honest) brown version of the future, Bulletstorm is not afraid to show colourful, gorgeous vistas full of plants, streams and sunlight bursting through canopies. When it’s not tranquil and beautiful, its frantic and engrossing with enemies larger than spaceships stomping on buildings and giant cities falling apart or exploding. Bulletstorm is not short of spectacle.
So just to sum up *ahem*. Bullestorm is no Son of a Dick. Some scenes were so impressive they scared the dick off me. If you criticize the basic gameplay I WILL kill your dick. But enough talk of dick killing. This is a game that’s over faster than an assplosion. You’ll love it, but probably won’t play through it again unless it gave you a real murder-boner. Even then, it’s over in about six hours and it’s easier to beat than pussy-zilla. While the game may be sweeter than teenage poontang, we’ll need to wait for a sequel and hope for a story with less dick tits as characters. Until then, Bulletstorm will be a remembered as a very good game, but not a great one. *sorry*
8 dicks (obviously) out of 10Ruben Navarrette (Photo: Provided)
SAN DIEGO - If you’re angry at how the media have behaved in this election, you have a lot of company.
It’s not just that some newspapers and broadcast networks have largely abandoned any pretense of objectivity as they set out to elect one candidate and destroy the other. Publications that never endorse candidates are taking pride in the fact that they’ve ditched their neutrality in order to oppose Donald Trump.
And it’s not just that the media apply one set of rules to scandals involving Democrats, and another when it comes to Republicans. For instance, any woman who makes an allegation of sexual impropriety now ought to be believed even though this isn’t the case when the accused is Bill Clinton.
And it’s not just that the media have gone from being a supposedly impartial observer who may have slightly favored one combatant to a full-blown surrogate who joins the fight. It’s like those old skits in professional wrestling where a grappler pretended to be a substitute referee but wound up slugging and pinning one of the wrestlers himself.
And it’s not just that – thanks to the release of private emails by WikiLeaks – we now see just how cozy a relationship the media have with Democratic Party insiders. The arrangement seems to include planting stories and inviting journalists to private, off-the-record dinners at the homes of top surrogates for Hillary Clinton.
Guess who’s coming to dinner. Actually, they already came to dinner in April 2015 – at the Washington home of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta. Attendees included about 20 hand-picked reporters who were expected to be covering Clinton’s campaign.
I bet some of these reporters didn’t even tell their editors where they were spending the evening. And what do you suppose they talked about? Certainly not Clinton. Why, that would be inappropriate.
I don’t care that these journalists got a free meal. I care that they got spun, and that they might be tempted to go easy on Clinton so as to get a return invitation.
The guest list included CNBC’s John Harwood – who would, several months later, moderate a cringe-worthy GOP primary debate where he bickered with the participants. Afterward, he claimed in an email to Podesta that “the opposition party” had gone “off the rails” and that this vindicated his tough questioning of Trump.
Also invited was Maggie Haberman, who was then a reporter for Politico and now writes for The New York Times and with whom a Clinton operative said the campaign had a “very good relationship.” The operative expressed confidence that the campaign could “do the most shaping by going to Maggie,” and then he laid out the components of the story they intended to feed to Haberman.
Holy smokes. Were the Clintonistas looking for positive coverage, or someone to take dictation?
The media can’t make up our minds whether we want to be a fly on the wall, or a player on the field.
One minute, we cover the news; the next, we are the news. One minute, we’re incognito; the next, we’re in your face. One minute, we’re pretending to be fair; the next, we’re dying to tell you how we really feel.
The joke is on Trump. The media helped him get his party’s nomination with millions of dollars of free air time. Trump loved the attention but he made the mistake of not spending enough of his own money on ads that made his case to voters. And what the media giveth, the media taketh away. Now that Trump is facing off against Clinton, all the coverage is negative. And the media are getting a perverse satisfaction from helping slay the dragon they created.
Recently, Vanity Fair posted an online article – originally written as a commentary for the Poynter Institute – that bragged about how The Washington Post and The New York Times have swayed the election. The headline: “How Two Newspapers Brought Down Donald Trump.” Fellow journalists shared that article on Facebook, citing it as evidence that newspapers still have power.
There’s the rub. One of the first things I learned when I started writing for newspapers 27 years ago is that, in this business, the quickest way for journalists to lose what little power we do have is for us to start believing we have it.
The truth is, in this election, we in the media only had the power to embarrass ourselves. And we did.
Ruben Navarrette’s email address is [email protected].
©2016, The Washington Post Writers Group
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KAO STUDENT bio sam na ljetovanju s frendovima iz kvarta i s nama je bio jedan zanimljiv lik. Išao je po utakmicama, volio je upadati u tučnjave, ali i u dućane iz kojih bi uvijek izašao s nečim što nije platio. Interesantno je da nitko od nas ostalih nije bio takav, ali bio je iz kvarta i njemu smo mi bili OK, a i on nama stvarno nikad nije radio probleme. Kad je s nama uglavnom se ponašao OK, a kad je bio sam ili sa svojom ekipom navijača, ponašao se prilično impulzivno.
Ima ona pjesma od Balaševića u kojoj je glavnom liku bilo žao konja. Ovaj naš je tako, baš kao taj iz pjesme, pričao kako kako u tučnjavi ne osjećaš bol, i što se sve događa na gostovanjima i što za njega znači taj nogometni klub. A pričao nam je i o ratu u kojem je bio, pa je analogija bila potpuna. (To ljeto su ga pozvali da se vrati u jedinicu jer je bila neka vojna akcija - i otišao je.) A mi smo ga pitali svašta i on nam je strpljivo odgovarao. Pitali smo nekad i nije li mu krivo kad istuku nekog bez veze. I rekli da ne mislimo da je baš hrabro kad deset ljudi tuče jednoga. Tu bi malo zašutio i zamislio se.
Bilo mi je zanimljivo kako je on imao jak osjećaj za svoju škvadru. To smo u tom trenutku bili i mi. Nismo imali previše love, ljetovali smo u kampu i pola nas je bilo neprijavljeno. Ja nisam bio prijavljen jer su se prvo prijavili svi koje je bilo frka, a ja nisam znao da me treba biti frka. Njega nije bila frka ničega, ali nije bio prijavljen da se drugi mogu prijaviti. Jednom nam je donio hrpu češke pive. Nismo znali otkud mu, a kad smo je popili rekao je da je neki stranac prodavao pivo i da šta on ima prodavat svoje pivo u njegovoj zemlji. Pa mu ih je maznuo i došao podijeliti s frendovima. Nije mi to bila neka fora, ali lagao bih kad bih rekao da nismo odmah posumnjali da ih je popalio nekome.
I sad ide situacija zbog koje vam ovo pišem.
Tekst se nastavlja ispod oglasa
Na plaži smo provodili gotovo cijele dane, jer baš i nismo imali para za drugo, pa smo ubrzo skužili da bi nam dobro došao suncobran. I tako smo jedan dan šetali po mjestu kad je taj frend vidio da u nekom bircu imaju suncobran koji on može ponijeti. Skočio je na terasu, zgrabio suncobran i polako odšetao dalje. Onako cool, kao da to radi svaki dan. Sve je OK, samo premještam suncobran.
Konobar iz birca ga je skužio ali mu je trebalo neko vrijeme da ga dostigne. Trčao je za njim po ulici i urlao - hej, hej, stani (malo imam nešto važno da ti kažem). Frend se okrenuo prema njemu - da šta je. Pa to je naš suncobran, ne možeš uzeti naš suncobran. Čovječe, vrati nam suncobran. I frend ga pogleda s totalnim nekuženjem na faci i kaže - pa evo ti ga, šta si živčan.
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premium image in the process) or issuing some kind of credit to affected customers.
I have asked Apple for a comment and will update this story when I hear more.GETTY • BBC Benedict Cumberbatch wants to age with Sherlock
The actor, who first starred as the detective in 2010 opposite Martin Freeman as Dr John Watson, is keen to age with his much-loved alter-ego. Speaking to the Christmas issue of Radio Times, the 39-year-old discussed the future of the hit drama as well as the upcoming Christmas special, set in Victorian London.
When asked if he was keen to keep making time for Sherlock, Benedict revealed: "Pretty determined. I’m still enjoying it. We’ll see how the next series goes, but I’d love to keep ageing with him." The father-of-one continued: "Martin and I started this relatively young compared to a lot of Holmes and Watsons, so why not?"
BBC The actor said he is determined to make time for the BBC series
GETTY Benedict has played the detective since 2010
The Star Trek star also admitted that he was "thrilled" to play Sherlock "in his era" in the latest episode, set to air on New Year's Day. "I went, 'At last, I can have a haircut!' I can slick it back and not have that ridiculous mop of curls on my head. And then I went, 'You’re mad — what?' "The first pitch was quite light and then the more detailed pitch came and I thought, 'OK, this is going to be great fun.' And it really is," Benedict commented. He went on to add: "There’s slightly more heavy lifting in the modern era in that he’s a man clearly out of his time, so this puts him back in the era that he’s written in originally. It’s a joy."
BBC The Christmas special will be set in Victorian London
Benedict Cumberbatch as Hamlet Sat, August 8, 2015 Benedict Cumberbatch as Hamlet in the production of Hamlet at the Barbican centre, London. Play slideshow PA 1 of 9 Benedict Cumberbatch as Hamlet
Read the full interview with Benedict and Martin in the latest issue of Radio Times [RADIO TIMES]
When asked if he thought the episode could alienate modern fans, Benedict told the publication: "I don’t think so, he’s still got a lot of fight in him, he hasn’t become patronisingly nice and charming… He is still rude because he cuts through mediocrity." Meanwhile, Martin, who is also set to voice Stick Man - Julia Donaldson’s follow-up to The Gruffalo - this Christmas, said he was worried Sherlock might be "too cool" before it first aired. The 44-year-old added: "I feared it might be too cool or knowingly hip, but I loved it immediately when I read the script." The 90-minute Sherlock special, The Abominable Bride, airs on January 1 at 9pm.Pope Benedict has announced his resignation and the election of a new pontiff.
This is not a joke.
This is the first time this has happened since 1415.
Here is Pope Benedict’s statement and some first thoughts on it.
The Statement
Here’s the full statement from Pope Benedict on his resignation:
Dear Brothers,
I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church.
After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.
I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering.
However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.
For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.
Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects.
And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff.
With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.
First thoughts...
1. I’m disappointed. I think Pope Benedict is an amazing teacher, and I have truly valued his time as pope.
2. I have to accept his judgment. He knows his personal situation and the demands of his office better than I do. If he thinks it’s time to go, I have to respect that.
3. It’s not entirely a surprise. He himself has said things before that indicated this could someday be a live possibility for him.
4. It’s not without precedent. A number of popes have resigned before, most recently in 1415, when Gregory XII resigned.
5. It’s good that this happened “out of the blue,” rather than when there were calls for a papal resignation. The latter could encourage divisiveness (that is, if dissidents got the idea that all they had to do to oust a pope they don’t like is make a big enough stink).
We know that John Paul II thought about resigning repeatedly but didn’t, likely in significant part because there were calls for his resignation and it would have set a terrible precedent.
6. While there were no resignations for almost 600 years, just as there were no non-Italian popes for 450 years, we’re probably going to see more of both in the future.
While the next pope might be an Italian, the diversification of the college of cardinals has already resulted in a trend toward non-Italian cardinals. That will continue.
More to the present subject, the on-the-job demands for a pope have gone up in recent years. Being the leader and public face of the billion-member Catholic Church in a time of rapid change and diminishing faith is not an easy task.
At the same time, advancing medical technology means increasingly long lifespans with a longer period of frail health.
It is not easy to be eighty five (Pope Benedict’s age) or ninety or ninety five and feel confident steering the ship of Peter in today’s world.
Unless we get really wizard regenerative medical technology really soon, we’re likely to have more popes in that kind of situation, and thus there are likely to be more resignations in the future.
7. Pope Benedict may follow the pattern of previously resigned popes and spend the rest of his days in a monastery. Alternately, he may live quietly with his brother. Either way, he will do his best to stay out of the public eye so as to give his successor the freest hand possible. (This is the same thing that usually happens when a U.S. president leaves office; it’s traditional for him to more-or-less vanish, at least for a time.)
8. The fact that Pope Benedict chose to do this now, just before Lent begins, so that his resignation takes place in two weeks and we should have a new pope before Easter, means that his deterioration of health is serious. This is also the case in view of the big agenda he set for this year (the Year of Faith) and that he will now not complete.
9. I hope he does release his new encyclical–on faith–before his resignation is effective. His successor could release it anyway, with any suitable modifications he deemed appropriate. Or it could not come out at all. But I hope it will, and under Pope Benedict’s name, while he’s still pope.
10. Let us all fervently pray for both Pope Benedict, for his successor, and for the Church.
More later.The hostile reaction of the British and US governments to the Snowden disclosures of mass surveillance only served to heighten public suspicion of the work of the intelligence agencies, according to an international conference of senior intelligence and security figures.
The recently published official account of a Ditchley Foundation conference last month says one of the event’s main conclusions was that greater transparency about the activities and capabilities of the security services would be essential if their credibility was to be preserved and enhanced around the world.
The account of the conference chaired by Sir John Scarlett, the former head of MI6, was published on Friday and makes clear the foundation recognised the widespread public unease following the revelations and that the conditions of data collection about individuals and who has access to it are legitimate areas of concern.
UK under pressure to respond to latest Edward Snowden claims Read more
Sir John Holmes, the foundation’s director, said while Snowden’s disclosures had not revealed the intelligence agencies to be out of control, they “had shocked the publics in many countries because they had been unaware of the nature of much intelligence work, as well as uninformed about the authorisation and oversight arrangements already in place”.
The conference was attended by leading figures in the British and international intelligence and security community. The UK contingent included Robert Hannigan, director of GCHQ, Lewis Neal, Foreign Office intelligence policy director, and Peter Clarke, ex-head of the Metropolitan police counter-terrorism command, as well as a BBC journalist, Gordon Corera.
The participants agreed that “one thing governments and parliaments could do to increase trust and improve awareness was to hold more debates about these issues, rather than trying to avoid them”.
They wrote: “The reaction of the governments most concerned after the Snowden revelations had often appeared as ducking and weaving, trying to reveal as little as possible, or attempting to change the subject, rather than getting ahead of the argument. This had only made things worse and increased public suspicion.”
Another participant, the security journalist Duncan Campbell, has reported that to many participants’ surprise, there was general agreement across broad divides of opinion that Snowden had changed the landscape.
The journalist wrote that there was agreement that more transparency, or at least “translucency”, and providing more information about intelligence activities affecting privacy, was both overdue and necessary. “No one tried to debate whether Snowden was a villain, traitor or hero,” Campbell said.
The indication of a new post-Snowden consensus within the international intelligence and security community of the significance and impact of his disclosures emerges a day after the Sunday Times cited Home Office sources warning that British agents have had to be withdrawn from live operations as a consequence of the Snowden leaks.
A question of trust? Anderson report lays out tests for surveillance laws Read more
Traditionally, debates on intelligence issues organised by the Ditchley Foundation, which specialises in high-level transatlantic international policy debates, had been kept confidential. But Holmes said it was time for change to reflect “these more transparent times”.
International participants included the EU’s counter-terrorism coordinator, a former acting director of the CIA, Canada’s national security adviser and former senior figures in the German, French and Australian intelligence agencies.
The participants debated extensively the issue of the bulk collection of personal data, and while they agreed it did not in itself amount to “mass surveillance”, it could be used for that purpose without proper regulation and oversight.
Participants also conceded that as the flood of personal data increases, concerns about individual privacy will not go away any time soon, and that access for the security services to the data held by private companies, such as Twitter and Google, will have to be through the frontdoor and not by secret, backdoor programmes such as the Prism and Tempora schemes revealed by Snowden.
According to Holmes’s account, there “was optimism that relations between private companies and agencies could be regularised and improved post-Snowden” as long as access to individuals’ information was via “properly authorised, legally sound and specific warrants”. “Nothing else would be acceptable to their customers,” the director concluded.The Vancouver police are seeking a woman who was allegedly assaulted by a man in the street on West 10th Avenue on Friday morning.
Witnesses said they heard a woman scream and saw her lying in the avenue’s south lane, close to Alder Street just after 2 a.m. on Friday, police said in a news release.
UPDATE: Feb. 23 — Vancouver police have released a new appeal for information in this case. The victim and the suspect remain unidentified, they said in a news release.
A man allegedly struck her repeatedly and pulled her into a vehicle, which took off before police arrived.
Officers could not find the vehicle or its occupants.
READ MORE: Vancouver police looking for suspect hit and run driver that hit cyclist
The victim is described as a white woman with a slender build in her early 20s. Police say she has straight, platinum blonde hair and bangs, and that she was wearing a black skirt and neutral-coloured top.
Police described the suspect as a white man in his 30s, with an athletic build.
He was well-dressed and had a medium build, dark, slicked-back hair, and was wearing a black trench coat and blue jeans, police said.
The vehicle is described as a silver-coloured luxury sedan.Erniie Banks once said he wanted to have his ashes scattered at Wrigley Field. (Photo: Jerry Lai, USA TODAY Sports)
CHICAGO (AP) — Ernie Banks, the beloved Chicago Cubs great who once said he wanted to have his ashes scattered at Wrigley Field, is at the center of a battle over his remains as his estranged wife has gone to court to prevent a longtime friend of "Mr. Cub" from having his remains cremated.
The dispute involving most famous player in Cubs history, was confirmed Friday by Howard Goldman, an attorney representing the estranged wife, Elizabeth Banks.
"Suddenly, it came up," he said. "It's unfortunate."
According to court records, Elizabeth Banks filed a petition to prevent a woman who describes herself in the documents as a longtime friend of Banks, his caretaker and the executor of Banks' estate from having him cremated. The woman, Regina Rice, asserted her rights to dispose of Banks' remains after his death last month at the age of 83, according to documents filed by Elizabeth Banks' attorneys on Feb. 2.
"Petitioner (Elizabeth Banks) is without recourse and shall suffer irreparable damage should Regina's desires to cremate the remains of the decedent be granted," she wrote.
Elizabeth Banks has successfully thus far prevented the body from being cremated, Goldman said.
But it was unclear where exactly the body was taken. According to Goldman, Banks is buried at Graceland Cemetery, just blocks from Wrigley Field. But a person who answered the phone at Graceland but declined to give her name said Banks is not buried there. And Dave Babczak, manager of Donnellan Funeral Home that handled the logistics surrounding the funeral service Jan. 31, declined to comment on the dispute, saying only that Banks' remains were no longer at the funeral home.
In court documents obtained by The Associated Press, there is no mention that Banks wanted his ashes scattered at the ballpark where he played his entire 19-year Hall of Fame career. But over the years, families of devoted fans have slipped into the ballpark to scatter the ashes of loved ones who spent their lives rooting for the Cubs and Banks, who on at least one occasion years ago, famously told a local newspaper reporter that after he died he wanted "my ashes spread out over Wrigley Field — with the wind blowing out."
The Cubs declined to comment on the dispute. Rice did not answer her phone and her attorney did not immediately return calls for comment.
The documents are included in what is a larger dispute over control of the Banks estate.
Included in the file are documents in which Rice claims Banks was attempting to end his marriage to Elizabeth Banks, his fourth wife. The documents include a petition for divorce, signed by Banks, in which the Hall of Famer seeks to end his marriage because "irreconcilable differences have caused irretrievable breakdown of the marriage" and that Elizabeth Banks had "committed extreme and repeated acts of mental cruelty upon petitioner (Banks)."
A document titled "Last Will and Testament" and signed by Banks on Oct. 17 of last year says he was "in the process of finalizing divorce" from his wife and that he had appointed Rice as the executor of his will. Nowhere does Banks discuss what he wants done with his remains.
The dispute appears to be far from over. The attorney for Elizabeth Banks at one point disputes the validity of the will, saying only that it was "allegedly signed" by Banks.
GALLERY: ERNIE BANKS
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Warwick’s distinguished International Security professor, Richard Aldrich, has commented that the MI5, Britain’s high powered intelligence agency, is probably spying on EU member states ahead of the next round of Brexit negotiations.
His recently published book, ‘The Black Door: Spies, Secret Intelligence and British Prime Ministers’, which he co-wrote with Rory Cormac, associate professor of international relations at the University of Nottingham, details the evolving history of the UK Government’s strategic use of intelligence agencies.
The book revealed that British spies provided former Prime Minister John Major with insider information as he negotiated the Maastricht Treaty in the early 1990s. Both academics have pointed out that based on logic and historical precedent, it should not come as a surprise that Britain is possibly spying again. Professor Cormac said: “The job of intelligence agencies is to protect Britain’s interests. It should be within their remit”.
“The job of intelligence agencies is to protect Britain’s interests. It should be within their remit.”
Additionally, information leaked by Edward Snowden, former US government contractor, has shown that the UK spies on its allies ahead of international summits such as G-20 and G-8. Professor Aldrich said: “Spies aren’t embarrassed about this. If you’re a spy it’s your job to spy on people. It causes a wry smile in the intelligence agencies around the world”.
This is not the first-time the involvement of British intelligence in Brexit talks has come under attack. Earlier this year, the European Commission installed ‘Mission Impossible’ style fingerprint scanners to increase security protecting its Brexit team, amid fears that the MI5 may be eavesdropping on the upcoming tense EU-Brexit negotiations.
Professor Aldrich said: “The targets were primarily individual countries, trying to find their red lines. Anything that’s circulating at EU level is going so widely, it ceases to be a secret”.
Theresa May’s office has declined to comment. Brexit talks resume in Brussels on Thursday.Walmart, the world’s largest retailer and America’s largest employer has announced that they will stop offering health insurance to new hires. Walmart is blaming the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare) for the decision to deny healthcare to their newest employees.
Walmart currently employs more than 1.4 million workers. Walmart has declined to disclose how many workers would be affected by the change in policy.
One of the key provisions of the Affordable Care Act is the expansion of Medicaid to cover people who make under a certain level of income. Labor and Health Care experts are saying that a majority of Walmart’s workers will qualify for Medicare under the new law. If an employer has a worker that receives insurance through Medicare than their employer has to pay a fine. The fine is substantially less than the cost of health care for the worker.
Conservatives are arguing that this provision is where President Obama and Congress are trying to take over healthcare. By making the fine cheaper than providing healthcare to their employees it will force all of those employees who are of limited means into a government program.
Democrats counter that there has to be a mechanism to give health care to employees who make so little money that to pay premiums totaling thousands of dollars a month is completely cruel.
The Supreme Court recently upheld the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act. With President Obama’s reelection and the Senate being held by the Democratic Party the law will be implemented in full with basically zero options for repeal. Top Republicans have even acknowledged that it may be time to move on from their platform of repeal and replace.A soldier guards the evidence after loading it onto a military truck in Nan province on Saturday. (Photo by Rarinthorn Petcharoen)
NAN — Authorities have seized almost 9,000 red plastic bowls bearing a Songkran wish from Thaksin Shinawatra from the house of a former Pheu Thai MP in Nan province.
Maj Gen Chainarong Klaewkla, commander of the Peace and Order Maintenance Force of the 38th Military Circle, together with Pol Maj Gen Padon Prapanon, commander of the Nan provincial police, led a joint task force to raid the house of Sirintorn Ramasut, a former Pheu Thai MP for the northern province.
Authorities found 8,862 red bowls screened with the message: "Happy Songkran Holidays. Although the situation is hot, I hope you find coolness from the water passing through this bowl" and Thaksin's signature. They are believed to be gifts from the former prime minister, who was overthrown in an earlier coup in 2006 and fled the country in 2008 to escape corruption charges.
Officers seized all the bowls and Ms Sirintorn did not resist.
Similar bowls, found in the bathrooms of millions of Thai households, are sold for 10 baht each.
On Tuesday, a Chiang Mai woman was arrested for posting on social media a photo of herself with a red bowl bearing Thaksin's message.
She was charged with sedition under Section 116 of the Criminal Code, with a maximum jail term of seven years. The court approved bail on a surety of 100,000 baht.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha explained on the same day that the woman was arrested because she had shown support for Thaksin, a fugitive who broke the law, and such an act compromised internal security.
Two Thai Rath reporters, who first reported the news, were also summoned for questioning. They were asked to cooperate as authoritities were concerned that the reports could deepen conflicts in society.
The seizure in Nan on Saturday caps an eventful week in the military government's campaign to stamp out dissent. On Friday the army chief announced that "attitude adjustment" camps were ready to receive candidates for seven-day retraining courses.
That followed an order under section 44 — the "dictator clause" of the military drafted interim charter — giving thousands of soldiers police powers in a crackdown on crime. Critics fear it will be used more against politicians and protesters than against actual criminals.The United States and Russia have announced an agreement to crack down on online piracy. The countries have agreed to disrupt sites that facilitate infringement and take action against their operators. As a result, uncertain times may lie ahead for the many BitTorrent and other file-sharing sites hosted in Russia.The agreement also allows for the improved takedown of infringing content and discussions on allowing Russian rightsholders to use the United States' "six strikes" system.
For many years Russia has been viewed as a soft touch on the issue of copyright infringement.
Dozens, perhaps hundreds of allegedly infringing sites operate there with impunity, some due to aspects of Russian law and others simply because authorities have no interest in doing anything about them.
Of course, this situation is unacceptable to the United States where authorities and rightsholders regularly take the opportunity to complain about the poor levels of protection provided by the Russian authorities. Time and again Russia has given the impression that something might be done, but up to now progress has been slow.
However, yesterday came an announcement from United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk which suggests that for the U.S. things are moving more quickly towards a favorable situation.
Kirk said that the United States and Russian Federation have reached agreement on an Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Action Plan aimed at improving copyright protection and enforcement online.
“Strong IPR protection and enforcement are vital to promoting innovation and creativity by securing the rights of innovators and the creative community, attracting high-technology investment, and fostering the jobs necessary for long-term sustainable growth,” the action plan reads.
If carried through, the plan could have serious implications in the file-sharing space.
According to the USTR, in addition to conducting enforcement actions against unauthorized camcording, agreement has been reached to “disrupt the functioning” of sites that “facilitate criminal copyright infringement.” In addition to disruption – whatever form that may take – Russia has reportedly agreed to take action against the creators and operators of sites through which copyright infringement is committed.
The plan also reveals an agreement on the thorny issue of takedowns. The removal of links to infringing content is a big deal at the moment, with Google being hit particularly hard by rightsholder and their agents. Russia has been criticized in the past for not doing enough on this front but according to the plan has agreed to “provide for takedown of infringing content.”
The USTR also reports that Russian authorities have agreed to conduct “meaningful consultations” with rights holders to take action against high-priority websites. In the short term the sites on that list will probably be the ones submitted to the USTR by the RIAA and MPAA for the “Notorious Markets” report. If that is indeed the case, expect discussions on BitTorrent giant RUTracker, cyberlocker RapidGator, and social networking site Vkontakte.
There are also dozens of public and private torrent sites, plus file-hosting services hosted in Russia at this very moment. Up to now they’ve had a very easy ride and only time will tell if that will change as a result of the agreement.
The plan also gives an idea of where the U.S. sees potential weakness in current Russian law that could hold back potential legal action. According to the USTR, Russian authorities have agreed to support “special legislation” to combat Internet piracy that will “establish a fair framework for liability of Internet service providers in appropriate cases of infringement of intellectual property rights over the
Internet.”
The vast majority of the report is targeted at larger entities that might be engaged in or connected to online piracy, but the USTR appears to have dangled a carrot that would enable Russian companies to target U.S. citizens in a limited way. The United States has agreed to discuss the possibility of allowing Russian rightsholders to use the upcoming “Copyright Alerts” system.Making Some Noise
The Cowboys might have landed two superstars in last year’s draft but there is a constant buzz surrounding Maliek Collins as he enters his second season.
Ask a fan to name a player from the Cowboys’ 2016 draft class and “Maliek Collins” probably isn’t going to be the first name that comes out of his or her mouth.
Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott were almost instantaneous superstars.
Anthony Brown made a name for himself by starting half the season at cornerback. Even Jaylon Smith and Charles Tapper, who missed their rookie years with injuries, have fans speculating about their unknown potential.
It’s a testament to the strength of the Cowboys’ drafting that Collins, a defensive tackle and Dallas’ third-round pick last season, could fall under the radar. Collins did more than just avoid disappointment his rookie year; on a number of other teams he might be the most promising young player on the roster.
Last season, Collins played a higher percentage (61.9 percent) of the team’s regular season defensive snaps than any other defensive lineman on the Cowboys. He recorded five sacks, including two against the Cleveland Browns, and forced a fumble sacking quarterback Jameis Winston in a 26-20 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“He has pop and that snap to him,” defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli said of Collins midway through last season.
He did all of this despite breaking his foot at the beginning of team activities as a rookie forcing him to miss all of OTA’s, mini-camp, and the majority of training camp. By any fair measure, he delivered on the expectations placed on him, but he certainly doesn’t look at it that way.
“I never meet my own goals,” Collins said during the last week of mini-camp.
His position is a constant battle of wearing down opponents. He doesn’t believe he should use numbers to measure that toughness.
“[My goal is to] be the best player I can be so that I always keep improving,” Collins said. “That’s how I set my goals. I don’t really do it statistically. Then you’re out there chasing stats. The goal is to improve every day. If I’m not improving every day then I’m doing something wrong.”
Marinelli is known to have coached a number of defensive linemen into their primes. He coached players like Warren Sapp and Simeon Rice as a defensive coach for Tampa Bay.
Collins plays the “Three-Technique” tackle under Marinelli’s system and the effectiveness of the defense relies in some part on a player like Collins’ ability to cause disruption. Collins says he doesn’t necessarily need the voices of the Cowboys coaches or teammates to explain to him what is expected. Collins is a historian of his own position.
“The standards are basically written,” Collins explained. “Me being a three-technique, the standards are in the history books of what three-techniques have done in this system. I like to say that’s the standard. The people like John Randle, guys like Warren Sapp or [Keith] Millard, who started the system. [Anthony] McFarland, those types of players.”
All of those players Collins mentioned dominated offensive lines at one point or another through the years. To Collins, the formula isn’t all that complicated. He wants to emulate that domination.Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and Rajya Sabha MP Ram Gopal Yadav, expelled from Samajwadi Party for six years on Friday, were re-inducted into the party after a series of meetings which took place on Saturday morning. The decision finally came after Akhilesh met with Mulayam Singh in an attempt to broker peace after the former held a meeting of party MLAs at his residence in the morning. Akhilesh allegedly claimed support of 200 legislators out of 229.
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“I am coming after having met party chief Mulayam Singh along with CM Akhilesh Yadav. Netaji has given the order that the suspension orders of Akhilesh and Ram Gopal are terminated with immediate effect,” Shivpal said. “All of us together will fight communal forces and we will once again form a SP government in UP with full majority. These are my orders. We will hold discussions within ourselves and decide, and prepare for the upcoming elections. All matters have been solved and we will fight the upcoming polls together.”
“We will all sit together with Netaji and I am sure all problems will be resolved,” he said.
Party founder member Azam Khan and Maharashtra unit chief Abu Azmi also reportedly backed Akhilesh. The chief minister was expelled from the party on Friday after he issued a list of candidates for the upcoming elections even when a list was already issued by his father and party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Moreover, Ramgopal Yadav had called an emergency meeting of the party legislators on January 1 following which a show-cause notice was issued to both of them by the party leadership. Within a short span of issuing the notice, Mulayam Singh Yadav appeared before the media and announced his decision.
नेताजी के आदेश अनुसार अखिलेश यादव और रामगोपाल यादव का पार्टी से निष्कासन तत्काल प्रभाव से समाप्त किया जाता है। सब साथ (1/2) — Shivpal Singh Yadav (@shivpalsinghyad) December 31, 2016
…. मिलकर सांप्रदायिक ताकतों से लड़ेंगे और पुनः उत्तर प्रदेश में पूर्ण बहुमत की सरकार बनाएंगे। (2/2) — Shivpal Singh Yadav (@shivpalsinghyad) December 31, 2016 Advertising
After the announcement, Akhilesh Yadav supporters took to streets and gathered outside Mulayam’s residence shouting slogans against him and Shivpal. Tensions have been simmering between the party leadership since last few months which led to expulsion and re-induction of Ram Gopal Yadav on another occasion.According to Warhammer: 40,000 lore, the Power Fist (also known as the Power Glove) is a late-41st millennium weapon wielded by honoured Space Marine Captains and Chapter Masters. While slow to use, its powerful hydraulics mean the fist can hammer straight through the side of tanks, and end conflicts with a single, powerful blow. And yet, despite the fist's theoretical technological prowess, no one has seen fit to turn it from fiction into fact.
That is until Sega, clearly with a marketing budget surplus to burn through by the end of the fiscal year, decided the best way to promote its latest real-time strategy game Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War 3 was to build a replica 3000psi Power Fist, and then have journalists and influencers smash things with it. Yes, it's a classic PR stunt the likes of which gaming hasn't seen since that time THQ asked people to literally break into parked cars with a hammer and steal copies of Red Faction: Guerrilla(!), or when Activision renamed Edinburgh Zoo's wolverine "Logan" to launch X-Men Origins.
And it's just as brilliantly pointless.
Based on the in-game Power Fist model from Dawn of War 3, the real-life Power Fist is a hodge-podge of 3D printing, high-tech materials, and good old fashioned garden shed bodgery [Ooh er! -Ed]. The body of the fist is made from a glass reinforced nylon monocoque, a composite material similar to that used on the nose cones of Formula 1 cars. I'm told that the 9.6kg fist is the largest single block of the stuff ever made, measuring a cool 45cm in length and 30cm in width. The fingers of the fist, which do all the heavy hitting and weigh a hefty 6kg on their own, are made from "aerospace aluminium," and milled into existence by a CNC machine.
The fist section blasts outward from the wrist by way of a pneumatic double action air cylinder, controlled by a bi-directional solenoid valve. Paired with two 3000psi air tanks, the same kind used by paintball guns, the fist delivers 3000psi at 520mm per second. A perfectly timed swing will apparently deliver 3,388 newtons of impact force, more than the average heavyweight boxer's 2,500 newtons. While the fist won't punch through an armoured tank like its fictional inspiration, it will punch through a brick wall. Or a a pile of crockery. Or a My Little Pony dream house.
Wielding the Power Fist isn't as simple as picking it up and taking a swing. First, it's attached to a camera stabilising rig, effectively a full body harness that spreads the weight across your body kind of like an exoskeleton, while an articulating arm makes the fist easier to swing. A grip and trigger, pulled from an off-the-shelf Black & Decker power tool, controls the arm, although in my case its affable creator was stood nearby with a kill switch to cut power to the 18V batteries (also pulled from a Black & Decker) in case a hand got trapped in the feisty return mechanism.
And firing the thing? Well, even though I'm a lover not a fighter, there's a sick joy that comes from wielding 3000psi of uniquely destructive power. My swings may have been pathetic, my boxer's stance all wrong, but thanks to technology I smashed though a terracotta pot, crushed a pile of washing up, and sent brightly coloured plastic shards of a My Little Pony dream house flying around the room.
Sure, the Power Fist is heavy, wildly impractical, and the result of a marketing meeting designed to garner press coverage of a game that few non-hardcore fans care about. And, unless you're a dab hand with a CNC machine, have the money to blow on exotic materials, and live in a country with some extremely lax weapon licensing laws, you won't ever be able to buy one. But hey, that's just what the PR stunt is about right?
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go take a shower.(Reuters) - U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky said he returned to work on Monday, more than a week after he suffered six broken ribs when tackled by a neighbor while mowing his lawn.
“While I’m still in a good deal of pain, I will be returning to work in the Senate today, ready to fight for liberty and help move forward with tax cuts in the coming days and weeks,” the Republican senator Paul said on a Twitter post.
The man accused of tackling Paul and breaking his ribs, Rene Boucher, 59, pleaded not guilty on Thursday to a misdemeanor assault charge, a court official said.
Boucher is charged with fourth-degree assault causing minor injury, for which he faces up to a year of imprisonment if convicted. A pretrial hearing was set for Nov. 30.
Boucher’s $7,500 bond requiring him to keep at least 1,000 feet (305 m) away from Paul remained in effect.
Paul, 54, told police that Boucher came on his property in a gated community near Bowling Green and tackled him from behind, the Bowling Green Daily News reported, citing an arrest warrant.
Paul previously said on Twitter he suffered the broken ribs from the Nov. 3 incident and that X-rays showed a pleural effusion, which is a buildup of fluid in the tissues that line the lungs and the chest.
Media reports have said Boucher, also a physician like Paul, had a long-running dispute with the senator.
But Paul, in a Washington Examiner interview published Monday, said he had no dispute with Boucher and had not spoken to his neighbor in a decade. He said he knew of no motive for the incident. Paul could not be reached by Reuters Monday.
“My first encounter was basically being hit in the back,” he said. “We’ve never had words over anything, we’ve never had a dispute or discussion or words.”
The Kentucky State Police and the Federal Bureau of
|
30 this morning, Sogard led 245,724 to 233,845. When polls closed, Simon reported that Wright had taken the lead, 267,585 to 255,569. It took a 24,000-vote swing in the last 30 minutes of voting to put Wright on top.
It is at least plausible. The fact that vote counts were semi-transparent means that MLB was probably on the up-and-up, though you can't discount the possibility of discarded votes (Sogard was trending on Twitter all morning, despite rapidly losing his lead.)
It's not hard to see how it might have happened: Mets Twitter was abuzz, cramming the ballot box; A's Twitter slept. The culprit for this comeback is the fact that polls closed at an eastern-centric time, the frantic final hours and minutes belonging almost exclusively to New York. The Face of MLB very definitely has an East Coast bias.
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Despite the outcome, this was a huge win for supporters of Eric Sogard and supporters of anarchy. The entire contest was hijacked by bespectacled nihilism. Much of baseball turned against Jose Bautista and against David Wright, and rooted for a dumb promotion to suffer the absurdist payoff it deserved. It didn't quite happen, but now there's almost no chance MLB runs this contest again next year. And that is a triumph for democracy.Jaber Albakr, 22, had narrowly slipped through the police net Saturday when commandos raided his apartment and found 1.5 kilos (over 3 pounds) of TATP, the homemade explosive used by jihadists in the Paris and Brussels attacks.
The explosives were "almost ready, or even ready for use", said Joerg Michaelis, chief investigator in the eastern state of Saxony, adding that the suspect was apparently preparing a "bomb, possibly in the form of a suicide vest".
After a two-day manhunt, police finally got their man with the help of three of Albakr's fellow Syrians in the eastern city of Leipzig.
One of them walked into a police station with a photo of Albakr on his mobile phone and told officers that "his flatmates had overpowered Albakr and tied him up, and that we should come to his apartment," Michaelis told reporters.
The Syrians had earlier been approached by Albakr at Leipzig railway station and asked for shelter. They took him home, only to find out in a police alert that he was the bomb plot suspect on the run.
"He tried to bribe us, but we told him he could give us as much money as he wanted, we wouldn't free him," one of the men told RTL television, speaking with his back to the camera and identified only as Mohamed A., for fear to reprisals.
"Then we got an electrical chord and tied him up until the police got there," he said, providing RTL with a smartphone picture of their detainee.
"I was furious with him, I couldn't accept something like this -- especially here in Germany, the country that opened its doors to us."
DPA
'IS context'
Police had first closed in on Albakr on Saturday in the eastern city of Chemnitz, about 85 kilometres (50 miles) south of Leipzig, acting on information from the domestic security service.
But he narrowly evaded police and ran off carrying a backpack, shortly before police found the explosives, sparking a nationwide manhunt.
Preliminary investigations suggest that Albakr was probably linked to the the Islamic State group, police said.
"The approach and behaviour of the suspect point to an IS context," said Michaelis.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the plot "resembles what we know of the preparations for the attacks in Paris and Brussels".
But there was no indication yet that the suspect had a concrete target, federal prosecutors said.
Albakr's Syrian flatmate in Chemnitz, named only as Khalil A., was formally taken into custody Sunday, a day after being detained, as a suspected co-conspirator.
The 33-year-old is accused of allowing Albakr "to use his apartment and for helping to order the necessary material on the internet in full knowledge of his plans of attack," according federal prosecutors.
Police on Sunday also raided the Chemnitz home of another suspected contact of Albakr and took away a man for questioning.
Albakr entered Germany on February 18, 2015 and two weeks later filed a request for asylum, which was granted in June that year.
RELATED READING France calls for war crimes probe on Syria, Russia over Aleppo attacks
Germany on edge
Germany has been on edge since two IS-claimed attacks in July -- an axe rampage on a train that injured five and a suicide bombing in Ansbach in which 15 people were hurt.
The bloodshed has fuelled concerns over Germany's record influx of nearly 900,000 refugees and migrants in 2015, heightened by a number of foiled attack plots this year.
Last month police detained three men with forged Syrian passports who were believed to be a possible IS "sleeper cell" with links to those behind the November Paris attacks.
They also arrested a 16-year-old Syrian refugee in Cologne on suspicion he was planning a bomb attack in the name of IS.
German authorities have urged the public not to equate refugees with "terrorists" but have acknowledged that more jihadists may have entered the country among the asylum seekers who arrived last year.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative CDU party meanwhile called for greater rights for security services to check the files of asylum seekers.
"We want the German secret services to have access to these files," said the deputy leader of the CDU's parliamentary group, Michael Kretschmer.
Migrant Jihad Darwish, 47, who lives near the men who nabbed Albakr, stressed that "not all Syrians are like" the terror suspect.
Lauding the man who overpowered the suspect, Darwish, himself a Syrian, said: "That guy is a hero."“Rogue” directors will face much harsher punishments in future in an effort to clamp down on misbehaviour that will make it easier for dodgy company bosses to be barred from setting up new businesses.
Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, will outline the changes on Saturday as part of a plan to strengthen Britain’s already tough disqualification rules for directors found to be swindling investors in their companies.
Under the reforms, the Government will be given powers to intervene to ask courts to impose more onerous compensation settlements on disqualified directors to ensure their victims get back more of their money, as well as allowing judges greater discretion to ban directors by considering a wider range of issues, such as previous business failures.
“Rogue directors can cause a huge amount of harm in terms of large financial losses, unnecessary redundancies and lifelong investments going down the drain.
"It is only right that we should put the toughest possible sanctions in place, make sure we stamp out unfair practices and deter those who are looking to act dishonestly,” said Mr Cable.
The UK disqualifies 1,200 directors every year for running their businesses in a reckless manner and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) estimates that for every one banned the economy is saved £100,000 of further losses due to their likely harmful behaviour.
Elderly investors are among those most at risk from dodgy businessmen with BIS noting a rise in recent years of scams targeting the “grey pound”, such as fraudulent wine investment schemes and land banks.
Wine investment schemes alone have cost savers about £80m, while 111 landbanking businesses, where investors are encouraged to invest in plots of land they are told will rise in value when planning permission is granted by fraudsters who know this is unlikely to happen, have been shut down in the last seven years and 34 directors banned.
Some of the most serious case have involved fraudulent carbon credit schemes with nearly 2,000 investors in the last two years, including a 94 year old man, losing about £30m.
Mr Cable said the “vast majority” of director ran their businesses properly and that the measures would not target entrepreneurs who’s companies failed for legitimate reasons, but would rather be used to go after “rogue behaviour”.
“These measures will protect the British economy and our reputation as a good and fair place to do business by banning directors who have already been convicted of offences overseas from running British companies,” he said.
Matthew Fell, CBI Director for Competitive Markets, welcomed the changes and said the clamp down on unscrupulous businessmen would bolster Britain’s “world-leading company law regime”.
He said: “Tackling the damaging behaviour of a small minority of individuals will help to reinforce confidence in the majority of directors who run their businesses well and create jobs and growth throughout the UK.”Photo credit: RossellaApostoli/Thinkstock
By Laura Moser
Oklahoma! Where there’s “plenty of air and plenty of room”—and plenty of determination, even in 2016, to get evolution out of the classroom. Just witness the tireless efforts of state Sen. Josh Brecheen, who every year since being elected in 2010 has authored legislation aimed at skirting nearly three decades of court decisions that prohibit teaching creationism in public schools.*
His first year in office, according to the National Center for Science Education, Brecheen—a Republican member whose official Oklahoma Senate bio page lists his occupation as “motivational speaker”—wrote in the Durant Daily Democrat that “I have introduced legislation requiring every publicly funded Oklahoma school to teach the debate of creation vs. evolution using the known science, even that which conflicts with Darwin’s religion.” (One of Brecheen’s more recent missions, incidentally, is “nullifying” the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage.)
But as Brecheen’s anti-evolution bills have repeatedly fizzled before becoming law, he has taken to adopting (slightly) more subtle tactics. In the 2016 version, instead of advancing an outright endorsement of creationism, the more euphemistic purpose of Brecheen’s Senate Bill 1322 is:
to create an environment within public school districts that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about controversial issues. … Teachers shall be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.The Harry Potter universe is being expanded later this year when Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them hits theaters, and if current tracking holds up, Warner Bros. is looking at a nice payday.
Fantastic Beasts showed up on tracking, and early estimates put it at racking up around $75 million on its domestic opening weekend (via THR). Some are more conservative with the number, hovering around $70 million, but it's important to note that Warner Bros. still has three weeks to make their big final marketing push to drive that number up.
The film should also have relatively long legs and should benefit from the Thanksgiving weekend. If that turns out to be the case, it would be music to Warner Bros. ears, as they've already signed off on 4 more films in the Fantastic Beasts franchise. Fantastic Beasts will expand on what has been alluded to in the Potter films, and J.K. Rowling recently explained how America's wizarding world differs from Englands.
"In Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, you're learning about a part of magical history that that's talked about in the Potter books but you never see. I'm getting a chance to tell that now. In the 1920's, magic developed very differently in America. Because of this tension, their wizarding world is in a state of high alert at that time. This is new material. There are ways in which we connect to the Potter books that I think people will find surprising. We're talking about the first time a wizard rose and threatened the world order. This was always where I was interested in going. This is what I wanted to do."
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is an all-new adventure returning us to the wizarding world created by J.K. Rowling. Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) stars in the central role of wizarding world magizoologist Newt Scamander, under the direction of David Yates, who helmed the last four Harry Potter blockbusters. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them opens in 1926 as Newt Scamander has just completed a global excursion to find and document an extraordinary array of magical creatures. Arriving in New York for a brief stopover, he might have come and gone without incident...were it not for a No-Maj (American for Muggle) named Jacob, a misplaced magical case, and the escape of some of Newt’s fantastic beasts, which could spell trouble for both the wizarding and No-Maj worlds.
Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them brings the world of magic to theaters on November 18.Are One Man Brands Sustainable?
When I first got into selvedge denim I would justify the exorbitant cost of my jeans to friends by talking about craftsmanship, vintage looms and clean edges. Sometimes I would even float the myth that the United States sold all of their shuttle looms to Japan in the wake of WWII and that’s why all the good jeans came from Japan before their eyes glazed over and I awkwardly shifted the topic of conversation.
Lately, though, I’ve found myself talking about different things when the subject of $200 or $300 jeans comes up. I talk about a return to American garment manufacturing. I talk about regionalism. I talk about denim made in the USA. Then I invariably end up making the connection between high-end jeans and craft beer. “It’s sort of like craft beer,” I often say. “You can buy jeans made by one person in New Jersery, or Nashville, or Virginia.” While the metaphor holds true in the sense of regionalism, it falls apart because, let’s be honest, beer is a renewable resource. We don’t go out every weekend, buy 10 to 12 new pairs of denim, eat something greasy, come home and order something we don’t need from Amazon before passing out on the couch.
We buy one pair of quality denim. We wear them (without washing, much to the chagrin of our friends and significant others) for a few years before we buy another pair. Sure, some people have a couple jeans in rotation, but high-end denim isn’t a product we’re buying all the time and it’s not a cheap product to make. This got me wondering–now that everyone and their cousin seems to have their own one man denim line, are one man brands sustainable?
To be perfectly honest, I don’t know. I think there’s space in the market for someone doing something right. I think there’s space for someone making a high quality product that appeals to denim nerds. I also think that there are far, far too many people dropping $6,000 on 43200G‘s and trying to distinguish themselves by exposing selvedge on the coin pocket or stitching some goofy nonsense on the pockets.
Since I felt totally unequipped to answer this question, I went to the one guy who probably has more experience selling and evaluating high-end denim than anyone else: Self Edge founder Kiya Babzani.
We all know that Babzani only carries the best of the best in his shop: Iron Heart, The Flat Head, Mister Freedom and 3sixteen among others. He knows his stuff and he’s probably seen more fledgling denim brands than you or I. And yet, he’s only chosen to carry a single one man brand in the shop’s San Francisco, LA, Portland and New York outposts. That brand, when he can keep them from flying off the shelves, is Roy Denim, made from start to finish by Roy Slaper in Oakland, CA.
Since Roy is the only one man brand to earn the Self Edge stamp of approval, a lot of our conversation was filtered through what Slaper does differently and, most importantly, right compared to some of the other upstart one man brands.
“I’ve seen all these jeans, I’ve seen nearly every single one of them travelling to the different Self Edge locations,” Babzani said. “And nobody does it like Roy. That has nothing to do with me selling the product, it was like he’d been waiting his whole life to do this.”
Babzani said that what distinguishes Roy from a lot of start ups is his utter devotion to the craft of making jeans. Slaper spent two years just making jeans and giving them away to friends, the barista down the street, the line cook at a diner, literally anyone who would take them; before working on a product for a proper release.
In Babzani’s opinion, young denim makers would do well to follow this model.
The problem is that people want to make jeans and sell them right away. They should spend at least two years making seven pairs of jeans a day and throw them away, or give them away.
I assumed that Babzani would be concerned about the glut of new denim makers because it would dilute the market and potentially woo away customers. It’s just the opposite. “At first we thought this kind of sucks. Now we think this is a good thing. The more people making jeans will mean that Roy isn’t being judged as a one man operation. He’s literally being judged against everything now. If you pair everything together and take out the elements of the one man thing it levels the field,” he said.
Babzani feels that Slaper’s jeans can now be compared to Iron Heart, Sugar Cane and The Flat Head without the burden of being tagged as the label made by one guy. He agrees that one man brands should focus on making a quality product instead of trying to set themselves apart with aesthetic alterations.
“What customers actually want is a completely blank jean. The design elements that set you apart shouldn’t be noticeable after looking at a jean in one minute.” He said that Roy’s jeans perfectly exemplify this philosophy. “You’ve got the most insane details that are almost all hidden. I wrote on the Self Edge site that Roy’s jeans on the outside are built like a truck and inside built like a peacock.” Babzani believes this so firmly that he hangs Roy’s jeans inside out at the store.
It might still be too early to say what one man brands are going to make it and what brands are going to fold. If Babzani is to be believed, the brands that devote themselves to the craft and make a high quality product with attention to subtle detail will probably succeed.
Those that think wacky branding, a simple story and more exposed selvedge are a golden ticket to retail outlets may face tougher times as this market matures. Have faith, though, young jean makers. If you do it right, there is a chance you too can join the ranks of Roy as one of the most coveted and respected (one man) brands around.The webmasters at Google-owned Blogger have dropped the hammer on adult content, declaring in a statement today that adult-themed content will automatically be made private on March 23rd of this year. This would include all adult images, video and content on any blog associated with the blogging website.
The statement comes out in response to the traditional company line which has seen the sharing of content as a matter of personal freedoms and not one of public decency. Blogger users in violation of the new terms of agreement will have their adult content made private automatically, making their images, videos and adult content invisible to everyone except Blogger admins, the owner and anyone they have shared it with privately.
It is worth noting that Blogger admins intend to retain the use of adult content “in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts.” In the past, Blogger allowed adult content on individual blogs as long as it was properly tagged and identified. This will no longer be the case and will likely result in a short-term decrease in Blogger activity as some patrons of the site have been associated with the production and distribution of adult-themed blogs.
This addition to Blogger’s list of unacceptable content for blogging purposes is added to traditional disallowed posting choices, such as illegal activities and hate speech. In effect, Blogger admins (and therefore, Google) are stating that adult content in and of itself adds no benefit to the average user’s internet experience, and that this consideration trumps the freedom of speech of those who choose to submit such content to public scrutiny.
Almost exactly a year ago, short video website Vine performed the same action with similar goals in mind. As a spokesman declared, “We don’t have a problem with explicit sexual content on the Internet –– we just prefer not to be the source of it.” Since then, Vine has continued to expand as it increases in popularity among the general population, but not without the expected backlash by those who were most impacted by the policy change.
In contrast to Vine and Blogger, social media online giant Tumblr has refused to make a comment on adult-themed content being produced and released on their site. Purchased over a year ago for over USD $1 billion by Yahoo, CEO Marissa Meyer has made no announcement in terms of plans to alter their adult content policy. Time will tell whether this is a smart business move, as previous experiences seems to indicate that a reduction in access to adult content brings with it traffic increases.
UPDATE: Since the submission, Google has backtracked on their original statement, deciding instead to enforce an existing anti-commercial-pornography policy. You can find the updated policy information here. This decision seems to have been made in response to concerns expressed by Bloggers who have had adult content on their blogs for years, using it as a means of self-expression.FILE - In this Nov. 16, 2012, file photo, President Barack Obama acknowledges House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio while speaking to reporters in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, as he hosted a meeting of the bipartisan, bicameral leadership of Congress to discuss the deficit and economy. A big coalition of business groups says there must be give-and-take in the negotiations to avoid the "fiscal cliff" of massive tax hikes and spending cuts. But the coalition also says raising tax rates is out of the question. The group doesnt care that President Barack Obama campaigned to raise tax rates on the rich. The same song is sung by groups representing retirees, colleges and countless others. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
WASHINGTON -- For the past two years, U.S. workers have enjoyed a 2 percentage-point increase in take-home pay thanks to a payroll tax reduction trumpeted by lawmakers as an effective lift for a sagging economy. Come Dec. 31, that cut will expire -- and policymakers don't seem too upset about it.
In a victory for the Obama administration during the lame duck session of 2010, Congress reduced the payroll tax rate from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent, giving the average U.S. household an additional $1,000 per year. Democrats demanded an additional extension at the end of 2011, and while Republicans initially balked, the political repercussions of hiking taxes on struggling families proved too much to bear.
Now facing another deadline, the White House has gone almost completely quiet on one of its favorite stimulus policies. In a report released Monday morning, the administration warned that middle-class families will pay thousands more in taxes next year unless Republicans relented on income tax breaks for the rich. But the report didn't mention the soon-to-expire payroll tax cut.
At the daily briefing later on Monday, Alan Krueger, chairman of President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), said that the payroll tax cut clearly gave a boost to middle-class families and to the economy in general over the past year. But he stopped notably short of supporting its extension.
"There are many tax provisions that are expiring at the end of the year and the president has said that the payroll tax cut, among others, should be on the table," Krueger said, referring to fiscal cliff talks, during an unexpected appearance at the daily White House press briefing.
Krueger also demurred when asked if the government would get a bigger bang for its buck by extending the payroll tax cut versus the Bush tax cuts.
"I don't have a really good answer for you," Krueger told reporters, adding that the new CEA report is only focused on extending the Bush tax cuts for the middle class. He noted that the payroll tax cuts were "explicitly temporary" when they were created.
Congressional leaders are similarly difficult to read, though many signs hint at the demise of the payroll tax cut. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in September the tax cut should be allowed to expire. Michigan Rep. Sander Levin, the top Democrat on the House tax-writing committee, said this month that the fate of the payroll tax cut should be decided after the Labor Department releases new employment numbers at the beginning of December.
Some lawmakers are supportive of continuing the policy. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), said at a recent Christian Science Monitor breakfast that a payroll tax cut extension or "some kind of stimulus" is "certainly on the table... as part of the grand bargain," arguing that this is needed in an economy is "still moving slowly." Schumer's aide, Brian Fallon, confirmed that the senator still believed extending the payroll tax cut should be on the table.
Jared Bernstein, Vice President Joe Biden's former chief economist, said in an email that he was "very concerned" about the expiration of the payroll tax cut and that he has voiced these concerns routinely.
"It's a real whack at paychecks when that's something we should assiduously avoid (because the market's been tough on most people's earnings of late)," he said.
But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has not commented on whether he thinks the cut should be extended. A spokesman for his Republican counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said Monday that the senator wouldn't wade into the debate. A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) did not respond to a request for comment.
Other progressive economists and lawmakers have argued that if the payroll tax cut is not extended, something else should take its place. One top Senate Democratic aide called that "a pretty consensus view on our side." But there are clearly detractors. Many lawmakers and outside stakeholders have expressed concern that diverting tax money from Social Security -- which the payroll tax helps fund -- would weaken the program, which provides an average monthly benefit of $1,237 to some 40 million seniors. The Social Security Administration's actuaries say the trust fund will run out of money in 2033, at which point incoming tax revenue could support just 75 percent of benefits.
AARP, the lobby group for senior citizens, said in a statement Monday that it is glad the White House left the cut out of its tax report. The organization has previously said the payroll tax should return to normal.
"We're pleased the White House doesn’t mention the payroll tax holiday since extending it would undermine Social Security’s separate dedicated funding source," AARP executive Joyce Rogers said in an email. "We also remain committed to keeping Social Security and Medicare benefit cuts out of any 'fiscal cliff' negotiations."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a self-described socialist who has been a vocal advocate of social insurance programs, said Monday that he is "strongly opposed" to keeping the tax holiday, since doing so could damage Social Security's solvency.
"The middle class deserves tax relief, but not at the expense of Social Security," Sanders said. "The president and members of his administration have been very clear that the payroll tax reduction was temporary and would not be extended. I expect them to keep that commitment."
Grover Norquist, the prominent anti-tax advocate, has stated in the past that he would only be comfortable with eliminating the payroll tax cut if a tax relief package of the same or larger size was put in its place. Norquist, who has been ubiquitous in the media in recent weeks as the country debates the expiring Bush tax cuts, did not return repeated requests for comment for this article.This is a list of neighborhoods of Milwaukee.
Two residents of the same neighborhood may describe different neighborhood boundaries,[1] which could be based on ZIP codes, ethnic groupings, or simply personal opinion. Although rooted in history, neighborhoods remain social constructions, in which seemingly concrete things like boundaries are in flux, according to the observer and time period.
This encyclopedic problem is true for all cities but is particularly complicated in Milwaukee when identified neighborhoods can be within other neighborhoods. For instance, Brady Street and East Village are inside the East Side, but Beerline B is essentially located in Riverwest. At the same time some Riverwest residents may regard the Beerline B as a separate distinct neighborhood or perhaps part of adjacent Brewers' Hill. On the other hand, Beerline B and Brewers' Hill residents might or might not agree that Beerline B is part of Brewers' Hill. Certainly, residents and realtors tend to assign new names as neighborhoods evolve. In other cases, some historic identities are revived by community or political groups, as for instance with Bronzeville. In 1990, the Neighborhood Identification Project set boundaries and names for 75 areas of the city. Prior to that, neighborhood names were not official and many areas had no names, official or otherwise.
Milwaukee's North Side [ edit ]
Arlington Heights [ edit ]
Arlington Heights is a neighborhood on Milwaukee's north side. It is bordered by Capitol Drive to the north, I-43 to the east, Keefe Avenue to the south and 20th Street to the west. It is home to Lindbergh Park, an elementary school, a middle school, and a Lutheran grade school. Union Cemetery is located at the far southwest corner of the neighborhood.
N 16th Street and W Atkinson
N 16th Street, Arlngton Heights
Liquor store near 12th and W Atkinson
Building at 13th and W Atkinson
Brewers' Hill [ edit ]
Brewers' Hill is a small, diverse[clarification needed] neighborhood north of downtown on the Milwaukee River. The neighborhood is bordered by North Avenue to the north, the Milwaukee River and Holton Avenue to the east, Pleasant Street to the south, and Martin Luther King Drive to the west.[2]
The name Brewers' Hill (formerly "Uihlein Hill") is derived from the large number of brewery workers and owners who once inhabited the area. Just to the south of the neighborhood, the Schlitz and Blatz breweries once operated.[3]
Brewers' Hill contains an architectural mix of Greek Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne (including Stick-style), and Colonial Revival buildings dating from the 1850s to the 1920s.[4] Part of the neighborhood, the Brewers' Hill Historic District, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The neighborhood has undergone gentrification, with former factories converted into businesses and condominiums.
In 2009, This Old House named Brewers' Hill as one of its "Best Old House Neighborhoods," where the neighborhood was referred to as "a distinctly Victorian-era neighborhood that's found new life in recent years as rehabbers buy up its blighted old mansions and restore them into beautiful urban homes."[5]
Franklin Heights [ edit ]
Franklin Heights is bordered by Capitol Drive to the north, 20th Street to the east, Burleigh Street to the south, and 35th Street to Townsend Street to the railroad tracks on the west. One third of the Franklin Heights population lives below the poverty line.[6]
Granville [ edit ]
Granville is a historically working-class neighborhood located on Milwaukee's far northwest side, featuring new subdivisions, industrial parks, and Granville Station. Formerly the Northridge mall, the Station has undergone extensive renovations and is attracting new large-format tenants.
Grover Heights [ edit ]
Located on the fringes of Williamsburg and encompassing parts of Glendale, Grover Heights is bordered by the Milwaukee River to the north, Port Washington Avenue to the east, Capitol Drive to the south and I-43 to the west. Built on lots carved from swampland or wetlands that bordered the river, Grover Heights’ houses were built between 1926 and 1930. Its occupants were primarily German until the 1960s, when immigrant descendants moved to the suburbs. Its first African-American family moved into the area in 1961.[citation needed] The neighborhood has had high stability. Currently Grover Heights has a diverse population consisting of African Americans, Caucasians, and Latinos.[citation needed] Its area forms one of the primary borders of the 5 Points Neighborhood Association, Inc.
Halyard Park [ edit ]
Halyard Park is bordered by North Avenue to the north, Martin Luther King Drive (3rd Street) to the east, Walnut Street to the south and 6th Street / Halyard Street to the west.[7] It is a residential neighborhood; new condominiums and sprawling residential lots with post-1980 construction are the norm. Carver Park buffers the area from I-43 and is the area's largest park. It was the site of speeches from visiting US presidents in the early 1900s. Beechie Brooks, resident, was the developer who in the early 1980s redeveloped the area from Brown Street north to Garfield Avenue and from 4th Street west to Halyard Street.
Harambee [ edit ]
Harambee is a Swahili word for "pulling together". Since the mid-1970s, it has become the most widely used name for a neighborhood on Milwaukee's north side.There is a strong push to redefine the larger area into the Upper Riverwalk District as the entire area is located between two points in the Milwaukee River and has close proximity to the expanding river walk. Draped across a steep ridge overlooking Downtown, the Harambee area is a community of historic homes, churches, and more than 20,000 people. Its name signifies two things: the African heritage of most residents; and a new spirit of "pulling together" that has taken root in an old neighborhood.
The Harambee community is just north of downtown Milwaukee and is bounded by Keefe Avenue to the north, Holton Street to the east, North Avenue to the south, and I-43 to the west. Harambee includes the highest residential elevation in the city, a tall ridge running along 1st Street. Between 1890 and 1910, well-to-do families built mansions on the North Side. Only a few are genuine mansions; the wealthiest Germans lived on the East and West Sides. Some are picturesque Queen Annes, with corner turrets and rambling floor plans. In 1984, the First Street corridor became an official historic district, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
This area was first settled by German immigrants in the 19th century and served as a key German-American business community for Milwaukee. Daniel Richards, who started Milwaukee's first newspaper, bought a home in 1842 at 2863 N. 1st Street on 160 acres (65 ha) of land that ran from Richards Street west to between 5th and 6th and from Center Street north to Burleigh Street. The home stood until 2002. Richards Hill is located immediately north of Hadley Street between 2nd Street and Palmer, and is the location of the highest natural point in the city. Richards Hill contains thousands of perennials planted by Daniel Richards 160 years ago.
The city limits expanded to the north, reaching Center Street in 1855 and Burleigh a year later. In the 1870s, however, city residents crossed North Avenue and began to develop the former farming district. By 1900, the tide of settlement had reached near Burleigh Street. First, Second and Palmer streets (between North Avenue and Center Street) became the major "gold coast" of the North Side German community. The streets were lined with the homes of merchants, manufacturers, and professionals. Perhaps the best known was Edward Schuster, founder of what was, for decades, Milwaukee's largest department store chain. Wealthy residents organized the Millioki Club and built a lavish clubhouse at First and Wright streets. As the neighborhood filled in, its northeastern corner was developed as a large-scale industrial district.
The neighborhood remained heavily ethnic German through the 1920s, but there were signs of demographic change. Many of the new residents in the northern sections were ethnic Polish and Italian families, immigrants and their descendants who had moved across Holton Street from the Riverwest neighborhood. In the southern sections, scores of German families moved on to new neighborhoods, and the blocks above North Avenue provided homes for a variety of groups, among them African Americans. The first Black families arrived in the 1930s, during the Great Migration from the South. They moved up the Third Street corridor, establishing new churches, opening new businesses, and developing a distinct cultural presence. By 1970, African Americans were the largest group in the neighborhood. A significant number of European residents remained and there was a growing Hispanic community in the blocks just west of Holton Street.
Some sections are thoroughly mixed today, but African Americans are the major influence in the Harambee neighborhood. Juneteenth, the African-American community's largest celebration of emancipation, has been celebrated in the neighborhood on Third Street since 1972. In 1985, at the urging of local residents, the street's name was changed to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. There have been grassroots efforts to preserve and improve the area's quality of life by working to strengthen a sense of community. The oldest grassroots organization is the Central North Community Council, established in 1960. The council's perennial president was Frank Zeidler, former mayor of Milwaukee, the last socialist to run a major U.S. city, and a neighborhood resident from 1946 until his death in 2006.
The focus on citizen involvement broadened in the early 1970s. The Center for Community Leadership Development, began to explore ways to assist the neighborhood. Using a community school as its namesake, they organized the Harambee Revitalization Project. The most novel plan called for an "in-town, new town," linking a revitalized Harambee neighborhood with a new community of transplanted North Siders outside the city.
Bronzeville [ edit ]
Bronzeville was an African-American neighborhood that historically was situated between what is now the Harambee neighborhood and the North Division neighborhood. Specifically, Bronzeville was bordered by North Avenue to the north, 3rd Street to the east, State Street to the south, and 12th Street to the west.[8] Developing and active roughly between 1900 and 1950, much of this former district was centered along Walnut Street (essentially halfway between State Street and North Avenue). It was split up by governmental condemnation and acquisition of land to construct Interstate 43 and other arterial road expansions. These changes displaced much of the community.
Today there is a rebuilding and rebranding of the commercial area of nearby North Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive into "Bronzeville", including many new businesses.[9] The Black Holocaust Museum, founded by James Cameron, who survived a lynching attempt in the South, closed in 2008. After operating online, it is scheduled to re
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to the end of a list, jiggling icons, and stylish-looking apps—into the iPhone operating system.
Maximum-efficiency supply chains
Companies were outsourcing manufacturing long before Apple sped the rise of device megafactories in China—in fact, Apple proudly manufactured its products in the U.S. much longer than most of its competitors did—but the iPhone drove the practice to perfection. When he was head of operations, Tim Cook coiled Apple’s tangled cluster of component factories into loaded spring, manned by hundreds of thousands of laborers, that could be unleashed to meet demand. By grouping suppliers together in close proximity so that they could rapidly collaborate to address changes in hardware or design, and demanding new untold levels of efficiency from the workforce, he set the stage for the modern model of device manufacturing—and the human rights woes that accompany it.
The sensor boom
From day one, the iPhone made use of a wide array of sensors, from an accelerometer to a proximity sensor, to make it feel more like magic—the screen would go dark so you wouldn’t touch buttons with your ear, or it’d seamlessly switch into landscape mode. An elegant marriage of software and hardware, the iPhone both set the standard for a smart device, and set off the sensor boom. Today, these early tools share space with a gyroscope, fingerprint scanner, and other enhancements—many of the iPhone’s most influential games and apps would be powerless without them.
The intelligent personal assistant
Siri may have been more of a novelty than a powerful interface at first, and it was widely derided upon launch. But as the first mainstream, user-facing artificially intelligent assistant, it blazed a clear trail for a voice-operated user interface. Even though critics argue that Amazon’s Alexa or Google Assistant have surpassed Siri in terms of power and usefulness, there’s little doubt who ushered in the boom.
A brand new economy
We still may not quite have internalized the sheer scale of the app economy that Apple spawned. It is, as a top Apple and technology industry analyst has argued, bigger than Hollywood.
Apps make up just a small, almost invisible sliver of Apple’s revenue—which is still dominated by iPhone sales. Just a decade after its creation, the iPhone is bigger than too many Hollywoods to count.
Brian Merchant is author of The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone and an editor at Motherboard, Vice’s science and technology site.Desi Linden was our guest on Episode 31.
C259: Desi, welcome to cloud259.
Desi: Thanks for having me, I’m excited to chat.
C259: Desi, I was there in the race at New York running well behind you, but I had a few questions about your race. I’ll break it into three segments. First off, when you first started running on the Verrazano Bridge and felt that wind, tell me in three words or less what you were thinking.
Desi: Oh my God. Does that work?
C259: That definitely works. Expand on that a little, you can use more than three words. Were you expecting the rest of the race to be like that? It calmed down to a certain extent after you got off the bridge, but the bridge was something, huh?
Desi: It was. I said “Oh my God” and then it was logical after that. If you can get through this part, it’s going to get better the rest of the day. Just be patient, relax. It kept you in check early so you didn’t make any dumb decisions in that early excitement of the race. It wasn’t the worst thing, but it was kind of shocking at first.
C259: When I was running most of the runners were trying to tuck in on the right side of the bridge. Was that the case as well with the women?
Desi: Yeah, actually we strung out in a long line. I was surprised it wasn’t more across and tucking in on the right. It worked well for me. I found the tallest woman, Jelena [Prokopcuka] from Latvia, and I was her best friend for pretty much as long as I could be on the day.
C259: [Laughter] Good strategy. I saw you had the long-sleeve shirt on as well. You had that on for five or six miles, is that right?
Desi: Yeah, I didn’t think I would even have it on for that long. Once the sun came out, it did change quite a bit. You get a little bit of sunshine out there and you warm up pretty good. Once I ditched it I was pretty comfortable the rest of the morning.
C259: A part of the race that was frustrating for us viewers on television, because we couldn’t see the whole thing, that seemed like a crucial part of the race for you was First Avenue and up in to the Bronx. The way Gregg put it was you were bobbing and weaving on First Avenue, trying to stay in it. Can you tell us from your perspective what that part of the race was like?
Desi: I felt pretty good there, and actually one of the big things I need to work on and had trouble with and is that a lot of the fluid stations I would lose 3 or 4 steps on the group. That happened at that time period. I caught back up to the group and I think when I caught up to them they picked it up that next mile. It just took that little bit extra out of me. Once you fell off that pack, the effort gets so much more difficult with the wind. I think that did me in. Nothing drastic really happened, but a lot of regrouping and catching back up took it out of me at that point.
C259: Was there a moment when you thought to yourself, “I’m going to stick with the group,” or was there a moment when you thought to yourself, “I’m going to let them go and regroup and maybe I’ll catch them going into Manhattan”?
Desi: Actually I was digging down and trying to catch back up because I knew the effort was going to be so much more difficult, especially with the left-hand turn when you go into the Bronx, that wind, I think it was the worst of the day. I really wanted to be on that group, I just didn’t have it at that point, but I didn’t feel like I was completely blowing up, I actually felt like they stepped on the gas a little bit. I knew there could be carnage coming back and I had to keep running as hard as I could even with the wind coming up.
C259: Yeah, the Bronx tore me to shreds, that was definitely the toughest part of the race for me. The last part of the race that I wanted to touch upon was from 40k to the finish. You caught and passed two runners, including 2011 champ Firehiwot Dado. Can you take us through that?
Desi: Yeah, going down 5th Avenue heading back towards the park I saw Kevin Hanson who was out there cheering, and he’s like, “You’re doing so great, you’re going to catch people,” and I thought he’s out of his mind, there’s no one up there, I’m not going to catch anybody. It was Central Park South where I first saw Dado. I was like, oh, I can catch her. And then at Columbus Circle I saw the last woman [Rkia El Moukim]. It was very very late, but I definitely dug down and had the kick of my life. My calves were cramping and my hamstrings were cramping and my feet were cramping and I was ready to be finished, but I had to go all the way through the line on that one.
C259: That was a great kick. That was captured on Instagram so people on Twitter can find that. It was very inspiring, and more than one commentator has called you a badass. It was quite a badass move at the end there.
Desi: That’s a good compliment.
C259: Were there any particular highs or lows or memorable images from the race?
Desi: Being on the bridge and at the start, you knew it was going to be a challenging day. It was really cool, a special moment. They shut down the streets of New York City so we can go run as fast as we can from A to B. You always forget about that. You look behind you and see this huge mass of people. It’s pretty special to be there on the day and get the opportunity to do that. I always like to take a moment to stop, smile, and appreciate it, and then go inflict the pain, so that’s always good.
C259: Certainly it was your first time running the whole course. Had you trained on any parts of the course before?
Desi: I did. I was out there in June after the New York Mini and covered the whole thing over two or three days. I got to see it and knew it would be challenging. I took that into training with me, knowing the course would be difficult and I would probably have to work just a little bit harder even when the effort felt like I was working hard, I knew I would have to work just a little bit harder.
C259: One last question on the race itself and on the apparel. You were wearing your signature sunglasses. It seemed most people were bracing for the cold and you were staying cool in those sunglasses. Is that just because you like to wear them, or is there a particular advantage you think it gives you? I know the sun doesn’t help a marathoner so much.
Desi: I’ve just gotten used to it over the years. My vision is pretty horrible, so I feel I’m just saving my eyes. I went to school in Phoenix and you wore sunglasses, pretty much every day. It’s a comfort zone more than anything. Oakley is a good sponsor and they hook me up with really cool stuff, so they are easy to wear.
C259: Shortly before the marathon, news broke that Rita Jeptoo who has dominated marathon majors over the past few years had a sample come back positive for EPO. What was the buzz among the elite women about that?
Desi: Honestly, at that point, we did our press conference the day before, so we didn’t have any clue and I never really got feedback from the athletes in the race. For myself, you were upset and frustrated, but you were also worried about the task, so you set that emotion aside. You can think about it later. For me, I thought this doesn’t change my day. I’m worried about myself and what I’m going to do tomorrow.
C259: Well, we are all for a clean sport here. It’s pretty shocking when the top of the Totem Pole comes out with a positive drug test, but we’ll see where that story goes. It’s been a good fall for the Hansons-Brooks Distance Project, great performances not only by you but also in Chicago by Bobby Curtis and Jake Riley. Can you outline in general the Hansons method for those who are unfamiliar with it?
Desi: Yeah, I think the biggest thing for the marathon is something called cumulative fatigue. That is basically just building up mileage week after week. When you get to that point where you’re like man, I’m really tired, I need to freshen up my legs, you learn to push through it, obviously not to the point where you are injured, but where you learn to run marathon pace or just quicker on really tired legs. At the end of this ten, twelve week block you dial it back just a little bit for the taper, and all of a sudden you are fresh, and that pace is sustainable for a full marathon.
C259: So in the training itself, what is an example of way in which you’d get your legs to be really fatigued? Would it be a marathon paced run after a huge mileage day? Could you give us more specifics?
Desi: Sure, it’s just a string of weeks together. For me I’ll hit 120 two, three weeks in a row, and be doing marathon paced workouts like 3 x 3 miles at race pace, then two days recovery of fourteen miles in the morning and four in the afternoon, or twelve in the morning, four in the afternoon, and then another big workout, and a long run. It starts just adding up. There’s not one single day that is especially difficult that wears your legs out. It’s just a day-after-day grind. You get to the point where you really want to freshen up and take a day off. I want to take that 10-mile day, but it’s just continuous, and you learn how to run through that dead leg feeling that you get at the end of a marathon.
C259: We had Dot McMahon on the show last year, who runs with Brooks. She told us that after she starts marathon training she doesn’t feel fresh until race morning.
Desi: Pretty much.
C259: So if you time it right, you must feel dynamite on race morning after all that hard training.
Desi: It’s a weird thing because even when you don’t feel phenomenal, you’ve trained your body to run when you’re really tired, so it’s not the end of the world if you don’t feel really fresh. You’re like, I train on tired legs, so this is just fine. But we do dial it back enough so you get that fresher feeling. I think we have it pretty pinned down right now.
C259: Back in 2007, you ran the Boston Marathon in 2:44:56. That was your first marathon, right?
Desi: Correct.
C259: What are your memories from that race?
Desi: Similar weather to New York this year. It was a Nor’easter. I remember them being on the bubble of cancelling it. As far as the race went, I had a blast. It was pouring rain, there was a headwind, and I was probably the only person out there that really enjoyed it. I loved every step. The crowds were awesome. It was so much fun covering the distance. I had a bunch of teammates out there too. I crossed the finish line and I was like I can’t wait to do that again. I’m not sure if I was the only person thinking that, but I kind of fell in love with the marathon that day.
C259: Four years later, when you took nearly a minute per mile off that time with a 2:22:38, were you as surprised at that performance as everybody else? Or were you confident by that point that that sort of thing was within you?
Desi: I felt really ready to go. I knew I was ready for a big day. Obviously you can’t control what anybody else in the field does. If somebody went out there and runs 2:19 I wasn’t ready for that, but I knew I could compete well, so I wasn’t shocked by it. I knew I had a shot to win. I felt like I raced like that all day, and I think if I hadn’t prepared myself mentally for that, I would have gotten to those later stages and felt I don’t think I belong here. I may have been a little more tentative. I’m glad that I did feel prepared for that.
C259: Do you remember clearly the finishing stretch there? The last 100 or 200 meters, it was such an incredible race to watch on TV, and I was particularly struck by how you had one last late move, and took the lead quite late.
Desi: Yeah, it was definitely one of those battles where you were like, “Okay, this is it, this is going to be the move that breaks her and this is where I’m running away with it,” and then your legs would cramp up and you’d be like, “Oh no wait, I’ve got to hold off just a little bit.” And then she would go by and you’d be like “Oh, I’m done,” and your legs would freshen up just for a second. We were probably doing the exact same thing and she just got the upper hand right at the end. But it was fun. That’s what you want a race to be. That’s what’s exciting about it and what makes it interesting and that’s what makes it a chess match versus just watching checkers. It was fun to be a part of.
C259: My co-host Gregg wants to know, what is more impressive to you, your 2:28 into a big headwind here in New York City, or a 2:22 with a big tailwind in Boston?
Desi: That’s a good question. I don’t know how those average out. I would say my 2:22 simply because I was competing. When I think about that race I don’t think about the time, I I was 2nd in a really close race which is obviously the more impressive thing. I would go with that for now.
C259: Right. It is interesting however looking back at past results at New York that your time this year actually was faster than the winning time in 2010 in New York. There were far better conditions then. The winner was Edna Kiplagat, Shalane Flanagan was 2nd, and this year’s winner Mary Keitany was 3rd, so you got all of them.
Desi: That’s right, I remember that year, watching. It was very tactical.
C259: Yeah, still, the women at New York this year deserve a ton of credit because the times really weren’t that far off the norm. It was a lot of impressive running.
Desi: Yeah, I was fairly surprised by the pace given the conditions. I thought it was pretty honest for what we were facing, so it was a good day.
C259: A woman named Julie Threlkeld has a great running blog titled raceslikeagirl.com. She’s a big fan of yours and she did a great recap of that Boston race in 2011. She has a question, when are you going to run London? And I’ll add to that question, given the tweet came out today from Hansons-Brooks about how you’ve now had a top 5 finish in 4 of the 6 World Marathon Majors – those being Boston, Berlin, Chicago, and New York – not only when are you going to run London, but when are you going to run Tokyo?
Desi: That’s a good question. I do want to one day do all of the majors. That would be really cool, and they all have got something really unique. I’ve got to get some speed in my legs to do London to make it useful for me, and I don’t have that right now. Next year is going to be about rebuilding speed and getting ready for the Trials. Maybe after the 2016 games, in 2017 I’ll look at it. But definitely not before then, I’ve got to get quick.
C259: Do you think you’ll get back on the track next year?
Desi: Yes, absolutely. We’ll definitely incorporate a good amount of speed work and hopefully take a stab at some track PRs. That may be a little difficult because I haven’t done the track stuff in so long, but if I can start egging towards them then maybe next year or in a year or so I can get right back to where I was.
C259: It would be great to see you out there in a 5k or 10k, get those times down. The way that you kicked at New York your competition should be a little worried. Regarding your competition, clearly right now if we look at the 2016 Olympic team, Shalane Flanagan and yourself are the favorites the make the team, the third slot is little fuzzier. Do you see Shalane as a big rival, or is she just one of the international elites that you are vying to win these races against?
Desi: Definitely in the major races that are international, it’s like one other competitor. It’s nice to have another American up there who you can keep your eye on. If she has a good day, she’s going to succeed for Americans and that raises the bar for everyone. As far as feeling an extra special rivalry towards her, it’s not, because pretty much she’s beaten me every time out, but I’m going to keep chasing her down just like everyone else as I try to win one of these majors.
C259: Speaking of rivals, Gregg has another good question, your husband Ryan is a runner turned triathlete who has a 2:26 marathon PR. Could you take him down in a race of any distance right now, as long as there’s no bike or swim.
Desi: In any distance, um, yes. I’m just going to be full-on cocky about it. It’s my favorite thing in the world is to pick on Ryan, cause Ryan takes it in stride and he’ll laugh.
C259: Julie had one more question. You’ve got a lot of chapters left to write in your career, but she was curious about what you had in mind for when your running career is over. Do you think you’ll be coaching or something else?
Desi: Yeah, it’s a good question, and actually my sister and I just right now started this new thing called 360 Elite Endurance. And we’re looking at making training plans for a wide variety of people looking to get fit or actually train for an event. So I think that will be something that we build while I’m finishing up my career and hopefully it’s something I can get more involved in once I’m retired and am just a plodder.
C259: Help other people get fast.
Desi: Absolutely.
C259: You mentioned training plans. One lesson I had from this race is that a marathon performance is likely to reflect your training. It’s hard to overachieve in the marathon if your training isn’t quite there. I’ll use this to segue to your injury. You qualified for the Olympics for London, and then you had a stress fracture – it sounds very painful – of the femoral shaft. Sometimes in rehabilitation people do strength work they hadn’t done before. Was that the case with you? And what role does that rehabilitation work or non-running training have in your training now?
Desi: I did do different strength work. I guess it was more like getting the muscles firing correctly, and sequencing. I went and saw John Ball out in Phoenix and he worked with me quite a bit pinpointing a lot of weaknesses and areas I needed to get fixed up. And so he basically would send my updated programs every couple of weeks. It was new and it was different, but it was very specific to the weaknesses I had developed because of this injury or had and which caused the injury. That was definitely something new, and something that I’ve gotten away from a little bit because I’ve been healthy and am just a little lazy about it now, which is on my list of things to get better at. But it is important and I feel it did make a huge difference in helping me to come back. Beyond that, I try to do yoga fairly often. When I get into the routine of it, I really enjoy that and I feel general strength and flexibility is never a bad thing.
C259: At the Olympics, did you think it was a long shot that that race would go well?
Desi: I did. On the line, it was really frustrating because at that point I didn’t know what the injury was. The doctors were like “I think it’s just tendonitis, we don’t see anything.” Basically they missed the stress fracture by like an inch on the MRI. “It’s probably just tendonitis.” To me, that’s something you can work through, like maybe it’ll warm up. I’m just going to go mile by mile. It’s probably not going to be the greatest race of my career, but you want to cross the finish line. So I got out there and just tried to do that. But the first hard right turn, you could tell it wasn’t going to happen. And then you think about all the turns that were on the course – that was the big thing with the course, there were like 90 turns, I don’t know how many there were, but there were a ton. So that first right hand turn, it was like “This is going to be bad. This isn’t going to warm up and suddenly it’s better.” So I just made the call early on, which is frustrating, but it happens.
C259: Well, it was such an impressive race that got you on to to the Olympic team, the second place at the Trials in Houston, and of course you’ll have another go at it in 15 months or so in 2016.
Desi: It’s coming up very quick, yeah.
C259: Just a few more questions. A great deal of hard work goes into being an elite distance runner, particularly in returning from injury. At your level, there must be times, particularly with what you’ve described about the Hansons training method, where you really have to dig deep and do things that don’t feel natural, like run when you’re completely shattered. I could see how success is a great motivator. But are there other things that you call upon for motivation or inspiration to get through that really hard work of training.
Desi: Yeah, it’s a really good question. One of the big things is I’m lucky to be on a team, and it’s nice to see everyone out there on those really crummy days where you don’t want to be out working hard, and you see your teammates doing it, and you see them trying to get better. We’re all just trying to get the best out of ourselves and that’s super-inspiring. The amount of time Kevin and Keith put into the program, and our assistant Don Jackson – they’re on the road all the time, and sometimes you work for the people on your team. I know my husband Ryan puts up with me in the middle of those 120 mile weeks when I’m super grumpy, and I do it for him too. It’s just that whole group and team that you have that gets you out there on the days when it’s not necessarily easy. It’s easy to look at your teammates and the people who are supporting you to remember why you are doing what you are doing.
C259: You’ve recently added some depth on the women’s side, with Cally Macumber and Megan Goethals. Do you think we’ll see them mixing it up at a marathon major or U.S. Champs any time soon?
Desi: They certainly are capable. We have Cally, Meaghan, and Katie Kellner, who’s from Cornell. Callie’s a little beat up right now but the other two are running very well. It’s such a tricky time when you first get here because you are getting used to higher mileage and training partners who can kind of beat up on you a little bit, the whole thing, it’s a new training system, but if they are in it for the long haul and they put the work in and stay healthy they certainly are capable. I think they’ll both do really well, and Callie will surely follow in their footsteps.
C259: Thanks Desi so much for your time. We have one last question. The name of our site and podcast is cloud259 because when Gregg and I started this we were both 3:08 marathoners, and we figured if we broke three hours, we’d hit cloud259. One question we have for all of our guests is if you could give one training or race-day tip for runners to achieve any PR in the marathon, what would that be?
Desi: Love the process. In training and in racing, we all have moments that hurt. You’ve just got to smile and remember that what you are doing is fun. The steps that hurt, you actually earned, because you have to push yourself really hard. Smile at the pain, know that you’ve worked really hard to get there, and keep fighting through it. Love that process. That would be my tip.
C259: Fantastic tip. Thank you so much Desi!Please allow me a moment to convince you that I, too, love the video games. No, seriously.
I don't watch a lot of television. Oh, I certainly spend quite a bit of time staring at TVs, but the standard offering that comes in through my DirecTV dish doesn't really hold a lot of sway over my life. It used to not be this way, of course, but then, our choices for entertainment used to be a lot narrower. These days, I tend to spend that entertainment time in front of a computer screen, and the rise of Netflix's streaming service and DVRs means that I can afford to let people sort of "beta test" actual television and pick the best of it to watch later. Or, at least, that's the basic idea. In reality, I never actually get around to watching most of the shows that get recommended to me unless it's comedy written in a very specific style. I still haven't watched The Wire, for example, despite buying DVDs full of episodes. But after seeing one episode of it, I sought out, recorded, and watched as much Jon Benjamin Has a Van as the law would allow.
I suppose you could take that to mean that I have pretty specific tastes, but I'm really just taking the long way around to tell you that I don't have an especially high opinion of television programming. It's hard to describe that without sounding like I'm some sort of elitist snob, but I don't take too kindly to the way much of it is presented. If you'll allow me to further generalize, television feels like it's being presented to the lowest common denominator, with much of it being written by people who seem to have absolutely no respect for the people who might later go on to watch these shows. Parts of Spike TV Video Game Awards broadcast sort of reinforce my feelings on the medium, which is too bad, but ultimately I didn't really expect it to go much differently. The restrictions in place when producing a show like this almost ensure that, as one of those Internet-loving assholes who inherently distrusts marketing and finds most TV to be ironically enjoyable at best, the deck for liking such a show is sort of stacked against me.
Or to put it yet another way, did you really think that a show put together by the production company that brought you shit like Survivor, The Apprentice, and Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? was going to offer you a quiet, introspective look at video games and the creative minds behind them? Did you really think that a show built in that way would ever air on Spike TV?
Did that guy buy that baby from that lady? I forget why this is here. Oh, right! The production company behind the awards worked on "hits" like The Apprentice!
Maybe I should add a bit more to that list of obvious questions. Like how about... do you really think that award shows are great to begin with? Because the quiet, respectful show that people seem to be begging for across the Internet this morning usually comes across as two things: BO and RIIIIIING. Back when I was living with a crew of college girls, I was induced into going to an Oscars Party. It was insane! They were dressing up all nice specifically to hang out in our living room and watch the Academy Awards! Afterwards we made it out to a bar and I think the night ended with a couple of us trying to eat a cake that had fallen on the floor. That's beside the point. My point is that traditional awards shows are unfuckingwatchable. The only awards broadcast I ever really connected with was MTV's Video Music Awards, which was fascinating when I was a kid, mostly because it was a weird chance to see modern pop stars of the 1980s mingling together, but really because it was a live broadcast and I was always interested in seeing people swear on live TV. Did the awards themselves matter back then? Not really. I mean, yes, they almost certainly mattered to the people winning them and, to some extent, the industry behind those people. But as a viewer, I was tuning in to see an entertaining show. This, as far as I can tell, is the blueprint that the VGAs are operating under. They probably want to produce an entertaining show that people will watch, and if they can celebrate games along the way, then great! Right?
The problem is that I just don't think they're executing well enough on the entertainment side.
I think most of the blame for that falls squarely in the laps of the people responsible for writing the show. The gags, some of which tried to trade off of standard gaming tropes like health meters and such, fell flat. It had a recurring bit about teabagging that wasn't funny the first time around, making all of the callbacks spread throughout the show almost painful. Some cursey YouTube guy got brought into the fold and turned into another lame bit where he sat next to some Spike executive. Am I supposed to know or care about who either one of those guys are? An award winner got teabagged. So irreverent, right? From a comedy perspective, the closest the entire production got to being on the pulse of gaming was when Daniel Kayser spit out the whole "arrow to the knee" thing before talking to Todd Howard during the preshow. Sadly, that whole thing seemed to have set some sort of record for fastest time from "this is funny" to "this is tired," so the reference ended up being like two days too late or something insane like that. Then again, the Internet continually proves that it's mostly good at complaining about things, so I guess that shouldn't be used as a barometer.
Kojima's finale would have worked a lot better if the Metal Gear Rising trailer didn't leak ahead of time. But the Fortnite announcement remained a surprise.
The "talent" side of things didn't really help, either. You know... I'm sure getting Charlie Sheen to show up seemed like a really fun idea six months ago. But wow, could there have been a more miscalculated choice? At least his obligatory "games are awesome" bit wasn't as embarrassing as Will.i.am's, who sounded like he was trying to justify his presence with every word out of his mouth. Here's a tip on that front: games are huge. Billion-dollar huge. Going out of your way to talk about how much you play them--and this extends to the host being consistently billed as a "huge gamer," too--makes you look like you've never played one in your life. Or, at best, it makes you look like one of those "well, I really like the Call of Duty and the Madden" types, which is probably worse if you're trying to get actual game aficionados on-board. Obviously, this is a pretty hard problem to fix because finding an array of people that actually connect with the gaming audience is tough, especially when said people need to be big enough stars to hopefully draw in a wide enough viewing audience to make the whole show worth doing to begin with.
With better writing, I think the rest of the show absolutely falls in line, though I tend to agree that not enough time was given to the awards themselves. That's probably a pretty tough thing to balance out. Also, this is probably the part where I should state that I'm one of the judges that helps pick nominees and winners for many of the award categories, so perhaps I have some sort of hidden interest in seeing my contributions get more airtime or something. But if you're going to put "Video Game Awards" right in the title, burning through the bulk of them in a quick montage seems completely disingenuous. But I suppose it's harder to get people on-board if you were to title the show "World Exclusive Mania: Game Trailers You Ain't Seen Before: The TV Show." It's telling that the online-only pre-show did much better at giving out awards and letting developers speak for a bit than the entire two-hour TV broadcast.
Super-glad this is finally getting made.
That leaves the exclusive trailers, weirdly enough, as the part of this show that absolutely shines. Say what you will about the advertising-like nature of releasing a bunch of trailers and giving them better placement than the actual awards, but it gives the VGA broadcast some actual content--some actual news is made at the show every year. That doesn't happen at other awards shows. As someone who professionally talks about the video games, it's nice to actually have something new to discuss in December, which is usually pretty dead. Without this award show, that wouldn't happen, and games like Command & Conquer: Generals 2 would probably go on to get lost amid a sea of bigger announcements at E3. And Tony Hawk HD would get announced in a press release, at best. This show is a good platform for those announcements. It just needs to be better balanced with the actual awards.
It's the morning after the live broadcast, and I'm sure that the people that watched last night's show are full of wide-eyed, unrealistic ideas about how they would "fix" the show. I've offered mine, and I think the people behind the scenes really do get closer to finding the right balance every year. But maybe the right approach for those of you who seem to get filled with total outrage over all this is to stop treating this awards show like it's the only game in town and remember that this is an industry where every individual publication offers their own version of the year's best games and the industry itself has places like GDC and DICE where the speeches run wonderfully long and the jokes are 100% inside. There's room for all of it. Hell, if anything, there are probably too many different sets of awards out there! But I guess my point is that you shouldn't expect an increasingly dated medium like television and its desire to speak to the wide, mainstream audience that is slowly blinking out of existence to provide a good home for this idyllic awards show you've cooked up in your head. Because they've got soft drinks (FOR MEN ONLY) to sell.Here is the full text of Alex Salmond's prepared victory speech if Scotland had voted Yes to independence on September 18 2014.
"In the early hours of this morning, Scotland voted Yes. We are a nation reborn.
"The community of this realm has spoken. Scotland shall be independent once again. To those who voted No, I extend an immediate hand of friendship.
"I do so with respect for our difference, with admiration for the passion and principle of an opposing view strongly held, and with the recognition that the joy of the majority be tempered by the disappointment of the minority.
"We are One nation. One Scotland. Let us shape the future together.
"This campaign reclaimed from politicians and parties the monopoly of power and decision-making.
"This must be the start of new politics - a time when the voices of the many will be heard.
"A time when the dispossessed and the forgotten assert their rights as citizens. A time of empowerment and participation.
"To our friends and families across these isles waking to our new democracy, we say this; know that, in Scotland, you will always have your closest
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offer good transferability to other regions and population groups.
The tool of choice: NaFeEDTA
Based on these findings, he recommends using sodium iron EDTA to fortify foodstuffs in areas where lead poisoning and iron deficiency are common, and iron fortification is already used in food. “This is the most effective way to reduce the level of lead in the bloodstream.” Although it is more expensive than iron sulphate, it also works better.
Lead contamination of food and water is still a serious problem in mining and heavy industry areas in Africa, India and China, but the issue is not yet resolved even in industrialised Western countries. The discussion has flared up in Flint, Michigan (USA), where the drinking water is contaminated with lead because inhabitants are supplied with water that flows through lead pipes. The pipes should have been replaced a long time ago.WICKLOW TD STEPHEN Donnelly has called on the government not to pay the €1.1 billion due to senior unsecured bondholders this week and restore rehabilitative care services for disabled children.
By the end of this week, the government will have paid four bonds, totalling over one billion euro, two formerly held by Irish Nationwide and two by the former Anglo Irish Bank.
One of the bonds due to be paid today amounts to €598 million.
Donnelly said the HSE recently told parents of disabled young adults in Wicklow that there was no longer any money to fund rehabilitative training for their children.
The rehab provider in Wicklow, Sunbeam House, has places available but the HSE no longer has the €14,000 per teenager required.
Donnelly said the 40 million in debt interest we pay every year would cover rehabilitative training for one teen for the next 150 years.
Drastic Impact
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, Mark Malone of the ‘Anglo: Not Our Debt’ campaign said neither government parties have a political mandate to take this action as they assured voters they would not before the general election.
“These cuts are having drastic impacts on the most vulnerable people in society,” Malone said. He said an elderly man at a recent campaign meeting told him the supply of oxygen for his machine was being reduced from four bottles a month to three.
Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty joined these calls for the government to block this payment.
“The government has committed to wrenching at least €3.5 billion out of the economy in this December’s budget,” he said. “This week’s bond payouts amount to almost a third of this.”
“This money should be invested in job creation. It could be invested in our education and health systems. Instead the government is allowing Irish Bank Resolution Corporation to waste it on bondholders, who may have bought the bonds on the secondary market for a fraction of the original price.”Freedom Partners, a political group allied with billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, has booked millions of dollars of new air time in New Hampshire and five other states with competitive Senate races according to recent ad documents.
The biggest reservation is at an ABC-affiliate in New Hampshire where viewers would see roughly 95 ad spots a week from the start of September through Election Day. The total cost of running ads at that one station alone will come to more than $1.2 million–assuming they aren’t canceled.
The other ad bookings are slated to run in Iowa, Colorado, North Carolina, Arkansas and Michigan. The run dates vary; most of the ads would start in August and run for about a month, though spots in Iowa would run from September through the election.
It’s unclear what tack the spots will take, though a document in Colorado Springs says the ads will highlight Colorado Sen. Mark Udall’s support for the Affordable Care Act. A previous round of ads that aired in April hit Democratic senators and candidates on a similar subject in Iowa, Colorado, Alaska, Louisiana and Michigan.
Although TV stations are required to name the candidates targeted by political ads, Manchester, N.H.-based WMUR instead just listed “TBD” on disclosure forms. Station Manager Jeff Bartlett said station personnel asked about the ads, but hadn’t been told who they would support. New Hampshire’s primary isn’t until Sept. 9, he added.
So far this year, Freedom Partners’ ads have focused on Senate races, but in addition to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s competitive reelection bid, New Hampshire is also the scene of two closely fought House contests: The state’s First Congressional District, held by Democrat Carol Shea-Porter, is a tossup, according to the Rothenberg Political Report. But the state’s Second Congressional District, held by Ann McLane Kuster, also a Democrat, could be close too; Rothenberg considers it “lean Democrat”.
David and Charles Koch and their network of like-minded conservative donors hope to spend $290 million electing Republicans, according to the Daily Beast. Freedom Partners is the name of two political groups: a nonprofit business league that funneled $230 million to other political nonprofits in 2012 as well as a super PAC that formed in June. The super PAC reports its spending and fundraising to the Federal Election Commission, while the nonprofit arm does not. Other dark money Koch affiliates have already run TV ads this cycle including Americans For Prosperity, American Future Fund, American Energy Alliance, Libre Initiative — which targets Hispanics, Generation Opportunity — which targets younger voters and the 60-plus Association–which targets older voters.
Freedom Partners–the nonprofit business league–remained in the shadows until tax returns showing the group’s grantmaking were due last year. Then Freedom Partners, whose full name is Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, outed itself, saying that it had transformed into a think tank. At the time representatives said the group had 200 “members” paying at least $100,000 apiece, including one who gave $25 million. It’s unclear from the TV ad station filings whether the nonprofit or the super PAC is paying for the ads. [More than 100 of the raw documents relating to the group’s newest ad buy are available on Sunlight’s Political Ad Sleuth ].
While some dark money groups tout their spending in press releases as part of an effort to receive free media coverage, Freedom Partners’ media strategy has been lower-profile. For the April ad buys, the group didn’t put out a press release until after they had been written about elsewhere. The current round of buys doesn’t appear on the groups’ YouTube page and the site’s last news release is months old. A spokesman didn’t immediately return a call for comment.Jay-Z won’t be making a marquee appearance at the Ed Sullivan Theater after all.
The city suddenly yanked approval for the mega-rapper’s planned concert Monday atop the Midtown marquee for the “Late Show with David Letterman,’’ sources said.
“The mayor’s office approved it, and then just like that, it got denied,” one police source told The Post yesterday.
Reps for Jay-Z, Letterman, the city and the NYPD had planned to meet at the “Late Show” offices yesterday to work out concert details.
But the meeting was abruptly canceled — and everyone involved was told that the event was now a no-go, sources said.
The police source speculated: “It’s because of the holiday weekend. They were concerned about fireworks and terrorism.”
Another source suggested that the music gig was cancelled for the same reason given the last time Jay-Z and Letterman tried to plan the event in 2010 but were thwarted.
Details about the performance were leaked to The Post beforehand, creating a logistical nightmare for cops given the hordes of fans such an event would draw.
The mayor’s office refused to comment, as did Letterman’s people. Jay-Z’s rep didn’t respond to phone and e-mail messages.A group of New York City atheists is demanding that the city remove a street sign honoring seven firefighters killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks because they say the sign violates the separation of church and state.
The street, “Seven in Heaven Way,” was officially dedicated last weekend in Brooklyn outside the firehouse where the firefighters once served. The ceremony was attended by dozens of firefighters, city leaders and widows of the fallen men.
“There should be no signage or displays of religious nature in the public domain,” said Ken Bronstein, president of New York City Atheists. “It’s really insulting to us.” Bronstein told Fox News Radio that his organization was especially concerned with the use of the word “heaven.” “We’ve concluded as atheists there is no heaven and there’s no hell,” he said.
“And it’s a totally religious statement. It’s a question of separation of church and state.” He was nonplussed over how his opposition to the street sign might be perceived – especially since the sign is honoring fallen heroes. “It’s irrelevant who it’s for,” Bronstein said. “We think this is a very bad thing,”
David Silverman, president of American Atheists, agreed calling on the city to remove the sign. “It implies that heaven actually exists,” Silverman told Fox News Radio.
“People died in 9/11, but they were all people who died, not just Christians. Heaven is a specifically Christian place. For the city to come up and say all those heroes are in heaven now, it’s not appropriate.”
“All memorials for fallen heroes should celebrate the diversity of our country and should be secular in nature. These heroes might have been Jews, they might have been atheists, I don’t know, but either way it’s wrong for the city to say they’re in heaven. It’s preachy.”
City leaders seemed dumbfounded by the atheists’ outrage because no one complained about the sign as it was going through a public approval process. “It’s unfortunate that they didn’t raise this as an issue while it was undergoing its public review either at the community board level or when it came before the City Council on their public agenda,” said Craig Hammerman, the district manager for Brooklyn Community Board 6.
Hammerman told Fox News Radio that the community was “solidly behind this proposal. Not a single person stood up to speak out against it. I think it’s a little late in the process for someone to be bringing this up now.”
“When you think you’ve heard it all, you haven’t,” Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz told Fox News Radio. “These seven brave souls who put their lives on the line and ultimately gave up the most precious gift that could be given, believe me are in heaven for serving us so admirably,” he said.
Criticism of the sign brought condemnation from Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
“There are cities that have religious connotations in their names, why not a street,” Land said. “Do they want us to rename Los Angeles, Corpus Christi, and St. Joseph?”
He added, “In a country where 85 percent of the people say they are Christian or claim to be Christian, should it be surprising that you name cities and streets with religious terminology.”
Silverman said he would not be surprised if atheists are vilified for their criticism of the street sign – suggesting they were simply being patriotic. “If we’re opposed to this sign, we’re somehow opposed to honoring the heroes,” he said. “The attacks on 9/11 were an attack on America. They were an attack on our Constitution and breaking that Constitution to honor these firefighters is the wrong thing to do.
“The patriotic and right thing to do is to obey our own law and to realize that we are a diverse nation, a melting pot full of different views,” Silverman added. The local and national atheist organizations said they’ve offered alternative names that would still honor the firefighters, but without any religious affiliation.
Bronstein suggested they call the street, “We Remember The Seven – 9/11.” He said that would be “more appropriate.”
But the city has no intention of removing the sign. If that’s the case, Bronstein said he may consider a lawsuit.
For more, visit Fox News Radio.Spread the love
A new app will become available for IPhone and Android devices later this month that will allow people to rate their local police department, as well as their individual police encounters. Possibly the most impressive thing about this app, is that it was created by a few young teenagers who wanted to find solutions to the problem of police corruption.
14-year-old Caleb Christian and his two sisters, 16-year-old Ima, and 15 year old Asha, plan to release their revolutionary new app “Five-O” on August 18th. The app will allow people to review and rate their experiences with police much like the app “Yelp!” allows people to rate and review private businesses.
Five-O will allow users to share the details of their police encounters and traffic stops with the world, and will make it possible for victims of police brutality to instantly gather local support for their case.
“We’ve been hearing about the negative instances in the news, for instance most recently the Michael Brown case, and we always talk about these issues with our parents, they always try to reinforce that we should focus on solutions. It’s important to talk about the issues, but they try to make us focus on finding solutions. That made us think why don’t we create an app to help us solve this problem,” Ima Christian told Business Insider.
“The idea is to collect data that users can then bring to community activists, the media, and other forms of law enforcement. That way, it’s not just “he said, she said,” Caleb added.
“We’d like to know which regions in the US provide horrible law enforcement services as well as highlight the agencies that are highly rated by their citizens. In addition to putting more power into the hands of citizens when interacting with law enforcement, we believe that highly rated police departments should be used as models for those that fail at providing quality law enforcement services”, Ima said in another interview.
The young Christian siblings are actually very well versed in coding and app design, and have started a company called Pinetart Inc. Their company has already released two other apps aside from Five-O, called Coily and Froshly.
John Vibes is an author, researcher and investigative journalist who takes a special interest in the counter culture and the drug war. In addition to his writing and activist work he is also the owner of a successful music promotion company. In 2013, he became one of the organizers of the Free Your Mind Conference, which features top caliber speakers and whistle-blowers from all over the world. You can contact him and stay connected to his work at his Facebook page. You can find his 65 chapter Book entitled “Alchemy of the Timeless Renaissance” at bookpatch.com.By Giridhar Jha
PATNA: THEY were “ not good at studies” and wanted to make a quick buck.
But little did they realise when they set off on a mission to abduct fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and claim the reward on his head that their absurd plan would go so terribly awry.
The three Patna boys had to return when they ran out of money.
Rajesh Kumar, Vikas Kumar and Wali Azam ( names changed) — Class 9 students of St. Michaels School in Patna — went missing last Friday. After receiving missing persons complaints from their parents, the Patna Police set up a special team under SP Janant Kant, which managed to trace them on Sunday.
Patna's Senior Superintendent of Police Manu Maharaj revealed the children's Mission Dawood. “ They ran away from their homes believing that they would be able to abduct Dawood and get the cash reward,” he said.
Maharaj also said the trio reached Patna Junction and went to Barh and Mokama before boarding a train to Kolkata. However, after reaching Kolkata, they ran short of money and returned to Patna in a passenger train.
Police sources said the children had gone to Barh and Mokama to seek financial help from JD( U) MLA Anant Singh. “ The boys, however, could not meet him. Disappointed, they boarded a train to Kolkata,” said a police officer.
Vikas told the police that they heard of the cash reward that various governments had announced for any information leading to the arrest of Dawood, who is believed to be living in Pakistan.
The teenager admitted that they decided to go to Pakistan and abduct Dawood to claim the rewards.
Reproduced From Mail Today. Copyright 2014. MTNPL. All rights reserved.It’s been three years since The Office went dark, but practically everyone remembers Dwight Schrute and his bed and breakfast beet farm. How could they not, thanks to Rainn Wilson’s portrayal of the charismatic character for nine long years on the Emmy-winning comedy?
Well it may have been a while, but Dwight, thanks to Wilson, is back. In the actor’s new memoir, The Bassoon King, he uses Dwight Schrute to write the forward before launching into his life story. And we have to say — it’s pretty damned interesting. Here are just 13 facts we learned reading about his past.
1. He grew up in Nicaragua
That’s right. He may have been born in the States, but when his mom left, Wilson’s dad moved little Rainn and his new wife to the rain forest for a little while. There Wilson had a pet sloth that would escape every single night. Naturally, it didn’t get far.
2. He had worms. Twice.
The chapter describing this harrowing childhood incident is nothing short of knee-slapping. Not to mention revealing. “The worms coming out of the butt is always a classic story, it always gets people’s attention,” Wilson shrugs in our interview with him.
3. He was a Dungeons and Dragons master
Weekends weren’t spent playing video games or hanging out at the mall. This kid and his friends would be gone from dawn until dusk (and sometimes later), playing out their wildest fantasies. There was a good reason for it, too. “I did whatever I could to escape the unhappy household that I was in,” he explains. “Whether it was sci-fi books and reading for hours and days at a time, or dungeons and dragons all weekend.”
4. He kind of hates the geek culture
Back in his day, being a geek meant getting beat up, and not in that cute, John Hughes kind of way either (even though he went to a high school based on one of John Hughes’ movies). For him geek interests were genuine interests back in the day. Today, he believes them to be completely commercialized. “People have figured out how to cash in on nerd culture,” he says. “Money lenders have made their way into the nerd temple.”
5. He was jumped — twice
Living in New York before New York was the place it is today was dangerous. Especially for an out-of-work actor who was actually slumming it. “One of the times I was hit on the back of a head with a stick. Thank God it was a stick and not a crowbar,” he says. “The other time I was punched in the back of the head, but when they swung at me they were kind of drunk.”
6. He’s had some really random jobs
Before making it as an actor, Wilson did pretty much anything he could think of to make money and survive. That included running his own one-man moving company out of the van he and his wife received for their wedding.
7. He almost landed a role on Arrested Development
Gob Bluth was almost played by Rainn Wilson. The actor was in the Top 3 for the role. Apparently on a callback, he was waiting in the reception area for hours with the script. Eventually he saw someone locking up, and realized they forgot to tell him to go home. Apparently Will Arnett had gone in and blown everyone away so hard, that they forgot about considering anyone else.
8. He is of the Baha’i faith
In fact Wilson spends a large chunk of the book dissecting what it means to follow this faith (basically believing that every God from each religion exists), and how hard it was for him to accept that faith. Unfortunately that meant years of alcohol and drug abuse before making peace with himself. “Status and success and self and ego and a bohemian lifestyle is a recipe for getting into a lot of trouble with drugs and alcohol,” he explains. “It was my spiritual journey that kind of helped me out of that.”
9. He started a spirituality site
Ever heard of SoulPancake? Wilson is one of the founders. Basically, he describes it as the antithesis to all of the hateful things found online today, and uses it as a building tool to help people create a positive space for themselves. It’s gotten so big that even Oprah has taken note.
10. He “hates” Mindy Kaling
Don’t ask him about it, either. Aside from the stuff he writes in his book, he tells us that Kaling is “a disgusting person and deserves to be belittled and mocked for her absurdity.” He then clarifies, “No, we’ve always been kind of frenemies and given each other a hard time and we love each other a lot too.”
11. His son’s name is Walter…
…but it was almost Wyatt. Then there was a huge ordeal at nine months when his wife began bleeding out from a placental abruption, and he had to rush her to the overcrowded hospital. Both mom and baby were fine, but the couple then decided the baby looked more like a Walter than a Wyatt.
“Seeing tons of blood coming out of your wife’s vagina as she’s nine months pregnant and in the hallway of an emergency room because there’s no beds… it was a nightmare,” Wilson recalls. “It was like your worst nightmare come true. It was absolutely horrifying.”
12. He thinks Canada is boring
Back in high school, when Wilson used to partake in Model U.N., he always hated it if he was assigned Canada. He says as much in the book, but when confronted on why he had this explanation: “Canada’s boring because they’re so friendly and they get along with everyone. When you play MUN you want to be one of those firebrand countries. Mix it up a little.”
13. Writing this book was largely about healing for him
“It’s not like I was sobbing over my keyboard, wrestling with my inner demons. But it does feel really healing to put it out on paper,” Wilson says. “I recommend it to anyone and everyone.”
Check out The Bassoon King for yourself, in stores now.The deal came to light in a series of leaked emails between Sony Chief Amy Pascal and producer Avi Arad. UPDATE: Arad has denied that the deal has closed.
Nintendo A promotional image from the video game New Super Mario Bros. U
Sony Pictures and Nintendo appear to have closed a deal for the animated feature film rights to the Super Mario Bros. video game franchise, according to a series of emails discovered in the massive trove of hacked Sony files recently leaked to the media. "I am the proud father of mario the animated film [sic]," producer Avi Arad told Sony Studio Chief Amy Pascal in an email dated Oct. 23, 2014, with the subject line "Mario." Arad then forwarded Pascal separate images of him with Mario Bros. creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata, the latter of which included the message, "Happy ceo, lets get together, it's the mother load [sic]." Pascal forwarded that email to Tom Rothman, who heads up Sony Pictures subsidiary TriStar Pictures. "Avi closed Mario brothers," she said. "Animated."
Felix Ordonez / Reuters Shigeru Miyamoto Neil Hall / Reuters Avi Arad
The deal represents only the first step in a very long road to a green light for an actual feature film. Animated films especially go through a long and rigorous script development process before a movie starts production. The emails also did not indicate any filmmakers attached to the project, although Pascal does at one point suggest Genndy Tartakovsky, who directed the 2012 Sony Pictures Animation feature Hotel Transylvania and created the Cartoon Network series Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, and Star Wars: Clone Wars. "[I]ts soooo perfect for him," Pascal wrote. (A rep for Tartakovsky tells BuzzFeed News, however, that the filmmaker "is not involved.") On Oct. 24, Arad sent an email to Sony Pictures Animation President of Production Michelle Raimo Kouyate thanking her for a congratulatory basket she sent him filled with Mario Bros. merchandise. "Thank you Avi!" Kouyate responded. "Let's build a Mario empire!" Kouyate also sent a photo of the basket to Pascal, and said, "I can think of 3-4 movies right out of the gate on this. So huge!"
Walt Disney Home Video / Via gigagamers.com John Leguizamo and Bob Hoskins in 1993's Super Mario Bros.Las Vegas registered the nicknames Nighthawks, Desert Hawks and Red Hawks, Foley told the Las Vegas Review-Journal, but likely has eliminated two from that list.
Las Vegas owner Bill Foley said Friday that "Nighthawks is a beautiful name" as the expansion team comes closer to an announcement on what it will be called.
"Nighthawks is still a name we're considering, though we are probably not going to go with the others," Foley told the newspaper Friday after reports surfaced that he had eliminated all three.
Foley also told the newspaper he registered two more names. He would not reveal them, but said they are in play for the final decision.
Foley acknowledged a similarity to the Chicago Blackhawks, and the NHL and Blackhawks were aware of the situation.
"It's two completely separate things," Foley said. "...Nighthawks honors a bird that is in Las Vegas and a fighter aircraft from an air force base in Las Vegas (Nellis Air Force Base). I think Nighthawks is a beautiful name."
Video: George McPhee on being named the GM of Las Vegas
Las Vegas, which begins play in the 2017-18 NHL season, narrowed its search last week from a possible 18 nicknames submitted for approval.
Foley said in an interview earlier this week his goal is to have a nickname, logo and color scheme in place before two NHL preseason games are played at T-Mobile Arena on Oct. 7 and 8 (the Los Angeles Kings play the Dallas Stars and the Colorado Avalanche).
Nighthawks was used by the former American Hockey League franchise in New Haven, Conn., which existed from 1972-92.
"[The name] should represent Las Vegas, represent the environment," Foley said July 13. "It should be unique to Las Vegas, but it needs to be a name that people hear the name and say, 'These guys are tough. These guys are going to win. These guys are dedicated.' It needs to have that kind of momentum, that kind of philosophy behind the name. And that's why some names just don't make it for me."
Las Vegas pursued Black Knights and Knights as a potential nickname. Foley said the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, his alma mater, had objections to the use of Black Knights, the school's nickname for its athletic teams. There also were trademark issues with Knights and the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League.
The NHL awarded Las Vegas an expansion team on June 22.The Taifun GT is a bottom coil tank atomizer. It kind of operates the same way as a Kanger Protank, except better. Better in that you get superior performance and it’s easier to build. The caveat, of course, is that it doesn’t have those handy coil heads you can easily replace when they get messed up, so if you want to master this beast, you will need to learn how to coil it yourself. The good news is, it only takes about 5 minutes once you know what you’re doing, and it is super easy to do. When you’ve mastered this skill, you will never need to buy another replacement coil head again.
Luckily, this is one of the easiest tank atomizers to recoil and today I am going to show you the foolproof method I use for coiling mine. There are probably lots of ways to do this, but I have never had an issue with dry hits, leaking or gurgling using this format. If you’ve never coiled a Taifun before, this is a perfect starting point.
What You Need
A Taifun GT. I got mine HERE from e5cigs. It is only $22 and works flawlessly.
A cotton ball – I have used both sterile and organic and they both will work
30 gauge Kanthal. I get mine from Temco on Ebay.
a 1/16 drill bit. I got a 10 pack of titanium ones from Menards for $3. You’ll have enough to last a lifetime.
Pliers
Nail Clipper
Step 1: Wrapping The Coil
This is going to be about as basic a coil as it gets. Your going to want to clip off about 4-5 inches of kanthal. I strongly recommend you use 30 gauge kanthal for this setup. I have tried it with 28 gauge and I feel that I have a lot more problems with dry hits when I use the thicker gauge wire. I have never had a single dry hit with 30 gauge using the exact same setup, so do yourself a favor and spend 5 bucks on a roll of 30 gauge before trying this.
We’re going to take the kanthal and wrap a tight microcoil around the drill bit. If you don’t know how to wrap a microcoil, check out this tutorial first.
For this setup, I did 10 wraps of 30 gauge kanthal around a 1/16th drill bit.
If yours doesn’t look perfect yet, don’t worry, we can correct that soon.
Your wraps should be set up in such a way that you have one coil leg facing each direction and you should keep the drill bit running through the coil for the next step.
Once your coil is wrapped, you are going to want to position the drill bit right over the airhole in between the two posts, and you should have one leg pointing towards each post.
Now carefully attach both legs by wrapping them about 3/4 of the way around the post and screw them in securely. Make sure that your coil stays centered over the airhole throughout this proecss and the height should be close to even with the screws once everything is secured.
Once you have secured your coil legs, double check to make absolutely sure they don’t come loose when you pull on them. If they stay in place, take your clipper and trim off the excess kanthal as close to the post as you can get.
You should have something that looks like this.
I got lucky with mine and my coil came out nearly perfect. If yours isn’t totally flush, we can correct that now.
Carefully remove the drill bit from the coil, being extra careful not to alter the position of the coil.
Once the drill bit is removed, CHECK YOUR OHMS.
The next step is dry firing the coil, however you don’t want to do that until you are 100% sure you don’t have any shorts and you aren’t getting a crazy ohm reading.
If you’ve followed my tutorial so far, your ohms should read somewhere between 1.3 and 1.7. Mine started out at 1.3 and ended at 1.6 once I had everything put back together and the tank filled.
If your ohms check out, dry fire the atomizer until it turns orange. I recommend lowering your voltage/wattage before doing this. I have found that at high wattage, dry firing a fresh coil can cause it to slightly warp itself, so you want to do this carefully.
Once you’ve heated the coils to glowing, carefully compress them with a pliers and hold for a few seconds. This should push your coils together and make them uniform. If it still isn’t perfect, you may need to repeat a couple of times. Just be careful not to push too hard as you don’t want to push your coils together so much that they overlap.
Now you should be ready to apply the wick.
Step 2: Applying the Wick
Just like the coil, the wick is also very easy to set up if you are following this tutorial.
You’re going to want by tearing off a small chunk of fresh cotton. Look closely at the cotton ball and try to go with the grain when pulling it off. You only need a very small amount.
Roll the cotton gently between your index finger and thumb. You want one end to come to a very fine point – enough so that you can easily thread it through the coil. The other end doesn’t matter so much if you want to leave it a little wider.
Pull the wick through the coil until it is about even on both sides – if your wick is too wide on one end, you can gently roll it in your fingers while pulling it through. You don’t want to pull too hard as it can mess up your coil.
Once your wick is uniform on both sides, you can screw the bottom of the chamber back into the atomizer deck.
It’s important to note – the bottom of the chamber is kind of odd in how you attach it. It slightly screws in and then from there you can push it up or down. You are going to want to make sure it is fully extended and not recessed into the base at all. If you don’t you will have huge leaking and gurgling issues.
Once you’ve reattached the bottom of the chamber, you can lay your wick over the channel on each side, and trim off the excess that sticks out.
When you’ve done that, you should have something that looks like this:
At this point, you can screw the top cap to the chamber back on. Make sure you don’t pull up on the bottom half of the chamber or you will end up pulling the whole thing out and have to repeat this step. It is easy to do and I’ve done it myself several times.
You should now have a perfect coil and your Taifun should look something like this:
The Bottom Line
This is such an easy build to do, once you’ve done it a couple times you should be able to knock it out in a matter of minutes. Here’s a quick demo of mine in action:
The vapor cloud on this one isn’t as big as it could potentially be because I am running an 80% PG juice in mine right now. Taking that into consideration, I think the performance is spot on.
I’ve been running this as high as 21 watts with no issues at all wicking or with with dry hits.
You might want to start out keeping your wattage a little lower until you are comfortable with the device. If you start getting dry hits, you can always turn it down a notch or two until you get to a level where the wicking is consistent.
If you’re running a mech mod, you will probably want to shave off at least 2 wraps to get your ohms lower, if you want a strong throat hit.
If you have any questions feel free to post them below in the comments.
Have fun!Former British soldiers have staged a rally in Belfast to protest against the decision to prosecute retired soldiers in relation to killings in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.
The city centre event organised by Justice for Northern Ireland Veterans (JFNIV) sought to highlight what it alleges is a legal witch-hunt against former security members who served during the Troubles.
Last year, two former soldiers were told they will be prosecuted for murder over the 1972 death of IRA commander Joe McCann.
There were similar rallies in London and Glasgow.
A republican group organised its own march against the "presence of a British army parade in Belfast".
Saoradh was formed in 2016 with the backing of dissident republican prisoners and counts high-profile republican Colin Duffy among its supporters.
Around 150 participants stood on the other side of a police line holding placards and singing anti-British songs.
Outside City Hall, on the other side of the road, pipers played and speakers called for an end to what they alleged was unfair treatment of former security force members.
Around 200 veterans took part in the Glasgow march, which was led by Paisley Comrades Pipe Band.
Alan Dalgliesh, 53, who served with the 2nd Battalion Scots Guards between 1979 and 1994, said: "It's a bit of a witch-hunt for me.
"You join up (to the army), take your allegiance and you're doing it for the government and now they're backtracking and getting folk for their duty.
"It's just wrong that you're just waiting for that knock on the door about something that happened years ago which you did as your job.
"Every regiment, every veteran is united on this. I've heard of a couple of guys who've had a knock on their door (from police) asking: 'What happened here, what happened there?'
"But why? It's your duty, and that's what we did."
Geordie Gaughan, a former sergeant in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, served for ten tours of Northern Ireland and took part in the Glasgow march.
The 76-year-old from Paisley said: "This is to show people that the Northern Ireland veterans are being forgotten about by the government.
"Everything we want to raise for veterans we have to do through charities and the Legion. We want to make people aware that we're still here.
"People are here to remember their mates, and we want to tell the government: 'We are the veterans and it's time you did something for us."'
Veterans and supporters also gathered in London, where ex-servicemen dressed in ceremonial ties and berets from several regiments gathered on steps near Horse Guards Parade.
Among those who addressed the crowds adjacent to the capital's royal thoroughfare, the Mall, was former soldier Dennis Hutchings, who is facing a charge of grievous bodily harm in relation to a fatal shooting in 1974.
Denis Hutchings
After hearing from political activists and former soldiers, the gathered ranks of supporters arranged in a column and marched to the Cenotaph, where a rendition of the Last Post was played against a swell of bank holiday traffic.
Mr Hutchings said he was "absolutely gutted" to be facing trial.
The 75-year-old, from Torpoint in Cornwall, said: "Of course I'm feeling nervous about it because you don't know what way it's going to go."
JFNIV organiser Alan Barry said he was pleased with the show of support from the estimated 3,000 people attending.
Mr Barry, who is a Northern Ireland veteran of the Grenadier Guards, said the group always agreed that genuine crimes should be prosecuted, but said the majority of investigations into alleged abuses were unfounded.
He said: "No soldier ever left barracks with the intention of committing murder.
"When we left barracks, we left barracks on patrol, and if we were fired at, we fired back."
Mr Barry said the group's "next mission" will be to march on Stormont if the British government continued to pursue prosecutions.Ed Clint has the scoop on how American Atheists is being sued by one of their former employees and does a nice job of
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deserves" a rematch.
"Does he?" asked Rogan. "I think a lot of what [UFC] has done has been based on what compelling contenders they have for that title. Compelling contenders where you look at their style and the style of the current champion. If you wanted to make the most intriguing stylistic matchup, I think it's Frankie Edgar. A guy who won the title at 155 pounds, beat legends in B.J. Penn, just knocked out Chad Mendes with one punch, before that beat the f**k out of Cub Swanson. He's smushed everyone they've put in front of him for a few years now. He's a monster."
Rogan has made it clear he'd like to see former women's bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey take a considerable layoff to recover from her knockout loss to Holly Holm at UFC 193 in November. He's carried that thinking right over to Aldo.
"Some people are mad that I said I don't think it's smart that Aldo fight right away," Rogan said. "First of all, Aldo got knocked dead. When you get knocked dead like that you need a long time off. You need at least six months off. Conor McGregor could fight next Tuesday and so could Frankie Edgar.
"I think that fight would be f***ing bananas. For a fan, I'm so excited to see that fight. Frankie has a very dangerous style for a guy like Conor who was taken down repeatedly by Chad Mendes. He's a nasty wrester. His cardio is off the chain. His footwork is fantastic. He's got [striking coach] Mark Henry in his corner. They're going to come up with a badass gameplan. Between Henry and [McGregor coach John Kavanagh] and a winner like Frankie and a winner like Conor, goddamn."
5 MUST-READ STORIES
Big business. Conor McGregor and Frankie Edgar lead the payrolls from UFC 194 (here) and The Ultimate Fighter 22 Finale (here).
'It's still is too hard to digest.' Jose Aldo reacts to his KO loss to Conor McGregor and makes the case for a rematch.
The fall. Longtime head trainer Andre Pederneiras responds to Jose Aldo's critics. "The king has left, but will be back shortly."
Checking in. Brazilian fighters voice their support for Jose Aldo.
Champs on champs. Jon Jones believes if Ronda Rousey gets an immediate rematch, so should former UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo.
Watch The MMA Hour with John Kavanagh, Ido Portal, Anthony Pettis, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Rose Namajunas, Aljamain Sterling, Javier Mendez, Lance Palmer and Tony Ferguson.
MEDIA STEW
Free Fight: Rafael dos Anjos vs. Donald Cerrone.
Highlights from RFA 33.
Ronda Rousey doesn't sound like a Donald Trump fan.
Cerrone would love to see McGregor at 155 pounds. (pre UFC 194)
Catching up on Cerrone's road trip to UFC on FOX 17 in Orlando.
Comedian Bill Burr recaps UFC 194.
Long watches.
Undercard Insanity at RFA 33 Courtesy of Tommy Aaron and Jacob Rosales
...
TWEETS
The Chris.
I will remember this moment for ever. It has already changed me for the better. The motivation I have inside myself has... Posted by Chris Weidman on Monday, December 14, 2015
No BONES about it.
It's all just opinion, I don't mind being second to him. He does amazing things in that cage https://t.co/IbWEB7Ddf6 — Jon Bones Jones (@JonnyBones) December 15, 2015
Excited?
John Hand Of Stone Lineker luta dia 21 de fevereiro contra Cody Garbrandt em Pittsburg PA USA. Obrigado Senhor Jesus pic.twitter.com/mOF7NHNpTS — John Lineker (@johnlineker) December 15, 2015
Not happy.
So Sage Northcutt tops the payroll for that event? Unbelievable. 2 UFC fights and most of his opponents in the past had losing records — Chris Camozzi (@ChrisCamozzi) December 14, 2015
I don't think Sage makes too much I think everybody else makes too little https://t.co/bJkHytaQhX — Nick Newell (@NotoriousNewell) December 14, 2015
No love in the rankings and guys with one fight in the #UFC make more money than me. Am I doing something wrong? — Ryan LaFlare (@RLaFlare) December 15, 2015
Beef.
The greatest fights of 2015 have passed, so, now, will u face me or run away from a K.O in 2016?let's settle the score? @MieshaTate #sweetie — Bethe (@bethecorreia) December 14, 2015
Celebrate.
Nice.
@jonnybones did you giggle when Weidman's dad said "HE'S STILL MY BOY" — Your Bud Ben (@GoodTimeHaver) December 15, 2015
I actually felt proud for Chris's dad. Chris has and will continue to accomplish great things https://t.co/1NhAb2NnQS — Jon Bones Jones (@JonnyBones) December 15, 2015
Still got it.
FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS
Announced yesterday (Dec. 14 2015)
Cody Garbrandt vs. John Lineker at UFC Fight Night: Pittsburgh
Sarah Moras vs. Lauren Murphy at UFC Fight Night: Pittsburgh
Henry Briones vs. Brad Pickett at UFC Fight Night: Bisping vs. Mousasi
Davey Grant vs. Marlon Vera at UFC Fight Night: Bisping vs. Mousasi
Found something you'd like to see in the Morning Report? Just hit me up on Twitter @SaintMMA and we'll include it in tomorrow's column.Chiang Mai Citylife CityNews Local Bar Owners Ask Authorities to Extend Closing Hours to 2am
Bar Owners Ask Authorities to Extend Closing Hours to 2am
CityNews – On December 1, ten representatives and entrepreneurs from bars and restaurants in Chiang Mai, led by Apinya Wairatpani, submitted documents to Chiang Mai Governor asking for closing hours to be pushed back to 2am like the rest of the country.
The group submitted the letter to the authorities and also forwateded another copy to General Prayuth Chan-ocha via Chiang Mai Damrongtham Centre, asking to extend bar and restaurant closing hours to 2am, just like other tourist cities across the country.
They submitted the request so their businesses could have a chance at competing with other tourist destinations. All the owners who submitted their documents had also made it clear that they had no record of law breaking and underage patrons.
Most of the bars owned by those who signed the letter are in the Loy Kroh and Thapae area.
“Chiang Mai is a tourist city. Most income is from tourism. Police and military have inspected our bars almost every day, affecting foreign tourists, who are our important customers. They are tourists. When they come to Chiang Mai, they want to enjoy it as much as they can. When it was midnight, police and military came and told us to close our bars. They told our customers to leave. Sometimes they even speak in English to our customers, saying “Get Out”. We think it is too rude to foreign tourists. We would like officials involved to think about the words they use with foreign tourists too. If they are too rude, it will cause long-term effects,” said Apinya Wairatpanit.
She continued, “Most importantly, they [police and military] specifically inspected our beer bars. It was clear that some karaoke bars turned off the lights in front of their bars, but they still provided services inside. Yet officials didn’t go in and inspect, but only choose to inspect our bars which we feel is unfair. This has affected us a great deal. During poor economic conditions like this, our businesses are doing worse. We asked government institutes to understand us.”
Speaking outside of City Hall, Apinta said “we just asked them to expand closing time for 1 – 2 hours, which will be good for our businesses during poor economic conditions with a small amount of tourists.”VICTORIA B.C. - Matt Toner, B.C. Green Party Deputy Leader, today released the following statement on the B.C. NDP’s technology platform announcement:
“We welcome the B.C. NDP’s announcement of investment in education in order to support the technology sector: It’s a necessary step, but it’s not sufficient. The Vancouver tech industry a notoriously ‘leaky bucket,’ ceding much of our talent to other cities. If we are going to train the next generation, we must ensure there are jobs waiting for our graduates.
“The B.C. Greens’ approach will go much further in nurturing the full spectrum of opportunities available in B.C., both in terms of the range of technology sectors and various stages of business development. Specific measures to support entrepreneurs, innovators and small ventures are critical to ensuring that B.C. can be a leader in the global tech sector. To get there, we need to do more than just refine government procurement practices - we need to create an environment where innovation from around the world comes to flourish.
“The B.C. Greens look forward to releasing a more comprehensive and strategic platform for a sector that is a critical part of British Columbia - now and for long into the future.”
Toner was appointed Deputy Leader of the B.C. Green Party in January 2016 and is the spokesperson for finance and the new economy. He is also a Vancouver-based digital media entrepreneur.
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Media contact
B.C. Green Party
Jillian Oliver, Press Secretary
+1 778-650-0597 | [email protected] Corbett, the latest standards editor at the Times (maybe the greatest job in the world?), has issued a proclamation! Yesterday, the following memo went out, asking writers to abstain from the invented past-tense and other weird iterations of the magical noun-verb “Twitter.” His case isn’t terrible, actually-and he offers this terrifying vision: “Someday, ‘tweet’ may be as common as ‘e-mail.’” Oh dear. Well, read for yourself and decide.
How About “Chirp”?
Some social-media fans may disagree, but outside of ornithological contexts, “tweet” has not yet achieved the status of standard English. And standard English is what we should use in news articles.
Except for special effect, we try to avoid colloquialisms, neologisms and jargon. And “tweet” — as a noun or a verb, referring to messages on Twitter — is all three. Yet it has appeared 18 times in articles in the past month, in a range of sections.
Of course, new technology terms sprout and spread faster than ever. And we don’t want to seem paleolithic. But we favor established usage and ordinary words over the latest jargon or buzzwords.
One test is to ask yourself whether people outside of a target group regularly employ the terms in question. Many people use Twitter, but many don’t; my guess is that few in the latter group routinely refer to “tweets” or “tweeting.” Someday, “tweet” may be as common as “e-mail.” Or another service may elbow Twitter aside next year, and “tweet” may fade into oblivion. (Of course, it doesn’t help that the word itself seems so inherently silly.)
“Tweet” may be acceptable occasionally for special effect. But let’s look for deft, English alternatives: use Twitter, post to or on Twitter, write on Twitter, a Twitter message, a Twitter update. Or, once you’ve established that Twitter is the medium, simply use “say” or “write.”
Make of it what you will. But, my quibble? I cannot believe he takes that horrible turn in the last sentence! No one “says” anything on Twitter! That’s pollution of the language. One either WRITES or one SAYS. I will never accept the argument that these words are interchangeable!
Related: other words that begin with “t” that the Times won’t print include “tuchus.”Sen. Bernie Sanders' campaign is reviewing results of the Iowa Democratic caucus precinct by precinct to ensure results were reported to the state party correctly.
The Vermont senator's Iowa spokesperson Iowa, Rania Batrice, said the campaign has found "some inconsistencies" and believes that there are probably more out there. The inconsistencies are "very likely are just human errors," she said.
Democrat Hillary Clinton became the official winner of the Democratic caucus after Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) released its final result on Tuesday. It showed Clinton winning just under four more state delegate equivalents than rival Sanders.
In terms of percentages, the former secretary of state won 49.9 percent of delegates and the Vermont senator won 49.6 percent. There are 1,681 precincts.
Batrice said the campaign was alerted on the night of the caucus that some precinct chairs - who are responsible for relaying results to the party - were designated at the last minute or on the spot, and that the party was initially missing information from 90 precincts. That information was a red flag, and it led the Sanders team to decide to review the results since the race was so close, she said.
Bernie Sanders on Iowa caucus coin tosses: "We could probably do better"
It will be several more days before the review is complete and the campaign will consider how to move forward from there.
In a statement, Iowa Democratic Party Communications Director Sam Lau noted that it is impossible to do a recount of the vote because people physically align in groups to indicate their preference and do not fill out paper ballots.
"Monday's caucuses were a unique event that involved more than 171,000 Iowans and their neighbors at a specific time and place, and thus they cannot be re-created or recounted," Lau said. "That being said, we are working with all campaigns on individual concerns they are bringing to us, and addressing them on a case-by-case basis. Just yesterday, we met with the Sanders campaign, [which] brought us a small amount of specific concerns, and the Clinton campaign has also asked us a small amount of questions. We will look into these concerns and reach out to our county party leadership with any questions."
While Clinton's camp has declared victory in the caucus, Sanders' campaign has characterized the election as a "virtual draw" and criticized the process of using coin tosses to settle ties.
In an editorial Thursday, the Des Moines Register said it was time for the Democratic Party to affirm the accuracy of the results "beyond a shadow of a doubt" and reassess the caucus process.
"The caucuses have become as antiquated and opaque as the smoke-filled rooms of yore," the editorial said. "Democrats should ask themselves: What do we want the Iowa caucus to be? How can we preserve its uniqueness while bringing more order? Does it become more like a straw poll or primary? How do we strike the balance between tradition and transparency? We have time to consider these questions. First, however, we need answers to what happened Monday night. The future of the first-in-the-nation caucuses demands it."
The editorial said the party should work with all campaigns to audit results, release raw vote totals, release a list of all coin flips and their outcomes, and then overhaul the entire caucus process.
CBS News Digital Political Journalists Hannah Fraser-Chanpong and Kylie Atwood contributed to this story.There is a huge and insidious difference between the ideological belief that most government programs inherently can’t work well and the modern conservative movement’s destructive desire to stop the government from working at all. What dominates conservative action is not a belief in the inherent inferiority of government but a radical, nihilistic desire to throw sand into the gears to assure it is inferior. Instead of promoting an ideology based on facts and logic, conservatives’ goal is to change the facts to justify an ideology. From endless Senate Republican filibusters to hysterical attacks on relatively low-level government employees, this is collective action to stop the government from working, and an attempt to drive competent individuals out of civil service.
The near-continuous use of the filibuster by Senate Republicans is not just to stop bills that they consider questionable. While I oppose the idea of a minority veto of legislation, at least that’s a fight about the merits of policy. More destructively, the Senate GOP uses the filibuster to waste time and prevent the chamber from fulfilling its many boring, uncontroversial but necessary functions to run the government smoothly.
Every cloture vote must ripen for 30 hours before being decided. That means Senate Republicans can waste 90 hours on small, uncontroversial measures. Even after a bill gets enough votes that its eventual passage is assured, they still insist on using the rules to eat up Senate floor time. This means small, smart but not crucial bills to improve the government are delayed or abandoned, due to time limits. Conservatives’ actions discourage competent, progressive individuals from becoming public servants.
This time-wasting Republican use of the filibuster has made getting confirmed for even low-level positions a nightmare. The candidates are forced to undergo extreme scrutiny, but even if they are as clean as possible, dozens linger for months before confirmation. This is not because these nominees are controversial or unqualified. It is simply because a few Republican Senators force Democrats to waste 60 hours of floor time to give them a vote. Democrats just don’t have that time to fill hundreds of minor positions.
The government doesn’t run as smoothly as it should because positions remain unnecessarily unfilled. The arduous confirmation process discourages good and dedicated people from seeking these positions.
Actively trying to obstruct the government is not limited to Senate procedure. It also extends to conservative “media”‘s purposeful harassment of minor government officials, as we saw with Van Jones, and more blatantly with Shirley Sherrod. The ridiculous lie created about Sherrod does not come from conservatives thinking she is doing a terrible job as Georgia Director of Rural Development, and feeling an overwhelming need to stop her. And it goes beyond an attempt to embarrass President Obama. It is a warning to all individuals thinking about taking a job with the Administration. You will be harassed. Even if you did nothing wrong, we will make up lies about you in an attempt to ruin your career.
Modern conservatives don’t just believe government is incapable of being the right solution. They are committed to undermining and crippling the government’s functions to ensure it can’t be the solution. They are dedicated to ruining it as part of their nihilistic, self-fulfilling anti-government prophesies.
The most amazing thing is that Congressional Democrats are now publicly acknowledging that politically beneficial nihilism is at the heart of the Republican Party’s actions. Yet Senate Democrats still refuse to take away the Republican minority’s filibuster power, even as the GOP uses it to cripple the government. The Obama Administration is throwing employees under the bus instead of defending them. Democrats are still playing directly into conservative hands, ruining their brand, our economy and their hopes of re-election.We’ve arrived! We got to Luang Prabang this week, but have been in-country for 13 days now.
A quick recap!
Damo and I are volunteering in Laos for one year. I’ll be working as an Agroforestry Technical Officer and my main goal is to get the tissue culture facility up and running at the National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute (NAFRI). I’ll also be helping out with research and teaching at the Northern Agricultural and Forestry College (NAFC). Damo will be using his IT and computer wizardry at both facilities and will help out with some teaching as well.
After driving up from Tassie, we spent a month acclimatising in Brisbane before entering the eternal sauna that is south-east Asia. To get a head-start on the teak project I’ll be working on in Laos, I got some high-tech training at the University of Queensland (UQ) in the art of teak seed removal. This involves smashing the seed pod with a hammer until it cracks. It’s much like cracking a macadamia nut and it took a surprising amount of skill to just crack the seed pod and not obliterate it. I’m sure this is a skill that will come in handy throughout life.
After an overnight stay in Bangkok, it was only a one-hour flight to the capital of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Vientiane. I got to visit the team out at the Agricultural Research Centre in Napok and try out a new tissue culture protocol we developed at UQ. I used what may be the world’s smallest laminar flow cabinet and felt a little odd working in thongs (flip-flops), but 75% of our seeds germinated, so not bad for a first attempt. Go science!
While we were in Vientiane we checked out some the local attractions and got the opportunity to make our own offerings to take to the temple.
We were also honoured to attend a rural rocket festival (Boun Bang Fai), where surrounding villages all compete to build the best rocket out of bamboo, and PVC piping. The rockets all receive a blessing from the local monks before being lit. These festivals are held at the end of the dry season and are meant to bring on the rain for the incoming wet season when the rice will be planted.
The largest rocket on the day weighed a ton and was moved by hand. It took over twenty men using a rope crane to position it on the firing platform.
The day was obviously a success. On the way back to Vientiane it started to rain, and by the time we made it to the hotel, the entire city was flooded. Here’s to a bumper harvest!
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It’s never a good sign when a politician has to restate, on more than one occasion, that he believes “rape is rape.” But that’s the position Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan has found himself in ever since the topic of “legitimate rape” entered the national conversation. Ryan, as my colleague Nick Baumann pointed out last week, was one of the cosponsors of a measure that would have redefined the rape exception for federal funding of abortion to only include “forcible rape”—a move that could mean victims of date rape or statutory rape would no longer be covered.
Here’s Ryan trying to explain his position on rape in an appearance on Fox News, via Politico:
Asked on Fox about having supported legislation that referred to rape as “forcible rape” Monday, Ryan said that was “stock language” that has been used in many bills.
“Look, all these bills were bills to stop taxpayer financing of abortion. Most American agree with us, including pro-choice Americans — that we shouldn’t use hardworking taxpayer dollars to finance abortion,” the Wisconsin lawmaker told Bret Baier.
“Rape is rape, period,” he said, repeating a phrase he has uttered many times since last week. “This is language that was stock language used for lots of different bills, bills I didn’t author. And that language was removed to be very clear and I agree with that. Removing that language so that we are very clear. Rape is rape. Period. End of story.”
This indicates a few things. For one, Paul Ryan either didn’t really bother to find out what the specific language regarding rape really meant before he agreed to cosponsor the measure, or he didn’t care and in fact does think that some rapes are rapier than others. And his plea that the bill merely used “stock language” suggests that he and other lawmakers were just borrowing the legislative language happily provided by anti-abortion groups such as the National Right to Life Committee who believe that the government should be in the business of deciding which rape victims are worthy of abortion funding.SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Thursday rejected Apple Inc’s request to revive its bid for a sales ban on Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus smartphone, dashing the iPhone maker’s attempt to recover crucial leverage in the global patent wars.
The Apple logo hangs in a glass enclosure above the 5th Ave Apple Store in New York, September 20, 2012. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
Apple had asked the full Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., to revisit a decision in October by a three-judge panel of the same court. The panel rejected Apple’s request to impose a sales ban on Samsung’s Nexus smartphone ahead of a trial set for March 2014.
An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment. A Samsung representative could not immediately be reached.
The fight in appeals court comes after Apple won a $1.05 billion verdict last year against Samsung in a U.S. District Court in California. The same trial judge will preside over the legal battle surrounding the Nexus phone, which involves a patent not included in the earlier trial.
The fight has been widely viewed as a proxy war between Apple and Google Inc. Samsung’s hot-selling Galaxy smartphones and tablets run on Google’s Android operating system, which Apple’s late co-founder, Steve Jobs, once denounced as a “stolen product.”
In its October ruling against Apple, the appeals court raised the bar for potentially market-crippling injunctions on product sales based on narrow patents for phone features. The legal precedent puts Samsung in a much stronger position by allowing its products to remain on store shelves while it fights a global patent battle against Apple over smartphone technology.
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, in San Jose, California, who has presided over much of the Apple/Samsung litigation in the United States, cited the appeals’ court decision in a December order rejecting Apple’s request for permanent sales bans on several Samsung phones. Apple has appealed Koh’s ruling.
Apple wanted the full Federal Circuit of Appeals, made up of nine active judges, to reverse the earlier ruling. But in a brief order on Thursday, the court rejected Apple’s request without detailed explanation or any published dissents.
Several experts had believed that Apple faced long odds, as the legal issues in play were not considered controversial enough to spur full court review.
Apple could still appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. However, the high court has made it more difficult for patent plaintiffs to secure sales injunctions in recent years.
The case in the Federal Circuit is Apple Inc. vs Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al, 12-1507.The government’s currency paper printing presses have asked the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for compensation or reimbursement to the tune of Rs 577 crore for what they estimate was the loss and wastage they had to incur due to the November 8, 2016 announcement of demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes.
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This adds another dimension to the demonetisation woes of the RBI which has, in its recently released annual report, admitted to lower profits and to paying the government a reduced annual dividend on account of it. Top government officials and officials in the currency paper printing establishment told The Indian Express that the matter was under discussion and since the printing presses were captive units — they do no commercial work — the losses they incurred on account of demonetisation would surely have to be offset.
The Rs 577-crore bill is largely on account of huge consignments of imported/indigenous currency note paper used for Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denominations as well as consignments which had been previously ordered or were in the process of being shipped to India. Besides this, the printing presses are understood to have added cost of wasted ink and other materials used specifically for these denominations as well as the wasted cost of printing the sizeable stocks of currency notes lying in their establishments or being packed and transported — all being described as “work in progress” at the time of the dramatic announcement of demonetisation.
There are four currency printing presses and the calculation sent to the RBI is the tally of losses and wastage incurred collectively by them. There are two currency presses of the Public Sector Security Printing & Minting Corporation of India Ltd (SPMCIL) which operates printing presses in Nashik and Dewas and two of the Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Pvt Ltd (BRBNMPL) which is a RBI subsidiary and operates printing presses at Mysore and Salboni, West Bengal.(Adds Luxembourg government tweet, details)
BRUSSELS, Sept 22 (Reuters) - EU interior ministers voted to launch a scheme to redistribute 120,000 asylum-seekers around the bloc on Tuesday, overriding objections from some states.
The scheme, backed by Germany and other big powers, had drawn fierce objections from some east European countries, notably the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.
The Czech government said earlier on Tuesday that the scheme would be unworkable even if its objection was ignored.
“Council decision on relocation for 120,000 persons adopted today, by large majority of member states,” the Luxembourg government, which is chairing the meeting, said in a tweet.
Ministers had been keen to resolve the issue before EU leaders meet on Wednesday to try to overcome weeks of heated mutual recriminations and forge ahead with a common plan to deal with the migration crisis.
However, many had been reluctant to force the issue to a vote, fearing that this could further poison relations among the 28 member states. (Reporting by Alastair Macdonald, Julia Fioretti and Francesco Guarascio; editing by Foo Yun Chee)Despite Taliban gunmen taking responsibility for the deadly attack at a military-run school in northwestern Pakistan, where over 100 school children were killed, many Pakistanis are still blaming India for the'massacre.'
The most prominent among these accusations seems to have stemmed from the Pakistani security analyst Syed Zaid Zaman Hamid, who blamed India for the horrendous terror attack in the school in Peshawar.
"India, we will NOT forgive you for this atrocity! You chose the day of December 16th to rub it in. We stand firm, united & will crush you!," the 50-year-old security analyst lashed out on Twitter.
Later when the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the incident, Hamid posted a series of angry posts stating that India was funding the terrorist organisation. He also said in another post that all the prisoners of the TTP should be taken out of the jail and hanged from Peshawar to Karachi.
Hamid later even put up a blog post calling on the readers for a "ruthless response" against the group that is funded by India.
Soon many others joined in with Hamid to blame India for the Peshawar attack. A Pakistani national @imran_sidra tweeted: "It was brutality by India on 16 Dec 1971..Its brutality once again by indian agents today on 16 Dec 2014 #PeshawarAttack #IndianTaliban"
Another Pakistani national blamed the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "#PeshawarAttack Definately India Is Behind All these Coward Attacks. Curse on lives of those who send Sareeyan to Narindar Modee's Mother," said Ahmad Sadaqat @ahmad_sadaqat.
A Twitter user, Mudassar @wahlasahb, posted, "India is enemy and will always be... but we are being more stunk by our politicians and Ulma's. #PeshawarAttack."
Meanwhile, Nosheen Safdar @NosheenSafdar1 blamed both India and Afghanistan for the Peshawar attack. "Two Countries are directly involve in this attack which are #India & #Afghanistan.#PeshawarAttack," he tweeted.
Reflecting the widely practised anti-India sentiment, HawkEye @MyBoo911 tweeted: "IEDs planted by terrorists IN SCHOOL r made in #India #PeshawarAttack God bless #Pakistan."Redditors Tell Their Best 'Dad Jokes'
By Petr Knava | reddit | January 3, 2017 |
Look, it’s Tuesday. We’re all back at work now. Most of us are hungover. Sometimes a stupid self-loathing chuckle is what’s needed at times like this. Reddit has a few threads and subs full of ‘dad jokes’. Here, feast on some of the ‘best’:
Satcat1005:
Patient: Doctor, I’ve broken my arm in several places
Doctor: Well don’t go to those places.
Roberygant:
Reversing the car “Ahh, this takes me back.”
Isthisinfectious:
Every time I stubbed my toe as a kid, my dad would ask if he should call a toe truck. Every. Fucking. Time.
whosgotyourbelly42:
holding a step ladder “this is my step ladder… I never knew my real ladder.”
Benu5:
Driving past cemetery
“You know the people who live here aren’t buried in that cemetery”
“Why?”
“Because they are still alive”
Nightcrawler84:
Ok, next time you’re buying milk from the grocery store do the following:
Cashier: Would you like the milk in a bag?
Me: Nah, just leave it in the carton.
I love that joke so much. Also, I don’t know if this next one counts:
A polar bear walks into a bar. The bartender says “What can I get you?” The Polar bear says “Hmmm (at this point, stay entirely silent for a long time, until the people you were telling the joke to think they just didn’t get it and move on in the conversation, then break into the conversation like the following) A beer!” The bartender says to the polar bear (hold up hands, palms facing out) “Why the long paws?”
Mikeinabox:
My dad does this every time we go out to eat.
Waitress: sees that dad hasn’t eaten all his food “Do you want a box for that?”
Dad: “No, but I’ll wrestle ya for it!”
[deleted]:
Me: Be careful standing near those trees.
My daughter: Why? The sky is clear, there’s no chance of lightning.
Me: I don’t know really, they just look kind of shady to me.
jaredog:
Me: Dad, I fell down and scraped my knee.
Dad: Don’t do that, it hurts.
cmonguysimatwork:
Every time I fell down as a kid, my dad would be right there spreading his arms yelling “SAFE!” like an umpire.
Every. Single. Time.
jojojisk:
Dad: Look! A flock of cows! Me: Herd of cows*. Dad: Of course I’ve heard of cows, there’s a whole flock of them over there!
B-Knight:
Me: This medicine smells of Thyme ( the herb ).
Dad: Oh really? I can’t smell it.
Me: Yeah. Maybe your nose is blocked. I look over at dad
Dad: Is sniffing his watch
Jorogasm:
At a restaurant Waitress: “sorry about your wait”
Dad: “well I’ve been doing my best to lose it before swimsuit season”
Every damn time.
giggidywarlock:
I heard about a Mexican magician who said that on the count of 3 he would disappear. So he counted uno… dos… poof!
He vanished without a tres.
UnrustledJimmie
Last Christmas we bought a fake Christmas tree and the guy behind the counter said to my dad, “are you going to put it up yourself?”. Dad replied “don’t be disgusting, I’m going to put it in the living room.”
acamann:
Nurse to my dad at the hospital after he was hit by a car on his bike: do you smoke?
Dad, still not sure who the current president is: only when I’m on fire
Nurse: looks to my mom
Mom: no.
kale1980:
What sound does a train make when eating?
CHEW CHEW
CorporealTom:
Before you insult someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way you’re a mile away and you’ve got their shoes.
And lest we forget:
‘Take care that you do not CHOKE on your aspirations, director.’
——
Petr Knava lives in London and plays music
Petr is a staff contributor. You can follow him on Twitter.
← However Bad Your New Year's Eve Was, At Least You Weren't These Poor Bastards
The Inauguration Performance Condition Trump Won't Dare Accept →DISCLOSURE: The author of this article has written for Vice Canada. Twice. She has no professional conflict with any of the people mentioned in this piece.
On October 30, 2014 Vice Canada and Rogers Communications announced a $100-million, three-year partnership. On November 17, 2014 Vice Canada published an article by freelancer Carly Lewis, “Inside the CBC’s Sexual Harassment Problems.” It was pitched and commissioned as a piece about incidents of sexism and harassment throughout Canadian media, and originally contained examples of alleged sexism at Rogers publishing and CTV. But by the time it was published, it dealt only with problems at the CBC.
.@kevinjn this piece was supposed to be about cdn media, not just CBC. top editor removed vice-affiliated references https://t.co/d0V4nP4fko — carly lew-cifer (@carlylewis) November 5, 2015
The Rogers deal is a lucrative one for Vice, funding a brand new Toronto-based production studio to create shows for VICELAND, the upcoming 24-hour cable channel. It has also allowed Vice to expand its Canadian news presence, an effort resulting in high-profile town hall interviews with Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau during the federal election. These events were sponsored by Fido, the Rogers-owned cellphone brand aimed at young customers. The Daily Vice — a rundown of top news and stories of the day — is also a Fido feature and was originally available only to Fido subscribers.
In an interview with CANADALAND, Vice Canada’s head of content Patrick McGuire was asked about the impact Rogers has on Vice’s content.
“None,” he said.
“Rogers has 100% zero bearing on the content,” added Michael Kronish, Vice’s executive vice president of TV. But as with any big ad purchase or investment, there can be internal anxiety about keeping the relationship positive. For instance, Carly Lewis’ article on sexual harassment in Canadian media.
In the wake of last year’s Jian Ghomeshi scandal, Lewis approached Vice with a story pitch about how sexism in Canadian media is an industry-wide problem, not one exclusive to the CBC. Vice bought the pitch and Lewis researched and filed the story, which contained examples of sexism at Rogers, CTV, and the CBC. She then received the following two emails, both from the same Vice employee:
When confronted with the emails, Vice’s Patrick McGuire responded that the Vice
|
Ballroom in Los Angeles.
“Right now, we just want to let people know we exist,” says Nakamura, a San Francisco native whose post-Octagon production credits include Cornershop, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Gorillaz. “There will be more shows.”
It’s an important step. During the critical months after “Dr. Octagonecologyst” was initially released — a deluxe box set featuring three LPs and bonus cuts from the original session is on its way — it was hard to gauge from the outside just how much Dr. Octagon was a functioning unit.
Apart from all the band members having individual projects, Thornton was particularly hard to pin down. Almost as soon as the band signed with DreamWorks, he vanished.
“It wasn’t a question of how long it was going to last. Once it started to turn, I instinctively knew there might be a clock on it,” Nakamura says. “Once he got some money in his pocket, he got a bunch of other stuff thrown in front of him. He was in the business longer than me — this was his break and he just took off. I’m not going to begrudge someone else making money.”
Thornton returned to the spotlight over the years under a variety of different guises: Black Elvis, Dr. Dooom, Rhythm X, Mr. Gerbick, Keith Korg, Robbie Analog, Matthew and even with his own version of Dr. Octagon, with live performances fueled by graphic videos and members of his crew throwing fried chicken out into the audience.
But none of his work brought him the same acclaim as his role as the cracked hip-hop surgeon who specialized in kinky, sex and sci-fi fueled lyrical misadventures.
Guided by the far-out ambient soundscapes of Nakamura — made up of elaborate hip-hop beats and a bevy of exotic live instruments — and the turntable wizardry of DJ Qbert of the Invisible Scratch Pickles, Dr. Octagon remains the perfect vessel for Thornton to spin his explicit and abstract tales or lechery.
“A lot of people probably thought I was smoking PCP and was on drugs,” Thornton, who remains elusive, says in Brian Coleman’s hip-hop tome, “Check the Technique, Volume 2.” “Other groups might have needed to be on drugs to attempt a record like that. But I was eating potato chips when we made it. Yoo-Hoos and donuts. It was one big spaceship and everyone was riding. Me and Automator were Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk.”
In songs like “Real Raw” and “Girl Let Me Touch You,” the rapper takes hip-hop’s most diabolical tendencies to biologically gritty extremes.
“We all got an adrenaline rush off what was going on,” Keith recalls in the same interview. “We were giggling as we were making the tracks because we knew that people were going to trip out on them. It was like we was at a house party and we was making a punch out of lemonade, Pepsi and Welch’s grape soda. We was putting everything inside the container: apples, greens, peanuts, cabbage. We blended it all together, and we knew people were going to bug out when they tasted it.”
The disc, originally released on Nakamura’s independent Bulk Recordings imprint, quickly became an underground hip-hop classic after its release, spawning a club hit with its first single “Blue Flowers.”
“There’s a bit of unfinished business,” the Nakamura says. “I was bummed when we couldn’t hit the road, but I’m happy with the way things worked out. It changed my whole trajectory.”
And he says Thornton is more dependable these days, particularly after seeing Octagon’s cultural legacy winding through work by contemporary artists like Kanye West.
“Me and Keith have been toying around with the idea of doing this for 10 years,” Nakamura says. “Once he got serious about doing it, we were like, ‘Let’s just do it.’ We just had to figure out a way to make it work.”
Aidin Vaziri is The San Francisco Chronicle’s pop music critic. E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: @MusicSF
Dr. Octagon: 9 p.m. Monday, March 6. The Independent, 628 Divisadero St., S.F. www.ticketfly.com
To see the music video for “Blue Flowers”: www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9VYzNUXGDAWhile wages, jobs stagnate
Median CEO pay in US tops $10 million
By Patrick Martin
5 April 2014
Nineteen corporate executives raked in more than $100 million in income in 2013, and the median CEO pay for Standard & Poor’s 500 companies rose 13 percent to $10.5 million, according to an analysis of S&P data published Friday by USA Today.
The newspaper said these figures were at “a level buoyed by soaring stock prices that’s likely to rise as more companies meet annual Securities and Exchange Commission filing deadlines.” In other words, this report of gargantuan paydays for corporate bosses is likely an understatement.
The highest-paid CEO was Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, who took in $3.3 billion from pay and stock options, on top of the $2.3 billion he made in 2012, when the social networking site first went public. Second place in Silicon Valley went to Lawrence Ellison, CEO of Oracle Corp., who took $229.8 million from direct compensation and stock options combined.
Joining Zuckerberg and Ellison were a half dozen Wall Street financial operators: Leon Black of the Apollo Global hedge fund collected $546 million, and his partners Josh Harris and Marc Rowan took in $397 million and $366 million respectively. Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone Group doubled his 2012 income to $465 million in 2013. The co-CEOs of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts were in the group: Henry Kravis made $161 million, George Roberts $165 million.
Others in the $100 million-plus club include John Martin of Gilead Sciences, $179.2 million; Howard Schultz of Starbucks, $163 million; Philippe Dauman of Viacom, $148.3 million; Eric Schmidt of Google, $147.5 million; Nolan Archibald of Stanley Black & Decker, $130 million; Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com, $128.4 million; Paul Bisaro of Actavis, a pharmaceutical firm, $119.2 million; Tom Dooley of Viacom, $117.8 million; David Zaslav of Discovery Communications, $118.6 million; Robert Iger of Walt Disney, $106.7 million; Jim Gallogly of petrochemical giant LyondellBasell, $106 million.
Topping every CEO except Zuckerberg in weekly earnings was Time Warner Cable CEO Robert Marcus, who is pocketing $80 million in severance pay, bonuses and stock for six weeks of employment, culminating in the sale of the company to Comcast (See: Time Warner CEO to receive $80 million payout after six weeks of work).
By comparison, median annual wages for the 105 million people working full-time in the United States rose only 1.4 percent to $40,872. Wages stand significantly below the level reached at the time of the 2008 Wall Street crash, belying claims by the Obama administration and the corporate-controlled media that the US is experiencing an economic “recovery.”
The median worker would have to work 257 years to earn as much as the typical top 500 CEO made in 2013 alone. He or she would have to work 5,622 years to make as much as Oracle’s Ellison and nearly 2,000 years to make as much as Robert Marcus did in six weeks.
Such comparisons are underscored by a second report, published this week by Al-Jazeera America, analyzing the enormous growth of social inequality from the standpoint of income received from capital gains. It is written by David Cay Johnston, who, as the tax reporter for the New York Times for eight years, produced multiple exposures of corporate scams and tax evasion, winning a Pulitzer Prize.
Johnston explains, based on statistics provided by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and other federal agencies, that the share of capital gains for the bottom 90 percent of Americans, the bulk of the population, fell from 13.9 percent of the total in 1999—even then, a staggeringly low figure—to only 5.3 percent in 2007. In absolute numbers, this was a decline from $91 billion in 1999 to $49 billion in 2007.
While earnings from capital gains rose by 40 percent during that eight-year period—the last two years of the Clinton administration and the first six years of the Bush administration—the vast majority of Americans did not benefit from it.
All other income groups also saw their share of capital gains income decline, except for the very top, the 18,000 households with a total income of $10 million or more. Their proportionate share of capital gains doubled from 21 percent to 42 percent, in dollar terms rising from $146 billion in 1999 to $388 billion in 2007.
Johnston reports that the top 0.1 percent collected 12.5 percent of the Bush tax cuts, and that by 2006 the very wealthiest Americans had seen a 60 percent reduction in their tax burden compared to the 1960s, before the cutting of income tax rates for the rich became the policy of both the Democrats and Republicans.
Wages for most workers have stagnated. In the past 15 years, the average wage reported to the IRS has gone up by only $2.20 a week, rising 1.7 percent from 1999 through 2007 and remaining essentially flat from 2007 to 2012.
Even this dismal figure understates the real situation, since it includes the gargantuan “earnings” of the super-rich. Household incomes for the bottom 90 percent of the population have fallen by 15 percent over the period 1999-2012, from $36,400 to $31,000 a year, a fall of about $5,400.
Since prices have risen considerably, particularly for basic necessities such as food, gasoline, health care and education, the standard of living for most working class families has deteriorated.
These figures give a glimpse of the ever-widening social gulf in the United States, where the overwhelming majority of the population struggles to survive from paycheck to paycheck—if they have a paycheck at all—while a tiny slice at the top constitutes a true financial aristocracy. (By one calculation, 132,000 households, out of about 130 million, hold wealth of $25 million or more).
This social polarization is the driving force of the political events that are transforming the face of the United States—the monopolization of political life by the super-rich and their bribed politicians, the assumption of dictatorial powers by the military-intelligence apparatus, and the incessant demands for austerity and budget-cutting for everyone but the elite.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.“What Chevron has done in Ecuador is inexcusable. In the United States this would never have happened” protested President Rafael Correa, before embarking on a trip to the Amazon where today he will launch a campaign against the US based Chevron oil company which has refused to pay a USD 19 billion fine for serious environmental damages to the Ecuadorian rainforest after almost 20 years of legal battle which the company lost.
Chevron-Texaco caused environmental damages in the Ecuadorian Amazon between 1964 and 1990. This led to a lawsuit against the oil transnational by more than 30.000 indigenous people affected by the environmental contamination.
The President stressed out that “this is the largest environmental disaster in the history of the planet. 85 times worse than the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico, 18 times worse than the Exxon Valdez spill at the coast of Alaska.”
Correa also mentioned that the disaster could have been avoided. However, the company did not care about environmental conservation as this would have affected its earnings, and therefore opted to dispose of their waste into the water, rivers and swamps. They chose to save a few dollars to improve their profits even if that meant poisoning people and destroying the Amazon rainforest.
The government pointed out that this campaign to hold the oil company accountable is being supported by countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas – ALBA, as well as by many international personalities such as the mayor of Richmond, California (where Chevron has been accused of contaminating the local population as a result of a fire in a refinery), the singer Cher, the band The police, among many others.
By HCPDF -TorontoTwo weeks ago, we noted that CBS had been pinpointed by Audit Integrity as one of 10 big companies at risk of bankruptcy.
This prompted an outraged denial by CBS.
As the banking collapse illustrated, any time a company denies that it's about to go bankrupt, it makes sense to assume that the company is indeed about to go bankrupt--and then analyze the situation for yourself.
We've now done that for CBS. Here's the bottom line:
CBS is not on the verge of bankruptcy. The company is, however, highly leveraged, and its cash flows have been deteriorating rapidly. So if current trends continue, the company will be forced to cut more costs or risk violating debt covenants. If CBS's cash flows keep deteriorating after that, it will very much be on the verge of bankruptcy.
CBS has also blown billions in recent years stupidly buying back its own stock at much higher prices--shareholder value destruction at its finest. So the company's weak financial position is very much of its own making.
THE SITUATION
Here's a snapshot of CBS's current financial position:
Cash: $341 million Debt: $7 billion
That's called leverage!
Meanwhile, CBS's cash flows have been precipitously declining:
2006 Free Cash Flow: $1.5 billion 2007 Free Cash Flow: $1.7 billion 2008 Free Cash Flow: $1.7 billion 2008 Free Cash Flow (through June): $1.4 billion 2009 Free Cash Flow (through June): $250 million
In other words, cash flow for the first six months (operations less capex) dropped from $1.4 billion to $250 million in a single year. CBS had better hope those trends don't continue.
Importantly, right now, the cash flows from CBS's business are still positive. This will make it much easier for CBS to continue to roll over its debt (which it has been doing) and avoid violating its debt covenants, which it may be coming close to doing.
CBS's cash flows have fallen so much, however, that it is running out of cash flow from operations to make its dividend payments. (So far this year, CBS has paid $228 million in dividends, which pretty much wipes out its cash flow.) This is why CBS recently slashed its dividend to $0.05 per share. If CBS's cash flows deteriorate further, the company might have to discontinue its dividend completely.
Any time a company has as much debt as CBS does relative to its cash balance, it is critical that the company be able to continue to roll its debt over--paying back upcoming bonds by issuing new bonds with later maturities. Fortunately, at least as of this spring, CBS still seems to be able to do this:
On May 13, 2009, CBS Corp. issued $350.0 million of 8.875% senior notes due 2019 and $400.0 million of 8.200% senior notes due 2014. On June 2, 2009, CBS Corp. issued $250.0 million of 8.875% senior notes due 2019. Interest on these senior notes will be paid semi-annually. The senior notes are fully and unconditionally guaranteed by CBS Operations Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of CBS Corp.
During the six months ended June 30, 2009, the Company repurchased $978.3 million of its 7.70% senior notes due 2010 resulting in a loss on early extinguishment of debt of $29.8 million.
As long as CBS can continue to issue new debt to repay its old debt, it will be fine. What will cause it NOT to be able to issue new debt will be if its cash flows fall so low as to violate its debt covenants (which could technically put it in default), or if the credit markets seize up again. This could make it harder for the company to issue new debt.
Right now, as long as CBS's cash flows don't fall much farther, it has a $3 billion line of credit it can draw down to make interest and other payments. If CBS thinks its cash flows are going to deteriorate further, the company will likely draw down hard on this line to make sure it has enough cash going forward. As of June 30, the company had some clearance left:
At June 30, 2009, the Company had a $3.0 billion revolving credit facility which expires in December 2010 (the "Credit Facility"). The Credit Facility requires the Company to maintain a minimum Consolidated Coverage Ratio, as defined in the Credit Facility, of 3x for the trailing four quarters. At June 30, 2009, the Company's Consolidated Coverage Ratio was approximately 4x. The primary purpose of the Credit Facility is to support commercial paper borrowings. At June 30, 2009, the Company had no borrowings outstanding under the Credit Facility and the remaining availability under the Credit Facility, net of outstanding letters of credit, was $2.80 billion.
So, depending on what happened in Q3, CBS may still be able to draw down on this line. This should allow the company to meet all of its near-term cash needs, even if it suddenly can't roll over its commercial paper or debt.
IMPORTANT: If there is any risk that CBS's trailing cash flow ratio will fall below 3X--which there would appear to be, given the rate of decline over the past year--CBS should draw down hard on the line to give itself some breathing room. Hopefully, it has already done this.
WHAT HAPPENS IF THE ECONOMY CONTINUES TO DETERIORATE?
Assuming ad spending has bottomed, CBS will be fine. If ad spending continues to shrink, however, the company will have to cut costs to keep its cash flows strong enough that it doesn't violate its debt covenants.
CBS says it has the ability to manage programming and other costs, so reducing its cost base modestly shouldn't be a problem:
To the extent that the Company's future operating cash flow is negatively impacted by the continued weakened economy, the Company has the ability to curtail certain non-committed programming, capital and other spending.
So if ad spending continues to shrink, CBS will likely cut the spending referred to above. If spending continues to shrink after that, it will have to cut more. Eventually, it will run out of things it can cut without destroying the value of the business, at which point bankruptcy will be a real risk.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
CBS does not appear to be at risk of near-term bankruptcy. It is in a weak and deteriorating financial position, however. And this condition is in large part due to its own stupidity.
Like other media companies, CBS has blown billions of dollars buying back its own stock in recent years--at prices 2X-3X today's demolished level. This is shareholder-value destruction at its finest. And it has put the company in a far weaker position than it should be today.
See Also: CBS: We're Not Going Bankrupt! 10 Big Companies Veering Toward Bankruptcy"We Make Good Team."
"I am Credit to Team."
[In this Gamasutra opinion piece, writer and designer Gregory Weir () examines the complex appeal of Team Fortress' character classes and how they support gameplay.]The concept of character roles in video games is a common one. It's most common in traditional RPGs, where the player chooses a certain character class with unique skills and abilities.In the mid-to-late-nineties, the concept of class or character role spread to other kinds of games, with one of the first examples being the originalmod forTheseries features first-person, multiplayer, team-based gameplay where each player selects a class and the classes compliment each other. Each class has an important role, and the strength of the team as a whole depends on each player properly fulfilling their role.The series came into its own with the release of, an official mod forrefined the classes and reinforced team-based goals like capturing the flag or protecting territory.Multiplayer class-based games likecan be quite entertaining. The separate character roles make it necessary to work together, which promotes socialization among teammates and increases the feeling of accomplishment when the team succeeds.The multiple classes also broaden the appeal of the game; a player who doesn't feel comfortable dodging and weaving can choose a slow-but-strong class like's Heavy Weapon Guy, and there are even roles for players who like to avoid combat, like the Medic class.However, these roles also mean that there is a bigger barrier to entry for the game, as new players don't necessarily understand their role or how to carry it out. Additionally, everyone's experience in the game can be hurt by a player who doesn't serve their purpose.Anyone who's played with a medic who doesn't heal people knows the frustration that can cause. In the interest of fun and accessibility, it's important for players to comprehend their character role as quickly as possible, and to be interested in fulfilling that role. The latest game in the series excels at this.Valve'swas a bit of a surprise for eager fans. Many were expecting a World-War-II-themed, realistic war simulation, as described in previews years before the release. However, in the intervening time, Valve completely changed their design, and the final product was a silly, colorful game with cartoon characters inspired by early 20th-century commercial illustration.One of the most memorable parts of the new game is the cast of colorful characters. Each character class inis represented by a quirky, distinctive personality with an easily-recognized voice and appearance.There is discussion in the game's commentary of how the distinctive class silhouettes enable players to easily identify opponents, but there's little mention of how these characters enable the team-based gameplay by allowing class roles to be easily understood and internalized.In most games with character roles � including the previousgames � there's little individuality to the classes. Yes, characters look different, and have different effects, but they lack identity. Sometimes, this is a good thing. In, for example, race and gender give a distinct appearance, but not a strong personality. This allows players to roleplay a character of their choice. However, it does mean that character personality has little affect on gameplay.In, things are different. Comparing the old Heavy Weapon Guy to the new Heavy, or the old Spy to the new one, shows that there has been a drastic change in character design. Previous games in the series let you play a scout, but in, you play The Scout. The Scout has a distinctive accent, appearance, and personality. He is conceited, sarcastic, and sadistic.Through Valve's " Meet the Team " promotional videos and through the in-game voice taunts and reaction sound bytes, each class is provided with a unique and easily-identified identity. This is amusing and easy to identify with, but it also serves as a simple introduction to the class.By looking at and listening to the Scout, new players immediately know several things about him. The Scout is thin, but wiry, implying his speed and lack of fortitude. His rapid-fire taunts match the class's preferred fighting style of circle-strafing around enemies. Because of this, players can easily tell what role the Scout is meant to fulfill, and are encouraged to roleplay the character and therefore be a useful member of the team.As a contrast, we can look at the Spy. He is dressed in a suit and balaclava, implying that he is perhaps not the most physical of classes. His voice is haughty and sly, which matches his sneak-and-stab play style. A player who sees the Spy in action understands that he is a tricky character who is meant to attack from the shadows.The same inferences can be made about the other classes. The Heavy is slow but sturdy, while the Medic is a weak technician. The Soldier is, well, a soldier. The Demoman makes clever use of explosives, the Sniper calmly waits, and the Engineer makes intelligent constructions. As for the Pyro? He (or she?) clearly just likes fire. These are not complex, deep human beings; they are stereotypes. That's fine in, a game with little emotional depth which demands quick thinking and trained instincts.Not only do the personalities educate new players, but they also help players pick a favorite class. Someone who sympathizes with the slow-but-forceful Heavy is likely to also enjoy the class's methodical approach. Likewise, a player who identifies with the Demoman will find herself satisfied by bouncing grenades off of walls and laying explosive traps.The technique of giving character classes distinct personalities can be applied to any game which separates players into distinct roles that should be understood quickly. A similar thing was done in Blizzard's, which gives the Warrior, Rogue, and Sorcerer unique appearances that helped to indicate their roles. In, however, there is little personality assigned to each class, and teamwork is much less important than inThe primary lessons to take from's personalities are to create unique identities for each class, to make the identities reflect the class's role, and to make the identities easy to identify and identify with.Making the class identities distinct allows players to easily differentiate the classes by sight, sound, and behavior. Matching the class identities to the class roles allows the player to easily understand and remember a class's strengths, weaknesses, and responsibilities.Lastly, when the identities are memorable and likable, players are more likely to feel connected to their character and to pick a class based on personality.Few people would claim that's world is especially deep, or that it has a particularly complex storyline. What the game does have is a distinctive, appealing cast of characters, and it portrays its characters in a way that supports the gameplay.is so easy to learn and fun to play in part because of the excellent character design, including appearance, voice talent, and personality.[Gregory Weir is a writer, game developer, and software programmer. He maintains Ludus Novus, a podcast and accompanying blog dedicated to the art of interaction. He can be reached at [email protected]Bournemouth’s left-back reels off a 1979 country and western hit when it is pointed out to him that even now, after a wave of publicity in the wake of becoming one of the first two Englishmen to sign up for Juan Mata’s Common Goal project, he is still not the most famous Charlie Daniels on the internet. “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” replies Daniels with a wry smile, referencing the song his 81-year-old namesake went to No1 with in the United States long before he was born.
Daniels has clearly done his research, although he is certainly not losing any sleep about how quickly his name appears on search engines. Easy-going, humble and modest, the former Tottenham Hotspur and Leyton Orient defender has far more important reasons for being kept awake at night, starting with the arrival of Blakely, his daughter, who was born 24 hours before her dad was trending on Twitter following the news he had agreed to pledge at least 1% of his salary to Mata’s initiative.
Juan Mata: ‘People underestimate football. It gives hope to so many people’ Read more
It has been a busy couple of weeks for the 31-year-old since, with nappies to change and his role in Mata’s project engendering plenty of goodwill, including a message from the Manchester United midfielder, who said: “Thank you so much for joining, and let’s try and grow this charity.”
Eddie Howe, Bournemouth’s manager, pulled Daniels aside 24 hours after the Common Goal announcement, on the morning of the 2-1 victory at Stoke City, to congratulate him for “supporting a good cause”, and friends, family and the wider public have also been quick to applaud his gesture.
“I like to think it’s more for the charity rather than me,” Daniels says, reflecting on all the attention of the past fortnight. “It’s nice that people are giving me all this praise but it’s something that just felt like the right thing to do and the easy thing to do. Bobby Bowry, my agent, was the person who alerted me to the Common Goal scheme and once I read a bit about it, it was something that I really thought I wanted to be part of.
“No one else knew that I was signing up. I was going to talk to most of the Bournemouth lads about it, but I had a baby daughter the night before so I was a bit preoccupied. But as soon as the news about Common Goal came out, everyone was asking about it, wanting to know what they can do, and hopefully more can join up.”
Alfie Mawson, the Swansea City defender, is the other English player to have signed up and it is easy to see why Jürgen Griesbeck, the Common Goal chief executive, described the pair as “perfect additions”. Both have played in all four divisions, showed a combination of perseverance and self-belief to get to the top, and earned a reputation along the way for being decent, down-to-earth people as well as talented footballers.
I’m not Charlie Daniels the Premier League player with my friends. I’m just Charlie – and they let me know it as well
“It’s probably thanks to my family and friends that I’ve grown up this way and joined the charity,” Daniels says. “My mum and dad were very good during my upbringing. My dad was in the army so he was very influential on the way I should act in society and around people – how I conduct myself. And my mum was very big on education when I was growing up, getting my qualifications before I became a footballer, just in case. A combination of those two is probably a big reason why I’ve been so successful.
“I’ve also had a tight-knit group of friends for a long time, probably since I was six or seven. One was at primary school with me and one lived on my road, they’re my real close friends. There are a few others as well and they’ve been a really big part of what’s happened and never let me get carried away. I’m not Charlie Daniels the Premier League player with them. I’m just Charlie – and they let me know it as well. It’s just nice to have friends like that who see you for who you are and not what you are.”
Some will probably wonder why more Premier League players have not followed Mata’s example by getting behind a project that is supporting 120 organisations that use football for social change across 80 countries. Daniels hopes the numbers will grow but the last thing he wants to be seen to be doing is putting his peers under any pressure.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Charlie Daniels says ambitions are high at Bournemouth: ‘The manager we have here will never be happy with just staying in the Premier League.’ Photograph: Dylan Martinez/Reuters
“A lot of people have their own charities that they’re affiliated to,” he says. “For example, here at Bournemouth I know Asmir Begovic has his own foundation and Harry Arter, obviously with what happened [his first daughter was stillborn], does things for his charity. So this isn’t something I’d force people to do. I’d like them to be drawn towards it rather than being pushed into doing something. But hopefully loads more do come on board.”
Daniels admits his outlook on life has changed since becoming a father for the first time two years ago, in particular when it comes to the emotions he feels whenever watching anything on television to do with children suffering. Yet he also makes the point he believes he would have wanted to be part of Mata’s initiative if it had been around a decade ago, back in the days when parenthood was a long way from his mind, money was a lot tighter and he was playing in the lower leagues for Orient. “I don’t think it would have been that well publicised if I was a League One or League Two player,” he says. “But I still like to think that I’d have joined up.”
He smiles when he thinks back to his time at Orient, remembering how he gave Andros Townsend a lift to training one season and Harry Kane the next. “I knew kind of who ‘H’ was before. But I knew Andros more – I took him a few times because he couldn’t drive. H’s mum and dad lived around the corner from where I was at the time, so I used to pick him up when he joined Orient. Even then you could see how good he was. He didn’t have the physical stature that he has now but his finishing was top quality and he scored some important goals for us, even as a 17-year-old.”
Daniels has a deep affinity with Orient because of the part they played in launching his career and says he feels “great sadness” when he looks at where the club is now – languishing in the lower reaches of the National League after losing their Football League status last season. He had already been at Orient on loan before joining them permanently in 2009 from Spurs, where the arrival of a talented teenager, who played in the same position as him, led to a conversation with the manager about his future.
“I went to see Harry [Redknapp] because they’d signed Gareth Bale,” Daniels says. “I’d tried as much as I could to get into the first team at Tottenham, had a couple of loan spells and decided it was the time to go. I had a whole season on loan at Orient the previous season, really enjoyed it and didn’t have to move [home] because they were my local team.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Charlie Daniels used to drive Andros Townsend and Harry Kane to training at Leyton Orient. ‘Even then you could see how good he was,’ he says of Kane. Photograph: PhilYeomans/BNPS
Daniels moved on to Bournemouth in November 2011, when they were in League One, and has been an integral part of their remarkable progress, making more than 200 appearances across seven seasons spent in three different divisions. His rampaging runs down the left flank have led to eight goals and nine assists in the Premier League, including that extraordinary strike against Manchester City in August that won him the goal of the month award.
Could it be goal of the season? “Maybe. I don’t think you can beat a half-volley off the bar but we’ll see,” Daniels says.
“It was a nice strike, I can’t deny it, and definitely the best of my career. When you connect like that, you don’t feel the ball hitting your foot, it just shoots straight off. When it hit the bar and then the inside of the side-netting, I went a bit crazy.”
That was a personal highlight in what was has been a difficult start to the season for Bournemouth, who head to Newcastle on Saturday looking for the win that could lift them out of the bottom three. Not that Daniels sounds like a player who is worried about a relegation scrap. “The manager we have here will never be happy with just staying in the Premier League,” he says. “Every season that I’ve been here we’ve finished higher than the previous one and it’s something that we look to do at the start of every season, to progress and get better. We haven’t started as well as we’d hoped, but there’s a long way to go and hopefully we can match or even do better than last season.”
As for life off the pitch, Daniels is excited about watching the Common Goal project grow and already thinking about not just handing over money but also travelling to see some of the children whose lives it could help to change for the better.
“I’d like to do that,” he says. “For me it was about contributing and being part of it. But if I could go out there and see the charity work, to see what they’re actually doing, that would be absolutely fantastic.”Recent TV series based on literature have adapted their written origins with varying degrees of reverence. There's the Game of Thrones approach, in which the series is essentially a direct translation of the source material. There's the Dexter approach, which uses the basic concept of the source material as a springboard for all-new storylines with no direct corollary in the books. And there's The Walking Dead approach, which feels a little like the playground game "Telephone": It's the same rough story, with details added or lost in the translation. The TV adaptation of The Walking Dead has hit all the comics' biggest beats (Rick's coma, Hershel's Farm, and now Shane's death), but added its own detours along the way (the Dixon brothers, the CDC).
Shane's stay of execution is the TV series' farthest-reaching deviation from the comic series, and arguably its best. At the very least, it's a decision that led to many of the uneven second season's strongest moments, from Shane's murder of Otis to the revelation that Sophia was a zombie after Shane opened the Greene family's barn. The show will miss Bernthal—who's a fine actor—but perhaps even more so it will miss Shane, who's been the catalyst for virtually every interesting thing that's happened this season.
But there's another, less remarked-upon reason that the various Shane-driven plot twists have worked so well for the TV series: they're completely different than what happens in the comics. With Shane out of the picture in the comics, Otis doesn't die until a zombie attack that happens many issues later. And 94 issues into the series, Sophia is still going strong. (Viewed in this light, the TV series is a kind of Bizarro-World version of It's a Wonderful Life for Shane: How many lives were worse because he lived?).
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman said that he believes in "staying true to the comic and adapting things as closely as we can when it fits and when it feels necessary." That's certainly true for Shane, whose death was planned for the TV adaptation "before the first episode of season one was shot." Consequently, "Better Angels" gives Shane's death scene the weight and import that it deserves, and it even manages to mix up the details; in the comics, Carl shoots and kills Shane before he's a zombie, not after. But the death of Shane is a risky move for the series on every conceivable level: It's the loss of the series' primary antagonist and its most interesting character—and it's playing right into the expectations of the comic series' fans.
Consider, by contrast, Dale's death in last week's "Judge, Jury, Executioner." Fans of the comics, who know that Dale and Andrea eventually end up romantically involved, anticipated Andrea putting aside her anger and realizing her true feelings for Dale—even though a change so abrupt would have seemed (and been) completely implausible for Andrea's character in the TV
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] and individual income[275] show lower levels of inequality[276] than some other sources (Saez and Piketty, and the CBO), but do not include data for the highest-income households where most of change in income distribution has occurred.[151][277][278][279]
Two commonly cited sources of income inequality data are the CBO and economist Emmanuel Saez, which differ somewhat in their sources and methods. According to Saez, for 2011 the share of "market income less transfers" received by the top 1% was about 19.5%. Saez used IRS data in this measure.[72] The CBO uses both IRS data and Census data in its computations and reported a lower "pre-tax" figure for the top 1% of 14.6%.[3] The two data series were approximately 5 percentage points apart in recent years.
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data [ edit ]
Pioneers in the use of IRS income data to analyze income distribution are Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty at the Paris School of Economics showed that the share of income held by the top 1 percent was as large in 2005 as in 1928.[18] Other sources that have noted the increased inequality included economist Janet Yellen who stated, "the growth [in real income] was heavily concentrated at the very tip of the top, that is, the top 1 percent."[83] Follow-up research, published in 2014, by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman revealed that more than half of those in the top 1 percent had not experienced relative gains in wealth between 1960 and 2012. In fact, those between the top 1 percent and top.5 percent had actually lost relative wealth. Only those in the top.1 percent and above had made relative wealth gains during that time.[280]
Census Bureau data [ edit ]
[281] U.S. median family income from 2001 to 2016 (real, measured in 2016 dollars), with comparative statistics, from the Fed Survey of Consumer Finances. The top decile and bottom quintile had real increases in income comparing 2001 and 2016, while the 20th to 80th percentiles has decreases. For all families, the median was $54,100 in 2001 and $52,700 in 2016, a slight decline. Note this differs from real median household income, which hit a record level in 2016.
The comparative use of Census Bureau data, as well as most sources of demographic income data, has been questioned by statisticians for being unable to account for'mobility of incomes'. At any given time, the Census Bureau ranks all households by household income and then divides this distribution of households into quintiles. The highest-ranked household in each quintile provides the upper income limit for each quintile. Comparing changes in these upper income limits for different quintiles is how changes are measured between one moment in time and the next. The problem with inferring income inequality on this basis is that the census statistics provide only a snapshot of income distribution in the U.S., at individual points in time. The statistics do not reflect the reality that income for many households changes over time – i.e., incomes are mobile. For most people, income increases over time as they move from their first, low-paying job in high school to a better-paying job later in their lives. Also, some people lose income over time because of business-cycle contractions, demotions, career changes, retirement, etc. The implication of changing individual incomes is that individual households do not remain in the same income quintiles over time. Thus, comparing different income quintiles over time is like comparing apples to oranges, because it means comparing incomes of different people at different stages in their earnings profile.[282][283]
Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution notes that many economists and analysts who use U.S. census data fail to recognize recent and significant lower- and middle-income gains, primarily because census data does not capture key information: "A commonly used indicator of middle class income is the Census Bureau's estimate of median household money income. The main problem with this income measure is that it only reflects households' before-tax cash incomes. It fails to account for changing tax burdens and the impact of income sources that do not take the form of cash. This means, for example, that tax cuts in 2001-2003 and 2008-2012 are missed in the census statistics. Furthermore, the Census Bureau measure ignores income received as in-kind benefits and health insurance coverage from employers and the government. By ignoring such benefits as well as sizeable tax cuts in the recession, the Census Bureau's money income measure seriously overstated the income losses that middle-income families suffered in the recession.[284]
New CBO income statistics are beginning to show the growing importance of these items. In 1980, in-kind benefits and employer and government spending on health insurance accounted for just 6% of the after-tax incomes of households in the middle one-fifth of the distribution. By 2010 these in-kind income sources represented 17% of middle class households' after-tax income. The income items missed by the Census Bureau are increasing faster than the income items included in its money income measure. What many observers miss, however, is the success of the nation's tax and transfer systems in protecting low- and middle-income Americans against the full effects of a depressed economy. As a result of these programs, the spendable incomes of poor and middle-class families have been better insulated against recession-driven losses than the incomes of Americans in the top 1%. As the CBO statistics demonstrate, incomes in the middle and at the bottom of the distribution have fared better since 2000 than incomes at the very top."[284]
Income measures: Pre-and post-tax [ edit ]
Inequality can be measured before and after the effects of taxes and transfer payments such as social security and unemployment insurance.
Market income, or income before taxes & transfers: Expertise, productiveness and work experience, inheritance, gender, and race have had a strong influence on distribution of personal income [285] [286] in the United States as in other countries.
in the United States as in other countries. After taxes & transfers: Reducing the progressivity of the income tax system and transfers increases income inequality. CBO reported in 2011 that: "The equalizing effect of transfers declined over the 1979–2007 period primarily because the distribution of transfers became less progressive. The equalizing effect of federal taxes also declined over the period, in part because the amount of federal taxes shrank as a share of market income and in part because of changes in the progressivity of the federal tax system."[241]
Demographic issues [ edit ]
Comparisons of income over time should adjust for changes in average age, family size, number of breadwinners, and other characteristics of a population. Measuring personal income ignores dependent children, but household income also has problems – a household of ten has a lower standard of living than one of two people, though the income of the two households may be the same.[287] People's earnings tend to rise over their working lifetimes, so "snapshot measures of income inequality can be misleading."[288] The inequality of a recent college graduate and a 55-year-old at the peak of his/her career is not an issue if the graduate has the same career path.
Conservative researchers and organizations have focused on the flaws of household income as a measure for standard of living in order to refute claims that income inequality is growing, becoming excessive or posing a problem for society.[289] According to sociologist Dennis Gilbert, growing inequality can be explained in part by growing participation of women in the workforce. High earning households are more likely to be dual earner households,[21] And according to a 2004 analysis of income quintile data by the Heritage Foundation, inequality becomes less when household income is adjusted for size of household. Aggregate share of income held by the upper quintile (the top earning 20 percent) decreases by 20.3% when figures are adjusted to reflect household size.[290]
However the Pew Research Center found household income has appeared to decline less than individual income in the twenty-first century because those who are no longer able to afford their own housing have increasingly been moving in witTurkey’s female bikers demonstrate with powder and paint - and shorts
Nazlan Ertan - İZMİR
DHA photo
Thousands of female bikers from 28 cities in Turkey and Turkish Cyprus got behind the handle bars on Sept. 24 for the annual Chic Women’s Bicycle Tour in a peaceful demonstration that combined feminism and green transport.The bike tour, initiated by İzmir-based history teacher and latecomer to cycling Sema Gür four years ago, was a modest attempt to create awareness and encouragement for women who want to bike. But quickly the event has evolved into a rights platform, where women put on their most colorful costumes, decorate their bikes and push the pedals for more rights and less harassment, both on the road and in life.At this year’s Chic Women’s Bicycle Tour, which took place in 28 cities including Istanbul, İzmir, the Marmara province of Bursa and the Central Anatolian province of Çorum, there were a number of participants who wore shorts – a reference to Ayşegül Terzi, a nurse who was recently attacked by a man in Istanbul for wearing shorts while riding on public transportation.The event was also linked on social media to a fatwa by Iran’s Ali Khamenei that bans women from cycling in public, even if met the Islamic republic’s clothing rules. “Look how Turks can cycle easily, while Iranian women cannot. Thank you [Mustafa Kemal] Atatürk!” said a tweet about the event.“We have the Chic Women Bicycle Tour because we are women and we want to be visible,” said Gür at the beginning of the tour that started in İzmir’s Konak district and ended at the city’s Republic Square. At the end of the ride the women parked their bicycles in the shape of a heart and danced to the sound of the 1970’s Turkish pop hit “Hayat Bayram Olsa” (If Only Life was a Feast).“A society can only breathe through the visibility of their women – when they are on the road or anywhere in their daily life, without any fear. A bicycle is a sign of liberty. We are here as free individuals and we demand respect for everybody’s individual liberties,” she said. The crowds cheered as she delivered the punchline: “We want respect for bicycles, for female bikers. We demand respect for women.”This clear message was carefully crafted after much deliberation in the wake of recent abuses against women.“I am under a lot of pressure to make this bicycle tour a protest movement for Terzi and urge everyone to come in shorts,” Gür told the Daily News a few days before the tour. “This is not a single-issue demonstration – the tour is a platform whose only condition is that women who want to participate dress up and decorate their bikes. Those who want to come with shorts are welcome, as well as those who want to come with headscarves. This is open to all women - in shorts, headscarved, LGBTI and all.”“In the beginning, it was simply an attempt to make cycling more women-friendly,” Gür said. “I started cycling as I approached my 40s and saw immediately that it was not a sport that accommodated women. Everything was very masculine - the routes chosen, the lycra clothes, the soberness of bikes… So I decided that I would wear skirts, put flowers on my bike and create a movement that encourages women to cycle on their terms, with their idea of aesthetics. I put forward the idea of having a Chic Women’s Bicycle Tour on Facebook, not sure whether it would take off. I wanted it to be a festival that is part of the World Clean Mobility Week celebrations every year.”“I guess we did get the wheels moving,” Gür added. “We have started a relationship of cooperation with the İzmir Municipality and they have set up a Bicycle Desk, whose members take up our complaints. It is a good beginning but more needs to be done. When I bike on the sea front to the city center, I stop at least a dozen times. The construction in the city has completely paralyzed the bike route and we have not been offered an alternative.”In recent years, several women’s bicycling initiatives have been founded. The Istanbul-based Women Bicyclists’ Initiative, which was established in 2015, just published a bicycling guide for women – a small booklet that helps them get a start in biking, explaining traffic rules, fun ways to integrate biking into daily life and stories of women who bike.Despite the small- and medium-scale movements, however, biking is still rare in Turkey and rarer still among women. Only 17 percent of the population uses a bike – a number that falls to 5 percent when you look at the female population. Only six in 1,000 women in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest and arguably most modern city, use a bicycle in their daily lives. This is not related to religion. Unlike in Iran, there is not a “religion link.”Asked about this, Turkey’s religious authorities say that bikes are admissible for both men and women, provided they behave in a manner that does not conflict with customs, such as dressing provocatively.However, 65 percent of women would like to ride a bike. This is precisely Gür’s target group. “Buy that bike, borrow it, take it out of that storage whatever and decorate it. Own it by making it beautiful. Come out with us with colorful hats and headbands and flowers in your hair. Be visible and fearless,” said Gür. And the women in İzmir, Istanbul and many other cities just did that.New Common Weal report tackles the end of the 'Wilson Doctrine' and proposes a new data sovereignty strategy for Scotland
A REPORT published today by Common Weal proposes a new plan to ensure Scottish data security and sovereignty after the revelation in the Daily Record on 24 July that the UK Government had revoked the spying ban on devolved parliaments, leaving MSPs at Holyrood open to hacking of communications by GCHQ.
The report can be downloaded here.
The report makes the case for a 'national open source transition plan' in Scotland to open source software, akin to the response of the Brazilian government after it was revealed that NSA had spied on the Brazilian national oil company, Petrobas.
It also argues that with other governments, including China, moving to open source software, there is a potential for Scotland to be a global leader in the emerging open source market, if serious government investment is provided to the industry. This would include grant funding for critical infrastructure projects, procurement legislation changed to favour open source software and amending Scottish Enterprise guidelines.
The report, written by Open Rights Group Scotland advisory board member and IT professional Alistair Davidson, also recommends that all Scottish Government communications should be encrypted as an immediate measure in response to the end of the 'Wilson Doctrine'. Davidson argues that even if the guidelines against spying were re-introduced by the UK Government, it would not offer sufficient protection to MSPs as it is not enforceable by law.
"For the people and businesses of Scotland to know that their communications are secure, we need to move towards a situation where the computer software we use is open to public audit." Alistair Davidson, report author
Davidson looks at the implications of the Edward Snowden revelations of US and UK spying programmes, and how proprietary software has been used to create 'back-doors' for NSA spying of innocent citizens and businesses. Davidson argues that this makes internet users susceptible to attack from criminal organisations and terrorists as well. This is in contrast to open source software, in which there is no coding encryption and is publicly auditable.
Report author Alistair Davidson said: "The revelation in the Daily Record that GCHQ has authorised itself to spy on devolved parliaments and their communications with constituents is the latest demonstration that mass surveillance of the internet is a threat to our democratic process. The security of the tools we rely on to conduct politics and commerce has been undermined, as any back door available to the security services risks being discovered and used by foreign powers or criminals.
"For the people and businesses of Scotland to know that their communications are secure, we need to move towards a situation where the computer software we use is open to public audit, to ensure there are no secret back doors.
"Countries such as Brazil are making this transition, and for example the city of Munich completed a transition to auditable open source software over a ten year period. By using procurement and grant funding to prime the market, we can not only secure our nation but also position ourselves to take full advantage of huge commercial opportunities in emerging markets."
"Information...is a resource which Scotland can use, openly and collectively, to create both prosperity and real improvements in people's lives." Robin McAlpine
Common Weal Director Robin McAlpine said: "Information and data is now recognised as one of the most important resources the world has. It is a resource which Scotland can use, openly and collectively, to create both prosperity and real improvements in people's lives. At the same time it can be used maliciously and in secret in ways which harm our society. Scotland needs to act to encourage effective, positive use of data and to prevent the abuse of data."
For more Common Weal Policy work visit allofusfirst.org/policy
Picture Courtesy of CommonSpaceIntroduction
Strengths of the Canon EF 100mm f/2 USM include:
Good resolution, perfect for photographers looking to earn income by taking portraits, or shooting weddings.
Its brightness, with the lens measuring a transmission score of 2.2 T-stop. This makes the lens incredibly attractive for low light environments, but also for photographers wanting to snap pictures with a very shallow depth of field.
Its excellent control of chromatic aberration.
Limited distortion, with the defect remaining absent in most circumstances.
Good control of lens shading and vignetting.
The camera’s one weakness is the absence of stabilization technology, making it more vulnerable and susceptible to mobtion blur. Photographers will need a steady hand, especially when shooting at low speeds.
The Canon EF 100mm f/2 USM looks remarkably similar to the Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM. Both are black, lightweight and compact, and affordable – the EF 85mm f/1.8 USM is priced at around $380 (USD), and the EF 100mm f/2 USM costs about $440.
The two even have similar lens performances. The duo produce minimal image distortion, control chromatic aberration and vignetting, and they’re both ideal candidates for working in low light conditions. But don’t let appearances or their similar image performances fool you, these two lenses have a few distinguishing differences.
Limiting resolution map in the image field at selected focal length and aperture
What separates the two can be found in their resolution. The EF 85mm f/1.8 USM’s resolution of 66 lp/mm spanked the EF 100mm f/2 USM’s already solid sharpness rating of 59 lp/mm. The EF 85mm f/1.8 USM’s resolution is impressive in that its sharpness is applied beyond the center of an image and into the corners and edges, especially at middle apertures like f/5.6.
German-based optics company Carl Zeiss AG and Japanese manufacturer Sigma are prolific makers of lenses that compete with Canon’s vast selection of lenses. The two rivals have products that are in direct competition to the EF 100mm f/2 USM.
The sleek, but expensive ($1,840) Carl Zeiss Makro-Planar T 100mm f/2 ZE for Canon has strikingly similar image quality results to the Canon EF 100mm f/2 USM: both are bright, have identical resolution scores, and similar control of chromatic aberration and vignetting. The lenses big differences rest with their mechanics. Like most of the Carl Zeiss Z-series of lenses, the 100mm f/2 ZE only has manual focus. On the upside, its macro capabilities give photographers the flexibility of a portrait lens combined with the added benefit of taking incredible macro-oriented detail shots.
Sigma’s 105mm f/2.8 EX DG OS HSM, costing $970, also received high image quality grades for its ability to keep distortion, vignetting, and chromatic aberration in check. Other big perks of Sigma’s 105mm include:
Its slightly stronger resolution, 61 lp/mm, compared to Carl Zeiss’s macro 100mm f/2 ZE and Canon’s EF 100mm f/2 USM resolution score of 59 lp/mm.
Its stabilization system, which will help limit motion blur for photographers shoot in fast-paced environments like a basketball game.
The lens’ one weak point, at least compared to its Canon and Carl Zeiss equivalents, is that it is not as bright. Its transmission score of 3 T-stops, while good, cannot compete with the Canon EF 100mm f/2 USM’s 2.2 T-stops and the Carl Zeiss Makro-Planar T 100mm f/2 ZE’s 2.3 T-stops.
The Canon EF 100mm f/2 USM proved its hype during DxOMark testing – capable of producing images with strong resolution and limited defects – making it one of the best performing lenses in its class. Costing under $500, it is also one of the most affordable portrait lenses. Its price and strong image quality production make it an extremely good value, and difficult for other lenses to compete with.× This page contains archived content and is no longer being updated. At the time of publication, it represented the best available science.
Launched in March 2009, NASA’s IceBridge mission is the world’s largest airborne survey of polar ice. The mission is aimed at filling the gap between the end of the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), and the launch of ICESAT-2 (planned for 2015). In the spring of 2011, IceBridge pilots were busy over Greenland, Alaska, and the Arctic Ocean.
On March 29, sunny weather allowed scientists a clear view of deep canyons, or fjords, along the coast of northwestern Greenland. Thin, rocky ridges between the fjords cast their shadows nearly sideways, thanks to low-angled sunlight. Ice rests on the sea surface, and icebergs near the shore poke above the smooth sea ice. The area shown lies in the same region where the Petermann Glacier calved in the summer of 2010.
The acquisition of this photograph came right after a key milestone in the IceBridge mission. NASA’s IceBridge–Arctic 2011 team reported:
On March 28, IceBridge flew its eighth sea ice flight, marking the completion of all high- and medium-priority sea ice missions planned from Thule. Among the sea ice missions was a science transit back from Fairbanks to Thule on March 25, during which the P-3 surveyed in complete darkness. Researchers watched the scanning pattern of the green lasers on the sea ice below and the beautiful Aurora Borealis above.
Equipped with a 10,000-foot runway, Thule is a busy airfield, operating more than 3,000 U.S. and international flights each year. Multiple IceBridge participants blogging on the Earth Observatory have recounted the same experience: stepping into the cold at Thule to find the insides of their noses frozen.
As IceBridge flights monitor Greenland’s ice, so do scientists. The island has experienced widespread glacier melt since the turn of the 21st century. A Nature Geoscience paper published in 2010 concluded that, at their fronts, glaciers in western Greenland are melting as much as 100 times faster on their bottoms than on their tops. The higher rate of melting is driven by warming ocean waters.
NASA photo courtesy Michael Studinger. Caption by Michon Scott.Authored By Adam Green
@GaryVee is a biweekly column featuring entrepreneur and social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk, where he will share advice on business and leadership with the Chattanooga community.
I’m scared. I’m scared because I know exactly what happens around this month every year. There are so many of you who have graduated (or will be graduating) and still have no idea what you want to do with your life. And you know what? That’s OK! Most people don’t. You shouldn’t be stressed about that. What I’m scared about is that you don’t realize that you are entering the greatest five-year window of your life.
If you are 22 years old, regardless if you’re graduating from college or not, there are two things you should keep in mind. The first is to acknowledge that you are entering some of the greatest years of your life. The second is that this is the moment when you don’t go practical-don’t take the “safe” route. This is NOT the time to get the job Mom always wanted you to get. This is NOT the time to try to maximize as much money as you can make so you can save up to buy a sick ride. This IS the time, however, to realize that you have a five-year window (three for some, eight for others) for you to attack the life that you want to win.
Something else that scares me is the naïveté of what the world is like after graduation. I am by no means saying that “winning” is going to be easy. It’s not. What you’ve been doing for the past 16 years is easy. Classes and school are easy because they’re structured. The world? It’s hard. It changes every day.
The fact is that the world is going to be exactly the way it is going to be without regard to the way you thought it would be, think it should be, or whatever big plans you’ve already made for yourself. Your parents might have already told you it’ll be one way, but they don’t really know. They just want you to do what they think is best, which usually means avoiding big risks. But what you need to recognize is that now is the time when you can afford to take those risks.
What I wrote above is going to contradict what I’m about to tell you now. Even though the real world is hard, the next five years of your life will be the opposite. These will be the best and easiest years of your life because it’s your chance to attack what you love and try out what you want to do. Why? Because you don’t have all the baggage.
Look, I understand you might have college loans. I respect that financial debt is a real hardship. You may have to live up to the expectations of your parents. That’s mentally hard-fake hard. You may have many other obligations, but this time is exactly when you can live with four roommates in a basement and eat fast food.
Most of you don’t have children yet. Most of you are not married and have not yet promised your life to someone else. So this is the time before the world has sucked out all your hopes and dreams. You still have this window-the next five years to help you achieve your goals.
Time is the No. 1 asset, and now is when you have the most flexibility to use it.
I’m sure some people will leave comments about their loans or whatever other financial obligations they might have. Again, I respect that. But one way or the other, that loan is going to be there whether you build something for yourself or not in these five years. I truly believe that you can wake up on your 26th or 27th birthday, start being practical, and still pay off your loans and any other debts. While I’m sure those obligations might have compounded interest, leaving the opportunity of “going for it” in those five years (especially if you have entrepreneurial DNA) is a mistake and actually lacks practicality.
Yet so many of you are so hungry for short-term gains right after college. For example, you would rather take the job that maximizes your pay at $3,000 more a year, despite the fact that you would have enjoyed a lower-paying job more suited for you. For what? For a new iPhone? A slightly nicer apartment? You get to live life one time.
(By the way, you can work at night! This is when you put in your 18 hours a day to make the life that you want happen. That’s practicality.)
Promise me, all you youngsters who are reading this, that you understand that the land grab for happiness starts right now. You don’t have to worry about getting “that job.” What you should do is go and travel and learn. Go and start that business you always wanted. Travel with those three friends and start that band. This is the time to be massively risk-oriented. There will be plenty of time to be risk-averse later. Now is the time to understand what’s actually happening and map your behavior to something that will impact you for the next 80 years of your life.
When you are in your early 20s, this is when you can grind at your highest level because you don’t have the baggage that comes later in life. It’s harder for the 42-year-olds to listen to this advice. At that point, you can’t just wake up tomorrow and say, “Let’s go” because little Sally has soccer practice and you have a million other things that are holding you down.
If you are lucky enough to be graduating today without any clue about what you want to do with your future, no one’s ever been luckier than you. Please recognize that.
Note: This column was originally published as a post on Gary Vaynerchuk’s blog.
Gary Vaynerchuk is a serial entrepreneur, CEO, investor, keynote speaker and social media expert. He was named to both Fortune and Crain’s 40 under 40 lists in consecutive years and has been profiled in The New York Times, Fortune and Inc. You can connect with him through Facebook, Twitter and his YouTube show called The #AskGaryVee Show.The opinions expressed in this column belong solely to the author, not Nooga.com or its employees.Canadians are willing to pay more taxes to help close the growing income gap and want corporations to pay higher tax rates too, according to a new poll released Tuesday.
The survey of 2,000 Canadians, commissioned by the left-leaning Broadbent Institute, found that 23 per cent are "very willing" and 41 per cent are "somewhat willing" to pay slightly more tax in order to protect social programs such as health care, post-secondary education and pensions.
The Broadbent Institute, named after the NDP's former leader Ed Broadbent, argues that protecting social programs would help reduce income inequality.
Liberal and NDP voters are the most supportive of this proposal, the results showed, but 58 per cent of Conservative voters are also in favour of it.
"This attitude toward paying slightly higher taxes is reflected equally in high income and middle income Canadian households. It's only their governments who are offside," says the report, the first from the newly established think tank.
The phone survey was conducted between March 6 and March 18. The results are considered accurate to within 2.2 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
P.O.V. Should the wealthy pay higher income taxes? Take our survey.
A majority of Canadians – even wealthy ones – are behind the idea of raising income taxes on people who earn more than $250,000 and more than $500,000. The poll found 83 per cent are in favour of that idea.
And 73 per cent agree with raising corporate taxes back up to 2008 levels. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has steadily lowered the rates since taking office in 2006, arguing the tax breaks help corporations create more jobs. The NDP and Liberals are opposed to the lower rates, saying they haven’t helped create new jobs and that corporations are just sitting on higher profits.
Canadians 'disturbed' by inequality
The poll results go against Conservative mythology, said Broadbent, speaking to Evan Solomon, host of CBC-TV's Power & Politics.
"It shows that Canadians are way ahead of their politicians… 64 per cent of Canadians say they themselves are prepared to pay more taxes. Not just the rich, not just corporations," Broadbent said.
"Canadians are … really disturbed by the degree of inequality and they are prepared now to do something about it."
Broadbent says there's "a global move" to increase taxes on the super rich.
"Canadian politicians, I repeat, are behind the people of Canada on this issue," he said.
The survey, conducted by Environics Research Group, found that a majority of Conservative voters support higher corporate taxes.
It also shows that 69 per cent of Canadians support the introduction of an inheritance tax on any estate valued at more than $5 million.
The Broadbent Institute says the poll shows that the problem of income inequality is not an ideological one and that even the wealthy agree that they should play their part in addressing it.
It calls on governments to match public opinion and take action to reduce income inequality.
The survey showed that 77 per cent of respondents agree that widening income gaps are a big problem for Canada that will have long-term consequences and 71 per cent agreed that income inequality undermines Canadian values.Rehana Kausar and Sobia Kamar, who were joined in a civil union in the UK, seek refuge because they say they will be persecuted for their sexuality in Pakistan
A Muslim lesbian couple from Pakistan have been joined in a civil union in the UK and seek political asylum saying they will be persecuted for their sexuality if they return to their home country.
Rehana Kausar, 34, and Sobia Kamar, 29 became civil partners in a ceremony earlier this month in Leeds.
‘This country allows us rights and it’s a very personal decision that we have taken,’ said Kausar to the Birmingham Mail.
‘The problem with Pakistan is that everyone believes he is in charge of other people lives and can best decide about the morals of others, but that’s not the right approach.’
In Pakistan same-sex relationships are out-lawed by Islamic law.
‘They have been very brave throughout as our religion does not condone homosexuality,’ the Birmingham Mail quotes a relative as saying.
‘The couple have had their lives threatened both here and in Pakistan and there is no way they could ever return there.’
The couple met in the UK around three years ago when the were both studying business and healthcare management in Birmingham and lived together in South Yorkshire for a year before deciding to undertake a civil union.35User Rating: 3 out of 5
Review title of OhGodDontShoot Dear Doug TenNapel
I really love this Neverhoody world you've created. I love the stopmotion, and I adore the score by Terry Scott Taylor. But you really need to spend more time on the story and characters. I know this is a kids game, but that doesn't mean you can't give Tommynaut a character arc, or make Vognaut sympathetic. These 2 characters aren't dynamic, and we're expected to believe that they're brothers? It's not a bad game, but when the backstory about Zturk and Meva is 100 times more interesting than the main story, that's a serious problem. I'm sorry for my harsh words, but it's only out of love and admiration for the Neverhood Universe that I say this. I want you do better because I know you CAN do better. I want to see more from this world. I don't want the Neverhood to fade into obscurity. I hope you continue making these games. As long as you do, I will buy them. Just spend some more time fleshing these characters out. Heck, if you want writing advice, I would gladly help. Love Tristan.A California-based online entertainment network has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it engaged in deceptive advertising by paying “influencers” to post YouTube videos endorsing Microsoft’s Xbox One system and several games. The influencers paid by Machinima, Inc., failed to adequately disclose that they were being paid for their seemingly objective opinions, the FTC charged.
Under the proposed settlement, Machinima is prohibited from similar deceptive conduct in the future, and the company is required to ensure its influencers clearly disclose when they have been compensated in exchange for their endorsements.
“When people see a product touted online, they have a right to know whether they’re looking at an authentic opinion or a paid marketing pitch,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection. “That’s true whether the endorsement appears in a video or any other media.”
According to the FTC’s complaint, Machinima and its influencers were part of an Xbox One marketing campaign managed by Microsoft’s advertising agency, Starcom MediaVest Group. Machinima guaranteed Starcom that the influencer videos would be viewed at least 19 million times.
In the first phase of the marketing campaign, a small group of influencers were given access to pre-release versions of the Xbox One console and video games in order to produce and upload two endorsement videos each. According to the FTC, Machinima paid two of these endorsers $15,000 and $30,000 for producing You Tube videos that garnered 250,000 and 730,000 views, respectively. In a separate phase of the marketing program, Machinima promised to pay a larger group of influencers $1 for every 1,000 video views, up to a total of $25,000. Machinima did not require any of the influencers to disclose they were being paid for their endorsement.
The order settling the FTC’s charges prohibits Machinima from misrepresenting in any influencer campaign that the endorser is an independent user of the product or service being promoted. Among other things, it also requires the company to prominently disclose any material connection between the endorser and the advertiser, and prohibits Machinima from compensating any influencer who has not made the required disclosures. In addition, it requires the company to follow up within 90 days of the start of a campaign to ensure the disclosures are still being made.
FTC staff also has sent a letter to Microsoft and Starcom closing its investigation into the two companies in this case. According to the letter, while Microsoft and Starcom both were responsible for the influencers’ failure to disclose their material connection to the companies, Commission staff considered the fact that these appeared to be isolated incidents that occurred in spite of, and not in the absence of, policies and procedures designed to prevent such lapses. The companies also quickly required Machinima to remedy the situation after they learned that Machinima was paying influencers without making the necessary disclosures.
The Commission vote to issue the complaint and accept the proposed consent order for public comment was 5-0. The FTC will publish a description of the consent agreement package in the Federal Register shortly. The agreement will be subject to public comment for 30 days, beginning today and continuing through Oct. 2, 2015, after which the Commission will decide whether to make the proposed consent order final. Comments can be submitted electronically.
The FTC appreciates the assistance of the New York State Attorney General’s Office in bringing this case. The Commission recently issued updated questions and answers
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not all United States expungements are considered non-convictions under Canadian law. If you have ever been convicted of operating a motor-vehicle while impaired, it is always advisable to speak with a lawyer before traveling to Canada even if it has been properly expunged. In situations where the expungement is no longer treated as a conviction by Canada, a legal opinion letter can help explain to the CBSA exactly why a person is legally admissible to the country under Canadian law. It does not matter if a person is traveling with a tour group to see Niagara Falls from the Canadian side, to a wedding in Toronto with their husband or wife, or even if they are traveling solo to go fishing or hunting in Canada's backcountry wilderness. Any crime on a foreign national's record, even just a misdemeanor DUI/DWI/OUI/OWI, could potentially result in the individual being refused entry into Canada.
Other impaired driving charges that can potentially make someone inadmissible for international travel are OMVI (Operating a Motor Vehicle while Intoxicated), OVI (Operating a Vehicle Impaired), DUIL (Driving Under the Influence of Liquor), DUII (Driving Under the Influence of an Intoxicant), DWAI (Driving While Ability Impaired), DWUI, DUBAL, and wet reckless driving. Travel to Canada from US with DUI or similar charges appearing on your file can sometimes be hard, so the best strategy if you do not actually have a criminal conviction is usually to carry paperwork with you that proves you are admissible to the country. Even a person living in Canada on a Student Visa or Work Visa can become ineligible to freely leave and re-enter the country if their admissibility status changes due to an impaired driving arrest. Whether you have a first-time DUI with no injuries and need to travel to Canada for business, or you are an individual with permanent residency status who needs to return to their job in Canada, phone our team today to see how our seasoned immigration lawyer can help.
Some of the supporting documents that may be required to support a TRP or Criminal Rehabilitation application are multiple letters of recommendation, a drivers abstract, federal and state police records, and a letter written by the individual explaining why they did what they did and how they have changed and no longer pose a risk to society. Applicants may also need a document from their local Police stating that there is not a warrant out for their arrest. As part of the approval process, the Canadian consulate may perform a deep background check on the individual in an effort to find any other crimes they have ever committed. This can include crimes such as mischief, reckless driving, assault, battery, child abuse, drug trafficking, fraud, possession of marijuana, possession of cocaine, domestic violence, firearms offenses, or even writing a bad check. Possession of a controlled substance is one of the more common crimes in America, and similar to a first offense DUI can render a person inadmissible to Canada. People occasionally get discouraged believing that they are banned from Canada for life because of their past crimes. It does not matter what crimes a person has committed in the past, if they successfully petition the Government for entry permission, visiting Canada with a DUI or criminal record is possible.
After an individual completes their drunk driving sentence, there is sometimes conditions imposed on them in order for them to reinstate their driver's license. Installation of an Ignition Interlock Device or IID is a common one, as are conditional licenses which set restrictions on the driver such as not having any measurable amount of alcohol in their blood when driving, or only being in their vehicle to and from their place of employment. If your license is still suspended, you will obviously not be permitted to drive across the border even if you have a valid 2019 DUI entry Canada TRP. Without a driver's license, your only options will be to fly to Canada or have someone else do the driving.
Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) can turn away any non-Canadian citizen or permanent resident who wants to visit Canada for a large number of factors such as health problems, financial issues, past criminal convictions, or because they pose a general risk to security. Immigration officials determine the admissibility of travelers seeking to enter Canada on a case-by-case basis. Some of the factors used to determine admissibility are health, serious or minor criminality, security, human or international rights violations, misrepresentation, noncompliance, and even if any family members are inadmissible. The CBSA is not stupid! If you show up at the border with a U-Haul trailer packed full of all your belongings and tell them you just want to "visit" Canada, they are obviously going to be very suspicious of your true intentions. DUI entry into Canada can be a lengthy and complex process for individuals who would be refused at the Canadian border without Rehabilitation or a TRP waiver. Even though reports of famous celebrities such as Chris Brown being stopped at the Canadian border and sent back to the United States have made the news (including celebrity gossip website and TV show TMZ), public knowledge in the USA about Canada DUI entry laws is still fairly low. A significant percentage of Americans who are criminally inadmissible to Canada are completely unaware that there are DWI and DUI travel restrictions, and many people have no idea that the Canadian border can potentially see your US DUI punishment thanks to criminal database sharing between the two countries. Even people that live close to the Canadian border such as residents of Northern Washington State who regularly cross the border into BC are not always aware of Canada's DUI entry laws, rules, and restrictions.
An abounding variety of recent criminal convictions can render an individual inadmissible to Canada, including a conviction for drunk driving (DUI or DWI). In some cases, even crimes such as disturbing the peace or mischief are enough to cause someone to be refused entry. A person may be automatically considered rehabilitated ten years after full completion of sentencing for a minor crime, but can apply to be considered rehabilitated after only five years. People who have been convicted of a serious crime, defined as one that could result in a ten year prison sentence or longer, are never automatically deemed to be rehabilitated and must explicitly apply for Criminal Rehab (also called "Individual Rehabilitation"). In Canada, many crimes have a maximum prison sentence of 10+ years to give the judge some leeway, so always consult with a qualified Canada immigration attorney before assuming your crime is not considered to be serious in Canada. Remember, if you show up at the Canada-USA border with a conviction that is more than ten years old but is considered a serious offense in Canada, you may still be refused entry since you will not automatically be deemed rehabilitated! It is also important to remember that the time-period does not start until you have finished serving your sentence (including all jail time and probation) and paid all fines.
DUI Entering Canada
Going to Canada with a DUI for work or even leisure can potentially be easy if you plan ahead and get a permit issued in advance of your travel. Unfortunately, many American citizens and residents do not realize that a DWI can result in Canada denying them entry. Even if you ask the average DUI attorney in the United States "can you get into Canada with a DUI?" some of them will not know the answer. If you are criminally inadmissible because of a DUI but you only learn about the Canada DUI entry laws shortly before your trip, you will have no choice but to cancel your travel plans or apply for a TRP on the spot while crossing the border. The second option is potentially a risky manoeuvre. When it comes to crossing into Canada with a DWI, a foreigner's TRP or Criminal Rehabilitation application should contain details of what lead to the initial arrest. For example, being stopped at a random police roadblock is different than if a state transportation authority police officer or county sheriff identified the person's vehicle as traveling at excessive speed or crossing double lane lines and consequently performed a traffic stop and standard field sobriety test to determine if they were drinking and driving. If a person has any type of DUI or DWI on their record, they potentially risk getting stopped at the Canadian border and denied entry to the country. If you have two DUIs and get a third, of if one of your two DUIs was the result of a car accident or even just a small fender bender, you may get charged with a 3rd degree or felony DWI which can make DUI Canada travel even more difficult. For people wondering how to enter Canada from USA with a DUI, it is imperative to recognize that a second offense DWI often makes it much more difficult to be approved for a Temporary Resident Permit since it will be harder to convince immigration officials that you have reformed.
DUI Entry Canada - Temporary Resident Permit
You can only go into Canada if you have a DWI causing you to be criminally inadmissible if you are issued a Temporary Resident Permit (TRP) or are considered rehabilitated by the appropriate government office. Restrictions on entry to Canada prohibit foreign nationals from crossing the Canadian border with a criminal record that renders them inadmissible due to criminality. Canada denying entry for DUI is commonplace, so it may be smart for select people to avoid such an endeavor unless they have a plan to fix their admissibility troubles. One repeatedly asked question is "can I fly through Canada with a DWI?" When it comes to Canadian immigration and drunk driving admittance, equivalent Canada DWI laws is the only factor that can differentiate a person's eligibility to cross into Canada. When it comes to criminal inadmissibility, there is no difference between driving to Canada, flying to Canada, or flying through Canada; in fact, non-admissible individuals could run into problems during even a short layover at any Canadian airport while in transit between countries unless the government sanctions it.
If you were refused entry to Canada at a border crossing but are unsure why, it may be possible for a Canadian immigration attorney to request on your behalf the notes that accompany your file via the Global Case Management System (GCMS). In countless situations, a person with a DWI conviction applying for a Temporary Residence Permit Canada at the border may be refused a permit and denied entry to the country because they do not have a valid enough reason for visiting the country or because of another immigration violation. To justify receiving an emergency TRP at the border, a person's circumstances for requesting criminal entry should be dire and the individual should otherwise be admissible to the country. In some cases, officials may have been willing to issue a Temporary Resident Permit had the person otherwise been eligible for entry. Reasons other than criminality can also cause an individual to be denied entry however. Examples include intending to work in Canada without the required consent, or other potential concerns of immigration staff such as lack of funds or lack of ties to the United States.
Anyone inadmissible to Canada for health, criminal, or security reasons may only be permitted to enter Canada with special permission. For visitors entering Canada with a Temporary Resident Permit, it is not possible to renew a TRP once the validity of a permit is finished. Since there is no such thing as a TRP renewal, individuals who require future admittance to Canada but are not yet eligible for Rehabilitation can reapply for another permit. Since reapplying for a TRP can be burdensome and success is never guaranteed, the permanent solution of Streamlined Rehabilitation is very attractive once eligible.
DUI Canada Immigration Success Rates
No Canadian immigration law firm or consulting firm should ever speculate on the exact percent chance someone has of being granted a TRP. Doing so would not be reputable, and is typically against Canadian bar society rules. Each and every case is different, and it is very possible for one American with four DUIs to be granted entry, and another on the same day at the same border with only three DUIs to not be approved for entrance. An incomplete CIC application form, lack of supporting documents, or the officer's personal opinion or gut instinct can all have a sizable impact on the final outcome. A person's reason for coming to Canada can also play a decisive role. If you are an artist, actor, professional athlete, musician, or entertainer, or are traveling to assist one, phone our team today to learn how you can apply to be granted entrance to Canada with a DUI via a "national interest" narrative. Tour managers, security personnel, stage hands, publicists, band members, light or sound technicians, coaches, and documentary filmmakers can all potentially apply under this narrative. Canadian entry with DUI is often required by people whose occupation sometimes demands they travel north of the border. From a California computer programmer needing to attend a mobile app development conference in Vancouver, to a New York investment banker trying to land a deal with a Bay Street hedge fund in Toronto, there are thousands of reasons for crossing the Canadian border with a DUI as a business professional. Our team also has experience helping airline staff fly to Canada with a DUI and commercial truck drivers cross the border with a criminal history. We have also helped many entrepreneurs travel to Canada with a DWI, as well as people that own real estate in the country.
How to Get a Temporary Resident Permit
There are several reasons why a TRP application may be refused. Your DUI could have occurred very recently, the immigration official might believe you will re-offend, or you might have overstayed on a previous visit to Canada. You may also be inadmissible to Canada for a reason other than the ones you listed on your TRP application. Your passport could also be expired or expiring soon, or you have may failed to disclose your criminal record at the border during a previous attempt to visit. The punishment for overstaying a Canadian visit can be severe, so whether or not you are traveling on an issued TRP make sure you do not stay in the country for longer than authorities will allow you. If you have already had a TRP issued in the past, it can become increasingly difficult to justify why you need another one. Even if you upheld all the conditions and obligations of your previous TRP, getting a second or third permit can be tough so aim to have your first document cover you for as long as possible if you plan to enter and exit Canada several times in the not too distant future. If you are eligible for Criminal Rehabilitation, immigration officials will not be as inclined to issue you a long-term TRP. The CIC procedure manual states "officers should not consider issuing permits if they believe that frequent travelers, or persons likely to return to Canada in the future, are eligible for Rehabilitation and have not applied for Rehabilitation."
Citizenship and Immigration Canada (C.I.C.) staff who work at inland offices have policy and procedural guidelines that they must follow. These policies cover issuing Temporary Resident Permits to allow Americans who are inadmissible to enter or remain in Canada. The policies also cover the cancellation, expiry, or extension of permits, as well as granting permit holders with permanent resident status. Ports of Entry and Canadian visa offices abroad handle the issuing of a Temporary Resident Permit. The Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) enforcement division handles the removal of persons from Canada, such as wanted fugitives or individuals whose TRP or Canadian residency status has been canceled by authorities. Any persons who do not meet the requirements for entry into Canada can be refused a visa or permit abroad, denied at the border, or refused processing within Canada. Unless an officer has a compelling and credible reason to issue a facilitation travel document they likely will not and they have absolutely no obligations to legally do so. The CIC website offers a permit extension kit, and TRP extensions cost the same fee as the original permit ($155USD, but this fee amount may change in the future depending on the USD/CAD exchange rate). Getting into Canada with an old DUI is possible in 2019 if a person takes the proper measures to collect access privilege from the jurisdiction. Temporary Resident Permits can be applied for through the Canadian visa office in Los Angeles or New York City, or can be presented to the CBSA at the Canadian border in emergency circumstances.
If you are scanning documents to be included in a IRCC application, it is important to use a decent quality scanner to ensure document integrity. It might be tough to receive a favorable decision from an administrator if they cannot even read your biographic information because the image quality is terrible. There are rare examples of TRP fee exemptions which include cases of a lost or stolen permit. Anyone caught smuggling goods across the border not only risks becoming unwelcome in Canada; it is very feasible that the vehicle owner will additionally face criminal charges. TRPs are usually not needed after you expunge a DUI, but you should always consult with a qualified Canadian immigration lawyer to find out for certain because Canada still considers some expunged DUIs to be convictions. While a record clearing hearing expungement document can help prove to immigration officials that you are now admissible to Canada, admittance is invariably at the unexpurgated discretion of the border security officer. While it may be feasible for an individual to go to Canada with a sealed DUI expungement, a legal letter of opinion can help justify to Canadian border guards why he or she should be admitted to the country with an expunged DUI conviction.
If you are a foreign student with a "Driving Under Influence" conviction, you may need Criminal Rehabilitation or a Temporary Resident Permit that gives you permission to be in Canada long enough for you to finish your course. Since TRPs are issued for a pre-determined length of time, you need to think about how long you plan on studying in Canada when applying for one. It may be possible to require both a TRP and a Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) if you are criminally inadmissible to Canada and a citizen of a country that does not enjoy visa-exempt status. The only visitors permitted to work or study in Canada are those who have been issued a work permit or study permit, all other foreign nationals are unable to seek employment legally or go to school while in the country. Americans who were issued a TRP that will not be valid for much longer may be reading this wondering if they can get into Canada with a DWI if their TRP is expiring. The answer is yes, as long as they will be leaving Canada again before the permit expires. If you are in Canada and cannot leave until after your Temporary Resident Permit expires, you must apply for a TRP extension. Depending on the application form you use, you may need to select the "extension of temporary resident permit" option. If you do not leave Canada in time, you will be considered unlawfully in the country which is a violation that can affect your future ability to cross the border.
If you booked a vacation to Canada, such as a fishing trip, hunting trip, or skiing trip, without realizing that you were barred from going into Canada due to your record for driving under the influence, then you may be interested in fast legal help. This can be particularly true if the vacation is non-refundable or you paid a substantial deposit. In situations like this, economic considerations can come into play potentially helping to improve the chances of a candidate being permitted entrance. Rather than fear or threaten border officials, there may be a legal way to potentially travel into Canada with a DWI when you have already pre-paid for a Canadian vacation without realizing you were criminally inadmissible. The most effective way is to politely present a well-prepared and fully compliant TRP application submission to the visa officer that mentions these circumstances and then just relax and answer their questions honestly. Anger management and charitable donations are sometimes part of a DUI plea deal, but not all creditable charities are happy to accept money if the donation is the result of a court order. One famous United States based charity, MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), is known to often refuse donations made by any donor officially associated with alcohol (such as a bar, pub, or nightclub owner).
For a resident of the United States to have their driving privileges reinstated after they have been suspended due to drunk driving, an SR-22 form may be required. SR stands for "safety responsibility," and the document simply verifies that the person has car insurance and is filed with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) directly by the auto insurance company. Although the SR-22 certificate does not cost much, insurance companies typically only charge a small filing fee of $50 or less, requiring one can often lead to higher insurance rates. This is because the SR-22 requirement is often seen as a "red flag" by insurers, and consequently such a prerequisite when shopping for car insurance coverage can raise your risk profile and increase the price of auto insurance quotes you receive.
If you are a criminal, especially if you are classified as a felon, infiltrating another sovereign nation might be impossible depending on which country you desire passage into. Drunk driving penalties vary from one state to another, as do the probation requirements for individuals who have been offered deferred prosecution since it was their first alcohol-related driving offense. In many international travel situations, however, the exact statute you have been convicted under in the United States of America as well as the terms of your sentence do not matter much; it is the local equivalent law that affects border adequacy. If you are unsure of your suitability for visiting a country with a criminal record, an attorney with competence in that country's immigration laws can likely help you prepare for a fruitful entrance.
People who drink and drive and then are arrested may be ineligible to travel through the border regardless of whether it was a first time DUI or a repeat offense. Even if you avoid a conviction because a field sobriety exercise or breath test was not administered correctly, the original arrest may still be visible to border staff, and you may be required to prove that you are eligible to enter. It does not matter if you were drunk on beer, vodka, scotch, rum, whiskey, rye, wine, or simply stoned on legal marijuana edibles, driving under the influence of an intoxicating substance is illegal in every state and can create problems when flying to Toronto or other Canadian airports. If you have one misdemeanor on your record that Canada considers an excludable offense, ten years must pass from the time you completed your sentence to potentially not require a TRP to cross the border, and even then you may incur difficulties. A United States resident with a felony record or a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th DUI may never be automatically deemed rehabilitated by virtue of time, and could still require entrance permission decades later.
Can You Get a Canadian Work Permit If You Have a DWI?
Criminal records can prevent a foreign national from becoming authorized to work in Canada unless he or she can overcome their criminal inadmissibility by way of a TRP or Rehabilitation. Even a crime that occurred 30 years ago can impede an American's ability to obtain a work permit unless they have first obtained criminal entrance permission from the CIC. In addition to study and work permits, a DUI can hinder a person's Express Entry application even if they are highly skilled and have received a job offer in the country already. The only way a foreigner who is ineligible to enter Canada due to criminality can legally work in the country is to obtain both a permit to work as well as a Temporary Resident Permit or Criminal Rehabilitation.
What Documents Are Required to Apply for Criminal Rehabilitation or a TRP?
Applying for a Temporary Resident Permit and applying for Criminal Rehabilitation require many of the same documents! The Act of Parliament and the Contraventions Act are the laws that outline the specific Rehabilitation process for each criminal offense. For people who have been convicted of a felony but want to gain permanent entry to Canada, they must apply for Criminal Rehabilitation via Citizenship & Immigration Canada Form IMM 1444. This involves a plethora of paperwork as heaps of legal documents must be included as part of the application process. These docs generally include an original FBI certificate as well as a state police certificate or letter from a police authority in every state lived in for six consecutive months or longer since turning 18. Other documents can include a letter from the court, proof that all fines, fees and restitution have been paid, a letter from probation officer stating that all sentences have been completed successfully, as well as a letter stating that civil rights have been fully restored. Citizenship and Immigration Canada offers document checklists for most of the immigrant forms on their website. If you are wondering what documents are required to cross the border as a criminal, you can find the Temporary Resident Permit checklist and Criminal Rehabilitation checklist on the Canada.ca website operated by the Government of Canada. When viewing the Temporary Resident Permit document checklist, it is easy to get overwhelmed at the number of documents that must be provided as part of a TRP application or Rehabilitation application.
Obtaining your state criminal background check does not usually take too long, but you must capture your fingerprints to get your original FBI criminal background check. This can be done in two ways - you can capture and electronically submit your fingerprints at a live scan location, or you can make an appointment with your local, county, or state law enforcement agency to have your fingerprints ink-rolled on a fingerprint card. The sheer complexity of managing this extensive application process while balancing a full-time job and other responsibilities is one of the reasons many people hire a Canada immigration lawyer. It is important to have a complete and accurate application as many people simply do not want to risk jeopardizing their entrance to Canada. There are also optional documents such as character reference letters or letters of recommendation from upstanding individuals that can help improve an application's strength. Skilled Canadian immigration lawyers will not only make the entire process much easier, they will also help strengthen your application to maximize your chance of successful admission to Canada. In addition to legal guidance, the CanadaDUIEntryLaw.com team can also save our clients time by providing them with a list of nearby fingerprint scanning locations that are Livescan service providers certified by the state.
What Are the Chances of Entering Canada with DUI?
When evaluating whether or not to bother applying for a TRP, many people ask themselves "what are the chances of entering Canada with a DUI?" Every person's situation is unique, and no reputable professional will ever be able to provide an exact probability of success. Another important question is, what are the consequences of being denied entry to Canada? If a person is just taking a short vacation across the border, perhaps they are willing to accept the risk of being refused entrance. If a person wants to go to Canada with a DUI to attend a business function, however, their risk tolerance likely goes way down. If you wish to secure admittance before attempting to cross the border, the lowest stress route is obtaining advanced entry permission from the Government via a TRP or Rehab.
What Questions Does the Temporary Resident Permit Application Form Ask?
Every single question on the TRP application form must be properly answered or the applicant risks not being issued a T.R.P. Whether you are using Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada Form IMM 5708 "Application to Change Conditions, Extend My Stay or Remain in Canada as a Visitor or Temporary Resident Permit Holder", or IRCC form IMM1444 "Application for Criminal Rehabilitation" (download name imm1444e.pdf on the IRCC website), if you submit an incomplete application you may be denied. The very first question on one of the potential TRP application forms (technically referred to as IRCC IMM 1444 form) asks if you are applying for an extension of temporary resident status, a restoration of temporary resident status as a visitor, or an initial Temporary Resident Permit or Temporary Residence Permit extension. The form then asks: family name, given name, nickname / maiden name / alias, sex, date of birth, place of birth (city and country), citizenship, current country of residence, previous countries of residence, marital status, current name of spouse or common-law partner. Native language, if you are able to communicate in English or French, passport number, country of issue, issue date, expiry date, current mailing address, residential address, telephone number, fax number, email address. Date and place of original entry to Canada, purpose for coming to Canada, date and place of your most recent entry into Canada, document numbers of your most recent Canadian Study Permit, Work Permit, Temporary Resident Permit, or Visitor Record (if applicable). How long you plan to stay in Canada (and approximate entry and exit dates), funds available for stay (in Canadian dollars), who will pay for your expenses. Name, address, and relationship of any persons or institutions you will visit while in Canada. Any post-secondary education you have received, including school or facility name, duration of training, and city and country where the studying took place. Detailed employment history from the past ten years including occupations and employer names. Background information including any physical or mental disorders which might require social or health services, or if you have any family members with tuberculosis. If you ever overstayed a previous visit to Canada, studied or worked in the country without authorization, been refused a visa, or been ordered to leave Canada. If you have ever committed, been arrested for or been charged with or convicted of any criminal offense in any country, and if the answer is yes what the details are. If you have ever served in the military, or been a member of a security force, police force, or a violent political group.
The TRP Document Checklist contains an easy to understand list of everything that must be attached to the application form. This can include a photocopy of your current immigration document, two recent passport-sized photos, photocopy of your passport, photocopies of all your identity documents such as citizenship certificates, alien registration cards, birth certificate, etc. It is also extremely important that you include a copy of all documents related to your criminal convictions, as well as evidence of action taken to resolve your inadmissibility (such as alcoholics anonymous or other counseling or rehabilitation programs). Canadian immigration lawyers can assist with identifying and preparing the evidence immigration officials are seeking in order to consider you a changed man or woman who does not pose a threat to society if allowed into Canada.
It is also important that people do not confuse the Temporary Resident Permit form with the Temporary Resident Visa application form as the two are completely different. People from non-visa-exempt countries who are searching "can I get into Canada with a DUI?" may need both a TRP and a TRV to be permitted Canadian entry. Individuals living in the United States that are citizens of a country normally required to attain a visitor visa to travel to Canada may be permitted to cross the Canadian border without a tourist visa provided they are legally resident in the US. Just because a person is an international student in the USA or a green card holder, however, does not mean they will not be considered inadmissible to Canada if they have a DUI on record. The rules for Canada entry DUI are the same for all foreigners, whether you are from California, Australia, or India.
Many Americans who attempt to locate the TRP form on the IRCC website end up finding the Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) form instead, which is not the proper immigration form for criminally inadmissible individuals from visa-exempt countries such as USA (both PDF documents are available on the IRCC website). The instructions on one section of the IRCC website also do not include a link to an actual form online and instead say "the visa office responsible for your country may have its own application form for temporary resident permits." When it comes to government fees, if the offense constitutes non-serious criminality then the processing fee charged by the Government for Criminal Rehabilitation is only 200 Canadian dollars or 155 US dollars (based on the 2019 exchange rate). If the offense does constitute serious criminality, the fee could be $1000 CAD or $770 American dollars, especially if the minister needs to review the case.
Canada and DUI Entry
Many people search the Internet for DUI and Canada entry in an effort to figure out their chances of getting into Canada with a criminal record. We not only offer free consultations to people looking to fly into Canada with a misdemeanor or felony intoxicated driving conviction, we can help foreign nationals with just about any Canadian criminal inadmissibility issue. Whether a person has a conditional discharge drug possession or is a Temporary Foreign Worker wondering how a DUI in Canada will affect their immigration status, call us today for a free consultation. An experienced Canadian admissibility lawyer can help Americans with excludable offense admission to Canada by assisting them with the procurement a Temporary Resident Permit.
We update this website weekly, so if you are yearning to learn about Canada DUI entry 2019 changes as soon as they happen, we suggest you bookmark our website and refresh it regularly. The US dollar is now extremely strong compared to the Canadian dollar (at the current exchange rate, 1USD is worth about 1.35CAD) making trips to the country notably cheaper than they have been for almost a decade. An increase in American visitors, however, does not make it any more likely that border officials will stop denying entrance to inadmissible people with DUIs. Boating while intoxicated is akin to drunken driving when it comes to Canada's immigration policies for foreign nationals with a criminal record.
If you have ever been charged with intoxicated driving, you could be barred from Canada on the grounds of criminality. In addition to drunk driving, other crimes such as writing a bad check, public intoxication, possession of stolen property, petty theft, assault, trespassing at night, disorderly conduct, possession of a controlled substance and filing a false police report can also impact a person's ability to cross the Canadian border. Temporary entry can be granted to foreigners who have been charged with such criminal offenses thanks to a special "waiver" or permit called a Canada TRP. Requesting a blanket waiver valid for multiple entries spanning a 24-month window is possible at a Canadian consulate in the United States. In urgent cases, a request for instant relief can be made directly at a land border or a Canadian airport. Even if you "beat" your case and the criminal charge was subsequently dismissed, it is critical to have robust paperwork to substantiate your Canadian admissibility.
The inability to fly to Canada to attend a trade show due to a DUI allegation can jeopardize a person's employment. Consequently, it may be wise to attain legal help from a licensed practitioner when applying for a Canada DUI entry waiver. Our core practice area is admissibility, so we are very familiar with the immigration regulations that can bar you from traveling to Canada. Never underestimate the complexity of determining how a crime committed in the United States translates to the Criminal Code of Canada. For example, there is not always an equivalent offense under Canadian federal law. The presumption of innocence until proven guilty, a core judicial principle in both the United States and Canada, also does not apply as the Canadian border. As a result, law-abiding citizens with pending charges for an offense that could be considered indictable north of the border could be barred from entry into Canada even in the absence of a conviction.
Does Retaining a Canada Immigration Lawyer Guarantee Success?
As the old saying goes, the only true guarantees in life are death and taxes. While Canada immigration lawyers can help inadmissible individuals gain entry to Canada by preparing an effective IRCC application under the circumstances, no legal professional has complete control of whether or not an individual is successful in entering Canada. Several factors can come into play such as the interview process with Customs or Consulate officials as well as complicating circumstances. Examples of circumstances that can complicate things include having been already denied at the border, multiple DUIs or other criminal history, or a car accident causing personal injury or property damage; all of which are ultimately up to the discretion of immigration officials. In other words, a licensed Canada immigration attorney can prepare a Temporary Resident Permit or Criminal Rehabilitation application that maximizes their client's chance of success, but whether or not the person is granted DUI entry as a result of that application is a decision that is solely up to government authorities.
This being said, a professionally prepared application by a qualified Canada immigration lawyer will ensure the highest probability of victory possible for an American with a DWI who wants to visit Canada. While admission is never assured when traveling internationally, qualified Canadian immigration lawyers can prepare an application that will maximize the chances of a successful result. No Canadian immigration law firm can guarantee success, however, and any lawyer or consultant that promises you 100% guaranteed successful entry into Canada should not be trusted.
When selecting a legal professional to assist you, keep in mind that Canadian immigration is a tremendously broad field of law and that many Canadian immigration lawyers may have never worked on a criminal inadmissibility or Canada DUI entry application before. This is one of the many reasons why you may consider choosing a legal professional who practices Canadian immigration law and has experience in assisting Americans enter Canada with a DUI or other criminal record. To maximum your chance of being approved for special permission to cross the border, it is paramount to always disclose pertinent information to your Canadian DUI entry attorney.
DUI and Entering Canada
If you have a DUI can you get into Canada? It is one of the most popular questions our law firm is asked, and it is a common reason for American tourists to research travel restrictions to Canada. Admissibility is a complex matter, however, and factors such as how long ago the drunk driving offense occurred play a role in determining if a person is eligible to cross the border. A "Canada DUI Waiver" or TRP can enable a guest to visit the country with a criminal history that would otherwise constitute them as ineligible. Without one, foreigner visitors risk a border refusal if they are inadmissible due to criminality. Anyone immigrating to the country can also be rejected due to intoxicated driving because criminal ineligibility blocks suitability across all of Canada's immigration programs.
Foreigners who are not allowed to go to Canada because of a DUI can even run into issues if they have a connecting flight through Canada. DUI Canada travel restrictions apply to all foreign nationals including American citizens and US Green Card holders. Canadian citizens, on the other hand, can always enter Canada with a DUI without worrying about being blocked by border security. A DUI can affect a Canadian permanent resident's ability to travel internationally, however, and can even affect their ability to become a citizen and obtain a Canadian passport. Likewise, foreign nationals with a criminal record for driving while impaired can be refused a Canadian student visa or work permit, and can have their Spousal Sponsorship or Express Entry Canada PR application rejected.
Border requirements for aliens visiting Canada endeavor to control the introduction of people with a history of illicit behavior into the country's society. DUI entry Canada rules are essentially the same for all alcohol-related motor vehicle convictions including DWI, OVI, OWI, DWAI, DUID (DUI drugs) as well as wet reckless driving. Even a driving without due care and attention, dangerous driving, or improper driving on your record could be an obstacle at the Canadian border especially if alcohol or drugs were involved. DUI Canada entry may only be possible with an authoritative endorsement from the IRCC unless it has been longer than ten years since an individual got done probation for their one and only non-violent misdemeanor conviction. A DUI entering Canada without permission does not just jeopardize the offender's admission, all related parties traveling with that person may also be denied entrance.
Not all alcohol-related driving violations or DWIs are equal. A basic driving while intoxicated charge that was pleaded down to reckless driving is generally much less serious than DUIs that involve motor vehicle collisions, especially ones attached to additional charges such as dangerous driving causing death. Previous immigration violations, such as multiple border denials, can also make it more problematic to collect Canadian entrance permission successfully by virtue of a Canada TRP. Violent criminal offenses such as assault, or drug related crimes that culminated in prison time, can also make getting into Canada a more tenacious process.
Determining Admissibility
Criminal activity does not need to involve moral turpitude to render an American excludable at the border. The seriousness of the
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’s a pipe dream. That would never happen because at least one of the nominees is the type of game that always gets picked. Using past ceremonies as the template, a game is more likely to walk away with the Game of the Year award if it is a western-developed open-world title. So congratulations Guerrilla Games, I look forward to your acceptance speech.
Eight of the 14 winners have been open-world games, set either in modern times or a fantasy setting. Every other year either had no open-world games nominated, only Assassin’s Creed open-world games nominated, or those selecting the winners thought, “Hey everyone, let’s give our first Game of the Year award to Madden!”
Why is that? Why do Japanese games have such difficulty getting nominated, and when they do, fail to win? Have western titles in the past decade and a half been outright better than those out of Japan, or is there simply a lack of representation from Japanese critics on the voting jury?
For this year's show, there are 51 outlets included in the voting jury. 25, nearly half, are from the United States. Japan has two. 4% of judges are from a country that produces far more than 4% of the titles released in North America and Europe. That does not seem like a good representation of the gaming landscape. While I know that American and European game critics enjoy Japanese games, The Game Awards history here is pretty clear: when push comes to shove, it honors western games.
Compare this to another organization: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2014, the voting base for the Oscars was 94% white, 76% male, and had an average age of 63. It was basically the people you see every morning at a Korean donut shop, but with fewer hats from their time in the Vietnam War. Why didn’t Brokeback Mountain win Best Picture? Probably because old, white men don’t care about gay love stories. Also, because we didn’t get to see Gyllenhaal taking a mouthful from Heath Ledger. This is why for years and years the Oscars have been boring. It’s the same boring-ass dramas nominated every year, usually about some white guy overcoming something. I’m sure we all remember #OscarsSoWhite. What started as a mockery of the Oscars' lack of black nominees exposed a greater problem with Hollywood and its lack of good roles for people of color.
So what did the Academy do? It sought to rectify the issue. In 2016 it increased the number of members who are women or people of color. This year it did the same, potentially increasing its female membership to 28% of the total and its minority membership to 13%. A small move, yes, but a move in the right direction. Black gay beach handjob masterpiece Moonlight probably wouldn’t have won Best Picture if the voting base was made up of the exact same curmudgeons who thought The King’s Speech was a better film than The Social Network.
The Game Awards’ jury pool has grown since its inception, mostly by introducing more non-Japanese critics. From the information I could find, the Spike VGX awards didn't have a single Japanese critic in the pool. In 2014 for the first Game Awards, there were 28 members of the voting jury, one of whom was from Japan. In 2015, there were 30 members, again with just one from Japan. I was unable to find 2016’s jury list, but I can’t imagine there was a shit-ton of Japanese judges last year who were cut down to two for this year’s ceremony.
Fair representation is exceedingly important for The Game Awards because Keighley clearly wants it to become a global event. That’s why there’s a whole category for just China. No other country gets that luxury. Best Chinese Game is fan-voted because, besides Monument Valley 2, I don’t think any of the 50 judges who aren’t from China know what the fuck jx2 HD or Gumballs are. And I’m sure, in a few years when China becomes the world’s most profitable gaming county, there’ll be discussions on either increasing the number of Chinese judges in the jury pool or simply breaking off The Game Awards: China into its own show so the rest of the world doesn’t have to bother itself with whatever free-to-play phone nonsense they’re spending all their yuan on.
However, Japanese games getting their recognition – and indie games too but that’s a whole different conversation – is a problem that needs to be addressed more immediately because they make up so much of the world’s gaming entertainment. Since the arcade era, Japanese developers have been there, producing top-quality games year after year. We can’t have the industry's most notable award show do nothing but pay lip service to these contributions. Japanese games shouldn’t be to The Game Awards what black artists are to The Grammys.
This point goes beyond Game of the Year too. Be honest, do you think a jury pool made up predominantly of English-speaking game critics will ever give an award to a non-English speaking performer? Doug Cockle was nominated for his role as Geralt in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Was Jacek Rozenek, who voiced the same role in Polish, even considered?
I understand attitudes and tastes change over time and I get that western critics tend to have easily identifiable preferences when it comes to what games they determine are worthy of awards. I get that not everybody will look at Katamari Damacy or Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective and think, “Well fuck me, that’s Game of the Year material right there!” And I get in the grand scheme of things, an awards show that hires a giant Schick razor to hand out the Most Anticipated Game trophy or removes two fan nominees because one company threw a hissy fit over them probably isn’t ready to be taken as seriously as it wants to be.
But if the Game Awards truly wants to represent all of the industry, it needs to take whatever strides it can to not insulate itself from developers producing work that doesn't fall into the same, tired genres we recognize every year. If a stodgy, old organization like the Motion Pictures Academy can make strides to improve itself, surely the young, hip Game Awards can do the same.
You are logged out. Login | Sign upIn the United States, the Ti-Punch is often prepared as a full three (or more) ounce cocktail, but the origins of the drink call for a much different approach. The “Ti” in Ti-Punch is a Creole word, meaning petit, or small. The Ti-Punch isn’t really a full cocktail - it lives in the universe somewhere between a cocktail and a shot, and is typically well under two ounces.
There are many different ways of preparing the Ti-Punch. The basics of the Ti-Punch mirror classic drinks like the margarita or daiquiri with spirit, sugar, and lime as the basic ingredients. In Martinique, where the drink originated, it’s often presented deconstructed and the drinker assembles it themselves in a custom referred to with a French phrase which translates literally to “each mixes their own death.” While this may be illegal or impractical at some bars, the preparation for the Ti-Punch always takes into consideration the preferences of the imbiber.
The kind and amount of sugar are a key source of the variance in the preparation of the Ti-Punch. Sugar cane syrup, demerara sugar, or even honey can be used. How the limes are cut and served also greatly impact the drink. The classic way of preparing the limes for a Ti-Punch is to cut them into discs which are about 50% peel and pith, and about 50% flesh of the lime.
It’s important to combine the sugar and lime before adding the spirit. Their combination prior to adding the rhum is a key aspect of making a good Ti-Punch.
Not all Ti-Punches are served with ice, as it’s considered an option for the drink. It does help the drink considerably and softens the often 100 proof rhum agricole for palates more accustomed to 80 proof spirits.
The traditional way to mix the drink is with a lele, or swizzle stick, which helps mix the ingredients as well as aerate the rhum and release the drink’s aromatics.
The traditional drink is best captured in the official Rhum Clément ‘Ti Punch recipe. Rhum Clement is one of the largest producers of rhum agricole and one of the leading agricole brands in the US.
Official Rhum Clément ‘Ti Punch
1 ½ oz. Clément Rhum Agricole
A full bar spoon of Clément Sirop de Canne
A spherical lime disk (cut from the side of a lime to have about 50% zest & 50% pulp)
The Method: Take a lime and gently roll it on the table to soften the lime and bring the oils to the surface. Cut the lime in 4 spherical lime disks and discard the core. In a rocks or old-fashioned glass, squeeze the lime disk and pour a heaping bar spoon of Clément Sirop de Canne over the squeezed lime. Add Clément Rhum Agricole and use a Bois Lélé (i.e. pronged wooden swizzle stick usually plucked from a tree native to Martinique) or a simple bar spoon to stir and gently muddle for a few seconds the lime to blend the aromatic oils from the peel until the Sirop de Canne is well integrated. If desired, add a tablespoon of crushed ice or one ice cube and briefly stir again to chill the drink.
The opportunity for the Ti-Punch is vast. Done as a small drink, the Ti-Punch fills the void on bar menus between straight spirits and full cocktails. It’s a perfect opening drink that can be made quickly with nice interaction between a bartender and their guest. With its small size it also gives a lower cost option for imbibers to step up from beer or wine into spirits.
Rediscovering the Ti-Punch as a small drink not only adds an important option to a cocktail menu, it’s a great opportunity to introduce guests to new spirits categories and drinks.
Read more from Cocktails.Rick Osentoski
In today’s installment of the “NFL 101” series, former NFL defensive back Matt Bowen breaks down the basics of the route tree to give you a better understanding of the pro game.
Click here for a breakdown of the 4-3 defensive front (Under/Over).
Click here for a breakdown of the 3-4 defensive front (Okie/Eagle/Under).
The NFL route tree is a numbering system used by both the offensive and defensive side of the ball to identify specific stems/breaks/directions that receivers run on passing plays.
Whether that is a straight “go” route outside of the numbers, or a three-step slant that shows up on the backside of a 3x1 formation in West Coast playbooks, every offense in the league uses the route tree as a core system (or guide) to pair with the multiple passing concepts/combinations in the game plan.
Here is a view of the basic route tree with the numbering system.
Matt Bowen/Bleacher Report
Breaking Down the Route Tree
In the NFL, every route (outside of the three-step passing game) breaks at a depth of 12 to 15 yards. Here's a quick breakdown of the routes you need to know in your film study.
Flat (1): A three-step, outside breaking route usually run from inside of the numbers (slot receiver, tight end, running back) with the receiver taking a quick, vertical release and then breaking to the flat. Think of basic combinations where the flat is used: flat-slant, flat-7, flat-stick, etc.
Slant (2): The slant can be run from a three-step drop or a one-step drop (sight adjust to off-coverage/blitz hot read). An inside breaking concept where the receiver will use a quick, vertical stem before breaking at a 45-degree angle to gain leverage versus a defender inside of the numbers. The slant will show up with players such as Calvin Johnson, Jimmy Graham, Brandon Marshall, Larry Fitzgerald, etc., because of their size/length to create leverage on the break.
John Cordes
Comeback (3): One of the toughest throws for an NFL quarterback to make, the comeback breaks at a depth of 12 to 15 yards with the receiver breaking downhill at a 45-degree angle to the sideline. In order for the comeback to be productive, the receiver must create enough separation within the stem by selling the fade before breaking downhill.
Curl (4): The curl route is the opposite of the comeback, with the wide receiver pushing up the field between a depth of 12 and 15 yards and breaking downhill at a 45-degree angle inside (or to the quarterback). Due to the size we see at the wide receiver position in today’s game, the curl route shows up consistently on Sundays and is often paired with a flat route (curl-flat combo).
Out (5): The out route (or deep out) again breaks between 12 and 15 yards, but the key is the initial split (or stem) of the receiver. This route requires room for the receiver to break and secure the catch while staying in bounds. Because of that, the receiver will either align at the bottom of the numbers or stem to the bottom of the numbers from a plus split to create enough room to complete the catch.
Dig (6): The dig (or square-in) is a deep, inside breaking cut with the receiver (or tight end) pressing up the field, sinking his hips and breaking back to the middle of the field between a depth of 12 and 15 yards. The key for the receiver is creating separation at the top of the stem by pinning the defensive back to the outside. A top concept in the intermediate passing game versus both zone and man coverage that caters to top-tier route-runners such as A.J. Green.
Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images
Corner (7): The corner route (or old school “flag route”) is a deep, outside breaking cut run up the field at a 45-degree angle toward the sideline. Receivers aligned outside of the numbers will have to take a hard, inside release to run the 7 (create room), and we often see it out of a slot alignment. Paired with the flat route (flat-7), the corner route is one of the top Cover 2 beaters in the NFL and also shows up versus Cover 1 in the red zone to work away from the safety help in the middle of the field.
Post (8): The post is a deep, inside breaking route where the receiver stems up the field at a 45-degree angle to the goal posts. The post can also be run with a “dino” stem (stem to corner, break back to the post) to create more separation by widening the defensive back. One of the top routes in the vertical passing game that is run versus single-high (Cover 1, Cover 3), quarters (Cover 4) and two-deep (Cover 2, Cover 6).
Fade (9): The fade route can be identified with multiple terminology (go, fly, clear-out, etc.). Using a vertical stem, the receiver will work to beat a defender’s cushion in off-man, or win with an outside release in press-man, to stack on top of the defensive back down the field. The “back-shoulder fade” (ball thrown behind the receiver or to the back shoulder versus man coverage) is becoming a top route for today’s NFL offenses, but the straight “go” route is still a weapon when you have speed outside of the numbers, like DeSean Jackson.
All-22 Identification/Splits/Releases
Using the All-22 coaches tape, here is the expanded route tree from multiple alignments and splits to give you a clear look at the break points.
“Plus” Split
Let’s use Calvin Johnson and the Lions as an example of a “plus” split (three yards on top of the numbers) with the ball on the far hash.
NFL Game Rewind
There are only two routes that Johnson can run from this pre-snap split with an outside release: comeback and fade. That’s because of the limited room he has to work with outside of the numbers in relation to the sideline.
Every other route (along with the tunnel screen) requires Johnson to use an inside release with that split.
The one-step slant and drive route (or shallow drive) are run with a flat inside release. There is no vertical stem here. Johnson will come off the ball and immediately look to create leverage versus the defensive back.
However, in order to run the intermediate passing game (curl, out, dig), plus attack the top of the route tree (corner, post), Johnson has to take a hard, inside release to get to the bottom of the numbers before stemming up the field vertically to a depth of 12 to 15 yards.
Johnson has to create room from that split to run the corner and the out, and he cannot break back to the middle of the field (or create leverage) on the curl, dig and post with an outside release.
And because of this “plus” split from Johnson, the only route he will run with a straight, vertical release off the line of scrimmage is the basic hitch.
Numbers Split
In this All-22 look, I have Bengals wide receiver A.J. Green aligned on the bottom of the numbers running the same routes as Johnson.
NFL Game Rewind
However, because of his pre-snap split, Green doesn’t have to take the same hard, inside stem to run the intermediate passing game.
Green could take a slight inside release to create even more room outside of the numbers, but he can also use a straight, vertical release to run the curl, out and dig along with the deep post and corner route.
This is much tougher on defensive backs who read the release/stem of receivers to eliminate specific routes within the play (a key to getting a jump on the ball).
Reduced (or “Nasty”) Split
When a receiver is aligned inside of the numbers (close to the core of the formation) it is called a reduced or “nasty” split.
NFL Game Rewind
This is what we see here from the 49ers and Anquan Boldin. With the ball on the far hash, Boldin reduces his split to the core of the formation for two reasons: to create room outside of the numbers and to work back across the field.
An immediate alert to the boot (X receiver in a nasty split), Boldin can run the shallow drive and the deep over route to the closed (strong) side of the formation.
To the open side, Boldin can run the stick out, wheel, deep out, corner and fade with the added amount of room he has to work with.
Plus, anytime a receiver is in a reduced split (especially the backside X receiver), the defense always has to be alert to the reverse or “ghost action” (fake reverse). That showed up consistently with Alshon Jeffery and the Bears this season.
Slot Alignment
I wanted to use a shot of Brandon Marshall and the Bears from a slot alignment to show the top concepts run from inside of the numbers at No. 2.
NFL Game Rewind
This is where the flat route shows up (plus a higher probability for the wheel), along with the option route (break off the defender’s leverage), vertical seam, bubble screen—and there is more than enough room to run the deep out and corner route.
The drive route is one of the top concepts inside of the numbers in the Hi-Lo series (Hi-Lo, Hi-Lo Crossers, Hi-Lo Opposite). Think of two crossing routes to give the quarterback a two-level read inside.
You can see some of the same routes we talked about above, but the key with the routes run from the slot position is the receiver has a “two-way-go” to release inside or outside. That allows the receiver to use his best release to get in a position to stack on top of the defensive back in the vertical passing game or win consistently running the option route.
The Next Progression in the Route Tree
Remember, this is just a basic look at the NFL route tree. It doesn’t include the multiple formations or bunch/stack alignments we see every Sunday in the NFL that make up some of the top route combinations in the game (Dagger, Spot, 999, etc.).
However, knowing the core route tree, and seeing some examples of how pre-snap splits (plus releases) impact specific concepts, can help you understand the keys of the passing game at the NFL level.
Seven-year NFL veteran Matt Bowen is an NFL National Lead Writer for Bleacher Report.
Follow @MattBowen41Chapter 1
Farewell Days of My Youth
Despite his best efforts, Alex couldn't shake the pounding headache that abruptly started an hour ago. Usually, sitting on his favorite couch watching old game shows with his grandfather put him at peace, but it didn't offer any letup from the pain that night. Alex had always been cautious about taking pills of any kind, but the pain was steadily increasing. The flashing lights from the screen felt unbearably intense, and all the applauding was like a power tool drilling through his mind. He glanced at the tempting bottle of aspirin on the small TV dinner table to his left but decided against it. It was getting late anyway, so he decided to go to bed and sleep it off, hoping he would feel better in the morning.
"Grandpa, I've got a killer headache, so I'm fista' go to bed. Okay?"
"Want me to call a doctor?" As usual, his grandfather was overly cautious at the slightest sign of trouble.
"What? No, I'm fine," Alex responded.
"Of course you are." He smiled slightly. Alex's grandfather instinctively looked at the framed picture of Alex's late father above the mantle and told Alex for the hundredth time how much he resembled his father in both appearance and demeanor. Alex thought it was a bit eerie, almost as if looking at his future self in that frame. With his fair skin, blue eyes bright enough to pierce someone's very soul, yet hair so jet-black that light would never be able to escape from its void, Alex was undeniably his father's son. They even smiled the same way.
"Just like your old man, trying to tough it out," he said, but before Alex could even open his mouth to respond to the comment, his grandfather looked up with tired eyes, and smiled.
"Sir?" Alexander replied.
"Nothing, goodnight, son," he added.
Alex gave a sliver of a smile back. "Goodnight, Grandpa." Alex nervously paced to his bathroom, hoping not to fall over from being so nauseous. He leaned over his sink, wanting to wash the day away. He cupped his hands under the faucet and splashed the lukewarm water across his face; it offered only a split second of relief before his headache began thrashing around in his skull again. He took a look in the bathroom mirror and stared at his reflection. His grandfather's remark once again forced him to think of his parents, who had died when he was just an infant. Since then, he had been raised by his grandfather, a decorated and retired police sergeant with more than thirty years of experience on the force. Alex had so much anger inside of him and no one to direct it at. He was proud of his parents but angry at them for not being there. With no one to blame, he once again buried his resentment deep inside and dragged his feet down the hall toward his room.
He reached for the door handle with apprehension. Maybe tonight will be different, he thought to himself. He slowly turned the handle and went in his room without incident, thankful that at least one thing went his way that day. Upon entering his room, he took off his shirt, revealing his toned bodya body he'd acquired from years and years of running track in middle school and high school. Behind him was a wall dedicated to his accomplishments in the sport, everything from ribbons to two-foot-tall trophies was on display.
Alex traced the frame of his bed with his hand before lying down; he wasn't sure if he could climb in without missing the mattress from being too disoriented. He crawled into bed with his laptop in hand; it had become routine for him to plug in his headphones and fall asleep to the songs in his music library. He reached over to plug in the charger but instead watched as it sparked and shorted out upon contact with the outlet.
Son of a, he thought to himself and prayed the battery would last long enough for him to fall sleep. He tried his best to settle in bed and scrolled through the thousands of songs he had illegally downloaded. Alex was confident the worst was over, but he hadn't even gotten past the H section of his playlist before two drops of blood splattered on his keyboard. Puzzled, he wiped his nose and stared at the streak of blood running from the end of his wrist to the tip of his finger.
"Seriously? It's official I'm cursed," he said to himself. Alex gripped his head in agony. For some reason, his headache was getting much worse. Alex finally gave in and turned to his nightstand to get an aspirin. He popped the pill in his mouth, but not even a minute after swallowing, he saw the silhouette of a figure behind his adjacent window's curtain. Alex was startled out of bed. He took a couple steps back and again grabbed his head, wanting to literally rip the throbbing torment from his scalp. He squinted his eyes and looked up, but he couldn't make out who the figure was behind his slightly transparent curtain.
"Who the hell is there? Get out of my room!" demanded Alex as he frantically looked around for a weapon. He picked up his aluminum baseball bat and pointed it at the figure.
"Drop your bludgeon immediately! I am not here to harm you. I came to help you, human," the mysterious voice said.
"Screw you I'm not dropping a thing," he nervously responded.
"Screw me you say?" The figure took a step forward.
"Look, I'm not afraid to use this." Alex tightened the grip around his bat's handle and inched over to the wall. He was close enough to his light switch to flick it on. The figure stepped out into the light and revealed itself. Alex couldn't believe his eyes. The thing in front of him stood up straight with perfect posture and had amber-colored skin with black tribal markings that circulated and flowed in steady motion throughout the surface of its body and face. Sleek, battle-scarred armor covered most of its body, and perfectly placed cryptic medals that signified to Alex this creature had seen many battles were attached to its sleeves.
It proudly walked over closer to Alex and sternly said, "You would dare raise a hand to me? I could leave your planet to die right now."
But the words were all a blur to him. Alex couldn't get over its appearance. It had the curvatures of a woman, but her eyes had pitch-black corneas and white pupilsthe opposite of human eyes. However, the real distinction was that they were sideways cat's-eyes, which reminded him of the frogs his science teacher had forced him to dissect in middle school. He gauged her to be about six feet tall and noticed that she had thin black tendrils on her head instead of hair, which she had tied back. Her armor radiated its own dazzling light and was mostly royal blue with white accents and silver-colored plating. Her pants were white with a blue stripe that ran up her thigh and accentuated her curves.
"I you" Alex dropped the bat and gasped for air. He backed himself up against the wall as he prayed for the power to phase through, but the best he could do was look around for something to grab on to so he wouldn't fall down from the shock. He was either looking at the best Halloween costume he had ever seen, or there was a real-life alien in front of him.
"I have not the time nor patience for this, so listen well. I am known as Shyra, from the distant world called Kalryn." With speed faster than Alex could react to, she closed the gap between them and grabbed his forearm. "I have come here to prepare your race to fight. Now let us go." Her skin was clammy but warm, not like anything he had felt before.
"Whoa, what? You're hurting my arm; let go of me," Alex said.
"Either your race is slow to learn or unable to grasp the concept of total annihilation, but if we do not act right now, trust me when I say you will perish. Zenakuu means to kill you off, but it still may be possible to save your kind," Shyra said.
"Zen-a-what? How do you even" Alex started, but his ability to form complex sentences escaped him at that moment.
"Do I look to be in a gaming mood?" She let go of his arm and let out a deep and frustrated sigh. Negotiations clearly were not her strong suit. "I know you are scared, human, but we have not the time. This is your life from now on, like it or not. Now we must go and prepare for training."
"I'm not going anywhere with you. Just stay back okay?" Alex couldn't find his bearings.
"What did you say to me? Did you not hear what I said?"
"Oh. No, I heard you. Now it's your turn to hear me. That is the best damn cosplay I have ever seen, but if you don't get out of my room, I'm calling the cops."
"Why you insolent little to die for your planet in the line of duty is a great honor!"
Die? He thought to himself. He was nowhere near ready to die. "Granp" Alex tried to scream, but the creature threw her hand over his mouth to muffle his cry before he could finish.
"I sincerely hope it is not always going to be like this with you," Shyra removed her hand from his mouth. "Allow me to show you why I am here." Shyra approached Alex like someone meeting a dog for the first time. Hesitant, her hand slowly got closer to Alex's forehead. Alex began to sweat, frozen in place from fear. He clamped his eyes shut as he prepared for his end, but he only felt her slightly coarse skin on his forehead. In an instant, a flash of light blinded his vision, but he was okay. Much to his relief, the alien was gone.
"That's it. I'm never taking aspirin again." He got up from bed to see if his grandfather was still awake. Even he would love a crazy hallucination like that, but it was too quiet. Alex slowly walked down the steps and saw the TV was blown and smoking.
"Grandpa Henry?" he cautiously said, but there was no answer. On the last step, Alex could see his grandfather's head sticking up from the couch.
Must already be asleep, he thought as he walked over to wake him. "Grandpa, you're not gonna believe the dre" but when Alex finally stood in front of him, he was mortified by what he saw. His grandfather had been stabbed and cleaved open, and as if having been carved like a turkey wasn't enough, there was a single bullet hole centered on his forehead.
"Oh my God Grandpa, what the hell is this?" Alex felt powerless and paralyzed. His grandfather was dead because he hadn't been there for him. Alex heard the back door to his house slam and immediately looked up. The murderer was still close.
Alex clenched his fist and went off running to the door. He saw only a darkened figure run out toward the street. Alex stayed in pursuit but couldn't make out who it was. He quickly made it to the streets, but his neighborhood looked different. Fires were scattered sporadically across the area, and row after row of two-story houses had been partially blown up, the streets laid to ruins. He ran forward not knowing if the trail of destruction was the right path but praying he would get answers at its end. His heart pounded out of his chest, faster than it ever had before. Tremors of crippling fear ran down his spine, but his legs would not stop moving.
The image of his gutted grandfather was all the drive he needed. He persisted halfway down the street when suddenly an ear-shattering whistling stopped him in his tracks. He looked up again and watched as a small black orb with a fire-lit tail descended to the ground. On impact, the orb exploded. A loud crack went off in the distance, and a mushroom cloud emanated from its location. Alex was distraught; it looked as if World War III had started without him knowing it. The light from the explosion faded the night sky, blotting out any stars from sight. The only things visible were the dozens of gigantic black mother ships, the likes of which he'd never seen. In seconds, the blast brought a shockwave and blinding light that vaporized Alex in seconds. He snapped back to reality in a cold sweat, gasping for air, unsure of what was real or fake. The process left him debilitated, as all his senses felt like they were on fire.
"What the hell was that? Where was I? What did you do to me?" Alex stammered.
"Calm down. I showed but a glimpse of what fate will befall your planet if you do not take action now. Earth is very large yet very insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but it is the only world you have ever known. Am I correct? Your people have not gotten past your own galaxy, yes?" she inquired.
It was all just a vision; his grandfather was still alive. Alex gritted his teeth in unfiltered rage.
"I'll kill you!" Alex said in a fit of blinding rage. He raised his hand to strike, but she flicked her wrist and slammed Alex to the ground. He landed with a thud, and immediately got the wind knocked out of him.
"Enough. You are a hundred years too early to be challenging me. I am not your enemy, human. The Zenakuu did far worse to my world, and unlike yours, we actually stood a chance. Understand I am here to help you."
"If you want to help me, get out of my room and never come back. I cannot help you."
"If you want to save your family, you have no choice."
Thinking that he might still be hallucinating, Alex rubbed his eyes and reached for a nearby doorknob.
"So, why me?" he asked. "Am I like the one or something?"
"No, I am afraid you are not that special. You just happened to be the most inclined for this type of battle."
"I see. Well, that's cool," Alex said in a sly fashion.
The creature noticed his attempt to escape and telekinetically locked the door shut. "Your planet is being threatened. I believe you have the ability to save it. Now tell me, will you?"
"Look, all this is really too much. I won't tell anyone I saw you, so please just go," Alex stammered.
"I cannot. You are a very unique youngI supposeman? I do not know when your species reaches adulthood, but regardless, you are meant to stop the greatest evil that has come to pass in both your history and ours."
"I can't. Even if anything you say is true, I can't just leave. I start college in the spring," Alex answered.
Seeing that the conversation wasn't going anywhere she paused momentarily. "That device over there seems to run on electricity. Hand it to me."
Alex was dubious of her intentions, but he didn't feel like he was in a position to argue. She cut the computer's charging cord in half with a snap of her fingers, and Alex's eyes widened. "I had to work hard for that computer!" he shouted.
"Stop being such an infant. You are technologically a millennium behind schedule anyway." She took his hands in hers and put them over the ends of the cord. "Now make it work."
"How?" Alex asked her.
Her eyes locked on his. "My ship's scanners detected a strong reading for electrokinesis from this residence. Now fix the cord."
"This is a waste of time. I don't even know what that is. You've got the wrong person," he said.
"Do not"her tone dropped to a threatening modulation"waste my time, earthling."Buy Photo A Wausau city plow clears streets Wednesday afternoon in Wausau. Street crews across central Wisconsin are finding ways to keep roads safer and hurt the environment less. (Photo: T'xer Zhon Kha/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)Buy Photo
County road crews have dumped more than 195,000 tons of salt on central Wisconsin highways over the past five years, with much of it running off into nearby water systems.
The chloride from the salt is particularly toxic for wildlife, plant life, pets and humans.
Those who oversee county highway departments say they're quite aware of those dangers, and it's why they're increasingly using less-harmful materials to clear the roads for motorists.
Marathon County used about 90,700 tons of salt for state and county highways in the past five years — equivalent to 1,300 pounds of salt for every man, woman and child in the county — but has been using more brine as an alternative each year, said Russ Graveen, maintenance supervisor.
Brine is a mixture of salt and water or other liquid that is sprayed on the road. The liquid causes the salt to stick to the road and stay in place to do its job, rather than bounce to the shoulders and ditches.
Wood County also plans to convert from a mostly salt to a salt-brine system, local Highway Commissioner Doug Passineau said. Wood County has used about 42,500 tons of salt during the past five years. The county has ordered a 40,000-gallon tanker to make the switch to mostly brine, Passineau said.
The county now uses tanks on plow trucks to pre-wet the pavement for salt. When the temperatures drop below 12 to 15 degrees, the county changes to beet juice or a calcium-chloride mixture for the brine, which allows the solution to work at a lower temperature and reduces the amount of salt the plows are spreading.
"The county is trying to do what it can to make things better," Passineau said.
The beat juice and similar solutions used by highway departments have sugars that prevents them from freezing. The solution creates a film on the road that causes the snow to freeze as slush rather than as ice, Graveen said, which creates safer driving conditions while allowing the counties to use less salt or no salt.
Since 2012, all new Portage County trucks have been outfitted with a pre-wetting system to allow liquid deicing agents to be applied immediately before spreading salt and sand on the pavement, said county Highway Commissioner Nathan Check. The Portage County fleet is equipped for applying
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Outsmarts a Trash Can.")
About 80 percent of the time, the ravens selected the correct tool and performed the task to get their treat.
The team repeated the same experiment with a 17-hour delay in returning the box to the ravens. In this case, the birds were successful nearly 90 percent of the time, according to the study, published this week in the journal Science.
“Monkeys have not been able to solve tasks like this,” Osvath says, noting the birds are actually more skilled than human children.
Ravens and Intelligence
In almost identical experiments on four-year-olds, the ravens were technically more successful in planning ahead to open the reward box than toddlers. (Related: "Are Crows Smarter Than Children?")
Tricks of the Trade
The researchers also set up an experiment to test the birds' bartering skills.
They instructed the ravens how to exchange tokens to get their favorite foods at a later time. Again, the birds passed these tests with flying colors over 90 percent of the time.
“It is really surprising to see ravens were better at solving two planning tasks than great apes and children presented with similar problems,” says Alex Taylor, an animal cognition expert University of Auckland in New Zealand who was not involved in the new study.
“This is particularly exciting given that the two behaviors, tool-use and bartering, are not behaviors that ravens display in the wild,” Taylor explains.
"This suggests that, like humans and great apes, ravens may have a general planning ability that can be used with novel behaviors." (Watch a video of a New Caledonian crow solving problems.)
Delayed Gratification
In the final experiments, the ravens could choose between an inferior immediate food reward (a smaller, less-tasty piece of kibble) and a token for their favorite kibble they could trade later—a concept called delayed gratification.
“Humans devalue things that take place in the future,” says Osvath, emphasizing people typically go for instant rewards.
Ravens seem to be a little more patient, selecting the tool or token that would get them the better food in the near future over 70 percent of the time.
However, Taylor notes that the results are open to interpretation. Perhaps, he says, they're outsmarting the experiment: “The ravens may not be thinking about the future at all, they may instead just be choosing the object the has been associated the most with food.” (Read “Minds of Their Own” in National Geographic magazine.)
Future experiments should be able to discern exactly how clever ravens are, but at the most basic level, these findings show that humans might not be as special as we thought.Here’s an interesting experiment you can replicate if you ever have a class of creative writing students. I’ve tried it a number of times. Give the students a set of writing samples. Have them sort through the samples and categorise them as “good” or “not good”. Regardless of the level of experience of the students, you’ll find high levels agreement on what writing is good, and what writing is not good.
I’m not putting this forward as scientific proof. Although I’d be interested to know if it’s ever been tried as a study. But I am putting it forward as an indication that as readers we have a clear idea of what good writing is. And that this understanding is at some level objective, and reaches beyond subjective preferences over the style and content of writing.
It can also be useful to work through with students what qualities the good writing samples share, or the not good samples lack. Here are a few qualities you will often find in good writing :
Spelling and grammar – samples with bad spelling and grammar, however well they do in other areas, will always go in the not good pile.
Clarity – the writing is easy to read, with simple words chosen over complex ones, shorter rather than longer sentences, and clearly defined paragraphs.
Information Flow / Narrative Drive – the writing presents one piece of information at a time, and all the information presented is relevant to the subject of the writing. If the writing is telling a story of any kind, there are a clear series of events that happen one after another.
The qualities that make a piece of writing “good” are very fundamental. They are also not secret. These are the basic rules you would be taught as a reporter or journalist working for a newspaper, as an advertising copywriter, and indeed as a novelist. But because a novel is a relatively complex form of writing, these fundamentals are often obscured by issues of style and structure. Students can spend years kicking around in circles trying to master point-of-view and five act structures to no good purpose because the fundamentals of “good” writing just aren’t there.
And like most simple things, they can be damnably hard to master. Writing 100,000 words of grammatically correct, clear prose with good information flow and narrative drive is hard. And these qualities are to varying extents fractal. Not only do your sentences and paragraphs have to be clear, they have to build in to clear scenes and sequences, which have to build in to clear chapters. And then these fundamentals have to underpin the flashier parts of the writers craft – the flourishes of style, the compelling plot twists, the beautifully drawn characters that people are turning up to read.
How difficult is it to write a good book? It’s hard!
But keep going. Because if you can write a good book – good in both the fundamentals that readers measure without knowing it, and in the more sophisticated ways that we consciously think about – you are guaranteed a readership. Good books are rare. And they last. They are the books that still populate the bookshop shelves twenty, fifty or a hundred years after publication. Because in all that time no better ones have been written to shove them off their perch.
If you enjoyed this post you can buy Damien a coffee.Every day, about 10 billion cells in a human body commit suicide. Cells infected by virus, that are transformed or otherwise dysfunctional altruistically sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Now, new imaging experiments have revealed a previously unseen order to this process, showing closely related cells dying in synchrony as a wave of destruction sweeps across their mitochondria, snuffing out the main source of energy that keeps cells alive.
In experiments published recently in The Journal of Cell Science and Biophysical Journal, researchers inSanford M. Simon's Laboratory of Cellular Biophysics at Rockefeller University photographed the deaths of individual cells, showing an orderly series of events in the staged shut-down of the cell. The experiments revealed that the likelihood of death, as well as the timing, depends on how closely cells are related, not on their proximity to one another or their stage in the cell cycle. The findings rule out, for instance, the hypothesis that cells die in a localized cascade accelerated by the secretion of toxic molecules from dying cells nearby.
"What we saw is that, regardless of their location, only the sister cells remained linked in the timing of their deaths," says Simon. "It suggests that there is not some nonspecific toxic effect here, but that the variability is in the molecular makeup of the cells -- the variability in the population."
Apoptosis is crucial not just in the routine maintenance of life but also in early development -- when some cells, such as those that would otherwise form webbing between human fingers, are programmed to die -- and in the tuning and trimming of the nervous system. "I like to think of it as sculpting, chipping away pieces at a time to create the form," Simon says. A better understanding of apoptosis could help explain certain developmental disorders. What's more, cell death, or the lack thereof, is important in the pathology of some cancers, in which mutant cells fail to die and grow out of control, forming tumors and spreading throughout the body. One potential therapeutic goal would be to learn how to trigger cell death in targeted populations, like tumors.
Investigating the population dynamics of cell death led to the examination, on a much faster timescale, of what was happening inside individual cells during apoptosis. Using single-cell microscopy and fluorescent tags that probe for cell function or for proteins that leave the mitochondria during apoptosis, graduate fellow Patrick Bhola and Postdoctoral Associate Alexa Mattheyses took pictures as the proteins dispersed through the membrane of one mitochondrion and the process spread in a wave to the other mitochondria in a cell. Some scientists had assumed that this happened simultaneously to all mitochondria throughout the cell. "This spatial coordination means that there is an upstream signal for release that is spatially localized within individual cells," says Mattheyses.
"The idea in general was to look at individual events in the cells and see if we could get any insights that we could not get looking macroscopically at whole populations of them," Simon says. Simon's close-up, observational approach has recently yielded new insights into how cells import and export protein cargoes across the cell membrane and how individual HIV particles are born, among other things. Now the microscopy techniques are enabling a deeper understanding of apoptosis, says Bhola. "It's one of those things where if you can't see what's going on, you tend to assume it's random or all at once," he says. "But when you get a good look, you find it happens in a very organized fashion."The price of bitcoin lost 14 percent over the weekend as one the largest bitcoin exchanges in the world confirmed that transactions have been affected by a clampdown from the Chinese government.
BTC China - in the top five of the most commonly used bitcoin exchanges, according to Bitcoinity.org - said over the weekend that it had suspended yuan deposits from the China Merchant Bank, following guidance the bank had posted on its website. CEO of BTC China Bobby Lee confirmed to CNBC that the exchange had also received a telephone call from the bank Monday, formally directing the exchange to cease transactions from its account.
Lee said that the bank had indicated the guidance came from "their superiors in the Beijing main office after a directive from the central bank." Lee added that all other withdrawals from other Chinese banks were as normal.
Read MoreBitcoin defies talk of China crackdown
The often volatile price of the virtual currency took another hit on the news, with the price of one bitcoin falling to $424 by Monday morning, according to industry website CoinDesk, a fall of around 14 percent from Friday's price.Microsoft is preparing to ship its Windows Phone 8.1 update with two significant changes: a notification center and a Siri-like personal assistant. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans have revealed to The Verge that the company is currently beta testing copies of Windows Phone 8.1 internally, with plans to fully detail its features at the Build Developer Conference in April, 2014. A highly requested notification-center feature will be added to the software, and we’re told it’s enabled by swiping down from the top of the screen in a similar way to iOS and Android.
New quick settings are exposed by a short swipe from the top, and a longer swipe will display a full notification history in current beta versions of Windows Phone 8.1. Both additions address some highly requested features in Windows Phone. Another key feature in the upcoming 8.1 update is the inclusion of "Cortana," a personal digital assistant. Microsoft has been testing Cortana for a number of months, and we understand it will replace the existing Bing search on Windows Phone to allow users to interact using voice or text input. We’re told it’s similar to Google Now and Apple’s Siri technology, with conversational interaction and the ability to learn location context and data from the phone. Like Google Now, it will automatically remind you when a meeting is approaching and how long you’ll need to reach an appointment.
Separate volume controls and VPN finally on the way
Microsoft is also building other new features into Windows Phone 8.1, and the company continues to address a number of missing parts along the way. Separate volume controls are finally being added to Windows Phone 8.1, allowing users to control ringtone volume independently of media playback. Microsoft is also adding Bing Smart Search results that are similar to Windows 8.1, and VPN support for enterprise users. In keeping with plans to update the video and music parts of Windows Phone more regularly, Microsoft is also separating out the built-in music hub in Windows Phone 8.1. Xbox Music and Xbox Video will ship as separate apps for 8.1, and we understand Microsoft is considering similar changes for other built-in apps for future Windows Phone updates. Microsoft is also planning to allow social apps like Twitter and Facebook to extend the People Hub even further in Windows Phone 8.1.
While Microsoft is busy preparing software features for Windows Phone 8.1, Nokia is readying two handsets for the OS update. One particular device, codenamed "Goldfinger," will include a "3D Touch" system that detects off-the-glass interactions. Nokia’s second handset, codenamed "Moneypenny," will take advantage of the new on-screen Windows Phone 8.1 buttons that are available to device makers with Microsoft’s latest update. Although Microsoft has recently started expanding its testing of Windows Phone 8.1 features internally, the update is not expected to be unveiled until Build 2014.GD Star Rating
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Austin Loves Food Carts & Food Trailers
CLOSED:
After over 8 years of trying to keep a full job and maintain this site, I have come to an end. Thank you all for your support over the years but as of March 2017 this site will no longer be maintained.
Trailer, cart, truck, silver bullet, wagon, we got em’ all. Austin loves our Food Carts and they seem to be growing by the day. You see them set up in parking lots, on sidewalks, in groups or standing by themselves they seem to be everywhere. What you don’t know, is that some of the best and freshest food in Austin is served off of these carts. You can get dogs, tacos, Pho, crepes and a multitude of ethnic foods (oops! Can’t forget cupcakes!). Our job here at AustinFoodCarts.com is to track them for you. Where are they? What kind of food do they serve? When are they open? AustinFoodCarts.com is primarily an index to where you can find carts in Austin and what you can expect when you get there.
On Austin Food Carts Comments are King!
Got something to say about a cart? Comments are in order. Food good? Food bad? Never open? Not open when they say? Best food you have ever eaten? We want to know and so does the world, so let them. Also, if you have information that you think is incorrect please let me know.
Interested in getting into the Austin Food Cart or Food Trailer business?
Check out this article from Mick Vann at the Austin Chronicle, it gives a great overview of the food cart/food trailer process in Austin and what it takes.
Mobile Food: Some tips on getting a foot in the door of the trailer business
Austin Food Cart/Food Trailer Additions
If your favorite Austin food cart or trailer is missing, let me (and the cart owner) know and we will get them posted. Submissions can be made right on the site at the Submission Page.
Warning: Food cart information is especially vulnerable to change (the carts are on wheels after all). Although I will do my best to keep this site updated, any news you send my way will be especially appreciated. For more information email [email protected].
If you are a site owner, please go to the submission page and submit your cart for listing.
GD Star Rating
loading...Data breaches, DDOS attacks, hacks and threats continue to dominate the headlines, so it's no surprise that some of the most in-demand IT jobs are in the security area. And with a massive skills gap, companies are willing to pay handsomely for skilled security talent at all levels.
"One area we're still seeing huge demand for is in cybersecurity, and hiring companies are willing to pay whatever it takes for talent that can help secure data and mitigate threats while simultaneously ensuring consistent and simplified accessibility from desktop to mobile devices. Companies are sending the message with their budgets: you can't put a price on that," says Jack Cullen, CEO of IT staffing firm Modis.
Here are the top 10 highest-paying security roles, culled from career site Dice.com clients' job postings and median salary range data from cloud compensation solutions firm PayScale.com.Jisheng Gao and his family are understood to have bought about 80% of Southampton
Chinese businessman Jisheng Gao and his family have completed a deal to buy 80% of Southampton.
In January, Gao's company Lander Sports Development said a deal was agreed, but the takeover is now a personal investment.
"Today is the start of a new and exciting chapter for our club," said Katharina Liebherr, who inherited Saints from her late father, Markus, in 2010 when they were in League One.
She will retain a 20% share.
Liebherr said the Gao family share Southampton's "values and ambitions", adding: "As a team, we will strive to build upon the strong foundation that is in place towards sustainable long-term success."
She said both parties have "full trust" in the Premier League club's chairman Ralph Krueger and his management team and support plans to follow the "Southampton way".
"I am honoured and humbled to become a partner of Southampton Football Club alongside Katharina Liebherr, who, together with her father, has been such a great steward of the club, its growth and success," said Gao.
"Together, we have the passion and motivation to build on Southampton's excellent progress in recent years as we look forward to an exciting next chapter for the club."
A spokesman for the Premier League said: "As with any change of control at a Premier League club, we have checked the sources and sufficiency of funding in place to acquire the shares, and been provided with a detailed business plan showing the new owners can sustain the club going forward.
"We have also conducted the Owners' and Directors' Test, which includes detailed background checks on any individual proposing to acquire more than 30% of shares in a club, or to be a director on the club's board."
English clubs Aston Villa, Birmingham, Wolves, Reading and West Brom already have Chinese investors, as do Italian side AC Milan, who were bought for £628m earlier this year.
In 2015, Manchester City also sold a 13% stake of the club worth £265m to a consortium of Chinese investors.
Analysis - 'Saints' next chapter will be fascinating'
BBC Radio Solent sports editor Adam Blackmore
While Saints owner Katharina Liebherr has described this new investment as a partnership, the reality is that the Gao family - father Jisheng and daughter Nelly - are now 80% majority owners.
Day to day this investment is not set to create upheaval at the club; the current board and management at Southampton will continue to run the club and I do not expect Saints to veer far from the path they have been on.
The Gao investment will of course have been discussed at length by Katharina Liebherr, who will have done all she can to protect the club and to make sure the Gao family have the club's long-term interests at heart, like she and her father Markus have had.
But she has brought this investment in to strengthen the club financially and to take it further than she feels she is able to on her own. She has done this to keep the club moving forward, albeit I suspect in a measured way, not with a sudden splashing of cash.
Her legacy as sole owner is easy to see - two promotions saw her finish what her father started in 2009, the revival of Southampton FC from near extinction.
But she has done more than that. She has led a club in a dignified way without once feeling the need to justify herself publicly, she has led a business that has thrived on bettering players, and she has turned Saints into a consistent top-half Premier League club.
The Gao family have an incredible platform from which to build. The next chapter for Saints, Chinese ownership, will be fascinating to see.It’s finally happening: An official date for the reopening of Los Angeles State Historic Park has been set. The park, nicknamed Cornfield Park, has been closed for about three years for a transformative, $20-million renovation project to expand the grounds and add a host of new amenities.
The newly madeover park will reopen 10 a.m. April 22, and park officials are finalizing plans for a family-friendly day of activities at the park to celebrate, Stephanie Campbell, a Staff Park and Recreation specialist at the LASHP, tells Curbed.
The now-34-acre park features permanent restrooms, a visitor’s center, an events area, paved parking spots, and a raised pedestrian bridge that curves across a section of the park’s open space. The park has also gained a meadow area and new wetlands.
The park was a popular spot for joggers and walkers alike to do a few laps before it closed in April 2014 for its big overhaul. At the time of its closure for renovation, it was estimated that the Chinatown green space would be open again in a year.
But a whole gamut of setbacks beset the project, from finding contaminants on the site to a drought that prevented the timely growback of new grass.
The park originally opened in 2006, intended as a placeholder for the over-30-acre park that will open next month.onald Trump released a video statement saying comments from a 2005 video in which he bragged about groping women emerged.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump released a video statement saying comments from a 2005 video in which he bragged about groping women emerged "don't reflect" who he is.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump released a video statement saying comments from a 2005 video in which he bragged about groping women emerged "don't reflect" who he is. onald Trump released a video statement saying comments from a 2005 video in which he bragged about groping women emerged. (Donald J. Trump)
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump released a video statement saying comments from a 2005 video in which he bragged about groping women emerged "don't reflect" who he is. (Donald J. Trump)
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump released a video statement saying comments from a 2005 video in which he bragged about groping women emerged "don't reflect" who he is. (Donald J. Trump)
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said in an interview Saturday that he would not drop out of the race under any circumstances, following calls from several in his party to do so.
“I’d never withdraw. I’ve never withdrawn in my life,” Trump told The Washington Post in a phone call from his home in Trump Tower in New York. “No, I’m not quitting this race. I have tremendous support.”
“People are calling and saying, ‘Don’t even think about doing anything else but running,” Trump said when asked about GOP defections. “You have to see what’s going on. The real story is that people have no idea the support. I don’t know how that’s going to boil down but people have no idea the support.
“Running against her,” Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, makes keeping the party behind him easier, Trump added.
“It’s because she’s so bad. She’s so flawed as a candidate. Running against her, I can’t say it’d be the same if I ran against someone else, but running against her makes it a lot easier, that’s for sure.”
Watch: Donald Trump recorded having extremely lewd conversation about women in 2005 Embed Copy Share Play Video 3:06 In this video from 2005, Donald Trump prepares for an appearance on "Days of Our Lives" with actress Arianne Zucker. He is accompanied to the set by "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush. The Post has edited this video for length. (Obtained by The Washington Post) In this video from 2005, Donald Trump prepares for an appearance on "Days of Our Lives" with actress Arianne Zucker. He is accompanied to the set by "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush. The Post has edited this video for length. In this video from 2005, Donald Trump prepares for an appearance on 'Days of Our Lives' with Access Hollywood host Billy Bush and actress Arianne Zucker. T (Obtained by The Washington Post)
Trump’s comments came less than 24 hours after The Post published a video Friday where Trump bragged in vulgar terms about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women during a 2005 conversation caught on a hot microphone.
Trump acknowledged that the video has consumed the presidential race — “it certainly has” — but he said he has endured past controversies, not only during his 2016 bid but during his career.
“I’ve been here before, I’ll tell ya, in life,” Trump said. “I understand life and how you make it through. You go through things. I’ve been through many. It’s called life. And it’s always interesting.”
Trump said “thousands and thousands” of backers have sent him letters and emails since the Post’s story was published. “You have no idea what it’s like,” he said. “So many people.”
Trump pointed to his disparagement of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) during the early months of last year’s Republican primary campaign as an example of how he has weathered political storms.
“Everyone said, ‘It’s over, it’s over.’ The people didn’t say that but the reporters said that,” Trump said. When asked to explain his ability in the past to survive, Trump said it’s because “I’m change.”
Reflecting on his state of mind as he watched news coverage from his apartment, Trump said, “I’m holding up well. I’m holding up well.”
politics Orlando Shooting Updates News and analysis on the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. post_newsletter348 follow-orlando true endOfArticle false Local Politics Alerts Breaking news about local government in D.C., Md., Va. Please provide a valid email address. Sign up You’re all set! See all newsletters
Trump said he met with his advisers and family Friday night at Trump Tower and agreed to record a video response.
Trump said he may make a speech or remarks on Saturday evening, perhaps in a suburb of New York City, as a way of encouraging his supporters.
“That’s what I’m thinking about,” he said. “We’ll see.”
Trump insisted, again, that any possible speech would not be a departure from the race.
“Forget that,” Trump said dismissively of the suggestion. “That’s not my deal.”[no_toc] GAW Miners has had a rough few months. The release of GAW’s alternative to, known as Paycoin (XPY), did not go as they had anticipated, and even their most loyal followers seem shaken, as the featured image above shows. The $20 floor, that GAW’s CEO, Josh Garza, envisioned, was breached shortly after the currency began to trade on the open market, and at this time, the exchange rate is 1 XPY to $1.10 USD. The company announced a plan to buy back a minimum of $100,000 worth of Paycoins per month, paying $20 for each one, yet the promise has had no effect on the Paycoin market. More disturbingly, a large amount of information has become available about some of the inner workings of the company.
While much of what happens internally at GAW is unknown, I have been provided with documents that spell out the ongoing issues in vivid detail, as well as show past issues that have been forgotten, or largely overlooked, by the community thanks to more recent distractions. I will not draw any conclusions here, nor will I publish some things that I have been told, as I have yet to received proof that they are accurate. The only details published in this article are based on information provided to me along with substantial proof.
This will be a living document, to be updated as more information is provided to me, or exposed. If you have provable information about the status of, or actions taken by / against, GAW Labs, GAW Miners, or one of their related companies, please send it to [email protected].
Here is a table of contents, with dates, to keep this organized, and make updates easy to find:
Leaked Emails Confirm SEC Investigation into GAW 2/3/15
“Legal Issues” Supposedly Tying Up Paycoin Honors Program 2/3/15 – Updated 2/4/15
Resigning GAW Employees 2/4/15
Paycoin’s Development Team 2/5/15
GAW and “Primegate” 2/3/15
Vaultbreaker Vaporware 2/3/15
Paycoin Inflation 2/3/15
Deleted Comments 2/5/15
Disclaimer: As there seems to be some confusion, we wanted to clarify this. Any mention of “Investigation” in this article is referring to the general acts of “researching”, “studying”, “inquiring” or the first stages of an SEC investigation:
All SEC investigations are conducted privately. Facts are developed to the fullest extent possible through informal inquiry, interviewing witnesses, examining brokerage records, reviewing trading data, and other methods.
This is not to be confused with a “formal order of investigation”, which has not been proven to be underway at the moment, and would move allow for more extreme measures:
With a formal order of investigation, the Division’s staff may compel witnesses by subpoena to testify and produce books, records, and other relevant documents.
The SEC Has Launched an Inquiry into GAW and Josh Garza
This is certainly not breaking news. Coinfire made early accusations that GAW was releasing misleading statements about Paycoin/Paybase, and followed that by releasing information about an SEC investigation into GAW. The only reason I mention this again, is that we here at Coin Brief can now verify that GAW is being examined by the SEC.
One of our sources has provided us with documents showing internal discussions in which David McLain, communicating with Josh Garza, states this:
The SEC has recently started an open inquiry of GAW, you, etc.
David McLain seems to be a legal consultant to GAW, as “David H. McLain” of “DHM LEGAL SERVICES, LLC” is listed as a correspondent on trademark filings submitted by Josh Garza for the term “GAW Miners”.
An inquiry by the SEC does not, in any way, prove wrongdoing by GAW Miners, Josh Garza, or anyone else, as that will not be determined until their research is complete. That said, it does cast doubt on the company, if for no other reason than the fact that they have previously rejected the idea of an SEC investigation. Of course, it is possible that GAW was unaware that the SEC probe was underway when Coinfire announced it. However, if that is the case, then I cannot understand why the course of action taken was to denounce Coinfire, and dismiss the idea of any potential investigation, rather than prepare to provide the information required, and hope that the inquiry does not go from a preliminary measure to a full fledged formal investigation.
In all honesty, the attention from the SEC is not surprising, as Hashlets are supposedly “mining derivatives” rather than actual, physical hardware that is owned by a user. Since the user is buying a representation of hashing power, not actual hashing power, that DOES make it a security (as derivatives fall under the umbrella of “securities”). In fact, it would be more surprising if they were not investigating this at all, as it is clearly in their jurisdiction. The moment it was announced that Hashlets didn’t represent physical hardware, and would only “simulate” mining on various pools, the line was crossed. What must be determined now is whether GAW had the authority to issue these derivatives, either directly or in conjunction with other groups, and if they handled the issuance, exchange, etc. legally…
Legal Red Tape is, Supposedly, Tying Up GAW’s Paycoin Honors Program
In an earlier, separate document, another attorney, Carol Van Cleef of Manatt, Phelps, & Phillips, LLP., made a statement to Mr. McLain that included:
the repurchase language should not appear on this release or it will invite the attention of the SEC more rapidly than we would like.
It seems that Mrs. Van Cleef was relaying this message for other members of the legal team who wanted to have time to review, and reword or reject the repurchase language.
These restrictions seem to be having a frustrating effect on Mr. Garza, as he included in his rebuttal:
I was advised by our legal team to run this program. I have been left out of many other legal meetings, and now being told we may not even do the program.
Mr. Garza went on to claim that he was unhappy with being held back, as this repurchase plan was a promise that he made to his customers, and his reputation would suffer, and customers would lose even more, if it did not move forward. While I initially found it refreshing to see that Josh seems interested in being open with the community, and attempting to ease the losses that so many have experienced, it has since come to light that these emails were leaked directly to people that were considered somewhat “loyal” to GAW. That makes the wording of the emails, and their contents, questionable, as they may have been crafted simply to reassure those individuals.
Mr. Garza continued on, stating:
We know we have to do the program, we just need to get the right terms, I can run with that. If it’s we are not sure we are even going to honor it, I think I need to step down. If I can not count on the advice of our legal team to the point of me looking like an idiot and putting stuff out and taking it back, I am the wrong guy for this.
This conversation occurred only a few days ago, but obviously Mr. Garza has not stepped down yet. However, the SEC investigation, along with the legal advice that it seems is being provided to GAW at the moment, creates more questions than it answers.
Resigning, High-Level GAW Employees
This is a subject that still needs some clarification, as I have reports of various resignations over the past few weeks, but I can only find some evidence for a couple of the employees. While I would like to dig further into this, I also do not want to take the focus away from the primary point of the discussion, which involves those who have remained.
Eric Capuano Resigned in Early January
Around January 24th, 2015, Eric Capuano, who posted on Hashtalk as zen_Eric, and Bitcointalk as zenMiner_Eric, announced that he had resigned from GAW a few weeks ago. Eric was the original President of Zenminer, then became the General Manager of GAW’s ZenMiner Division when ZenMiner was acquired by GAW.
While his reasons for leaving were made immediately clear on Hashtalk, a string of posts on Bitcointalk gave a bit of insight into his reasoning. After announcing that he would be retiring the username zenMiner_Eric here:
On January 29, another user, “WaffleMaster” posted his theory about what was happening behind the scenes at GAW.
Recon_eric, responded to this:
All of that is accurate, except for about 95% of it… Shame though, because you were really onto something. I will say the following, to address your statement at the end. One thing I am comfortably saying publicly, is that nobody in the company had all the pieces to the puzzle except the one who envisioned it all. It’s as if that was the intention all along, only share the bare minimum with whom and of what was needed to build it. Even those of us in the “upper echelon” were totally in the dark on many of the “finer details”. I am prepared to show any authority who asks, it was immediately upon learning those finer details that moved my hand on resigning. The only regret I carry is how long it took me to see the big picture. My leaving had nothing to do with rumors of pending investigations as I had already resigned before that was even a topic. I am not a fool, if there is an investigation underway, my leaving doesn’t waive my past involvement. I also know that I can confidently answer to anyone who asks that I always stood by what I felt was right. Hope you guys are having an awesome week.
While this does not directly point any fingers, it heavily implies that something seriously wrong is happening inside of GAW, and that outside of a single person, no one was privy to the overarching plan. However, there is no way to know what Eric was referring to exactly, and it is very likely that he cannot go into any greater detail without violating a NDA.
Joe Mordica Seems to Have Vanished From GAW
Joe Mordica has been absent lately, but there has been little confirmation that he actually resigned from his position at GAW. While we cannot prove with 100% certainty that Mr. Mordica is no longer associated with GAW Labs/Miners, or any of the related companies, there are a few bits of information that seem to suggest this is the case.
First, people have noticed that his LinkedIn Profile is extremely restricted now, and it does not mention GAW anywhere on the public page. Of course, that does not prove much, as it seems that many members of GAW’s staff have severely restricted access to their LinkedIn pages, and/or scrubbed all mentions of GAW.
However, the “red flag” for me came when I attempted to contact Joe directly. I have spoken with Mr. Mordica via email in the past, so I attempted to contact him at both [email protected] and [email protected]
I quickly received a reply, but it was not from Joe:
So, it seems that Joe’s email addresses no longer exist. As I said, that is not conclusive proof that he has gone, but it seems very strange that a high-level employee of any company would have their business email account deleted.
Where is the Development Team Behind Paycoin?
Today, Josh Garza released a statement about the development of a Prime Controller UI. While this is not surprising on it’s own, the statement was followed by a request for community members that were interested in developing the system:
This seems strange to me, as I spoke with Mr. Garza before Paycoin launched, and I mentioned this,” I think this could work pretty well, as it is well thought out. If the team you have working on this can actually make this work the way it is outlined in the whitepaper, it will do phenomenoly. It is making it all just work actually…” His response was:
I am glad you see that, because I saw people posting that it was “no big deal” and we shopped many, many different developers, and we had people
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army—to which parliamentarism was “a counterweight” in bourgeois society. Moreover, the state and the party were, step by step, merging. The Leninist party claimed to represent the consciousness of a non-existent, homogenous majority and this was an illusion that could only be maintained through state terror.
Where does this leave Marx? To say he was culpable for either Leninism or Stalinism fails to take seriously Bolshevism’s distinctiveness and its departure from his ideas (and from those of most social democrats of Lenin’s era). But if the right, simplistically and often demagogically, can still make Marx the original sinner, leftists ought not to have made him an infallible oracle. In that same essay in which Marx spoke of the “nightmare,” The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), he chastised “die Sozial-Democratie.” Marx had a very specific target in mind: a political coalition that amalgamated a workers’ movement and “petty-bourgeois” republicans, requiring the former to yield some of its radical social thrust and the latter to become more “social.” This alliance faltered, losing to conservatives and to a rising autocrat. Marx criticized it in canny ways but without fully appreciating the implications. To contest fiercely the exploitation of workers is one thing; to envisage the proletariat as the universalizing agent of history another. Marx’s scorn for “social democracy” rested on a belief in the world-historical mission of that sole social class. What, however, if the proletariat was not to universalize all interests? What if classes and societies were to become more differentiated? What if other factors in addition to classes, real and imagined, shape history?
Certainly, all those “what ifs” no longer need posing, and even if the social democracy Marx chastised failed, it still pointed to the only plausible, if often unsatisfying, alternative for democratic egalitarianism: social and political coalitions forged by unavoidable compromises. That is how majorities are created that can be drawn leftward. Not by substituting an imaginary new universalizing agent—say, the Third or post-colonial worlds, as has been the wont of some on the left—for the one that did not do the job as the theory defined it. These are two different kinds of movements: a left that substitutes protagonists wherever things don’t seem to go its precise way and a left that fashions ever broader alliances to tug a society towards democratic egalitarianism.
Coalition-making was not Lenin’s scientific way, not with social-democratic comrades in 1903 nor with other left-wing parties in October 1917. Bolshevism’s practical and theoretical answer to challenges from the left or, simply, from reality, was finally, “so what?” Revolutionary will dissolves them. Martov understood that it does not, and his dissent pushed him so far as to recognize in 1921 that “The state of the world is at present so exceptional that it does not at all fit our usual schemes of Marxist analysis.” After all, men and women do make their own history but not in circumstances they choose. Martov’s pained statement remains so today, apart from the assertion of exceptionality.
Mitchell Cohen is an editor emeritus of Dissent. His books include The Politics of Opera: A History from Monteverdi to Mozart (Princeton University Press, 2017), The Wager of Lucien Goldmann (Princeton University Press, 1994), and Zion and State (Columbia University Press, 1992). He is professor of Political Science at Bernard Baruch College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Author’s note: My sources for this article include Martov’s The State and Socialist Revolution; Israel Getzler, Martov; Abe Ascher, The Mensheviks in the Russian Revolution, Vladimir Brovkin, The Mensheviks after October. Vera Broido, Lenin and the Mensheviks. I have found especially helpful books by Andrzej Walicki, particularly A History of Russian Thought, and The Controversy over Capital and Vladimir Vucinich, Social Thought in Tsarist Russia: The Quest for a General Science of Society, 1861-1917.Microsoft has finally confirmed that Xbox fans' worst fears are at least partially true: Although the new Xbox One gaming console won't need an always-on internet connection, that connection had better be on pretty often or you can forget about gaming. And don't assume you'll be able to sell or trade your old games, either.
"With Xbox One, we are planning for a connected future," the Xbox team explained in a blog post on Thursday.
What that means is that while offline gaming is technically possible with the Xbox One – as an earlier leaked memo suggested it would be – it will only actually work as long as the console is able to phone home at least once per day.
After that it's kaput, unless all you want is a media player – and customers who don't want to connect their consoles to the internet might as well forget about buying an Xbox One altogether, as the post explains:
With Xbox One you can game offline for up to 24 hours on your primary console, or one hour if you are logged on to a separate console accessing your library. Offline gaming is not possible after these prescribed times until you re-establish a connection, but you can still watch live TV and enjoy Blu-ray and DVD movies.
What's more, as Redmond notes, even though the console itself doesn't need to be online all the time, some games may not work unless it is.
While a persistent connection is not required, Xbox One is designed to verify if system, application or game updates are needed and to see if you have acquired new games, or resold, traded in, or given your game to a friend. Games that are designed to take advantage of the cloud may require a connection.
Or, as the Xboxers put it elsewhere in the same post, "Xbox One is designed to run in a low-powered, connected state" – which, in the opinion of this Reg hack, isn't quite the same thing as not needing an always-on internet connection, as Microsoft has previously suggested.
B-but... but you get the CLOUD!
Part of the reason for these requirements is that gaming on the Xbox One is fully integrated with the cloud. When you install a game for the console, a copy of it is automatically associated with your online account, no matter whether you bought it online through Xbox Live or picked it up on physical disc at a store.
The main benefit of this is that your games can now follow you wherever you are. You can login with your account on your friend's Xbox and play all of your games there. You can even share your games with up to ten members of your family, and they'll be able to play them wherever they go, too.
The main downside, on the other hand, is that this cloud-connected system gives Microsoft and its game-publisher partners ultimate control over when, where, how, and to whom you can sell or trade your used games, even if you bought them on physical disc, as Microsoft explains in a separate blog post.
Although it will be possible to trade in, resell, or give away your disc-based games in some cases, and Redmond won't charge you any fees to do so, it's up to game publishers to decide whether it's allowed for their games – and how much it might cost.
"Third party publishers may opt in or out of supporting game resale and may set up business terms or transfer fees with retailers," the post explains.
Even giving games away is subject to approval. According to Microsoft, you'll only be able to give them to people who have been on your friends list for 30 days, and each game can only be given away in this fashion once. And even then, it's up to game publishers to enable the feature for their games.
Worse still, for now all of this is hypothetical. "Loaning or renting games won't be available at launch," Microsoft writes, "but we are exploring the possibilities with our partners."
On the positive side, Microsoft says gamers will have complete control over when and how the built-in Kinect sensor in the Xbox One operates, collects, and shares data. "When Xbox One is on and you're simply having a conversation in your living room, your conversation is not being recorded or uploaded," Redmond thoughtfully explains.
On the negative side, just about everything you hoped wouldn't be true about the Xbox is essentially true, even if the rumors didn't have it exactly right. Happy now? ®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.
Hamas's popularity has skyrocketed in the wake of Operation Protective Edge to the point where its deputy political bureau chief, Ismail Haniyeh, would win the presidency of the Palestinian Authority if elections were held today, according to a new survey of West Bank and Gaza residents.
The poll, which was overseen by Dr. Khalil Shikaki of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, indicates that Haniyeh would attract 61 percent support among prospective Palestinian voters, easily outpacing incumbent Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah (32 percent).
In the Gaza Strip, Haniyeh has the support of 53 percent of residents, while in the West Bank the figure jumps to 66 percent.Hamas's popularity in the West Bank is at an all-time high following the 50-day long military confrontation with Israel.According to Shikaki's poll, if the race were a three-way contest between Haniyeh, Abbas, and jailed Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti, Haniyeh would still emerge as the winner with 48 percent. Barghouti garners 29 percent support, whereas Abbas finishes a distant third with just 19 percent.The poll also finds that nearly 8 in 10 Palestinians believe Hamas defeated Israel in the recent round of fighting. In addition, the survey indicates that a majority of Palestinians would support copying Hamas's strategy of launching rockets into Israeli towns in the West Bank as well. Nonetheless, 63 percent of Palestinians believe the cease-fire serves national interests.In elections for the Palestinian parliament, Hamas would win 48 percent of the seats, while Fatah would take just 29 percent. Smaller Palestinian factions would win the remaining 19 percent.When asked about their views of the two-state solution, 51 percent of Palestinians said they were opposed, while 49 percent said they supported it.A majority – 53 percent – said it supported armed struggle against Israel, while just 20 percent said nonviolence was the best way to achieve statehood.Nearly nine in 10 Palestinians support renewed rocket fire against Israel if the Gaza blockade remains. Half of the respondents said they "understood" the strategy of launching rockets at Israel from civilian, built-up urban areas, while just 30 percent believe that Hamas fired rockets from these sites.The poll surveyed 1,270 people.
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>Syracuse, N.Y. -- A man who stole more than $16,000 over six months from six banks, including three in Central New York, has pleaded guilty to the robberies.
Robert Stevenson, 59, of Rochester, agreed to a deal Friday in U.S. District Court in Buffalo that could send him to prison for up to 20 years, according to court documents.
Stevenson admitted to robbing six banks between April and November 2012. Three of those banks were located in Syracuse, Utica and New Hartford.
At about 12:25 p.m. on May 11, 2012, Stevenson walked into the HSBC Bank at 333 W. Washington St. in Syracuse and held up a threatening note to a teller. The teller handed over $2,600 in cash and Stevenson fled. He was wearing a black suit and fedora during the robbery.
Before the Syracuse robbery Stevenson had robbed the Citzens Bank in Irondequoit on April 25 and gotten away with $1,550. His next bank robbery, however, led FBI agents to him as a suspect.
On June 11 Stevenson walked into the First Niagara Bank in Kenmore and handed a teller a note that read "100.00 and 50.00." According to court documents, he tapped his waistband and made a noise and gesture the teller took to mean he had a gun. The teller gave him $3,600 in cash.
FBI agents developed Stevenson as a suspect and showed a surveillance photo of the suspect from the First Niagara robbery to Stevenson's employer, who identified him. Stevenson's old probation officer -- he was convicted of bank robbery in 1996 and robbery in 2005 -- also identified him from a surveillance photo.
Stevenson later stole $3,315 from the Adirondack Bank in Utica on Aug. 20, $3,020 from the Bank of America in New Hartford on Oct. 3 and $2,340 on Nov. 5 from the Northwest Savings Bank in Falconer.
Stevenson's employer produced personnel records for the FBI that showed that during his six months of employment, he only missed four days of work. According to court documents, those four days coincided with four of the robberies.
When sentenced Stevenson faces up to 20 years in prison, a fine of $250,000, restitution and three years of supervised release.Credit: DC Comics
Credit: Lee Weeks (DC Comics)
When Dan Abnett launched DC's new Titans series in July, the return of Wally West was still a new phenomenon in the "Rebirth" universe. So the first few issues dealt with Wally's reunion with other Titans characters and the team's discovery of past connections and shared threats.
But there's still the problem of where Wally came from, and more importantly, who not only caused him to disappear, but allegedly stole 10 years from DC's characters and manipulated their relationships and histories.
Although the villain featured in the first arc of Titans - Flash villain Abra Kadabra - seemed to have some knowledge of the continuity-tampering, the clues seemed to go over the heads of the Titans (even if readers were aware of the connection). From a drop of blood that fell on a watch held by Kadabra to the single word that Omen extracted from the villain's mind: "Manhattan," Abnett has been dropping bread crumbs for readers to follow the trail toward the expected confrontation between the DCU and Watchmen.
Next on the agenda is a meeting between post-Crisis Wally West and the post-Crisis Superman, which takes place in this month's Titans #7. Newsarama talked to Abnett to find out more about Wally's meeting with Superman, what the changes in Wonder Woman mean for Donna Troy's history, and whether Titans will continue to deal with the Watchmen story in 2017.
Credit: Lee Weeks (DC Comics)
Newsarama: Dan, now that you've established the Titans team and Wally's return and who's who, do you feel like issue #7 is a turning point for the Titans?
Dan Abnett: I think issue #7 definitely marks the next step. Although we've been running for seven issues plus the Titans: Rebirth #1 issue - and for me, it's been running for longer than that because of Titans Hunt, which I wrote before that (which was very much a prelude to this) - only as of issue #7 have we got them together as a team with a headquarters, functioning as a team that's doing things rather than just responding to external problems and trying to pull themselves together.
It sounds like that's a bit of a delay, but there were a lot of things to work through for those characters in order to get them to this place.
Credit: Lee Weeks (DC Comics)
Titans #7 is a great place for people to jump onto the book. It's a good place to meet these people and learn what they're trying to do.
The opening arc, I was very pleased with. It embeds the team, it brings Wally back, it deals with a lot of issues. But issue #7, to me, is almost like a new issue #1, in as much as we're going, right: Now we're a team.
So there's a renewed vigor from this point on.
Nrama: You've made it clear that Wally doesn't remember having children - or at least, he doesn't remember them yet - but you've got a scene coming up in issue #7 where he does have a reunion with Superman - the post-Crisis Superman who's now part of the "Rebirth" era. What's that like?
Abnett: Getting Wally together with Superman is great fun because it not only gives us the opportunity for them to have the classic foot race together but also because they're distinct from the rest of the DC Universe - there's a commonality there, and a friendship.
And Superman offers his advice and help.
Credit: Lee Weeks (DC Comics)
That is obviously taking forward Wally's storyline, which has a lot of things still to do with it. You know - where was he? How did he get there? What's the Rebirth backstory all about?
But also, he's had a personal loss. He's lost Linda. Should he try to rebuild that life? Will he remember things about his past that the readers know about, as you mentioned, like his kids? There are a lot of things that we have to deal with coming up, and we'll continue working those character-based questions into the story.
Similarly, we're talking about Donna's past, who she is, and also the fact that Roy can't help but show that he really, really likes her. And she's now acknowledging that she's aware of that.
What I'm saying is there's a lot of character work in here.
Nrama: There has to be. With "Rebirth," so many things have changed about the history of these characters.
Abnett: Absolutely. Every issue, we have to get information out there to clarify: These are the facts we're using for this character.
So of all the different versions of Donna Troy, for instance, many of which are contradictory and all to do with the changes in time and all of that - I'm trying to lay out, these are the things that I want to establish that are true now about Donna. And that will give us some questions in terms of exploring those stories.
Credit: Lee Weeks (DC Comics)
Nrama: There does seem to be a contradiction with what's happening now in Wonder Woman, with the revelation that Diana's never even been to Paradise Island since she left. How does Donna fit into that?
Abnett: We have a Titans Annual coming out between issue #8 and #9, which is a must-read if you're a fan of Donna Troy - or all the characters, actually. So you'll find out how that ties together.
Nrama: We've seen several hints about the mysteries from DC Universe: Rebirth #1 within the pages of Titans since it launched. Will Titans continue to play a role in that, since these characters are probably more aware than anybody that there's something weird happening?
Abnett: That's true. Well, I think things have been announced in the last couple of weeks about DC's plans to deploy the W-word that we…
This is quite difficult, because obviously, it's terribly exciting for me. I'm a huge, huge fan of Watchmen, and I loved the shocking, surprising way that it was there in the "Rebirth" one-shot. Suddenly, all bets are off. It's like, what the hell's going on?
And the Titans - and Wally in particular - were right there at ground zero of that event. They are so closely connected to it.
The problem was that you can't tell a story like that in one story-arc of Titans. That's not my story to tell. Yet it is connected. I don't want the Titans to look like they've seen something and just forgotten about it and turned away. And at the same time, we've got to let anticipation for that big event build up, and the Titans are part of that because of their connection.
Credit: Lee Weeks (DC Comics)
Nrama: Well, you've given a few hints during your first story arc. Or at least, they were cryptic enough that I thing you have…
Abnett: Yes, yes, the hints were there on purpose. I tried to get as many references and connections in as I could. Some of them were very obvious. Some of them are bleak. Some of them not at all obvious to the characters in the story.
I think there are certain things in the Abra Kadabra story where the readers are going to go, "Oh, that's a Watchmen reference! I can see it there!" But the characters have no awareness of that at all.
I actually had a long list of things I could do to tease, and the DC editors went, "yes, yes, no, no…." So there were certain things I was hoping to do that I didn't end up getting to do. Maybe I'll get to do them closer to the event.
The biggest teaser, to me - and I was pleased with the way it got folded into the story, because it has a meaning in the story rather than just being a great big neon sign saying "story to come" - was Omen getting the word "Manhattan" out of Kadabra's mind.
Credit: Lee Weeks (DC Comics)
Nrama: That was one of the more obvious ones, along with all the clock references. But you found a way to put "Manhattan" into the book, didn't you?
Abnett: I did. The presumption by the characters in the book was that "Manhattan" references the place.
Nrama: And the readers are going, "No! It doesn't refer to the place!"
Abnett: Well, I'm not saying it doesn't. It may well be that that's what he was talking about. I'm not going to say anything for sure. But clearly, the connection is there.
But for that to crop up, and rather than it being a kind of big, striking moment, the idea of the Titans going, "Manhattan! That's where we should be!" is pretty cool.
And in issue #7, they're setting up their headquarters in Manhattan.
Truly, we had long conversations about where to locate the Titans. They needed to be somewhere. Because there are two books - Teen Titans and Titans – and they are similar in their line-ups, we want to make sure they're distinct books. And the Teen Titans are over in the west coast.
Credit: Lee Weeks (DC Comics)
So with Wally's connection to the "Rebirth" story, we thought it would be fun to drop the name "Manhattan" in there, and lo and behold, they've got an ideal base of operations.
And in issue #7, we'll have fun with that, as they set up the base. To me, superheroes (or any kind of science fiction-type genre) becomes more credible when you couch it in real-world business. So we have them construct this base, which they've done almost overnight using Atlantean technology - which is something I then reference in Aquaman (a throw-away line in Aquaman in an issue or two where somebody mentions building something for the Titans). But they have a conversation about zoning and air traffic control and where the money's coming from. To me, that's the everyday business of what it would be like to have a secret base in the middle of the East River. You don't just do that. It has huge implications.
Nrama: You've got the Fearsome Five coming into the book as the next threat?
Abnett: Yes, but I'm actually sort of running two threats simultaneously. Issue #7 is sort of a prelude to the next arc. And it brings them into contact with classic Titans foes, which as you stated is the Fearsome Five, but also it's dealing with Mal Duncan and his wife Karen.
Mal and Karen have been Titans in the past. They played a part in Titans Hunt. But from "Rebirth" onwards, they did not. In an ideal world, I'd have 100 pages every month and get as many characters as possible in there and do as much as I possibly could, but there was a real, real need to keep the Titans small and keep it down to a manageable number of people that we could deal with. I felt very sad to have left characters like Gnarrk, Karen and Mal, and Hawk and Dove, behind in Titans Hunt because they could have very easily been part of that team.
Credit: DC Comics
Issue #7 is the lead-in to a three-part story called "Made in Manhattan," which will bring Mal and Karen back into the story as sort of guests. And we're going to be looking particularly at the dynamic between these two people because Mal has been a Titan and has been a superhero, and he doesn't want to do that anymore. It was generally speaking a pretty unpleasant experience, and he doesn't want to do that anymore. But Karen, who ended up in Titans Hunt, suddenly got powers for the first time. She doesn't know where that came from.
It's great to see a character who's excited to suddenly have these abilities, but she doesn't have any idea what to do with them. So we'll find out what they mean for her and whether she can be a superhero if her husband doesn't want to be one.
So this is setting up an exploration of those two. And of course, the Titans are the people they turn to for assistance and guidance dealing with the problems, because once Karen starts to investigate what her powers are, it brings her into direct contact with some very dangerous individuals.
So issue #7 establishes the Titans as a team, functioning with a base, and two of their first customers are two friends.
As for the Fearsome Five, they have appeared in "Rebirth" and "New 52" already, although I think Brett Boothwill give them an interesting visual spin to make sure they're fresh and up to the minute. But I'm not trying to reinvent them or anything.
I will be deploying them and the powers they use in ways that make them significant and quite frightening. Mammoth, for instance, isn't just a big, strong guy - he's a terrifyingly strong guy. He's a Hulk-class strong guy. And the others with their various powers - Shimmer and Jinx, for instance - employing their powers in ways that are quite startling.
So we're not reinventing them, but we're doing sort of a modern take on what they'd be like if you encountered them.
Credit: DC Comics
Nrama: And Brett Booth is your artist going forward? You've got Lee Weeks on the next issue, right?
Abnett: Yes, Brett Booth and Norm Rapmund have done amazing work on the book so far. I'm so pleased that they're the regular team. The Abra Kadabra story was great and they're fantastic to work with.
They obviously needed a break, because it's been very, very intensive work.
And to get Lee on issue #7 was an absolute pleasure. I think he did a beautiful job. I really was impressed by it. He draws Superman so brilliantly. And he was so nice to work with. He was so professional, and he was genuinely worried that he wasn't going to do a good job because he wasn't as familiar with the Titans character, in terms of the muscle memory of drawing them. Superman, to him, came so easily, but these were characters he had to draw his way into, to make sure he was doing them properly.
He kept saying, "I'm not sure I'm doing this right." And I'm going, "Are you kidding? This is fantastic!"
The issue is old-school in the best possible way. The draftsmanship is amazing. But remember while you're reading it that this is work produced by someone who didn't think they were quite getting it. I'm thinking, well, if that's you not quite getting it, what would it look like if you did? I think it's fantastic. And I'm hoping we get to use Lee again on the occasion when Brett and Norm need another break. I think Lee did a great job.
Nrama: What's coming up in 2017? You teased what's happening with Watchmen, but can you give us any hints about what else is coming up in the book?
Abnett: Absolutely. There are considerable plans. When "Rebirth" started, there were long-term plans for both Aquaman and Titans. Aquaman, of course, is double shipping, so I'm burning through stories. That's fantastic, but that means I'm having to plan further and further out.
With the Titans, on a monthly basis, the pacing is very different. You're only getting 20 pages a month instead of 40 pages a month. I have to be more selective about the scenes I show and how I develop characters. There is a longer wait between those casual beats of backstory and meta-story that may frustrate people. So I'm trying to move things along, oddly, faster than Aquaman.
But after "Made in Manhattan" and the annual, there are loads of things you'll start to see coming together that have been growing in these stories. If it appears to be a three-issue story (like issues #3 through #5, for instance), yes, it is, but in the background, there are all sorts of other things going on.
And I think when we get to the mid-teens of Titans, which really isn't that far away, the big events will start to happen. And people who've been reading it from day one will go, "Oh my God, they've been talking about this since the beginning! Oh my God, that was set up in issue #6! You know, it's all there."
I'm laying it all out in plain sight. It just isn't obvious what everything is. But I hope there are some incredibly satisfying payoffs.IKEA’s ‘Life at Home’ Project Offers a Crazy Detailed Look Into New Yorkers’ Mornings
IKEA has made their way into homes across the world, but with their latest project ‘Life at Home‘ the furniture giant finds themselves square at our breakfast tables. Although you may think that your mornings aren’t all that different from someone in say Paris or London (or in the next cubicle for that matter), as New Yorkers we’re pretty distinct in how we wake up, how we dress ourselves, and even how long we shower.
The company’s Life at Home report is the first of what will be a series of studies geared towards developing new home products in line with a particular city’s waking habits. The report covers seven other cities, including Paris, Berlin, London, Moscow, but of course, we’re going to bring you the top findings from their NYC study. Many of these were surprising…
Highlights from the report:
1. An impressive 51% of New Yorkers wake up before 7AM, but 56% of people in the city don’t consider themselves “morning people”.
2. 56% shower or bathe in the morning. These individuals spend about 14 minutes on average doing so.
3. Men spend 12 minutes on average grooming, while women take an extra 7 minutes. 3 out of 10 will put on makeup, and 35% pick out clothes the night before.
4. It takes men 5 minutes to dress while women take 7 minutes.
5. On the creative and mind-fullness front, 57% of New Yorkers feel that self-reflection is important in the morning. The top 5 activities for doing this are taking a shower (42% of us do it); while listening to music (32%); praying (20%); stretching (20%); and exercising (19%). Martial arts also made it on to the list at 3%.
6. 6 out of 10 people have breakfast at home. 50% of these breakfast eaters have it with the people they are living with on weekday mornings, but 19% of them don’t have conversations with each other despite being together.
7. 78% of New Yorkers show physical affection towards someone they live with in the morning. And a somewhat sad related fact: 83% think it’s important to give their kids a hug or a kiss in the morning but only 48% do.
8. New Yorkers have worked from these spots from home: bed (40%); bathroom (16%); and dining table (35%).
9. 12% of us do some work before heading to work.
10. Average time from wake up to leaving for work is 1 hour and 31 minutes.
To come to the conclusions above, IKEA used a combination of existing research and a new survey conducted in the eight subject cities via online panels. Each survey culled around 1,000 respondents per city aged 18 to 60 years, for a sample of 8,292 individuals. They conducted the study with Swedish business intelligence agency United Minds.
If you want to see how New York City stacks up against other metropolises across the globe, you can try out IKEA’s Data Mixing Board or peruse a city’s individual Life at Home page here.
All images via IKEA’s ‘Life at Home’ report
Tags : IKEA, new yorkers in the morning"Clubbed to Death" is an instrumental composition by Australian music producer Rob Dougan. It appeared in the 1997 film Clubbed to Death and was given renewed attention in 1999 due to its inclusion in the film The Matrix. It was re-released as a single in 2002 with new remixes.
Release [ edit ]
The subtitle Kurayamino variation is based on the Japanese for "of the darkness" (暗闇 の（くらやみ の） kurayami no. It denotes Dougan's own mix in a tragic style, as well as his stated inspirations from dark Japanese writers like Yukio Mishima or Yasunari Kawabata.[1]
"Clubbed to Death" samples "It's a New Day" by Skull Snaps and "City of the Angels" by Wang Chung[citation needed].
The short strings introduction is an excerpt from the first movement of Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations, and the piano solo is improvised around Enigma Variations.[citation needed]
Track list [ edit ]
Clubbed to Death (Compact Disc Experience) [ edit ]
Mo Wax, MW037CD, 1995
"The First Mix" – 7:12 "Kurayamino Variation" – 7:29 "La Funk Mob Variation" – 8:08 "Peshay Remix" – 6:06 "Spoon Mix" remixed by Carl Craig – 5:55 "Clubbed to Death Darkside" remixed by La Funk Mob – 5:05
Clubbed to Death #1 [ edit ]
Mo Wax, MW037, 1995
"La Funk Mob Variation" "Clubbed to Death Darkside" "The First Mix"
Clubbed to Death #2 [ edit ]
Mo Wax, MW037R, 1995
"Kurayamino Variation" "Peshay Remix" "Spoon Mix" "Totally Waxed Remix" remixed by Wax Doctor
Charts [ edit ]New Music Shines at Classical Grammy Awards
Enlarge this image toggle caption Michael Buckner/Getty Images Michael Buckner/Getty Images
"New classical music is well and alive," Brad Wells, director of the vocal collective Roomful of Teeth, said yesterday as he accepted his Grammy for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance.
It was a comment that echoed throughout the classical Grammy awards, handed out at the pre-telecast ceremony Sunday afternoon at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. Twenty minutes earlier, Wells' ensemble had performed a section of Partita for 8 Voices by Roomful of Teeth member Caroline Shaw. The composition earned her the Pulitzer Prize for music last year. The award is also a win for the "indie-classical" label New Amsterdam Records, an ambitious enterprise run by a trio of composers.
YouTube
But the big winner yesterday was Winter Morning Walks, composer and jazz band leader Maria Schneider's sumptuously scored yet intimate song cycle of poems by Ted Kooser sung by soprano Dawn Upshaw with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. The album won awards for Best Classical Vocal Solo, Best Contemporary Composition and the award for Best Engineered Album, Classical. The album also includes a second cycle set to poems by Carlos Drummond de Andrade.
Accepting her composer's award, Schneider made a point to thank her fans. "This was a tremendously expensive album that was funded entirely by fans who choose to pay for music and support artists," she said, noting that ArtistShare, the label that provided the fan-based financial framework, was her "saving grace in this industry." She also made an impassioned plea against musical piracy on the Internet.
Recent music by Thomas Adès and John Corigliano also won awards. While many awardees were absent from the ceremony, leaving presenters to awkwardly "accept" the awards at the podium, Adès was on hand to receive his Grammy for Best Opera Recording for The Tempest. Looking genuinely surprised, the British composer started his acceptance speech with a single word: "Crikey!" He went on to thank the stagehands at the Met (where his opera was produced last season) and its general manager, Peter Gelb, who "put opera in movie theaters for the first time."
David Alan Miller, the adventurous music director of the Albany Symphony, accepted the award for his ensemble's recording of Corigliano's Conjurer: Concerto for Percussionist and String Orchestra with soloist Evelyn Glennie. Miller thanked his orchestra musicians, saying they "believe that the music of our time belongs at its rightful place at the center of every orchestra's repertoire."
Adam's Lament, a work by contemporary Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, earned the award for Best Choral Performance, while the beleaguered Minnesota Orchestra (freshly emerged from a 15-month labor dispute) won the award for Best Orchestral Performance for its recording of the First and Fourth Symphonies by Sibelius with former music director Osmo Vänskä.
CLASSICAL GRAMMY WINNERS:
BEST ORCHESTRAL PERFORMANCE
Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 4
Osmo Vänskä, conductor (Minnesota Orchestra)
BEST OPERA RECORDING
Adès: The Tempest
Thomas Adès, conductor; Simon Keenlyside, Isabel Leonard, Audrey Luna & Alan Oke; Luisa Bricetti & Victoria Warivonch
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that functions as a plaster cast for soldiers who become injured while in combat.
“Fashion was our starting point, but we’re now also realizing the technology has so many applications that can benefit other industries,” says Torres. “Fashion owes a lot to science for innovations that make it into clothes you see today, and it’s nice to think this can be our way of giving back.”BERLIN (AFP) – A leading member of German right-wing populist party AfD sparked an outcry Wednesday by criticising the Holocaust memorial in Berlin and calling for the country to stop atoning for its Nazi past.
Bjoern Hoecke’s comments also exposed a damaging split in the anti-immigration party, just months before Germany heads to the polls.
“Up to now, our state of mind is still one of a totally defeated people… We Germans, our people, are the only people in the world who have planted a monument of shame in the heart of the capital,” Hoecke told party faithful including youth members, according to a video of the speech circulated online.
“We need nothing less than a 180-degree shift in the politics of remembrance,” he said in the remarks on Tuesday to chants of “Germany, Germany”.
Instead of introducing younger generations to home-grown “internationally-acclaimed philosophers, musicians and ingenious inventors… German history has been made lousy and ridiculous,” he complained, winning a standing ovation from the crowd.
“There is no moral responsibility to make yourself disappear,” said Hoecke, who was a high school sports and history teacher, adding that Germany should instead “build up a positive relationship with our history”.
The comments were met with an instant uproar, with Social Democrat vice chief Ralf Stegner accusing Hoecke of making a “hate incitement speech” — which is illegal in Germany — that called for history to be rewritten.
Chairwoman of the Greens party Simone Peter said the comments were “unspeakable” and demanded an apology from the AfD to Jews.
Germany’s Central Council of Jews also lashed out, accusing the politician of trampling on six million Jewish Holocaust victims murdered by the Nazis.
“The AfD has shown its real face with these anti-Semitic and extremely hostile words,” said the council’s chairman Josef Schuster, adding that he “never thought that 70 years after the Holocaust, a politician in Germany could say such things”.
Council of Europe chief Thorbjorn Jagland also weighed in, saying that “calling our remembrance culture into question is outrageous and dangerous”.
– ‘A burden’ –
The case also exposed a rift within the party.
AfD co-leader Frauke Petry told Young Freedom weekly that the episode showed that “Hoecke has become a burden on the party with his go-it-alone attitude and constant sniping”.
But deputy chief Alexander Gauland defended the politician, telling national news agency DPA that Hoecke had “in no manner criticised the remembrance of the Holocaust”.
In a post on Facebook on Wednesday, Hoecke also insisted that he had been misinterpreted and that he “described the Holocaust… as a shame for our people”.
The AfD had started out as an anti-euro party, but has since morphed into an anti-immigration outfit railing against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s liberal refugee policy that brought some 890,000 refugees to Germany in 2015 alone.
The party, which disputes the place of Islam in Germany, is polling nationwide at around 12 to 15 percent ahead of general elections.
Hoecke, who is a regional deputy in the eastern state of Thuringia, is viewed as one of the most right-leaning leaders of the populist party.
In December 2015, he sparked outrage when he said that the “reproductive behaviour of Africans” could be a threat for Germany.
Most recently, he was greeted by students chanting “Nazis out” as he tried to make a speech at a university in the eastern city of Magdeburg, and had to leave the hall under police escort.
(By Hui Min NEO)The Major League Soccer-to-St. Louis bandwagon picked up a little bit of steam on Wednesday, when Missouri Governor Jay Nixon told reporters that he’s scheduled to talk with MLS Commissioner Don Garber this week about a potential expansion franchise for St. Louis.
Nixon, who indicated that any decision on MLS expanding to St. Louis is far off, said that Garber sent him a letter expressing the league’s interest in St. Louis following the NFL’s decision to relocate the Rams to Los Angeles.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Garber said in his letter, which was dated Friday, that he was surprised and disappointed by the Rams’ departure and that he’s committed to exploring the possibility of placing an expansion team in St. Louis.
“I look forward to working with you, your staff and local leaders to explore ownership candidates and to investigate viable stadium solutions to bring MLS to St. Louis,” Garber said in the letter, according to the Post-Dispatch.
Nixon said that he’d need to look into the economics of expansion before committing to MLS. He didn’t offer any details about who might be involved in a potential expansion bid or where a stadium might be built.
“I don’t want to go into the details until I have a chance to talk directly with the commissioner, other than to say that with the finances involved with an MLS team, it opens up that opportunity to a much broader array of people [than the NFL].”
A longtime US soccer hotbed, St. Louis has repeatedly been mentioned as a potential destination for MLS. Garber discussed the prospect of expanding to the city in an interview with Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl at the SuperDraft earlier this month, telling him that the league has always had interest in St. Louis.
“St. Louis has been on our radar screen as long as the league’s been in existence. We’ve never been able to find the right investor, we’ve never been able to find the right stadium solution. We know that there’s a stadium possibility – whether or not that’s an MLS possibility [is] still to be seen,” Garber said, referencing the proposed NFL stadium that would’ve been built in St. Louis with public support had the Rams stayed in the city.
“We know that there’s support for a facility in a great location and we’ve had discussions with those that were part of that project about bringing MLS to town. So the fact that there’s one fewer pro team there I think is a positive for our league as it relates to St. Louis.”NEW YORK – Landon Donovan is off the schneid, and the rest of the league has taken notice.
The LA Galaxy star was named the MLS Player of the Week by the North American Soccer Reporters on Monday after he scored two goals and added an assist in the Galaxy’s 3-0 win over the Portland Timbers on Saturday at The Home Depot Center.
WATCH: FULL MATCH HIGHLIGHTS
Donovan – who has battled a knee injury in recent weeks and made his first start since April 2 – scored his first goal of the season from the penalty spot in the eighth minute after he was fouled inside the Portland box by Timbers defender Rodney Wallace.
He added a second goal midway through the second half with a wide-open snap header to the far post off a cross from Juan Pablo Angel.
Donovan also assisted on Chad Barrett’s beautiful right-footed goal in the fourth minute, which set the tone early for the Galaxy’s most emphatic win of the season.
WATCH: Postgame reaction from Landon Donovan
PREVIOUS PLAYER OF THE WEEK WINNERS
Week 5: Luke Rodgers, (New York Red Bulls)
Week 4: David Ferreira (FC Dallas)
Week 3: Camilo (Vancouver Whitecaps)
Week 2: Javier Morales (Real Salt Lake)
Week 1: Omar Bravo (Sporting Kansas City)
RelatedGetty Images
Shunned from the Scouting Combine, Indiana receiver Shane Wynn made up for it on Monday.
The undersized wideout, who stands a mere five feet, six inches, ran the 40-yard dash in a blazing 4.29 seconds, according to David Woods of the Indianapolis Star.
Pro Day workouts often occur on a track faster than the turf at the Scouting Combine, prompting scouts to adjust the time. Regardless, Wynn’s official time shows that he can move.
The question becomes whether he’s big enough to make it at the next level. Trindon Holliday, who is an inch shorter and ran at 4.34-second 40 at the Combine in 2010, became an effective kick returner for a few years.
As a senior with the Hoosiers, Wynn caught 56 passes for 708 yards, scoring three touchdowns through the air. He aded two rushing touchdowns and 138 yards. He also returned 11 kickoffs for 244 yards (a 22.2-yard average per return) and 13 punts for 69 yards (a 5.3-yard average per return).David Haye was taken to hospital straight after defeat to Tony Bellew in London on Saturday
Former heavyweight world champion David Haye has ruled out retiring from the sport and is targeting a rematch with Tony Bellew.
Haye, 36, had surgery on an Achilles injury sustained in Saturday's 11th-round defeat by Bellew in London.
He suffered the injury in the sixth round of the fight, but says a two-and-a-half-hour operation "went well".
"I live to fight another day and I will fight another day," Haye told Sky Sports.
Asked if he would be returning to the ring, he said: "No doubt about it, I have never been more sure about it."
He added: "Other athletes have come back in six to nine months after the same injury, I am in a good condition, a healthy-living person and I am looking forward to getting back in there."
Bellew, 34, said he is considering retirement following his win, but admitted that an offer for one further fight could be too lucrative to turn down.
Asked whether the Haye bout would be his last, Bellew told BBC Radio 5 live: "It's an option. It's something I'm thinking about."
In response, Haye told Sky Sports: "I never envisaged losing this fight, if Tony Bellew does retire - and I truly hope he doesn't - then I will carry on in my path to be number one in the world.
"But it is only fair to the fans to rematch against the guy who beat me. If that does not happen, then I will find a way to challenge for the heavyweight title. I believe after sharing a ring with him, he will want to do it again."Okay, nearly there. January is almost over and payday is just around the corner. Here are nine exciting pieces of food news happening in London that you can splash your cash on now that you can afford to eat again! This week: steamed Bao buns, excellent cheeseburgers, Pho, free Nachos, National Chocolate Cake Day and Cronuts. You’re welcome!
Mr Bao opens in Peckham
There’s been a lot of excited salivating faces this week as Mr Bao opened it’s doors for a soft launch in Peckham on 22nd January. The team are serving up a truly delicious sounding menu including millionaire’s bacon ribs, bao steamed buns filled with slow braised pork with peanut powder, AND for dessert a Bao S’More consisting of a fried bao, melted chocolate and toasted marshmallow! For the next couple of weeks Mr Bao will be open Friday-Sunday until 31st January for brunch and dinner, then Tuesday-Sunday after that. We will be getting down there as soon as we can get a table. You should do the same.
Mr Bao: 293 Rye Lane, Peckham, SE15 4UA
Lucky Chip opens permanent restaurant in Dalston After a few years of kicking arse and serving up delicious cheeseburgers at various different residencies, Lucky Chip opened their first proper restaurant called Burgers and Wine on 22nd January in Dalston. You can still get hold of all of their amazing burgers (read our review of their Kevin Bacon Cheeseburger here) but their new pad has a slightly more grown-up vibe and new additions to the menu including Chicken Parmigina and Rib Eye Steak. Fancy! Oh and they also have more than 100 different bottles of wine too (hence the ‘Wine’ in the title there). Also as a heads up, they DO take reservations and you WILL need one! We popped down there on Friday to try and get some of the action but were turned away under no uncertain terms. I’ve clearly been living in London so long that I forgot that reservations even existed…
Burgers and Wine: 25 Ridley Road, London, E8 2NP
Salvation in Noodles reopens it’s Finsbury Park branch
Salvation in Noodles reopened their Finsbury Park branch on 19th January after taking a well deserved break over Christmas and the New Year. SIN (as they are known) dish up steaming hot bowls of Pho and other delicious Vietnamese treats. We managed to get a table at their Dalston branch last year and were not disappointed. Make sure you get the lamb chops because they are a-mazing! To not go would be a SIN. (Sorry!)
Salvation in Noodles: 2 Blackstock Rd, Finsbury Park, London N4 2DL
Creator of the Cronut to open a London bakery!
A single Instagram post caused ripples of doughy excitement in the food community on Tuesday as Dominique Ansel, chef and creator of the Cronut®, announced that he would be opening a branch of his bakery chain in London this year. No further details as yet on a date or location but we will keep you posted as soon as we hear anything.
Instagram: @dominiqueansel
Cadburys Creme Egg Pop-up Cafe opening in Soho
Fans of white and orange goo in egg shaped chocolate will be pleased to hear that Cadbury’s opened a pop-up cafe in Soho for a limited seven week run on Friday 22nd January. The cafe is based over three floors and offers Creme Egg fans a host of sweet eggy treats, such as a Creme Egg Toastie and Creme Egg and Soldiers. It will be open from 5pm-9pm on Fridays and 2pm-6pm at weekends, Friday-Sunday only. Tickets all seem to be sold out at the mo, but do keep checking the Eventbrite link below as they may well add more dates due to the popularity.
Creme Egg Pop-up Cafe: 26 Greek Street, Soho, London, W1D 5DE
Tickets: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cadbury-creme-de-la-creme-egg-cafe-tickets-20550912332
Dukes Brew & Cue: Brisket Special The smoky barbecue team at Dukes Brew & Cue in Haggerston announced yesterday that they were adding a new limited special to the menu on Monday and Tuesday nights only: a big old lump of brisket! We were already impressed with the huge racks of ribs available at Dukes when we went last year, now Monday nights have never looked so tasty. dukesbrewandque.com
Patty & Bun: new burger alert!
Winning the award for the best burger name ever so far, Patty & Bun announced a new special at their St James Street branch on Friday: the Straight Outta Compte! I am not too sure on the full list of ingredients yet but you can be sure it will feature delicious burger patties and…. err, Compte cheese of course. It looks pretty darn special to me. Race ya!
Patty & Bun: 54 James Street, London, W1U 1HE
National Chocolate Cake Day
You mean you DIDN’T have this on your calendar already? National Chocolate Cake Day is Wednesday 27th January, better mark yourself as busy all day. I will be hoping to discover some new delicious chocolate cake this year, but if you are in any doubt, you can always head to Bea’s of Bloomsbury who have the most delicious chocolate cake I have ever eaten. Droooool….
beasofbloomsbury.com
Free Nachos at Barrio Bars!
Barrio, the chain of bars with a Spanish/Mexican vibe are giving away FREE Nachos every day to anyone who mutters the words “Macho Nacho” on arrival. I have no idea how long this promotion will run for but I assume all four of it’s locations will be taking part: Angel, Soho, Shoreditch and Brixton. Worth popping down there for some free snacks to go alongside your mid-week Tequila maybe?
Still hungry? Here’s another round-up of brilliant places to stuff your face in London including Hawker House.What’s the Trick to Fooling Penn & Teller?
Fooling Penn & Teller: Part One
One of the hottest shows this summer has been Penn & Teller: Fool US, which is now in its third season on the CW Network. I had the pleasure of appearing on the show this season. I was assigned the task of fooling Penn & Teller…with a trick they already knew.
If you have not had a chance to view my recent appearance on Fool Us, you can go to my YouTube page and click on the Penn & Teller Video Link to watch that performance video before reading any further. If you do, this Blog Post will make a lot more sense. You can also link to the video from my website.
Back in February I was contacted by Lee Terbosic an excellent magician and good friend from Pittsburgh who said he had an opportunity to appear on the TV show Penn & Teller Fool Us. But the tricky part (pun intended) was that they wanted him to perform my routine Unshuffled and he was contacting me to get my permission to perform that routine on the show. (As a side note to magicians reading this: That was a very professional thing to do. Unshuffled is a published routine and Lee was under no obligation to do that, but he’s a pro.)
I have to admit, I was a bit surprised that Fool Us wanted someone else to do my trick because to me that show is all about original inventions… or at least magicians adding their own unique presentation to a trick and seeing if their performance was clever enough to fool the Bad Boys of Magic: Penn & Teller. I told my friend Lee I would think about it and I contacted Mike Close, one of the magic producers on the show to see what was going on. Mike explained that the executive producers of the show saw and loved my trick Unshuffled and they wanted to have it on the show. But the shows demographic is 18-35 and they like to have the magicians on the show that are close to that age range as well… I have not been in that age range in quite a few years. Mike also explained that one of the challenges the show faces is finding magicians that can actually FOOL Penn and Teller, because to do that it takes experience… and getting experience… takes years… and years means… well, you get the idea.
Fortunately, the two magic producers on the show, Mike and Johnny Thompson, encouraged the executive producers to look at some of my videos and two days later I got a call saying they wanted me on the show, and I was booked for early April. My friend Lee understood the situation and was very gracious with the turn of events. We are currently working on some ideas so he can go on and fool them next season.
But this is where the story gets interesting. You see Unshuffled is a clever trick… in fact it’s my favorite card trick to do. But once I was booked to appear on the show I knew for a fact that it was NOT going to fool Penn and Teller.
How could I know that? Well, the answer to that question dates back 40+ years.
Penn & Teller’s History with Unshuffled
You see I met Penn & Teller 41 years ago in Atlanta in 1975 when we were all young magicians at the beginning of our careers. At the time, they were called The Asparagus Valley Cultural Society and they were a trio, which included a third partner who was also a musician. They were performing a small theater show in a church basement and I was performing at one of my very first trade shows. I went and saw their show and after their show I met them for coffee where we all did a few tricks for each other. One of the tricks I did that night was Unshuffled and apparently it made quite an impression. About 25 years later I got an email from Penn saying he wanted to buy my book, Steel & Silver so that he could learn the trick Unshuffled because he thought it was one of the best magic tricks he had ever seen. In fact, I actually saved and framed Penn’s e-mail because by that time they were already rather famous.
So the challenge was to go on Penn & Teller: Fool Us, and Fool them with a trick they already knew the secret to. Wow… that would be quite a trick, but I like a challenge.
I spent the next 10 days on a California beach vacation (that had already been planned) just thinking about the trick and what I could do to change it just enough. As I was lying on a beach in Dana Point, listening to the ocean waves I had this strange idea. I thought I might be able to perform the trick exactly the normal way it was done… but add an extra unexpected ending that would catch everyone by surprise in the last 5 seconds.
I knew magicians had gone on the show and fooled them by using a slightly different method than is normally expected and technically if Penn and Teller guess wrong then you have fooled them. But I did not want to go that route. I did not want to fool them by getting them to guess the wrong method, or by using a red herring and intentionally leading them down the wrong path. I wanted to fool them with a new effect not just a different method. I wanted them to be fooled just as badly as they were in that coffee shop in Atlanta in 1975 when they saw this trick for the very first time. That was my goal. And I thought I just might have an idea that would do it.
Over the next 10 days, I visualized many possible solutions in my mind … not even knowing if the actual idea would work. It would still be almost 2 weeks before I could do hands-on rehearsals. I was supposed to be on vacation, not working…. but of course as my wife Kathryn suspected… in my mind I was already back in the workshop testing out ideas and visualizing possibilities. But, I did try my best to stay in the moment as we took a trip up and down the California coast.
Before flying out of San Diego I went online and ordered all the materials I thought I would need to create this new ending, or at least to begin the R&D portion of the project. I wanted to make sure they would all be there ready and waiting once I got back to my office in Boston.
I arrived back in Boston on a Monday night and I had promised Mike Close I would send him a video of my new idea by Friday… that gave me four days to see if this would really work. The next four days were 18-hour days of building, testing and reworking a five second trick. The other challenge was that this new trick had to be totally blended together with an existing routine I had been doing for about 43 years. The very first prototype gave me hope that I was on to something… but it would take about 4 more handmade prototypes before I became convinced I had something that just might work.
There are times when designing a magic trick where the idea you visualize in your mind is basically impossible to create in real life. For it to work the way you visualize… it would require REAL magic. That’s why it’s called Magic.
This time however, just the opposite happened. What I visualized on the beach in California actually was now in my hands and when I did it in the mirror or on video… I was shocked… it actually worked… and it looked pretty damn good.
Finally after four long days I send a demo video off to Mike Close and his reply came back: “Well, that looks F______ Great. I think this will work, and it will kill Penn (and every other magician watching).”
Great! So after two weeks of thinking and four days of building, we just might have something here. But now it has to be tested before a focus group, worked into a routine, and rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed some more. My shoot date to tape the show was scheduled for April 12th in Las Vegas which gave me exactly two solid weeks to add this new ending and try to Fool Penn & Teller. I was so glad I had some open days on the schedule, I was really going to need them.
Stay tuned next week for Part Two of “What’s the Trick to Fooling Penn & Teller? … and find out what goes on behind the scenes at Penn & Teller’s: Fool Us.
Fooling Penn & Teller Blog Series
What’s the Trick to Fooling Penn & Teller? Part Two
What’s the Trick to Fooling Penn & Teller? Part ThreeI've had the same experience as everyone esle. Bought a chair for £413.13 in April 2013 now. After 9 months of waiting I cancelled the ordered citing unreasonable delays and that i had been misled. Infurn actually confirmed by email in April 2014 that the full amount would be refunded to the card i paid on. They have since ceased responding to my emails and i've had no refund. In may I learnt of their financial difficulties (why didn't i check this site before i bought!!!!)
Beware - i bought with my LloydsTSB VISA debit card and complained to them asking for assistance and they are not willing to help - the responded with the following:
"Under Visa Europe regulations we have no chargeback rights for an order of goods that was available but cancelled by the cardholder as this is classed as a change of mind.
The only way for us to be able to assist you in this instance is if you are able to obtain an actual refund voucher or advice from the merchant confirming the amount to be refunded, the date the refund was processed and the actual card number the refund was made to.
Without this information we would suggest you continue to pursue the merchant or alternatively your local Trading Standards for a satisfactory conclusion."
Infurn only confirmed they would return the money but didn't specify which account (merely that it would be returned to the same card i paid on!). So LloydsTSB are washing there hands of responsibility too. Has anyone else had a similar experience. I have given up on getting money back from Infurn but thought i should be insured in some way? Anyone had an luck through Trading Standards?????
Would love some advice.
GrahamThis article is the subject of libel proceedings issued on behalf of Lenny Hyde, Patrick O’Mahony and Labardie Fisher Limited.
African and Asian migrant workers are being routinely but illegally used as cheap labour on Irish fishing trawlers working out of some of the country’s most popular tourist ports, the Guardian can reveal.
A year-long investigation into the Irish prawn and whitefish sector has uncovered undocumented Ghanaian, Filipino, Egyptian and Indian fishermen manning boats in ports from Cork to Galway. They have described a catalogue of abuses, including being confined to vessels unless given permission by their skippers to go on land, and being paid less than half the Irish minimum wage that would apply if they were legally employed. They have also spoken of extreme sleep deprivation, having to work for days or nights on end with only a few hours’ sleep, and with no proper rest days.
Some migrant workers claim to have been deceived and appear to have been trafficked on to trawlers for labour exploitation, an abuse that would be a form of modern slavery.
Our evidence suggests that some boat owners and crewing agencies are smuggling African and Filipino workers in to Ireland through entry points at London Heathrow and Belfast airports, and then arranging for them to cross from Northern Ireland in to the Republic by road, bypassing Irish immigration controls.
Agents and owners appear to be exploiting a loophole designed for international merchant shipping, which allows non-EU seafarers to transit through the UK for up to 48 hours if they immediately move on to join vessels working in international waters. These transit arrangements are not intended for fishermen working in national waters or constantly coming in and out of Irish ports. We understand the loophole was first exploited by agents to recruit migrant workers for the Scottish fishing fleet and the practice appears to have spread from there to the Irish fishing industry.
Many workers describe subsequently living in fear of deportation and being told to stay on their boats in port because the owners would be fined if they were spotted and stopped by the authorities.
Some workers said they were controlled by debt to the agencies that recruited them and charged them substantial and illegal placement fees to arrange visas, jobs and itineraries.
Abraham Okoh*, a Ghanaian fisherman (whose name we have changed), for example, told us he had been bonded by debt to an agent in Accra who had found him a job on an Irish trawler and promised to arrange all visas and travel. He entered via Heathrow and Belfast, and was told to catch the bus from Northern Ireland to the port in Ireland where his vessel was docked.
I worked continuously. We could be awake for two days …
He said he had not understood when he was recruited that he would be working illegally. He had to live on his trawler at all times and was told by the owner to hide and not talk to people in port. The crew would go fishing for four to five days at a time and then be required to mend nets and gear in harbour. “I worked continuously. We could be awake for two days with almost no sleep. It was horrible,” he told us.
European Communities minimum hours of rest regulations, which apply to employees, workers but not the self-employed, require no less than 10 hours in any 24-hour period and 77 hours in any seven-day period.
Abraham described being cheated of wages and being hungry when food ran out at sea. Eventually he jumped ship to escape.
He appears to be a victim of human trafficking, a criminal offence – defined as a form of modern slavery in the UK and Ireland – that involves the movement of people for exploitation. Whether the person consented to the journey is not relevant: key factors can include whether they were deceived, or their vulnerability or rights abused; how far they were controlled; and whether working and living conditions amount to exploitation. A person can only be definitively classified as trafficked once his or her experience has been assessed and a competent authority – in Ireland a senior police officer – has ruled.
Okoh’s story was echoed by others, including Antonio Santos* and Diego Cruz*, two undocumented Filipino fishermen, who described similar conditions of extreme sleep deprivation, long hours and low pay on fishing vessels around the Republic of Ireland. They said they too had been brought to the country illegally by agents and boat owners.
As well as worker testimony, our findings are based on extensive undercover interviewing and filming in Irish fishing ports. They are corroborated by detailed documentary evidence – from immigration records, letters and contracts from boat owners and agents, publicly available vessel-tracking data, and official reports into fatal marine accidents involving migrant fishermen – and by interviews with several well-placed sources.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fresh Irish prawns on sale in a Cork market. Photograph: John Domokos for the Guardian
Many migrant fishermen have described a climate of fear and spoke to us only on condition of anonymity; we have changed their names to protect them.
Others told us they were happy to work on Irish fishing boats even though they were paid far less than local or EU crew because it was more than they could earn back home. They nevertheless reported feeling oppressed by their lack of immigration status and the constant need to hide and forego their rights when the industry depended on their labour.
Several sources in both the seafood industry and Ireland’s authorities agreed to talk to us but said they could not go on the record without risk of reprisals.
One skipper in Wexford’s Kilmore Quay, who only employs Irish crew, waved at a West African worker on a neighbouring vessel and told one of our undercover reporters: “You can get one of them for €700 [£501] a month. Would you work for that?”.
Turning a blind eye...
The International Transport Federation (ITF), the union that first sounded the alarm about conditions for migrants in the Irish and Scottish fishing fleets in 2008, said the Irish government was “turning a blind eye”. The Irish government denied this and said it was taking all trafficking concerns seriously.
The majority of Ireland’s high value prawn and fish catch is exported to supermarkets, restaurants and fish markets across Europe, the Americas and the Far East. The Irish government promotes its €850m ($936) a year seafood sector (pdf) as a vital, sustainable and indigenous part of the economy.
But the case of an undocumented Filipino fisherman, which came to the attention of the Irish authorities only by chance last month, has made the problems in the sector impossible to ignore.
Part two: ‘Where’s my boat?’: Demie’s story
When he landed a job on an Irish fishing boat, Demie Omol hoped he would be able to support his family. But the dream quickly dissipated
On a housing estate in Cork city, Demie Omol, a 39-year-old migrant worker from the Philippines, laid out the dozens of boxes of medicines he has to take, and told us his story. He believes he was trafficked on to an Irish fishing trawler earlier this year to be exploited as cheap labour. He might have remained invisible except that he fell ill and had to be taken to hospital.
Last March, at home in the Philippines, Omol felt hopeful. He had been recruited through the Diamond-H Marine Services agency in Manila, run by the Turingan family, and had secured a crewing job on a fishing vessel which would pay him more money than he had ever earned. “When I was in the Philippines my work was driving a tricycle. I got paid €3 [$3.39] a day.” He was desperate for the promised salary which would support his wife and their three young children. He would have to live away from his family but it was a sacrifice he was ready to make.
The job he was offered was on the Labardie Fisher, a 30-foot Irish-flagged fishing vessel that trawls for luxury fish like cod, monkfish, haddock and plaice. The basic terms of the one-year contract drawn up by the agency seemed clear enough at the time. He would earn $1,000 (£654) a month, plus overtime and holidays, for working 48 hours a week – a rate that works out at less than half what someone on the Irish national minimum wage must be paid. He says he understood that his employers were the owners of the boat, as named in the contract, and that he would immediately join the vessel in Belfast harbour, from where it would set sail for Morocco.
His agency, Diamond-H, said it also understood from the owners that Omol would join the trawler in Belfast harbour to work somewhere in international waters, perhaps off Africa. It told us it knew that the Republic of Ireland does not grant Filipinos the necessary permits to work on trawlers coming in and out of Irish ports. Omol had no paperwork signed by the boat owners, however, and the owners told us he was employed by the agency and not by them.
The boat owners are in fact Pat O’Mahony and Lenny Hyde. The letters said that Omol would be joining the crew of the vessel and it would be “leaving from Belfast harbour” immediately. He was given a UK transit visa, which allowed him a maximum of 48 hours to get through the UK to his boat.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Labardie Fisher. Photograph: MarineTraffic
But when he arrived at Belfast airport, there was no boat in the harbour. Instead, according to Omol, a member of the Turingan family, who own the Diamond-H agency, met him at the airport together with Pat O’Mahony.
O’Mahony recorded his role that evening on his own Facebook page, posting that he was “feeling bored” in Belfast airport waiting for the Filipino to arrive. They took Omol into a car and he was driven overnight across the border into the Republic of Ireland. He did not present to Irish immigration. According to him, he was confused as to where he was being taken and wondered repeatedly, “Where is my boat? Where is my boat?” His answer came in the small hours of the following morning when they arrived in the small village of Crosshaven, south of Cork city, where the Labardie Fisher was docked. Omol was told that by sunrise they would set sail for a four-day fishing trip. Although he had equivalent safety training certificates from the Philippines, he had not undertaken the mandatory Irish safety training for fishermen. But within a few hours of arriving, Omol was at work.
I had no holidays or rest days … We had to prepare gear, fix cables, stitch the nets. It was constant, constant.
The owners said the agency was responsible for all legalities, paperwork and immigration and that it was always clear that he was going to work from Cork. Omol claims he was deceived about his immigration status and about the conditions, which he told us involved working almost without stop while at sea, without the statutory minimum rest periods. “It was continuous working, day and night.”
“I had no holidays or rest days … We had to prepare gear, fix cables, stitch the nets. It was constant, constant.” The Guardian understands that none of the mandatory records of rest for Omol had been logged. The owners vehemently deny that the crew worked such hours.
He lived on the boat. He said he would not always have time for regular meals and he would often eat only one proper meal a day. Most of his pay went straight to his family back home, but a small portion of it – about €200 ($225) a month – was paid to him in cash by the owners. He was warned not to leave the boat without permission, he says. When he did manage to get away, he visited local charity shops to buy secondhand clothes for his children.
Demie Omol’s family. Photograph: Courtesy of Demie Omol
He told us he was paid the basic $1,000 a month as set out in his contract but never received overtime payments or holidays. Omol says a fellow worker on board felt sorry for him because he was only earning about a quarter of the money paid to some local or EU crew members. When he asked, he says his agent then told him that the overtime and holidays were all part of the monthly salary.
The agency’s Manila-based family member Rommel Turingan told us it was made clear that the $1,000 was for unlimited hours. “We explain to the crew the working conditions – we know sometimes 24-hour shifts without rest. They know it is day and night
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we could from the secretive proceedings, cobbled our stories together, and then spent our evenings around the bar, which was amply provisioned with the world’s best-known liquors and local and imported beer and wine. The Arab Summit was followed by an Islamic Summit, which was attended by the very same leaders. The InterContinental’s bar was shut down in observance of the Islamic ban on alcoholic beverages. I recall the hotel manager telling me that the whiskies, gins, vodkas, and other libations had been transferred to the delegates’ private suites. There was no drinking in public, but the liquor flowed in private.
Beer brewing, winemaking, and distilling all have long histories in the Middle East. In fact, liquor, beer, and wine are still available in most countries within the region, despite the Islamist revivals that have swept the area since the early 1980s. Heineken owns breweries in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon—it acquired the Egypt-based, century-old Al Ahram Beverages Company in 2006 and Lebanon’s Brasserie Almaza in 2002 (a brewery that has been in operation since 1933)—and its Middle East division boasts group operating profits of just under $8 million per year. In Lebanon, the main brands are Amstel and Laziza (which means “delicious” in Arabic).
Even in the countries that have banned alcohol outright (some of the Emirates, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia), non-alcoholic breweries abound. For example, Carlsberg, the world’s fourth-largest brewer, also owns a brewery in Saudi Arabia that produces Moussy, a non-alcoholic brew aimed at upscale and metropolitan consumers. It has a 38 percent market share of non-alcoholic brews in the nation. Not to be outdone by its rivals, in 2002 Heineken purchased the Al Ahram brewing company for control of Fayrouz—its signature malt beverage that claims the unique designation of being the world’s first, and so farA court in Yemen has sentenced Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, the Saudi-backed president who has resigned, and six of his close aides to death on charges of treason and misuse of power.
On Saturday, the Specialized Criminal Court passed the verdict against the 71-year-old Yemeni politician, former Foreign Minister Riyad Yassin as well as Deputy Prime Minister and former Minister of Civil Service and Insurance Abdulaziz Jabari, Arabic-language Yemen Press News agency reported.
Yemeni Ambassador to the United States Ahmad Awad bin Mubarak, former head of Yemen's national security agency Ali Hassan al-Ahmadi, Deputy Chairman of Yemeni Congregation for Reform (al-Islah) Abdul Wahab al-Ansi and a senior member of the Nasserist Unionist People's Organization were the other four convicts.
The report came as the Yemeni court had been pressing charges of threatening national security against the seven people over giving the green light to the deadly Saudi campaign against the impoverished country back in March 2015.
A general view taken on March 16, 2017 shows a school that was damaged in a Saudi airstrike in the southern Yemeni city of Ta’izz. (Photo by AFP)
Yemen’s Legal Center of Rights and Development announced on Saturday that the Saudi campaign has claimed the lives of over 12,040 Yemenis and left more than 20,000 others wounded.
The center added that there were a total of 2,568 children and 1,870 women among the fatalities, noting that the atrocious onslaught had also destroyed 757 schools and institutes, 111 university facilities, 271 factories besides 1,520 bridges and roads.(CNN) -- A sailor accused of killing another sailor was found dead in his cell in a southern California military jail, officials said Friday.
Seaman August Provost, shown on his MySpace page, was killed while on sentry duty at Camp Pendleton.
Petty Officer Jonathan Campos was found dead in the brig at the Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego, a military statement said.
The cause of death was self-inflicted asphyxiation, according to the statement.
Campos had been charged with murder in the June 30 shooting death of Seaman August Provost.
Provost was killed while he was standing guard as a sentry for the Assault Craft Unit 5 compound at Camp Pendleton, officials said. Authorities also said Provost's body was set on fire at his guard post.
Provost's family believed that he was killed partly because of his sexual orientation.
However, a spokesman for Camp Pendleton, where the shooting took place, said there was no indication early in the investigation that the killing was a hate crime.
Along with the murder charge, Campos was facing charges of drug use, larceny, burglary, theft, arson and unlawful handling of a deceased individual.
All About Murder and Homicide • Camp PendletonPARIS - National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden says the exposure of malicious software allegedly linked to his former employer may be a message from Moscow, adding a layer of intrigue to a leak that has set the information security world abuzz.
Technical experts have spent the past day or so picking apart a suite of tools purported to have been stolen from the Equation Group, a powerful squad of hackers which some have tied to the NSA. The tools materialized as part of an unusual electronic auction set up by a group calling itself "Shadow Brokers," which has promised to leak more data to whoever puts in a winning bid.
In a series of messages posted to Twitter, Snowden suggested the leak was the fruit of a Russian attack on an NSA malware server and could be aimed at heading off U.S. retaliation over allegations that the Kremlin was trying interfere in America's electoral process.
"Circumstantial evidence and conventional wisdom indicates Russian responsibility," Snowden said. "This leak is likely a warning that someone can prove U.S. responsibility for any attacks that originated from this malware server. That could have significant foreign policy consequences. Particularly if any of those operations targeted U.S. allies. Particularly if any of those operations targeted elections."
13) TL;DR: This leak looks like a somebody sending a message that an escalation in the attribution game could get messy fast. — Edward Snowden (@Snowden) August 16, 2016
Snowden did not immediately return messages seeking additional comment. The NSA did not immediately return emails seeking comment on his claim. Messages sent to an address registered by the Shadow Brokers were not returned.
The Equation Group was exposed last year by antivirus firm Kaspersky Lab, which described it at the time as a "God of cyberespionage." Many have since speculated that the NSA is behind the group, although attribution in the field of cyberespionage is a notoriously tricky issue.As attorney for Jeffersonville City Council Illinois, Larry Wilder is usually prosecuting cases against local drunks. But with a name like Wilder you have to live up to your name, so Larry decided to see what it was like to be on the other side…. and was discovered by neighbors drink and asleep in their trash can Tuesday morning.
According to a local report, Police responding to a 911 call decided not to charge Wilder. “When officers arrived on the scene, they made contact with that person and he was identified as Larry Wilder,” Jeffersonville Police Chief Tim Deeringer said. “He wasn’t belligerent, he wasn’t out of control. Mr. Wilder was asked if he could walk to his home. He said he could and he was turned over to two adult children at the house.”
Just because the humiliation of being caught isn’t enough, naturally pictures from the scene have been published. The city council is currently reconsidering Wilder’s ongoing employment.SEOUL, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Kim Jong Un is likely to conduct at least one nuclear weapons test before declaring a moratorium on all trials, a South Korean analyst said Monday, but North Korea's top priority might be easing tensions with the United States and South Korea.
Cha Doo-hyun of the Korea Institute for National Unification said North Korea could keep conducting "different types of tests" before declaring a moratorium, Munhwa Ilbo reported. Negotiations toward denuclearization also cannot be ruled out as North Korea realizes economic reform is not possible without the lifting of sanctions.
Other analysts told the South Korean newspaper as Kim Jong Un enters his fifth year of autocratic rule, the North Korean leader is keen to prove that he can pursue different policies. Analysts said Kim not only wants to strengthen the regime's tradition of hereditary rule, but also prove his leadership power before the international community.
But Kim also has proved that he is not afraid to mete out severe punishment to potential rivals since he came to power in his late 20s. Analysts said the 2013 execution of Kim's uncle Jang Song Thaek and his purge of more than 100 North Korean cadres are signs of Kim's capacity for cracking down on dissent.
South Korea press reported there also is a likelihood Pyongyang could conduct a nuclear test after the Seventh Congress of the Workers' Party in May, but Park Han-shik, a professor of political science at the University of Georgia, said another possibility is Kim Jong Un is seeking a paradigm shift in inter-Korea as well as North Korea-U.S. relations.
In his annual New Year's message Friday, Kim had called for the opening of a "new era of independent unification" while eschewing references to nuclear weapons.
Park, who has visited Pyongyang in the 90s and has met with former North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, told South Korean newspaper Seoul Shinmun that United States' policy toward North Korea has not changed under the Obama administration because North Korea provides a justifiable excuse for arms manufacturers to sell weapons.“Where to start with vinyl? I think I should start with my love of music.”
“I’ve always loved music since I can remember. Growing up, I can recall filling my brick of an iPod up with complete discographies of bands I love, immersing myself completely, going so far as to sneak one headphone in my ear during class (what a rebel). I remember going into Borders (they’ve gone out of business and are now Barnes & Noble) and picking up imported British magazines like NME and Mojo.
I got into many British indie bands in high school this way, some bands no one in my school had ever heard of like The Libertines, The Cribs, The Rakes, Kaiser Chiefs (at the time they were just starting out), The Long Blondes, Clor, Tom Vek, Black Wire, Art Brut, etc. Not only was I infatuated with this music, but I also enjoyed having a specific taste that was different from my peers, something I could have for myself, I guess. (I was pretty taken aback when I graduated and moved to New York City—there were more people there who shared my taste in music).
I can’t remember which Christmas it was, but it must have been around the time I was getting into all these British indie bands. I wandered onto this website called eil.com where I discovered a rich profusion of vinyl from bands that I was into! To my dad’s surprise, my Christmas list that year consisted of only vinyl with a number to call eil, since he didn’t know how to use the internet. I had also asked my mom for a record player—divorced parents means two Christmases and coinciding presents. I would eventually acquire a mixer and save up enough money for another record player so I could teach myself how to DJ in my room.
My parents were not vinyl collectors, so I’m unsure where my need for analog sound stems from. Yes, records are tangible and sound fantastic, they usually contain the artwork and lyrics, they are the true representation of the artist—although I think the reason I wanted to own vinyl records when I was a kid was because I wanted to prove how much of a fan I was, at least to myself I suppose. If The Cribs came out with a 7” single and pressed it on yellow vinyl and on blue vinyl, I had to have them both (which I do, it’s called “Mirror Kissers”) even though it was the same single. If it was a limited edition tour vinyl, I had to have it even if I didn’t attend the tour, etc.
My first records were of the bands I loved as a kid. Now, I collect everything. My collection has grown since high school, as has my taste in music. I really love records that have something special inside. I own George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass which came with an amazing portrait of George that I have up in my living room now. I recently bought Blur’s The Magic Whip and Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool—both of which house beautiful artwork.
These past few years I’ve grown fond of going into record shops and buying a record I’ve never heard of. I’ve acquired many fascinating records just buy trusting the record store’s buyer. A few of my favorites that I’ve collected this way are Various Artists Sitar Beat! Indian Style Heavy Funk, William Onyeabor Who is William Onyeabor?, Gal Costa Gal Costa, The Sunday Manoa Guava Jam.
My collection definitely varies, from soundtracks—2001: A Space Odyssey, Broadcast – “Barbarian Sound Studio” to classics—The Kinks Arthur, Or The Rise and Fall of The British Empire, Steely Dan Aja, Fleetwood Mac Rumours, Funkadelic Funkadelic, Paul & Linda McCartney Ram, David Bowie Changes. Then there’s indie-esque classics—Yeah Yeah Yeahs Master, Belle & Sebastian If You’re Feeling Sinister, Radiohead OK Computer, Brian Jonestown Massacre Their Satanic Majesties Second Request.
Then there’s new wave—Talking Heads True Stories, Joy Division Unknown Pleasures, Gary Numan Replicas. Of course, 1960s girl group stuff—Mary Wells Sings My Guy, Brenda & The Tabulations Dry Your Eyes. My most recently acquired records are The Ocean Blue (S/T), The Church Starfish, Shuggie Otis Introducing Shuggie Otis, and New Order Power, Corruption, and Lies.
I could go on but I think I’ve written too much already. I’m sitting here staring at my collection and it’s hard not to list more.
It’s so easy to buy records these days. Usually now if I’m really into something I’ll find the vinyl off Discogs or eBay, although I still and always will love going into record stores and finding something new. In fact, I think my dream job is owning my own record shop and just sitting there buying records and listening to them all day. As a fan of music in general I think one’s record collection is a testament to their fandom, and I don’t think I will ever stop buying records.”
—Danielle Johnson
Computer Magic’s “Obscure but Visible” EP is in stores now on limited edition 10″ vinyl with poster.
Computer Magic Official | Facebook | TwitterImagine eyeglasses that can go quickly from clear to shaded and back again when you want them to, rather than passively in response to changes in light. Scientists report a major step toward that goal, which could benefit pilots, security guards and others who need such control, in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.
In the study, led by Anna Österholm in John Reynolds' group at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the researchers point out that most transitional lenses now on the market don't meet many users' needs. When wearers are driving or wearing a baseball cap, for example, the lenses stay clear rather than switching to a darker shade even in broad daylight. Also, the majority of available versions don't block out the harshest light, such as bright light reflected off snow. And the change from colored to clear can take several minutes, which has safety implications for certain users including airline pilots. Reynolds' team wanted to find a way to solve these issues.
The researchers designed a new kind of lens that can switch within seconds from clear to darkly shaded and back again in response to a small electrical charge that a wearer could control. They can also fine-tune the color of the lenses to match the full range of hues used in commercial sunglasses. To make the lenses, they say they used a method that could be easily scaled up for manufacturing.
Explore further: Don't skimp on shades this summer
More information: Four Shades of Brown: Tuning of Electrochromic Polymer Blends Toward High-Contrast Eyewear, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2015, 7 (3), pp 1413–1421
DOI: 10.1021/am507063d
Abstract
We report a straightforward strategy of accessing a wide variety of colors through simple predictive color mixing of electrochromic polymers (ECPs). We have created a set of brown ECP blends that can be incorporated as the active material in user-controlled electrochromic eyewear. Color mixing of ECPs proceeds in a subtractive fashion, and we acquire various hues of brown through the mixing of cyan and yellow primaries in combination with orange and periwinkle-blue secondary colors. Upon oxidation, all of the created blends exhibit a change in transmittance from ca. 10 to 70% in a few seconds. We demonstrate the attractiveness of these ECP blends as active materials in electrochromic eyewear by assembling user-controlled, high-contrast, fast-switching, and fully solution-processable electrochromic lenses with colorless transmissive states and colored states that correspond to commercially available sunglasses. The lenses were fabricated using a combination of inkjet printing and blade-coating to illustrate the feasibility of using soluble ECPs for high-throughput and large-scale processing.The past couple of months have seen SolFed engage in an escalating “disruptive action” campaign to redress a case of unpaid wages by the world's largest employment agency. Four days into a national week of action, the Office Angels temporary agency capitulated and gave their ex-worker his due wages.
SF was contacted by Dan in March. He had worked for Office Angels for three days last December. When he began work, he was not given a time sheet. When he inquired about this, he was told not to worry. Then, on his final day of his employment he not only sat next to the company manager, he received a phone call from Office Angels to check up on him. Despite all this, when Dan went to collect his wages, Office Angels claimed he only worked one day, not three. After telephone calls and polite meetings didn't work, he began a thread on the website libcom.org asking for assistance on his situation. Office Angels, who obviously monitor their online reputation quite closely, sussed out Dan's identity then had the nerve to harass him for daring to ask for help on the issue. At this point, Dan asked the South London Solidarity Federation to step in.
Efforts began in earnest, with a single picket and a delegation sent to the Wimbledon Office Angels branch where Dan had been employed. The “Office Devils” (as they'd now been dubbed) only response was to ban Dan from all Office Angels premises. Next the London Locals of SolFed chose to picket the busy Oxford Street location of Office Angels in central London. This time, SF members went into Office Angels, spoke to management, demanded Dan be paid, and informed them actions would continue until Dan received his full wages.
After this picket, SolFed began to develop a public aspect to the campaign, something aided by two important factors. First, each picket so far (and throughout the dispute) was met with overwhelming public support. As even Office Angels admits, “There are in excess of one million temporary workers in the UK....Many people find themselves in a position where they need to consider temporary work as a result of job loss or redundancy.” That means millions of workers have experienced the shady practices and hyper-exploitative business model of Office Angels and their ilk.(1) Second, we were already having interested groups coming to us offering support. Using this momentum, the first thing we did was to create an online callout explaining the situation and requesting sympathetic individuals attend our next picket and involve themselves in a “communications blockade” of the Wimbledon Office Angels. This, the first of two “communications zaps”, saw hundreds of phone calls and emails sent to the Office Angels managers by individuals and groups who were more than happy to express their dissatisfaction with Office Angel's unscrupulous employment practices.(2) Finally, we encouraged any Office Angels staff who'd been mistreated by the company to contact us. Even a cursory glance at online employment forums makes clear that what Dan had experienced was far from an isolated case. Plus, SF has a long-running campaign against casualisation and precarious employment. The fight against employment agencies is, predictably, at the forefront of such a movement.
In any case, the morning before our first public picket, Office Angels contacted Dan. He was told that “this has gone on long enough” and he would “definitely” get paid. A manager promised to contact him by noon with the details. When that didn't happen and perceiving this promise for what it was—a stalling tactic—the picket and communications zap went ahead. When Dan called up Office Angels later that night, he was told things were being held up in the legal department.
At this point, we could see Office Angels was beginning to falter. The pickets, emails, phone calls (especially the phone calls), and the online exposure were making a difference. They'd clearly tried to fend off a picket while acknowledging the dispute “had gone on long enough.” Of course, for us and for Dan, the fight wasn't over until the money was in the bank. To ensure this would happen, we planned for two things. The first was to call a National Week of Action (complete with a second communications blockade on the Wednesday). Leading up to this week, London SolFed put out a callout for other SF locals and comradely organisations (the UK IWW, the Anarchist Federation, and the Commune in particular) to picket Office Angels locations in their town or city. The second was to begin preparations for an International Week of Action against ADECCO, the company which owns Office Angels and is also the largest employment agency in the world with over 5,500 locations. By calling on SolFed's membership in the International Workers Association (the IWA or, as it's also known, the AIT) we could get pickets around the world. We also contacted the US IWW and the Syndicalist Youth Federation in Sweden.
The National Week of Action began with pickets being announced around the UK: numerous pickets in London, three in Northampton, two pickets in Reading, another two in Brighton, and pickets in Oxford, Nottingham, Leeds, Newcastle, Manchester, Bristol, and Liverpool. Some of these pickets brought demand letters; some just sent delegations into the office to speak to a manager; and in some cases Office Angels just closed up shop for the duration. By the end of the dispute over 15 pickets had taken place around the UK! Some of these were organised by SF locals, some by IWW or AF branches. In any case, it was an outpouring of solidarity and the initial response from Office Angels branches—calling the police and harassing picketers—proved they were shaken. But, by the second day of the Week of Action, it appeared that someone higher up in Office Angels or even in ADECCO had taken over the publicity angle. On the Office Angels website, a press release went up from their managing director. In it unnamed “various individuals” were accused of undertaking unjustified “disruptive action”.(3) There was also a change in their response to our pickets. The cops were no longer called and managers came out to speak to us—trying their best to be friendly and practically begging us to see if we'd been contacted by any other Office Angels workers. This was most evident in Reading. On the Tuesday an Office Angels manager had aggressively confronted an SF member, a mother with her 14-month old child, and tried to rip fliers out of her hands. Thanks to cool-headed SF members, things didn't escalate and he soon left. The next day, Reading went back to picket again. This time the same manager came out and apologised profusely. Someone, somewhere, was putting putting pressure on local managers to play nice.
Also on the second day of the Week of Action, Dan was again contacted by Office Angels. This time they told him they had documentation confirming that he had worked 2 days and would pay him for them. Still not satisfied, we went ahead with Wednesday's communications blockade. Wednesday morning saw Dan contacted again. Office Angels offered to pay him for the full three days if he was willing to go to court for Office Angels if they had to go to court to retrieve their money from their client, Kinetic, to whom Dan had been contracted out to. How ironic. They wanted to enlist Dan's help to ensure they got their money. Shall we say: denied on principle. Besides, UK law states that agencies have to pay their employees regardless of whether they've been paid by their clients. It's not Dan's job to sort out Office Angel's money problems and it's not like he'd get paid for his time if he had to go to court. Dan politely refused the offer and that night they informed him they'd be paying him his money and “hoped” he'd support them against Kinetics if needed. Well, we'd seen them lie before. Their word wasn't good enough and the pickets weren't going to stop until the money was in the bank. This created a funny situation though. Pickets continued on Thursday despite Office Angels' claims of intention to pay. This meant that managers would come to us, waving press releases claiming that all was okay, Dan had been paid! By Friday the money was in Dan's account. Office Angels had amended their online press release, claiming “new information has recently come to light and we have taken this individual at his word and paid all monies outstanding.” The only new information that had come to light was that Dan was not going to be their lackey and that they were scared of what an International Week of Action would look like. With Dan paid and thanks all around for the support and solidarity, we called off any further pickets.
Postscript: Why did we succeed?
To begin, there has been an uptick in class struggle since the recession began. That means that—for better or worse—we're living in an environment that is easier to organise in. However, we think there's something larger (though very much related) going on, namely an appetite for practical activity within the 'activist'/political community (not to mention within the wider population). This is post-Millbank austerity Britain. People are pissed-off and, for the first time in a generation, they know who they're angry at. With the decline of basic industry and the marketisation of the public sector, working for an employment agency—with none of the hard-won legal rights of permanent staff—is an experience far too many of us have had to suffer through. The Office Angels dispute gave class struggle anarchists an opportunity for tangible, practical activity. For too long, many of us have had to make do with public or, even worse, online debate about anarchism, producing literature, or going to picket lines in the increasing rare incidents of strikes. Now, these are all important tasks. However, we want to reach a point where anarcho-syndicalists unions are facilitating, organising, and leading struggles in the workplace and the community. For many of us, Office Angels was our first experience seeing an anarchist organisation take an active role in a workplace dispute. We liked it. And we want more.
Second, we proved ourselves a legitimate threat. When we went London-wide, Office Angels was forced to go London-wide. When we went national, Office Angels was forced to go national. During the first 5 days of our week of action, there were over a dozen pickets in the UK. We should also note that the course of this dispute saw a change in management at the Wimbledon branch of Office Angels. Now, we're not ones to speculate, but perhaps this should be a warning for local managers (at Office Angels and elsewhere): If the Solidarity Federation shows up at your door, pay up. Or your job may very well be next.
Finally, direct action works. We achieved what we achieved without lawyers, courts, industrial tribunals, or even union reps. And we won. We planned and strategised and, despite some inevitable hiccups, we orchestrated an escalating campaign against the largest employment agency in the world. We didn't even play all the cards in our hands and we still forced Office Angel to pay up out of pocket mid-way through our National Week of Action. After all, they still haven't been paid by their client. In the process we strengthened our class confidence. Everything from giving demand letters to managers to speaking to the public to co-ordinating activities, we're better at that now than we were three months ago.
Direct action works. Dan's living proof.
Notes
(1) We use the term “hyper” here intentionally. Capitalism is fundamentally exploitative. However certain business models, employment agencies being one of them, are consciously employed to undermine workers rights gained through decades and even centuries of struggle.
(2) We should note here that the focus was always on managers. It's a further unfortunate reflection of Office Angels management that they forced their office staff to do their dirty work and refused to take our phones calls themselves.
(3) Another interesting point: comrades in Reading claim that when they were first given a copy of the Office Angels press release by a manager, the term on it was “direct” not “disruptive” action and that it was only later changed on the website. Office Angels, thanks for vindicating our strategy....Guest essay by Sheldon Walker
A quick recap for anybody who missed my first article.
My first article can be found here.
I have developed a new technique for analysing global warming (and other things). It is called Multi Trend Analysis, or MTA. It analyses the data in a time interval, by calculating the trend between every possible pair of points in the interval. The trend includes all of the data points between each pair of points as well. This can involve a lot of trends. To analyse the interval [January 1975 to December 1999] involves 16,920 trends. A trend is basically a linear regression.
I have developed methods that allow large numbers of trends to be analysed quickly, and the results displayed either graphically or in a table. A trend has 4 main attributes, a start date, an end date, a length, and a slope (with global warming, the slope is the warming rate). In my first article, I displayed graphs of warming rate versus trend length, but any of the 4 main attributes can be graphed against any of the others.
Most people think that the graphs look good, but I am still investigating whether the graphs are actually useful for analysing global warming. They may end up just being eye candy, but I am hoping that they will prove to be useful for something.
After my first article, I decided to use MTA to try and prove that the Pause exists. I wanted to compare a graph of the interval where the Pause existed, against a graph of an interval where “The Pause” did not exist (a reference interval). If there was a significant difference, and it was the right kind of difference (e.g. a lower warming rate), then I would have good evidence that the Pause existed.
Picking the right intervals was important. From my previous investigations into the Pause, I knew that the core years were from 2002 to 2013. This is a 12 year interval with a very low warming rate. Moving the start date to 2001 increased the warming rate slightly, but gave a longer slightly weaker Pause. Moving the start date to 2000 increased the warming rate even more, but gave an even longer weaker Pause. Moving the finish date to 2014 also increased the warming rate, and moving the finish date to 2015 weakened “The Pause” considerably, because of the 2015 El Nino.
So I had a limited range of years for the Pause. I knew that there had been consistent warming since 1975, so my Pauseless interval had to start in or after 1975. From 1975 to 2015 there are 41 years. The first 25 years or so have definite warming, and the Pause started after that. It would be best if my Pauseless reference interval was the same size as my Pause interval, because I wanted to compare apples with apples. In the end, I decided to divide the 41 years into 3 * 13 + 2. This gave me two 13 year Pauseless reference intervals, one from [January 1975 to December 1987], and one from [January 1988 to December 2000], and one 13 year Pause interval from [January 2001 to December 2013]. This fitted nicely with my beliefs about the Pause, and gave me 2 reference periods to compare with. It would also be nice to compare the 2 reference intervals to each other, to see if they were consistent. I didn’t mind not using 2014, and 2015, because I knew that they weakened the Pause. I could worry about those 2 years later if I found evidence that the Pause did exist.
I did the MTA analysis, and graphed the results. Normally I don’t look at trends less than 10 years, because they are less stable. However, working with 13 years intervals only gave me trends from 10 years to 13 years. The graphs showed what I wanted to see, but they were a bit “thin”. I did the analysis again using a minimum trend length of 8 years, and got graphs that were much more robust.
I should mention quickly that all of the data comes from the NOAA global combined land and ocean temperature series. I will repeat my analysis with the other temperature series when I get time, but I thought that using NOAA first was appropriate, given that they have a reputation as “Pause Busters”.
I will first show the 3 full scatter graphs individually, one for each interval. These are good for examining the shape, checking the warming rates for different trend lengths, and getting a good idea about the overall warming rate. The rightmost point on each graph corresponds to a linear regression for the whole interval.
I will then show a single graph which contains the same 3 intervals, but plotted as outlines on a single graph. This is much better for comparing the different intervals with each other. The colour of an outline graph will be the same colour as the full scatter graph for the interval
Here is the MTA graph for the first Pauseless reference interval, [January 1975 to December 1987].
Here is the MTA graph for the second Pauseless reference interval, [January 1988 to December 2000].
Here is the MTA graph for the third interval, the one showing the Pause, [January 2001 to December 2013].
Here is the outline MTA graph which shows all 3 intervals, each with the same color as the previous graph for the interval.
I think that the results can be seen clearly from the graphs, but I will mention a few points from the outline graph.
Note that the 2 reference intervals are in quite good agreement. The first, the orange one, has an overall warming rate of just over 2 degC/century. The warming rate appears to be increasing slightly near the right end.
The second green reference interval has an overall warming rate of about 1.29 degC/century. The warming rate appears to be decreasing slightly near the right end (as it approaches the Pause).
The blue Pause interval has much less variability that the 2 reference intervals. The warming rate is mostly between 0 and 1 degC/century. it has an overall warming rate of about 0.54 degC/century, and appears to be increasing slightly at the end. Perhaps the end of 2013 showed a small increase in temperature, which then became larger in 2014 and 2015.
If we average the overall warming rates for the 2 reference intervals, we get about 1.65 degC/century. The Pause has an overall warming rate of less than 33% of the average of the 2 reference intervals.
To be more specific, the Pause has an overall warming rate of about 27% of reference interval 1, and less than 42% of reference interval 2. These percentages represent a large reduction in the warming rate, and justify the name “Slowdown”, or “Hiatus”, or “Pause”.
Could anybody deny the Pause, after seeing that evidence? I expect that there will be many “Pause deniers” who will stubbonly refuse to accept the proof that I have presented here. Of course, anybody can overturn my proof if they can find a significant error in it. That is the way that science works.
A final word about the future. The Pause has been weakened by the 2015 El Nino. That does not mean that it never existed. Anybody gloating over the Pause becoming weaker, should bear in mind that El Nino’s do not last forever. Once the El Nino’s temperature increase has gone, the Pause will probably strengthen. A La Nina may also give the Pause a boost. Do not underestimate the Pause, it may surprise you yet.
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RedditHe’s probably another youtube sensation in the making who’s unfolding right before our eyes, but wait, the performer here is Herbert “Ampang” Colangco, one of the 19 high-profile inmates, who is supposed to be living life as a convict inside the New Bilibid Prison‘s maximum security compound.
Colangco, the leader of the notorious Waray-Waray and Ozamiz bank robbery gangs, had been jailed in the national penitentiary since 2009, and just recently was found by Department of Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to be among those who were living a lavish lifestyles inside the Bilibid prison. And by the looks of it, the bank robber has aspirations to be a singer; even behind bars — and no one can stop him.
The notorious leader’s kubol in the penitentiary was found to be furnished with a generator-powered 60-sq. meter music studio complete with a stage for live musical performances; where he reportedly recorded five songs which were created by noted composer Edith Gallardo, who happens to be the tunesmith behind artist Aiza Seguerra’s hit “Pagdating Panahon”, as reported by Interaksyon. One of his recordings apparently made it to Youtube in May.
He was also found to have in his possession a number of very expensive watches.
However, it can’t be said as yet whether he and his group has continued their criminal activities beyond the cell bars. The Department of Justice has their hands full with much-needed investigation regarding the latest discovery of mysterious amenities in
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place Nov. 8.
Contact Adam Iscoe at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @iscoe_dc.COLUMBIA, Mo. - The face and brain develop in coordination, with each influencing the other, beginning in the embryo and continuing through adolescence. Now, University of Missouri researchers have found distinct differences between the facial characteristics of children with autism compared to those of typically developing children. This knowledge could help researchers understand the origins of autism.
"There is no clear answer about whether autism is caused by genetics or by environmental influences," said Kristina Aldridge, lead author and assistant professor of anatomy in the MU School of Medicine and the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders. "If we can identify when these facial changes occur, we could pinpoint when autism may begin to develop in a child. Knowing that point in time could lead us to identify a genetic cause, a window of time when the embryo may be susceptible to an environmental factor, or both."
Aldridge and colleagues found the following distinct differences between facial characteristics of children with autism and those of typically developing children:
Children with autism have a broader upper face, including wider eyes.
Children with autism have a shorter middle region of the face, including the cheeks and nose.
Children with autism have a broader or wider mouth and philtrum - the divot below the nose, above the top lip.
She says these are subtle differences that will enable researchers to further study people with autism spectrum disorders.
Aldridge analyzed 64 boys with autism and 41 typically developing boys aged eight to 12 years old, using a camera system that captures a 3-D image of each child's head. Then, she mapped 17 points on the face, such as the corner of the eye and the divot in the upper lip. When Aldridge calculated the overall geometry of the face using these points, and compared children with autism and typically developing children, she found statistically significant differences in face shape.
Understanding that people with autism have statistically different facial characteristics enables researchers to focus on the underlying causes of autism, Aldridge said. Additionally, the study identified two groups of children with autism who show further distinct facial traits that occur in children with specific characteristics of autism, such as behavior problems, language level and repetitive behaviors. Identifying these subgroups within the group of children with autism allows better study of these children and why autism is so variable.
"This research would not be possible without the children and their families that participated," Aldridge said. "Their help is key to advancing research and helping us better understand autism, and how to develop better treatments. We are also indebted to the University of Missouri's Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders for their support of this project and the care it provides for children with autism and their families in Missouri."
The study was published in Molecular Autism. Aldridge collaborated with Ian George, a graduate student in the School of Medicine; Kimberly Cole, a research technician at the School of Medicine; Jordan Austin, a senior in the College of Arts and Science; T. Nicole Takahashi, project director at the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders; Ye Duan, associate professor of computer science in the College of Engineering and the Thompson Center; Judith Miles, professor emerita in the School of Medicine and the Thompson Center. The entire team is affiliated with the Thompson Center. This research was supported by an Autism Spectrum Disorder Research Program grant, the Simons Foundation and the Thompson Center Research Scholar Funds.
###The Canadian news and current affairs magazine Maclean’s has just run a glowing article claiming that science says ‘God is the answer’ to teen anxiety and health problems. It’s basically a promotional piece for a new book by Lisa Miller, Director of Clinical Psychology at Columbia University’s Teachers College.
To give you a flavour of the article, take a look at these excerpts:
An intensely felt, transcendental sense of a relationship with God, the universe, nature or whatever the individual identifies as his or her “higher power,” she found, is more protective than any other factor against the big three adolescent dangers. Spiritually connected teens are, remarkably, 60 per cent less likely to suffer from depression than adolescents who are not spiritually oriented. They’re 40 per cent less likely to abuse alcohol or other substances, and 80 per cent less likely to engage in unprotected sex. Spiritually oriented children, raised to not shy from hard questions or difficult situations, Miller points out, also tend to excel academically.
and
The evidence for a personal religious advantage is overwhelming, Miller claims, drawn from literally “hundreds” of epidemiological and longitudinal studies. In a 2002 article published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, data taken from a 1995 survey of 3,300 teen girls in North Carolina showed that higher frequency of prayer or meditation correlated with decreased risk of depression. It’s worth noting that the advantage was conferred by individual devotion rather than the degree to which the girls believed sacred writings were the literal word of God—spirituality, then, rather than religion.
Potent stuff, eh? Overwhelming evidence! The most important factor!
But I think Lisa needs to get out more, because I’m sitting here in the UK, where fewer than 50% of people aged 16-24 believe in god or even a ‘spiritual higher power’ any more (and the number declines year on year). Yet here and in other, equally irreligious European nations the kids seem to be doing OK.
In fact, although evidence from the USA links religiosity to mental benefits, in many places the direction of the link is exactly opposite. For example, here in the UK non-religious kids are the least likely to be emotionally disturbed. Incidentally, emotional problems peak in those with weakly held beliefs – more on that later.
In Chile, Estonia, The Netherlands, Portugal, UK, Spain, and Slovenia, spirituality has been found to increase the risk of depression, according to a study that followed 8318 patients without depression who had attended doctor’s surgeries. And evidence from elsewhere in the world shows that the link between religion and reduced risk of suicide is patchy at best. In South Africa, holding religious beliefs actually seems to increase the risk of suicide!
So clearly there’s something wrong here. How is it that Miller can make the claims she does? Well, in fact there’s not just one problem with the claims she makes. There’s a raft of them. The whole shebang is based on flawed concepts.
Miller is pretty clear in the article that it’s not religion, but spirituality, that’s important. So let’s start with what is actually meant by spirituality, because it’s a pretty nebulous term – and it probably doesn’t mean what you think it does.
For example, the Spiritual Well Being Scale (SWBS) is actually broken into two sub-scales, only one of which is to do with anything supernatural (‘Religious Well Being’ – finding strength and support from God) l. The other (‘Existential Well Being’ – feeling fulfilled and satisfied with life) is purely secular. Another commonly-used questionnaire is the Spiritual Well Being Questionnaire (SWBQ). Similar to the SWBS, it has several sub-scales – only one of which (the ‘Transcendental’ sub-scale) refers to faith in and relationship with someone or something beyond the human level. The other three scales refer to non-spiritual spirituality.
That’s important because, for example, a survey of 400 students at the University of Florida found that Existential Well Being, but not Religious Well Being, was a significant, independent factor decreasing the risk of suicide. And a survey of 320 school children found that Transcendental Spirituality was actually associated with less happiness.
This link between existential well being, but not religious or ‘higher power’ beliefs, is a common thread in several studies of this type. So if you see a claim about spirituality that does not specifically look into supernatural spirituality, you can pretty much exclude it as evidence for an effect of belief in a higher power.
Next, let’s talk linear regression (stick with me here). Most studies basically plot intensity of religious belief against happiness or whatever, and draw a line through the dots.
However, plenty of evidence suggests that the relationship is not linear. Those who are highly religious are indeed happy, but happiness decreases as religious fervour ebbs. It then turns up again for individuals of very low religiosity.
Recall the emotional problems of UK kids, that I mentioned earlier. The least and most religious kids had the fewest problems, and it’s a common finding. The happiest people are those at the two ends of the spirituality spectrum, and the unhappiest people are those with moderate religious beliefs. If you don’t take this into account, then you’re going to get screwy results.
Well, religious teens do drink less. But teens raised in the same home start drinking at similar ages, regardless of their personal religious beliefs – showing that it’s their family environment, and not their personal spirituality, that’s important.
Looking more broadly at overall health, it might surprise you to learn that nonreligious people are much more healthy than the religious. They have lower blood pressure, are leaner, and are less likely to be diabetic (they are, however, more likely to be smokers). And women who go to church or find comfort in religion are actually more likely to die or have a heart attack.
Why, then, do people keep saying that religion is good for your health? Well, the reason the non-religious are healthier is because they also better educated and wealthy – the kinds of people who take care of themselves. It’s only if you statistically control for this that religious believers are more healthy than the non-religious.
But an analysis of nearly 60 different studies found that this is entirely to do with attending religious services. There is no connection between the intrinsic aspects of religion (belief in a god concept, religious/spiritual well-being, religious/spiritual experience, and religious motivation/orientation) and health.
The health effects of religion really seem to come down to the social support. Data from the Health and Retirement Study, which has been following a group of 18,000 Americans since 1992, support this. People for whom religion was not important lived just as long as those for whom it was very important. What did matter were things like divorce and whether or not people went to church.
Religious people in the USA are happier than non-religious people, and happy people tend to be healthier – and it turns out that this explains a good chunk of the effects of religion on health.
Do religious people really behave well?
Another thing to consider is that most studies of religion and behaviour require people to report their own behaviour. Yet we know that people – including religious people – tend to tell you what they want to believe about themselves.
For example, we know that people don’t go to church as often as they claim. Porn subscriptions are higher in areas where conservative religious traditions are strongest – gay porn too.
So you need to be really cautious about surveys that ask religious people if they’ve been behaving in the way they are supposed to. If they feel social pressure to fudge the truth a little, they will – they’re only human, after all.
Social support is key – and atheists have it tough in the North America
And here’s the final thought I want to leave you with. Just supposing the premise is right and religious believers are happier. Any conclusions about cause and effect are hopelessly confounded by self-selection.
What I mean is this. If you’re a sociable person in the USA, then you’re under tremendous pressure to also be spiritual. Spiritual people in the US get more social support – although that’s because, in the US, sociable people are more likely to spiritual.
But atheists in the USA are excluded from mainstream society.They are highly mistrusted. In fact, in popular perception (Canadian data this time) atheists are pretty much on a par with rapists.
So it’s hardly surprising that, in the USA, atheists are pretty miserable. In fact, research suggests that the stress of the life of an atheist shows up in brain scans.
But does this help explain why the alleged benefits religion seem to disappear in less religious countries?
It probably does. For example, religion doesn’t make the British happier. In fact, as a general rule, in countries where religious belief is not the norm, religious believers are no happier than the non-religious. It seems that being religious can lead to more social recognition, in turn leading to more happiness. That effect is much stronger in the more religious countries.
And that has effects. Not only does it impact the happiness of atheists. It means that those who choose atheism in the USA are going to be people who have chosen to do without social support. It really happens that way – it shows up in statistics on personality differences.
The Maclean article poses this question:
Research shows kids raised with spirituality are happier and healthier in the vulnerable teen years. Why aren’t we all signing up?
Well I hope the answer is clear. It isn’t religion that has this effect – except insofar as as it make atheists unhappy.
If we really want happy and healthy kids (and adults), then we need to focus on the real issues: social support and social inclusion.BEREA, Ohio -- Coach Hue Jackson made one guarantee in the Cleveland Browns' season wrapup on Monday.
"We're not going 1-15 next year," Jackson said. "You can write it if you like. Hue Jackson said it. It's the way it is."
Jackson spoke the day after his team finished a 1-15 season, the worst record in team history. The Browns' only win came against San Diego on Christmas Eve.
"I'm not going 1-15," Browns coach Hue Jackson said at Monday's season wrapup. "No. I'll be swimming in that lake over there somewhere. That's not happening." AP Photo/David Richard
Cleveland opened the season with 14 straight losses; at one point, Jackson almost broke down as he called losing so frequently "the toughest thing ever." When the possibility of a similar season in 2017 was brought up, he cut off the question.
"I'm not going 1-15," Jackson said. "No. I'll be swimming in that lake over there somewhere. That's not happening."
Presumably he was referring to the nearby Lake Erie.
"That's not happening," Jackson said. "I just know me too well."Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally at the Milwaukee Theatre on Monday. (AP/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Billionaire mogul Donald Trump’s odds of winning the White House have plunged over the past six weeks to just 12 percent at ElectionBettingOdds.com. But to Wall Street, the prospect of a President Trump is even more remote.
Maybe too remote.
That’s according to an analysis by Pravit Chintawongvanich, head derivatives strategist at Macro Risk Advisors. He looked at options placed on the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index between September and December, an indicator of how tumultuous investors expect the market will be. What he found was that investors think the level of volatility in the fall won’t be much higher than it was over the summer — despite a little election on Nov. 8.
Now compare that to the huge jump in implied volatility of London’s FTSE 100 around the United Kingdom’s historic vote in June over whether to remain in the European Union. It seems clear which potentially history-altering event investors are worried about.
[Trump predicts a'massive recession' but intends to eliminate national debt]
[Editor's note: The last three dates labeled on this chart, created by Marco Risk Advisors, are incorrect. They should be Jan-17, Mar-17, and Jun-17.]
Granted, online betting sites currently show a higher probability that Britain will exit the euro zone — the so-called Brexit — than Trump will become president. But Chintawongvanich first analyzed the data in late February, when Trump seemed to have the GOP nomination on lock. His odds of winning peaked in early March at 27.2 percent on ElectionBettingOdds.com, giving him roughly the same chances as the Brexit. Yet investors were actually more complacent about the presidential election back then.
”There was basically nothing priced into U.S. options for the election,” Chintawongvanich said. “I felt there was a huge disconnect here.”
Let’s play devil’s advocate for a minute. It’s possible investors are not pricing in volatility because they don’t believe a Trump presidency would be consequential for stocks. Chintawongvanich said trading options became popular in the 1970s, and though the presidential elections since then have been politically and socially influential, markets have generally considered them to be a snoozer.
But Chintawongvanich argues this time is different — or, at least, it should be. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has warned that Trump’s proposal to levy a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports and a 35 percent tax on those from Mexico could spark a trade war that would throw the country back into recession. A model of the impact by Moody’s Analytics for The Washington Post shows 4 million Americans would become unemployed, and another 3 million jobs would not be created in the first place.
[Donald Trump's trade war could kill millions of U.S. jobs]
And those are just the trade policies. Trump has said he wants to pay off the country’s $19 trillion in debt over two terms in office — and that he can do it without cutting taxes. Another Washington Post analysis shows that would require economic growth of 13 to 24 percent every year. Right now, the economy is growing at just an annual rate of about 0.4 percent, according to the Atlanta Fed.
If growth doesn’t skyrocket, Trump would have to let the national debt stand or dramatically raise taxes to pay it off. The former leaves the economy with the status quo, which Trump recently predicted would lead to a “massive recession.” But the latter would also cause a massive recession, so perhaps there’s just no avoiding it.
[There is math. There is fantasy math. And then there's Donald Trump's economic math.]
There’s another plausible scenario as well. November is still pretty far away, and it’s possible that investors simply haven’t focused on it yet. Chintawongvanich said he noticed similar patterns in options markets around the debt ceiling crisis in 2011 and government shutdown in 2013. Though there were plenty of red flags along the way, markets didn’t respond until relatively late in the game.
But the investors are already pricing in the potential for a roughly 6.5 percent one-day market move in the FTSE around the time of the Brexit vote, Chintawongvanich said, and it too remains a distant event.
The most likely explanation is the simplest one: Investors do not believe that Trump will become president. And that, Chintawongvanich said, makes it the riskiest stance of all.
“The scenario in which the market moves is when they don’t expect him to win and then all of a sudden he wins,” he said. “There could be a massive market move.”
Correction: An earlier version of this article mischaracterized Britain's vote in June. It will decide whether to stay in the 28-country European Union, not the smaller bloc of 19 nations in the euro zone that share a common currency.
Read more:
Trump reveals how he would force Mexico to pay for border wall
Economic and racial anxiety: Two separate forces driving support for Donald Trump
This is what Wall Street executives have to say about Donald TrumpOil may spew for months after rig blast
In an aerial photo taken in the Gulf of Mexico more than 50 miles southeast of Venice, La., a cleanup vessel deploys an oil boom to contain crude spilled from Tuesday's rig explosion. In an aerial photo taken in the Gulf of Mexico more than 50 miles southeast of Venice, La., a cleanup vessel deploys an oil boom to contain crude spilled from Tuesday's rig explosion. Photo: Gerald Herbert, Associated Press Photo: Gerald Herbert, Associated Press Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Oil may spew for months after rig blast 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
A slow-motion environmental disaster may be in the making with the discovery Saturday that 42,000 gallons a day of crude oil is spewing from a well on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico near where a huge drilling rig sank last week � and it could be months before it's stopped.
The spill, which a day earlier Coast Guard officials believed was contained within a 16-square-mile area on the surface, now covers some 400 square miles � slightly bigger than the city of Dallas � and could grow as the well continues to leak, Rear Adm. Mary Landry, commander of Coast Guard District 8, said Saturday.
�This is a very serious spill,� she said at a press conference, adding that governments of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida had been warned about the threat of oil coming ashore and invited to participate in the response.
Word of the expanding spill came as the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig was found capsized and lying on the sea floor about 1,500 feet northwest of the well, located roughly 40 miles off the coast of Louisiana.
The semi-submersible rig, which is owned and operated by Swiss-based Transocean and under lease to BP, sank Thursday morning after an apparent blowout late Tuesday night sent the facility up in flames. Of the 126 on board at the time, 11 are still missing and presumed dead; the rest were evacuated safely.
Friday evening, the Coast Guard suspended the search for the 11 workers amid growing signs they had perished in the initial blast.
Since then, attention has turned to the huge environmental cleanup effort and what Landry called a �very extensive� investigation by the Coast Guard and U.S. Minerals Management Service into how the accident happened.
As part of that effort, robot submarines equipped with cameras have been deployed in recent days to survey the wreckage and ensure the well was no longer leaking oil.
The Coast Guard said it had not detected oil coming from the well Friday and assumed post-accident efforts to activate the blowout preventer � a huge stack of valves sitting atop the wellhead on the sea floor � had been successful.
But later trips by the remotely operated vehicles, called ROVs, discovered oil shooting from the end of the pipe-like riser that had connected the rig to the blowout preventer.
A second, smaller leak was found in a section of drill pipe near the wellhead.
That 21-inch-diameter riser had become detached from the rig when it sank. In the process, it was folded over at a 90-degree angle just above the wellhead, which had the effect of kinking it like a garden hose and constraining the flow of oil from the well. It now sits in a long, meandering mess on the ocean bottom. This helps explains why oil was not initially thought to be seeping.
Challenging situation
It also highlights the challenges of trying to comb an accident scene nearly one mile below the surface of the water.
�In 5,000 feet of water, it does add some complexity,� said Lars Herbst, region director of the Gulf of Mexico for the U.S. Minerals Management Service, the arm of the Interior Department that regulates offshore drilling in federal waters.
Doug Suttles, chief operaing officer for BP exploration and production, said while the Coast Guard works to clean up oil at the surface, the company has mobilized some 700 employees and contractors to figure out a solution for sealing the well at the sea floor.
The preferred option, he said, is still to find a way to engage the blowout preventer. That fix, if it works, could be handled in a matter of days, he said.
But if that doesn't work, the other option is to drill a deep �relief� well into the damaged well and stem the flow of oil, though that option could take several months, Suttles acknowledged. He said his team would spend the next several days trying to determine the best method.
So far, the cleanup effort has vacuumed more than 33,000 gallons of oily water mix from the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, Landry said. No estimate was available about how much remained. Also onboard the submerged rig is an estimated 700,000 gallons of diesel fuel that has not been retrieved.
Sidney Coffee, former chair of Louisiana's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, said any oil can pose a threat to marine habitats, and she is watching the Deepwater Horizon situation. �But with the technology they have, they can usually get it under control pretty quickly.�
Rough seas, rain and winds temporarily halted the cleanup Saturday. Storms produced waves 8 to 10 feet high, forcing the Coast Guard to call ashore five oil-skimming boats, three work barges and five planes involved in the efforts. They will resume when the weather improves.
[email protected] 4 is going to be absolutely huge and the dialogue options are going to be equally extensive according to Todd Howard.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Howard said, “The voice actors have been recording for 2 years, they’ve each done over 13,000 lines of dialogue.”
Talking more about the voice actors and their performances, he alluded to the choice of your character’s gender playing a role in how events unfold, and that it would be important.
“We were lucky to find two great voice actors, and it’s interesting because she may read things or act things differently than he does. So scenes play out differently depending on whether you are playing the game as male or female.”
Fallout 4 is due for release on November 10 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.A tornado watch and a severe thunderstorm warning have ended for the Ottawa area as of early Tuesday evening.
The tornado watch covers Ottawa, Gatineau, Smiths Falls, Lanark, Sharbot Lake, Brockville, Leeds and Grenville, Renfrew, Pembroke, Barry's Bay, Cornwall, Morrisburg and Prescott-Russell.
"The main threats with these thunderstorms are large hail, damaging wind gusts and torrential downpours," Environment Canada said in a notice posted on its website.
"The threat for isolated tornadoes is expected to develop later this morning and continue through much of the afternoon. This is a dangerous and potentially life-threatening situation. Be prepared for severe weather. Take cover immediately, if threatening weather approaches."
An Ottawa police officer directs traffic around downed trees on the Airport Parkway Tuesday morning. (David Richard/Radio-Canada)
Trees down near Ottawa airport
A powerful thunderstorm that moved through Ottawa Tuesday morning brought hail and heavy rain, and took down trees along the Airport Parkway not far from the Ottawa International Airport.
The parkway was reduced to one lane from Walkley Road to Hunt Club Road as crews removed debris, but has since fully reopened.
Highway 174 in east Ottawa is closed from Trim Road to Quigley Hill because a tree fell onto hydro wires. The duration of the road closure is unknown.
Firefighters dealt with 11 storm-related alarm calls caused by lightning, power outages, fallen trees, an elevator rescue and three pole fires.
The day will remain muggy under mostly cloudy skies.
The high temperature is expected to reach 27 C, about 3 degrees above average.
Wednesday is shaping up cooler and leading to a more calm, clear and cooler end to the week.This is an unashamed WhatCulture.com Special featuring an at length interview with the leader of #BX Adam Blampied, who talks to Steve Hermon about the rise of WhatCulture Pro Wrestling, how he feels about getting in a wrestling ring himself, his favourite moments in #WWE history and what it was like interviewing Brock Lesnar and AJ Styles.
#WCPW Wrestler Joe Hendry drops in for an chat about his match with former #WWE and #TNA Superstar Kurt Angle at their first ever iPPV Refuse To Lose on the 6th October.
Also, listen to the podcast to find out how you can win a pair of tickets to the next #WCPW Loaded taping at Northumbria University's SU in Newcastle on the 7th October, featuring Cody Rhodes.
Have your say on this epsiode by following and tweeting us @TheBuzzardsPod on Twitter!I just got more goodies in the mail and WOW did my Santa spoil me and my kitty!
I got a cute little polaroid of the beach. The return address on my gift is in Florida so I'm guessing it's from my Santa's home. It looks beautiful!
Below that was an adorable picture of a cat looking out a window next to some bottles. The cat is stinking adorable (love fluffy kitties) and there was a note on the back, revealing that TWO people were behind my gift, plus some kitties too!
Below that was a package of Avengers stickers! Very cool, just gotta decide where to stick them all, haha.
Then, I opened some presents for my cat Flakes. The first was an ADORABLE set of toys called a "TV dinner" - they're catnip filled toys shaped like food. Then, I opened a package that had 3 tiny mice in it. They look handmade and they are so cute and tiny. I gave one to my cat and he has been playing with it and carrying it around in his mouth for 15 minutes now. I have NEVER seen him this excited about a toy and I've had my little guy for over 6 years.
After that, I found a gift that was shaped like a DVD or video game. The tag explained the gift and I was quite surprised when I opened it. It was Fallout 3 - Game of the Year Edition! I am a standard casual gamer, mostly playing light games like Animal Crossing and Mario Kart so this will be a cool experiment to see if I like this style of game.
The last thing I opened was definitely my FAVORITE item - a illustration of my cat Flakes in Animal Crossing. My Santa says their best friend made it and I am so thrilled with how it came out. It looks very much like him and it's absolutely amazing. I'm going to frame it and put it on my wall as soon as I find a good frame.
I am in awe of how much effort was put forth for this gift and I am so grateful. Thank you!!!
Original Post below:
Woohoo! I just got my Arbitrary gift and I'm pretty damn happy!
I got a book that I've been wanting for awhile - The New Rules of Lifting for Women! I've been losing weight via the Keto diet (42 pounds down since January!) and I've been wanting to add strength training too. This book will definitely help me with that! It's been on my wishlist for awhile and now I can mark it off.
I also got the Munchkin Level Playing Field (it tracks everyone's level while playing). I LOVE Munchkin (my husband and I have several sets plus expansions and my friends have the rest, lol) and I've been meaning to host a Munchkin night. Now that I have this, I'll DEFINITELY do one so we can try it out. Funny story, I almost bought this for myself last weekend when I was shopping for my giftee. Haha!
Thank you so much, Santa. YOU ROCK!!!New Holland Dragon’s Milk Reserve Vanilla Chai returns to shelves once again in October, 2016. Part of the Dragon’s Milk Reserve Series.
The Michigan based brewery started releasing variants of their wildly popular year-round imperial stout in 2015. Editions include Raspberries, Chocolate & Coffee, & Toasted Chilies. One of the best they’ve ever done? New Holland Dragon’s Milk Reserve Vanilla Chai.
Chai is the imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels for three months, with vanilla chai spice. We throw the term “boozy dessert” around frequently here. You will find it in this variant of Dragon’s Milk. The beer is layered in creamy chocolate, with vanilla from both the bourbon and vanilla chai. Clay Cooper, the brewery’s national sales director, mentions mixing with New Holland Ichabod Pumpkin Ale, saying: “It’s pretty damn delish.”
New Holland Dragon’s Milk Reserve Vanilla Chai can be found again in 12 ounce bottles starting in October, 2016.
Style: Imperial Stout (w/ Vanilla Chai Spice. Barrel Aged. Bourbon.)
Hops: Glacier, Nugget
Malts: 2 Row, Munich, Caramel, Crystal, Black, Chocolate, Flaked Barley
Availability: 12oz Bottles, Draft. Seasonal release
Latest Return: October 2016
11% ABV, 31 IBUs
Image: Beer Street JournalLOS ANGELES, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- U.S. rock guitarist Joe Satriani says the group Coldplay lifted parts of an instrumental he composed and used them in its hit song "Viva La Vida."
Satriani filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, saying the Coldplay song -- a key track on its latest album, "Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends" -- was substantially plagiarized from his 2004 instrumental "If I Could Fly," the Chicago Tribune reported Saturday.
The Coldplay song was nominated Wednesday for song and record of the year Grammys by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the newspaper said.
Satriani is a virtuoso rock 'n' roll guitarist who has been recording steadily since 1986. The suit seeks a jury trial and profits from Coldplay, which credited all four band members -- Chris Martin, Guy Berryman, Will Champion and Jonny Buckland -- as the authors of "Viva La Vida," the Tribune said.Fujairah Asia Power Company PJSC (“FAPCo”) was established on 23rd October 2007 as a Private Joint Stock Company within the United Arab Emirates (“UAE”).
Sixty percent (60%) of the equity in the Company is held by the Fujairah Water and Electricity Company ("FWEC": a wholly owned subsidiary of ADWEA), with the remaining forty percent (40%) held by Fujairah F2 CV (“F2CV”) a Limited Partnership Company - in turn owned on a 50:50 basis by offshore subsidiaries of Engie and Marubeni Corporation (“MC”).
A Shareholder’s Agreement between F2CV and FWEC governs the relationship between the shareholders, and provides the corporate structure for the management and operation of the affairs of the Company.
F2CV signed a 20 year Power and Water Purchase Agreement (“PWPA”) with ADWEA on 19th July 2007, along with other supporting Project Documents. These documents were later “novated” to FAPCo and form the corporate as well as financing structure for development of a “green field” 2000 MW and 130 MIGD power and desalination facility (“Fujairah F2 Plant”) at a pre-selected site at Quidfa, Emirate of Fujairah, approximately 280 kms. east of the City of Abu Dhabi.Last night Naseem Hamed should have vaulted into the ring of London's Olympia for his comeback fight. It never happened.
The man who lost his world title so comprehensively last April has gone missing from the ring, and the public eye. At the end of August, it was clear that Hamed would not fight again this year even after it was announced that a shortlist of willing losers was being looked at for his proposed return last night. The fight was a mirage and Hamed has never been so inactive since he first walked into Brendan Ingle's gym in Wincobank, Sheffield, 19 years ago.
The events of 11 September are not disconnected from this state of affairs. The terrorist attacks led to Hamed's soaring team of anonymous handlers issuing a statement one week later that the fighter, once regarded as the finest in British boxing, would be laying down his gloved fists in sympathy with the dead until further notice.
It looked like a disaster of convenience for the fighter. 'Naz is deeply distraught over what's happened. He's a devout Muslim, but in no way does he condone what has happened,' read the statement. Then the trail of the self-proclaimed Arab prince went cold - and silent - and the whispers about an Islamic ex-champion sidelined by the Americans began. Insiders in America spoke of the end of Hamed's career on American television. HBO moved quickly to deny this but stories started to circulate. It was rumoured that his entrance, the Muslim call to prayers and the bold declarations of his faith on his shorts - emblazoned with 'Islam' - would have to go. Still HBO denied any problem and refused to say whether Hamed would be allowed to praise Allah at the end of his next fight.
Hamed flaunts his beliefs, unlike two other Muslim boxers backed by HBO, Bernard Hopkins and Hasim Rahman, both champions. Hopkins has been a Muslim since leaving jail 13 years ago but at a press conference before fighting Felix Trinidad in September, he had to scold journalists. 'We are not all the same type of Muslims,' he said gently in reference to 11 September. Rahman, who fights Lennox Lewis next Saturday in Las Vegas, has been a Muslim since birth but he also plays down his religion. He prays six times each day but he does not take his beliefs to work with him.
There was a time when Hamed was the same. But that has changed during the past three or four years. Last year when Hamed met Augie Sanchez in Connecticut he was called to the ring by an Islamic mullah. It created a great atmosphere but HBO edited out the prayer and the same happened in Hamed's last fight against Marco Antonio Barrera in Las Vegas back in April. Last month, the fighter's brother, Riath, who is also his de facto manager, claimed that they had split from HBO, effectively the fighter's paymaster. Nobody would confirm that Hamed's religion was at the core of the problem and a contractual disagreement was blamed. A few days later Riath and HBO kissed and said sorry. But little Naz was silent. 'We are looking at a new contract now,' confirmed Riath two days ago. 'We are also looking at dates at the end of February. Somewhere around that time.' Once again, HBO denied they were willing to let Hamed go because of his religion.
Hamed has now been out of the ring longer than at any time since he found Ingle's fight academy at the age of seven. He has also been out of the spotlight for longer than at any point in his career. There was a time when Hamed dominated the sports pages and style magazines. But when the now defunct Total Sport magazine ran a feature in 1999 asking 50 of Britain's top sportsmen and women to name their sporting influences, not one person put Hamed's name in the frame.
As Hamed started to vanish from the pages of magazines and newspapers it was openly reported
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might be facing jail for up to two years if you reveal anything about what happens in Australia's immigration detention centers to anybody else.
An "entrusted person" is anyone working directly or indirectly for the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, so that's doctors, nurses, psychologists, teachers, counsellors, security staff, maintenance workers, or anyone who has signed a government contract.
This puts medical professionals and those who work with children on Nauru or Manus Island in bizarre circumstances. Outside of detention centers, they're legally obligated to report child abuse. As of July 1, they can't do the same with abuse witnessed on the inside.
Refugee advocates and human rights lawyers say the legislation is a veiled attempt to silence whistleblowers from revealing human rights violations inside Australia's detention centers. And the mounting evidence of such violations makes this legislation all the more disturbing.
In October last year, Australia's Immigration Department ordered ten workers from Save The Children to leave Nauru's detention center after they alleged sexual abuse against women and children.
The ensuing independent Moss Review looked at both the allegations of sexual abuse, as well as claims from then Immigration Minister, Scott Morrison, that Save the Children's workers coached seekers to make false claims. It found evidence of the rape and sexual assault of minors and women as well as guards trading marijuana for sexual favors. There was no evidence of collusion between asylum seekers and advocates to make false claims. The findings of the review are subject to a senate enquiry which is due to report on July 31.
Similarly, February's Australian Human Rights Commission's (AHRC) report on children in detention found there were 233 recorded assaults involving children with 33 incidents of sexual assault between January 2013 and March 2014.
The AHRC report largely drew from interviews and testimony from staff who worked at detention centers. If the Border Force Act were in place when the AHRC was investigating, those who spoke out would've risked potential imprisonment.
Greg Barnes is a barrister and national president of the Australian Lawyers Alliance. He told VICE that the legislation prevents someone's ethical and moral duty to report abuse.
"It's ironic at the same time we have a royal commission into institutionalized sexual abuse we have a government supported by the Labor party, which is deliberately setting about to prevent disclosure of serious criminal abuse," he said.
Mr. Barnes says the law is aimed at anyone having anything to do with asylum seekers in any setting.
"If someone disclosed information that the Australian Navy or customs pushed a boat back out into dangerous waters—and people drowned because of it—they could go to jail."
He says he has "no doubt" there would be legal challenges to the legislation as "most judges and the courts generally would be horrified by legislation that allows for the cover up of physical and mental abuse."
Professor David Isaacs is a pediatrician who worked on Nauru in December last year and subsequently spoke about his experiences to the media.
The Professor remains defiant in the face of new laws, but worries others may be easily silenced with the threat of incarceration.
"It is easy for me because my kids have grown up, so it doesn't phase me," he said.
Other detention center workers with young families, he explained, have a lot more to lose, particularly given the "vindictiveness" and "viciousness" shown by the government in pursuing Freya Newman. In 2014, Newman revealed a daughter of Australia's Prime Minister had received a secret scholarship to fashion college, the Whitehouse Institute, with the aid of its chairman, a Liberal Party donor.
"That means people are scared to report child abuse even though we have a mandatory obligation to report child abuse anywhere in Australia."
Professor Isaacs says the Immigration Department is already "pretty secretive and pretty nasty" to people who've disclosed conditions to the media. He says nobody will employ him to work in a detention center again because he spoke out.
"They silence people who do it, and they do this in many ways. If we speak out on social media for instance, you may never get employed again. That is not necessarily stated outright but effectively that's what happens," he said.
When asked about the conditions he witnessed, Professor Isaacs talked of women and children too scared to go to the bathroom after dark, canvas tents with no running water, and the indefinite imprisonment of entire families in Nauru's hot, humid and inhospitable terrain in the middle of the island, well away from its 10,000 inhabitants.
"It is deliberate policy to harm people mentally and physically as an act of deterrence. It's quite extraordinary that nobody else in the world tries to make a place worse than the place asylum seekers are fleeing from."
Speaking with VICE, Greens senator and immigration spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young said, "the more we discover of what's been going on inside Nauru, the worse it gets.
"Nauru is a seedy, toxic, and dangerous place. No women and children should be forced to stay there."
VICE contacted the office of the Minister for Immigration, Peter Dutton, and the Opposition Spokesperson for Immigration, Richard Marles. Neither were able to provide comment before publication.
Follow Lauren on Twitter.The long-awaited and recently announced departure of NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft from our solar system may have hit a significant roadblock, after NASA urged people not to pop the champagne just yet, on the back of conflicting evidence.
A new study recently suggested that the exploratory spacecraft launched by NASA some 35-and-a-half years ago has gone beyond the heliosphere – our corner of space dominated by the influence of the Sun - and has experienced massive changes in radiation levels.
However, the US space agency said on Wednesday that it’s too early to celebrate, describing the current report as “premature and incorrect” in a statement to AFP.
The initial study on cosmic rays and radiation was published in the scientific journal, Geophysical Research Letters, purporting that the spacecraft left our solar system in August of 2012. The 845 kg space probe has been experiencing drastic changes in radiation levels since supposedly leaving the heliosphere, scientists say. Such changes in levels of cosmic radiation have not been witnessed since the spacecraft’s launch on August 25th 1977, and are consistent with galactic rays outside of our sun’s neighborhood.
“Within just a few days, the heliospheric intensity of trapped radiation decreased, and the cosmic ray intensity went up as you would expect if it exited the heliosphere,” said Bill Webber, professor emeritus of astronomy at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.
But while Webber never claimed he knew for sure that the craft had left our solar system entirely, fresh evidence from NASA appears to say with certainty it has not. In December 2012, the US space agency reported that it had reached a new region called the ‘magnetic highway’, but that is still not outside our solar system, although quite close.
Edward Stone, a project scientist with the Voyager team, said that “a change in the direction of the magnetic field is the last critical indicator of reaching interstellar space and that change of direction has not yet been observed.”
Voyager 1 and its brother Voyager 2 took off on a trip to explore Saturn, Jupiter and bodies outside our solar system in 1977. Voyager 1’s mission was over in November 1980, when it had finished exploring the two aforementioned planets and their moons. But with 18 billion kilometers (11 billion miles) traveled, scientists are holding their breath for what awaits the human race outside of our cosmic comfort zone. They say we only have about a year or two to wait till the first of the two crafts has made it into interstellar space.
In its 35 years of activity, Voyager 1 is still sending transmissions back to NASA, which makes it the oldest active spacecraft ever built. It takes around 16 hours to send and receive radio signals.
Both the Voyagers are carrying gold-plated phonograph records containing 115 images of life on Earth, various animal sounds, the sounds of weather and nature, as well as greetings in a number of languages, including printed messages from the former US President Jimmy Carter and former UN chief Kurt Waldheim. NASA praises its two prized spacecraft as “the most distant active representatives of humanity and its desire to explore.”Developers who are well versed in Ruby on Rails (or other MVC implementations) and start learning Ember.js may find it surprising that, even though there’s shared vocabulary, denoted concepts are sometimes very different.
The first and obvious difference comes from the fact both are web frameworks. Rails facilitates the creation of web apps that offer mainly an HTTP interface to interact with. On the other hand, Ember helps create web apps that interface directly with humans (through clicks, taps, key presses, etc). They are both web application frameworks, but the former is server side and the latter client side.
A look into their workflows will shed light over the main differences.
The Rails request life cycle works as follows:
The Router receives an HTTP request from the browser/client, and calls the controller that will handle it. The Controller receives the HTTP parameters, and instantiates the necessary Model or Models. The Model fetches from the database requested objects. The Controller passes Models to the View, and renders them. The View generates a text reponse (HTML, JSON, etc), interpolating Ruby objects where necessary. The Controller response is sent back to the Router, and from there to the client.
The Ember.js run loop works as follows (don’t forget that Model and Controller refer now to Ember concepts rather than Rails):
The Router instantiates a Model and sets it in a Controller. The Router renders the Template. The Template gets its properties from the Controller, which acts as a decorator for the Model. The Template doesn’t know where a property it displays is defined, the controller will provide it by itself or through its Model.
At this point the cycle ends, and it can be restarted by:
An event (like a click on a link) that triggers an action that updates the route.
A new URL is directly visited by writing in the browser’s address bar.
Models are similar in both frameworks. It is a common situation that a model in Ember maps one-to-one with a model in Rails.
In Rails almost always a Model is backed by a database like PostgreSQL, whereas in Ember it is common that a model only lives in memory, and is fetched, changed or deleted via a JSON API.
Note that in Ember the Template and Model are always automatically in sync thanks to the two-way binding feature. This means that if we edit in a form an attribute for a Model, the attribute will change in real time in any place the model is rendered (let’s say, in the title of the page), even if we don’t submit the form or persist the changes. This is another surprise coming from Rails, where a change in a form is stateless and until we successfully send it nothing really changes.
It is a good Rails practice to have simple views, with presenters/decorators providing any necessary logic. Ember enforces this good practice, with its Templates being logic-less by nature of its engine, Handlebars. A similar enforcement may be used in Rails via gems like curly.
Ember has both the concept of Views and of Templates, though Templates are more akin to Rails Views. An Ember View renders Templates, and it provides re-usable components and more complex event handling.
A Controller in Rails is a Rack application, that talks to Models to return an HTTP response. A Controller in Ember is a Model decorator, and it’s called from the templates.
A Router in Rails is responsible for HTTP requests/responses. In Ember a Route (and not a Router, which is just a mapping between strings and Routes) is concerned about the current state of the application (what models and controllers should be set up), and about keeping the URL up to date as application’s state changes (like after a click on a link).
As you dig more into Ember you’ll find more similarities and differences. This blog post should provide a good start to avoid possible confusions due to similar vocabulary that refers to different things.'Cove' Director Surfaces Deep (And Dark) Secrets
Enlarge this image toggle caption Oceanic Preservation Society Oceanic Preservation Society
Filmmaker Louie Psihoyos discusses his new documentary The Cove, a shocking and moving account of dolphin abuse off the coast of Taijii, Japan.
Psihoyos and his team painstakingly documented a thriving operation that captures dolphins, the healthiest and handsomest of which are sold to aquariums worldwide.
The rest are slaughtered, often ending up as food for human consumption, despite high mercury levels.
Going into the village of Taijii, Psihoyos tells Fresh Air, is "like walking into a Stephen King novel." There's lots of visible marketing — statues, murals-- proclaiming the town's love of dolphins. "The whole town was built around loving dolphins and whales."
Watch Clips 'Creating The Team' 'The Sound' 'Dolphin's Worst Nightmare'
"And then in the middle of town," Psihoyos says, "is this national park that even Japanese people can't go in. Big tall fences, steel spikes on the gates, razor ribbon, barbed wire, a series of tunnels to get through on one side to get there — it was like a fortress. And Ric said, 'That's where this all happens' — in this national park.' "
"Ric" is Ric O'Barry — a former dolphin trainer responsible for teaching the dolphins of TV's Flipper their tricks. He has devoted years to rescuing the intelligent mammals he once helped capture.
"I get more upset with the dolphin trainers I see there than the fishermen," O'Barry tells Terry Gross. Japanese fishermen, he explains, think of dolphins as being in the same category as fish — not least, O'Barry says, because the Japanese character for "whale" translates literally into "monster fish."
"But the dolphin trainers, who are there working side by side with them, look [the dolphins] in the eye every day," O'Barry says. "They give them names. They spend time with them. They know they're self-aware."
To capture the horrors of the cove on film, Psihoyos recruited an Ocean's Eleven-style team: divers, special-effects artists and sound specialists. They used state-of-the-art equipment to infiltrate the remote cove and film the dolphin slaughter.
An experienced dive photographer, Psihoyos spent nearly two decades on the staff of National Geographic magazine.
His work has also appeared in Smithsonian, Discover, GEO, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine and Sports Illustrated.The average man with a full-time job in 2014 earned less than the average man in 1973, according to the Brookings Institution.
The think tank’s economy-focused Twitter account revived a striking statistic over the weekend, shedding additional light on the perceived economic stagnation and frustration among middle-income Americans in recent years.
Males in the US earned less in 2014 than in 1973: https://t.co/oxOm9FAe37 pic.twitter.com/5RUe6ztIRx — Brookings Econ (@BrookingsEcon) June 13, 2016
According to the Brookings report, first published in The Wall Street Journal in September, the median earnings of a man working full-time in 1973 was $53,294 — measured in 2014 dollars — while the median income for a man working full-time in 2014 was $50,383.
“This one fact, tucked in Table A-4 of the Census Bureau’s annual report on income, is both a symptom of an economy that isn’t delivering for many ordinary Americans and at least one reason for the dissatisfaction, anger, and distrust that voters are displaying in the 2016 presidential campaign,” David Wessel, director of the Brookings Institution’s Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, wrote in the report.
The decline in wages is that much more notable when considered against the growth of the U.S. economy and increase in American productivity since 1973. As Wessel cites, the output per person in the U.S. has nearly doubled and the output per hour of work has grown nearly 2.5 times since the 1970s.
So what exactly is causing this?
As I often do when confronted with puzzles like this, I contacted Larry Katz, the Harvard University labor economist. He identified three factors to explain the stagnation of men’s wages: 1. Although this is not the major factor, workers have been getting more of their compensation in benefits as opposed to the cash wages that the Census tallies. (The EPI chart takes that into account and tracks total compensation.) 2. Labor’s share of national income has been declining since 2000 and capital’s share has been rising. Labor’s compensation (wages and benefits) has not been keeping pace with productivity growth. In their new analysis of this phenomenon, EPI’s Josh Bivens and Larry Mishel argue, “ This decoupling coincided with the passage of many policies that explicitly aimed to erode the bargaining power of low- and moderate-wage workers in the labor market.” 3. The “most important factor,” Mr. Katz says, is the rise in wage inequality, the gap between the earnings of the best-paid workers and the ones at the middle and the bottom that has been widening steadily since about 1980. Economists differ over how much of this is the result of globalization, technological change, changing social mores, and government policies, but there is no longer much dispute about the fact that inequality is increasing.
While men have seen their median wages decline, women’s median wages have been steadily on the rise, growing 30 percent since 1973, from $30,182 to $39,621.~ Chapter Nine ~
"Well, that was a thing."
This time, it was Elsa who had declared it, and Anna had to agree as they drove away. "I… wow, she actually did the fainting thing. I thought that was a myth!"
"So did I!" Now that the shock had warn off, they both found themselves laughing. Once Anna pulled up to a stop sign, they laughed more, tears coming to their eyes. By the time they recovered slightly, their sides ached, and Elsa was pressing her half-hoodie-covered palms into her face.
"OHhhhh," Anna sighed at last, wiping the tears from her cheeks. "God, what a riot! I wish it could be like this all the time."
"Me, too." They exchanged a warm grin. Then it slowly faded as realisation set in.
"But it can't," Anna breathed for them. She turned, gripped the steering wheel. "W-well, that's okay; it was still cool to hang out with you for a day. I mean, wow, even Rapunzel won't believe us; she'll just think she had a weird dream."
Elsa's smile was close to its previous brilliance. Close, but not quite there. "You will tell Kristoff, I assume."
"Well, yeah," she snorted as they pulled away again. "I tell him everything, though, so that's not really even a question."
A mischievous glint came into the blonde's eyes. Leaning back a little further in the seat, she asked, "What if I asked you not to tell him? Would you keep this a secret?"
"Oh…" Anna gulped, forcing her eyes to stay on the road instead of turning. "Right, shit, of course - you got it."
"I'm kidding," Elsa giggled. "Just wanted to see if you'd do it. Of course I don't mind."
There was a great sigh of relief from the driver. "Good! Ugh, you had me going, you jerk!"
"How dare you call me, the great Elsa, a 'jerk'!" she cried in a falsely-pompous voice. "This is an outrage! I'm calling your mother! I'm calling my lawyer!"
"You are?!" The grin was too delighted for Anna's words to be believable. "You'll never take me alive!"
Elsa cocked a fingergun at her and said, "Pew, pew!" in a voice so full of laughter that it got both of them going again, and Anna pulled into a spot on the kerb between two other cars, opting not to take any more chances with Elsa's life that day.
"DAMN it!" she finally gasped out, wiping her eyes and stomping against the foot rest. "I'm gonna pass out, and then you'll have to stick me in with Rapunzel!"
"AAAHHH!" Elsa laughed out loud, her shoe landing on the dashboard as one of her legs came up, as if bracing against it that way would somehow ward off the giggle fits. "We just left her there! Are we the worst?!"
Snickering as she clutched her sides, Anna told her, "Nahhh. She'll be fine; we didn't even let her hit the floor. But oh man, wait until she finds out it really happened! Not that I know how we're gonna prove it to her."
"I do." Elsa dug Anna's phone out of her purse; given that it was sticking out of the top already, this wasn't even as much of an invasion as the backpack. "Two selfies; one regular, and one with the worst duckface we can manage."
"Ughhhh, not duckface! Well, if it's for science…"
The deed was done in seconds. This more than made up for Elsa not posting their first selfie anywhere online — not believing she was the proud owner of not one, but two selfies with THE Elsa, Anna tried not to think too deeply about it. Or about how only one of them had her eyes shielded by sunglasses. Or about how close they had to press in to make the picture happen. All bad thoughts.
"You're crazy good at selfies, even though none of them are on your Insta," Anna laughed as she flipped between both of them, trying to decide which she liked better.
"I like to post other things," Elsa agreed as they settled back into their seats. "Nature, and views of sunsets. Things I find pleasing, which definitely doesn't include spamming people with my own face."
"Yeah, I can respect that. You don't see a self-portrait in my sketchpad, that's for sure."
"Why not? You're cute as a button."
Anna blinked over at her. "I am? Oh… wow, thank you! I m-mean, people don't usually bother to call me 'cute'. Well, unless they're trying to hook up with me, like that exchange student Kuzco spent all his time doing." Then her eyes went round. "N-not that I'm accusing you of that, of course! No way!"
"Glad to hear that," she laughed easily, leaning back again. "Ohhh… too much fun. If there is such a thing, I have had it today."
Nodding, Anna finally sat up. "Guess I better get you back to the airport. I mean, it's the least I can do, since… seriously, we're already in a car, it'd be weird to kick you out so you can get in another one."
"Yeah," Elsa sighed, lapsing into a quiet that didn't seem like her. Except it did; it seemed like the Elsa she had first met. Not the one she was getting to know now.
As they eased up to a red light, she decided to attempt some further conversation. Hoping to lighten the mood. "So… where are you headed, anyway?"
"Ibiza for a few days. Then to the Cannes Film Festival, because 'Love Hostage' was in one of the movies and I'm supposed to go with the lead actor when he walks the carpet for the screening."
Anna nodded. "Oh yeah, same."
"You dork," she snorted. "The island will be nice, though. It can be either fun or relaxing, anytime you want."
"Kinda like the internet. I mean, that's the closest comparison I have; I've never even been off this continent."
For a long moment, Elsa didn't say anything. So long that Anna had forgotten the thread of their conversation, and everything other than wondering what else she could say to a forlorn pop star who happened to be in her Volvo when she heard an odd question, tossed out from nowhere.
"Do you have… a current passport?"
"What?" She glanced over to see Elsa still looking out the window thoughtfully. "Um… yeah, actually I got one when we jumped over the border to visit my great aunt a couple years ago. I… think it's still good. Why?"
"Can you stop the car?" When Anna didn't respond right away, she followed up with, "Somewhere, when possible. I don't want you driving into a bush."
Anna Mayberry's excitement levels were shooting through the roof already anyway, because she knew something was coming that would change her life. She just didn't know in what way. Regardless, she gently brought the car to a stop in front of an insurance adjuster's building.
"What?" she whispered. But the minute she put the car in park, Elsa's hands were latching onto her closest arm. "Huh?!"
"Come with me."
"Wait, what? Come w… come with you to IBIZA?!"
"Yes! Aren't you on summer vacation?" Her eye twitched the tiniest bit, a miniature wince. "Or you've graduated - you know what I mean! If you can get packed as fast as you can, we can make it to the airport with just enough time for you to grind through security and join me on the flight over there!"
Anna laughed weakly, suddenly light-headed. "Are you crazy? I don't have that kind of money! And besides, where would I stay? What would I do - I mean, I can't go to Cannes, can I?"
"You couldn't without an invitation, it's true - and it's not even on Ibiza, anyway. But that's one night; the rest of the week other than that night, we'll do whatever you want; see the sights, hit the beach! Or none of it, we could just hang out and watch Netflix the whole time! And…" One of her hands slid down and gripped Anna's wrist. "I'll pay for the flight, and you can stay with me."
"Oh, SURE!" Another laugh, this one even more weak before. "Pinch me."
"Is… I mean, you seem to not be believing me," Elsa half-laughed, voice uncertain. "Or else… you don't want to go, and if that's the case, I'll understand. Really! It's such a sudden request from a stranger, but… but I feel like…"
They both stopped. Anna's heart beat faster. Something was different, but it couldn't be different in the way a small part of her desperately hoped it was. It just couldn't.
"Feel like what?"
Elsa swallowed. "Feel like… if I don't do something to keep this day going, to avoid losing a good friend that I was lucky enough to find, then I… it's going to be the biggest mistake of my life. And no, I don't know why I feel that way, but I've learned to trust my instincts."
That at least kept her from meeting Rapunzel's fate. Even so, she was barely able to remain conscious; Elsa liked her that much? "Slumming" with a fan for a few hours was one thing, but dragging her along on vacation? This kind of thing just didn't happen to people like her.
"I… oh, Elsa, I'm so flattered, and it sounds like a blast, but I don't know if my parents will go for that. I mean, like I told you, I've never been out of the country, I… and it's only a few HOURS' notice!"
"Well, let's go ask - we have to get your luggage, anyway! Are they home?"
"Mom is," Anna said numbly. "Dad's at work right now… you're serious. You are actually serious, you want me to fly off to Europe with you."
Elsa's smile slipped a notch. "Is that weird? I mean, I'm sorry if it is, I just…" Her eyes closed, and she took a deep breath in through her nose, then let it out slowly through her lips. "You're right. I shouldn't have presumed your schedule is free, or that you'd be willing or able to suddenly go abroad. That's… I was impulsive. I'm sorry."
"WHAT?! Holy shit, don't apologise! I really wanna go!"
"It's okay." Finally, her eyes opened again, and she hitched a smile back into place. "Maybe some other time? When it's not… well, when you have at least a full day to plan, right? God, I can't even invite people to normal things anymore."
The last statement shot straight through Anna's heart. Before that, she had been thinking that it was such a "celebrity" thing to do, asking a random person to pick up everything and disappear overseas for a week, with money being no object. But Elsa recognising it herself was somehow worse. Sad.
"Let's go ask Mom. If she says no, at least we tried."
The smile that bloomed across Elsa's face this time made it quite clear the one from moments before was fake, a defense mechanism. This one was pure and radiant, full of life. Full of hope.
"If you don't try, you can't succeed," she whispered with building excitement.
~ To Be Continued ~Football is business – big business. And Arsène Wenger knows that better than most.
The manager famously graduated from the University of Strasbourg with a degree in economics, and his business acumen was called upon when he had to help balance the books as Arsenal paid for the move to Emirates Stadium.
Which might explain why, during the club’s pre- season trip to Australia and China, the manager was invited to address both business leaders and students – although this being Arsène, the questions and answers inevitably turned to the business of football.
First up, a group of businessmen in Sydney were invited to an Emirates Business Breakfast, where the lucky attendees got to ask questions, as well as meet the boss, chairman Ivan Gazidis and, most excitingly of all, the FA Cup....
The following first appeared in the Arsenal Magazine - click here to subscribe.
the big interview
Arsène, tell us about your early life, and how you came to love football...
I grew up in a little village, near the local football club, and my life was dominated by two things: I had to go to church, and of course I heard only about football every day. And I understood very quickly, watching the team, that you need religion to win football games! So I decided to do something about it, and make sure that my religion was football. And that hasn’t changed.
Football is a religion for some, but it’s also a business. What’s your ethos as a manager?
I try to combine the values I think are important in a football team – because it’s a team sport, and giving something to your team makes you better. It’s not easy to understand when you’re 20, because you’re more obsessed by your own individual performance, by your ego and by your desire to be the star. So I try to convince my players that the expression of the team makes everyone individually stronger.
We have values at the club, and we try to transform what we do on the pitch into art. We want to give every fan who wakes up on the morning of a match the opportunity to think, “Maybe I can have a great experience today by watching my football team.” It’s about giving them something more, something special that’s beautiful to watch. I must say, it’s not easy, but as a football club you need to at least have this ambition.
There’s a lot of money in football these days, which can be a challenge for managers. How do you inspire players to work for the team and for the fans?
Money is the consequence of the quality of your performances – or at least it should be. I try to get the players to get their priorities right. Don’t be obsessed by money. Focus on the quality of your performance. If the quality of your performance is great, we live in a privileged sport where we have a lot of money, and I don’t know anybody who performs well who is not what we call rich. So I think they have the luxury to focus on the quality of their performance. Intelligence in life is to focus on what’s important.
What has your experience taught you about footballers?
I have huge experience – 35 years in the job – and I’ve seen so many people who are hugely talented, but I’ve also seen average talents have fantastic careers, and that experience helps me to help the players. At the end of the day the football club is there to help the player make a great career. I can predict, at the age of 24 or 25, what a player’s life will be, because I’ve seen so many players.
We have values at the club, and we try to transform what we do on the pitch into art. We want to give every fan who wakes up on the morning of a match the opportunity to think, “Maybe I can have a great experience today by watching my football team”
I must say as well there is no happiness after your career because at 34 years of age you lose your passion, you lose your celebrity and you lose your income.
People don’t imagine how difficult it is when you’ve been on top of the world to continue with your life and to accept that you’re not at the top anymore, no matter what you do after. You can talk on television but you will never share on the pitch or in the dressing room that feeling that you’ve achieved something together. And you miss that for the rest of your life.
In terms of recruiting, how do you keep finding the talent in this globalised football world where it is so competitive?
The success of our job is to get the right people in, as it is in any company. The first three steps are scouting, getting the right people in, secondly giving them the right coaching programme that develops them well and finally integrating them into a competitive team that is destined to win football games. If you get the first one wrong you go nowhere. We have scouts all over the world, we have analytics and video scouting as well – we have analysts watching games all over the world every weekend and you can see on computer how any player in the world is doing. It doesn’t make the decision easier because you still need to choose players who can integrate and suit our team.
How do you set objectives?
Our objective is to win every competition. If you’re a football manager and you say you don’t want to win this competition you’re finished! But the objective is always to combine the short term and the long term: win the next game, win the next game, win the next game, and extract the maximum potential from your group. How you measure that, nobody knows. I have won league championships, FA Cups, and I sometimes felt I had done better with the potential of my team when we finished third. That’s being objective, rather than setting objectives. But of course the aim at the start of every season is to win every competition. It’s not easy, though. You have 20 billionaires in the Premier League and only one of them will be happy!
You’ve been a manager for an awfully long time and of course there have been ups and downs along the way. There was a lot of speculation in the media about your own future last season, so how do you build resilience within yourself and within the organisation when you’re continually under such scrutiny?
That’s a very interesting question, because how do you survive when people are questioning you or when they think you’re wrong? I think it comes back to values. First of all you come back to passion, for what you love and what you think is right. You have to do what you believe in. That is one of my strengths, and I’m experienced enough today to take a distance with opinions.
When people say I’m the greatest I’m lucid enough to know that’s not true, and when people say I’m the worst I’m experienced enough to know that’s not true either. I have a fair assessment of what I’m doing, and what I’m doing right or wrong. It doesn’t mean I don’t doubt, don’t question myself, but I don’t give the credit to other people’s opinions as much as I did, say, 20 years ago.
What would your advice be to aspiring coaches and managers?
You need to identify what you love in the game and what’s important for you. You need a clear idea of how you want to play the game, and you have to have the mental strength to transform practically what you think intellectually. I’ve met many, many bright people in life but fewer brave people, and as a coach you have to be brave enough to say, “I believe that is right and I will show you on the football pitch.” And that is what I love in my job. It’s not just about talking – you have to prove that what you think works, and you always have the result of what you think at the end of every game. Sometimes you are wrong, but at least you know that you’re wrong. At the end of the day you have to be brave enough to make your ideas work. It transforms your personality. You need a rigorous attitude in life, and to transform your ideas into action.
Success is also about managing change. What’s been the biggest change in football during your career?
To sum it up I was the youngest manager in the top flight in France at the age of 33. I’m 67 today. I’ve never stopped. When I started I was alone with my team. I booked the coach, I paid the restaurant, and today I’m surrounded by a team. The debriefs after training are absolutely massive and I’m flooded with information: how many steps a player took, how many sprints they did, how many metres per second, how was a player’s heart rate, how many times did it go over 90 per cent of his maximum heart rate, how many times over 95 per cent – absolutely everything is analysed today. So I moved from a very intuitive moment of my career to a super-analytical way to manage today.
How much attention do you pay to the numbers? Is there still room for intuition?
You can manage individual players better today – but it’s more difficult to cheat. You can’t hide behind a tree anymore! You’re more informed to make a better decision, but you still have to make the decision.
Next up, the boss addressed students at Shanghai Jiaotong University once the Gunners had landed in China, and as well as receiving gifts and a standing ovation from the local fans he once again answered questions about both business and football.
Do you have any advice for
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and mother, I still struggle with the right words to share with my child – and I’m struggling especially hard this week.
How much do I share about the violence and chaos in Ferguson following yesterday’s Grand Jury announcement, as well as attempt to explain the “why” behind it? How do I explain the distrust and anger many feel toward police officers, figures I was raised to believe keep us safe?
As parents, we need to recognize what our own core values are with regard to safety and authority, and communicate those values to our kids – preferably during times of calm, not emotional upheaval.
And when times are scary, you can use some of the following tips to communicate with your children:
Try to be in charge of what and how your child learns about the event. In general, it is a good idea to limit children’s exposure to traumatic news stories and images. While adults may desire to stay informed, it is best to turn off the television when children are present. Inquire about how teachers are handling the news with students so you can monitor their exposure at school. When exposure is unavoidable, provide basic information about what happened at an age appropriate level. Brief, basic facts are typically appropriate for younger children, while older children and teens may have more questions. Don’t overwhelm young children with too much information, but be sure to address questions as they arise. My colleague Dr. Kelly Ross has some practical advice to help parents share news about death. Do not assume that the child’s worries and questions are the same as your own. Each child will understand and react differently. This will vary to some extent with age or developmental level, personality and pre-existing anxiety, and the manner in which the information is presented. Use open-ended statements and questions such as “Tell me what you know” and “What questions do you have?” rather than “Do you understand what happened?” and “Do you have any questions?” This will help you get a better sense of the child’s understanding, worries and desire for more information. Acknowledge the events in a calm way and provide reassurance about the child’s own safety and security. Be honest – don’t tell children something “could never happen” here, or to them – but minimize anxiety by talking about the relative likelihood and the isolated nature of this particular event. Focus on their parents’ and caregivers’ ability and efforts to keep them safe from harm. Keep your own emotions in check. Exposure to scary news is upsetting and overwhelming for adults. It is natural to be emotional at times. However, children look to their parents and other significant adults for a sense of whether or not things are “o.k.” Parents often serve as a child’s “barometer” regarding their own safety and security. It is important for parents to manage their own stress level and to have other adults to talk to about the news.
As I watch the footage unfolding in Ferguson and around our community, perhaps a final note of advice I can give is to remember when you’re angry and scared, the part of the brain responsible for thinking and judgment is not working well. When upset, people often just react and this can make a bad situation worse. Being a part of a group can create a lot of good feelings – -participating in a peace rally or cheering on the Cardinals, for example. But in times of stress and confusion, mob behavior can cause people do to things they wouldn’t normally do. Walk away from the chaos until you can clear your head and make safe choices.
If you feel like your child is struggling particularly hard, you can call 314.454.8336 for advice, or 314.454.5437 to schedule an appointment.MEN who feel sick after having sex may be suffering because they are allergic to their own semen, according to Dutch researchers.
The illness - referred to as post orgasmic illness syndrome, or POIS - has flu-like symptoms that appear immediately after orgasm and can stick around for up to a week.
The condition has been documented in medical journals since 2002, but it is only now that this has been suggested as a cause.
The study, published yesterday in the online Journal of Sexual Medicine, states the cause of POIS is an allergy to the man's own semen, "as soon as it is triggered by ejaculation".
45 Dutch men took part in the study. 33 of the subjects consented to a skin-prick allergy test with their own system of which 29 had a positive test.
The symptoms include fever, runny nose, extreme fatigue and burning eyes.
Marcel Waldinger, a professor of sexual psychopharmacology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, told the Toronto Sun "these results are a very important breakthrough in the research of this syndrome."
He said the findings "contradict the idea that the complaints have a psychological cause."
Mr Waldinger suggested a treatment of hyposensitisation therapy - a process of exposing the body to gradually increasing amounts of the allergen over many years - can reduce the severity of the condition.
Originally published as Post-sex man flu may be allergy to own semenThe Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University shows a tight race for governor of Virginia with 21 days to go…
Northam leads Gillespie, 48%-44%, as Va. race tightens
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Democrat Ralph Northam’s lead over Republican Ed Gillespie has narrowed in the contest to be Virginia’s next governor, according to a tracking poll released today by the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University. Northam, now lieutenant governor, is the choice of 48% of the likely voters surveyed, while former Republican National Committee Chair Gillespie is the choice of 44%.
Libertarian Cliff Hyra polled at 3%, with 5% undecided. The survey’s margin of error is +/- 4.2%.
In the Wason Center’s benchmark poll, released September 25, Northam’s lead stood at 6% (47% to 41%). It grew to 7% (49% to 42%) in the first tracking poll, released October 9. The current survey is the first in the Wason Center’s tracking series in which Northam’s share shrank as Gillespie’s increased. It is also the first in the series in which Northam’s lead is within the survey’s margin of error.
“With even a weak third-party candidate on the ballot, the winner may not cross the 50% mark,” said Rachel Bitecofer, assistant director of the Wason Center. “But there’s plenty of room and time left for Northam to close the deal or for Gillespie to close the gap.”
This poll did not assess the races for lieutenant governor or attorney general, but those will be included in the Wason Center’s two remaining tracking surveys before Election Day, Nov. 7.No Comments
Chevy Names Country Singer Luke Bryan Official Brand Ambassador
Today at the 2016 County Music Association (CMA) Festival, Chevrolet announced a new three-year partnership with Luke Bryan, who will serve as an ambassador for the brand on “a variety of projects.” The bowtie brand is also sponsoring Bryan’s farm concert tour later this fall.
Recently crowned the CMA Entertainer of the Year, Bryan is perhaps best-known for hits like “That’s My Kind of Night” and “Rain is a Good Thing,” the latter a song about the water cycle which explains how “rain makes corn/corn makes whiskey/whiskey makes my baby feel a little frisky.” He also has some other popular tunes, like “Drink a Beer” and “Roller Coaster,” but those are the sad, cloying types of country songs, not the “let’s drink this whole case of Busch Light WHOOOOOO!” types which I personally prefer.
“Chevy has been a part of our family and a part of our work life on the farm for as long as I can remember,” Bryan said of the partnership. “If you were a Bryan, you drove a Chevy. I am so excited about this partnership and I’m honored to be representing such a wonderful brand.”
Chevrolet is also sponsoring Bryan’s 8th Annual Farm Tour, a multi-city tour of rural America set for October, in which Bryan will perform concerts on actual farms in small towns like Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and Prairie Grove, Arkansas. A full list of tour dates can be found at LukeBryan.com.
Bryan teamed with Chevy earlier this year as part of the bowtie brand’s #DayItForward campaign, which featured numerous celebrities “paying it forward” on Leap Day. For his part, Bryan chose to recognize the work of firefighters in Franklin, Tennessee:
“Partnering with Luke Bryan is a natural fit for Chevrolet,” said Chevy marketing VP Paul Edwards. “Our customers love country music, and Chevy has always held a special place within the genre.”
“We’re proud to build a relationship with an artist as authentic and talented as Luke,” Edwards added.Ian Stewart, author of the bestselling Professor Stewart's Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities, presents a new and magical mix of games, puzzles, paradoxes, brainteasers, and riddles. He mingles these with forays into ancient and modern mathematical thought, appallingly hilarious mathematical jokes, and enquiries into the great mathematical challenges of the present and past. Amongst a host of arcane and astonishing facts about every kind of number from irrational or imaginary to complex or cuneiform, we find out: how to organise chaos; how matter balances anti-matter; how to turn a sphere inside out (without creasing it...); why you can't comb a hairy ball; how to calculate pi by observing the stars. And we get some tantalising glimpses of the maths of life and the universe.Mind-stretching, enlightening and endlessly amusing, Professor Stewart's new entertainment will stimulate, delight, and enthral.“ So many chems, such varieties! Whenever I take Mentats, I can feel my entire chassis breeeeeathe like a big spherical lung.*coughs* ” Doctor Mobius
Chems (a truncation of "chemical") is both a pre- and post-War slang term for "drug". A chem is any chemical, medicine, etc. that is used to cause changes in a person's behavior or biological systems.
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Background Edit
Chems were a pre-War term used to describe narcotic drugs and substances that caused numerous temporary side-effects, both positive and negative. Pre-War narcotics included Mentats, a pre-War "party-drug," originally developed by Med-Tek for medical purposes.[1] Buffout, a "sports-enhancement" drug popularized by athletes,[2] Psycho, a combat-enhancement drug developed per orders of General Chase,[3] and Med-X, a painkiller found in many pre-War hospitals. A large drug-trade existed within pre-War society. Skylanes Air Flight 1981 was one of several illegal smuggling operations that utilized jet airliners to smuggle goods across the country.[4]
Little is known about how chems entered the markets of post-nuclear America, but it is commonly accepted by most wastelanders that the Khans invented the chem trade. Their specialties were in creating Jet and Psycho. However, that the Great Khans did not know how to produce chemicals before the Followers of the Apocalypse taught them between 2278 and 2281.
Types of chems Edit
Various chems exist in the wasteland, some more beneficial than others. Each chem has an individual profile, allowing users to "stack" chems to provide a larger bonus than either does individually. Chems may have 4 or 5 simultaneous effects, usually, with some kind of balance—it might lower one stat while raising another. Abusing chems results in addiction. Addiction to a chem will cause withdrawal symptoms when the chem wears off, resulting in lowered stats unless the user continues to take the drug, or seeks a cure or treatments.
Chems are divided into two groups: addictive, and non-addictive.
Addictive chems Edit
Non-addictive chems Edit
Chems can be found lying about individually or inside containers. They can also be purchased from wasteland vendors. While nearly every vendor will have at least a few stimpaks for sale, some chems will need to be purchased from one of the vendors specializing in chems.
Resisting addiction Edit
There are several ways to resist addiction:
Don't take chems. It is never necessary to take chems, so prevent addiction by never taking them at all. Select the Chem Resistant perk or trait. This perk confers a 50% resistance to the addictive effect of individual chems. Chems which normally have a 10% addiction rate will be reduced to a 5% rate. If the trait is taken, however, chems will only last half as long. Take a chem antidote. Only the dangerous jet has an antidote, though. Fixer is also viable, although only temporary. Fallout: New Vegas has the Logan's Loophole trait which prevents addiction entirely at the cost of limiting the Courier to level 30. Certain perks in Fallout: New Vegas such as Chem Resistant, Brainless and Old World Gourmet reduce addiction chance.
Curing an addiction Edit
Once addicted to a chem, the user has to either continue taking the chem or suffer withdrawal effects specific to the addiction. It is eventually desirable (if not necessary) to cure the addiction. To cure an addiction, the individual has several choices:
Wait it out. Quitting cold turkey will eventually purge the addict's system of the chem. However, Jet addiction cannot be shaken this way, nor can tobacco. Seek out a wasteland doctor and pay them a fee to alleviate the addiction. Use My First Laboratory, after purchasing it for either a Megaton home or Tenpenny Tower suite. Likewise, a trip to the autodoc in The Sink will cure addiction. Addictol cures all addictions, but is scarce across the Commonwealth. It can be purchased from traders/doctors occasionally at a high cost.
Behind the scenes Edit
In the release of Fallout 3 in Australia, the game was banned for including references to real drugs. A report was released by the OFLC on why it banned the game. The following is a part of a report that was released:
"The game contains the option to take a variety of "chems" using a device which is connected to the character's arm. Upon selection of the device, a menu selection screen is displayed. Upon this screen is a list of "chems" that the player can take, by means of selection. These "chems" have positive effects and some negative effects (lowering of Intelligence, or the character may become addicted to the "chem"). The positive effects include an increase in Strength, stamina, resistance to damage, Agility and hit points.
Corresponding with the list of various "chems" are the small visual representation of the drugs, these include syringes, tablets, pill bottles, a crack-type pipe and blister packs. In the Board's view, these realistic visual representations of drugs and their delivery method bring the "science-fiction" drugs in line with "real-world" drugs."
One of the reasons for the ban was that the controlled drug, morphine, was one of the chems that would have been available in-game. As a result of the ban, Bethesda decided to have it renamed to Med-X. Evidence of this last minute change is the fact Med-X's editor ID is "Morphine" and Med-X addiction's editor ID is "WithdrawalMorphine".I recently attended a class on estimation. While I believe in the value of estimating I am extremely wary of making too big of science out of something that is inherently imprecise. The course was two hours long which I found to be a perfect amount of time to remind everyone the process and benefits that go into estimation but without over analyzing and over thinking it.
The all too common example
How often do you see or have a conversation between a project manager and developer like this?
PM: "Can you give me an estimate of the time necessary to develop feature xyz?"
Programmer: "One month"
PM: "That's far too long, we've got only one week!"
Programmer: "I need at least three"
PM: "I can give you two at most"
Programmer: "Deal!"
Uh oh. What do you think is going to happen? If you find yourself in these situations take a quick look at the definitions and relationships of an estimate vs. target vs. commitment about halfway down this page here so you and your team can have more productive conversations in the future. It's a short couple of paragraphs.
Fortunately for my team we do not have too many of the above, ludicrous, conversations, so we didn't have to dwell on this topic.
A succinct graph that resulted in very different conclusions
During the training a graph was shown to us to stress the importance of having a precise estimate. I crudely reconstructed it in MS Paint for your viewing pleasure:
Graph adopted from McConnell, Steve, Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art
The point of this was to show that having a precise estimate is what you want to aim for. I disagree. In fact, I would argue that we should aim somewhere to the right of a 100% accurate estimate.
Why? Estimation is an inherently imprecise science. Though there are many, many ways (perhaps more than necessary) to become better at estimating, there will always be a cloud of uncertainty. I agree that to be 100% precise on every estimate is best on paper but in practice we'll never get there[1]
Not only that, but the cost of underestimating is huge. We went through some examples:
The project could fail (worst case scenario).
Late nights at the office
Stress and anxiety
The project could be delayed
The quality suffers
The cost increases
Customers get upset
The distinction between bounded and unbounded results is important. When people overestimate, the feature will still get done, just at the expense of wasted time. When people underestimate, it's possible that the feature will never get done.
Later in the training do you know what was cited as one of the reasons for errors in estimating?
Too much chaos in the project to derive accurate estimates.
Do you know what causes chaos in a project? Behind schedule projects! This sounds like a perfect recipe for disaster, and this phenomenon is known as a positive feedback loop (which despite its name, is not always a positive thing).
Another big takeaway in the estimation training was to always give a range. I'm not going to argue on the benefit/cost of doing that, but if you want more information, perhaps start here. As an example to my point, let's use a range to estimate a feature that turned out to be underestimated:
And an example where it turns out we overestimated:
The area under the curve[2] which represents effort, cost and schedule is drastically less when you overestimate than when you underestimate your features.
Again, I agree that 100% estimation accuracy is ideal, but the costs of being wrong are too high in practice.
How often is your team staying late? How often are projects running behind? This line buried in the middle of this scary, heart-wrenching article was especially poignant to me:
Per usual in software development, the project was behind schedule. It was no time for anyone on that team to be slacking off.
I hate this idea that's so pervasive in our industry. I reject this mentality. It's not fair for anyone that software projects are so "typically behind schedule".
With all these thoughts in mind[3][4], it seems to make the most sense to aim for precise estimation accuracy, but more importantly, err on overestimating.
Hate estimating? Love estimating? Do you think it's helpful or useless, or somewhere in between? There is plenty of discussion over here or in the comments section of this article (A preview: most developers don't like estimates at all, for many good reasons.)
Or leave a comment below.
[1]: There's plenty of discussion around the trade off between estimating / time it takes to estimate. My training instructor said that there are rapidly diminishing returns after estimating a feature more than three times.
[2]: Otherwise known as an integral in calculus
[3]: I also found this little fact in this article on estimating that states:
...developers already tend to be 20%-30% too optimistic [in estimating]
which I certainly believe anecdotally. In other words developers generally underestimate. Fog creek actually makes the case to ignore business needs in order to avoid falling into this trap of underestimating.
[4]: I am aware that if I consistently overestimate, and then my project manager takes that result and overestimates on top of that, and then her/his project coordinator takes that and overestimates that value, the final estimation can be drastically overestimated. I wonder if that's actually so bad in practice vs. the alternative.[5]
[5]: I propose that someone somewhere should inflate their estimates by some amount, and the developer is a good candidate since they're prone to underestimating.Researchers seeking information about genes and genetic variants face the challenge of needing to search multiple databases, each with their own unique set of formatting issues. To unlock the information they are seeking, they often must spend hours wading through these databases, restructuring data, and addressing nonstandard annotations. A groups of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute is addressing that problem through the development of two web services—MyGene.info and MyVariant.info—that pull data from multiple databases and provide a uniform structure for the information. We spoke to Chunlei Wu, associate professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research Institute, about the services and the challenges in maintaining and keeping current these rapidly growing data sets and how they are changing research into genetic-based disorders.
Learn more by exploring their scientific article here.
How would you use these tools if you were given access to them?
About Daniel Levine
Daniel S. Levine is an award-winning business journalist who has reported on the life sciences, economic development, and business policy issues throughout his 25-year career. He founded Levine Media Group in 2013, which produces The Bio Report and RARECast podcasts. Levine most recently served as managing director of publications for Burrill & Company, a global financial services firm focused exclusively on the life sciences. There he headed corporate communications, served as editor of The Burrill Report, a monthly digital publication focused on the business of the life sciences, and hosted the publication’s weekly podcast. Since 2011, he’s served as the lead editor and writer of Burrill & Company’s acclaimed annual book on the biotech industry. His work with Burrill & Company began through the firm’s joint venture magazine startup The Journal of Life Sciences, where he led the creation of the publication’s website and served as web editor before advancing to editor.
Prior to joining Burrill & Company, Levine worked as special projects editor for the San Francisco Business Times where he won numerous awards for his coverage of the biotechnology industry. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Industry Standard, TheStreet.com, and other national publications. He is also the founder of the online magazine Disgruntled: The Business Magazine for People who Work for a Living and author of Disgruntled: The Darker Side of the World of Work (Berkley/Boulevard). Prior to that, he served as the San Francisco bureau chief for Adweek magazine. His coverage of the biotechnology industry began at the start of his journalism career while a business reporter at The Oakland Tribune. Before entering journalism, Levine spent five years in the investment banking industry and served as a vice president and general principal of Herbert Young Securities in Great Neck, New York. He holds a bachelor’s in English from Vassar College and a master’s in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley.AHMEDABAD: When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetization on November 8, 2016, of his stated intentions for the move was to attack counterfeit notes. However, the rate of seizures of fake currency notes across the country has remained the same, even after Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes were declared illegal. The model state of Gujarat had the most seizures of Rs 2,000 notes after demonetization, figures from the ministry of home affairs (MHA) have revealed.According to the Union home ministry figures, 40% of the fake Rs 2,000 notes seized, were seized in Gujarat. Across the entire country, Rs 66,92,000 in fake Rs 2000 notes has been seized and Gujarat accounted Rs 26, 42,000 of this, between November 9, 2016 and March 7, 2017.In Gujarat, some 1,321 counterfeit Rs 2,000 notes were seized by police while the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) caught two. Three FIRS were registered and 12 persons were accused of circulating counterfeit currency notes, the highest number in the country. A total of 64 persons have been booked in the entire country.Senior police officials said Gujarat has always been a hotbed for circulation of fake currency notes, due to the high level of trading activities. Currency notes are usually introduced into the state’s economy by operators from West Bengal or Bangladesh.“Many of the accused caught in fake currency rackets come from Malda district or other parts of West Bengal and from Bangladesh. These currency notes are usually routed to the large cities of Gujarat, apart from Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad,” said officials.A large number of fake currency rackets have been busted in Gujarat due to public awareness and the alertness of the police, officials claimed.In some of these fake currency seizures, the notes were suspected to have been printed in Ahmedabad as well, officials said.In an op-ed for The New York Times, Bill Clinton’s former pollster promises Democrats the key to victory: a rightward shift. While the debate over what direction Democrats should take will rage all the way to 2020, Penn’s column is notable for its bad faith, its blatant contradictions, and its misreading of liberal politics. It feels like a dispatch from a bizarre parallel universe, where abortion and LGBT rights are not under attack, where a balanced budget is still the apex of “serious” policy thinking, and where America does not suffer from grotesque wealth inequality:
After years of leftward drift by the Democrats culminated in Republican control of the House under Speaker Newt Gingrich, President Bill Clinton moved the party back to the center in 1995 by supporting a balanced budget, welfare reform, a crime bill that called for providing 100,000 new police officers and a step-by-step approach to broadening health care. Mr. Clinton won a resounding re-election victory in 1996 and Democrats were back.
This passage neatly illustrates the dangers of thinking in politics in simple, electoral terms. Penn ignores the real-world outcome here: welfare reform resulted in an increase in deep poverty, and broken-windows policing entrenched institutionalized racism. But Bill Clinton won, so who cares? It also sidesteps the primary reason Gingrich & Co. stormed to power in 1994: Clinton’s aborted attempt to pass a universal health insurance program, which is now a mainstay of the Democratic Party platform.
Penn’s confused thinking is evident elsewhere. Take this passage:
There are plenty of good issues Democrats should be championing. They need to reject socialist ideas and adopt an agenda of renewed growth, greater protection for American workers and a return to fiscal responsibility. While the old brick-and-mortar economy is being regulated to death, the new tech-driven economy has been given a pass to flout labor laws with unregulated, low-paying gig jobs, to concentrate vast profits and to decimate retailing. Rural areas have been left without adequate broadband and with shrinking opportunities. The opioid crisis has spiraled out of control, killing tens of thousands, while pardons have been given to so-called nonviolent drug offenders.
Reject socialist ideas—but protect workers! Protect workers—but stop regulating companies to death! Expand broadband and solve the opioid crisis—but never, never forget fiscal responsibility!
Penn also addresses the party’s approach to the working class. According to Penn, Democrats alienated this group by shifting leftward on trade, immigration, and policing. There is a simple test for determining what is a serious political opinion in 2017 and what is not, and it is this: Does the writer understand that the working class is not all white? In Penn’s case the answer appears to be “no.”
Furthermore, issues like trans rights—Penn singles out the bathroom debate as a culture war flashpoint—aren’t electoral death for Democrats. In North Carolina, Roy Cooper unseated Pat McCrory due largely to McCrory’s unpopular support of the so-called “bathroom bill.”
But Penn is used to being wrong. After working for Bill Clinton, he worked for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign—she lost, of course, to Barack Obama, who ran to her left at the time and is mostly absent from Penn’s version of history, despite uniting the party’s factions and winning the general election twice. (Penn concludes with an ode to “can-do Democrats in the mold of John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton”—not Obama.) He also worked for Tony Blair, that paragon of centrist war-mongering virtue; Blair recently covered himself in glory by calling for a similar return to the center, just before Labour’s unapologetically left-wing manifesto earned it unforeseen success in the U.K.’s snap election.
It is telling—deeply, devastatingly telling—that Penn has apparently learned nothing from his decades in politics. His thoughts are stale; his politics are discredited. The Democratic Party should ignore him for its own benefit—and ours.If you want to know what’s wrong with the modern book trailer, you might start by watching the one for Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom.” Sitting at a table in front of several rows of bookshelves and looking directly into the camera, Franzen explains—in a tone that is polite but characteristically aggrieved—his “profound discomfort” with having to use moving images to promote the printed word. “To me, the point of a novel is to take you to a still place,” he says. “You can multitask with a lot of things, but you can’t really multitask reading a book … To me, the world of books is the quiet alternative—an ever more desperately needed alternative.”
Franzen may be tiresomely preoccupied with the ways in which new technologies are threatening the life of the mind (what other writer would make a book trailer about being reluctant to make a book trailer?), but in his vexing and insightful way he articulates a common sense of unease about the advent of video advertisements for literature. In an article in the Rumpus highlighting “fantastic” book trailers, Shirin Najafi wrote that “a trailer inherently removes an element of the imaginative process and potentially cheapens the medium by suggesting a sort of inadequacy.” According to the International Business Times, Ben Marcus—whose trailer for his 2012 novel “The Flame Alphabet,” animated by Erin Cosgrove, is one of the more original examples of the form—thinks it’s “sad” that books today must appeal to readers through visuals. What’s most sad about it is the whiff of defeat—the sense of a publishing industry in forlorn compliance with the laws of a YouTube world.
For each expression of apprehension, though, there is another of pragmatic acceptance. Lorin Stein, while helping to conceive trailers as an editor at F.S.G., in 2006 (when the rise of YouTube was giving videos a new reach), pointed out that the job of publishers is “putting books in people’s hands.” “We’ve been advertising our wares in silly ways since putting a dirty picture on the cover of a Faulkner book,” he said. Even Franzen, in the same breath he used to state his objections, admitted that book trailers have become a necessary evil: “I understand that a lot of commerce happens online now,” he said in the “Freedom” trailer, “so I think it makes eminently good sense to be recording little videos like this.”
This sense of necessity has driven many authors and publishers to embrace “little videos” in recent years. The results are often dismal: at worst, the one- to five-minute ads are made with stock footage and bad sound effects, and text-presentation flourishes reminiscent of PowerPoint. (One especially lame but popular early approach, seen in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” trailer, was recycling a book’s cover design and promotional blurbs.) The better ones look like low-budget film trailers, or impressionistic video collages that give only a vague sense of a book’s storyline. Of the fifty or so trailers I watched while writing this article, approximately eight—several of them animations, like Ben Marcus’s or Sloane Crosley’s, for her essay collection “How Did You Get This Number”—piqued my interest. The rest of them, so clearly made in haste or half-heartedness, suggest publishers’ lingering uncertainty about whether trailers can actually help sell books.
Then there is the leading book-trailer auteur of our time, Gary Shteyngart.
The key to Shteyngart’s trailers, which are more like Funny or Die videos or comedic short films, is that they parody the absurdities and humiliations of authorly self-promotion. In the trailer for his 2010 novel “Super Sad True Love Story,” which featured James Franco and a slew of famous writers, he played a Russian-accented version of himself who knew how to navigate the literary world despite the fact that he couldn’t read (for example, by teaching a seminar at Columbia on how to behave at Paris Review parties). When the paperback edition of “Super Sad” came out, he made a follow-up in which Super-Russian Gary and Paul Giamatti played roommates trying to pick up women at a book club in Brooklyn.
The newest edition to Shteyngart’s oeuvre is a trailer, released last week, for his memoir “Little Failure,” which comes out next month (and was excerpted in The New Yorker in June). Featuring actors like Alex Karpovsky, Rashida Jones, and, once again, James Franco, its premise is that Franco, playing Shteyngart’s husband, has written an “erotic journey” called “Fifty Shades of Gary” that has completely eclipsed “Little Failure.” There are matching pink bathrobes and a cameo by none other than Franzen, in the role of Shteyngart’s shrink. The jokey theme of the video, like his earlier ones, is that social or professional success is elusive when you are a nebbishy immigrant who writes literary fiction. But the meta joke is knowing that Shteyngart’s trailers are, in fact, expert works of viral marketing, packaged with comedic appeal, respectable production values, and a peppering of Shteyngart’s celebrity buddies (this is one popular nebbish!). The first “Super Sad” trailer got a quarter of a million views on Facebook; the most recent one premièred on Buzzfeed last Friday and has since been enthusiastically “liked” and reblogged.
There are a number of other authors who have made self-deprecating, parodic book trailers—Julie Klam, Dave Hill, Thomas Pynchon—and theirs, too, are generally more intriguing than the straight-faced ones. (In Hill’s, for “Tasteful Nudes,” Dick Cavett calls spell check a “too-thin contraceptive”; in Pynchon’s, for “Bleeding Edge,” smoked salmon is used as a skincare product, and a guy in a “Hi, I’m Tom Pynchon” T-shirt stands in for the press-shy author.) Like Shteyngart’s, these videos do not attempt to convey, in a few minutes of film, the content or quality of the books they’re promoting, because how could they? Maybe one secret to book trailers is acknowledging that it is impossible. But they do give a meaningful sense of the authors’ sensibilities. The message I take away is not that words are inadequate without visual aids, or that books are slaves to YouTube, but that some writers have imaginations that extend across different media, and a few even know how to access their inner hams.AIB lost €2 for every €1 it raised from the sale of a repossessed home last year, the Irish Independent has learned.
AIB lost €2 for every €1 it raised from the sale of a repossessed home last year, the Irish Independent has learned.
The bank repossessed 60 residential properties last year, selling on 17 of them – but it lost €4m in the sales.
Detailed accounts filed by its mortgage unit include never-before-seen details about the state of the bank's mortgage lending up to the beginning of this year.
It includes the fact that AIB raised €2m by selling 17 repossessed properties last year, which amounted to just a third of the debt owed on the homes.
As a result the bank was left nursing losses of €4m on the sales. The worst losses were on the so called buy-to-lets.
The bank took a €3m hit when it sold nine properties secured by buy-to-let mortgages for a combined total that amounted to just a quarter of the €4m owed on the properties. It fared better from the sale of "owner-occupied" homes. Sales of eight repossessed family homes raised €1m, exactly half the debt owed.
ARREARS
Losses from the sale of repossessed homes had been slightly lower in 2011.
Of the 60 homes repossessed by AIB last year, 37 were secured by so called "buy-to-let" mortgages and the rest were "owner-occupied" family homes.
The total number of homes repossessed was up from 16 the previous year but is just a tiny fraction of the bank's total "book" of 153,000 mortgages.
The number of repossessions looked certain to rise sharply when AIB chief executive David Duffy warned borrowers in arrears there was "no rent-free option" and said the bank had started issuing thousands of legal letters to those furthest behind on repayments.
It suggested the beginning of a surge in repossessions. However, news the bank has suffered big losses when it has managed to take control of homes indicates the surge could be far less than many analysts are predicting.
The details are contained in the 2012 financial accounts for AIB Mortgage Bank. It is part of AIB Group but has its own banking license and files separate accounts with the Companies Office to the main stock market listed parent.
The Mortgage Bank's core function is to borrow on the bond markets for AIB using its stock of home loans as collateral. The need to attract those lenders means its accounts contain very detailed breakdowns about the home loans – including the figures on repossessions.
The accounts also show that 46pc of owner-occupied homes and two-thirds of "buy-to-lets" were in negative equity at the end of last year. Those numbers mean AIB could expect to take a major financial hit if it repossesses more homes.
That tallies with a warning from ratings agency Fitch earlier this month. It said repossessions will be
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playing Santana's masterpiece on the better of their two new affordably priced MoFi turntables: the "UltraDeck+" which costs only $1995, set up and ready-to-play with a pre-mounted "UltraTracker" moving-magnet cartridge. I was extremely impressed.
The main products in the new MoFi record playing line are: The StudioDeck turntable ($999) with a 10" arm, a Delrin platter, and an inverted main bearing; The Studio Deck + with a pre-mounted MoFi StudioTracker cartridge ($1149); The UltraDeck (S1799 with MoFi's special "Little Feet" and, the UltraDeck+ described above. Separately, there are three moving-magnet cartridges: The Studio Tracker with an elliptical stylus and a polymer body ($299), the UltraTracker, with a nude elliptical stylus and an aluminum body ($599), and the MasterTracker with a micro-linear stylus, aluminum body, and PCOCC coils ($899). Sign me up.We go again. Transfer deadline day. Last orders in the football saloon. A biannual event that is ostensibly a final opportunity for football clubs to buy enough new players to see them through until the next time, it has become seared on the public consciousness by the excitable people at Sky Sports.
They have attached such monumental significance to this glorified trolley-dash through the supermarket of international football humanity that it has now eclipsed the FA Cup and Capital One Cup to become English football’s second most prestigious tournament.
It is apparently not uncommon for grown men to call in sick from work on transfer deadline day so they can monitor goings on at The Hawthorns, St James’ Park or Loftus Road. Yes, they are ill, but not in the kind of physically debilitating way that should preclude them from going to work.
Sky’s star pundit, Gary Neville, once observed that barometers for discovering which football clubs in England are the most badly run do not come more accurate than transfer deadline day.
The busiest are invariably the most inefficient, he claimed, pointing out that better organised clubs conduct their business long before the need for a last-minute panic splurge arises.
Quite what his employer made of these comments remains unknown, but one suspects that if it had its way, all 20 Premier League clubs would be forced to embark on a frenzy of reckless spending for no other reason than to boost viewing figures and subscriptions.
You know the drill by now. With transfer deadline day upon us on Monday morning, Sky Sports will have deployed an army of news reporters and cameramen to assorted football stadiums and training grounds around the country.
Their job? To loiter. To cajole. To plead. To peer. To occasionally grovel. To monitor who’s coming and who’s going.
To engage reluctant passers-by in stilted, often unwelcome chit-chat. If the gates and fences outside which they congregate belonged to schools, they would be arrested or, at the very least, ordered to move on.
David Craig. Ian Bolton. Nick Collins. Amy Lewis. Vinny O’Connor. Bryn Law. Just some of the names with which Sky Sports viewers will have become familiar over the years, watching them stoically man their posts outside the Britannia Stadium, Villa Park, Loftus Road, Selhurst Park, White Hart Lane and the Stadium of Light for the thick end of 16 hours.
Maintaining enthusiasm can’t be easy, but apart from their microphones, enthusiasm is often the only weapon. Faking excitement and intrigue after suffering the spirit-crushing humiliation of being blanked by a sullen, young multimillionaire riding shotgun in his agent’s Range Rover can’t be easy, but these transfer-window warriors remain consistently inquisitive and upbeat.
Even in the face of intimidation from local delinquents and ne’er-do-wells, the facade never slips. Perhaps on the back of a comical January assault which resulted in the deadline-day veteran Gary Cotterill stoically continuing a live broadcast to camera despite being covered in silly string, reports suggest that the satellite broadcaster has requested that several Premier League clubs provide designated safe standing areas for their reporters this Monday, to prevent them from having to rub shoulders with the hoi polloi, on the entirely understandable grounds that it is only a matter of time before one of them is seriously hurt by a drunken nutter who takes it upon himself to liven up proceedings.
Whether the clubs who, let’s not forget, don’t want them hanging around the place keeping their eyes peeled for Peter Odemwingie lurking in the shadows, choose to comply or leave them to run the gauntlet remains to be seen.
Of course, every circus needs a ringmaster and when it comes to transfer deadline day, it is the excitable Sky Sports News presenter Jim White who cracks the whip, bringing us home to 11pm in the company of his more understated sidekick, Natalie Sawyer.
“Nobody enjoys it more than me,” says White of deadline day, even if recent revelations regarding astronomical agents’ fees paid by Cardiff City suggest his outlandish claim might be a little spurious.
“There’s a heck of a lot of people involved, not just myself and Natalie,” he added, although your humble columnist may have added the final two words of that particular sentence in a bid to make him sound more gallant.
The straight man to White’s ridiculously hyperactive, breaking newshound, the importance of Sawyer to this double act cannot be overstated.
Without her present to rein in his ludicrous overexcitement upon hearing that Chris Baird might be off to Aston Villa, there’s a very real possibility that once the Sky Sports transfer deadline day clock hits zero, the man might actually explode. Boom!$\begingroup$
Route
In order to establish what is more likely, you would need to have a rough idea of the evolutionary route they took. Thinking about this may lead you to a history that explains how they evolved naturally to look as they do, or you may decide natural evolution is unlikely to settle on that shape, and therefore seek another explanation.
The main question is, are these fish that have evolved human aspects, or humans who have evolved fish aspects? If they started as fish, there is no reason to expect the tail to change from vertical to horizontal. If they started as humans, we already know that an evolutionary path exists from mammal legs to a horizontal tail.
Reproduction
Evolution is about reproduction. Is the reproductive system fish or mammal? For fish, with external fertilisation, a vertical tail is not a problem, but for humans, with internal fertilisation, a horizontal tail is more compatible with the body structure that led to this. It isn't impossible for internal fertilisation to evolve with a vertical tail, but it seems more plausible with a horizontal tail. For a human evolving into a merhuman, that method of reproduction would likely provide a barrier to evolution towards a vertical tail.
Alternatives to evolution
A sharp distinction between one body type and another seems unlikely to evolve naturally. If scales are beneficial why wouldn't they appear all over? A real world example of creatures with such a sharp distinction is biological chimeras. These are creatures composed of genetically distinct cells. This happens naturally in many animals (including humans) resulting in parts of the body having different genetics to others. It can also occur between species, although not naturally as far as we know. Goat/sheep chimeras have been created (called "geep"). However, these do not have a neat line across the middle - the divide between the two species can be anywhere and may not be visible externally. They are more likely to appear "patchwork" than neatly half and half:
Also the offspring will be of the same species as the reproductive organs (either a sheep or a goat, not a geep). There are species where the majority of offspring are chimeras, for example the marmoset. It's difficult to imagine how an inter-species chimera could give rise to similar offspring. It's also unlikely a chimera would survive between two such different species as humans and whatever species of fish were used. The fact that fish use external fertilisation does provide the possibility of a fertilised fish egg being introduced to a human's womb, to then combine with a fertilised human egg. If merpeople had two sets of reproductive organs then the fish and human eggs could be both released internally, and then combine following fertilisation on the way to the womb. In this unlikely set up, I would expect the tail to be vertical since it is produced directly from fish genetics.Chelsea and Ryan live in a Toronto apartment with their Boston terrier, Otto. Chelsea works on policy at a non-profit and Ryan is a law student. Their airy home, filled with souvenirs from travels, reflects their shared loves of books, movies and cooking. Take a peek inside…
DINING AREA
Dining table: EQ3. Dining chairs: vintage.
On a home with history
Chelsea: This building was originally a Kraft cheese factory, then a mattress factory. They’ve renovated it to become apartments but it’s still gritty — in a good way. The ceilings are high, and you can see all the pipes and ductwork.
On the magic of mirrors
Chelsea: The mirror makes the small dining area feel bigger and brighter. I found it at a thrift store, where it had a gaudy gold frame, but we painted it white to feel more modern.
Black planter: IKEA. White candle holder: Muji. Cactus pot: garage sale find. Turntables: Technics 1200s.
On beloved books
Ryan: We built bookshelves starting halfway up the wall, so we could put a turntable and cabinet below. I got my PhD in philosophy, so most of these books are my old grad school books. Law is a second career for me. Since Chelsea had a good job in Toronto, I wanted to stay with her instead of following my academic career to small towns far away. I knew I could apply similar thinking to a career in the law. But I also love Patricia Highsmith! I’ll bring The Talented Mr. Ripley to the beach.
BEDROOM
Bed: EQ3. Filing cabinet (for socks and underwear): Craigslist. Bedside table: vintage. Round lamp: IKEA.
On clever storage
Chelsea: Behind a white denim curtain, under the stairs, is a huge storage area where we keep winter clothes and Ryan’s movie collection. Some are even VHS! They’re his babies that come with us every time we move.
On white shirts as decor
Ryan: We hang our clothes on open racks around our bed. Since people can see this rack when they walk in the front door, we decided to put only one color there, so it didn’t look so much like you’re looking into someone’s closet.
Chelsea: Of course it attracts EVERYONE’S attention because it’s all white shirts.
Mountain artwork: silk scarf from Fieldguided.
On living with Otto
Chelsea: Our dog Otto is basically our baby. He sleeps in our bed.
Ryan: He takes up as much room as either of us do. And everyone who comes over ends up loving him.
Chelsea: Our good friends even named their restaurant after him.
On a comfy bed
Chelsea: We always have soft white bamboo cotton bedding. We make the bed every morning because it adds a sense of calm. Also, this building is definitely not soundproof. Our lease even has a section that talks about the sound. So, we bought an excellent Dohm white noise machine. That helps when one of us wants to sleep in, too.
On personal artwork
Ryan: Only we can see this framed artwork because they’re on the interior wall of the loft. They’re the only personal photos of us that are hung up. Chelsea: The flier is from a museum that we visited on our honeymoon in Germany. It feels romantic.
On a secret TV
Chelsea: We also have a TV mounted on the brick that faces the bed. We watch movies every night. We have another TV in the living area, too. It’s a lot of TVs for a small space!
Basket: vintage, similar.
On having a clean house
Chelsea: We keep things neat because we often work from home. In our old place, we had a spare room that became The Junk Room. You can’t do that here. Ryan: We don’t have anything in our house that we don’t use once a month or more.
LIVING AREA
Sofa: IKEA. Rug: EQ3. Coffee table: Craigslist.
On favorite movies
Chelsea: We love relaxing on the sofa — we’re both big movie buffs. The Toronto International Film Festival every September is the best part of living here.
On 15 minutes of fame
Ryan: We were actually extras in the film Capote! You can only see us for a second, but we got to watch Phillip Seymour Hoffman do his method acting; each line had a variation because he was just doing it from feeling.
Chelsea: We were told to dress up as ’60s intellectuals going to a talk. We got our hair and makeup done. It was really cool. All we had to do is sit in an audience and give standing ovations. All afternoon.
On Toronto home stores
Chelsea: I like the pottery from a store called Easy Tiger — we have a speckled pot by Workaday. We also love a tiny vintage place called rec + ART HISTORY. The owner has an amazing eye.
KITCHEN AREA
Pendant light: similar. Lockers (for shoes and jackets): Craiglist.
On decorating with souvenirs
Chelsea: We found the photo of a Persian rug on a trip to Berlin five years ago. We rolled it up and brought it home. We love decorating with souvenirs, and we’d love to do more traveling.
Ryan: One day.
Chelsea: We’re planning a trip to Hong Kong and Japan. If Ryan passes the bar exam in June —
Ryan: I’ll pass it!
Chelsea: Then the next day we’ll go. That’s the plan.
On ingredients on display
Chelsea: Putting food into glass jars makes it look prettier on open shelving. We must cook a lot because we’re constantly refilling these jars! We’re pescetarians so we cook a lot of lentils and split peas. Five ingredients we always have on hand: olive oil, fresh parsley, halloumi cheese, cumin and turmeric.
Ryan: I also really like black rice. It’s slightly earthier.
Carafe: IKEA. Glasses: EQ3.
On home cooking
Chelsea: We cook a lot from Ottolenghi cookbooks. And the Gjelina cookbook. When I’m home by myself, I’ll have bread and cheese from the cheese shop nearby.
Ryan: We have nice cheese shops and a French bakery one block away.
Chelsea: Our area has everything we need — a library, good coffee…
Ryan: Cute bars.
Chelsea: And a dog park.
Thank you so much, Chelsea and Ryan!
P.S. More home tours, including a rainbow bookcase in Manhattan and a woodsy cottage in New Hampshire.
(Photos and styling by Nikole Herriott and Michael Graydon for Cup of Jo.)For a scathing critique of wartime morality, “Ender’s Game” offers some of the coolest simulations of videogame warfare ever.
Directed by Gavin Hood (“X-Men Origins: Wolverine”) from his own adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s novel of the same name, it sacrifices none of the source material’s complexity in chronicling the eponymous hero’s journey from trainee to commander of Earth’s armies. In doing so, he’s successfully crafted an allegorical film designed to attract large numbers of kids — even if many of them will miss the intricacies of its underlying message.
Asa Butterfield (“Hugo”) plays Ender Wiggin, a military trainee in a futuristic society where adults enlist children as the first line of defense against an imminent alien invasion. Chosen by Col. Graff (Harrison Ford) for Battle School because of his penchant for strategic thinking, Ender quickly rises through the ranks, but not without creating a few enemies and generally alienating himself from the others.
See photos: ‘Ender’s Game’ Stills: Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld, Asa Butterfield
After proving himself in the academy’s zero-gravity war simulator, Ender is promoted to Command School and put through rigorous training to learn how to control entire armies in combat situations. But as the stakes for his simulations intensify, he begins to question whether the complete and total destruction of his enemies – even if it’s to eliminate future conflicts – is truly the best strategy that he can use.
Although it utilizes the same hero’s-journey boilerplate that provided the foundation for everything from “Star Wars” to “Harry Potter,” “Ender’s Game” seems to come by it honestly, at least insofar as Ender goes through real tribulations, physical and philosophical, to earn his spot as “The One.”
See video: Harrison Ford Introduces First ‘Ender’s Game’ Footage
Ostracized for being the third kid in a world that mandates two per family, he embodies the balance between his brother Peter’s aggression and sister Valentine’s compassion, and Graff repeatedly tests not only his body, but his problem-solving abilities, and perhaps most importantly, his resolve in the face of adversity.
Thanks to Hood’s sophisticated adaptation of Card’s source material, there’s much topically to appreciate from an adult perspective, not the least of which being the questionable morality of a pre-emptive military strike. But like a disillusioned adolescent discovering that his parents lie, Ender experiences a powerful epiphany when he discovers that his superiors’ efforts to protect him from the repercussions of his actions have made him blind to the moral and emotional weight of his sacrifice-for-the-common-good strategies.
Also read: ‘Ender’s Game’ Author Orson Scott Card Responds to Boycott: Calls Gay Marriage Issue ‘Moot’
Reunited with cinematographer Don McAlpine, with whom he collaborated on “Origins,” Hood seems more confident tackling this big-budget opus than his previous one, skillfully navigating his character through the grown-up complexities of training exercises which outwardly seem like child’s play. That said, those deeper themes occasionally make the film feel like a bit of a joyless slog, and even at two packed hours, some of the mythology of this kid-based, futuristic world feels rushed.
As a young man placed in charge of responsibilities much bigger than himself, Butterfield struggles with his character’s destiny about as well as a child actor can, lending him the right notes of naiveté when necessary without undermining his believability as the most formidable military mind in the seventh grade.
Meanwhile, Ford offers a perfect foil in Graff (more like gruff!) for Ender’s developing maturity, applying the stick and the carrot in equal measures to simultaneously build confidence and nurture his leadership skills.
See video: ‘Ender’s Game’ Trailer: Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld Are a ‘New Kind of Soldier’
Bolstered by solid performances and a clean, elegant visual style, Hood ultimately delivers a film that actually earns the distinction of being for audiences of all ages.
But he accomplishes this insurmountable task not by successfully tapping into his adult viewers’ inner children but by appealing to children’s inner adults — not quite asking them to grow up, but just begin to consider the more complicated world that lurks out on the horizon.
Ultimately as much a polemic as tentpole entertainment, “Ender’s Game” is a rare example of filmmaking with a scalpel at a scale that usually demands a hatchet.The species was discovered in low-lying lands of northwestern Bolivia, in the forest at the foot of the Andes. Studies indicate that it inhabits the western bank of the river Beni. The extension to the east and north of its range is not known. Preliminary studies indicate that the species is not endemic to Bolivia, with habitats that may extend to the south of Peru (at least to the Tambopata River ). [1] [5]
The Madidi titi has orange-brown fur, a characteristic golden crown, a white tip to its tail, and dark red hands and feet. Like other titis, it is monogamous, mating for life. A pair maintains a territory against rival pairs primarily through territorial calling. The male usually carries the infants until they can survive on their own.
British biologist Robert Wallace of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Bolivian biologist Humberto Gómez first spotted the monkey in 2000 when they were studying the animals of Madidi National Park.[6][7] It became the first primate species to have been discovered in Bolivia in the last 60 years when it was given status as a new species in 2006 after years of studies.[7][8] The field expedition team, consisting of Annika M. Felton, Adam Felton, and Ernesto Cáceres, were the first researchers to film and record this species, previously unknown to science. Rather than choosing a name themselves, Wallace, his team, and WCS auctioned off the naming rights to raise funds for FUNDESNAP (Fundación para el Desarrollo del Sistema Nacional de Áreas Protegidas), the nonprofit organization that maintains Madidi National Park.[3] The online casino GoldenPalace.com, one of over a dozen bidders, paid US$650,000 to have the species named after them.[4]After much anticipation, the details surrounding what will be Avenged Sevenfold‘s seventh studio album appear to have now been revealed due to leaks from several sources, including images of physical copies and a premature revealing of listings via digital retailers. The band’s new full-length album, ‘The Stage’, is allegedly scheduled for release tomorrow (October 28th 2016) through Capitol Records.
You can check out the album artwork, full track listing, and a stream of the lead single and title-track below:
01.) The Stage [stream]
02.) Paradigm
03.) Sunny Disposition
04.) God Damn
05.) Creating God
06.) Angels
07.) Simulation
08.) Higher
09.) Roman Sky
10.) Fermi Paradox
11.) Exist
Pre-order details for the release are yet to be confirmed.
The band have yet to confirm or deny any of the aforementioned rumours, though the album was originally speculated to be titled ‘Voltaic Oceans’ and that it would be released on December 9th 2016.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Dec. 21, 2016, 2:24 PM GMT / Updated Dec. 21, 2016, 2:24 PM GMT / Source: Associated Press
Texas put Planned Parenthood on notice Tuesday it plans to cut off Medicaid funds soon.
It's a move that federal judges have blocked in other Republican-controlled states, which are now waiting to see if President-elect Donald Trump will strip the organization of taxpayer money.
Planned Parenthood responded by vowing to ask a court to stop Texas from defunding clinics in January. Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana and Kansas are among the states where judges have denied similar efforts.
Pro-choice activists hold signs in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 22, 2014 on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Alex Wong / Getty Images
Planned Parenthood says its clinics serve nearly 11,000 women in Texas each year through Medicaid. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott pledged to kick Planned Parenthood out of the state's Medicaid program more than a year ago, joining other socially conservative governors who took similar steps in 2015, when an anti-abortion rights group released heavily edited and secretly recorded videos that it claimed showed Planned Parenthood officials profiting from sales of fetal tissue for medical research.
Related: Women's Groups Challenge New Texas Abortion Law
Investigations by 13 states have been concluded without charges of wrongdoing, although a congressional panel headed by anti-abortion rights members is still investigating. Texas' final notice to Planned Parenthood comes at a time when the 100-year-old organization is simultaneously fighting to stop Congress from also cutting off taxpayer dollars.
"Texas is a cautionary tale for the rest of the nation. With this action, the state is doubling down on reckless policies that have been absolutely devastating for women," Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards said.
Texas Health and Human Services Inspector General Stuart Bowen referenced the videos as "the basis for your termination" in his letter to Planned Parenthood. He accused Planned Parenthood of "misrepresentations," a charge that other states have also lobbed against the group.
Related: Abortion Laws Tumble Across the Country
Planned Parenthood strongly denied the allegations and a Texas grand jury indicted the group that released the videos. But charges were later dismissed. Planned Parenthood announced in October that it will no longer accept reimbursement for the costs involved in providing fetal tissue to researchers.
Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest abortion provider but receives no public funding in Texas for those services.
The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year struck down a sweeping anti-abortion law in Texas that would have left only 10 abortion clinics open in a state of 27 million people. Mere days after that ruling, Texas announced plans to require the burial or cremation of fetal remains, rules that a federal judge in Austin put on hold last week.
Trump sent mixed signals during his campaign about Planned Parenthood, saying it helped "millions of women" while also endorsing plans to defund it. One of Trump's first defining acts as president next year could come on long-sought efforts in the GOP-controlled Congress to scuttle taxpayer money for Planned Parenthood.PoliZette Shock: Google Now Determines Result of a Quarter of Elections Worldwide, Researcher Says While Congress focuses on 'fake news' and Facebook ads, experts point to the influence of the top search engine
Congress this week zeroed in on “fake news” and ads produced by Russians, but one expert contends this is a sideshow compared to the much more significant threat to American democracy — the awesome power of search engines.
“The attention being paid right now to advertising and fake news stories — this is a red herring,” said Robert Epstein, senior research psychologist of the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology. “That’s not the kind of influence we should be worrying about.”
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Epstein, who since 2013 has been researching the way Google selects and ranks websites based on search words entered by internet users, said the evidence is compelling that the search platform is biased in favor of Democratic candidates.
To measure the power of Google, Epstein and his group have run a number of experiments in the United States and India, in which undecided voters run searches for information about candidates. The elections and candidates were real, as were the results and links spit out by Google. The only difference is that researchers altered the order of search results for the test groups.
The results are nothing short of stunning, Epstein said. He said Google has the power to shift 20 percent of undecided voters to one candidate or another simply by controlling which information pops up in a search result. He estimated that Google now determines the outcome of about a quarter of national elections around the world.
And the insidious part, he added, is that almost none of the test subjects had any suspicion that the results they saw had been manipulated in any way.
“We don’t see the strings,” Epstein said. “We don’t see the puppet master. But we are certainly in their hands.”
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Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) raised concerns over the power of Google at a hearing Tuesday before a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He cited his personal experience as a presidential candidate.
A 2015 study, Cruz said, analyzed Google search results of 16 contenders for the Democratic or Republican nominations. Searches returned five positive results about Democrat Hillary Clinton and one negative link. Sen. Bernie Sanders had nine positive results; none was negative.
President Donald Trump’s results had four positive stories and three negative. Cruz noted that his search results produced no positive stories.
Among all Democratic contenders, searches averaged seven favorable stories among the top 10 results. Republicans averaged only 5.9 positive stories.
Facebook Under Fire
Facebook came under fire last year after it acknowledged that news stories appearing in users’ feeds were not the result of an automated system calculating the most popular sites but rather the choices made by company employees. Conservatives complained that those curators consistently downgraded conservative news sites, and the company promised to review its practices.
Cruz also noted that Twitter recently blocked a campaign launch video of Tennessee gubernatorial candidate Diane Black because of a negative reference to Planned Parenthood.
“It is disconcerting if … political positions become a lens through which American consumers consume news,” he said.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) put it more sharply. He told the company executives that their firms do good things. “But your power sometimes scares me,” he said.
The authors of the study Cruz referenced concluded that there were complicated reasons for the disparity between the search results for Republicans and Democrats. Candidates like Sanders, for instance, benefited from strong social media operations. Several of the results for the progressive senator from Vermont were his own campaign platforms.
“We didn’t find any evidence of manipulation on Google’s part,” said Sean Mussenden, a lecturer in digital media at the University of Maryland’s Merrill College of Journalism and one of the study’s authors. “We were being more descriptive of what we found.”
But even if Google employees were not intentionally rigging its algorithms to favor Democrats, the study urged the company to take steps to rein in how its search engine operates.
“I think we should be concerned about the role gatekeepers of information play,” Mussenden told LifeZette.
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As with Google, Epstein said, Facebook has tremendous potential power. He cited research published in 2012 by Facebook, itself, pointing to the impact of get-out-the-vote messages. Facebook sent reminders to vote just before the 2010 election to 60 million users and boosted turnout by 340,000 compared to a control group that did not get the messages.
‘No One Can Stop It’
Accounting for the much higher number of people who participate in presidential elections, Epstein estimated that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg could — with the push of a button — have delivered an additional 700,000 votes to Clinton simply by reminding her supporters to vote while ignoring Trump’s supporters.
Or, Epstein added, Facebook could have had an even bigger impact by sending messages over a period of months to Clinton supporters — but not Trump supporters — urging them to register to vote.
“No one can stop it, and there’s no record of it,” he said. “They’re the kind of influence we should be frightened about.”
For its part, Facebook claims neutrality. The company’s general counsel, Colin Stretch, testified at the hearing that within certain guidelines, “We do not in any way discriminate based on viewpoint or ideology.”
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Epstein told LifeZette that as powerful as Facebook is, though, it pales next to the massive influence Google has by controlling what people read. He said half of clicks come from the top two search items, and 90 percent come from links on the first page of search results.
Next to that, Russia-generated tweets and Facebook posts seem like small potatoes, Epstein said.
“I don’t think it’s that many votes … Fake news stories and Facebook ads are traditional forms of influence,” he said. “They’re just like billboards.”
Not only did the ads and fake news stories make up such a tiny percentage of the political material distributed in 2016, but it can also be seen and countered with opposing messages, Epstein said.
But deciding which stories voters see and which ones they don’t gives Google influence that is “invisible and non-competitive,” he said.
“Not only can you not stop them — you can’t even see that they’re doing it,” he said.
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Some senators at Tuesday’s hearing lectured the executives from Facebook, Twitter and Google for not doing enough to stop Russian interference in the election. But Epstein said that debate plays into their hands by obscuring the frightening influence their companies wield.
“These tech companies seem — I believe they are thrilled so much attention is being put on these issues,” he said. “They don’t want people paying attention to how much power they have.”
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(photo credit, homepage images: Donald Trump, CC BY 2.0, by Marc Nozell / Senator Clinton, CC BY-SA 2.0, by lorie shaull ; photo credit, article images: Bernie Sanders, CC BY-SA 3.0, by Gage Skidmore)A day at the football stadium usually starts with a pregame tailgate, and for good reason — the prices of your basic macro lagers at NFL stadiums range from high to levels that would probably be considered price gouging in the wake of a natural disaster. Even at these levels, there’s a wide range in just how much the cheapest beer will cost you at the league’s stadiums. The infographic below reveals the prices (and prices per ounce) for the cheapest small beer at every NFL stadium, based on data which the folks at The Marketing Report have been collecting for years. With the beer prices Eagles fans have to endure, we’re surprised Lincoln Financial Field gets by without its own jail, like the one at the Vet.
* Some fans will point out that the prices on the low end don’t seem to jive with their game day reality. In some cases the cheapest beers are only available at a limited number of concession outlets, which creates some of the confusion.
Featured image via johnseb/flickrJun '13 7
My Favorite Bit: Bradley P. Beaulieu talks about THE FLAMES OF SHADAM KHOREH
Bradley P. Beaulieu and I met at Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp in 2005. The story that he wrote in that class stays with me to this day. Now, he’s got three novels out and I toooootally knew him when.
So please give Brad your attention as he tells you about his Favorite Bit.
BRADLEY P. BEAULIEU
It happened as a matter of chance.
In the early pages of my third book, The Flames of Shadam Khoreh, I’m telling a story of a growing war, a war that was born and that blossomed in the second novel in the trilogy. The primary characters are on a quest to find a fabled stone, a crucial piece needed to heal the rifts that have been forming throughout the world. They’re searching for the lost valley of Shadam Khoreh, a place far removed from the warfront, and I feared that the trouble brewing in the world—largely the war itself, but also the fallout from the deadly wasting disease caused by the rifts—wouldn’t get enough attention. I felt that the weight of worldly events wouldn’t be fully realized.
So I added another character.
His name was Styophan Andrashayev, and he was a soldier, a strelet in service to Nikandr Khalakovo and his brother, the Duke. Styophan was sent west in command of a small fleet of windships to treat with a band of vicious tribesmen known as the Haelish. The Haelish had long been enemies of the Empire, and so the Grand Duchy had good reason to speak with them.
But when Styophan’s fleet arrives, things are … not what he expected, and he soon finds himself on a long journey to deal with the surprises the Empire had in store for him.
As I read over the novel one last time before calling it final, I found that Styophan, without my even realizing it, had stolen the show. My ears perked up when I came to his sections. I was invested in the other threads, certainly—they were filled with characters and a story I had come to love, after all—but there was something about Styophan that intrigued me.
It took a review to crystalize it for me. Justin Landon at Staffer’s Book Review called Styophan an everyman character, and he is. He’s removed to a degree from the weight that sits on the shoulders of the aristocracy. He’s not embroiled in magic and the ephemeral nature of using it. He loves his country dearly, but his mind is weighed more by thoughts of his wife and growing a family than it is the welfare of the entire Grand Duchy.
Styophan, in other words, brought a sense of counterpoint to the other characters—a view from the trenches—and it helped to round out the tale that would have been poorer without it. In paintings you’ll see light used to counterbalance dark, an opposing color used to make the primary stand out more. Such was the case here. Styophan’s addition brightened the entire story.
And that’s why his tale is my Favorite Bit.
RELEVANT LINKS
www.quillings.com
The Winds of Khalakovo, available now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and Audible.
The Straits of Galahesh, available now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and Audible.
The Flames of Shadam Khoreh available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords
BIO
Bradley P. Beaulieu is the author of The Flames of Shadam Khoreh, a Russian-inspired epic fantasy that has been called “a special series with one of the best concluding volumes in the history of epic fantasy.” Brad and his novels have garnered many accolades and most anticipated lists, including two Hotties—the Debut of the Year and Best New Voice—on Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, a Gemmell Morningstar Award nomination for The Winds of Khalakovo, and more. In May of 2013 Brad released Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories, his premiere short story collection. Brad also co-hosts Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers, and Fans at www.speculatesf.com. For more, please visit www.quillings.com.
Did you know you can support Mary Robinette on Patreon!
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Like this: Like Loading...On the way to meet Radiohead producer and all-round musical wizard Nigel Godrich, I'm hit with a pang of anxiety: can I identify him in a crowd? For all of his incredible feats – he's arguably this generation's George Martin – Godrich isn't one for standing out. A blokeish 42-year-old with a smattering of hair, he often dresses as if transported from a Come Dine With Me omnibus. Yet, sat at a cafe table in the middle of Covent Garden in London, I spot him immediately, loitering behind a sea of leering football fans and doddering tourists. Maybe it's that glint in his eyes; the secrets those eyes withhold.
Best known for being at the helm of every Radiohead album since OK Computer – not to mention his production work on Beck, REM, Paul McCartney and Pavement albums – Godrich has recently been branching out: recording and performing with Atoms For Peace (his supergroup featuring Thom Yorke and Flea), as well as with the more low-key trio Ultraista, his beat
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putations other than fingers or toes, all participants with invalid or missing data were included in the multiple imputation process.
SAS-callable imputation and variance estimation software (IVEware), developed by the Survey Methodology Program at the Institute of Survey Research, University of Michigan, was used to impute NHANES DXA data. The IVEware module IMPUTE performs multiple imputations of missing values with the use of the sequential regression imputation method. Five complete records that contained valid and/or imputed values were created for each survey participant to allow the assessment of variability due to imputation. Use of the imputed data sets provides complete DXA data for all participants and ensures a more accurate SEE. A detailed description of the imputation procedures can be found in the Technical Documentation of Multiple Imputation of NHANES 1999–2004 DXA Data (13).
Age was categorized into 4 groups: 20–39, 40–59, 60–79, and ≥80 y. To estimate percentile cutoffs, the last 2 age groups were combined to form 1 age group (ie, ≥60 y) to ensure adequate sample size. Race-ethnicity was self-reported and was classified as non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, Mexican American, and other race-ethnicity. Weight (kg) and height (cm) were measured with the use of standardized protocol and instruments (12). BMI (in kg/m2) was calculated with the use of measured weight and height, and was categorized into 4 groups (<25, 25–29.9, 30–34.9, and ≥35) according to World Health Organization criteria (14). Triceps skinfold thickness was measured at the midpoint on the posterior surface of the right upper arm to the nearest 0.1 mm.
Statistical analyses
We examined the distributions of PBF, TBF, and FFM by sex, race-ethnicity, age, and BMI. A 2-sample t test was used to assess the differences in the percentages of demographic characteristics and in the means of DXA data and anthropometric measures between men and women. Linear regression analyses were performed to estimate the predicted marginals (adjusted means) of PBF, TBF, and FFM adjusted for race-ethnicity and age stratified by sex and BMI, and to generate equations for the estimation of PBF, TBF, and FFM according to demographic characteristics and simple anthropometric measures. Pairwise comparisons of the unadjusted and adjusted means of PBF, TBF, and FFM between any 2 groups within 4 racial-ethnic groups, 4 age groups, and 4 BMI levels were performed with the use of a t test with a linear contrast in linear regression models. We estimated selected percentiles of PBF, TBF, and FFM (5, 10, 15, 25, 33.3, 50, 66.7, 75, 85, 90, and 95) by sex, race-ethnicity, and age. In the subgroup analyses, we present only the subtotal, rather than age-specific estimates, for participants with “other race-ethnicity” (Asian/Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, multiracial persons, and other Hispanic persons) because of small sample size.
All analyses were conducted 5 times, once for each imputation data set. The combined estimate of PBF, TBF, and FFM from all 5 analyses was the mean of the 5 individual estimates (15, 16). The within-imputation variance (W) was calculated as the mean of 5 individual variance estimates, and the between-imputation (B) variance was calculated as the sample variance of the 5 individual estimates. The total variance (T) combines the within- and between-imputation variances as follows: T = W + (6/5) × B. Results with a P value <0.001, equivalent to P < 0.05 after Bonferroni correction for the multiple comparisons, were considered to be statistically significant in 2-tailed t tests. Data analyses were conducted with the use of SAS, version 9.1 (SAS, Cary, NC) and SUDAAN software, release 9.0 (RTI International, Research Triangle Park, NC) to account for the complex sampling design.
RESULTS
A total of 13,066 adults (6559 men and 6507 nonpregnant women) ≥20 y of age who had complete data on PBF, TBF, and FFM measures were included in the analyses. Of these, 165 had missing data on BMI; thus, the analyses that involved BMI were based on 12,901 participants. The characteristics of the men and women in the analytic sample are described in Table 1.
TABLE 1 Men Women2 Sample size [n (weighted %)] 6559 (48.8) 6507 (51.2) Race-ethnicity [n (weighted %)] Non-Hispanic white 3320 (72.0) 3234 (71.6)3 Non-Hispanic black 1245 (10.0) 1309 (11.5)4 Mexican American 1488 (8.0) 1433 (6.4)5 Other race-ethnicity6 506 (10.0) 531 (10.6)3 Age [n (weighted %)] 20–39 y 2183 (41.0) 2018 (36.2)5 40–59 y 2024 (38.9) 2049 (38.7)3 60–79 y 1851 (17.2) 1846 (20.2)5 ≥80 y 501 (3.0) 594 (4.9)5 BMI [n (weighted %)]7 <25.0 kg/m2 2015 (31.1) 2147 (38.3)5 25.0–29.9 kg/m2 2674 (40.7) 1961 (28.6)5 30.0–34.9 kg/m2 1210 (19.0) 1256 (17.6)3 ≥35.0 kg/m2 578 (9.2) 1060 (15.5)5 Percentage body fat (%) 28.1 ± 0.18 40.0 ± 0.25 Total body fat (kg) 25.4 ± 0.2 30.8 ± 0.35 Fat-free mass (kg) 62.3 ± 0.2 44.0 ± 0.25 Measured weight (kg) 86.9 ± 0.3 74.2 ± 0.45 Measured height (cm) 176.2 ± 0.1 162.1 ± 0.15 BMI (kg/m2) 27.9 ± 0.1 28.2 ± 0.13 Triceps skinfold thickness (mm) 14.6 ± 0.1 23.9 ± 0.25 Men Women2 Sample size [n (weighted %)] 6559 (48.8) 6507 (51.2) Race-ethnicity [n (weighted %)] Non-Hispanic white 3320 (72.0) 3234 (71.6)3 Non-Hispanic black 1245 (10.0) 1309 (11.5)4 Mexican American 1488 (8.0) 1433 (6.4)5 Other race-ethnicity6 506 (10.0) 531 (10.6)3 Age [n (weighted %)] 20–39 y 2183 (41.0) 2018 (36.2)5 40–59 y 2024 (38.9) 2049 (38.7)3 60–79 y 1851 (17.2) 1846 (20.2)5 ≥80 y 501 (3.0) 594 (4.9)5 BMI [n (weighted %)]7 <25.0 kg/m2 2015 (31.1) 2147 (38.3)5 25.0–29.9 kg/m2 2674 (40.7) 1961 (28.6)5 30.0–34.9 kg/m2 1210 (19.0) 1256 (17.6)3 ≥35.0 kg/m2 578 (9.2) 1060 (15.5)5 Percentage body fat (%) 28.1 ± 0.18 40.0 ± 0.25 Total body fat (kg) 25.4 ± 0.2 30.8 ± 0.35 Fat-free mass (kg) 62.3 ± 0.2 44.0 ± 0.25 Measured weight (kg) 86.9 ± 0.3 74.2 ± 0.45 Measured height (cm) 176.2 ± 0.1 162.1 ± 0.15 BMI (kg/m2) 27.9 ± 0.1 28.2 ± 0.13 Triceps skinfold thickness (mm) 14.6 ± 0.1 23.9 ± 0.25 View Large
TABLE 1 Men Women2 Sample size [n (weighted %)] 6559 (48.8) 6507 (51.2) Race-ethnicity [n (weighted %)] Non-Hispanic white 3320 (72.0) 3234 (71.6)3 Non-Hispanic black 1245 (10.0) 1309 (11.5)4 Mexican American 1488 (8.0) 1433 (6.4)5 Other race-ethnicity6 506 (10.0) 531 (10.6)3 Age [n (weighted %)] 20–39 y 2183 (41.0) 2018 (36.2)5 40–59 y 2024 (38.9) 2049 (38.7)3 60–79 y 1851 (17.2) 1846 (20.2)5 ≥80 y 501 (3.0) 594 (4.9)5 BMI [n (weighted %)]7 <25.0 kg/m2 2015 (31.1) 2147 (38.3)5 25.0–29.9 kg/m2 2674 (40.7) 1961 (28.6)5 30.0–34.9 kg/m2 1210 (19.0) 1256 (17.6)3 ≥35.0 kg/m2 578 (9.2) 1060 (15.5)5 Percentage body fat (%) 28.1 ± 0.18 40.0 ± 0.25 Total body fat (kg) 25.4 ± 0.2 30.8 ± 0.35 Fat-free mass (kg) 62.3 ± 0.2 44.0 ± 0.25 Measured weight (kg) 86.9 ± 0.3 74.2 ± 0.45 Measured height (cm) 176.2 ± 0.1 162.1 ± 0.15 BMI (kg/m2) 27.9 ± 0.1 28.2 ± 0.13 Triceps skinfold thickness (mm) 14.6 ± 0.1 23.9 ± 0.25 Men Women2 Sample size [n (weighted %)] 6559 (48.8) 6507 (51.2) Race-ethnicity [n (weighted %)] Non-Hispanic white 3320 (72.0) 3234 (71.6)3 Non-Hispanic black 1245 (10.0) 1309 (11.5)4 Mexican American 1488 (8.0) 1433 (6.4)5 Other race-ethnicity6 506 (10.0) 531 (10.6)3 Age [n (weighted %)] 20–39 y 2183 (41.0) 2018 (36.2)5 40–59 y 2024 (38.9) 2049 (38.7)3 60–79 y 1851 (17.2) 1846 (20.2)5 ≥80 y 501 (3.0) 594 (4.9)5 BMI [n (weighted %)]7 <25.0 kg/m2 2015 (31.1) 2147 (38.3)5 25.0–29.9 kg/m2 2674 (40.7) 1961 (28.6)5 30.0–34.9 kg/m2 1210 (19.0) 1256 (17.6)3 ≥35.0 kg/m2 578 (9.2) 1060 (15.5)5 Percentage body fat (%) 28.1 ± 0.18 40.0 ± 0.25 Total body fat (kg) 25.4 ± 0.2 30.8 ± 0.35 Fat-free mass (kg) 62.3 ± 0.2 44.0 ± 0.25 Measured weight (kg) 86.9 ± 0.3 74.2 ± 0.45 Measured height (cm) 176.2 ± 0.1 162.1 ± 0.15 BMI (kg/m2) 27.9 ± 0.1 28.2 ± 0.13 Triceps skinfold thickness (mm) 14.6 ± 0.1 23.9 ± 0.25 View Large
The population distributions (weighted %) of PBF, TBF, and FFM are shown in Figure 1. There are apparent differences in the distributions of the weighted % between men and women. The means of PBF, TBF, and FFM by age groups are shown in Figure 2. It appeared that PBF and TBF increased with age before age 55 y and decreased thereafter in women (P for linear trend: <0.001). In men, the turning point occurred at age 65 y (P for linear trend: <0.001). FFM tended to decrease with age in both men and women (P for linear trend: <0.001).
FIGURE 1 View largeDownload slide Population distributions (weighted % of US adults) of percentage body fat (A), total body fat (B), and fat-free mass (C) measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry among US adults aged ≥20 y, by sex [National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2004].
FIGURE 1 View largeDownload slide Population distributions (weighted % of US adults) of percentage body fat (A), total body fat (B), and fat-free mass (C) measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry among US adults aged ≥20 y, by sex [National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2004].
FIGURE 2 View largeDownload slide Weighted means (and 95% CIs) of percentage body fat (A), total body fat (B), and fat-free mass (C) measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry among US adults aged ≥20 y, by age, in men and women [National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2004].
FIGURE 2 View largeDownload slide Weighted means (and 95% CIs) of percentage body fat (A), total body fat (B), and fat-free mass (C) measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry among US adults aged ≥20 y, by age, in men and women [National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2004].
On average, women had ≈12% higher PBF than that of the men (P < 0.001) (Table 2), and the differences persisted after adjustment for race-ethnicity and age and across the 4 BMI categories. In men, non-Hispanic blacks had a lower PBF than non-Hispanic whites, Mexican Americans, and persons with other race-ethnicity (all P < 0.001). In women, both non-Hispanic blacks and Mexican Americans had a higher PBF than non-Hispanic whites and women with other race-ethnicity (P < 0.001). However, non-Hispanic black women had a lower PBF than non-Hispanic white women within each category of BMI, which suggests possible confounding and/or interaction between race-ethnicity and BMI on PBF. There was a significant interaction between sex and BMI (P < 0.001), between race-ethnicity and BMI in men (P = 0.002) and women (P < 0.001), and between age and BMI in men (P < 0.001) and women (P < 0.001) on mean PBF.
TABLE 2 BMI (in kg/m2) Total percentage body fat <25 25–29 30–34 ≥35 Mean SE Mean SE Mean SE Mean SE Mean SE Men % body fat Crude 28.1 0.1 22.7 0.1 28.2 0.1 32.3 0.1 36.9 0.2 Adjusted2 28.2 0.1 22.9 0.1 28.0 0.1 32.1 0.1 37.0 0.2 Race-ethnicity3 NHW 28.3a 0.1 22.9a 0.2 28.3a 0.2 32.6a 0.2 37.2a 0.2 NHB 25.8b 0.2 19.7b 0.2 26.2b 0.2 29.9b 0.3 35.8a 0.4 MEX 28.9a 0.3 23.6a 0.3 28.8a 0.2 32.3a 0.2 37.2a 0.8 Other 27.9a 0.3 23.6a 0.4 28.1a 0.3 32.2a 0.5 36.1a 0.6 Age4 20–39 y 26.1a 0.2 21.0a 0.2 27.0a 0.2 31.4a 0.2 36.7a 0.3 40–59 y 28.7b 0.2 23.6b 0.2 28.0b 0.2 31.8a 0.2 36.7a 0.3 60–79 y 30.9c 0.1 25.8c 0.2 30.2c 0.1 34.5b 0.2 38.0b 0.3 ≥80 y 30.6c 0.2 27.5d 0.3 31.9d 0.3 35.8b 0.5 38.8a,b 1.0 Women Crude 40.05 0.2 34.05 0.2 40.85 0.1 44.25 0.1 48.25 0.2 Adjusted2 39.95 0.2 34.15 0.2 40.65 0.1 44.15 0.1 48.35 0.2 Race-ethnicity3 NHW 39.7a 0.2 33.8a 0.2 41.1a 0.2 44.4a 0.2 48.6a 0.2 NHB 40.9b,c 0.2 32.4b 0.4 39.1b 0.3 43.1b 0.3 47.2b 0.3 MEX 41.6b 0.3 36.0c 0.3 41.1a 0.2 44.4a 0.3 47.6b 0.3 Other 39.9a,c 0.4 34.8a,c 0.4 40.7a 0.4 43.8a,b 0.5 47.8b 0.5 Age4 20–39 y 37.8a 0.2 32.2a 0.2 39.5a 0.2 43.5a 0.2 48.0a,b 0.3 40–59 y 40.6b 0.2 34.4b 0.3 40.8b 0.2 43.9a,c 0.2 48.1a 0.2 60–79 y 42.5c 0.1 36.9c 0.3 42.3c 0.2 45.2b 0.2 48.7b 0.2 ≥80 y 40.6b 0.3 36.9c 0.5 42.0c 0.3 45.0b,c 0.5 47.7a,b 0.9 BMI (in kg/m2) Total percentage body fat <25 25–29 30–34 ≥35 Mean SE Mean SE Mean SE Mean SE Mean SE Men % body fat Crude 28.1 0.1 22.7 0.1 28.2 0.1 32.3 0.1 36.9 0.2 Adjusted2 28.2 0.1 22.9 0.1 28.0 0.1 32.1 0.1 37.0 0.2 Race-ethnicity3 NHW 28.3a 0.1 22.9a 0.2 28.3a 0.2 32.6a 0.2 37.2a 0.2 NHB 25.8b 0.2 19.7b 0.2 26.2b 0.2 29.9b 0.3 35.8a 0.4 MEX 28.9a 0.3 23.6a 0.3 28.8a 0.2 32.3a 0.2 37.2a 0.8 Other 27.9a 0.3 23.6a 0.4 28.1a 0.3 32.2a 0.5 36.1a 0.6 Age4 20–39 y 26.1a 0.2 21.0a 0.2 27.0a 0.2 31.4a 0.2 36.7a 0.3 40–59 y 28.7b 0.2 23.6b 0.2 28.0b 0.2 31.8a 0.2 36.7a 0.3 60–79 y 30.9c 0.1 25.8c 0.2 30.2c 0.1 34.5b 0.2 38.0b 0.3 ≥80 y 30.6c 0.2 27.5d 0.3 31.9d 0.3 35.8b 0.5 38.8a,b 1.0 Women Crude 40.05 0.2 34.05 0.2 40.85 0.1 44.25 0.1 48.25 0.2 Adjusted2 39.95 0.2 34.15 0.2 40.65 0.1 44.15 0.1 48.35 0.2 Race-ethnicity3 NHW 39.7a 0.2 33.8a 0.2 41.1a 0.2 44.4a 0.2 48.6a 0.2 NHB 40.9b,c 0.2 32.4b 0.4 39.1b 0.3 43.1b 0.3 47.2b 0.3 MEX 41.6b 0.3 36.0c 0.3 41.1a 0.2 44.4a 0.3 47.6b 0.3 Other 39.9a,c 0.4 34.8a,c 0.4 40.7a 0.4 43.8a,b 0.5 47.8b 0.5 Age4 20–39 y 37.8a 0.2 32.2a 0.2 39.5a 0.2 43.5a 0.2 48.0a,b 0.3 40–59 y 40.6b 0.2 34.4b 0.3 40.8b 0.2 43.9a,c 0.2 48.1a 0.2 60–79 y 42.5c 0.1 36.9c 0.3 42.3c 0.2 45.2b 0.2 48.7b 0.2 ≥80 y 40.6b 0.3 36.9c 0.5 42.0c 0.3 45.0b,c 0.5 47.7a,b 0.9 View Large
TABLE 2 BMI (in kg/m2) Total percentage body fat <25 25–29 30–34 ≥35 Mean SE Mean SE Mean SE Mean SE Mean SE Men % body fat Crude 28.1 0.1 22.7 0.1 28.2 0.1 32.3 0.1 36.9 0.2 Adjusted2 28.2 0.1 22.9 0.1 28.0 0.1 32.1 0.1 37.0 0.2 Race-ethnicity3 NHW 28.3a 0.1 22.9a 0.2 28.3a 0.2 32.6a 0.2 37.2a 0.2 NHB 25.8b 0.2 19.7b 0.2 26.2b 0.2 29.9b 0.3 35.8a 0.4 MEX 28.9a 0.3 23.6a 0.3 28.8a 0.2 32.3a 0.2 37.2a 0.8 Other 27.9a 0.3 23.6a 0.4 28.1a 0.3 32.2a 0.5 36.1a 0.6 Age4 20–39 y 26.1a 0.2 21.0a 0.2 27.0a 0.2 31.4a 0.2 36.7a 0.3 40–59 y 28.7b 0.2 23.6b 0.2 28.0b 0.2 31.8a 0.2 36.7a 0.3 60–79 y 30.9c 0.1 25.8c 0.2 30.2c 0.1 34.5b 0.2 38.0b 0.3 ≥80 y 30.6c 0.2 27.5d 0.3 31.9d 0.3 35.8b 0.5 38.8a,b 1.0 Women Crude 40.05 0.2 34.05 0.2 40.85 0.1 44.25 0.1 48.25 0.2 Adjusted2 39.95 0.2 34.15 0.2 40.65 0.1 44.15 0.1 48.35 0.2 Race-ethnicity3 NHW 39.7a 0.2 33.8a 0.2 41.1a 0.2 44.4a 0.2 48.6a 0.2 NHB 40.9b,c 0.2 32.4b 0.4 39.1b 0.3 43.1b 0.3 47.2b 0.3 MEX 41.6b 0.3 36.0c 0.3 41.1a 0.2 44.4a 0.3 47.6b 0.3 Other 39.9a,c 0.4 34.8a,c 0.4 40.7a 0.4 43.8a,b 0.5 47.8b 0.5 Age4 20–39 y 37.8a 0.2 32.2a 0.2 39.5a 0.2 43.5a 0.2 48.0a,b 0.3 40–59 y 40.6b 0.2 34.4b 0.3 40.8b 0.2 43.9a,c 0.2 48.1a 0.2 60–79 y 42.5c 0.1 36.9c 0.3 42.3c 0.2 45.2b 0.2 48.7b 0.2 ≥80 y 40.6b 0.3 36.9c 0.5 42.0c 0.3 45.0b,c 0.5 47.7a,b 0.9 BMI (in kg/m2) Total percentage body fat <25 25–29 30–34 ≥35 Mean SE Mean SE Mean SE Mean SE Mean SE Men % body fat Crude 28.1 0.1 22.7 0.1 28.2 0.1 32.3 0.1 36.9 0.2 Adjusted2 28.2 0.1 22.9 0.1 28.0 0.1 32.1 0.1 37.0 0.2 Race-ethnicity3 NHW 28.3a 0.1 22.9a 0.2 28.3a 0.2 32.6a 0.2 37.2a 0.2 NHB 25.8b 0.2 19.7b 0.2 26.2b 0.2 29.9b 0.3 35.8a 0.4 MEX 28.9a 0.3 23.6a 0.3 28.8a 0.2 32.3a 0.2 37.2a 0.8 Other 27.9a 0.3 23.6a 0.4 28.1a 0.3 32.2a 0.5 36.1a 0.6 Age4 20–39 y 26.1a 0.2 21.0a 0.2 27.0a 0.2 31.4a 0.2 36.7a 0.3 40–59 y 28.7b 0.2 23.6b 0.2 28.0b 0.2 31.8a 0.2 36.7a 0.3 60–79 y 30.9c 0.1 25.8c 0.2 30.2c 0.1 34.5b 0.2 38.0b 0.3 ≥80 y 30.6c 0.2 27.5d 0.3 31.9d 0.3 35.8b 0.5 38.8a,b 1.0 Women Crude 40.05 0.2 34.05 0.2 40.85 0.1 44.25 0.1 48.25 0.2 Adjusted2 39.95 0.2 34.15 0.2 40.65 0.1 44.15 0.1 48.35 0.2 Race-ethnicity3 NHW 39.7a 0.2 33.8a 0.2 41.1a 0.2 44.4a 0.2 48.6a 0.2 NHB 40.9b,c 0.2 32.4b 0.4 39.1b 0.3 43.1b 0.3 47.2b 0.3 MEX 41.6b 0.3 36.0c 0.3 41.1a 0.2 44.4a 0.3 47.6b 0.3 Other 39.9a,c 0.4 34.8a,c 0.4 40.7a 0.4 43.8a,b 0.5 47.8b 0.5 Age4 20–39 y 37.8a 0.2 32.2a 0.2 39.5a 0.2 43.5a 0.2 48.0a,b 0.3 40–59 y 40.6b 0.2 34.4b 0.3 40.8b 0.2 43.9a,c 0.2 48.1a 0.2 60–79 y 42.5c 0.1 36.9c 0.3 42.3c 0.2 45.2b 0.2 48.7b 0.2 ≥80 y 40.6b 0.3 36.9c 0.5 42.0c 0.3 45.0b,c 0.5 47.7a,b 0.9 View Large
On average, women had ≈5 kg greater TBF than that of the men (P values < 0.001) (Table 3), and the differences persisted after adjustment for race-ethnicity and age and across the 4 BMI levels. In men, non-Hispanic whites had a higher TBF than non-Hispanic blacks, Mexican Americans, and persons with other race-ethnicity (all P < 0.001). In women, non-Hispanic blacks had a higher TBF than non-Hispanic whites, Mexican Americans, and persons with other race-ethnicity (all P < 0.001). However, non-Hispanic black women had a lower TBF than non-Hispanic white women within each category of BMI, which suggests possible confounding and/or interaction between race-ethnicity and BMI on TBF. There was a significant interaction between sex and BMI (P < 0.001), between race-ethnicity and BMI in men (P = 0.003) and women (P < 0.001), and between age and BMI in men (P < 0.001) and women (P < 0.001) on mean TBF.
TABLE 3 BMI (in kg/m2) Total body fat <25 25–29 30–34 ≥35 Mean SE Mean SE Mean SE Mean SE Mean SE kg kg total body fat Men Crude 25.4 0.2 16.1 0.1 24.2 0.1 32.6 0.2 46.9 0.5 Adjusted2 25.4 0.2 16.3 0.1 24.1 0.1 32.5 0.2 46.8 0.5 Race-ethnicity3 NHW 26.0a 0.2 16.6a 0.2 24.8a 0.2 33.3a 0.3 47.6a 0.6 NHB 23.8b 0.4 13.8b 0.2 22.5b 0.2 30.5b 0.3 46.8a,b 1.3 MEX 24.2b 0.4 15.6c
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he spoke in a polite but halting manner, occasionally referring to himself in the third person. (“One would be lying if one didn’t say that one had melodies that I keep in my back pocket.”)
He does not neatly fit the definition of a British noble or a popular composer, and no one is more aware of this than he is. Going back to his youth, Mr. Lloyd Webber said, “I was an odd animal, really.”
He grew up loving the musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein and knowing “South Pacific” practically by heart. His father, William, was the director of the London College of Music, but he also sneaked young Andrew into a movie theater to see Elvis Presley’s “Jailhouse Rock” and taught him a valuable lesson about personal taste.
“He really did believe there were only two kinds of music,” Mr. Lloyd Webber said. “Good and bad.”
Another formative influence was the British TV series “Oh Boy!,” where he watched emerging talents like Cliff Richard and Brenda Lee perform at London’s ramshackle Hackney Empire music hall.It's a 15-minute drive between River Oaks Pl and Dryden Rd and there's close to a million dollar difference in property values.
Dryden Rd is one one of Hamilton's poorest streets. It's tough. The colour of your hoodie will start a fight. Big mamas and bros sit smoking on steps, dogs bark from behind tatty fences - the kind you don't put a hand out to. Residents stop talking and watch if an unknown car drives by. There are few gardens, empty booze bottles on windowsills, empty pantries, doors wide open with nothing to steal inside, sheets for curtains, and all of the lawns are mowed. It's tired, but pride exists.
"People leave their houses here to go and live on the streets," says Ephesians Matekohi, Maori Party voter, who has lived in Dryden Rd for 20 years. She says some of the people round these ways are one step away from a sleeping bag under the bridge.
Tenants - most of them are - say it's not uncommon to watch kids walk to school barefoot in winter.
"There are a lot of people round here who keep their kids home two or three days a week, because they haven't got lunches," says Isobel Ramaka, 59, Labour voter, who has lived in Dryden Rd for 22 years. Her hand hovers constantly over broken teeth. She's a widow, a beneficiary and a Housing New Zealand tenant who clears $162 a week after rent and manages to save $10. "I wanna get a new lounge suite. It's gonna take me a while, but that's all right." She's got $340 saved so far.
Ramaka doesn't know anyone who is rich. "But good on those people for having money, I guess."
PUKETE POSH: Home to taxpayers and retired taxpayers, people who drive flash cars with well groomed gardens around their big homes.
River Oaks is behind security gates. It's home to taxpayers and retired taxpayers, the kind of people who drive shiny cars slowly down the street and notice if the neighbour's garden needs doing. Many bought here for the view to the river and the generous-sized sections, most of which are swallowed up by houses so big you'd bust a gut to get from one end to the other.
One guy says his mansion is worth "between two and three" million and calls it a "humble house". The neighbourhood has giant garden sculptures and statues everywhere, European cars in garages, fancy doorbells and intercoms, pretty pets, and mowed lawns. Real estate agents fizz over houses on the street, selling them for close to a million, plus.
"We've been talking a lot about this getting money for the poor," says Julie, no last name, with a worried expression, whose back fence is covered in National Party endorsements. "I know a lot of people are genuinely struggling and trying. Other people, you'll give an extra $20 to a week and it will go on cigarettes and alcohol."
Russell Mann is a 48-year-old business man with three kids at Southwell and a big house in River Oaks Pl. The front steps to his place are engulfed in a giant water feature. He likes what the National Government is doing with the economy.
"I do sorta believe that you've got to fix the economy before you help the lower level. It sorta worries me - all this talk of helping the lower level - we'll be in more debt again."
Guy Smith leans on his fence in Dryden Rd, hands in his hoodie pockets. "Poverty?" he says. "I've grown up in it. We all grew up that way.
"When I grew up, I had shit, I had nothing, home wasn't the place to go - it was go home and get a hiding."
He dropped out of school early and had a long history with Work and Income, but now he's working in transport management, pulling minimum wage. He has trouble reading and writing ("but I have ears"). He's 26, a non voter, and has fathered one child every year since he turned 20.
"I want my kids to go further than me, to go somewhere, somewhere other than here." He says there are about 100 people in his family network - just about all are beneficiaries and only one has a driver licence. Education, he says, is the most important thing.
"Kids round here are not having enough school. If they don't have enough school they school themselves into crime and stuff and they steal stuff, steal stuff to eat. That's all they know."
Guy Smith laughs at the idea of mixing with with rich people. "They're over there and we're over here. Over there by the river is million dollar houses. Over here is where you'll see the gangs." Rich people, "they clever, they're on to it. They didn't get all that money for nothing".
When Val Jones, centre voter, moved to River Oaks Pl, she hated the security gates. She's a special needs teacher and her husband is a property consultant and their house is so big it has an intercom out front. She says she thinks a lot about inequality in Hamilton ("I hate seeing homeless people in Garden Place, it's horrible") and she works with families that face challenges which people in her neighbourhood could not comprehend. "There's an isolation around here," she says. "In this street, anyway."
Jones' neighbour Sue Lane, National voter, says that good economic management is the underlying solution to a myriad issues. It's not as simple, she says, as a growing gap between the rich and the poor. "I get a bit frustrated. You can't solve the problem by throwing money at it, it's the whole social responsibility thing, it's all very complex." But she agrees, between River Oaks Pl and Dryden Rd, "it's a world away."
HOW THEY RATE
■ Median rating valuation River Oaks Place: $1,050,000
■ Median rating valuation Dryden Road: $185,000
■ Google says the two streets are 8.6 kilometres apart or just 15 minutes' driveSUMMERSTAGE 2019 VENUE UPGRADE
CityParks SummerStage is New York City’s largest, free outdoor performing arts festival, taking place in Central Park and in 15-18 neighborhood parks around the city, from May-October, presenting approximately 100 performances — the majority of which are free of charge — for 250,000+ audiences annually.
For the opening of the 2019 season, SummerStage’s flagship venue in Central Park will be transformed with a new stage, new sound system, increased lighting, upgraded backstage areas, raised seating, and an improved concert-going experience for all guests. What won’t change is SummerStage’s mission to present iconic and emerging artists from widely diverse genres that reflect the population of our international city. A refreshed venue, and continued artistic excellence, make SummerStage a unique and sought-after concert destination for audiences and artists alike.
For more information on the venue renovation click here and to see a full video tour of the new venue click here. For sponsorship opportunities at SummerStage click here and if you’re interested in a venue rental please click here.A Coptic Christian school teacher has been sentenced to six months in prison on charges of insulting Islam.
Demiana Emad, a 23-year-old social studies teacher, was arrested on 9 May 2013 after the head of the parents' association of Sheikh Sultan Primary School in Luxor filed a complaint accusing her of insulting Islam.
In June 2013, Emad was sentenced to pay a LE100,000 fine. Sunday's jail sentence was ordered by the court in response to an appeal filed by the defendant on last year's fine.
According to a year-old report by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), Emad didn't insult Islam, only "presented a comparison between religions in ancient, middle and modern ages as mentioned in the curriculum".
The report, which warned of similar cases becoming "a tool to oppress minorities", added that during investigations the majority of Emad's students denied that she had insulted Islam in her class.
Charges of insulting religion go back to the regime of ousted president Hosni Mubarak, widely used then as a pretext to crack down on political activists. However, occurrences of the charge significantly rose under the rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, who was removed from power last July.
A report issued by the EIPR last September revealed that since the 25 January 2011 revolution until the end of 2012, a total of 63 citizens, both Muslims and Christians, were charged with insulting religion.
Article 98 of Egypt's penal code says anyone convicted of offending religion in any form can face up to six years in prison.
Short link:Andy Warhol, January 1963. [Photo by Dennis Hopper, via Wikimedia Commons]. Jane Jacobs, circa 1961 [via AP]
Two Pennsylvanians
Andy Warhol and Jane Jacobs both came to New York City from industrial cities in Pennsylvania — Jacobs from Scranton, Warhol from Pittsburgh. Yet the kinds of people they found and the social values they cultivated in New York could not have been more different; and their divergent perspectives point to notions of community that still resonate — and still conflict. Warhol’s apparent ideas about urban life undercut some of the ideals that Jacobs’s books popularized, and they begin to suggest why those ideals have not found — and perhaps cannot find — greater traction in the contemporary city.
Throughout 1961 — the year Random House published Jacobs’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities — Warhol was experimenting with new styles of painting, a medium relatively new to him. Most of his earlier work had been drawings for advertising campaigns and fashion magazines, but in December of that year he began the series of paintings that was to redefine his career as an artist and that point to a different, cooler vision of urban life: the Campbell’s Soup Can paintings. Also in this period, he created seven paintings known as the Dance Diagrams — large-scale reproductions of images found in guidebooks that show people how to execute dance moves, e.g., which foot to move when and where to put it.
Warhol’s “cool” sensibility stood in sharp contrast to the “hot” Abstract Expressionism that had dominated the New York art world in the 1950s. Overtly macho artists such as Jackson Pollock had created a style fueled by emotion, personality and energy, a style that seemed to embody the postwar American sensibility: robust, idiosyncratic, ultimately exclusionary. In the postwar years representational art had not so much fallen as been hurled out of style. So with the flatly representational soup-can paintings, Warhol was undercutting the cult of personality by creating works ostensibly devoid of emotion, point of view, or personality. They seemed to hide in plain sight; they depicted icons of lived American culture — cans, labels, Green Stamps, car crashes, movie stars, flowers — without appearing to have anything to say about them. Was the picture of a soup can a deadpan critique of American consumerism? Or a statement that American identity was better reckoned with through physical realities than through the emotional states of artists? The last person to ask was Warhol, who cultivated a distinctly cool and distanced affect. Nothing really meant anything, he would tell people; he just liked soup and ate it every day for lunch. Whether this was a knowing pose, or whether he actually saw himself as a kind of machine, is a question that has occupied countless art historians.
Andy Warhol at the first Factory, East 47 Street, New York City. [Photo by Ugo Mulas, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution]
Warhol’s early works were not silk-screened (as were the later ones) but hand-painted, and he took pains to disguise the material labor involved in their creation. To make the Dance Diagrams, Warhol used an opaque projector to cast images of dance steps from two popularly available books — Lindy Made Easy and Charleston Made Easy — onto canvas, where he traced and then painted them. When they were exhibited, the paintings were installed on the floor, as if viewers might step onto and use them, rather than regard them as aesthetic objects.
The Dance Diagrams resonate in interesting ways with the contemporaneous vision of urban community that Jane Jacobs was then articulating in Death and Life — and not least because the Diagrams draw attention to the mechanisms of control that underlie all social engagement, even in situations as casual and seemingly spontaneous as what Jacobs so famously called the “ballet of the sidewalks.” Unlike Warhol’s paintings of objects from daily life or his later portraits of icons (Liz Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, et al.), the Dance Diagrams show a socially conditioned process by which two people engage with each other — a ritual of participation, in other words, with the hint that social engagement is nothing but ritual. Much as Jacobs sought to look at the city’s streets with fresh eyes, to draw attention to their nuances and functions, Warhol seems to be asking viewers to consider the codes and gestures by which people move through social space. And while social rituals such as dance steps do provide a mechanism by which we might reach outside ourselves and join a community, they also point to the essentially constructed nature of that community. There is nothing intrinsic about a community of dancers save that its members have consented to observe the codes that make them a community.
This line of thought raises further, deeper questions: What does participating in a dance actually entail? Is there a categorical distinction between following a diagram of dance steps and dancing per se? Those who don’t need a diagram are likely better and more fluid dancers, but knowledge of the codes and expectations is critical to successful participation in the “ballet.” Here, then, lies an inherent judgment: At some point individual behavior will cross a line beyond which a person can be said to be “not dancing” — not functioning as a member of a certain kind of community. Yet this judgment is itself the product of social expectations and codes; and it is here that we start to see how Warhol’s concepts of urban life and community diverge critically from those of Jacobs. Andy Warhol is, in effect, asking why society has created particular forms for physical and social interaction when there are so many other possibilities. Jane Jacobs seems never to have seriously questioned the validity or the socially constructed nature of the community life — the ballet of the sidewalks — that she celebrated. She posits it as an ideal, perhaps even a norm.
Jane Jacobs at a 1961 press conference of the Committee to Save the West Village held at the Lions Head Restaurant on Hudson near Charles Street. [Photo from the New York World-Telegram and Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection, Library of Congress]
Jacobs’s challenges to the dominant planning mentality embodied in the postwar urban-renewal programs has become part of planning history; but the mid-century conversation about the nature of urban community had more than two sides. Different conceptualizations of the city abounded, in policy circles and in popular media, with greater nuance than retrospective views have tended to suggest. Some depictions fueled fears that the city was intrinsically dangerous — an idea Jacobs worked hard to oppose — while others underscored the reality that the city was, for better or worse, not just a small town on a big scale.
Jacobs’s work is characterized by belief in a certain kind of community — a community with a mix of classes, in which citizens have clearly defined roles, and in which there is constant activity in the streets that is often being observed by what she called “eyes on the street.” Jacobs depicts this kind of “warm” community as lively and engaged, with positive social benefits arising from the free association of people who might have different functions and beliefs but who all exist within a circumscribed social environment called the neighborhood. In Death and Life Jacobs contrasted this environment — exemplified by her own Greenwich Village neighborhood — with others being created in the postwar city, places that she saw as defined by coldness in both building materials and social qualities. The communities being formed in the new housing enclaves were not, by her lights, real communities: They were not only transparently artificial but also reductive — residential zones devoid of retail and commercial activity, bedroom communities where people lived but didn’t work. For Jacobs, what people did for a living was intrinsic to defining who they were and what their neighborhoods were like.
It does not diminish the value of the Jacobsian social environment to point out that it posits a healthy neighborhood as a kind of panopticon, with a decided lack of privacy and anonymity. Yet more important, it seems to exclude significant dimensions of actual urban experience. Where, in these idealized neighborhoods, do sad and angry men stew in bars and get into fights? Where are the lonely, the unhappy, the unwell? And where are those who reject social conformity, who choose to be defined not by their jobs but by something else, such as personality or infirmity? Where are the people on the margins — criminals, artists or those who are both? Where are the dropouts, the beatniks, the inept, the clueless and the lost? Jane Jacobs dreamed a society, but it was a society of a certain conservative cast, based on function and ultimately on order. It was a society of productive, social, mutually supporting individuals. It was a society composed largely of well-adjusted libertarians who prospered within the dominant economic framework and who would unite to pursue their common self-interest — specifically, the preservation and continuation of their shared social environment, their neighborhood. It was a society without an internal life beyond Jacobs’s own delight in it.
Two Libertarians
As his career and personality took new shape in the early ’60s, Warhol generated and represented a kind of social environment dramatically at odds with Jacobs’s — and also not much in tune with the thinking of today’s planners as they try to create vibrant public realms. But ultimately it is Warhol’s notion of community — which requires reckoning with people’s complexity and potential unruliness — that seems more realistic today. As Richard Sennett has observed, many traditional ideals of community are rooted in the fear (and avoidance) of traditional participation, even as they claim otherwise.
Warhol’s crowd was a self-consciously aloof set of artists, photographers, musicians, actors, show-offs, talentless cretins, fools and geniuses. Few held traditional jobs; many lusted for fame. Collectively they formed a world that became profoundly influential on the American city: a world that celebrated impersonality and disengagement and laid the groundwork for today’s literally spectacular cities, where significant economies revolve around the touristic gaze (what there is to see) and the culture of celebrity (whom you might see there). Countless people come to New York every year hoping to see something spectacular or someone famous. Andy Warhol helped create this new city: a city based on nobody caring who the hell you are, until you become a star. Warhol was famously nonjudgmental, blandly pronouncing whatever people were up to as “great,” but nonetheless he sought to provoke — which in the early 1960s could mean creating flat, detached paintings of soup cans and dance steps that befuddled prevailing norms. Like-minded spirits might find one another in Warhol’s city, but overall it was a cold place, where you had to make your own meanings, find your own friends, create your own style. And even if you could do that — and there was no reason to think you could — you might still get shot by someone who couldn’t handle the cattiness, the rejection and the lack of social support that typified the lives of those who hadn’t yet found the way in.
Andy Warhol’s Factory, Midtown Manhattan, circa mid-1960s.
Warhol’s world might not be the model for what planners today consider a vibrant and lasting and productive community; but it has been a significant influence on New York’s visual and financial economies, and understanding this world is important to understanding the nature of urban community today. Indeed, given the influence of New York, the power of this concept extends beyond the framework of what defines an urban community to include the more general question of what we now mean by community at all.
Lots of strivers and misfits, self-styled and otherwise, arrive in the big city every year, and not all of them are searching for what Jane Jacobs wanted to find or to create there — not all are hoping to find what amount to small-town values in the big city. Andy Warhol went to New York to get out of the social backwater of Pittsburgh and to re-create himself by his own lights and by the lights of fame. Andy Warhol became a modern urban creature — a mirror and a product of the speculative capitalism that fuels the art and finance worlds that have thrived in New York as nowhere else in America — in a way that Jane Jacobs never did.
Warhol and Jacobs were different species of libertarians. In the early years of his famous Factory, Warhol created a space where people could — thanks to his largesse and to his professed disinterest in actual personalities — do whatever they wanted, whether brilliant, useful or stupid. He disclaimed responsibility for what his cohort did, and he also forswore control. Yet this environment provided a productive kind of community and support and social and intellectual ferment. The first Factory was in midtown Manhattan, surrounded mostly by offices —suggesting that Warhol’s ideal community at the time was neither humanistic (being, after all, a factory) nor street oriented, and not even residential. (The Factory was Warhol’s workplace — he lived with his mother on the Upper East Side.) Whatever the Factory’s idiosyncrasies, the community that gathered there, and the art, films and music that emanated from it, profoundly transformed the culture of New York and beyond. It isn’t difficult to see Warhol’s influence beyond art, in punk music and rock and roll, in celebrity journalism and affectless fiction, in the spread of irony as a cultural weapon and pose, in the rise of loft living as lifestyle and aesthetic, in the blurring of boundaries between public and private personas, in the art world’s casual and frank commodity fetishism, and in the cultural dominance of hipsters and kidults. Some of these developments might be lamentable, but their cultural weight cannot be discounted. More important, the idea that the city is where young people go to cultivate identities gained great force from the example of Warhol’s Factory.
Jacobs, in contrast, sought to free individuals not from cultural constraints or norms but from what she saw as the blind or arbitrary dictates of government. She believed that people, on their own and free from the nonsense of bureaucracies, would work toward productive and beneficial social ends, simply by living their lives, albeit within the dominant economic and social system. Warhol cared about that system only to the extent that his material success within it enabled him — and those around him — to live as they chose. Warhol himself was apparently not as wild as some of his groupies, but he seems to have valued people who used their freedom to push society’s boundaries more than he sought out those who contributed to a Jacobsian web of mixed uses — and I suspect he would have considered her “eyes on the street” to be invasive and pointless surveillance. The Warholian performative life needs to be seen, but it doesn’t need to be observed.
Jane Jacobs, center, at the White Horse Tavern on Hudson Street in Greenwich Village, 1961. [Photo by Cervin Robinson]
Jacobs praised those who joined forces to stop highways, build housing or develop economic capacity. She even wrote admiringly of those who united under the banner of nationalism. But it seems unlikely that she would have had the same degree of praise for those who came together to escape the dominant culture or to pursue fame for its own sake, or who were united in disdain for the gemütlichkeit values that Jacobs found in Greenwich Village. Jacobs failed to see the value of impersonality in the city, whereas Warhol (perhaps partly on account of his homosexuality, which he often masked as asexuality) engaged that impersonality — both in the concrete of the city and through his impenetrable social mask — and as a result he helped create an urbanism that itself engages with and reflects the complex and large-scale economy and society we actually live in.
Interestingly, one of Warhol’s few political stances in the 1960s was against Robert Moses, whom many have styled as Jacobs’s ideological opposite. But unlike Jacobs, Warhol made no statement against the highways or housing projects associated with Moses, as Jacobs and her allies did; rather, he was protesting the censorship of his work at the time of the opening of the 1964 World’s Fair. Warhol’s engagement with Moses was over art, not politics or land use or community values. Most tellingly, Warhol did not particularly publicize the bout and largely backed down from Moses.
Community and Complexity
Jane Jacobs’s legacy is complex; she helped to fuel the movement through which urban planners were weaned from the conviction that they held some special key to understanding human behavior and shaping human environments. Yet it is easy to feel today as if the mid-century official hubris that Jacobs battled gave way to an equally monolithic professional framework — one that idealizes a sentimental picture of urban community while too often neglecting economic and especially social complexity.
But the idea that Jacobs favored idyllic or steady-state solutions is itself a common misunderstanding, which has led allies and enemies alike to caricature her analysis and influence. Jacobs certainly enabled the interpretation of her work that still predominates within new urbanism and other derivative movements — namely, that certain bourgeois aspects of urban life are consonant with what amounts to a deep and largely unquestioned belief in small-town values. The true flaw in Jacob’s concept of the city, however, is not that she envisions a big-city neighborhood as a small town but that her libertarianism supports the fantasy that urban dwellers will self-interestedly choose that communitarian world over any other; her faith in instinctive cooperation and socially sustaining behavior in contemporary American cities verges on the starry-eyed. This unrealistic expectation of human behavior might in part underlie the partial or complete failure of so many attempts to build communities based on her ideals.
Hudson Street, between West 11th Street and Perry Street, named in honor of Jane Jacobs, 2009.
The creation of a genuine and effective community — if we admit the possibility — requires not only work and sacrifice but also, in critical dimensions, a shared sense of purpose. But in truly complex cities shaped by myriad agendas and diverse populations, such shared purposes tend to arise only among communities of narrowly like-minded individuals — or, on a larger scale, among those motivated by nationalism (for which Jacobs expressed a qualified admiration in Dark Age Ahead). Mobilizing people with shared stakes and beliefs can be difficult enough, but urban complexity inherently diminishes the homogeneity that encourages such solidarity.
Andy Warhol’s Factory was for some an unstable and upsetting environment. Excesses of all sorts happened within its walls, and for every white-hot innovation there were hours of tedium and artworks that seem cheap or under-baked. But the messy vitality of the place, and its implicit urbanism, demonstrate one way a mass of individuals can come together — all the while pursuing their own agendas — and generate a transformative community. This raises the possibility that a “cold” community — based on self-interest and disengaged from the issues and mentalities and prejudices that tend to inform “warm” Jacobsian communities — can have more impact, more resonance, in the contemporary city precisely because it recognizes and incorporates the essential driving selfishness of urban individuality.
Accommodating antisocial or even irrational qualities is a persistent challenge in planning practice. Doing so without condescension is an even greater one. Recognizing that an urban community needs to accommodate those who value impersonality and those who thrive in modernist landscapes and those who do not wish to have any eyes on their street is critical to developing urban planning practices that will have value and enjoy broad support. But when planners instead follow what is seen as the Jacobsian path and promote a narrow spectrum of essentially middle-class and nonurban values, it should not surprise us when the community or city they hope to shape fails to respond as expected. The city is essentially heterodox, beyond the effective control of even the best-intentioned ideology.
Political resistance to the imposition of ideology seems particularly vibrant today: we are in the midst of a significant contest over the nature of the state and its power. For some, the need for self-determination outweighs the need to contribute to or share responsibility for the larger society. The related belief in the essential virtue of untutored wisdom threads through Jacobs’s work, and we can draw a line from the kind of community empowerment that Jacobs promoted in Death and Life to the present overvaluing of individual perception evident in so many public discussions of community planning. In 1961, it was unquestionably the case that planners and other professionals were not listening to individual community members; today, it is too often the case that planners and others do not insist upon the value of their education, training and analytical abilities. This over-privileging of the individual perspective is, of course, part of a larger shift in Western mentalities.
The Andy Monument, project by Rob Pruitt and the Public Art Fund, located in Union Square near the site of Warhol’s second Factory, 2011. [Photo by James Ewing, via Public Art Fund]
Contemporary rhetoric arguing for less government control over daily life is arising from many sources. Yet this rhetoric and Jacobs’s work exist on a continuum, at one end of which is today’s violently proud know-nothingism. There are distinct echoes of Jacobs’s libertarianism in both American anti-government rhetoric and, even more vividly, in the movement under way at this writing in Britain toward a “Big Society” under the leadership of David Cameron. In this scheme, the central government will end or scale back many of its traditional activities in the belief or hope that individuals or small groups will pick up the slack. It seems clear that any political program requiring the governed to embrace responsibilities previously handled by government will meet with success only to the degree that the people in question define themselves as a “community” — that is, if they believe they are pushing away the paternalistic hand of government, rather than being denied basic privileges. In a strange convergence, the British appear to be betting — much as Jane Jacobs did — that promoting the notion of community might produce community itself. There is something perverse in the use of the concept of community empowerment to eliminate or cripple programs once seen as critical to the shared pursuit of well being in a democratic society.
This is not to suggest that Jane Jacobs consciously promoted an ideal that may well diminish the strength of communities. But the implications of her work — and the uses to which it has been and is being put — require moving beyond the platitudes and engaging fully with the complexity of urban experience. The contemporary city is in many ways more Warhol’s than Jacobs’s — and that’s not a bad thing. Warhol did not promote the idea of community, yet he helped create the actual thing, even if his wasn’t the kind of community that Jacobs or most contemporary planners might endorse. Whether or not the results are aesthetically or politically pleasing, our cities must make room for the misfits, the self-defined, the antisocial, the anti-communitarian and the spectacular, as much as they do for tight-knit neighborhoods and engaged citizen-activists. The dance among these different interests and complex forces is a difficult one, and there is no simple guide to how to perform its steps.Police remain on high alert as a small but vocal group of anti-Islam, nationalist and far right protesters face off with anti-racism groups outside the Parramatta mosque, in response to last week's shooting.
A large police contingent – including the Public Order and Riot Squad, mounted police, Highway Patrol and general duties officers – is on the ground, keeping a small group of anti-Islam protesters and anti-racism groups apart. Residents have been warned to expect delays and major disruption this evening.
Anti-Islam protesters. (Mark Burrows) ()
Tensions have been high in Parramatta since a police employee was gunned down by 15-year-old Farhad Jabar on Friday, with far right and nationalist groups calling for protests against Islam.
Nationalist group Party for Freedom has organised today’s “Bulldoze the Mosque” rally and claim they are protesting in response to the shooting. Police initially expected "300-400" people to turn up, but only a handful of protesters - many of them armed with placards have turned up so far.
Mounted police and the Riot Squad are maintaining a 100m exclusion zone between the group and a larger group of people who say they are protesting racist groups in Australia.
Mounted police on the streets of Parramatta. (9NEWS) ()
"You hate society," Party For Freedom leader Nick Folkes yelled at an opposing crowd gathered about 100 metres away.
One of the anti-Islam protesters earlier walked quickly through the anti-racist protest, waving his middle finger.
"We are here to take a strong stand against these kind of views," a man addressing the anti-racist crowd said.
"These people are Nazis and they should not be welcome on our streets."
The Riot Squad in Parramatta. (9NEWS) ()
Parramatta Local Area Command’s Superintendent Wayne Cox earlier called for calm.
“People have the right to express their views – peacefully,” he said.
“Try and bypass Parramatta on your way home, if you can, if you need to leave early to get home, do it,” he said.
“Plan ahead.”
He said police would try and keep protesters and mosque attendees separate to minimise risk.
“We have a range of resources at our disposal and they will be positioned tactically,” he said.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. (9NEWS) ()
“But there is no intelligence to suggest that there is going to be any violence.”
Earlier, police issued a statement that advised “anyone engaging in this type of unlawful behaviour can be charged and prosecuted”.
"As police, our message is that any act of violence, regardless of the motivation will not be tolerated, and will be treated as the serious offence that it is,” it read.
Other anti-Islam rallies have been planned for Canberra and Bendigo tomorrow.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull also called for calm ahead of the protests.
He said that vilifying community groups is “contrary to our national interest”.
“If you are doing anything to vilify another group in the community, how are you doing anything but working in contrary to our national interest… working against our national interest?” he said.
“Australia is the most successfully harmonious multicultural country in the world,” he told reporters this afternoon..
“And that is because of a fundamental Australia value: mutual respect.
One of the anti-racism protesters. (9NEWS) ()
"Respect is a two-way street."
The Facebook page dedicated to the “Bulldoze the Mosque Rally” in Parramatta states that the group is also tired of “weak political leaders and their refusal to accept the truth that Islam is a terrorist ideology”.
The group's application to hold a rally was denied by police.
Marsden Street will be closed between 4pm and 7pm between George and Macquarie Streets, as a result of the police operation surrounding the protest activity.
For details about route changes or to plan your trip go to www.transportnsw.info or call 131 500.
For all special event traffic information and live traffic reports, refer to the live traffic website for details: www.livetraffic.com
© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2019So another week and no players have arrived. This is not something that we need to panic about because already we have brought in Nordvteit, who is a massive signing. When speaking to my mate who works at Arsenal Academy, he said he was brilliant there and that Wenger was desperate to bring him back before we secured his signature this summer! Martinez the Spanish signing and Quina will be useful additions for both the future and Europe. Both of these transfers were brought exclusively by us at The West Ham Way, way before others and we are doing our best to keep our finger on the transfer pulse.
It is clear that we want to sign a forward and an offer did go in for Bacca! However, he is currently playing in the Copa America and has a number of offers on the plate and will not make a decision until after this tournament has ended. I don’t think we are overly hopeful on pulling this deal off. We have an interest in both Toulouse forwards and their links with the agent Mark McKay could prove pivotal (Braithwaite and Ben Yedder). Another player we have watched is Vincent Jannsen, who plays for Az in Holland. We are warming to players proving themselves from Holland, now Pelle, Bony and others have done so. Calleri has said this week he is going to get an Italian passport for his move to Europe and despite his dad saying he is joining Spurs (which I don’t believe is true); I know we are still keen too! I am aware that I am mentioning a number of names here, but it is genuinely the case there are others that I have mentioned in previous columns and chosen not to here.
David Sullivan works non-stop trying to get the right names in and is very frustrated. On the eve of two major tournaments (Euro 2016 and Copa America), it is never a good time to sign a player! Benteke continues to be a situation that we will monitor closely too. We are not close to signing any of these players at this point though. One forward who will not be joining us though is Vardy he has turned us down for Arsenal. He is expected to join them tomorrow. We did speak to the player but he didn’t ever seem that keen and demanded very high wages and didn’t show a real desire to play here whereas he seems to be excited by the Arsenal offer.
Sakho to Sunderland was a strange story of this week. Whilst it does appear Sunderland have some interest in the player they obviously do not trust
|
:27:03.234029255Z", "docker_version": "0.6.7", "id": "91acef3a5936769f763729529e736681e5079dc6ddf6ab0e61c327a93d163df9", "parent": "8dbd9e392a964056420e5d58ca5cc376ef18e2de93b5cc90e868a1bbc8318c1c" }
$ sudo cat /var/lib/docker/graph/91acef3a5936769f763729529e736681e5079dc6ddf6ab0e61c327a93d163df9/layersize 12288
$ sudo ls -al /var/lib/docker/graph/91acef3a5936769f763729529e736681e5079dc6ddf6ab0e61c327a93d163df9/layer total 16 drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Dec 13 06:27. drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Dec 13 06:27.. -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 13 06:27 scooby_snacks.txt -r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 13 06:27.wh..wh.aufs drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Dec 13 06:27.wh..wh.orph drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Dec 13 06:27.wh..wh.plnk
Our tiny change had a big impact! Notice that Docker only kept the differences from the base image. This is the key to the layer concept.
Run it!
We can now run our new image and try it out. We'll just run an interactive bash prompt for now.
$ docker run -i -t scooby_snacks /bin/bash root@1f8602a7d589:/# ls -al total 12308 drwxr-xr-x 30 root root 4096 Dec 13 06:43. drwxr-xr-x 30 root root 4096 Dec 13 06:43.. -rw------- 1 root root 208 Dec 13 06:43.dockerenv -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 12516574 Nov 22 02:34.dockerinit drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 11 2013 bin drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 19 2012 boot drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4096 Nov 22 06:52 dev drwxr-xr-x 41 root root 4096 Nov 22 06:52 etc drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 19 2012 home drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Nov 22 06:51 lib drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 22 06:51 lib64 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 11 2013 media drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 19 2012 mnt drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 11 2013 opt dr-xr-xr-x 102 root root 0 Dec 13 06:43 proc drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Nov 22 06:51 root drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Nov 22 06:51 run drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 22 06:51 sbin -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 13 06:27 scooby_snacks.txt drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 5 2012 selinux drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 11 2013 srv dr-xr-xr-x 13 root root 0 Dec 13 06:43 sys drwxrwxrwt 2 root root 4096 Apr 11 2013 tmp drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 4096 Nov 22 06:51 usr drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Nov 22 06:51 var root@1f8602a7d589:/#
The effects of our RUN touch scooby_snacks.txt command in the Dockerfile are exactly as expected.
Publish it!
Until now, we've been doing everything locally and not interacting with the outside world at all. This is great, we can work up a perfect Dockerfile before we go live. That said, I'm pretty happy with this one now, and I'm ready to publish it.
If you haven't already, make sure you make an account, and then login with docker login.
$ docker login Username: thoward Password: Email: [email protected] Login Succeeded
Publish the image with docker push scooby_snacks
$ docker push scooby_snacks 2013/12/13 06:49:36 Impossible to push a "root" repository. Please rename your repository in <user>/<repo> (ex: thoward/scooby_snacks)
Oops. Docker Index won't let us publish without our username in the repository name. No big deal.
Rebuild this with the correct username using docker build -t thoward/scooby_snacks.
$ docker build -t thoward/scooby_snacks. Uploading context 64184320 bytes Step 1 : FROM ubuntu ---> 8dbd9e392a96 Step 2 : RUN touch scooby_snacks.txt ---> Using cache ---> 91acef3a5936 Successfully built 91acef3a5936
Nice! The message "Using cache" means Docker was smart enough to know that we didn't really change the image, so it didn't bother rebuilding it.
Let's try publishing again, but this time with the correct repository name:
$ docker push thoward/scooby_snacks The push refers to a repository [thoward/scooby_snacks] (len: 1) Sending image list Pushing repository thoward/scooby_snacks (1 tags) Pushing 8dbd9e392a964056420e5d58ca5cc376ef18e2de93b5cc90e868a1bbc8318c1c Image 8dbd9e392a964056420e5d58ca5cc376ef18e2de93b5cc90e868a1bbc8318c1c already pushed, skipping Pushing tags for rev [8dbd9e392a964056420e5d58ca5cc376ef18e2de93b5cc90e868a1bbc8318c1c] on {https://registry-1.docker.io/v1/repositories/thoward/scooby_snacks/tags/latest} Pushing 91acef3a5936769f763729529e736681e5079dc6ddf6ab0e61c327a93d163df9 Pushing tags for rev [91acef3a5936769f763729529e736681e5079dc6ddf6ab0e61c327a93d163df9] on {https://registry-1.docker.io/v1/repositories/thoward/scooby_snacks/tags/latest}
Now that it's published, it should show up with docker search.
$ docker search scooby_snacks NAME DESCRIPTION STARS OFFICIAL TRUSTED thoward/scooby_snacks 0
There it is. Next, let's cleanup a bit and delete the old root level one:
$ docker images REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE scooby_snacks latest 91acef3a5936 30 minutes ago 12.29 kB (virtual 131.3 MB) thoward/scooby_snacks latest 91acef3a5936 30 minutes ago 12.29 kB (virtual 131.3 MB) ubuntu 12.04 8dbd9e392a96 8 months ago 131.3 MB (virtual 131.3 MB) ubuntu latest 8dbd9e392a96 8 months ago 131.3 MB (virtual 131.3 MB) ubuntu precise 8dbd9e392a96 8 months ago 131.3 MB (virtual 131.3 MB) ubuntu 12.10 b750fe79269d 8 months ago 24.65 kB (virtual 179.7 MB) ubuntu quantal b750fe79269d 8 months ago 24.65 kB (virtual 179.7 MB) $ docker rmi scooby_snacks Untagged: 91acef3a5936769f763729529e736681e5079dc6ddf6ab0e61c327a93d163df9 $ docker images REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE thoward/scooby_snacks latest 91acef3a5936 29 minutes ago 12.29 kB (virtual 131.3 MB) ubuntu 12.04 8dbd9e392a96 8 months ago 131.3 MB (virtual 131.3 MB) ubuntu latest 8dbd9e392a96 8 months ago 131.3 MB (virtual 131.3 MB) ubuntu precise 8dbd9e392a96 8 months ago 131.3 MB (virtual 131.3 MB) ubuntu 12.10 b750fe79269d 8 months ago 24.65 kB (virtual 179.7 MB) ubuntu quantal b750fe79269d 8 months ago 24.65 kB (virtual 179.7 MB)
Ok, that one is gone.
Also, to be honest, this is not a very interesting image to share publicly, and we don't want to look like n00bs, so let's delete it as well.
$ docker rmi thoward/scooby_snacks Untagged: 91acef3a5936769f763729529e736681e5079dc6ddf6ab0e61c327a93d163df9 Deleted: 91acef3a5936769f763729529e736681e5079dc6ddf6ab0e61c327a93d163df9 $ docker images REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE ubuntu 12.04 8dbd9e392a96 8 months ago 131.3 MB (virtual 131.3 MB) ubuntu latest 8dbd9e392a96 8 months ago 131.3 MB (virtual 131.3 MB) ubuntu precise 8dbd9e392a96 8 months ago 131.3 MB (virtual 131.3 MB) ubuntu 12.10 b750fe79269d 8 months ago 24.65 kB (virtual 179.7 MB) ubuntu quantal b750fe79269d 8 months ago 24.65 kB (virtual 179.7 MB)
This time, since Docker realized it was the last reference to that image ID, docker rmi has an additional message indicating that it deleted it instead of just 'untagging' it.
But wait! It is still public at the Docker Index, isn't it? Let's check:
$ docker search scooby_snacks NAME DESCRIPTION STARS OFFICIAL TRUSTED thoward/scooby_snacks 0
Hmm.. Well this is handy, before we delete it, we can try docker pull and fetch it down like a "real" image and run it.
$ docker pull thoward/scooby_snacks Pulling repository thoward/scooby_snacks 91acef3a5936: Download complete 8dbd9e392a96: Download complete $ docker run -i -t thoward/scooby_snacks /bin/bash root@90f6546bf3b7:/# ls -al total 12308 drwxr-xr-x 30 root root 4096 Dec 13 07:03. drwxr-xr-x 30 root root 4096 Dec 13 07:03.. -rw------- 1 root root 208 Dec 13 07:03.dockerenv -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 12516574 Nov 22 02:34.dockerinit drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 11 2013 bin drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 19 2012 boot drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4096 Nov 22 06:52 dev drwxr-xr-x 41 root root 4096 Nov 22 06:52 etc drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 19 2012 home drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Nov 22 06:51 lib drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 22 06:51 lib64 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 11 2013 media drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 19 2012 mnt drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 11 2013 opt dr-xr-xr-x 105 root root 0 Dec 13 07:03 proc drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Nov 22 06:51 root drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Nov 22 06:51 run drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 22 06:51 sbin -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 13 06:27 scooby_snacks.txt drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 5 2012 selinux drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 11 2013 srv dr-xr-xr-x 13 root root 0 Dec 13 07:03 sys drwxrwxrwt 2 root root 4096 Apr 11 2013 tmp drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 4096 Nov 22 06:51 usr drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Nov 22 06:51 var root@90f6546bf3b7:/#
It works!
Deleting a Published Repository
Unfortunately, to delete it from the public index/registry, we have to use the web interface, not the command-line.
First, login via the web then navigate to the repository at https://index.docker.io/u/thoward/scooby_snacks/.
Click on 'Settings' tab, then 'Delete Repository' tab, then the 'Delete Repo' button.
Back on the command-line we can verify it's gone with docker search scooby_snacks
$ docker search scooby_snacks NAME DESCRIPTION STARS OFFICIAL TRUSTED
But of course, since we never deleted the local version of it after we pulled it back down, it's still going to show up in docker images, since we have a local copy:
$ docker images REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE thoward/scooby_snacks latest 91acef3a5936 46 minutes ago 12.29 kB (virtual 131.3 MB) ubuntu 12.04 8dbd9e392a96 8 months ago 131.3 MB (virtual 131.3 MB) ubuntu latest 8dbd9e392a96 8 months ago 131.3 MB (virtual 131.3 MB) ubuntu precise 8dbd9e392a96 8 months ago 131.3 MB (virtual 131.3 MB) ubuntu 12.10 b750fe79269d 8 months ago 24.65 kB (virtual 179.7 MB) ubuntu quantal b750fe79269d 8 months ago 24.65 kB (virtual 179.7 MB)
So to completely remove it we need to run docker rmi again.
$ docker rmi thoward/scooby_snacks Untagged: 91acef3a5936769f763729529e736681e5079dc6ddf6ab0e61c327a93d163df9 Deleted: 91acef3a5936769f763729529e736681e5079dc6ddf6ab0e61c327a93d163df9
Not to worry, we can always rebuild it with our Dockerfile. :)
Important Security Lesson
It's really important to consider the security implications of what we just saw though.
Even if a Docker image is deleted from the Docker Index it may still be out there on someones machine. There's no way to change that.
Also, as we saw when looking at the files we have locally, it's not quite an "opaque binary" image. All the information from the Dockerfile was in the JSON file for the image, and the artifacts of those commands are in the layer, as accessible as a filesystem. If you accidentally published a password or key, or some other critical secret, there's no getting it back, and people can find as easily as they can find anything else in a published open source code base.
Be very careful about what you're publishing. If you do accidentally publish a secret, take it down right away and update credentials on whatever systems it might have compromised.
Conclusion
Docker can be a bit confusing with its terminology, but once you wrap your head around the basic workflow described here, it should be very easy to be in-control of what you're building, knowing exactly when and how you share that with the world.Sanders at a town hall event in Philadelphia, April 2016 (Reuters photo: Mark Kauzlarich)
Why should secular liberals get to dictate religious doctrine to believers?
Except perhaps for his faith in the power of the human will to overcome economic reality, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders is an unreligious man. An article in Religion News Service last year called him “perhaps the least religious person in the 2016 race” — a presidential contest that, recall, included Donald J. Trump.
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So, the Democratic senator’s recent religious zealotry comes as a surprise. Two weeks ago, Sanders thought it pertinent to grill Russell Vought, Donald Trump’s nominee to be deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, on his theology at a meeting of the Senate Budget Committee. In January 2016, Vought published a blog post at The Resurgent in which he stated that Muslims “do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his Son, and they stand condemned.” This, Sanders declared at the nominee’s confirmation hearing, was “indefensible,” “hateful,” and “Islamophobic.” “This nominee,” Sanders harrumphed, “is really not someone who is what this country is supposed to be about.”
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During an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union this weekend, Sanders defended the line of questioning. Vought “and any other American has the right to hold any point of view they want,” said Sanders, but it is “unacceptable” “to have a high-ranking member of the United States government essentially say Islam is a second-class religion.”
That is, of course, not what Vought said in his post or in his testimony, and there is no evidence that his views ever encumbered anyone else’s ability to participate fully in American political life — the only circumstance in which any of this could be remotely relevant to Vought’s nomination. But Sanders conveniently ignored the crucial distinction between Vought’s conscience and his conduct.
It is interesting that Sanders’s assault on religious freedom comes as, across the Atlantic, Tim Farron is drummed out of politics in the United Kingdom. Last week, Farron resigned as leader of the U.K.’s Liberal Democratic party following a poor showing in the recent parliamentary elections. But Farron’s choice to step aside had less to do with the Lib-Dems’ electoral performance — they had already been all but wiped out — than with the media’s almost prurient interest in Farron’s private Christian religious views. It was not enough that Farron supported a legal right to abortion and same-sex marriage; the fact that he privately believed them to be sinful acts was not allowed to pass unchallenged. He was routinely attacked in the media — again, not for anything he had done, but for views about matters theological that he held privately. Farron’s resignation speech was striking: “To be a political leader — especially of a progressive, liberal party in 2017 — and to live as a committed Christian, to hold faithfully to the Bible’s teaching, has felt impossible for me.”
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Between Vought and Farron, one can get a sense of the bizarre position in which many orthodox religious believers find themselves today: that of having their views dictated to them by people who do not believe those things in the first place. The BBC demands that Tim Farron not think abortion is a sin — even though virtually no one among Britain’s political and media elite believes in the idea of “sin.” Bernie Sanders demands that Russell Vought affirm that everyone is going to Heaven — even though there is no evidence that Sanders believes in any Heaven. A person of faith might justifiably ask: Why does Bernie Sanders get to decide the appropriate theology of salvation? Why do Sky News anchors get to decide what is and isn’t a sin?
There is a long and stupid tradition of believing that the American Right threatens to impose an Evangelical Christian theocracy on the United States — that every Republican lawmaker is looking to erect an official church and make women cover their ankles. In reality, it is the proudly irreligious Left that has smuggled religious debates back into our politics. It is the unabashedly secular Left that has knocked down the “wall of separation” and made the afterlife an immanent political issue.
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These were precisely the sorts of issues that the Founders, recalling the conflagrations of recent centuries in Europe, sought to cabin off from political pressures. It’s not the place of earthly governments to render eternal judgments. “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” someone advised. Whether abortion should be legal is a thing for Caesar; whether it is sinful is not.
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Our new theocrats think differently, though, and no surprise: The dirty little secret of secular liberalism is not that its practitioners don’t believe in God; it’s that they believe they are God.
READ MORE:
Bernie Sanders Shows How Religious Ignorance Breeds Progressive Intolerance
Editorial: A Half Measure on Religious Liberty
Do Safer Playgrounds ‘Advance Religion’?
— Ian Tuttle is the Thomas L. Rhodes Fellow at the National Review Institute.Dashboard
Conservation of Resilient Biodiversity through Propagation, Dissemination and Education
Website updated 2/26/19
Spring Sale & New Specimen Plants list further down this page…
As if we have not had enough tech problems to last a lifetime these past months… we were having problems with our email list — this should be fixed now and you should be able to sign yourself up to receive periodic emails from us:
http://lists.sonic.net/ mailman/listinfo/ sacredsucculents
Please let us know if you are having any problems with this.
2/14/19 We may have been a little premature thinking all our computer maladies were remedied. Heavy rains and storms this past week have left us without power or internet off and on. We finally have access to all our files now but there are a number of issues we are still working out with our new system that has been consuming the time we hoped to give to the Rare Plant List…so it looks like it will be at least another week before it is completed and mailed. Then we can move on to bringing the website up to date and creating a descriptive supplement of new plants and seeds. Your patience and understanding during this somewhat torturous techno travesty has been essential to us!
2/11/13 The snow has thawed but nights remain in the low 20s. Thankfully there appears to be minimal damage to the pl ants so far. You can place orders for cuttings without worry.
2/5/19 We had some light snow last night. This is a rare occurrence in western Sonoma County, happening once every 5-10 years. As beautiful and exciting as it is for our kids it usually means significant damage to our outdoor Trichocereus plants if it is not melted quickly by rain…more rain is a few days off so we’ll let you know how things progress. If the damage is extensive there may be many cuttings that won’t be available until late summer… Our daughters Kieralia & Ember with frozen cacti
Kiera turned 6 January 11 & Ember will be 7 February 10
2/4/19 Our full computer recovery is proceeding, slower than we’d like, but it is proceeding! We finally have access to our previously encrypted files. That means this coming week we will be printing and mailing catalogs to those waiting. It will take us about a week or so to finish the new Rare Plant List but if there are no new catastrophes we should have it done, printed and mailed before mid month… listings of new seeds and plants coming soon as well…
1/28/19 After 2+ months we nearly have full access to our files that were encrypted on our old computer that crashed in November. This tech crisis has been a major headache and slowed down everything here…Our apologies if we have been slow to answer emails or send an order. It will still take us a little time to get fully caught up but we hope to return to normal asap. We acknowledge that with our compromised situation these past couple months we have not been able to consistently maintain the level of customer service which we value and again we apologize to any who have been effected. We are doing all we can to remedy this! Again, thank you for your ongoing understanding and support!
Our old computer temporarily rebuilt to access encrypted files!
12/3/18 We are still in the midst of tech crisis with our computer going down a couple weeks ago. Our data was backed up but the main problem lies with many of the programs we use are now anachronisms and will not load on our new system and some essentials are currently encrypted and can’t be easily accessed. We have someone helping with this quagmire but at the moment we still can’t access most of our old email, database or documents. We cannot currently print catalogs and the new Rare Plant List we had planned on completing and mailing last week is obviously delayed. Other than catalog requests I should be caught up with orders this week. I’m still a bit behind with email and I beg your continued patience whole we get this situation remedied.
8/25/18 This weekend we are having our 4th online plant auction as a fundraiser for much needed repairs and upgrades to our large greenhouse which need to be completed before winter. This past year has gifted us with consistently extreme erratic weather and our greenhouse needs alterations to account for such challenging changes. We will be reskinning with a new material (Solawrap) that will allow for better insulation in the winter and easier ventilation in the summer. In addition many of our growing benches and beds need repairing or replacement after 20 years. These improvements will enable us to better continue our research and conservation efforts, to propagate and offer you an ongoing diversity or rare and endangered plants. This will be the largest auction we’ve held with over 100 offerings, many of them completely new introductions, first time offerings and one of a kind specimens.
Donations of any amount towards our repair work is also welcome and will go a long way.
We realized recently that this year marks 20 years we have been a mail order nursery and we are deeply and humbly grateful for your enthusiastic support over the years. It has been a blessing to tend and grow with the plants these years and to serve all of you fine folks with your inspiring plant passions. A deluge of thanks!
Greetings! A small family run business, Sacred Succulents was founded in 1997, borne from our love of plants and a calling to the sacred duty of their conservation through propagation, dissemination and education. While our initial focus was succulents and xerophytes, our travels and the necessity of species conservation has us propagating a diverse cornucopia of unusual and wonderful beneficial plants from remote and immediate regions of our fecund planet. We strive toward maximizing biodiversity in our gardens and offerings. Widespread dispersal of plants along with propagation on an individual level is one of the most viable means of helping protect wild populations while assuring the evolutionary expansion of these botanical wonders.
We all have the strange grace to live in this time of climatic change and massive biological extinction recognized to be greater than anything the biosphere has experienced in 65 million years. Plant extinctions have been estimated at a loss of nearly 2 species a day. Along with this extinction is the loss of our collective human heritage, as the cultures, languages, dreams and songs that were intimately woven to those species disappear with them. Amongst thousands of known food plants, the world’s food supply relies on a scant dozen. We must do much more than save heirloom varieties and landraces of the major crops. We encourage you to relearn the forgotten indigenous foods and medicines of your region and of your lineage. Where habitat still exists, these are often disappearing from the fields and forests for lack of tending. Each and every one of us are co-creators of our ecosystems. Experiment with strange and rare edible plants, expand your palate. These are the seeds of true health and food security.
Whether you have a bright window in a city apartment, a suburban house with a yard, or access to acres of land, you can take part in the nurturing of endangered plants, propagate them and pass along the seeds, starts, attendant aspirations and ethnobotanical knowledge to friends. Realize the power we each have to assist our vanishing flora, acting as conservationists through a simple and joyful role as gardeners, horticulturalists, admirers of plants. These small endeavors help to put us in resonance with the viridian heartbeat of the biosphere, a reminder of earthly things like soil, weather and mooncycles in a world increasingly adrift in the navel gaze of cyberspace. Attention to seasonal gifts such as Spring flowers can refresh our wonder in the delicate fortitude of life in all its myriad forms. There is so much life and potential to celebrate all around us!
Our coveted paper catalog is beautifully illustrated and full of ethnobotanical and horticultural information including detailed seed germination and propagation techniques. Some of what we offer:
Cacti – endangered Ariocarpus, Aztekium, Pelecyphora, Turbinicarpus species… we have one of the most diverse selections of Trichocereus species including new hybrids and mutant San Pedros. We are involved with ongoing studies of this genus in South America: mapping distribution, ecology, ethnobotany and taxonomy through genetic analysis to aid preservation.
– endangered Ariocarpus, Aztekium, Pelecyphora, Turbinicarpus species… we have one of the most diverse selections of Trichocereus species including new hybrids and mutant San Pedros. We are involved with ongoing studies of this genus in South America: mapping distribution, ecology, ethnobotany and taxonomy through genetic analysis to aid preservation. Other Succulents & Xerophytes – Aloe, rare and hardy Agave & Yucca, Baobabs & caudiciforms, aromatic Bursera (Copal, Palo Santo), Commiphora (Myrrh, Guggul) & Boswellia species (Frankincense), rare Echeveria, a large selection of Ephedra species, Hoodia gordonii, medicinal Peperomia, uncommon Puya, obscure Rhodiola & Sedum species, Sceletium tortuosum…
– Aloe, rare and hardy Agave & Yucca, Baobabs & caudiciforms, aromatic Bursera (Copal, Palo Santo), Commiphora (Myrrh, Guggul) & Boswellia species (Frankincense), rare Echeveria, a large selection of Ephedra species, Hoodia gordonii, medicinal Peperomia, uncommon Puya, obscure Rhodiola & Sedum species, Sceletium tortuosum… Unusual & Rare Perennial Edible Plants – Gaultheria, Vaccinium, Amelanchier, Lycium, Elaeagnus, Rubus, Ribes, Ugni, Agapetes … Chufa, Capers, Ramps & rare Alliums, Rampion, Breadroot, Vigna subterranea & edible bulbs, tubers, vines, fruit trees and more for adventurous gardeners, permaculturalists, and food forest fanatics.
– Gaultheria, Vaccinium, Amelanchier, Lycium, Elaeagnus, Rubus, Ribes, Ugni, Agapetes … Chufa, Capers, Ramps & rare Alliums, Rampion, Breadroot, Vigna subterranea & edible bulbs, tubers, vines, fruit trees and more for adventurous gardeners, permaculturalists, and food forest fanatics. Obscure Medicinals – Codonopsis species, Gold Root, Green tea, Honeybush & Rooibos, Maralroot, Mandrake, Sea Buckthorn, heirloom Tobacco, Yaupon, Yerba Mate, Dioscorea, Dan Shen & other Salvia species, Shatavari, Umckaloaba, Silene capensis…
– Codonopsis species, Gold Root, Green tea, Honeybush & Rooibos, Maralroot, Mandrake, Sea Buckthorn, heirloom Tobacco, Yaupon, Yerba Mate, Dioscorea, Dan Shen & other Salvia species, Shatavari, Umckaloaba, Silene capensis… Rare & Endangered Chilean Endemics – Latua pubiflora, Gomortega keule, Desfontainia spinosa, Ugni, Coriaria, Chilean Macnut, Fabiana, Macqui Berry, Bell Flower, Nothofagus…and from the Juan Fernandez Archipelago- Dendroseris, Ochagavia elegans, Chenopodium sanctae-clarae, Nicotiana cordifolia, and more…
– Latua pubiflora, Gomortega keule, Desfontainia spinosa, Ugni, Coriaria, Chilean Macnut, Fabiana, Macqui Berry, Bell Flower, Nothofagus…and from the Juan Fernandez Archipelago- Dendroseris, Ochagavia elegans, Chenopodium sanctae-clarae, Nicotiana cordifolia, and more… Andean Ethnobotanicals – From our annual expeditions. Ancient medicinals and species from one of the most imperiled forest ecosystems on the planet- Polylepis, Buddleja, Hesperomeles, Alnus, Escallonia, Erythrina, Anadenanthera, Puya raimondii, Calceolaria, Macleania, Cavendishia, Pernettya, Bomarea, Cypella, Phaedranassa, Stenomesson, etc. Traditional Andean food plants- Caigua, Kaniwa & Quinoa, Tarwi, Aguaymanto, Naranjilla, Tamarillo, Sauco Berries, Ulupica Pepper, Lacayote squash, Congona, Jaltomata, wild Tomatoes, Passiflora and a large selection of heirloom tubers- Ajipa, Oca, Ulluco, Achira, Mashua, Mauka, Arracacha, Yacon, Maca.
– From our annual expeditions. Ancient medicinals and species from one of the most imperiled forest ecosystems on the planet- Polylepis, Buddleja, Hesperomeles, Alnus, Escallonia, Erythrina, Anadenanthera, Puya raimondii, Calceolaria, Macleania, Cavendishia, Pernettya, Bomarea, Cypella, Phaedranassa, Stenomesson, etc. Traditional Andean food plants- Caigua, Kaniwa & Quinoa, Tarwi, Aguaymanto, Naranjilla, Tamarillo, Sauco Berries, Ulupica Pepper, Lacayote squash, Congona, Jaltomata, wild Tomatoes, Passiflora and a large selection of heirloom tubers- Ajipa, Oca, Ulluco, Achira, Mashua, Mauka, Arracacha, Yacon, Maca. Plants of California – a focus on forgotten feral foods like Brodiaea, Calochortus, Triteleia, Lilium, Yampah, Chia, plus medicinals and endemic rarities.
– a focus on forgotten feral foods like Brodiaea, Calochortus, Triteleia, Lilium, Yampah, Chia, plus medicinals and endemic rarities. A diversity of wild crafted seed from South Africa, China, Himalayas & other remote regions… rock garden & alpine miniatures …and much more!
& other remote regions… …and much more! Books– Hard to find titles on ecological horticulture and ethnobotany.
Please send $2 ($4 international) to receive our fully illustrated, highly informative catalog and additional supplements.
Seed deliveries anywhere in the world.
Sacred Succulents, PO Box 781, Sebastopol, CA 95473 USA
Email: [email protected]
Please note: We do not have a mobile device and often only check our emails in the morning Monday through Friday,
so if you don’t get an immediate response from us–do not fret! We will get back to you.
To receive our periodic (every 4-6 weeks) emails listing new plants & seeds, specials, news from our gardens, greenhouses & travels sign up at –
http://lists.sonic.net/ mailman/listinfo/ sacredsucculents
Rare Plant and Seed List
Available by subscription. This is where you will find first offerings of exciting new plants that we have in quantities too small to list in our main catalog. One of a kind specimens, rarities and introdu
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Examiner.
Luxor Cab confirmed to CNET it recorded the video. An Uber spokesperson said in an email that the incident was due to human error. "This vehicle was not part of the pilot and was not carrying customers," the spokesperson said. "The driver involved has been suspended while we continue to investigate."
Uber's launch of self-driving cars in California without a permit isn't the first time the company has sallied forth without government permission. The company didn't seek permission when it launched its ride-hailing service in San Francisco in 2010.
Four months after its rollout, Uber was hit with a "cease and desist" letter from the California Public Utility Commission and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. The same thing happened when the company launched its carpool service UberPool in 2014.
"We don't have to beg for forgiveness because we are legal," Uber CEO Travis Kalanick told the Wall Street Journal in 2013 during an interview about the cease-and-desist letters. "There's been so much corruption and so much cronyism in the taxi industry and so much regulatory capture that if you ask for permission up front for something that's already legal, you'll never get it."
As of this writing, Uber's autonomous vehicles are still cruising San Francisco's streets, despite the threats from the DMV. With self-driving cars, Uber appears to continue its modus operandi of dealing with regulators after the fact.
First published December 14, 3:24 p.m. PT.
Updated at 5:29 p.m. and 8:43 p.m.: First update adds confirmation from Luxor Cab and comment from Uber spokesperson. Second update adds information from the DMV.Seth
channelled by Jahn J Kassl on June 18, 2012
and updated on November 14, 2013
http://www.lichtweltverlag. com/de/blog/index.html
first published in English on November 15, 2013 in
www.stankovuniversallaw.com
translated by Georgi Stankov
Note: I have frequently emphasized that I consider the books of Seth, channeled by Jane Roberts, to be the best ones you can find in modern esoteric literature and that I have personally learned a lot from them. It is remarkable that these books, which were written in the 60s and 70s, in their intelligence, width, depth and intimate insights into the transcendence of all human existence are still unsurpassed up to the present day. This fact illustrates only the subsequent demise of the mindless “love and light illusion” of the American New Age movement. The Europeans, followed the Americans slavishly, as they always do in all respects, and were unable to establish their own path to God, with the notable exception of some great masters, such as Jahn J Kassl and myself.
Now Seth has also approached Jahn and it is my pleasure to introduce you this short, inspirational text about ascension on the eve of the actual Event. Seth, himself, has never spoken of ascension in his earlier messages, because the people were not yet ready for it at that time. Insofar, this message is a novelty.
George
The life orders are alive, this is required at this time, because the more precisely the blueprint of a person is fulfilled, the more powerful the force that is unleashed by such a being. Be greeted by myself, you beloved brothers and sisters!
I am SETH and I am here to give you this short message from the light beyond this, because from a distant galaxy.
You are great Gods! You are pure light and crystalline consciousness, multidimensional and everlasting, without beginning and without end. Absolute, always evolving spirit that has shifted its focus for the period of your embodiment in the nature of a human being that dominates you on this level. Human nature has been provided with an exact plan of life and it is important to recognize and fulfill this.
For all the people who now want to concentrate back into their spirit, which is equivalent to the ascension in the fifth dimension of light, it is necessary that they accomplish the blueprint exactly, that is to say, this life plan. I tell you, many upheavals, big changes and unexpected coincidences are the cause in your life. Many plans that you had with yourself and with your life are not, or only barely fulfilled, much of what you did not expect happens.
It is this quality of time and legions of light beings help you in your day to day problems and guide your ways until you are connected to your exact blueprint. Everything is done that needs to be done, as you have decreed it that way. Rely on it, and the bigger the twists in your life, the more certain it is that you are fully in the program of restructuring of your life and in the program of adaptation of your life to your actual life plan.
Leave the old ways of purely human thinking, purely human vision, purely human hearing, purely human cross-talk and action. Your spirit, your holy eternal and divine spirit begins now to fully capture the level of your physicality, so that your bodies are becoming more subtle, your everyday consciousness more permeable and your sensations – one with the vibration of the divine light that constantly comes upon the earth.
Prepare yourselves to discard all human concepts! That is the message, and the journey now goes this way for all those who have decided to participate in it.
I am
SethBy John Ubaldi
Contributor, In Homeland Security
With all the attention focused on Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the United States should be concerned with Iran spreading its arc of influence throughout the Middle East.
Iran has never been shy about expanding its influence, and in recent years has been bullish about its successes. The current focus of the U.S. is to degrade and eventually destroy ISIS, but Washington has allowed Iran to expand its influence in the Middle East unfettered.
The current situation in Iraq came to a boiling point last summer, when ISIS militant fighters forced the complete collapse of the Iraqi army and forced then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki from office, replacing him with Haider al-Abadi. Many in the West want to claim that it was U.S. pressure which brought the change in leadership, but in reality it was Iran concerned about the threat to the Shiite shrines in Iraq, Islamic militant threats to overrunning Baghdad, and finally its own strategies in both Iraq and Syria.
CNN reported that the militia (al Hashed al Shabi) or Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), were trained, equipped and most importantly, led by Iranian military advisers and quickly became battle hardened. What they lacked in military skills, they made up for in determination.
X
The Iranians have invested heavily in the PMUs. The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, General Qassim Suleimani, seems to have spent more time in Iraq than Iran since last summer and was photographed around Tikrit. According to several analysts, it is Suleimani that organized and directed the Shia militia in an apparently more deliberate and better planned assault than previous operations.
The ongoing Tikrit operation has more to do with the Shia militia’s being organized and trained by Iran than anything the Iraqi army will play in this operation and the potential operation of retaking Mosul from ISIS. Many Iranian leaders openly boast about the U.S. supplying the air cover for Iranian ground operations.
Almost since the Islamic regime took in power in Tehran, it has heavily backed various Islamic proxy forces, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and West Bank area. Just last month, Houthi rebels backed by Iran took over the capital city of Sana’a in Yemen, virtually sending that country into a civil war.
This was basically at the same time that the Economist magazine reported that Iran’s influence extends to the cross-border attacks by Israel on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights that killed six fighters from Hezbollah, days after the group denied that it was in the area. More surprisingly, it also killed Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, an Iranian general. His presence suggests that Iran was trying to establish a presence in an area that has fallen out of Syrian government control.
This also feeds into the narrative in which Iran is largely responsible for propping up and maintaining the brutal regime of Bashar Al-Assad, by providing him Shiite militias in the form of Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), plus gives the regime all the financial backing and political support it needs.
As Washington focuses on the Iranian nuclear negotiations, it is seemingly missing that before Secretary of State John Kerry visited Saudi Arabia to ease the nervousness of Riyadh regarding the nuclear talks with Iran, high level Pakistani government officials also visited the kingdom with a different agenda. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited Saudi Arabia to discuss a wide range of issues, one of them was to ease the tension of Saudi Arabia after Simon Henderson (Washington Institute) wrote an essay last month noting Riyadh’s support of Pakistan’s nuclear program, “providing financing in return for a widely assumed understanding that, if needed, Islamabad will transfer technology, or even warheads.”
It is ironic that Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf nations are on the same side, while the U.S. continues to press forward with the Iranian nuclear negotiations; all the while, the region believes the Obama administration will virtually throw them under the bus just to have a nuclear deal – no matter how much it costs.
To the Sunni Arab nations, the only winner in the nuclear negotiations is Iran, as they get to keep their nuclear infrastructure intact, plus gain greater influence across the Middle East.
Only time will see how this plays out.
Comments
commentsOptimize Your Chess Training
What gets measured, gets managed. - Peter Drucker Peter Drucker
Several years ago, I was teaching a novice chess player the basics of chess. Although he loved chess and enjoyed our lessons, he never played a rated game. He played a lot of casual blitz and nonrated chess on the Internet Chess Club, but he never played a rated game.
He often asked me how strong I felt he was. I basically told him that the only real way to know was to play some rated games and see where he stood. I encouraged him to do so partly because he kept asking me my opinion about his strength, but also because I believed that the competition would help him to get better. (You can read about why I believe that playing competitively helps your chess ).
Well, after a few months, we amicably decided to part ways. He sent me a message about the lessons he was taking with a grandmaster who said he was probably a "Class B" player. Of course, I checked his profile and there were no rated games played.
Now I really didn't care whether he played a rated game either on the internet or over-the-board (although I think he really would have enjoyed the competition). The point behind this story is that you really don't know how you're doing on almost anything unless you measure it.
There's a reason why top performers in many high-stakes arenas such as business and professional sports measure everything - because it works! In this article, I will discuss how we can use measurement to improve our chess.
How Measurement Can Improve Your Chess
There are two main ways that measurement helps you. First, when you measure what you want to accomplish, it motivates you (when done properly). Second, measurements can be prescriptive and help guide you in what you need to work on.
What You Measure, Gets Done
I first started measuring my activities when I started my career in business. I measured my calls, number of appointments, and results. I also applied this to physical fitness, measuring my minutes ran, sets and reps of my weightlifting exercises, and things like how many servings of vegetables I consumed daily.
I think people in general like to see a numerical representation of their accomplishments. Think about your last over-the-board tournament when you played someone you didn't know. Either you or your opponent probably asked what each other's rating was (unless you copied it from the crosstables).
I remember when I first started playing tournament chess. I couldn't wait until my rating was updated on the cover of my Chess Life magazine. When I started playing, the ratings weren't updated very often, so it also taught me patience.
Once you start using measurement for more than seeing your rating, you will find yourself accomplishing more than you could have imagined. We'll discuss what to measure in a little bit.
How Do You Know if You're Getting Better?
Besides the motivational benefits of measuring your activities (which would be worth measuring in itself), you can also use measurement to track your improvement in specific areas of chess, as well as tracking specific activities.
Once you measure your activities and results in chess, you can start to make comparisons over time and adjust your training program. Accurate measurements can help you make very specific and effective changes to your regimen. Without measurement, you're just guessing.
What Should You Measure?
There are a ton of things you can measure, but where should you start? Before we can answer that, let me discuss two different types of measurements:
Performance measures
Outcome measures Performance (or frequency) measures track the frequency or amount of an activity. This type of measurement is called a leading indicator as an increase in these typically happen before the desired change - in this case, improvement in a specific area. Here are some examples of chess related performance measures:
Number of tactical problems solved
Number of annotated master games studied
Amount of time spent analyzing
Number of blitz games played (for me this is a "negative" indicator as I am trying to decrease my volume of blitz play)
Amount of time spent studying Outcome measures track the results of an activity. These are lagging indicators as they often follow from activity performed before. Here are a few examples:
Chess Tempo tactical ratings
Number of blunders made during a game
Bullet, Blitz, and Standard Ratings
Self-rating of levels of focus or attention during a game
Magnitude of errors made during a game (e.g. measured using a chess engine) These are just a few examples that I am currently using or have used in the past. In general, you will want to use a mix of performance and outcome measures.
Use performance measures when you want to increase (or decrease) the frequency of an activity. For example, Here are a couple examples of ways I've used these:
I felt that I was playing too much and not studying enough, so I started tracking how many minutes I either played, trained, or studied chess. I found after about a month that 25% of my chess time was spent playing, which was much lower than I expected (and perhaps as a result of measuring it in the first place). Below is an excerpt of the spreadsheet I used - created on Microsoft Excel. I found out I don't play enough! I felt I wasn't sleeping enough and this was effecting my chess. I've started tracking when I go to bed and when I get up, and the spreadsheet calculates how much sleep I got that night. Ever since I started tracking this, the amount and quality of my sleep has increased, and so has my chess! Use outcome measures to calibrate your chess activities as well as motivation to see your progress. Improvement in chess is a long term project (at least for most of you who are reading this article), and sometimes it is hard to stay patient. Using periodic measurement of outcomes can show you that you are progress, even though it seems slower than you would like.
Below is an excerpt of my current ratings tracking sheet. I've highlighted a calculation I do to show how much I've improved on a weekly basis and on a rolling 6-week basis. Doing this helps me stay consistent and motivated on the long journey.
Slow but gradual improvement
Once I've attained statistics for several months, I can start to make certain comparisons to see how my activities are affecting the results.
You can get really creative with measurement, but remember that these are only tools to our greater objective - to improve at chess.
Getting Started with Measuring Your Chess
Now that you understand the difference between performance and outcome measures, here are a few steps to follow when getting started.
Step #1: Assess Your Needs
Before you incorporate measurement into your chess improvement program, assess what you need to improve. This should start with an objective review of your games - perhaps with a coach if you have one.
Where do you need to improve - tactics, positional play, endgame, openings?
Are there certain chess improvement activities you know you should do but don't?
The answers to these questions are great places to start measuring.
Step #2: Start Simple
Maybe it's just me, but measuring my chess activities has become fairly enjoyable. However, I encourage you to start simply with just a few measures. After you've assessed your needs, you can start with your most pressing need.
For example, after you've made a comprehensive review of your game, you decide that you want to improve your chess tactics. We all know that solving tactical problems is an effective way to improve our ability in this area. We can create a simple spreadsheet with the following measures:
Number of tactical problems (or amount of time spent on tactics)
Number solved correctly
Rating (if using a program that gives a rating such as Chess Tempo)
Step #3: Use Performance Measures First and Often
Typically, we want to measure what we want to improve or increase. This often involves adding to our current program. Use performance measures to track these. Track these daily. Don't worry if you miss a day. Over time, you'll develop consistency and your progress will follow.
Step #4: Measure Outcomes Regularly but not too Often
As you develop the habits you want within your chess activities, use the appropriate outcome measures to track your progress. For example, the various tactics servers on the internet often give ratings. You can enter your rating on regular intervals (e.g. once a week or once a month) and see your steady progress.
I would set a specific day of the week or month to record outcome metrics. I caution you against doing it too often. If you record these measures too often, you might find yourself getting discouraged as your improvement may be too gradual to notice in shorter time periods. Similarly, when it comes to ratings, there are often peaks and valleys, but a longer interval (such as monthly or quarterly for OTB ratings) will show a more useful trend line.
Step #5: Assess and Adjust
Once you've started measuring your activities and results for several months, you can start to evaluate the effectiveness of your training.
For example, suppose you are tracking your tactical rating on a server and your OTB chess rating (or say a standard rating on ICC or chess.com). If you notice that your tactical rating is improving dramatically while your chess rating stagnates, it would be reasonable to conclude that tactics are not your biggest weakness.
For another example, I found that I was "testing" myself too much - doing tactical problems are analytical exercises - but not "studying" - reading chess books and looking up games - enough.
The positive side of this was that my ability to assess and come up with plans at the board was improving. However, I was often finding myself in situations - particularly between the opening and middlegame - where I knew I had played similar positions, but felt like I had to figure it out again. It was like I had to reinvent the wheel over and over again.
So I shifted some of my training time toward looking master games in the lines I was playing. Here I could see what much stronger players did in similar situations and adjusted my thinking and my approach for future games.
I wouldn't have realized this in my training had I not meticulously measured how much time I was spending on each part of my training and study program.
Long Term Project
Improving at chess is a long term project - unless you happen to be one of those teenage grandmasters. If you want to systematically and accurately improve your play, start by measuring aspects of your training and play.
Metrics and statistics are tools. Some people I know (and myself at times) get too caught up in the how and why of statistics. When I first got into this, I felt like I spent almost as much time measuring as I did studying and playing chess.
I recommend starting with one simple rule: Measure what you want to improve.
Use the steps above to pick just one or two areas that you want to see a dramatic improvement. Measurement can be very powerful, so be careful of what you measure. One of my friends started tracking various aspects of his tactical training. Unfortunately, now he only does tactics and barely plays! You have been warned.
Your Turn
If you decide to try out some of this advice, I'd love to hear what measures you are using and how it's helping you. If you enjoyed this article and want more elaboration on how to go about this, let me know what you need help with and I'll write more articles detailing this process.
Good luck and good chess!
Resources
Here are a couple articles you might find helpful:
4 Steps to Analyzing Your Game for Improvement : This is an article I wrote on how to analyze your games and if you don't already do this, it will be hard to know where to start measuring.In the aftermath of the mass shooting in Dallas and the police shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, much of the reaction has been highly polarized, with some people blaming Black Lives Matter protesters for supposedly inciting violence against police officers.
But it isn’t necessarily that simple, as Erin Simpson explained on Twitter:
I don't want black men shot at traffic stops. I don't want cops shot by snipers. I don't want kids shot at school. I don't want any of this. — EM Simpson (@charlie_simpson) July 8, 2016
The message here is clear: It is possible to oppose all forms of violence. People can oppose and want to prevent racial disparities in police use of force, violence against police officers, and mass shootings — all at the same time. It is not a simple either-or.
Unfortunately, the reality is that any movement against any kind of social or political injustice is always prone to having someone take things to a radical, potentially violent extreme. But such extremists shouldn’t be able to stifle what’s otherwise a legitimate criticism or valid political discourse.
As Kevin Drum, a blogger at Mother Jones, previously wrote:
People and groups have to be free to condemn abortion or police misconduct or anything else — sometimes soberly, sometimes not. And it's inevitable that this will occasionally inspire a maniac somewhere to resort to violence. There's really no way around this. It's obviously something for any decent person to keep in mind, but it doesn't make passionate politics culpable for the ills of the world. We can't allow the limits of our political spirit to be routinely dictated by the worst imaginable consequences.
Watch: America’s gun problem, explained in 18 chartsThis month’s Remedial Film School with guest critic David Ehrlich.
I am a film critic, but almost all of the movies I watch are new releases. That is going to change. With Jeff Bayer’s Remedial Film School a notable film critic or personality will assign me (and you) one film per month. Film critic David Ehrlich from IndieWire is our guest, and he chose My Neighbor Totoro, currently available at video stores. It is also available online for free through many websites that all seem very sketchy. Each section begins with a quote from the film.
“Do you like spirits Mommy? Even fuzzy ones?”
David Ehrlich: My Neighbor Totoro is an easy film to take for granted. One of the most popular and beloved animated movies ever made (especially in Japan, where its characters are as ubiquitously ingrained in the culture as Mickey Mouse or – shudder – the Frozen princesses are here), the 1988 classic cemented Hayao Miyazaki as the Walt Disney of the Eastern world and paved the way for a generation of iconic entertainment. It’s like the anime equivalent of Sleeping Beauty, in that it’s an “old-fashioned” entertainment that people assume it’s easier to revere than it is to enjoy.
Well, people are super wrong (as they usually are).
My Neighbor Totoro isn’t the best of the Studio Ghibli films (that would have to be The Wind Rises), but recent experiences have made me realize why it deserves its reputation as the most important. When my sister asked what her 3-year-old daughter’s first movie should be, I reflexively went with this one – later, when I saw photos of the little girl sitting in front of the screen (a stuffed Totoro clutched in her little arms), it all clicked into place.
My Neighbor Totoro is the truest film ever made about childhood, it bridges the gap between what it felt like to be a kid, and what it is like to be a kid. The Amblin fare speaks to certain generations of Americans, especially on an experiential level (if you have any memories of riding a bike around suburbia, it’s hard not to be a sucker for that stuff), but Miyazaki’s serene masterpiece nails the infinite possibility of growing up, the sense of wonder, and the life-or-death urgency that comes along with it.
The story is so simple: Two young sisters move with with their father into an old house in rural Japan, and promptly start palling around with the lovable local forest spirits while waiting for their ailing mother to be released from the hospital. There’s no villain, there’s no great adventure, there’s not even really any explicit conflict – just two kids in a world that won’t be able to keep them safe forever. And yeah, it can’t be overlooked how the lush hand-drawn animation adds a certain tenderness to the whole thing, that makes watching the movie feel like coming home. My Neighbor Totoro is always there for you when ya need it.
“Let’s walk. I feel great.”
Jeff Bayer: That opening theme song is addictive, so that is what I chose for the quote before this section. It is ridiculously simple, which fits for this, Miyazaki’s simplest, most digestible film (that I have seen).
I feel like this column has made me hyper-focused when watching the beginning of films, which is why it took me just a little while to fall in love with the sisters. First, they hide from police, while their dad is driving them to their new house. Why? That’s an unnecessary tease. It fits with children imagining and pretending about the universe, but doesn’t fit this story at this time. I actually assumed they were on the run for a few minutes. Plus, I was worried that Mei’s over-laughter would drive me batty. Then, they love the potentially haunted house a little too much. But, as soon as they walk into that kitchen, with all of the soot spreaders, they have a wonderfully sweet moment of fear and bravery. That’s all I needed. From that moment on, I was on this adventure with them.
There is a limited amount of craziness in this Miyazaki film (compared to the others … that I’ve seen … this feels like a preface I must keep making. It’s very similar to me never falling in love with the band Radiohead). That’s right Ehrlich, I am not a fan of Miyazaki’s work. Before you pass out, let me correct that statement, I wasn’t a fan of Miyazaki’s work.
The Wind Rises didn’t work for me, Ponyo drove me nuts, and Spirited Away made me think I needed drugs to enjoy it. That’s all the Miyazaki films I bothered with. Let’s not focus on those things though. Let’s be happy that you have given me the gift of fully appreciating a Miyazaki film, and maybe you’ll be able to do it again.
Before I gush all over this film, there are some moments of oddly paced or delivered lines, right? Literally like they stall for one simple second for no reason. I had noticed this a lot more in Ponyo and assumed it was because of being dubbed (I watched My Neighbor Totoro subtitled).
I love that the story is under-explained. We know their mother is in the hospital, and that is it. Their father works at the university, but the film never goes into further details. This is truly a film from the perspective of childhood.
It was nice not to see Totoro right away, it is just about these girls getting the lay of their land. And when Totoro and his smaller friends do show up, the musical score puts us at ease to let the kids know they don’t have to fear this beast. The fact that this giant bunny with useful hands could potentially be Mei’s imagination from one of her picture books only helps build the fantasy world, with their dad willing to allow that to flourish.
I was impressed with how grounded this story felt compared to Miyazaki’s other films. Then Catbus shows up. It feels out of place, right? We have established the soot spreaders, but they’re barely anything of note. Then we have the three bunny things. Out of nowhere this world now has a Catbus, but that’s it. Catbus seems like a pretty crazy leap. Plus, Catbus is really the one who eventually saves the day.
At first the third act felt a little forced, with Mei getting lost. But there are such wonderful moments that come from it, such as the sandal scare, and Satsuki truly in panic mode over her little sister’s whereabouts. Just like kids should watch Requiem for a Dream to learn about the dangers of drugs, they should watch My Neighbor Totoro to learn about the fear of running away/getting lost. They should probably have a sizable gap between these two films though. Even having the mother remain on the sidelines for most of this film makes it feel like a more authentic experience for the girls. Thankfully, this is G and not a film that deals with a mother’s death (I’m looking in your direction, Disney). It ends happily. For all of the fantasy, it deals with the real world in a very mature way.
Now for some random thoughts and questions …
When did you first see this film? How many total times have you seen it, and is this your favorite rated-G movie?
Is anything cuter in this movie than Mei saying, “Pole-tads”? Is Satsuki the fastest, greatest distance runner we’ve ever seen in a film, regardless of age? She puts Tom Cruise to shame.
The most whimsical moment of the film is when Totoro grunts some plants up, then flies. My question to you is, do you even like whimsy?
Do I have the “rules” of this world, correct? Totoro can help plants grow. When Totoro or Catbus touches something or someone, they disappear too? Also, Totoro can obviously control dreams. Am I missing anything? There was also a moment at the end when the trees are moving out of the way when Catbus speeds by. Visually, that effect looks almost the same as the tree tunnel to their house in the beginning of the film. Do you think Catbus made that tunnel? Yup, that’s the deepest dive I can give you in this world.
My 3.7-year-old son will be watching My Neighbor Totoro in the next few months. Thank you for that.
Finally, give me three more Miyazaki movies and the order you think I should watch them. Yes, I will even rewatch one of the others I’ve already seen if you think I must. I think I’ve asked all the other former guests of this column to remake/recast their movie. This is the first one where I can’t imagine doing that.
Movie Score: 8/10
“Everybody, try laughing. Then whatever scares you will go away!”
Ehrlich: Jeff, I’m glad you liked the movie! In fact, I’m so glad you liked the movie that I’m willing to overlook my profound disgust in your apathy to Radiohead, who are the Hayao Miyazakis of modern rock (The Bends is their My Neighbor Totoro, Hail to the Thief is their Princess Mononoke, I could go on… but, to the great detriment of your readers, I shall restrain myself).
Anyway, questions! I love questions.
I wish I had some fun story about how I discovered this movie as a child and it opened the door to the magical kingdom of cinema, but that would be a dirty lie – as a red-blooded American child of the 1980s, that honor obviously went to Jurassic Park. In fact, My Neighbor Totoro wasn’t widely available in my formative years as a cinephile, as the film was a victim of those strange years when Blockbuster lumped all Japanese animation into the NC-17 section (which is hilarious, because there’s only two or three scenes of tentacle rape in this film). I don’t think I really got hip to Miyazaki until Miramax released a dub of Princess Mononoke in theaters. I vividly remember forcing my dad to drive me and a friend into the northern wilds of Connecticut in order to see it, just as I vividly remember him passing out as soon as Billy Bob Thornton started talking. I don’t think Totoro became a priority until the first time I visited Japan, and realized that he’s pretty much the country’s unofficial mascot. And then my niece rekindled my appreciation for it – she watches it more times each week than I ever have. And what’s a rated-G movie? I’m older than 17 and don’t have children, movie ratings don’t exist in my world.
I don’t really like whimsy – at least not since it killed my dog.
But seriously folks, I’m not really sure what “whimsy” is all about. I will say, however, that becoming hideously, hideously old has given me a newfound appreciation for movies in which hinge less on conflict than they do… well, to go with the most pretentiously pertinent example I can think of… mono no aware, a Japanese express that roughly translates to “the awareness of impermanence” or “white person writing about the ineffably bittersweet quality of many Japanese films.”
As for the “rules” of the film, I think you hit the nail on the head when talking about how the little girls are imagining their own universe. I don’t think the movie would have nearly the same charm and sense of self if its fantasy were able to fit into a neat little box. In other words, futzing with the world of My Neighbor Totoro *is* the world-building in My Neighbor Totoro. The beauty of being a kid is that things don’t have to add up. Still, I like your observation about how the path cleared by the Catbus resembles the tunnel the girls drive through in the beginning… I think that the sisters may not even be fully conscious of the role that their real lives have in shaping their dreams (and vice-versa).
Tell your 3.7-year-old son that the princesses from Frozen are SO good in a movie called In the Realm of the Senses.
Three other Miyazaki movies to watch, eh? Well, I’ll take it easy on you and only force you to revisit one of the ones you’ve already seen.
1. Porco Rosso. Imagine Casablanca meets Bojack Horseman, with all the sadness but none of the jokes.
2. Castle in the Sky. Adventure! The most purely entertaining of Miyazaki’s films. Very hard not to like (plus, the English dub features James Van Der Beek, so this is a no-brainer).
3. The Wind Rises. Deal with it.
“It was a dream, but it wasn’t a dream.”
Bayer: I am happy to hear you didn’t grow up on Miyazaki. The power of nostalgia didn’t compel you. Wow. That should be a internet fan boy meme chant or something. “The power of nostalgia compels you! The power of nostalgia compels you!” Think about all the time we could save on Twitter responses when anyone complains about a remake (because their childhood is being systematically destroyed).
My son hasn’t watched Frozen yet. He’s actually only seen eight films (in order): Winnie the Pooh (2011), Toy Story, Robin Hood (1973), Finding Nemo, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, Wall-E, and Fox and the Hound. Of those, with the power of hindsight, I would have saved Robin and Peter for a little bit later. He also never wants to rewatch films, which I’m a little surprised by. Frozen is coming though, since my wife is a little curious about it. That’s right, she hasn’t seen it either.
I shall accept your premise that Catbus should exist because of children, but just barely. I have never heard of Porco Rosso, and Bojack Horseman didn’t take when I tried to watch it, but any comparison to Casablanca is enough for me. Castle in the Sky … sounds like I should take drugs beforehand (to overcome the Beek). The Wind Rises … Fine, but my one thought (which will kill you) is that the movie would be much better if it wasn’t animated.
Your Next Assignment: Guest critic Kate Erbland (IndieWire) selected It Happened One Night (1934) starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. It is available to rent on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, and your local video store (hopefully). You can also watch it on YouTube. Your due date is August 25.Doug “panzerde” Miller, 18 October 2014
What happens when doctrinal planning meets your friendly neighborhood wargame? This.
This summer I had the good fortune to spend most of a week hanging out at Origins with the Grogheads team. During that week I participated in and observed several sessions of the wonderful Staff Wargaming sessions run by Dr. James Sterrett and Mark Graves (USA Retired). I’m going to apply the planning approach we used during these sessions to the first US campaign scenario from Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm. I’m partial to doing this with Flashpoint Campaigns because it’s really perfect for this sort of planning. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting Jim Snyder and Rob Crandall of On Target Simulations at Origins and discussing the game with them as well as using it during the Staff Wargaming sessions. I’m going to run through the process of terrain analysis using OCOKA, develop several potential enemy Courses of Action (COAs) and then plan my defense based on those COAs. To begin with, lets get an overview of the battlefield.
An overview of the battlefield in Google Earth. The Soviets will be advancing from east of Buchholz toward the western edge of the map on the route to Bremen. Note that the game map stops on an east-west line just south of Schierhorn-Tostedt.
It’s time to do some terrain analysis. I’m going to use the OCOKA method, which stands for:
Observation and fields of fire Cover and concealment Obstacles (and mines) Key Terrain Avenues of approach
Looking at the map above, the features that dominate the map are the town of Buchholz and the gap to the west through
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letter filed in Manhattan federal court by lawyers for the investors said.
Deutsche Bank has signed a binding settlement term sheet, and is negotiating a formal settlement agreement to be submitted for approval by U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni, who oversees the litigation.
A Deutsche Bank spokeswoman declined to comment. Lawyers for the investors did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Investors accused Deutsche Bank, HSBC and ScotiaBank of abusing their power as three of the world’s largest silver bullion banks to dictate the price of silver through a secret, once-a-day meeting known as the Silver Fix.
According to the lawsuit, the defendants distorted prices on the roughly $30 billion of silver and silver financial instruments traded annually, violating U.S. antitrust law.
UBS AG was also named as a defendant. Investors accused the Swiss bank of conspiring to exploit the Silver Fix, though it did not help set the benchmark.
Spokesmen for HSBC and ScotiaBank declined to comment, saying they could not discuss pending litigation. A spokeswoman for UBS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The lawsuit is among several in Manhattan federal court in which investors accused banks of conspiring to rig rates or prices in financial and commodities markets.
The case is In re: London Silver Fixing Ltd Antitrust Litigation, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 14-md-02573.Never missing an opportunity to offer illegal immigrants reprieve, the Obama administration has repeatedly used inclement weather, a virus, natural disasters and tainted water in a U.S. city to extend the perk in the last few years. This month the administration announced yet another special amnesty for victims of Hurricane Matthew.
The powerful storm slammed the southeastern United States a few weeks ago, killing dozens and causing severe flooding. News reports have confirmed deaths in North Carolina, Florida, South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia. Entire communities from central Florida to Virginia suffered power outages, major flooding and a lot of homes are still uninhabitable. There’s no disputing that Hurricane Matthew had a devastating impact in the region and its effects will linger for some time. This may call for federal emergency help, but amnesty?
The government is calling it “immigration relief” that may help people affected by unforeseen circumstances, including natural disasters such as Hurricane Matthew. Among the relief measures that will be available are work permits, “change of nonimmigrant status or extension of nonimmigrant stay” for those in the U.S. illegally and forgiveness for immigrants who blew off deportation court hearings. Thanks to Hurricane Matthew this violation is now being referred to in the following manner: “Those who received a Request for Evidence or a Notice of Intent to Deny but were unable to appear for an interview, submit evidence or respond in a timely manner.” Thanks to the hurricane, the government will offer these individuals “assistance.” Furthermore, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which sustains itself largely with customer fees, will waive the fees “due to an inability to pay,” caused by the storm, of course.
A few years ago, the Obama administration took advantage of Hurricane Sandy to waive immigration laws, including for violators of student visas like most of the 9/11 hijackers. The official announcement, issued by USCIS, stated that the government “understands that a natural disaster can affect an individual’s ability to maintain a lawful immigration status.” Among the benefits of that hurricane amnesty was “expedited adjudication of off-campus employment authorization applications for F-1 students experiencing economic hardship.” Hurricanes in other countries have also benefitted illegal aliens in the U.S. who happen to be nationals of the affected regions, even though they don’t live there.
Other natural disasters abroad have also resulted in special reprieves for illegal aliens in the U.S. Earlier this year the administration implemented a special earthquake amnesty for Ecuadorean nationals living in the U.S. illegally and the word spread like wildfire in Spanish media reports published throughout Latin America. Officially this is known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a humanitarian measure designed to temporarily shield illegal immigrants from deportation during emergencies. In a Spanish announcement, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated that it was helping Ecuadoreans in the U.S. by granting them work permits and waving visa fees of candidates show that their financial situation was hurt by the earthquake a continent away.
In the last few years Obama has granted Ebola amnesty for illegal aliens from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, earthquake amnesty for Haitians, hurricane amnesty for Hondurans and Nicaraguans and “ongoing armed conflict” amnesty for nationals of Yemen, an Islamic Middle Eastern country well known as an Al Qaeda breeding ground. Earlier this year the administration rewarded illegal aliens in the Southern and Midwestern United States “severe weather” amnesty due to the flooding that battered the region and forced rivers from Texas to Illinois to surge out of control. Let’s not forget the water amnesty rewarded to illegal aliens in Michigan in February. That reprieve was implemented after pro-immigrant Spanish media outlets demanded that DHS refrain from enforcing immigration laws in areas of Flint affected by a crisis in which the areas water got contaminated with lead from decaying old pipes.DUBAI: The next time you doze on Dubai Metro, you could get a rude awakening - and a fine.
This is what happened to a US student who visited her parents in Dubai recently. While on the train from Khalid Bin Waleed station, she dozed off and went past Ibn Battuta station where she was supposed to get off.
A ticketing inspector woke her up at Jebel Ali station, the last south-bound stop on the Red Line. Before she had the chance to regain her composure, she was handed a Dh300 fine. "She was unaware about this rule. She did not do anything bad, just fell asleep," said a friend of the passenger.
Many people are unaware that sleeping on the Metro could cost them dear. "What's the great idea about slapping a fine on someone who falls asleep on the Metro?" asked another irate passenger. "Do inspectors get commissions for slapping fines for this non-offence?"
A schedule of fines listed by the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) inside train stations does not specify people can be fined for sleeping on the train.
The general rule, however, states that a Dh300 fine will be slapped for "sleeping in the waiting areas, shelters or any place where it is prohibited". Asked why people get fined for sleeping on the train, an RTA official gave a slightly different definition: "It is the rule … [no] sleeping in the waiting areas, shelters or any place in a public transport environment. Fine will be Dh300".
Two train attendants confirmed to XPRESS that passengers caught taking a nap inside the train may be fined. But one of them gave a qualified answer: "If a passenger falls sleep and snores or disturbs others - by drooling or falling over on to someone else's space - that can invite a fine.
"As long as they don't disturb other passengers when they sleep on the train, then it's OK."
In general, passengers found harassing, causing inconvenience or discomfort to other users of the public transport face penalties, said the second attendant.
The RTA has published a code defining 31 situations that invite fines ranging from Dh100 to Dh2,000.
Metro rules are displayed on the RTA web page, the handy guide to using the Dubai Metro and http://www.rta.ae/dubai_metro/ and brochure.
Metro penaltyThis is a demonstration of about 10 minutes of programming in Tapestry 5 creating a sample application. The app is pretty basic and just lets you add URLs to a list and then vote on them-similar to the idea behind Digg or Reddit. I didn’t really explain things in great detail so it is more of a demonstration of some of the things you can do than it is a step by step tutorial.
General steps in making the application:
Create a Quickstart application from the Maven archetype.
Add the dependencies and configs for Hibernate.
Create an Item entity to store our url, title, and number of votes.
Use a BeanEditForm and onSuccess method to create Items.
Use a Loop to show the items in the database
Use an ActionLink and onActionFromVote method to count the votes
Add onValidate method to do validate the URLs.
Stick the loop in a Zone and update it with the ActionLink
The app uses the Quickstart archetype from 5.3 so it uses the new green theme.
Errata
I used @Component on the BeanEditForm, but I should have used @InjectComponent. As you can see in the comments, Howard isn’t really sure why this worked. So use @InjectComponent instead.
The zone should have gone around the ul elements instead of within it. The zone renders as a div and we shouldn’t have a div inside of the open/close ul.Right-wing MKs on Monday panned a comment attributed to US Secretary of State John Kerry to the effect that if Israel does not sign a peace agreement with the Palestinians in the near future, it will become “an apartheid state” like South Africa.
Senior Israeli officials, among them Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, remained mum on the reported comments.
Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon (Likud) told The Times of Israel that not only was Kerry’s prediction false, it could also be applied to Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank far more accurately than to Israel.
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“There are many alternatives [to a two-state solution] and there is room to consider them in the future. Today there is not a single Jew in Gaza, not a single Jewish soldier, and we still can see very well that hatred for Israel rules there,” he said.
“I think that the secretary of state saw for himself that it’s impossible to change reality; and the reality is that [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas chose to go the way of terror and Hamas. Therefore, any effort to put blame on Israel is wrong and unfair,” Danon added.
According to a recording obtained by the Daily Beast, Kerry made the comments Friday to a meeting of the Trilateral Commission, a nongovernmental organization committed to fostering closer ties between Europe, North America, and Japan.
“A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative,” Kerry told the gathering. “Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens — or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state. Once you put that frame in your mind, that reality, which is the bottom line, you understand how imperative it is to get to the two-state solution, which both leaders, even yesterday, said they remain deeply committed to.”
Also responding to Kerry’s comparison Monday was Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud), who wrote on his official Facebook page that “there are some words that must not be uttered.”
Katz said that on Holocaust Remembrance Day, a time to reflect the atrocities inflicted on Jews by the Nazis “while the world stood silent,” Kerry’s comments stood out even more starkly against the reality of the Jewish state.
“The US secretary of state describes Israel as an apartheid state. Us? The Jewish state that rose to defend itself from existential threats? Kerry, shame on you! There are some words that must not be uttered,” Katz wrote.
In the United States, Anti-Defamation League (ADL) director Abraham Foxman said the American Jewish organization was “startled and disappointed” by the report that Kerry had “used the highly inappropriate and offensive term ‘apartheid’ to warn what might become of Israel should an agreement not be reached.”
Foxman said it was “startling and deeply disappointing” that a “knowledgeable, experienced” diplomat of Kerry’s caliber would choose to “use such an inaccurate and incendiary term” to describe the politics of a country with which he is so intimately familiar.
He added that while the ADL appreciated Kerry’s “deep concern for Israel and his desires to ensure that it have a future of peace and security,” his choice of words could not be seen as an expression of friendship or support.
“If he used the repugnant language of Israel’s adversaries and accusers to express concern for Israel’s future, it was undiplomatic, unwise and unfair,” Foxman said.
A nine-month negotiating period brokered by the US is due to end on Tuesday, and US President Barack Obama said over the weekend that a “pause” in US efforts might now be necessitated.
The already teetering talks finally collapsed in recent days, since Abbas’s Fatah on Wednesday signed a unity pact with rival Hamas, and Israel suspended all negotiations a day later, saying it would not sit down with a Palestinian leadership that was shored up by the Islamist terror group.
The use of the term “apartheid” to refer to Israel is likely to anger many Israeli officials. While running for president in 2008, Obama rejected associating the label with Israel, calling it “emotionally loaded, historically inaccurate, and it’s not what I believe.”
Times of Israel staff and AFP contributed to this report.OTTAWA — Liberal, NDP and Green Party representatives were there. Even Communist and Marijuana candidates made it to Ottawa's Cube Gallery last week for an all-party debate on arts policy. But there was no Conservative representation — and should we be surprised?
A couple of nights later, the Canadian Conference of The Arts, the country's leading cultural service organization, organized another such gathering in the national capital — and again, the Tories did not attend.
Meanwhile, in Montreal, more than 70 arts organizations from across the country unveiled a major election manifesto calling for a renewed commitment by all political stripes to support the arts. Arts leaders also requested meetings with party representatives to discuss the document. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff was quick to oblige, as were NDP and Bloc Quebecois candidates. Again, there was no response from the Conservatives.
There's a pattern here, and it runs across the country. The federal Tories burned themselves badly during the 2008 campaign, thanks to Stephen Harper's ill-judged observation that "ordinary people" don't care about arts funding, and his innuendo about rich artists who attended galas to whine about their grants. Arts policy is normally not even a tiny blip on the radar of an election campaign, but this time, the prime minister's remark triggered widespread resentment. Powerful Tories who serve on boards of directors for cultural groups across the country were aghast. And Quebecers, goaded on by the Bloc Quebecois, were furious at this perceived insult to their province's cultural integrity.
Thanks to his comments, Harper lost votes in Quebec — and, possibly, seats there, as well. So the preferred damage-control strategy in this campaign is to try to pretend that the potentially volatile and dangerous cultural sector doesn't exist. Translated, this means: If you want to stay out of trouble, don't discuss the arts.
So the Tories don't really want to talk about culture, notwithstanding the fact that the sector employs more than 630,000 Canadians, who represent 7.4 per cent of the gross domestic product. They don't want to answer questions about culture. They boycott meetings devoted to culture policy. As for those Tory candidates who hate the principle of public funding of the arts and want to abolish the CBC (a Conservative creation), they're expected to keep quiet and not rock the boat.
This imposed silence is causing both exasperation and fear within an arts community concerned about looming problems on several cultural fronts. Heading this list is the Harper government's promise of a strategic review of all spending programs — and concern that federal cultural agencies such as the Canada Council, CBC and Telefilm will again be on the chopping block, or worse. Copyright reform — which could leave a creator's rights in jeopardy — is a major worry, along with the Harper government's ideologically motivated assaults on the independence of the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission.
However, what has raised the sector's anxiety level several notches higher is the Conservative response to a detailed questionnaire on arts policy that was dispatched to all the major parties on April 5 by The Canadian Conference of the Arts.Saturday night, former Dodgers announcer and Hall of Famer Vin Scully was at the Pasadena Civic Center for an event called "An Evening With Vin Scully."
At some point during the event, Scully was asked about the NFL's national anthem protests, in which players have taken a knee during the anthem to protest police brutality and racism. Scully said he "will never watch another NFL game" because of the protests.
Here is a full transcript of Scully's comments, via Deadspin:
"I have only one personal thought, really. And I am so disappointed. And I used to love, during the fall and winter, to watch the NFL on Sunday. And it's not that I'm some great patriot. I was in the Navy for a year -- didn't go anywhere, didn't do anything. But I have overwhelming respect and admiration for anyone who puts on a uniform and goes to war. So the only thing I can do in my little way is not to preach. I will never watch another NFL game."
Scully, who will turn 90 later this month, briefly served in the navy before beginning his broadcasting career. So far only one player, Athletics catcher Bruce Maxwell, has knelt during the national anthem.Letter from my SS Sup drdanni, Sucks you got shafted on the first round of secret santa, so I hope this box of stuff somewhat helps the sting. I also hope you didn't buy too much stuff since signing up. Go open the things and come back here, I'll explain why I did what I did.
First, the postcard. Just metal as fuck. done.
Second, the resin figure of a floppy. you're a pc gamer, and pretty artistic. Design the fuck out of that and make it your own. Google "so analog" if you want to learn more about that figure.
Third, skyrim. This is a bit of a cop-out gift, as it fits your rig and persona, but isn't super personal. Just hope you didn't pick it up already.
Party on.
I loved all of it!!! I can't explain how happy this package made me. I still have a giant grin on my face and my family had no idea why! Thank you so much for this, you have definitely made today the best day of the month. Happy holidays!Note in this Breitbart.com article that both Rubio and Kasich (and Jeb Bush) are on the wrong side of these guest worker programs and likely would lose a chunk of Republicans and independents now supporting Trump or Cruz to Bernie. Hillary, who supports H-1B (or at least the last time she stated a position in 2008 supports it) would not get these votes. Rubio would especially lose out here...
http://www.financialexpress.com/article/economy/h-1b-fee-hike-india-toughens-stand-mulls-taking-us-to-wto/206903/
...
Trump also wants a �requirement to hire American workers first.�
�Too many visas, like the H-1B, have no such requirement,� the Trump plan continues. �In the year 2015, with 92 million Americans outside the workforce and incomes collapsing, we need companies to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed. Petitions for workers should be mailed to the unemployment office, not USCIS.�
Other candidates, like former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, have been strong like Trump on the issue. Huckabee has hammered the issue many times�even specifically calling out Disney for its practices�on the campaign trail and in interviews with Breitbart News. Santorum has as well, laying out on the trail how he wants a 25 percent reduction in legal immigration.
Other candidates, like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), especially because of his work on the Senate �Gang of Eight� amnesty bill last Congress, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)37%, stand against American workers like Perrero and Powers with their policy positions of supporting an increase in H1B levels.
...
My prediction is that if Bernie were to win the nomination and either Rubio or Kasich were to win the nomination for the Republican side, that Bernie would gain a lot of Republicans on this issue, especially if Democrats and the Bernie campaign were to talk about it more than they have been. Republicans have been talking on this.
If Bernie faced Cruz or Trump, I think that might be the situation where Bloomberg (who upon entering the race stated he supports no limits on H-1B visas) might enter the race, and be the "rescue" for the H-1B favoring lobbyists and the corporatist media would then try to make Bloomberg sound like the "reasonable" candidate on immigration and try to make both either Trump or Cruz and Bernie in to "xenophobic" candidates opposed to immigration.
There are other issues such as free trade that are also populist in nature that could factor in the same way too, but I don't think that Rubio or Kasich are necessarily "favored" over Bernie if the Democrats campaign right on this issue to capture some of the populist righties and independents as well as the heavy populist support Bernie gets amongst Democrats now. There is some strong support from many Republicans and independents currently supporting Trump or Cruz based on their stances on immigration and in particular being against H-1B guest worker programs, a position that Trump and Cruz share with Bernie. Though some of that support is xenophobic in nature, many there are concerned about the exploitive nature of guest worker programs, which Bernie also offers to them when he also rejects these exploitive programs.Note in this Breitbart.com article that both Rubio and Kasich (and Jeb Bush) are on the wrong side of these guest worker programs and likely would lose a chunk of Republicans and independents now supporting Trump or Cruz to Bernie. Hillary, who supports H-1B (or at least the last time she stated a position in 2008 supports it) would not get these votes. Rubio would especially lose out here...My prediction is that if Bernie were to win the nomination and either Rubio or Kasich were to win the nomination for the Republican side, that Bernie would gain a lot of Republicans on this issue, especially if Democrats and the Bernie campaign were to talk about it more than they have been. Republicans have been talking on this.If Bernie faced Cruz or Trump, I think that might be the situation where Bloomberg (who upon entering the race stated he supports no limits on H-1B visas) might enter the race, and be the "rescue" for the H-1B favoring lobbyists and the corporatist media would then try to make Bloomberg sound like the "reasonable" candidate on immigration and try to make both either Trump or Cruz and Bernie in to "xenophobic" candidates opposed to immigration.There are other issues such as free trade that are also populist in nature that could factor in the same way too, but I don't think that Rubio or Kasich are necessarily "favored" over Bernie if the Democrats campaign right on this issue to capture some of the populist righties and independents as well as the heavy populist support Bernie gets amongst Democrats now.At VMware we are pleased to announce the publishing of a new fling: PowerCLI Extensions! PowerCLI Extensions gives PowerCLI users access to early access functionality by extending the core PowerCLI cmdlets to include new experimental features and gives PowerCLI customers the ability to provide early feedback. So what is included in this fling? Read on…
Instant Clone
‘Instant Clone’ also known as VM Fork or Project Fargo, gives admins the ability to rapidly clone and deploy virtual machines, as much as 10x faster than what is currently possible today. Instant Clone uses rapid in-memory cloning of running virtual machines and copy-on-write to quickly deploy clones of a parent virtual machine.
Because Instant Clone uses a private API, PowerCLI is currently the only way Instant Clone can be accessed and leveraged.
What is actually happening?
The Instant Clone capability allows admins to ‘fork’ a running virtual machine, meaning, it is not a full clone. The parent virtual machine is brought to a state where the admin will Instant Clone it, at which time the parent virtual machine is quiesced and placed in a state of a ‘parent VM’. This allows the admins to create as many “child VMs” as they please. These child VMs are created in mere seconds (or less) depending on the environment (I’ve seen child VMs created in.6 seconds). The reason these child VMs can be created so quickly is because they leverage the memory and disk of the parent VM. Once the child VM is created, any writes are placed in delta disks.
When the parent virtual machine is quiesced, a prequiesce script cleans up certain aspects of the parent VM while placing it in its parent state, allowing the child VMs to receive unique MAC addresses, UUID, and other information when they are instantiated. When spinning up the child VMs a post clone script can be used to set properties such as the network information of the VM, and/or kick off additional scripts or actions within the child VM.
Specific information can be passed to the child VM for the post clone script to use to quickly perform actions on the virtual machine as it powers on (I use the term power-on because when the VM is cloned it is shown in vSphere as ‘Powered-Off’ however, when you “Power-On” the VM, it is already in its fully running state, there is no boot up). If you assigned a -PostCloneScript to the child VM, when it is Powered-On, the script will execute. Values such as network properties, can be passed to the Child VM through configuration parameters stored in the VMX file. These can be set with an array where the left-side is the name of the property and the right-side is the value:
$configSettings = @{
‘ipaddress’ = “10.134.14.75”;
‘netmask’ = ‘255.255.255.0’;
‘gateway’ = ‘10.134.14.253’;
}
When included in the New-InstantCloneVM cmdlet’s -ConfigParams, they will be added to it’s VMX file:
$childForkVm = New-InstantCloneVM -ParentVM $parentforkVm -Name “2012ChildClone$_” -ConfigParams $configSettings
Because of VM Tools, these values can then be retrieved from within the Child VM using the VMware Tools RPCTool, which can read guest information from the VMX file (using the example configparameters above):
“%programfiles%\vmware\vmware tools\rpctool” “info-get guestinfo.fork.ipaddress”
“%programfiles%\vmware\vmware tools\rpctool” “info-get guestinfo.fork.netmask”
“%programfiles%\vmware\vmware tools\rpctool” “info-get guestinfo.fork.gateway”
In the demo below you will see a walkthrough of verifying the intended-parent VM’s network settings, and that the VM is in the desired state to instant clone. It then walks through the PowerCLI commands to create 9 child VMs off of the parent VM.
Get PowerCLI Extensions
On my equipment it took me 15 seconds to create 9 Instant Clone child VMs of a Windows Server 2012 Parent VM. Times will vary based on a number of factors including the number of configuration parameters saved to each virtual machine, hardware, etc.
You can download the user guide and PowerCLI Extensions module from the VMware Flings site HERE. I strongly recommend reading the user guide and following the step-by-step instructions for getting started.
VSAN cmdlets removed
Originally the PowerCLI Extensions module included VSAN cmdlets. As of PowerCLI 6.0 R1 those cmdlets have been removed from PowerCLI Extensions and added into PowerCLI.
Stay tuned for the next post. which will be a tutorial of how to use the Instant Clone functionalityIf you haven’t already filed your federal taxes, today’s the deadline. We at Frolic Hawaii would like to do our part to ease the pain. We’ve rounded up our favorite old-school cheeseburgers at local diners, drive-ins and yes, dives — all of them $4 or under.
I’ll admit, when it comes to cheeseburgers, I’m purely a fast-food chain specialist. So in the spirit of supporting local, I set out on a quest. After this briefest glimpse below of four cheeseburgers in one night in one stomach, you’ll find Our Top 6 in no particular order, except that my pick is at the very end.
Loco Moco Drive Inn
Loco Moco Drive Inn
When Eric asked for a cheap eats, no-frills burger, I immediately knew where I would recommend. Coming in right at the $4 mark, this sizable offering hits the spot when you’re looking for that cheesy, meaty burger to fill you up. The patty is seasoned in a way that reminds me of Mom’s Lipton French onion soup mix in ground beef. They then slide it between buttered sesame seed buns with a slice of cheese and a special sauce that has the creaminess of thousand island dressing. Each bite is a step closer to heaven and triple bypass surgery, but life is short. Skip the salad and eat a cheeseburger. — Grant “Chuggy Bear” Shindo
Multiple locations on Oahu • locomocodriveinn.com
Shige’s Saimin Stand
Shige’s Saimin Stand
For $3.15, this cheeseburger delivers full-flavored goodness in every bite. The perfectly melted slice of cheese binds the juicy beef patty with the buttery toasted bun. It’s simple, delicious, a little messy and very satisfying — especially when eaten together with a bowl of Shige’s saimin. — Morgan Kaya
70 Kukui St., Ste. 108 • Wahiawa • 621-3621
Rainbow Drive-In
Rainbow Drive-In
I’ve always thought a cheap and humble drive-in cheeseburger will satisfy you in more ways than a big and fancy one can. Although it’s new to my burger repertoire, Rainbow’s cheeseburger deluxe packs a decent amount of flavor into its $3.45 price point – a homemade patty charred on the flattop comes stacked with lettuce, tomato and onion and a shmear of sauce on a simple bun. Paired with a slushie float and a bag of fries, it takes me back to the ’60s childhood I never had. — Thomas Obungen
3308 Kanaina Ave. • Kapahulu • 737-0177 • rainbowdrivein.com
Okata Bento
This cheeseburger stays on the brain. You can phone in your order, but I like the wait while it’s cooked to order by Mr. Okata himself. Because Okata’s is literally a takeout window in a tiny hall with no seating, you stand on the sidewalk with other random hungry strangers while it’s cooked — patty and buns on the grill, the aromas wafting onto Waialae Avenue, the homey ketchup-mayo dressings, the paper bag it comes in. The price has gone up in recent years, to $2.75 now, but it’s still the flavor of always. — Mari Taketa
3616 Waialae Ave. • Kaimuki • 737-6063
W&M Bar-B-Q Burger
It’s very nostalgic because the way these burgers taste today is how they tasted 20 years ago. It also reminds me of places that are no longer around like Kenny’s Burger House and Burgerland. And even the deluxe with cheese, lettuce, onions and tomato is $4. — Ed Morita
3104 Waialae Ave. • Kaimuki • 734-3350
Jane’s Fountain
Jane’s Fountain
A magical trifecta where the sum is greater than its parts: a slice of cheese, a hamburger patty, a humble bun. Plus lettuce and some secret sauce. Nothing compelling, right? But combine it all and a choir of angels sings. The warm and fluffy bun is a tactile prelude. Molten cheese oozing along the sides of a patty browned to perfection is a visual feast. Rivulets of fatty juices glisten. Bite in and the flavors dance like there’s no tomorrow, lingering on your tongue. At $4.05 this just tops our price point. What can I say? You know you’ve come home. — Eric Baranda
1719 Liliha St. • Liliha • 533-1238
Check out more rankings on Our Top 5 page.REUTERS/Anthony Bolante Yesterday was election day in what amounted to one of the most boring election days in recent memory. Colorado, however, actually had a couple of interesting bills on the table.
For starters, the northern counties decided not to secede from the state in an attempt to form a new state that would be known as North Colorado. The secession vote was kind of a non-starter anyways though, since state voters don't have the authority to create new U.S. states at will.
Where things really got interesting is in the marijuana vote.
Tuesday marked the one-year anniversary of Colorado and Washington's historic votes to legalize marijuana for adults for recreational use. The 2012 vote gave Colorado one year to decide how to regulate the substance—whether to implement a sales tax at at the retail level, and what to do with all the new revenue.
Voters decided to apply a fairly steep tax on legal pot, and that the money will be used to pay for new school construction. The taxes include a 10% state tax that retailers must pay as a premium beyond the 2.9% standard state tax, and there's also a 15% tax retailers have to pay to suppliers. All in, it's a nearly 28% tax imposed on pot.
Which seems steep, but the money will go to good use: The first $40 million in revenue will go to new school construction according to BuzzFeed, and remaining revenue will go to implementing marijuana regulation itself. The state estimates that $3.5 million will be needed to upgrade its computer systems to handle the pot regulation infrastructure. But after that, I the possibilities for new revenue are sky high.
And this isn't even mentioning the savings in law enforcement spending Colorado will realize by not arresting and prosecuting pot crimes.
All in all it's kind of a dream scenario for progressives: Decriminalization of a fairly harmless substance, a tax that everyone agrees on for the common good, and then spending that money on education. Quite a trifecta. Well done, Colorado. Oh, and good on you for staying in the Union.The ice core drilling camp at 13,000 feet on Alaska’s Mount Hunter, where 18 feet of snow falls each year, up from eight feet before the Industrial Revolution. (Erich Osterberg)
A team of scientists presented surprising data on Tuesday suggesting that even as the state of Alaska has warmed up extremely rapidly in recent years, snowfall in the iconic Denali National Park has increased dramatically during the era of human-driven global warming.
The researchers from Dartmouth College, the University of Maine at Orono and the University of New Hampshire set up a camp at 13,000 feet atop Mount Hunter, within view of Denali, previously known as Mount McKinley, the highest peak in the United States. There, they drilled into the snow to extract lengthy cores of ice that provided a historical record of snowfall patterns going back more than 1,000 years — and found a marked change over the past 150 years or so.
“We were shocked, frankly, at just how much snowfall had increased,” said Erich Osterberg, a Dartmouth researcher who was one of the study’s authors.
The ice cores showed an enormous upswing in the rates of snowfall beginning around the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, when humans began burning fossil fuels to produce energy in large quantities. The increase over time represented more than a doubling in the amount of snow.
“Snowfall before the Industrial Revolution averaged about eight feet of fresh snow a year at this site, and now we get over 18 feet of fresh snow,” Osterberg said.
Here’s a figure from the study, published in Nature Scientific Reports, capturing that sharp upswing, which Osterberg says is a classic “hockey stick” graph:
The Mount Hunter accumulation record. Annual (light gray line) and 21-year smoothed (black line) accumulation time series from A.D. 810 to present, constrained by 21-year smoothed error envelopes (blue shading) inclusive of stochastic, peak position and layer-thinning model uncertainties, including the total uncertainty range among all four modeling approaches. (Winski, et al., Nature Scientific Reports.)
“We can say confidently that the amount of snowfall we see today has never been seen previously during that whole 1,200-year record,” Osterberg said. “That we are way outside the range of what was natural conditions before the Industrial Revolution.”
Climate change increases the volume of precipitation, because a warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor. But it isn’t supposed to increase it this much.
The researchers attribute part of the snowfall increase to the atmosphere’s retaining more water vapor, but also say that the warming up of the tropical Pacific Ocean changed atmospheric patterns, leading more storms to track across Alaska — thus accounting for the one-two punch.
Yet despite all of this, Osterberg said, Alaska’s glaciers are still widely retreating at lower altitudes — even though they are being fed with heavy volumes of snow at high altitudes, where there is little melt.
Two years ago, scientists reported that Alaska’s glaciers were losing 75 billion tons of ice annually.
That’s not surprising given that Alaska has warmed about 3 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 60 years as an average, with the most recent years even warmer.
“The Alaska glaciers are the fastest-melting in the world,” Osterberg said. “That’s all driven by the summertime warming, despite the fact that snowfall has doubled.”
Two scientists who commented on the study for The Washington Post highlighted its demonstration of how long-term warming can interact with other weather factors to create compounding effects.
“This appears to be a classic situation where we are seeing linkages among local, regional and hemispheric phenomena,” said David Robinson, a climate scientist at Rutgers University who tracks patterns in snow cover. “All are likely at play here, and there seemingly is ample room to explain this change in terms of both natural variability and anthropogenic influences acting at all these scales.”
“You’ve always got different things going on,” added Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. “Warming effects that influence how much moisture the atmosphere can hold, but also shifts in weather patterns.”
Serreze said the snowfall changes documented in the study are just part of a much larger set of changes to the Arctic’s hydrological system, which includes earlier spring melting of mountain glaciers and snowpack, leading to large river discharges to the sea, and more odd events — such as rain falling atop snow, turning it into ice.
The new work, Osterberg said, highlights that
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!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.Evo 2015’s Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 tournament presented one of the biggest upsets ever, with Team Black Eye’s Nicolas “Kane Blueriver” Gonzalez taking a first-place finish back to Chile as the first non-American champion. However, some have pointed out that he defeated only one of the so called “gods of Marvel” at the event, Evil Geniuses’ Justin Wong, making his victory less-than-impressive in their minds.
At Winter Brawl X, Gonzalez will try to put those doubts to rest against Panda Global’s Ryan “Filipino Champ” Ramirez, the Evo 2012 champion, in a first-to-fifteen exhibition match.
In a way, there couldn’t be a better matchup than this. With his status as an underdog thanks to rocking a team of Hulk, Haggar, and Sentinel, Gonzalez has become something of a symbol, showing that Marvel is no longer just an American game. Meanwhile, with his choice of high-level teams that emphasize calculated, defensive play, as well as his penchant for mind games in and out of competition, Ramirez has garnered a reputation of being a a bit of a heel in the community.
Will Kane Blueriver’s big body team be able to slay another god, or will Filipino Champ’s craftiness and cunning overcome the South American challenger? Feel free to take part in our poll below, and be sure to tune into Winter Brawl X, scheduled for February 26-28, to catch it all live.
Source: Big E GamingBUFFALO, N.Y. - The Buffalo region of eastern New York got hit with one of the worst early snowstorms in recent memory for residents. Up to 6 feet of snow blanketed some parts, and more snow is expected to come piling in Wednesday evening.
But the Buffalo Bills have a game to play Sunday in Ralph Wilson Stadium, so they're pulling out all the stops.
The team's twitter account announced it is offering $10 per hour and game tickets for fans willing to grab a shovel and clear out the stadium.
They say the job won't be small.
Just how much snow needs to be removed? 220,000 TONS, enough to fill the @ADPROSports Complex 8 times over. pic.twitter.com/VtriPCGSMb — Buffalo Bills (@buffalobills) November 19, 2014
PHOTO: The inside of Ralph Wilson stadium under a thick blanket of snow and blowing drifts. pic.twitter.com/7Hg3gFcOMI — Buffalo Bills (@buffalobills) November 19, 2014
If area residents are worried they can't grab their shovel and hop in the truck quick enough to score seats to watch the 5-5 Bills host the 2-8 New York Jets, the team said not to worry.
"We can't have too many people helping," said Andy Major, vice president of operations. "We won't be turning anyone away."
#Bills VP Andy Major: "Removing snow and having snow fall at the same time, we'll go 24/7, triple shifts to be ready" #LetsGoBuffalo — Buffalo Bills (@buffalobills) November 19, 2014
There is at the moment a driving ban in the area, and large swaths of interstate remain closed. Additionally, it's not clear how much snow will fall in the second of two storms at the stadium, so there is a chance Sunday's game could be moved.
The @NFL, not the #Bills, will determine contingency plans if RWS cannot host Sunday's game. — Buffalo Bills (@buffalobills) November 19, 2014
The Bills' players, who hail from all over the country, seemed to be enjoying the unusual-even-for-that-region dumping of snow.
Wonder if that piece of mail I've been waiting on will get here soon? pic.twitter.com/bohwsSf0wl — Eric Wood (@EWood70) November 19, 2014
Operation find my car! pic.twitter.com/8QN6xmMmVO — Phillip Tanner (@PTanner34) November 19, 2014The Centers for Disease Control announced late Friday that women who are pregnant or trying to become pregnant should reconsider travel to Brazil this summer for the 2016 Olympics.
Earlier on Friday, the CDC held a press briefing with updated information on the current status of Zika virus research. Zika virus, typically causing a mild illness in people who contract it, has been linked to much more serious conditions including microcephaly and Guillain-Barré Syndrome.
SEE ALSO: Zika virus presents female Olympic athletes with awful dilemma
"Because of the Zika outbreak, CDC recommends that pregnant women consider not traveling to the Olympics," CDC said in a statement.
Here are the CDC's recommendations for travel:
Women who are pregnant:
Consider not going to the Olympics.
If you must go to the Olympics, talk to your doctor or healthcare provider first; if you travel, you should strictly follow steps to prevent mosquito bites during your trip.
If you have a male partner who goes to the Olympics, you may be at risk for sexual transmission of Zika. Either use condoms the right way, every time, or do not have sex during your pregnancy.
Women who are trying to become pregnant:
Before you travel, talk to your health care provider about your plans to become pregnant and the risk of Zika virus infection during your trip.
You and your male partner should strictly follow steps to prevent mosquito bites.
Microcephaly is a condition in newborns in which the brain is underdeveloped, and the head is smaller in size. Guillain-Barré Syndrome can cause paralysis for periods of time.
It was only six weeks ago that the CDC announced its first travel advisory for parts of South and Central America, and the Caribbean, in relation to Zika. The disease is typically spread by mosquito, and more than two dozen countries have reported cases of local transmission.
Since then, CDC Director Tom Frieden says that three developments have been observed. Two of those developments were expected: The disease has spread rapidly in those regions, and hundreds of U.S. travelers have returned with symptoms of contracting Zika virus.
A third development was not expected, however: Frieden says the CDC has been surprised at numerous reports of sexual transmission of Zika virus. In at least Texas and Oregon, cases of Zika have been reported in women who had not traveled, but who had had sex with male partners who had recently traveled to affected countries. Sexual transmission complicates prevention, and the CDC has advised men who have symptoms or have had symptoms in the past week to avoid sex with pregnant partners or to consistently use condoms.
Since the January announcement, the question of whether Zika would affect the 2016 Olympics in Brazil has been at the forefront. Brazil is spending billions on hosting the games, and has tied tourism promotion efforts to the event.
For example, Brazil is waiving the visa requirement that typically costs tourists a couple hundred dollars.
The threat of Zika, however, could have an impact on attendance at the games. Not just with pregnant women, but also with women of childbearing age, and now potentially with men who could be concerned about passing on any virus to a partner at home.
It is also not yet known if Zika virus could impact attendance of female athletes.
The time period in which Zika virus is a threat to fetuses is not yet known.
"We're literally learning more about Zika every day," Frieden said.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler (right) had made net neutrality a centerpiece of his tenure. Image: U.S. Mission Photo/Eric Bridiers/Flickr
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Tuesday upheld the legality of the Federal Communications Commission's landmark net neutrality policy, in a resounding vindication of federal rules designed to ensure that all content on the internet is equally accessible.
"Today's ruling is a victory for consumers and innovators who deserve unfettered access to the entire web, and it ensures the internet remains a platform for unparalleled innovation, free expression and economic growth," FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a statement.
"After a decade of debate and legal battles, today's ruling affirms the Commission's ability to enforce the strongest possible internet protections—both on fixed and mobile networks—that will ensure the internet remains open, now and in the future."
Public interest advocates say the FCC's policy is necessary to maintain the internet as an open platform for free speech, economic growth, and civic empowerment. The nation's largest broadband companies challenged the rules, arguing that the FCC, which has twice before seen its open internet policy thrown out in federal court, overstepped its authority.
"Today, the Court of Appeals has affirmed the FCC's authority to protect consumers and innovation on the internet," Gene Kimmelman, President and CEO of Public Knowledge, said in a statement. "This decision should lay to rest what has become a needlessly contentious issue. Now consumers will be assured the right to full access to the internet without interference from gatekeepers."
Open internet advocates argue that without net neutrality, the emergence of the next Facebook or YouTube might be imperiled, because broadband providers could discriminate against such services in favor of their own offerings. Free speech advocates say that the FCC's policy is necessary to maintain the internet as an open platform for political organizing and activism.
Today's ruling is a victory for consumers and innovators.
In their legal challenge, the nation's largest cable and phone companies argued that the FCC overstepped its authority in 2015 by reclassifying internet service providers, or ISPs, as "common carriers" under Title II of the Communications Act.
By doing so, the FCC claimed the authority to apply utility-style regulations originally designed for phone service to broadband internet access, in order to prohibit blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization deals, in which ISPs like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T favor certain content to the detriment of rivals.
"Today's ruling proves the FCC chose the correct legal path to protect internet users from discrimination by AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and other broadband providers," Free Press President and CEO Craig Aaron said in a statement. "The agency can now stay focused on safeguarding the open communications networks that power our democracy and our economy and on promoting broadband competition, privacy and affordable internet access for everyone."
Leading up to the verdict, net neutrality advocates were optimistic, in part because the DC Circuit signalled in 2014 that the FCC would be on stronger legal ground if it reclassified broadband companies as common carriers. The FCC decided to follow what it called the court's "roadmap," and in doing so, prevailed.
For FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, the court ruling amounts to a vindication of the centerpiece of an ambitious agenda defined by his surprising willingness to challenge powerful industry interests.
Wheeler, who spent decades as a wireless and cable industry lobbyist, has emerged as an unlikely public interest hero, after fighting for strong net neutrality rules, encouraging community broadband networks, and working to expand internet access in low-income communities. (One blot on his Wheeler's record, according to some public interest groups? His support for Charter's mega-merger with Time Warner Cable.)
Even as the broadband industry mulls an appeal of its DC Circuit defeat to the Supreme Court, many of the nation's cable and telecom giants are experimenting with ways to get around the FCC's policy. One such practice, known as "zero-rating," undermines net neutrality, according to open internet advocates, because it involves broadband companies favoring certain services by not counting them against monthly data caps.
Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress are waging a relentless campaign to undermine FCC policies on net neutrality and several other issues, including the agency's Lifeline expansion and and its support for community broadband networks. Just last month, GOP lawmakers ignored a veto threat from Obama and passed legislation that open internet advocates say would eviscerate the FCC's net neutrality rules.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.A new bill for an official day to honor the victims of Ireland's Great Hunger is the result of a 16-year campaign by a Dublin taxi driver.
A retired Dublin taxi driver’s dream that Ireland would honor the forgotten victims of the Great Famine with a dignified memorial each year is set to come to fruition when new legislation is finally enacted by the Irish parliament early in the New Year.
Michael Blanch has campaigned since 2003 for his country to hold a National Famine Commemoration Day on the same weekend each year to remember the million people who died and well over a million who emigrated to North America between 1845 and 1849.
Until now, there has been no official date in the Irish calendar to remember the greatest disaster in Irish history, but from 2018 the annual event is set to take place on the second Sunday in May each year.
The potato blight of the 1840s, when Ireland was under the rule of the British Empire, decimated the island’s population, almost wiping out the Irish language and leading to decades of mass emigration which continued throughout the 19th century.
Blanch told IrishCentral this week that he came up with the idea of a national remembrance day after being struck by how there was nothing to remind people of the Great Famine when he used to drive throughout the capital city 15 years ago.
“People used to sit into my cab and ask me about the Great Famine,” he said. “I realized that there was nothing to show them in Dublin. There was nothing about the Great Famine in the National Museum of Ireland and this was before the striking statues were built down by the River Liffey, on the quays.
4
“I thought it was crazy that the victims of the famine weren’t given the respect they deserved, as though our history was too painful for people to want to remember them. So myself and my wife, Betty, set up our own little commemoration in 2003.”
Only Michael and Betty took part in that first commemoration 14 years ago. Eventually, after he began a vocal campaign, the Irish Government appointed him to a National Famine Memorial Committee.
Events have alternated between the four provinces of Ireland throughout the past decade, but Michael was upset that there was no fixed date on the calendar. People could not plan in advance for the event, which could take place anytime between May and September.
He felt this diminished the significance of the event, even though it has been attended by either the President of Ireland or the Taoiseach in recent years.
“It’s so important that Ireland has one day in the year when people can stop to remember the Great Famine,” he said. “There are events to commemorate the famine victims in Canada, London, and Liverpool, but until now we never knew when it would be held in Ireland. It moved around on the calendar, between May and September.”
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Blanch points out that some great work is being done in other areas. The Lumper Schools Project, which involves planting potatoes in memory of famine victims, has been rolled out at primary schools across Ireland.
A ‘marker project’, funded by Bill Fahey, involves the marking of unmarked famine graves which are dotted all across the country.
He is also delighted that, following a decade of campaigning, the National Museum of Ireland will open a permanent exhibition in memory of the Great Famine (An Gorta Mor) in 2018.
A commemoration is scheduled to take place at University College Cork in May 2018. New legislation introduced through the Dail by Deputy Colm Brophy (Fine Gael) will finally fix the date of the event for the second Sunday in May each year.
Deputy Brophy first brought the new legislation before the Dail in February of this year and admits there has been a “serious hold up” with the passing of the bill through the national parliament.
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However, he now believes that the legislation will have passed by January or February of next year, ensuring that the National Famine Commemoration Day has a permanent place in the calendar on the second Sunday in May.
“This bill has had cross-party support in February and I’m surprised it has taken so long to go through the Dail,” said Deputy Brophy. “This is something that is relevant to every town and village across Ireland.
Deputy Brophy said it was important that the annual commemoration took place during the school year, so that Irish children could learn about the darkest period in Irish history.
He said that Irish people needed to remember their past appropriately so that they could understand where they came from.
The Great Famine also gave young people in Ireland a greater understanding of why so many Irish people set sail on the ‘coffin ships’ for new lives in the United States and Canada.
“This was a watershed in our history,” he told IrishCentral. “The famine was not inevitable, but a combination of circumstances and an inept response by the British authorities ensured that it turned into one of the greatest tragedies of the 19th century.
“Our population still has not recovered from the Great Famine. In Ireland, we used to celebrate those who left terrible poverty behind to make new lives in the United States, but we didn’t seem to want to acknowledge the horror of the thousands upon thousands who died.”
Ciaran Tierney is a journalist, blogger, and digital storyteller, based in Galway, Ireland. Find him on Facebook here
This article was submitted to the IrishCentral contributors network by a member of the global Irish community. To become an IrishCentral contributor click here.Description: Leaked footage of a meeting where Elysium gold sellers tell Crogge the server has been taken over by WhiteKidney and other staff. 100% real.
Our gold farmers were botting
in Azshara, Feralas
and Winterspring
but their accounts have all been banned
and all efforts to revert the bans have failed.
Just use my root access
to unban them again.
Lord Crogge
WhiteKidney...
WhiteKidney has taken control of Elysium.
He plans to copy the database and start a new server called "Light's Hope".
Zhang Wei, Wang Min and Li Jun stay - the rest of you plebs get out.
How the fuck did WhiteKidney find out?!
I gave you all access to my account to make sure the logs were clean!
I am the only reason you and your slaves aren't gutter trash anymore!
I should have partnered with the Vietnamese gold farmers instead.
At least they make good rolls!
How am I going to make money now?!
I spent months building everyone's trust!
I had half the community believing I was a fucking god!
Lord Crogge, some players still think you are the tits.
What good is that if I can't make money off them?!
Lord Crogge, we could infiltrate the new server?
WhiteKidney is too high and mighty to allow that!
He'd find and ban us!
And what kind of a name is "Light's Hope"?
Everyone knows Paladins are trash in Vanilla.
I mean what does the retribution spec even do?!
They should have called it "Gay Bar".
Because "Light's Hope" is gayer than a cock flavoured lollipop!
They could have at least called it something good like "Barrens Chat"!
Now everyone will think WhiteKidney has saved the day, instead of being the filthy traitor he is!
All I wanted was to milk some filthy casuals.
They would have bought gold anyway.
This way I could control the free market!
Now there will no Auction House supply of mats.
WhiteKidney doesn't understand how hard it is in Germany!
Last week I had to eat a frozen cat because it was too cold to go to the shops.
Not even ketchup made the little fucker taste good.
Now I won't even be able to afford to keep the power on!
I feel more cucked than men in Russian porn!
It's okay Shenna, he'll find another way to buy you a soul.
I've spent my entire life with a tiny penis.
I would have been able to afford an enlargement in just two more months.
Now I'll stay a virgin.
He won't get away with this.
I'll make up some bullshit to tell the community and reopen the servers.
Some dumb noobs will still log on even after losing weeks of character progress.
Now go away so I can wank to nudes of Shenna.No Comments
Nissan Reveals 2015 NP300 Navara (Basically, the Frontier)
Nissan teased a new pickup truck last week, and we all mused whether it was a Frontier or a Titan beneath the sheet. We thought, oh, it can’t be a Titan because they don’t sell those outside of North America and surely Nissan wouldn’t be teasing a truck that they won’t be marketing prominently in the United States. Well, the cover has come off, and we’ve got…the Nissan NP300 Navara. So yeah, it’s basically the 2015 Frontier, but they’re going with the global market name and playing up its presence in the Thai marketplace. Know why, America? Because IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU.
Apologies for that.
The twelth-gen NP300 Navara is on full, 360-degree display at Nissan Thailand’s website and in this fun reveal video from the company’s Bangkok unveiling.
Related: 2014 Nissan Frontier and Titan Rank on ‘Top 9 Most Fuel Efficient Trucks” List
The 2015 NP300 Navara gets higher ground clearance, a lower roofline, decreased curb weight, and a refined interior and exterior. It will be made available with a variety of body types and powertrains (including a new turbocharged 2.5-liter DOHCC inline-four diesel), as well as in all-wheel drive and two-wheel drive formats and with a seven-speed automatic or six-speed manual transmission.
These are confirmed for the Asian markets, but it is less certain if these options will be making the jump when the Navara becomes the Frontier. Here’s hoping that Nissan’s partnership with Cummins, as displayed in the Frontier Diesel Runner Concept, will come into play in some form or fashion.
Related: Frontier is One of the Few Midsize Pickup Trucks Left!
“The Nissan New NP300 Navara sets new benchmarks for performance, toughness, versatility and running costs; all the qualities that are critical for pickup users,” said Andy Palmer, Nissan’s Chief Planning Officer.
“We are confident that the all-new Nissan NP300 Navara will go straight to the top of pickup buyers’ shopping lists in all of the markets where we will sell it. Its combination of striking looks, efficient performance, robustness and durability will allow owners to work and play harder – enriching their daily lives. The NP300 Navara continues the legacy of Nissan’s long pickup history and, like all Nissan models, it will deliver excitement through innovation.”
Welcome to the world – The brand new NP300 Navara, launched just now in Bangkok, Thailand. pic.twitter.com/gz71e5imRc — Andy Palmer (@NissanAndy) June 11, 2014
The 2015 Navara will also get on-the-fly 4×4 shifting, Vehicle Dynamic Control, Active Brake Limited Slip, Hill Start Assist, and Hill Descent Control, which will likely make the transition into the next-gen Frontier.
Gallery: 2015 Nissan NP300 NavaraThearon W. Henderson/Getty Images
The San Francisco 49ers finished the 2012 season with the 11th-highest scoring offense in the NFL, averaging a full 66 yards fewer per game than the New England Patriots, who finished in first place. Despite that ranking, a legitimate argument could be made that the 49ers had the best offense in the league once Colin Kaepernick became the starting quarterback.
With Kaepernick, the offense averaged 28.8 points per game in the regular season and the playoffs. In the games that Alex Smith started (and finished), the 49ers averaged 23.6 points per game.
Kaepernick's impact was so great that he was almost immediately pushed into that class of superstar youngsters from the 2012 rookie class. In fact, not only was Kaepernick put on the same level as Andrew Luck, Russell Wilson and Robert Griffin III, one analyst even singled him out as a player with the potential to finish amongst the greatest players ever to play his position.
It was ESPN's Ron Jaworski who stated, "I truly believe Colin Kaepernick could be one of the greatest quarterbacks ever. I love his skill set. I think the sky's the limit."
From a sheer physical perspective, there is no arguing with Jaworski's statement.
Kaepernick has that rare type of athleticism that allows him to do almost anything. He can probably outrun any player in the league in a straight sprint, but he also has the acceleration and balance so that every bit of his straight-line speed translates onto the football field.
As a passer, he can flick the ball further than some quarterbacks do with a heave, while the velocity of his passes is on that elusive Cam Newton and Aaron Rodgers level.
Once that physical talent was inserted into an offense with probably the best offensive line in the league, an overwhelmingly talented group of running backs, arguably the best receiving tight end in the NFL, an emerging young star at the wide receiver position and probably the best offensive coaching staff in the NFL, it was no surprise that the unit flourished.
It's easy to judge an offense by how many points it produces. It's not always an accurate judgment, however.
The 49ers' goal on offense isn't to score 40-plus points per game. That's not the way they have set up their team. Instead, the 49ers use their offense to control the game by methodically moving the ball down the field. This allows them to minimize turnovers and control the clock, while still putting a lot of points on the board when they need to.
In the modern NFL, teams are desperate to build complex and incisive passing attacks. The 49ers haven't gone in that direction. As lauded as Kaepernick is for his arm talent, the 49ers offense is very much committed to building the attack on the strength of their running game.
The most celebrated aspect of that running game is undoubtedly the team's read-option package.
Read-Option
Although it's a massive talking point for most sections of the media, the 49ers didn't use read-option plays that often last season. From the time Kaepernick took over as a starter against the Chicago Bears, he played 640 total snaps (via Pro Football Focus). Of those 640 snaps, 69 were definitely read-option plays.
While it wasn't used that often, the read-option was very effective for the 49ers. More often than not, teams forced the play inside to the running back, but even when they did that, Kaepernick's outside threat helped the offense average over five yards per carry.
More damage was caused when defenses allowed the quarterback to take the ball. Kaepernick had four runs of at least 10 yards from option plays, with two of those four going for at least 50 yards. In comparison, the 49ers backs had less than double that number on nearly four times as many attempts.
On one play against the St. Louis Rams, the 49ers ran a triple option with Ted Ginn, a wide receiver, running behind the line of scrimmage. On that play, Kaepernick missed the pitch to Ginn, resulting in a 12-yard loss and a touchdown for the Rams.
That was the only play of the season when the 49ers involved a wide receiver on an option play. At least it was the only time when a wide receiver was used as a running option.
The above chart makes it clear that forcing the ball into the running back's hands is the best option against the 49ers. However, like any analytical chart, the defense has a major impact on those results.
On this chart, the previous numbers are broken down on an opponent-by-opponent basis.
It's clear that the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks defended the read-option better than any other team.
The Saints gave up fewer yards per attempt, but they also allowed the 49ers to score a touchdown in the first quarter. On that play, Saints defensive end Will Smith didn't commit to Kaepernick or the running back, allowing Kaepernick to escape outside for an untouched seven-yard score. The Rams scored that touchdown against the 49ers, but they didn't face another option play in the whole game.
Against the Patriots and Seahawks, Kaepernick was forced to hand the ball off to the running back on every single read-option play. The Patriots faced 10 read-option plays, holding the 49ers to gains of three or fewer yards on five of them.
Discipline, aggression and an abundance of talent is required to contain the option offense.
Every member of the front seven must be very disciplined to maintain the integrity of the defense. The edge defender to the option side of the play must be in a position to force the ball to the running back, but also in a position that allows him to prevent any cutback from the back.
The linebackers inside must be decisive at the snap to immediately attack the line of scrimmage, while the interior defensive linemen can't get trapped upfield.
On the above plays, the Patriots show off discipline, aggression and the talent on the defensive line not to be pushed off the line of scrimmage. The 49ers gained a total of two yards on these plays.
When the 49ers had their longest run of the game, it was the Patriots' linebackers who let the defense down.
The 49ers came out in a formation that took them away from any read-option plays. Kaepernick was under center, with Gore behind him and a tight end to either side of the formation. Because Kaepernick has to turn from underneath center and go back to Gore, he can't make any read on the defense before he hands the ball off.
Therefore, he can't run the read-option.
It's 1st-and-10, yet the Patriots have come out in a 4-3 formation with their two defensive ends standing up. Chandler Jones is lined up over Vernon Davis in the slot, with Rob Ninkovich lined up over Bruce Miller on the other side. Because the linebackers are expecting to have more time to react to any run plays, they have lined up in deeper positions at the snap.
As they often do, the 49ers shift their offense into a new formation before the snap. Kaepernick drops back to create a pistol look, with Miller and Davis also dropping into the backfield. The Patriots react by motioning one of their linebackers to the edge of the offensive line and by pushing Jones infield so he is lined up across from the 49ers' left guard.
The Patriots now have five defensive players at the line of scrimmage, but their other two linebackers still have the same level of depth they initially lined up with. Because the 49ers essentially have seven blockers (five offensive linemen and the two players in the backfield alongside Kaepernick), the Patriots are outnumbered at the line of scrimmage still.
As the read defender, Ninkovich plays his assignment as well as he could have. He doesn't rush down the field or come inside too much, meaning that he forces the ball into the running back's hands while still being in a position to stop any cutback.
While Ninkovich's hesitation actually benefits the defense and is there by defensive design, the hesitation of the two inside linebackers is unwanted. That hesitation allows Alex Boone and Anthony Davis to double-team defensive tackle Kyle Love, highlighted by the red circle.
Love is pushed back into the two waiting linebackers, allowing Gore an easy read to completely take one of them out of the play. The end result is an easy eight-yard gain.
Had either linebacker been closer to the line of scrimmage, Love wouldn't have faced a double-team and the Patriots could have created a wall to force Gore back towards their free linebacker.
Therefore, it's not only important for the edge defender to be disciplined and aggressive; defending the read-option needs all pieces of the front seven needs to share that approach.
This is why pushing the ball infield to the running back on option plays is always better than allowing the quarterback to get outside. If the outside defender is less disciplined, the quarterback is released into space against cornerbacks. If an inside defender has a misstep, then there is still a tighter area to run through. Instead of cornerbacks, safeties and linebackers are more likely to be making tackles.
It's true that the read-option is only a part of the 49ers' rushing arsenal, but the hesitation it causes in defenders is something that the offense as a whole looks to create.
A Creative, Diverse Rushing Attack
Andy Benoit of the MMQB recently wrote, "The Niners might be the only offense left that lines up and implicitly says, 'Here's our run game; try to stop it.'"
Benoit is completely right in his statement for many, many reasons, but don't be fooled into thinking that he is saying the 49ers' running game is a simplistic thing.
It's easy to say that running offenses just line up and run over people today. The NFL celebrates creative and diverse passing offenses for the most part, whereas running the ball is a necessity that just reminds us of old-school, unimaginative football.
Nobody would ever say that the New England Patriots or Green Bay Packers are simply throwing the ball past people. Yet many will say the 49ers or Houston Texans just run over people. That is oversimplification.
Within the 49ers' running game, you have many diverse pieces managed by a very creative coaching staff. Kaepernick is a cheetah posing as a human being. Frank Gore is a miniature rhino with a brain twice the size of a sperm whale. If Kaepernick is a cheetah, LaMichael James is his cub. Kendall Hunter offers the same variety as Gore, just to a lesser degree.
Most will know Kaepernick and the backs in San Francisco. Most will know how good they are.
However, just like any other rushing attack in the league (outside of Adrian Peterson), the key to stopping them is winning at the line of scrimmage.
Of course, the only problem with that is it's like saying the only thing you need to do to stop the Detroit Lions offense is stop Calvin Johnson.
The 49ers have the best offensive line in the NFL. Three first-round picks, a converted tackle who has flourished at guard and a Super Bowl-winning center were brought together to create the unit.
Left tackle Joe Staley is the leader of the unit. Today's league is full of left tackles who can consistently shut down pass-rushes from snap to snap. However, most of those left tackles are ineffective or even a liability as run-blockers because of the way they are built.
Staley isn't like that.
Staley can shut down the very best pass-rushers in the league, but he is also an outstanding run-blocker. Some left tackles in the NFL can maul defensive ends or tight ends to the ground or push them back into the secondary. Staley can do that better than anyone, and he can also seal off defensive tackles inside, pull into space or advance to the second level to block linebackers.
That combination of traits makes Staley a unique player in today's league. Unless Jason Peters returns to his dominant form of 2011, there won't be another left tackle in the league who does as much for his team in 2013.
With a player like Staley, most teams would look to build their rushing attack off of him. The 49ers don't—because they don't need to.
There are specific plays that take advantage of his different abilities, but with Alex Boone and Mike Iupati at the guard positions and Anthony Davis at right tackle, the 49ers can attack any area of the defense at any given moment in different ways.
Boone is a former offensive tackle who had a skill set that perfectly translated to guard in the 49ers scheme. Iupati was a high first-round pick who has all the talent to be the best guard in the league. Davis was also a first-round pick who has cemented his place as one of the best right tackles in the NFL.
Davis is a mauler who uses his bulk to overwhelm defenders, but Iupati and Boone make the offense special. Just like Staley, Iupati and Boone can do a variety of things and do those things at an extremely high level. As a defensive lineman lining up across from either guard, you never know where they are going or how they will get there.
Most guards can do a few things, such as sliding to one side or hitting defenders at different angles. The 49ers guards can do all of those things, but they also pull to the outside or across the formation, trap defensive tackles after pulling from different positions, move to the second level to locate a linebacker or drop out as screen protectors.
A majority of defensive linemen are overwhelmed by the sheer physical talent of the 49ers' offensive line. Those who aren't are still put at a disadvantage because most can't cope with the diversity of the rushing attack. Creating hesitation is what the 49ers thrive on, and it's what can cripple defensive linemen.
They can create gaps as individual blockers who stay in position:
They can slide to one side to trap defenders in the backfield as the back escapes outside:
They can clamp down both sides of the line while bringing a guard from either side across the formation:
They can slide the line to one side while pulling the guard outside the tackle in the same direction:
They can send more than one blocker into the secondary immediately at the snap:
Defending the 49ers' running game is similar to wrestling a bear while wearing stilts on roller skates and running through a pothole-filled road. You're probably overpowered, you're off-balance and even if you solve both of those things, you can still fall in a pothole as you try to take down the back.
Besides the plays that are primarily reliant on the offensive line's ability, the 49ers use a lot of misdirection to further throw defenders off-balance.
On this play, Frank Gore lines up next to Kaepernick in the backfield with LaMichael James in the slot to the bottom of the screen. At the snap, James turns and runs back towards Kaepernick, who turns his back to the defense to hand the ball off to him on the end-around.
When Kaepernick turns to face James, the Ravens are expecting him to either give the ball to James or turn and run with him towards the opposite sideline. Instead, Kaepernick slips the ball to Gore, who is moving towards the side where James initially lined up. With Gore, the 49ers are pulling Iupati from the left guard position and bringing Delanie Walker across with him.
That gives Gore a convoy to lead him to the sideline, while Ray Lewis in the middle of the field is still trying to figure out where the ball is.
If the 49ers running game was a passing attack, it would be like having A.J. Green and Julio Jones as your outside receivers with Wes Welker and Percy Harvin playing in both slots as Jimmy Graham works at tight end. There is just no way you can shut the unit down completely or match up to everything that they can throw at you.
Except it's not just like that. It's like having those pieces and putting them in a perfectly designed offense.
According to the Football Outsiders Almanac, 74 percent of their runs last season
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and you can get married in a park or even your backyard to stick with the theme.
Scientist Wedding theme
Since being a science geek is no longer something to be ashamed of, a science-themed wedding could actually be a great way to make your special day even more extraordinary. However, you’ll just have to double check every detail for scientific accuracy since scientists are known to be very detail oriented!
Steampunk Wedding Themes
Convincing your non-geek fiancé to have a Steampunk-themed wedding is a lot easier than convincing them to have a Batman-inspired bash. Since the genre overlaps with the themes of the Victorian era, your bride and guests would mind getting dressed in lavish period costumes, getting in steampunk horse-driven coaches and having a Victorian-style décor for the reception.
Star Wars Themed Wedding
If your fiancé lets you have a Star Wars themed wedding, you know you have met your soul mate and you should cherish them for the rest of your life. Yet another costume-intensive theme, this one could be a lot of fun for guests who would be able to dress up as storm troopers and the groomsmen and bridesmaids can choose from the beloved characters of the Star Wars universe to stand out from the crowd!
Pirate Themed Wedding
Before Johnny Depp “invented” the lovable character, pirates were considered dirty, stinking, foul-mouthed, horny degenerates. Since that’s no longer the case, a pirate themed wedding wont be as horrifying to your guests and you can even have it on a boat or near the water and give the old church wedding a miss.
Pandora style Avatar-inspired wedding
James Cameron’s Avatar has been a worldwide success. And though most of us fell in love with the stunning special effects used in the movie, some of us found regular old earth and it regular old customs a little too bland after the avatar experience. That’s probably the reason why Avatar style weddings have been so popular and though the frequency of their occurrence have started to scare us a little, it could be just the perfect geeky theme that outdoes every Star Wars or gaming inspired themes.One of the people principally responsible for the look and feel of the new Apple TV's interface, Ben Keighran, is reportedly leaving Apple shortly with the eventual goal of founding a new business.
The designer was originally brought over to Apple in 2012 through the latter's acquisition of Chomp, a search startup, Re/code noted. Until now his immediate superior has been Bill Bachman, senior director of Design, iTunes, and Apple TV.Keighran commented that Apple "looked at many different ways of delivering an awesome TV experience" before settling on its current path, and that his decision to leave Apple has been reluctant."I've totally fallen in love with the people, the culture, the product," he said.The fourth-generation Apple TV is based on tvOS, an evolution of the interface in the third-gen device. While similar in layout, there are cosmetic changes and several new features, most importantly Siri voice control and support for user-installed apps.Apple has been heavily promoting apps —and by extension, its new set-top —as "the future of television." It's unclear to what extent, if any, Keighran might've been involved in designing Apple's suspended live TV serviceAward-winning Regina-born author Bonnie Burnard, best known for her debut novel, A Good House, passed away in a hospital in London, Ontario, on March 4.
A Good House (HarperFlamingo), which depicts 50 years in the postwar life of an Ontario family, won the Giller Prize in 1999. Her 1994 collection, Casino and Other Stories (HarperCollins), was also shortlisted for the prize and won a Saskatchewan Book Award; her first collection, Women of Influence (Coteau Books), won the Commonwealth Prize for best first book in 1989.
Longtime friend and editor Phyllis Bruce, who currently helms her own imprint at Simon & Schuster Canada, worked with Burnard on her Giller-winning title, along with another two of her three books. She remembers the writer as simply brilliant and revelatory, and says she was approached by a number of readers who said they were really able to see themselves in A Good House. “She had an astonishing way of penetrating ordinary family life. She [took] everyday experience and interpreted it in unexpected but illuminating and comforting ways,” Bruce says. “She has left a small but rich legacy. I felt privileged to be her editor.”
Burnard leaves behind three children and four grandchildren, who are planning a small tribute in London on March 10, to be followed by a private family service.Index of /apps/cgminer
This is a multi-threaded multi-pool FPGA and ASIC miner for bitcoin. This code is provided entirely free of charge by the programmer in his spare time so donations would be greatly appreciated. Please consider donating to the address below. Driver development for new ASIC only bitcoin hardware can be suitably sponsored. Con Kolivas <[email protected]> 15qSxP1SQcUX3o4nhkfdbgyoWEFMomJ4rZ NOTE: This code is licensed under the GPLv3. This means that the source to any modifications you make to this code MUST be provided by law if you distribute modified binaries. See COPYING for details. DOWNLOADS: http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer GIT TREE: https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer Support thread: http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=28402.0 IRC Channel: irc://irc.freenode.net/cgminer SEE ALSO API-README, ASIC-README and FGPA-README FOR MORE INFORMATION ON EACH. --- EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ON USAGE: Single pool: cgminer -o http://pool:port -u username -p password Multiple pools: cgminer -o http://pool1:port -u pool1username -p pool1password -o http://pool2:port -u pool2usernmae -p pool2password Single pool with a standard http proxy: cgminer -o "http:proxy:port|http://pool:port" -u username -p password Single pool with a socks5 proxy: cgminer -o "socks5:proxy:port|http://pool:port" -u username -p password Single pool with stratum protocol support: cgminer -o stratum+tcp://pool:port -u username -p password Solo mining to local bitcoind: cgminer -o http://localhost:8332 -u username -p password --btc-address 15qSxP1SQcUX3o4nhkfdbgyoWEFMomJ4rZ The list of proxy types are: http: standard http 1.1 proxy http0: http 1.0 proxy socks4: socks4 proxy socks5: socks5 proxy socks4a: socks4a proxy socks5h: socks5 proxy using a hostname If you compile cgminer with a version of CURL before 7.19.4 then some of the above will not be available. All are available since CURL version 7.19.4 If you specify the --socks-proxy option to cgminer, it will only be applied to all pools that don't specify their own proxy setting like above After saving configuration from the menu, you do not need to give cgminer any arguments and it will load your configuration. Any configuration file may also contain a single "include" : "filename" to recursively include another configuration file. Writing the configuration will save all settings from all files in the output. --- BUILDING CGMINER FOR YOURSELF DEPENDENCIES: Mandatory: pkg-config http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/pkg-config libtool http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/ Optional: curl dev library http://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/ (libcurl4-openssl-dev - Must tell configure --disable-libcurl otherwise it will attempt to compile it in) curses dev library (libncurses5-dev or libpdcurses on WIN32 for text user interface) libusb-1 dev library (libusb-1.0-0-dev) (This is only required for USB device support) libudev dev library (libudev-dev) (This is only required for USB device support and is linux only) uthash dev (uthash-dev) Will use a copy included with the source if unavailable. libjansson dev (libjansson-dev) Will use a copy included with the source if unavailable. If building from git: autoconf automake If building on Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install build-essential autoconf automake libtool pkg-config \ libcurl4-openssl-dev libudev-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev \ libncurses5-dev CGMiner specific configuration options: --enable-ants1 Compile support for Antminer S1 Bitmain (default disabled) --enable-ants2 Compile support for Antminer S2 Bitmain (default disabled) --enable-avalon Compile support for Avalon (default disabled) --enable-avalon2 Compile support for Avalon2/3 (default disabled) --enable-avalon4 Compile support for Avalon4/4.1/6 (default disabled) --enable-avalon7 Compile support for Avalon7 (default disabled) --enable-bab Compile support for BlackArrow Bitfury (default disabled) --enable-bflsc Compile support for BFL ASICs (default disabled) --enable-bitforce Compile support for BitForce FPGAs (default disabled) --enable-bitfury Compile support for BitFury ASICs (default disabled) --enable-bitmine_A1 Compile support for Bitmine.ch A1 ASICs (default disabled) --enable-blockerupter Compile support for ASICMINER BlockErupter Tube/Prisma (default disabled) --enable-cointerra Compile support for Cointerra ASICs (default disabled) --enable-drillbit Compile support for Drillbit BitFury ASICs (default disabled) --enable-hashfast Compile support for Hashfast (default disabled) --enable-icarus Compile support for Icarus (default disabled) --enable-klondike Compile support for Klondike (default disabled) --enable-knc Compile support for KnC miners (default disabled) --enable-minion Compile support for Minion BlackArrow ASIC (default disabled) --enable-modminer Compile support for ModMiner FPGAs(default disabled) --enable-sp10 Compile support for Spondoolies SP10 (default disabled) --enable-sp30 Compile support for Spondoolies SP30 (default disabled) --disable-libcurl Disable building with libcurl for GBT support --enable-libsystemd Compile support for system watchdog and status notifications (default disabled) --without-curses Compile support for curses TUI (default enabled) --with-system-jansson Compile against dynamic system jansson (default use included static jansson) Basic *nix build instructions: To actually build:./autogen.sh # only needed if building from git repo CFLAGS="-O2 -Wall -march=native"./configure <options> make No installation is necessary. You may run cgminer from the build directory directly, but you may do make install if you wish to install cgminer to a system location or location you specified. Building for windows: It is actually easiest to build a windows binary using cross compilation tools provided by "mxe" available at http://mxe.cc/ (use the 32 bit one!) Once you have followed the instructions for building mxe: export PATH=(path/to/mxe)/usr/bin/:$PATH CFLAGS="-O2 -Wall -W -march=i686"./configure --host=i686-pc-mingw32 <options> make Native WIN32 build instructions: see windows-build.txt but these instructions are now hopelessly out of date. --- Usage instructions: Run "cgminer --help" to see options: Usage: cgminer [-DdElmpPQqUsTouOchnV] Options for both config file and command line: --anu-freq <arg> Set AntminerU1/2 frequency in MHz, range 125-500 (default: 250.0) --api-allow <arg> Allow API access only to the given list of [G:]IP[/Prefix] addresses[/subnets] --api-description <arg> Description placed in the API status header, default: cgminer version --api-groups <arg> API one letter groups G:cmd:cmd[,P:cmd:*...] defining the cmds a groups can use --api-listen Enable API, default: disabled --api-mcast Enable API Multicast listener, default: disabled --api-mcast-addr <arg> API Multicast listen address --api-mcast-code <arg> Code expected in the API Multicast message, don't use '-' --api-mcast-des <arg> Description appended to the API Multicast reply, default: '' --api-mcast-port <arg> API Multicast listen port (default: 4028) --api-network Allow API (if enabled) to listen on/for any address, default: only 127.0.0.1 --api-port <arg> Port number of miner API (default: 4028) --au3-freq <arg> Set AntminerU3 frequency in MHz, range 100-250 (default: 225.0) --au3-volt <arg> Set AntminerU3 voltage in mv, range 725-850, 0 to not set (default: 775) --avalon-auto Adjust avalon overclock frequency dynamically for best hashrate --avalon-cutoff <arg> Set avalon overheat cut off temperature (default: 60) --avalon-fan <arg> Set fanspeed percentage for avalon, single value or range (default: 20-100) --avalon-freq <arg> Set frequency range for avalon-auto, single value or range --avalon-options <arg> Set avalon options baud:miners:asic:timeout:freq:tech --avalon-temp <arg> Set avalon target temperature (default: 50) --avalon2-freq Set frequency range for Avalon2, single value or range --avalon2-voltage Set Avalon2 core voltage, in millivolts --avalon2-fan Set Avalon2 target fan speed --avalon2-cutoff <arg> Set Avalon2 overheat cut off temperature (default: 88) --avalon2-fixed-speed Set Avalon2 fan to fixed speed --avalon4-automatic-voltage Automatic adjust voltage base on module DH --avalon4-voltage Set Avalon4 core voltage, in millivolts, step: 125 --avalon4-freq Set frequency for Avalon4, 1 to 3 values, example: 445:385:370 --avalon4-fan Set Avalon4 target fan speed range --avalon4-temp <arg> Set Avalon4 target temperature (default: 42) --avalon4-cutoff <arg> Set Avalon4 overheat cut off temperature (default: 65) --avalon4-polling-delay <arg> Set Avalon4 polling delay value (ms) (default: 20) --avalon4-ntime-offset <arg> Set Avalon4 MM ntime rolling max offset (default: 4) --avalon4-aucspeed <arg> Set Avalon4 AUC IIC bus speed (default: 400000) --avalon4-aucxdelay <arg> Set Avalon4 AUC IIC xfer read delay, 4800 ~= 1ms (default: 9600) --avalon4-miningmode <arg> Set Avalon4 mining mode(0:custom, 1:eco, 2:normal, 3:turbo (default: 0) --avalon4-freezesafe Make Avalon4 running as a radiator when stratum server failed --avalon4-ntcb <arg> Set Avalon4 MM NTC B value (default: 3450) --avalon4-freq-min <arg> Set minimum frequency for Avalon4 (default: 100) --avalon4-freq-max <arg> Set maximum frequency for Avalon4 (default: 1000) --avalon4-noncecheck-off Disable A3218 inside nonce check function --avalon4-smart-speed <arg> Set smart speed, range 0-3. 0 means Disable (default: 2) --avalon4-speed-bingo <arg> Set A3218 speed bingo for smart speed mode 1 (default: 255) --avalon4-speed-error <arg> Set A3218 speed error for smart speed mode 1 (default: 3) --avalon4-least-pll <arg> Set least pll check threshold for smart speed mode 2 (default: 768) --avalon4-most-pll <arg> Set most pll check threshold for smart speed mode 2 (default: 256) --avalon7-voltage Set Avalon7 default core voltage, in millivolts, step: 78 --avalon7-voltage-level Set Avalon7 default level of core voltage, range:[0, 15], step: 1 --avalon7-voltage-offset Set Avalon7 default offset of core voltage, range:[-2, 1], step: 1 --avalon7-freq Set Avalon7 default frequency, range:[24, 1404], step: 12, example: 500 --avalon7-freq-sel <arg> Set Avalon7 default frequency select, range:[0, 5], step: 1, example: 3 (default: 0) --avalon7-fan Set Avalon7 target fan speed, range:[0, 100], step: 1, example: 0-100 --avalon7-temp <arg> Set Avalon7 target temperature, range:[0, 100] (default: 99) --avalon7-polling-delay <arg> Set Avalon7 polling delay value (ms) (default: 20) --avalon7-aucspeed <arg> Set AUC3 IIC bus speed (default: 400000) --avalon7-aucxdelay <arg> Set AUC3 IIC xfer read delay, 4800 ~= 1ms (default: 19200) --avalon7-smart-speed <arg> Set Avalon7 smart speed, range 0-1. 0 means Disable (default: 1) --avalon7-th-pass <arg> Set A3212 th pass value (default: 162) --avalon7-th-fail <arg> Set A3212 th fail value (default: 10921) --avalon7-th-init <arg> Set A3212 th init value (default: 32767) --avalon7-th-ms <arg> Set A3212 th ms value (default: 1) --avalon7-th-timeout <arg> Set A3212 th timeout value (default: 0) --avalon7-iic-detect Enable Avalon7 detect through iic controller --avalon7-freqadj-time <arg> Set Avalon7 check interval when run in AVA7_FREQ_TEMPADJ_MODE (default: 60) --avalon7-delta-temp <arg> Set Avalon7 delta temperature when reset freq in AVA7_FREQ_TEMPADJ_MODE (default: 0) --avalon7-delta-freq <arg> Set Avalon7 delta freq when adjust freq in AVA7_FREQ_TEMPADJ_MODE (default: 100) --avalon7-freqadj-temp <arg> Set Avalon7 check temperature when run into AVA7_FREQ_TEMPADJ_MODE (default: 104) --avalon7-nonce-mask <arg> Set A3212 nonce mask, range 24-32. (default: 31) --no-avalon7-asic-debug Disable A3212 debug. --bab-options <arg> Set BaB options max:def:min:up:down:hz:delay:trf --balance Change multipool strategy from failover to even share balance --benchfile <arg> Run cgminer in benchmark mode using a work file - produces no shares --benchfile-display Display each benchfile nonce found --benchmark Run cgminer in benchmark mode - produces no shares --bet-clk <arg> Set clockspeed of ASICMINER Tube/Prisma to (arg+1)*10MHz (default: 23) --bfl-range Use nonce range on bitforce devices if supported --bflsc-overheat <arg> Set overheat temperature where BFLSC devices throttle, 0 to disable (default: 85) --bitburner-fury-voltage <arg> Set BitBurner Fury core voltage, in millivolts --bitburner-fury-options <arg> Override avalon-options for BitBurner Fury boards baud:miners:asic:timeout:freq --bitburner-voltage <arg> Set BitBurner (Avalon) core voltage, in millivolts --bitmain-auto Adjust bitmain overclock frequency dynamically for best hashrate --bitmain-cutoff <arg> Set bitmain overheat cut off temperature --bitmain-fan <arg> Set fanspeed percentage for bitmain, single value or range (default: 20-100) --bitmain-freq <arg> Set bitmain freq options timeout:freq:regdata --bitmain-hwerror Set bitmain device detect hardware error --bitmain-options <arg> Set bitmain options baud:miners:asic:timeout:freq:regdata --bitmain-temp <arg> Set bitmain target temperature --bitmain-workdelay <arg> Set bitmain work delay (ms) 0-100 --bitmain-voltage <arg> Set bitmain voltage - S2/S3 only --bitmain-dev <arg> Set bitmain device - S2 only --bitmainbeeper Set bitmain beeper ringing --bitmaintempoverctrl Set bitmain stop runing when temprerature is over 80 degree Celsius --bxf-bits <arg> Set max BXF/HXF bits for overclocking (default: 54) --bxf-temp-target <arg> Set target temperature for BXF/HXF devices (default: 82) --bxm-bits <arg> Set BXM bits for overclocking (default: 54) --btc-address <arg> Set bitcoin target address when solo mining to bitcoind --btc-sig <arg> Set signature to add to coinbase when solo mining (optional) --compac-freq <arg> Set GekkoScience Compac frequency in MHz, range 100-500 (default: 150.0) --compact Use compact display without per device statistics --debug|-D Enable debug output --decode Decode 2nd pool stratum coinbase transactions (1st must be bitcoind) and exit --disable-rejecting Automatically disable pools that continually reject shares --dragonmint-t1-options <arg> Dragonmint T1 options ref_clk_khz:sys_clk_khz:spi_clk_khz:override_chip_num --T1efficient Tune Dragonmint T1 per chain voltage and frequency for optimal efficiency --T1noauto Disable Dragonmint T1 per chain auto voltage and frequency tuning --T1performance Tune Dragonmint T1 per chain voltage and frequency for maximum performance --T1fantarget <arg> Throttle T1 frequency to keep fan less than target fan speed (default: 100) --T1Pll1 <arg> Set PLL Clock 1 in Dragonmint T1 broad 1 chip (-1: 1000MHz, >0:Lookup PLL table) (default: 1332) --T1Pll2 <arg> Set PLL Clock 2 in Dragonmint T1 broad 1 chip (-1: 1000MHz, >0:Lookup PLL table) (default: 1332) --T1Pll3 <arg> Set PLL Clock 3 in Dragonmint T1 broad 1 chip (-1: 1000MHz, >0:Lookup PLL table) (default: 1332) --T1Pll4 <arg> Set PLL Clock 4 in Dragonmint T1 broad 1 chip (-1: 1000MHz, >0:Lookup PLL table) (default: 1332) --T1Pll5 <arg> Set PLL Clock 5 in Dragonmint T1 broad 1 chip (-1: 1000MHz, >0:Lookup PLL table) (default: 1332) --T1Pll6 <arg> Set PLL Clock 6 in Dragonmint T1 broad 1 chip (-1: 1000MHz, >0:Lookup PLL table) (default: 1332) --T1Pll7 <arg> Set PLL Clock 7 in Dragonmint T1 broad 1 chip (-1: 1000MHz, >0:Lookup PLL table) (default: 1332) --T1Pll8 <arg> Set PLL Clock 8 in Dragonmint T1 broad 1 chip (-1: 1000MHz, >0:Lookup PLL table) (default: 1332) --T1Volt1 <arg> Dragonmint T1 set voltage 1 - VID overrides if set (390-425) (default: 404) --T1Volt2 <arg> Dragonmint T1 set voltage 2 - VID overrides if set (390-425) (default: 404) --T1Volt3 <arg> Dragonmint T1 set voltage 3 - VID overrides if set (390-425) (default: 404) --T1Volt4 <arg> Dragonmint T1 set voltage 4 - VID overrides if set (390-425) (default: 404) --T1Volt5 <arg> Dragonmint T1 set voltage 5 - VID overrides if set (390-425) (default: 404) --T1Volt6 <arg> Dragonmint T1 set voltage 6 - VID overrides if set (390-425) (default: 404) --T1Volt7 <arg> Dragonmint T1 set voltage 7 - VID overrides if set (390-425) (default: 404) --T1Volt8 <arg> Dragonmint T1 set voltage 8 - VID overrides if set (390-425) (default: 404) --T1VID1 <arg> Dragonmint T1 set VID 1 in noauto - Overrides voltage if set (1-31) (default: 0) --T1VID2 <arg> Dragonmint T1 set VID 2 in noauto - Overrides voltage if set (1-31) (default: 0) --T1VID3 <arg> Dragonmint T1 set VID 3 in noauto - Overrides voltage if set (1-31) (default: 0) --T1VID4 <arg> Dragonmint T1 set VID 4 in noauto - Overrides voltage if set (1-31) (default: 0) --T1VID5 <arg> Dragonmint T1 set VID 5 in noauto - Overrides voltage if set (1-31) (default: 0) --T1VID6 <arg> Dragonmint T1 set VID 6 in noauto - Overrides voltage if set (1-31) (default: 0) --T1VID7 <arg> Dragonmint T1 set VID 7 in noauto - Overrides voltage if set (1-31) (default: 0) --T1VID8 <arg> Dragonmint T1 set VID 8 in noauto - Overrides voltage if set (1-31) (default: 0) --drillbit-options <arg> Set drillbit options <int|ext>:clock[:clock_divider][:voltage] --expiry|-E <arg> Upper bound on how many seconds after getting work we consider a share from it stale (default: 120) --failover-only Don't leak work to backup pools when primary pool is lagging --fix-protocol Do not redirect to stratum protocol from GBT --hfa-hash-clock <arg> Set hashfast clock speed (default: 550) --hfa-fail-drop <arg> Set how many MHz to drop clockspeed each failure on an overlocked hashfast device (default: 10) --hfa-fan <arg> Set fanspeed percentage for hashfast, single value or range (default: 10-85) --hfa-name <arg> Set a unique name for a single hashfast device specified with --usb or the first device found --hfa-noshed Disable hashfast dynamic core disabling feature --hfa-options <arg> Set hashfast options name:clock (comma separated) --hfa-temp-overheat <arg> Set the hashfast overheat throttling temperature (default: 95) --hfa-temp-target <arg> Set the hashfast target temperature (0 to disable) (default: 88) --hro-freq Set the hashratio clock frequency (default: 280) --hotplug <arg> Seconds between hotplug checks (0 means never check) --klondike-options <arg> Set klondike options clock:temptarget --load-balance Change multipool strategy from failover to quota based balance --log|-l <arg> Interval in seconds between log output (default: 5) --lowmem Minimise caching of shares for low memory applications --minion-chipreport <arg> Seconds to report chip 5min hashrate, range 0-100 (default: 0=disabled) --minion-freq <arg> Set minion chip frequencies in MHz, single value or comma list, range 100-1400 (default: 1200) --minion-freqchange Millisecond total time to do frequency changes (default: 1000) --minion-freqpercent Percentage to use when starting up a chip (default: 70%) --minion-idlecount Report when IdleCount is >0 or changes --minion-ledcount Turn off led when more than this many chips below the ledlimit (default: 0) --minion-ledlimit Turn off led when chips GHs are below this (default: 90) --minion-noautofreq Disable automatic frequency adjustment --minion-overheat Enable directly halting any chip when the status exceeds 100C --minion-spidelay Add a delay in microseconds after each SPI I/O --minion-spireset SPI regular reset: iNNN for I/O count or sNNN for seconds - 0 means none --minion-spisleep Sleep time in milliseconds when doing an SPI reset --minion-temp <arg> Set minion chip temperature threshold, single value or comma list, range 120-160 (default: 135C) --monitor|-m <arg> Use custom pipe cmd for output messages --nfu-bits <arg> Set nanofury bits for overclocking, range 32-63 (default: 50) --net-delay Impose small delays in networking to not overload slow routers --no-submit-stale Don't submit shares if they are detected as stale --osm-led-mode <arg> Set LED mode for OneStringMiner devices (default: 4) --pass|-p <arg> Password for bitcoin JSON-RPC server --per-device-stats Force verbose mode and output per-device statistics --protocol-dump|-P Verbose dump of protocol-level activities --queue|-Q <arg> Minimum number of work items to have queued (0+) (default: 1) --quiet|-q Disable logging output, display status and errors --quota|-U <arg> quota;URL combination for server with load-balance strategy quotas --real-quiet Disable all output --rock-freq <arg> Set RockMiner frequency in MHz, range 200-400 (default: 270) --rotate <arg> Change multipool strategy from failover to regularly rotate at N minutes (default: 0) --round-robin Change multipool strategy from failover to round robin on failure --scan-time|-s <arg> Upper bound on time spent scanning current work, in seconds (default: -1) --sched-start <arg> Set a time of day in HH:MM to start mining (a once off without a stop time) --sched-stop <arg> Set a time of day in HH:MM to stop mining (will quit without a start time) --sharelog <arg> Append share log to file --shares <arg> Quit after mining N shares (default: unlimited) --socks-proxy <arg> Set socks4 proxy (host:port) --suggest-diff <arg> Suggest miner difficulty for pool to user (default: none) --syslog Use system log for output messages (default: standard error) --temp-cutoff <arg> Temperature where a device will be automatically disabled, one value or comma separated list (default: 95) --text-only|-T Disable ncurses formatted screen output --url|-o <arg> URL for bitcoin JSON-RPC server --usb <arg> USB device selection --user|-u <arg> Username for bitcoin JSON-RPC server --userpass|-O <arg> Username:Password pair for bitcoin JSON-RPC server --verbose Log verbose output to stderr as well as status output --widescreen Use extra wide display without toggling --worktime Display extra work time debug information Options for command line only: --config|-c <arg> Load a JSON-format configuration file See example.conf for an example configuration. --default-config <arg> Specify the filename of the default config file Loaded at start and used when saving without a name. --help|-h Print this message --ndevs|-n Display all USB devices and exit --version|-V Display version and exit Silent USB device (ASIC and FPGA) options: --icarus-options <arg> Set specific FPGA board configurations - one set of values for all or comma separated --icarus-timing <arg> Set how the Icarus timing is calculated - one setting/value for all or comma separated --usb-dump (See FPGA-README) See FGPA-README or ASIC-README for more information regarding these. ASIC only options: --anu-freq <arg> Set AntminerU1/2 frequency in MHz, range 125-500 (default: 250.0) --au3-freq <arg> Set AntminerU3 frequency in MHz, range 100-250 (default: 225.0) --au3-volt <arg> Set AntminerU3 voltage in mv, range 725-850, 0 to not set (default: 750) --avalon-auto Adjust avalon overclock frequency dynamically for best hashrate --avalon-cutoff <arg> Set avalon overheat cut off temperature (default: 60) --avalon-fan <arg> Set fanspeed percentage for avalon, single value or range (default: 20-100) --avalon-freq <arg> Set frequency range for avalon-auto, single value or range --avalon-options <arg> Set avalon options baud:miners:asic:timeout:freq:tech --avalon-temp <arg> Set avalon target temperature (default: 50) --avalon2-freq Set frequency range for Avalon2, single value or range --avalon2-voltage Set Avalon2 core voltage, in millivolts --avalon2-fan Set Avalon2 target fan speed --avalon2-cutoff <arg> Set Avalon2 overheat cut off temperature (default: 88) --avalon2-fixed-speed Set Avalon2 fan to fixed speed --avalon4-automatic-voltage Automatic adjust voltage base on module DH --avalon4-voltage Set Avalon4 core voltage, in millivolts, step: 125 --avalon4-freq Set frequency for Avalon4, 1 to 3 values, example: 445:385:370 --avalon4-fan Set Avalon4 target fan speed range --avalon4-temp <arg> Set Avalon4 target temperature (default: 42) --avalon4-cutoff <arg> Set Avalon4 overheat cut off temperature (default: 65) --avalon4-polling-delay <arg> Set Avalon4 polling delay value (ms) (default: 20) --avalon4-ntime-offset <arg> Set Avalon4 MM ntime rolling max offset (default: 4) --avalon4-aucspeed <arg> Set Avalon4 AUC IIC bus speed (default: 400000) --avalon4-aucxdelay <arg> Set Avalon4 AUC IIC xfer read delay, 4800 ~= 1ms (default: 9600) --avalon7-voltage Set Avalon7 default core voltage, in millivolts, step: 78 --avalon7-voltage-level Set Avalon7 default level of core voltage, range:[0, 15], step: 1 --avalon7-voltage-offset Set Avalon7 default offset of core voltage, range:[-2, 1], step: 1 --avalon7-freq Set Avalon7 default frequency, range:[24, 1404], step: 12, example: 500 --avalon7-freq-sel <arg> Set Avalon7 default frequency select, range:[0, 5], step: 1, example: 3 (default: 0) --avalon7-fan Set Avalon7 target fan speed, range:[0, 100], step: 1, example: 0-100 --avalon7-temp <arg> Set Avalon7 target temperature, range:[0, 100] (default: 99) --avalon7-polling-delay <arg> Set Avalon7 polling delay value (ms) (default: 20) --avalon7-aucspeed <arg> Set AUC3 IIC bus speed (default: 400000) --avalon7-aucxdelay <arg> Set AUC3 IIC xfer read delay, 4800 ~= 1ms (default: 19200) --avalon7-smart-speed <arg> Set Avalon7 smart speed, range 0-1. 0 means Disable (default: 1) --avalon7-th-pass <arg> Set A3212 th pass value (default: 162) --avalon7-th-fail <arg> Set A3212 th fail value (default: 10921) --avalon7-th-init <arg> Set A3212 th init value (default: 32767) --avalon7-th-ms <arg> Set A3212 th ms value (default: 1) --avalon7-th
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“Can’t Stop This Feeling,” in an effort to “combine art with a bit activism at a fun dance event,” as they put it on the event’s Facebook page.
To the battle cry of “Now is the time to stand up against this bully,” Johnson wrote. “Action here is a stand against racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, injustice and so much more,” the Pantsuit Power Dance, as it was dubbed, sure did gather some attention when it struch unsuspecting passersby:
While the both the message and the medium might seem more fun than political, the titular pantsuit does have a bit more significance than many may realize. Not only is it the preferred outfit of Hillary Clinton, but it serves as a stark reminder that women weren’t allowed to even wear pants on the Senate floor until 1993, and Hillary herself was the first woman to wear pants in an official White House portrait.
Mia Lidofsky, a choreographer who was principally responsible for setting up the event, searched far and wide for their dancers’ garb, saying with a smile, “We’ve cleared every Goodwill and thrift store in New York!”
Another choreographer involved with the production, Celia Rowlson-Hall, reminds the world that despite the goffy mechanism, the flash mobbers are acting out of conviction, stating, “We’re not just out here to dance. We’re out here to say we support what this woman stands for.”
The folks behind the Pantsuit Power Dance aren’t the only ones who have drawn the connection between the presidential hopeful and the iconic suits. Last year, Pop Sugar put together this video retrospective of Hillary’s wardrobe, which combined with the video above, certainly gives us more than enough pantsuits to handle for one day:Beating the Chiefs in thrilling fashion didn’t move the needle at the San Diego box office.
With the Chargers returning home after winning at Arrowhead Stadium, not enough fans have purchased tickets to lift the blackout of Sunday’s game against the Bengals.
Never mind the fact that the Chargers remain in the playoff hunt, or that the Bengals are 7-4. The game hasn’t been sold out, so it will be blacked out in Southern California. The Chargers made the announcement on Thursday afternoon.
More than 5,300 non-premium tickets remain available for purchase. The Chargers have not opted to reduce the minimum sales obligation, which would have permitted the game to be televised locally despite the 5,300 unsold tickets. Likewise, the Chargers and/or their sponsors have decided not to buy the remaining seats at 34 cents on the dollar in this specific case. (Earlier this year, ESPN cobbled together the cash to avoid the first Monday night blackout since 1999 when the Colts came to town.)
The Chargers have played only four regular-season home games. After Sunday, three remain.
It’s the first game of the 2013 season to be blacked out, after 12 weeks of having every contest televised in the corresponding local market.The culinary use of flowers dates back thousands of years to the Chinese, Greek and Romans. Many cultures use flowers in their traditional cooking — think of squash blossoms in Italian food and rose petals in Indian food. Adding flowers to your food can be a nice way to add color, flavor and a little whimsy. Some are spicy, and some herbacious, while others are floral and fragrant. The range is surprising.
It’s not uncommon to see flower petals used in salads, teas, and as garnish for desserts, but they inspire creative uses as well — roll spicy ones (like chive blossoms) into handmade pasta dough, incorporate floral ones into homemade ice cream, pickle flower buds (like nasturtium) to make ersatz capers, use them to make a floral simple syrup for use in lemonade or cocktails. I once stuffed gladiolus following a recipe for stuffed squash blossoms — they were great. So many possibilities…
Eating flowers safely
So. As lovely as eating flowers can be, it can also be a little … deadly. Not to scare you off or anything, but follow these tips for eating flowers safely:
Eat flowers you know to be consumable — if you are uncertain, consult a reference book on edible flowers and plants.
Eat flowers you have grown yourself, or know to be safe for consumption. Flowers from the florist or nursery have probably been treated with pesticides or other chemicals.
Do not eat roadside flowers or those picked in public parks. Both may have been treated with pesticide or herbicide, and roadside flowers may be polluted by car exhaust.
Eat only the petals, and remove pistils and stamens before eating.
If you suffer from allergies, introduce edible flowers gradually, as they may exacerbate allergies.
To keep flowers fresh, place them on moist paper towels and refrigerate in an airtight container. Some will last up to 10 days this way. Ice water can revitalize limp flowers.
All blossoms from the allium family (leeks, chives, garlic, garlic chives) are edible and flavorful! Flavors run the gamut from delicate leek to robust garlic. Every part of these plants is edible.Depending on the variety, flowers range from pale lavender-blue to deep rose and have a licorice-like flavor.Both flowers and leaves have a subtle anise or licorice flavor.Blossoms are small with dark centers and with a peppery flavor much like the leaves. They range in color from white to yellow with dark purple streaks.Grassy in flavor, the petals are edible. Avoid the bitter calyx.Blossoms come in a variety of colors, from white to pink to lavender; flavor is similar to the leaves, but milder.The red flowers have a minty flavor.Blossoms are a lovely blue hue and taste like cucumber!A great flower for eating, calendula blossoms are peppery, tangy, and spicy — and their vibrant golden color adds dash to any dish.Petals are sweet, once trimmed away from the base. The blossoms taste like their sweet, perfumed aroma.Small and daisy-like, the flowers have a sweet flavor and are often used in tea. Ragweed sufferers may be allergic to chamomile.Delicate blossoms and flavor, which is anise-tinged.Mildly bitter earthiness of chicory is evident in the petals and buds, which can be pickled.A little bitter, mums come in a rainbow of colors and a range of flavors range from peppery to pungent. Use only the petals.Like the leaves, people either love the blossoms or hate them. The flowers share the grassy flavor of the herb. Use them fresh as they lose their charm when heated.Citrus blossoms are sweet and highly scented. Use frugally or they will over-perfume a dish.Flowers are sweet with a hint of licorice.Read more about dandelions here: Backyard Forage for Dandelions Yellow dill flowers taste much like the herb’s leaves.These aren’t the best-tasting petals — they are somewhat bitter — but they look great!Yellow fennel flowers are eye candy with a subtle licorice flavor, much like the herb itself.Tangy fuchsia flowers make a beautiful garnish.Who knew? Although gladioli are bland, they can be stuffed, or their petals removed for an interesting salad garnish.Famously used in hibiscus tea, the vibrant cranberry flavor is tart and can be used sparingly.Bland and vegetal in flavor, hollyhock blossoms make a showy, edible garnish.Flowers don’t have much flavor — best as a pretty garnish or for candying.These super-fragrant blooms are used in tea; you can also use them in sweet dishes, but sparingly.Adorable and delicious, the flowers have a subtle mint flavor great for salads, pastas, fruit dishes and drinks.Sweet, spicy, and perfumed, the flowers are a great addition to both savory and sweet dishes.The diminutive off-white blossoms are redolent of lemon — and great for teas and desserts.The blooms are pungent, but the floral citrusy aroma translates to its flavor as well.The flowers are — surprise! — minty. Their intensity varies among varieties.One of the most popular edible flowers, nasturtium blossoms are brilliantly colored with a sweet, floral flavor bursting with a spicy pepper finish. When the flowers go to seed, the seed pod is a marvel of sweet and spicy. You can stuff flowers, add leaves to salads, pickle buds like capers, and garnish to your heart’s content.The flowers are a pretty, subtle version of the leaf.The petals are somewhat nondescript, but if you eat the whole flower you get more taste.Varying in color, radish flowers have a distinctive, peppery bite.Remove the white, bitter base and the remaining petals have a strongly perfumed flavor perfect for floating in drinks or scattering across desserts, and for a variety of jams. All roses are edible, with flavor more pronounced in darker varieties.Flowers taste like a milder version of the herb; nice used as a garnish on dishes that incorporate rosemary.Blossoms have a subtle flavor similar to the leaves.Blossoms from both are wonderful vehicles for stuffing, each having a slight squash flavor. Remove stamens before using.Petals can be eaten, and the bud can be steamed like an artichoke.Another famous edible flower, violets are floral, sweet and beautiful as garnishes. Use the flowers in salads and to garnish desserts and drinks.This updated article was originally published in 2012.The followers took copious amounts of LSD, but Manson always abstained or took a much smaller dose and then orchestrated orgies in order, he claimed, to break down sexual taboos. The family survived by petty crimes and raiding supermarket dumpsters. Before the Summer of Love was over, Manson had eight followers, most of them women. They piled into an old school bus and roamed the West Coast before ending up in Los Angeles. In the spring of 1968, two female Manson family members who were hitchhiking were picked up by Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. They introduced him to Manson and the family briefly lived with Wilson at his Pacific Palisades home. Wilson introduced Manson to Terry Melcher, a record producer who was Doris Day’s son, and Manson played a few of the songs he wrote. Melcher had considered signing him, but eventually passed, embittering Manson. The family eventually moved to the Spahn Ranch, a little-used 500-acre property in the Santa Susana Mountains above Chatsworth.Pop star Taylor Swift sent bouquets of flowers to a Los Angeles-area police station after one of its officers was shot and injured during an attack at a Las Vegas country music festival on Sunday, according to one of the officers at the station.
LAPD intel analyst Kimberly Binder posted a photo to her Instagram account Tuesday showing one of the “smaller arrangements” that Swift had apparently sent to the station, the LAPD’s Foothill Community station in Pacoima, California.
“Talk about a class act!” Binder captioned the photo. “@taylorswift sent multiple bouquets of flowers and plants to our station, as one of our officers was shot in Las Vegas last night. This is one of the smaller arrangements. Beautiful flowers can bring a smile to anyone’s face. Much respect.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BZw8d1QnjO0/
According to ABC7, an officer at the Foothill Community station was injured Sunday night when she was shot in the knee at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip. At least 59 people were killed and more than 500 injured when a gunman opened fire on concertgoers from a perch on the 32nd floor of the nearby Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. At least one other California police officer was killed during the attack, while several Southern California police officers and firefighters were injured.
Social media users quickly flooded Binder’s Instagram post with positive comments about Swift’s gesture.
“A true role model,” one user wrote. “I love Taylor for her small acts of kindness.”
Swift was one of numerous celebrities who responded to Sunday’s attack, though most did so by taking to their own social media accounts to post reactions. Stars including actress Elizabeth Banks, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, and actor Jeffrey Wright used their social media account to call for increased gun control measures, while country music stars including Carrie Underwood, Reba McEntire and Miranda Lambert shared prayers for the victims and for Las Vegas.
The LAPD wrote on its Facebook page Monday that the Foothill officer injured in the attack was in stable condition and expected to make a full recovery.
Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaumAs sales prices for Los Angeles homes continue their solid recovery from the recession, the profile of all-cash homebuyers has changed.
In the wake of the recession, foreign and domestic investors made up a good chunk of cash-only buyers in LA. All-cash sales are still happening fairly frequently—last month, 20 percent of all real estate transactions in Southern California were all-cash, Geoff McIntosh, president of the California Association of Realtors, tells KPCC—but the days of investors snapping up homes passed four or five years ago, says McIntosh.
Who are these buyers making all-cash home purchases? KPCC reports that one dominant group is the children of wealthy parents. "They're going to mom and dad and saying, 'We really want to buy something and would love it if you give us the money,'" McIntosh tells the radio news station.
Another is tech industry employees, Richard Green, director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, tells KPCC. He says these workers are often paid well and are offered stock options that they can sell when the company goes public, leaving them with money to put toward a house.
For the full story, head over to KPCC.The Fate universe will once again “kaleid” with an extra dose of magical girl misadventures in Sentai Filmworks' latest acquisition, Fate/Kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2wei! This magical girl action series is directed by Shin Oonuma (Dusk maiden of Amnesia, ef: a tale of memories) with art direction by Ken Tateishi (Sasami-san@Ganbaranai, Kotoura-san), sound direction by Masanori Tsuchiya (Brynhildr in the Darkness, Five Numbers!) and animation production by SILVER LINK (WATAMOTE, Penguindrum).
The magical girls are back, and ready for another round of adventure! After successfully recovering the Class Cards, eighth graders-turned magical girls Illya and Miyu think they can finally take it easy. But as fate would have it, the girls are once again called back into active duty when they find out that the Cards have left some very nasty side effects on their world. However, their seemingly easy mission goes totally awry with the appearance of a dark stranger who looks just like Illya! Who is this new but familiar face, where did she come from, and what does she want from Illya? With the arrival of this new foe, it seems like Illya’s finally met her match when her everyday life takes one dark turn!
Fate/Kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2wei! will be available soon through select digital outlets with a home video release to follow.
About Sentai Filmworks
Sentai Filmworks is one of the fastest-growing anime companies in North America, producing hit series like Persona 4, Girls und Panzer, Devil Survivor 2, Bodacious Space Pirates, Majestic Prince and High School of the Dead as well as high profile theatrical films such as Grave of the Fireflies, K-ON! and Appleseed. Sentai Filmworks’ programs are distributed through Super D, Diamond Comic Distributors, Section23Films and Waxworks through retailers Amazon, Best Buy, Fry’s, FYE, Hastings, Suncoast, The Right Stuf, Wal-Mart and other good and fine stores. Digital product offerings may be found at Amazon, Anime Network, Crunchyroll, Google Play, Hulu, iTunes, Netflix, PlayStation Network, Rovi, Samsung, Vudu, XBOX Marketplace and YouTube.Via Daniel Buerge on Twitter:
Hearing Derek Fisher is headed back to OKC on a 1-year deal. I guess he won't be part of the Lakers reunion tour headed toward Los Angeles. — Daniel Buerge (@danielbuergeLA) July 22, 2013
Yes, our worst fears might have been confirmed this Sunday night. Derek Fisher may be returning to Oklahoma City. Questions abound at this point, but here's some initial thoughts.
For one, either DeAndre Liggins or Daniel Orton won't be a member of the Thunder next season. Signing them would likely put the Thunder over the Luxury Tax line. For more information, check out J.A. Sherman's article on Mike Miller's potential signing.
For two, I'm betting that the Thunder use a combination of Fisher, Jackson, and Lamb as their bench back court. Their roles would be fluid, but Fisher and Jackson would probably take turns handling the ball while Lamb played Small Forward.
Look back: Derek Fisher's Signing Last Year Here's what we thought of Derek Fisher's signing the second time around.
For three, I really don't know where this leaves Mike Miller. This could mean that negotiations fell through, but it could also mean that he's going to sign as well, leaving both Orton and Liggins in the dust. Heck it could even mean that Thabeet might be gone next year. You might think that this doesn't leave time for Miller to play, but I wouldn't put it past Scott Brooks to bench Lamb.
For four, I really doubt Grant Jerrett joins the team next year. His contract would be small, but the Thunder just can't afford him. I'm willing to bet that he goes to Tulsa and develops while the Thunder bide their time.
For five, I still think that a potential trade is on the horizon. Losing guys like Orton, Liggins, Thabeet, or Jerrett isn't unfathomable, but I'm willing to bet that Presti is still shopping the market hard to see if he can save any money.
What do you think about the Derek Fisher signing? Let us know in the poll and comments!There are 9 billion land animals (down from 10 billion!) killed in the United States’ animal agriculture industry every year. That’s more beings than there are humans on the planet. And that doesn’t even begin to cover fish and the by-catch that comes with fishing. Despite the many reasons to eat plant-based, many of us are not ready to completely swear off chicken wings and mozzarella sticks.
Though One Green Planet advocates for a compassionate, planet-friendly, plant-based diet, we understand that not everyone is eager to clear their cupboards of anything that had a face or a mom. Fortunately, you can still save some lives and the planet even if you’re not ready to eat all-vegan (at least right now). So whether you want to go vegan or you just want to dabble in plant-based cooking, here is a list of ways you can cut down on your meat consumption without taking the full veg plunge:
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1. Meatless Monday
By now, most of us have heard of Meatless Monday. Every week, you forgo your usual meaty pizzas and creamy pastas in favor of bright, fresh vegetarian flavors. This is for people just beginning to dabble in the world of vegan and vegetarianism. It’s not too threatening as it’s only one day a week, but if everyone partook, 1.3 billion fewer animals would suffer. That’s just a little less than the population of China!
Check out Meatless Monday’s website for ideas as well as OGP’s Meatless Monday post.
2. One Vegan Meal a Day!
Think about it. Most people eat some sort of animal product at every meal. Cereal with milk for breakfast followed by a turkey sandwich with cheese and mayo for lunch. Dinner might be a burger or chop suey. Try making lunch a vegan meal. That way, you’re cutting out 1/3 of the animal products you usually eat, but you know that you can always satisfy a craving later in the day if you feel you have to.
If everyone ate this way, we’d save 3 billion animals.
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3. Vegan Before 6
Written by Mark Bittman, “VB6 Eat Vegan Before 6:00 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health... for Good” is a book designed to do just that. The good thing is the animals and the planet also benefit from this lifestyle change. Though pretty similar to the previous concept, this one takes it a step further. Instead of cutting meat consumption by a third, you’d cut down by two-thirds. That’s 6 billion animals saved if everyone ate this way!
Recently, I was having a conversation with a young man who said he could never be vegan. When I suggested he try eating vegan before 6, he said, “Yeah, I could see myself doing that the rest of my life.” The reason I like suggesting “Vegan Before 6” is that it makes it easier to stick with the plan during the day because at night you know you’ll be able to indulge in that ice cream sundae.
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4. Cut Out One Animal Product at a Time
I find myself encouraging people to take the vegan transition slow and steady. Just like the tortoise, most people find this method to be more sustainable than jumping in all at once.
Start by cutting out chicken, as nearly 95 percent of the animals killed in this country are birds. That will make the biggest impact right away. Once that feels natural, cut out fish, then pig, then cow, then egg and finally dairy. Before you know it, you’ll be vegan and you barely batted an eyelash.
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5. Play Around With Your Favorite Recipes
Make it a fun challenge to veganize your favorite meals. Whether you like a savory pad thai or a sweet chocolate chip cookie, there are plenty of ways to make it both familiar and vegan. Bring your family in the kitchen with you and enjoy the process. If you find that your favorite recipe tastes just the same the vegan way, why not continuing cooking it that way?
6. Download the Food Monster App
If you enjoy articles and recipes like these and want more, we highly recommend downloading the Food Monster App. For those that don’t have it, it’s a brilliant food app available for both Android and iPhone. It’s a great resource for anyone looking to cut out or reduce allergens like meat, dairy, soy, gluten, eggs, grains, and more find awesome recipes, cooking tips, articles, product recommendations and how-tos. The app shows you how having diet/health/food preferences can be full of delicious abundance rather than restrictions.
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The Food Monster app has over 8k recipes and 500 are free. To access the rest, you have to pay a subscription fee but it’s totally worth it because not only do you get instant access to 8k+ recipes, you get 10 NEW recipes every day! You can also make meal plans, add bookmarks, read feature stories, and browse recipes across hundreds of categories like diet, cuisine, meal type, occasion, ingredient, popular, seasonal, and so much more!
Lead image source: Maple Sweet Potato Pecan BurgerYesterday I was talking to some friends about Bash and I realized that, even though I’ve been using Bash for more than 10 years now there are still a few basic quirks about it that are not totally obvious to me. So as usual I thought I’d write a blog post.
We’ll cover
some bash basics (“how do you write a for loop”)
quirky things (“always quote your bash variables”)
and bash scripting safety tips (“always use set -u ”)
If you write shell scripts and you don’t read anything else in this post, you should know that there is a shell script linter called shellcheck. Use it to make your shell scripts better!
We ’re going to talk about bash like it’s a programming language, because, well, it is. The goal of this post really is not to go into details of bash programming. I do not do complicated programming in bash and do not really plan to learn how to. But after thinking about it a bit today, I think it’s useful to explicitly write down some of the basics of the bash programming language. And some things about the bash programming languages are quite different from other programming languages I use!
I really thought I knew this stuff already but I learned a couple things by writing this post so maybe you will too.
Variable assignment
In bash variable assignment looks like this:
VARIABLE=2
and you reference variables with $VARIABLE. It’s very important that you don’t put spaces around the = sign – VARIABLE= 2, VARIABLE = 2, and VARIABLE =2 are not syntax errors, but will all do different unwanted things (like try to run a program called 2 an environment variable VARIABLE set to the empty string).
Bash variables don’t need to be all-caps but they usually are.
Most bash variables you’ll use are strings. There are also some array variables in bash but I don’t really understand those.
Quoting your variables with ${}
Sometimes I have a variable containing a string like file.txt and I want to do like
mv $MYVAR $MYVAR__bak # wrong!
This code as is won’t work! It will instead look for the variable MYVAR__bak which is not a real variable.
To get around this, all you need to know is that ${MYVAR} does the same thing as $MYVAR. So we can run
mv $MYVAR ${MYVAR}__bak # right!
global, local & environment variables
Next, Bash has 3 kinds of variables. The kind I usually think of first (and probably use the most often) are environment variables.
Every process on Linux actually has environment variables (you can run env to see what variables are currently set), but in Bash they’re much more easily accessible. To see the environment variable called MYVAR you can run.
echo "$MYVAR"
To set an environment variable, you need to use the export keyword:
export MYVAR=2
When you set an environment variable, all child processes will see that environment variable. So if you run export MYVAR=2; python test.py, the python program will have MYVAR set to 2.
The next kind of variable is the global variable. You assign these just like we described up above.
MYVAR=2
They behave like global variables in any other programming language.
There are also local variables, which are scoped to only exist inside a bash function. I basically never use functions so (unlike in literally every other programming language I write in) I have never used local variables.
for loops
Here’s how I write for loops in bash. This loop prints the numbers from 1 to 10.
for i in `seq 1 10` # you can use {1..10} instead of `seq 1 10` do echo "$i" done
If you want to write this loop on one line it looks like this:
for i in `seq 1 10`; do echo $i; done
I find this impossible to remember (how are you supposed to remember that there’s a semicolon after seq 1 10 but none after do?) so I don’t try to remember that.
You can also write while loops but I never do that.
The cool thing about this is that you can iterate over the output of another command. seq 1 10 prints the numbers from 1 to 10 (one per line), and this for loop is just taking that output and iterating over it. I use this a fair amount.
You can interpolate command output with either backticks or $().
OUTPUT=`command` # or OUTPUT=$(command)
if statements
If statements in bash are pretty annoying to remember how to do. You have to put in these square brackets, and there have to be spaces around the square brackets otherwise it doesn’t work. [[ and [ square brackets (double/single) both work. Here we get truly into bash quirk territory: [ is a program ( /usr/bin/[ ) but [[ is bash syntax. [[ is better.
if [[ "vulture" = "panda" ]]; then echo expression evaluated as true else echo expression evaluated as false fi
Also, you can check for things like “this file exists”, “this directory exists”, etc. For example you can check whether the file /tmp/awesome.txt exists like this:
If [[ -e /tmp/awesome.txt ]]; then echo "awesome" fi
This is sometimes useful but I have to look up the syntax every single time.
If you want to try out conditions from the command line you can use the test command, like test -e /tmp/awesome.txt. It’ll return 0 for success, and an error return code otherwise.
One last thing about why [[ is better than [ : if you use [[, then you can use < to do comparisons and it won’t turn into a file redirection.
$ [ 3 < 4 ] && echo "true" bash: 4: No such file or directory $ [[ 3 < 4 ]] && echo "true" true
Also one extra last thing about if: I learned today that you don’t need [[ or [ to do if statements: any valid commamd will work. So you can do
if grep peanuts food-list.txt then echo "allergy allert!" fi
functions aren’t that hard
Defining and calling functions in bash (especially if they have no parameters) is surprisingly easy.
my_function () { echo "This is a function"; } my_function # calls the function
always quote your variables
Another bash trick: never use a variable without quoting it. Here, look at this totally reasonable-looking shell script:
X="i am awesome" Y="i are awesome" if [ $X = $Y ]; then echo awesome fi
If you try to run this script, you will get the incomprehensible error message script.sh: line 3: [: too many arguments. What?
Bash interprets this if statement as if [ i am awesome == i are awesome], which doesn’t really make sense because there are 6 strings (i, am, awesome, i, are, awesome). The correct way to write this is
X="i am awesome" Y="i are awesome" if [ "$X" = "$Y" ]; then # i put quotes because i know bash will betray me otherwise echo awesome fi
There are cases where it’s okay to just use $X instead of “$X”, but can you really keep track of when it’s okay and when it’s not okay? I sure can’t. Always quote your bash variables and you’ll be happier.
return codes, &&, and `||
Every Unix program has a “return code” which is an integer from 0 to 127. 0 means success, everything else means failure. This is relevant in bash because: sometimes I run a program from the command line and want to only run a second program if the first one succeeded.
You can do that with &&!
For example: create_user && make_home_directory. This will run create_user, check the return code, and then run make_home_directory only if the return code is 0.
This is different from create_user; make_home_directory which will run make_home_directory no matter what the return code of create_user is
You can also do create_user || make_home_directory which will run make_home_directory only create_user fails. That’s definitely in the realm of clever tricks.
background processes
I’m not going to say much about job control here but: in bash you can start a background process like this
long_running_command &
If you later have regrets about backgrounding the process and want to bring it back to the foreground, you can do that with fg. If there’s more than one of those processes, you can see them all with jobs. For some reason fg takes a “job ID” (which is what jobs prints) instead of a PID. Who knows. Bash.
Also, if you background LOTS of processes, the wait builtin will wait until they all return.
Speaking of having regrets – if you accidentally start a process in the wrong terminal, Nelson Elhage has a cool project called reptyr that can save your process and move it into a screen session or something.
Be safe: set -e
When I write programs, usually I make mistakes. In most programming languages I use, when something goes horribly wrong the program will exit and tell me what went wrong.
In a bash script, you are usually running a lot of programs. Sometimes those programs will exit with a failure return code. By default, when a program fails, Bash will just keep running.
For example, in this script Python will fail (because the file I’m trying run doesn’t exist) and then it’ll happily continue and print “done”.
python non_existant_file.py echo "done"
This is almost never what I want – if one of the programs in my script fails, I do not want it to just merrily keep going and do possibly undefined / questionable things! That is terrifying. set -e will make the script stop and hopefully prevent any damage. Here’s the safer version of that
set -e # put this at the beginning of your file python non_existant_file.py echo "done"
be safer: use set -u
In most programming languages I use, I get an error if I try to use an unset variable. Not in Bash! By default, unset variables are just evaluated as if they were the empty string. The result of this is
rm -rf "$DIRECTORY/*"
will actually run rm -rf /* if $DIRECTORY is unset. If you use set -u bash will stop and fail if you try to use an unset variable.
debug: use set -x
set -x will make bash print out every command it runs before running it. This is really useful for debugging.
You can see all the other bash options you can set with set -o.
A lot of shell scripts I see people using in practice start with set -eu or set -eux. Safety!
You can also set -o pipefail to exit if one part of a pipe fails.
lint your bash scripts with shellcheck!
Very recently I learned that there is a bash linter to help detect all these weird quirks and more!! It ‘ s called shellcheck and you can install it with apt-get install shellcheck.
Also it has a website! https://www.shellcheck.net/. There is an example so can see the kind of errors it tells you about. It’s pretty awesome and I’m excited about trying it out.
Shellcheck knows about way way more bash scripting best practices than I do :). When looking at the examples I was like “wow, that makes sense but I would have never thought of that”.
There’s also a shell formatter called shfmt which seems useful: https://github.com/mvdan/sh.
bash is weird but it’s possible to remember some of the quirks
I think those are all the basic bash quirks I know! I suppose it is possible to rant about how bash is a Terrible Programming Language that you shouldn’t be using and why don’t we have a shell programming language that is less confusing, but it doesn’t bother me too much.
I just try to not write very complicated bash scripts, stick to some of the best practices here, and don’t worry too much about it. And it’s kind of interesting to learn about the weird quirks, anyway!
If you liked this, people linked me to a bunch of other bash resources which I will share with you now
(if we’re talking about alternative shells, though – the shell I actually use day to day is fish. Fish is wonderful and I love it because of its amazing autocomplete. But I still generally write shell scripts in bash.)AUSTRALIA'S love affair with property is about to be tested amid predictions prices will plummet by as much as 60 per cent, with capital cities hardest hit.
That’s the Armageddon-esque warning from leading US real estate analyst Jordan Wirsz, who believes Australia is heading towards a property bloodbath as the global economic downturn spreads to China and eventually here.
Mr Wirsz advises Fortune 500 CEOs and fund managers on investing in real estate.
He predicts that a flood of properties will begin to hit the market in Australia from next year as investors scramble to bail out, leading to a property crash of magnitude the country has not seen before.
“Right now is not a time to be buying real estate in Australia," Mr Wirsz said.
"The market has slowed substantially but residential prices are likely to fall up to 60 per cent, possibly even more, within five years."
The outlook is even grimmer for land investments, which Mr Wirsz said are more speculative and will plummet by as much as 80 and 90 per cent in value.
Commercial property will also take a hit in line with the residential sector shedding at least 50 per cent of its value.
Mr Wirsz pointed to artificially low interest rates, high loan-to-value lending practices, overinflated property prices, unrealistic vendor expectations and Australia's large number of second mortgages.
“I’m bearish about world real estate but I couldn’t be more bearish about the Australian market," he said.
"There have been corrections but they don’t hold up to the scale of what is coming.
"The paradigm is that nobody ever believes house prices can go down but those who have bought at the top of the market are going to be sorely disappointed."
He predicts property prices will be on a slippery slope next year when interest rates begin to rise, commodity prices peak and China's demand for Australian exports slows.
A sluggish recovery will begin in 2016.
“If you are homeowner, be cautious, get rid of your debt, consider selling if you don’t plan to be in your house for more than seven years and downsize or become a tenant," he said.
The only winners will be real estate agents cashing in on bank-owned properties, he added.
Adding to the glum outlook, properties in capital city would be hardest hit “because Australian cities are some of the most overvalued in the world and more speculative than regional areas", Mr Wirsz said.
Mr Wirsz joins other international naysayers including visiting US economist Harry Dent who recently said Australian house prices were 50 per cent overvalued.
With few exceptions, local experts disagree with their predictions.
HSBC’s chief economist Paul Bloxham said for property values to crash there would need to be sharp rises in interest rates, unemployment and housing stocks.
That combination is not on the cards, he said.
"I am not of the view that there is a looming housing bubble in Australia as it seems many doom and gloomsters are," Mr Bloxham said.
"Surely if the market was going to collapse it would have happened in 2009 after the Lehman's collapse when we had the biggest aversion to housing assets that you’ve seen.
"All we saw
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as a punchline. And, since Itzler is a part owner of the Hawks, he has a financial stake in pushing the myth that season tickets gives you unfettered access to high rollers (a myth which could theoretically boost the Hawks’ anemic attendance numbers).
Itzler later clarified that the seats he bought were in the third-base Legends Suite. For him to pay $320,000 for four season tickets, he would have needed to pay $80,000 each, or $987 per game. According to the Yankees’ website, the most expensive Legends Suite tickets would run you $850 per game right now, in 2017. Archived versions of the Yankees website only extend back to 1999, but nobody was paying nearly $320K for four season tickets. Either he got duped by marketing exec Derek Schiller (who has yet to reply to a request for comment), or this business success story is a bit fishy.
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Rovell called Itzler a serial entrepreneur, which is true but incomplete. He began his career as a rapper, scoring a minor hit with 1991's “Shake It Like A White Girl.” Itzler is more chiefly notable for selling himself as a hybrid rapper/businessman, who created themed songs for a handful of NBA franchises and even the league itself. As he told Business Insider, “When I was 24 I realized I could never be one of the best rappers but I knew I had some of the best ideas.”
Since then, Itzler’s always been working on something. He founded a record label in 1996, made more songs about teams and leagues, and sold it two years later for $4.5 million, maybe even at one of those Yankee’s games. Itzler helped found Marquis Jet, a company that rented out private jets to rich people, which Warren Buffet bought in 2010. He started a brand incubator (of course) and got a chunk of Zico Beverages, the maker of Zico Coconut Water. Coca-Cola bought Zico in 2013.
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Not all of his ideas were hits, but Itzler seems like someone who never stopped trying shit. Take Vowch, a now-dead social curation app:
At its core, Vowch is a social recommendation platform. With Vowch, you can easily get a snapshot of who someone is based on what they vouch for. Users can vouch for things like movies, TV shows, musicians, hotels, conferences — you name it. The more you Vowch, the better your chances are for becoming a true “boss.” “Bosses”on Vowch have the most street cred in the app. There are fashion bosses, reading bosses, music bosses, and so on.
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Success stories similar to Itzler’s abound in Silicon Valley, where the founders of many huge companies did insane things to get there. But that’s also sort of the point. You listen to successful people recall the crazy decision they made in the early days wistfully, while you rarely hear from the 999 other entrepreneurs whose budding companies failed because they spent $320,000—before they had revenue or a single client—attempting to wine and dine.
Itzler and Blakely are an entrepreneurial success story, a self-made couple who now own part of an NBA team. Itzler is free to gloat all he wants, and it’s not surprising that somebody like Darren Rovell would get suckered in by this self-mythologizing. But if a huckster tries telling you your new business needs to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars on their product, immediately run in the opposite direction.When it comes to smartphones, Microsoft just does not manage to create headlines at a massive level. Granted, the Lumia line is impressive with its high quality cameras and stylish body, but that’s about it. Even the new Lumia 930 failed to drop our jaws open because Windows Phone 8.1, which has been worked on for four years, was supposed to pry off our eyes from our beloved Android screens – and it didn’t.
However, Microsoft might be ready to take the plunge with its decision to shake hands with Cyanogen Inc, the mobile software startup which sells Android-based open source software that can be customized according to the company’s own hardware requirements. Not only Microsoft, but giants like Amazon, Yahoo and Samsung are also keeping an close eye on Cyanogen for acquisition. Cyanogen team has reportedly met with Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, as well, though there has not been any official release about the topic of their discussion.
The software, CyanogenMod, has a dedicated fan base of thousands of developers who also contribute code to it, and apparently it is strong enough to be used as a complete alternative to Google’s Android. The company managed to grab $30 million last year in the Series B round in a valuation from firms like Andreessen Horowitz, Redpoint Ventures and Benchmark Capital, and Tencent.
Though Microsoft is already developing Android-based phones, the reason for opting Cyanogen is more personal. Android is open source, but Google controls the way hardware makers use the software. This means Microsoft is seeking to duck the indirect Google stamp on their products.
Moreover, Cyanogen is also deep set in Android ROMs, which makes us question if Microsoft is looking forward to building its own Windows Phone ROMs. Though this is an absurdity apparently, you never know what might be up Microsoft’s sleeve. Plus with such tech giants eyeing the small startup, there is also a possibility of the companies desiring a larger slice in the global market since Android has 84.7% market share as of Q2 2014, according to IDC reports.
While companies may be dreaming of creating their CyanogenMod based smartphones, Cyanogen has already slipped passed through with its genius of a smartphone, the OnePlus One, in collaboration with OnePlus. With a 5.5-inch 1080p HD resolution screen, 3 GB RAM, 2.5 GHz Quad-core processor and a 13-MP camera, OnePlus One is already being speculated as the “perfect super smartphone.”
With the enormous funding and a smartphone already out in the open, the very giant companies waiting to pounce on this little kid should not be taken aback if they find Cyanogen standing shoulder to shoulder with them in the coming years.The Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale anime film opened in Japan on Saturday, and it ended with a teaser that read "SAO will return."
Yen Press is publishing the novels and manga in North America, and describes the series:
In the year 2022, gamers rejoice as Sword Art Online - a VRMMORPG (Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) like no other - opens its virtual doors. Now players can take full advantage of the ultimate in gaming technology: NerveGear, a system that allows users to completely immerse themselves in the game world by manipulating their brain waves to create a wholly realistic gaming experience. When the game goes live, the elation of the players quickly turns to horror as they discover that, for all its amazing features, SAO is missing one of the most basic functions of any MMORPG: a log-out button. Now trapped in the virtual world of Aincrad, their bodies held captive by NerveGear in the real world, users are issued a chilling ultimatum: conquer all one-hundred floors of Aincrad to regain their freedom. In the warped world of SAO, "game over" means death - both virtual and real...
The series has two television anime adaptations, an anime special, and the current anime film. It has also inspired multiple manga series, games, and a virtual reality demonstration in Japan. Aniplex of America releases the anime in North America. Skydance Television is planning a live-action television series based on the novels.An IDF poster warns against loose talk on social networking sites The Israeli military cancelled a planned raid on a Palestinian village after one of its soldiers posted details of the operation on Facebook. The unnamed soldier revealed the time and place of the raid and the name of his unit on the social networking site. He said on his status update that his unit planned a "clean up" raid. The soldier was court-martialled and sentenced to 10 days in prison. He was also ousted from his battalion and relieved of combat duties. "On Wednesday we clean up Qatanah, and on Thursday, God willing, we come home," the soldier wrote on his Facebook page. Qatanah is a village in the West Bank near Ramallah. His Facebook friends and fellow soldiers reported the post to the authorities. The decision to cancel the raid was made by commanders after it was feared the leak would put the unit in danger. The operation went ahead several days later. A statement from the military released after the leak said, "Uploading classified information to social networks or any website exposes the information to anyone who wishes to view it, including foreign and hostile intelligence services." "Hostile intelligence agents scan the internet with an eye toward collecting information on the IDF (Israel Defence Forces), which may undermine operational success and imperil IDF forces," it added. Posters Prior to the leak, the Israeli military had launched a full-scale campaign warning of the hazards of sharing military information online. In military bases, posters show a mock Facebook page with images of Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Below their pictures and a Facebook friend request, the slogan reads, "You think that everyone is your friend?" Israel says arrest raids in the West Bank are aimed at detaining people suspected of planning attacks in Israel. Palestinian Authority officials criticise the raids as hampering efforts to enforce law and order in the West Bank. Reports on whether the targets of the raids are militants or civilians are often contradictory.
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionValentino Rossi led every lap on his way to a dominant victory in Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix, a race that saw no overtaking inside the top six after the opening five laps.
Addressing media after the race, Pedrosa – who took fourth place – hinted the lack of action could be traced to the fact the majority of the field struggled badly to manage the rear tyre.
He said it was down to tyre supplier Michelin and series rulemakers, and not individual manufacturers, to address the problems and create more spectacular racing.
"I didn't watch the race but I guess it was quite boring, no?" Pedrosa said. "The pace of the race, the race time, was quite slow [31 seconds slower than 2015].
"I think the championship and the tyre manufacturer need to come up with some ideas because I don't think that the problem comes from the bikes [themselves], from Ducati, Yamaha or Honda.
"The regulations are too restrictive – testing is too limited and the engines are sealed. They have to be more flexible, we need to get some improvements.
"The championship must do something because I don't think it's interesting like this."
Pedrosa also expressed frustration with Michelin changing its construction of rear tyre after Argentina, pointing out that such changes disrupt manufacturers' development programmes.
"We are working now to get better performance on this [new type of] tyre, but if one day [Michelin] changes it, all this work and all the investment by the manufacturer is for nothing," he said.
"If we build new parts, like [for example] a new swing-arm, and then they introduce a new tyre, we have to throw these upgrades away."
Additional reporting by Oriol PuigdemontNow playing: Watch this: Huawei Honor 9 doubles your camera for less
With the Honor 9, Huawei throws down the gauntlet against the OnePlus 5 ( ). Both are dual-camera Android phones you can buy for a smaller chunk of change than a premium flagship like the Galaxy S8 ( ).
The Honor 9 is going after the same sweet spots as the OnePlus 5 -- good photos, a top-of-the-line processor, and amenities like lots of onboard storage and a second SIM card slot.
Huawei is the world's third-largest phone maker, but it's failed to become the global household name that Samsung and Apple have, and cedes some ground to phones by the likes of OnePlus, whose OnePlus 5 was good enough to earn CNET's Editor's Choice Award for its high value. The Honor line gives Huawei an important opportunity to get its phones in front of buyers who could be interested in the OnePlus 5.
The Honor 9 I got to play with was fast, with a seriously speedy fingerprint reader and a glorious deep blue finish (it also comes in grey and black). The phone felt smooth in my hand, and much smaller and more manageable than a hulk like the iPhone 7 Plus ( ) or Google Pixel XL ( ). Its glossiness makes it a little slip-prone without a case.
Its dual rear cameras are a talking point: You get a 12-megapixel RGB lens for full color, and an additional 20-megapixel monochrome lens. That's mainly there to add depth and nuance to photos. It's worked well in previous Huawei phones, but we'll still need to thoroughly test it before we can say just how good these photos are.
You will find plenty of settings, including a digital portrait mode for both front and rear cameras (that's right, you can get the Bokeh bur effect on your selfies). There are also manual settings for photos and videos, and support for RAW files (with pro mode).
One difference between last year's wonderful Honor 8 ( ) and this year's Honor 9 is that the fingerprint reader moved. It used to be on the phone's rear and corresponded to a programmable button you could set to, for example, launch the screen. Now it's on the phone face beneath the screen, is static, and doesn't have a custom button. Long press this new home button to pull up Google search -- strangely, my test model didn't have Google Assistant incorporated.
The Honor 9 is already on sale in China and will sell in select markets globally. It's up for preorder in the UK today on Amazon for £380, and will be available exclusively on the Three network for £16 per month on a 24-month contract.
Don't expect to see an Honor 9 for the US, at least not yet. But there's a good chance that will change down the line. After all, the Honor 8 was launched in San Francisco last year, and sells through Huawei's site HiHonor.com. And Huawei sort-of-not-really hints as much. "Later this year, you can expect to hear more about new devices that will be available in the US," the company said in a statement.
See how the Honor 9's specs compare to the OnePlus 5 in the chart below.Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE poked fun at his ally Chris Christie during a Monday rally for spending most of his campaign in New Hampshire while serving as New Jersey’s governor.
Trump made the joke while accusing Ohio Gov. John Kasich of abdicating his post to campaign for president in New Hampshire.
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“Your governor is absentee,” Trump told the Ohio crowd a day before the state's primary.
“He goes to New Hampshire, he’s living in New Hampshire,” Trump added.
“Where’s Chris? Is Chris around? Even more than Chris Christie he was there, right? I hated to do it but I had to make my point,” he said with a smile.
Both governors garnered criticism for spending significant portions of their campaigns in New Hampshire while in office. Each made 190 stops in the Granite State, according to the New Hampshire Cable News' count, more than any other candidate.
Trump won the state, topping Kasich by 20 percentage points. Christie came in a distant fifth and subsequently dropped out.It's a busy week in Kentucky, as two presidential candidates -- Donald Trump and Ben Carson -- visit the state.Their former rival, Sen. Rand Paul, said he will not endorse any presidential candidate, but will support the Republican nominee regardless of who it is.“I'm going to stay out of it. I'm just going to encourage Republican voters to get out, vote in the caucus next Saturday and I think it's going to put Kentucky on the map. This will be the first time that Kentucky actually is going to help in deciding who the presidential nominee is,” Paul said.Paul made his remarks during this stop on Saturday at a cafe in Shelbyville.The visit was part of a series of town halls that Paul has scheduled, as he seeks another term in the senate.Kentucky Republicans will hold their caucus this Saturday.
It's a busy week in Kentucky, as two presidential candidates -- Donald Trump and Ben Carson -- visit the state.
Their former rival, Sen. Rand Paul, said he will not endorse any presidential candidate, but will support the Republican nominee regardless of who it is.
Advertisement Related Content Supporters, protesters clash at Donald Trump's Louisville rally
“I'm going to stay out of it. I'm just going to encourage Republican voters to get out, vote in the caucus next Saturday and I think it's going to put Kentucky on the map. This will be the first time that Kentucky actually is going to help in deciding who the presidential nominee is,” Paul said.
Paul made his remarks during this stop on Saturday at a cafe in Shelbyville.
The visit was part of a series of town halls that Paul has scheduled, as he seeks another term in the senate.
Kentucky Republicans will hold their caucus this Saturday.
AlertMeWe are from Pakistan with high heads and soft hearts
Pakistan is always in the news for the bad reasons and has been criticized by the rest of the world, even then the people of Pakistan are patriotic and stand united for the goodwill of their country. No matter how worst the situation gets, the youth is eager enough to bring out the best in all the fields like media, communication, IT and science. In Pakistan, IT industry is fast growing with a large potential and is regarded as a successful sector even in country’s worst financial crisis. As the IT industry in Pakistan is growing likewise the demand for the software’s and programmers has taken up a rapid growth. PakSurf.com is one of the fastest and the most used social network with all the latest features and enhancements in the social media. We, as a Pakistani feel proud on creating this exclusive social community which will lead our nation and show the world positive sides of the country.DIGG THIS
What does it mean that Barack Obama, a black man, has won his party’s nomination? One story is that Obama is the Jackie Robinson of politics. He has broken a color barrier (nowadays called a glass ceiling) and entered the big leagues. Other men and women of color will now enter the lists for the presidency.
But the fact is that our society is not now more color-blind than ever before. This cannot be so when it is apparently a highly successful American social policy to imprison as many black men as possible on drug offenses. If others do follow in Obama’s footsteps, that means only that there is an up-and-coming crop of people like him who have learned the same lessons as he has in the nation’s law schools and other statist incubators.
Another story is that the Obama moment is a special moment for black people (now often called African-Americans). The idea is that it is a "notable marker on the long road to freedom, justice, equality and shared power in spite of the ruts and road blocks in the way…" I contest this story too, which is the kind of tale we expect to hear from self-anointed black leaders who claim to speak for the street and don’t. I would be truly shocked if very many black people get off on Obama’s nomination (for more than a few seconds) and feel a profound sense of satisfaction that now freedom, justice, equality, and shared power are at hand or even a wee bit closer. I’d be shocked because nothing essential has changed in their lives and nothing will because of him. Symbols of power do not fill the gas tank, and if they claim to or do, there is a hidden price tag.
There are many more such stories, but let these two stories suffice because the meaning that I see in his nomination is vastly different. Obama has won a competition, but this does not mean he is "the best man." It comes closer to meaning that he is the worst man, just as McCain is in his party.
Competition for producing disk storage gives us more and better storage at lower prices. There is even a law, called Moore’s law, that predicts the course of this progress over time. But competition for the presidency follows a different law, which is that candidates are ever more deceitful, cunning, crafty, two-faced, and power-hungry. They are more and more criminal in their endeavors. Among Democrats, we retrogress, if that is possible, from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Harry Truman to Lyndon Johnson to Bill Clinton. Republicans should not be left out of this retrogression. Clearly, George W. Bush marks a new low.
In politics, there is a race to the bottom. Rozeff’s law is that the number and severity of presidential acts that reduce social welfare follow an upward time trend. Whether it is a square root function, linear, or exponential is left for future research.
Obama’s nomination merely means that a black man has won the race to the bottom in securing his party’s nomination. This means that a black man has been found who has mastered the trade of delivering criminal actions suavely while conning enough of his victims so that he does not rend the State over which he presides. It means that a black man can lie as smoothly as a white man or woman, that he can switch positions as easily as a candidate of another race, and that he is equally adept at punching and counterpunching at his opponents.
As far as its meaning goes concerning my voting neighbors, it appears that Obama has successfully peddled a politics of hope. I am certain that he could demolish me in an instant in the eyes of his followers by calling me a cynic. He is explicitly trying to overcome what he calls cynicism. That’s a clever ruse — a campaign ploy. Cynicism is a belief that selfishness dominates human action. Obviously, Obama is calling for selflessness. When a politician does that, watch out. The con-man wants you to smile as he impales you. Selfishness has nothing to do with how Americans feel. Perhaps helplessness and frustration do. Having been manipulated into an increasingly helpless and deteriorating condition by their own governments, it is no wonder that Americans should voice despair. Despair is not cynicism either. Despair is a rather realistic reaction to being tied up, bound and gagged, and rendered helpless by the State. One cannot expect a man of the State like Obama to do what needs to be done to alter that condition significantly. One can expect him to play upon the emotions generated by such conditions to his own and his party’s advantage.
Race is not much of an overt issue in this campaign. For me it is no issue at all because I won’t vote. I do not vote. I don’t believe that politics and voting are a viable means to demolish the State, which is what I think needs to be done if we are to make serious headway against its crimes against humanity.
Voting, in my opinion, merely endorses and prolongs the agony. But even if I did vote, race would still be a non-issue for me. The choice is between two men who both want power and relish power. Either one will use it to the fullest in the blind and arrogant belief that he is a savior. It is a case of Tweedledum and Tweedledee. I would not indulge in voting based on the fantasy that I actually could predict what these men would do once they become criminal-in-chief. Either one will surely surprise us in many dreadful ways, and that will be that. I am sure that those who are following the campaigns up to now have already detected some rather shocking backtracking if not about-faces.
In the end, the nomination of Obama has, I believe, very little meaning in terms of race. It is not terribly unusual for candidates to elicit a degree of enthusiasm among his followers, as he has. It is not unusual for candidates to offer grand agendas and promises, as he has. The metal tarnishes rather quickly.
Obama’s time arrived. A black man’s time arrived. No year between 1944 and 1970 was the right time for Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., a charismatic and likeable figure, to seek much less secure a presidential nomination. What does it now mean except that any person, regardless of color, racial background, looks, religion, or sex, can win the race to the bottom, that any person (who passes certain minimal requirements) can win the nomination for the presidency? That any person can achieve the inglorious and criminal end of one day becoming President of these United States.
The Best of Michael S. RozeffAmerican Airlines has been using iPads in place of paper reference books for several years—but last night, a weakness showed. “Several dozen” of the airline’s planes were grounded as pilots’ iPads crashed.
In a slew of of tweets, it came to light that the iPads used by pilots instead of the piles of old-school reference books were crashing ahead of take-off, reports Quartz. The software and data that they use are provided by Jeppesen, a sub-division of Boeing Digital Aviation.
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Speaking to Quartz, one passenger explained that “the pilot told us when they were getting ready to take off, the iPad screens went blank, both for the captain and copilot, so they didn’t have the flight plan.” One pilot is reported to have told a passenger that “the entire 737 fleet on American had experienced the same behavior.”
American Airlines took to Twitter to officially admit that the problems were due to iPad crashes:
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Andrea Huguely, American Airlines director of corporate communications, told USA Today that “in some cases, the flight has had to return to the gate to access a Wi-Fi connection to fix the issue.” It remains to be seen whether the problem has been properly fixed, but we’ve reached out to American Airlines to find out. Until then, it may for pilots to pack some dead trees in their bag. [USA Today, Quartz]
Image by Kent Wien under Creative Commons licenseCanadian metal veterans ANNIHILATOR will release their 14th studio album, "Feast", on August 23 in Europe and August 27 in North America via UDR. The deluxe eco-book version will also feature a bonus CD containing 15 of the best ANNIHILATOR songs re-recorded in 2012... a grand total of 24 songs in one package... with a 3D cover!
ANNIHILATOR mainman Jeff Waters and his bandmates tear through each release with honest, raw power and energy, along with excellent technical skill, giving the metal world the most-tasteful mixtures of huge, metal riffs with the idea of the perfect song and some legendary solo shredding as the icing on the cake. That's why Jeff and ANNIHILATOR have been a major influence on countless well-known metal acts and musicians around the world. Tours with everyone from JUDAS PRIEST to PANTERA to TRIVIUM, plus dozens of headlining tours and festivals around the world, have been going on steady since 1989 for this band; no rest as the demand for this band never ends.
ANNIHILATOR has been touted as one of the best live acts in metal music. High-end musicianship, tight playing and massive energy and fun are what these lads are known for. Their music? Honest, melodic thrash and heavy metal, combined with traces of blues, classical and jazz. Hell, there is even some death and punk in there, too.
Says Waters: "We truly are among the few bands with a long history that have always waved the flag for honesty, integrity and perseverance in this hard-edged category of music."
"Feast" track listing
01. Deadlock
02. No Way Out
03. Smear Campaign
04. No Surrender
05. Wrapped
06. Perfect Angel Eyes
07. Demon Code
08. Fight The World
09. One Falls, Two Rise
Bonus disc: "Re-Kill" (best of ANNIHILATOR, re-recorded in 2012)
01. Fun Palace
02. Alison Hell
03. King Of The Kill
04. Never, Neverland
05. Set The World On Fire
06. Welcome To Your Death W.T.Y.D.
07. Nozone
08. Bloodbath
09. 21
10. Stonewall
11. Ultra Motion
12. Time Bomb
13. Refresh The Demon
14. Word Salad
15. Brain Dance
"Feast" will be made available in the following formats:
* Limited-edition eco-book + bonus disc "Re-Kill" (best of ANNIHILATOR, re-recorded in 2012)
* CD jewel case
* LP gatefold
* Digital download
* D2C fan-package
ANNIHILATOR touring lineup:
Jeff Waters - Guitar, Vocals
Dave Padden - Lead Vocals
Mike Harshaw - Drums
Alberto Campuzano - BassA 6-year-old boy's excitement over joining the Cub Scouts may just land him in reform school for 45 days.
Zachary Christie was suspended from his 1st grade class in Delaware's Christina School District after bringing a camping utensil - a combination knife/fork/spoon - to use at lunch, prompting calls to reexamine schools' zero-tolerance policy for bringing weapons to school, according to a New York Times report Monday.
Zero tolerance policies were instituted in many school districts across the country, at least in part due to violence at Columbine and Virginia Tech, the report notes. Their rigid enforcement is designed to eliminate the appearance of bias or discrimination on the part of school officials.
The school district's policy is enforced "regardless of intent" and "does not take into consideration a child's age," reports CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod.
But residents, and some lawmakers, are now wondering why schools can't apply a more common-sense discretion to such instances.
"It just seems unfair," said Zachary, who is being home-schooled while his mother, Debbie Christie, tries to fight the suspension. That involved Zachary appearing before a district disciplinary committee with his karate instructor and mother's fiancé vouching for him as character witnesses.
"Zachary wears a suit and tie some days to school by his own choice because he takes school so seriously," his mother said. "He is not some sort of threat to his classmates."
Christie started a Web site, helpzachary.com, to drum up support for her son.
State Representative Teresa L. Schooley wrote the disciplinary committee, asking each member to "consider the situation, get all the facts, find out about Zach and his family and then act with common sense for the well-being of this child."
But the strict enforcement of the policy has its supporters.
"There is no parent who wants to get a phone call where they hear that their child no longer has two good seeing eyes because there was a scuffle and someone pulled out a knife," said George Evans, the school district board's president.
There has been a move to give school officials more flexibility in "weapon"-related incidents. After a third-grade girl was expelled for a year after bringing in a knife to cut the birthday cake her grandmother sent in to the class, a new law was passed allowing officials to modify punishments on a case-by-case basis. But that was for expulsions, not suspensions as Zachary is faced with. Another revision to the law is being drafted to address suspensions, according to the report.IREF - Institute for Research in Economic and Fiscal issues
Fiscal competition and economic freedom
https://en.irefeurope.org/1239
Regulatory Capture in European Evidence-Based Policy Making
The European Commission has made a commitment to evidence-based policy making when designing regulations to improve Europe’s environmental conditions. The stated objective is that “Commission initiatives and proposals for EU legislation are prepared on the basis of transparent, comprehensive and balanced evidence on the nature of the problem to be addressed, the added value of EU action and the cost and benefits of alternative courses of action for all stakeholders”. The reality of policy and their scientific backing rarely resembles this principle.
George Stigler’s theory of regulatory capture, in which regulatory bodies act in the interest of pressure groups rather than the public, is an effective means of interpreting this government failure. The simple means by which to analyse the existence of regulatory capture is whether failed regulations are repealed. If regulation fails to achieve its stated intention, repealing it would reverse the presumably unintended consequences. If that same regulation, however, is not repealed as a result, those unintended consequences are better understood as the originally intended consequences of the regulation.
Consider the following case. In 2013 the European Union banned three neonicotinoids — particles based on the structure of nicotine — as a result of studies pushed by Greenpeace on the alleged harm to the bee population. Various field experiments found that bee populations were either unaffected or positively affected by the use of neonicotinoids, making the ban harder on producers and consumers, while yielding no environmental benefit. The interests of active pressure groups in this case impacted the lens through which the EC interpreted evidence. While the EU parliament was deadlocked on the issue, and blocked a full ban earlier this year, the EC stepped in to act on what it believed was the scientific consensus. The ban has cost farmers over €900 millions year, has contributed to increased emissions from the use of lower quality products, and has reduced agricultural output. As officials have not lost their jobs or been demoted as a result suggests that they have accomplished their intended goals.
The case of hand dryers’ regulation is another important example. The preparatory study for the regulation compared hand dryers negatively to paper towels, accusing hand dryers to be unhygienic. The study researched some of the literature surrounding the effects of electric hand dryers, but off the bat excluded any research into the effects of paper towels, presenting clear bias for one of the products they intended to compare. The study funded by the European Tissue Symposium, the trade association for the paper towel industry, was pushed for clearly understandable reasons. The paper towel industry, which currently represents 5x the market share of hand dryers in Europe, has an incentive to burden a disruptive competitor. Regulatory capture, rather than evidence-based policy making, is clearly at work here. An impartial study would have highlighted the fact that the scientific support for hand dryers being unhygienic is sparse. Research published in the Journal of Microbiology and another study by the Mayo Clinic found no significant difference in the level of microorganisms after drying hands with warm air compared to paper towels. In 2009, an article in the Pharmaceutical Microbiology Forum reviewed several studies on paper towels versus air dryers and concluded that there was no solid evidence for claiming automatic dryers are unhygienic.
Finally, regulatory capture was also evident in the revisions to the Renewable Energy Directive made this year. One of the stipulations was a reduction in the maximum amount of crop-based biofuel used in the transport sector from 7% to 3.8%. The Globium Study and the EU’s Climate Action study have criticised this reduction on the basis that it lumps a variety of biofuels into a single category, disadvantaging beneficial innovations in energy technology. Nonetheless, green lobbies achieved their intended goals by limiting the ability for the industry to use cheap, clean energy, without investing in renewables.
With all these regulations, little is done to amend the guidelines when their failings become apparent. This indicates a general incompetence and clear capture of regulators, proved by the fact that these regulations are not seen as failures. Scientific investigation, as a result of being limited to the choice of question being asked, can be used to strategically support potentially any intended conclusion.
The evidence used in policy making then ought not be taken at face value, given the vested interests at play. There is a role for scrutiny of the evidence used in policy proposals, as well as investigating the incentives for the interest groups who are benefitting from them. This would in turn enable competition in political pressure, resulting in more groups vying for a fixed pool of time and resources from political actors. This intense competition was noted by Stigler’s colleague Gary Becker as a precondition for political efficiency, something that is weakened by a faith in the use of evidence-based policy.
css jsBitTorrent Inc, the company behind the world's most popular torrent clients, is seeking an individual to help boost its advertising revenues. A job listing posted in the past few hours reveals the company is looking for a Sales Director to drive a significant part of the company's revenue while boosting its profile with major brands.
As the brains and machinery behind uTorrent and the Mainline BitTorrent clients, BitTorrent Inc. is the market leader in consumer focused, peer-to-peer file-sharing tools.
Combined, these clients enjoy around 170 million active users per month, a massive userbase that’s unrivaled in the marketplace. In total, BitTorrent Inc. serves a cool 200 million adverts to its users every single day.
But despite these impressive numbers, revenues for BitTorrent Inc. remain modest. As previously reported, the company sells its worldwide traffic for just 7 cents per 1,000 views, one of the lowest tiers in the ad industry.
While the situation is complex, one of BitTorrent Inc’s problems is how some view the company as being closely tied to piracy. For many, when people download a pirate movie or album using BitTorrent, that means that somehow BitTorrent Inc is involved, but that has parallels with holding Mozilla to account when people use Firefox for nefarious purposes.
In response, BitTorrent Inc has tried extremely hard to reposition itself not only as a software vendor but also as an artist development and promotion platform. A successful play here could help to boost those low-cent views to something carrying more value. The company hopes that a new appointment will play a part in that.
In a job listing posted a few hours ago, the San Francisco based company reveals it’s searching for a new Sales Director to drive media demand across Western Europe.
Responsible for the company’s publishing network across desktop, mobile and web-based platforms, the successful candidate will be expected to establish and develop relationships across the advertising spectrum and “grow company presence across all geos.”
But perhaps of most interest is the requirement for the individual to put in place a strategy to “optimize revenues” by getting a better return on available advertising space.
Part of that will be achieved by meeting with agencies and trading desks but the underlying strategy here is to attract reputable companies or, as BitTorrent Inc puts it, “drive demand from major brands.”
And when targeting major brands,
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was thankful for the affection and concern for her health she had received.
She has been released from hospital and is convalescing at her official residence, he added.
Ms Fernandez, 58, won re-election with a landslide 54% of the vote in October, and is popular among Argentines who agree with her generous welfare programmes.
She had been believed to be suffering a papillary thyroid carcinoma, but doctors say it can be difficult to test definitively for the presence of the cancer without removing the thyroid gland in its entirety.
She was one of several Latin American leaders diagnosed with cancer in recent times.
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Paraguayan leader Fernando Lugo, and former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva have all been operated on in the past year.Casey Dreier • November 15, 2013
NASA Just Cancelled its Advanced Spacecraft Power Program
The Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator was to use less Plutonium for cheaper missions.
In a stunning announcement today, NASA's Planetary Science Division Director Jim Green announced that work on the Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator would cease due to budget cuts:
With an adequate supply of Plutonium-238, and considering the current budget-constrained environment, NASA has decided to discontinue procurement of ASRG flight hardware. We have given direction to the Department of Energy, which manages the flight procurement, to end work on the flight units. The hardware procured under this activity will be transferred to the Glenn Research Center to continue development and testing of the Stirling technology.
Spacecraft that can't use solar power (e.g. when beyond Jupiter, landing on dusty surfaces like Mars, or bathed in long-duration shadows like lunar landers) depend on Plutonium-238 (Pu-238) to generate heat that is turned into electricity. NASA has used Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) – basically large thermocouples – for decades to supply electricity, but those are inefficient. And since the 1990s NASA has been running low on plutonium-238.
The ASRG program was created to help extend the life of the remaining Pu-238 supply. It uses a stirling engine to generate electricity at four times the efficiency of a regular RTG. This means more missions to these harsh places using less Plutonium. While NASA has started to generate Pu-238 again, it won't be ready to use until 2019, and even then the Department of Energy will only produce about 1kg - 1.5kg per year. The New Horizons mission to Pluto used about 11kg, which would take anywhere from 7 - 11 years to generate under the current plan.
The cost of this program was contained within the Planetary Science Division's Technology budget, which has to pay for the entire cost of creating and maintaining the Department of Energy's Plutonium-238 infrastructure. Historically, this is unusual. But recent decisions by the White House and previous decisions by the Congressional energy committees have ensured that NASA is on the hook for the entire cost of creating and storing Plutonium-238. That new burden, combined with sequestration and the relentless desire to cut the planetary exploration by this White House, likely left NASA with little choice but to cancel this program. Creating Pu-238 is fundamentally more important than having an ASRG, even if that means fewer missions.
Please accept marketing-cookies to watch this video.
ASRGs had been under development by NASA for over a decade, and had been planned for use by 2016 in the next low-cost planetary exploration missions to be launched sometime later this decade. Because of the limited cost cap imposed on these missions, they're now essentially limited to the inner solar system. Missions with bigger budgets that could afford regular RTGs will be bottlenecked by the production rate of Plutonium to maybe once or twice per decade.
Goodbye, outer planets.
This is the latest consequence of the White House's war against planetary exploration in the United States. If you want to help change this dim future, please take 2 minutes to write the President and your Congressional representatives (use this form if you're outside the U.S.).
Casey Dreier Chief Advocate & Senior Space Policy Adviser for The Planetary Society
Read more articles by Casey DreierThe Fire of Moscow (1571) occurred in May of that year when the 120,000-strong Crimean[1] and Turkish army (80,000 Tatars, 33,000 irregular Turks and 7,000 janissaries) led by the khan of Crimea Devlet I Giray, raided the city Moscow during the Russo–Crimean Wars. The khan set the suburbs on fire on 24 May and a sudden wind blew the flames into Moscow and the city went up in a conflagration.[2] According to Heinrich von Staden, a German in the service of Ivan the Terrible (he claimed to be a member of the Oprichnina)," the city, the palace, the Oprichnina palace, and the suburbs burned down completely in six hours. It was a great disaster because no one could escape."[3] People fled into stone churches to escape the flames, but the stone churches collapsed (either from the intensity of the fire or the pressure of the crowds.) People also jumped into the Moscow River to escape, where many drowned. The powder magazine of the Kremlin exploded and those hiding in the cellar there asphyxiated.[4] The tsar ordered the dead found on the streets to be thrown into the river, which overflowed its banks and flooded parts of the town. Jerome Horsey wrote that it took more than a year to clear away all the bodies.[5]
It was one of the most severe fires in the history of the city. Historians estimate the number of casualties of the fire from 60,000[6] to as many over 200,000 people. Foreigners visiting the city before and after the fire have described a noticeable decrease in the city population, and Ivan the Terrible avoided the city for several years after the fire due to the lack of suitable habitation for him and his entourage. The khan's attempt to repeat the raid in 1572 was repelled in the Battle of Molodi.[7]
References [ edit ]ANKARA (Reuters) - The European Union does not share Turkey’s view that the network of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen is a terrorist organization and would need to see “substantive” evidence to change its stance, the EU’s counter-terrorism coordinator said.
European Union's Counter-Terrorism Coordinator Gilles de Kerchove is seen during an interview with Reuters in his office in Brussels, Belgium December 2, 2016. REUTERS/Alastair Macdonald
The comments by Gilles de Kerchove are likely to infuriate Ankara, which accuses Gulen of masterminding a failed military coup last year, in which more than 250 people were killed. Gulen has denied the charge and condemned the coup.
Turkey has long accused its NATO allies, including the United States and Germany, of failing to condemn the abortive putsch strongly enough, saying they appeared more concerned by Ankara’s ensuing crackdown on suspected supporters of the coup.
“As for FETO, we don’t see it as a terrorist organization, and I don’t believe the EU is likely to change its position soon,” Kerchove said, using the Turkish government’s acronym for Gulen’s network.
“You need not only circumstantial evidence - like just downloading an app - but concrete substantive data which shows that they were involved...,” he told Reuters in an interview cleared for publication on Thursday.
Turkish authorities have detained some 50,000 people, including teachers, police officers, journalists and U.S. consular staff for alleged links to Gulen’s network. Some 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from their jobs.
Some have been detained for having downloaded ByLock, a messaging app the government says was used by the coup plotters.
Others have been detained for having had telephone calls with ByLock users.
EXTRADITION SOUGHT
Human rights groups and some EU officials accuse Erdogan of using the crackdown to muzzle dissent in Turkey, a charge Ankara denies. It says the scale of the clampdown is justified because the Gulen network threatens national security.
Gulen was once an ally of Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted AK Party and his movement ran schools, banks and media outlets in Turkey until the two men had a public falling-out in 2013.
Germany’s BND spy agency has said it is not convinced that Gulen was behind the failed coup, in which rogue soldiers used tanks and helicopters to attack Turkey’s parliament and other key targets.
Turkey has also sought, so far unsuccessfully, Gulen’s extradition from the United States, where the cleric has lived in self-imposed exile since 1999.
U.S. officials say their courts require sufficient evidence to order his extradition.
As of July, Turkey had supplied 84 boxes of documents to the United States for evidence, Ankara’s envoy to Washington has said, although he has acknowledged that more concrete evidence of Gulen’s direct involvement has remained elusive.
Germany, which has sharply criticized the mass arrests in Turkey, has refused to extradite people Ankara says were involved in the plot or linked to Gulen’s network.
“The decision on extradition is in the hands of all member states, and most of the time the judiciary, the independent judiciary, and they need hard evidence,” Kerchove said.Texas Tech added a defensive end commit last night, and he's a good one.
Nelson Mbanasor was committed to Oklahoma State until last month, he decommited on October 9th. Mbanasor holds over 20 offers with some of those schools being Illinois, Colorado, Arkansas, Houston, and Duke. Hailing from Hendrickson High School in Pflugerville, TX, Mbanasor stands at 6'3" and around the 260 pound range. He's a consensus 3-star recruit among the top recruiting sites, and he should see his number of offers rise before NSD in February. Mbanasor is quick off of the ball and powers his way past would-be blockers. He plays both inside and out in high school, but I'd imagine he sticks to playing end in college.
Texas Tech's 2017 class now stands at 15 commits. One commit we didn't create a lot of buzz about last week was Australian punter Dominic Panazzolo. He currently plays at Snow College (JUCO) in Ephraim, Utah, and Texas Tech is his one and only offer at the moment. According to his Twitter, he accepted a scholarship to play at Texas Tech. He'll be a great addition to the Red Raider special teams unit.
2017 Football Commits
Xavier Martin: Quarterback, Steele High School (Cibolo, TX)
Jack Anderson: Offensive Line, Frisco High School (Frisco, TX)
Dawson Deaton: Offensive Line, Frisco High School (Frisco, TX)
Quincy Addison: Defensive Back, Angleton High School (Angleton, TX)
Bronson Boyd: Wide Receiver, The Oakridge School (Arlington, TX)
Casey Verhulst: Offensive Line, Plano East High School (Plano, TX)
Dylan Weaver: Offensive Line, Piedra Vista High School (Farmington, NM)
Will Farrar: Offensive Line, Travis High School (Richmond, TX)
Adam Beck: Defensive Back, George Ranch High School (Richmond, TX)
Adrian Frye: Defensive Back, Aldine Eisenhower High School (Houston, TX
John Davis: Defensive Back, Trinity High School (Euless, TX)
Tyree Range: Running Back, Riverside City College (Riverside, CA)
Riko Jeffers: Linebacker, Sachse High School (Sachse, TX)
Dominic Panazzolo: Punter, Snow College (Ephraim, UT)
Nelson Mbanasor: Defensive End, Hendrickson High School (Pflugerville, TX)Following accusations that Texas A&M has cult-like tendencies, I investigated several websites that gave clear signs you might be in a cult. Let's see how we measure:
If you want to leave, are you being told there is no other institution that practices truth?
Texas A&M is the best university and you will never do better.
Are you made to feel your failures? That your performance is not up to standard?
Yes, you two percenter.
Are you told not to question what is being taught because the leaders are honest and want the best for you so you must trust them?
Aggies do not lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerate those who do.
Are you being rebuked for things such as the way you say hello or how you respond to being asked to do something for a leader?
HOWDY DAMMIT! PASS IT BACK! UNCOVER! OFF THE WOOD! AGGIES DON’T BOO, THEY HISS!
Are they putting down other institutions and building themselves up? Do they sometimes use people as examples of what you are to be doing and others on what you are not to be doing?
Ol’ Rock the Good Ag knows that any dirty t-sip isn’t worth your spit.
Do they bring attention to what they do, and ignoring others that may be doing the same things?
Texas A&M is the number one* producer of Fortune 500 CEOs.
*Tied with Yale, Harvard and Stanford.
Are you told not to ask questions why anyone left?
We don’t talk about transfers. They are gone.
Do they put down others to make themselves look better, calling themselves righteous and others unrighteous?
Aggies are the classiest in the SEC. Everyone thinks we are so nice.
Do they recommend for you to be around their people expecting you to be at all the group activities? If not you're spirituality and dedication are questioned?
Good Ags go to Yell Practice and all other sanctioned events in accordance with Tradition.
Are you required to attend studies, going through the program before you are allowed to be a part of the group?
Fish Camp is an Aggie’s First Tradition.
Do you take orders from a leader who might be unable to effectively lead a group?
If General Reveille barks, you better dismiss class. She demands it.
Is there an instant bonding of friendship without your knowing who they really are?
If you see an Aggie Ring, you bet your butt you got a new friend.
Do they defend all that they do even though it can be harmful or wrong?
From the outside in you can’t understand it, from the inside out you can’t explain it.
Are people telling you how talented you are and saying you can really go places? Flattery goes a long way in cults.
What do you call an Aggie? ‘BOSS’ THAT’S RIGHT.
Do they stop you from reading anything negative about themselves?
That's what paywalls are for.
When you ask questions about their history or the group, are they vague in their answers or avoid answering them?
Phew. No. Thank goodness. Every Ag will chew your ear off telling you how awesome A&M’s history is.
There you have it. Texas A&M didn’t pass the cult test!
See y’all at the Illuminati Tailgate on Saturday.
Beat the Hell Outta tennessee.Unless you're a fan of Ohio State, Miami, North Carolina, Georgia Tech, Tennessee, USC, the entire Big 12, Pitt or any of the many other schools that found their plans altered by the NCAA or cruel circumstance, you made it. An offseason that had longtime fans gawking in disbelief is over.
And if your school did find itself shaking its fists at fate, that's all over now. It's totally not, but now you have something with which to distract yourself while your program continues into shambles. Wheeee!
It's game week -- scroll down for a complete list of game times and TV schedules from Thursday through Monday.
Two top-five teams with huge, ongoing issues take the field in Week 1's main event. Call it the Willie Lyles Bowl if you like, but both the No. 3 Oregon Ducks and No. 4 LSU Tigers have faced plenty of other distractions besides just insufficient scouting profiles. Still, one team will emerge from Cowboys Stadium as a very, very early national championship front-runner.
The extended weekend's only other game between two ranked teams: Atlanta's Chick-fil-A game, and you cannot imagine a more perfect sponsor for a game matching a team from the birthplace of waffle fries (No. 5 Boise St. Broncos) against the pride of... well, Chick-fil-A's state (No. 19 Georgia Bulldogs). And good news! That game happens at the same time as LSU-Oregon. I didn't draw it up, y'all.
Storylines abound elsewhere, however, starting with the Thursday night slate that includes Russell Wilson's unveiling with the No. 11 Wisconsin Badgers and then on to the No. 14 TCU Horned Frogs' first game as a Mountain West team Friday, debuts of new coaches at No. 18 Ohio State and No. 22 Florida and other top programs on Saturday, a potential Big 12 hi-and-bye on Sunday and the remains of the Miami Hurricanes against another new coach on Monday.
Your schedule, and here's the printable version:
Thursday, September 1 6:00 PM ET Murray State at Louisville ESPN U 7:00 PM ET SC State at Central Mich TBA 7:00 PM ET North Texas at FIU ESPN3.com 7:00 PM ET Villanova at Temple ESPN3.com 7:00 PM ET New Hampshire at Toledo TBA 7:30 PM ET Fordham at Connecticut ESPN3.com 7:30 PM ET Western Carolina at Georgia Tech ESPN3.com 7:30 PM ET NC Central at Rutgers ESPN3.com 8:00 PM ET 20 Miss State at Memphis FSN 8:00 PM ET Wake Forest at Syracuse ESPN3.com 8:00 PM ET Montana State at Utah KJZZ, Max Media 8:00 PM ET U-N-L-V at 11 Wisconsin ESPN 9:00 PM ET Bowling Green at Idaho TBA 9:15 PM ET Western Ky LP Field - Nashville, TN Kentucky ESPN U Friday, September 2 7:30 PM ET Youngstown St at 17 Michigan State Big Ten Network 8:00 PM ET 14 T-C-U at Baylor ESPN Saturday, September 3 12:00 PM ET Utah State at 23 Auburn ESPN 2 12:00 PM ET Northwestern at Boston College ESPN U 12:00 PM ET Tenn Tech at Iowa Big Ten Network 12:00 PM ET Miami-Ohio at 21 Missouri FSN 12:00 PM ET Akron at 18 Ohio State ESPN 12:00 PM ET Indiana State at Penn State Big Ten Network 12:00 PM ET Middle Tennessee at Purdue Big Ten Network 12:21 PM ET Kent State at 2 Alabama SEC Network 12:30 PM ET Appalachian St at 13 Virginia Tech ACC Network 2:00 PM ET South Dakota at Air Force The Mountain 3:30 PM ET Troy at Clemson ESPN3.com 3:30 PM ET ULM at 6 Florida State ESPN U 3:30 PM ET U-C-L-A at Houston FSN 3:30 PM ET Arkansas State at Illinois Big Ten Network 3:30 PM ET Western Mich at Michigan ABC (ESPN2 mirror) 3:30 PM ET Delaware at Navy CBSCSN 3:30 PM ET Chattanooga at 10 Nebraska Big Ten Network 3:30 PM ET James Madison at North Carolina Raycom Sports 3:30 PM ET So Florida at 16 Notre Dame NBC 3:30 PM ET SE Louisiana at Tulane TBA 3:30 PM ET Minnesota at 25 U-S-C ABC 4:00 PM ET Sacramento St at Oregon State TBA 4:45 PM ET B-Y-U at Ole Miss ESPN 5:00 PM ET San Jose St at 7 Stanford CSN-BAY 5:00 PM ET Idaho State at Washington St TBA 6:00 PM ET Liberty at NC State ESPN3.com 6:00 PM ET Colorado State at New Mexico The Mountain 6:00 PM ET Buffalo at Pittsburgh ESPN3.com 6:00 PM ET Montana at Tennessee PPV 6:00 PM ET William & Mary at Virginia ESPN3.com 7:00 PM ET Missouri State at 15 Arkansas PPV 7:00 PM ET Indiana Lucas Oil Stadium - Indianapolis, IN Ball State ESPN3.com 7:00 PM ET Fresno State at California CSN-CA 7:00 PM ET Austin Peay at Cincinnati TBA 7:00 PM ET Richmond at Duke ESPN3.com 7:00 PM ET 12 So Carolina Bank of America Stadium - Charlotte, NC East Carolina FSN 7:00 PM ET Howard at Eastern Mich TBA 7:00 PM ET Fla Atlantic at 22 Florida ESPN U 7:00 PM ET Northern Iowa at Iowa State TBA 7:00 PM ET McNeese State at Kansas TBA 7:00 PM ET Eastern Ky at Kansas State TBA 7:00 PM ET Army at Northern Ill ESPN3.com 7:00 PM ET Louisiana at 9 Oklahoma State FCS 7:00 PM ET Texas State at Texas Tech 7:00 PM ET Char Southern at U-C-F BHSN 7:00 PM ET Eastern Wash at Washington ROOT Sports 7:30 PM ET Elon at Vanderbilt CSS 8:00 PM ET 5 Boise State Georgia Dome - Atlanta, GA 19 Georgia ESPN 8:00 PM ET 3 Oregon Cowboys Stadium - Arlington, TX 4 L-S-U ABC 8:00 PM ET Ohio U at New Mexico St 8:00 PM ET Tulsa at 1 Oklahoma FX 8:00 PM ET Rice at Texas Longhorn Network 9:00 PM ET Northern Ariz at Arizona FSN-AZ 9:00 PM ET Stony Brook at Texas-El Paso TW-El Paso 9:00 PM ET Weber State at Wyoming TBA 10:00 PM ET UC Davis at Arizona State FSN-AZ 10:00 PM ET Cal Poly at San Diego St The Mountain 10:00 PM ET Louisiana Tech at Southern Miss FSN 10:15 PM ET Colorado at Hawaii ESPN 2 Sunday, September 4 3:30 PM ET Marshall at 24 West Virginia ESPN 7:30 PM ET S-M-U at 8 Texas A&M FSN Monday, September 5 8:00 PM ET Miami-Florida at Maryland ESPN
For more college football, stay tuned to SB Nation's NCAA football hub and visit one of our dozens of college sports blogs. Get prepped with Bill Connelly's list of extensive previews for each major program.A super PAC supporting Donald Trump is shutting down, CBS News has confirmed, as Donald Trump's campaign announced that he had just disavowed nine unauthorized super PACs "claiming to support him in his bid for the Republican nomination for President of the United States and subsequently demand[ed] the return of all funds raised."
The "Make America Great Again" super PAC, which had been collecting donations to support Trump's presidential candidacy, will stop its fundraising activity, according to Mike Ciletti, who formed the group in Colorado in July.
One of the recurring motifs of Trump's speech is his complaint about outside money and candidates with super PACS backing them.
Donald Trump: A "lot of small contributors" donate to my campaign
CBS News obtained a fundraising email (which was first reported by the Washington Post) Ciletti sent to a donor in September, indicating Trump's longtime gatekeeper, Rhona Graff, had helped him obtain the donor's contact information. "I apologize for reaching you at this email address, it is the one that Rhona had on file," the email read.
The mail went on to raise the specter of Jeb Bush's "$120 million of Super PAC dollars running negative ads against Mr. Trump." Ciletti added, "Without the help of Make America Great Again, Mr. Trump will be left alone to fend off Jeb and the other candidates."
Super PACs and campaigns are banned from coordinating, according to a Federal Election Commission rule, but it is a rule that is being tested by candidates this campaign cycle.
Ciletti, said, in light of the recent controversy, "the focus should be on the issues and candidates."
"People are making an issue out of me knowing people on the Trump campaign as somehow that is newsworthy," he said. "Personally I support Mr. Trump, otherwise I would not have started the super PAC."
"Mr. Trump has said he doesn't have a super PAC. To erase any doubt, I am closing my super PAC and will wait for the primary to reach Colorado to have an impact on the race," Ciletti said. Politico first reported Thursday the super PAC would shut down.
Ivanka Trump's husband's family gave $100,000 to the Make America Great super PAC. A spokesman for the Kushner family confirmed to CBS News that they held a meet-and-greet with Donald Trump at their home over the summer. Contributions were optional, but many were made, though a precise dollar figure was not disclosed. have a dollar figure. The spokesman also confirms that Seryl Kushner, Ivanka Trump's mother-in-law, gave the super PAC $100,000 - an unsolicited donation that she made as a sign of support for Trump's candidacy.
In addition to Trump's disavowal of the super PACs Thursday night, he asked that all donations made to them be returned to the donors, and he called on all of the candidates to do the same thing and disavow their super PACs.
CBS News' Laura Strickler and Sopan Deb contributed to this reportThe world was atwitter last week as President Trump crudely took North Korea to task over its nuclear program, a threat that has slowly but surely eclipsed the distractions of our imperialist wars in the Middle East. But according to tech mogul Elon Musk, humans face a far graver threat from something they use in their everyday lives and could be holding in their hands as they read these words: algorithmic artificial intelligence. Specifically, algorithmic AI that evolves into malevolent super-intelligent entities and seeks to end their meat bag parent species — us.
If you're not concerned about AI safety, you should be. Vastly more risk than North Korea. pic.twitter.com/2z0tiid0lc — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2017
Late last week, Musk tweeted that AI is far more dangerous than North Korea, adding that he believes regulation will be necessary to contain the burgeoning technology.
The tweets come on the heels of the newest unnerving conquest by algorithmic AI. A test bot created by OpenAI reigned supreme in the multiplayer online battle arena (Moba) game Dota 2, beating the best human players in the world. The test AI was able to predict its human opponents’ every move and win using a combination of speed and strategy. Last year, DeepMind’s AlphaGo AI defeated the world’s top player of the most complex board game, Go.
Musk’s alarmist attitude toward AI has, in the past, been mocked by a Silicon Valley digerati convinced that strong artificial intelligence will be a benevolent force that humans can harness. But in recent years, a consortium of futurists and rock star AI developers and experts have finally heeded Musk’s warnings — and Stephen Hawking’s — and launched AI safety conferences and committees for the express purpose of containing the threat of runaway artificial intelligence.
For his part, Musk has tasked his OpenAI company with the creation of a “neural lace,” a theoretical transhumanist technology that melds the human mind with cloud-based AI, a brain-machine interface(BMI). Musk believes the best way to hedge against runaway AI is to upgrade humans to near machine status.
Musk, now one of the richest men in the world, has poured his entrepreneurial spirit into projects that are part of massive growth industries and, simultaneously, visions of collectivist human evolution (as a teenager, his first mission statement was: “The only thing that makes sense to do is strive for greater collective enlightenment.”) Not only did he open his patents for Tesla because “we’re all in a ship together,” not only does he want humans to merge with advanced technology for species protection, he also wants us to colonize Mars in order to have a second home in case future AI inhabitants — our “mind children” — kick us off our home planet. It’s a really weird, futuristic version of collectivism, but it’s there.
At a recent MIT symposium, Musk echoed recent sentiments from Stephen Hawking by declaring that AI constitutes our “biggest existential threat.”
“With artificial intelligence we’re summoning the demon,” Musk said.
Some have accused Musk of using Luddite sentiments and fear-mongering in order to appropriate the AI narrative and insert himself into the conversation. After all, he had a long-running dispute with his friend Larry Page, who heads Google’s DeepMind, over the threat posed by AI. Perhaps he wants to position his brand for what could soon be the most explosively profitable and civilization-altering industry in human history.
Many titans in the field — including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg (who last year announced his annual self-improvement project was to create a personal robot butler), futurist Ray Kurzweil (who authored the seminal book The Singularity Is Near and believes AI will entirely surpass human intelligence and acuity by 2029), and AI engineer Andrew Ng (who heads Baidu, China’s Google, and wears a jacket that says “Trust the Robot”) — believe humans will not face an existential threat from AI and will, in fact, flourish and grow with its assistance.
Musk thinks we could accidentally create a real-life version of Skynet. But instead of Terminator robots, he imagines centralized superintelligence endowed with self-directed exponential growth.
“If you want a picture of A.I. gone wrong, don’t imagine marching humanoid robots with glowing red eyes,” Musk says. “Imagine tiny invisible synthetic bacteria made of diamond, with tiny onboard computers, hiding inside your bloodstream and everyone else’s. And then, simultaneously, they release one microgram of botulinum toxin. Everyone just falls over dead. “The thing about A.I. is that it’s not the robot; it’s the computer algorithm in the Net. So the robot would just be an end effector, just a series of sensors and actuators. A.I. is in the Net.... The important thing is that if we do get some sort of runaway algorithm, then the human A.I. collective can stop the runaway algorithm. But if there’s large, centralized A.I. that decides, then there’s no stopping it.”
Some might once again contend that Musk wants to reframe the debate around AI to make his companies, Tesla and SpaceX, more valuable and relevant in the coming decades. His electric cars and space rockets will require advanced algorithmic AI, including state of the art automation and deep learning, so it stands to reason that he wants his companies to dominate the field. What better way to do so than to regulate that field by restricting the growth of AI and keeping it commercially and industrially friendly and scalable?
Nobody likes being regulated, but everything (cars, planes, food, drugs, etc) that's a danger to the public is regulated. AI should be too. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2017
With a current dearth of public policy regarding AI and regulations left largely to the Federal Aviation Administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Department of Transportation —for oversight of drones, automated trading, and self-driving cars, respectively — one can understand a futurist’s droll reaction to the idea of federally regulating something that is still embryonic. One went so far as write a post for the transhumanist website H+ entitled “Elon Musk Is More Dangerous Than AI.”
Then again, can we be too careful when it comes to the exponential growth of a technology we may not be able to control? After all, we may only get one chance to shape the infrastructure of the Earth’s first post-biological intelligence.
Top photo: Chinese students work on the Ares, a humanoid bipedal robot designed to help transform the country into a global leader in artificial intelligence. (AP/Ng Han Guan)
This work by The Anti-Media licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 International License.Image copyright 9 News / 60 Minutes Image caption Belle Gibson claimed alternative therapies helped her beat brain cancer after conventional medicine failed
An Australian blogger who faked terminal cancer breached consumer laws with her deception, a court has ruled.
Belle Gibson, 25, gained fame in Australia after she claimed to have beaten cancer using natural remedies rather than medical intervention.
She launched a successful app and cookbook, but later admitted the diagnosis was made up.
In ruling against Ms Gibson, a judge said the blogger may have "genuinely" believed what she was saying.
"Not all human beings are rational and reasonable all of the time," Federal Court of Australia judge Debbie Mortimer said on Wednesday.
"It seems to me that, at least in some respects, it might be open to find that Gibson suffered from a series of delusions about her health condition."
Ms Gibson would be penalised at a later date, she said.
How deception unfolded
Ms Gibson's claims to have cured her cancer with Ayurvedic medicine, oxygen therapy and a gluten and refined sugar-free diet propelled her to prominence.
She capitalised on her fame with a successful app and a cookbook, both called The Whole Pantry, and promised to deliver a share of the profits to several charities.
But the money allegedly never reached the charities and cracks began to appear in Ms Gibson's story, leading her to admit her claims were untrue.
Attempting to justify her behaviour, she told a magazine: "If I don't have an answer, then I will sort of theorise it myself and come up with one. I think that's an easy thing to often revert to if you don't know what the answer is."
Justice Mortimer upheld "most, but not all" allegations brought by Consumer Affairs Victoria against Ms Gibson.
She said Ms Gibson's false claims spurred people to buy her products.
"Her 'pitch' overwhelmingly used groups likely to evoke sympathy because of their vulnerabilities - young girls, asylum seekers, sick children," Justice Mortimer said.Buy Photo Lighting crews dig holes for wooden light poles along McDougall at Frederick. Some of the infrastructure on Jefferson has been in place since the early 1900s, and about 80 percent of the lights have not been working. (Photo: Todd McInturf / The Detroit News)Buy Photo
— The lights are coming back on in the city’s neighborhoods.
Detroit’s Public Lighting Authority is about six months ahead of its ambitious timetable to relight all neighborhoods by the end of the year. Officials say the installation of nearly 40,000 LED streetlights will be complete by the end of July.
“It’s already changed things. The streets, corridors and the thoroughfares, they are lit up. It looks nice around here now,” said Rudolph Bartett, a west side resident and safety director for Detroit-based Motor City Electric Co., one of three contractors for the project.
“There’s not a spot we don’t go where people don’t compliment us,” Bartlett told The Detroit News last week, as he monitored a work crew installing a new wooden light pole on Rosa Parks Boulevard in the Boston Edison neighborhood.
The neighborhoods are about 98 percent complete, with final installations taking place in every ZIP code.
The quick progress has enabled the authority to advance its schedule for beginning work on Detroit’s major thoroughfares — a task that had been slated for next year, says lighting authority director Odis Jones.
That work, on streets including Michigan, Fort, Gratiot, Grand River and Jefferson, will get underway within the next month, he said. Lighting work for the entire city is slated to wrap up by the end of 2016.
Resident Lamar B. Smith is looking forward to it.
“It’s been time. It’s been past time,” said Smith, a 65-year-old Navy veteran who lives downtown.
But Jones says the task is far from easy.
“We are charged with rebuilding a system that has failed for one reason or another for the last 40 years,” he said.
Some of the infrastructure on Jefferson has been in place since the early 1900s, and about 80 percent of the lights have not been working for at least two decades.
“That’s going to be an extensive project. We literally are going to rebuild the entire street lighting grid on Jefferson,” Jones said. “It’s got a lot of what I call duct tape on it.”
By the end of the year, the authority is aiming to have the city’s collector streets, which represent areas that funnel into its major roadways, done as well as some of the thoroughfares.
The authority finished all of its overhead residential lighting work by February and the underground should wrap up by the end of next month.
Jones said the authority converted to an overhead street lighting system to curb theft and vandalism. In a move to discourage scrapping, crews are replacing the existing copper wiring with aluminum.
“That opportunity (for copper theft) won’t exist anymore when we are finished,” Jones said. “We wanted to be smart about the investment we made.”
The state-created lighting authority was authorized by the Michigan Legislature in December 2012 and approved by the Detroit City Council to design and implement a three-year plan to improve the city’s lighting system.
The entity is authorized to issue bonds to finance capital costs for system upgrades and earmark $12.5 million per year from the city’s utility user tax to finance the bonds.
It sold $60 million in bonds in December 2013 to fund the initial phases of the project. Last June, $185 million in new bonds were sold.
Jones said about $70 million has been spent.
The lighting plan ultimately calls for about 65,000 streetlights between the neighborhoods and main roadways.
In neighborhoods, the authority has been installing one light at every street corner and in the middle of each block longer than 300 feet.
LED lights efficient
In January 2014, the authority board members opted to install only LED lights to provide brighter and more cost-efficient illumination.
The lights being installed in neighborhoods are the equivalent of 150-watt high-pressure sodium lights, more than twice as bright as the previously standard 70-watt high-pressure sodium lights.
Mayor Mike Duggan, during a keynote address at this year’s Mackinac Policy Conference, touted Detroit’s service improvements, including street lights.
“Our main roads are being lit to a standard that you will be able to read a magazine at night,” Duggan told the crowd late last month. “We are making some progress.”
Two years ago, the city had a backlog of approximately 3,300 lighting complaints — and 40 percent of its 88,000 streetlights were not working.
The lighting authority is responsible for all the newly installed lights and aims to respond to reports of any that are broken within five days. The average response is two to three days, Jones said.
The authority has a partnership with
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riling up ‘social justice warriors’, as they call them.”
Saldaña-Portillo said that even if the NYU WSU group wasn’t “real”, it still presented a problem. “It’s a parody that wants to belittle the language of black student movements and to try to show them as ridiculous,” she said. “So they don’t get let off the hook if it’s a hoax, because the hoax is the point.Is the brain hardwired for God?
Neuroscientists have found and measured chemical changes in the brain when a person is going through religious or spiritual experiences and keep coming back for more. It turns out religion makes us feel the same way we do when we meditate — the evolutionary explaination is these practices help us improve our mental state, so in a sense, we all believe in the same thing… only our vision of what “it” is comes in different forms. Whether it be a God or a power we have inside of us.
Dr. Andrew Newberg explains:
… religious feeling is not invisible. The common thread among mystical and spiritual practices is that while people are engaged in them, the lobes of their brain can be seen working together to create a powerful emotional experience. “When we looked at [subjects’] brain scans, instead of the frontal lobes going up, the frontal lobes actually went down [in blood flow]. Which makes sense in the context of what they are describing is happening to them,” Newberg explains. “They don’t feel that they’re purposely making it [happen]. They feel that they are being basically overcome by the experience.” … “… It certainly looks like the way the brain is put together makes it very easy for human beings to have religious and spiritual experiences.”
In other words, science explains religion. Don’t you love the irony?
Big Think conducted an interview with Dr. Newberg, a pioneer in neurotheology (neuroscientific study of religious and spiritual experiences):
This concept reminds me of a quote by Dale Carnegie from his book How to Win Friends & Influence People:
“When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.”
The majority of people are driven by how they feel. Not by what makes sense. I have friends who don’t go to church or read the Bible but still preach that “there just HAS to be something more!” They want meaning. They crave explanations for uncanny occurrences in their lives or beautiful friendships they create or people they fall madly in love with.
All these things come down to the brain and what you do with it. We are born with a blank slate, and our life is defined by how we use our brains. You can insert your own meaning if you so please.
So learn to harness your thoughts and understand them, and you can make your life an open canvas! Draw. Paint. Carve. Weld. Wittle. Mold. Sculpt. Build. Use life as your own work of art.
Mine = Power. Explore the God within you.Last night there was a public consultation at Riverdale Collegiate institute run by the TTC and Metrolinx. There are two related studies underway: one run by the TTC focusing on building a new subway line connecting the Danforth to downtown, and one run by Metrolinx studying other options for reducing crowding on the Yonge subway line. The photo of the display board below shows how the two studies are related. Both studies have the same goal of reducing crowding on the Yonge line.
The presenters mentioned that the Yonge line is close to maximum capacity during the morning rush hour, and that south of Bloor station the line is already over capacity. The new “Rocket” subway cars will have increased capacity on the Yonge University Spadina Line (line 1) by 10% once they are fully rolled out, and Automatic Train Control will allow more frequent and reliable service and increase capacity by 25%.
The consultation started with an open house, where attendees could view the display boards and talk with the staff from Metrolinx and the city. There was a brief joint presentation where Metrolinx and the City gave an overview of their studies before separate meetings for each project got underway.
TTC – Relief Line Project Assessment
In 2009, Toronto City Council asked the TTC to do a preliminary study on transit options for relieving crowding on the Yonge subway line. In 2012 this study concluded that a Downtown Relief line was needed.1 Now the TTC is beginning to study the downtown relief line. They are currently at the beginning of this process – finalizing the terms of reference and public consultation plan for the study. This must take place before a long list and short list of alignments for the line are studied.
Attendees seemed frustrated with how long the studies take. One person was outraged that it took 3 years to determine that a line was needed. When discussing the study and consultation plan most people suggested accelerating the studies, or finding things that can be studied in parallel to speed up the process. Once this study is completed, a 6 month long abbreviated environmental assessment will need to take place,2 followed by detailed engineering design which could take 2-3 years. Even in the best case where there are no political or funding roadblocks, construction is at least 4 years away. Construction would take 8-10 years.
Metrolinx – Yonge Relief Network Study
Metrolinx is studying all possible ideas for reducing crowding on the Yonge Line. Some of these options may be possible to implement in less time than the downtown relief line, which is clearly a very long term project. Metrolinx is doing this by coming up with a list of ideas, and evaluating them all in a standard way. Metrolinx has defined three categories for ideas to reduce congestion: Making better use of what we have, innovative policies, and building new lines and services. In the Metrolinx consultation the attendees were broken in to small groups to discuss these ideas.
Making Better Use of What We Have
These ideas focused on using GO infrastructure to relieve the subway network. More GO stations in the city, more frequent service and faster GO service could provide alternatives to the subway. For example frequent GO service from Kennedy Station to Union Station has the potential to reduce demand on the subway system, and provide Scarborough residents a faster trip downtown.
Innovative Policies
GO Transit is often not an attractive option for Torontonians because it is a separate and more expensive fare from the TTC. Trips in the city using GO would often require paying a TTC Fare, and a GO Fare. A lot of these ideas focused on integrating the fare structures, whether by fare by distance, linked fares or other options. Other policy ideas included incentives to stagger start times of businesses and schools to smooth out demand, land use policies and an integrated trip planner.
Building New Lines and Service
The downtown relief is the most obvious idea here, but other options were discussed including more express buses downtown, LRT in the don valley, and subway station capacity improvements.
Summary
These studies are long overdue. There was some frustration regarding how long the study process takes, as well as some cynicism that the public consultation is only being done for appearances. Overall it was an interesting and informative consultation, and it was great to see such strong community involvement.
Update – April 22 2014
The Regional Relief website has been updated with the Presentation Slides and Notes from the April 10th Session.
References
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Print(NaturalNews) Even though stevia has not been authorized as a food ingredient in the United States, a number of food, beverage and ingredient companies are investing significant money to expand production for what they view as its inevitable approval.Stevia, a sweetener derived from a South American plant, is said to have approximately 300 times the sweetness of sugar, with a slower onset and longer duration. Because it has no significant effect on blood sugar and has essentially zero calories, it has attracted attention as a natural, non-synthetic sugar alternative. While stevia tends to have a slightly bitter aftertaste, producers claim to have eliminated this drawback with new processing methods.Although the Food and Drug Association (FDA) allows stevia to be used only as an ingredient in dietary supplements, the agency has said that it expects a petition to grant stevia Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) status any day.Coca-Cola has filed 24 patent applications for stevia in the United States, and has teamed up with Cargill to begin marketing the sweetener. Media reports suggest that the companies are preparing to petition the FDA.Meanwhile, Malaysian ingredient firm PureCircle is raising $50 million to expand its stevia production by three times in the next two years. The company has already secured patents on a technique for extracting Rebaudioside-A, one of the sweeteners found in the stevia plant.U.S. company Blue California has also developed a process for extracting Rebaudioside-A. Through comments that its process allows the price of stevia to be competitive with that of sugar, the firm has indicated that it is viewing stevia as more than a dietary supplement. While the company is only planning to begin small-scale production of the sweetener, it says that it is preparing the infrastructure to be able to scale up significantly once stevia is approved for foods and beverages.Stevia is approved for use as a food and beverage ingredient in a handful of countries including Brazil, Canada, China and Japan.PHOENIX (AP) — Joe Arpaio, the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America who could face criminal charges for ignoring a judge's order to stop targeting Latinos in anti-immigration roundups, may now have a new foe as he seeks re-election — George Soros, the billionaire liberal hedge fund tycoon.
A group backed by the New York hedge fund billionaire George Soros, a longtime bankroller of liberal political causes, is mailing anti-Joe Arpaio fliers to Phoenix-area voters shown here, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016. http://syndication.ap.org/AP.Distro.ContentBroker2/ContentBroker.aspx?contentid=39e425b466af4472a61219b1f5ca2037&iid=b28d1db27c43480292dff5f40bc23306&rsn=0&recordid=b28d1db27c43480292dff5f40bc23306&filingId=8df00ffbe4554a8da15732398e36e066&role=Preview&reldt=2016-09-14T20:11:45&media=Photo&sz=28041&dest=ak&trF=AZRF106&ofn=Law%2bEnforcement%2bRaces%2bSoros.JPEG&fmt=jpg&relativeUrl=jpg/2016/201609/14/39e425b466af4472a61219b1f5ca2037.jpg&s3Key=versions/preview-v00.jpg&authToken=eNotizEOgzAMAF%2bUyHZiA0OkfoWEIHkoQYSoHfz4MnS55e6sfpMEgWWKyLMAQIDAVjSFpUbiHJ3IursYJ3KrIDlcMu5cVoIwWdPt2YGDjZ5KO%2b5L87jb1V95dD1qf9B1q5cv7W1DnxhBgp2f9BfIYHomJi%2bekPzMP2g2LQ8%3d PHOENIX (AP) — Joe Arpaio, the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America who could face criminal charges for ignoring a judge's order to stop targeting Latinos in anti-immigration roundups, may now have a new foe as he seeks re-election — George Soros, the billionaire liberal hedge fund tycoon.
The Republican sheriff already was battered politically and support for him had been slipping when a group linked to Soros mounted an anti-Arpaio attack in an attempt to weaken his bid for a seventh straight term.
The group started sending fliers to Phoenix-area voters two weeks ago, and a mailing last week accuses Arpaio of separating a mother from her child because of an unpaid traffic ticket, botching hundreds of sex crimes investigations and scaring immigrants so much that that they don't report crime.
Arpaio denies the claims and is easily capable of striking back with a formidable $2.9 million still available for campaign spending ahead of the Nov. 8 vote, dwarfing the total $326,000 raised by his challenger, Democrat Paul Penzone, a former Phoenix police sergeant who lost to Arpaio by 6 percentage points in 2012.
But the entry of a Soros-linked group is a gift for Penzone, who acknowledges he'll never come close to matching Arpaio's campaign spending.
Over the last year, Soros contributed $3.9 million to Democrats in law enforcement political races in Chicago, St. Louis, Orlando, Houston, Albuquerque, Lowndes County in Mississippi and Caddo Parish in Louisiana, according to campaign finance records.
Of the seven district attorney candidates Soros-linked groups have backed, two have already been elected and four won primaries. Only one lost.
George Soros. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann
In New Mexico, Soros gave $107,000 to Raul Torrez, the winner of the Democrat primary in June for the county that encompasses Albuquerque — prompting Republican Simon Kubiak to drop out.
Kubiak said he guaranteed Torrez victory because he could not raise the money he would have needed to counterattack and because he feared a barrage of negative ads.
"I would have accepted it, too," Kubiak said of Soros' donation to Torrez.
Officials with the billionaire's Soros Fund Management referred comment on Soros' political donations to Michael Vachon, a top Soros adviser who serves as his personal spokesman. Vachon did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
The new anti-Arpaio group, Maricopa Strong, registered in Arizona on Aug. 29, the day before Arpaio won his Republican primary against three opponents. It is not required to file a report detailing who made donations and spending until Sept. 29.
But county records state Maricopa Strong's chairwoman is Whitney Tymas, a former public defense attorney in New York and Virginia prosecutor who serves as treasurer for the Soros-funded Safety & Justice national political committee and groups with similar names in Illinois, Florida, Texas and New Mexico.
Tymas did not respond to repeated phone and email messages seeking comment, and Maricopa Strong spokeswoman Tania Torres did not respond when asked by telephone and email if Soros had provided the group with funding.
Joe Arpaio. AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File The tenor of the ads shown for various local races and past positions by Soros-backed groups indicate he's focused on reducing perceived racial disparities within the criminal justice system. His super political action committee gave more than $14 million from 2015-16, including big sums to organizations trying to elect Hillary Clinton.
The anti-Arpaio flier accuses him of being "obsessed with immigrants at the expense of his job" and of making "immigrant communities scared to report crime for fear they will be harassed by the Sheriff's Office."
The 84-year-old Arpaio has denied he is anti-immigrant and that his unfinished business includes an overhaul of his office after his officers were found by a federal judge to have racially profiled Latinos in traffic patrols that made him a national figure in the immigration debate.
Arpaio was found in civil contempt for failing to stop the patrols after the judge ordered them halted in December 2011. Federal prosecutors are deciding whether to file a criminal contempt-of-court case against him punishable by up to six months of jail time if classified as a misdemeanor and an unspecified sentencing range if deemed a felony.
The list of local law and order campaigns Soros has bankrolled have targeted other incumbents criticized for decisions involving race. They include a $408,000 donation to a first-time candidate for prosecutor in Chicago who won the Democratic primary in March against an incumbent criticized for charging a white police officer a full year after the officer shot a black teenager dead.
In Florida, the incumbent prosecutor for the Orlando area known for prosecuting the Casey Anthony case attributed Soros' money to tipping voters against him during the last month of his campaign before the Aug. 30 primary
People stage a protest against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Phoenix, Arizona, February 28, 2009. Reuters/Joshua Lott
Jeff Ashton said opponent Aramis Alaya gained momentum after a Soros-funded group started running a TV spot on alleged legal system racial disparities.
"She was done," Ashton said. "And then the huge amount of money started pouring in."
Funding by the new anti-Arpaio group could also impact the presidential race because Arpaio is a strident Donald Trump supporter. Democrats hope to rally Arizona's Latinos — a voting bloc including many who have long reviled the sheriff — to show up to vote for Clinton in November.
Chad Willems, the sheriff's campaign manager, said he suspected a well-funded anti-Arpaio group from outside Arizona would get involved in the campaign but doubted it would prevent Arpaio from winning.
"He is a known commodity here. The voters do still like him," Willems said.
Penzone said in an interview that he has had no contact with Maricopa Strong or Soros and doubted money funneled into the race would level the playing field because Arpaio has so much. He has spent $8.9 million on his campaign so far.
The development does show that some people outside Arizona want Arpaio out, Penzone said.
"With his name recognition and tenure in office and all that money, he is still falling short of expectations," Penzone said.
___
Follow Jacques Billeaud at twitter.com/jacquesbilleaud. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/jacques-billeaud.Germany Offers Third Gender Option On Birth Certificates
Enlarge this image toggle caption Deshakalyan Chowdhury/AFP/Getty Images Deshakalyan Chowdhury/AFP/Getty Images
A German law takes effect today that establishes a third gender option for parents filling out birth certificates for newborn babies. They can choose "indeterminate" if the child shows both male and female characteristics.
The parents will make that choice by leaving the boxes for male and female genders blank. The new law is meant to avoid the need to label an intersex baby as male or female before the child is old enough to decide.
The child could also opt to remain classified as intersex. German passports "will soon be allowed to have an 'X' in the gender field, according to a spokesman for the interior ministry," Agence France-Presse says.
As Deutsche Welle reports:
"The law follows a 2012 report by the German Ethics Council, which advises the government and parliament on complex ethical issues. " 'Many people who were subjected to a 'normalizing' operation in their childhood have later felt it to have been a mutilation and would never have agreed to it as adults,' the report said. "It described the necessity of being entered in the registry as 'female' or'male' as being an unwarranted intrusion upon personal rights and the right to equal treatment."
According to a spokesman for the German Interior Ministry, the new law "is not adequate to fully resolve the complex problems of intersex people."
"As many as one in 2,000 people have characteristics of both sexes," the BBC reports.
Parents of those children are sometimes forced to make a quick decision on the infant's gender, in part to satisfy federal registration laws.
"Sometimes surgery is done on the baby to turn its physical characteristics as far as possible in one direction or the other," the BBC says.
While Germany is the first European nation to offer a third-sex option, several other countries have recently adopted similar approaches.
Australia began to allow citizens to identify themselves as intersex on passports and other documents this year. And in 2009, citizens of both India and Pakistan also gained new rights to identify their gender beyond male and female.iStock/monsitj
Google's DeepMind is developing an AI capable of 'imagination', enabling machines to see the consequences of their actions before they make them.
DeepMind's AI has learnt to become 'highly aggressive' when it feels like it's going to lose DeepMind DeepMind's AI has learnt to become 'highly aggressive' when it feels like it's going to lose
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In two new research papers, the British AI firm, which was acquired by Google in 2014, describes new developments for "imagination-based planning" to AI.
Its attempt to create algorithms that simulate the distinctly human ability to construct a plan could eventually help to produce software and hardware capable of solving complex tasks more efficiently.
Read next I tried to keep my unborn child secret from Facebook and Google I tried to keep my unborn child secret from Facebook and Google
DeepMind's previous research in this area has been incredibly successful, with its AlphaGo AI managing to beat a series of human champions at the notoriously tricky board game Go. However, AlphaGo relies on a clearly defined set of rules to provide likely outcomes, with relatively few factors to consider.
"The real world is complex, rules are not so clearly defined and unpredictable problems often arise," explain the DeepMind researchers in a blog post. "Even for the most intelligent agents, imagining in these complex environments is a long and costly process."
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The researchers have developed "imagination-augmented agents" (I2As) – a neural network that learns to extract information that might be useful for future decisions, while ignoring anything irrelevant. These I2As can learn different strategies to construct plans, choosing from a broad spectrum of strategies.
"This work complements other model-based AI systems, like AlphaGo, which can also evaluate the consequences of their actions before they take them," the DeepMind research team told WIRED.
"What differentiates these agents is that they learn a model of the world from noisy sensory data, rather than rely on privileged information such as a pre-specified, accurate simulator. Imagination-based approaches are particularly helpful in situations where the agent is in a new situation and has little direct experience to rely on, or when its actions have irreversible consequences and thinking carefully is desirable over spontaneous action."
Read next We won't know if screen time is a hazard until Facebook comes clean We won't know if screen time is a hazard until Facebook comes clean
DeepMind tested these agents using puzzle game Sokoban and a spaceship navigation game, both of which require forward planning and reasoning. "For both tasks, the imagination-augmented agents outperform the imagination-less baselines considerably: they learn with less experience and are able to deal with the imperfections in modelling the environment," explains the blog post.
A video shows an AI agent playing Sokoban, without knowing the rules of the game. It shows the agent's five imagined outcomes for each move, with the chosen route highlighted.
"This is initial research, but as AI systems become more sophisticated and are required to operate in more complex environments, this ability to imagine could enable our systems to learn the rules governing their environment and thus solve tasks more efficiently," the researchers told WIRED.
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Earlier this year, researchers from DeepMind and Imperial College London added memory to its AI so that it could learn to play multiple Atari computer games. Previous iterations of the technology had only been able to learn to play one game at a time, and while it could beat human players, it could not'remember' how it had done so.
Just last month, research from DeepMind and OpenAI revealed developments that could help an AI to learn about the world around it based on minimal, non-technical feedback – mimicking the human trait of inference.The website has published two sizable reviews of Tiffins at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. The first dinner review includes pictures and descriptions of every single appetizer, entree, and dessert on the menu, in addition to 30+ pictures of the three dining rooms. I followed that up with a Taste of Tiffins review, which took a look at the $28 lunch offering which includes a choice of two items alongside a jade blend rice. Today, we return to the Taste of Tiffins and check out the newish lamb entree, in addition to an update on what’s going on with Nomad Lounge. And I conclude with a lot of pictures of Rivers of Light.
Disney has removed the Taste of Tiffins from their online menu, but it is still currently being served daily from 11am-3:30pm. I’m not sure if that’s an attempt at pushing people towards the Rivers of Light Dining Package or what.
Otherwise, the Apple-Walnut Salad replaces the Archaeologist Salad pictured above.
The Head Cheese and Chicken Liver barely lasted two months. It’s now a “Chef’s Charcuterie Board.” What was a “Crispy Yellowtail Snapper” is now known as the “Crispy Fried Sustainable Fish” in the same sauce.
Sustainable Fish Causa replaces the previous Fish Crudo pictured above.
On the appetizers list, the same three items are here all day, in addition to the Selection of Artisanal Cheeses.
Which looks like this.
The Duck sees slightly different sauces and accompaniments and the Duo of Lamb replaces the original Berbere-Spiced Lamb Chop. The most expensive entree also moves to the top of the menu.
The Grilled Swordfish replaces the Halibut and the Brussels Sprouts replace the Szechuan Green Beans.
I liked the beans…
From the Draft list, it looks like they dropped the Xingu Black Lager and the Exploration Flight that included it in favor of Bud Light. Tusker Lager also replaces St. George Amber Lager and 33 Export Lager from Vietnam is no longer available.
Wine:
At least the $44 glass of Lapostolle is still there.
I’m surprised they haven’t gone to a different bread service…the pomegranate molasses and olive oil is so sharply sour that I can’t imagine that many people prefer it over say…a slice of naan with three accompaniments similar to what’s served at Sanaa. Imagine how popular Nomad Lounge would be if they served the Sanaa Bread Service…
The Taste of Tiffins setup is a nice one, including two of the items on the menu above along with a small plate of jade blend rice. The selections that also appear on the appetizer list should all be the full portion and then most of the other items are accompaniments to the entree selections, though a couple are smaller servings like the Vegetable Curry.
This is the portion on the 72-hour Short Rib for example – six large slices.
The $15 “Sustainable Fish Causa – Peruvian Purple Potato, Aji Amarillo Vinaigrette, Lime Mayonnaise, Cilantro, Quail Egg” is quite the dish with all of the various components laid out. Causa is otherwise typically a Peruvian potato mash with some sort of fish or other meat. I preferred the previous iteration of the dish, which I said was “one of my favorite appetizers, combining the citrus of the lime with the smoked sea salt and acidity of the oil. Crudo, which is Italian for “raw,” means the fish is similar to sashimi, only other ingredients are used to enhance the flavor of the fish. And enhanced they were. Excellent.”
The fish here had a much slimier texture and a much fishier flavor that I didn’t think was helped at all by the ice cold mashed potatoes underneath. It “felt” like someone had just pressed down really hard on the top of a potato and then cut off some slivers. I think there’s a reason mashed potatoes are typically served hot. The dish is supposed to have a spicy quality to it from the aji amarillo vinaigrette, but that just seemed to make everything wetter without aiding the flavor in any way. If the tomatoes were ripe then they certainly didn’t look the part. The egg was good though.
The Crispy-Fried Sustainable Fish with Som Tam and Black Bean Sauce on the right might not look like much on the plate, but trust me – the creamy, decadent sauce combines so nicely with the saltiness of the fish and the crispiness of the exterior. The green papaya salad on the side brightens up the fish further or is a bit sweet on its own. The 10ish bites are more filling than you might be expecting though I wouldn’t be ashamed at all to double up on it. It’s the same thing as the Whole Fried Fish only somebody else has done all the work for you.
The jade blend rice added some heft to the meal and should fill up any additional belly space. It’s a blend of bamboo and basmati rice, in addition to split baby garbanzo beans, wheat berries, green lentils and daikon radish seeds so you have a complete protein with an earthy, aromatic flavor.
Taylor was nice enough to invite me out to lunch after we spent some time enjoying everything Animal Kingdom had to offer earlier in the day. A post covering those aspects beginning at rope drop is available here in case you missed it.
This is the $41 “Duo of Lamb – Ethiopian Coffee Butter-infused Lamb Loin, Boerewors, Soubise, Chakalaka, Tamarind Barbecue, Leek Ash.”
I feel like the menu could use a bit more explanation here. We’ve seen Boerewors before…it’s South African sausage. But soubise is apparently a Béchamel sauce with onion purée. Chakalaka is a spicy tomato bean relish while tamarind is a tropical fruit. Anyway, given all of that, we thought that Tiffins was allowing the lamb to stand alone with the various spices and sauces elevating the natural flavor of the lamb to a more intense, earthy flavor rather than covering that up with overbearing spices. It was really nicely prepared otherwise – impossibly tender with a caramelized crust and a beautiful pink, juicy center. The soubise seemed to come into play more with the two small sausage medallions with the astringency of the sauce contrasting nicely with the coriander and clove of the mildly game-y, earthy sausage. Overall, lamb is typically a smarter investment for those with smaller appetites as each slice of lamb loin is two or three bites with the sausage adding just a few more. But it was probably the best lamb dish that I’ve sampled on property, eclipsing Jiko, Sanaa, Be Our Guest, The Wave, Trattoria al Forno, etc.
Dessert options:
I really like the Chocolate Ganache and a press pot of coffee or tea is a relaxing way to end the meal.
Overall, I continue to love virtually everything about Tiffins. It’s some of Disney’s best food served in a pleasant atmosphere by skilled staff.
I do recommend going big with the Tiffins Dining Package, which is discussed more alongside this review at Tusker House.
I wrote an initial Rivers of Light review and included about 40 pictures a couple of weeks ago when the show was still in previews that’s available here. Since then, my opinion hasn’t changed. My advice is to do what you can to see the show, whether that means booking FastPass+ in advance, using a Dining Package, or seeing the second show in standby where applicable. It may well not be your favorite nighttime spectacular or not even your favorite show at Animal Kingdom, but it’s so beautiful and so different that it’s worth experiencing for yourself at least once. The Tiffins Dining Package offers the best value for your money as well as opening up your FastPass+ selections to use them earlier in the day and would be my choice for “best way to see the show.”
Over at Nomad Lounge, the menu has seen a number of changes since opening just under a year ago. I’ve returned to try everything over the last few months and will update accordingly in the near future. Almost all of the changes are positive/
Here’s a few more pictures of the show:
We’ll see what’s next.How did we miss that? Astronomers reveal they have found the biggest thing in the universe - and say it would take 4 BILLION years to cross if you were travelling at the speed of light
Large quasar group (LQG) is made up of quasars, galaxies from the early days of the universe
Structure is so large that it challenges modern cosmological theory, researchers admit
British astronomers have found the biggest structure in the universe - so large that it would take a spacecraft travelling at the speed of light 4 billion years to cross it.
The large quasar group (LQG) is made up of quasars, galaxies from the early days of the universe.
This particular group is so large that it challenges modern cosmological theory, researchers said.
Scroll down for video
An artist's impression of ULAS J1120+0641, a very distant quasar powered by a black hole with a mass two billion times that of the Sun
HOW BIG IS IT?
O ur galaxy, the Milky Way, is separated from its nearest neighbour, the Andromeda Galaxy, by about 2.5 million light-years.
Whole clusters of galaxies can be 6-10 million light years across but LQGs can be 650 million light years or more across.
Dr Clowes’ discovery has a typical dimension of 1.6 billion light years.
But because it is elongated, its longest dimension is 4 billion light years - that is some 1,650 times larger than the distance from the Milky Way to Andromeda.
Dr Roger Clowes from UCLan’s Jeremiah Horrocks Institute led the study.
'While it is difficult to fathom the scale of this LQG, we can say quite definitely it is the largest structure ever seen in the entire universe,' he said.
'This is hugely exciting – not least because it runs counter to our current understanding of the universe.
'The universe doesn't seem to be as uniform as we thought.'
Since 1982 it has been know that quasars tend to group together in clumps or ‘structures’ of surprisingly large sizes, forming large quasar groups or LQG - but researchers have not seen one on this scale before.
'Travelling at the speed of light, it would still take 4 billion light years to cross,' he said.
'This is significant not just because of its size but also because it challenges the Cosmological Principle, which has been widely accepted since Einstein.
The Sky distribution of the 73 quasars that make up the new giant structure
'Our team has been looking at similar cases which add further weight to this challenge and we will be continuing to investigate these fascinating phenomena.'
The modern theory of cosmology is based on the work of Albert Einstein, and depends on the assumption of the Cosmological Principle.
The Principle is assumed but has never been demonstrated observationally ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.
To give some sense of scale, our galaxy, the Milky Way, is separated from its nearest neighbour, the Andromeda Galaxy, by about 2.5 million light-years.
Whole clusters of galaxies can be 6-10 million light years across but LQGs can be 650 million light years or more across.
Although, based on the Cosmological Principle and the modern theory of cosmology, calculations suggest that astrophysicists should not be able to find a structure larger than 1.2 billion light years.
Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is separated from its nearest neighbour, the Andromeda Galaxy, by about 2.5 million light-years - but the new structure measure 4 BILLION light years
However, Dr Clowes’ discovery has a typical dimension of 1.6 billion light years.
But because it is elongated, its longest dimension is 4 billion light years - that is some 1,650 times larger than the distance from the Milky Way to Andromeda.Are Aliens Tracking Abductees With Implants?
Written by: Oliver Grant Oliver Grant
Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes
Posted in:
The most controversial aspect of the UFO/ET phenomenon — and by far the most bone-chilling — has to be that of alien abduction.
Typically, under regressive hypnosis an abductee speaks of aliens immobilizing their body… levitating them from their bed to an ‘operating table’ aboard a UFO straight through a wall, window or door as if it weren’t there… performing an invasive procedure on their reproductive system… and returning them to their bed. Though a lot of abductees speak of having been taken not from their home but from a location many miles away, sometimes from their car. As was the case of Betty and Barney Hill, whose famous on-the-road abduction in 1961 became one of the first to be thoroughly documented and reported.
Research suggests that in the vast majority of cases, victims have no conscious recall of abduction events; only under regressive hypnosis are they able to remember what happened to them. It appears that aliens have a terrifying telepathic ability to penetrate an abductee’s mind and not only disable their capacity for recall but also embed what’s called a screen memory: a false memory designed to displace any memory of the abduction event.
That said, what is it, then, that leads an abductee to think they may have been abducted… propelling them to perhaps seek out an abductee support group or a practitioner in regressive hypnosis? If they can’t consciously recall their abduction, what leads them to suspect that they might have been abducted in the first place?
Sometimes it’s actual physical evidence: mysterious traces of contact left on their body.
Trace Evidence of Medical Procedures on Abductees
Abductees report finding trace evidence on their skin which they photograph and submit to abductee support groups. Typically, the day after their abduction, they’ll notice marks — which may or may not feel sore — that they can’t explain; they’ve no knowledge of how they acquired them.
Typical are bruises believed to have been left by restraints applied by their abductors to stop them moving whilst undergoing procedures. Also typical are puncture marks thought to be caused by needles, often in a triangular formation — like a bite from a three-fanged snake — and groups of marks arranged in a grid or geometric pattern.
These marks generally fade with time but some “experiencers” report having a kind that leaves a scar: a so-called ‘scoop mark’. This is thought to be caused by a procedure similar to that used in the human medical practice called a punch biopsy, which involves taking a sample of skin for laboratory analysis.
Another kind of mark altogether was first discovered by researcher Derrel Sims, Chief Investigator of Abductions for Houston UFO Network (HUFON). These marks are fluorescent and can only be seen under ultraviolet light. Most fluoresce in the brilliant yellow-green part of the spectrum; others in the red-pink. They’ve been found in numerous locations — limbs, torso, face — appearing as both
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14] Da storyboard artists n' animators also need ta fill up in background charactas fo' otherwise scripted scenes as ta populate tha ghetto. Right back up in yo muthafuckin ass. Y'all KNOW dat shit, muthafucka! Accordin ta writa Meghan McCarthy, nuff of tha lil' small-ass nodz ta tha fandom, pop culture references, or other easta eggs would be added at dis point by tha studio.[24] Once tha pre-production work was approved n' completed, tha episode would then be animated. Y'all KNOW dat shit, muthafucka! This type'a shiznit happens all tha time. Though Studio B performed tha initial animation work, tha final steps was passed ta Top Draw Animation up in tha Philippines, a animation basement dat Studio B had hit dat shiznit wit up in tha lata part of season one n' beyond.[25][26]
Da voice castin n' thang is handled by Voicebox Productions,[27] wit Terry Klassen as tha series' voice director. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Faust, Thiessen, n' others participated up in selectin voice hustlas, n' Hasbro gave final approval.[10] Da voice work is performed prior ta tha animation, wit tha animators up in tha room ta help provide direction; accordin ta Libman, dis allows her muthafuckin ass n' tha other hustlas ta play tha characta without certain limitations. Libman noted dat fo' recordin her lines as tha hyperactizzle Pinkie Pie, "I hustled dat I can go as over tha top as I want n' they [the animators] rarely pull me back."[28]
Daniel Ingram at Everfree Northwest 2012
Da series' background noize is composed by Lil' Willy Kevin Anderson, n' Daniel Ingram composes tha joints,[29][30] which is only included if they would make sense up in tha episodez script. Da thang crew identifies specific partz of tha episode where they want noize cues, allowin Anderson ta create appropriate noize fo' each.[10] Ingram works alongside Andersonz compositions ta create vocal joints dat mesh wit tha background noize while fillin up tha showz fantasy setting.[31] Da composizzle of tha noize n' joints far precedes tha broadcast of tha episode; fo' example, joints fo' tha showz third season dat fuckin started airin up in November 2012 was composed up in 2011.[31] Ingram considered dat joints from previous showz of My fuckin Little Pony was "a lil bit dated" n' decided ta brang mo' bangin-ass work ta tha Friendshizzle Is Magic series.[32] Such chizzlez include makin joints wit mo' wack depth than typical fo' childrenz animation, n' tendin ta write joints dat can be enjoyed musically outside of tha context of tha episode.[32] Ingramz joints have "became bigger n' mo' epic, mo' Broadway n' mo' cinematic over time"[30] wit Hasbro blessin tha effort ta try "suttin' groundbreakin fo' daytime televizzle", accordin ta Ingram.[31] Lyrics n' overall musical themes may be suggested by tha writers; two examplez include joints freestyled by Amy Keatin Rogers, whoz ass be a self-professed Stephen Sondheim fan.[33] Da cold lil' woo wop "Da Art of tha Dress" up in tha first-season episode "Suited fo' Success" is inspired by "Puttin it Together" from tha musical Sundizzle up in tha Park wit George, while tha season one finalez song, "At Da Gala", is based on Sondheimz Into tha Woods.[30][34][35] A big-ass musical number up in tha episode "Da Supa Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000" paid homage ta tha cold lil' woo wop "Ya Got Trouble" from Meredith Willsonz musical, Da Music Man.[30][36]
Before tha show was approved, Hasbro n' Faust had planned fo' episodes ta be 11 minutes long, ta which Faust conformed up in her first full-length script, "Da Ticket Master", which was part of tha pitch bible. But fuck dat shiznit yo, tha word on tha street is dat Faust preferred mo' traditionizzle 22-minute episodes, n' Hasbro eventually agreed ta all dis bullshit. Da initial thang stages was straight-up tight, requirin a schedule twice as fast as Faust had previously experienced, n' frequent remote communication between tha Los Angelez freestylin offices n' tha animation basement up in Vancouver n' shiznit fo' realz. At times, tha two crews would hold "writerz summits" ta propose freshly smoked up scams fo' charactas n' thangs, at which tha animation crew would provide suggestions on visuals, body language, n' characterization. I aint talkin' bout chicken n' gravy biatch. Faust estimates dat tha time ta complete one episode was one year; at one point, tha crew was simultaneously hustlin on various stagez of all 26 episodez of tha straight-up original gangsta season, n' when tha second season was approved, dat number rose temporarily ta 32. Episodes then aired on some month afta completion.[10] Thiessen explained dat they had pushed ta start work on tha second season as soon as tha straight-up original gangsta was completed, ta prevent staff turnover.[23]
Afta tha airin of tha straight-up original gangsta seasonz finale, Faust announced dat dat freaky freaky biatch had left tha show, n' would be credited up in tha future as Consultin Producer n' shiznit yo. Her involvement up in tha second season consists mainly of rap conception n' scripts, n' tha involvement ceased afta tha second season. I aint talkin' bout chicken n' gravy biatch. Despite leaving, her big-ass booty still has high hopes fo' tha staff members, statin dat "the gaps I have left is bein filled by tha same dunkadelic artists, writers, n' directors whoz ass brought you Season 1. I be certain tha show is ghon be as entertainin as ever".[37] In a rap battle wit New York Magazine, Faust stated her reasons fo' leavin was a cold-ass lil combination of a hectic thang schedulez n' a lack of creatizzle control dat freaky freaky biatch had wit tha series.[38] Accordin ta her homeboy McCracken, Faustz departure was cuz of tha fact dat as a toy company-driven show, "there was thangs dat biiiiatch wanted ta do wit dat series dat she just wasn't able ta do", n' dat there is "still some frustration with" not bein able ta brang a shitload of her scams ta screen.[39]
Noize
Premise
Friendshizzle Is Magic takes place up in tha land of Equestria, populated by varietizzlez of ponies includin variantz of Pegasus n' unicorn, along wit other sentient n' non-sentient creatures. Da central characta is Twilight Sparkle, a unicorn mare busted by her mentor Supa-Hoe Celestia, rula of Equestria, ta tha hood of Ponyville ta study tha magic of thang. In tha showz openin episode "Friendshizzle Is Magic", Twilight resents dis assignment, as her ass is mo' concerned bout tha foretold appearizzle of Nightmare Moon, tha evil sista of Celestia. When Nightmare Moon do appear, vowin everlastin night n' causin Celestia ta disappear, Twilight sets off wit five other ponies �" Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, n' Raritizzle �" ta obtain tha Elementz of Harmony n' defeat Nightmare Moon. I aint talkin' bout chicken n' gravy biatch. Before Twilight can activate tha Elements, Nightmare Moon appears n' shattas dem wild-ass muthafuckas. In a gangbangin' flash of inspiration, Twilight realizes dat each of her freshly smoked up playaz represents one of tha Elementz of Harmony (Honesty, Loyalty, Laughter, Generosity, n' Kindness), n' dat dat freaky freaky biatch her muthafuckin ass is tha final piece, Magic. Da magical juice of tha ponies' thang reverts Nightmare Moon ta a repentant Supa-Hoe Luna. Celestia reappears, reunites wit her sista Supa-Hoe Luna, n' decrees dat Twilight shall stay up in Ponyville ta continue studyin tha magic of thang, much ta tha happinizz of Twilight n' her freshly smoked up playas.[40]
Lata episodes follow Twilight n' her playaz dealin wit various problems round Ponyville, includin interpersonal problems between playaz n' crew, as well as mo' adventurous stories involvin creatures like dragons n' hydras, n' havin ta save Equestria from villainous charactas fo' realz. At tha end of each episode, Twilight sendz a report back ta Celestia explainin what tha fuck she hustled bout thang from these adventures. This part of tha formula be abandoned up in "Lesson Zero", tha second-season episode up in which Twilight is convinced ta be less rigid up in her perceived duties; afta this, all tha principals contribute reports, although tha formalitizzle is disregarded when appropriate. In tha fourth season, wit tha request fo' reports no longer applicable, tha six resolve ta keep a cold-ass lil collectizzle underground journal up in which they record they thoughts bout game fo' posterity.
Another focuz of tha show is tha Cutie Mark Crusaders, a trio of much younger mares consistin of Applez Bloom, Sweetie Belle, n' Scootaloo, whoz ass is obsessed wit findin they "cutie marks", a iconic symbol dat magically step tha fuck up on a ponyz flank once they have discovered they special talent up in tha game.[41] Da show regularly features episodes centered on tha Crusaders, whoz ass have yet ta receive they cutie marks n' is teased by other lil' ponies as "blank flanks". In response, they desperately hurry ta try ta discover they talents n' receive they own cutie marks, often bustin so up in comical fashions.[41]
Although tha episodes is designed ta stand alone, tha series features continuitizzle n' overall story arcs, wit nuff muthafuckin key elementz of tha series changing; one such chizzle is tha evolution of Twilight her muthafuckin ass, whoz ass spendz tha straight-up original gangsta three seasons peepin' bout thang n' is subsequently granted wings by Celestia ta become a alicorn n' a bizzatch up in tha season 3 finale "Magical Mystery Cure".[42] In tha season 4 finale "Twilightz Mackdaddydom", her dope ass discovers dat her ass is tha Supa-Hoe of Friendshizzle n' starts livin up in a magic castle afta tha destruction of her library home from previous seasons. Other crucial events impactin tha series is tha Cutie Mark Crusadaz finally obtainin they cutie marks up in tha season 5 episode "Crusadaz of tha Lost Mark"; tha same seasonz introduction of Starlight Glimmer, a villainous characta whoz ass redeems her muthafuckin ass n' becomes Twilightz pupil up in tha season finale "Da Cutie Re-Mark"; n' Rainbow Dash fulfillin her gamelong trip of joinin tha elite Wonderbolts flight crew up in tha season 6 episode "Newbie Dash".
Each season typically has a theme n' overall rap arc: a theme all up in tha first season, fo' example, is ponies' preparation fo' tha Grand Gallopin Gala dat occurs up in tha final episode of dat season. I aint talkin' bout chicken n' gravy biatch. In season 4, tha Mane Six must find six keys ta a mysterious box revealed afta they relinquish tha Elementz of Harmony ta they original gangsta source, tha Tree of Harmony, ta save Equestria; up in tha season finale, it is revealed dat they had already obtained tha keys, up in tha form of gifts they received durin tha season from playas they helped.[43]
Cast n' characters
Friendshizzle Is Magic, presented as a posta all up in tha 2011 Da cast of, presented as a posta all up in tha 2011 San Diego Comic-Con. Major charactas include (mid-front row, startin sixth from left) Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, Spike n' Rarity. Da posta also includes minor charactas n' dem named by tha fandom, includin Derpy, DJ Pon-3, n' Doctor Hooves.
Da show revolves round tha adventures n' everyday game of tha unicorn pony Twilight Sparkle (voiced by Tara Strong), her baby dragon assistant Spike (Cathy Weseluck), n' her playaz up in Ponyville, colloquially referred ta as tha "Mane Six":[44]
Rainbow Dash (Ashleigh Ball), a tomboyish pegasus pony whoz ass helps control tha weather, n' aspires ta be a part of Equestriaz hyped flyin crew, tha Wonderbolts;
Raritizzle (Tabitha St. Germain), a glamorous unicorn pony wit a gangbangin' flair fo' fashizzle design;
Fluttershy (Andrea Libman), a gangbangin' finger-lickin' dirty-ass shy n' timid pegasus pony whoz ass is fond of nature n' takes care of muthafuckas;
Pinkie Pie (Libman), a hyperactizzle pony whoz ass loves throwin parties;
Applejack (Ball), a hard-workin pony whoz ass works on her crewz apple farm.
Other main charactas is tha Cutie Mark Crusaders, consistin of Applejackz younger sista Applez Bloom (Michelle Creber), Rarityz younger sista Sweetie Belle (Claire Corlett), n' Scootaloo (Madeleine Peters). Da two alicorns rulin over Equestria, Twilightz mentor Supa-Hoe Celestia (Nicole Oliver), n' tha younger Supa-Hoe Luna (St. Germain), also step tha fuck up regularly; another alicorn, Supa-Hoe Cadizzle (Britt McKillip), is introduced up in tha season two finale "A Canterlot Wedding" n' oversees tha northern Crystal Empire alongside her homeboy Shinin Armor (Andrew Frankie), a unicorn whoz ass be also Twilightz olda brutha n' shit. Da season five premiere "Da Cutie Map" introduces Starlight Glimmer (Kelly Sheridan), a antagonist whoz ass subsequently becomes Twilightz pupil up in tha season finale, "Da Cutie Re-Mark".
Many playas, crew members, n' other gangstaz of Ponyville step tha fuck up frequently, includin Applejackz olda brutha Big McIntosh (Peta New) n' grandmutha Granny Smizzle (St. Germain); tha Crusaders' mackdaddy Cheerilee (Oliver) n' nemeses Diamond Tiara (Chantal Strand) n' Silver Spoon (Shannon Chan-Kent); tha townz mayor, Mayor Mare (Weseluck); n' tha muscular pegasus Bulk Biceps (Mike Dobson). Notable secondary charactas outside of Ponyville include tha self-proclaimed "great n' powerful" travelin magician Trixie (Kathleen Barr); tha eccentric zebra Zecora (Brenda Crichlow), whoz ass lives up in tha nearby Everfree Forest n' dabblez up in herbal medicine; tha Wonderbolts Spitfire (Kelly Metzger) n' Soarin (Mack Hill); n' Pinkie Piez olda sista Maud (Ingrid Nilson), whoz ass rarely expresses emotion n' is obsessed wit rocks.[45] Da Mane Six also grill nuff muthafuckin antagonists; one of them, tha chimera-like trickster Discord (Jizzy de Lancie), is introduced up in season 2 n' subsequently becomes a recurrin characta of tha show.[46][47]
Da show also features a extensive cast of over 200 minor background characters. Right back up in yo muthafuckin ass. Several of these background ponies became hustla favorites, leadin ta dem havin they rolez expanded; tha showz one-hundredth episode "Slice of Life" focuses almost entirely on some da most thugged-out ghettofab of dem wild-ass muthafuckas.[48]
Episodes
In total, 195 episodes done been produced n' broadcast.
Series overview
Season Episodes Originally aired First aired Last aired Network 1 26 October 10, 2010 ( ) May 6, 2011 ( 2011-05-06 ) Da Hub/Hub Network 2 26 September 17, 2011 ( ) April 21, 2012 ( 2012-04-21 ) 3 13 November 10, 2012 ( ) February 16, 2013 ( 2013-02-16 ) 4 26 November 23, 2013 ( ) May 10, 2014 ( 2014-05-10 ) 5 26 April 4, 2015 ( ) November 28, 2015 ( 2015-11-28 ) Discovery Family 6 26 March 26, 2016 ( ) October 22, 2016 ( 2016-10-22 ) 7 26 April 15, 2017 ( ) October 28, 2017 ( 2017-10-28 ) Film October 6, 2017 ( ) N/A 8 26 March 24, 2018 ( ) October 13, 2018 ( 2018-10-13 ) Discovery Family Special October 27, 2018 ( )
Distribution
United Hoods
I be a gangsta yo, but y'all knew dat n' mah Little Pony: Friendshizzle Is Magic is one of nuff muthafuckin animated shows used ta premiere Da Hub, a retoolin of tha Discovery Kids channel of Discovery Communications up in United Hoodz markets, n' you can put dat on yo' toast. Da block of programmin be a joint pimpment of Hasbro n' Discovery, designed ta compete wit similar crew-friendly programmin blocks on other networks like fuckin tha Deez'nuts Channel n' Nickelodeon.[49] Da first episode of Friendshizzle Is Magic premiered on tha straight-up original gangsta Hub broadcast, on October 10, 2010.[49] In March 2011, tha show was renewed fo' a second season ta air up in 2011�"12.[50][51] Da season two premiere on September 17, 2011,[52] had 339,000 viewers,[53] n' Hasbro reported dat tha second-season finale, "A Canterlot Wedding", produced tha dopest ratingz of tha history of tha network up in its core n' other demographics, wit a estimated 1,032,400 viewers.[54]
Da series is rated TV-Y n' targeted at hoes 4�"7 muthafuckin years old.[55] Da first season was produced n' broadcast ta "E/I" ("educationizzle n' shiznital") standardz yo, but Hasbro allowed tha standard ta be dropped up in tha second season.
International
I be a gangsta yo, but y'all knew dat n' mah Little Pony: Friendshizzle Is Magic has been distributed ta internationistic markets, includin Treehouse TV fo' tha Gangsta-speakin crew up in Canada, Boomerang up in tha United Mackdaddydom until 2012 n' on Tiny Pop n' Pop (UK n' Ireland), two British free-to-air childrenz television channels owned n' operated by CSC Media Group, from September 2013,[56] Okto up in Singapore,[57] Cartoon Network n' lata Boomerang wit Eleven airin repeats up in Australia n' TV2 up in New Zealand,[58] ntv7 up in Malaysia, e-Junior up in tha United Arab Emirates,[59] Tooniverse up in Downtown Korea, n' TV Tokyo (seasons 1�"2) up in Japan. I aint talkin' bout chicken n' gravy biatch. Right back up in yo muthafuckin ass. Some of these internationistic broadcasts, includin language translations, was arranged wit Turner Broadcastin System, which had broadcast Friendshizzle Is Magic n' other Hasbro shows on nuff of they European n' Middle Eastside channels.[60] Da Japanese broadcast of tha show has two audio tracks: tha original gangsta Gangsta-language audio track (available via SAP) n' a Japanese-language audio track fo' realz. Accordin ta Hasbro Studioz CEO Stephen Davis, they have marketed tha show ta over 180 territories round tha ghetto. Right back up in yo muthafuckin ass.[61]
Home media
In tha United Hoods, episodez of Friendshizzle Is Magic is available fo' digital download all up in tha iTunes Store.[62] Along wit nuff muthafuckin other Hasbro properties, tha showz episodes was added ta tha Netflix vizzle streamin steez on April 1, 2012.[63] A two-episode DVD, "Celebration at Canterlot", was offered ta Target Corporation stores as a exclusive, packaged wit certain toys from tha franchise.[64]
Shout son! Factory has tha STD publishin muthafuckin rights fo' tha series within Region 1. Fifteen five-episode DVDs n' three six-episode DVDs done been busted out ta date.
Da first six seasonz of tha series done been busted out up in complete STD box sets.[65][66][67] United Mackdaddydom-based Clear Vision has tha publishin muthafuckin rights fo' tha straight-up original gangsta two seasons all up in Region 2, includin most of Westside Europe n' tha Middle East;[68] however, tha company abruptly entered administration up in December 2013,[69] n' has managed ta only release three I be a gangsta yo, but y'all knew dat n' mah Little Pony STD volume sets az of April 2014 by August 2014 fo' realz. Another Region 2 distributor known as Primal Screen had since taken over tha license from Clear Vision. I aint talkin' bout chicken n' gravy biatch. Madman Entertainment has tha license fo' publishin tha series via DVDs n' digital downloadz up in Region 4 [70] but since Season 4, Beyond Home Entertainment took over tha license.
Merchandise n' other media
Friendshizzle Is Magic be associated wit tha 2010 relaunch of My fuckin Little Pony toy line, havin figurines n' playsets based on dat shit.[100] A section of tha Hasbro joint gives shiznit bout Friendshizzle Is Magic fo' lil pimps n' they muthafathas, includin characta backgrounds, vizzles, n' interactizzle game n' media. Due up in part ta tha olda fans, Hasbro has come ta peep My fuckin Little Pony as a "lifestyle" brand, wit over 200 licenses up in 15 categoriez of shizzle, includin threadz, houseware, n' digital media. Da brand grossed over 650 mazillion USD up in retail salez up in 2013,[101] n' one bazillion USD annually up in retail salez up in 2014[102][103] n' 2015.[104]
In early 2019, Hasbro Studios busted out five tie-in animated shorts on they YallTube channel.
I be a gangsta yo, but y'all knew dat n' mah Little Pony: Da Porno, a theatrical animated film adaptation of tha televizzle series, was busted out on October 6, 2017 up in tha United Hoods, distributed by Lionsgate. Da film is pimped up by series supervisin director Jayson Thiessen n' freestyled by showrunner Meghan McCarthy, n' is financed by Hasbro Studios' film subdivision, Allspark Pictures.
Reception
Critical reception
Da series has received positizzle props from muthafuckas. Todd VanDerWerff of Da A.V. Joint favorably noted its "sheer n' utta joyfulness" n' lack of cynicism, unlike nuff other shows dat garnered a cold-ass lil cult followin of muthafathas n' adults yo. Dude complimented tha characters' stylized appearance, tha stories' relatizzle complexitizzle fo' childrenz televizzle, n' tha solid jokes which make tha show enjoyable fo' muthafathas as well as lil' thugs yo. Dude gave tha series a B+.[41] Da show has been critically praised fo' its humor n' moral outlook by Brian Truitt of USA Today.[105] Genevieve Koski of Da A.V. Joint lata commented dat Friendshizzle Is Magic be a example of a gangbangin' finger-lickin' dirty-ass show that, while considered "girly", has been able ta tap tha fuck into tha nerd culture ta allow it ta bust wider acceptizzle than other comparable forms.[106] Emily Ashby of Common Sense Media, a organization focusin on tha parentin aspect of childrenz media, gave tha show a ratin of four outta five stars, emphasizin its lyrics of thang, tolerizzle n' respect yo, but advised muthafathas ta be wary of tha "influence tha charactas might have on they kids' desires, since itz rooted up in a well-known thang line of books, toys, n' just bout every last muthafuckin thang up in between."[107] Liz Ohanesian, fo' L.A. Weekly, holla'd dat tha show is "straight-up genuine up in its lyrics bout thang but never takes itself too seriously".[108] Mack Morgan, freestylin fo' Wired's "GeekDad" column, praised tha show fo' havin "rebooted tha long-time Hasbro property while managin ta lace it wit geeky undertones" n' bein one of tha few "girl-focused shows dat a geeky daddy can appreciate wit his fuckin lil' daughter".[109] Los Angelez Times critic Robert Lloyd called tha show "smarta n' sassier n' mo' aesthetically sophisticated" than any of tha previous My fuckin Little Pony cartoons, n' praised its mobilitizzle ta appeal ta both lil pimps n' they muthafathas, up in dat it is "smart n' sprightly n' well-staged, n' never horribly cute".[110] TV Guide listed Friendshizzle Is Magic as one of tha top sixty animated showz of all time up in a September 2013 list.[111] Other praise fo' tha show included its style, stories, characterisation n' rap of feminism.[112]
Kathleen Richta of Ms. believed dat Friendshizzle Is Magic did lil ta chizzle tha nature of olda animations fo' girls, which dat thugged-out biiiatch considered "so sexist n' racist n' heteronormative." For example, her big-ass booty suggested that, all up in tha characta of Rainbow Dash, tha show was biggin' up tha stereotype dat "all feminists is mad salty, tomboyish lesbians." Biatch also considered dat tha only darker-colored ponies shown ta date was up in positionz of servitude towardz tha "white pony overlord."[113] Larry Faust responded ta these fronts by statin dat while Rainbow Dash was a tomboy, "nowhere up in tha show is her horny-ass orientation eva referenced" n' "assumin [tomboys] is lesbians is mad unfair ta both straight n' lesbian tomboys", n' further statin dat "Color has never, eva been depicted as a race indicator fo' tha ponies."[15] Amid Amidi, freestylin fo' tha animation joint Cartoon Brew, was mo' critical of tha concept of tha show, callin it a sign of "the end of tha creator-driven era up in TV animation" fo' realz. Amidiz essay expressed concern dat assignin a talent like Faust ta a toy-centric show was part of a trend towardz a gangbangin' focus on profitable genrez of animation, like fuckin toy tie-ins, ta deal wit a gangbangin' fragmented viewin crew, n' overall "an admission of defeat fo' tha entire movement, a white flag-wavin moment fo' tha TV animation industry."[114]
Ratings
Friendshizzle Is Magic originally premiered wit a average viewershizzle of 1.4 mazillion per month yo, but expanded ta 4 mazillion per month by tha end of tha straight-up original gangsta season,[115] makin it tha highest-rated of any Hasbro offerin all up in tha time.[109] Advertisin Age reports dat tha viewershizzle doubled between tha straight-up original gangsta n' tha second season.[116] Da Hub Network reported dat "Hearts n' Hooves Day", a episode on tha theme of Valentinez Day, which aired on February 11, 2012, up in tha middle of tha second season, was tha showz most-viewed episode ever, n' tha second highest of any program of tha Hub network; its viewershizzle exceeded 150% of dat of tha previous year.[117] This was surpassed by tha two-part season two finale, "A Canterlot Wedding", airin up in April 2012, markin tha broadcast as tha highest viewershizzle fo' tha Hub Network ta dat date.[118]
Awardz n' nominations
Friendshizzle Is Magic was nominated fo' three British Columbia Leo Awards fo' Animation, "Best Program", "Best Direction", n' "Best Overall Sound".[119] Additionally, tha joints "Becomin Ghettofab (Da Pony Everypony Should Know)" (from season 2 episode 9, "Sweet n' Elite") n' "Find A Pet Song" (from season 2 episode 7, "May tha Best Pet Win!"), both freestyled by Daniel Ingram, was nominated yo, but did not win, fo' "Outstandin Original Gangsta Song�"Childrenz n' Animation" all up in tha 39th Daytime Emmy Awards.[120] Da show was named tha dopest animated show fo' tha 2011�"12 televizzle season up in a user poll on tha joint Televizzle Without Pity.[121] Marcel Duperreault, Todd Araki, Jizzo Fredrickson, n' Adam McGhie received a 2014 Leo Award fo' they work on "Juice Ponies" fo' "Best Overall Sound up in a Animation Program or Series" on June 1, 2014.[122]
Awardz n' nominations
Friendshizzle Is Magic was nominated fo' three British Columbia Leo Awards fo' Animation, "Best Program", "Best Direction", n' "Best Overall Sound".[123] Additionally, tha joints "Becomin Ghettofab (Da Pony Everypony Should Know)" (from season 2 episode 9, "Sweet n' Elite") n' "Find A Pet Song" (from season 2 episode 7, "May tha Best Pet Win!"), both freestyled by Daniel Ingram, was nominated yo, but did not win, fo' "Outstandin Original Gangsta Song�"Childrenz n' Animation" all up in tha 39th Daytime Emmy Awards.[124] Da show was named tha dopest animated show fo' tha 2011�"12 televizzle season up in a user poll on tha joint Televizzle Without Pity.[125] Marcel Duperreault, Todd Araki, Jizzo Fredrickson, n' Adam McGhie received a 2014 Leo Award fo' they work on "Juice Ponies" fo' "Best Overall Sound up in a Animation Program or Series" on June 1, 2014.[126]
Fandom
Despite Hasbroz target demographic of lil' hoes n' they muthafathas,[100][143] I be a gangsta yo, but y'all knew dat n' mah Little Pony: Friendshizzle Is Magic has become a cold-ass lil cultural n' Internizzle phenomenon, wit nuff thug hustlas between 13 n' 35.[144] Da response from tha Internizzle has been traced ta cartoon n' animation hustlas on tha Internizzle board 4chan,[100] respondin ta Amidiz wack essay regardin tha show n' current trendz up in animation.[114][145] As a result of tha rap on 4chan, interest up in tha show spread all up in other partz of tha Internet, bustin a big-ass fanbase n' a multitude of creatizzle works, hustla sites, n' conventions.[144] Da fanbase has adopted tha name "brony" (a portmanteau of "bro" n' "pony") ta describe theyselves.[146][147] Da olda fanbase had come as a surprise ta Hasbro n' staff thugz involved wit tha show.[30][144][148][149] They have appreciated n' embraced tha fandom, addin nodz ta tha hustlas within tha show n' tha toys,[14] while, early on, allowin tha creatizzle elementz of tha fandom ta flourish without legal interference.[150]
Other
Director Adam McKay was inspired by tha visualz of Friendshizzle Is Magic, which his fuckin lil' daughtas had peeped frequently, up in bustin a gangbangin' finger-lickin' dirty-ass short fo' Morgan Spurlockz 2014 ejaculational/documentary wizzy series, "We tha Economy", rockin cartoon alpacas up in tha same steez as tha show ta explain bout income inequality.[151]
In early 2016, Hasbro was sued by Font Brothers over Hasbroz use of tha font "Generation B" fo' much of its thang packagin n' marketin wit tha Friendshizzle Is Magic show n' toyline, includin tha "Friendshizzle Is Magic" text up in tha showz logo. Font Brothers claim dat Hasbro has been rockin dis font up in a unlicensed manner n' is seekin up ta $150,000 fo' each violation of its use.[152]
Dialogue from a I be a gangsta yo, but y'all knew dat n' mah Little Pony: Friendshizzle Is Magic episode was brought up durin tha 2016 Republican Nationizzle Convention by then-RNC chizzle strategist (and future White Doggy Den Press Secretary) Shizzle Spicer ta defend Melania Trump against accusationz of plagiarism.[153]
See also
Notes
References
BibliographyI could have stretched this one into two separate posts, but since they would both concern the very same character (again, much like Karl Kort, never seen again after this story, sadly), and are from the same story, I chose to do a “two-in-one” with the best / worst two panels featuring this fascinating “yellow peril” villain, General Fang, featured in The Incredible Hulk #5, from 1962.
The first is after the Hulk, disguised as the Abominable Snowman (don’t ask), had destroyed a few of Fang’s tanks and weapons. Naturally, his men are worried:
But Fang, reminding me of a couple of bosses I had in the past, knows how to deal with those pesky outside contributions. I bet the other guy, the one with the simian look and the ridiculous huge bowl with a star, will not ever think, in the future, of offering the slightest suggestion to his most glorious general!
The next panel comes a bit later in the story, after Fang has ordered the launch of his missiles into the peaceful neighboring country of “Llhasa”, which is of course not meant to be Tibet (whose real-life capital is “Lhasa”, with just one “L”), perish the thought.
As the caption in the panel says, the Hulk stops the missiles, but Fang doesn’t know that yet, and so he orders his cavalry (just the right choice for attacking snow-covered mountains, I guess) to attack, and to “strike terror to those who were foolish enough to survive (his) missile attack“.
Because, when General Fang attacks your country, to even survive is but mere foolishness. Makes sense. 🙂 I must use this phrase more often…ANAHEIM, CA -- Calgary Flames goaltender Karri Ramo briefly protested and hung around his crease as though he didn't want to leave the ice. He certainly had a lot more saves in him, judging from the first 60 minutes Sunday.
But Ramo's 44 saves weren't enough to keep the Flames alive in the Stanley Cup Playoffs in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Anaheim Ducks in Game 5 of the Western Conference Second Round at Honda Center. Thirty-two of those saves were made after the first period.
Ramo was terrific late. He got a piece of Ryan Kesler's wrist shot from a steep angle in overtime and stopped Matt Beleskey on a partial breakaway. Ramo made six saves in overtime before he could do little to stop Corey Perry from punching in the puck from a scramble in front at 2:26. His frustration was evident while Anaheim celebrated.
"That just shows how much he cares," Calgary forward Joe Colborne said. "He was so incredible. This series, all year long, he's shown he's one of the top goalies. It's pretty exciting to know we have two No. 1-caliber goalies right now. He definitely showed that he's up in that top group."
Ramo, who took over the starting job from former Ducks goalie Jonas Hiller in Game 1 of this series, downplayed his performance in Game 5. But it was clear he was the only obstacle that prevented Anaheim from taking the lead earlier.
The Ducks outshot the Flames 12-1 to start the third period, and their third-period goal came on the power play.
"I guess it
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efforts to widen Black-Latino divisions on immigration requires understanding and acknowledging the severe economic challenges facing African Americans, especially those facing young African Americans with limited education. It is true that unscrupulous employers take advantage of vulnerable undocumented immigrants to evade wage and safety laws in ways that hurt workers across the board. But that won’t be solved by demonizing immigrants; the solution is comprehensive reform that includes stronger workplace enforcement, the kind of reform being championed by organized labor, the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and others. As Tyler Moran, Policy Direction at National Immigration Law Center, says: “Worksite enforcement must be part of comprehensive immigration reform. However, the real answer to ‘enforcement’ at the worksite is making sure all workers can exercise their labor rights, increasing enforcement of labor and employment laws, and closing the gaping loophole that allows immigration enforcement to trump labor law enforcement.” James Johnson, writing on Imagine 2050 to challenge Cord Jefferson’s post on the Root, cited a Princeton University study documenting that issues other than immigration are actually at the root of the unemployment problem for African Americans, which Johnson describes as “discriminatory hiring practices that lock Blacks out of jobs and advancement, poor educational systems that reduce employment opportunities, outsourcing of jobs historically held by Blacks to other countries, and labor laws that make it more difficult for workers to organize unions to help protect their wages and benefits.” There are examples of on-the-ground coalition work resisting the wedge strategies: in San Francisco in 2008, Black and Latino carpenters teamed up to fight a divide-and-conquer strategies of a major construction company which sought to pit the groups against each other. In Mississippi, Black and Latino shipyard workers and their advocates organized to stop near-slavery conditions among Indian men who were brought to the U.S. in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as an exploitable and vulnerable workforce. In 2007,commentator Roland Martin noted the challenges of maintaining black-brown coalitions at the local level when the focus was on community leaders’ fighting for a shrinking “minority” slice of the pie in a time of diminished resources. Said Martin: “Blacks are not the enemy of Hispanics, and vice versa. The enemy is a lack of quality of education, being shut out of the economic levers, as well as poor health care.” President Obama directly addressed the “black-brown divide” during his campaign, saying, “We have to stop letting those in power turn us against each other. No place do I see this more than in our immigration debate. I am tired of people using this as a political football. We need to solve this problem.”
Decency in DebateRemember when “Paper Planes” propped up stoner comedy film trailers and sport montages and everyone was treating M.I.A. like she was just this new thing that appeared rather than a totemic cultural figure who’d spent over a decade grafting through war zones, bourgeois music circles, tabloid frontlines, and political exile? Her story shouldn’t be skirted over. So here we retrace the evolution of M.I.A., from small-town beginnings to an unlikely global icon: a pop star responsible for radio bangers; an anti-style icon with a conscience; a terrorism relativist; a dominating trans-global force of creativity. M.I.A. has thrown the finger to middle America, supported Wikileaks, worn pants capable of inducing epileptic fits, and collaborated with some of the most innovative in the international underground. But before all that, there was Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam.
GROWING UP ACROSS THE GLOBE WITH A DIAL-UP CONNECTION
It’s well documented that Maya’s Dad was a Tamil loyalist in Sri Lanka, and founder of Eros, a student body which campaigned during the 70s and 80s for a separate Tamil state. Maya was born in Britain, but her father took the family back to Sri Lanka when she was just six months old so that he could help fight for Tamil independence. Picking up scraps of clothing from her seamstress mother’s table—“because what fell on the floor was mine”—and surrounded by the errant bullets of civil war, the prominent parts of M.I.A.’s future soundboard started to form.
Her career has been peppered with pushback against the Sri Lankan government. She has frequently tried to expose their wrongdoing, claiming that they’re guilty of the genocide of local Tamils. Her Glastonbury performance in 2014 featured t-shirts protesting against Tamil deportation. Yet despite a shared cause, she hasn’t spoken to her father much since childhood, since his role within the Tamil Tigers forced the family to flee Sri Lanka and return to London in 1986, where they lived in hostels and council flats (the UK equivalent of the government housing). Returning to the UK in a single parent family, the Arulpragasms found themselves the Sri Lankan filling of a Irish-Jamaican projects sandwich.
She told Time Out:
“I was 10 years old and I didn’t know anything about punk or hip-hop. The only words I knew in English were “dance” and “Michael Jackson.” We got put in a flat in Mitchum and the council gave us second hand furniture, second hand clothes and a second hand radio that I took to bed with me every night. There was a black family on one side and an Irish family on the other. Between them and the radio I got to hear London Posse, who were the best of British hip-hop and had a really original flow and fresh beats that made me feel good, and The Clash, who were also really important for me and for London. Then the Irish family nicked my radio while I was at school.”
The Clash - "Straight To Hell’" which was later sampled in "Paper Planes."
Maya wanted to go to esteemed London art school, Central St. Martins, but she didn’t have the right qualifications. She told them that if they didn’t let her in she would “go and be a hooker in King's Cross and make a film about it and come back in three years time and be like, 'This is what happened to me when I got rejected by Saint Martins.'” Amazingly that seemed to do the trick. She paid for her studying by working in a call center.
Saint Martins and it’s culturally influential intake of artists, free thinkers and party kids changed her life. Maya became a regular on the then-thriving warehouse party scene. She told Time Out of one particularly big night out:
“The moment we walked in we found this wallet that was just like something in a movie—no ID, just loads of money and loads of drugs, every colored pill you could think of. You know I like colors! It was like finding a bag of beads. We took some, didn’t think it had worked, and just kept going through the colors. Then everything happened at once. The next day I didn’t remember a thing. All I knew was waking up in a house in Caledonian Road and my shoes had no heels. It was just such debauchery.”
M.I.A.’s artistic streak was recognized early on, especially her acid-pink graffiti stencils depicting civil unrest in Sri Lanka which caught the eye of Justine Frischmann, who was looking for someone to see Elastica through the transformation from Britpop babes to post-millennial punks. By 2001, M.I.A. had become the “de facto visual director” for Elastica, showing off early stylistic traits in the band’s video for “Mad Dog God Dam” (below). Her efforts were aptly described by Stuart Berman for Pitchfork as “mediating between rock-star bustle and street-level hustle” and are an early mood board of the copy and paste, DIY approach that would soon become her own. One night while Elastica were on tour in Canada, they all ended up at a Peaches show. Peaches was already closing her shows with soon-to-be “Fuck The Pain Away,” throwing the mic among the crowd during the songs climatic chorus. On this night, Maya grabbed the baton and started screaming profanities. This was her first public performance.
Elastica - "Mad Dog God Damn."
As Elastica disbanded, the group’s lead singer Justine Frischmann encouraged M.I.A. to make her own beats on a Roland MC 505 picked up from a holiday in the Caribbean. “People always said, ‘You look like you could make music, you dance like you could, but it’s clear that you’re really tone deaf’.” Maya told Spin in 2008. So, taking Justine’s advice, and ignoring everyone else's, she started experimenting in her bedroom. The result? A six-track demo that included “Galang,” a track held by many to be M.I.A.’s startling entrance to the music industry, and it helped her sign to the legendary XL Recordings.
DATING DIPLO, DROPPING MIXTAPES AND BIRTHING HER DEBUT ALBUM
The M.I.A. sound was an amalgamation of London-esque slang laced with political inference via the street beats of a thousand different developing world countries. It didn't fit into a music scene nursing its millennium hangover, so M.I.A. searched out a contemporary which she found in Diplo. Physically her opposite but creatively her equal, Thomas Wesley Pentz was the global voyeur that Maya needed.
“Besides me being a white dude from Florida and her being a Sri Lankan girl in England, everything else was the same: [We were both] film graduates, [listened to] all the same music when we were kids, were going in the same direction right now in music, it was amazing,” he told Pitchfork in 2005
The pair had met at London’s Fabric nightclub where, coincidentally, Diplo was playing “Galang” to a horde of sweating teenagers. He’d also picked up another track—“Fire Fire”—from a someone at i-D Magazine which played as Maya strolled into the club. The pair soon struck up a romantic attachment which bore more than shared moments in the solitude of night. They recorded a mixtape, titled Piracy Funds Terrorism, which was distributed at live shows and online, that served as an entree for the early internet hype beasts. Piracy Funds Terrorism utilized an online community that Diplo had long courted with his involvement in the Hollerboard, a proto private Facebook group for music snobs. Featuring Maya’s vocals over samples lifted from Madonna, Kraftwerk, and Eurythmics, it was well executed foreplay for Arular, her now long awaited debut, and proved a curious yet insatiable first effort.
As music bloggers continued to cream over her careless sampling layered with socio-political undertones, M.I.A. dropped Arular, released on XL, in March 2005. Named after her father’s Tamil codename in a hope that he would one day Google himself and discover his daughter’s creative opus (he did, and Maya later recounted to the Guardian: "it irritates me that I end up giving him so much attention when he had so little to do with my life"), the album pieced together a lifetime of inspiration. Its DIY ethos cast aspersions on the ethics of punk music, though its sharp sampling of bhangra and dancehall flavored beats, placed it firmly in the 21st century. And it still bangs harder than the beats put out by every “bedroom producer” living in the world of instantaneous internet access and Soundcloud.
THE TRANSATLANTIC SUCCESS AND TRIBULATIONS OF GOING GLOBAL
Diplo couldn’t get on board with the transatlantic success of Arular and their relationship soured. Recalling the time in a recent interview with Rolling Stone, M.I.A said: “Missy Elliott called me for the first time in 2005 to work with me on her record, and I'm sure we had a massive fight about that… I wish I enjoyed it because I had this person on my shoulder the whole time saying, ‘It's shit, it's shit, it's shit. You shouldn't be on the charts.’” It seemed like a case of supportive boyfriend getting protective, jealous, and insecure once the plaudits start rolling in. Obviously, Diplo has gone on to have a subversive career in which he stayed resolutely underground never once dipping his toe into chart-friendly production.
After spending a summer playing festivals—in which she received a rare encore during her Coachella set—and touring with the likes of Gwen Stefani and LCD Soundsystem, the wheels were quickly set in motion for Kala, M.I.A.’s sophomore record. Now signed to Interscope in the US, Kala, named for her mother, was to be a stiltedly international affair. She was sporadically prevented from entering the US due to visa complications, and it was recorded instead in India, Liberia, and Trinidad.
“When I started recording a song in India, say 'Boyz.' I recorded the drums in India, then I had the files in Trinidad. We put it together and did the vocals in Trinidad, and then we did some extra work on it in Brooklyn, and then we went back to India and did some extra extra work,” she told The Village Voice in 2007. “Boyz,” a tri-blend of influences, became an instant dance track smash with a ludicrously vibrant video to match. Styled by the godmother of new rave fashion, Cassette Playa, it was filmed in Jamaica after gaining a heap of popularity as a club track in Kingston (“it got everybody to turn up”).
"Boyz."
Incorporating British fashion, Jamaican dancers, and an entirely otherworldly vibe, “Boyz” was color in cardiac arrest, launching a thousand spin offs. Even Diplo would later accuse Rihanna of copying it in “Rude Boi,” mixing a characteristically coy mash-up to emphasize his point. M.I.A was trailblazing.
As the work on Kala came to an end, M.I.A. returned to the United States. In an interview with The Village Voice, she painted a glorious image of the meetings that Interscope had set up on her behalf. “Will.i.am and Pharrell and Timbaland were all in one room, and I was just coming from India, working in a little studio with cockroaches and little kids using my blank CDs as frisbees and shit. And then I sat in a million-pound studio with T.I. and Britney next door.”
Thankfully neither Pharrell nor will.i.am landed on the album. Timbaland, however, lent his hand to “Come Around,” a bonus track with the weight of expectation bringing it down. Made in a day and obviously on Timb’s terms, Maya explained to The Village Voice why the collaboration became a footnote. “By the time that our paths met, Timbaland had already been Timbaland and done all the cool weird shit. He's sampled babies and cows and things, and I was making tracks sampling chickens. And he was like, ‘I'm done being cool; I want to work with Celine Dion.’"
"Come Around."
“Boyz” and “Come Around” are the sound of evolution: an artist growing and utilizing opportunities to make another critically and commercially lauded record, without losing the DNA that made Maya Arulpragasm into M.I.A. In an early documentary, VBS creative director Spike Jonze traveled with M.I.A around London, meeting friends and collaborators in the wake of Kala’s release. She dissects tracks including “Paper Planes” as she dances around her protégée Afrikan Boy’s apartment. She tells Jonze that “it’s about making visas” as she and Afrikan Boy pull shapes with barely any room to move. There was no knowledge of what was to come.
THE INTERNATIONAL SUPERSTAR
After Kala’s release, “Paper Planes” was picked up by the biggest distributors possible: Hollywood and Kanye West. Used on the trailer for James Franco’s cheese’n’cheetos frat party epic, Pineapple Express, and then on the Kanye-produced blockbuster “Swagga Like Us,” which featured Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and T.I, “Paper Planes” became inescapable.
It earned a Grammy nomination, and a heavily pregnant M.I.A. joined Kanye and friends to perform it live at the ceremony. Wearing a Henry Holland dress that left nothing to the imagination, 2008 became the year that Maya had officially conquered the world, becoming the only person ever to be nominated for a Mercury Prize, a Brit, a Grammy, and an Oscar. But she bowed out of the Oscar performance, due to the birth of her son with her then fiancé, Ben Bronfman.
With a slew of nominations behind her and millions of records sold worldwide, Maya’s lifestyle had changed significantly. Gone were the days of country-hopping to record in studios where children played outside in the dirt, and her third album was recorded in the LA home she shared with Bronfman, a musician whose own family held the keys to the Warner Music Group.
It was inevitable that her creative process would change, though she refused to be swept along with a tide that could have easily carried into a realm of emotionless hits. Instead, she invested time into her record label, N.E.E.T. music, signing a visual artist, Jaime Martinez, with whom she created an early incarnation of the gif—featuring #onfleek artwork, rather than today’s arrangement of Netflix-era TV shows with an easily quotable slice of text.
M.I.A's early gif.
GINGER GENOCIDES, TWEETING PHONE NUMBERS, AND GIVING MIDDLE FINGERS
After giving birth, she spent most of her time in LA. Exploring countries had been replaced by reading about them on the internet. A tool that had once been a such a help became a hindrance—her political associations could be displayed for all to see, and easily. The rise of Twitter became a poisoned chalice as death threats aimed at Maya and her son came from Sri Lankan sympathizers branding her a terrorist. She hit back, posting videos of unlawful killings of Tamil Tigers on her own profile. She fought online fire with fire, and the situation exploded in a blaze of glory in April 2010, with the release of “Born Free.”M.I.A. became an official figure of controversy after her decision to collaborate with the French director, Romain Gavras, on “Born Free.” It was her most visual attempt at making the unspeakable inescapable. The video, which was nine minutes long and shot in the desert, depicted the extra-judicial killing of Tamil males she had uploaded three months prior to her Twitter feed, by showing the rounding up and killing of a group of red-haired children by an armed militia. Released without her label’s knowledge, the video was promptly banned from YouTube and television stations, and she became an icon of controversy.Representational of several —the unspoken genocide in Sri Lanka, immigration in Arizona, the mistreatment of prisoners abroad—“Born Free” is symbolic of an M.I.A. who’d graduated from the school of bright, gratuitous colors, switching up her talking point tactics to something shocking beyond eye-strain. She responded to the criticism of “Born Free” by redirecting back to wider realities, saying how “fascinated” she was by the reaction. “I think it's interesting how we react to fiction and how we react to realism on the internet... this is mainstream media, I wish I was talking about way more underground theories, but [I'm] not, this is just me digesting what I see in the mainstream,” she told MTV News. The new Justin Bieber video is “more of an assault to my eyes and senses than what I've made,” she would later tellAlthough Romain Gavras went on to continue the ginger-genocide in his feature length film, the digital world seemed to no longer work in M.I.A.’s favour. Her mistrust of it became the subject of, her third album. Stylized as un-googleable concept (try searching for it), the record sounds trapped where its predecessors are free. It’s claustrophobic and intense, with tracks screaming through their CAPS LOCK’d typography. Industrial sounding and shackled, even‘s attempt at pop pastiche “XXXO” is coated with cynicism.It was received well, its mistrusting theme as fascinating as had come to be expected from such an outspoken artist, though it wasn’t rated as favorably as its predecessors. Would-be fans were likely put off further by a now infamous interview with the, where Maya was called out for her fickle politics and tastes that didn’t seem to fit with someone’s branded version of a “freedom fighter." The article—and Maya's decision to eat truffle fries while asserting her outsider status —caused a media shitstorm. Maya’s response to the article was to tweet the journalist’s phone number. The magazine retracted quotes, admitting some had been taken out of context, but the damage had been done: M.I.A. was now a controversial celebrity first, artist second, and shifting public's perception of her would become a mammoth undertaking. With the truffle-gate trailing her wherever she traipsed, M.I.A. happily nailed her own coffin shut using just her middle finger.
Exchanging the word “shit” for flipping the bird while performing at the Super Bowl 2010, she was slapped with a multi-million dollar lawsuit. She’d angered Madonna, the Super Bowl, and the family values-loving population of the States whose annual helping of big budget showmanship had been replaced with a deftly placed middle digit. Music was put on the back burner, with her only release in the next three years a mixtape, Vicki Leekx, released on New Year’s Eve, 2010. It was a final sigh for 2010, a flippant final middle finger throw up to a year that ground her down to nothing more than a troublemaker.
THE REBIRTH OF MATHANGI AND THE FUTURE
, Maya waited two years to release it properly, and when it arrived in 2012, it came with a video that placed her firmly back into public consciousness as one of the most original visual artists of the 21st century. I mean, f’real. The video features MIA rapping from a car riding through the Morrocan desert on just its two right wheels. What more could you want?
M.I.A.’s most recent recordreturned to world town for inspiration. Recorded after finding relief from her inspiration slump in India, M.I.A. had returned to old faithful’s like Switch to help her record, revisiting India to research and reinvent. Named for the Hindu Goddess of music and learning, and her own middle name,carries with it an airiness lost in the claustrophobic curtain twitching of. A slight calm after a hurricane, her face emblazoned the front: M.I.A. had returned.The album’s lead single, “Bad Girls,” is a potent return. First heard on
Premiered on Noisey with a Q&A on her new album, Maya described Matangi as a culmination of her first three records. In a painful Hot 97 interview she speaks about how it’s “unifying loads of concepts”—piecing together a jigsaw of self-discovery that made her a woman able to deal with the flatulent questions thrown at her by the likes of Peter Rosenberg. Sharply aware, but still playing ball, MIA had come out of the 00s a grown woman.
It’s been a quiet two years since the release of Matangi. Last month saw her first solo material since 2013. “Can See Can Do” is no doubt a precursor to new material—perhaps summer will see the fifth wave of M.I.A. Let’s hope so. Until then I’m blasting “Galang” until my ears bleed rainbows.
Tamara Roper is on Twitter.(Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a less-rigid social conservative!
That's a less-than-tantalizing tagline for the next Superman movie. But it does reflect the findings of a new study, which finds that conservatives are less resistant to social change if they imagine they have a superpower that makes them impervious to physical harm.
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"Safety and security can foster more progressive attitudes," writes a research team led by psychologist Jaime Napier of New York University–Abu Dhabi. "Just as threats can turn liberals into conservatives, safety can turn conservatives into liberals—at last while those feelings of threat or safety last."
Political psychologists have established a strong link between fear and social conservatism. One line of research suggests this is, at least in part, biologically based; there is evidence that engaging in risky behavior creates stronger negative emotions in conservatives than liberals. Other studies have found fear can temporarily turn liberals in a rightward direction, which explains why support for George W. Bush's policies spiked following the 9/11 attacks.
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But the inverse also appears to be true. At least, that's the implication of two studies Napier and her colleagues describe in the European Journal of Social Psychology. The first featured 145 people (two-thirds of whom were female) recruited from a university-based online pool.
They began by reading one of two versions of a vignette, in which they visualized being gifted with a specific superpower. For half, this power made them "invulnerable to physical harm." For the others, it gave them the ability to fly.
After writing "a few sentences about how they felt" about this opportunity, they reported their political party affiliation, and estimated how liberal or conservative they were on social issues and, separately, on economic concerns.
Republicans who were ruminating about physical invulnerability were significantly less socially conservative (by their own report) than those who thought about the ability to fly. The idea of being impervious to pain reduced the difference between Democrats and Republicans on the social-conservativism scale by more than half.
The second study, which featured 128 people, used the same two vignettes. Participants reported their general political orientation on a scale of one (very liberal) to nine (very conservative), and then responded to four statements assessing "their resistance to change and acceptance of inequality."
The researchers report that thinking about being invulnerable "significantly reduced conservatives' resistance to change, but did not have a reliable impact on attitudes about inequality." As with the first study, liberals' attitudes were not affected by the manipulation.
The results suggest that "physical threat is especially tied to people's attitudes concerning preserving the social order and resisting social change," Napier and her colleagues conclude. "Increasing people's sense of safety did make them more socially liberal, but did not influence their stance on economic issues."
If liberals hope to soften what they see as the narrow-minded views of social conservatives, a smart strategy will start with acknowledging—and, to the extent possible, assuaging—the fear that underpins such beliefs.He said she has taken counselling and has been diagnosed with mental-health problems including anxiety, depression and a borderline personality disorder.
"It is within that context that the court must assess her culpability," said Brock, who argued for a 15-month jail term.
Justice David Carr also took into account that Hollmann had no prior record, got fired and has separated from her husband, also a UW employee.
She came to court with a restitution cheque for $27,500, her half of the proceeds from the sale of their matrimonial home.
"That's a start, but it … doesn't even come remotely close to replacing the money the university has lost," Carr told her.
The scam was uncovered after a company that provides an electronic payment system at UW noted an unusually high amount of refunds at the copy centre, most for just under $1,000.
Red flags were also raised by electronic refunds made after business hours and on weekends. Concerns then triggered an audit.
McBoyle, vice-president academic and provost at UW, said the scams hurt cash-strapped students as well because prices had to be hiked to cover losses.
Hollmann was also placed on probation for three years, with an order to pay the university $250 a month during that time.
After she got fired, she worked with horses netting about $1,800 a month and told the judge she intends to declare bankruptcy when she gets out of custody.
As a result, Carr made a standalone restitution order for only $25,000 — not the full amount of the remaining loss — because it seems so unlikely she will ever be in a position to pay more.
Such orders are similar to judgments in civil lawsuits.
The token order issued by Carr was in stark contrast to an order made by another judge in another Kitchener courtroom just the day before.
Jennifers Killins, who ripped off clients for $1.3 million while pretending to be a financial adviser, was ordered by Justice Colin Westman to compensate her victims for all of their losses despite the fact she is also broke.
[email protected] was a long time coming, but today the President signed the Claims Resolution Act of 2010. Secretary Vilsack recently addressed the Pigford II Settlement and Secretary Salazar address the Cobell Settlement, the two main parts of the legislation. The President released the following statement afterwards:
Statement by the President on H.R. 4783
Today I have signed into law H.R. 4783, the "Claims Resolution Act of 2010." This Act, among other things, provides funding and statutory authorities for the settlement agreements reached in the Cobell lawsuit, brought by Native Americans; the Pigford II lawsuit, brought by African American farmers; and four separate water rights suits, brought by Native American tribes. While I am pleased that this Act reflects important progress, much work remains to be done to address other claims of past discrimination made by women and Hispanic farmers against the Department of Agriculture as well as to address needs of tribal communities.
I am also pleased that the Act includes authorities proposed by my Administration concerning Unemployment Compensation program integrity, to expand the ability of the Federal Government to recover from individual income tax overpayments certain Unemployment Compensation debts that are due to an individual's failure to report earnings. My Administration has been working to protect taxpayer funds through improved recovery of improper Federal payments, and the additional authorities in this Act will assist in that effort. In order to ensure that the intent and effect of these program integrity provisions are realized, my Administration is working with the Congress to correct an inadvertent technical drafting error in section 801(a)(3)(C), so that the provision can be implemented as intended.
BARACK OBAMA
THE WHITE HOUSE,
December 8, 2010.Just as Crew Stadium was a-buzz on Tuesday night, as was the Twitter world about the electric atmosphere in Columbus.
Here are the top social media posts from the U.S. Men's National Team's 2-0 win over Mexico.
.@AviCreditor's suggestion in our live blog: rebrand Columbus Crew Stadium to "Estadio Dos A Cero": http://t.co/jQNSluXRDu — SI Soccer (@si_soccer) September 11, 2013
Wish I was in Columbus. Crew stadium looks electric!!! — Zach Boren (@ZBoren44) September 11, 2013
USA v. MEXICO Crew Stadium. Where's @FrankieHejduk2 at?!?!? — Robbie Rogers (@robbierogers) September 10, 2013
Waiting on the field in Columbus for the Honduras-Panama finish (2-1 HON now). Frankie Hejduk is break-dancing for the fans. — Grant Wahl (@GrantWahl) September 11, 2013
Great seens for the @ussoccer and to see 2 @MLS goalscorer to secure a spot in BRAZIL2014. Great show put on by Columbus Crew setup. #MLS — Tim Cahill (@Tim_Cahill) September 11, 2013This week marks the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. We are celebrating this milestone with a gallery of images that you can see here.
When Spanish explorers first reached southwestern Colorado and observed a broad sloping mountain with a nearly flat top, they called the feature mesa verde—“green table” in Spanish. The name stuck, though it now creates linguistic headaches for geologists and park rangers.
Cuesta—not mesa—is the correct geological term for the dissected tableland that makes up the park. Mesas are flat-topped highlands with steep sides. Cuestas are flat highlands that have a gentle slope in at least one direction.
In the case of Mesa Verde, the tableland dips at a seven-degree angle to the south. Over a distance of about 18 kilometers (11 miles), the elevation changes from 2,600 meters (8,570 feet) above sea level near the northern border of the park to roughly 2,070 meters (6,800 feet) near the southern border.
The fact that there is a gentle dip in the rock is more than geologic trivia. The slant contributed to the formation of cliff alcoves, which are large, arched recessions in the cliff walls. Alcoves form when water seeps into cracks, freezes, thaws, and slowly pushes the rock apart. Ancestral Puebloans used blocks of fallen rock pushed loose by the thawing and freezing of water to build their homes.
Today, several of the dwellings and settlements in these cliff alcoves—such as Balcony House, Cliff Palace, Long House, Spruce Tree House, and Step House—are popular sites for visitors to Mesa Verde National Park. With about 150 rooms, Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in the park.
The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 captured this image of the park on August 15, 2016. The lower image shows a more detailed view of the topography near Cliff Palace. (Note: an optical illusion known as relief inversion may cause the canyons to appear as highlands to some viewers.) The palace, as seen in the National Park Service photograph below, is situated beneath a layer of erosion-resistant sandstone.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Caption by Adam Voiland. Photo by the National Park Service/Sandy Groves.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.
The short answer to whether the US National Security Agency’s (NSA) program for reviewing emails, telephone calls and metadata (information about communications, such as when and from where an email was sent) is legal would appear to be: yes.
Unlike some past controversies about the balance between protecting the nation’s security and privacy rights, no one is saying that the executive branch went out completely secretly on its own (though the scope of the program has shocked many even in Congress) with the new far-reaching checks into people’s personal lives.
The US Congress passed provisions under the Patriot Act that at least arguably authorize the program, though there is a spirited debate as to what extent the program went beyond the intentions and even imagination of the legislation’s drafters.The judicial branch is also involved, with the FISA court (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) – a special court for reviewing classified national security-related search warrants – having approved every email, telephone and metadata search that the NSA has performed (or at least a general policy allowing the type of search.) US President Barack Obama, a Democrat, who was highly critical alleging national security overreach in invading privacy by his predecessor George W. Bush, held a major press conference on Friday in which he essentially assumed the program’s legality, and at most, appeared ready to tinker with the details and better inform the public about the program to reduce public anxiety.So what is there to debate? Why did a rare bipartisan revolt of almost half of the US House of Representatives add new restrictions to the NSA’s searching powers and why do recent polls show an increasing number of Americans opposed to the breadth and volume of the NSA’s searches? Primarily, the objections are that even if all three branches of government to some extent have approved the NSA’s far-reaching powers, they have all gone astray of core US constitutional protections of individual citizens from “searches and seizures” other than those carefully tailored, and that the NSA’s actions are still inherently illegal, or at best against the spirit of the Constitution.Those arguing that the NSA’s actions not only are against the Constitution’s spirit but are actually illegal focus heavily on the FISA court’s almost zero rejection rate. The court has rejected only 11 out of 33,900 searches in 33 years, according to many reports.They say that the FISA court cannot properly be considered part of the judicial branch, as it only hears the government’s side of the story, with no adversary offering a counterview or defense of privacy rights.Also, they say that the FISA court works too closely with the Department of Justice, which leaves no real objective check on the process.As to the spirit of the law, some say that government is severely stretching its interpretation of the Patriot Actgranted powers by saying that only if a human being reviews your email, telephone call or metadata can the state’s power to search even be restricted.In this view, if tons of your personal information has been stored and analyzed only by a computer, you have not actually been “searched” at all.Critics say that since the concern is abuse of that information, as long as that information is possessed by the state, it can be easily accessed and abused even if it has not yet been reviewed.They also object to a compromise put forward in which private email and telephone giants would be required to maintain their own storage of such information should the NSA at some point desire it.Critics say that all such deals have come with a “back-door” provision, meaning that the NSA could essentially access the information being held privately through a built-in electronic back door, as easily as if it was in its own computers, thus leaving the abuse scenario in play.Those who object on the grounds of the spirit of the law also say that it just makes no sense to invade such a voluminous amount of private information for such a small number of targets and payoffs.For now, though, the bottom line appears to be that the number of objections to the program – including from such unexpected corners as Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner, who helped draft the Patriot Act – are likely to lead to some additional safeguards, while keeping the overall program intact, in light of its equally strong bipartisan support and significant claims to legality.
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nut butter cups in the fridge in a sealed container. Enjoy!
The compulsive, candy-obsessed kid in me can’t quite believe I am saying this, but I’d give up my old peanut butter cups any day for these next-level versions. These are simply so delicious, so delectable and divine, the only behavior that I still carry with me is my inability to share. Workin’ on it.In his effort to undo all the good of President Barack Obama's presidency, Donald Trump is now targeting teens.
No good deed done under President Barack Obama goes unpunished by his petty and jealous successor.
Donald Trump, whose bizarre obsession with the far more popular and successful Obama, is world-famous — not to mention highly destructive — is intent on undoing Obama’s legacy, regardless of the harm his obsession inflicts. His latest target? A program to reduce teen pregnancies.
The Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, created under Obama in 2010, funds educational programs in 39 states to teach teenagers about safe sex and reduce teen pregnancy rates. Those programs have been highly successful; in fact, in 2017, teen birth rates in the U.S. reached an all-time low.
But the Trump administration wants to change that.
The Department of Health and Human Services issued a letter stating that it was terminating the program early — but “offered up very little explanation” for the sudden decision, according to Bill Albert, chief program officer at the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
However, given the number of anti-women’s health ideologues in Trump’s administration, and at HHS in particular, it’s not hard to guess at possible reasons.
Tom Price, secretary of the department, is a staunch opponent of access to reproductive health care, including birth control.
Valerie Huber, chief of staff to the assistant secretary of the department, was president of an abstinence-only organization prior to joining the administration. Abstinence-only education has been proven to be not just ineffective, but dangerous because it provides false and misleading information to teens who are likely to engage in unsafe practices because they don’t know any better.
Also at HHS is Charmaine Yoest, appointed by Trump in April, who had been one of the nation’s most prominent and radical anti-abortion activists. Among her many extremist beliefs is her desire to ban all forms of birth control, even though the ability to access affordable birth control is what contributes to lower rates of unintended pregnancies — and abortion.
And of course there is Vice President Mike Pence, one of the foremost leaders in the war on women’s health, who once described condoms as “very, very poor protection.”
Republicans have for years targeted the very programs that effectively reduce teen pregnancy rates. In 2015, for example, Republicans tried to shut down an award-winning program in Colorado than reduced the state’s teen pregnancy rate by 40 percent.
But instead of trying to replicate and expand the programs that actually work, the Trump administration is trying to shut them down, which can only have negative consequences for the very people they were helping.
So because of his petty spite, and his administration’s rabid ideology, yet another tremendous success from the Obama administration may be reversed by Trump.Have you ever woken up in a cold sweat from that dream where you're standing on one side of a wall while a loved one is on the other side in distress? You scramble at the wall, desperate for something, anything, to grasp and climb your way to the top. The cries on the other side become muffled and disjointed. You're frantic, yet no matter how far you climb, the wall grows higher and higher. It feels so hopeless. You don't exactly know what's happening on the other side, and you're not even sure you want to see it, but if you don't try your loved one will be lost forever.
That's not just a dream for me. That's what it's like to be the daughter of a compulsive hoarder. The wall is real; it might not be made from bricks, stones, and mortar, but it's not moving any time soon. It's comprised of a vast collection of "valuables." In my Mom's house, these valuables look like plastic bags, lost socks, unfinished craft projects, vintage clothing patterns, bits of lace, Christmas decorations, porcelain doll body parts, and pretty much everything ever acquired over the past 15 years. Mom is a compulsive hoarder, and probably a compulsive shopper, too. Her favourite past time is visiting thrift stores, and she gets a real high from scoring a deal. She can't turn down a discount, and she gladly provides a home to all the stuff her no longer want. It all ends up at home, in an ever growing pile. There's no floor space. No where to sit, cook, eat, or spend time with a hobby. Every nook and cranny is filled with stuff.
Like most compulsive hoarders, Mom lacks the insight to acknowledge this is a problem. Which, in itself, is the problem. She's totally baffled as to why my sister and I have an issue with her clutter. We once tried to seriously talk to her about how we feared her hoard was affecting her. With the mold, dust, off-gassing, and lack of air circulation, it HAS to be contributing to her respiratory issues.
She was so angry we dared comment on her "housekeeping skills" she threatened to disown us. She threw every trip at us possible; even the "I-survived-Cancer-and-this-is-how-you-treat-me" card. I was devastated. This was my Mother. We'd always been so close, and easy companions for each other. It wasn't unusual for my sister to be at loggerheads with her, but Mom and I had never quarrelled. I was really hurt she was choosing her stuff over her daughters.
It's now a few years since that blow-out. We haven't had the same relationship since. Where we were once able to talk about anything, our conversations are now superficial. She spends most of our weekly phone call talking about her trip to the thrift store. I bite my tongue when she comments on how she can't afford a minor car repair. I try to ignore it when she tells me she lost something important and can't imagine where it might be. But my heart clenches when she almost casually says how she keeps the house cold during the winter because she can't afford the heating bill; and she takes cold showers because the water heater is broken. She'd never dream of having someone in to service it…a repair person would probably report her.
And yet, she's not concerned. She tells me it's nothing she can't handle and I shouldn't worry about her. Well, I do. I worry her house is so full of stuff it'll collapse under the weight. I worry she has no way of exiting the house in case of fire. I worry she's unable to maintain the functions of her home and suffers because of it. Mostly, I worry she'll fall and hurt herself, and no one will ever know to help her. I she'll die alone, surrounded by her stuff instead of her family.
While I can't discuss her hoarding disorder with her, it's pretty much all my sister and I talk about. And that's exhausting and depressing. We struggle to remember Mom as she was before her hoarding habits really took over. We compare the stories and lies she tells us. We commiserate over how difficult it is to have a genuine relationship with the woman who raised us. There are times I can tell my sister just wants to wash her hands of the whole deal…I understand that. We both know we'll have to deal with clearing out the house after Mom dies. It'll come with a load of guilt and, not to mention time and money we don't really have. When people finally learn how Mom was living, will they turn to us and ask "why didn't you do more to help her?"
How DO you help someone who doesn't want help? Who is insulted you dare suggest they need help? We're left at a crossroads…do we push the issue to get her house condemned and have her never speak to us again? Or do we wait it out, and try to at least have some connection with her while she's still alive, knowing the hoarding is slowly killing her?
So I continue to climb this wall. It's hard to find a foothold, and my muscles are getting tired. I can barely hear my Mom on the other side anymore…she's muffled and vague. The wall reaches up to the sky, but I've got to keep trying.
Follow Rae Smith's journey on her blog, notjustclutter.com, or at Twitter at @NotJustClutter.
The experience of children of hoarders
Rae is not alone in this experience. Between 2-14% of individuals engage in hoarding, some of whom have children. Many individuals who engage in hoarding do not recognize it as a problem and often it is family members who are distressed by hoarding, not the individual who engages in hoarding. Like Rae's mother, most individuals (nearly 75%) who engage in hoarding, also engage in compulsive buying, spending large portions of their income without the ability to control their purchasing. A little over half of hoarders gather free items, such as lint, trash, bottles, and wrappers. Individuals who engage in hoarding also have difficulty making discriminating between items that should be discarded and those that should be kept, leading to the accrual of large quantities of items within the home. Usually it is considered hoarding if the amount of possessions intereferes in the use of space for the original purpose, as in a kitchen that is so cluttered that it may not be used to cook or eat.
Also, like Rae, many children of individuals who hoard, report a difficult relationship with their. Unfortunately, there is virtually no published research on how hoarding impacts family members and therefore little is known about how to help family members in their struggle. Future research is needed in this area before progress may be made. However, children of individuals who hoard are joining together in online communities to provide support to one another and take down the wall of secrecy surrounding hoarding.
For information on hoarding, see Keeping the Clutter.
Resources
If you are the child of a hoarder, here are some resources that may be helpful:
http://childrenofhoarders.com/wordpress/
http://www.notjustclutter.com/
http://www.hoardersson.com/
http://psychology.case.edu/research/fear_lab/diagnoses.html
http://squalorholler.blogspot.com/According to the new Pew report, about 60 percent of multiracial Americans in fact do not consider themselves multiracial. But identities are socially constrained: That is, they are in part products of the ways others see us, and not just our free choices. The influence of social environment is especially strong in childhood.
In their book “The Diversity Paradox,” the sociologists Jennifer Lee and Frank D. Bean found that individuals with white-Latino and white-Asian backgrounds did not feel excluded by race and enjoyed latitude in choosing their own identities. The story was different for those with one black parent: They experienced racial barriers, showing that visible African ancestry is still the great exception when it comes to the mainstream.
The new Pew study echoes these findings: About 60 percent of multiracial Americans who have some black ancestry reported discrimination by restaurants or other businesses, and 40 percent reported being unfairly stopped by the police.
Some of the mixed children now classified as minorities surely will think of themselves mainly as whites when they grow up; researchers have already found a significant group of American adults who declare themselves as non-Hispanic whites to the census, but acknowledge having some Mexican ancestry. Others may have mixed or even minority identities, but will be “sociologically white,” integrated into white communities and family networks and seen as essentially no different from anyone else.
According to the new Pew report, adults from mixed white and Asian backgrounds feel they have more in common with whites than they do with Asians; almost half have friendship circles that are mostly made up of whites; and two-thirds live in mostly white neighborhoods. Two-thirds of the multiracial Americans in the report who have some white ancestry are themselves married to whites.
We can grasp these emerging social realities by remembering our history of assimilation. At midcentury, religious boundaries were highly salient in white America. Catholics, Jews and Protestants were distinct populations, whose social lives were largely confined within their own group. Yet in only a few decades, the differences faded, and interaction across the boundaries proliferated. It was not that people ceased being Catholic or Jewish. But the public faces of those identities became much more muted and rarely intruded on everyday life. The Jewish intermarriage rate, around 10 percent in 1950, climbed to 58 percent by 2013.
We are becoming a more diverse society, but not a post-racial one. For that reason we cannot abandon ethno-racial categories. They register legacies of slavery, conquest and oppression that have enduring effects. They are still useful, to measure and redress inequalities.
But we need to admit that these categories are at best rough approximations when it comes to understanding who we are becoming. Our society, transformed by immigration and new forms of assimilation, hasn’t yet developed the vocabulary to capture the nuanced realities of this evolution.European Pressphoto Agency Donald Trump (L) and his wife Melania Knauss (R) applaud after Caroline Wozniacki, of Denmark, defeated Dominika Cibulkova, of Slovakia, during their quarterfinal match.
Wealthy, 41-year-old married women have found their sporting event of choice. (No, Fashion Week doesn’t count.)
That’s the typical profile of a U.S. Open fan, according to data from a 2009 survey conducted by the U.S. Tennis Association. Women were more likely to attend the Open than men were (53% to 47%), while 56% of all spectators were married. Attendance was pretty evenly split between fans from the metro area (51%) and out-of-towners (49%).
The most remarkable statistic, and perhaps useful for those seeking to meet a well-heeled mate: 45% of the U.S. Open attendees earned more than $150,000.
“We’ve got hedge fund guys, we’ve got a lot of heavy finance-driven fans,” says Nicole Kankam, the director of marketing. “We’re in New York.”Do couture fashion pieces belong in the world’s most respected art museums? While many art critics may be concerned that the fashion and art worlds are becoming increasingly intertwined, a new Condé Nast-produced documentary on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “China Through the Looking Glass” exhibition aims to sway viewers into the “yes” camp as it shows a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the planning of last year’s wildly popular Costume Institute exhibition and Met Gala.
Debuting at the opening of the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 13, Magnolia Pictures’ The First Monday in May offers insider access to watch Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour and Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton plan the extravagant exhibition and its legendary celebrity-studded opening party. Directed by Andrew Rossi, the director of Page One: Inside the New York Times, the film features interviews with top fashion designers such as Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano, and Jean-Paul Gaultier, as well as film director Baz Luhrmann.
The film was produced in association with Condé Nast Entertainment, Vogue owner Condé Nast’s production company, and gives significant screen time to the lavish details of the exhibition and party. As a result, the documentary serves as a long, glamorous commercial for the Costume Institute’s annual exhibition—and by default, for partner Vogue and for the fashion labels featured.
The film has already been a useful tool for reaching elite luxury consumers—global fashion e-tailer Farfetch, which is sponsoring the film’s Tribeca debut, held a special VIP dinner and screening last month in London that brought together celebrities and tastemakers. The special early access to the film likely came from the fact that Condé Nast’s parent company Advance Publications owns an 8 percent stake in Farfetch.
For the element of drama in the documentary amidst shots of silk, sequins, and intricate beadwork, it reveals that the decision to create a “China”-focused fashion exhibition and gala based on Western stereotypes about China sparked many candid moments of debate between the planners. The “Looking Glass” theme of the exhibit was decidedly “controversial” for several reasons, Bolton notes on screen.
“The curators in the Asian Art Department were worried about some of the topics that the exhibit is addressing,” says Bolton at one point in the film. “It opens up debates about colonialism, Orientalism—which could be interpreted as being racist.”
In addition to Met curators, the Chinese voices involved in its planning such as socialite Wendi Deng Murdoch, Hong Kong tycoon Silas Chou, and legendary filmmaker Wong Kar-wai also express their concerns about the theme—Chou tells Bolton that many Chinese “are afraid your exhibition is too much only the past,” while Deng asks why they have to highlight the “dragon robe” style rather than more modern aspects of Chinese fashion.
In one scene, Wong shoots down Bolton’s idea to combine the classic Mao suit with Buddhist sculptures in one of the Department of Asian Art’s galleries, warning that it “will be an insult,” and “too sensitive” not just to the government, but to “the Chinese and also the Buddhists.”
One of the tensest moments regarding this issue in the film occurs when Wintour, Bolton, and the organizing committee head to Beijing to promote the exhibition. When a Chinese journalist asks if the focus on “fantasy” could lead to cultural “misinterpretation,” Wintour defensively snaps back, “Are you questioning the idea of fantasy in fashion?” Once the journalist is out of earshot, Bolton expresses his distaste for the question, whispering to Wintour, “I think she was really politicizing it—the idea of the West just plundering the East for inspiration. Or that it’s just about the past.”
“She just wants everything to start in 1949,” Wintour complains.
Bolton addresses the controversy by explaining that the exhibition is meant to “deconstruct the stereotypes” in the clothes and educate visitors about the fact that many of the dresses were based on racist 1930s film tropes such as the “dragon lady” (which the film notes is also an image often ascribed to Wintour).
But at the same time, Condé Nast and Vogue have advertisers to please, and those advertisers are frequently the fashion labels featured in the exhibition. Bolton notes that the exhibition is also aimed at highlighting the “romance” of the designs, even in the case of those based on racist stereotypes. The film isn’t shy about its goal of capturing the “romantic” aspects of the fashion, offering slow-motion camera close-ups that linger on the gowns in the exhibition and those worn by the celebrities.
It is this element of commercialization and the avoidance of overt criticism that make for awkward moments in the film—such as when Vogue’s social editor tells the camera on the Met Gala red carpet that she’s relieved none of the celebrities wore anything “wildly offensive”—right before noticing Sarah Jessica Parker’s garish headpiece and muttering that some, however, had opted for some “major headwear.”
The Department of Asian Art’s head curator Mike Hearn also clashes with the Costume Institute about whether or not the commercial fashion pieces are overshadowing the centuries-old Chinese art when displayed with it. “What’s key for the success of all of this is that there’s some conversation with the Chinese works of art so that it’s not just wallpaper,” he notes, adding that the exhibition shouldn’t look like “Disneyland.”
This question of whether or not fashion is “worthy” of being exhibited alongside art in the Met is the main idea addressed by the documentary, and the sumptuous cinematography makes it clear that the film is unequivocally a fashion magazine company’s take on the issue. While legendary art critic Holland Cotter wrote in his New York Times review of the exhibition that “art is reduced to being a prop in a fashion shoot,” the documentary gives a platform to Condé Nast to make the claim that this isn’t a bad thing.
“In the world that we work in, you need the mixture of art and commerce,” Wintour argues pragmatically. “You need both. Too much of one or the other would not work. They have to exist hand in hand.”
Although they go hand in hand in the exhibition, the film tends to dedicate more time to pointing out the benefits to the museum than those the brands receive from being showcased at such an institution. The ending credits note that “China: Through the Looking Glass” was one of the Met’s five most-visited exhibitions ever, raising a record $12.5 million and attracting 670,000 visitors—many of them Chinese tourists. While this was certainly a benefit to the museum, it’s harder to put a price on massive amount of publicity—and more importantly, the prestige—afforded to the fashion labels lucky enough to be a part of it.
— This story first appeared on Jing DailyFor the American session musician, see Jonathan Yudkin
John Yudkin FRSC (8 August 1910 – 12 July 1995) was a British physiologist and nutritionist, and the founding Professor of the Department of Nutrition at Queen Elizabeth College, London.[n 1]
Yudkin wrote several books recommending low-carbohydrate diets for weight loss, including This Slimming Business (1958). He gained an international reputation for his book Pure, White and Deadly (1972), which warned that the consumption of sugar (sucrose, which consists of fructose and glucose) is dangerous to health, an argument he had made since at least 1957.[3][4] Specifically, he wrote that sugar consumption was a factor in the development of conditions such as dental caries, obesity, diabetes, and heart attack.[5]
Yudkin’s failure to incorporate possible confounding factors in his case-control designs was an area of heavy criticism at the time; apart from other unmeasured known risk factors that might affect cardiovascular disease (CVD), data had emerged soon after, suggesting that sugar intake was associated with smoking, a big risk factor for CVD.[6] Yudkin’s failure to account for confounding factors led to harsh words from Ancel Keys at the time.[7] From the late 2000s, there was a resurgence of interest in his work, following a 2009 YouTube video[8] about sugar and high-fructose corn syrup by the pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig, and because of increasing concern about an obesity epidemic and metabolic syndrome.[9][10][11] Pure, White and Deadly was republished in 2012, with a foreword by Lustig.[12]
Early life and education [ edit ]
Yudkin was raised in the East End of London in an Orthodox Jewish family that had fled the Russian pogroms of 1905. His father's death left six-year-old Yudkin and his four brothers to be raised by their mother in considerable poverty. He won scholarships to Hackney Downs School (formerly the Grocers' Company's School), and another from there to Chelsea Polytechnic.[1] After gaining his BSc degree in 1929 he briefly considered a career in teaching,[citation needed] but then discovered that he could sit an examination for a scholarship to the University of Cambridge. He matriculated at Christ's College, Cambridge as a scholar, and graduated in biochemistry at the age of 20 in 1931.
He worked for his PhD in the Department of Biochemistry at Cambridge under the supervision of Marjory Stephenson, a pioneer of research in bacterial metabolism, who funded his work.[1] His PhD thesis was on "adaptive enzymes" (subsequently termed "induced enzyme synthesis"). His account of the phenomenon inspired the research of Jacques Monod, who later worked out a detailed mechanism for the induction of enzymes in bacteria and was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work.[13]
In 1933 Yudkin married Milly Himmelweit, who had recently left Berlin to escape the worsening political situation. The marriage lasted until her death in March 1995. They had three sons, Michael (born 1938), Jonathan (1944–2012) and Jeremy (born 1948).
While pursuing his PhD research, Yudkin took up medical studies in 1934 and started teaching physiology and biochemistry to medical students,[1] first at Christ's College, then also at other colleges in Cambridge. He began clinical studies at The London Hospital in 1935, while continuing to teach in Cambridge one weekday and at weekends.
Career [ edit ]
Fellowships FRSC (1938)
MRCP (1946)
FIBiol (1958)
FRCP (1975)
Fellow of King's College, London (1971)
Honorary Fellow of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem (1993)
Yudkin completed his medical studies in 1938, and was appointed Director of Medical Studies at Christ's College. The same year, he started research at the Dunn Nutritional Laboratory in Cambridge, working principally on the effects of dietary vitamins.
His studies of the nutritional status of school children in Cambridge showed that supplementation of the diet with vitamins had little effect on their general health.[14] The studies also showed serendipitously that children from a poorer area of Cambridge were shorter and lighter, and had lower haemoglobin levels and a weaker grip, than those from a wealthier area. Moreover, children from three industrial towns in Scotland were, on average, inferior in the same four measurements to the average Cambridge child, and the children from the poorer families in the Scottish towns were inferior in these measurements to those from the wealthier families.[15]
These findings probably helped to persuade Yudkin that nutrition was not only a biological science but also had important social and economic components and implications. In 1942 he wrote an article in '’The Times'’ (published anonymously, as was customary in those days) pointing out that there were a large number of organisations in the UK concerned in some way with nutrition – the Ministry of Food, the Ministry of Health, the Medical Research Council, the Cabinet Advisory Board on Food Policy, etc. – but no single body responsible for formulating a uniform plan for nutrition. What was needed was a UK Nutrition Council with oversight of food policy.[16] The suggestion fell on deaf ears.
During the Second World War, Yudkin served in the Royal Army Medical Corps and was posted to Sierra Leone. While there he studied a skin disease that was prevalent among local African soldiers and discovered that it was due not to an infection, as had been believed, but to riboflavin deficiency.[17] He found that the Army had devised a uniform diet for its soldiers in the four British West African colonies (Gambia, Sierra Leone, Gold Coast and Nigeria). This diet was, on paper, adequate in all nutrients – including riboflavin, which was supplied predominantly from millet. But it turned out that millet, although a staple in the Gold Coast and Nigeria, was loathed by soldiers from Sierra Leone, who would not eat it even if they were hungry.[18] This experience must have brought home to Yudkin the importance of custom and upbringing in determining man's choice of foods.
In 1945, shortly after the end of the war, he was elected to the Chair of Physiology at Queen Elizabeth College in London (then the King's College of Household and Social Science). Over the next several years, under his leadership, the college and the University of London established a BSc degree in nutrition[1] (the first degree in nutrition in any European university).[citation needed] Students were taught an integrated series of courses including not only chemistry, physics and biology but also relevant elements of demography, sociology, economics and psychology. The first students were admitted in 1953, and in 1954 the Department of Nutrition was officially opened and Yudkin's Chair was converted into a Professorship of Nutrition. During the following years the Department won an international reputation not only for the strength of its research in the physiological and biochemical aspects of the subject, but also for work in such topics as nutrition in the elderly, food surveys in defined populations and the psychology of food choice, and it attracted numerous students from outside the UK, many of them from developing countries.
Yudkin's publications from the Department showed an unusual breadth of interests, including (in addition to biochemistry) further studies of adaptive enzymes,[19][20] nutrition and public health,[21] diseases of affluence,[22][23] food choice both in human beings[24][25] and in experimental animals,[26] and historical aspects of the human diet.[27][28] But his concern became increasingly focused on two topics: the treatment of overweight and the harmful effects of excessive sugar (sucrose) consumption.
The end of food rationing early in the 1950s brought with it an increase in the number of people who were suffering from obesity, and by 1958 slimming diets had proliferated, many of them with no scientific basis. Yudkin showed that in most patients weight could be well controlled by restricting dietary carbohydrate.[29] '’This Slimming Business'’ (1958), which expressed this idea in user-friendly language, proved popular: it was republished in paperback in 1962, reached its fourth edition in 1974, reappeared as ‘’Lose Weight, Feel Great’’ in the USA, was translated into Dutch and Hungarian, and spawned ‘’The Slimmer’s Cook Book’’ in 1961 and ‘’The Complete Slimmer’’ in 1964.
Yudkin’s interest in sugar arose indirectly from his studies of the alarming increase in many countries during the first half of the twentieth century in the incidence of coronary thrombosis. This increase was of great concern to health professionals, and it was widely attributed to an increase in the amount of fat, or of a particular type of fat, in the diet. In a paper published in 1957[3] Yudkin analysed diets and coronary mortality in different countries for the year 1952, and also analysed trends in diet, and trends in coronary mortality, in the UK between 1928 and 1954. The first of these analyses produced no evidence for the view that total fat, or animal fat, or hydrogenated fat, was the direct cause of coronary thrombosis; in fact the closest relationship between coronary deaths and any single dietary factor was with sugar. The second analysis, that of historical trends in the UK, found no good relationship with any single dietary factor. Instead, it suggested that some change or changes in lifestyle during the past several decades was contributing to the increased incidence of coronary deaths. One obvious change was reduced exercise, and another was alterations in diet.
One implication of the finding that carbohydrate restriction in obese patients causes them to lose weight is that excessive carbohydrate consumption is likely to be a cause of obesity in the first place. An obvious possible culprit is sugar, which provides calories but no nutrients whatever. Given the dramatic increase in sugar consumption during the first half of the century, Yudkin started to suspect that excessive sugar in the diet might contribute not only to obesity but also to coronary heart disease. Studying historical data from many different countries, he found that increasing prosperity leads to an increase in sugar consumption, particularly in manufactured foods, and also that the ready availability of sugar-containing manufactured foods even in the poorer countries may lead to their being bought in preference to more nutritious food.[5] In 1964 he wrote 'In the wealthier countries, there is evidence that sugar and sugar-containing foods contribute to several diseases, including obesity, dental caries, diabetes mellitus and myocardial infarction [heart attack]'.[5] Investigating whether any link between sugar consumption and disease could be shown in individual patients, he and his associates in the Department of Nutrition found that patients with atherosclerotic disease (a frequent precursor of coronary heart disease) consumed significantly more sucrose than control patients.[30] An obstacle to the acceptance of these ideas was the belief at the time that sugar and starch were metabolised in the same way, so that one would expect no difference in their effects. Yudkin and his associates, however, fed both experimental animals and human volunteers with differing quantities of sugar and starch, and found major differences between the two carbohydrates in their metabolic effects.[31][32] As early as 1967 Yudkin suggested that the excessive consumption of sugar might result in a disturbance in the secretion of insulin, and that this in turn might contribute to atherosclerosis and diabetes.[33]
Pure, White and Deadly [ edit ]
Background [ edit ]
Yudkin's Pure, White, and Deadly (1972) was written for a lay readership. Its intention was to summarise the evidence that the consumption of sugar was leading to a greatly increased incidence of coronary thrombosis; that it was certainly involved in dental caries, probably involved in obesity, diabetes and liver disease, and possibly involved in gout, dyspepsia and some cancers. The book drew on studies from Yudkin's own department and other biochemical and epidemiological research in the UK and elsewhere. Pure, White and Deadly was extremely successful. It appeared as Sweet and Dangerous in the USA, and was translated into Finnish, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese and Swedish. A revised and expanded edition was published in 1986.
The last paragraph of Chapter 1 begins "I hope that when you have read this book I shall have convinced you that sugar is really dangerous." The message was extremely unwelcome to the sugar industry and manufacturers of processed foods. These firms employed a number of methods to impede Yudkin's work. The final Chapter of Pure, White and Deadly lists several examples of attempts to interfere with the funding of his research and to prevent its publication. It also refers to the rancorous language and personal smears that Ancel Keys — the American epidemiologist who had proposed that saturated fat was the primary cause of heart disease — employed to dismiss the evidence that sugar was the true culprit. Keys wrote, for example:
It is clear that Yudkin has no theoretical basis or experimental evidence to support his claim for a major influence of dietary sucrose in the etiology of CHD; his claim that men who have CHD are excessive sugar eaters is nowhere confirmed but is disproved by many studies superior in methodology and/or magnitude to his own; and his "evidence" from population statistics and time trends will not bear up under the most elementary critical examination. But the propaganda keeps on reverberating...[34][35]
The efforts of the food industry to discredit the case against sugar were largely successful, and by the time of Yudkin’s death in 1995 his warnings were, for the most part, no longer being taken seriously.[12] Despite the criticism that he had "no theoretical basis" to support his claims,[34] following a successful publication of his book in America, the McGovern Guidelines for US dietary goals recommended, in 1977, a reduction in sugar intake "by 40 percent,"[36] and the US-published guidelines in 1980 prominently advised "don't eat too much sugar."[37]
Republication [ edit ]
In 2009 Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist of the University of California, San Francisco, with a special interest in childhood obesity, made a video, Sugar: The Bitter Truth.[9] Lustig and his colleagues had discovered, independently of Yudkin's work, that sugar has serious deleterious effects, particularly in the etiology of diabetes and obesity. In his video, Lustig referred to his re-discovery of and admiration for Yudkin's research. The popularity of the video, which has been viewed several million times, has contributed to a resurgence of interest in Yudkin's research.[12]
Pure, White and Deadly was republished in 2012, 40 years after its first appearance, with an introduction by Lustig, and subsequently translated into German and Korean. Articles on Yudkin's work, and the way in which the food industry denigrated and obstructed his research, have appeared in the lay press[10][38][39] and in television programmes in the UK, Australia and Canada. His arguments and evidence for the dangers of sugar were the focus of several articles in the British Medical Journal on 19 January 2013.[11]
Later life [ edit ]
Yudkin retired from his Professorship in 1971 and left the College in 1974. He continued to write research papers and books. This Nutrition Business appeared in 1976 (and was later translated into Spanish), A–Z of Slimming in 1977, Eat Well, Slim Well in 1982, The Penguin Encyclopedia of Nutrition in 1985 (later translated into French), and The Sensible Person's Guide to Weight Control in 1990. He also continued to write popular articles in lay magazines, having by now become a household name. Having been interested in Israel for many years – soon after its foundation in 1948 he had been asked to advise on the nutritional problems experienced by the new state – he continued in his retirement as an active Governor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He also began to collect antiquarian books, specialising in medicine, nutrition and the culinary arts; after his death much of his collection was given to the National Library of Israel, Jerusalem. He died in London on 12 July 1995.
Selected works [ edit ]
Books by John Yudkin alone
— (1958). This Slimming Business. London: MacGibbon and Kee. OCLC 1438051.
— (1964). The Complete Slimmer. London: MacGibbon and Kee. OCLC 6577528.
— (1972). Pure, White and Deadly: The Problem of Sugar. London: Davis-Poynter. ISBN 0706700562. OCLC 571307.
— (1976). This Nutrition Business. Sevenoaks: Teach Yourself Books. ISBN 031280055X. OCLC 3168592.
— (1977). A–Z of slimming. London: Davis-Poynter. ISBN 0706702131. OCLC 3868327.
— (1982). Eat Well, Slim Well. London: Collins and Davis-Poynter. ISBN 0002163969. OCLC 16552964.
— (1985). The Penguin Encyclopaedia of Nutrition. Harmondsworth: Viking. ISBN 0670801119. OCLC 12096288.
— (1990). The Sensible Person's Guide to Weight Control. London: Smith-Gordon. ISBN 1854630431. OCLC 59832913.
Books written or edited by Yudkin and others
—; Chappell, G. M. (1961). The Slimmer's Cookbook. London: MacGibbon and Kee.
—; McKenzie, J. C., eds.
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it comes to hardware, they’re all using the same headset, controllers, and tracking tech. But over time that will change.
“There will be increasingly more distinction between the Vive [consumer] and [business] versions over time and more manageability features in the software that’s needed by enterprise/business use,” Graylin tells Road to VR.
And while out-of-home entertainment businesses are finding VR increasingly attractive, VR has huge potential in vertical markets but the complexity of today’s VR systems makes adoption harder in some verticals than others, an area that Graylin says HTC will focus on in 2017.
“The other thing that we’re gonna be working on this year is all about vertical industry stacks; essentially turnkey solutions that you can sell to medical, to education, to travel, or whatever. And I think that’s going to really open up and make it a lot easier for non-home users to adopt this technology.”
With that said, Graylin also suspects the industry will see next-gen VR headsets hitting the market every one to three years. So far the company has said very little about the next version of the Vive headset.Which must explain why Ken Hinkley, who has delivered on his pledge to the notoriously anxious Cornes that he planned to extend his career and not end it, has moved to accommodate the 32-year-old with two final games. Hinkley has never seemed like a tribute-game or milestone type. He fears the focus on Ollie Wines this year, just as he worked to combat the attention lavished upon Chad Wingard in 2014. But it is clear that he has worked with Cornes in recent days to afford him the individual honour of becoming the AFL Port Adelaide club's first 300-gamer. Which is why the Port Adelaide camp would be so disappointed at one significant section of negative and puzzling home-town reaction to Cornes' decision to quit during the season to join the fire brigade. The view of Adelaide Crows powerbroker Mark Ricciuto is that only two opposing conclusions could be drawn from the mid-season retirement. Wearing one of his media hats, the Australian football Hall of Famer wrote that Cornes was either forced out by his club or was being selfish in deserting his team playing for a top-four position. The Ricciuto view was provocative and will only serve to deepen the divisions between the two clubs. Neither of which is a bad thing, except that Ricciuto is a Crows director and therefore significantly conflicted.
It remains inexplicable why AFL broadcasters continue to place club board members and assistant coaches in calling and commentating roles at games involving their own clubs. Ricciuto is just one of several examples of this unprofessional and often distracting practice, which club presidents Eddie McGuire and James Brayshaw have had the good sense to abandon. Ricciuto tends to manage his conflict reasonably well on most occasions, which is a significant achievement given he co-hosts a daily radio show in Adelaide, commentates for Fox Footy and writes a weekly newspaper column. "He's either being selfish or he is being pushed," wrote Ricciuto this week. "... if he chooses to abandon his teammates and his club midway through the season for an opportunity to join the fire brigade or the media it undoes everything that he's stood for, or what he should stand for, it would smack of putting the individual before the team..." The Ricciuto view has been supported by several commentators but is clearly belied by Hinkley and Co., who have made it clear they have accepted the player's decision, agree that while he remains at present a crucial player, that requirement is waning and three or four youngsters will receive development opportunities as a result. One of those, Karl Amon, is expected to play on Sunday against the Brisbane Lions. Ricciuto's club is unlikely to thank him in the case of his strong position on Kane Cornes. Just as the Port Adelaide hierarchy was as disappointed as Richmond last year when Power chairman David Koch used his media role to criticise Jake King for his underworld connections. Port Adelaide is unlikely to take on Ricciuto publicly, although the club is expected to explain the unusual move by its ageing star in a letter to members next week.
The truth, as Cornes explained it, is that he had begun to have some doubts about his form and was becoming concerned that by September he might not be in the club's best 22. Clearly this was to be his last season and clearly, Port has come around to that view. The fire brigade story is as close to romantic as life after football can get and Cornes should prove a poster boy for the AFL Players Association's Max 360 program now being employed by the majority of clubs to encourage players to improve both their football lives and life beyond the game. Ditto the AFL's SportsReady initiative. For Cornes, the fire brigade application came with his club's knowledge and blessing some months ago and saw him emerge successful after a rigorous selection process. Win win. It is true Cornes, one of the mentally strongest players Port has seen and who has been compared by Hinkley to Cameron Ling, signed a one-year contract extension last year. The club will pay him out his base wage and he will respond with some promotional, corporate and coaching duties. And he will be given a farewell at the Adelaide Oval befitting a four-time club champion, two-time All-Australian who finished top three in the John Cahill 10 times under three coaches.
And who thought his career was finished close to three years ago and instead contested two further finals series. Cornes said this week he would miss the camaraderie of post-game victories and his emotional announcement to his teammates came equipped with a giant towel to wipe his tears. Those who care about him and who have watched him deliver on every part of his natural ability and so much more are also glad for Cornes that he can shed the worrying side of football that added to his complex make-up. And that a new career so often eluding retiring players has presented itself.Sitmonchai fighter Thepnimit is now offering beautifully handcrafted mongkols (Muay Thai headpieces) and prajiouds (armbands) made of traditional Thai textiles. The cloth is hand-woven by his mother in Isaan and by other local artisans. It takes Thepnimit a couple of days to pour his passion into crafting a set which he then passes on to a local seamstress who sews it all together.
Thepnimit fights regularly at both Rajadamnern and Lumpinee stadiums, in addition to other Thai stadiums. He also fights internationally. Utilizing what has become the signature Sitmonchai style of devastating low kicks and strong hands, Thepnimit has earned the nickname of Mr. Knock for his high knockout rate.
A set of Thepnimit Sitmonchai’s matching mongkols and prajiouds, including shipping costs, start at 1,800 THB (approximately 52 USD / 48 EUR / 70 AUD). The items can be shipped internationally. For more information, message [email protected] or reach out to Thepnimit Sitmonchai on Facebook.
Mongkol and Prajioud Basics
The mongkol and prajioud are considered sacred pieces worn by fighters while performing the Wai Kru before a Muay Thai fight. The mongkol is worn to show respect to a fighter’s trainer(s), gym and family. The prajioud is worn to protect against bad luck and may have amulets and/or other good luck pieces sewn into it. The mongkol is taken from the head of the fighter by one of their corner persons prior to fighting, while the prajioud is worn during the fight. Wearing a mongkol is necessary whilst wearing a prajioud or a set of prajiouds is not.
Traditionally, a kru (trainer) will present a mongkol (and sometimes accompanying prajiouds) to a fighter once it’s believed that their student is ready to represent them and the gym. I’ve experienced this while training in Isaan, and it was truly a beautiful and unexpected moment for this to happen. I felt respected by my kru and the presentation acted as a bonding experience between us, representative of the hard work we both put into my training.
Although the above is considered traditional Thai practice, I’ve also trained at gyms where mongkols were communal. This didn’t mean that some Thai fighters didn’t have their own, rather, it was more common for fighters to use one of the gym’s mongkols. There are some gyms in Thailand which still reserve the use of their mongkols for their male fighters. For example, while at Chuwattana Gym in Bangkok, I was not allowed to use the gym’s mongkol because I’m a woman. It’s considered to be bad luck for the males in the gym to have an adult female wear their mongkol. I was unaware of this tradition and showed up to fight without one. From my experience, foreign men training at the Thai gyms I occupied were allowed to use a gym’s mongkol. However, if in doubt and if you’re intending to train and fight in Thailand, particularly if you’re female, you may want to ask and/or show up prepared.
Please note, traditionally it’s considered both bad luck and poor taste to have your mongkol low near the ground and certainly to be placed on it. Thais keep their mongkols high above the ground: ringside on a post, on a hook in a room, etc. If you’re training or planning to train in Thailand, I highly suggest doing the same.Last week we challenged Dave Arnold, Director of Technology at the French Culinary Institute, to do two things: make us a burger at his house (video over on Eater NY) and to show us his interpretation of the burger of the future.
The result is the Soup Dumpling Burger, which Arnold demoed for us on the fifth floor of the FCI. In the preparation, he fills a patty with a veal stock gelatin that liquifies when cooked (in this case the heat comes from an immersion circulator, a deep fryer, and a makeshift charcoal grill). He then tops it with bacon that has been "glued" together to render a perfect disk, as well as circular Comte cheese and pickles. Buttered rye bread seals, and melts, the deal.
See what happens when Arnold brings the wacky and Eater Moving Pictures brings the minimalism in the video below.
Dave Arnold's Burger Of The Future from Eater NY on Vimeo.
Music credit: "Time Keeps" by Awning.
Arnold's Recipe:
1) Slice bacon in strips, layer with Activa RM (meat glue) and vacuum bag between parchment paper and allow to set for 4 hours in fridge.
2) Reduce veal stock till thick and super beefy, then add ketchup (Heinz), salt and pepper to taste. While hot, stir in 2 percent by weight of calcium lactate gluconate. Pour the mix into a 3/16 to 1/4 inch sheet in a lined hotel pan and allow to set hard in the fridge (the natural gelatin from the stock makes it set).
3) Disperse 9 grams of sodium alginate (type DMB from FMC biopolymer) and 5 grams sodium citrate in a liter of water in a vita prep and turn on high to hydrate.
4) Deaerate the alginate in a chamber vacuum machine. Keep alginate bath cold.
5) Cut the ketchup gel into rings and drop into alginate bath and leave for 40 seconds. The calcium in the gel interacts with the alginate to form a fairly tough (usually bad but useful here because of the rough treatment it with withstand) heat-proof coating on the gel. Remove gel from bath and store on a silpat in fridge.
6) Cut boneless beef short ribs and chuck steak into strips removing gristle, silverskin, etc and place into freezer to firm up (your meat grinder should already be in the freezer). I use 30-40 percent short rib.
7) After the meat has gotten stiff (don't freeze it), grind it.
8) For each burger form two thin patties and some ropes of meat. Try not to overhandle the meat.
9) Form the ropes into a wall around one of the patties and slip a ketchup gel into the center. Place the second patty on top and seal all the edges.
10) Liberally season both sides of the burger with pepper and salt and briefly deep-fry the burger to set the outside of the meat.
11) Place the burger in a ziploc bag with melted butter and carefully get rid of the air using the underwater bagging method.
12) Cook the burger at 55 or 55.5 c in an immersion circulator for a couple of hours.
13) Using an usuba, cut a pickle into a sheet and then cut a circle from the sheet.
14) Slice a thin sheet of Comte cheese and cut a circle from the sheet.
15) Cut two circles from rye bread.
16) Remove bacon sheet from bag and cook between two silpats weighted with a sheet pan in the oven.
17)When done cut a circle from the bacon sheet.
18) Light hardwood charcoal on the stove.
19) Pull the burger from the bag and let cool a couple minutes.
20) Grill the burger over super hot coals fir crust and taste.
21) Heat a pan with butter and toast the bread bacon and cheese (like a grilled cheese). The cheese will glue the bacon to the top piece of bread.
22) Place the burger on the bottom bread, then the pickle, then the bacon/cheese/bread.
23) Voilà
· Dave Arnold Makes a Killer Patty Melt at Home [-ENY-]
· All Dave Arnold Coverage on Eater [-E-]
· All Hamburger Coverage on Eater [-E-]Geospace Technologies (NASDAQ:GEOS) is the market leader in wireless seismic data acquisition devices, commanding 50% of the global market. The stock has taken a beating recently and is trading about 50% below its 52-week high. The decline was due to postponement of a $29.4 million order from Seafloor Geophysical Solutions and lower than expected earnings. At the current price, the stock seems relatively inexpensive and now could be the right time to take advantage. Let me explain why.
Niche and diversified portfolio
Geospace has a diversified portfolio of niche products that translates into greater pricing power in the market. Apart from manufacturing seismic data recording systems, such as geophones, leader wire, cables, and connectors for on-land purposes, it is the only manufacturer of streamers that caters to the marine market.
In the wireless seismic systems segment, it has developed two products -- GSX, a land-based wireless equipment system, and the marine OBX system, which can be deployed at depths of up to 3,450 meters, providing high fidelity seismic data. The wireless equipment allows significant cost saving as well as higher productivity. As customers transition to this technology, the company is strategically placed to leverage its market leadership in this segment.
Additionally, Geospace leads in permanent reservoir monitoring systems that are being increasingly used by oil and gas companies as it significantly accelerates oil production and increases extraction.
With several patents across products, Geospace does not seem to be in a mood to concede the lead it has over its competitors.
Demand in the marine seismic market
Barclays forecasts a 6.1% uptake in global E&P spending to $723 billion in 2014. Increasingly, oil exploration is going deeper and offshore. Geospace saw an increase in demand in marine products though demand for land seismic equipments declined. The company expects the softness in the land seismic market to continue. But the demand for products such as the GSX and OBX systems is expected to pick up as customers move from wired to wireless solutions and as more customers focus on deepwater drilling.
Evolving business model
Geospace Technologies currently sells its products to customers through direct sales of its products and leasing out its equipment. Since the introduction of rental equipment in 2010, the company has increased its rental fleet from 2,000 channels to 133,000. In Q2 2014, the company posted record revenues from GSX channel rentals, and it appears that the mix is shifting toward product rentals from direct sales in this slow market for land-based equipment. I expect the equipment rental revenue to gain at the expense of revenue from direct sales of equipment, as long as the market softness continues.
Strong financial position
As of March 31, 2014, the company had a cash position of over $44 million as against $2.7 million a year ago. Despite the low sales attributable to softness in the land seismic market, Geospace managed to generate cash flow from operations of $55.8 million during the six months of FY 2014. The company has no debt on its balance sheet, unlike its competitors.
Valuation considerations
It has one of the best margins in the industry. In addition, the company's P/E and EV/EBITDA currently stands at 10.63x and 6.09x respectively, significantly lower than the peer average. This indicates that the stock has been beaten down more than justified and we can expect a mean reversion.
Company Name P/E TTM EV/TTM EBITDA Net Margin FLIR Systems NASDAQ:FLIR) 31.86x 15.32x 8.50% Ion Geophysical NYSE:IO) NA 4.25x ** Dawson Geophysical NASDAQ:DWSN) * 5.06x 2.15% CGG NYSE:CGG) NA 4.45x -2.79% Amphenol NYSE:APH) 24.13x 15.13x 12.82% Geospace 10.63x 6.09x 15.78% Average 28.00x 8.84x 5.17%
Geospace has been adversely affected by the cyclical nature of drilling activities in addition to the indefinite postponement of the $29.4 million contract. This led to some analysrs downgrading the stock rating. But the long-term prospects of Geospace remain intact. It promises to be a great story for long-term investors.Foto: Facebook
BIVŠI izbornik hrvatske nogometne reprezentacije Igor Štimac jutros se prilično komotno uparkirao na mjesto za invalide pred splitskim Bauhausom. Po položaju vozila, tj. guma bijelog Mercedesa zagrebačkih registracija, vidi se da je Štimac uletio na mjesto rezervirano za invalide - iz cuga.
Kako na vozilu nije istaknuta invalidska iskaznica, pitali smo što se dogodilo. Zar je bila tolika gužva u subotu ujutro da na cijelom parkingu Bauhausa nije preostalo drugo, nego baš ovo mjesto za parkiranje?
Padala je kiša...
"Bila je kiša. Veliki pljusak, a mene ukočila leđa. Eto, to je razlog. Imam i ja određeni invaliditet iz svoje sportske karijere", kazao nam je dobro raspoloženi Štimac.
Na fotografiji se jasno vidi da su invalidska mjesta najbliža ulazu, ali da i druga, za vozače bez invalidske iskaznice, nisu predaleko. Kiša mora da je prilično jako padala, a leđa snažno ukočila...
Tekst se nastavlja ispod oglasa
Na domaćem terenu
Manevar je zato izveden besprijekorno, golemi Mercedes vješto je uparkiran na zabranjeno mjesto, a dobrom snalaženju je svakako pomogla i olakotna okolnost što se Štimac zapravo našao na "domaćem terenu".
"Može me se često vidjeti u Bauhausu. Rado navratim. Uvijek se nađe nešto zgodno za kuću", otkrio nam je Štimac.I want to talk about software design. Specifically, I want to talk about how to design your products to resist the effects of evil.
I need to open this entry with a trigger warning. It isn’t possible to talk about defending against harassment without being exposed to it.
That said, here we go.
I strongly believe that I have a duty to try to prevent harm from coming to those who choose to use the things I design. This means that I need to think about the bad parts of the system, which often isn’t very pleasant.
I want to talk about Anita Sarkeesian and the horrible things that have been happening to her over the past years but first I feel like I need to establish some street credentials.
Back in the year 2011, several employees of the Wikimedia Foundation were put up on the site’s yearly fundraising banners. I was one of these people. I was a very successful banner candidate. I’ve written about this experience before but I wasn’t very expansive about the darker side.
Whenever my banner went up for a test run, I could literally feel the internet turn its attention to me like the fucking Eye of Sauron. Hundreds of tweets, LinkedIn views, Facebook posts. Pow, pow, pow. Lots of it was fun and exciting. Some of it was... not.
It’s a bit of a bummer to be told by random strangers that you look like a pedophile. Almost especially when they don’t know anything about you.
Back to Anita.
I don’t want to write about Gamergate or the state of the art of misogyny on the internet but I need to provide some context.
Anita Sarkeesian is a feminist game critic. She produces a series of educational videos about how sexism pervades the game industry. She does not, in any way, call for censorship or banning of topics or anything like that. She really only says, “just be aware of what’s happening here and maybe try to do better.”
For these statements, she has been continually bombarded with harassment through every possible means available to trolls on the internet.
In early 2015, she posted a blog entry detailing a single week’s worth of harassment. Scrolling through it is an inexhaustible stream of sewage and hatred. Some of it is ironically self-aware.
Let’s scroll through a miniscule amount of Anita’s harassment.
I dare you to click over and scroll through the full list. See if you can get through Monday.
Anita gets thousands of times more hatred than I ever did. I almost buckled under the weight of the sewage directed at me. I can’t imagine how strong she must be to keep going.
I’ve not been very scientific in my investigations but it appears that only about half of these accounts have been suspended or blocked. Not that such action matters much: these shit-goblins simply create a new anonymous account and let the good times roll again.
This is the face of evil. Beelzebub with the thousand eyes and mouths.
It’s a true failure on Twitter’s part. One they have acknowledged in public but (at the time of this writing) have done nothing to address.
When you design a product without understanding how it will be used for evil, you are designing poorly.
On Trolls
Let’s take a moment to understand the basic mindset of internet trolls. There are, as near as I can tell, three primary motivations that any one troll will have at a time.
Understanding these things will help you defend your users against them.
To Defeat the System
These trolls want to break the system just to break it. To do it for the lulz or the thrill of doing it. The desire to defeat systems (hacking or cracking them) is a deep part of hacker psyche. They aren’t necessarily motivated by evil but they often will open the door for others who are.
These people will find holes in your systems. They do it just to find them. But once they’ve found them, they nearly always share these holes with others.
To Subvert the System
Trolls who subvert a system intend to use it against the spirit of the system. This is often for laughs but sometimes it has very, very dark results.
In 2008, Christopher Poole was elected as the most influential person of 2008 by Time Magazine, beating out Barack Obama, because users of 4chan figured out how to game the voting software. This year’s Hugo Awards have been hijacked because someone figured out how to bend the rules to their favor. No big deal, right? No one is getting hurt, right?
Some horrible people use Secret to disseminate revenge and child porn. Secret’s not a great way to do bulk distribution of child porn, though. Embedding zip archives of this stuff into svg files and uploading them to a site like Flickr or the Wikimedia Commons may be, however. Maybe as large attachments in un-sent emails on any one of a thousand free-to-use web mailers.
To Weaponize the System
This is when your system or design is being used against you or another person in a hostile, damaging manner. This nearly always happens because of “Not Thinking It Through”.
This may not always happen directly in your product, mind. Data leakage may lead to someone being doxxed on another site, which may then lead to a swatting. Or worse.
Consider the proud young parent posting photos of their child at play to Facebook with open privacy settings. Are there things in that photo where a predator could identify the location?
Mitigation Strategies
How can you prevent your product or design or system from being abused? How can you deal with it?
Well, there’s no silver bullet on this. There are a series of strategies you can employ, though. Many will not apply. You will probably need to use multiple ones, each at differing degrees of strength or opacity.
Some of these strategies suck, but I’ll include them for completeness’ sake.
Ignore Everything
Just do jack and shit about it.
This is the worst strategy. You can do it – and some companies appear to remain successful while doing so. This is the way that car companies handle recalls: only deal when there’s sufficient blood on the pavement to affect the bottom line.
I personally find this to be odious and unethical.
Shut it Down
Just prevent anyone from doing it at all. This typically means shutting down your application entirely. It’s often a last-resort solution.
PostSecret had a short-lived application that allowed users to post their own photos and captions. It was pulled when people starting posting porn and gore because there were no features to limit this and there was insufficient moderation to work at scale.
This is not a good mitigation strategy because everyone loses.
Troll Personas
This is a strategy for understanding your weakness. Many design teams create personas for the users they want to service. The customers they want to have. Good personas are often an excellent tool for helping to understand the business needs of your product or market. These personas are almost universally nice, however, and always assume good faith on the part of the persona.
I say to you thus: you must always make at least one “troll” persona. You must learn to think like your enemy. Think about their motivations and how they will subvert your product to aid them.
Limit Feature Strength
This is reducing or intentionally crippling your product in order to protect your users.
Years ago I worked on a site that was intended as a social and games site for children. They wanted to have a chat system. Obviously, we wanted to make sure that foul language wasn’t a part of it.
It would be easy write a series of regular expressions so that the chat catches and censors Carlin’s magic seven and all variations. It’s not so easy to catch “Hello, little girl, what time do you get out of school?” or “I am going to put you in a wood chipper.”
This is why Nintendo’s chat systems only allow you to pick from canned statements.
Banning Wrongdoers
Very simple. Have a very strong code-of-conduct and brook exactly zero violations. You must be merciless. You must not allow for rules-lawyering. Identify bad-actors and get rid of them.
Wikipedia has some editors who are simply horrible, toxic individuals. The way they conduct themselves and talk to new users drives new users away forever. They are allowed to remain because there is always some bullshit reason why the latest round of bad behavior is “okay”.
This is the type of behavior that creates gender gaps.
Educate Users
You can educate users as to the bad things that could potentially happen and things to prevent risk.
The biggest problem here is that no one wants to read a bunch of snooze-fest documentation. I didn’t join Facebook to have to take a class about it. Sometimes you can put up interstitial dialogs (like an end-user license agreement) but are you ever really sure that the user understands this?
Does the proud parent really understand that the photo of their daughter’s recital they just uploaded is geo-tagged? Did they think about the fact that they took it at the school? Do they really understand what “Friends of friends can see this” means?
Deny Anonymity
Simply prevent people from posting or using the service completely anonymously. Allowing pseudonymity is fine and even great (and recommended). Just make sure that there is a way to tie any activity back to a specific user.
Purely anonymous culture is fairly toxic so you don’t want that anywhere near you. There’s a reason moot stepped down from running 4chan. But you don’t want to force “real names”, either, because that will probably open you up to other scenarios (like dead-naming transexual people).
Access Control Systems
Give users controls over who can contact them and how. This nearly always requires both white and black lists to work along side a default setting.
Livejournal does this very well: my private posts are only readable by those I’ve set as “friends”, and I can even write elaborate rules about posting only to groups, or to specific people.
Facebook has this kind of fine control, too, but it falls apart very quickly. There are too many options and degrees of visibility and the lack of any serious group support makes managing access difficulty.
It should be terribly easy to add someone to a block list. Press-and-hold on a tweet and I can block it in one tap. Blocking someone on Secret, however, requires me to first read the offending secret (which usually contains a photo of gore or revenge porn), report it, and then I can block the user.
Shadow Reputation Systems
This is a great method but it requires a lot of research and technology. You’ll need to instrument everything in your product and identify several patterns of behavior used by your bad actors.
When your system sees someone engaging in these behaviors, you silently and secretly drop them off into the bucket. This is called shadow-banning or hell-banning.
For example, say your product is one that allows your users to rent out extra rooms in their apartments for short-term stays. If a new user joins your site and then their first several actions are to browse exclusively female profiles, you might be able to determine that they really aren’t there for the rooms but instead to creep on women. The system could then silently prevent messages they sent from arriving at their targets and they themselves may never appear in searches.
In order for shadow-bans to work, you cannot allow anonymous access to your site. You must sit behind a log-in wall. The reason is that if the banned user can see that their comments are not being seen, that they are invisible, they will know that they’ve been shadow-banned.
Ask Questions
When all is said and done, when you’ve set your ideas to paper, you have to sit down and ask yourself a very specific question:
How could this feature be exploited to harm someone?
Now, replace the word “could” with the word “will.”
How will this feature be exploited to harm someone?
You have to ask that question. You have to be unflinching about the answers, too.
Because if you don’t, someone else will.A LOCAL player will make the jump to the NHL within the next five years, according to San Jose Sharks general manager Doug Wilson.
Wilson, in Melbourne to see son Doug junior play for Melbourne Ice in the Australian Ice Hockey League, watched three games at the Docklands Icehouse last weekend and said he was ''really impressed'' with the facility, Ice's fan base and the standard of play.
Australian ice hockey team member, Nathan Walker after training. Credit:Ken Irwin
Ice beat Melbourne Mustangs 6-1 last Thursday, lost 5-3 to title rival Newcastle on Saturday, and beat Sydney Bears 4-3 on Sunday.
Wilson was satisfied with Ice's form, which has three games left before a sudden-death finals series that could deliver a third straight championship. ''I was impressed,'' he said. ''Hockey is a funny game, it's a lot about momentum and how you play when you don't have the puck. I'm sure it's a lot like footy, the support and how you surround the puck, and how you outnumber people in certain situations and how you are there for each other … When they do that, they're a very good hockey team.''Image caption Russell Allen posted a message on Facebook claiming his belongings had been "flooded" from inside the Debenhams store
The row over a rough sleeper who claims he was soaked in a shop doorway in Portsmouth on Boxing Day has raised awareness of homelessness in the city, a councillor has said.
More than 12,000 people signed a petition criticising Debenhams in Commercial Road after a Facebook post by Russell Allen went viral.
Debenhams said it was an "unfortunate accident" during routine cleaning.
Councillor Paul Godier said he was trying to find Mr Allen accommodation.
Mr Allen posted a message on Facebook claiming his clothes, bedding and dog food had been "flooded" from inside the Debenhams store.
A statement from the retailer said: "We have established that this was an unfortunate accident in which the routine cleaning of the fire exit from the inside of the store resulted in some of the gentleman's property on the other side of the fire exit becoming wet.
"Debenhams has now supplied the gentleman with new bedding and clothing, and a member of our team has met him to offer our sincere apologies for any distress caused."
Image copyright Google Image caption Debenhams has issued an apology to Russell Allen
Charles Dickens ward councillor Mr Godier said Mr Allen's situation "needs addressing" but criticised what he said had been threats made against Debenhams and himself on social media.
"Portsmouth is a passionate city - when people see vulnerable people becoming victims, they will be impassioned. But in many cases some of this passion has been misdirected," Mr Godier said.
"This is an opportunity to bring the businesses sector a greater understanding of the homeless."
He said as Mr Allen had no local connections and was not classified as vulnerable, he did not qualify for council help but an individual had offered a private room.
"The only dilemma was finding temporary accommodation for his dog which would need to be arranged."
"Homelessness has risen drastically across the country. It's not an easy fix. As part of the [Portsmouth City Council] homelessness working group next year we'll be delving deeper into the causes of homelessness and assessing vulnerability in much greater detail," he added.
Mr Allen said he believed "something good and some awareness" would come out of the situation.There’s nothing more frustrating than making plans around a weather forecast and then having that forecast change: A rained-out party or a day at the beach that turns chilly can make one feel like there’s no point in even paying attention to the weather.
Recently, some organizations are touting the ability to forecast as far out as 30 or even 45 days. But should you even bother with a long range forecast that far into the future? Just how accurate is a forecast, anyway?
There’s a lot of subjectivity to the answer, but it’s worth exploring and it may help set expectations for what to expect from your local meteorologist.
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The short answer to the question: a 30-day specific forecast is almost worthless, however, I hope you’ll read the rest of the article because there’s much more to the story.
I’ll show you two images in this blog which really make this point powerfully. Each image shows the correlation between the forecast of the upper level pattern at about 18,000 feet and the actual observed winds. If the forecast is correct, the score is a “1,” and as the models become less accurate, the score falls. A “zero” would be no better than a complete random guess.
Image one is a five-day forecast while the second image shows a 10-day forecast. Notice how the accuracy fluctuated dramatically and how much less accurate at 10-day forecast can be. You could argue you’d be better just using the average temperatures and sky condition for a given day once you get beyond day five.
Recent five-day forecast accuracy. —WeatherBell Analytics
Recent 10-day forecast accuracy. —WeatherBell Analytics
Patterns Matter
Sometimes, the forecast seems to change on a dime. One day you hear it’s going to be sunny in three days, then the following day the forecast changes to “cool with rain.” How can this happen so fast? Certain weather phenomena—like a small fluctuation in the jet stream—can be tough for the computer models to resolve. Think of it like trying to see a type of tree in a forest from 100 yards away; you can tell there are trees, but whether it’s an oak or maple can be challenging to know.
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As you walk closer and closer to the forest the tree becomes clearer, you begin to narrow down the type and finally, and standing just a few feet away you can readily identify it. This is similar to how some weather patterns work.
We know the basic features of the weather days in advance, but how exactly those features will end up is often unknown three or four days into the future.
In patterns where there is a huge temperature gradient over a short distance the forecast can change dramatically. You might see a high temperature of 90 on the fifth day of a long-range image lower by 20 degrees three days later.
What Can You Rely On?
About 80% of the time a three-day forecast should be accurate enough for planning purposes; the accuracy will increase, obviously, as the day itself approaches. Days four and five of a medium-range forecast are likely to change and forecasts further into the future can have dramatic shifts.
Here in New England we have mountains, the ocean, a huge cold landmass to the north and warm and humid air sitting to our south much of the year. All of these factors and more can make forecasting not only a challenge, but frustrating.
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BM Memory in Early 2016
The Radeon R9 Fury X debuted with 4 GB of HBM memory which was arranged in layers of four die stacks, each of which was 4-stacks high and each die had 1 GB of VRAM. Each HBM stack had a 1024-bit wide bus while the whole thing had a large 4096-bit wide bus that was clocked at 500 MHz (1.0 GHz effective) clock to deliver 512 GB/s memory bandwidth. The bandwidth improvement for HBM is quite huge even though the difference in performance between GDDR5 and HBM (at the moment) is quite low since high-end graphics cards have large pools of bandwidth already available to them that isn’t being utilized to full extent. We saw some benchmarks of the Radeon R9 Fury X with its HBM overclocked to pump out 1 TB/s bandwidth but the overclocker reported not much benefit from the HBM overclock, the graphics chip on the other hand when overclocked featured a greater impact on performance. HPC applications that use HBM will show the actual advantage when several Terabytes of bandwidth gets effectively utilized to power intense workloads and graphics demand.
With Samsung entering the HBM field, we can see a large influx of new HBM powered processors and devices. Samsung is going all out to bring several tiers of HBM stacked memory to the graphics can HPC market. Starting in 2016, the first markets that Samsung will focus towards will include the HPC and graphics department. Samsung has a wide array of HBM configurations pre-planned. Each HBM stack will be made from a single 8Gb component and range down to several tiers of HBM SKUs. The entry level models include the 2-Hi DRAM model that will be integrated on mainstream 2 GB HBM graphics cards (256 GB/s), performance based graphics with 4 GB HBM (512 GB/s). The Enthusiast graphics cards will ship with 4-Hi DRAM with 2 HBM stacks that will allow 8 GB VRAM (512 GB/s) and finally, 4 HBM Stacks with 16 GB VRAM models (1 TB/s).
On the HPC front, there are a wide array of high bandwidth and dense memory designs that include 4-Hi DRAMs with 4 HBM stacks that feature 32 GB VRAM (1 TB/s) and the bulky, 8-Hi DRAMs configured in 6 HBM stacks with 24 GB and 48 GB VRAM, both models featuring 1.5 TB/s bandwidth. There are also some network oriented HBM SKUs which are planned for launch in 2017 with 8-Hi DRAM Stacks configured in 1-2 HBM chips. In 2018, Samsung wants to focus on increase market growth by entering new applications to incorporate their HBM designs.
For all good, HBM seems to be the way forward and the mainstream applications of HBM memory sound great for mainstream and performance oriented graphics cards that are going to arrive in 2016. We know that NVIDIA has a full fledged FinFET based Pascal lineup coming out in 2016 which is rumored to feature 32 GB of HBM and 17 Billion transistors while AMD has their Arctic Islands planned for launch the same year that will finally bring a completely new GCN architecture based graphics lineup. It was previously rumored that SK Hynix might give AMD priority on access to HBM for their next graphics lineup so Samsung entering the HBM market will bode quite well for NVIDIA. Overall, this sounds great and we can’t wait to see Samsung kick start their production of HBM memory.Tonight is Hockey Fights Cancer Night at the Washington Capitals game, and as is their tradition, the team wore lavender jerseys during warm-ups to honor the occasion. The signed jerseys are now available in a charity auction hosted by the Monumental Sports & Entertainment Foundation. All proceeds from the auction will benefit Flashes of Hope, Hope for Henry, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Make-a-Wish Mid-Atlantic, and Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. The auction runs until November 30th, and is available at washcaps.com/hfc-auction. We kept our camera busy during warm-ups, and captured a few decent images :
The pair of expressive children pictured above stole the show on the big screen during warm-ups, and we happened to notice them sitting front row in a few of our photos. Our focus was primarily on the ice, so these aren’t the most clear images, but we think it’s obvious they were enjoying Hockey Fights Cancer night.Summary
The Android ecosystem is all about communicating, and right now it’s screaming for help. That’s because SSL vulnerabilities and the Man-In-The-Middle (MITM) attacks they enable are wreaking havoc on data security. The scariest part? SSL vulnerabilities are evident in many of today’s most popular applications as we recently uncovered.
The FireEye Mobile Security Team analyzed Google Play’s most downloaded Android applications and found that a significant portion of them are susceptible to MITM attacks. These popular apps allow an attacker to intercept data exchanged between the Android device and a remote server. We notified the developers, who acknowledged the reported vulnerabilities and addressed them in subsequent versions of their applications.
Our researchers also constructed a MITM attack demonstration for each of the case studies in this blog. We did not use the infrastructure to glean any private or personal information of any user, other than that of the synthetic user we created to demonstrate the applications mentioned.
Introduction
Mobile applications often talk to remote servers for their functionality. Applications can communicate using the HTTP protocol, which makes it easy for others to intercept data, or the HTTPS protocol – which makes it harder, if not impossible, to intercept data. The security properties of HTTPS stem from Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and its successor, Transport Layer Security (TLS).
The Android platform provides libraries and methods to communicate with a server using these secure network protocols, forming the underpinnings of Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI). But, while the SSL/TLS protocol is designed for enhanced security, incorrect use of the Android platform’s SSL libraries can expose applications to MITM attacks. In these attacks, an MITM attacker intercepts traffic from the application to a server or vice versa and may:
be a quiet listener that exfiltrates data sent either by the application or by the server,
intercept data from the server and either modify or replace it with malicious data that gets injected into the application, and
redirect traffic to an entirely new destination controlled by the attacker.
For a clearer explanation of MITM attacks, at the end of this blog we included a detailed walkthrough of the attack mechanics.
Detecting SSL Vulnerabilities in Android
The following is a subset of the SSL/TLS vulnerabilities that we analyzed using our Mobile Threat Prevention platform:
The use of trust managers that do not check certificate chains from remote servers, making it possible for an MITM attack to succeed. Verifying certificates to ensure that they are signed by a known and trusted Certifying Authority (CA) is an integral part of certificate- based, client-server communication.
The replacement of platform hostname verifiers by application hostname verifiers that do not verify the hostname of the remote server. Having a trust manager that checks certificates is not sufficient in this case, as the attacker may have a certificate signed by a trusted certifying authority and may present a valid certificate chain. Therefore, to prevent a MITM attack, the hostname of the server extracted from the CA-issued certificate must match the hostname of the server the application intends to connect,
Applications ignoring SSL errors when they use WebKit to render server pages in mobile applications. With server communications that use SSL/TLS, any errors generated should be caught. Otherwise we open up the vulnerable applications to MITM attacks that may exploit vulnerabilities such as Javascript Binding Over HTTP (JBOH).
SSL Vulnerabilities in the Google Play 1,000 Most Downloaded Applications
We reviewed the 1,000 most-downloaded free applications in the Google Play store as of July 17, 2014. Of these, 674 (~68%) have at least one of the three SSL vulnerabilities that we studied. In Figure 1, we present the number of vulnerable applications we found in each category:
Using trust managers that do not check certificates Of the 614 applications that use SSL/TLS to communicate with a remote server, 448 (~73%) do not check certificates
Using hostname verifiers that do nothing 50 (~8%) use their own hostname verifiers that do not check hostnames
Ignoring SSL errors in Webkit Of the 285 that use Webkit, 219 (~77%) ignore SSL errors generated in Webkit
Figure 1. SSL vulnerabilities in the Google Play top 1000 applications
SSL Vulnerabilities at Large
We analyzed roughly 10,000 applications from the Google Play store. This was a random sample of free applications. Roughly 4,000 (40%) use trust managers that do not check server certificates, exposing any data they exchange with their servers to potential theft. Furthermore, around 750 (7%) applications use hostname verifiers that do not check hostnames, implying that they are incapable of detecting redirection attacks where the attacker redirects the server request to a malicious webserver controlled by the attacker. Finally, 1,300 (13%) do not check SSL errors when they use Webkit.
Case Studies (Applications rendered vulnerable due to vulnerable libraries)
Applications may use third-party libraries to enable part of their functionality. When these libraries have baked-in vulnerabilities, they are particularly dangerous because they make all applications that use them, and frequently the devices that run them, vulnerable. Furthermore, these vulnerabilities are not weaknesses in the applications themselves, but in the features they rely upon for functionality.
Flurry. Flurry is the number-one ranked ad library in the market used by 9,702 out of 70,000+ Google Play apps with 50,000 or more downloads. These applications have been downloaded over 8.7 billion times. As with many ad libraries, Flurry (prior to version 3.4) uses HTTPS with a vulnerable trust manager to upload information like device IMEI and location.
In a proof of concept for an MITM attack, we successfully used a vulnerable version of Flurry to capture the information sent to the remote server https://data.flurry.com. We successfully matched the location of the simulation device against the data being sent by Flurry. In Figure 2, we show a hexdump of the data we captured during this MITM attack.
Ad libraries enable the delivery of targeted advertisements by transmitting sensitive user information, but it is essential that they use HTTPS to send it in a manner that protects against MITM attacks. The potential privacy breach is compounded when users are unaware of the ad libraries used and how their personal information can be read by unintended recipients.
Figure 2. Hexdump of the data that is being sent using insecure HTTPS
The presence of this vulnerability was communicated to the Flurry developers. They acknowledged the vulnerability was addressed starting in version 3.4 of the ad library.
Chartboost. Chartboost is an ad library used by 5,170 of 70,000+ Google Play apps with 50,000 or more downloads. The aggregate download count for all these applications is over 4.5 billion. Chartboost also used a trust manager that is vulnerable to MITM attacks. In this experimental setup, we intercepted traffic that contains the device IMEI sent over SSL/TLS sockets. While Chartboost has addressed this vulnerability after version 2.0.1, a number of applications with over 5 million downloads in the Google Play store still use vulnerable versions of Chartboost.
The presence of these vulnerabilities was communicated to the developers of Chartboost. They acknowledged that the vulnerability was addressed in a release subsequent to 2.0.1 of the ad library.
Case Studies (Applications that are inherently vulnerable)
Camera360 Ultimate. This is an application that has more than 250 million downloads worldwide. The following is the description of the application from the Google Play store.
Camera360, loved by more than 250 million users globally, is No.1 camera app in many countries. Together with HelloCamera, Movie360, and Pink360, Camera360 provides a comprehensive suite of professional yet fun mobile photography options.
To make your life even easier, Camera360 has introduced Camera360 Cloud, a cloud platform that can help you manage, edit, store, and share your photos all in one place. Join the millions of users in enjoying these FREE services!
Besides inheriting SSL vulnerabilities from the ad libraries used by the application, none of the application’s trust managers uses check server certificates. In another proof-of-concept for an MITM attack that exploits these vulnerabilities, we intercepted all HTTPS traffic between the application and the remote servers it used, allowing us to potentially:
Steal or inject photos/albums at random; Steal user’s login “local key” to the Camera360 cloud, and many other local device/user specifications (device model, android version, user nickname, user email account, etc.); and Intercept user credentials (Facebook, Twitter, Sina, QQ, etc.), or inject fake login pages/malicious Javascript to steal any account credentials.
The app has Javascript Binding Over HTTP (JBOH) together with many powerful permissions (camera, audio recording, video recording, etc.), which opens the door to even more sophisticated attacks.
These vulnerabilities were communicated to the Camera360 developers, who were highly proactive in fixing the reported issues and releasing an update addressing them on July 29, 2014.
Application “X”. This application has over 100M downloads and is one of the fastest-growing applications in the Google Play marketplace. Similar to Camera360, Application “X” does not check server certificates when establishing SSL connections. This app’s core functionality pushes images of interest to users. This functionality can be hijacked using an MITM attack, allowing a hacker to inject malicious images into the application, launch a denial of service attack, or worse yet, hold a user’s data for ransom using a DOS attack.
Repeated attempts to contact the developers of Application “X” went unanswered. We therefore chose to anonymize the name of the application until a fix is put in place.
Best Practices
For a detailed explanation of common SSL pitfalls and ways to alleviate them, please see Android Security-SSL. Any application connecting to a third-party web service is likely automatically able to verify server certificates and hostnames. These platforms usually have more than 100 CAs, and will validate any third-party server that presents a certificate signed by any of them.
If the server certificate is self-signed or comes from a CA the Android platform doesn’t trust, it requires the attention of the application developer. In these cases, the steps to use a custom trust manager are as follows:
Create a KeyStore and set its certificate entry to the certificate to authenticate against Initialize a TrustManager instance with the KeyStore Use this instance of the TrustManager class in SSLContext objects used to establish remote server connections
Mobile device users can protect themselves by not accessing websites that require user login credentials when using public wi-fi networks. This in itself, with general vigilance in opening emails from unknown sources, will go a long way in protecting sensitive information from MITM attacks.
We hope that publications like this encourage application developers to stay current on the versions of third-party libraries they use, and to talk to the developers of third-party libraries to ensure the end users’ privacy is not compromised through backdoors.
Acknowledgments: We would like to thank Tao Wei and Dawn Song for their technical inputs that lead to developing of the SSL vulnerability detection capability, and Rebecca Stroder, Kyrksen Storer and the team behind the FireEye Mobile Threat Prevention Platform for their feedback. We also acknowledge the developers of Camera360 Ultimate, Flurry, and Chartboost for being proactive in fixing all reported issues.
Appendix: MITM Attacker and the Mechanics of an MITM Attack
As shown in Figure 3, a Man-In-The-Middle (MITM) attack works as follows:
Alice initiates a conversation with Bob
Mallory intercepts the conversation and relays the request to Bob
Bob responds, Mallory intercepts the response and forwards it to Alice
Neither Alice nor Bob are aware of Mallory’s presence. In our scenario, Alice is an Android application and Bob is the remote server. Mallory is a Man-In-The-Middle attacker with Internet access. Correct use of the platform SSL/TLS library would prevent Mallory from masquerading as Bob in his communication with Alice, and as Alice in her communication with Bob.
Figure 3. A Man-In-The-Middle attack flow
An MITM attacker has access to the Internet and controls a network proxy to direct all traffic originating from a network, such as a wi-fi network, to the Internet. Setting up an MITM attack is as easy as having access to the network proxy and using an off-the-shelf MITM proxy in place of a standard proxy. A standard proxy is limited to setting up an opaque conduit for all communication with no mechanism to read the data that is actually sent. An MITM proxy, on the other hand, plays the role of Mallory in Figure 3, masquerading as the remote server to mobile clients and as the mobile client to the remote server. Public wi-fi networks such as those in airports, cafes, etc., are open to exploitation by such MITM attackers. These networks use basic configurations without firewalls, VPNs, or intrusion detection systems. Attackers build open networks to snoop data that passes between user devices and remote servers. Sophisticated MITM attackers may use phishing emails to change a user’s device configurations, directing all Internet traffic originating from the device to a proxy server they control.For two and a half years and over 12 manga volumes, Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata enthralled Japan (and later the world) with Death Note, the suspenseful story of a teenage prodigy entrusted with the powers to kill anyone at will. With the fourth live-action film, Death Note: Light Up the New World, coming out on October 29, now might be a good time to recollect the original story. Shueisha is making that task easier with a new one-volume collection.
The book will be published on October 4 and spans 2,400 pages. With a thickness of about eight centimeters (three inches), this isn't the kind of thing you can easily grab. Part of that crazy thickness is due to the inclusion of a previously unpublished special story that ran in Weekly Shonen Jump in November 2008 to commemorate the release of the third Death Note movie, L: Change the World. Its sales price is 2,500 yen (about $24.70).
The fifth Death Note film, meanwhile, is being produced by Netflix and will premiere in 2017.
Source: Man Tan WebDuck and Cover – When is ducking really covering target?
Just when is ducking in foil allowed and when does it constitute covering target? In this brief guide we’ll walk through some video examples of “good” and “bad” ducking to show you a properly executed duck and one that is an infraction and should earn the fencer a yellow card.
Read more to see examples of ducking and covering.
First, we need to look at the rules regarding covering target to know what is an infraction.
Displacing the target and passing the opponent
t.21 Displacing the target and ducking are allowed even if during the
action the unarmed hand comes into contact with the strip….
Substitution and use of the non-sword hand and arm
t.22 The use of the non-sword hand and arm to carry out an offensive or defensive action is forbidden (cf. t.114, t.117, t.120). Should such an offense occur, the touch scored by the fencer at fault is annulled and the latter will be penalized as specified for offenses of the second group (red card). In foil and saber, it is forbidden to protect the target area or to substitute another part of the body for the target area, either by covering or by an abnormal movement (cf. t.114, t.116, t.120); any touch scored by the fencer at fault is annulled.
The important parts to note are:
Ducking is specifically allowed in the rules, so you can’t get penalized for simply ducking and ducking (properly) is not an “abnormal action” You are not allowed to protect your target area with non-target area by covering or an abnormal movement We don’t have a definition of an abnormal movement – it’s much like the Supreme Court definition of pornography: you know it when you see it.
Given that we have an action that is allowed and a case where it could be penalized, how do we draw the line?
In a recent discussion on the Fencing.Net forums, we have a couple of high level referees offering their advice. Omar Bhutta (a level 2 foil referee) proffers:
“ducking at any distance is legal. The head does not cover target any more at one distance than in another; it is just harder to get your weapon into position to hit the front….same as if someone didn’t duck.”
He continues:
“The current application of covering with the head is one of the more challenging rules to apply consistently. At most levels, it is not applied uniformly, which leads to a lot of frustration on the part of most fencers. As a general rule of thumb, if the fencer is looking at their feet, they are probably covering with their head. Their back does not need to be parallel to the ground to cover target. In the same vein, if your back is parallel to the ground, and your head is up, that is not covering target. Please note that simply applying that written statement carte blanche to an active bout will not get 100% of calls right….it is very dynamic and is best illustrated with video/live demonstration.”
Turning to the video, there are two examples from a foil bout that we can look at:
First, here’s a static example of a duck that would not be penalized:
Next, we should look at a live demonstration of how these may look “in the wild”.
This is a 6 minute video, but we’re linking to the specific action, so you only need to watch about 10 seconds to see what we’re talking about.
In the first action, the fencer on the right comes in close and ducks to avoid a touch from left. Note that the head stays up and the mask is never moved to cover target or parry.
Let’s take a look at another portion of this bout (just play about 10 seconds):
In this action, the fencer on the right ducks but also moves the head so that the mask is protecting the front of the torso. The fencer is looking at the floor, not their opponent and the back is parallel to the floor.
The keys to calling a penalty on this action are to determine if the fencer is protecting their valid target with non-valid target. In the case of ducking, a “classic” duck – with the head up and looking at the opponent – is perfectly fine, even if the point lands square on the mask. If, however, the mask is moved in a blocking action or, as in the last clip, used to actively block a target area, it’s an action that should be penalized.
What all foilists should take from this is you can duck, just don’t cover!Every share makes Black Voice louder! Share To Share To
Making as many arrests as possible is the only goal of police across the country
It’s not surprising that the quality of police actions is measured by the number of arrests they made and amount of money they extorted from people. It means that corruption in law enforcement reached its highest. Without further ado, let’s take a glimpse into the so-called quota system which encourages police officers to treat everyone in community as a potential criminal.
Over the years, police have been operating under an unofficial quota program. It has become a common practice to conduct random traffic stops and fabricate charges against innocent people to meet monthly quotas.
Have you ever wondered why people from minority neighborhoods almost always get arrested for petty offenses? It’s a very common misconception that Black people are inherently more violent and much more likely to commit crimes than other racial groups. So, police commanders mostly send their officers to patrol these particular areas. It makes easier for corrupt police to cover up the unnecessary arrests they make as well as the illegally issued tickets.
The quota system has been denied for a long time and it is still so. However, when another evidence of police corruption hits the light its existence can’t be any longer denied.
The distrust between police and communities is already that huge that we simply can’t think otherwise.
Share this article and help to fight against racism in the police.Demographics lends itself to two of Americans’ favorite pastimes — watching trends and arguing about politics.
For decades, experts and everyday folks have debated the perils and promise of expanding or contracting the national population. But no clear consensus emerged, especially when it came to birth rates. Divides over national culture and national policy ensured that. Now, however, the latest numbers suggest that declining birth rates — here and abroad — are tangled up with exactly the divisive politics we’re so apt to blame for the disagreements that keep us trapped in a dysfunctional moment.
That’s not to say there haven’t been some advances. The 1970s-era fears of a “population bomb” have wisely melted away, replaced instead with concerns that Western-style welfare states and entitlement programs just can’t keep up with societies “graying” rapidly as replacement rates dramatically slow. And the stunning shift among much of the industrialized world, not just the U.S. or the West, underscores how inescapable the new demographic crisis has become. For over a hundred years, the federal government has kept tabs on how many times American women between the age of 15 and 44 give birth. That number, the so-called general fertility rate, counts births per 1,000 women within that range; through the first quarter of this year, that rate sank to its lowest level ever: 59.8.
While Americans confront their lowest birth rate on record, Europe, Japan, and Korea continue to face an even more dispiriting future. Last year, the European Union hit its own grim milestone: while 5.2 million died, just 5.1 million were born — a negative natural population change for the first time in EU history. Japan and South Korea, meanwhile, are expected to lead the world in proportion of senior citizens by 2050. Japan already has the oldest population in the world. South Korea is one of the most rapidly aging.
And even in countries like India, China or Mexico, increased prosperity has come with a harsh trade-off. In an exhaustive new international poll, The Economist concludes that “people in wealthy countries consistently want bigger families than they get. Couples start having children late and find it increasingly difficult. A 30-year-old woman has a roughly 20 percent chance of getting pregnant each month, falling to about 5 percent by the age of 40.” Surveys show that people who overshoot their “ideal” family size tend to be cheerful, not regretful, while people who undershoot are the opposite — especially those who have wound up with no children at all.
The problem here goes beyond the way low birth rates force big changes in lifestyle and raise tough challenges for policymakers. Rather than just inward-facing experiences like disappointment or depression, as a group, low-birth people can share outward-facing experiences with big political consequences. Although individuals obviously differ, it’s striking how far-right politics has been fueled worldwide by declining birth rates — and how far-left politics, mobilizing singletons as an identity group with a specific agenda, has too. (Notably, high-birth-rate groups might even be particularly apt to reject the new political extremes of the low-birth moment, if the widespread Mormon opposition to Donald Trump’s campaign is any indication.)
One of liberalism’s most powerful narratives has long been that progress and prosperity will make politics progressively kinder and gentler; as individuals become more equal and tastes and habits converge, interests and passions will grow gentler and more harmonious, with beneficial results for all. The link between falling birth rates and more extremist politics throws that article of faith in doubt. Fewer and smaller families may well produce more rancor and division, not less. Those wondering about the future of “family values” would do well to begin with this sobering possibility.Since forming in 2012, SKATERS have played by their own set of rules (or lack thereof). The NYC-based post-punks spent some of their formative years navigating the pitfalls of fame on Warner Bros. Records, but they abruptly parted ways with the label at the end of 2015. Now that they’ve rediscovered their freedom and given their sound some extra space in which to spread out, SKATERS have returned with a new single called “Head On To Nowhere”. It’s a breezy, bona fide ripper that signals big things ahead in 2016, not the least of which is an upcoming show on January 28th at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn.
Listen to “Head On To Nowhere” and check out the single artwork below.
“Head On To Nowhere” single artwork:
“Head On To Nowhere” follows hot on the heels of two other SKATERS singles, “Save Her Something Special” and Mental Case”. It’s clear that the band has rediscovered its creative energy since parting ways with Warner Bros. In a Q&A, frontman Michael Ian Cummings talks more about that split and clues us in on what’s in store for SKATERS’ future.
I have to start with the big obvious one: So, what brought about the big split from Warner Bros.? Why did you decide you needed to go your own way, and how was the process of actually breaking away?
Well, it was a bit of a process for sure. Unfortunately, things get quite legal when answering this question, so I’ll spare you the details. Instead, I can say that we got a lot out of working with Warner and they did a lot for us that we could not have done on our own. Unfortunately, in a big company like that it’s hard to get things done, and it’s totally unpredictable as to which tasks will get done. We never even got to properly release our first single, “Ms. Teen Massachusetts”, on Warner, which is a shame. You never know when a label that size will spit you out. It’s strange because it’s no one person’s fault, and I quite like a lot of the people who work there, but the system is flawed. It’s not made for growing bands anymore. We got thrown against the wall and we didn’t stick.
It seems like the new freedom has really turned on the jets for the band’s creative output, as well as a shift in sonic direction. Where did this jolt of recording energy come from, and how would you describe the way your music has changed with your recently released material?
This is the part of being in a band I like the most. Making music is actually the gratifying part — the rest is just circus. The circus can be fun, but I don’t want to live there. I’d rather be in a basement somewhere humming up a melody. We went hard for eight months writing everyday or just about. Came out the other end of that with 60-plus songs. There was a true sense of freedom knowing that the record couldn’t be rejected and could always be self-released.
There also seems to be an image change happening along with a musical one. Is that a byproduct of leaving WB and reclaiming your identity, or is it perhaps an intentional alteration to match the band’s somewhat new direction?
We have always had fun with our image and have changed uniform many times. It’s become a reflection of certain little periods we go through. A lot has changed since we started the band and we’re not in the same place as when we were romping around in giant green parkas concealing god knows what beneath. We like a gang mentality, and a uniform to reflect a sound.
Word is you canned over 60 songs in the studio recently, some of which were released as demos during your Advent Calendar event. Will we be hearing finalized versions of any of this material? If so, when/where/in what form?
Only a couple of those Advent songs made it to the recording session this summer. We had to “can” some stuff. There were a lot of songs and we could have made five strong but completely different EPs. The editing process is really hard for me. I just let the other guys tell me what’s good and what sucks. But they are real sweet about it and know I’m sensitive so if they don’t like something we just never talk about it.
Talk about “Head On To Nowhere” in particular. What’s this track about and from where did the inspiration come?
I was going through one of my existential periods and was feeling really unhappy with all the paths that supposedly lead to happiness. Go left, go right, stay home, go out, what’s the difference. I had this unique discontent for any place I found myself, and wished I could just actually go nowhere. If I could find that solitude I would be happy. That’s the cheery story of how I wrote “Head On To Nowhere”.Home » Breaking News, Crimes, Europe » Wikileaks Julian Assange's Lawyer Mysteriously Suicided, Thrown in Front of Train
Renowned lawyer John Jones who represented Julian Assange of Wikileaks died after being struck by train in West Hampstead. Police say they are not treating the death as suspicious.
Julian Assange’s personal lawyer was mysteriously killed by a train. Here we go again. Here’s another Hillary Clinton body count.
Married father of two children, John Jones, 48, was suicided in April, for defending Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Unfortunately we only got a hold of the news recently. There was a complete media blackout and total lack of interest from the media on this story, even from the few who did reported on it.
No one did any kind of investigative journalism at all and no one asked themselves what was a millionaire lawyer doing on the train tracks. Picking mushrooms?
There is a severe lack of information that we don’t even know where exactly this happened, in West Hampstead train station? In the middle of nowhere? No one interviewed the train driver, no one asked him what happened or what he saw. Was he pushed in front of a train? Did he slip? Are there any witnesses? What about CCTV cameras?? UK is infested with those yet they prove useless now when we need them?
Again, complete blackout on this so-called suicide.
John Jones was a millionaire who lived in a $2 million villa in Hendon, north London with his Slovenian wife Misa Zgonec-Rozejand and had absolutely no reason whatsoever to commit suicide, he didn’t had any personal issues. Furthermore he didn’t even leave a note behind for his wife or for his two young kids for that matter.
Mr. Jones was an Oxford graduate and he was specialized in extradition, war crimes and counter-terrorism, representing clients from around the world in high profile cases.
Mr. Jones was also working with his colleague Amal Clooney to try and halt the execution of Colonel Gaddafi’s son Saif and Libyan spy chief Abdullah-al Senussi.
Maybe it was Clinton’s doing or maybe it wasn’t! Draw your own conclusions but it appears that renowned people who expose Hillary Clinton or defend others who do, always end up dead.
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Understandably, Brotherhood picks up with Ezio more than a little confused. But he's a practical guy. Rather than fussing too much with any existential trauma, his first priority is to escape from the Vatican before the Pope's underlings realise what's gone down. Cue a tutorial-flavoured recap of Ezio's free-running skills, and a rapid-fire introduction to his family. Foremost among these is Uncle Mario, reprising his role from Assassin's Creed II as Ezio's partner in crime, and similarly blessed with his nephew's predilection for climbing junk. It must be in the genes. Together, they beat a hasty retreat from the Pope's house, the path to freedom conveniently littered with rooftops for jumping and men for stabbing.
I spent much of that retreat wrangling my rangey Ezio, trying to keep him on course and not leap off a roof to a pair of smashed shins. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood's free-running system doesn't rely on split second button presses, but successfully navigating the high-wire routes across the game's locations means players have to hold three buttons at once. With a keyboard, this feels clunky. The best solution I could come up with demanded some careful control customisation, and even then I dabbed the windows key a few maddening times. The mouse, too, isn't built for steering a man with quite so much momentum. Flip it backwards for a quick 180 turn and Ezio begins a ponderous curve, making split-second course changes tough.
Plug in a pad and the issues mostly dissipate. The right trigger on a 360 controller turns Ezio 'high-profile' (the 'run' button, in shorthand); holding A at the same time makes him try to climb any surface he's pointed at. It engenders an exhilarating sense of freedom: once you hit the game's meat in the city of Rome, there are few barriers to exploration. Want to see the ancient city from the top of the Colosseum? Aim Ezio upward and begin climbing. Want to climb onto someone's house, wait until they come out to go to the shops, and leap onto their back for no real reason? Get ready for bastardry!
That aerial stabbing is still Brotherhood's most satisfying portion. Setting up a successful murder can take time and planning, or extreme luck and a quick trigger finger. Brotherhood gets its name from Ezio's chums – recruited off the street from Rome's disenfranchised poor and bullied, the player ends up with a gang of roving toughs, ready to descend onto the field whenever you're overwhelmed. A personal murder's still fun, whispering in your target's ear as you plunge a knife into their neck, but utilising your new pals to off a victim yields just as much pleasure. Point out a man, make a hand gesture, and four killers in hoodies descend from the sky to jab him with as many
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“completely agreed to coordinate with each other toward the realization of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
They agreed to work to spread and establish their shared basic values of the rule of law and the freedom of navigation and overflight in the region, Foreign Ministry officials said.
The ministers affirmed that they will strengthen connectivity in the region through investment in infrastructure and work together to assist strategically important coastal nations in the region with maritime capacity-building, centering on key ports.
According to the U.S. State Department, the ministers “discussed the importance of a free and open Indo-Pacific region underpinned by a resilient, rules-based architecture that enables every nation to prosper.”
The affirmation is apparently aimed at China’s assertive territorial claims in the East and South China seas, as well as its drive to develop strategically important ports along the Indian Ocean in a way that would increase its regional influence.
Kono mentioned the port of Gwadar in Pakistan as an example of such a key port, and the three discussed specific countries that could be potential destinations for capacity-building assistance, the Japanese officials said without elaborating further.
Gwadar lies at the end of the nearly 3,000-km China-Pakistan Economic Corridor linking it to western China’s Xinjiang province. China and Pakistan agreed in April 2015 to launch the corridor with about $50 billion in Chinese investment.
The ministers also agreed to boost trilateral maritime security cooperation and to strengthen cooperation on maritime issues with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the officials said.
They welcomed Japan’s participation as a full member in July in the annual Malabar maritime exercises conducted by the Indian and U.S. navies, and agreed to further deepen such trilateral security cooperation in the Indian Ocean.
In their meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, the first such three-way gathering since Kono and Tillerson took up their posts earlier this year, the ministers also agreed to jointly call on other countries to fully and rapidly enforce U.N. sanctions on North Korea.
These sanctions include the most recent U.N. Security Council resolution that for the first time caps oil supply to the country, adopted in response to North Korea’s sixth and most powerful nuclear test conducted Sept. 3.
The ministers also confirmed the importance of China’s role in dealing with North Korea, the officials said.
Kono said he also held a brief meeting with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley later Monday. Kono told reporters that he thanked Haley for showing leadership on North Korea and had a “frank” discussion with her about what to do next on the matter.
He also said he exchanged a few words with U.S. President Donald Trump, but would not reveal the details.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the trilateral ministers’ meeting, Tillerson said the Security Council resolutions “speak for themselves” about the international community’s “unanimous view” that North Korea needs to “correct its situation.”
In a separate meeting on Monday, Kono and Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop agreed to work with each other and with the United States to maintain a free and open international order based on the rule of law, including in the Indo-Pacific region.
Kono and Bishop also affirmed that they will continue to work in close coordination on North Korea.ABOUT Girl Gamers
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Girl Gamers is the largest, safest, and most active community on Steam that supports female gamers! This is a group that aims to eliminate the gap between genders and illuminate the fact that, regardless of gender, sexuality, or life choices. Anyone may join our group that supports our cause and our goal. We’re growing faster and larger than ever, and 2018 is already proving to be an incredible year for ‘Girl Gamers’!Here at ‘Girl Gamers’ we have a very strict, but reasonable, set of rules. These strict rules help to create an environment that is safe for people of all ages, nationalities, creeds, religions, beliefs, sexualities, etc… Failure to abide by these rules will result in strict punishment, so make sure you are fully aware of them.Hop over to our ‘Introduction’ thread and let us know a bit about you! Find new gaming pals, new friends, and new groups! Don’t be a lurker and come let us know all about your guilty-pleasure games or even how much money you’ve spent on your cars in GTA Online. Just be friendly and don’t be afraid to say ‘hello’ to everyone!Sadly not all members of this group have good intentions. If you would like to report a member, please follow the link below for instructions, and contact one of our Moderators, Officers, or Owners immediately!Do you want to help with the management of our group? Now you can! We are constantly looking for awesome individuals that share our passion to sustain and support this wonderful community. Visit the link below to find out more!Elana Meyers-Taylor (left) and Kaillie Humphries (right) are the first women to ever finish on the podium in four-man bobsleigh competition
Canadian Kaillie Humphries and USA's Elana Meyers-Taylor made history by becoming the first women to win four-man international bobsleigh medals.
Olympic champion Humphries, 29, piloted her three male team-mates to silver, with the USA team third, in the first of two North American Cup races in Calgary, Canada.
Britain's Lamin Deen won gold in the second race, ahead of Meyers-Taylor.
"This weekend was a step in the right direction," said Meyers-Taylor.
The sport's international governing body [FIBT] only approved the participation of women in four-man competition in September.
Humphries and Meyers-Taylor - who claimed silver at Sochi 2014 - need only compete in one further second-tier event in order to secure their place in the main four-man World Cup circuit.
2014-15 Bobsleigh World Cup schedule Lake Placid, USA - 8-13 Dec St. Moritz, Switzerland - 19-25 Jan Calgary, Canada - 15-20 Dec La Plagne, France - 26 Jan-1 Feb Altenberg, Germany - 5-11 Jan Igls, Austria - 2-8 Feb Königssee, Germany - 12-18 Jan Sochi, Russia - 10-15 Feb
In the women's two-man events, Humphries won gold in the first race alongside Kate O'Brien, with Meyers-Taylor second alongside Garrett Cherrelle.
British pair Mica McNeill and Sian Huxtable were third, continuing their impressive start to the season that included two medals in Park City, Utah, last week.
Deen and his crew of Keith McLaughlin, Justin Oro-Campos and Andrew Matthews, will now head to Lake Placid, USA, for the season-opening World Cup races 8-13 December.I love the Fast and Furious series, although not really the second film and definitely not the third, my god no. But most of them are pretty good.
Anyway: I wrote a love-letter to them, and to Mr Vin Diesel, in roleplaying-game form.
You should definitely watch an F&F movie before you play it, and probably leave it on repeat in the background with the sound turned off - you know, for atmosphere.
(The game originally had a brief system for casting "magic spells," which ties into my headcanon theory that the F&F series is actually the story of the awakening and ascension of a group of elite car and punch wizards, with Vin Diesel being the Exalted Avatar of Cars and The Rock being the Archmage of Punches. But I figure "Summon Car" and "Knock Out Chump" are the sort of things that you should be doing anyway and not require spell slots to "do," so I simplified the system down.)
- GDrinking beer could prevent the damage of the brain cells, says a research carried out by Jianguo Fang and his colleagues of Lanzhou University's school of chemistry. Drinking liquor is not a much appreciated practice in the past but partying has become a part of life these days. While the goodness of the wine is well known, it’s time to know something more about beer.
Beer is not usually considered an evil for health when taken in reasonable quantity, but the goodness of beer is sure to amaze the beer lovers. A compound called xanthohumol present in the beer is observed to have anti-carcinogenic, anti-oxidation and cardiovascular-protection properties.
During brewing, an ingredient called hops is added to the beer that gives a bitter and tangy taste to it. Hops are the female flower of the hops plant known to have quite some medicinal values. Hops are the source of the compound xanthohumol present in the beer that renders goodness to the beer. These xanthohumol are observed to protect neuronal cells present in the brain and thereby slows down the development of brain disorders, reports Fangs and his team.
The oxidative damage to the neuronal cells is responsible for the development of brain diseases, according to the research, said Fang. Brain defects like Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative conditions could be prevented or slowed down by the preventing the oxidative damage to these neuronal cells.
Alzheimer’s disease is a type of dementia that causes interruption in memory, thinking and behaviour in a person’s regular life, whereas Parkinson’s disease is a chronic and progressive movement disorder due to the death of vital nerve cells or neurons. No cure has been found for these neurodegenerative diseases so far, and if this research is to be believed, then it is no wonder a joy to the beer brewers and beer lovers.
To report problems or to leave feedback about this article, e-mail: [email protected] Leven-Torres recycled an essay in the comments section the other day. This 1,800 word colloquy was prefaced with a brief, breezy by-your-leave:
Hope you don’t mind Baron — I wrote this 4 years ago… It is relevant.
It is indeed relevant… in parts. But nothing from 2011 is going to be fresh. The section on Libya is outdated by now; in 2011 you hadn’t yet been introduced to IS —> ISIS —>ISIL and now Daesh. Not to mention the other areas of new wasteland in MENA.
Still, whatever the date, it’s inappropriate to leave an essay of more than 1,800 words disguised as a comment with a breezy “hope you don’t mind, Baron…(that I make your readers’ eyes glaze over”)…
This has gone far enough, sir. From now on, you have to follow the rules: lengthy monographs (and this one was obviously intended for some other audience you were addressing five years ago) belong in the comments on the News Feed; that is the place which serves as our Speakers’ Corner. People may declaim at length on divers subjects.
I have received several complaints about the need to scroll and scroll to get past long polemics. Take your pick of their descriptions: “waay too long” “inhumanely lengthy”, “causes m.e.g.o.” — i.e, the acronym for my-eyes-glaze-over.
I can’t remember if this particular essay was even on topic. Generally, the ‘topic’ changes as people mention tangential issues so that category isn’t important. However, your essay wasn’t a direct reply to another commenter. As I recall, you just plunked it down with that “hope you don’t mind”…
You’re not the only offender in this regard. Some people — I, for one — tend to get going and then don’t know when to stop. I’m giving it up for Lent, in the hope it will become my new habit after forty days. There are others who don’t cut-and-paste their own work but leave a number of links with long excisions of the material appended. Those belong in the News Feed also.
FOR THE FUTURE: Should you feel the need to write new sermons or recycle old ones, just drop them off in the News Feed. People will read them. But in the comment threads on posts I ask that you limit it: anywhere between 300 and 500 (max) words is acceptable. Here is a word count tool in case you’re in doubt.
This essay has been heavily edited but only for style. All the ideas contained therein are intact with brackets to indicate my excisions. Since there was no title, I added one to indicate the subject.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Decline from Rome to Feltham
by Guy Leven-Torres
16th September 2011
Our civilisation is slowly but surely collapsing — or rather metamorphosing — into something else. Let me repeat again my earlier classifications of types of society:
Civilisation
Empirsation
Primitivisation or Culturalisation.
They [each] have these characteristics [respectively]:
Civilisation [possesses] urban development, democracy, liberty, small government, free thought, originality, and progress. Examples are: 19th Century Britain, Classical Rome, and Greece.
[possesses] urban development, democracy, liberty, small government, free thought, originality, and progress. Examples are: 19th Century Britain, Classical Rome, and Greece. Empirisation [has] big government [and attendant] large bureaucracy and welfare, despotism, decreasing liberty and [decreasing] civil discourse. There is overarching ideological tyranny, but most important [are] declining standards of education and thought [that are] replaced by [correct thought vs.]’heresy’. Examples are:’Liberal’Modern Britain and America, USSR and the Third Reich.[…]
[has] big government [and attendant] large bureaucracy and welfare, despotism, decreasing liberty and [decreasing] civil discourse. There is overarching ideological tyranny, but most important [are] declining standards of education and thought [that are] replaced by [correct thought vs.]’heresy’. Examples are:’Liberal’Modern Britain and America, USSR and the Third Reich.[…] Primitivisation or Culturalisation has recognisable culture [along] with primitive beliefs, a lack of [widespread] technology, and tribal or family-[kinship political] structures. [These are] often highly patriarchal. Examples are: European feudal society, Anglo-Saxon England, Islam, and various tribal societies around the globe
There are sub-categories [in] the process [of moving from one category to […] another. One […] is ‘Proto-Civilisation’; another is ‘Proto-Culture’. ‘Proto’ simply means ‘The first’ or ‘original’, as in ‘prototype’ to describe the first and only model of what is to come.
Rome was a ‘civilisation’, even though she was also an ‘empire’ due to the characteristics of her rule and attitude to Law. Unlike the current Brussels’ Imperium, [Rome] valued her citizens. [However]Rome did change gradually into an Empirisation as despotic rule destroyed the Republic. This period was known as […] ‘The Dominate’. Augustus at least, had followed the forms of Republican rule, even if his reign was a barely disguised dictatorship. Earlier emperors had to watch their step, since the citizen legions within which their imperial authority lay, could exert the [privileges of] their citizenry. But [Emperors had] especially to avoid the Senate’s displeasure if the[were found to be] not up to the mark.
Throughout the whole period of the Imperium, [each] Emperor had to watch his back where large gatherings of citizens took place. [For example, in the arena [citizens] could use their collective voice to air their opinions about the current state of affairs. As late as 610 AD, the eastern Emperor Phocas lost his throne in such a manner. This was why the rulers had a personal guard in their thousands.
These same troops could decide to take note of the citizenry’s demands and act on their behalf, as they did in 41 AD to remove the evil Caligula, then again in 68 AD with Nero [or] 97/98 AD with Nerva […]. This was ‘democracy’ even if one does not recognise it [as such]today.
The European Union is a totally undemocratic society in any way one looks at it. [Power is in the hands of a very selfish, arrogant Socialist elite [who] seem oblivious to the lessons of history,[including perhaps] a self-immolation now hopefully descending on them.
There [is not an EU] Praetorian Guard to remove the European Commission on behalf of its fed-up frustrated citizens: [not] at the time they made Eire vote again [and again] on the dreaded Lisbon Treaty for the ‘required answer’, [n]or for the[ir] endless bailouts to ‘rescue’ countries in the ‘Eurozone’ [who were and are] in the throes of societal collapse. As usual the elite ignored reality and [has] continued on its merry way, so making the catastrophe, when it comes, far worse than it needed to be.
Such is the Socialists’ blind unquestioning obedience to Marxist theological cant and self interest; there [appears to be] an utter inability to admit when they were wrong, so all must suffer.
In short Rome, with its Praetorians, was more democratic than our own society. Our own armies laid waste in stupid foreign wars, unwinnable wars, and do not let ‘Free Libya’ fool you! […]
They should have acted, or rather the Monarch should have.[…] The Army [ought to have been] ordered to step in when Brown showed his true colours by refusing a promised Referendum on the EU. [Or when] Brown arrogantly had himself photographed as ‘The Great Socialist Dear Leader’ as he sign[ed] away the UK through the Lisbon Treaty and a Marxist despotism; as though 77,000,000 Britons and their Kingdom were his personal fiefdom.
Such is and always has been the Socialist plans for the Britain they despise. I despise and loathe them in turn. The whole damn lot deserve to hang, as I hope […] they will one day under our ‘repealed’ Treason Laws of 1351/2.
There is a new term needed to describe our own present situation. [We are in] a state of flux as the country wanes and waxes under the baleful influence of ‘multiculturalism’. [We are] moving towards a form of society or societies as yet unknown, but perhaps glimpsed in [various ways]. [There was the] violence of August 2011 on the streets of London, [and] the nasty sink estate ghettos from which many of the ‘Underclass’ erupted.
If we continue on this trajectory we may cease to be a United Kingdom even in ‘form’ but a whole series of warring, paranoid ‘communities’, even proto-statelets reflecting the many alien peoples and beliefs that now make up perhaps 14,000,000 to 20,000,000 of Britain’s population (according to one source I have, a fellow academic and Professor of Physics). On trains travelling to London from Staines during all hours of the day, one hardly hears English at all.
As people know, I spent a number of years utilising my archaeological ethnographic expertise, quantifying population statistics in whole areas across the country, especially inner cities. I did this by counting the numbers of obviously alien individuals within a given area as opposed to white indigenes. The figures for Birmingham, Leeds and most of London preclude beyond reasonable doubt that there are perhaps three times as many migrants in the country — especially Moslems — as [are] officially admitted. A town near me, Feltham, has changed into a nearly fully migrant town in just [the previous] three to five years. It was once a dumping ground for ‘white trash’ left to fester and breed once the main employer ‘EMI’ collapsed — or to put it more accurately,[…] following the deliberate stripping of assets. This [process] is repeated across the country in places like the Midlands.
(One of my other passions is electronics and radio. I once worked at EMI as an electronics Buyer.)
In Feltham the sight of [women in] burkas, head-dresses and other alien paraphernalia, accompanied by numerous children, is now ubiquitous. The remaining white unemployed population (has been)left to fester, hanging around pubs cadging money or shouting abuse at each other; this is exactly the type of situation that led to riots in London. The good news is that the migrants are far better behaved and civil.
For those who disagree with my ‘statistics’ I point them to recent supermarket sales’ receipts used to measure a purchase index, detailing how much and what type of food to buy in. [At work] I used the same methodology to purchase and forward order stocks of components to exacting ‘Re-order levels’, based upon ‘JIT’ or ‘Just in Time’ delivery schedules that are mathematically worked out to ensure too much stock was not carried by any firm in the business. {thus] I know that supermarkets, especially ones with low profit-fast turnover regimes like the above, are very accurate.
So in this light I would say we have a population around 80,000,000 and perhaps 20,000,000 migrants. [That is] 14,000,000 more than the 6,000,000 admitted to [by Government]. The experience of Feltham and other boroughs of London would indeed seem to support this.
As I keep stating, I am a scholar, a very concerned scholar [and] one dedicated to objective fact, not to the ‘cooked’ statistics Government likes to [use] to fool its population. The latter may assuage the white-hating, Moslem-dominated, hysterical sociopaths in the Unite Against Fascists, or even the patriotic members of UKIP or the BNP, rightly suspicious of government migration figures. [But]it is becoming more than obvious that the UK, especially England, is destroyed. We are not quite there yet but not far. What can one do with 20,000,000, many of whom are far better behaved than the indigenous [underclass]?
It appals me to see what has been done to us. However we have done nothing in reply but [have] simply allowed the situation to evolve until it is insurmountable. Those like Bishop of Rochester Nazir Ali, who warned of the growth of Islamic sovereign states in our cities, was forced to resign by a nasty campaign of Chinese whispers by ‘liberal’ fellow clergy. I have no such problem, so can speak my mind or rather write it. I receive endless threats from the usual suspects but I simply carry on!
Somebody asked me who I would rather live with if I had to live in Feltham — the ‘white trash’ or migrants? I replied, “Neither…but on balance the better-behaved latter […] if they allowed my coloured wife and I to do so. In our previous experience this has not been the case. Some twenty years ago I was offered a lucrative contract in Saudi Arabia, accompanied by my spouse. When the company met her, they withdrew the offer with the remarks, “Your wife would never be left alone, she would have to hide away, since she resembles one of their own women — her life would be miserable and she would be forced to cover from head to toe, never allowed out and forever under the eye of the religious police!” I could not subject her to such a life.
I have lived in Moslem countries as a child and can confirm this view.
Britain is in flux moving towards a new entity. Will it be a Balkans’ style multicultural mess broken up into a countryside populated by what is left of the indigenous population, while the cities adapt to a series of race, creed and cult dominated ‘mini-statelets’ always on the verge of immediate violence, into which the Police fear to go? Or will we simply drift through our own bovine apathy into a Moslem state by default and come to resemble Western Pakistan? At present one could describe Britain as ‘acultural’ or even a ‘metaculturation’.
Meanwhile in Libya, if a Libyan I know is right, Sarkozy and Cameron, the modern day political equivalent of ‘Laurel and Hardy’ naively perform to the hopefully amused ‘Free Libyans’. Bassem told me,”It was a great show, Guy! But we don’t even know who is actually in charge there! The street buzz is that it is Moslem Brothers! Your politicians, are either highly cynical and playing a game, or just plain stupid!”
My major objection to Cameron and his forerunners is their almost complete lack of cultural and historical understanding, and, one has to say, short-term shallow political practices. They also lack education, and the necessary gravitas [of] statesman,[which is] necessary to steer us through this growing, potentially violent storm. They are mentally far too young, their mindset and habits suitable to run a small business but hardly the materiel to govern an ancient land like Britain. In political and historical terms they are children.
Keep and eye on the Near East, we have seen nothing yet. Piracy has been reported off Libyan coasts too. I am sorry, dear reader, that I have not been able to report better news for once!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
So… meet you in the comments, sir…we’ll both be laconic, right.On a mild February afternoon, Fiorino, 25, decided to walk to an AutoZone on Frankford Avenue in Northeast Philly with the.40-caliber Glock he legally owns holstered in plain view on his left hip. His stroll ended when someone called out from behind: "Yo, Junior, what are you doing?"
Fiorino wheeled and saw Sgt. Michael Dougherty aiming a handgun at him.
What happened next would be hard to believe, except that Fiorino audio-recorded all of it: a tense, profanity-laced, 40-minute encounter with cops who told him that what he was doing - openly carrying a gun on the city's streets - was against the law.
"Do you know you can't openly carry here in Philadelphia?" Dougherty asked, according to the YouTube clip.
"Yes, you can, if you have a license to carry firearms," Fiorino said. "It's Directive 137. It's your own internal directive."
Fiorino was right. It was perfectly legal to carry the gun. But that didn't matter to the cop:
Fiorino offered to show Dougherty his driver's and firearms licenses. The cop told him to get on his knees.
"Excuse me?" Fiorino said.
"Get down on your knees. Just obey what I'm saying," Dougherty said.
"Sir," Fiorino replied, "I'm more than happy to stand here -"
"If you make a move, I'm going to f------ shoot you," Dougherty snapped. "I'm telling you right now, you make a move, and you're going down!"
"Is this necessary?" Fiorino said.
It went on like that for a little while, until other officers responded to Dougherty's calls for backup.
Fiorino was forced to the ground and shouted at as he tried to explain that he had a firearms license and was legally allowed to openly carry his weapon.
"You f------ come here looking for f------ problems? Where do you live?" yelled one officer.
"I'm sorry, gentlemen," Fiorino said. "If I'm under arrest, I have nothing left to say."
"F------ a------, shut the f--- up!" the cop hollered.
The cops discovered his recorder as they searched his pockets, and unleashed another string of expletives.
Fiorino said he sat handcuffed in a police wagon while the officers made numerous phone calls to supervisors, trying to find out if they could lock him up.
When they learned that they were in the wrong, they let him go.
Where human liberty is concerned, they are now almost invariably on the wrong side. They are servants of the State who have become the enemies, not only of the citizenry, but of human freedom It is vital - absolutely vital - to record your EVERY interaction with the police. If possible, the recorded interactions should be live-streamed to a safe server outside the jurisdiction - this is an iPhone / Android app that I've been contemplating for some time now and which I believe is going to become increasingly necessary for Americans as the various levels of government get ever more paranoid and desperate for revenue.I have to admit, I'm almost looking forward to seeing how the strutting bully boys and bravos with badges who are so violently high-handed in their dealings with everyday Americans panic when they are forced to deal with the anti-police tactics of the Mexican cartels, whose activities are gradually spilling across the border courtesy of the present bi-factional regime's de facto open immigration policies.Don't get me wrong. It will be a bloody mess, a political disaster, and it won't be fun for anyone. But it will be impossible to say that any of the parties involved don't deserve what they'll be getting.
Labels: Invasion, NWA was rightA Forgotten Beast wandered into the caverns of Wirejade. A towering feathered serpent with a trunk and a bloated body, called Radavi the Jackal of Twilight. Able to spray deadly dust. Like many times before, I sent out the military to counter it, expecting at most a few dead soldiers.It sat in the middle of an underground lake, so I decided to provoke it with marksdwarves and make it walk straight into the middle of my troops. It attacked them, just as I expected, and turned towards the rest of the soldiers. Then I noticed the marksdwarves are already dead, despite being hit only with the dust. Checking the health of some animals which were unlucky enough to get caught up in the battle revealed the cause."Deadly" was a major understatement. The dust literally caused the entire body to rupture. Death from blood loss followed within seconds.I evacuated the warriors, and fortunately the beast walked back into the lake. I was already digging out a chunk of the ceiling to drop on its head... I'm not sure what happened then. I think a passing hunter started shooting at it, making it crawl out of the water, and was killed. Afterwards the beast kept moving from dwarf to dwarf, leaving a trail of blood and destruction. About 40 dwarves, including a large portion of the military, died. Damn thing was fast, too - ordering everybody to go back into the fortress proper did little.One of the dwarves who didn't make it was my captain of the guard, Sakzul Riddlegirder the Clean Call, slayer of seven Forgotten Beasts, two of which she literally bisected. Adamantine chain mail, artifact helm and shield, ☼adamantine short sword☼ forged by the duke himself - nothing helped her in any way. The beast slammed her into the wall with its dust... she got up, walked a few steps and promptly collapsed next to a torn apart hyena cub. I didn't mention this infernal serpent is exceptionally good at ripping out limbs. It got hit a few times, though - it's middle spine is broken. Not that it helps much. Other injuries are probably caused by its own dust throwing it into walls.At this point, I decided to seal off the caverns, abandoning whoever was left there to their doom. There are still some survivors, picking wild plump helmets. After that, I did the last thing I hope will get me rid of that abomination.I breached the hollow adamantine spire.This had the downside of having whoever was far below the fortress, in the magma forges level, mercilessly slaughtered in a number of gruesome ways. But hey, the beast would get them sooner or later, right? I ordered them to forge some armament for themselves so they would at least die armed and fighting, and organized them into squads. One received the name "The Evisceration of Smiths". It's more or less an accurate description of what's happening now.Anyway, that brings us where we are now. The demons are assaulting the forges, and dwarves are getting roasted alive and kicked across the room. Smoke, blood, corpses and various metal garbage is everywhere. The beast is slowly destroying the base of my old pumpstack I used to dry an underground pond. Everything below z-level -11 is dead, dying, or will be dead. All that stands between Wirejade and its doom is an artifact bituminous coal hatch cover and some nickel bridges.There are three demons futilely trying to kill a cave blob. One of the others got named "Hatedemons".Current death count: About 100 and increasing, 339 dwarves alive.It isn't over yet.Big thanks to Mollie Hemingway at The Federalist for yet another reason I’m glad I did a Snake Plissken and escaped from the District of Columbia.
Check out this utter nonsense:
Oh, it gets better. Skyler Wilder, NBCOlympics.com:
David Wise’s alternative lifestyle leads to Olympic gold
“Hey, Nayeli,” he said peering into the camera. “Daddy loves you!”
Those were the words of David Wise, the freestyle skiing halfpipe gold medalist Tuesday night after he won his event’s first-ever Olympic medal…
Not to say the rest of the freestyle skiers of halfpipe are not mature, but Wise is mature far beyond his years. At only twenty-three years old, he has a wife, Alexander, who was waiting patiently in the crowd, and together they have a two-year-old daughter waiting for them to return to their home in Reno, Nevada.
At such a young age, Wise has the lifestyle of an adult.
Let me repeat that last bit, in case you missed it:
At such a young age, Wise has the lifestyle of an adult.
Did it occur to the delightfully named Skyler Wilder, or anybody else at NBC who read this copy before or after it was published, that David Wise has the lifestyle of an adult because he is an adult?
That’s a rhetorical question. Of course it didn’t. What we’re seeing here is a combination of two ongoing projects of leftists and the mainstream media (PTR): the infantilization of America’s young adults, and the “otherization” of completely normal people who don’t behave like they’re on Friends or Two and a Half Men or whatever.
Want your parents to coddle you until you’re 26? You’re in luck, bro! Thanks, Obamacare. Want to put off adult responsibilities indefinitely? You have that option. If you were born in 1984 or after, you have more options than any other generation in American history.*
And, amazingly enough, one of those options is to marry your beautiful, supportive high-school sweetheart, start a family, and otherwise behave like you know what you’re doing. But that’s now an “alternative lifestyle.” An adult taking on adult responsibilities is an “alternative lifestyle.”
Yes, yes, I know what you’re about to say. This is coming from a guy who has avoided adult responsibilities his whole life. And who is, shall we say, well over 21. (“You’re only young once, but you can be immature forever.”)
But that’s just me. It’s baffling to me that anybody would find David Wise’s life baffling. If he were a transgendered African-American dwarf with multiple personality disorder and a face full of piercings, NBC would be all over that $#!+. But he’s just a boring white dude with a wife and a kid. Even though he’s still young enough to be on a reality show.
He probably even likes his mom and dad. He probably eats at Chili’s or something. What a freak!
As I mentioned, I moved away from DC last week. It’s so good to be back in America.
(Hat tip: Will Rahn)
Update: Why does Facebook have 50 gender options? Because that’s all they can think of for now.
Update: Apparently, Skyler Wilder has penned a Swiftian masterpiece and I just didn’t get it.
*That window is closing rapidly, so I don’t blame you if you want to enjoy the ride as long as you can.It’s a warm Wednesday night in the middle of the summer after my senior year of high school. I’d been a Redditor for years, so when friends pushed me to sign up for Twitter, I was originally hesitant. It seemed to be dominated by ADHD & short attention spans. It was confusing, and I barely understood the process of tagging or replying to another user.
However, after discovering @DanielleMorrill’s @cattermark account soon after I signed up, I felt right at home. You see, these cat gifs & clever captions, which seemed to be new to Twitter, had been on Reddit for years.
So, naturally, I figured I would try one of my own (with help from my girlfriend, whose sense of humor is far better than my own)…
To my surprise, it was retweeted by both Danielle Morrill and her cattermark account. The favorites rolled in, and both of her accounts followed me.
Encouraged by my success, I tried again, referencing a popular parody account and the rumored owner, Darren Curtis…
It was favorited by @cattermark, but nothing else. However, to my surprise, a few minutes later, this was posted…
Needless to say, I was shocked. So, in the spirit of the night, I responded…
But Danielle is a good sport, and this rolled in a few minutes later…
Needless to say, I had a fun night. And I think I finally understand the appeal of Twitter. In normal circumstances, you need an introduction to meet someone in the upper echelon. You need to run into them at your local Starbucks, or find their email on an old press release.
However, on Twitter, it’s as simple as finding their account. And while the 140 character limit may seem arbitrary, it forces the writer to trim his or her novel into a concise blurb, which is efficient when you’re trying to catch the attention of the über-powerful.
A powerful tool indeed, even if it’s used just for cat gifs.Image caption Alibaba's reputation took a hit as a result of the online fraud on its e-commerce website
Chinese police have arrested 36 people connected with operating an online fraud on Alibaba.com and other websites, the company has said.
Those arrested stand accused of duping overseas buyers of more than $6m (£3.7m) by posing as suppliers on the Chinese e-commerce websites.
The fraud resulted in the chief executive and chief operating officer of Alibaba quitting earlier this year.
Alibaba is China's largest e-commerce group.
"The arrest of the
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telekinesis, pyrokinesis, time travel and reality warping.
Zoom In
Landgraf also revealed that the new Legion series won't be set in the X-Men movie universe (major bummer!), adding that the time frame for the 10-episode series “might be a few years in the past.” Landgraf said:
“It's not in the continuity of those films in the sense the current X-Men films take place in a universe in which everybody on planet Earth is aware of the existence of mutants,” he said. “The series Legion takes place in a parallel universe, if you will, in which the US government is in the early days of being aware that something called mutants exist but the public is not. I wouldn't foresee characters moving back and forth because they really are parallel universes.”
Since it takes place in a parallel universe, does that mean we can rule out appearances from some of the X-Men movie characters? Probably, but there’s still an itsy bitsy tiny sliver of hope.
“It’s still in process but I think at the moment they’re all new characters... But I’m not 100% sure that'll be the case by the time it airs.”
What do you think? Are you disappointed FX's Legion series will be separate from the X-Men movies?
(via IGN)The new victims bill of rights in Canada
Bill C-32: The new victims bill of rights in Canada. The presumption of victim vs. the presumption of innocence.
Today the Conservative government released the newly drafted Bill C-32 Victims Bill of Rights (“The Act”). You can find the text to the full document here. Bill C-32 – Projet de loi C-32 The bill focuses on providing victims with broad ranging rights in criminal proceedings. Some of those rights would include:
Compelling spouses to testify against their husbands or wives;
Obtaining copies of the bail or probation orders relating to the accused;
Testimonial aids;
Concealing the identification of witnesses and alleged victims in criminal proceedings;
Knowledge about the criminal process and the role of victims, the services and programs available to them, and their right to file a complaint if their rights are infringed;
Knowledge about the status of the criminal proceedings, the location, the progress, and outcome;
Conveying their views about the justice system that affect their rights;
Present victim impact statements and have them considered;
Procedures for hearing from the victim on compensatory harm done to them akin to a civil proceeding where evidence may be called and considered;
The Court making restitution orders against the offender that is enforceable as a civil judgment;
Increased restrictions on judge’s discretion in imposing victim fine surcharges;
Broadening the reasons and means for witnesses to have support workers present and testify outside the courtroom.
The proposed Act is far reaching with fundamental changes to the Criminal Code in relation to how accusers and victims are perceived in the justice system. Complainants are now victims, even from the outset where an accused has yet to be proven guilty of any offence.
The Act seems to drastically shift the presumption of innocence of an accused, to one of a presumption of criminality and assumed victimization. A much greater emphasis is placed upon the protection of society, restitution of the victim, and and mandated input from the victims. It places a great deal of protectionism to victims and witnesses through publication bans, public exclusion orders, enhanced protection to third party records, and support mechanisms. The standards to engage these mechanisms are much lower than previously employed.
Please note that this article is written after a cursory review of a present C-32 draft. In no way is this article exhaustive but simply points to some of the most significant changes as this author sees it with particular focus on Criminal Code amendments (as opposed to Corrections Act changes).
Who is a victim?
The Act defines, and alters the common interpretation of what a “victim” means. The definition means anyone who “has suffered physical or emotional harm, property damage or economic loss as the result of a commission or alleged commotion of an offence.”
For the purposes of the Act, a victim not only includes the person directly harmed by the crime, but also where the victim is deceased: the spouse, a person in a conjugal relationship, a dependant, a relative, a person responsible for the care of the deceased. It is of note that these definitions do not require that the person’s death was a result of a crime, or the crime of subject (for example, a person who was murdered). These individuals could act on behalf of the deceased victim regardless of the person’s cause of death.
It is of note that the term “complainant” is replaced at large, and now would read “victim” in its place. For example, an amendment under 486.4 would now read “…any information that may identify the victim…”. The Act places a strong presumption of victimization over there presumption of innocence and uses such terminology to emphasize that. See also 486.4(2) as another example. Up to the present, the term “complainant” was used in circumstances where the charges have yet to be proven.
The change in terminology is subtle but important and will likely permit prosecutors to refer to the witnesses as “victims” even before juries as the Criminal Code now defines them as such. I would expect that such terminology will cause a great deal of controversy for defence lawyers who might see it as overly prejudicial and conclusory.
Significant procedural changes to the Criminal Code and other Acts.
The victims bill amends significant aspects of the Criminal Code of Canada. Those changes affect, among other things, the openness of courts and identity of persons making accusations and witnesses, the expansion of support workers, a changing of terminology to “victim” from the commencement of proceedings, and and overall change in attitude and prioritization of sentencing to one of protection of society over rehabilitation and other objectives.
Limitations and additional mechanisms to obtaining third party records:
The Act seeks to amend the mechanisms for which third party records may be produced and for what offences. The act will amend the sections set out in 278 of the Criminal Code (and the various subsections and clauses). Among other things, the Court must also assess the “personal security” of the victim in making such assessments of disclosure.
Broadening the offence of Intimidation of a justice system participant or a journalist
Broaden the offence for intimidating justice system participants under 423.1(1) so that it relates to “any” conduct as opposed to “conduct” per se.
Excluding the public from court proceedings.
Broad language and considerations in making a public exclusion order under 486(1) of the Criminal Code with a long list of considerations. These orders would allow the judge to exclude all members of the public and media when these factors apply so that only the lawyers and Court staff may be present. These terms are much broader than what has existed in the past which sought to foster transparency and an open-court principle. The Act proposed would require a Court to seriously balance the open-court principle to the rights of the victim and privacy interests.
The broadening of Court orders under 486 to have a support worker present for all witnesses and to testify out of court.
At present, the Court must grant the ability for a witness under the age of 18 or who has mental or a physical disability to have a support person present and close during testimony when a prosecutor brings such an application. For persons over 18, a court may grant such an order upon application of a prosecutor or the witness themselves.
Under the new proposed legislation, the Court may bring its own motion to do so out “in respect” of the witness even if the prosecutor or witness does not request it. The amendments would also allow a person under the age of 18 or a person with a mental or physical disability to bring such a motion. Another significant change is that the test under 486(2) is reduced to if the support worker would “facilitate” the giving of testimony, as opposed to it being “necessary” under present legislation. A number of factors to make this consideration are enumerated.
Identical amendments with the same factors are made with respect to witnesses who wish to testify outside of the Courtroom for witnesses under 18 (or with disabilities), or other witnesses.
The protection of witnesses’ identity:
The Act seeks to add the ability for a Court to make an order that a witness’ identify not be disclosed to the public. This application may be brought by the witness themselves, or the prosecutor.
The obligations of court and prosecutors to make enquires of the victim’s awareness of the plea arrangements.
Under the present provision of a plea inquiry under the Criminal Code, section 606 seeks to ensure that the accused is fully informed of the terms and potential consequences and is voluntary. The Act seeks to add a provision obligating the Court to inquire that reasonable steps were taken to inform the victim(s) of the plea for certain offences involving “personal injury” as defined under section 752. This amendment also places an obligation upon the prosecutor to take reasonable steps to inform the victim of the plea afterwards.
The paramountcy of public protection in sentencing under section 718.
The Act will amend section 718 of the Criminal Code to prioritize the protection of society over the present intentions where the “fundamental purpose of sentencing is to contribute, along with crime prevention initiatives, to respect for the law and the maintenance of a just, peaceful and safe society by imposing just sanctions that have one or more of the following objectives…”.
The Act will amend the Criminal Code to read “…fundamental purpose of sentencing is to protect society and to contribute, along with crime prevention initiatives, to respect for the law and the maintenance of a just, peaceful and safe society by imposing just sanctions that have one or more of the following objectives…”.
Such an amendment will obviously place a greater emphasis on incarceration and the removal of offenders from society in order to obtain this priority of protection. This prioritization is also supported by the amendment of section 718(e) to amend that “all available sanctions other than imprisonment that are reasonable in the circumstances should be considered for all offenders, with particular attention to the circumstances of aboriginal offenders.” to read that “(e) all available sanctions other than imprisonment that are reasonable in the circumstances and consistent with the harm done to victims or to the community should be considered for all offenders, with particular attention to the circumstances of aboriginal offenders.
An expansion of items properly included in victim impact statements.
Section 722 will be amended to provide greater latitude for the victim to include harm done. More significantly, the victim will have the right to read the statement directly in Court to the accused and may even present photographs depicting them before and after the incident. All of this must be taken into account by the Court in assessing an appropriate sentence.
The Court is also obligated to hear and consider any statements prepared on behalf of a community at large to describe the harm the crime has had upon the community.
The victim’s right to probation orders
The Act will require disclosure of any probation orders upon request of the victim.
A termination of extending payment of victim fine surcharges and mandatory considerations of restitution orders.
Recently, there has been some controversial decisions of judges who were upset with the current implementation of mandatory victim fine surcharges. That rebellion reared its head in various ways but one was by imposing a victim fine surcharge but with a very long time period to pay it. The new Act requires the victim one surcharge be paid in accordance with a schedule set by the the lieutenant in council, or within a reasonable time otherwise.
The Court will also be obligated to ensure that the victim may make representations on restitution orders to make against the accused for harm done. These orders would carry the same weight and enforcement mechanisms as a civil judgment.
An ability to pay or financial means does not prevent the Court from making any of these orders under the Act.
A greater latitude in definition of who may appear to make representations on an offenders’ release.
Consistent with the expansion of the definition of victim, many more individuals may now appear to make representations for individuals seeking release under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. The victims, or designates, would also be entitled to a great deal of information relating to the offenders plans and date of release, a photograph of them, work plans, etc.
Spouses made compellable witnesses.
Under the Canada Evidence Act at present, a spouse is not a compellable witness for the prosecution. Under the Act, this would change and no matter what the offence, a spouse would be a compellable witness for the prosecution. This would force a husband or wife to testify against or face charges of contempt or other sanctions.
The inevitable controversy to come.
As with many of the recent criminal justice amendments made by the present government, there is bound to be considerable controversy with this proposed legislation. The drastic changes, if passed, will have a profound impact upon the criminal justice system in the manner witnesses and alleged victims are treated. It’s expected by this author that constitutional challenges will be brought in various areas including aspects of making full answer and defence, the right to a fair trial, the right to disclosure, cruel and unusual punishment, and many others.
It will be interesting to see how the public perceives these changes under a present climate where victims’ rights seem paramount to accused individuals. I hope that in the course of these debates that the typical language of “criminals” vs. “victims” does not rear its ugly head. I hope that in the course of public debate, we do not lose sight of the importance of the presumption of innocence and that not all persons charged are criminals. Perhaps not as a matter of fact, but I always thought in law that a “victim” was someone we called a someone once an offence was proven beyond a reasonable doubt..it seems that has changed and I fear to the peril of a free and fair society.
Sean Robichaud, Barrister & Solicitor
You can reach Sean Robichaud at (416) 220-0413 to discuss these or other issues as it relates to criminal law.President Obama made good sense Thursday in urging Donald Trump “to stand up to Russia” when necessary.
“My hope is the president-elect” will “cooperate with Russia where our values and interests align” but “stand up” to it when it acts against “our values and international norms,” said Obama, who was in Europe this week to bid foreign leaders farewell. That would be more than Obama himself has done.
Sure, Obama has been willing to “cooperate”; recall that Russian “reset”? But when Moscow broke the rules, the White House played doormat. From Russia’s aggression in Ukraine to its support for Syrian butcher Bashar al-Assad, Obama rarely responded with anything beyond scolding rhetoric.
Yet the outgoing president did reassure foreign leaders about the US commitment to NATO — and that was important. During the campaign, Trump called NATO an “obsolete” alliance and hinted the United States might drop out if Europe doesn’t pull its weight.
Now, it’s true that its funding has been a sore point for decades; Obama himself has denounced NATO’s “free-riders.”
But European leaders are on edge. On Monday they agreed on a new defense plan (initiated before the election) that makes it easier to deploy forces without Washington’s OK.
Let’s face it: NATO is too vital to let collapse. It has kept peace in Europe, maintained Western unity and served as the cornerstone of global security for seven decades.
So good for Obama for assuring Europe there won’t be any “weakening of resolve” by America. Trump, he said, “expressed a great interest in maintaining our core strategic relationships” and told him he was committed to the trans-Atlantic alliance.
(Trump didn’t confirm Obama’s account of their talk, but he didn’t deny it, either.)
Since the election, Obama has been saying some wise things. If Trump heeds them, his record can well outshine Obama’s own.A few weeks ago, the internet heard news of a potential spin-off between the Pacific Rim movies and the “MonsterVerse,” the current home of King Kong and Godzilla. And it made sense. After all, both of these series are spearheaded by Legendary Pictures. Both of them involve giant monsters. Sure, they would somehow have to be massaged into the same world, but they’d find a way.
But you should never count your kaiju before they hatch – this crossover has already been nipped in the bud by Legendary Pictures producer Cale Boyter.
No, Jaegers Won’t Battle Godzilla and Kong
Speaking with CinemaBlend, Boyter said that we won’t be seeing Jaegers fighting the King of the Monsters any time soon. However, he does hint that something else is in the works:
“There’s no plans to merge. Understandably that might be cool, but I might have something up my sleeve that will surprise you – that I think you guys will love, that I think is better than the obvious approach.”
So, what could be up his sleeve that will prove surprising and worth mentioning as a salve to people bummed out by this crossover not actually existing? This is normally the point where I’d offer an educated guess or some speculation, but I’ve got nada. Anyway, Boyter’s quotes don’t necessarily contradict the statement from Pacific Rim Uprising director Steven S. DeKnight, who was the one who originally brought up this whole crossover thing:
“…there’s been a lot of discussion about that possibility [of crossing over]. Look, I think it would be fantastic to have the Pacific Rim universe join Legendary’s Monster Universe, it seems like a natural step. And part of the big overall plan after the third movie we’ve talked about is that could happen, it’s always a possibility. It’s by far not a certainty; it’s merely theoretical at this point, but as a fan myself I would love to see that happen.”
In retrospect, sure, of course everyone at Legendary has had this conversation. Because talk is talk and not a $150 million movie. Pulling the trigger on an idea as nutty as this is another thing altogether.
Other Pacific Rim Tidbits
Speaking of Cale Boyer trying to smooth things over as elegantly as possible, the producer spoke to Coming Soon when they visited the set of Pacific Rim Uprising and talked about the role of original director Guillermo del Toro in the sequel:
“He’s been involved from the different ideas, weighing in, the different drafts.We send him all the visuals and everything. He loves Boyega. Obviously all the stuff he looked at he’s touched and noted. He hasn’t been here yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point he ends up here. Moves things around and I’ll be like ‘No, go back over there.'”
We never received a full explanation for why del Toro didn’t return for Pacific Rim Uprising, but it certainly sounds like he doesn’t have much of a hand in the sequel at all. In fact, the lead character from the first movie has been excised completely, although Steven S. DeKnight revealed that Charlie Hunnam’s Raleigh Becket was in the original screenplay, but had to be removed when the actor decided to pursue another project:
“Then I sent [Emily Carmichael and Kira Snyder] off to write the script because we only had like three weeks to write it at that point, and as they were writing, I was rewriting, and then we had a draft of the script at that point. Then, if I remember the story correctly, I turned it in, Legendary loves it, and literally 24 hours later, Charlie Hunnam announces he was doing the Papillon remake and wasn’t available, so we had a bit of a scramble to reconceive the idea.”
So there you go: the Pacific Rim series seems to be going off in its own direction at this point, without any del Toro and without any Godzilla.
Pacific Rim Uprising opens on March 23, 2018.This week is Banned Books Week, seven days in which we celebrate the essential freedom to read. I’d never given it much thought before. Not until my publisher at Orbit sent me an email and asked if there was anything I’d like to do for Banned Books Week.
I promise I had something more funny than this in mind.
I originally was going to see if I could convince some local police to take a picture with me, looking on impotently as I read a formerly banned book with savage glee. When I realized that cops terrify me, I had planned to gather as many books as I could and make a fortress of freedom out of them. When I realized how expensive that was going to be, I thought maybe I’d just take some selfies with banned books and call it a day.
I took only one.
It wasn’t that great.
I had originally planned on just letting this week pass by with no particular contribution to me save that I was making a token effort toward the celebration. It wasn’t as though Orbit had held a gun to my head, after all. And there were other things to be doing: I need to finish The Mortal Tally (Book Two in Bring Down Heaven), I need to prepare for The City Stained Red’s eBook launch next month, I need to get ready for New York Comicon. I was pretty content to take freedom for granted and not do much of anything.
Then I logged onto twitter.
As I tend to follow passionate people, I saw quite a bit of it on display. Sometimes, that passion turned venomous: people screaming at each other, wishing death upon each other, trying their best to get each other to shut up, generally acting quite vicious. Being the social opossum I am, I managed to steer clear of it, but as I figuratively lay on my back, feigning death and waiting for the scavengers to move on, I realized something.
I’m scared to death of censorship.
This is something of a blessing, however convoluted that may seem. I’m certainly not immune to other tragedies such as being murdered, robbed, beaten or raped. I could get into a car crash, be stabbed to death in an alley, develop an incurable disease. I’m in a place in the world and the society that lives in it where I can usually live free of these worries. Not everyone can. So while these disasters might happen to me, they’re not likely to.
Is me being censored any more likely, then?
Maybe not.
I can’t imagine any religious groups getting angry at me and burning my book, despite that it’s full of demons (that’d kind of rock if they did, though). Nor can I really foresee an event in which the American government would decide that my book is a threat to the nation and forbid it (again, this would only increase my allure). It’s a little more likely that I’d say something that would anger someone and they’d start doing everything in their power to get me off the shelves, but that’s not likely to go further than twitter and it’d probably be forgotten the moment someone else said something worse.
So why am I so terrified of censorship if it’s not that likely to happen to me?
Because, put plainly, censorship hurts everyone.
It hurts the person whose art is stifled and whose expression is silenced, certainly. But it also hurts the person who succumbed to their fear and sought its censure to begin with. But most importantly, it hurts everyone: everyone who was refused the right to judge for themselves, everyone who was refused the right to have the discussion, everyone who was refused the right to agree or disagree, everyone who was instantly robbed of a voice. A work, however abhorrent, is gone and we have lost the ability to speak because we embraced fear.
And fear is at the heart of everything.
I believe that all fiction, maybe all writing, is an exploration of which is the more powerful human emotion: love or fear.
Censorship is a triumph of fear over love.
This fear that spawns censorship takes a variety of shapes. Many powerful people throughout history ear that a work might threaten someone’s influence or position in the world they live in and wanted it banned. Many parents succumbed to the fear that a work might negatively influence or alter their children and wanted it banned. Society at large lives with the constant fear that a work might introduce an idea that spurs someone to dangerous action and may ban something out of that.
But all these shapes of fear have a root cause: the fear of pain.
That is, after all, what the most common fear is, isn’t it? And it’s hard to blame people for being afraid of pain. None of us enjoy pain, be it mental or physical, and pain is never far from our thoughts. We’re hardwired to want to avoid it at all costs.
It’s my personal belief that pain is necessary for growth. Pain is what lets you know that things are happening. And just as your bones ache as you grow taller or your muscles are sore after working out, an idea that causes you pain is an idea that you eventually learn your response to and grow as a person.
The pain of loss is a reminder of how much you loved what you lost. The pain of betrayal is a testament to your capacity to trust someone. The pain you feel when someone else is hurting is the proof of your empathy and ability to love someone else more than yourself. None of these things mean anything without the ability to feel pain, sometimes even the willingness to feel pain.
Ideas cause us pain.
They do everyday.
About a month ago, I put a hole in my wall. I clenched my fist, swung it out and smashed a hole in the drywall just above my shoulder (don’t get any ideas about my ferocity; the drywall was very cheap). The reason I did this was because I read something in an online forum that made me incredibly angry. It was a vicious, hateful thing that made me genuinely upset. It made me angry and I damaged my house. I did this all the time when I was younger. I do it much less these days and I was embarrassed to have done it this time.
I regret doing it. I regret letting my emotions get out of control. I regret giving into fear. But I don’t regret feeling pain at it. And I would have regretted taking actions to try and silence the statement.
But why, then, would I feel that way at such a terrible message?
I wouldn’t have been rid of that statement or the idea that caused it. I wouldn’t have defeated it or banished it or come to terms with it and buried it. I would have put it in a closet and waited for it to come back out some day. I would have silenced it, knowing it could hurt me, and lived in fear of the day it would come back and hurt me again. And each time, my ability to deal with it would be called into question.
Some may think I’m suggesting we never say anything bad, ever. Some may think I’m suggesting we let hatred run wild and never confront it. I think it’s plain to see that I’m not a fan of fear and as I believe all hatred descends from fear, I’m very much for confronting these sorts of things. But the answer to that confrontation is freedom.
We have the freedom to confront ideas. We have the freedom to criticize them. We have the freedom to reject them and we have the freedom to dismiss them from our presence, if we must. But we cannot justify using freedom to deny freedom. We must let idiots speak. We must let wounds bleed. We must let the hatred and the agony and the panic in someone’s words make themselves known. We do not always have to listen, but we cannot demand them be silent.
What we do, in its stead, is present a new idea.
We are writers. Nothing is real to us until we put them into words on paper (or on a blank white screen, anyway). This is how we confront our fears. When we silence, when we censor, we give into those fears. We devote ourselves to that fear, rather than to expression.
Censorship is a triumph of fear. It is sometimes understandable why someone might give into that fear. It is sometimes understandable that the exhilaration that comes from temporary release of fear and pain can be liberating. It is sometimes understandable that people who feel powerless may find comfort in exerting some amount of control.
But these are fleeting. And nothing compared to the lingering shadow of fear that will haunt us when these things we try to silence come back to us. And they will.
I suppose this blog post is me confronting my own fear. For in writing this, I am afraid.
I’m afraid of retribution for what I’m writing here. I’m afraid of being ignored entirely and merely screaming into a void. I’m afraid that these words will hurt someone else. I’m afraid that someone will want to hurt me over these words.
But this, too, is a fear I could not live with. This is a fear whose specter would always be at the corner of my eye and just over my shoulder, a constant reminder that I had given into it and it only had to wait until it could come back and test me again. I would still be afraid, but I’d be safe.
And all it would cost me is just not writing.
Which is a fate unthinkable.
So I had to write this.
Do not give into fear. Do not let it triumph. Do not seek to censor and harm yourself. Do not seek to silence and harm others.
Do your best. Never stop writing. Never stop thinking.
Read dangerously.
Happy Banned Books Week.DAVENPORT, Iowa — At a town hall meeting here last night, Rudolph W. Giuliani expanded upon his views of torture. Here is a transcript of the exchange.
Linda Gustitus, who is the president of a group called the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, began her question by saying that President Bush’s nominee for attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey (who happens to be an old friend of Mr. Giuliani’s) had “fudged” on the question of whether waterboarding is toture.
Video
“I wanted to ask you two questions,’’ she said. “One, do you think waterboarding is torture? And two, do you think the president can order something like waterboarding even though it’s against U.S. and international law?’’
Mr. Giuliani responded: “O.K. First of all, I don’t believe the attorney general designate in any way was unclear on torture. I think Democrats said that; I don’t think he was.’’
Ms. Gustitus said: “He said he didn’t know if waterboarding is torture.”
Mr. Giuliani said: “Well, I’m not sure it is either. I’m not sure it is either. It depends on how it’s done. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it. I think the way it’s been defined in the media, it shouldn’t be done. The way in which they have described it, particularly in the liberal media. So I would say, if that’s the description of it, then I can agree, that it shouldn’t be done. But I have to see what the real description of it is. Because I’ve learned something being in public life as long as I have. And I hate to shock anybody with this, but the newspapers don’t always describe it accurately.”
(Applause)
“If I can’t figure out that there’s been a significant media bias against this war, then I shouldn’t be running for president of the United States.”
(Applause)
“Sometimes they describe it accurately. Sometimes they exaggerate it. So I’d have to see what they really are doing, not the way some of these liberal newspapers have exaggerated it.”
“Now, on the question of torture. We should not torture. America should not stand for torture, America should not allow torture. But America should engage in aggressive questioning of Islamic terrorists who are arrested or who are apprehended. Because if we don’t we leave ourselves open to significant attack.”
“And the line between the two is very delicate and very difficult. But we can’t abandon aggressive questioning of people who are intent on coming here to kill us. Or killing us overseas. I think that that’s the point that the attorney general designate was trying to make.”
“And the powers of the president are pretty significant in protecting the national security of the United States. They always have been. So I think what he was also trying to do was protect the powers of the United States to deal with unforeseen circumstances like the hypothetical we were asked during one debate – I’ve forgotten which one: If there was a terrorist attack on an American city, and it was clear that there were all going to be additional attacks, some of them were going to be nuclear, and they were planned for the next couple of days and one of the people involved in it was arrested, and the head of the C.I.A. came to you and said we have to do certain things to get the information from him, would you authorize it? And I think most of us answered it, yes we would, we would authorize doing whatever we thought was the most effective to get that information.”
“The president has to have that kind of leeway. We’ve got to trust our president well enough to allow that. If we surround this so much with procedure, we’re going to have some unforeseen circumstance in which a president’s not going to feel comfortable making the right decision, particularly if you have the wrong person there. “
“So I think America should never be for torture. America should be against torture. It violates the Geneva Convention. Certainly when we’re dealing with armed combatants, we shouldn’t get near anything like that. There is a distinction, sometimes, when you’re dealing with terrorists. You may have to use means that are a little tougher.”
“And I see, when the Democrats are talking about torture, they’re not just talking about even this definition of waterboarding, which again, if you look at the liberal media and you look at the way they describe it, you could say it was torture and you shouldn’t do it. But they talk about sleep deprivation. I mean, on that theory, I’m getting tortured running for president of the United States. That’s plain silly. That’s silly.’’
“That comes from people who have never investigated a real criminal case, never investigated organized crime. You know how I put hundreds of Mafia people in jail? And I helped to put thousands in Italy in jail? You know how I did it? I did it by electronic surveillance and aggressive questioning. None of them wanted to give me the information. They didn’t walk into my office and say, ‘I want to tell you about all of those Mafia murders…”
“They got ‘em because we arrested them, we got very significant charges on them, and we questioned them for long, long periods of time. With very aggressive techniques. Never ever tortured anybody. I can tell you that. Would never allow it. Don’t know of any situation in which the F.B.I. did it.’’
“And then, please have a better view of the men and women who serve you in law enforcement and in the intelligence services.’’
(Applause)
‘’I know the liberal media paints them like, you know – These are the good guys, not the bad guys. They really are. I mean these are the people who put their lives at risk to protect you and me. These are people of scruples, honor, decency. They don’t want to torture anybody. They have no desire to harm anybody. What they are dealing with sometimes are these enormously difficult life and death situations, in which there is a possibility of getting information about a group of troops that are going to be killed, and they’re going to have to go tell their mothers and fathers that they were killed and there’s a chance maybe of stopping it. Or there are these – I mean, suppose some of the people who were going to do Sept. 11 had been captured beforehand. We sure as heck would want some very aggressive questioning to find out what they knew.’’
“So let’s be careful on how we define this. And, sure we should be against torture. But we should not be against aggressive questioning. And the line between the two is going to require some really difficult decisions about drawing it and kind of trusting each other with the discretion for the president to make decisions about what has to be done in the interests of the American people.’’
“I have known every American president since Gerald Ford. I knew Richard Nixon, but before he was president. I met him, I didn’t know him. I can’t say I knew Richard Nixon. But I’ve known every American president since Gerald Ford. Some Republicans, some Democrats. I can’t think of a one that would ever want to see somebody tortured. Also can’t think of a one that wouldn’t have the courage to make some tough decisions to protect the lives of the American people. And that’s the kind of person you have to have as president of the United States.’’
Video From NBC NewsMy Monthly Freelance Income Report – June 2013
This is the first of a possible series of reports that I will post each month summarizing my freelance income and business growth.
I’m choosing to do this not only to help myself keep track of my freelance business progress, but to also show other freelancers what’s working for me, and what’s not.
If you’re just starting out, please understand that finding clients and making money online is not something that happens overnight. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication.
I struggle at times – but as long as I have goals and am constantly working towards them, I know I have a chance. And the same goes for you.
Thanks for taking the time to read my first month’s income report. I hope it can motivate and encourage. Enjoy!
Important happenings in June
I’ve seen some major growth in my freelance business this year, but June showed the most.
I spent a lot of my side work focusing on writing and diversifying my income.
I used to read up a lot on passive income, and while that’s definitely important, I’ve learned that it’s more important to diversify my income. At least at first.
When I say “diversifying my income”, I mean to not solely rely on client projects.
Client work definitely pays the bills, but working on side projects and generating income in other ways that are also promoting your business is just as rewarding.
Like I said, I’ve spent a lot of my time in June writing. I’ve tried posting here every Monday on top of my usual weekly posts for Graphic Design Blender. And it’s been extremely beneficial!
Just this month I was able to join the Ad Packs community and monetize my blog with a single ad (seen at the top-right in the sidebar).
Even though the earnings are small with the amount of traffic my site gets, I’m still proud of that. Overall my site this month has gone from around 40 unique views a day to well over 100!
Again, not huge numbers, but to me it’s everything.
It’s growth, and that’s all I truly care about.
One top of the client projects and blogging, I’ve officially made it a goal to write and produce my first eBook: Start Your Freelance Career – a resource intended for individuals looking to start or grow their freelance careers.
This is huge for me.
I don’t consider myself a great writer, but when it comes to freelance, I can write endlessly about my experiences and design tips. (Hence the blog you’re reading.)
Aside from my writing, I also gave affiliate marketing a go.
I’m signed up with the popular service, E-Junkie, and all I’ve done is simply share and talk about the products I
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Dark for refurbishment and enhancements. Reopens March 13.
Dark for refurbishment and enhancements. Reopens March 13. Redwood Creek Challenge Trail: Closed for refurbishment. Reopens March 3.
Closed for refurbishment. Reopens March 3. Grizzly River Run: Closed January 20 for refurbishment. Reopening unknown.
Closed January 20 for refurbishment. Reopening unknown. Boardwalk Bazaar, Point Mugu Tattoo, Sideshow Shirts: Closed through February 12 for refurbishment.
Closed through February 12 for refurbishment. Ariel’s Grotto: Closes February 2 for refurbishment, reopening date unknown.
Closes February 2 for refurbishment, reopening date unknown. Luigi’s Flying Tires: Originally scheduled to close in early 2015 for conversion into a new attraction, this attraction has since dropped off official closure schedules but is still rumored to be replaced.
Originally scheduled to close in early 2015 for conversion into a new attraction, this attraction has since dropped off official closure schedules but is still rumored to be replaced. Muppet*Vision 3D: Dark indefinitely while theater is used for Frozen-themed show.
Dark indefinitely while theater is used for Frozen-themed show. [B]Blue Sky Cellar:[/B] Closed indefinitely. [b][center]Downtown Disney and Disneyland Resort Hotels[/center][/b] Disneyland Hotel Monorail Pool: Closed through February 8 for refurbishment.
Closed through February 8 for refurbishment. Grand Californian Hotel – Storytellers Cafe: Closed through February 6 for refurbishment.
Closed through February 6 for refurbishment. Grand Californian Hotel – Redwood Pool: Closed through February 3 for refurbishment.
Closed through February 3 for refurbishment. Grand Californian Hotel – Mariposa Pool: Closed February 4-6 for refurbishment.
Closed February 4-6 for refurbishment. Grand Californian Hotel – Mariposa Spa: Closed February 9-11 for refurbishment. January 26-February 1
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun We expect details of this year’s 60th Anniversary plans to be released later this week, and a small bump in crowds this weekend.
To prepare for the anniversary, even more attractions are closed this week, including the Disneyland Railroad and it’s a small world.
Look even further into the future with Tomorrowplan crowd projections in the Mouseaddict app. The free Mouseaddict app for iPhone and iPad features more than five dozen categories of searchable resort information, weather forecasts, park and show schedules, the latest news and articles from MiceChat, and more. Download free on the App Store or at mouseaddict.com. [center] Headline Roundup
A quick look at noteworthy Disney theme park headlines from around the web.[/center] Disney Parks’ Chief Medical Officer issued a statement on the Orange County measles outbreak that started at Disneyland, explaining the measures taken “in an abundance of safety” at Disneyland. (Disneyland Pubic Affairs)
Disneyland’s Circle D Corral is now a certified Zero Waste facility. (Disney Parks Blog)
Take a look at designer John Harwood’s work behind Disneyland’s 60th Anniversary logo design. (Behance)
Disneyland Annual Passholder appreciation parties will return in 2015 with the first party February 23 & 24. (MouseInfo)
Ok, that wraps up this week’s update. What do you think of the new Starbucks mugs? What do you think’s happening in the Haunted Mansion? Let us know what you think in the comments section below! Your donations really do help keep Dateline Disneyland alive! We’re still here because of your help. If you enjoy getting your weekly Disneyland fix from Dateline Disneyland, please consider helping us with a safe and fast PayPal donation — click here! For more Disneyland news, be sure to read MiceChat’s weekly In the Parks blog. And be sure to check out our sister blog, Dateline Disney World – a fantastic weekly photo blog covering Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida! Thanks for reading. See you at Disneyland!
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FTC-Mandated Disclosure: Promotional consideration for this edition of Dateline Disneyland was provided by the Howard Johnson Plaza Hotel & Water PlaygroundU.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Litigation Release No. 19747 / June 28, 2006
SEC v. Raytheon Company, Daniel P. Burnham, and Aldo R. Servello, Civil Action No. 06-CV-1182 (GK) (D.D.C. filed June 28, 2006)
SEC Settles with Raytheon Company, Former CEO, and Subsidiary Controller for Improper Disclosure and Accounting Practices
Raytheon Agrees To Pay $12 Million Penalty; Former Officers Agree To Pay Disgorgement and Penalties
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced today that it has instituted settled enforcement proceedings against Raytheon Company (Raytheon), its former Chairman and CEO, Daniel P. Burnham (Burnham), and the former Deputy CFO and Controller of Raytheon Aircraft Company (RAC), Aldo R. Servello (Servello). The SEC charged that, in periodic reports filed with the Commission from 1997 to 2001, Raytheon made false and misleading disclosures and used improper accounting practices that operated as a fraud by failing to adequately and accurately disclose the declining financial results and deteriorating business of Raytheon's commercial aircraft manufacturing subsidiary, RAC. The SEC also charged that certain of these disclosures and accounting practices were undertaken with the knowledge of Burnham in 2000 and 2001 and Servello in 2000. Without admitting or denying the SEC's findings, Raytheon, Burnham, and Servello agreed to settle these charges by consenting to the entry of a Cease-and-Desist Order by the Commission.
The SEC's Order finds that, between 1997 and 1999, Raytheon improperly recognized revenue on RAC's sale of unfinished aircraft through "bill and hold" sales transactions that did not comply with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. According to the SEC's Order, these practices resulted in material overstatements of RAC's reported annual net sales revenue and operating income in 1997 and 1998 and enabled both Raytheon and RAC to meet certain internal and external earnings targets.
The SEC's Order also finds that, between 1997 and 2001, Raytheon engaged in improper disclosure and accounting practices related to RAC's commuter aircraft business, including the failure to adequately disclose in the company's periodic reports material risks, trends, and uncertainties associated with the deterioration of that business line. According to the SEC's Order, these practices resulted in the failure to recognize between $67 million and $240 million in losses that were inherent in a planned "soft landing" of the commuter aircraft line at year-end 2000, which would have reduced Raytheon's 2000 profit before taxes by 8 to 27 percent. The SEC's Order finds that these losses were instead improperly taken during the third quarter of 2001, when Raytheon recorded a $693 million charge related to its commuter assets after September 11, 2001. According to the SEC's Order, given the charge that should have been taken at year-end 2000, Raytheon's third quarter 2001 commuter loss provision was overstated by 10 to 53 percent.
The SEC's Order finds that, between 1997 and 2001, Raytheon violated Sections 17(a)(2) and 17(a)(3) of the Securities Act of 1933 (Securities Act), Sections 13(a) and 13(b)(2)(A) and 13(b)(2)(B) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act), and Rules 12b-20, 13a-1, 13a-13, and 13b2-1. The Order also finds that, with respect to fiscal years 2000 and 2001, Burnham violated Sections 17(a)(2) and 17(a)(3) of the Securities Act and caused Raytheon's violations of Sections 13(a) and 13(b)(2)(A) and 13(b)(2)(B) of the Exchange Act, and Rules 12b-20, 13a-1, 13a-13, and 13b2-1. Finally, the Order finds that, for fiscal year 2000, Servello caused Raytheon's violations of Sections 13(a) and 13(b)(2)(A) and 13(b)(2)(B) of the Exchange Act, and Rules 12b-20, 13a-1, 13a-13, and 13b2-1. Each respondent has agreed to cease and desist from committing or causing the violations charged as well as any future violations of these provisions.
Raytheon, Burnham, and Servello also consented to the entry of a final judgment in a related civil action filed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for the purposes of awarding civil monetary penalties and disgorgement. As part of the settlement, Raytheon consented to pay a penalty of $12 million and $1 in disgorgement. Burnham and Servello agreed to pay disgorgement of certain past bonus amounts, pre-judgment interest, and penalties in the total amounts of $1,238,344 and $34,628, respectively.
The Commission's investigation as to other individuals involved in this matter is continuing.
SEC Complaint in this matter
Administrative Proceeding No. 33-8715
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2006/lr19747.htmBecause volatility seems to cluster in real life as well as the markets, it has been a while since my last article. Sorry about that. Today we will be taking our first giant leap along A Non-Random Walk down Wall Street.
The Non-Random Walk Series
A Non-Random Walk Down Wall Street is the cheeky title of an academically challenging textbook written by Lo and MacKinlay in response to the best-selling Wall Street classic, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, written by Professor Burton Malkiel. A Non-Random Walk Down Wall Street is a collection of papers which challenge the prevailing random walk hypothesis. Despite containing only outdated results and being mathematically unforgiving, it's an impressive textbook which has inspired me to write a series of articles about it.
This series of articles has the following goals: Bolster or invalidate my original findings using the NIST test suite; Translate Lo and MacKinlay's papers and tests into more intuitive terms; Extend the results to the present day to determine if they are still relevant; Extend the results to emerging markets with a strong focus on South Africa; And bridge the theoretical and practical gap between machine learning and market randomness. Whew!
This series is also inspired by many of the thoughtful comments I received after I published my post about the random walk hypothesis, Hacking The Random Walk Hypothesis. So please keep the comments coming.
P.S. Simply because market randomness tests don't exactly make for great WordPress featured images, the featured images for this series of articles will be screenshots from all of my favourite Wall Street inspired films. This article's featured image is from the most recent Wall Street inspired film to hit the box office: The Big Short. If you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a big favour and go watch it. Afterwards, if you want more information you can always suffer through an earlier, non technical article of mine: A Recipe for the 2008 Financial Crisis.
Article Outline
This series will début with Lo and MacKinlay's first paper: Stock Markets Do Not Follow Random Walks: Evidence from a Simple Specification Test. In this paper Lo and MacKinlay exploited the fact that under a Geometric Brownian Motion model with Stochastic Volatility variance estimates are linear in the sampling interval, to devise a statistical test for the random walk hypothesis. This post covers the theory and application of this test.
This post is broken up into the following sections:
Should you have any criticisms or comments about this post or the random walk hypothesis in general, please let me know via the comments section at the end of this article. I always appreciate the input.
Efficiency, The Markov Property, and Random Walks
The random walk hypothesis is a popular theory which purports that stock market prices cannot be predicted and evolve according to a random walk. This hypothesis is a logical consequent of the weak form of the efficient market hypothesis which states that: future prices cannot be predicted by analyzing prices from the past...
To a statistician the assertion that future prices cannot be predicted by analyzing prices from the past goes by a different name: the Markov property or, more intuitively, memorylessness. Any time series which satisfies the Markov property is called a Markov process and Random Walks are just a type of Markov process.
The idea that stock market prices may evolve according to a Markov process or, rather, random walk was proposed in 1900 by Louis Bachelier, a young scholar, in his seminal thesis entitled: The Theory of Speculation. In his paper he proposed using Brownian motion, a Markov (and Martingale) process, to model stock options. That said, it wasn't really until 1973, when the Black Scholes formula for derivatives pricing was published, that the idea gained traction.
Since then the use of stochastic processes for derivatives pricing has become industry standard. That having been said, the philosophical question regarding whether or not stock market prices really evolve according to a random walk or, at the very least, according to the popular stochastic processes used in industry today, remains. To paraphrase Queen, we are left wondering: is this [The Random Walk Hypothesis] real life? Is this just fantasy?
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
Personally my mind rebels against the theory because it is too elegant; too simple. I like complexity; I like chaos. So I choose to spend my spare time learning more about the theory of randomness and I enjoy trying to find ways to test the conventional wisdom... and hopefully someday learn to beat the market consistently ;-).
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Variants of the Random Walk Hypothesis
A typical test of the random walk hypothesis involves three steps. First off you assume that asset prices do evolve according to a random walk and you select an appropriate stochastic model. Secondly, you define which statistical properties you would therefore expect to see in asset prices. And lastly, you test whether or not the asset prices exhibit the expected properties. If the asset prices don't exhibit the expected properties, then the assets don't evolve according to the model of the random walk hypothesis you assumed they did to begin with.
It's not good enough to simply state that market returns aren't random, you need to also specify what type of random they aren't.
Admittedly the fact that I didn't follow this process exactly in my previous article on Hacking The Random Walk Hypothesis was its biggest shortcoming. Luckily a supportive statistician on Reddit helped me see the light: it is not good enough to simply state that market returns aren't random, you need to also specify what type of random they aren't. In light of this below I have defined three popular forms of the random walk hypothesis.
RW1: The first and strongest form of the random walk hypothesis assumes that the random disturbance,, is independent and identically distributed (IID). This corresponds to the Geometric Brownian Motion Model wherein volatility of the random disturbance,, allows only for homoskedastic increments (constant ). Under this hypothesis, variance is a linear function of time (discussed in more detail in the next section).
RW2: The second, weaker form of the random walk hypothesis relaxes the identically distributed assumption and assumes that the random disturbance,, is independent and not identically distributed (INID). This corresponds to the Heston Model wherein the volatility of also allows for unconditional heteroskedastic increments. Under this hypothesis, variance is a non-linear function of time (discussed in the next section).
RW3: The third and weakest form of the random walk hypothesis relaxes the independence assumption meaning that it allows for conditional heteroskedastic increments in. This corresponds to some random walk process wherein the volatility either has some sort of non-linear structure (it is conditional on itself) or it is conditional on another random variable. Stochastic processes which employ ARCH (Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity) and GARCH (Generalized AutoRegressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity) models of volatility belong to this category.
In other words, any successful refutation of the random walk hypothesis must, ultimately, be model dependent. Furthermore, that model must clearly fall within the spectrum above. It just so happens that the weaker the form of the random walk hypothesis, the harder it is to disprove and the more powerful your statistical tests need to be.
Any successful refutation of the random walk hypothesis must, ultimately, be model dependent - paraphrased from Lo and MacKinlay's book.
To illustrate this point consider how easy it would be to show that some asset's prices don't evolve according to Brownian Motion but, on the other hand, how difficult it would be to show that the same asset's prices don't evolve according to some stochastic process without independent increments and with conditional heterskedasticity!
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Stochastic Model Specification
The model which we will be basing our statistical test of the efficacy of the random walk hypothesis on is a stochastic log price process which is acted upon by a drift and stochastic volatility component. We also define a simple model of stochastic volatility which is used later on to produce the results for simulated asset prices. That having been said, the reader should please note that the test is robust to most forms of non-conditional heteroskedasticity. In other words, we will be testing the second variant of the random walk hypothesis, RW2.
Stochastic Log Price Process
Let denote the price of some asset at time and define as the log-price process. This log-price process satisfies the Markov property and is given by the following recurrence relation:
where represents the drift component and is a random disturbance samples from some distribution with an expected value of zero,. In the results on simulated data section we show that the results of the test on two versions of the above model: one with homoskedastic increments which is essentially Geometric Brownian Motion (this model relates to RW1); and another with unconditional heteroskedastic increments which is essentially Geometric Brownian Motion with Stochastic Volatility (this model relates to RW2).
The Homoskedasticity (RW1) and Heteroskedasticity (RW2) Versions
In the homoskedastic version of the model the random disturbances,, are sampled from a Gaussian distribution,
This corresponds directly to the Geometric Brownian Motion model. In the heteroskedastic version of the model the random disturbances are sampled from a Gaussian distribution with a stochastic,
where
This is essentially Geometric Brownian Motion with stochastic volatility, however, I would like to stress that this is not the same as the Heston model which I have worked with before. It is a simplification.
Nevertheless, the desired effect of stochastic volatility namely, fatter tailed distributions and a higher volatility, is clearly present as can be seen from the two density plots below and the following two time series plots.
At this point you may be wondering what all the fuss is about. Well, we want a test for the random walk hypothesis which passes (it concludes the market is random) even if the returns demonstrate heteroskedastic increments and large drifts. Why? Because both of these properties are widely observed in most historical asset price data (just ask Nassim Taleb) and neither invalidate the fundamental principle underpinning the random walk hypothesis, namely the Markov property (unforecastibility of future asset prices given past asset prices).
In the next section we will show how the parameters and can be estimated. In the section following that Lo and MacKinlay's variance ratio test, which is robust in the presence of drift and heteroskedasticity in but is still sensitive to the autocorrelated increments in, is defined. Then results will be shown.
R Code for the Stochastic Model
Given values for and, the R functions below work together to produce log-price, price, and discrete returns processes of any length. These processes are later used to test the calibration and the variance ratio test.
View the code on Gist.
Using this code is quite simple. To chart fifteen asset price paths each five years long with an without stochastic volatility I would just need to type the following commands into the R command prompt.
View the code on Gist.
And I would get something like this out in the plots.
Stochastic Model Calibration
The key to understanding how the variance ratio test works, is to understand the different ways in which the parameters and can be calibrated using their maximum likelihood estimators.
Maximum Likelihood Estimator for
The parameter represents the component of daily returns which are attributable to drift. Given a log price process,, containing observations, the maximum likelihood estimate of is given by,
or rather,
This can be computed in R using the following function,
View the code on Gist.
And below is a graph illustrating how the estimates for get more accurate as the number of observations in the log price process gets larger (more data = more accurate). The dots indicate the true value of which was set of 0.1, and the lines indicate estimates of from generated log price processes with stochastic volatility of length 1 year up to 50 years. Ideally we want as much data as possible in our tests which is why the results at the end are limited to assets which have been trading or have been tracked for at least ten years.
Maximum Likelihood Estimator forwith discrete samples
There are a few ways to estimate. You could calculate the standard deviation of the log price process using every observation in. Or, you could sample every second point along and estimate :
Use every observation: Use a subset of the observations:
We can express this idea in terms of a sampling interval,, whereby every observation is used to estimate. When we use every observation, when we use every second observation, and so on and so forth. Given a log price process,, containing observations and a sampling interval,, the unbiased maximum likelihood estimator for the parameter is given by,
This can be computed in R using the following function,
View the code on Gist.
And as with below is a graph illustrating how the estimates for get more accurate as the number of observations in the log price process gets larger (more data = more accurate).
Maximum Likelihood Estimator forwith overlapping samples
The problem with the above estimator for is that as we increase our sampling interval we reduce the number of observations we have available to use to estimate... and this results in a deterioration of the estimate.
A significant improvement on this estimator can be obtained by using overlapping samples. Whilst this does bias the estimator, Monte Carlo simulations done by the authors at publication (and myself) show that this is negligible and the estimates of using overlapping samples is, more often than not, more accurate.
Given a log price process,, containing observations and a sampling interval,, the overlapping unbiased maximum likelihood estimator for the parameter is given by,
where
This can be computed in R using the following function,
View the code on Gist.
And as with the previous estimators we see that as our sample size increases the estimates improve. It is hard to see in this graph, but the error is smaller than the previous estimator for.
The critical characteristic of our two models is that volatility is linear in the sampling interval, meaning that the volatility calculated using half as many points ( ) should be twice as large as a variance estimated using all of the points ( ). The estimators take this into consideration so whether you estimate with,, or even, you should get similar estimates. This observation is the heart of the variance ratio test.
Variance Ratio Properties and Statistics
Because estimates of at different sampling intervals should converge to the same true value, we can define two test statistics whose expected value under the model is zero. These statistics are called variance ratios.
: differences using the overlapping samples estimator.
This statistic is computed as the difference between the estimate for given a sampling interval and the estimate for given a sampling interval of 1. Given that and should converge, the expected value of is zero. Mathematically this variance ratio is expressed as follows,
And in R we can compute with the following function,
View the code on Gist.
Now let's test to see whether or not this is true. Below is a graph of the computed statistics for and for 500 randomly generated ten year long log price processes with random values for and random values for with and without stochastic volatility. As can be seen, the values for are always close to zero.
One observation that can be made is that as the sampling interval increases there is a perceived "degradation" in performance of the statistic; this is actually expected as the limiting distribution of the statistic widens as we increase. A much more significant observation is that the statistic with and without stochastic volatility for any is almost indistinguishable, which speaks to the robustness of the statistic.
: differences using the overlapping samples estimator.
This statistic is computed as the ratio of the estimate for given a sampling interval and the estimate for given a sampling interval of 1 minus one. As with the expected value of this statistic is zero,
And in R we can compute with the following function,
View the code on Gist.
Let us again test to see whether or not this is true. Below is a graph of the computed statistics for and for 500 randomly generated ten year long log price processes with random values for and random values for with and without stochastic volatility. As can be seen, the values for are always close to zero.
As with the statistic, we see a widening of the limiting distribution and an almost indistinguishable difference between the log price processes with and without stochastic volatility. We also see that this statistic is more sensitive than the differences statistic. This is a good characteristic.
A Heteroskedasticity-consistent Variance Ratio Test
I should warn you, this is the part of the article when things get a bit hairy 😯, it took me quite a few readings of Lo and MacKinlay's paper for the idea below to click and for me to implement it in R. I've tried my best to explain it.
Because most academics and practitioners agree that the volatility of asset prices do fluctuate over time, Lo and MacKinlay wanted to make the variance ratio robust to changing variances a.k.a heteroskedasticity and stochastic volatility. Thus any rejection of the random walk hypothesis using their test would not be due to the stochastic nature of volatility or long-run drifts, but rather due to the presence of autocorrelation in the increments of.
Any rejection of the random walk hypothesis using Lo and MacKinlay's test is not due to the stochastic nature of volatility or long-run drifts
The reason why they wanted to focus on testing for the presence of autocorrelation in the increments of is because this indicates whether or not satisfies the Markov property and, as per the logic laid out at the start of this article, whether or not future prices could (at least in theory) be partially forecasted using historical prices. To achieve this objective we start with a rather simple observation, namely:
"As long as the increments are uncorrelated, even in the presence of heteroskedasticity, the variance ratio must still approach unity as the number of observations increase without bound. This is because the variance of the sum of uncorrelated increments must still equal the sum of the variances." - Lo and MacKinlay
That having been said, how quickly these variance ratios tend toward unity and their asymptotic variance depends on the nature of the heteroskedasticity present in. In light of this there are two options: either you can specify the model of heteroskedasticity which you are testing for upfront (limiting); or you can make some simplifying assumptions about the nature of the heteroskedasticity present in in order to generalize the test to any model of heteroskedasticity which satisfies the simplifying assumptions (more widely applicable).
Lo and MacKinlay opted for the latter approach, assumed that the model of heteroskedasticity has a finite variance, and developed their heteroskedastic-consistent variance ratio test accordingly. What this means is that the statistical test is valid for most forms of stochastic volatility used in mathematical finance but not all. In particular the variance ratio test they defined is not applicable to models of heteroskedasticity from the Pareto-Levy family. The assumptions made by Lo and MacKinlay for the null hypothesis are shown in the box below,
We consider the following null hypothesis : (A1) For all,, and for any Explanation: contains uncorrelated increments across all periods of time. (A2) is a -mixing with coefficients of size or is a -mixing with coefficients of size, where, such that for all and for any, there exists some for which: (A3) Explanations: The second moment is finite, this is assumed because if it wasn't then the variance ratio is no longer well defined i.e. we can't compute a variance ratio is the variance can be infinite. (A4) For all, for any non-zero and where
I know how heavy that looks, but the intuition is simple. Our null hypothesis states that: possesses uncorrelated increments but does allow for general forms of stochastic volatility provided that the second moments and the estimated values for are also finite. And assuming this is true then we are correct in stating that:
approaches zero under
Given this Lo and MacKinlay derive the asymptotic variance of, from which the distribution of expected values for under heteroskedasticity can be calculated and used to test the random walk hypothesis:
Denote by and the asymptotic variances of (the autocorrelation co-efficient) and, respectively. Then under the null hypothesis : (1) The statistics and all converge almost surely to zero for all as increases without bound. (2) The following is a heteroskedasticity-consistent estimator of : (3) And the following is a heteroskedasticity-consistent estimator of :
Given a log-price process and a sampling interval,, the following R function can be used to estimate (the asymptotic variance of the variance ratio statistic),
View the code on Gist.
An when we have, given the log price process,, and the sampling interval,, we can go ahead and standardize the statistic to arrive at the final standardized test statistic,. Finally!
The above -score can be computed using the following R function,
View the code on Gist.
And since this is still asymptotically standard normal, we can use the very common significance levels to check whether or not the value of for any given asset is statistically significant. If it is, then we are either 95% or 99% certain that the asset prices were not generated by a Geometric Brownian Motion model with stochastic volatility, there is some statistically significant autocorrelation in and, most importantly, the asset probably doesn't evolve according to a random walk and there may be some level of forecast-ability in.
P.S. If the above explanation (which is simplified when compared to the full derivation done by Lo and MacKinlay) did not make much sense, then I would like to direct you to their original paper. And if you are interested in the size and power of the statistic for finite samples, Lo and MacKinlay wrote a follow-up article about this topic as well:
Results obtained on Simulated Asset Prices
Before we get to the results on real asset prices it is a very good idea to test our implementation of Lo and MacKinlay's model by computing for randomly generated log price processes with and without stochastic volatility. If the resulting distribution of -scores is normally distributed (which we will test using the Shapiro-Wilk test) then we can be quite confident that our code works and that it is, hopefully, free of any serious bugs.
The graph below shows the density of a 2500 random numbers samples from a normal distribution (red) versus the density of -scores computed for 2,500 log price prices with the following parameters:
A random number of years uniformly distributed between 5 and 25 years, A randomly selecteduniformly distributed between -0.25 and 0.25, A randomly selecteduniformly distributed between 0.05 and 0.75, Homoskedastic increments ini.e. constant volatility, and Computed using a sampling interval of two,
The two p-values computed using the Shapiro Wilk test were 0.0545 and 0.3476 for the normally distributed random variable and the computed -scores respectively. These both indicate that the distributions are normal. And lastly, the two line graphs below show the QQ-plot of the normally distributed random variable (right) against the QQ-plot of the computed -scores. They both look reasonable to me.
And below we have exactly the same simulation results except that they are with stochastic volatility applied to the log price process. The type of stochastic volatility is the one defined under the model specification section.
The two p-values computed using the Shapiro Wilk test were 0.6363 and 0.7011 for the normally distributed random variable and the computed -scores respectively. These both indicate that the distributions are normal. And lastly, the two line graphs below show the QQ-plot of the normally distributed random variable (right) against the QQ-plot of the computed -scores. Again, they both look reasonable to me.
What can we tell from the above results? First of all we know that if asset prices are generated using a Brownian Motion model with drift and stochastic volatility then they are, more likely than not, going to be marked as random walks using this test (95% or 99% sure depending on the confidence interval). Secondly, we are more confident that my code works. Testing quant code is hard so sometimes you have to resort to Monte Carlo simulations!
Results obtained on Real Asset Prices
The results below are broken up into two sub-sections:
Results obtained on 50 stock market indices from around the world, Results obtained on the current S&P 500 constituent assets, and
Methodology followed in producing results
For each section the following methodology was followed for and,
Download the data from Quandl using the code.
If possible, extract the adjusted close price, otherwise, extract the close price and represent this as. This was done to mitigate the effect of stock splits which can create "discontinuities".
Compute the log price process as
Check for infinite values, replace these with NA (missing) values.
Omit any and all NA (missing) values from the log price process.
If we are testing the results on individual stocks then: Check if the number of historical days exceeds 10 years. If true, then take the past 10 years as a subset and discard the earlier data. This was done to avoid any small-cap data related issues, it should be noted that the conclusions drawn are the same whether or not you follow this step.
Estimate the value ofandfor the log price process.
Simulate a log price process usingand
Compute and store the-score ofand
Plot the densities of the computed-scores.
Check for normality and then draw conclusions.
Results obtained on 50 global Stock Market indices
The first, and most condemning set of results, was obtained on fifty stock market indices from around the world. The indices considered cover the Americas (South and North), Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, as well as the South Pacific and Asia. For 21 stock market indices (42%) of those tested had statistically significant -scores at the 95% confidence level and 11 stock market indices (22%) had statistically significant -scores at the 99% confidence level. The distribution of computed -scores is shown below,
In order of significance the least likely to be random stock market indices were: The SATRIX Financials Index (ETF), South Africa ( ), The Jakarta Composite Index, Indonesia ( ); The INMEX Index, Mexico ( ), The Colombo All Share Index, Sri Lanka ( ); The RTS Index, Russia ( ); The Nifty Fifty Index, India ( ); The Strait Times Index, Singapore ( ); The NYSE ARCA Mexico Index, Mexico ( ); The Bel 20 Index, Belgium ( ); The BSE 30 Sensitivity Index, India ( ); and The Dow Jones Industrial Average ( ). The full set of results is available as a CSV file.
For the distribution of -scores was almost identical and 9 of the 50 indices had statistically significant -scores. Three of the above indices fell out and, interestingly, the Rusell 1000 Index from the United States fell in with a -score of. The full set of returns for q = 4 is available as a CSV file as well.
For the statistically significant indices, this result means that we are 99% certain that they were not generated by a Brownian Motion model with drift and / or stochastic volatility. We can also say that they they almost surely don't evolve according to a random walk. This will be discussed in more detail in the conclusion.
Results obtained on the current constituents of the S&P 500
The next set of results is for the past ten years of prices for 484 of the 500 stocks on the S&P 500 currently. Some stocks were removed because data was not available on Yahoo! finance, and others were removed due to data-related issues. For 142 of the 484 stocks (30%) had statistically significant -scores at the 95% confidence level, and 88 of the 484 stocks (18%) had statistically significant -scores at the 99% confidence level!
The results here differ from the results on the stock market indices in one major way: the -scores for stock market indices are skewed to the left of the mean whereas the -scores for the constituents of the S&P 500 are skewed to the right of the mean. This observation is discussed in some detail in the conclusion.
I can hear you asking, "so which stock is the least random?". Below I have listed the top ten least random stocks according to our heteroskedastic-consistent variance ratio test at over the past ten years:
If you are wondering why so many REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) are in this list, so am I. I have listed a few hypotheses in the conclusion section but I welcome any of your thoughts as well.
Once again, the results for were similar to the results for ; 182 stocks out of the 484 (37.6%) had statistically significant -scores at the 95% level and 116 out of 484 (23.4%) stocks had statistically significant -scores at the 99% level. The results for q = 2 and the results for q = 4 are available as CSV files.
Remarks and Conclusions
In this article we have taken our first step down a Non-Random Walk Down Wall Street. We have understood and implemented the heteroskedasticity-consistent variance ratio test defined by Lo and MacKinlay in their seminal paper, Stock market prices do not follow random walks: Evidence from a simple specification test. The goal of this article was to make this
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the exchange of thoughts and creating strategic partnerships, deriving from international experience. The spring edition of the congress gained wide interest in the presentation of current trends such as the chances and threats of a digital world, blockchain technology, chatbot implementation, AI, machine learning, regulation or ways to complete transactions.
Suiting to the needs of the market, these topics and others will be discussed during the upcoming 6 th edition of the FinTech Digital Congress and 5 th edition of the InsurTech Digital Congress.Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, leaves the federal courthouse on Monday in Washington. | Jacquelyn Martin/AP Judge considers conditions to release Manafort and Gates Prosecutor says bond package for Manafort may be agreed to by mid-week.
The judge handling the case against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort suggested at a hearing Monday that prosecutors from special counsel Robert Mueller's office are being too lenient in negotiating a bail package with Manafort and his associate, Rick Gates.
U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson said her inclination was to impose stricter conditions on Manafort and Gates than the prosecution team was proposing, but she said she might acquiesce after she gets details of the agreement defense lawyers are trying to strike with Mueller's team.
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A magistrate judge put Manafort and Gates in home confinement last week after they were arraigned on charges including money laundering and failing to register as foreign agents.
Manafort agreed to pay $10 million if he failed to appear in court and Gates agreed to pay $5 million, but Jackson said those promises don't amount to much.
"There's not really much assurance in that," the judge said.
Prosecutors and the defense have been working to craft sets of property that could be pledged to the court and agreements with family members to guarantee payment of certain amounts if the defendants were to flee.
"I think, for Mr. Manafort, we're getting close," prosecutor Greg Andres said, predicting a deal on his bond package within two days.
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At one point during Monday's session, the judge said she wanted an explanation for why prosecutors appeared willing to "forgo" putting Manafort and Gates on GPS monitoring.
"That I have juxtaposed with multiple pleadings telling me that [the defendants are] a flight risk," Jackson said.
Andres said that it was the government's view that, once the defendants had surrendered their passports and posted a sufficient bond, "we didn't think the GPS monitoring was required."
Jackson said that if a proper package of property and financial guarantees were posted, she would allow the men out of home confinement. However, she said she was inclined to require continued GPS monitoring, impose a curfew and to limit their travel to airports.
"That's where I was headed, but I will keep an open mind," she said.
The judge said she appreciated Manafort's offer to post three properties—a Trump Tower condo, another apartment in New York's Chinatown and a home in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. — but she said the valuations of the properties and the amounts of outstanding mortgages was still not clear.
"That a good start, but it doesn't begin to comply" with court rules for bonds, Jackson said.
The judge, an appointee of President Barack Obama, also said she was skeptical about offers to have Manafort's wife, Kathleen, and one of his daughters, Andrea, offer personal guarantees of funds as part of the bond package.
"To me, a family member serving as a surety is problematical," the judge said.
Both Manafort and Gates were present at the 45-minute hearing Monday, their third court appearance in the past week.
In a court filing last week, Gates's lawyers asked that he be permitted to travel overseas as part of his consulting work.
Jackson said not to expect that.
"I'm certainly very disinclined to permit international travel," the judge said.
On Friday, Jackson suggested a May 7 trial date for the case, but she did not finalize that Monday. Instead, she set another hearing for Dec. 11.
Jackson has said she's considering a gag order in the case, but there was no public discussion of that Monday. The judge did convene a discussion at the bench for more than five minutes at the end of Monday's session to talk about what she called "the form of pleadings" in the case. A white noise machine was turned on, obscuring the conversation from members of the public and press in the gallery.John Feldmann is as close as pop-punk gets to a super-producer, a svengali in spiky hair and board shorts. His group Goldfinger were major players in the genre’s first wave in the late 1990s. Even if you’re not familiar with his band, you’ll almost certainly have heard some of Feldmann’s work: in recent years he’s become pop-punk’s go-to guy, producing and co-writing for everyone from Blink-182 to 5 Seconds of Summer, with credits on albums that together have sold more than 34m copies worldwide. So what’s his secret? How do you pen a song that will conquer both the moshpit and the charts? Here’s his foolproof guide to writing a pop-punk hit:
Facebook Twitter Pinterest John Feldmann
Lighten up!
Pop-punk came from the ashes of the dying grunge scene, which was a very heavy scene. We’re talking Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog. Pearl Jam came out of Mother Love Bone, whose lead singer died of an overdose. We’ve got Nirvana, who ended with a suicide. We’ve got some of the heaviest, darkest stories in the history of music. The mood at the time was anarchistic, nihilistic, political, very serious. But 1994 is really when pop-punk happened as a global movement. Dookie came out and it changed everything. It was about suburbia, jerking off and broken-hearted love songs. Every new music scene is a response to the last one. The Sex Pistols came out of seven-minute prog jams and arena rock. And it’s the same thing with grunge and pop-punk. There has to be a pushback.
Tap into teenage angst
Good Charlotte are a great example of this. Girls and Boys and The Anthem are very “coming of age”, teenage heartbreak, anti-college football kind of thing. Hope is the classic ingredient that most pop-punk songs have – that there is a way out. I can’t think of a harder time in life than between the ages of 12 and 16. There’s something about the hormones and growing up in that part of life that is so difficult. And a lot of times these pop-punk songs say: “This isn’t so bad.” They spread a message of hope.
Don’t outstay your welcome
A pop-punk song can’t be more than three and a half minutes. It just can’t! Sure, there are exceptions – like Green Day’s American Idiot. Rule one still applies! But then without the three-minute songs on Dookie, American Idiot wouldn’t have existed. And Billie Joe Armstrong reinventing what pop-punk is – that’s his right. He’s the guy who spearheaded the scene, after all.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Blink-182’s Travis Barker, Mark Hoppus and Tom DeLonge at the Whisky a Go Go in LA in 1996.) Photograph: Jim Steinfeldt/Getty Images
Don’t get too political
If you look at the Spotify numbers for the biggest pop-punk songs, they’re not the heavy, politicised, agenda-driven songs. Look at NOFX – Linoleum is by far their biggest song. And if you look at the lyrics, it’s not really an intellectual game-changer. Linoleum is a song about being a drunk, broke idiot. Sleeping on a kitchen floor. And any teenager goes through those growing pains. Speaking for myself, as a teenager the biggest thing was: “How do I have sex?” That shit was all I really thought about. I was lucky to have a roof over my head – I never slept on the streets. Obviously, there are kids who have had that life – I’ve worked with the King Blues, for example [whose singer, Jonny “Itch” Fox was homeless as a teenager]. But for the most part, when you’re growing up it’s really about relationships and heartbreak.
I guess this is growing up: pop punk comes of age (maybe) Read more
Get to the chorus
Stylistically, you can add a double kick drum, a guitar solo, a breakdown or screamy verses. But for the most part, the people who go and see shows are not musicians. They’re not there to study how to play the guitar. They’re there to let loose all the stress of home. They want to sing along with the bands that they believe went through or are going through the same stuff. So a good chorus is always going to matter. So get to the chorus quickly and get to the point quickly: “This is what we’re trying to say and we’re saying it in a way that every single person can sing along.” There has to be that sense of melody.
There are no rules!
I would say in the history of pop-punk, Green Day and Blink-182 are the most popular bands. And if you think about Longview, the Green Day song about masturbation, and Blink’s I Miss You, the song has got a super major key chords, while Blink’s is minor key, super dark and Cure-sounding. So when you ask, “What are the rules of writing of writing a pop-punk song?” I can’t say that it has to be in a major key or go to the chorus to get to the relative major to get that lift, because that isn’t really what happens. But typically it has to have an anthemic chorus, be super-simple and really catchy. And it has to have some sense of humour.The Supreme Court’s rulings on same-sex marriage are barely a month old, but they have generated a wave of lawsuits and political battles as gay-rights supporters continue their quest to hoist the rainbow flag in every state.
In Missouri, the state Supreme Court this week said it wants to hear more legal arguments, in light of the high court’s Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) ruling, in the case of a deceased state trooper whose surviving same-sex partner has been denied benefits.
New Mexico’s attorney general, a Democrat, said this week that he would not defend the state’s law banning same-sex unions. Five years ago, the state approved a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage.
In Ohio, two residents are demanding that their marriage in Maryland be recognized by the state as one of the partners faces a potentially fatal illness.
The high court’s rulings striking down part of DOMA and effectively allowing California to resume same-sex marriages have shown little sign of ending the national debate. Same-sex marriage is still against the law in more than three-fifths of the states.
Although the high court struck down part of the federal law, the justices stopped well short of voiding state-level laws and constitutional statutes banning same-sex marriage across the country. Also left for the courts and state governments to decide is how same-sex marriages legal in one state will be treated in a state where such unions are expressly banned.
Activists on both sides say the battle — both legal and political — is far from over.
“Freedom to Marry’s goal is simple: Win marriage nationwide,” said Evan Wolfson, a longtime gay-rights activist and founder of the marriage advocacy group, which seeks legalization in a dozen or more states by 2016.
Traditional-values groups acknowledge that they are facing cultural headwinds, but they also insist the outcome is far from settled.
Most gay-marriage battles now will be in “more conservative states, where we fully expect to prevail,” Frank Schubert, political director of the National Organization for Marriage, said Wednesday.
“A couple of pitched battles remain — especially in Illinois,” he said, but “we are working hard with African-American pastors to preserve marriage” as well as working with allies to respond to all court battles and campaigns.
The Supreme Court’s twin rulings June 26 overturned a part of DOMA and effectively cleared the way for same-sex marriage — and the battle over such unions — to resume in California. The rulings’ effects on the 37 states that do not permit same-sex marriage now is being tested.
Ending a long losing streak at the ballot box prior to 2012, gay-rights allies are pressing their advantage amid rising public support and a cascade of favorable court rulings and political votes. This year alone, three state legislatures approved same-sex marriage and California became the 13th state to offer gay nuptials days after the Supreme Court issued its ruling against voter-approved Proposition 8.
Freedom to Marry has named Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey and Oregon as its immediate targets. All of these states have civil union or domestic partnership laws that can convert to same-sex marriage. In states including Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, activists are laying the groundwork to repeal amendments or laws prohibiting same-sex marriage.
Legal battles
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania, where the state’s Democratic attorney general is refusing to defend the state’s marriage law. The same scenario is playing out in New Mexico, where Attorney General Gary King, a Democrat, revealed that he would not defend the state’s constitutional provision against same-sex marriage in response to a lawsuit filed by two Santa Fe men who want to marry.
“New Mexico’s guarantee of equal protection to its citizens demands that same-sex couples be permitted to enjoy the benefits of marriage in the same way and to the same extent as other New Mexico citizens,” Mr. King said.
The federal target is still DOMA. Despite the Supreme Court ruling, the law still permits states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.
House Republicans said recently that they were suspending efforts to apply DOMA in other federal programs, and some 200 members of Congress are trying to repeal DOMA entirely through the Respect for Marriage Act. House Republicans also quietly have dropped the funding request to underwrite the defense of the law in the courtroom in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision.
DOMA, “though mortally wounded, is still on the books,” Mr. Wolfson said. Thanks to the June 26 ruling, however, he reported that, like other married gay couples, he can start the process to sponsor his noncitizen spouse for a green card.
Ohio’s special case
The Ohio case, which has attracted national attention, illustrated the complex legal terrain for same-sex marriage.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Timothy Black in Cincinnati said John Arthur and James Obergefell could be declared married even though Ohio does not recognize same-sex marriage. After flying to Maryland this month to marry on the airport tarmac, the men asked the Ohio judge to recognize their marriage upon their return home.
The men’s lawsuit said Mr. Arthur is in poor health, and unless he is deemed legally married, his spouse will not be able to be buried with him in the Arthur family plot.
Judge Black ruled in their favor, saying Ohio recognizes other out-of-state marriages — such as those between first cousins — that aren’t permitted in the state. “How then can Ohio, especially given the historical status of Ohio law, single out same-sex marriages as ones it will not recognize,” Judge Black wrote. “The short answer is that Ohio cannot.”
Ohio backers of traditional marriage say the case — with a terminally ill plaintiff — was calculated to undermine the state’s law, with a sympathetic court aiding the process.
“Judge Black is an Obama appointee,” Ohio pro-life activist Pendra Lee Snyder, the owner of a Christian marketing and publishing company, told the website LifeSiteNews.com. “This is, in my opinion, a calculated effort at the chipping away of states’ rights and in particular all states that voted to protect marriage as a union of one and one woman.”
Fixing for a fight
Supporters of traditional marriage are regrouping and resisting adverse decisions.
In Congress, 40 members of the House, led by Rep. Tim Huelskamp, Kansas Republican, have introduced a constitutional amendment to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
Conservatives also are rallying research and rhetoric to support their position, as well as cataloging cultural skirmishes such as photographers and bakers who are being penalized for not assisting with same-sex weddings.
“No American — business owner or not — should have to violate their beliefs to compete in the marketplace,” said the Family Research Council, noting that 85 percent of 1,000 Americans in a Rasmussen Reports poll said a Christian photographer who opposes same-sex marriage on religious grounds shouldn’t be forced to work at a wedding between gays.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Hey there fellow nerds, welcome back! The Last of Us: Remastered is currently being played by millions of folks on their PS4s, and with it, all the feelings they thought they had forgotten have come rushing back. It’s okay to feel, y’all. It’s okay to cry.
With all the hype surrounding the critically-acclaimed game, I recently sat down with Naughty Dog Game Designer Emilia Schatz to talk about Uncharted, The Last of Us, and her adventure in the industry. In part one, we discussed her entry into the game design, as well as her journey to accepting that the games she creates are something pretty dang special.
In this final part, I sit with Emilia as she speaks on life, Ellie, and the advice she has for aspiring designers.
What’s it like working with the team at Naughty Dog? From the outside, it seems like not only a forward thinking group, but one filled with such incredible talent.
ES: It’s intimidating. When I first started working, there were people there that I knew their names before I ever started working there; Richard, Amy, Bruce, Neil. Now I’m all of the sudden working with them, and they expect me to get results. I’m working with these amazing programmers and these amazing artists, and for the longest time, when you’re first hired there, you’re thinking, “when are they going to figure out that I’m a talentless hack?” Throw me out on the street! You just keep going with it. I stated before that we don’t really have producers, so you don’t always have someone breathing down your neck. You just have to take it upon yourself to constantly make the game better.
We really try to foster the idea that everyone designs the game – every department doesn’t work in a vacuum. We don’t have offices with closed doors; we’re very open. It’s really encouraged that you don’t call people on the phone or use email as much as other studios. We don’t write design documents; there’s no such thing. We show our design with individual prototypes. Everyone at Naughty Dog needs to be able to be self-motivated and needs to be able to take criticism. If I’m making a level, and an environment artist, a tester, a programmer – if they play it and don’t understand what’s fun about it, they should feel open to come and tell me. I want to make it better. I always get so bogged down with individual details of my level that I don’t see how it’s all coming together. I need that. It’s really great to be able to depend on so many talented people.
No one makes these games by themselves; no one person is responsible for making these games special. It’s the company culture, the caliber of the people.
The Last of Us did such an amazing job at lending positive visibility to the queer community, with Ellie and, arguably, Bill being written as gay characters. Were you excited when you found out that they were going to be queer characters?
ES: Yeah, I was definitely excited. I wasn’t in on that decision process, so I speak more to it as a fan. With Bill, you get hints, but I didn’t get it until the cinematic afterwards and he has the magazine. I realized, “Oh, that was the relationship with that guy, and that’s awesome!” The fact that that’s just a small detail of his life, an important detail, it’s so amazing to see. They’re completely round characters – they’re not one-dimensional, ‘were putting a gay character in for the sake of putting a gay character in’. These are people, and being gay just happens to be one thing about them.
“No one makes these games by themselves; no one person is responsible for making these games special.”
People ask, “what’s the decision to make this a gay character,” but no one ever asks, “what’s the decision to make this a straight character?” The thing is, in terms of human experience, straight while male seems to be the default in the stories that we tell, but it’s the exception in the world. It’s a small segment of the world’s population. I think that in order to tell an authentic story, you have to realize that there are all these other people with different perspectives around you.
I didn’t hear about Ellie being gay until the game was shipped and they were working on Left Behind. There were whispers that there was going to be a kiss scene, and I just thought that it was awesome.
I felt like it was just a very fluid, very organic progression of Ellie’s character.
ES: It’s not just something that’s shoved in there. There’s a lot of writing about Ellie that I think contributes to who she is. So it’s not really a big surprise when it happens. It’s earned, I suppose. Neil understands that writers write from their own perspective, and in order to get an authentic telling of a story, of a character, you need to do your research. You need to bring in different perspectives.
I was told a story where Neil was having lunch with a bunch of the women at the studio, and asked about movies they watched growing up. Afterwards, he would go and watch these movies. The next day, they’d come in and talk about it. He was really trying to understand perspectives. He looked for the common ground.
[Editor’s note: I was also told that Neil and those same women went to watch Blue is the Warmest Color together when it came out. Make of that what you will, nerds.]
Now, I understand you recently came out as a trans woman to your team at Naughty Dog. What was that like for you?
ES: Terrifying… but it was something I had to do. Trans people struggle with that idea. Sometimes people tell me, “oh, you’re very brave,” and in some individual parts of it, yes. But it was something I had to do. When you’re in a case where you either do this or I don’t know what, it’s almost like you’re not being brave, you’re just being yourself. I had no other choice. Writing the letter that I was going to send out to the whole company, sitting there with the mouse above the send button thinking, “okay, okay… click.” That was hard. But I came out to my family and friends years before, and by the time I came out at work, I had already transitioned in all other aspects of my life. I was female all the time at home; just at work, I would dress up in drag as a guy.
I started talking with Sony HR anonymously, asking what the diversity guidelines are like, worrying about my job. But I knew it would work out okay. There’s a lot of protection nowadays, especially in California, for LGBT people. I started telling a few of my coworkers, and it was a shock at first, but they were so amazingly supportive. I really felt that it was nice to start coming out to my friends and get such a positive reaction.
About six months beforehand, I went and spoke with our Head of Operations, and came out to her. I told her I had a plan; in a few months, March 14th, I am going to send out a letter to company and say that I’m trans, and that I’m going to be transitioning my life to be the person that I always felt I was. I’m still the same person I always was – the same person you came to rely on — and we took that to our Co-Presidents and then finalized the date.
Was it an easy transition inside the studio?
ES: Behind the scenes, they started getting things ready so that when I sent the email out, the very next week when I returned – I sent the email out and ran! – they immediately had a new email set up for me with my new name. They ordered business cards, they switched all the various places in the company where my name was listed, they changed my picture out; I got back and it was all ready, and people just got it. That’s one thing that’s really special about gamers. Everyone single one of my coworkers, as well as my friends and family, have played video games where they’ve played as a person very different from themselves. That seed of empathy is there, they’re able to get that. It’s been great.
Was that a surprising reaction?
ES: I think the industry gets a bad rep due to all the negative content and comments online. But I think devs that have been around for a good while, like the team at Naughty Dog, they know you for your talent, and that’s it. They’re very open, very progressive. I was terrified — it’s always a one-way door. You tell people and you can’t go back. I knew that most of my friends would be fine, but I figured I was going to lose lots of people and lots of family. But that just hasn’t happened. It’s been really amazing. I get nervous telling someone, but as soon as I do it’s great. You could say I’m always surprised for the better.
You design them, but of course you must play them. How long has your love affair with video games been going on?
ES: Since elementary school… probably third grade. I had an NES, so I always played Nintendo consoles. I didn’t have any idea that I wanted to make them professionally. I was making them on my own; I had a graphing calculator at school, and I was making little RPGs on them, and programming them in high school. In college I was making flash games, never thinking “maybe I should make games for a living?” But at some point, I think playing Ico did it for me.
“I think that in order to tell an authentic story, you have to realize that there are all these other people with different perspectives around you.”
I was in college, and there was sort of a moment in the game where you lose her. You’re running across the bridge, and there’s the free world! At one point, the bridge breaks in half, and she’s on this side and you’re on the other. The rational thing to do is run to freedom. And every time I thought about it, I told myself that I would just run to freedom. But it’s in that emotional moment where I see her fall and I’m like, “no!” I turn around, and for that little bit, I am a hero; I become a hero. I think that’s what makes games special. Who do you become? I did finally figure out that at the end, it is one of those gates that you need to her open, but it’s just funny that I never try. I don’t even think about it.
You never realize you invest so much of yourself into a character. Bringing back The Last of Us, the scene where you find Ellie on the operating table. For that entire sequence, I wasn’t myself; I was Joel. I didn’t care. I was shooting everyone. I took a shotgun to all the doctors.
ES: You gotta save Ellie!
I didn’t even care. No, you don’t touch her!
ES: Get away from her!
Exactly! I realized that I may have gone a little overboard, but it’s amazing that we can invest so much of ourselves in these characters.
ES: And maybe Joel had those thoughts, too. And in that moment, maybe it’s exactly what he had to do. It’s exactly like when I played Ico in college. There was something special that I wanted to be a part of. I want to have that moment at some point. I want to design that moment when players make a choice they would never, ever make for themselves if it weren’t for the emotional journey they experienced through the game.
Do you think working as a dev, you tend to be more critical when it comes to technical aspects of games? Or do you just sometimes like to go along for the ride?
ES: Definitely. It’s very hard to play other games without ripping them apart. It’s harder to enjoy games, unfortunately, because I’m always in the mindset of ‘how can I make this better’? Only… you can’t make it better. It’s already shipped. It’s on disc! You’re just going to make someone mad if you email them, like, “you know, you could change this and this.” People put so much of their life into these games. Different studios have different focuses, and at Naughty Dog, we really focus on the small details. So yeah, it’s much harder.
Could you pick your favorite game of all time?
ES: I think it’s probably The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.
Oh, a great choice.
ES: SNES games sort of have this halo around them for me. A Link to the Past, Super Metroid, Legend of Mana, Chrono Trigger – it felt so great. I always played Zelda thinking that Link was a girl.
That’s what’s great about the progression of Link over the years. He’s gotten more feminine, allowing almost anyone to really step into his shoes however they see fit.
ES: Yes! I was actually really excited at the idea that there could be a female Link. I’m really excited about the open-world Zelda; I wanted my Zelda to be like Skyrim. Playing Twilight Princess, I felt very disappointed. I just got done playing Oblivion, and I wondered why Zelda was stuck in this old convention of Ocarina of Time, where you’re in these tiny channels. So I’m looking forward to a more expansive world. I wanted a female Link, but from what I heard, it won’t be just yet. I’ll still call my Link Emilia.
Your job demands so much brain power and innovation. How do keep on the cusp of learning – how do you stay so creative all the time?
ES: Oh… I don’t know! It’s sort of that drive to get that Ico moment. I want to make that. So we keep trying, and maybe we fail, or maybe we succeed a little bit. I try to get to that point where I feel like I have something to say to the world… but I haven’t quite said it just yet. I think it’s really important for game designers to immerse themselves in other mediums, because the more we focus on games, it gets to be kind of an incestuous sort of thing. It’s why we often end up with so many tropes. I try to get other life experiences. That’s that main thing.
We’re just about wrapping up. Do you have anything to say to fans out there, or folks looking to follow in your impressive footsteps? Advice, comments, concerns, Uncharted 4 leaks, anything?
ES: Haha! I’ll say this: no one is going to hand you what you want – you have to fight for it every step of the way. The only person really looking out for you in the end is you. When you go to college, when you’re studying games, things like that, don’t think that they’re making you into a game designer or developer – you’re there to learn and hopefully teach yourself. Always put in more than they expect. You’ll eventually get there. It’s a hard industry to get into, and the way you get ahead it by doing it all the time.
You make games and you fail. You make levels and you fail. You keep doing it and eventually you make something good. Hopefully.
I’d like to extend a massive thanks to wonderful and talented Emilia Schatz and the inspiring team at Naughty Dog for taking the time to open up about video games, creativity, and life inside the industry.
If y’all didn’t know, Emilia is one of the most enjoyable and passionate devs I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. If you beautiful folks have twitter, you’d be smart to follow her there. With Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End currently in the works, we’ll be hearing more from this Naughty Dog designer – there’s no doubt about that.
Happy gaming, nerds!We’ve previously covered the gun-shaped breakfast pastry, a pencil pointed like a gun, and a Quarter-size Lego piece. Hot Air also has the story of the 5-year old who brought a cap gun to school.
The zero-tolerance war on young children who innocently bring something that looks like a gun to school is pathological bordering on mental abuse.
Here are four more recent examples, including instances where the young child merely talked about things such as a Nerf or Bubble gun.
1. 6-year old suspended for bringing clear plastic toy gun to show and tell.
2. 5 year-old suspended for making Lego Gun
3. 5-year old talks — yes talks — about Bubble Gun
Pennsylvania girl, 5, suspended for talk of ‘shooting’ a Hello Kitty ‘bubble gun’:
A 5-year-old girl chats up classmates while waiting for the bus after school. The topic: Playing with a Hello Kitty “bubble gun” that, with the flick of a finger, blows bubbles everywhere. “I’ll shoot you, you shoot me, and we’ll all play together,” the kindergartner says. The next day, that remark — which was made innocently, according to the lawyer for the girl’s family, who related the story — landed the young central Pennsylvanian child in the principal’s office. Soon after, she was sent home after being issued a 10-day suspension for a “terroristic threat,” as indicated on the suspension form signed by Mount Carmel Area Elementary School Principal Susan Nestico. That and other documents were provided to CNN by Robin Ficker, the lawyer representing the girl and her mother.
4. First Grader talks — yes talks — about Nerf Guns
The Pasco School District has overturned the suspension of a 6-year-old boy who talked about his toy guns at school.Mike Aguirre’s son Noah, a first-grader at James McGee Elementary School, was sent home Feb. 28 after another student told their teacher that Noah had a gun with him. Noah had no gun, toy or otherwise, but Aguirre said his son still was punished for talking with other students about the Nerf guns the family recently bought during a trip to Lincoln City, Ore. Aguirre said he and his wife were told their son was suspended for talking about guns at school, and because the girl who reported him felt her “health and safety were threatened” when they were called to the school last week. Officials said the issue is addressed in the district’s discipline handbook in the section on student rights and responsibilities. But Aguirre said there’s no provision that students are prohibited from talking about guns at school, nor did the district provide evidence that the boy threatened to harm a student.
Update: And then there’s this from last year (h/t reader):Vinod Kambli said that only Sachin Tendulkar can give the reason for not keeping in touch with him (Express Archive)
As Sachin Tendulkar was throwing a post-retirement party on Monday for his friends and teammates, including former players, one name absent from the list of nearly 450 invitees was old friend Vinod Kambli
This wasn't an oversight, and Kambli confirmed that it had been seven years since they had spoken to each other. "Your question to me is whether Sachin and I are on talking terms. The answer is 'no'. We haven't been talking for the last seven years, but on occasions we do wish each other via text," Kambli told The Indian Express.
Kambli said that only Tendulkar can give the reason for not keeping in touch with his former Sharadashram mate.
"A lot of people and our fans are asking me as to why he didn't mention my name in his farewell speech and why wasn't I invited for the party, which close friends and associates who played an important role in his career were a part of," he said.
In his speech at the Wankhede, Tendulkar thanked his friends but didn't name anyone in particular.
Kambli said he was hurt because Tendulkar didn't mention his name in the farewell speech.
"Him not mentioning me in his farewell speech or not giving me an invitation though I've been a part of his life since he was 10 years old. Yes, I won't deny the fact that it did hurt me a lot because he forgot to mention that. The world record partnership was a turning point of our career, without each other's contribution, I wouldn't be who I am, and he wouldn't be our great legend," Kambli said.
"But still it won't make my love less for him in any way, irrespective of whether he considers me his friend or not... There are too many precious memories to cherish and remember throughout life," Kambli added.
However, Kambli believes that a patch-up is unlikely to happen soon. "I don't see a reunion happening between us anytime soon, however, when he does decide to call me, I will always be there for him."
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Please read our terms of use before posting commentsJul 10, 2017 | By Julia
As part of its third annual Additive Manufacturing European Conference this past weekend in Brussels, the European Association of Machine Tool Industries (CECIMO) is pushing EU policy makers to see the bigger picture of 3D printing in Europe. Organized by CECIMO and co-hosted by members of the European Parliament Brando Benifei (S&D), Anthea McIntyre (ECR) and Cora van Nieuwenhuizen (ALDE), the Conference highlighted where the EU is currently excelling in industrial additive manufacturing, and addressed the existing challenges for its widespread adoption in Europe.
A 20-page document titled the “European Additive Manufacturing Strategy” has also been released in the wake of Conference proceedings, providing an overview of CECIMO’s input and lobbying the EU to support 3D printing research and education.
“The European advanced manufacturing industry has maintained over time a global leading position, and it can be considered a gem of the European economy. With the rise of additive manufacturing (AM) technologies on the shop floor, industry entered a new round of innovation,” writes CECIMO Director General Filip Geerts.
But Geerts also warns policymakers not to take this success for granted. “If Europe aims
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fentanyl (12 μg/kg i.v.) significantly increased PPT in both hindpaws, whereas NFEPP had no effect (fig. S6).
Next, we investigated typical side effects mediated by central opioid receptors (reward, sedation, motor impairment, and respiratory depression) or intestinal opioid receptors (constipation). In the unbiased, conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm, fentanyl [30 to 50 μg/kg subcutaneously (s.c.)] produced dose-dependent preference (reward) for the drug-associated compartment. As commonly observed in this paradigm (30, 31), this effect decreased at high doses (60 μg/kg s.c.) (Fig. 4A). Conversely, NFEPP (up to 150 μg/kg s.c.) did not show significant effects compared with vehicle (Fig. 4A). Fentanyl (20 to 60 μg/kg s.c.) dose-dependently reduced locomotion, whereas NFEPP (20 to 150 μg/kg s.c.) had no effects (Fig. 4B). Fentanyl (60 μg/kg s.c.) markedly reduced the time to fall off an accelerating Rotarod compared with vehicle or NFEPP (60 to 150 μg/kg s.c.) (Fig. 4C). Compared with controls, fentanyl (20 to 60 μg/kg s.c.) significantly reduced defecation, whereas NFEPP (20 to 150 μg/kg s.c.) had no effect (Fig. 4D). Heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood oxygen saturation were indistinguishable between NFEPP (150 μg/kg s.c.) and vehicle (Fig. 4, E to G).
Fig. 4 Systemic NFEPP does not induce central or intestinal side effects. Effect of subcutaneous (s.c.) fentanyl and NFEPP on (A) unbiased conditioned place preference, (B) locomotor activity expressed as distance travelled during 30 min after drug injection, (C) motor coordination measured as time spent on the accelerating Rotarod, (D) constipation assessed by number of excreted fecal pellets during 1 hour after drug injection, (E) heart rate, (F) respiratory rate, and (G) blood oxygen saturation. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001 versus vehicle (0 μg), Kruskal-Wallis and Dunn’s test [(A), (B), and (D); n = 8 to 12]; two-way related measures ANOVA and Bonferroni test [(C), n = 8 to 10; and (E) to (G), n = 5] (means ± SEM).
Previous strategies to improve analgesics have failed to yield drugs without side effects (1–6, 11, 25, 32). In contrast to other targets (e.g., blockade of individual excitatory ion channels or receptors on sensory neurons) (6), the advantages of peripheral opioid receptor activation include reduced tolerance and the synergistic modulation of multiple ion currents (11) implying a wider range of efficacy. Therefore, we exploited injury-specific MOR-ligand interactions at low pH. By combining quantum-chemical simulations with classical modeling, we demonstrated the importance of protonation for receptor binding and activation (5, 20), and we designed a new ligand with low pK a and decreased receptor affinity at physiological pH. Consistently, NFEPP induced G-protein dissociation only at low pH, and its potency of cAMP inhibition decreased with increasing extracellular pH. In contrast, receptor binding and activation by fentanyl did not change, likely because of its similar protonation status under all pH conditions.
In two animal models of painful inflammation with decreased tissue pH (reflecting 2.5- and 1.6-fold increased proton concentrations, respectively), NFEPP did not act in healthy central or peripheral compartments but produced analgesia by selective activation of peripheral MOR in injured tissue, i.e., at the source of pain generation. Note that NFEPP did not produce reward, sedation, motor impairment, respiratory depression, or constipation. Targeting “disease-specific” (i.e., pathological rather than physiological) conformations of receptors and ligands represents a paradigm shift in drug design. This yielded a novel opioid analgesic of similar efficacy to conventional fentanyl, however, devoid of detrimental side effects.During March, the U.S. Air Force deployed three of its twenty B-2 stealth bombers to the Asia-Pacific region for training. But should the United States consider permanently basing stealth bombers in the region?
In the case of the B-2, logistically it would probably not make any sense to permanently base the aircraft overseas with only twenty aircraft in the total fleet. However, the Pentagon hopes to buy between eighty and 100 new Northrop Grumman B-21 Long Range Strike-Bombers (LRS-B) in the 2020s. As China's power continues to grow, there is a case to made for basing some number of those aircraft in the region.
While American bases in Japan, South Korea and Guam might be vulnerable to Chinese missile attack, if the United States based B-21s in Hawaii, Alaska and Australia, it would shorten the distance those aircraft would have to travel. That would in turn increase sortie generation rates while also reducing the need for tankers if there were ever to be a conflict in the region. That would in turn increase the B-21’s deterrent effect. Basically, shortening the flight time has the same effect as increasing the fleet size.
Basing the B-21 in Alaska or Hawaii would not be a problem—those are on American soil. Both Hickam AFB in Hawaii and Elmendorf AFB in Alaska already host Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptors and have facilities for maintaining stealth aircraft. The Air Force also hopes to station Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in Eielson AFB, Alaska, which will also have facilities to maintain stealth aircraft. However, the addition of a large stealth bomber contingent would mean the Air Force would have to expand those bases to host the new B-21.
Basing the B-21 alongside the F-22 and F-35 in the Asia-Pacific region would allow America’s stealth platforms to operate and train together routinely. That would increase the pilots’ familiarity with each others’ tactics and procedures—meaning those aviators would be that much more effective in the event of war. Basing the aircraft in Alaska has the added benefit of access to vast training ranges and the 18th Aggressor Squadron—which makes for more realistic training.
Basing the jet is Australia is somewhat more difficult since Canberra might not necessarily wish to host a unit of B-21s —China is Australia’s largest trading partner. But assuming the Australians agreed to host the stealth bombers, that would open up the possibility of combined training with Canberra’s forces and with those of other regional allies. Australia has vast open spaces for training and it plans to purchase the F-35—which opens up many possibilities.
Long-term, as Beijing grows increasingly powerful and assertive, short-range tactical fighter bases in Japan and South Korea will be increasingly vulnerable to concerted attack. Even Guam is probably not safe. However, Australia, Alaska and Hawaii—while not invulnerable to attack—are relatively safer from a Chinese attack in the event of a war. Thus, the Pentagon should consider the basing the B-21 at Hickam, Elmendorf and Eielson when the bomber becomes operational.Ariella Furman had a hard time connecting with the LGBT community when she relocated from New York to Pittsburgh, Pa., several years ago. There are fewer bars aimed at lesbian women than at gay men, she says. Anyway, she tends to prefer structured events to spontaneous bar gatherings.
In response, Furman launched a monthly party for LGBT women in the area. The mailing list ballooned to 4,000 members, with hundreds of women turning up every month and local bars vying to host the events.
Next, Furman hunted for a dating site aimed at gay women, in the vein of Grindr, a dating app catered toward gay men. She didn't find one that matched her vision.
"The attempts that were out there were very focused on hookups," she tells Mashable. "Women tend to look for relationships."
So she created her own.
See also: The 15 Hottest Dating Sites on the Market
Furman's Wing Ma'am app debuted on the iTunes Store Jan. 23, after a brief demo run that made it available online. According to Furman, the app grew to 8,000 users during its beta period alone.
Like Brenda, a dating app for lesbians that has been compared to Grindr, and Dattch, a successful UK-based app not yet available in the U.S., Wing Ma'am users can browse profiles by geographical location. Unlike these apps, however, Wing Ma'am also has a social component, allowing a user to create or scroll through events in her city. RSVPs display on her profile.
Wing Ma'am allows users to browse LGBT events in their area.
The idea, Furman says, is to help LGBT women find friends as well as partners, to form a tighter-knit community through meetups.
"One girl wanted to see if anybody would go to Lady Gaga with her, one girl had an open-mic poetry night, one girl had a cocktail night," Furman says. "It's very varied."
The app resembles HowAboutWe, a dating site that connects users around quality dates and experiences. Similarly, Wing Ma'am couples are welcome to create and browse events, too. Along with user-generated listings, Furman and her two-person marketing team add events to the app when they can.
Right now, Wing Ma'am sees its largest user pool in major cities like Boston and New York.
Women in the LGBT community have already begun responding to the app. Arielle Scarcella, a Brooklyn-based YouTube user promoted the app in her video, "10 Mistakes All Lesbians Make." She says she appreciates that the app focuses on more than just hooking up.
And Kayleigh Blanchette, located in Pittsburgh, likes the app's social component, since she already has a partner. "I moved here a little less than a month ago, so I'm using it to make friends and meet people in the community, she says. "I think the biggest thing is getting the community together and building solidarity beyond the bar scene."By Amanda Froelich
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By now, everyone has heard they need to eat healthier. But doing so? Not as easy as it sounds. You have a job, you have kids you need to feed and shuttle to after-school activities, and when you’re not playing parent-of-the-year, you have your own life and workload to take care of. We get it.
And, so do many entrepreneurs, such as the founders of Amy’s Fast Food Drive Thru in California. If you haven’t heard, that start-up did incredibly well, and the business is already intending to expand nationwide. But another entrepreneur you’ve likely heard about is Kimbal Musk (yes, tech genius Elon Musk’s youngest brother), and he’s about to open a restaurant that everyone can get excited about.
According to Tech Insider, Musk is inspired to give the world a fast food joint that’s both affordable and healthy. The business guru already sits on the boards of Tesla, SpaceX and Chipotle Mexican Grill – and founded his own venture, The Kitchen Community – but his latest venture is excitingly unique. After all, health-conscious restaurants do exist in many big cities, but meals can be upwards of $10 per entree, a cost that’s not reasonable for the majority of the populace.
That’s why in August, Kimbal will open The Kitchenette, a grab-and-go cafe where everything costs less than $5. The Tennessee-based restaurant will mainly serve sandwiches, soups, and salads.
Visitors are sure to flock to the location, as the restaurant will sit on a 4,500-acre park and conservancy. After grabbing their delicious cuisine, patrons can mosey outside and sit on the patio or the Park’s giant lawn.
The interior will maintain the rustic, hipster feel of a coffee shop and a counter and a few tables will be placed inside. Reportedly, Musk hopes to launch more locations within Memphis and eventually nationwide. Of course, no plans have been solidified yet, as the establishment has yet to open.
In today’s economy, it’s not easy for many families to invest in their health and purchase nourishing food. That’s why the menu is priced to be so affordable, so it may compete with the true competition, such as McDonald’s. Musk told the press that he’ll be partnering with local farmers to keep the cuisine as local as possible, as well as more economical.
If you’re in the area and excited about the new venture, The Kitchenette is already hiring. You can learn more about the upcoming restaurant by visiting the website.
What are your thoughts? Please comment below and share this news!
This article (Elon Musk’s Brother To Open ‘$5 Or Less’ Healthy Fast Food Joint) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TrueActivist.comPope Francis has received a rather unusual gift from Bolivia's first indigenous president Evo Morales during his visit to Latin America: a crucifix carved into a wooden hammer and sickle, the Communist symbol of the union of labour and peasants.
The 78-year-old pontiff drank the trimate – a tea of coca leaves, camomile and anise seeds – on the flight to Bolivia from Ecuador to alleviate altitude sickness. La Paz airport sits at 4,000m above sea level and for health reasons the Argentinian pope will be in the city for about four hours only. The pontiff lost part of one lung to disease when he was younger.
Pope Francis praised Bolivia for taking "important steps" in social security and to include the poor in the political and economic life of South American poorest country.
Morales, an anti-clerical champion of indigenous rights, has taken decisive steps to empower Bolivia's 36 native groups and embed their rights in the country's constitution. The president has also acted to change the constitution in 2009, making the Catholic nation a secular country and removed the bible and cross from the presidential palace when he took office in 2006.
Morales praised Francis as someone who is "helping in the liberation of our people". He gifted the pontiff with a cross with the Communist symbol similar to the one belonging to Father Luis Espinal, a Jesuit priest who was detained, tortured and killed by Bolivia's paramilitary squads.
"Remember one of our brothers, a victim of interests that didn't want him to fight for Bolivia's freedom," Francis, a Jesuit himself, said from the popemobile to a crowd. "Father Espinal preached the Gospel, the Gospel that bothered them, and because of this they got rid of him."
Francis and Morales met on several occasions, most recently in October when the indigenous president took part in a Vatican summit of grassroots groups of natives and advocates for the poor.A note about flagging quotes: If you see a quote that's a duplicate or incorrect feel free to flag it. However if you have personal objections or issues with a quote, please contact miggyb, Toastdeib or myself direct. If you don't and I see a flagged quote, there is no guarantee it'll be removed.
Hey guys! I was bored yesterday so went through and fixed the spacing on all the quotes to make them easier to read. If you can take a couple of seconds before submitting something and turning this:Into this:It would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Holy shit. Now with moar colors. I rethemed everything, give me a shout if you have any recommendations or issues. Also Ctrl+F5 [](/f5) if you don't see it.
Oh god. It's been one year...We're now celebrating one year of drunken quotesCheers gentelmen [](/cheers)
I've now setup so that NSFW and NSFL are auto flagged. (Drunken regex is magic) This isnt an result from a specific incident, but I figure it would be nice to have for those of us that browse the quotes db while at work. Though keep in mind, most of us are drunk while quotes are posted, so the general rule is to assume any link is nsfw.
Hello! Enjoy our shitty drunken collection of quotes from BerryTube chat and it's associated IRC channels; feel free to add some of your own.
Depending on if you like or dislike a quote, there are links that are + and - signs that you can click to promote or demote a quote.If you think a quote has slipped by our moderators and isn't appropriate for this website, you can always click the [X] link near it.
Note: The quote is not removed from the database, it just puts a flag up for the admins to check it to verify that it is alright, it may or may not be removed.
Alot of people use emotes based on reddit and BerryTube chat. If you want to see (some of) the emotes install BetterPonyMotes and enable global parsing in settings.
Queries? Remarks? Just ask Q0.WikiLeaks today dumped a smaller subset of documents from its "Vault 7" collection of files from a CIA software developer server. Yet again, these documents are more important from the perspective of WikiLeaks having them than for showing any revelatory content. The exploits detailed in these new files are for vulnerabilities that have largely been independently discovered and patched in the past. The files also reveal that the CIA likely built one of these tools after seeing a presentation on the exploits of Apple's EFI boot firmware at Black Hat in 2012.
The latest batch of files, dramatically named "DarkMatter" (after one of the tools described in the dump), consists of user manuals and other documentation for exploits targeting Apple MacBooks—including malware that leveraged a vulnerability in Apple's Thunderbolt interface uncovered by a researcher two years ago. Named "Sonic Screwdriver" after the ever-useful tool carried by the fictional Doctor of Dr. Who, the malware was stored on an ordinary Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter. It exploited the Thunderbolt interface to allow anyone with physical access to a MacBook to bypass password protection on firmware and install one of a series of Apple-specific CIA "implants."
The first (and only documented) version of Sonic Screwdriver was released in 2012. It worked only on MacBooks built between late 2011 and mid-2012, and the tool used a vulnerability in the firmware of those computers that allowed commands to be sent via the Thunderbolt adapter to change the "boot path" (the location of the files used to boot the computer). The change would allow a local attacker to boot the targeted MacBook from an external device to install malware that eavesdropped on the computer during normal use. Those implants included "DarkMatter," the predecessor to "QuarkMatter." (QuarkMatter is malware that was revealed in the previous WikiLeaks dump, and it infected the EFI partition of a MacBook's storage device.)
The ability to exploit Apple computers' EFI firmware dates back at least to January of 2009, with a set of tools the CIA's Engineering Development Group called "DarkSeaSkies." That kit included DarkMatter, "an EFI driver that persists in firmware and installs the other two tools" called NightSkies (a Mac OS backdoor), and SeaPea (a "kernel-space implant" that stealthily launched NightSkies at boot). NightSkies was also the name of an earlier (2008) iOS implant which was installed via iTunes on factory-reset iPhones.
The Sonic Screwdriver tool, released in November 2012, was likely used with another implant called Der Starke (German for "The Strong"). Der Starke was a "diskless EFI-persistent version" of an implant called Triton. The normal version of Triton, which worked on Mac OS 10.7("Lion") and 10.8 ("Mountain Lion"), required installation with administrative access to the operating system. Der Starke, however, targeted systems with Mac OS 10.8 and 10.9 ("Mavericks"), and this tool could be installed by booting from a USB via EFI boot—or with Sonic Screwdriver if the firmware was password protected.
The Thunderbolt exploit used by Sonic Screwdriver was first revealed at Black Hat USA in 2012 by the security researcher known as snare. The same exploit was practically implemented in 2015 by security researcher Trammell Hudson. As implemented, Sonic Screwdriver obviously required what's been referred to as an "evil maid" attack—someone has to gain access to the targeted device for an extended period of time to perform the installation. The same is true of the other tools in cases where there is no password-protected firmware; the attacker would need to be able to boot the computer from a USB device to install it.
In a post this afternoon, Hudson said:
The functionality of Sonic Screwdriver appears to be at the same level as presented in snare's slides—the Option ROM code is loaded before firmware passwords are checked, which allows it to bypass this password and boot from an alternate media device with a more extensive exploit, but does not have any flash level persistence. Based on the documentation, as far as I can tell it does not carry any payload of its own and its sole purpose is to be able to boot from external media
It's possible that later versions of Sonic Screwdriver were capable of a remote attack if they followed the development path taken by Hudson. A second version of Thunderstrike that he created could be spread by e-mail attachment or a malicious website, and that iteration used the Thunderbolt bus to infect firmware in Apple peripherals. In turn, this infected any other computer the peripherals might be plugged into. Apple has already patched the Thunderstrike vulnerability in firmware updates, but computers that haven't been updated could still be vulnerable to this sort of attack.Former President Barack Obama’s National Security adviser, Susan Rice, wants President Donald Trump to accept North Korea as a nuclear power.
“History shows that we can, if we must, tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea — the same way we tolerated the far greater threat of thousands of Soviet nuclear weapons during the Cold War,” she wrote in a New York Times op-ed, criticizing the president’s “fire and fury” rhetoric in response to the escalating tensions between the two countries.
Rice urged Gen. John Kelly, White House chief of staff, to stop Trump, and she pointedly attacked Dr. Sebastian Gorka, the deputy assistant to the president.
“John Kelly, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, must assert control over the White House, including his boss, and curb the Trump surrogates whipping up Cuban missile crisis fears,” she wrote.
Rice complained that Trump’s rhetoric was “unprecedented and especially dangerous” and that America would have to be cautious about its response to Pyongyang.
She defended Obama’s actions in response to North Korea, insisting that his administration put them “on edge” by conducting joint military exercises with South Korea and introducing more economic sanctions.
She urged Trump to continue the Obama doctrine on North Korea despite growing hostility from the country.
“Rational, steady American leadership can avoid a crisis and counter a growing North Korean threat,” Rice wrote. “It’s past time that the United States started exercising its power responsibly.”There are procrastinators, then there’s George R.R. Martin. The Song of Ice and Fire author may have stepped back from his executive producer role in HBO’s Game of Thrones to focus on finishing his long-in-the-works book The Winds of Winter, but another shiny object has caught his eye lately: Syfy’s TV adaptation of Martin’s 1980 sci-fi horror novella, Nightflyers.
To be fair, Martin has been involved with talks about the series since spring of this year, but he’s back to giving us updates on his blog about the upcoming adaptation. The newest announcement: Syfy has picked up the series for a 10-episode first season.
Martin announced on his “Not a Blog” LiveJournal that Nightflyers, created by Jeff Buhler and Daniel Cerone, is currently being developed for a 10-episode first season on Syfy. Cerone will act as showrunner while Buhler has penned the pilot for the series. Martin writes:
“NIGHTFLYERS will be shot in the Republic of Ireland, I’m told, on sound stages in Limerick… which will give them access to the same great pool of Irish and British actors that GAME OF THRONES has tapped in Belfast (and considering how many characters we’ve killed, a lot of them should be available). ((If by some miracles I actually complete enough of my other projects to create some free time, I’ve love to go over there and kill two birds with one flight by visiting both the GOT and NIGHTFLYERS sets… but that remains a long shot, given my current word load)). If all goes according to schedule, the series should debut this summer, in late July. It will be broadcast on SyFy in the USA, and on Netflix around the world.”
This is the second update that Martin has provided us with Nightflyers after he was first alerted to the development of a series in May of this year. The 1980 novella was a “haunted starship” story, set in Martin’s Thousand Worlds universe, which he later expanded as a collection of short stories in 1985. Nightflyers was first adapted as a 1987 feature film directed by Robert Collector, which followed a group of scientists on board a spaceship who are terrorized by the ship’s sentient computer. Check out the trailer, which is as 1980s sci-fi as you can get.
Martin wrote on his blog that he met with Buhler and Cerone, who showed him the pilot script and concept art of the Nightflyer space ship, seen above. Though surprised by the news that Syfy acquired the TV rights to the old movie deal of Nightflyers, Martin says he was heartened by Buhler and Cerone’s pilot, which “departs considerably” from the plot of Martin’s novella:
“Honestly, at first I was baffled as to how they hoped to get a series out of my story, since at the end of the novella (and the film) pretty much everyone is dead (it was a horror story, after all). But in May, UCP got me a copy of Jeff Buhler’s script, and I saw how he’d dealt with that. It was a good read, and yes, I came away with a better idea of where they’d find a few seasons.”
I’m slightly comforted by Martin’s assurances that he won’t take an active part in the Nightflyers series, but I’ve started to lose hope at being able to read The Winds of Winter sometime in this decade. While I’m sure Syfy will have a wonderful new twist on the horror-camp of Nightflyers, I just want Martin to finish his Song of Ice and Fire series soon. And maybe update from LiveJournal.Have a listen to Pixies' fifth album – their first in 23 years – and let us know your thoughts!
You could say it's been a while since Pixies last put out an album: it was way back in 1991 that the Boston band released Trompe le Monde, after all. Since then, the group's reputation has grown, transforming Pixies from cult heroes to one of the most admired alternative rock bands in the world.
It would be impossible for the band to release new material without being weighed down by some degree of expectation, and that's something Michael Hann acknowledges in his review of Indie Cindy. "If this had been released a year after their last album, it would have fit perfectly adequately into Pixies’ discography," he writes. "What Goes Boom is a properly thrilling opener, possessing one of those sinister riffs Black Francis used to turn out at will; it’s followed by Greens and Blues, in which the patented stately-acoustic-guitar-overlaid-with-spectral-electric-lead-line Pixies trick is deployed effectively."
So what do you think? Does it stand up to the band's previous work? Or is it a disappointment compared to such monumental works as Surfer Rosa and Doolittle? Let us know in the comments.
You can pre-order the album hereVILNIUS (Reuters) - Lithuania must properly investigate allegations it hosted a secret CIA prison for al Qaeda and, if true, take responsibility for its actions, the president said on Tuesday.
U.S. ABC news reported in August that Lithuania was the third European country after Poland and Romania to have provided the CIA with facilities for detaining, and possibly interrogating, suspects.
President Dalia Grybauskaite, who is in charge of foreign and defense policy and tends to be outspoken, said an investigation by parliament, which found no jail, had been only a formality.
“It (the investigation) raises the question of political will...,” she told a news conference ahead of a meeting with Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg.
“The West is waiting for answers from us and will look at us with suspicion as long as Lithuania cannot clear away the shadows which hang above Lithuania or, if it is confirmed, to take responsibility and to apologize to the international community for human rights (abuses).”
She said she had suspicions the jail did exist and that the international community thought this too, without giving details why.
She also said a request had been sent to the United States for cooperation in a probe. Hammarberg said he was convinced the truth would come out. “I think this is a serious matter that needs to be clarified,” he told journalists.
ABC News has said a secret CIA prison operated near Vilnius airport from early 2004 to late 2005 and that CIA planes flew into Lithuania with top level al Qaeda suspects.
The Washington Post reported for the first time in 2005, quoting unnamed CIA sources, that CIA prisons existed in Europe as part of former President George W. Bush’s “war on terror” in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks.You had to see this coming.
The odd, bloated contract extensions which appeared to be signed without much negotiation at all.
The difficult and awkward plan to try and rebuild while competing for a playoff spot.
Chasing Milan Lucic in a trade, when this team needs so much more than Milan Lucic to be a contender again.
Several trades made, seemingly without concern about value coming back. OK, that part has been going on for a long while now.
But so have issues in Rogers Arena.
For a time here, the Canucks front office had not been, well, cohesive. There were questions in the executive which are similar to the same ones people on the outside have had.
What is the plan here?
Sometimes, those types of questions are interpreted as dysfunction.
Not every executive views it that way. Brendan Shanahan has been putting together a large front office of strong willed people who stick to their convictions.
What direction are the Canucks going in?
It’s pretty clear now, the direction. The Canucks are going to be travelling in Jim Benning’s direction. Head on.
The last barnacles of the Gillis era were swathed from the ship in rather dramatic, sweeping fashion, following one of the more disappointing offseason weeks in recent Canucks lore.
There have been no big wins this summer.
The most positive spin you can put on the moves is that the Canucks have swayed laterally, a bit to the left, a bit to the right. Sure, they have taken some body blows but it’s nothing too serious. It only looks worse than it is because rivals have loaded up on paper.
They lost a backup goalie, a third-pairing defenceman — who was getting too many minutes anyway — and a forward who couldn’t stay in the lineup.
What’s the negative spin then? Well, you can get that anywhere these days.
It wasn’t that long ago, the Gillis regime was kept up late at night, panicked about the idea of becoming “the next Calgary Flames.”
That is chasing the bottom of the playoff seeding with a team led by veterans, only to end up with a group which is never good enough to compete and never bad enough to be in a position to draft a blue chip, elite, franchise-changing prospect.
The ooey-gooey middle. Or, in NHL speak, hell.
So, as you can imagine, not everyone in that front office was going to be all in when, say, Kassian is traded for Prust. Or Luca Sbisa signs a huge extension.
Or when the team goes with the 35-year-old goalie instead of younger, better options.
But rather than try to make things work with a front office of strong opinions, the Canucks have moved to fire some of their most experienced people when experience is one of the weaknesses of the Benning/Linden dynamic.
So, is Jim Benning ready for this?
Is this really going to make trades easier? Contracts? Cap management?
We’re about to find out.
Benning is proven to be a great talent evaluator when it comes to selecting amateur players in a draft, but can he be a great GM and can he do it without people like Laurence Gilman who know the league, the CBA and the cap inside and out?
And is Benning really going to absorb some of, or all of, Eric Crawford’s role? (which was the initial indication).
Crawford managed both pro and amateur scouting and they would be appear to be monumental responsibilities to add to a GM’s daily routine.
Can Benning really take on more responsibilities when he already has one of the most difficult-to-execute concepts in hockey — rebuild and win, all at the same time?
I don’t think anyone would disagree the Canucks needed to try new things, make changes.
But, given what happened to the Boston Bruins cap situation, shouldn’t this management team be trying to retain one of the best cap managers in the league?Another gunman opened fire on a classroom last Thursday, this time at Umpqua Community College in my mother’s hometown of Roseburg, Oregon. Nine people were killed and nine others seriously injured. It was the 294th mass shooting in our country in 274 days.
The same day as the massacre in Oregon, North Carolina’s law imposing a 72-hour waiting period to have an abortion went into effect. North Carolina is now tied with Missouri as having the longest waiting period for women seeking to exercise their constitutional right to abortion.
What do these things have in common? What possible corollary could I be drawing between such seemingly disparate events? The short answer is: North Carolina doesn’t have a waiting period to buy a gun.
Just days before the Oregon shooting, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee – led by chairman Jason Chaffetz, Republican congressman from Utah – held a hearing at which Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards was aggressively grilled over the contents of several edited “sting” videos in a ridiculous show of interruptions and grandstanding. As everyone knows – and law enforcement agencies have confirmed – Planned Parenthood has done nothing wrong, and Richards proved that easily, despite hostile questioning from the majority GOP members determined to rally their base over the issue of denying women critical health care.
Planned Parenthood provides needed, essential health care to 2.7 million Americans – male, female, cisgender, transgender, poor, underserved, and rural populations – each year. These services save lives, help keep families healthy and intact and prevent thousands of unintended pregnancies which, as every relevant health study has shown, reduces the rate of abortion.
Yet while this Congress wastes millions of dollars investigating debunked claims of an imaginary “baby parts” black market, they refuse to even consider funding a simple, non-binding study on the effects of gun violence on public health, which causes more deaths each year than in any other industrialized nation on Earth.
The hypocrisy of GOP “pro-life” ideology has become a joke. While 51 new abortion restrictions have been enacted at the state level this first half of this year alone, not a single bill has reached the floor of the US House that would attempt to address gun violence. Millions of taxpayer dollars are wasted investigating a health care organization that saves lives and, sometimes, provides a constitutionally-protected and necessary health care procedure that interrupts pregnancy. Yet we are told it’s not worth spending a cent to learn how to save the lives of living, breathing, studying, working, family-raising human beings.
The policies of those who claim to care for nothing more than protecting human life are a straw man argument to prevent women from exercising their right to bodily autonomy and participating fully in social, economic, and democratic life.
Unsafe abortions kill 47,000 women annually around the world; there is a strong, continuing correlation between deaths from unsafe abortion and countries where the procedure is illegal or its access is significantly restricted.
Meanwhile, guns kill 2.3 out of every 100,000 women in in the US. Women here are 11 times more likely to die from gun violence than in any other developed country.
Legal abortion is even markedly, dramatically, absurdly more safe than childbirth, resulting in.06 deaths per 100,000 each year in the United States. Safe abortion reduces maternal mortality – and states with higher abortion restrictions see an increase in maternal death rates.
Today, though, 28 states require a waiting period ranging from 24 to 72 hours to obtain an abortion. But only nine states require any waiting period at all to purchase a gun. There are 35 states that require so-called “abortion counseling” before a procedure, which may include misleading or outright false information dictated by the state legislature in a script that your doctor must read, whether they know it to be false or not. Some 24 states require an unnecessary ultrasound. But only six states require any form of training or certification courses to purchase a gun.
In Wisconsin, a child 14 years of age may carry a gun to hunt without a guardian or adult present. But, as in 20 other states, any minor under the age of 18 must have the legal consent of a parent to obtain an abortion.
Republicans’ insistence upon absolute, unfettered freedom to own, carry, or stockpile weapons stands in stark contrast to their dedication to restricting women’s personal choices. Potential life – with all its promise and power – means far more to these demagogues than the actual lives of people here on Earth, now.
For the personhood of embryos, they draft legislation. For the safety of living, playing, laughing children, they do nothing. The potential dreams of a not-yet-sentient organism are paramount – not because it is a human life, as demonstrated by their lack of commitment to actual living humans, but because it is inside of a woman. And that woman must not be permitted to do as she pleases or else all Hell may break loose.
So long as women know their place, we must assume, no amount of blood spilled is too much to protect the status quo. Meanwhile, Hell is already here.In an unprecedented gesture, the museum has replaced works in its permanent collection galleries with eight by artists from Muslim-majority nations named in Trump’s executive order.
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iosity. It’s one of the most useful tools you can ever use in pickup.
If you’re genuinely curious about a woman, you’ll never run out of interesting things to talk about. Practice finding ways to talk about the women you talk to more than you talk about yourself. The ladies will love that, I promise.
Oh, and there’s no need to over-complicate things with elaborate pickup lines. All you really need to do is say “hi” and introduce yourself. She knows why you’re talking to her.
And, if there’s ever any doubt, just tell her that you think she’s cute. That’s definitely more than enough reason for you to be talking to her.
3. Other People
Almost every guy in the world falls under this category right now, and every guy in the world has been in this position at some point or another in his life.
You’re guilty and you know what I’m talking about. You were too scared to approach new hot women, so you waited until a friend of yours introduced you to a girl before you started to turn on your charm.
You were too scared to approach new hot women, so you waited until a friend of yours broke up with his girlfriend before you made any moves on anyone.
You were too scared to approach new hot women, so you waited until your wingman approached a group of two girls before you did anything at all.
You’re not a boy anymore. No one is going to spoon-feed you everything that you want for the rest of your life. No one is going to hold your hand and walk you through the masculine responsibilities you need to live through.
Your dating life is one of these areas that you need to take personal responsibility for before you can actually call yourself a man.
I know you’re scared of leaving your warm little comfort zone, but fuck you. Stop being a pussy.
The Prescription:
A lifestyle of abundance with women.
What you need to do is to make meeting new women a habit. Wherever you go out in public, there will be attractive women. Talk to them. Befriend them. Flirt with them. Learn from the Seductive Introvert program and do the missions. Sign up to the email list on this blog.
Over time you will find it easier and easier to approach and get to know new women on a daily basis.
This is worth repeating, so I’ll say it again: I know you’re scared of leaving your warm little comfort zone, but fuck you. Stop being a pussy.
Now get out there and make yourself uncomfortable.The ENSTAR strike has lasted two weeks, and there’s no end in sight. Local workers are picketing in front of ENSTAR offices around Anchorage and around the Kenai Peninsula. They’re having a dispute with the management over retirement benefits for both present and future workers.
Download Audio:
A couple dozen workers stand in front of the ENSTAR Operations Center in Anchorage holding signs and waving to passing cars. Some of trucks and cabs honk in support.
The strikers aren’t allowed to talk to the media and refer all questions to Local 367 Business Manager Greg Walker.
Walker says the 120 operating members are striking to protect their pensions. He explains that the company only wants to provide 401(k)s for new hires and current employees are worried that they’ll cut their pension plans next.
“The pension plan is well-funded. They’ve gotten great returns on the pension plan investments, so it’s not costing the company any money. Our position is that defined benefit plan provides a well-rounded future for anyone who retires with ENSTAR.”
The union and the company had come to a tentative agreement on the issue earlier this month, but the operating workers voted it down and decided to strike. The clerical workers did not.
Walker says the union has also filed charges against the natural gas company with the National Labor Relations Board. They allege the company hasn’t provided accurate information about the pension plan and they are discriminating against employees who filed actions against them under the National Labor Relations Act.
ENSTAR representatives declined to talk about the strike or the negotiations. The only comment on how the company is being affected comes from their automatic answering service.
“Our ENSTAR offices are temporarily closed to walk in customers,” the recorded voice says when you dial their main number.
That means you have to pay your bill online, by mail, or over the phone.
Walker says the workers are in it the for the long-haul and haven’t given up hope that the strike will be effective.
“Members are strong as ever. The community support is incredible. And we’re going to continue to fight.”
But he says they would all rather be back at work. Temporary hires from Michigan are currently filling their slots. Walker says the union members have agreed to return to work in the case of an emergency. Two left the picket line to help contain a gas leak last week.Former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson won 1.1 million votes on Tuesday, more than any other Libertarian presidential candidate in history. In an interview with TIME, Johnson talks about his campaign, the consequences of re-electing Obama and his plans for the future.
Was it worth it?
As I told the students every time I visited a campus, you are the director of your own movie, and if you aren’t enjoying what you are doing, change it. That’s the way I operate, and if this campaign hadn’t been worth it every day, I wouldn’t have been out there. The ideas we are promoting are important, and having the opportunity to go out and promote them every day is not only worth it but essential.
What was the high point of the campaign for you?
There were many great moments, but the most heartening experience was visiting college campuses around the country and having hundreds of young people turn out to ask the tough questions, enlist in our movement and display a level of energy that was truly encouraging for the future.
What do you think your candidacy accomplished?
I hope that people will see that we don’t have to sit by the sidelines and watch as the two major parties limit their choices to slightly different flavors of the status quo. It is, in fact, possible to join the fray, stand up for principles and offer a real alternative. Of course, now that we appear to have re-elected the status quo, both in the White House and in the Congress, I hope those same people will see that there is a very real need for the process to welcome, rather than exclude, new and different ideas.
Any predictions for Obama’s second term?
Regardless of who wins, an election should be a time for optimism and fresh approaches. It obviously remains to be seen if that will be the case in a second Obama term. I fear that it will not be. I am actually one of those who took President Obama at his word when he first ran — that he would get us out of ill-advised wars, that he would do something about health care costs and that he would protect civil liberties. Like many Americans, I was disappointed. If the President somehow sees his re-election as an endorsement of his first term, I fear that we could be in serious trouble. We cannot sustain another four years of growing debt, wars we cannot afford and ever expanding government. Based on the outcome of the election, I frankly see a continuation of gridlock as Washington puts politics ahead of the good of the country and refuses to truly address the challenges we face. If that is the case, I am afraid the next four years may look a lot like the last four.
What have you personally gotten out of running for President?
I have gotten thousands of new friends, a renewed sense of optimism from the energy and determination I see in our young people and the satisfaction of doing something rather than sitting on the couch and watching our country go in a direction that it cannot sustain.
What are you doing now, and what do you plan on doing in the future?
Right now, I’m taking a deep breath, recharging the batteries and giving serious consideration to how best we can deploy the grassroots organization we built and the tremendous energy of our supporters to put individual liberty and economic freedom back on America’s agenda. To the extent that I can continue to give voice to those ideas, I will.Sometimes it seems like the only way to escape the bombardment of information from the digital and physical world is to flee into the countryside, far from the reach of broadband lines or cell signals. Apparently designer Joe Doucet isn't satisfied with the idea of holing up in the mountains to get away from it all, and has come up with an artistic solution. The "One Sense" headphones not only cover the wearer's ears, but a bright red band of spikes wraps around their face to shut out the visual world and discourage outside interruptions. Sure, they probably aren't very practical, but the point is to make a statement about the ever-increasing distractions from technology, advertising, and the modern world in general. "One Sense symbolises the human need for periods of peace and tranquility," says Doucet on the headphones' design. They might block out the world to the user, but they don't look like they provide much peace or tranquility to onlookers.
We don't expect you'll be able to buy your own pair of One Sense headphones anytime soon, but if you'd like to check them out in person, they'll be on display at the Meet My Project design show in Milan at the end of April, and in New York City during Design Week in May.You'd be rather hard-pressed to find an individual in the grime scene as complex as Joseph Ellis. Earning sonic stripes firstly as Young Dot, the brazen, fear-inducing MC from South London who came up under Essentials, he later grew into a fully-rounded musician as Dot Rotten and went on to get signed to Mercury in 2011. Ellis released a handful of chart-friendly singles in "Overload", "Keep It On A Low" et al., but his mission to change the face of British pop was short lived: major disagreements in-camp caused the outspoken act to retreat, reflect, and reconsider his options. The verdict? Start his own label: Minarmy, which has since released projects from the likes of Ipswich-based grime outfit Brotherhood, R&B/pop singer Jamal Woon, and Ice Kid: the ever-elusive one.
Few wordsmiths with a penchant for 140 beats per minute could step to either of Joseph's alter egos—on wax, or live in a clash—however for the past few years, his pen has been in retirement to focus on producing as ZEPH ELLIS, for some of the UK's finest musicians. As recently as last week, though, Dot Rotten was brought back to life via a diss track for his old OGz crew member, P Money. Beef between the two has never before been put on record—until now, that is, with P Money creating a whole EP around it called Snake. Complex caught up with the newly revived Dot Rotten to discuss said lyrical war, and why he's so misunderstood.
What should we call you these days: Young Dot, Dot Rotten, or ZEPH ELLIS? You seemed to have resurrected Dot Rotten in a big way on your new tracks "Real Talk" and "Organised Grime".
I currently look after two brands: ZEPH ELLIS and Dot Rotten, and both do two different things. ZEPH ELLIS is a producer/engineer who provides instrumentals and caters to artists' music needs, while Dot Rotten provides lyrics and songs and songwriting. So, basically, call me whichever you feel comfortable with because they're both my brands.
In those diss tracks, you call out P Money and a few members of the OGz—which you were once a valued member of—and it sounded like you got rid of a few demons, too. But why did you decide to drop the tracks now after all these years? It's been a whole decade since you actually left the group.
First thing's first, JP: I don't have any demons to get rid of... None! As for why I choose to release them right now, anyone who has any idea about the Dot Rotten brand has a real understanding of what's been going on over the years. But, from now on, I'm just gonna let the music do all the talking.
For those that don't know, what was the real reason for you leaving the crew?
It's a very simple but basic answer—I wanted to.
I think you're a misunderstood character. People always want to know what's going on in your head; why you tweet the things you do, and why you say the things you say. Do you care about people's perception of you?
If I spent time caring about people perception of me, I wouldn't create half the music I do. The fact that I'm misunderstood stems from me not giving people more to know about me, as well as the fact that everyone has something to say about me which spreads a bad stigma. But regardless, I just keep doing me. Loads of people are discussing how I tweet, but it's got to the point where, as I'm growing as a man, I don't even want to say anything. Yeah, I've said some crazy stuff in the past, but that's just me, innit? All artists are crazy and everyone's entitled to their opinion. Whatever people think about it, they're gonna think about it. I can't really change their perception.
As someone who's been there from the start, what are your thoughts on the recent commercialisation of grime? Personally speaking, I think the scene, right now, needs some of that early rawness back.
I don't know where others stand, but I know where I do: I plan to make the most of all the opportunities that are brought my way. As for the rawness and the grime scene, I didn't plan on rapping again and I scoped that even though I might not want to, it's much bigger than me. The people have been asking for it, and, although I'm not a slave to my fans, I understand when I've starved them for too long.
Who's currently ticking your boxes on the lyrical front?
[Long pause] You know what it is? I don't listen to anyone to rate anyone. I'm a pen guy, so when it comes to lyrics, I don't chat no shit. I'm not trying to chat shit in my lyrics one bit; I'm trying to hit them with metaphors, similies, multies, and give people something to learn from. My frequency, my energies, my chakras are not energised by half of the things I hear today. The producers are the guys, though. They're the ones keeping the scene bubbling over. From drill to trap to commercial producers—they're the real stars to me. I want to see the producers earn what artists earn, because there are so many industries built around producers.
All artists are crazy and everyone's entitled to their opinion.
There would be no clubs without producers; no alcohol sold without producers. There wouldn't be iTunes without producers. There would be no music behind adverts without producers. How are you going to sell RSPCA without that sad music in the background? So, if I could change anything today, it would be how producers are treated. An artist should be bench-pressing their producer in the air, like: "This is my producer."
Production-wise, as ZEPH ELLIS, you've had a great run. 2015 was a good year for you especially: your "XCDX BXMB" beat got laced by Kano and AJ Tracey and was easily one of the biggest instrumentals of that year. Even 2005's "Bazooka Riddim"—which is still probably my favourite production of yours—ten years on, it still goes off in the rave. Do you think today's producers have the ear to create grime classics like back in the day?
This is the thing: you've got beat-makers and then you have producers. Currently, the producers following my generation are '90s babies; they were born '95 onwards. They're not getting your Earth, Wind & Fires, your Stevie Wonders, your Miles Davis'—they're not getting real music. For me, 1988 onwards—even though that's the year I was born—it was the year of the boundary of the old and new school. It was the year of families still linking up on a Sunday for good food, with reggae banging out from every corner. I just feel like, in this current time, a producer will deliver what they know sounds right—because he's got that ear. Whereas a beat-maker creates solely for the voice of a rapper.
A classic is based on one person's opinion and if others agree, producers have the power to make epic stuff and do all the time, but if it doesn't capture the culture's attention, it goes straight into the achieve. I made "Bazooka" when I was 15 years old and I'm 28 now... I guess it's just good to see your work last the test of time, and it gives me a good idea of the life span that instrumentals have if they get taken in to the scene. In addition to AJ and Kano, I've also produced for MoStack, Mist, Stefflon Don, Birdman, Sy Ari Da Kid, President T, Wiley, Jammer, Nafe Smalls and a few more acts as well.
You've had your label issues in the past, but can you see yourself signing to a major again?
Listen, I have no manager, no marketing team, no PR guy, no radio pluggers, and no label. Unless a team with all the above get in contact with me and intend on having my best interests at heart—and they keep it 100 with their intentions—then I'll stick to how I have it right now. The fans are my label. They back all of my movements.
What's the next move for Joseph Ellis?
The Dot Rotten brand has been dormant for a while and this recent comeback will progress in good speed. I just plan to put as much worth back into the brand as I possibly can, but I guess only time will tell. As for my ZEPH ELLIS brand, this is where I invest the majority of my time and will continue to produce amazing music for the culture. I'd like to score some films as well.Bonucci: ‘Juventus still favourites’
By Football Italia staff
Leonardo Bonucci admits Milan are “still a step below” Juventus and Napoli but “we mustn’t limit ourselves”.
The Rossoneri have spent over €200m on new signings this summer, with the centre-back their marquee signing after his €40m move from the Old Lady.
“Juve remain favourites and Napoli have a great chance of fighting for the Scudetto,” Bonucci predicted in his interview with Gazzetta dello Sport. Read parts one and two here.
“As we are now we’re still a step below both, but we mustn’t limit ourselves. After those two, I see Milan, Inter and Roma as equals.
“If Andrea Belotti or Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang arrive? Belotti is someone who drags you forward, he’s such a hard worker.
“I don’t know if he’ll come, but whoever does come in has to be available for both phases.
“A top-class striker will make things easier in so many ways, it would be the perfect end to a stimulating and exciting transfer campaign.”
Bonucci was then asked for his opinion on Coach Vincenzo Montella.
“I see a lot of desire to improve in him, as well as to transmit the will to win. He’s a very clever tactician, he’s a Coach with a great future and I hope I can win with him.
“His idea of football is very good, I’ve never seen anyone play this kind of game with a four-man defence.
“Will we switch to three at the back? To be honest, four or three is the same for me. In fact, with three there’s a lot more pitch to defend.
“Do you know how many times I’ve found myself one-on-one?
“Will I be a Coach? Absolutely, yes. I’ve been thinking about it for four or five years. I’ll play for another six or seven years and then I’ll coach.
“It’s something that [Antonio] Conte instilled in me, I see myself being a bit like him.
“Then I also want to raise a trophy as a Coach…”Brasserie Auval Continues to Wow the Canadian Beer Scene!
An article by Noah Forrest
This will be my third article about Brasserie Auval within a year. In that short time, they have has managed to climb the ranks, becoming one of the most sought after breweries in the country. Every day now, Facebook trading forums are lined with posts about Brasserie Auval. When their bottles hit stores, they last hours, not days.
Part of this recent spike was related to Auval’s need to temporarily stop distributing to Montreal for the summer months. This was done in order to give priority to the local Gaspesian population. However, summer is long over, so there is at least one thing to look forward to as we get hit in the face by winter sadness. During this distribution hiatus, it’s not like Ben (owner/brewer) was sitting around, soaking in the sun. Oh no, he managed to pump out loads of brand new hopped up, fruited, and barrel aged bottles for us all to drool over.
Although the success and hype surrounding a particular brewery is not always properly represented or warranted, I think Auval is worth your time and effort. Remembering of course, that at the end of the day, it’s just beer. Auval, like many breweries that have a following, carry an enticing, almost mythical presence. There is a certain excitement when holding one of their bottles, which is partially related to the work it took to get your hands on it. It is, however, worth it once you pour out that gentle elixir, and bathe in the deliciousness.
The brilliance behind Auval lies in the subtlety of their beers. So many breweries these days like to throw ingredients at you, as if to blast your senses with extreme flavours. In my opinion, the best beers are the ones that can impress you with their lack of intensity. Don’t get me wrong, I still like big and bold, but nuanced balance should be the main focus. Auval nails this.
Today, I want to talk about several of Auvals more recent offerings, like their amazing pilsner and some barrel aged fruited ales. However, what I’m most excited about is introducing you to Ben’s latest creation, Ribes Nigrum, a barrel aged wild ale with black currents (cassis), which will be coming out in mid-December. Hear about it first on Beerism!
C-12 PIVO
Because of the decades upon decades of Pilsner-centric brewing, this style of beer is far less popular among craft-beer enthusiasts. This however, is changing. I’d like to see more craft Pilsner be readily available for purchase, and I’m sure we’ll get there.
The nose carries lots of supple honey and hay aromas, mixed with fruity yeast esters, somewhat reminiscent of a Saison. Tangy German hops pop through as well, with light citrus and herbal components.
This is incredibly easy going, but potent enough to let you know that it’s there. It’s soft on my palate, but carries an ample bitterness in the finish, which crushes through the the honey sweetness. Just like the nose, C-12 carries a certain farmhouse character alongside the herbal hops and Pilsner malts. Although this is not quite as clean as a classic pils, I love the balance and overall yeast presence.
Nordet IPA
Nordet is the latest IPA released by Auval, this one particularly showcasing the North-East IPA breeding style. It pours out beautifully foggy and hazy, with yellow-orange colours swirling around.
The nose is a giant citrus bomb, throwing gigantic grapefruit and clementine aromatics at me with crazy fervor. Some freshly mowed lawn / wet dank grass blasts my senses and is accompanied by a fruity bonanza of wonderfulness.
The flavours match the nose, with a huge fruit presence that just screams freshness. It’s juicy and tangy, with fruity esters all around resulting in perfect balance. It’s bone dry, but still carries enough body and sweetness so that it’s not watery in the least.
Everything is plentiful and intense all around, while all in balance. Citrus leads the way, with giant grapefruit and orange notes; stone fruits come through as well, adding peaches and plums to the mix. It finishes with a lingering bitterness that makes itself known while not cutting though all the juiciness. The finish leaves my palate clean enough, while still echoing the fruit salad that preceeded it. This might just be the best bottled IPA to ever come out in Quebec.
Saison Cerise
Saison Ceries is an oak aged saison, made with cherries. The nose wafts huge fruity aromatics, throwing cherry pie at my senses. Berries in general come through, with a cranberry-like element and some acidic sourness. Some slight dusty funk comes through as well, adding new layers of complexity to this incredibly inviting nose.
The flavours match the nose pretty much to a tee. There are loads of cherry qualities that add a burst of fruity goodness, alongside an ample but balanced acidity. There are nice bitter phenols that help balance the fruit and keep everything in check. The finish is perfectly dry, with a clean but fruit forward ending that balances the sweetness and acidity with brilliance.
There are slight vinous notes alongside some oak spiciness, lending extra character to the overall flavour profile. As it warms, the tannic bitterness really comes through, providing an almost grapefruit-like bitterness and cherry skin astringency. This, once again, helps dry the beer even further.
Gougou
Gougou is a dry hopped oak aged wild Ale, brewed with apricots. The nose begins with all kinds of subtleties, just like all Auval beers. Light apricot aromas dance alongside a solid bretty phenolic zip and some great fruity esters. A citrusy hop punch and some spicy oak add more layers to this rather inviting nose.
Just as the aromas foretold, everything is balanced and non-aggressive. The apricots are slightly more potent, but still only provide a subtle fruit base to complement and not overpower the fruity hop and brett profile.
Gougou is very dry, with a nice tannic finish that leaves a vinous component on your palate after each sip. This is further complicated by spicy oak flavours and a nice bretty funk (that again, is only subtle). The fruit adds a tartness to it, making it more juicy. The body is light, and the finish is rather light, without being too watery.
Ribes Nigrum (Cassis)
The nose carries huge musty brett funk, with slight barnyard and earthy damp basement. The fruitiness comes through as well, throwing out loads of berry aromatics alongside some cherry and, well, currents. Vinous oak comes through as well, complimenting the jammy and bright fruit elements quite nicely.
It’s rather tart, bordering on sour, but like all Auval beers, it’s quite subtle and unassuming. The currents are the star of course, lending tart and tannic fruit that carries some slight jammy sweetness. Other fruity nuances come out as well, and again just like the nose, it lends berries and cherries into the mix.
I think this is the most funked fruited wild beer Auval has done to date. The earthy brett components provide beautiful musty aromatics and the finish is nicely phenolic. As usual this is exceptionally dry, with the fruit tannins and phenolic bitters wiping my palate clean immediately after each sip. There are lingering tannins left on my tongue, as if chewing on grape skins.
This is less jammy than some of the other fruited Auval beers, but as usual, the balance and subtlety is beautifully executed. I like how crazy tannic this is, and how much oak and bretty funk comes through. It’s really it’s own thing.
It’s becoming more clear with each new batch of Auval beers, that what Ben is doing on his small farm in Gaspé is one of the most important beer-related things happening in the country right now. The balance, drinkability, and general craftsmanship of his work is unmatched in my opinion, at least within Quebec. Given how many remarkable brewers and breweries exist in this province, that’s saying a lot. So, if you are lucky enough to land some bottles of Auval, cherish them, because they are great!
An article by Noah Forrest
Photography by Noah Forrest
AdvertisementsThe Blues have named six All Blacks who will make their first start of the Investec Super Rugby season to play the Highlanders at Eden Park on Saturday.
Co-Captains James Parsons and Jerome Kaino are named in the pack that also sees a start for prop Charlie Faumuina and lock Patrick Tuipulotu.
There’s a further change in the forwards with North Harbour newcomer Murphy Taramai to make his first Super Rugby start at No 8. Coach Tana Umaga said Murphy has been rewarded for his excellent form in the pre-season and first two games, while Akira Ioane will provide his energy from the bench.
In the backs, All Blacks George Moala comes in at second five and Rene Ranger on to the wing to replace the unlucky Piers Francis and Melani Nanai, who will see action off the bench.
Parsons will captain the side in his return after suffering from concussion early in the Mitre 10 Cup competition for North Harbour. He completed 40 minutes of action for the Blues Development side last weekend.
Umaga said the team has welcomed back their All Blacks who are now ready for starting action.
“Jerome and Patrick had delayed starts while Charlie has worked his way to excellent form, and both George and Rene impressed when they came on last week against the Chiefs,” Umaga said.
“There’s good depth in this squad and so there is going to be times when strong players won’t get starts always.”
There is a powerful bench that features All Black Ofa Tu’ungafasi and the return of Sam Prattley in the front row, with Francis and Nanai to spark things in the backs.
The game kicks off at 7.35pm. Get your tickets here.
The team is:
Pauliasi Manu, James Parsons (C), Charlie Faumuina, Jimmy Tupou, Patrick Tuipulotu, Jerome Kaino, Blake Gibson, Murphy Taramai; Augustine Pulu, Ihaia West, Rene Ranger, George Moala, Rieko Ioane, Matt Duffie, Michael Collins.
Replacements: Matt Moulds, Sam Prattley, Ofa Tu’ungafasi, Gerard Cowley-Tuioti, Akira Ioane or Kara Pryor, Billy Guyton, Piers Francis, Melani Nanai.Building 7 was a 47-story skyscraper and was part of the World Trade Center complex. It collapsed at 5:20 pm on September 11, 2001. It was not hit by either airplane, but by falling columns of the Twin Towers. But it has become the focus of attention for 9/11 conspirators.
I mean everyone believes in one 9/11 conspiracy or another. I believe in the one that saw a bunch of jihadist terrorists conspire to fly a number of American flights into prominent buildings across the country.
But for Building 7 doubters, it fits into the idea that all the buildings were toppled from the inside by explosives, the whole operation was a front by the US government to engineer an international situation. The timeline of everything is key.
It’s a contentious issue, but one that I wasn’t expecting to be picked up by the first full issue of the new Mighty Morphin Power Rangers comic book out next week…
Here’s the full preview to issue 1…
It’s a conspiracy!
About Rich Johnston Chief writer and founder of Bleeding Cool. Father of two. Comic book clairvoyant. Political cartoonist.
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None foundMINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — The idea of living in a town under a dome isn’t all that crazy. In fact, it almost happened in Minnesota back in the early 1970s.
The idea started with a cartoon by a famous futurist, Dr. Athelstan Spilhaus, who was also helped create the skyway system in downtown Minneapolis.
In the late 1960’s, Minnesota received $250,000 in seed money from the federal government and another $670,000 from businesses, and decided to build the experimental city three hours north of the Twin Cities in Swatara.
It was a planned community with 250,000 residents, experiments in technology, sociology, and education and “people movers” to replace cars and their internal combustion engines.
Sharon Moen is writing a book about Spilhaus.
“Back in the day, they called it MXC for Minnesota Experimental City,” Sharon Moen said. “Some of the plans had it being moveable pods. Some of the plans had it under this humongous geodesic dome. But it was going to be unlike any city that we experience today,” Moen said.
This was her first trip to Swatara.
“They picked Minneapolis and Duluth and came out to Aikin County as 100 miles away from any major city because it was not to be a bedroom community to any other place,” Moen said.
While taking pictures of the present, she painted a picture of what was supposed to be the future.
“The monorails would be above, other stuff below. Ground would just be for shopping, enjoying the sun as filtered through the dome,” Moen said.
However, support from the legislature dried up in 1973, amid opposition from environmental groups and local residents.
Now, Swatara looks a lot like a ghost town, with abandoned buildings, a few dozen homes and a lone bar on the corner of Highway 169.
“It would be interesting to see if there had been a quarter of a million people, how much different things would have been,”
Instead, Moen is left to study history — and a lost opportunity – at the city that never was.
“This place would have looked, wow, very technocratic. Looked like Silicon Valley, probably, with innovators of science living in and around here,” Moen said. “It would not have looked like this.”
Moen’s book comes out in October. She works in Duluth for Sea Grant, which is a water protection program that was also one of Spilhaus’s ideas.NICOLA TALLANT SHE is remembered as a cold-hearted abortionist who preyed on unfortunate women, including one said to have been dragged from her operating table to die on the pavement of a Dublin street.
NICOLA TALLANT SHE is remembered as a cold-hearted abortionist who preyed on unfortunate women, including one said to have been dragged from her operating table to die on the pavement of a Dublin street.
After a trial that scandalised and horrified the country in 1957, Nurse Mamie Cadden was sensationally sentenced to death but died justtwo years later in a mental hospital after being declared insane.
But now, a new book claims to shed extraordinary light on the life of Nurse Cadden with claims that she was actually an excellent surgeon responsible for saving hundreds of women - many of whom are still alive today.
Ray Kavanagh says Cadden provided a life-or-death service denied to women who were refused contraception by the State and who often had as many as 10 children.
"She performed abortions on women who were warned they would die if they hadanother baby. She was anexcellent professional and has been very badly treated byhistory," he says.
"Ireland had a very busy abortion industry between the Twenties and the Fifties, and I have no doubt that there are many women alive today who owe their lives to Nurse Cadden." The glamorous blonde nurse, who drove a red MG and lived the high life while working as a backstreet abortionist in Dublin, hasalways been rememberedfor the one operation that went wrong.
When impoverished alcoholic mother-of-six Helen O'Reilly turned to Cadden for help with an unplanned pregnancy, the nurse accepted Helen's £15 to perform the abortion, despite being well into her 60s and in poor health. While syringing Jeyes Fluid into the 33-year-old's womb, Cadden stalled and accidentally injected a bubble of air which entered O'Reilly's blood and killed her.
Cadden stood trial for the murder, was convicted and sentenced to death, but a year later was found insane and died two years later in 1959 in the Dundrum Mental Hospital. According to his book Mamie Cadden, Backstreet Abortionist, Kavanagh says that the nurse was an angel of hope to thousands of women who went to her for help.
"More than 100 years after her birth, she is still a topic of conversation and controversy in Ireland. In Dublin it seems that everyone over 60 has a story to tell about her.
"Perhaps she was the most hated woman of 20th-century Ireland by those who deplored her profession and her ethics. But what of the thousand plus women who came to her in desperation when all else had failed them. How many mother's lives did she save? And how many are living today because of her intervention."
The book chronicles how Mamie trained at theNational Maternity Hospital in Dublin as a midwife before opening her own nursing home in 1925 in Rathminesin Dublin.
In those days, nursing homes were not the final refuge of the elderly but a safe haven for young girls, pregnant out of wedlock, to have their children then adopt them.
While running her own business, Cadden realised the need for an abortion service in Dublin and began performing operations. In the Thirties, she used Ergot of Rye which caused contractions and thus a miscarriage. She later used an implement which expanded the cervix causing miscarriage and later a HigginsSyringe to inject disinfectant between the membrane of the foetus and the womb wall - the method that was to go wrong for Helen O'Reilly.
Cadden lived the high life during the late Twenties and early Thirties, buying herself a red sports car and keeping herself immaculate. With her trademark long blonde hair, she drank at the Shelbourne Bar and was able to name a list of Dublin's socialites as friends. By day, she performed her abortions on women who were often referred to her by their doctors.
"She was trained, qualified - a professional. There was a need for her service as the Irish State did not allow abortion. A lot of women she would have operated on had had seven or ten children and had been warned to have no more or they would die giving birth.
"For them, it's safe to say that she saved their lives
|
thulhu, has been a fan of H.P. Lovecraft’s writing since his teens, more years ago than he cares to talk about, when he read The Outsider in a book he borrowed from his freshman English teacher. He has been hooked ever since. Ironically, he had read through most of Lovecraft’s other stories before he was able to track down the actual Call of Cthulhu story itself… the wait was worth it.
Even being a fan, he did not know there was a role-playing game based on the Cthulhu Mythos until almost a decade later, at Bashcon in Toledo, Ohio. He has almost never had so much fun having a character get ripped limb from limb by an enraged Elder Thing, except for the time a Mi-Go sucked his character’s brain out, or the time he accidentally summoned Azathoth and was standing about five feet from the fiery Elder God when it manifested.
Working on Age of Cthulhu (and the occasional Chaosium Call of Cthulhu book) is very close to a dream come true. He gets to draw horribly mutilated corpses and nightmarish monsters on a regular basis and get paid for it. He would like to say he also likes to draw puppies, flowers, and fluffy bunnies, but his mommy told him never to tell a lie.
Brad loves to hear from his fans (assuming he has any) and may be reached at [email protected]. More of his work may be seen at www.bradleykmcdevitt.net, at Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bradley-K-McDevitt-Illustration), Tumblr (http://www.tumblr.com/blog/artmann100), and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/bkmcdevitt).
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PORTAGE PARK — Plans to turn a long-vacant former bank building in the Six Corners Shopping District into a grocery store are still active, the owner of Cermak Fresh Market said.
Ald. John Arena (45th) was not correct when he told a meeting of the Six Corners Business Association last week that the grocery chain definitely planned to sell the vacant Bank of America building at 4901 W. Irving Park Road and focus on taking over two former Dominick's stores, said Cermak Fresh Market owner Mike Bousis.
"I like the neighborhood," Bousis said of the 45th Ward, which includes Portage Park and Jefferson Park. "It will be good for my brand. We want to be there."
Cermak Fresh Market will take over two shuttered Dominick's grocery stores — one in West Rogers Park at 6623 N. Damen Ave. and the other in Lincolnwood at 6810 N. McCormick Blvd., just outside the city limits, Bousis said. The chain is also opening a new store in Milwaukee.
Arena told the business owners at the Six Corners Community Leaders Roundtable that Bousis had been "distracted" from plans to build a full-scale grocery store featuring ethnic foods, a full-service bakery and prepared foods at Six Corners by the work involved in converting the former Dominick's and was looking to "turn the property over again."
"We want to get that property into the hands of someone who wants to do something in the near term," Arena said.
Bousis acknowledged he and his team were working hard to reopen the former Dominick's stores but said the alderman's statement was not correct.
"We're not distracted," Bousis said.
For nearly 10 months, Bousis and Arena have been debating whether the original building at 4901 W. Irving Park Road — and a historic theater inside — can be salvaged, leaving the project in limbo.
The grocery store project would require a change in the property's zoning and the alderman's support.
However, at the alderman's request, Bousis is reconsidering his original plan to tear down both the former bank building and a single-story shop he owns next door to build the new supermarket. There is no way to turn the existing building into the grocery store, Bousis said.
Because Arena has said he would like to see the theater incorporated into Six Corners' burgeoning arts and entertainment district — and also has concerns about whether a grocery store would be a good fit so close to nearby homes — Bousis said he is considering selling the property if he can find another nearby location for his grocery store.
"If the deal isn't right, we aren't going to sell," Bousis said, adding that he has fielded "a couple" of inquiries from people interested in buying the properties. He declined to identify the interested parties.
Bousis said he has not found another nearby location for his store.
Owen Brugh, Arena's chief of staff, downplayed any disagreement between the alderman and the grocery store chain owner, and said Arena would welcome a Cermak Fresh Market in the 45th Ward.
"We're still working with him on the future of 4901 W. Irving Park Road and other potential locations," Brugh said. "He wants to be here, and we'd love to have him here."
A city-commissioned master plan, completed in January, said efforts to revitalize the area around Irving Park Road and Cicero and Milwaukee avenues, which was once Chicago's premier shopping district outside the Loop, hinge on the redevelopment of the building, which has been vacant since 2011.With Windows 10, Microsoft is doing something different that no one has done before with an operating system. It announced Windows 10 way back in September 2014, and allowed people to use the unfinished version of the OS for free well before its general availability.
While, the company had done this earlier with developer previews of Windows, the technical preview of Windows 10 was a very early build. Microsoft runs a programme called Windows Insiders, where Insiders can test the OS and offer it feedback on how to improve it and iron out its quirks.
Now, the Redmond-based technology giant, has announced that it has received more than a million feedback messages on how to enhance Windows 10, which is expected to be available later in the year.
Microsoft's engineering manager Gabriel Aul, who is responsible for the Windows Insider programme tweeted, "Wow! We just received our one millionth piece of feedback from the Feedback app! Woohoo! #WindowsInsiders."
Windows 10 already at this early stage seems to be a hit with early adopters who believe it to be superior operating system than Windows 8.1. Microsoft, so far, has released two major builds of the technical preview and also has released a version for phones.
Windows 10 fixes many of the user interface problems users faced with Windows 8. On the phone, it also adds a lot of new features that are found on Android devices. The OS also scales across a wide array of devices that include traditional PCs, tablets, phones, wearables, the Xbox, and even Internet of things hardware. Recent reports have suggested that Microsoft will push updates through peer to peer technology. As of now the technical preview doesn't have this feature.
Microsoft is also re -imagining the business model around Windows. For devices that are smaller than 9-inches Windows is free. In fact, Windows 10 will also be a free upgrade for users of Windows 7 and Windows 8. Like its Office productivity suite, Microsoft is now planning to think of Windows as a service.
With the market for traditional PCs sinking, the success of Windows on new type of hardware is imperative for Microsoft. Windows is central to the company and in the past its Windows Phone platform has been a failure. The company hopes that this will change with Windows 10.The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) has blocked access to its webpages designating PYD as the “Syrian affiliate” of the terrorist PKK group.
Visitors to the site on Thursday were greeted with an error message when attempting to access the PKK section that gives profiles of the terrorist groups. By Friday, access was denied to the entire section.
Before it was blocked, the profile page for the PKK – listed as a terrorist organisation by the US – mentioned the PYD as a cause for a “heightened threat to Turkey and increased tensions along the border”.
The PYD “has increased its presence in northern Syria along the border with Turkey by establishing control in Kurdish areas,” according to the web document.
That particular reference to the group was also included in the 2013 calendar edition issued online by the NCTC, although it has been removed for the current 2015 edition and the previous 2014 publication.
A separate NCTS Web page on Turkey’s domestic terrorism doesn’t list the PYD and an Internet search for the agency’s listed terror organisations sends users to a page that is unavailable.
The agency did not respond to Anadolu Agency request for comment.
The dynamics of the links between Turkey, the US and the PYD have caused a strain in the ties between Ankara and Washington. US officials have been adamant in recent weeks in their refusal to recognize the PYD – or its armed wing, the YPG – as a terrorist organisation, instead calling the YPG a “reliable partner” in the fight against Daesh, supporting the group with weapons and training.
Ankara sees all three – the PYD, YPG and the PKK – as terrorist organizations, and has frequently pointed to the link between these groups active in Turkey and Syria.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has dubbed the YPG “a pawn of the Syrian regime”, citing a Feb. 17 Ankara terror attack that left 28 people dead and 81 injured.
Turkish officials have determined that the attack was carried out jointly by a Syrian-national YPG member and PKK terrorists based in Turkey. A day before the attack, Syria’s envoy to the UN said the PYD enjoys the support of not only the U.S. but also the Assad regime.
“These Syrian Kurds supported by the American administration are also supported by the Syrian government, just for your kind information”, Bashar Ja’afari told reporters.
The Turkish military shelled PYD/YPG positions in northern Syria for a week beginning Feb. 13 in response to artillery fire from PYD forces based around Aleppo’s Azaz town, located just 6 kilometers (4 miles) from the Turkish border.
The NCTC’s PKK (KGK) profile can be found here.
The agency defines the PKK is a precursor to Kongra-Gel, or KGK, an umbrella organization that includes other domestic terror groups.BEIJING, June 29 -- Years of negotiations between the Shanghai government and Walt Disney Co. appear to have clinched a deal for a huge Disneyland to be built in Pudong.
The official announcement is expected to be made after the Beijing Olympics in August.
An exclusive report published by the Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po newspaper yesterday said the park will cover about 10 square kilometers of land - about eight times the size of Hong Kong Disneyland.
It will be near Pudong's Chuansha Town, about 20 minutes' drive from Pudong International Airport.
Earlier media reports had said the Shanghai government preferred it to be built on the city's island county Chongming.
Yesterday's report quoted unnamed people involved in the discussion, saying Shanghai Disneyland won't follow the Hong Kong model, in which the Hong Kong government leased the land to Disney.
The Shanghai government will provide the land, finance construction, and own the majority stake in the park, the report said.
Management rights will be given to Disney, which will also get royalties and a percentage of operational income.
The report said the park will open "at the earliest possible time" in 2012, when about one-third of the park will be completed.
"Considering inflation, the budget to build the park, excluding the land cost, should rise to about 40 billion yuan (5.7 billion U.S. dollars), from the earlier estimate of 30 billion yuan," an unnamed "expert involved in the appraisal of the project" was quoted as saying.
In March, Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng said the local government had applied to the central government to build a Disneyland.
It would be the third Disneyland in Asia after Japan and Hong Kong.
Walt Disney Co signed a statement of intent to build a Disneyland on the Chinese mainland in 2002, and then set up a venture to develop it.
The plan was put on hold because of concerns that the Hong Kong park, opened in 2005, would suffer.
(Source: Shanghai Daily/Agencies)There is evidence to suggest North Korea's burgeoning intercontinental ballistic missile program, supposedly hampered by sanctions and the lack of an open market for weapons, might be aided by Russia, if not smugglers on the black market, The Washington Post reported.
Michael Elleman, a weapons expert and former Pentagon consultant, has studied North Korea's now-rapidly advancing ICBM program, spotting eery similarities to the Soviet Union's RD-250s, according to the Post.
"It shocked me," Elleman told the paper. "It seemed to come out of nowhere.
"It would mean that North Korea had a wider procurement network in the former Soviet Union than we had thought. My first question would be, 'What else have they got?'"
Elleman, having studied Soviet rockets during the Cold War, pointed to similarities in the North Korean designs, "including cooling tubes, exhaust nozzles, and the four auxiliary engines that steer the rocket," according to the Post.
"They've had these designs for a long time, and they've probably been doing exercises around these engines for 15 years," Elleman added. "All that work was done, and all [that] was left to do was the ground testing and flight testing with these different designs. It is what has allowed them to rapidly build up and try all these things over the past few years."
The Kim Jong Un regime is "serious about trying to create a capability that could threaten the United States," Elleman told the Post.
"The missiles they're shooting now have some new engineering, but it's all based on old Soviet models," former CIA deputy director David S. Cohen, who advised the Obama administration on North Korea's weapons, told the paper.
Cohen fears Kim's regime has been underestimated for too long.
"It is a mistake to think that this is really a hermit kingdom that is cut off and doesn't have access to the Internet," Cohen told the Post. "They have a lot of disadvantages, but the biggest part of the government economy is their nuclear and missiles program, so the smartest folks they have are directed to do this work."Loading...
OneShot by Zev Youra Move with the mouse or touch; try to avoid the enemies. Enemies will merge when they run into each other. Survive as long as you can, then use your one shot (space bar, or! button on touch devices) before dying to score more points. Each enemy you detonate gives your score a multiplier. Bigger enemies give you a bigger multiplier. This is an with the mouse or touch; try to avoid the enemies. Enemies will merge when they run into each other.as long as you can, then use your(space bar, orbutton on touch devices) before dying to score more points. Each enemy you detonate gives your score a. Bigger enemies give you a bigger multiplier. This is an open-sourced entry in LD28 Play
Game Over Play Again
0!Jodie Foster helps keep search for aliens alive
by Staff Writers
Los Angeles (AFP) Aug 16, 2011
"Contact" star Jodie Foster was among donors helping to revive the 42 radio telescope dishes at a key California institute searching for extraterrestrial life, the group said Tuesday.
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in California, which got a direct hit from federal and California budget cuts, had to halt operations in April for its telescopes pointed toward outer space.
But after a public campaign launched on its website, SETI said it had received $223,000 -- exceeding its $200,000 goal -- from 2,557 donors, Foster among them.
The Allen Telescope Array (ATA) is "'good to go' and we need to return it to the task of searching newly discovered planetary worlds for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence," she said.
Recalling her role as an astronaut trying to get in contact with extraterrestrials in 1997's "Contact," Foster said the telescopes "could turn science fiction into science fact, but only if it is actively searching the skies. I support the effort to bring the array out of hibernation."
The amount of her donation was not revealed.
Apollo 8 mission astronaut Bill Anders, who also funded the SETI campaign, said "it is absolutely irresponsible of the human race not to be searching for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence.
Founded in 1984, SETI was due to relaunch its operations next month. But in order to ensure long-term research, it will have to find new sources of financing.
The group is putting its hopes behind getting a US Air Force contract to track orbiting space debris that could damage satellites and the International Space Station.RG-037 (a.k.a 7.62x28mm) was an experimental Soviet cartridge developed in 1983. Its parent cartridge is the 5.45x39mm. The RG-037 has similar dimensional relation to 5.45x39mm as the.300 Blackout has to.223 Remington. If you apply the.300 Blackout case forming method to the 5.45x39mm cartridge, then you’ll end up with something similar to the 7.62x28mm. The initial prototypes of this cartridge were probably made by cutting the 5.45x39mm case just below the shoulder (28mm) then necking down the cut case to.311 caliber (with some neck turning).
The history of this cartridge begins in 1983 when the Soviet union started “Vintorez” trials to adopt a new integrally suppressed weapon and subsonic ammunition. The designers first experimented with loading 7.62x25mm Tokarev cases with heavier projectiles to make a subsonic round. They shortly understood that this kind of solution didn’t meet the penetration requirements of the trials. They needed a long enough projectile to house a sufficiently large armor-piercing core and at the same time be heavy enough to travel at subsonic speed. The new cartridge also had to be loaded with more powder to propel the large bullet and generate enough pressure to cycle a semi-auto mechanism. So they had to design a new cartridge with greater case capacity than the 7.62x25mm Tokarev had.
This is when the RG-037 was born. It was designed by a man named N.V. Zabelin. The cartridge seemed to satisfy all the requirements and they even started manufacturing it in the Tula Ammunition Plant. However, the minimum penetration requirements for the new weapon/ammunition system were raised even more in 1984, which RG-037 couldn’t meet anymore. That lead to dropping the further development of this cartridge. The successor of RG-037 in the trials was 9x39mm cartridge, which was eventually adopted along with the Vintorez rifle.
I think if loaded with modern powders, this cartridge will perform better and it can be reintroduced at least in the countries which armies use 5.45x39mm caliber rifles. Just imagine an AKS-74U (a.k.a Krinkov) rifle chambered in this RG-037 caliber and suppressed. Although, I would rather go with simply necking up the 5.45x39mm case or factory forming the neck to.311 or.308 caliber. Here is what I mean:
The left round in the above image is what could a.311-5.45x39mm cartridge look like. I used Hornady cartridge images to make this mockup because of my “outstanding” (almost non-existent) CAD designing skills.
An AK-74 rifle (or one of its derivatives) chambered in such caliber could get all the benefits that.300 Blackout gives to the AR-15 platform: conversion requiring only a barrel change, effectively suppressed yet powerful subsonic round, same magazine capacity etc.Xiaomi has unveiled a new Mi Band 2 which is meant to commemorate the launch of the Mi 6 flagship. As you know, this year marks 7 years of Xiaomi’s existence but that may not be the only reason why the Mi 6 launch is being made to look so special. We expect the Mi 6 to come with a number of super stunning features other than packing a Snapdragon 835 chip. The Xiaomi Mi Band 2 Mi 6 Commemorative Edition was announced on Xiaomi’s Mi Band 2 official Weibo account today.
The new Xiaomi Mi Band 2 Mi 6 Commemorative Edition comes with the same design as the regular Mi Band 2 but the number “6” is engraved on the touchpad. Apart from that, the words “Mi 6 Memorial” is printed on a part of the rubber straps. These are the two differences on the new band. It is believed the features are the same with the regular Mi Band 2.
Read Also: Xiaomi Mi Band 2 Wins German Red Dot Design Award, A Special Limited Edition Could Be In The Works
The post did not state when the Mi Band 2 Mi 6 Commemorative Edition would go up for sale but it is expected that it would be sold alongside the Mi 6. Perhaps it could be a mysterious gift which Xiaomi plans to give out as gifts to attendees of the launch event. You can check out more images of the Xiaomi Mi Band 2 Mi 6 Commemorative Edition from under.May 11, 2014
The average American spends over 15% of their life watching TV. In the 1950s, commercials accounted for 13% of television. Today the percentage of commercials has jumped to around 33%. This means that, minus being forced to look at internet ads, or listening to radio advertisements, the typical American spends 5% of their entire life being advertised to. Our media is becoming less content, and more a means to sell products. Product placement and more recently, in-game advertising in video games, is becoming the norm. Capital does not even have the decency to let us numb our minds in peace.
Every aspect of media, from entertainment to the reporting of facts, has been co-opted into a tool of domination and division. It is not a coincidence that the same network which shows seemingly left-leaning shows like “The Simpsons” also owns a network which takes a far-right line of ranting about Communist conspiracies and demonizing the “liberal media.” The media and entertainment industry seeks to divide us and make us define ourselves by what music or television we enjoy. Manufactured cultural preferences are being designed to align themselves with manufactured political preferences. Already, people are letting their choices in media define their choices in life…the ultimate victory of consumerism.
Even the fringe of popular culture, what was once a frontier, has become as dead as the shopping centers which line areas once untouched by civilization. “Indie” bands play music for car commercials and movies which are anything but independent. Hipsterism has replaced any form of subculture or counterculture. It has substituted any form of protest against the system with consumerism thinly veiled by irony and obscure music. To those who fancy themselves outside the mainstream, spending half of one’s disposable income in a record store is considered acceptable, as long as they are the right kind of used records in the right dingy store. Hipsterism does not attack the act of buying happiness, it simply picks and chooses what types of happiness are acceptable to buy.
Even those who do not buy their media are still guilty of practicing a warped brand of reformism. Recent trends in activism managed to group around opposing online piracy acts like SOPA and PIPA. With large sites like Craigslist and Wikipedia joining in on the protests, these were arguably the largest movements of online activism the world has yet seen. The fundamental problem with this movement is that it is fighting to protect its right to be entertained by big media. Instead of using online resources to spread media and entertainment not beholden to multi-national corporations, these online protestors would rather complain about not being able to download the latest bootleg of The Daily Show. Withdrawal from media means not only refusing to be identified by our media purchases, but also recognizing that a free or stolen brainwashing is still a brainwashing nonetheless.
25 KudosLONDON — If someone asked you to predict the outcome of a pack of lions hunting a fleeing giraffe, you probably wouldn't bet too heavily on the giraffe.
But that's where you'd be wrong.
SEE ALSO: This video of an iguana being chased by snakes will give you nightmares from hell
As we found out during Sunday's episode of Planet Earth II, giraffes are significantly tougher than their spindly frames suggest.
Lion versus giraffe doesn't sound like a fair fight. But I get the feeling I'm about to be proved wrong #PlanetEarth2 — Greg Jenner (@greg_jenner) November 27, 2016
Early on in the episode, David Attenborough narrated a scene in which a hungry pack of lions were hunting down a giraffe.
"The giraffe has the speed and stamina to outrun the pride," said Attenborough. "But it's being chased into a trap.
"Up ahead, the lead female waits."
Turns out the trap wasn't as effective as the lions were hoping, though.
Twitter really got behind the giraffe.
That giraffe nearly kicked that lion's head off. Fair play to the lad. #planetearth2 — Mike P Williams (@Mike_P_Williams) November 27, 2016
There were some inevitable jokes.
Lion 1: "We lost another potential meal"
Lion 2: "Are you having a giraffe?"
Lion 1: "What did I just say?!"#planetearth2 — Jamie Hurrell (@Jamiehurrell) November 27, 2016
The clip made some people realise just how easy they've got it.
I thought I was stressed and then I saw that lion get kicked in the face by a giraffe #planetearth — Samantha Hacker (@SammiHacker) November 27, 2016
I will never complain about Mondays again after watching that lion get kicked in the face by a giraffe #PlanetEarth — Rares Stoica (@rares_stoica) November 27, 2016
All in all, though, this person probably summed the whole thing up best:
That giraffe just mugged that lion right off on Planet Earth II — Ell (@_ellienickson_) November 27, 2016
The lesson? Don't ever get on the wrong side of a giraffe.Sanda vs Muay Thai: which style is more effective in a fight?
Sanda vs Muay Thai: strong and weak points of each style
Sanda, also known as Chinese boxing, is a hybrid martial art based on Kung Fu with elements of kickboxing and wrestling.
Muay Thai, on the other hand, is based on a set of traditional Muay Boran techniques with a heavy influence on Western boxing.
Let's take a look at what makes each of those respective styles unique. And which one provides fighters with a better set of skills for stand-up fighting?
Sanda [Sanshou] is not a very popular sport outside of China. Not many people trains this martial art around the world. That means that there is a low competition level and a small pool of talents to choose from.
This situation isn't very helpful in training pro fighters that could successfully compete in the ring. The level of training doesn't allow most of them to compete with the best in MMA formula or K1/Glory ruleset.
This is, in my opinion, the major weakness of Sanshou. It is not a set of fighting techniques or a training methods that stop the expansion of Sanda. It is a lack of following and top level competition that makes Sanda weaker than Muay Thai or Dutch Kickboxing.
Sanda vs Muay Thai: cons and pros of each respective style
Lack of top level competition:
competitions than Muay Thai since it utilizes throws and takedown. And a Muay Thai fighter needs to learn a new skills to get a similar level of a takedown defense to fight in the cage.But the opposite seems to be true. There's a lot of fighters with Muay Thai background competing in MMA and there is no significant number of fighters with Sanda background. Again, low popularity and a lack of healthy competition may be blamed for that fact.
Muay Thai has a very tough and competetive selection process so becoming a professional MT champion means a lot. And those who reached the top are one of the toughest stand-up strikers in the world.
The rules and regulations:
Another reason of a low popularity of Sanda may be the ruleset. Each big formula like UFC, Strikeforce, K1/Glory has it's own ruleset that favor some martial arts over the others.
This also applies to Muay Thai to some extent with its scoring system. Muay Thai, however, blends well into K1/Glory formula. And with added takedown defence techniques it also formed a sizeable pool of stand up strikers and champions in MMA competitions.
Sanda, on the other hand, doesn't seem to blend well in those formulas. Rules, like pushing the other fighter out of the ring for getting extra points, doesn't benefit developing skills that may be effective in MMA.
Lack of head movement
Sanda fighters tend to keep their chins up and a neck straight. This weakness may be easily exploited by Muay Thai fighters with solid boxing skills.I'm not saying that Thai fighters are champions at head movement cause that's not true. This seems to be one of the greatest weaknesses of every Asian martial art when compared to Western boxing.
Forms
My last point is that Sanshou relies on forms. I wrote about a major weakness of forms in Karate vs Muay Thai post.In short: in my opinion practising forms is an obsolete form of training. It doesn't benefit fighter as much as a solid technical sparring session with a skilled opponent.
Also take a look at: Muay Thai versus Kung Fu Boxing vs Muay Thai Muay Thai versus Taekwondo Muay Thai vs kickboxing Muay Thai vs other martial arts
Sanda vs Muay Thai: Yi Long versus Buakaw
› Sanda vs Muay ThaiLongmont police patrol Cmdr. Dave Moore wanted to do a happy dance in his weekly command staff meeting Tuesday morning, but he controlled his giddiness in front of his colleagues.
Moore was grateful to learn that he was the last of 10 Ironman Boulder 2017 entrants chosen at random to compete in the Oct. 14 Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii — a qualification-only race for a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and 26.2-mile run.
"I figured I'd have to be doing Ironmans until I was 80 just to qualify," Moore, 46, said. "When only three people compete in your age group, you've got a good chance of making it in."
He said his wife registered him earlier this year before he knew there would be a drawing, but thought it'd be neat to have a shot at the elite race. He said he believed on Monday the chance was already over and that when his colleagues walked in the conference room, it was for a presentation.
"And then when I turned the other way and I saw Dave walking in the room, that's when I kind of realized what it's about," Moore said.
Ironman Boulder race director Dave Christen draped a yellow and orange lei over Moore's neck and blue uniform, congratulating him and offering his support.
"I think we'll get everyone together, the 10 people that won, and connect all of you guys so you have a group to go to Kona with," Christen said in the hallway outside the conference room.
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A track and long-distance runner previously, Moore went on to compete in his first triathlon in 2008 with a group of mainly law enforcement officers charged with raising money for then-detective Devi Suess. Moore and his wife, Wende, started Team Devi to raise money for her medical bills as she was battling Stage 4 uterine cancer, which she survived.
"Then I just got super engrossed in triathlons; they're just very addictive," he said. "And one year, I did a half Ironman and thought, 'Well, why can't I do a full one?' So I went on and did a full one that year and that was my first full Ironman."
The 2010 race in North Carolina was followed by the inaugural 2014 Boulder race, where he only finished three-fourths because temperature hovering just below 100 degrees seriously dehydrated him. He then returned to North Carolina in 2014, where he set a personal record of 12 hours and 37 minutes.
"That's why I'm going back to Boulder, because I didn't finish it last time and it didn't want to leave it unfinished," he said. "I wanted to go and complete it."
Moore said he recently started training for the 2017 Boulder Ironman, starting with sprint-triathlon-level distances, such as a 3.1-mile run, 15-mile bike and 750-yard swim. He said the distances will build from there for the next six months until the June 11 date.
"The training is tough and it takes a lot of mental discipline to stick to the training because you're doing most of it on your own," he said. "But when you get to the actual race, there's not really a feeling like it to cross the line and have accomplished that."
Swimming will be Moore's greatest challenge — especially in the uncharted waters in the Pacific Ocean — so he'll be working on strengthening his kicks leading up to the June and October races.
"I'm going to wear floaties if I have to; one way or another, I'm going to do it," he said.
Wende, his wife, said she had been monitoring the Ironman Boulder Facebook page for announcements on winners. She said she's excited to support him in this dream.
"He texted me and I thought he was kidding," she said. "Things like that just don't happen to us."
She said their three sons — ages 9, almost 11 and 13 — cheer him on with cowbells at every race. She said he's dedicated to the intense training, but always makes time for family.
Moore said he is extremely grateful for Christen and two representatives from 303 Cycling — Dana Willett and Jen Findley — who presented the bucket-list opportunity.
In mid-December, Boulder dentist and Longmont resident Tom Bogan was awarded the first slot. The other eight winners are from Boulder; Thornton; Fremont, Calif.; Hill Air Force Base and Salt Lake City,.
Amelia Arvesen: 303-684-5212, [email protected] or twitter.com/ameliaarvesenLAKEWOOD, Ohio -- Three people face drug charges after they were arrested in their apartment above a Madison Avenue funeral home.
Christopher J. Andrade, 23, Cora Bode, 24 and Kenneth Piwinski, 27, all of Lakewood, were arrested after police went through open doors on Nickels Funeral Home early Saturday. The officers found drugs and drug paraphernalia in an apartment on the building's second floor.
The three face various drug-related charges.
An officer spotted an unlocked funeral home van in the parking lot with its doors open about 4:30 a.m., Lakewood Police Capt. Ed Hassing said. Police found funeral home's back door open and then announced several times that they were searching the inside but got no response, he said.
Officers searched the building and found an open residential area on the second floor. The officers reported finding Adderall and other pills along with amphetamine powder, marijuana, hashish and drug paraphernalia.
Andrade, Bode and Piwinski were eventually found inside the apartment and arrested.
The trio is scheduled to appear in Lakewood Municipal Court Feb. 18.This is the city seal of DeLand, Florida:
There’s a heart, an anchor, and a cross. One of those is a problem. But until now, no one has ever taken serious action on it.
Acting on a complaint from a local resident, Americans United for Separation of Church and State sent a letter to city officials late last month asking them to reconsider their seal because of it’s endorsement of Christianity. They haven’t received a response yet, but the media and Christian Right are flipping out:
“This seal is part of the very founding seal of the city of DeLand. It’s 131 years old,” says Staver. “No one has ever complained for 131 years until the Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed this letter.” … “And if it does [reflect Christianity], it still doesn’t matter from a constitutional standpoint. It’s been in existence for 131 years,” says Staver. “You would obviously think that if it’s an establishment of religion, it surely would have established one by now. And I know of no established religion in the city of Deland.”
That’s precisely the sort of thing that could be said only by someone who’s in the majority and intends to keep it that way.
Staver’s argument is about as weak as can be — “It’s always been this way, so it must always be this way!”
We know, though, that when there’s a Constitutional wrong, it must be fixed no matter how long it’s been going on, and courts tend to agree. (By way of example, the religious mural that Jessica Ahlquist fought against was up for 50 years before it was taken down, and her critics also cited “tradition” as a reason to keep it up.)
When you look at the DeLand seal, it’s obvious that it features a Christian cross. It’s one of those things you might not notice unless you’re not Christian. It’s a seal that suggests non-Christians aren’t really part of this community. That’s what Americans United is trying to change.
AU isn’t anti-Christian. They’re pro-neutrality.
And in Staver’s world, if the government isn’t promoting his faith
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on insta this has like 80 likes. that's like quadruple the likes i usually get holy shit
EDIT: IT'S UP AT 102 WHAT THE FUCK IS THISRichard Rorty, Achieving our Country, 1998 pic.twitter.com/BV9cNSzovJ — lisa kerr (@coleenlisa) November 9, 2016
You may have seen the passage above, which was posted on Twitter by Lisa Kerr of the law school at Queen’s University in Ontario. Richard Rorty was a philosopher; Achieving Our Country is a book he wrote about the American left and its response to Vietnam.
Here’s one of the very next lines in that book after the crazily prescient ones above:
After my imagined strongman takes charge, he will quickly make his peace with the international superrich.
Here’s a headline from Thursday in the Huffington Post:
And one from Friday in the New York Times:
On point.
Rorty suggests the left respond by “trying to mobilize what remains of our pride in being Americans,” which was pretty much what Hillary Clinton did during the Democratic National Convention in what in retrospect was probably the high water mark of her campaign.As California enters its fourth year of drought, there’s still no relief in sight. According to NASA, the state has just one year of water left, and in a last ditch effort cities are drilling wells to tap water that rained 20,000 years ago. Desperate times call for desperate measures – and California Governor Jerry Brown has come up with a bold solution inspired by a recent conference on climate change that he attended in freezing, snow-covered Boston: ship the East’s over-abundance of snow westward to quench the parched Golden State.
While the West Coast suffers its worst drought in recorded history, the East has been pummeled by rain, sleet, and snow straight into springtime. The climate extremes suit neither region, so California Governor Jerry Brown has proposed a bicoastal initiative to restore balance: Eastern snow will be trucked and airlifted to the Sierra Nevada Mountains to restores the state’s snow pack.
Governor Brown overheard San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, who was also attending the conference, say to another California colleague: “This is so unfair! They have so much snow here, and we have none in the Sierras. I wish we could just take some of it back to CA with us.” And that was the seed of this bold vision, which really just makes perfect sense.
Governor Brown has earmarked a portion of California’s one billion dollar drought relief package to fund the venture, and local ski resorts are pitching in with hopes that the influx of snow will extend a paltry season. According to the Los Angeles Times, annual snow pack supplies 30% of California’s water requirements, so the East’s contribution could go a great way towards sustaining California’s water supplies in years to come.
Even Nestlé has contributed its shipping infrastructure to the project, with the goal of capturing excess melted snow that can’t be shipped, bottling it, and redistributing it back to stores on the East Coast, where it will sell for $2 a bottle under the brand name “Snö.”
+ California Department of Water Resources
Photos via Shutterstock (1 2 3 4)Secret recipe to success: Failure!
One of my weaknesses is that I need constant success in anything I put my hand to and get discouraged quickly by failures. Translation: I give up easily. Recently I’ve been very frustrated because a number of things I’m dealing with are either going south or are just plodding around.
Successful people fail
Since I was feeling particularly blue this weekend, I decided to drown my sorrows in a Double Chocolate Chip Frappuccino in a Barnes and Noble nearby. While waiting for the Barista to brew my drink, I picked up a book that the previous patron had left on a table nearby. I don’t even remember the title of the book but the page I opened spoke about how Edison tried the proverbial 99 times to get the light bulb right.
We often think of successful people as someone gifted, who has never failed and is a genius in their field. But the truth is they have failed a lot too, the only difference is they didn’t quit. They learned from their mistakes. That got me thinking. Throughout my life I have had my own share of successes and failures. When I think about all my successes, the only common denominator is not knowledge, not some special skill, it’s perseverance.
My own success and failures
In school, for example, I would never speak up even if I know the answer because I was so afraid of saying something slightly incorrect and then being ridiculed. This fear followed me into adulthood and along the way I missed a lot of opportunities simply because I wasn’t willing to speak in public. It’s only after I got to grad school that I started asking/answering in front of everyone. I might have asked stupid questions, but I learned a lot that I otherwise wouldn’t have.
How many of us thought we had a brilliant business idea but never bothered to develop it? Either because we thought it would fail or we are afraid of others thinking it was a dumb idea. I know I have. Then it comes as a crushing blow when you see someone else, a short while later, come out with a very similar idea and make money off it. How many times have we really wanted to ask for a raise or a promotion but let fear overrule us? The fear of failure keeps us from trying and seals our failure.
When I first thought of blogging, I was petrified. What if it failed? What if someone I know found out about it and thought it was stupid?
My husband encouraged me and I couldn’t be happier with the outcome today. I am glad I listened to him. It helps to have friends and family that can push you over the fear hurdle. I have made a ton of mistakes and have learned things that I never would have otherwise. It is useful not only for my blog but in many other facets of my life.
How to convert failure to success
Small or big, every success I have had so far was because I was able to overcome my fear of failure, because I was able to learn from my mistakes. I have still not mastered this art, but I am improving slowly.
I hope that encourages you to spread your wings a little. Here are 5 steps that I have found useful in learning from my mistakes and growing stronger as a result:
Apologize : If you have hurt someone, or caused any loss to someone else, first apologize.
: If you have hurt someone, or caused any loss to someone else, first apologize. Accept : We are not perfect and only with practice and making mistakes can we come close.
: We are not perfect and only with practice and making mistakes can we come close. Don’t Justify : The more we justify our mistakes the less we learn from them. An excuse is the worst enemy to success.
The more we justify our mistakes the less we learn from them. An excuse is the worst enemy to success. Understand : Why did you make that mistake? How could it have been avoided?
: Why did you make that mistake? How could it have been avoided? Don’t repeat: What can you learn from this and how can you prevent this from happening?
We wouldn’t be walking now if we didn’t fail by falling at least a few times. Somewhere in the hurry to grow up, we have forgotten this. If we see failures as stepping stones and mistakes as learning opportunities we can be much more successful.Samsung will use its homegrown Exynos 8895 chipset in the Galaxy S8 next year, and the company has been testing it for the past five months with clock speeds as high as 4GHz. It was also being predicted that the chipset would make use of ARM’s new Mali-G71 GPU. Now, more details regarding the Exynos 8895 chipset have surfaced.
According to a new report straight out of China, there would be two variants of the Exynos 8895 chipset: the Exynos 8895M and the Exynos 8895V. Both chipsets would be made using the South Korean electronics giant’s 10nm FinFET technology. The chipsets would use a combination of four Exynos M2 CPU cores (clocked at 2.5GHz or 2.3GHz depending on the variant) and four Cortex A53 CPU cores (clocked at 1.7GHz).
Samsung is making use of ARM’s latest Mali-G71 GPU. The Exynos 8895M would feature a 20-core GPU, while the Exynos 8895V would feature an 18-core GPU. Both these chipsets would be compatible with UFS 2.1 storage, LP-DDR4x RAM, and a Cat. 16 LTE modem. The upcoming high-end smartphone chipset from Samsung would also be able to easily drive 4K content.
Samsung could also release a third variant of the Exynos 8895 chipset sometime in Q3 2017, featuring a newer Shannon 359 modem, which is said to be compatible with CDMA networks (useful for North American markets). In comparison, the Snapdragon 835 chipset (which is also being manufactured by Samsung using 10nm FinFET technology) is said to have CPU clock speeds as high as 3GHz. However, higher clock speeds don’t necessarily translate into better performance.Wow, what a difference a few days can make.
We went from the lowest of lows to fantastic highs in a short time. After our rest day in Dongola, we had tarmac all the way to Khartoum and 4 days that consisted of 140km, 140km, 160km and 100km.
We were racing down the highway with great tailwinds. We were reaching speeds of 57km/hr, and that is not going downhill. We were arriving at camp within 5 hours each day and that included lunch, coke, and coffee breaks.
It's Smooth Sailing Cycling in the Sudan
Dave and I hooked up with Joya and George and we had a great foursome working together to battle the side winds. The Barbershop Quartet was in full force.
We named ourselves that because in all of our many hours together riding, we found out that George had cut Joya's hair in Aswan and Dave had cut my hair in Luxor. Go figure!
Starting the Day
We have to tell you to not believe anything you hear about Africa again. For instance…It is cold here! Very cold. We keep waiting for the hot weather, but every morning we wake up and can see our breath.
It is really hard to get out of your sleeping bag in the dark to pack up camp and know that you have a good 3 hours of freezing on the bike. It is that weird mix of being hot from working out, but having all of your appendages freeze because it is close to 0 degrees outside.
You try getting out to pee at 5:45 am and exposing your bare bottom to a sandblasting wind. Oh yea, did I tell you that we keep camping in desert camps during sand storms? There is sand in everything.
Sand blew through the tent all night and my eyes were full of grit when I woke up in the morning. It took a lot of finesse to apply the chamois cream and keep the sand out of our shorts. We don't want to be exfoliating our butts as we ride now. They are sore enough, thank you very much.
We are really starting to have a lot of fun. It is a crazy thing when a 140km day isn't too bad. We have our meeting at night and say, “Oh, that's ok, we should be in camp by about 1 or so.”
Dave's Diary
Dave wants to write this, so I have to let him because I am praising him all of the time…
Deb really hammered down at the time trial, finishing 4th at 38:50 for a 20km distance that started out with a pretty strong headwind. She is really starting to get her legs. So, who knows what will happen in the next section?
She has been battling her electrolytes throughout this section, but Janet gave her a bottle of Thermalites and she is feeling much better now. Janet's husband Chris is bringing some more, so Deb is going to have lots of energy for those mountains in Ethiopia. Now back to business.
Daily Routine
Not really a lot to say, these past 4 days were a lot of the same. Ride, camp, eat, sleep. But we are getting to know the group better and enjoying the conversations around the trucks.
We are in Khartoum for 2 rest days. We are going to be visiting our Plan Project and checking out where the Blue and White Nile Rivers meet. It seems like a great city.
Today as we entered in convoy, we felt like diplomats landing in the city. There were police escorts, sirens, and people lining the streets cheering us through 35 km of riding. It was amazing. I don't know if I will ever experience anything like it again in my life. It is really hard to put into words the welcome that we received.
People of Sudan
The people of Sudan are great. Friendly, smiling, and peaceful. It is hard to believe that there is a war going on in Darfur. Today, as we rode to our campsite, I kept thinking that western TV should be here filming this side of the country. It would make great news to see happy Sudanese cheering and going on with their everyday lives.
All we ever see are the rebels and war on television. But since we have been here, all we have witnessed from the Sudanese people is kindness and their curiosity toward these weirdly dressed people on bicycles riding through town.
We are sitting in a mall sipping coffee, working on the wireless internet with barely a glance from the locals. I am amazed with Africa and am looking forward to seeing more.
On that note, we found out today that we won't be going to Kenya but will be flying over, as our trucks drive through without us. We will have about 2 weeks on our own to kill, so Dave and I are thinking of climbing Kilimanjaro and going to Zanzibar. It's a tough life, but somebody has to do it:)
Hopefully we will make it to the internet after our plan visit, but if not, we will talk to you sometime in Ethiopia.
Read More
Surprise Stop in Wadi Halfa, Sudan
Cycling Crash in Tanzania turns Bad
Suffering While Cycling the SudanGALVESTON, Texas Marine archaeologists are excited about the discovery of what may be a well-preserved 200-year-old shipwreck more than three-quarters of a mile below the Gulf of Mexico.
Researchers led by a team from Texas State University in San Marcos are calling it the deepest shipwreck 4,363 feet down that archaeologists have systematically investigated in the Gulf of Mexico and in North America.
The remains some 170 miles southeast of Galveston are "tantalizing," researchers say, because of the degree of preservation. Undersea images show an outline of an 84-foot-long, 26-foot-wide wooden hull and copper-clad sailing vessel, possibly with two masts.
"This site has such an amazing rate of preservation that these artifacts are in astoundingly wonderful condition and they truly provide a physical connection with our shared past," said principal investigator Fritz Hanselmann, of the Texas State University Meadows Center for Water and the Environment.
But the wreck is so deep that divers can't explore it. So, this week, researchers have used remote-controlled undersea vehicles to examine the remains and recover items with its robot-like arms things such as ceramics, liquor bottles and an octant, a navigational tool. Other items spotted among the wreckage are muskets, swords, cannons and clothing.
This photo provided by the NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program shows a variety of artifacts including ceramic plates, platters, bowls plus glass liquor, wine, medicine, and food storage bottles of many shapes and colors found inside a wrecked ship's hull, in the Gulf of Mexico about 170 from Galveston, Texas. AP Photo/NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program
CBS affiliate KHOU reports that the robotic arms also retrieved a sealed bottle filled with bright yellow ginger, which was used as a treatment for seasickness.
Hanselmann anticipated the artifacts will help answer questions about the vessel's age, function and cultural affiliation.
"Not only do we learn more about the ship itself, but we are able to understand more about the crew, their activities and the bigger picture of maritime activity in the Gulf of Mexico region," he said.
A Shell Oil Co. survey crew notified federal Interior Department officials in 2011 that its sonar had detected something resembling a shipwreck. A year later, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration vessel examining seafloor habitat and naturally occurring gas seepage used a remote-controlled vehicle to briefly look at the wreck. Besides determining the dimensions, the examination showed it to be undisturbed and likely an early 19th century watercraft.
Still unidentified, it's been dubbed the "Monterrey Shipwreck," adopting the name Shell Oil had proposed for its development site. Federal agencies and the Texas Historical Commission also are involved in the project.
It's the latest in a series of historical shipwrecks examined in recent years in the Gulf of Mexico.
In 1995, after a more than decade-long hunt, Texas Historical Commission archaeologists found one of famed French explorer La Salle's vessels in a coastal bay between Galveston and Corpus Christi. The remains of the LaBelle, which went down in a storm in 1686, have been recovered and are undergoing an unusual freeze-drying treatment at Texas A&M University. The ship is to be reconstructed next year and become a centerpiece of the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin.
Earlier this year, researchers about 20 miles off the Galveston coast used special 3-D imagery to map the remains of the USS Hatteras, the only U.S. Navy ship sunk in the Gulf of Mexico in combat during the Civil War. The 210-foot iron-hulled ship went down in 1863 is in 57 feet of water during a confrontation with a Confederate raider. It's believed storms in recent years have shifted the sands on the sea floor, exposing the wreckage.
More from KHOU:A 10-year-old girl in Colombia recently gave birth via caesarian section, placing her among the youngest mothers in the world. Though the girl is now recovering, her case highlights the dangers of pregnancy before maturity, doctors say.
"No 10-year-old anywhere in the world should be having a baby," Lewis Wall, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, told LiveScience.
According to Good Morning America, the 10-year-old girl, a member of the Wayuu tribe in Manaure, Colombia, delivered a 5-pound (2.26 kilogram) baby girl. The age of the father is not known, but Colombian police reportedly cannot press charges as the tribe is under its own jurisdiction.
The obvious risks of such an ordeal are mental, Wall said.
"Any 10-year-old who is pregnant has already been abused significantly by somebody," he said. "That probably should go without saying."
Nor are 10-, 11- and 12-year-olds remotely prepared to care for a baby, Wall said. But the risks are physical, as well.
"The placenta preferentially will take nutrition from the mother, who really is a child," said Sherry Thomas, an ob/gyn at Mission Community Hospital in Panorama City, Calif. That means that the developing fetus will leach calcium and other nutrients from a child who should still be growing herself. Likewise, pregnancy puts a major strain on the cardiovascular system, according to Wall. Pregnant women have about 50 percent more blood circulating through their bodies compared with non-pregnant women. [8 Odd Bodily Changes During Pregnancy]
The greatest danger, however, is to the pelvic floor. Girls may start ovulating and menstruating as early as age 9, though the average is around 12 to 13. (Some studies suggest that the average age of first menstruation is dropping, but the data is not conclusive.) Just because a girl can get pregnant, though, doesn't mean she can safely deliver a baby. The pelvis does not fully widen until the late teens, meaning that young girls may not be able to push the baby through the birth canal.
The results are horrific, said Wall and Thomas, who have both worked in Africa treating women in the aftermath of such labors. Girls may labor for days; many die. Their babies often don't survive labor either.
The women and girls who do survive often develop fistulas, which are holes between the vaginal wall and the rectum or bladder. When the baby's head pushes down and gets stuck, it can cut portions of the mother's soft tissue between its skull and her pelvic bones. As a result, the tissue dies, and a hole forms. Feces and urine then leak through the hole and out of the vagina. Women with fistulas are often divorced and shunned. And young girls are at higher risk.
"The younger you are, the more trauma will occur, because the pelvic floor isn't developed enough," Thomas said. In that way, she said, the young Colombian girl was fortunate to have access to a hospital that could provide a caesarean section.
As growth tends to slow in girls once menstruation starts, a 10-year-old capable of getting pregnant is likely to be especially small, with a small pelvis, Wall said. And even if puberty onset is happening earlier (Wall isn't entirely convinced by the current data), pelvises are certainly not maturing any faster, he said. If puberty does occur earlier, that would put young girls at risk for dangerous pregnancies for a longer period of time.
"It's heart-wrenching," Thomas said. "It's just overwhelming to see these young women pregnant and delivering."
You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.Energy minister Andrea Leadsom told a parliamentary fracking group that she had to ask whether climate change was real when she took the job.
As reported by energy site Drill or Drop, the MP for South Northamptonshire told the All Party Parliamentary Group on Unconventional Gas and Oil: "When I first came to this job one of my two questions was: 'Is climate change real?' and the other was 'Is hydraulic fracturing safe?' And on both of those questions I am now completely persuaded."
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.
Leadsom's explicit views on climate change before she was made energy minister in May are not clear, but in the past she has written to the Prime Minister calling for cuts to wind farm subsidies, and has criticised the pre-coalition Labour government for signing up to an EU target that called for 15 per cent of the UK's energy to come from renewable sources by 2015.
At the parliamentary group, Leadsom also criticised recent claims that women are less keen on fracking than men because they "don't understand" the process.
Professor Averil Macdonald, chairwoman of industry body UK Onshore Oil and Gas, told The Times that men were more in favour of fracking because they are persuaded by "an awful lot of facts."
Responding to Macdonald, Leadsom said: "I am absolutely sure that women are not less keen on anything than men. I find the whole thing completely extraordinary actually."
"There isn’t a boys’ technology and a girls’ technology. It doesn’t work like that at all. There are people and people need to be persuaded that something is safe. People as individuals have preferences."
Speaking to The Independent, the Department for Energy and Climate change said Leadsom was making the point that climate change skepticism still exists, and that it is important to understand the facts.
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.What is there to say about the Beatles that hasn’t been said? They restructured pop and rock music as we know it more than once during the brief seven years that they made records. They were at the center of a pop-culture revolution that’s still resonating today. And every single one of their albums — from 1963′s debut, Please Please Me, to 1970's swan song, Let It Be — is a classic. You can say that about a huge chunk of their tracks too, as you'll see in our list of the Top 50 Beatles Songs.
50 'Tomorrow Never Knows' From: 'Revolver' (1966) Once the Beatles committed to becoming a full-time studio group, they wasted no time exploring the various shapes and colors tucked away in the technological corners. On Revolver's closing cut they tripped out, with backward loops, sped-up tapes and exotic instruments buried in the mind-exploding mix.
49 'The Ballad of John and Yoko' From: 1969 Single John Lennon's whirlwind affair with Yoko Ono yielded a couple experimental records, a ton of controversy and unparalleled scrutiny from the media. After some of the dust on the matter settled, Lennon wrote a song about it, chronicling his yearlong misadventures with messianic, winking frustration.
48 'Getting Better' From: 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' (1967) One of Sgt. Pepper's melodically cheeriest songs rides an undercurrent of melancholy, as John Lennon and Paul McCartney trade words (and moods) on the chorus. "Getting Better," like much of the album, was spearheaded by McCartney, but everyone chips in here.
47 'I Feel Fine' From: 1964 Single Generally credited as one of the first songs to include deliberate feedback, "I Feel Fine" helped shape the Beatles' declaration of independence. Within a few months they would replace their traditional forms of songwriting to include more studio effects and audio experiments.
46 'All My Loving' From: 'With the Beatles' (1963) When the Beatles made their first U.S. appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on Feb. 9, 1964, this was the song they started with. The two-minute pop explosion served as a perfect intro to the group and the incoming wave of Beatlemania.
45 'Hello Goodbye' From: 1967 Single Recorded after the groundbreaking Sgt. Pepper's but before the fractious White Album sessions that would signal their breakup, "Hello Goodbye" came during a significant period for the Beatles – still a band, but now one where Paul McCartney's voice (both his literal and metaphorical ones) shines bright.
44 'From Me to You' From: 1963 Single One of the group's earliest songs is as nostalgic as it is forward-looking. Borrowing songwriting cues from the Beatles' rock 'n' roll heroes, "From Me to You" sounds like a tribute to the music's formative years. But the big hook driving it was a taste of things to come.
43 'Drive My Car' From: 'Rubber Soul' (1965) In the U.K., "Drive My Car" opened the game-changing Rubber Soul, steering straight into a brave new world for pop artists. Staking out a firm identity on the album, the Beatles would never be the same. Rubber Soul was the dividing line; "Drive My Car" is the opening shot.
42 'You've Got to Hide Your Love Away' From: 'Help!' (1965) The Beatles met Bob Dylan while touring the U.S. in 1964. He introduced them to marijuana. But they were also big fans of his music, especially John Lennon, who pretty much lifted Dylan's style and sound on Help!'s acoustic centerpiece "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away."
41 'Yellow Submarine' From: 1966 Single For the most part, Ringo Starr covered old rock, country and pop hits on Beatles albums. But for "Yellow Submarine," John Lennon and Paul McCartney handed him one of their most playful songs, a singalong number loaded with sound effects and a ton of psychedelic fun.
40 'Nowhere Man' From: 'Rubber Soul' (1965) No longer content writing love songs and singing "yeah, yeah, yeah," the Beatles got deep on Rubber Soul, penning more personal cuts fraught with emotional baggage. John Lennon's "Nowhere Man" peeks into the soul of an everyman and discovers a dark, lonely chasm.
39 'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds' From: 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' (1967) John Lennon has always claimed that the inspiration behind one of Sgt. Pepper's most popular cuts was a drawing by his son. But he isn't fooling anyone. With its spaced-out imagery and kaleidoscopic soundscape, "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" is an acid trip for your ears.
38 'This Boy' From: 1963 Single The Beatles were still finding their footing when they recorded "This Boy" in 1963. Released as the B-side to "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (and recorded during the same sessions), the song is built on an R&B rhythm inspired by Motown legend Smokey Robinson. It also features a killer vocal by John Lennon.
37 'The Long and Winding Road' From: 'Let It Be' (1970) The Beatles' last single released as a group, and their final No. 1, was recorded during the tumultuous sessions that spawned the Let It Be album. It's one of Paul McCartney's most gorgeous songs, buoyed by Phil Spector's majestic, and controversial, strings.
36 'We Can Work It Out' From: 1965 Single Recorded during the Rubber Soul sessions (and released as a single the same day as, but not included on, the album), "We Can Work It Out" is stuffed with the wide-eyed wonderment that graced Beatles recordings during this fertile period. It's one of the few songs John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote together after they hit it big.
35 'Taxman' From: 'Revolver' (1966) George Harrison's bitter screed against British tax laws (and the people who enforce them) opened one of their most adventurous albums on a tough, sparring note. In addition to unveiling the magical mysteries of Revolver, "Taxman" ushered in a new era of creativity for the so-called Quiet Beatle.
34 'Revolution' From: 1968 Single The Beatles reworked "Revolution" so many times during the troubled White Album sessions that three versions appeared in 1968: a bluesy, acoustic crawl found on The Beatles, a messy sound collage also on the LP and this plugged-in electric version, which was released as a single as the B-side of "Hey Jude."
33 'Paperback Writer' From: 1966 Single "Paperback Writer" was the only Beatles song to reach No. 1 in 1966. But Beatlemania was far from over. The group was stretching its sound – check out the fatter bass anchoring the track – and boundaries during the era, recording the mesmerizing Revolver before moving on to the colorful popscape of Sgt. Pepper's.
32 'Here Comes the Sun' From: 'Abbey Road' (1969) Abbey Road's second side is mostly dominated by a multi-song suite orchestrated by Paul McCartney. But this lovely George Harrison song opens the side with a beam of sunshine that carries in with it the Beatles' glorious final notes.
31 'Helter Skelter' From: 'The Beatles' (1968) One of the Beatles' toughest tracks is all raging guitars, scarred vocal cords and blistered fingers. Its abrasive tone rocks the tranquility found elsewhere on the White Album, while still being an integral part of that LP's sturdy-but-crumbling structure. Next: Beatles Songs 30-11If you have read the books (or watched the movies), you might believe you know everything there is to know about Harry Potter. Yet, there is an invisibility cloak... erm, invisible thread linking the most famous wizard in the world and Russia.
Did you know...
...that Harry Potter was once spotted in the Moscow subway?
Russian Harry Potter in Moscow Metro. Source: YouTube
It might not be as fast as a Firebolt, but a fire extinguisher can be a surprisingly efficient means of transportation...
...that Harry Potter has a Russian twin?
Source: Press Photo
Her name is Tanya Grotter. She is the female protagonist of a Russian fantasy novel series by Dmitri Yemets that was inspired by the adventures of the young wizard. Instead of a scar on her forehead, Tanya has an unusual birthmark on her nose. Her nemesis? A witch that goes by the name of Chuma-del-Tort.
...that Harry Potter once ran for public office in Russia?
Source: Kinopoisk.ru / Natalya Mikhailenko
In 2003, a Russian politician from the Sverdlovsk region changed his name to Harry Ivanovich Potterin the hope of garnering support for his electoral bid for governor.
...that Sirius Black got his hardcore look in a Russian prison?
Source: Kinopoisk.ru / Sergei Vasiliev / Courtesy of FUEL
The tattoos that Harry’s godfather sports on his body in the movie version of “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” are modeled after those used in Russian prison gangs. It was director Alfonso Cuarón himself who had the idea of adding them.
...Durmstrang is most likely to be located in Russia?
Source: Kinppoisk.ru
Someone even did an accurate study of the possible Russian origin of Durmstrang. The headmaster’s name, Igor Karkaroff, has a certain Russian flavor to it, while, in the films, Durmstrang students are often portrayed wearing a very Russian “uniform,” with a typical Russian fur hat and coat.
…a group of Russian lawyers took the physical similarity between Putin and Dobby so seriously that they wanted to sue Warner Bros?
Source: Kinopoisk.ru / ITAR-TASS
The news came out in 2003, but no information is available as to whether a legal case was in fact initiated.
...Harry Potter converted to Orthodoxy?
Source: Kinopoisk.ru
In 2011, the youth department of the Bugulma diocese in the Tatarstan region added “Harry Potter’s repentance and the miracle of fire” to the list of its theatrical performances. In the play, Harry converts to Orthodoxy in order to defeat Voldemort.
...Snape was Rasputin in a previous life?
Source: Kinopoisk.ru
In 1996, British actor Alan Rickman, who plays Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movies, portrayed Grigori Rasputin in “Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny.” He was awarded the Golden Globe, Emmy Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance.
...Harry Potter is just a reincarnation of Shostakovich?
Source: Kinopoisk / ITAR-TASS
Could Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich be just another Horcrux?
All rights reserved by Rossiyskaya Gazeta.The term “voodoo economics” entered popular lexicon when George HW Bush derisively used it to describe his presidential opponent Ronald Reagan’s economic policies for the United States of America in 1980. It is also best suited to describe what the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s principal economic theorist, S Gurumurthy, has been saying recently in defence of his fellow RSS pracharak Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation policy.
But before I elaborate on that, given that any criticism of the party in power, or its supporters, is deemed as an expression of support for the Congress regime, particularly the United Progressive Alliance’s 2004-2014 tenure, it is perhaps best to start with where I stand with respect to it.
The golden decade
I have never been an admirer of Dr Manmohan Singh for many reasons.
Most of all, because he never articulated a vision for a truly liberalised society, where the jackboot imprint of the state would become smaller, with the state relying more on compensation and conditioning and less on coercion to govern and build this nation.
Instead, he assumed that by just dismantling the industrial licensing regime, of which he was a strong votary long after the evidence against it had piled up, he was liberalising India.
He also did not distinguish between a regime that ensured the free ingress and exit of foreign capital into capital markets and a freer regime for foreign long-term investment to cater to India’s rapidly expanding demands.
Singh followed the code of Omerta, ignoring all the wrongdoings around him, and showed inertia when his ministers quite openly flouted his directions. But, most of all, I detested his excessive deference to the Congress president, whose sense of right and wrong was largely shaped by her family’s immediate interests.
Despite this, I recognise that from 2004 to 2014, the Indian economy grew by an average of over 7.8% each year. Included in this decade were two years at over 10%, two years at over 9%, two at almost 8% and even during the years, when the national mood turned sour, India grew at 4.0% and 5.9% respectively. If there ever was a golden decade of India’s economic growth, it was this. By contrast the first two Modi years saw Gross Domestic Product grow by less than those last two Congress years if the 2.2% tweaking of national income accounting is factored in.
In these last two years there has been zero job growth, though the prime minister claims to have created 31 million new jobs.
Fantasy figures
Modi derives this extraordinary conclusion by directly linking it to his claim of having disbursed 3.1 crore Mudra loans. What makes this patently bogus is the fact that the average Mudra loan is about Rs 1000 each. If a loan of Rs 1,000 can create one new job, as Modi assumes, then the country will largely rid itself of unemployment by spending just Rs 1 lakh crore to create 100 million new jobs.
These are the kind of fantasy economic figures only pracharaks – literally, propagandists – can cook up. That is not all – they don’t only cook up what doesn’t exist, they also ignore the
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The 125th anniversary of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community will be a rallying cry for religious freedom in the face of growing militancy in Iraq and countless deaths of innocent men, women and children
Posted: 28 August 2014
Against a backdrop of conflict in the Middle East and the brutal killings by ISIS, including the recent murder of journalist James Foley, more than 30,000 Muslims will gather this weekend to pray for peace, commit to countering extremism in all its forms and vow to defend religious freedoms for all.
In a show of unity for moderate Muslims everywhere, worshippers from 50 countries will be joined by senior British politicians and inter-faith leaders at Oaklands Farm, in Hampshire, on Friday 29th, Saturday 30th, and Sunday 31st of August, to mark the 125th anniversary of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community at the UK's oldest Muslim convention.
Now in its 48th year, the Hampshire event (called Jalsa Salana) is the oldest and largest Muslim convention of its kind in the UK.
The focal point of the event will be addresses by His Holiness Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, head of the worldwide Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, who will denounce extremists for ignoring Islam's true teachings of adherence to peacefulness, tolerance and respect for the religious freedoms of others.
Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, who has also spoken at the Capitol Hill, the European Parliament and in the House of Commons, said:
"This is a special year for us as we celebrate our 125th anniversary, but with so many parts of the world, including Syria, Iraq and Gaza, in the grip of conflict, our celebrations will be tinged with sadness."
"I urge those secular and spiritual leaders who are able to exert influence in troubled regions of our world to find a way to put aside your differences, rise above petty disagreement and come together to find a lasting solution that will allow people of different faiths and communities to live together in peace and harmony."
"As Ahmadi Muslims we will continue to counter extremism, hatred and prejudice with messages of peace and understanding, prayer and service to mankind. And in this year of our 125 anniversary, we will continue this tradition in the service of our faith and the betterment of mankind."
Despite widespread persecution across the globe, the Ahmadiyya Muslim community’s commitment is to win hearts and minds through positive community engagement.
This year’s Jalsa Salana will witness the raising of the British flag before worshippers and a global TV audience of millions. Other events include the formation of a human chain by worshippers as they take a vow of peace, obedience and loyalty to their faith.
The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community was founded in 1889 in Qadian, India and now spans 204 countries, with a membership of tens of millions. The community’s continued commitment to peace and understanding in the face of terrible persecution has drawn praise from leading international and British political figures.
In 2013, to mark a hundred years of the community in the UK, David Cameron, The Prime Minister, praised the group, saying:
"Your community has suffered terrible persecution but I know that your worldwide leader, His Holiness Mirza Masroor Ahmad, is a man of peace."
"I hope that your good works, your message of peace and your philosophy of Love For All, Hatred For None continue to flourish in Britain and throughout the world."
Ends
Note to editors:
1. Jalsa Salana will be held on a 200-acre site at Oakland Farm, Green Street, East Worldham, Hampshire, GU34 3AU
2. The convention’s opening ceremony is at 4.30pm on Friday 29th August. The event will conclude with an address at 4pm on Sunday 31st August by His Holiness Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad
3. The event will be broadcast live around the world on the community's own 24-hour satellite TV station, MTA - broadcast on Sky channel 787 in the UK.Dromore West, Co. Sligo
[Records] [Bibliography] [Links]
Dromore West was one of the new Poor Law Unions created in Ireland between 1848 and 1850. Dromore West Union formally came into existence on 29th September 1849. The new union was created from the western part of the Sligo Union and the eastern part of the Ballina Union. The new union occupied an area of 152 square miles. The population falling within the Dromore West Union at the 1901 census was 13,034. In 1905, it comprised the following electoral divisions:
Co. Sligo: Aughris, Buncrowey, East Castleconor, West Castleconor, East Dromard, West Dromard, Dromore West, East Easky, West Easky, Kilglass, Mullagharuse, Rathmacurkey, Skreen, North Templeboy, South Templeboy, East Toberpatrick, West Toberpatrick.
The Dromore West Board of Guardians met each week on Tuesday.
The new Dromore West Board of Guardians originally proposed to avoid the expense of building a workhouse by making use of a building in Sligo town, and to pay the Sligo Union a weekly rate for each pauper accommodated. However, they were unable to agree on the rate so a Dromore West Union workhouse was erected in 1850-52 on a six-acre site to the west of Dromore West. Designed by the Poor Law Commissioners' architect George Wilkinson, the building was based on one of his standard plans to accommodate 400 inmates. Its construction cost £4,650 plus £815 for fittings etc. The Board demanded that were of the cheapest most durable nature with "all mere decoration studiously avoided". The workhouse site location and layout are shown on the 1910 OS map below.
The workhouse design was somewhat different to Wilkinson's earlier plans, and was a similar size and layout to workhouses such as those at Tubbercurry and Glenamaddy which were built at around the same time. The entrance at the north was flanked by two two-storey blocks which included school rooms and accommodation for boys and girls.
To the rear, the main buildings had a T-shaped layout. The central wing running northwards was probably a single-storey block containing the kitchen and dining-hall which also served as a chapel. A large cast iron cooking pot and weighing scales survive from the 1840s.
To each side were accommodation wings and yards — one for men and one for women. An outbuilding at the north may have been a laundry block.
To the rear was a small building said to be a well-house.
A hospital block lay at the south of the site, with the workhouse cemetery to the south-west.
The cemetery wall contains a memorial stone for those buried there.
In the 1870s, a scandal erupted when a female inmate was made pregnant by the son of the chairman of the Board of Guardians. A local newspaper, The Sligo Champion, reported the case as follows:
A MORAL WORKHOUSE The Union Workhouses in this County, as well as those elsewhere, sorely need the closest supervision, which we regret to find they fail to obtain. If official eyes were kept unclosed many disreputable acts, which from time to time obtained publicity, would never have occurred. A very lamentable case has just been presented to our notice, the facts of which are calculated to shock the feeling of all who are not wedded to mental depravity. A young girl, whose years do not count a score, held in the Workhouse of Dromore West a respectable and responsible position. Laxity of discipline permitted unrestricted ingress, and egress, to a viciously disposed youth, and the lamentable result is that this poor girl has been ruined, which term comprises the destruction of her reputation as well as the blighting of her prospects in life; the preservation of the former, and the success of the latter being wholly dependent on the strict adherence to virtuous principles. On last Sunday the officiating clergyman baptized an infant, which was named at the font Emma Hale, and this child of ignominy, and her youthful mother are at this moment paupers, inmates of the Dromore West Workhouse.
The paternity of this child of shame is imputed to the son of the Chairman of the Board of Guardians. The Matron of the Workhouse is the niece of this dignitary, and Mahon, the medical officer, is his son-in-law. With so many relatives in high office in this model institution, the graceless character who is charged with this young girl's fall did not want for opportunities to accomplish his foul purposes. If we are not misinformed, and we do not apprehend such is the case, drinking and card-playing were carried on rather frequently in some of the officers' apartments. Whenever immoderate drinking is indulged in, iniquitous results may be fully expected to intervene.
At the end of 1920, the Union was in a finacial crisis after its rate collectors were repeatedly ambushed by the IRA to help finance its War of Independence. In January 1921, workhouse staff had been without pay for six months and clothing, bedding and other items were being comandeered by IRA troops. In 1923, the workhouse was burnt out by local anti-treaty IRA to prevent its use by the Black and Tans. The remaining inmates were transported on carts to St John's and the Nazareth House in Sligo.
The workhouse buildings were later used for a variety of purposes including a dance-hall, a court-house, and for the storage of various agricultural materials including guano (bird manure used as fertiliser).
The surviving workhouse buildings were converted to residential use in the 1980s. The present owners, artists Cilliam Rogers and Imelda Peppard, hope to continue to restore the fabric of the surviving parts of this historic building.
Records
Note: many repositories impose a closure period of up to 100 years for records identifying individuals.
National Archives of Ireland, Bishop Street, Dublin 8. Holds Board of Guardians' minute books and other papers.
Sligo County Library, Stephen Street, Sligo.
Workhouses of the North West Edited by Jack Johnston (1996, WEA)
Edited by Jack Johnston (1996, WEA) The Workhouses of Ireland by John O'Connor (Anvil Books, 1995)
None.
[Top of Page] [The Workhouse in Ireland] [Unions List] [Unions Map] [Home Page]We are delighted to welcome this guest post from Philip Potter of the University of Michigan.
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With the election just days away, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. What policies are we likely to actually see after the confetti falls and a concession speech is made? Over the last several years I’ve been working on a series of projects exploring the relationship between elections and foreign policy, and they point to a couple patterns worth keeping an eye on.
The first is relevant regardless of whether Obama or Romney wins. The margin by which a candidate wins has a systematic effect on the president’s agenda (article here).
While I’d argue it’s impossible to discern a “mandate” for a specific course of action from an aggregate vote (although the winning campaign will almost certainly try to tell us that they can do precisely that), margins do influence presidential power at the all-important outset of a term. Presidents who win by a lot generally use this power to pursue their domestic agendas because the rewards are higher. Those who win by a little are forced into the less constrained (but also less rewarding realm) of foreign policy.
Within foreign policy there are further distinctions between those who win by a lot and those who win by a little. Specifically, presidents emboldened by the power that comes from a significant margin of victory are more prone to deploy major military force. In contrast, weak presidents have a tendency toward more minor interventions and diplomacy.
Regardless of what one thinks about the likely outcome of Tuesday’s presidential vote, no one is predicting a blowout. This means that we should anticipate a relatively weak president at the outset of the term, and correspondingly constrained policymaking. If government is divided, as is expected, the effect will be magnified. In this environment, ambitious domestic achievements will be hard to come by, as will substantial uses of force in places like Iran and Syria. Of course, the impending sequestration showdown may provide some important leverage for the next president that wouldn’t otherwise be there, and we’ll likely see some important changes, one way or the other, on the domestic side as a result. However, as political scientists, we tend to be more fascinated by the underlying regularities than the exceptions to the rule.
The second of these systematic forces that I think is worth keeping an eye on is the unfortunate reality that new administrations tend to make foreign policy mistakes (article here). If Romney wins the election, we’ll have a president with essentially no foreign policy experience, a new and untested management structure for a new administration, and upheaval throughout the foreign policy bureaucracy as appointees are replaced. Historically, this process has been associated with an uptick in foreign policy crises for the United States.
Presidents accrue foreign policy expertise relatively slowly, which shows up in the finding that second term presidents are substantially less crisis-prone than those in their first term. The nitty-gritty empirics are in the paper, but the short story is that this experience translates into about 1.2 fewer crises over the course of a hypothetical second term. Not huge, but still meaningful given that these are relatively rare, significant, and destabilizing events.
Inevitably, unforeseeable events will intervene and shape the course of the next term for whoever occupies the Oval Office. G. W. Bush, for example, initially behaved like exactly the sort of weakened president one would anticipate after the historically tight 2000 election. Then 9/11 then radically altered the trajectory of his presidency. That said, it’s worth understanding the systematic forces that are at play so that we can better anticipate what the next four years are likely to look like from a foreign policy perspective.… champagne without bubbles.
Time to return to this particular fray. I’ve been DJing swing a while now, and like many swing DJs, my ideas on what is, and isn’t acceptable to play for swing dancers have taken something of a journey.
Like many swing DJs, I’ve slowly become more and more of an advocate of old-school swing for swing dancing. Many would brand me a purist. Many do, and perhaps I am – but I know others who’d say I’m not (yet?) enough of a purist. We all have different tastes and ideas, and your mileage may vary.
In the past, when I’ve talked about this issue, I’ve been a little more laissez faire – a little more inclined to say: “Well – what I do is this, but what you do is up to you.” Right now, I’m feeling a little more forthright – in fact I’ve feeling like ranting on this subject for quite some time now – so hang on to your hats – this could get ugly. But in a fun way.
In light of this I’ll start with a confession – I don’t mean that at all. The camp I really belong to is very simple: Lindy Hop without swing music does not exist in this dojo. It might, to many, look like Lindy Hop… but Lindy Hop it isn’t, and the more you take swing music out of the equation, the further from Lindy it will go. So… time for my slightly more … forthright take on things.
It’s like ice-skating on concrete.
Over the years, there has been, and there probably always will be, a huge amount of debate on what you should play for Lindy Hop, Balboa, Blues and so on. The opinions vary from the “You can Lindy to anything” brigade, to the “only old scratchies will do” school of thought (actually – I don’t know any swing DJs who hold to this one, but as a group, we are sometimes labelled with that school of thought. Seriously. If it doesn’t have enough crackles, we won’t use it. Hand on heart, I can honestly say I have been accused of that)
There’s any number of other articles out there on the subject – Bobby White’s The Great Debate on his wonderful blog Swungover is an excellent example – although in that article – as mentioned in the comments section, he’s more focussed on the blurred edges around swing, where it meets Charleston, trad, ragtime and so on. I don’t think he quite covers the extremes that we sometimes get in the UK swing scene – for example entire sets of rock’n’roll or RnB, or having Gangsta’s Paradise or Abba in crop up in the middle of a swing set, or entire sets of pop music featuring songs like Love Shack. All of which I’ve experienced.
To add to the mix, there’s a huge amount of confusion as to what swing actually is – and I suppose I didn’t fully appreciate this until around eighteen months ago when I had a whole slew of conversations around the subject, where I was offered a number of opinions that I … don’t really share. Here’s a small selection:
Michael Bublé’s Crazy Little Thing Called Love is an old-school swing track. Just so we’re clear: it isn’t
is an old-school swing track. Jonathan Stout’s Six Appeal is an old ‘scratchy’. And, yes, I’m talking about the 2004 recording. Scratchiness clearly isn’t what it used to be…
is an old ‘scratchy’. Frankie Trumbauer’s astounding hard-core swing track: Troubled is “alright, but it wouldn’t make me want to triple-step” J ust watch Hellzapoppin. Count the triple-steps. Need I say more?
is “alright, but it wouldn’t make me want to triple-step” J Apparently I don’t play rockabilly for Lindy Hoppers because I don’t like it. Which is conceivably why I’ve never thought much about playing Schoenberg at dances- but that wouldn’t really explain why I don’t tend to play any Beethoven.
Lots of pop music really swings, and playing huge swathes of it for swing dancers is adventurous and daring. OK – so if I was daring enough to try that at Herrang, I’d probably be deported, but I’m not sure that’s quite what was meant…
The backbeat is a key part of swing. Except that the very early examples of backbeat (commonly associated with Early RnB and Rock ‘n Roll are generally cited around 1938, which is around eight years after the beginning of the Swing Era. So… possibly not.
So to quickly recap, we have a couple of problems here: one, the perception that you don’t need swing for swing dancing, and two – the confusion about what exactly swing is. This article aims to address the former – the latter is a much, much longer and harder discussion. There’s a talk I give on that subject which takes around an hour and a half – so while I’ll probably tackle it at some point in this blog, I’ll leave it alone for now.
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It’s like a lion without its roar.
In the beginning, was the music. No… wait… in the beginning was the dance. Actually – come to think – in the beginning there was rhythm. And dance. OK – as a bonus for reading this bit – how do you make a duck play jazz? Put it in the oven ’till its bill withers….
There you have it. Swing music and swing dance evolved together. Most bands in those days were dance bands – and dance was everywhere – one of the main forms of entertainment. So the music evolved dance forms to match it… and the dance forms affected the music. Bands played for dancers. Yes, I’m over-simplifying this, and yes, there were many other factors, but this relationship was key. Lindy was born from the music, and it arose at an incredible period in musical history when a huge creative explosion was going on. It evolved with the music, it affected the music, and it had swing rhythms and swing music at its absolute core. That gives the dance its look, its feeling, its absolute foundations.
With different music, you get a different dance. As a friend of mine recently remarked, in the end, the music will win out. Especially if it’s recorded – most bands are better at adapting to dancers than your average CD. In theory.
I’ve heard it said a few times that the dance surely needs to evolve, get with the times, adapt to the modern world… and in some ways I wish it could. To understand why it didn’t, let’s look at a couple of other dances: so let’s look first at Exhibit A: Argentine Tango.
Radically different appearances aside, Tango has a lot in common with Lindy – both highly connection based, both incredibly musical – and both had the shared origins and evolution with their music. The key difference is that Argentine Tango never stopped. They never stopped dancing it, the bands never stopped playing it, they never stopped composing new tango music. It changed, it evolved, and the dance has changed and evolved with it – I once saw a great demo of tango through the ages, where the dancers were explaining those changes, and how that evolution of the music affected the dance and changed the way it was performed. The dance has kept that relationship with the music throughout, and all that amazing richness and depth that goes with it.
Swing music, on the other hand, did, in the main, stop – or – at least – the relationship with dancers came to an end. The reasons are many, and beyond the scope of this article, but it split into three main directions:
Bebop – the start of modern jazz, and a musical form that is more inward – more for the musicians, and lacking that extroverted accessible exuberance that typified old-school swing.
Crooner music – Sinatra’s era – where the music was about the singer, less about the music.
Jump Blues / Boogie / Rock and Roll – which kept the extroverted energy, but began to simplify the rhythms, began to lose the rich complexity that characterised much of the best swing. Still very dancer-friendly, but not swing-dancer-friendly. Not Lindy friendly. Not Balboa-friendly. Different rhythms, for a different set of dances with a different feel.
Of course – in practise, it wasn’t nearly this cut and dried, and many of the great songs we love dancing to have elements of all some or all these various directions (and a lot more) – but in the main, the swing bands petered out, or moved on. The dance scene changed, and we lost that continuity of music, and that evolution of dance and music together that tango managed to retain. Which is why modern swing DJs spend so long ferreting around extremely old sources of music looking for buried treasure – pickings are comparatively slim amongst modern bands. Not, I hasten to add, non-existent, but please focus on modern swing bands. Bands who really understand the genre. Neo swing need not apply.
I’m not saying never ever play non-swing. Just that you need to establish a baseline, and keep it at the core of everything – keep non-swing as the exception, not the norm.
It’s like a bicycle without its tyres.
In case you doubt me on that score, it’s probably time to wheel out Exhibit B: West Coast Swing (often known as WCS). For those who don’t know about this dance, well, it began simply as a variation of Lindy, and developed its own identity from there. Nowadays, it’s danced to a wide variety of music including R&B, hiphop, pop… pretty much anything, so far as I can see – possibly except for anything actually swing-related). There’s a lot of good things to say about WCS. The top top dancers have a phenomenal level of skill and polish, it’s a highly musical dance, and, in fact, there’s been a lot of two-way cross-pollination of moves and techniques between the two dances – the sugar push, for example, comes from WCS.
I don’t actually like it much but that’s just personal preference.
Anyway – in a nutshell, it was once Lindy, diverged, started being danced to entirely different music, lost the swing, and now looks like this:
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The music has indeed won out…. and love it or hate it, what you see there no longer bears any resemblance to Lindy. It’s a different dance – and that’s what’s going to happen, long-term, to Lindy if you remove the swing music element from the equation – it’s only a matter of time. We already have West Coast Swing – we don’t need to re-invent it.
I confess I do have a small bone to pick with the WCS scene, but it is one that is relevant – and it’s in their use of the word swing. ‘Swing dance’ is WCS. ‘Swing DJs’ are play music for WCS. ‘Swing music’ is music suitable for modern-day WCS. No, no no no no. The music defines the dance – the dance does not define the music. Lindy Hop is danced to swing music – the music isn’t swing because we try to dance Lindy to it. In my book, that’s an important distinction.
It’s like alcohol-free vodka.
Vodka, sad to say, is not my friend, despite my long-ago youthful attempts to win it over. But I digress…
A question that I found myself asking in the early days, when our scene was young, was simply: should we play more “accessible” music, at least to start with, to get new members, and gradually acclimitise them to what can be, in all truth, an acquired taste? Which swing, like so many forms of music, certainly can be. When I posed that question to experienced DJs who had watched scenes develop, the message was unanimous – start as you mean to go on, because you will go on as you start. If you take the “start accessible” route, where do you stop it? How do you ease people into “proper” swing, especially when you have, as most scenes do, a rolling membership?
Far better to show people from the outset what you’re about – and what the dance is about, and do it right from the start. The flip-side of the coin is that what you play influences you– influences the way you dance, and influences what you like dancing to. You become what you play? Could well be….
It’s like a joke without the punchline.
Herrang has a cool music policy, with similar versions implemented in swing dance camps worldwide, including our own DJam: they aim to create a “swing bubble”, and to keep people in that bubble for their entire time at the camp. I love this, because it puts you in that headspace where you’re living and breathing those rhythms night and day. While they are extremely particular about the music at Herrang, I don’t believe they do this purely out of musical snobbery – it’s done because of the way it affects everyone’s dancing, because a week of being in the swing bubble gets that music into your head the way little else can. I think it was my first visit to Herrang that really cemented my love of the music – I came back with so many mind-blowing tunes and rhythms echoing through my head, and that was the trigger for me to start collecting it in earnest.
The music changes you. It’s certainly changed me – while I still enjoy all the music that I used to in the days before I started listening to swing, nothing has quite the same impact or sense of excitement. This is really a topic for another post, but I feel that there has never been, before or since, been a genre of music to equal swing – nothing that has managed quite quite that level of rhythmic and melodic sophistication, and yet managed to remain so accessible to so many people… and perhaps most importantly, one that has been aimed so squarely at dancers.
Or a punchline without its joke.
Sometimes when I have this debate with people, they say: “Of course you can dance to non-swing music!”. They’re right. Of course you can, and most people do – what I’m saying is that you can’t swing dance without swing music (sorry, WCS folk, but you need a new word. To quote a well-known Spanish swordsman – I do not think it means what you think it means.)
One of the talks I went to a few years ago about the old-time dance scene mentioned the Lindy Hoppers’ habit of stealing dance moves from … pretty much everywhere, with special emphasis on Charleston. The speaker made the point that although we refer to it as Charleston, an old-time Charleston dancer looking at an old-time Lindy Hopper dancing their Charleston moves would not have called it Charleston – they’d have said it was Lindy. Because the music was different, the feel was different, the timing was different… similar moves, different dance. So it is with Lindy – you can use a lot of Lindy moves and techniques to dance to a lot of different music, but the feel changes. It becomes different – otherwise you’re trying to shoehorn one feel into another, which is a lot less fun. I tried dancing Balboa to Thriller once. It was … memorable, but I wouldn’t dare to call it Balboa.
So DJs, scene leaders, organisers, dancers… keep the swing music at the core of your dance. Believe me – you’ll be very glad you did.Nike Free Flyknit
The brand in Beaverton has once again combined two of their most successful technologies to create the Nike Free Flyknit. Unveiled today at a launch event on the Swoosh campus as a part of the #NatureAmplified campaign, the Free Flyknit features a Flyknit upper resting on top of the famous Free midsole and outsole. What makes this combination of designs really stand out is the sock-like ankle collar that flexibly conforms to your leg.
Debuted in an array of colors from orange and pink to pure volt, the Free Flyknit looks to take lightweight and near-shoeless to a whole new level. What do you think of Nike’s latest sock-like running shoe? Let us know if the feedback spot below, and stay tuned to Nice Kicks for any future information regarding the Nike Free Flyknit.
Source: Heidi BurgettN.J. rep. says town halls 'hijacked,' won't risk angry crowds
Tami Sablan shouts as Rep. Jason Chaffetz speaks during a town hall meeting at Brighton High School on Feb. 9, 2017, in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. (Photo11: Rick Bowmer, AP)
ASBURY PARK, N.J. — Add a New Jersey lawmaker to a growing list of House Republicans not interested in holding town halls and the risk of disruptions by anti-Trump and pro-Obamacare protesters.
Rep. Tom MacArthur says his town hall schedule is on hold because he doesn’t “want to be baited into having an event that some outside group can just make a spectacle out of." Instead, MacArthur held a one-hour telephone town hall Monday, where constituents were invited to call in their questions.
Town halls by GOP lawmakers have heated up since President Trump’s inauguration last month. It’s also the first time there’s been Republican majorities in the House and the Senate in more 10 years.
While the majority of calls during the town hall were supportive, MacArthur fielded several questions that challenged the Trump administration’s views on border security, health care and other issues.
Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., is sworn in by House Speaker John Boehner during a ceremonial swearing-in performed in Washington on Jan. 6, 2015. (Photo11: Jeff Franko, USA TODAY)
MacArthur represents the 3rd District, which includes Toms River, Brick, Berkeley, Lacey, Barnegat, Ocean Township (Waretown), and part of Stafford in Ocean County, and most of Burlington County.
MacArthur was New Jersey's lone Republican to say no when the House last month overwhelmingly voted to start in motion the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
“I voted no because, even though I believe we have to replace Obamacare, I don’t think we have to do it instantly and I think we’re going a little too fast," he said in response to a question.
He said he has supported Trump's executive order on immigration and disagreed when a caller suggested it was a "Muslim ban.''
“I don’t support a Muslim ban. There are nearly 50 Muslim-majority countries in the world and this travel freeze, which is temporary, only affects seven nations, not because they’re Muslim nations, but because they’re highly volatile security threats," he said.
“This executive order in my mind is about safety for the American people, period. If it was a broad Muslim ban, I would not support it."
During the telephone town hall, MacArthur alleged that colleagues had their events disrupted as “hundreds of people have been bused in and have been organized and in some cases have even been paid to disrupt and to steal your voice."
“I think you have to realize what’s going on all over the country. Public town hall events are being hijacked by groups that are outside of the district that (the) member represents. You’ve seen them on TV," he said.
MacArthur didn’t offer evidence that protesters are paid and bused. Spokeswoman Camille Gallo said MacArthur "was simply referring to reports that he had read about outside groups attending congressional town halls.''
"There is no doubt that special interest groups have been hijacking these forums with the intent to completely disrupt productive events and preventing local constituents from interacting with their congressman,'' Gallo said.
New York Rep. Chris Collins and Illinois Rep. Peter Roskam, both Republicans, earlier on Monday also said they don’t have plans to do any in-person town halls because of the current hostile climate.
House Republicans during a closed-door meeting last week discussed how to protect themselves and their staffs from protesters storming town halls and offices in opposition to repealing Obamacare, according to a report by Politico.
CLOSE Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz got grilled by a fiery crowd during a local town hall. A retired teacher asked him 'what is your line in the sand?' and if he will hold President Trump accountable. USA TODAY NETWORK
Last week Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House oversight committee, faced sharp questions and fierce pushback from many in a crowd of 1,000 inside a high school auditorium — with another 1,500 people outside because they couldn't get in, according to the Salt Lake Tribune — with attendees saying they were frustrated by the Utah Republican's refusal to investigate Trump's potential conflicts of interest.
Chaffetz said he was the focus of a coordinated national effort and that paid operatives were brought into Utah to help inflame opponents. He said the same thing is happening at town halls across the country but also offered no evidence.
That was Thursday, the same day Reps. Justin Amash, R-Mich., House Budget Committee Chairwoman Diane Black, R-Tenn., also ran into hostile crowds at district events. Video of a teacher defending the Affordable Care Act at Black's event went viral.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer has asserted that Trump protests are "not these organic uprisings that we've seen over the last several decades. The tea party was a very organic movement. This has become a paid Astroturf-type movement."
Follow Bob Jordan on Twitter: @BobJordanAPP
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2l9eQqqThe attraction of cheap greenhouses is easy to understand in that they allow those of us living in temperate areas to grow fruits and vegetables that simply can’t be grown satisfactorily outdoors.
Greenhouses allow us to grow peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and similar sensitive plants.
And even people living in warmer climates can benefit from owning a greenhouse as it extends the growing season by allowing you to start planting earlier and keep producing food right through till early winter.
But for all the benefits of greenhouses there is one “sticking point” for many people – and that is the cost of owning one. Fortunately if you’re keen to try your hand at growing food in your own greenhouse, but you’re struggling to justify the cost, there are a variety of money-saving tips to help you become the proud owner of a cheap greenhouse.
Freecycling
Greenhouses are big, heavy and bulky items and disposing of them can be something of a nightmare.
As a result of this some people opt to put their old wanted greenhouse on one of the various freecycling websites currently operating.
By registering with a range of these sites and then keeping your eyes peeled it’s often possible to pick one up not just a cheap greenhouse but often one for free.
Remember that the greenhouse frame is the most complex aspect of the unit so even greenhouses with missing panes of glass – or even no glass at all – shouldn’t be a problem. Standard-sized replacement panes are readily available and simple-enough to fit.
Classified Adverts
In a similar vein those people looking to get rid of an unwanted greenhouse but who either aren’t aware of freecycling or who want to raise a little money often list their greenhouses in the classified ad sections of small local newspapers.
A metal-framed greenhouse has a long lifespan so don’t be too concerned with the age – as long as it looks sturdy and in decent condition you’ll likely receive a lot of service even from an old greenhouse.
Greenhouse Kits
If you’re willing to put a little work another option for cheap greenhouses are the range of greenhouse kits that you contruct yourself. In these cases consider all the alternative kits to see if buying the frame and glazing seperately can save you money without significantly adding to the effort of building your own greenhouse.
Build Your Own Greenhouse
There are a number of books now that will teach you how to build your own greenhouse from scratch using basic equipment you can find in any decent DIY store.
Of course you will need to put in a little more effort to build your own cheap greenhouse rather than buying one pre-made but if you’re willing to put the work in it’s astonishing just how much money you can save by building your own greenhouse.
Glaziers
People who sell glass for a living – such as window manufacturers and sales rooms – somes have unwanted “offcuts” that they don’t know what to do with. A few emails or phone calls in your local area can often let you pick up unwanted pieces of glass for virtually nothing to help glaze your greenhouse.
Rigid Plastic Instead Of Glass
Another often cost-effective solution for replacing missing panes of glass – or even for building your own greenhouse from scratch – can be
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in the U.S., recently retired New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, rebuked Vigneron's stance in a Washington Post essay last week.
Vigneron has declined to make further comments on the subject.
Retired Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, a longtime peace and social activist who went public 20 years ago with his family's own story about a brother who was gay, said this week that Vigneron's remarks were "legalistic."
Gumbleton said he has had discussions with more than a dozen concerned Catholics who have gay relatives in relationships and fear being ostracized by the church.
"Nobody knows your relationship with God except you," Gumbleton said. "Whoever is distributing communion has no knowledge of what you have in your heart and has no business trying to find out."
The Rev. Norman Thomas, who is a pastor of Detroit parishes Sacred Heart and St. Elizabeth, said Vigneron's statement "was kind of insensitive."
"Are people expected to exempt themselves, or is there going to be a check-off right there at the (communion) line?" Thomas said.
Archdiocese spokesman Ned McGrath said Wednesday that Vigneron's comments were not "anything new or different."
"It was not an anti-anyone answer. It was a response regarding a Catholic's proper disposition when presenting themselves for communion," McGrath said.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/ZoXH76Friends, well actually listeners, but I do consider all my listeners friends, it has been an odd 24 hours. One moment I’m with my wife at the Veronica Mars premier high fiving Ryan Hanson, the next I’m home dealing with a hot water heater springing leak and sending hot water flying everywhere. Ups and downs, that’s how life goes. But something is always there to get us though, music, love, stuff like that. We celebrate those things in our good times, hold on to them tight in the bad times, and in the times in between we get joy when what makes life worth living pops up. Speaking of joy occasionally popping up, for me Coolie Ranx is always a welcome addition to any song ever recorded. See, “Dub 56” was my very first ska album so the awesomeness of ska music and Coolie are forever linked in my head. This episode celebrates bands Mr. Ranx has been a part of and songs that he’s guested on, believe me, it’s all great stuff, I hope you enjoy it.
Across the Aisle – Beer Song (In Ska We Trust ’10)
Babylove & the Van Dangos – Big Big Baboon (Lovers Choice ’08)
Pilfers – Easy Man (Easy Man / Death Caught Me ’13)
Big D & the Kids Table – Put it in a Song (Stroll ’13)
Reel Big Fish – Hiding in My Headphones (Candy Coated Fury ’12)
the Toasters – Legal Shot (Dub 56 ’94)
Find & like 23min of Ska on facebook as well as follow on twitter. Also, feel free to download this episode. Ska is better on vinyl. Hit up Grandpa’s Casino Recordings, we have some great vinyl ska records!The stinging defeat of Senator Marco Rubio in his home state of Florida yesterday, and his withdrawal from the Republican race, have very powerful significance: pro-Israel neoconservatism has been flushed from the Republican Party, twenty years after it captured that party and produced the Iraq War.
Rubio ran as the candidate of the neoconservative faction in the Republican Party. He raised a ton of money on that basis. Donald Trump ran against the Iraq war and for a more evenhanded policy visavis the Israel/Palestine issue; and Trump smashed Rubio on his own ground.
The neoconservatives may now flock to Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side. Robert Kagan already has. Right now there is no other game in town.
Chris Matthews all but stated that neoconservatism is a Jewish pro-Israel movement last night. You have not heard such a bald description of the neocons’ agenda in the mainstream media ever I think, and that in itself is a sign of their loss of power:
One of the big factors that’s been unleashed… There’s a very significant but small number of people, they’re called noeconservatives. They’re sons of immigrants or grandsons of immigrants. They’re very pro Israeli. They’re very pro immigrant. Because they’re children and children of immigrants themsevles. They’d been backing Rubio as their hope. He’s a hawk, he throws lines like Judea and Samaria, a reference to the fact of greater Israel, that the Likudnik party has never wanted to give away. They send all those kinds of signals. Rubio has been that sort of guy. Now he’s gone. They’re very active on the op-ed pages. They’re very intellectual. I like a lot of them personally. People like Bill Kristol, John Podhoretz, Robert Kagan, Charles Krauthammer, very smart people who have neoconservative culture and views behind them. They’re going to be interesting to watch now. I don’t think they’re comfortable at all with Trump with his latest line about being evenhanded on the Middle East. That’s not going to sell at all. They don’t like him. They don’t think he’s classy enough…. That candidate [they go to] could very well be Hillary Clinton. That’s when you’re gong to see a real sea change, on the op-eds of our major newspapers, people writing with a very strong evenhandedness [about the two parties]… This is a big development night. Their vessel has sunk. Now they’re gong to be struggling in the water.
Justin Raimondo:
Marco’s Waterloo = the end of neonconservatism as a political force in the GOP. Glory, glory hallelujah!
In her victory speech last night, Hillary Clinton made an implicit nod to Israel and to Donald Trump’s wishywashiness. She echoed Marco Rubio’s attack on Trump as not supportive of our allies.
“We live in a complex and, yes, a dangerous world. Protecting America’s national security can never be an after thought. Our commander in chief has to be able to defend our country, not embarrass it, engage our allies, not alienate them, defeat our adversaries, not embolden them. When we have a candidate for president call for rounding up 12 million immigrants, banning all Muslims from entering United States, when he embraces torture, that doesn’t make him strong, it makes him wrong.”
Scott McConnell says the neocons are now thought to be up for grabs; and it means a lot that Matthews is talking about it:
Chris Matthews says Cruz pitched his speech tonite towards [Sheldon]Adelson/[Paul]Singer/ (FP hawks) and Koch bros. (kill the EPA). Incisive for TV.
Neoconservative Bill Kristol has moved on to a new strategy: getting an establishment Republican to run against Trump and Hillary Clinton.
An Independent Republican could win, w/ Clinton at 56 unfav & Trump at 67, & possibility of Trump meltdown in general.
Kristol is even notioning the candidacy of Tom Cotton, the Arkansas senator whom the neoconservatives made in 2014:
E-mail from serious guy: “Sasse or Cotton as Ind Rep/constl conservative? If either jumped in I’d be tempted to take leave to help them.”
When Kristol says that the guy is serious, he means that he has a lot of money. Kristol’s Emergency Committee for Israel lifted Cotton with $1 million in his 2014 Senate race, and he promptly attempted to sabotage the Iran deal. And no one really talked about it. Now they will, because the neocons are losing power.
As you read this, bear some things in mind. Matthews’s all-but-explicit identification of neocons as Jews is fine. Neoconservatism came out of the Jewish community, and was based on hawkish pro-Israel views; many Jewish writers said as much– even Alan Dershowitz, here. Back in the 1970s, neoconservative founders Norman Podhoretz and Irving Kristol originated the movement when they jumped to the Republican Party in the wake of George McGovern’s nomination by the Democrats; because they doubted the Democrats would use force to support Israel. A weak Defense budget would “drive a knife in the heart of Israel,” Kristol said outright in a Jewish publication.The creed was plain:
it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States… American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don’t want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel.
Then in the 1990s, his son Bill worked to purge the “Arabists” and realists from the Republican establishment, people like Jim Baker and Brent Scowcroft who were against marching on Baghdad. Kristol and Kagan produced the neoconservative braintrust that helped to give us the Iraq war under Bush.
And all this time, neoconservatism was not politicized because there was a companion wing on the Democratic side: the liberal interventionists, the Democratic political/media bloc that supported the Iraq War, from Jeffrey Goldberg who may as well have been a neocon to Bill Keller to David Remnick to Chuck Schumer to Hillary Clinton. The entire foreign policy establishment was an Israel lobby establishment; no one argued about a militant Israel-supporting foreign policy in political races, except rank outsiders.
Hillary Clinton will now also be making a play for the neoconservative faction, inasmuch as there is a lot of money there. Read this comment, on a New York Times editorial, from a Hillary supporter, called Peg, who seems well-informed:
Hillary made 41 speeches in 2013. One was to a Jewish fed for 400,000 and one to a nurses org for 300,000. She got her average of 225,000 from Goldman. This is how the Clinton’s make a living and raise money for their foundation. It is very common for large orgs to pay big bucks for speakers. Graduation speakers can even get as much as 100,000. It is a shame Bernie spun that into a conspiracy to gain votes.
The issue is, how much Hillary Clinton’s pandering to the pro-Israel conservatives and neoconservatives– the Jewish Federation, the Saban Forum, and AIPAC, or the American Israel Public Affairs Committee– distorts her foreign policy positions. Bernie Sanders has not made an issue of this; but possibly Donald Trump will. Clinton has promised to bring Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House in her first month in office. She has promised to Haim Saban– a big donor to Clinton and Barack Obama too, who shares many positions with rightwing donor Sheldon Adelson– that she will work with Republicans to fight the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS.
The good news from last night is that these positions may at last be politicized: They may be openly disputed in the coming election.Happy FEC day! Today, April 30, 2013, marks the day that the term of the last Federal Elections Commissioner expires. Now, out of six seats on the FEC, one seat is vacant and every remaining commissioner is serving an expired term. And we’re not talking about weeks or months: FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub’s term, for example, expired in April 2007.
What is holding things up? President Obama could, if he wished, appoint new commissioners to all six FEC seats. (No more than three commissioners can be from one party, and appointments are subject to Senate confirmation.) Obama could choose commissioners who actually want to enforce the law, clearing a path to progress, at last, on regulations to end secret money. (See Trevor Potter’s piece, How the FEC can stop the tidal wave of secret political cash.)
Fixing the FEC is the “low hanging fruit” of the money and politics movement.
Neither Citizens United nor other Supreme Court decisions require campaign contributions to be kept secret. Rather, these court decisions interact with existing law to create giant loopholes that led to the flood of dark money in recent elections. Several times, even with Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, Congress failed to pass the DISCLOSE Act, which would have ended the secrecy of campaign contributions. Now, with Republicans controlling the House, there is no chance for disclosure legislation passing in Congress.
But these loopholes aren’t immutable: the FEC also has the power to compel disclosure of all contributions. This wouldn’t make the unlimited spending go away, but it would make this spending public and transparent, an essential step forward.
In 2007 Obama said, “As president, I will appoint nominees to the Commission who are committed to enforcing our nation’s election laws.” Why hasn’t he done so?
The absence of organized political pressure has allowed Obama to serve four years as President without appointing a single new commissioner. (One nomination, made in 2009, was later withdrawn.) CREW and a handful of other groups have spotlighted the problem, but this is just the beginning. What is desperately needed is a well-resourced, organized campaign with a broad coalition of groups involved.
A two-year national campaign, requiring only a fraction of the resources of a campaign to pass a national law, would be enough to create the public pressure necessary to drive Obama to appoint these commissioners. With the opportunity for an easy win with modest resources – not to mention the chance to end secret money – this is one of the best investments our movement could make.
Obama has already said he wants to do this. Are we going to wait for a new president to appoint new commissioners? Or are we as a movement going to put the pressure on now, when we have a president who is already favorably inclined, a president who understands the issue – a president who for eight years served on the board of directors of the Joyce Foundation, with its long-time support of money and politics reform?
In forty years, there has never been more public disgust with the corrupting influence of money on politics. The public is with us in spirit. But to build the movement, we need wins. Ending secret money would be a big national win, and the only national win on the two-year horizon right now. Will we as a movement seize this rare opportunity, or let it pass?
More:
Originally published by Washington Examiner, May 6, 2013.Nor did governments do much to help. Some governments — those of weaker nations in Europe, and state and local governments here — were actually forced to slash spending in the face of falling revenues. And the modest efforts of stronger governments — including, yes, the Obama stimulus plan — were, at best, barely enough to offset this forced austerity.
Photo
So we have depressed economies. What are policy makers proposing to do about it? Less than nothing.
The disappearance of unemployment from elite policy discourse and its replacement by deficit panic has been truly remarkable. It’s not a response to public opinion. In a recent CBS News/New York Times poll, 53 percent of the public named the economy and jobs as the most important problem we face, while only 7 percent named the deficit. Nor is it a response to market pressure. Interest rates on U.S. debt remain near historic lows.
Yet the conversations in Washington and Brussels are all about spending cuts (and maybe tax increases, I mean revisions). That’s obviously true about the various proposals being floated to resolve the debt-ceiling crisis here. But it’s equally true in Europe.
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On Thursday, the “heads of state or government of the euro area and the E.U. institutions” — that mouthful tells you, all by itself, how messy European governance has become — issued their big statement. It wasn’t reassuring.
For one thing, it’s hard to believe that the Rube Goldberg financial engineering the statement proposes can really resolve the Greek crisis, let alone the wider European crisis.
But, even if it does, then what? The statement calls for sharp deficit reductions “in all countries except those under a programme” to take place “by 2013 at the latest.” Since those countries “under a programme” are being forced into drastic fiscal austerity, this amounts to a plan to have all of Europe slash spending at the same time. And there is nothing in the European data suggesting that the private sector will be ready to take up the slack in less than two years.
For those who know their 1930s history, this is all too familiar. If either of the current debt negotiations fails, we could be about to replay 1931, the global banking collapse that made the Great Depression great. But, if the negotiations succeed, we will be set to replay the great mistake of 1937: the premature turn to fiscal contraction that derailed economic recovery and ensured that the Depression would last until World War II finally provided the boost the economy needed.
Did I mention that the European Central Bank — although not, thankfully, the Federal Reserve — seems determined to make things even worse by raising interest rates?
There’s an old quotation, attributed to various people, that always comes to mind when I look at public policy: “You do not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed.” Now that lack of wisdom is on full display, as policy elites on both sides of the Atlantic bungle the response to economic trauma, ignoring all the lessons of history. And the Lesser Depression goes on.While many fans have been dead-set on the potential of Denver Broncos' backup quarterback Brock Osweiler, the numbers simply aren't there.
Osweiler for his career owns a 56.7 completion percentage, 159 passing yards, one touchdown and two sacks in 13 regular season games. Those numbers would not be quite so damning if they weren't nearly reflective of his 12 preseason games where he owns a 57.7 completion percentage, 930 yards, three touchdowns, five interceptions, three fumbles and 12 sacks.
Denver needs to trade Osweiler before the draft
Clearly what the Broncos have said publicly about Osweiler's progress or the teams' willingness to play this season with Osweiler at the helm was all lip-service. Denver made that evident when they agreed to pay Peyton Manning $15 million of his contracted $19 million to be their starting quarterback in 2015.
Manning will earn a $4 million bonus in the event that he wins the Super Bowl this season.
Coincidentally Osweiler's contract will expire at the end of this coming season, something that Osweiler himself has pointed out,
"When I was drafted here, I knew I was brought in to sit on the bench and learn from one of the greatest quarterbacks to have ever played this game," Osweiler said. "I also knew that his contract was one year longer than mine. We understood that.
"And really, in this business, the way I've looked at it is we take it one year at a time."
One year ago today, there were rumors that as many as four teams had called Denver to express interest in trading for Osweiler:
On @PeterBurnsRadio's show this morning it was said that two of the four teams contacting Denver for Brock Osweiler were the Browns & Texans — The Orange Page (@theorangepage) March 5, 2014
The Broncos are obligated to boast the trade value of Osweiler now more than ever, so expect propaganda from all of the usual sources, which will spread to some fans vehemently defending a quarterback that has yet to do anything in three NFL seasons.
Denver needs to get a trade done before the draft when they select a quarterback that may actually have the potential to be Manning's replacement. Drafting that quarterback would essentially nullify Osweiler's trade value, as teams will know that the Broncos will take nearly anything for a quarterback that is worth nearly nothing to them.
UPDATE (3/15/15):
Former Baltimore Ravens' quarterback Tyrod Taylor reportedly turned down more than two-years and $7 million dollars from Denver to sign with the Buffalo Bills. Taylor reportedly wanted a chance to start this season.
Now why would Denver want to pay a third string quarterback that much money?Updated: 10/2/2013, see below.
Terry Smith, an 11 year old boy recently went missing in Menifee, CA. On Wednesday, authorities announced that they had found a body matching Terry’s description in a shallow grave under a tree behind his mother’s house. His 16 year old half brother was arrested on suspicion of murder.
The radio station I was listening to mentioned that Pam Ragland, a “psychic was claiming that she had found the boy’s body” but added that authorities denied knowing anything about this woman. Ok, typical crackpot scenario. This morning however there were several articles on various sites about Pam Ragland’s claims and that authorities verified that she was actually responsible.
[ Huffington Post, NBC, and Los Angeles Times ]
A few observations about this story and Pam Ragland’s claims:
Watching the news Tuesday about the continuing search for Terry Smith, Ragland said she thought “something’s not right.” “I got this flash and I saw the boy laying under a tree. I thought he was sleeping,” Ragland told NBC4. “There was a dirt road, and I saw this distinctive building.”
When is a missing child ever “right”? With the constant 24/7 local news coverage of the search efforts to find Terry Smith, it is almost certain that Ragland had seen the “tree” and “distinctive building” several times on television at the family’s property.
She said she called her daughter, whom she described as “also intuitive,” and asked her to try to “talk” to Terry. Then she called the Sheriff’s Department’s tip line. She said authorities asked her to come down to the scene; Ragland arrived with her two children on Tuesday evening. During the drive, Ragland said she had another vision – of “city lights” and the word “no.” When she arrived at the search area, she saw the view she had seen in a vision. “It’s literally like a vision in your head, like you’re looking at something,” she said.
Umm, wat? There was no further information on her daughter’s attempt to “talk” to Terry from 65+ miles away in any of the articles that I could find.
Keep in mind that Ragland called the TIP LINE. Just like every other volunteer. The authorities INVITED her to come and help. Just like every other volunteer.
After contacting authorities, she drives to Menifee with her children. While driving she claims to have another vision. How safe are these alleged visions if you’re driving with children on either the 91 or 74 freeways to get to Menifee? The vision this time was about “city lights”.
Take a look at the picture below.
These are the volunteers searching for Terry Smith on Monday (a day before Ragland’s ‘visions’) and gathering at the Menifee Market next to Terry’s home. Similar footage and images certainly flooding the local news coverage of the search for this child. City lights. Check. Nothing supernatural about it. If she had taken the Ortega 74 route from Rancho Santa Margarita to Menifee on Tuesday evening, “city lights” would have been the prevailing view when coming down from the hills and entering the Inland Empire.
A searcher said the city lights represented the area they planned to explore. Ragland said, “No, he’s not there.”
Why start telling anyone that would listen that you had a vision of “city lights” to begin with and the authorities are directing the search volunteers in a different area entirely? Oh right! The volunteers have been seeing city lights during the evening searches for the last several nights already so BOOM, instant connection and implied credibility.
She looked around and said she believed Terry was “behind the store,” referring to the Menifee Market, adjacent to the Smith home and the location where volunteer searchers had gathered. “I had this knowing that he was in a certain direction,” Ragland said.
Here is a satellite view so you can get an idea of the area.
An off-duty firefighter offered to drive Ragland around to search, she said. During the drive, she spotted an open shed that resembled what she had seen in her initial vision. It was near the Smith family home. The firefighter, Ragland said, convinced the Smith family to let them on to the property. There, they saw a single tree like the one Ragland had seen in her vision.
The authorities had already started to focus their investigation on the boy’s half brother and had already confined the search to the family’s property. So there is nothing magical about Ragland arriving at the property.
The ‘distinctive building’ has now turned into an open shed and the single tree has been identified. Again, these elements of her alleged visions can certainly be attributed to local news coverage that she and her children watched on television.
“Then I smelled something. Something that smelled dead,” she recalled.
A legitimate human sense finally comes into play.
Her children found a lump, and they called out to her: “Mommy, here’s a dead animal.”
Another human sense based in reality is again used, unfortunately probably scarring her two children for years to come.
But when she looked at the lump, she realized: “That is not an animal. That’s a head.” As Ragland described it, a blackened, bloated head was sticking up about 6 or 8 inches. Half of the nose and an eye were missing.
That’s some ‘parent of the year’ material right there to take your two children out for a cadaver search in the middle of the night.
“I felt devastated because I thought we were going to help this family find a live child,” Ragland said.
Wait a moment… So Ragland says that her vision of Terry was wrong?
Ragland’s claims are absolutely incredible and preposterous. A strong instinct or reaction to something unconsciously observed is certainly not a vision. It was only a matter of time before Ragland or any of the other volunteers/police would have found the body since the search area was already focused on the family’s property.
Pam Ragland also detailed how she joined a recent search for lost hikers. If she had any visions at that time they did not help find the two hikers. The search and rescue volunteer teams using their own reality based senses eventually located the two missing hikers. According to Ragland’s own Facebook posts, she was involved in the search of the two hikers in April, guiding her daughter to “use her intuition to communicate with the missing hikers” and “giving the parents comfort”.
It is very important to note that the rescue effort at this point in time was deadly critical as the hikers were seriously dehydrated and starting to hallucinate. The authorities estimated they would not survive the next day if they were not found.
Where was Pam Ragland? She was busy using her volunteer search time to speak to six different TV station news crews.
Notice the pattern here yet?
If you insert yourself into enough situations with the media (within a 70 mile radius?) claiming to have visions, eventually you’ll get lucky.
It’s not as if she is going to use this terrible tragedy to make a cheap buck? Right? Right?
Awwww, crap.
I had never heard of Pam Ragland until this week but once I started reading all this I could already smell the telltale odor of faux spiritual nonsense. The following sealed the deal though.
Ragland, 50, does not call herself a “psychic.” She said she is a “healer,” who believes that people can hone their intuition. On her website, Ragland said she has pioneered “Quantum Thought Shifting,” an “entirely new form of energy technology on this planet.”
Because “healer” is much more approachable for people (and their wallets I expect) than “psychic”. I am glad that she believes that people can hone their intuition, because I’m about to let my intuition go into overdrive.
There is so much WTF quantum bullshit in that last sentence that I am at a loss as to why any of these publications printed it without admitting this was from The Onion.
I decided to look more closely at Pam Ragland and quickly discovered that I would need to make entirely separate posts to detail the nonsense that this Quantum Quackster™ is peddling.
Terry Smith’s family needs to be able to grieve in peace after the tragic loss of their son and not have to endure a constant reminder of the tragedy when psychic parasites desperately try to make a profit.
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Updated Information
New information on Ragland’s claims regarding Terry Smith will be appended below.
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7/11/2013 – Pam Ragland is briefly interviewed by KCAL-9 News. The reporter summarizing Ragland’s explanation of her vision contradicts her previous claim.
The building or structure in her visions was originally stated as “an open shed that resembled what she had seen in her initial vision. It was near the Smith family home.” [source]
In the video (@0:30), the structure has changed from “an open shed” to “the Smith family home” itself. That is quite a large alteration in Ragland’s story of alleged visions that has been previously stated.
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7/12/2013 – Ragland posted her own version of the events on Facebook.
Here is a second example of the Quantum Thought shifting of the story where the “open shed” is now “near a house”. When the story first broke, Ragland was very specific about the distinctive building or open shed near the family home. Now that element of the story has changed again to become the family home itself… which Ragland claims above to have forgotten about?
7/13/2013 – Pam Ragland responded to people calling upon her to take James Randi’s $1 million dollar paranormal challenge. Not surprising that she thinks it’s “dumb and pointless”. She completely (intentionally?) misses the point of the challenge. Since nobody has passed even the preliminary tests, she probably would not want to expose her “talents” to such national scrutiny.
7/24/2013 – The Orange County Register had a follow-up interview with Pam Ragland and how her life has changed since finding Terry Smith. The Register is now behind a paywall but the article can be viewed at the following link.
http://occrimedefender.com/healer-discusses-life-after-discovery-of-dead-boy/
The 50-year-old said she saw an image July 9 of Terry Dewayne Smith Jr. lying under a tree near what appeared to be a hay barn.
Open shed, hay barn, or the family’s home itself. The building in Ragland’s visions continues to shift.
On responding to skeptics, Ragland says:
I think people that are skeptical are always going to be skeptical. I just think that you can’t convince them. A UFO could land in a parking lot right in front of them and they’d say, “What UFO?” There are some people that are never going to be convinced.
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8/3/2013 – Benjamin Radford posted a great article at Live Science.
http://www.livescience.com/38657-missing-child-terry-smith-psychic.html
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9/20/2013 – Inside Edition aired an interview with Pam Ragland. Read the full story and further examination of the ever changing details here:
http://35.185.30.157/2013/09/pam-ragland-inside-edition-mess/
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10/2/2013 – I found an interesting comment post over at WebSleuths.com involving Pam Ragland. During an ongoing thread discussing the disappearance of Bryce Laspisa, someone brought up the possibility of involving some psychics in the search. Pam Ragland is mentioned and here is a cropped snapshot of one of the replies relating to the Terry Smith search.
Here is a direct link to the comment that includes the quoted context of the discussion.
Very nice to see some additional details from the volunteer center and the how Ragland was very quick to capitalize on the media attention from Terry Smith’s tragic end.Right around this time of year, high school seniors are making some tough decisions — in just a few short weeks, it'll be time to fill out those enrollment forms. Before picking out dorm décor to suit that new college’s colors, check out our list. We've found the 25 schools that create the best environment for leading a fit, healthy, and happy life. For more deets on how we ranked the schools, scroll to the bottom.
1. UCLA
We can only assume UCLA students never go inside. The school offers an impressive outdoor rec center (in addition to a traditional indoor one) with a team-building ropes course, pools, kayaking, and picnic areas. And if all that relaxing gets too strenuous, students will appreciate the health center (ranked number one by The Princeton Review), which offers acupuncture and massage therapy. There's also nutrition programming from the health center and the comprehensive FITWELL program with fitness classes, online educational resources, mind and body workshops, and even chair massages. Photo: Stephanie Diani/UCLA Newsroom
2. Stanford University
Some of the happiest students in the country are at Stanford, according to The Princeton Review, and we can see why. Students give the food here an A+ at College Prowler, and many dining options include late night dining 'til 2 am. Meanwhile, the gym is open until 1 am, so studying will never get in the way of a sweat session. Not to be outdone, the health center is also ranked in the top 25 by The Princeton Review. There are several student athletic groups, and the three-step BeWell program with resources for assessment, planning, and executing health and fitness changes. Photo: Linda A. Cicero/Stanford News Service
3. University of North Dakota
Students aiming to eat healthy will love UND's "guiding stars" rating system, which serves as the yellow brick road to healthy dining options. And for the price of $4,000 per year, students get unlimited access to the dining halls, which support local North Dakota farmers. (For the record, the national average for the cost of dining in 2009-2010 was $4,300, which doesn't necessarily include unlimited meals.) Recreation facilities are even more highly rated on College Prowler — as well they should be. The $20 million gym, opened in 2006, was a gift from the students, who voted to add a wellness student fee to pay for it. The gym offers a huge array of free fitness and health assessments and just about all the equipment we could ever want. Our favorite thing about UND, though, is its 7 Dimensions approach to wellness, which includes often-overlooked factors like emotional, environmental, and spiritual health. Photo: Chuck Kimmerle/University of North Dakota
4. Colby College
Tabata training and CrossFit classes at the fitness center are perfect for students who want to work out outside the box (pun intended), and the fitness complex also boasts a pool, indoor track, and ice rink. The health center has convenient hours, including weekends, and an emergency response team of volunteer EMTs that serve the campus community. Colby embraces sustainable dining, harvesting some food straight from its thriving campus garden. And dining services' hard work is rewarded with an A+ score on College Prowler. Photo: Jesse Goldman '12/Colby College
5. University of Georgia
UGA gets major points for its highly-rated food, plus the school offers nutrition consultations and smart-eating courses with a dietitian. The University of Georgia was also one of the only schools we found with 24-hour dining during the week, so even after a late-night study session students don't need to resort to fast food. The school's gym offers a Biggest Loser program (with prizes!) and several other wellness programs. The health center has dental, dermatology, and vision care, plus cooking classes and wellness workshops. Photo by Dot Paul
6. Bowdoin College
With dining services that include a small army of chefs and dieticians, it's no surprise students love Bowdoin's food. The dining halls serve fresh foods straight from the school's organic garden, and Bowdoin's food is ranked tops by both College Prowler and The Princeton Review. The school also boasts a 3-year-old fitness center with a selection of free classes comparable to the selection at a much larger university. The health center offers wellness classes, too, but the stellar programming doesn't end there. There's an outing club that goes on more than 100 active outings per year and a women's center with groups for students dealing with poor body image, eating disorders, and discrimination. Bowdoin even has — get this — a craft center. Photo by Bob Handelman
7. University of Texas at Austin
Good health reigns supreme at UT-Austin. The health center is ranked number 4 by The Princeton Review, and more than 50 percent of students say it's high-quality and convenient on College Prowler. The center offers a lending library of books and DVDs, and the school also has a wellness network with a slew of events like mindfulness meditation, taekwondo, and community garden work time. Dining halls also make it easy to pick healthier choices thanks to "healthy suggestions" at every meal. Photo: Marsha Miller/The University of Texas at Austin
8. St. Olaf College
Students at College Prowler love the food at St. Olaf. And that's good news, since 90 percent of students live on campus and must have a dining plan. The dining hall is catered by Bon Appetit, which has pretty impressive standards for food selection, plus there's always one all-vegan station. Photo Courtesy of St. Olaf College
9. United States Military Academy, West Point
It comes as no surprise that physical fitness is a huge deal at this military academy. According to The Princeton Review, West Point's health care is also top-of-the-line (third in the country). Cadets have access to military medical care plus a network of local providers including dental care. But it's not all work and no play. Cadets can fulfill their competitive sports requirement with activities like skiing, martial arts, and marathon teams, among others. Photo Courtesy of The U.S. Military Academy at West Point
10. James Madison University
Students who can't stand an overcrowded Zumba session will love JMU's approach to fitness classes. Students must register online in advance to secure a spot in class, and the gym offers a huge range of class options (with video clips online for timid first-timers). The rec also offers a
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success is expected for all students.” Remember, this is the OECD, a thoroughly bourgeois institution, speaking.
But those were long-standing features of the Canadian system; what’s interesting are the kinds of reforms that took place in Ontario, under a Liberal government that took office in 2003. The liberals, led by premier Dalton McGinty, succeeded a deeply reactionary regime, led by Mike Harris, whose education policies featured cost-cutting, school choice, “demonising teachers” (the OECD’s phrase), promotion of private schools, and extensive testing. (Sound familiar?)
McGinty led a dramatic shift away from Harris-style policies. At the center of the reforms was teacher development—improving their skills, and working with them. The provincial government, says the OECD, “drew a sharp contrast between its capacity-building approach…and the more punitive versions of accountability used in the United States.” Their approach was collegial and cooperative, not competitive. No one spoke of tying pay to performance.
Going into these reforms, Canada had another advantage besides its health care system—teachers had long been recruited from among the top third of secondary school grads. According to a McKinsey study, a characteristic of all high-scoring systems is degree to which prospective teachers are drawn “from the top end of the talent pool.” (In Finland, it’s more like the top fifth.) But, as one Canadian teacher told the OECD researchers: “Everyone knew that there was a loophole—you could always cross the border to the United States. Anyone can get credentialed there.”
This is something that almost no one in the U.S. wants to talk about. Progressives are understandably reluctant to criticize teachers, given the many good ones we have and the slanderous attacks they’ve been under, but teaching is just not a well-paid or prestigious profession in the U.S. Because of that—and because of the profound anti-intellectualism of the culture (something else a lot of progressive education pundits don’t like to talk about either)—education schools don’t consistently draw the most vigorous candidates. According to the College Board, average SAT scores for seniors planning to go into education fall into the bottom third.
In successful systems like Ontario and Finland, teachers have a great deal of professional autonomy. There may be a national curriculum, but teachers are expected to know their subject well and develop their skills at imparting knowledge. Finland requires master’s degrees even for primary teachers; in most successful systems, master’s are typical or even required in the subject area for secondary teachers. In some Asian systems, new teachers serve as apprentices to master teachers before they’re allowed to run their own shows. There are no generalists just thrown to the wolves, as in the U.S.
And in most successful systems, standardized tests are rare, and are generally administered only at major breakpoints, like entrance into or graduation from high school. Administrators of top systems are very conscious of what other high-achieving countries do, and try to emulate what they can. The contrast with the U.S. is stark. In fact, there’s no other country that does anything like what we are doing—the testing, the punitive evaluations, the vendetta against “bad” teachers. And most U.S. education specialists are largely unaware of what’s going on abroad.
Back in the 1990s, Finland consciously chose to improve its educational system to move away from a resource-based economy towards a high-tech one. It’s succeeded. China has made a similar decision, to support a move away from low-tech to higher-tech production. Despite lip-service paid to those sorts of goals in the U.S., most education reform here has focused on cost-cutting and tighter discipline. If you strip away the rhetoric, it looks like the U.S. elite’s long-term plan is for a low-wage, poverty-ridden economy where the bottom 50–75% is supposed to shut up and stay in line. The upper crust will continue to send its kids to crunchy, progressive schools like St Ann’s and Sidwell Friends. But for everyone else, it’s going to be rules, poorly paid teachers, and lots of tests. And from there, it’s on to McDonald’s if you’re lucky, or jail, if you’re not. Of course, no one says that—but by their deeds ye shall know them.Get five albums for free and nine for 99 cents each from the Windows Store By Christina Calio / Microsoft Groove Team Share Share Skype
We’re excited to let you know that we’re giving away five albums for free and nine holiday albums for 99 cents each in the US, available now in the Windows Store.* Check out the whole collection of free albums and the holiday albums for 99 cents here, or keep reading!
Halsey – Badlands (Deluxe)
Badlands is American singer and songwriter Halsey’s first studio album, and includes the songs “Castle,” “New Americana,” “Hurricane” and more.
Avenged Sevenfold – The Stage
The seventh studio long-player from the veteran California-based metal ensemble, and their first new collection of music to feature ex-Bad Religion drummer Brooks Wackerman behind the kit, Stage sees Avenged Sevenfold rolling up their sleeves and delivering an ambitious concept LP.
2 Chainz – Collegrove
This album is the debut LP between 2 Chainz and fellow American rapper Lil Wayne under the stage name ColleGrove, and includes production from several high-profile record producers; including Mike Will Made It, TM88, Infamous, Zaytoven, Lil’ C, Metro Boomin, Ben Billions and London on da Track, among others.ColleGrove is the combination for 2 Chainz & Lil Wayne’s hometowns of COLLege Park & HolloGROVE respectively.
Gwen Stefani – This is What The Truth Feels Like
Don’t miss “Used to Love You,” “Rare” or “Red Flag” – all included in This Is What the Truth Feels Like, Gwen Stefani’s first solo album in ten years.
James Bay – Chaos and the Calm
When it comes to debut albums, you can’t do much better than Choas and the Calm by this young English singer-songwriter.
We’re sharing nine holiday albums for only 99 cents each in the Windows Store! Don’t miss the chance to get Amy Grant’s Tennessee Christmas, Rascal Flatts’ The Greatest Gift of All and more. Head over here to see the full collection of holiday albums!
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Updated June 28, 2018 10:39 amFederal Reserve
Come Tuesday, people should begin to see colorful newly redesigned $100 bills in circulation. This is good news for shops and businesses that need to verify the money and bad news for counterfeiters.
The Federal Reserve Board, which hasn't been shuttered in the government shutdown, announced that the new Benjamin Franklins will make their debut chockfull of security features -- most notably a blue 3D security ribbon and a color-changing image of the Liberty Bell.
The security ribbon is said to be easy for people to verify but difficult for counterfeiters to replicate. It's a blue ribbon woven into the paper and when people tilt the bill back and forth, they'll see images of bells change to "100s." When the bill is tilted back and forth, the bells and 100s move side to side.
"The 3-D security ribbon is magic. It is made up of hundreds of thousands of micro-lenses in each note," Bureau of Engraving and Printing Director Larry Felix told the Associated Press. "This is the most complex note the United States has ever produced."
The Liberty Bell image in the inkwell also changes as users handle the money. While looking at the inkwell, people should see an image of a green bell inside a copper-colored inkwell on the front of the bill. When the bill is tilted, the bell will change color from green to copper, which makes the image of the bell appear and disappear within the inkwell.
Some security features from the older $100 notes were also retained or updated, including the portrait watermark, security thread, color-shifting 100, raised printing, gold 100, serial numbers, and more.
The Federal Reserve has been working on the $100 bill redesign and security features for more than a decade. Its goal has been to create a bill that's more difficult to counterfeit. According to the Associated Press, the $100 bill is the most counterfeited note outside of the US.
The completed design was first unveiled in 2010, but production delays halted the actual release of the note until now. Besides the $100 bill, the government agency has also redesigned the $5, $10, and $20 notes. While banks and financial institutions can begin ordering the new $100 bills on Tuesday, it could take a few weeks until people actually see the money in person.When class was almost in session, Sean Davis walked straight to the basement, no questions asked. Breakfast was over. Mom played no games in her classroom, especially when it came to math. He went to his desk and they got to work.
Davis’ experience as a homeschooled kid from Grades 3-8 helped shape who he is, which as of six days ago is a Pittsburgh Steelers strong safety and No. 58 overall pick in the 2016 NFL draft. Davis cites his own success story for an endorsement of home school, which he feels has a negative social stigma.
Davis found he could be worldly, even from his basement.
New Steelers safety Sean Davis (second from left), a second-round draft pick, in a recent family photo. "We have a really solid family structure," Davis said. Courtesy of Sean Davis
“There’s this picture that some kids are home all day locked up in the house, socially awkward,” said Davis, who recorded more than 300 tackles at Maryland. “We definitely didn’t have any of that. Home school gets a bad rap. I was part of athletic programs in town throughout the week and got to socialize a lot."
In Davis' case, home school became a case study for family sacrifice. He noticed early on that his mother, Lisa, could have worked for extra income but stayed at home to protect Davis from what he calls “not the greatest neighborhood” in Maryland's Prince George's County.
Lisa was the teacher to all three Davis children for at least a few years. Sean Davis got involved in sports at an early age, and his local football prowess landed him a full-ride scholarship at the Maret School in Washington. That moved Davis from Prince George's but forced Lisa to drive 90 minutes to and from school every day. "No nails, no hair," Lisa told WUSA-9 in D.C. for a pre-draft feature on the family. "Just gas, food, shelter."
His father, Sean Sr., worked jobs as a Safeway bakery manager and a coffee truck driver while undergoing treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma. His dad has been in remission for more than a year.
Davis won't lose admiration for his parents any time soon.
“We have a really solid family structure,” Davis said. “My parents are extremely hard workers that will do anything for the betterment of our family. For them to sacrifice for us is a tremendous blessing.”
Davis had no reservations about leaving home school to start ninth grade. He was finally playing high school football, a 5-foot-8 scatback who eventually grew into a 6-foot-1, 203-pound safety.
Draft-day moments are the best. Here's Steelers second-round pick Sean Davis shortly after the call from Pittsburgh. (Video courtesy of agent Eugene Lee) A video posted by Jeremy Ryan Fowler (@jfowlerespn) on May 5, 2016 at 6:46am PDT
Now, as Davis packs up for Steelers rookie minicamp, he can cover his own gas. He's got his family covered, too.
“I’m lucky. A lot of families don’t have what we have,” he said.
Davis has learned through family Bible study sessions to be patient in all circumstances. That's why he's taking his new job as it comes, starting with the first minicamp session Friday. After playing safety and cornerback at Maryland, Davis said he believes he can play both spots in the NFL when asked to do so, plus nickel corner.
But before he worries about that, he's checking on Dad, who underwent a minor cleanup surgery related to previous cancer treatments. Davis said Sean Sr. is fine but needs a day or two in the hospital. Dad, who still makes Davis run football-related drills for him at home, will probably remind him what he already knows about camp.
"Contribute to whatever I can do, get in the system and learn from the vets," Davis said.
Sounds as if Davis has been schooled in the Steelers way, too.ES News Email Enter your email address Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in or register with your social account
Climate change experts say a new study that suggests global warming poses less of a threat than old forecasts predicted is being “dangerously” misinterpreted.
The new research in the journal Nature Geoscience suggests the world could be polluted and warm up less quickly than 10-year-old forecasts show.
It has been criticised for taking a “very optimistic view” that “should not be misunderstood”, experts warn today.
The study says there is now a two-in-three chance of keeping global temperatures within 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, which is the ultimate goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
It suggests that nations could continue to emit carbon dioxide at the current rate for 20 years before breaching the agreement’s target, instead of in three to five years as previously predicted.
But Mark Maslin, professor of climatology at UCL, told the Standard this projection is based on the assumption that every country “does absolutely everything in its power” to combat climate change.
“And that hasn’t been the case,” he said.
“The paper [published in the journal Nature Geoscience], assumes that every country is going to do as much as it can to tackle emissions, and that hasn’t been the case up to now.
“It asks that people believe politicians around the world will act as rational scientists and act at the speed and urgency required to combat climate change effectively.”
Professor Maslin added that it is “unlikely” the paper’s prediction will be correct “because every country has its own agenda and obstacles that need to be considered”.
“Donald Trump starting to dismantle the mechanisms within the US to combat greenhouse gases, and pulling out of the Paris Agreement, is one example,” he said.
“The difference between the global agenda and each individual country’s different politics needs to be considered.”
The new study suggests that if polluting peaks and then declines to below current levels before 2030, and then continues to drop more rapidly, there is a 66 per cent chance of global average temperatures staying below the target.
Expanding on his view, professor Maslin added: “The paper isn’t necessarily wrong, it just should not be misunderstood.
“The reason they [the researchers] have done this is to provide optimism, and to show that if humanity as a whole wants it to [achieve this goal], then it can be achieved.”
The data suggests that countries have more time to get a grip on their carbon output, and also attributes an unexpected “revolution” in affordable renewable energy to its “more positive” outlook.
But Chris Rapley, professor of climate science at UCL, warned the new findings are “interpreted as saying that everyone can relax - which it isn’t - quite the opposite.”
He added: “The point is that, whereas the indications have been up until now that limiting average global warming to 1.5C was nigh on impossible, the new analysis shows that if global actions are intensified, the limit could still be – just about - feasible.”Bitcoin Deflation and Economic Activity
The Great Depression is the worst period of deflation the world has ever witnessed, but it’s not the last time deflation has struck the United States. In 2010, the Colorado minimum wage was lowered to account for a decrease in the cost of living. Colorado is one of the states whose minimum wage tracks inflation. That means that as the cost of living increases, so too does Colorado’s minimum wage. But when deflation occurs, the cost of living decreases, and by their laws they have to adjust their minimum wage accordingly. Which is to say, downward.
Wolman, L. Wages During the Depression. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1933.
The downward adjustment was slight—$0.04 or one half of one percent—and it has since recovered. By comparison, average per-capita weekly earnings between 1931 and 1932 dropped by as much as 22.3%, depending on the industry. That doesn’t even compare to what would have happened to wages over the past several months if they were denominated in bitcoin. In that case between July 25 and November 25 of 2013, wages would have fallen by 88.4%, far exceeding the deflation experienced throughout the entirety of the Great Depression, nevermind a single year.
Making this comparison is a bit unfair, as it’s only a valid comparison if there is in fact a bitcoin economy. While there is undoubtedly a market for bitcoin transfers, as well as demand for bitcoins themselves, a bitcoin economy has yet to emerge that is capable of producing its own goods and services, and it very likely never will. The reason for this is of course deflation. The most succinct explanation of why that I know of comes from Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis. He writes:
… [D]eflation is unavoidable in the bitcoin community because the maximum supply of bitcoins is fixed to 21 million bitcoins and approximately half of them have already been ‘minted’ at a time when very, very few goods and services transactions are denominated in bitcoins. To put simply, if bitcoin succeeds in penetrating the marketplace, an increasing quantity of new goods and services will be traded in bitcoin. […] In short, a restricted supply of bitcoins will be chasing after an increasing number of goods and services. Thus, the available quantity of bitcoins per each unit of goods and services will be falling causing deflation. And why is this a problem? For two reasons: First, because an expected fall in bitcoin prices motivates people with bitcoins to delay, as much as they can, their bitcoin expenditure (why buy something today if it will be cheaper tomorrow?). Secondly, because to the extent that bitcoins are used to buy factors of production that are used to produce goods and services, and assuming that there is some time lag between the purchase of these factors and the delivery of the final product to the bitcoin market, a steady fall in average prices will translate into a constantly shrinking price-cost margin for firms dealing in bitcoins.
That second point warrants further explanation with an example. Suppose you find yourself with 100 BTC and a great idea for a new type of widget you want to sell. After some careful calculation, you determine that it will cost you 1 BTC to produce, market, and sell a single widget, and that it is only worth your effort if you can sell each widget for 2 BTC, a handsome 100% margin. Your 100 BTC investment will allow you to produce 100 widgets, leading to 200 BTC in revenue from their sale, which will leave you with a profit of 100 BTC.
100 widgets × 1 BTC / widget = 100 BTC total cost × 100% margin = 200 BTC total revenue 100 BTC total profit
You spend your bitcoins on the materials, goods, and services that you need to build your widget empire, and get to work building those widgets and preparing them for sale.
A deflation rate of 90% seems unrealistic and ridiculous, but as mentioned above that's very close to what happened to bitcoin between July and November of 2013.
A few months go by and your widgets are ready to be sold on the open market. But while you’ve been working, deflation has also been at work driving down prices across the bitcoin market. A few months ago, you could buy a pound of butter for 2 BTC and 10,000 op-amps for 1 BTC. But now, a pound of butter will set you back only 0.2 BTC, and 1 BTC will buy you 100,000 op-amps. In short the bitcoin economy experienced 90% deflation between the time you started working on your widgets and the time you were ready to sell them.
You now have virtually no chance of selling your widgets at 2 BTC. In order to actually move them on the market, you’ll have to deflation-adjust their price, which would put your asking price at 0.2 BTC per widget. Once all your 100 widgets are sold at that price point, that will leave you with 20 BTC in revenue, and a total profit of -80 BTC.
Note that deflation is not incorporated into the cost calculation. That's because you spent those bitcoins on materials and goods—such as butter and op-amps—before deflation struck. Since then you've used those materials and goods in the construction of your widgets.
100 widgets × 1 BTC / widget = 100 BTC total cost × 100% margin @ 90% deflation = 20 BTC total revenue -80 BTC total profit
You started your widget empire with 100 BTC, and now you’re left with 20 BTC. Deflation has turned your 100% profit into a 80% loss. You would have been better off never starting your bitcoin empire, and instead keeping your 100 BTC in your own personal bitcoin wallet empire, which would have grown in real value ten-fold without you doing anything.
In any deflationary economy there is no economic reason to invest in producing goods and services. You’re better off saving your bitcoins, which will rise in real value without you expending any effort. By the same token, consumers will put off their expenditures for as long as possible. Why buy a pound of butter today for 2 BTC if you could buy 10 pounds of butter for the same price in a couple weeks? Buy as little butter as you absolutely need today, and try to stretch it for as long as you can while deflation does it work. These two effects together in the end may lead to a deflationary spiral.
Why This Isn’t Happening
Note that this deflationary effect is only felt by those who are holding bitcoin. To everybody else, it's perceived and felt as appreciation relative to other currencies, a point which comes into play shortly.
Since the bitcoin economy is experiencing deflation, then according to this model you should see shrinking supply and demand for goods and services denominated in bitcoin. However, this is not happening. If anything, there are an increasing number of goods and services that are offering bitcoin as a payment option. And recently there’s been much ado about the size of bitcoin transactions, which would seem to indicate that consumers are taking advantage of these payment options.
In spite of deflation, the number of bitcoin-denominated goods and services is increasing because those good and services are being produced using dollars, not bitcoins. For example, when you order Chinese delivery on Foodler using bitcoin, you are not buying bitcoin-bought sesame chicken and crab rangoon. The Chinese restaurant is paid via Foodler in dollars, which it will use at a later date to buy chicken, sesame oil, and cream cheese to make their delicious dishes, as well as their profit. They never see a single bitcoin. Because of Foodler, the Chinese restaurant can operate being completely unaware of bitcoin’s existence, and yet you can still pay for their food using bitcoin.
It seems that the vast majority of companies accepting bitcoins follow this same pattern. The bitcoin-denominated goods and services that they sell are not produced using bitcoins. There is some other monetary and financial system at work outside of bitcoin that provides these companies the capital they need to produce goods and services. After they’re produced, the companies are free to accept bitcoin as payment, with prices determined by the exchange rate with USD or a similar currency. In this way they can still use the bitcoin currency while avoiding its deflationary downside.
Consider again your widgets from before. But rather than investing bitcoins to produce them, you invest US dollars instead. And once they’re produced, you’ll still accept bitcoin as payment. At the time of investment, the exchange rate is 1 BTC : $1 USD.
Before Deflation - 1 BTC : $1 USD
100 widgets × $1 / widget = — $100 USD total cost 100% margin = 200 BTC $200 USD total revenue 100 BTC $100 USD total profit
According to this table, you can hit your 100% margin target at a time when the exchange rate is 1 BTC : $1 USD by making 200 BTC in revenue, or $200 USD. But as before, deflation in the bitcoin economy strikes while you’re producing your widgets, and the bitcoin price you’re charging must fall. Assuming that the exchange market between BTC and USD is efficient, the deflationary effect should be accounted for in the exchange rate, which following the previous scenario would now be 1 BTC : $10 USD.
After Deflation – 1 BTC : $10 USD
100 widgets × $1 / widget = — $100 USD total cost 100% margin = 20 BTC $200 USD total revenue 10 BTC $100 USD total profit
Despite deflation in the bitcoin economy and the concordant fall in the bitcoin-denominated price of your widget, in this scenario you can still hit your 100% margin target by making 20 BTC, or $200 USD. Your USD revenue target remains unchanged even when there is deflation in the bitcoin economy, and because you’re measuring your costs, revenue, and therefore profit in USD, you can still make an economic profit by accepting bitcoins as payment.
With your newly-acquired bitcoins you can do with as you please. You can exchange them for USD and lock in your economic gain, or use them to speculate on the future value of bitcoin. As bitcoin is susceptible to deflation, the real value of those bitcoins is bound to go up, so you should probably hold on to them and join in on the speculation, as is likely the intention of most companies that are now offering a bitcoin payment option. However that means that you no longer have capital to build more widgets and the demand for widgets in the market will be starved of supply. Alternatively, you can acquire capital denominated in USD by other means,.e.g, other revenue streams you may have, debt or equity financing, etc. With that newly acquired capital denominated in USD, you can build more widgets, acquire bitcoin through their sale, and wait for deflation to run its course again.
It seems then that the increase in bitcoin-denominated goods and services is not due to the viability of the bitcoin economy. Rather, this increase is due to the fact that the bitcoin currency is operating along side an economy and financial system that’s capable of providing capital to fund the production of goods and services, as well as a stable currency in which economic profit is possible and can be preserved. Without that parallel system, the bitcoin economy would have to fund its own production of goods, which due to a deflationary spiral would eventually grind to a halt, causing the bitcoin economy to fail.
Final Notes on Transacting in Bitcoin
As bitcoin rises in value, there are two effects that should keep the bitcoins in your wallet when you’re shopping for goods and services. The first is the expectation that the value of bitcoin will continue to rise, and the second is the lag in prices to adjust to bitcoin’s new value. In times like this, it’s almost guaranteed that for any given good, its bitcoin price will be higher than its USD price, given the exchange rate.
Some people point out that deflation does not mean that you shouldn’t spend your bitcoins. Rather, it means that you should always maintain or increase the number of bitcoins you own. Thus, you’re free to use bitcoin in transactions as long as you immediately purchase new bitcoins using your dollars or your fiat currency of choice. This is true only in a model of the economy that is completely divorced from reality. For one thing, you pay a fee when you buy bitcoins with your dollars, so this currency dance will always leave you with less money than if had you just paid using dollars. Setting fees aside, this also assumes that there will always be somebody ready and willing to sell you as many bitcoins as you want to buy. In a deflationary environment where everybody is hoarding bitcoin, this is unlikely. The only reason to use bitcoin in this environment is for the anonymous transfer of value, where that is still possible.Does Maryland Have the Votes for Marriage?
Following a decisive Thursday vote for marriage equality in New Jersey, lawmakers in Maryland are grappling for last-minute support from undecided delegates to pass their own marriage bill.
The Maryland House of Delegates needs 71 votes to pass a bill supported by Gov. Martin O’Malley that would legalize civil marriage for gay couples in the state. Whether the chamber has the requisite votes has been a matter of high speculation, however. Pro-marriage equality lawmakers delayed consideration of the legislation Thursday.
The Washington Post reports that debate on the bill is expected to resume Friday afternoon, with the delegates back in session at 12:30 p.m. Eastern time (read the report here). A source in Annapolis said Friday that the "votes were close" and could not confirm whether enough support currently exists.
Yesterday, bill supporters agreed to an amendment that would push the effective date of the legislation to January of next year. Opposition groups have already begun collecting signatures for a potential November referendum: Only 53,650 signatures are needed to put the issue on the ballot.
Nearly a year ago, the House voted to shelve a marriage bill by recommitting the legislation back to the Judiciary Committee — this after it became clear that marriage equality supporters simply did had not have enough votes.
Anti-marriage equality groups including the National Organization for Marriage are pushing hard for a similar outcome today. “As I write, Delegates are debating Governor O'Malley's proposal to radically redefine marriage in the state,” NOM president Brian Brown wrote on the group’s blog. “The vote is expected to happen later today, so we need you to call right now. Our team working the halls of the Capitol is telling us that the vote is neck-and-neck, and could go either way.”
National pro-marriage equality figures including New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Republican National Committee chair Ken Mehlman, who came out in 2010 and whose campaign contributions to anti-equality GOP candidates have recently come under scrutiny, have been calling a small number of undecided delegates and asking them to support the bill, according to The Baltimore Sun.
On Thursday morning, Del. Wade Kach from Baltimore County became the second Republican in the chamber to announce his support for the bill. The delegate said his thinking on the issue had “evolved” over recent months and that the enhanced religious exemptions in the bill championed by O’Malley were “instrumental” to his decision to change his vote.
"While no one event or conversation prompted me to come to this decision, I was significantly moved by the testimony of families — who are raising children in a loving environment and deserve every right to enjoy the same protections and responsibilities that our laws provide for others,” Wade said in a statement.
On Thursday, the New Jersey Assembly passed the Marriage Equality and Religious Exemption Act for the first time in a 42-33 vote. The historic passage, following Senate approval on Monday, turns the spotlight to Gov. Chris Christie, who has vowed to veto the measure once it reaches his desk.
Advocate.com will have updates on the Maryland bill debate this afternoon.Court awards pension to employee who claimed work-related use of a mobile led to him developing a benign tumour
An Italian court has ruled that excessive, work-related use of a mobile phone caused an executive to develop a benign brain tumour.
The court in the northern town of Ivrea awarded the plaintiff a state-funded pension. The judgment, which was handed down on 11 April but only made public on Thursday, is subject to a possible appeal.
How to think about the risks of mobile phones and Wi-Fi Read more
Roberto Romeo, 57, had testified that his work duties obliged him to use his mobile for three to four hours of each working day for 15 years.
Romeo said he did not want to demonise mobiles, “but I believe we have to be more aware about how to use them.
“I had no choice but to use my mobile to talk to colleagues and organise work – for 15 years I was calling all the time, from home, in the car.
“I started to have the feeling of my right ear being blocked all the time and the tumour was diagnosed in 2010. Happily, it was benign but I can no longer hear anything because they had to remove my acoustic nerve.”
A medical expert estimated the damage to Romeo at 23% of his bodily function, prompting the judge to make a compensation award of €500 per month to be paid by INAIL, a national insurance scheme covering workplace accidents.
Scientific studies of the potential health risks of mobile phones have mostly concluded that they pose no serious risk to human health at the level of most people’s use.
Heavier use may pose some risk, other studies have found, and many experts say it is too early to do a proper assessment of what is a relatively new technology.Former Giants safety Will Hill appears to be in trouble with the law again, but for a similar problem he's had in the past — unpaid child support.
TMZ first reported on Wednesday that Hill has a warrant out for his arrest for $16,588.18 in child support owed to a woman in New Jersey.
NJ Advance Media confirmed with Hudson County law enforcement officials that the warrant was issued in March of 2014, but they could not provide any further information on whether Hill had been notified or if an arrest had been made.
Calls placed to Hill's representatives went unreturned, but Baltimore Sun reporter Aaron Wilson tweeted that Hill is aware of the warrant:
According to a source, Will Hill is aware of his child support issue, but hasn't been informed of an active warrant for his arrest in N.J. — Aaron Wilson (@RavensInsider) January 28, 2015
This would mark the second time in as many years that a warrant Hill for outstanding child support payments. Hill was arrested in December 2013 on a similar warrant, and has fathered. six children by five different women.
Hill was cut by the Giants in the spring after failing a drug test and getting suspended for the first six games of the 2014 season. The Baltimore Ravens signed Hill, and he ended up having a good season as their starting safety for eight games, recording 39 tackles in the regular season, and returning an interception for a touchdown.
Hill is a restricted free agent.
Nick Powell may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @nickpowellbkny. Find NJ.com Giants on Facebook.On Wednesday night’s midseason finale of “Suits,” Jessica Pearson — the queen bee of Pearson Specter Litt, the beleaguered law firm at the heart of the series — saved the life of a death-row inmate. Then she saved her own sanity, by quitting.
The episode, which added another twist to the tumultuous sixth season of the USA Network legal drama, marks the end, for now, of a character that had been with “Suits” from the beginning. For Gina Torres, the actress who plays her, the departure kicks off a new career chapter. She has joined “The Catch,” the stylish ABC private-investigation series from Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers, returning for its second season early next year.
“My contract was up, so this wasn’t a power play that went terribly wrong,” Ms. Torres said about her decision to leave “Suits.” After years of traveling between the show’s Toronto set and Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband, the actor Laurence Fishburne, and their daughter, the actress was ready for a change. “My personal life needed to be tended to,” she said.
The daughter of Cuban immigrants, Ms. Torres was born in New York and reared in Washington Heights and the Bronx. (She graduated from the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts.) Before “Suits,” the actress had roles in “Firefly,” “24” and “Alias,” among other series, and in movies including “I Think I Love My Wife,” as the title character opposite Chris Rock. (She has also appeared alongside Mr. Fishburne in the “Matrix” franchise, and as his wife in “Hannibal.”)The horseshoe-shaped region that includes Toronto and Buffalo is one of North America’s most populous, with more than 10 million inhabitants.The Horseshoe’s northern half extends roughly 100 km from Oshawa in the east to Burlington in the west, and 50 km from downtown Toronto north to Newmarket. The Horseshoe’s southern half is also close to 100 km in length, from Hamilton in the west to Lockport in the east. It is 50 km from the St Catharines-Niagara area south to Buffalo.
In order for us to analyze real estate in this region, we first need to discuss three basic differences between the Horsehoe’s northern and southern halves: political, geographical, and historical differences.
Political
The political distinction is the most obvious of these. Whereas the northern half is entirely within Canada, the southern half is split between a Canadian side and an American side. The Canadian side of the southern half is home to roughly 1 million people, of whom 550,000 live in Hamilton. The American side is home to 1.2 million people, most of whom live in the suburbs of Buffalo. The international border runs directly through the Niagara-Buffalo urban area, making it by far the most populous urban area shared by the two countries with the exception of Detroit-Windsor:
Geographical
There is also a geographic difference between the Horseshoe’s northern and southern halves. Namely, it is that the Horseshoe’s southern cities are characterized by their relationship to water and to wind:
Hamilton’s significance comes historically from the city’s harbour, which is by far the largest in the western half of Lake Ontario. The harbour facilitated shipments of bulk goods, helping Hamilton to become Canada’s Steeltown. It continues to host Canada’s largest Great Lakes port. The St Catharines-Niagara urban region, which is the 12th most populous in Canada, derives its significance from two water features. One is Niagara Falls, which draws both tourists and hydropower. The other is the Welland Canal, which connects Lake Ontario to the other Great Lakes via a series of locks, bypassing the Falls. Niagara Falls was the site of the world’s first major hydro
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in English, the Zhuangzi. Unlike Master Lao, Zhuangzi did exist (around 370 BCE), but he also only wrote part of his famous book. However, what a book! Zhuangzi’s work is a core text in the movement of scepticism and relativism. He is mostly concerned with wondering why people try so hard to split the world into dual notions, such as “Right and Wrong”, “Good and Evil”, “Smooth and Crunchy” and more importantly, “I and Thou”.
He criticises these things by telling funny stories.
In these he shows, gently, loftily, that trying to over analyse situations is almost always to commit a fundamental error. His stories tell of people who just “do” rather than think. people such as cooks, craftsmen, swimmers and butchers. People to whom reasoning is of little use in their activities, in the sense that a Cicada-catcher is attentive to his task and heedless of the doubt of “thinking too much”.
He just catches the bug.
Master Zhuangzi is poking fun at people’s perceptions in order to show them that most of the things they over-think and rationalise are actually the arms holding them back from being happy and free. Zhuangzi would probably be labelled a “free spirit” today, but his work isn’t a dreamy loose fantasy, his mind is sharper than a razor. It is chock full of epistemology (How do we know “what is true”? How do we get knowledge?) mixed with an attractive humour missing from most Western religious texts. Zhuangzi was a detached master flowing with the world and not against it.
It asks some amazing questions:
Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn’t know he was Zhuangzi. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuangzi. But he didn’t know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi. Between Zhuangzi and a butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things. (2, tr. Burton Watson 1968:49)
It is at this point that a lot of people give up; having fumbled with the subject, but found no clear answers, they leave it safely on the shelf. Only the stubborn continue to look further into it and even those robust investigators may not like what they find. Reading into the history of Daoism brings no golden age of philosophical freedom, in fact it brings up many “types” of Daoist endeavors full of cults, crazy gods, Celestial Masters and drinking mercury to live forever.
To western eyes this part is a real turn off. In their defense they simply ignore Daoism’s history and focus on the two books mentioned above. Thus you get the “break” between Religious Daoism and the so-called Philosophical Daoism. Let me assure you that break is not really there. It has been created by philosophers with limited access to the works of the subject and taking the small parts they see as something else from all the dress up and dancing. In fact the religious practice is an expression of the Dao. The strange Celestial Master Daoism found in China today is also an expression of the Dao.
Daoism is the embodiment of the phrase, “the correct answer to free speech you find offensive is more free speech!”
For Daoism is a religion and not a simply a philosophy. That it is a hard to understand and essentially mysterious religion does not change that it contains a religious experience at the heart of it. That is a necessary part and cannot be worked around by wishful secular longing for an Eastern path that doesn’t “get weird”. Without that you won’t be able to stick at it long enough to “get it”.
So, I am going to take up the challenge of communicating “what is Daoism” in two parts. Firstly, I am going to give a brief history of Daoism. That’s the easy part. Secondly, we are going to, if not capture lightning in a bottle, at least be standing atop a hill during a thunderstorm with our fingers in the air.
Daoism: a short historical primer.
Please note: While the following is a gentle line drawn through the history of Daoism, I am not suggesting that Daoism has a linear progression in the same way as the churches of Europe. Hence, I have not written this history with many names and dates that would become “milestones” in the movement. Daoism is a very large and diverse subject and China is a very large country with space for all sort of “interpretations”. In fact Daoism encourages interpretations.
Daoism started as a shamanistic collection of cults and religious practices in ancient China (around 1000 BC). It mingled with the folk religion of nature worship and a few principles stuck. These are such ideas as personal transformation, which is the commonality in all Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. This principle first took the form of talismans, mysticism and external alchemy that was basically trying to find ways to produce potions and become immortal. That proved popular and many cults and sects were merrily trying all sorts of poisonous brews to become one with the gods in heaven. Around this time (4th Century BC) some written works appeared that would later become the most recognisable Daoist thoughts such as the DDJ and the Zhuangzi, while a man called Zhang Daoling codifyed Daoism into a religion with a canon and gods after a spectral visitation from Lao Tze. Eventually this transformed into the idea of internal alchemy (3rd century onwards). No longer searching for elixirs, the Daoists searched inside themselves through such practices as meditation, sexual magic and living in caves. This practice gave us the notion of “chi energy”.
Daoist priests, philosophies and practices were in the heart of the Chinese culture and even with the arrival of Buddhism it remained a driving influence in China even for hundreds of years. There were even Daoist states in China back then.
China’s history is one of various rulers and philosophies rising and falling and while all this was happening another great master was born whose influence on the Chinese is still felt today. He was called Master Kong, who is better known in the west as Confucius. His teachings were seemingly at odds with Daoism, but nothing could be further from the truth and all three practices spiralled around and through each other, in and out of the corridors of power for the next few hundred years. They influenced each other immensely as shown in this classic painting:
Song painting in the Litang style illustrating the theme “Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism are one”.
It depicts “Taoist Lu Xiujing (left), official Tao Hongjing (right) and buddhist monk Huiyuan (center, founder of Pure Land Buddhism) by the Tiger stream. The stream borders a zone infested by tigers that they just crossed without fear, engrossed as they were in their discussion. Realising what they just did, they laugh together, hence the name of the picture,Three laughing men by the Tiger stream.” Source: WIKIPEDIA
Also worth noting is that religions were not split by class in China with Daoism being the stuff of the country folk. Emperors were Daoist, Daoist priests were at court performing ceremonies to keep the country in harmony while farmers followed the paths of Confucian thought and family structure. Over these years Daoism gave rise to many of the things we take as Chinese, such as Tai Chi, the Ying Yang symbol and speaking like Master Yoda. Chan Buddhism (heavily influenced by Daoism) was practiced in such places as the famous Song monastry of Shaolin, but after much persecution moved on to Japan, and became Zen Buddhism.
One of the ways of “getting” Daoism is to “get” Zen Buddhism as they have heavily influenced each other.
Eventually, Daoism and Confucianism met with the unstoppable force of Maoism and were both sublimed and crushed in equal measure. The Maoist revolutionaries knew that they could never totally eradicate Daoism as it contains a large amount of “folk” belief that resides in the cultural psyche and so they selected a particular form of it and put the governmental stamp on it.
That is an incredibly short version of the history of Daoism. What I hope it highlights is that Daoism is a little strange for a religion:
It has had gods and deities at some times and not at others.
It has been an immortality cult for while and contained shamanistic magic at others.
It has “borrowed” from Buddhism, but also given back to the middle path.
It has had celibate priests in the heart of empire and yet has had sexual magic practiced in the mountains.
It has two main books translated into English, but neither author knew about the other, neither would label themselves as Daoist and at least one of them is legendary.
I can appreciate the problems in trying to understand such a changing and seemingly constantly moving target! Western intellectuals have worked hard for hundreds of years to try to bring the wisdom in Daoism under their command. The traditional method of doing so is the finding of commonalities amongst the various beliefs. After all, no matter how many strange and diverse Christian sects exist; they all believe in Jesus as the Saviour; that is what makes them Christian. It is what gives them their religious comfort. Daoism is eventually just as comforting, but given the five contradicting points above this is not an easy exercise.
The trick is to realise that these actions are an attempt to “express” the Dao, but there is no “true way”, indeed anyone claiming to have one is always false. For this reason, Daoism has at its heart the understanding that everything is relative.
Relation to Buddhism.
Another method, and one expounded by such philosophers as Alan Watts, was to not only draw a line between the various “Daoisms” of antiquity, but to highlight by reference to the religion it most heavily influenced; Zen.
One of the main ways in teaching Zen is through the master ignoring his students. Often the master will reject a new applicant outright and in such a forthright way that the student will give up there and then. “I have nothing to teach you,” the master will say. The pupil will, if he is earnest, persevere with the master and many stories and legends abound regarding this strange situation and how various adherents have dealt with it. The most famous story is told of the Indian Zen Master Bodhidharma, who rejected a pupil again and again until finally the pupil cut off his arm and demanded an audience. The great master agreed to meet with the pupil and took him under his wing.
This story only makes sense to Western eyes in that we know that one must strive to understand and that one must show commitment and diligence. Actually there is a secret here:
The Master truly had nothing to teach.
Zen is about coming to your own realisation. It takes a lot of time and work and the master will help you, although not in a way you might appreciate. Should he accept you as a student then don’t expect to receive anything that could be construed as an “answer” to Zen. That is, don’t presume that Zen has esoteric knowledge and concerned only with moving through stages of learning. In fact, the most similar western experience to Zen training is probably Army Drill School. The army takes in “normal” people and turns them into killers; people with the will to kill. This is not easy. They do this by working you physically until you drop, regimenting your life and stripping you of your identity until you can be mentally reprogrammed. Zen is similar to this, but instead of forming you into a killing machine the Zen master strips you of your illusions, pares your personality down to its core and then makes you look at yourself. He does this by forcing you to answer impossible riddles, making you work in the fields, attend very very long ceremonies and hitting you with a stick if you are not meditating properly (or even if you are). This effort can take a lifetime, but finally you break the distinction between body and mind, between self and universe and wake up. You realise that the personality you hold so dear, that special “me” you think is yourself, it is a blank sheet of paper with no writing on it. It is not there at all. You are not apart from this Universe at all.
Zen is a form of psychoanalysis!
Daoism is similar to that, just without a Japanese guy hitting you around the head with a stick. In Daoism you have to hit yourself. Daoism is therefore like many religions from the East in that they all believe that you can transform yourself through training. This training involves mastering meditation and learning to live in the “now”. This means not allowing your mind to float into dreams of the future nor reminiscences of the past.
To the Daoist, the future doesn’t exist, the past doesn’t exist, there is only the present.
There is no set way to do this, no definite doctrine to follow and no master to teach you. There is only yourself, the books, other Daoists and a number of self then universal realisations on the road to understanding. Be they sudden or slow, they will come to you.
Where is Daoism Practiced?
There are many Daoist mountains in China, but one of the most famous is a mountain called Wudang Shan.
It is famous for being the birth place of internal Kung Fu styles such as Tai Chi. Walking up it is quite an experience. There are 20 thousand steps up Wudang before getting to the top and it is an exhausting journey.
The endless stone steps tower above you, winding upwards seemingly into the heavens. Along the way there are many temples and the steps often lead you through the courtyards. Each of these temples has an increasingly strained mystic name which each subsequent temple tries very hard to trump.
So the harmony temple may be followed by the grand harmony temple, the majestic temple of great tranquillity and so on ad nausea, all the way up the steps. This naming convention seemed to me at the time to be a cute cultural translation and something quite un-purposely funny, but actually it had a definite point; the idea that you are rising to heaven and every time you think you have made it: you haven’t and there is more to go. Along the way you meet many people on the same journey. You see rich and poor alike. The rich are carried up in palanquins, totally breaking the point, and this is most discouraging. More encouraging, but not perhaps comforting, are the groups of little old Chinese ladies you meet that even at the tender ages of what looks to be 150 can hop up the steps like a herd of mountain goats.
After hours of climbing you arrive at a large temple and then upwards still more until you finally come to the top, which is above the clouds. You are here at the pinnacle of China’s attempts to reach heaven. Here sits a large golden temple and some very old Daoist priests.
Here is a film about my trip up that mountain:
After an age you have to walk back down and find some hot water for your strained leg muscles. For me, and I didn’t know this at the time, I was not the same guy walking down. My trip into the clouds had prompted me to leave something behind and to gain the courage to be what I wanted.
Experiences like that are something of a slow burn for most of us. It took another two months before I felt a change in myself and what I believed. I suppose that was simply how long it took me to “check” my beliefs inside. Most of the time people simply remember that they believe something, but they don’t check. Many religious practices are geared towards sustaining belief so you don’t have to check it.
So, what exactly are the beliefs of a Daoist?
Daoist Beliefs.
Many philosophers and religious teachers, not to mention a lot of Western Intellectuals, have found and labelled a common set of traditional Daoist thoughts. These do not stretch from all the way back to 1000 BC and I don’t think anyone will ever manage to capture that, but they at least enable you to have some conceptual framework around which you can talk. Often you hear people refer to historical Daoism becoming “recognisable” as we come closer to our age. So, let us start with the big one:
Dao.
The Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be defined is not the unchanging name.
Non-existence is called the antecedent of heaven and earth; Existence is the mother of all things.
From eternal non-existence, therefore, we serenely observe the mysterious beginning of the Universe; From eternal existence we clearly see the apparent distinctions.
These two are the same in source and become different when manifested.
This sameness is called profundity. Infinite profundity is the gate whence comes the beginning of all parts of the Universe.
There is a reason that Western films and culture like to steal gently from the Daoists. It is because Daoism concerns itself with something that is all around us, that it the fundamental core of us and indeed the core of everything, but is hidden from view.
Consider this:
Scientists have worked out that the elements that make up the human body are the same as those found in the core of stars. In its beginning the Universe was not even. If it were, if matter was laid out in neat rows, then galaxies, stars and life would never happen. Instead the gaps in the lattice of matter mean that gravity acted to pull matter together. This process eventually collected enough matter that it underwent collapse and exploded, leaving behind a star. In this super-heated ball, more advanced elements formed up in layers inside the star. At the end of its life it no longer had enough energy to hold itself up and collapsed. Because of the layers of elements, energy was released in the form of an enormous explosion that we call nova (super-nova and hyper-nova).
This burst of energy, released by the star’s death, flung the more interesting and exotic elements into space. But, as before, these elements are uneven and some formed, through the attraction of matter to matter by gravity, into planets. On one particular planet the elements gave rise to life and. by forming complex molecules with strange chemical patterns, this life ate, reproduced and died. It also “evolved” under the same principles and eventually formed a creature; the first animal. This animal, our common ancestor, swam around the primordial soup until it too reproduced and died. After it came generations of new creatures: faster, stronger, and more determined. One of these took the most important step on behalf of life on Earth. It took a step onto the land, giving rise to larger animals and eventually to humans.
Through all this the elements that make up those creatures haven’t changed. They are still the remnants, the sparks and debris, from those exploding stars. You, me and everything around you is formed of those elements.
You are made of stars.
Stardust from PostPanic on Vimeo.
Doesn’t that make you feel connected to the world, the sky and the Universe? It did for this man:
A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish it but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind. Albert Einstein
You may have imagined that you are apart, that you were born into the world without being asked. That you don’t belong to it. Actually you grew out of this Earth in exactly the same way that an apple grows out of a tree. You’re a fruit. You’re a cantaloupe. You are not separate from the world, you cannot be separated from it.
And you know what? Neither is anything else. Look out into the country and you will see the light play across the hillsides. Can you separate the valley and the hill? Just because one side is dark and the other light? The whole world, the whole Universe, is fundamentally connected. It is the nature of the Universe. It is the way the Universe works. It is the mysterious Starmaker, it is the spirit behind the beating life-energy of spacetime. You cannot grasp it, because it is chaos, it is formless, it appears passive because it works on such a grand scale that nothing you do bothers it. All life is sustained by it and would not exist but for it.
It is the Dao.
The great Tao pervades everywhere, both on the left and on the right.
By it all things came into being, and it does not reject them.
Merits accomplished, it does not possess them.
It loves and nourishes all things but does not dominate over them.
It is always non-existent; therefore it can be named as small.
All things return home to it, and it does not claim mastery over them; therefore it can be named as great.
Because it never assumes greatness, therefore it can accomplish greatness.
Taken in this way, one see’s that all creatures share this world with us, that all races are simply one and that compassion for others is the way of the Dao.
The Universe wants you to live with it. It is ready to catch you if you accept it. If you want to be happy then live in accordance with the Dao; the life energy of the Universe.
The question is How?
Ah, well, now you know why Daoism has changed so many times. How can one live in accordance with a mysterious spiritual nature that defies the understanding?
There are a number of ways, and the DDJ, Zhuangzi (among the other Daoist works of which these are but the central texts of a huge canon) have many things to say about how to live with the Dao and in accordance with it.
These principles are worthy of entire articles in themselves and indeed there is much you can read out there to assist. They are, like Dao, also endlessly translated, here is the outline of two:
De.
That which things get in order to live is called De.
De is the second core principle of Daoism along with Dao itself, its rough translation means “inner integrity” or “virtue”, but it basically can mean to grow, to ascend, graciousness and even heart as in “heart and mind.”
It is virtue in the sense that a medicine has the virtue of healing. For the Daoists, this virtue comes from living in accord with the Dao. So, if you act with wisdom and inner integrity then you are having a positive effect on your life and expressing De. In other words if you wish to be a “good man”, do so. Don’t wish it, do it. If you can achieve the focus “on the now” required to be able to move from wishing for things to doing them, then you are expressing De.
When they clearly understand the Dao and De (Virtue), they then understand benevolence and righteousness.
Wu Wei.
A person like that could ride through the sky on the floating clouds, straddle the sun and moon, and travel beyond the four seas.
Neither death nor life can cause changes within her, and there’s little reason for her to even consider benefit or harm.
Wu Wei is “non action”. Acting without acting. This does not mean “doing nothing”! It is best thought of as “not forcing.” For me I bring my martial arts to the fore with this principle. In martial arts the most masterful skill is in getting maximum effect for minimum effort. Many martial arts are based around finding and mastering ways of achieving this. But, they basically follow the idea of a fulcrum. A fulcrum is a pivot point and the point at which other things can revolve with multiple times the effect. In the martial arts this is best seen in the soft styles that enable even the most gentile motions cause tremendous results.
I was once thrown by Don Bishop who is a 7th Dan in Shodokan (Tomiki) Akido. He asked me to attempt a stab at his stomach using a rubber knife. Now, Don is in his 70’s and a small frail looking old man. However, looks are deceptive for he is one of the powerful martial artist I have ever encountered. But, how does he generate so much power in such an old and small body? I, 6ft 2 and 18st, lunged at him as hard as I could. Don gently moved aside and using only one finger on each hand pulled me in such a way that I totally over balanced. Then, at the perfect moment, he changed the position of his fingers only by a few inches and suddenly I was thrown right over my own head. He had moved hardly at all, hardly used a jot of effort and yet had thrown me across the room. Was this magic? No, this was Wu Wei.
Another example I can give was with another martial arts master. This time it was Kendo sensei Jeff Humm of Hizen Dojo in London.
He was giving his normal end-of-lesson berating to the class and singling out a few choice lessons for black belts and beginners (like me) alike. He was explaining to a senior grade about a counter to a head strike technique. After a few puzzled looks he tutted and called for a training-sword.
“Hit me,” he said to the student. Now the sensei was not in armour and not wearing a helmet. He was also just standing there in his glasses. The pupil, naturally, performed the strike very slowly and gently. Sensei Humm waved his hand, “No no no, with effort.” The class slightly held its breath as the student drew back his hand and with a brilliant loud scream flashed his training-sword down at the sensei’s unarmoured head.
The sensei was no longer there!
In fact at the absolute precise moment he had moved very slightly so that not only did the students sword miss, but he had somehow cracked the student a clean ringing blow on the top of the head. I sat watching this dumbfounded by the skill. Acting while not looking to act, that is what it means for me.
The essence of his life is perfect.
He can cry all the time without losing his voice.
His inner harmony is supreme.
To be aware of inner harmony is to abide with reality.
These principles, together with many others detailed in Daoism, help me try to live in harmony with the Dao. I am, of course, only human and not a master at it, but I persevere (without trying too hard to!) All the principles combine and complement each other and gives rise to the truly virtuous human being.
And eventually to becoming a sage.
The Sage.
A person who masters the principles and lessons of Daoism, who lives perfectly in harmony with the Dao. He/she is The Sage. The concept of the sage is key to Daoism. The sage is the master of life, but he is also a man who sees reality as it is.
What does that mean?
As I have said in my prior articles on philosophy: many of the things we cling to in the world are not actually real, they are figments and creations of the person thinking them and culture that they live in. Human judgement on “what is right” and “wrong” or “what is beautiful” or “ugly” are in the mind of the speaker, not the universe. Following the principle of Wu Wei, the sage realises that it is our clouded minds that create these distinctions and judgements and he refrains. Thus, Daoists do not see the world as a toy of man. This is why they are often said to be deep lovers of nature. They realise that man is a part of the animal kingdom and do not consider man to be other than an animal. However, Daoists also realise that life requires that one creature eats another so not so many will be vegetarians. A dead animal is a dead animal. It should be respected, loved, cared for but to eat one is no bad thing.
They realise that ethical judgments are fraut with peril and that there is no true man-made morality. Nature has a way. Not that Daoists suggest we all become troglodytes! Just realise that much of the intellectual and rational “truth” we take for granted is nothing more than “models” of the truth, tellings us only one perspective and not, perhaps, something that we should rely on. Daoism has no celestial monarchic view of the universe, it can accept what it likes. Many Daoists have great respect for religious masters, but most are not and cannot be “believers” in the Christian sense. Many Daoist are big fans of Buddha, but are not “Buddhist”. Other Daoist hero’s include Ghandi and other Indian masters.
In many ways the sage is similar to Plato’s theory of the Philosopher King. A man of great natural wisdom: living within nature and strong in will, but able to see what must be done. When he acts it is gentile yet powerful. Such a sage has no fear of death, but more importantly he has no fear of life either.
So, that’s a little bit about Daoism, what it is for me. As I said at the top “It’s complicated” and yet simple. I always keep in mind the first lines of the DDJ and I always try to capture the humour of life found in the Zhuangzi. I don’t think I have a compete understanding of it, but I am trying all the time to learn and appreciate more about this most amazing of religions. Daoism is like a template on the nature of reality and the Universe. One can believe in a god and still be a Daoist, and indeed this is the form found today in China. One can certainly be a Buddhist and a Daoist. One can even follow many of the teachings of the Christ and be a Daoist.
Following the Dao, using De and Wu Wei brings the person naturally to gain the “Three Jewels” of Compassion, Moderation and Humility and these, I hope you agree, are some of the highest virtues of all.
A good soldier is free from violence.
A good fighter is free from rage.
A good winner is free from competition.
A good leader is humble before the people.
This is called the attainment of non-contention,
Or the application of the strength of others.
It is also called identity with the ultimate
Beyond space and time.
Regards,
Basho.
If you would like to know more about Daoism, please leave a comment.
Quotes: Various translations of the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, most – if not all – of the translations are online here: http://home.pages.at/onkellotus/index.htmlCloaking immune cells with antibodies that block T cell trafficking to the gut can substantially reduce the risk of viral transmission in a non-human primate model of HIV infection, scientists report.
The findings suggest that drugs that are already in clinical trials for inflammatory bowel diseases might be effective in the treatment or prevention of HIV infection.
The results are scheduled for publication in Nature Medicine.
"We were surprised by the effects that we observed," says senior author Aftab Ansari, PhD, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Emory University School of Medicine and Yerkes National Primate Research Center.
"Our goal was to demonstrate that blocking CD4+ T cell trafficking to gut tissues could decrease the level of virus in the gut and help mount an effective immune response, but we found that administration of the antibody could actually prevent transmission."
"The results of this study suggest that this form of therapy could counteract pathologies that lead to gastrointestinal symptoms and poor outcomes in HIV infection. Exploration of how this could be combined with anti-retroviral drug regimens is warranted."
The co-first authors of the paper are Siddappa Byrareddy, PhD, Emory assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and research specialist Brianne Kallam, now in graduate school at the University of North Carolina.
Collaborators included Janet McNicholl, MD and Ellen Kersh, PhD, at the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); and James Arthos, PhD, Claudia Cicala, PhD, and Anthony Fauci, MD, in the Laboratory of Immunoregulation, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health. Other collaborators at Emory University, the University of Massachusetts, the German Primate Center in Gottingen, the CDC and Georgia Institute of Technology played key roles.
CD4+ T cells found in the gut are key early targets during HIV infection and their depletion is a harbinger of disease progression. Researchers were able to "mask" these cells by using an antibody against a4b7 integrin, a molecule that promotes these T cells' homing to gut-associated lymphoid tissues.
The antibody does not eliminate the T cells, but it prevents them from homing to the gut and also blocks their interaction with infectious virus.
A previous study of anti-a4b7 treatment in acute SIV infection found that it could not only suppress viral load, but also keep treated animals healthy for years, while control animals' SIV infection progressed to AIDS.
In the Nature Medicine report, researchers examined the effect of targeting a4b7 in a model where female rhesus macaques were repeatedly challenged once per week with HIV's cousin SIV intravaginally.
Ten out of 12 control animals became infected. In contrast, only one out of 12 a4b7-antibody-treated animals became infected by week five. Five more became infected by week eight, and six of twelve remained uninfected. The researchers calculated that anti-a4b7 treatment leads to a 2.7 fold decreased risk per challenge.
The researchers also observed a decrease in the level of virus in gut tissues and the presence of residual virus in cervical tissues in alpha-4-beta-7-antibody-treated animals. They interpret this as indicating that viral transport away from the point of infection is inhibited
"Masking a4b7 integrin may be preventing transmission by suppressing the spread of a nascent genital infection to the gut, where large numbers of vulnerable T cells reside," Ansari says.Kyle Siegrist opened Lost Weekend Records nearly a decade ago, during the CD era. Vinyl, as everyone knew, was dead. But he said he opened his Clintonville store as a nod to Columbus' reputation for having a "great record-store scene."
Kyle Siegrist opened Lost Weekend Records nearly a decade ago, during the CD era.
Vinyl, as everyone knew, was dead. But he said he opened his Clintonville store as a nod to Columbus� reputation for having a �great record-store scene.�
Great, indeed. Siegrist�s store is set to celebrate its 10th anniversary, and vinyl sales are skyrocketing.
Nearly 4.2 million vinyl albums have been sold in the United States this year, a 17 percent increase from 2011, Nielsen Soundscan reports.
Jim Johnson, a local sales representative for Alliance Entertainment Corp., a music, video and game software distributor, said the market has seen a remarkable turnaround and that Columbus is at the forefront.
A few years ago, there were three or four stores where serious collectors and DJs shopped. Now, there are at least a dozen stores across the city.
�I would say the vinyl crowd in Columbus is just as hip as the vinyl crowd in New York or Los Angeles or any other major market,� Johnson said. �The people in Columbus are on the cutting edge."
Siegrist said many new releases are coming out on records, including the Rolling Stones and Taylor Swift.
�Ten years ago, old people would joke that kids don�t know what vinyl is,� Siegrist said. �Kids know what vinyl is now. It�s the people that are 40, 50, 60 that don�t realize it�s back. So it�s flipped.
�It�s kind of a youth-driven thing, as music always is.�
Brett Ruland, owner of Spoonful Records, said Facebook and word of mouth have brought many customers to his store, which he opened Downtown in July 2010.
�People who are into records find the stores,� Ruland said.
The Columbus vinyl market even attracts out-of-town shoppers. Siegrist said he gets customers from Cincinnati, Cleveland and Pittsburgh almost every weekend. And Ruland said international customers visit his store on record-buying trips.
Despite the competition for customers, record-store owners have a good relationship, Ruland and Siegrist said. In fact, Ruland created a map showing the record stores in the city, an idea he got from a shop in Austin, Texas.
�We all know each other,� Ruland said. �We all sort of have different specialties and different areas that we know.
�If you help a store, then they�re going to, in turn, help you out, send somebody your way.�
Steve Moore, 43, said he visits record stores at least once a month and owns 400 to 500 albums.
�You can hear new music, diverse music you haven�t heard before,� said Moore, a Pickerington resident. �You�re part of a select group that can even play the music. If you don�t have a turntable, you can�t play the music.�
Anna Carnahan lives in upstate New York but goes record shopping whenever she visits Columbus. She was shopping at Lost Weekend last week.
�I was a local music fan when I lived here, and you just can�t find it, especially not records, where I live now unless I were to mail-order it,� said Carnahan, who lived in Columbus when she attended Ohio State University several years ago.
�They�re great gifts.�
Another aspect of Columbus� vinyl scene is Musicol, which presses vinyl records. Siegrist has used the company to press records for his label, Lost Weekend.
Adam Smith, house engineer for Musicol, said it is easier for local labels and bands to work with a local pressing company than with bigger, national plants. �That�s something most cities don�t have,� Smith said.
Siegrist said that direct link makes the city unique.
�Recorded in Columbus. Pressed in Columbus. Sold in Columbus. This town rules,� he said.
[email protected] DELHI: Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said the government will remain open to any suggestions for improving the privacy framework surrounding Aadhaar Jaitley further said that the issue of'right to privacy'was "hopefully" settled by the Supreme Court judgement.Speaking at a book launch event, the finance minister said, "I think if tomorrow you have a situation where either the court or somebody in public domain or Parliament suggests ways and means of strengthening that privacy as technologies evolve for further securing them..., this is something which is not adversarial at all.""And therefore no government of the day should ever look at it from an adversarial point of view
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the phone numbers of terrorism suspects living overseas. AT&T then searches its database and supplies the CIA with any records of calls it has which might help the agency identify those implicated with terrorism.
As the CIA is forbidden from surveying the activities of Americans on domestic soil, the agency imposes privacy that safeguards domestic citizens, stated the anonymous officials. The report also added that most of the telephone data provided by AT&T involves foreign-to-foreign calls.
When, however, the company produces records of international calls with one end either beginning or ending in the United States, it does not reveal the identity of the American participant of the call by masking several digits of their phone number. However, if needs be, the CIA can refer the masked numbers to the FBI which can then issue a subpoena which would require AT&T to provide the data uncensored.
The CIA has declined to confirm the name of the program. It does however claim all its intelligence collection activities are lawful and “subject to extensive oversight”.
“The CIA protects the nation and upholds privacy rights of Americans by ensuring that its intelligence collection activities are focused on acquiring foreign intelligence and counter-intelligence in accordance with US laws,” said Dean Boyd, a spokesperson for the CIA. “The CIA is expressly forbidden from undertaking intelligence collection activities inside the United States ‘for the purpose of acquiring information concerning the domestic activities of the US persons’ and the CIA does not do so,” added Boyd.
AT&T also declined to comment about “questions concerning national security”. A company spokesperson did state that AT&T values its customer privacy and “works hard to protect it by ensuring compliance with the law in all respects”.1 / 5 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Staff Sgt. Ty Vickers dismisses Pfc. Rikki Reed from his post while changing the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns. In the winter, the guard is changed every hour, but is changed every half hour in the summer. (Photo Credit: Elizabeth M. Collins) VIEW ORIGINAL 2 / 5 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Staff Sgt. Ty Vickers examines Spc. Joseph Hall's rifle before changing the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns. (Photo Credit: Elizabeth M. Collins) VIEW ORIGINAL 3 / 5 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Pfc. Rikki Reed (left) and Spc. Joseph Hull change guard duties at the Tomb of the Unknowns. (Photo Credit: Elizabeth M. Collins) VIEW ORIGINAL 4 / 5 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Tomb sentinels in cold-weather gear change guard duties at the Tomb of the Unknowns. (Photo Credit: Elizabeth M. Collins) VIEW ORIGINAL 5 / 5 Show Caption + Hide Caption – (Left to right) Sgt. Benton Thames, Sgt. Jeff Binek and Spc. William Johnson change the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns. The ceremony is full of tradition and meaning. For example, sentinels take 21 steps or stand for 21 seconds—honoring the unknowns with a version of the 21-gun salute. (Photo Credit: Sgt. Erica Vinyard) VIEW ORIGINAL
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY, Va. (April 26, 2010) -- A lone Soldier stands on an open plaza, buffeted by bone-chilling wind. Twenty-one steps. Turn. Stand at attention for 21 seconds. Turn. Repeat. The sun drops. The temperature falls. The crowds depart. The Soldier continues his solitary walk.
The cemetery closes at 5 p.m., but closing brings little relief. The Soldier is only 12 hours into a 27-hour shift. He has spent every other hour marching in the bitter cold, and still has a long, frigid night of training on the plaza before he can go home at seven the next morning.
None of this fazes the Soldier, for he is a sentinel, a guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. He has one of the most sacred missions in the military, and he would walk through fire to honor and protect the fallen, nameless Soldiers under his watch.
In the early 1920s, the modern world was still emerging, shell-shocked, from World War I. The "war to end all wars" had claimed entire countries, monarchies and an untold number of lives, many who are still nameless and faceless.
Following the examples of allies like Great Britain and France, Congress approved a resolution to ceremonially honor and bury one of America's countless unknown World War I casualties in a special tomb at Arlington National Cemetery, Va., in 1921. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was dedicated that Nov. 11-then known as Armistice Day-by President Warren G. Harding, with the inscription: "Here Rests In Honored Glory An American Soldier Known But To God."
It was an emotional, touching precedent and unknown, fallen servicemembers from World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam were later interred at the tomb with full military honors. The servicemembers were chosen randomly from unmarked graves at U.S. cemeteries, with final selections made by highly decorated veterans. Each of the unknowns has been ceremonially awarded the Medal of Honor and other decorations, such as Britain's Victoria Cross and Belgium's and France's Croix de Guerre. (Note: The unknown from Vietnam was identified as Air Force 1st Lt. Michael Blassie in 1998, although a marker remains in honor of all the missing and unidentified servicemen from that war.)
Guards were first posted at the tomb in 1926, after one too many tourists had used the grave as a picnic table. In the years since, their duties and hours have increased, and the Changing of the Guard has become a "must-see" on the Washington tourist circuit.
But those who guard the tomb (members of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, better known as "The Old Guard") don't want to be known as performers. They exist to "pay respects to the unknown Soldiers," said Staff Sgt. Kevin Gilliam, the 1st Relief commander at the tomb.
"To me, (the tomb) symbolizes the ultimate sacrifice," he continued. "Every time I look out there, I look at three guys who gave up everything. They lost not just their lives, but their identities. And also, what their families are sacrificing too, not having the peace of mind, knowing that 'My son is in Section 60 in Arlington National Cemetery.' They're never going to know."
Gilliam was compelled to become a tomb guard after attending the funerals of friends from the 3rd Infantry Division he had deployed with to Iraq. He saw the pain their families endured, and after visiting the tomb, realized that the guards take the place of the unknowns' families. This was something he could do. He could honor and remember them in place of all the families who never knew what happened to their sons, husbands, fathers or brothers.
"You see families who are coming straight from Section 60 (where servicemembers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are interred) from a funeral, and they've got tears in their eyes. Veterans Day, Memorial Day-it really hits home, what we're out here for. It's definitely not for ourselves, (but) just to pay homage to those who came before us," he explained.
"I get to represent my fallen comrades and my fellow Soldiers everywhere," added Spc. Joseph Hull, one of the sentinels. "It means a lot to me. I'll definitely carry it with me the rest of my career."
It's not an easy job. A Soldier has to be driven to endure the 27-hour days and weather extremes. After enlisting, then volunteering and being selected for The Old Guard, Soldiers can eventually try out for one of 27 sentinel positions. Less than 20 percent of Soldiers typically make it; in Gilliam's class of 16, only he and one other Soldier passed. According to the Society of the Honor Guard, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, since 1959, only about 570 Soldiers have been awarded the coveted Tomb Guard Identification Badge.
Tomb guards are assigned to one of three reliefs (depending on their height), and can spend anywhere from six to nine months training to become an official sentinel, perfecting their marching, military history and uniforms. Much of the training is done on the plaza in front of the tomb, in real time, exactly as they would conduct an actual walk or guard change. The only difference: the cemetery is closed and it's usually the middle of the night.
"You do training during the day...manual, uniform, uniform classes. And then at night you get your hours of training in. The guards who are posted at night aren't a ceremonial guard. They're in ACUs. So they're working on walking the mat, perfecting their lines, angles. We also do training as a whole. The whole squad will go out at night and train the guard changes and things like that," said Gilliam, who as a relief commander actually conducts the training, and changes the guard rather than walking the mat.
It's exhausting, the guards say, but they push through it. Hull had a newborn daughter during his training, so he had an especially hard time. In fact, he hopes to go to special-operations training, and expects his sleep-deprivation practice and discipline as a tomb guard will help him.
In addition to honoring the unknowns and all of the fallen, the sentinels represent the Army to the American public. They're required to get two hair cuts in a nine-day work schedule and unlike most Soldiers, the sentinels are issued four dress uniforms and use an industrial-strength steam press. According to Hull, they spend up to six hours a day preparing uniforms, and four shining dress shoes, and that's once a Soldier has it down to a science. It can take a guard in training twice as long.
The guard is changed every hour during the winter and every half-hour during the summer months. At the top of the hour (or half-hour), a relief commander, like Gilliam, salutes the tomb and announces the change. "Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please. I am (name and rank) of the 3rd Infantry Regiment, United States Army, commander of the relief, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The ceremony you are about to witness, is the Changing of the Guard. In keeping with the dignity of this ceremony, it is requested that everyone remain silent, and standing. Thank you."
He inspects the oncoming Soldier and his weapon (depending on whether he wears cold-weather gloves, which prohibit a complete weapon inspection), then he and the new Soldier meet the retiring sentinel in front of the tomb and all three salute the unknowns.
"Pass on your orders," the relief commander, who is the only Soldier entitled to wear rank insignia, directs the relieved sentinel, according to the tomb's standard operating procedures.
The relieved sentinel then tells his replacement: "Post and orders remain as directed."
"Orders acknowledged," the new sentinel replies before beginning his patrol.
"I've done over 800 walks and about 150 guard changes, so it's become a habit," said Spc. Kristopher Mancha, another guard. "But I try to keep that in the back of my mind, that just because it's a habit, I'm never comfortable when I come outside. I'm constantly thinking and trying to do my best, never just going through the motions. But sometimes we do make mistakes, whether the crowd notices or not. We're never perfect. We always try to strive for perfection, but deep down inside, we're never perfect."
The sentinels also never get over the sense of awe they feel on their first walk in front of the tomb. They have the same nerves, the same butterflies each time.
"It was an impressive sight and definitely a very humbling one. I was speechless when I first saw it and I really didn't know what to say. It still feels the same," said Hull. "It represents a lot to me. It definitely represents my fallen brothers and sisters in the military and the armed services. I do know people who are here in the cemetery and are buried, and my entire family served in the military, so it's just kind of instilled in me." Hull has served at the tomb for three years, and said each day is like his first.
The "mat"-the 63-foot area in front of the tomb where the guards walk-is sacred, so sacred that if the crowd gets rowdy or noisy, the guard will step off the mat before asking for silence and respect. Otherwise, he follows a carefully prescribed routine.
"What we do for our entire post, we take 21 steps across the mat, turn and face D.C. for 21 seconds, turn back, face down the mat, change shoulders and do that process over and over again. Twenty-one alludes to the 21-gun salute, which is the highest military honor. So we give them that salute as many times as we can during the hour or half hour," Gilliam explained.
"There's no markers," added Mancha. "It's been said before that you can go out here and change the guard blindfolded. There's rust marks on the plaza. Sometimes they get washed off.... It actually shows the steps from the rust on the bottom of our shoes. It shows the tradition that we've been taking the same steps for a couple decades. We don't rely on those rust marks because I'm not looking down.... I'm looking straight ahead at all times."
Mentally ticking off 21 seconds also becomes instinctive, helped by a clock sentinels-in-training spend "lots of time looking at," Hull added.
The sentinels stand watch over the three unknown Soldiers 365 days a year, through pouring rain, blizzard-like snow and scorching heat. And they do it in all-wool dress uniforms. They can add cold weather gear or rain gear, but can't change into lighter uniforms during Washington's notoriously hot and humid summers.
"We try to take as many precautions to prepare for it as we can," said Gilliam. "But part of it is, you just have to tough it out. Wintertime to me-I don't like the cold at all-so the wintertime is a lot tougher than the summer. Summertime is over 100 degrees (in) 100-percent wool (uniforms). It can definitely get pretty hot. We do in the summertime, 30-minute shifts. It's not overwhelming, but you have to prepare your body, stay hydrated. The physical aspect wears down on the Soldiers, especially guys who've been here over two or three summers."
It does have an up side, however, said Mancha. Extreme-weather days are his favorite times guarding the tomb.
"It's actually very motivating, believe it or not," he said. "Some Soldiers like the heat. Some Soldiers like the cold. Snow-snow's an awesome time to walk. There's not a lot of crowd that comes around. That's not what we focus on, but to be out here by yourself, (whether it's) 100 degrees or negative-10, it gets very motivating. You're dreading it at first, but when you get out here and you're by yourself, it's just you and the unknowns, and you're doing something special, something nobody else wanted to do. Guarding the unknowns at 2 a.m. in 10-degree weather, it motivates you.
"I feel this is the least I can do for other Soldiers who are currently deployed..." Mancha continued. "They're sacrificing their lives, their time...for me to be here right now. And for me to not only guard the unknowns, but to bury them here in Arlington National Cemetery, doesn't compare to what they're doing overseas. I consider it the least I can do as an infantryman...in a ceremonial unit...in my first duty station. They're the heroes. We just try to represent them to the world."
History of the tomb and its sentinels
March 4, 1921, Congress approved a resolution providing for the burial of an unidentified American Soldier, following the custom adopted by other allied countries after World War I. The site was to be the plaza of Arlington National Cemetery's Memorial Amphitheater, which had been dedicated the previous year.
On Memorial Day, 1921, an unknown was exhumed from each of four cemeteries in France. The remains were placed in identical caskets and assembled at Chalon sur Marne.
October 24, Sgt. Edward F. Younger, wounded in combat and highly decorated for valor, selected the Unknown Soldier for World War I by placing a spray of white roses on one of the caskets. Those remaining were interred in the Meuse Argonne Cemetery, France. The Unknown Soldier then returned home to the U.S. to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda until Armistice Day. Nov. 11, 1921, President Warren G. Harding officiated at the interment ceremonies at the amphitheater.
The monument, which rests on top of the Unknown grave, is a sarcophagus, simple, but impressive in its dimensions. Its austere, flat-faced form is relieved at the corners and along the sides by neo-classic pilasters, or columns, set onto the surface.
The three figures of Valor, Victory and Peace are sculpted into the panel, which faces Washington. On the plaza face the words "Here Rests in Honored Glory An American Soldier Known But To God," are inscribed
August 3, 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill to select and pay tribute to the Unknown Soldiers of World War II and Korea on Memorial Day 1958. The World War II Unknown was selected from 19 remains exhumed from military cemeteries in Hawaii, Europe and the Philippines.
Two Unknowns from World War II, one from the European Theatre and one from the Pacific Theatre, were placed in identical caskets and taken aboard the U.S.S. Canberra, a guided missile cruiser resting off the Virginia capes. Petty Officer 1st Class William R. Carrette, then the Navy's only active-duty Medal of Honor recipient, selected the Unknown Soldier of World War II. The remaining casket received a burial at sea.
Four unknown Americans who lost their lives in Korea were disinterred from the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. Master Sgt. Ned Lyle made the final selection. Both caskets arrived in Washington May 28, 1958, where they lay in the Capitol Rotunda until May 30.
That morning they were carried on caissons to Arlington National Cemetery. President Eisenhower awarded each the Medal of Honor, and the Unknowns were interred beside their World War I comrade.
May 28, 1984, President Ronald Reagan presided over the interment ceremony for the Vietnam Unknown servicemember. Like his predecessors, he was laid to rest in the plaza of the tomb during a ceremony that received national coverage.
Since then, DNA testing proved the Vietnam Unknown servicemember's remains were those of Air Force 1st Lt. Michael Joseph Blassie. His remains were returned to his family July 10, 1998, and he was buried in his hometown, St. Louis.
Originally, a civilian watchman was responsible for the security of the Tomb of the Unknowns. Then, March 24, 1926, a military guard from the Washington Provisional Brigade (forerunner of the U.S. Army Military District of Washington) was established during daylight hours. In 1948, the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, "The Old Guard," assumed the post, following the unit's reactivation in the nation's capital. Members of the regiment's Honor Guard continue to perform this duty today.
While on duty, the sentinel crosses a 63-foot rubber-surfaced walkway in exactly 21 steps. He then faces the tomb for 21 seconds, turns again, and pauses an additional 21 seconds before retracing his steps. The number 21 is symbolic of the 21-gun salute.
As a gesture against intrusion on their post, the sentinel always bears his weapon away from the tomb.
Only under exceptional circumstances may the guard speak or alter his silent, measured tour of duty. He will issue a warning if anyone attempts to enter the restricted area around the tomb, but first will halt and bring his rifle to port arms.
The guard wears the Army Dress Blue Uniform, reminiscent of the color and style worn by Soldiers during the late 1800s. Tomb guards wear the Tomb Identification Badge on the right breast pocket. The design is an inverted, open laurel wreath surrounding a representation of the front elevation of the tomb. The words "Honor Guard" are engraved at the base of the badge. A guard leaving after at least nine months of service is entitled to wear the badge as a permanent part of the uniform.
Content in last section (History of the tomb and its sentinels) courtesy of www.army.mil/oldguard.Sports Illustrated’s 2017-18 college basketball projections are a collaboration between economist Dan Hanner, SI’s Chris Johnson and SI’s Jeremy Fuchs. The system uses college and AAU statistics, recruiting rankings and coaching data to project every Division I player and team. For a deeper look at how the system works, read this explainer. SI’s ranking of teams 1–351 has been more accurate than similar preseason rankings produced by ESPN, CBS Sports and noted analyst Ken Pomeroy for three consecutive years.
In the next installment of our preview, we’re unveiling our projected top 100 scorers overall, as measured by points per game, in the nation’s best nine conferences (American, ACC, Atlantic 10, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Mountain West, Pac-12 and SEC) plus West Coast Conference contenders BYU, Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s.
• More Projections: Top 100 scoring transfers | Top 50 freshmen | NPOY
For the second year in a row, a Davidson player is our projected top scorer. SI expects Peyton Aldridge (No. 1) to match the 22.1 points per game Jack Gibbs put up for the Wildcats last season. And in case you were wondering: No, Aldridge, like Gibbs, is not the next Steph Curry, but La Salle coach Dr. John Giannini did refer to Aldridge in February as the “Larry Bird of the Atlantic 10.” Yante Maten (No. 4) is the best major-conference big man you don’t know about, and he’ll be the hub around which Georgia’s offense revolves this season. Marcus Foster (No. 5) instantly became Creighton’s featured scorer last season after transferring from Kansas State, and our model sees him increasing his per-game average by more than a point this season.
Whether Michael Porter Jr. (No. 6) can lead Missouri to its first NCAA tournament in five years is uncertain. What’s obvious is that the No. 2 recruit in the country will score, and score a lot, right away. Jerome Robinson (No. 9) won’t attract much attention in the ACC this season unless Boston College vastly outperforms our projection, but it’s easy to envision him filling up a lot of box scores in losing efforts. Markus Howard (No. 10) may not have been Marquette’s first choice at point guard when he arrived in Milwaukee last year after reclassifying, but by the time he took on a starter’s minutes workload toward the end of the Golden Eagles’ 2016-17 campaign, he was putting up more than 15 points per game. No qualifying Division I player made a higher percentage of his three-point shots than Howard’s 54.7 last season, and we expect him to firmly establish himself as one of the best players in the Big East in 2017-18.
There’s considerable risk involved in pegging Grayson Allen (No. 12), one of our favorites for National Player of the Year honors, to post such a high points-per-game average, because of the possibility freshman big man Marvin Bagley III will become Duke’s primary scoring option. Allonzo Trier (No. 15) was suspended until late January of last season after failing a test for performance enhancing drugs, but when he’s on the court, Trier figures to be the Pac-12’s most effective bucket-getter. Josh Okogie (No. 19) outperformed his three-star recruiting rating last season, and SI projects him to build on the promise he showed as a freshman by ranking among the top scorers in one of the nation’s toughest conferences, the ACC.
We like Miles Bridges (No. 21), our top candidate for NPOY, to lead the Big Ten in scoring. Injuries have plagued Reid Travis (No. 22) during his three seasons at Stanford, but there’s no doubting his potential to blossom into an elite Pac-12 player. This season, surrounded by a strong recruiting class led by four-star guard Daejon Davis, Travis has a real shot to play in his first tourney. Like Marquette teammate Howard, sharpshooter Andrew Rowsey (No. 23) is projected to make a big jump in his points-per-game figure, from 11.6 to 17.4, thanks in part to his near-automatic free throw stroke. (At 92.6%, Rowsey had one of the nation’s top five make rates from the line last season.) Florida will look to KeVaughn Allen (No. 29) to fill in a sizable chunk of the scoring hole left by the departures of Canyon Berry, Devin Robinson, Kasey Hill and Justin Leon. Collin Sexton (No. 37) set the single-season scoring record for Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League last year, and he should be the engine fueling Alabama’s offense during his first, and quite possibly only, college season.
Hamidou Diallo (No. 42) came close to going half-and-done after joining Kentucky in January and entering the NBA draft pool without signing with an agent, but he returned to Lexington to inherit the Wildcats’ go-to scoring role. After being overshadowed by Lonzo-mania last season, Aaron Holiday (No. 48) will take the reins as UCLA’s primary point guard while serving as its No. 1 offensive threat. Angel Delgado (No. 55) led Division I with 13 rebounds per game last season; we see him maintaining both that figure and a per-game scoring average above 15 points, which should put him in position to keep racking up double-doubles (He had 27 in 2016-17.) In Trae Young (No. 59), Oklahoma will have its most explosive scorer since Buddy Hield left campus.
Elijah Brown (No. 61) was one of the most coveted commodities on the transfer market after averaging 18.8 points per game for New Mexico last season, and he could get close to that mark this season under a head coach, Dana Altman, that has molded a top-25 offense at Oregon four years running. Tres Tinkle (No. 68), the son of Oregon State head coach Wayne Tinkle, missed most of last season because of a broken wrist, but he averaged about 20 points in six games before suffering the injury. Lamarr Kimble (No. 75) could serve as part of one of the nation’s most prolific backcourt scoring tandems; we expect he and Shavar Newkirk (No. 38) to combine to average more than 31 points per game, provided the latter isn’t limited by an ACL tear sustained last year. Robert Williams (No. 80) may be a more familiar name for NBA draft devotees than college basketball fans at this point, but the potential 2018 lottery pick should see a significant uptick in his scoring as a sophomore.
Minnesota’s bid to make a surprise run at Michigan State in the Big Ten will hinge on Nate Mason’s (No. 83) ability to prop up an offense that finished below-average in league play last season. SI expects a mammoth center for an even more attractive Big Ten upset pick, Isaac Haas (No. 85), to boost his scoring to help to make up for the departure of Big Ten player of the year Caleb Swanigan to the NBA. Shannon Evans (No. 95) proved he was a high major-caliber guard by averaging 15 points per game for Arizona State in 2016-17 after transferring from Buffalo, and this season he’ll team with Tra Holder (No. 58) in a high-scoring backcourt that could get the Sun Devils within striking distance of an at-large bid come March. The suspension of highly touted incoming recruit Brian Bowen should open up more shots for Deng Adel (No. 98) at Louisville.http://gty.im/485996940
Defensive Tackle Has Many Openings With Multiple Players On One Year Contracts.
Detroit is going to have to bring in some new defensive tackles for the 2017 season. Many players on the roster were on a one year contract, and most won’t return. Luckily for Detroit, this draft class and free agent class has many possible replacements for the defensive line that could use all the help it could get. Ngata seems to be on his last leg, Walker wasn’t what we expected and more. Detroit has some cap money to spend and with a good class coming into free agency, it could be a good opportunity to spend at the position.
Haloti Ngata
Ngata had his worst year of his career. He only accumulated 11 tackles, a sack and a half, and three pass deflections. He has a big salary cap in 2017 and getting rid of him saves the team around five to six million. Ngata isn’t worth that much with his production, his time in Detroit is up.
Decision: Go
The best defensive tackle on the team was Robinson hands down. Sure his numbers aren’t eye-popping, but his 22 tackles, two sacks and seven pass deflections lead the defensive tackle group. His playing time increased as the season went on and he proved to be a good second round pick in the 2016 draft, a starter for a long time coming.
Decision: Stay
http://gty.im/619600298
Khyri Thornton
Thornton came in the season as a possible number four tackle, but as the year moved on he started six games. He isn’t a starter yet, but he is a good number three tackle. He had 14 tackles and one sack in the 13 games he appeared in. He can get better and with a cheap contract, he shouldn’t be hard to keep.
Decision: Stay
Tyrunn Walker
A big injury ruined Walker’s 2015 season. 2016 was his redemption year and he blew it. Starting in eight games, playing in 15 he only wounded up with 15 tackles and a fumble recovery. Walker has never been a great defensive tackle and fans were expecting too much out of him. Walker is luckily on a one year deal, so no point in trying to bring him back.
Decision: Go
http://gty.im/625873414
Stefan Charles
The worst defensive tackle on the team. Charles missed some of the year with an injury, but the 12 games he was in, he only got seven tackles. Now he was buried on the depth chart, so he didn’t have much of a chance to play, but when he did, he didn’t do much. Detroit can move on from him as well.
Decision: Go
http://gty.im/459317040
Possible Replacements
Dontari Poe
Kawann Short
Domata Peko
Nick Fairley
Terrell McClain
Johnathan Hankins
Bennie Logan
Ryan Glasgow, Michigan
Jaleel Johnson, Iowa
Jarron Jones, Notre Dame
Dalvin Tomlinson, Alabama
Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @BKnappBlogs, find me on Reddit at /u/sportsguy4life and share your thoughts on the Detroit Lions subreddit.Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) refers to a condition in which abnormally large numbers of bacteria are present in the small intestine. Gastrointestinal cancer is related to compromised intestinal barrier function, reduced functionality of immune responses, and inadequate nutritional status, which impair the ability of patients to control intestinal bacterial proliferation. These result in conditions favourable to SIBO. However, the actual incidence of SIBO in patients with gastrointestinal cancer and its relation to clinical symptoms has not been explored.
A recent case-control study, led by Dr. Zhenjun Wu from the Department of Blood Transfusion and Clinical Laboratory at Qingdao University School of Medicine in Qingdao (China), has found that probiotics may combat SIBO in patients with gastrointestinal cancer and may alleviate some gastrointestinal symptoms.
The researchers evaluated 112 gastric and 88 colorectal cancer patients (aged 25-75 years). The control group consisted of 80 healthy volunteers (aged 20-65 years). Questionnaires were used to assess gastrointestinal symptoms and a glucose hydrogen breath test was used to determine SIBO status.
63.0% of patients with gastric and colorectal cancer versus 16.3% of controls tested positive for SIBO, which suggests that gastrointestinal cancer may be associated with SIBO. Besides this, proton pump inhibitor use in patients with gastrointestinal malignancies made SIBO more likely to occur.
In SIBO-positive cancer patients, probiotic (Bifidobacterium triple viable capsule) therapy for 4 weeks counteracted SIBO. After the intervention, the group receiving the probiotic treatment had 19.0% SIBO-positive patients, whereas the group that was administered placebo showed 74.6% SIBO-positive patients. Noticeably, counteracting SIBO with the Bifidobacterium triple viable capsule probiotic reduced gastrointestinal symptoms in patients with gastrointestinal malignancies.
In conclusion, SIBO’s prevalence is higher in patients with gastrointestinal cancer and a probiotic intervention for 4 weeks may combat SIBO in these patients, in addition to alleviating some of their gastrointestinal symptoms. Gastrointestinal symptoms in patients with gastrointestinal malignancies may possibly partially be because of SIBO and fits well with the processes likely to occur not only in such patients, but also in other intestinal oncological diseases.
References:
Liang S, Xu L, Zhang D, Wu Z. Effect of probiotics on small intestinal bacterial overgrowth in patients with gastric and colorectal cancer. Turk J Gastroenterol. 2016; 27(3):227-32. doi: 10.5152/tjg.2016.15375.
Lin HC. Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth: a framework for understanding irritable bowel syndrome. JAMA. 2004; 292(7):852-8. doi: 10.1001/jama.292.7.852.Several newspapers seem to have got themselves into a bit of a tizzy about an upcoming announcement from the European Commission over the tax affairs of Apple. Specifically, that the company will be accused of having accepted illegal state aid over its supposed deals with the Irish tax authorities. This simply isn't true and it's not how public policy on such matters works over here anyway. As the press officer for the relevant Commissioner, Joaquin Almunia, has just told me what they are going to publish this week (and it's sometime, sometime as yet undecided, this week) is the full document explaining what they are looking into and why. It absolutely is not a finding of fact nor a finding of error on anyone's part at all. It's just a follow up from the June announcement of the investigation, outlining what the investigation is about and why.
This makes the Financial Times' headline a little excitable:
Apple hit by Brussels finding over illegal Irish tax deals
There has been no finding of fact and no finding of illegality. That just isn't the way that European Commission investigations work. Just not how they do their public policy.
Apple will be accused of prospering from illegal tax deals with the Irish government for more than two decades when Brussels this week unveils details of a probe that could leave the iPhone maker with a record fine of as much as several billions of euros. Preliminary findings from the European Commission’s investigation into Apple’s tax affairs in Ireland, where it has had a rate of less than 2 per cent, claim the Silicon Valley company benefited from illicit state aid after striking backroom deals with Ireland’s authorities, according to people involved in the case.
This simply isn't so. And over and above the error concerning the content of the reports there is no possibility of a fine upon Apple whatsoever. For in cases of illegal state aid there never is a fine levied upon the company or recipient of such aid. The government that allowed or paid out the aid must recover it, that's true, but there's no fines over and above that even if there's a finding of said illegal aid. Again, this just isn't how the Commission undertakes its public policy on these matters. Yes, abuse of a monopoly (for example, or creating a cartel) can and will lead to fines on the companies that perpetrate these abuses. That's probably just and righteous: it is the companies doing the illegal thing after all. But if anyone is in error about illegal state aid then it's the state making the aid: so the recipient, the company, doesn't get fined at all.
The Wall Street Journal:
BRUSSELS—European Union regulators will explain as soon as Monday why they believe that tax deals granted to Apple Inc. and Fiat SpA violated EU law, people familiar with the matter said, marking the next formal step in the bloc's drive against alleged tax avoidance by multinationals. The European Commission, the EU's central antitrust authority, opened formal investigations in June into whether tax deals granted to Apple in Ireland, Fiat's finance arm in Luxembourg and Starbucks Corp. in the Netherlands amounted to illegal state support for the companies. The commission will publish its so-called opening decision in the Apple case as soon as Monday, explaining why it believes that two tax deals agreed between the U.S. company and the Irish government—in 1991 and 2007—amounted to illegal state aid, a person familiar with the matter said.
Again no: there's simply no finding of fact coming up. This next report is simply a laying out of what the Commission is looking into.
And in the case of Apple it's not even about Irish tax rates, the Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich (or is it Double Dutch with an Irish?), that mysterious company with no tax domicile or any of those things that get bandied about. It is purely and simply about transfer pricing.
To explain transfer pricing: obviously, a company can move profits around the world by altering the prices that it charges internally to the various different subsidiaries. To counter this a multinational company is supposed to use "arm's length" pricing between its various parts. That is, to use the same prices between two subsidiaries as it would use to a non-related company. This is very much more an art than a science as a lot of what is traded within a
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including respect for private property. This permits us, as Havel puts it in his 1978 essay "The Power of the Powerless," to live in truth. And by living in truth we expose a corrupt corporate state that perpetrates lies and lives in deceit.
This attempt to "live within the truth" brings with it ostracism and retribution. Punishment is imposed in bankrupt systems because of the necessity for compliance, not out of any real conviction. And the real crime committed is not the crime of speaking out or defying the rules, but the crime of exposing the charade.
Obtain "Days of Destruction Days of Hope" with a minimum contribution to Truthout. Click here.The Syrian chemical weapons stockpile includes more than 1000 tons of agents and precursor chemicals, making it one of the largest in the world, a declassified French intelligence report says.
The report notes that the Syrian chemical weapons program poses a major global threat in terms of weapons of mass destruction proliferation.
The full text of the French intelligence report:
Syrian chemical program
National executive summary of declassified
intelligence¹
Cases of previous use of chemical agents by the Syrian regime
Chemical attack launched by the regime on Aug 21
This document has been produced through declassified intelligence mostly drawn from French-only sources. It includes a thorough technical analysis performed on open sources by our intelligence and technical services. It integrates, finally, some complementary elements received through cooperation with our closest partners.
Syria detains one of the world’s most important operational chemical weapons stockpile, accumulated within the framework of a long-standing and diversified program, which has been monitored for a long time by French and partner intelligence services. This program is one of the main threats in terms of weapons of mass destruction proliferation. Countering the threat stemming from WMD proliferation is a key objective for our defence, as stated again in the recent French White paper on defense and national security.
In combats against the opposition, President Assad’s regime has already used such weapons, including sarin, in limited attacks against the population, in particular in April 2013.The analysis of information we have now gathered leads us to consider that, on August 21, 2013, the Syrian regime has launched an attack on some suburbs of Damascus that were being held by the opposition forces, using together conventional means and a large amount of
chemical agents.
1 – The Syrian chemical program
Syria has long been equipped with a massive chemical arsenal, together with many related delivery systems. The Syrian regime acknowledged as much on July 23, 2012 through its Foreign Affairs spokesperson, who confirmed that: “these different weapons [chemical and non-conventional] are stockpiled and secured under the supervision of the armed forces”. Syria is not part to the 1993 Convention on Chemical Weapons Ban, which 189 Nations have signed and ratified.
The Syrian chemical program started in the 1970’s by the import of chemical munitions. In the 1980’s, Damascus started acquiring the materials, products and knowledge necessary to set up an autonomous and massive production capacity in that field.
Nature of the Syrian chemical arsenal
With above 1000 tons of chemical agents and precursor chemicals, Damascus has one of the most important operational stockpile in the world, without any perspective of programed destruction in the absence of a Syrian willingness to join the CCWB.
The Syrian arsenal is particularly massive and diversified. It includes:
‐ Several hundreds of tons of sulfur mustard, stockpiled in its final form,
‐ Several tens of tons of VX. VX is the most toxic among the known chemical warfare agents,
‐ Several hundreds of tons of sarin, representing the bulk of the arsenal.
Sarin and VX are neurotoxic organophosphorous compounds which are partly stocked in a binary manner, i.e. kept as two distinct chemical products, called precursor chemicals, which are mixed just before use. Such a technique and related processes reveal a high level of know-how in the chemical weapons technology by the Syrian regime.
Syrian scientists have also worked on nitrogen mustard, a first generation vesicant agent, as well as neurotoxic organophosphorus compounds with toxicity level higher than sarin.
Means of delivery
Damascus is in a position to deliver its chemical weapons through a vast range of
several thousand launchers:
‐ Scud C missiles, with a range of 500 km, capable of delivering sulfur mustard,
sarin or VX,
‐ Scud B missiles, capable of delivering sarin or VX at a 300 km range,
‐ M600 missiles, with a range between 250 and 300 km. They too can deliver the three already mentioned toxic agents.
‐ SS21 missiles, adapted to carry the three mentioned chemical warfare agents, at a limited range (70 km).
‐ Air launched bombs with a payload of sarin. Depending on the model, they can deliver between 100 and 300 litres of toxic agent,
‐ Artillery rockets, particularly 302 and 320 mm, aimed at delivering sulfur mustard, sarin or VX at a shorter range (50 km and under).
Some missiles are able to deliver several hundred liters of toxic agents.
Activities monitored for several years on Syrian test sites indicate that new dispersal mechanisms are being studied. Since the beginning of the conflict, our intelligence confirms the use by the regime of ammunitions carrying a lesser volume of chemical agents, adapted to a tactical use, more focused and local.
Capability to deliver chemical agents by Syrian vectors:
SCUD C: VX – Sarin – Yperite – Range: 500 km
SCUD B: VX – Sarin – Range: 300 km
M600: VX – Sarin – Yperite – Range: 250-300 km
SS21: VX – Sarin – Yperite – Range: 70 km
Bomb: Sarin
Rockets: VX – Sarin – Yperite – Range: 50 km
Other tactical munitions: Sarin – Range: below 50 km.
We cannot exclude that such tests may also have been conducted with other categories of chemicals diverted from their civilian use and used at lethal doses.
2 – Chemical attacks previously lead by the Syrian regime
A picture released in a United Nations report September 16, 2013 on possible use of chemical weapons in Syria shows damage to a wall and floor, which inspectors believe was caused by a rocket attack. (Reuters)
Cases have been documented in the recent months of the use of chemical agents by the Syrian regime in attacks against some areas controlled by the opposition, with an objective of seizing territory or inspiring terror. By doing so the regime has violated the commitments under the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which it has signed in 1968, concerning the prohibition of use at war of suffocating gas, toxic or similar weapons as well as biological weapons.
French competent services have obtained samples either biomedical (blood, urine), environmental (ground) or material (munitions debris), taken on victims or on the sites during the attacks in Saraqeb (April 29, 2013) and Jobar (mid-April 2013). Our analyses have confirmed the use of sarin.
On April 29, we know that the Syrian regime lead an attack against Saraqeb, located 30 km South-East of Idleb. A helicopter flying high over the town dropped over its western part small munitions spreading white smoke. Some twenty persons were intoxicated and taken to local hospitals, where medical agents were intoxicated by transferred contamination. The analyses have confirmed the use of sarin.
Mid-April, forty people were intoxicated and evacuated from the eastern suburbs of Damascus, in the city of Jobar. The analysis of biomedical samples taken from victims of this attack and performed in conditions verified by our services, have also confirmed the use of sarin.
These confirmed use of sarin by Syrian forces have demonstrated that the Bachar El Assad regime is adapting its tactics and the munitions in its stockpiles to a terror use against civilian population.
These previous events and the simultaneous and massive use of chemical agents during the night of August 21, 2013 on the Eastern suburbs of Damascus confirm that the Syrian regime has deliberately crossed a step. Our intelligence services also have information, from national sources, leading to think that other such actions might again be undertaken.
3 – Massive and coordinated use of chemical agents against civilians on 21s August
Based on a methodical technical analysis of 47 original video tapes of the August 21 events, a first counting of the victims, area by area, has been carried out. Based on just this set of videos, no less than 281 death casualties have been recorded, located in the East Ghouta (Ain Tarma, Douma, Erbin, Jobar, Kfar Batna, Qas Alaa, Zamalka) and West Ghouta (Mudamiyat Sham).
Our own intelligence confirms that, in the Douma hospital, half of the victims were women and children and, in 50% of the cases, death was instantaneous. The doctors conclude that a high concentration of toxic agent was used.
Other independent assessments, produced for instance by the NGO “Doctors without borders” mention at least 355 deaths. Several technical numberings, from different sources, assess the final toll at approximately 1500 deaths. Work carried out by our specialists, by extrapolating an impact model of a chemical attack on the population of the mentioned sites, is consistent with these figures.
Beyond the fact that the victims do not show wounds, the death symptoms (to include generalized convulsions, nausea, vomiting, miosis, foaming from the nose and mouth, dyspnea, suffocation, loss of consciousness) are clinical signs of a poisoning due to the use of chemical agents. Confirmed cases of cross-contamination of medical assistants have been reported by several sources.
The observation of many low-age children suffering violent symptoms (convulsion among others), on eight different sites, lead to the conclusion that a falsification or manipulation by the opposition is highly improbable. These observations, as well as the multiple video sources and testimonies, exclude any possible falsification by the opposition.
The massive inflow to different hospitals of contaminated people within a very short delay, the number of victims and the fact that they were coming from different distinct areas, confirmed by the analyses on the total of information we could gather, characterize the effects of an attack led with high lethality chemical agents; they confirm that a coordinated and massive attack was launched during the night of August 21, 2013.
4 – The 21 August attack can only have been ordered and lead by the regime
The combined attack lead on August 21 corresponds to a classical tactical pattern (artillery preparation, then ground offensive) and the use of chemical agents was integrated in a tactical maneuver consistent, on a military level, with the Syrian armed forces’ doctrine. Reliable intelligence from several of our partners mentions specific preparations in the days just before August 21.
Conventional air and artillery bombardments took place between 3 and 4 am on the Ghouta East. In parallel, the locations of Zamalka, Kafr Batna and Ayn Tarma were reached by chemical attacks. At 6 am, a ground offensive was launched by the regime against these cities.
Several sources mention the use of artillery rockets, different from those of the best known ammunition stock (missiles and bombs). Our technical analyses confirm that the rest of rockets observed on that occasion, as for some previous and local operations, allow the use of chemical agents.
The regime then lead important air and ground strikes on the attacked areas. It made efforts to delay the arrival of inspectors over several days. These elements confirm a clear willingness to destroy any evidence a posteriori. Furthermore, the military set off fires, aiming apparently at purifying the atmosphere thanks to the air movement generated by the intense heat.
Our intelligence confirms that the regime feared a wider attack from the opposition on Damascus at that moment. Our assessment is that the regime was trying by this attack to loosen the grip and to secure sites strategic to control of the capital. For example, the area of Moadamiyé is located close to the Mezzeh military airfield, which houses the barracks of the Air Force intelligence.
Anyhow it is clear, by examining the targets of the attack, than only the regime itself could have targeted positions that were so strategic for the opposition.
Finally, we consider that the Syrian opposition does not have the capacity to lead an operation of that size with chemical agents. No group belonging to the Syrian opposition has, at this stage, the capacity to stock and use these agents, and even more in proportions comparable to what was used on the night of August, 21 in Damascus. These groups have neither the experience, nor the know-how to implement them, particularly through vectors as those that were used during the August 21 attack.
¹Source of English translation: French Defence Ministry.
Last Update: Thursday, 19 September 2013 KSA 23:28 - GMT 20:28[Ken Shirriff] has seen the insides of more integrated circuits than most people have seen bellybuttons. (This is an exaggeration.) But the point is, where we see a crazy jumble of circuitry, [Ken] sees a riddle to be solved, and he’s got a method that guides him through the madness.
In his talk at the 2016 Hackaday SuperConference, [Ken] stepped the audience through a number of famous chips, showing how he approaches them and how you could do the same if you wanted to, or needed to. Reading an IC from a photo is not for the faint of heart, but with a little perseverance, it can give you the keys to the kingdom. We’re stoked that [Ken] shared his methods with us, and gave us some deeper insight into a handful of classic silicon, from the Z80 processor to the 555 timer and LM7805 voltage regulator, and beyond.
Dive In: The Z80
[Ken] wastes no time and dives straight into a die shot of the Z80 8-bit CPU. He starts out by labeling the landing pads that connect to external pins by cross-referencing them with the datasheet. That tells you a lot — you know what the pins have to do, so it makes guessing use for each clusters of transistors a lot easier.
When you see a bunch of repeated tiny circuits, you’re probably looking at memory. Since the Z80 has sixteen registers in its CPU, [Ken] goes looking for sixteen repeating blocks of storage, and finds ’em (lower-left). Since they’re connected up to the address lines on the pin-pads, he’s doubly-confirming his hunch. The other side of the registers heads off to a data bus, another giveaway.
The command decoder turns out to be a programmable logic array (PLA) that takes a bit pattern in across horizontal wires, matches it, and then sends a logic high down a vertical line that leads to the Arithmetic-Logic Unit (ALU). Particular to the Z80, [Ken] notes that although it takes eight-bit instructions, it’s only four bits wide. It turns out the CPU memory-speed constrained, so they saved space (and money) by using a four-bit ALU. Sneaky!
Once he’s figured out the broad outlines of the chip, it’s time to dig down into the transistors. After a brief intro to designing logic circuits out of transistors, he takes us into the actual fabric of the IC. As if things weren’t confusing enough with simple logic gates like NAND and NOR, it turns out that the designers of the Z80 used a few “crazy gates” that efficiently compute particular operations that they needed.
The ALU is the heart of a chip, and it’s highly optimized. For instance, the Z80’s ALU is “totally different” from the 6502. An adder is not just an adder. And it’s here in the ALU that you’ll find crazy gates and chip-specific implementations. Figuring out how all that works is the next level up for budding chip-reading detectives. [Ken] has a lot more on the Z80 on his website.
Clever Calculators and Forgotten Memories
The Sinclair Scientific Calculator from 1974 was a small marvel: it took a TI chip from a simple calculator “that could barely multiply” and added on logs and trig functions. How did Sinclair do it? [Ken] wanted to find out — we still hold this as one of our most favorite hacks.
Starting off again with the pinout, [Ken] finds his way to the instruction ROM. He built a software simulator for what he found, and got to reverse-engineering. Again, if you’re into clever space-saving algorithms, head on over to his website.
In 1970, RAM storage was incredibly expensive. Intel came out with “shift-register” memory, and indeed, it’s just a 512-bit-long shift register. How does random access work in this context? You wait until your bit comes around like you would on a baggage carousel — leading to slow and random random-access times. Cool. But we can also see why they went out of favor.
Analog ICs: the 555 timer, the LM741, and the LM7805
Have you ever used a 555 timer? Want to see how it works? First, you’ll have to understand the implementation details of the bipolar-junction transistors (BJTs). Although BJTs are laid-out in many more different topologies than their FET cousins, analog circuits are often smaller and easier to get your head around. [Ken] gives you a good head start, and then starts off reversing two iconic chips: the 555 timer and the LM741 op-amp.
The 741 IC is dominated by an in-silicon capacitor, which really is a silly idea, but since “engineers are lazy” and this means that they have one less piece to lay out, it turned out to be worth its weight in gold and the LM741 sold bazillions. On the other hand, it’s got current mirrors spread around everywhere, which are used to replace resistors in silicon. And it’s got some strange transistors, one of which has six (!) collectors because the designers needed six current mirrors in one place.
Finally, [Ken] takes apart the LM7805 voltage regulator. The output transistor is (not surprisingly) about half of the IC die — the 7805 needs to push some current. The coolest part of the chip is a variable resistor that sets the output voltage. It’s a simple trick that makes the difference between an LM7812 and an LM7805 no more than the value of the resistor inside, leveraging the same design for different operating voltages.
How Does He Do It?
[Ken] uses a metallurgical microscope that shines its light from above, rather than through the sample. He got his for a few hundred dollars on eBay. He then takes multiple images from different locations all around the chip, with significant overlap, and lets the Hugin software stitch it all back together for him.
“The experts” decap their chips using boiling sulfuric or nitric acid. [Ken] doesn’t need a Superfund site, so he often leaves the die photos to someone else. Sites like zeptobars.com, visual6502, and siliconpr0n have a ton of chips that are just waiting for you to start decoding, with no chemistry degree needed.
For chips that aren’t in epoxy, [Ken] opens them by himself either by hitting them with a chisel or cutting open with a saw. He’s just now started up on the 8008 CPU. Between this talk and the resources on [Ken]’s website, you’ve got a good head start. All that’s left to do is the good, hard, fun work of puzzling out a few ICs on your own.HOUSTON/CARACAS (Reuters) - A gasoline shortage in OPEC member Venezuela was exacerbated by an increase in fuel exports to foreign allies such as Cuba and Nicaragua and an exodus of crucial personnel from state-run energy company PDVSA, according to internal PDVSA documents and sources familiar with its operations.
A man pushes his car after running out of gas at a gas station of Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA in Maturin, Venezuela March 23, 2017. REUTERS/Marco Bello
Leftist-run Venezuela sells its citizens the world’s cheapest gasoline. Fuel supplies have continued flowing despite a domestic oil industry in turmoil and a deepening economic crisis under President Nicolas Maduro that has left the South American country with scant supplies of many basic necessities.
That changed on Wednesday, when Venezuelans faced their first nationwide shortage of motor fuel since an explosion ripped through one of the world’s largest refineries five years ago. At the time, the government of then-President Hugo Chavez curbed exports to guarantee there was enough fuel at home.
This week’s shortage was also mainly due to problems at refineries, as a mix of plant glitches and maintenance cut fuel production in half.
Unlike five years ago, Caracas has continued exporting fuel to political allies and even raised the volume of shipments last month despite warnings within the government-run company that doing so could trigger a domestic supply crunch.
Shipments from refineries to the domestic market needed to be redirected to meet those export commitments, the internal documents showed.
“Should this additional volume... be exported, it would impact a cargo scheduled for the local market,” read one email sent from an official in the company’s domestic marketing department to its international trade unit.
Venezuela last month exported 88,000 barrels per day (bpd) of fuels - equivalent to a fifth of its domestic consumption - to Cuba, Nicaragua and other countries, according to internal PDVSA documents seen by Reuters.
That was up 22,000 bpd on the volumes Venezuela had been shipping to those two countries under accords struck by Chavez to expand his diplomatic clout by lowering their fuel costs through cheap supplies of crude and fuel.
The order to increase exports came from PDVSA’s top executives, according to the internal emails seen by Reuters.
Venezuela’s oil ministry and state-run PDVSA, formally known as Petroleos de Venezuela SA, did not reply to requests for comment for this story.
FUEL STRAIN, BRAIN DRAIN
The strain on the country’s fuel system has been worsened by the departure of staff in PDVSA’s trade and supply unit who are key to ensuring fuel gets to where it is needed and making payments for imports, three sources close to the company said.
The unit has seen around a dozen key staffers depart since Maduro shook up PDVSA’s top management in January. Among those who left was the head of budget and payments, two sources said.
“Every week someone leaves for one reason or another,” said a PDVSA source familiar with the unit’s operations.
Some have been fired, while others have left since the shake-up inserted political and military officials into top positions and bolstered Maduro’s grip on the company that powers the nation’s economy.
The imposition of leaders with little or no experience in the industry has further disillusioned some of the company’s experienced professionals and accelerated an exodus that had already taken hold as economic and social conditions in Venezuela worsened.
A recent internal PDVSA report seen by Reuters mentioned “a low capacity to retain key personnel,” amid salaries of a few dozen dollars a month at the black market rate.
UNPAID BILLS
The departure of staff responsible for paying suppliers, as well as a cash crunch in the company and the country, have led to an accumulation of unpaid bills for fuel imports into Venezuela.
Had those bills been paid, the supply crunch would have been less acute, the company sources said.
About 10 tankers are waiting near PDVSA ports in Venezuela and the Caribbean to discharge fuel for domestic consumption and for oil blending.
Only one vessel bringing fuel imports has been discharged since the beginning of the week, shipping data showed.
PDVSA ordered some of the cargoes as it prepared alternative supplies while refineries undergo maintenance.
The tankers sitting offshore will not unload until PDVSA pays for their cargoes, said shippers and the company sources.
Should PDVSA pay - up to $20 million per cargo - shortages could blow over relatively soon.
The cash-strapped company has struggled since the global oil price crash that began in 2014 cut revenue for its crude exports. PDVSA is tight on cash as it prepares for some $2.5 billion in bond payments due next month.
While the vessels sit offshore, lines of dozens of cars waited at gas stations in central Venezuela on Wednesday and Thursday. The shortages angered Venezuelans who already face long lines for scarce food and drugs.
PDVSA blamed the supply crunch on unspecified problems for shipping fuel from domestic refineries to distribution centers. The company said it was working hard to solve the gasoline situation by boosting deliveries to the worst-hit regions.
Slideshow (5 Images)
A shortage of trucks to move refined products has also caused bottlenecks, oil workers told PDVSA President Eulogio Del Pino during a visit to a fuel facility this week, asking for help. Trucks are in short supply because the country does not have enough funds to pay for imports of spare parts.
It was unclear when fuel supplies would return to normal, although by late Thursday PDVSA appeared to have distributed some fuel from storage to Caracas and the eastern city of Puerto Ordaz. Lines to fill up at gasoline stations shortened in both cities, according to Reuters witnesses.
Workers at the 335,000-bpd Isla refinery on the nearby island of Curacao operated by PDVSA said on Friday that the refinery had begun restarting its catalytic cracking unit, which could boost fuel supplies in the coming days.Record-breaking cold temperatures and snowfall across much of the United States and Canada have experts warning people to be careful, saying the frigid conditions could even kill those who are not prepared or properly dressed for the conditions. In some areas, factoring in wind chills, it could feel as cold as 70 degrees Fahrenheit below zero. At the earth’s poles, the situation is even more serious, with the highest amount of sea-ice cover since records began almost four decades ago. As their controversial theories melt down on the world stage, however, global-warming alarmists are not giving up yet.
Many climate experts around the world say the ongoing freeze is just the start of a new period of global cooling sparked largely by decreasing solar activity. More than a few scientists are even warning that the planet is headed for another “Little Ice Age,” with potentially devastating consequences for humanity. Even the discredited climate-alarmism apparatus at the United Nations has quietly lowered its wild temperature predictions. Political analysts, meanwhile, are now forecasting the imminent demise of what critics refer to as the “cult” of global-warming hysteria.
For government-backed global-warming alarmists, however, the record cold is, somehow, just more evidence of alleged “man-made global warming,” requiring, of course, carbon taxes and a planetary climate regime. Despite regularly seizing on every bit of bad weather as more evidence for their anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming theories, other alarmists are warning that the record-breaking cold should be ignored because it is weather, not climate. In desperation, a few alarmists have even hyped some warm weather in Australia to claim that their theories should still be taken seriously.
As global-warming hysteria gets put on ice, weather watchers are warning Americans and Canadians to bundle up for the ride. “All the ingredients are there for a near-record or historic cold outbreak,” meteorologist Ryan Maue with Weather Bell told the Associated Press. “If you’re under 40 (years old), you’ve not seen this stuff before.” Among the forecasts: -25 in parts of North Dakota, -30 in some areas of Minnesota, and more. With wind chill, parts of the northern United States could feel as cold as 73 below.
Multiple cities, including Chicago and Detroit, are expected to see all-time new records, with daily highs lower than any ever recorded since data has been kept. Experts are also forecasting temperatures potentially 40 or even 50 degrees below normal as polar air freezes much of North America. In Minnesota and parts of other Midwest states, schools are closed due to the cold. Heavy snow is also wreaking havoc across much of the region. Over a dozen deaths have already been blamed on the life-threatening cold.
According to Maue, the major blast of Arctic air will likely freeze over the Great Lakes and other bodies of water, which means that the unusual cold will probably stick around for the rest of the winter season. “Right now for the winter, we will have had two significant shots of major Arctic air and we’re only through the first week of January,” Maue explained. “And we had a pretty cold December.” November temperatures were also well below average, data from the National Climatic Data Center revealed.
While the latest blast of record-setting cold is expected to last only a matter of days — perhaps until Wednesday — experts said it also raises the prospect of more frigid temperatures ahead. Space and Science Research Corporation President John Casey, a rocket scientist and climate researcher working with respected scientists from around the world, says natural cycles from the sun are responsible for bringing about the worst cold in two centuries.
“The next climate change to a long cold era may well reshape the future of humankind through massive global crop losses, social upheaval, and significant loss of life,” Casey said in a recent piece, noting that scientists at the Russian Academy of Sciences have also said a new “Little Ice Age” would begin this year. The Earth’s oceans, he noted, have been cooling for a decade, and the “climate models” that UN man-made global warming “zealots” use to justify their schemes “are simply wrong by a wide margin.”
In his internationally acclaimed climate-science book Cold Sun, Casey even called the theory of man-made global warming “the greatest international scientific fraud ever perpetrated on the world's citizens.” He told The New American that the dumping of so much taxpayer funding into the “charade” of man-made climate change had led to “substantial corruption and failures within the scientific leadership community” — making it harder for humanity to understand the coming era of global cooling and how to deal with it.
“The Space and Science Research Corporation and many other scientists worldwide say that the worst cold in over 200 years is now upon us,” Casey noted in a January 4 op-ed for the Orlando Sentinel. “Further, if this next cold climate behaves like the last similar one (1793-1830), then we may also see some of the worst-ever earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The sun regulates more than we have been told.”
Casey, whose scientific institute has arguably among the best track records on climate issues, is hardly alone in forecasting much colder temperatures going forward. In late 2013, for example, German scientists at the European Institute for Climate and Energy announced that their research pointed to naturally occurring cycles suggesting global cooling will intensify until around the year 2100. The trends, the climate researchers said, would culminate in another “Little Ice Age” with temperatures around the 1870 level.
As The New American reported last August, increasing numbers of scientists and climate experts are speaking out about the potential for naturally fueled global cooling. Irish solar specialist Ian Elliott, among others, warned that “we may be on the path to a new little ice age,” very low solar activity, and “some very cold winters.” Danish astrophysicist Henrik Svensmark, meanwhile, warned that, due to solar activity, temperatures might not rise for another 30 years — or might even begin to decrease. Elements of the establishment media have even been picking up on the trends.
Overall, global-warming alarmists hoping to find “evidence” supporting their climate doomsday prophecies had a terrible year in 2013 — devastating, according to many analysts. For instance, Al Gore, the government-funded BBC, pseudo-environmentalist outfits, and various “climate scientists” had repeatedly and hysterically warned that the Arctic would be “ice-free” by the summer. Instead, Arctic ice cover grew by more than 50 percent over 2012’s low levels, getting global-warming true believers who heeded the failed prophecies and tried to sail the Northwest Passage stuck in ice this summer.
In Antarctica, a gaggle of “climate scientists” and “journalists” who set off hoping to show the world that Antarctic ice was melting ended up getting their ship stuck in record levels of ice cover — in the summer. The Media Research Center found that 98 percent of the network news stories on the warmists’ inconvenient meeting with reality failed to mention the real story: that the ship was on a “climate research” mission. Still, the saga served as an important illustration of how ridiculous the alarmist movement was beginning to look and how the establishment press is trying in vain to cover it up. In reality, Antarctic sea-ice cover hit a new record in 2013 — for the second year in a row.
Despite countless predictions that snow cover in the Northern hemisphere was on its way to disappearing, meanwhile, 2013 featured the fourth highest levels on record, according to data from Rutgers University’s Global Snow Lab. Spring snow cover was the highest in a decade, while data for the fall indicate that it was the fifth highest ever recorded. Meanwhile, contrary to hysterical predictions by global warmists, hurricanes and tornadoes have been hitting in record-setting low numbers.
Watts Up With That (WUWT), run by meteorologist and climate researcher Anthony Watts, highlighted the numbers in a piece noting that last year was indeed a terrible one for global-warming alarmists and their increasingly wild fear-mongering. “It seems like every major CAGW [Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming] prediction has failed in 2013,” the article explains, citing a vast trove of data. “Thus CAGW proponents must be very bad at making predictions or maybe Mother Nature is just showing them who’s boss.... Can anyone cite a CAGW prediction that was accurate in 2013?”
Of course, alarmists, appearing increasingly detached from reality, are trying fiendishly to keep the global-warming hysteria — and the taxpayer funding for their alarmism — from melting away entirely. Realists, though, are calling them out. “So record cold is now evidence of man-made global warming? What evidence would disprove climate change?” wondered Climate Depot editor Marc Morano in a recent segment on CNN. “It seems like no matter the weather, everything that happens proves it.”
A handful of alarmists are becoming even shriller, claiming that alleged man-made “global warming” is now “accelerating” and that humanity will face certain doom if governments do not immediately accept carbon taxes, UN power grabs, and drastic cuts in living standards. In the real world, though, temperatures have not risen for some 17 years, debunking every one of the UN’s 73 “climate models” and predictions. Critics of the hysteria say that despite hundreds of billions squandered on “climate” alarmism, the end of the alarmist movement is probably just around the corner. Whether global cooling is, too, remains to be seen.
Photo: AP Images
Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, politics, and more. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
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Global Climate Warming Stopped 15 Years Ago, UK Met Office Admits"Who Shot Mr. Burns?" is a two-part episode of the American animated television series The Simpsons. Part One is the twenty-fifth and final episode of the sixth season and originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 21, 1995,[4] while Part Two is the season premiere of the seventh season and aired on September 17, 1995.[5] Springfield Elementary School strikes oil, but Mr. Burns steals it and at the same time brings misery to many of Springfield's citizens. Part One has a cliffhanger ending where Mr. Burns is shot by an unidentified assailant. In Part Two, Springfield's police try to find the culprit, with their main suspects being Waylon Smithers and Homer Simpson.
Both episodes were written by Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein; Part One was directed by Jeffrey Lynch and Part Two by Wes Archer. Musician Tito Puente guest stars as himself in both parts.[4] "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" was conceived by series creator Matt Groening and the writing staff decided to turn it into a two-part mystery episode. Part One contains several clues about the identity of the culprit because the writers wanted it to be solvable.
The concept for the two-part episode was the episode of the primetime soap opera Dallas titled "A House Divided", known by most as "Who shot J.R.?" in which character J.R. Ewing was shot. In the months following the airing of Part One, there was much widespread debate among fans of the series as to who actually shot Mr. Burns and in many ways the public reaction and response to the episode mirrored that of its "Who shot J.R.?" inspiration. Over the summer of 1995, Fox offered a related contest which was one of the first such endeavors to tie in elements of television and the Internet.
Plot [ edit ]
Part One [ edit ]
Principal Skinner walks into school and discovers that the class gerbil has died. As Groundskeeper Willie digs a grave, he unexpectedly strikes oil. Principal Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers lavishly think of ways to spend the school's newfound wealth, taking many student and staff requests, including Lisa's suggestion of hiring Tito Puente as a music teacher. Mr. Burns disguises himself as Jimbo Jones and unsuccessfully tries to trick Principal Skinner into selling him the drilling rights to secure an energy monopoly over Springfield.
At the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, Homer gets upset when Mr. Burns can never remember his name, even after working for him for ten years. He takes a suggestion from Marge and sends Mr. Burns a box of chocolates with a family picture underneath the candy; however, Mr. Burns and Smithers are not interested in the one candy covering Homer's face and discard the box. As a result, Burns writes a "thank you" card only to Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie, further angering Homer.
Meanwhile, Mr. Burns plots to take the school's oil, even as Smithers voices his disapproval. Mr. Burns establishes a slant drilling operation and beats the school to tapping the oil well. The school is told they have no legal recourse, and Willie and Puente are laid off to cover the school's losses.
Mr. Burns' drilling operation causes further harm
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, the most interesting thing about the case, the death penalty is, you know, supposed to be reserved for the worst of the worst. I mean, that’s how—that’s how all statutes are designed. That’s what our Supreme Court has talked about. You know, you take a look at this case, and you see a young man, barely 18, who has been sexually abused almost his entire life at the time he commits this crime, this unfortunate crime. And who would say that he’s the worst of the worst? I mean, how would anyone decide, of all of the people that have committed murders in Pennsylvania, that this barely 18-year-old, who’s been sexually traumatized his entire life, would be the worst of the worst? And yet, he’s the first person that we’re going to execute non-voluntarily in 50 years.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about how it is that in his original case, in the original trial, that it was not presented that he was repeatedly raped as he was growing up.
MARC BOOKMAN: Well, frankly, practically nothing was presented in his original case. And that was—that was not unusual. The trial took place in the mid-’80s in Philadelphia. Virtually nothing was presented. And, in fact, the jury found no mitigating circumstances. Now, again, this is an 18-year-old, 18 years and three months old, who has been sexually abused his entire life, and this case itself is about that sort of sexual abuse, and yet none of it was presented to the jury. And the jury found literally no mitigating circumstances, no reasons at all to spare him from the death sentence—just, you know, another example of pretty inept lawyering, I would say.
AMY GOODMAN: Who was his lawyer? What happened to his lawyer?
MARC BOOKMAN: Well, you know, I think that the standard of practice in Philadelphia in the mid-’80s was quite low. And, you know, sexual—
AMY GOODMAN: Wasn’t his lawyer disbarred?
MARC BOOKMAN: I don’t—I don’t know. I don’t know about that. That may be the case; I just don’t know. But I know that this sort of sexual trauma requires a certain expertise to be elicited. I know Mr. Cervone can certainly talk about that. You know, it’s not—you know, if you meet your lawyer a few times, and you’re facing this kind of a trial, you’re not likely to blurt out everything that’s happened to you, all of the awful things that have happened to you in your lifetime. It requires a team of lawyers and experts to work slowly and carefully with a traumatized person to elicit this sort of information. And certainly it was not elicited in front of this jury.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to read a comment from Assistant District Attorney Ronald Eisenberg about efforts to compare Terry Williams to victims of convicted retired Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky and predator priests. He said, quote, “That effort to piggyback on these sorry events is, I think, quite cynical. … This situation is nothing like the altar boys and other victims of sexual abuse here and in State College.” Frank Cervone, your response?
FRANK CERVONE: Well, in fact, they’re very similar. This is a man who, for which there’s lots of corroborating evidence, was sexually abused when he was six. He was repeatedly abused by different men as a boy. The man he is convicted of killing, for which he got the death penalty, Mr. Norwood, was 56 years old when he was 18 years old.
I think one of the significant comparisons and similarities between the Sandusky victims and this fellow lies in their respective similar decisions in their lives not to disclose. It took years for these men to come forward to talk about what happened to them. And that’s really understandable. We’re getting to see the Sandusky case, the priest case—cases, and lots of others kind of in the current scene are opening people’s eyes to understand why victims would elect not to disclose. Terry Williams was—he knew he was facing the death penalty, and yet, even in the face of that kind of consequence, he could not bring himself to tell the police, to tell his lawyer, to tell anyone about this history. I have to imagine—well, he certainly told his lawyers in the court since then—that he was deeply shamed, certainly confused about his sexuality. He kept all that inside. And you have ask, what happened to you? What caused you to come—to be silent?
AMY GOODMAN: How did your board, Frank Cervone—you’re the head of the Support Center for Child Advocates—how did your board respond to you taking on this case?
FRANK CERVONE: Folks have been tremendously supportive. We’re a small Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization. We think we’re the largest volunteer lawyer program for kids in the country. But in the span of organizations, we’re not a huge place, and we’re run by a wonderful staff and a dedicated volunteer board—lawyers and professionals from the community. And the question comes up, “Well, why are we, a child advocacy organization, in this space? Why are we in this case? We’re not a death penalty organization. We don’t represent adults. We only represent child victims.” But in point of fact, we were able to see, together, that the story of Terry Williams is a story about child abuse. It’s a story about victimization. It’s a story about what happens to someone who’s been so victimized that they can’t tell. The—
AMY GOODMAN: One of—one of Williams’ victims, Amos Norwood, led the altar boys and directed the Youth Theater Fellowship at Philadelphia Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church. He has since been accused of inappropriately touching a number of boys at the church. I want to play an excerpt from an interview with Barbara Harris, a retired bishop with the Episcopal Church who knew Amos Norwood from working with him at Saint Barnabas Church.
BARBARA HARRIS: Mr. Norwood was warden of what we call warden of the acolytes. And that means that he supervised and trained the boys who served at the altar during worship. I hold a strong belief that justice would not necessarily be served by executing this young man, given the circumstances surrounding his crime.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Barbara Harris, a retired bishop with the Episcopal Church. Your response, Frank Cervone?
FRANK CERVONE: This sort of relationship is the most seditious and upsetting kind of corruption. It’s one thing to take money from the church plate. It’s another thing to use your position of power and of authority, of influence—really, your pastoral care—to get inside the mind and the life of a boy, a young person who’s been entrusted to you for care and for pastoring. It looks like that’s what Norwood did. That’s—it certainly helps us to understand why, why a person like Terry Williams would be confused, at a minimum be confused, as I said earlier, to be so confused in the face of this grave consequence to feel a lack of power, to act out against him until that power so erupted that it was expressed in a rage.
AMY GOODMAN: And very briefly, Marc Bookman, the Pennsylvania Senate-appointed committee that’s looking at the death penalty and recommended that no—that there been no executions until they come up with their recommendations next year?
MARC BOOKMAN: Right, that’s—this is a committee that’s been formed. A Senate resolution was passed. The two—the two leading figures on that task force have signed on 12 other members of the advisory committee, all saying that, you know, when we’re studying a state like Pennsylvania, you have to understand Pennsylvania has not executed anyone, as I said, non-voluntarily in 50 years, and we have the highest reversal rate in capital cases of any state in the country. So we bear a close study. And what they’re saying, what this committee and what this task force is saying is, “Let’s take a close look at the Pennsylvania death penalty. Let’s see if it’s working appropriately.” Certainly, in this case, it did not work appropriately. “And let’s just wait until our study comes down and a report is issued, before we go ahead and execute someone, especially someone like Terry Williams.” So, that’s—
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to—
MARC BOOKMAN: You know, that seems reasonable.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to leave it there, but we’ll certainly continue to follow the case of Terry Williams, on death row here in Pennsylvania, scheduled to die on October 3rd. Pennsylvania has the fourth-largest death row. More than 200 people on death row in the country. Marc Bookman, thanks for being with us, executive director of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation, and Frank Cervone, executive director of the Support Center for Child Advocates. We’re on the road in Pennsylvania. Stay with us.The Civil Aviation Department has launched an investigation after an Airbus A320 was found to have deviated from its normal flight path and passed over the top of the Big Buddha on Sunday morning.
The department confirmed that at 9:52am on June 26, a Shenzhen Airlines flight shifted from the regular path when preparing for landing at the north runway of the Hong Kong International Airport. Air traffic controllers immediately issued instructions to return the flight to its regular course and to safe altitude, RTHK reported.
The Aviation Herald, which covers incidents and news relating to aviation, reported that flight ZH9041 from Jinjiang to Hong Kong was on its final approach when it aborted the landing and declined the handing over of control to the tower.
At the same time, another plane was ascending from the south runway, and air traffic control instructed it to stop climbing at 3,000 feet.
ZH9041 climbed over Lantau Island and the Big Buddha at about 3,000 feet, and then to safety at 6,000 feet. Twenty minutes after the incident first began, the plane landed safely.
The Civil Aviation Department also said that separation from other traffic was not an issue and no other planes were affected. An investigation into the matter has been launched and Shenzhen Airlines has been requested to hand over a report.
Correction (June 30): A previous version of this article stated that the ZH9041 was instructed to stop climbing at 3,000 feet. It was, in fact, another plane ascending from the south runway that had been given instructions to do so.The South Korean Bitcoin exchange Youbit, previously known as Yapizon has quit its operation and filed for bankruptcy due to two cyber attacks in last eight months. The first data breach to impacted Youbit took place on April 22nd, 2017 in which hackers stole 3816.2028 Bitcoin (US$5 million at that time) which was 37% of user funds.
In their latest announcement, the Bitcoin exchange said on December 19th that despite taking security measures the company has suffered another data breach in which 17% of total assets have been stolen. However, the total value of stolen assets was not mentioned.
The company further stated that hackers could not steal remaining coins since they were kept in the cold wallet. The difference in hot and cold wallets is that hot wallets are connected to the internet while cold wallets are not.
“Very sorry to inform you again with the sad news,” said Youbit’s statement. “All coins and cash withdrawals and withdrawals will be suspended at 12:00 pm on December 19, 2017.”
At the time of publishing this article, South Korea’s Internet and Security Agency (Kisa) was conducting investigations to establish who the hackers are and how did the get into the company’s servers and stole funds without triggering any warning. The previous breach was blamed on North Korean backed hackers.
There has been a rapid increase in cyber attacks against South Korea cryptocurrency exchanges, for instance; in July this year world’s fourth largest Bitcoin exchange Bithumb suffered a cyber attack in which Billions in S.Korean Won were stolen.
The authorities at that time also blamed North Korea for Bithumb hack. Moreover, according to a recent research, since Bitcoin’s price has rapidly increased, the North Korean state-sponsored hacking group Lazarus has been conducting malware attacks against Bitcoin exchanges to steal funds.
The authorities at that time also blamed North Korea for Bithumb hack. Moreover, according to a recent research, North Korean state-sponsored hacking group Lazarus is conducting malware attacks against Bitcoin exchanges to steal funds.
Bitcoin’s price is setting new records every day that is prompting hackers to target vulnerable cryptocurrency infrastructure and make as much money as possible within a little time. On December 2nd, cryptocurrency mining market NiceHash suffered a hack attack in which more than $ 70 million was stolen.
In case you are looking to store cryptocurrency safely; here is a list of 5 safest Bitcoin wallets.Microsoft HoloLens won't be used in space after all, at least not immediately. Two of the company's augmented reality headsets were on board the SpaceX CRS-7 unmanned rocket that exploded earlier today, two minutes and 14 seconds after takeoff from NASA's Cape Canaveral base in Florida.
As of this writing, it is not clear why the rocket exploded. The SpaceX CRS-7 mission also had 1,500 pounds of food and supplies for the crew aboard the International Space Station, but the people on board are in no immediate danger.
The pair of HoloLens devices were going to be used by astronauts on board the ISS to test a program called Sidekick. The idea behind the program was that people on Earth could see what an astronaut was seeing via the HoloLens. The headset could also be used to help train crew members with animated holographic illustrations that are put in place on devices in the real world.
Another pair of HoloLens devices were scheduled to be sent up to the ISS later this year that the crew will test with a network connection to Earth. The headsets were supposed to be in full use on board the station by the end of the year. Today's events will likely delay that schedule.
Source: SpaceXJust went to an eye specialist for further follow-up to my eye issues, and he checked out the surgery I had in France for my detached retina, and told me two things:
1. Wow, they did a good job.
2. The surgery would have cost, easily, $20,000 in the states. It cost me a little over $2,000 in France.
It’s amazing how bad our health care system really is, when you finally get sick enough to find out. I can’t wait for Blue Cross to give me a hard time for the $2,000 French surgery when they’d have had to pay ten times that, were I to have had the surgery here. We’ll cross that bridge when the French finally bill me for the surgery that took place at the end of July…Der Spiegel news magazine reported on Sunday that Left party politician Steffen Bockhahn and Christian Democrat Roderich Kiesewetter (pictured) suspect that their cell phones were tapped by a foreign intelligence agency.
Bockhahn's close aides said that someone had remotely opened and rifled through text messages and emails on their cell phones. The compromised messages were related to Bockhahn's work last year on the parliamentary committee that oversees Germany's intelligence agencies.
The Left party politician said that high-ranking government officials told him to assume that he was the target of an intelligence operation. Bockhahn is a well-known critic of intelligence agencies in general and the US National Security Agency (NSA) in particular.
Kiesewetter currently serves on parliament's inquiry panel into allegations of NSA surveillance in Germany. He said that technicians had checked his phone and came to the conclusion that it had been tapped.
Inquiry chairman Patrick Sensburg said that it would be "sensible" for panel members to have their cell phones checked by the Federal Office for Information Security.
Last October, documents leaked to the press by former NSA analyst Edward Snowden revealed that the US had tapped Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone, sparking outrage in Germany.
US-German diplomatic row
Tensions between Washington and Berlin over US espionage activities in Germany came to a head on Thursday, when Berlin asked the CIA station chief to leave the country, a diplomatic slap normally reserved for adversaries. The move came in response to the discovery of two alleged US spies in the German government.
The tabloid Bild am Sonntag newspaper, citing US intelligence sources, has reported that the CIA has recruited more than a dozen spies in the German government. The defense, development, economics, and interior ministries have reportedly been infiltrated.
On July 2, German authorities detained an employee of the BND on suspicion of espionage. The suspect admitted to spying for the US. He allegedly sold 200 documents to the CIA for 25,000 euros (34,000).
Subsequently, investigators questioned an employee of the Defense Ministry on suspicion that he was also spying for the US. The suspect has denied the allegations.
In an interview with public broadcaster ZDF on Sunday, Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the US and Germany have "fundamentally different views" on how intelligence agencies should operate. She said that partners should not spy on each other.
After meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Vienna on Sunday, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that despite recent strains in bilateral ties, Berlin wanted to renew its friendship with Washington based on mutual trust and respect.
slk/crh (AFP, dpa, Reuters)Mythbusters fans have been rather upset by the last month’s axing of three cast members, and one departure in particular has sparked a popular campaign to re-instate the performer on the show. A petition focused on supporting the re-hiring of Kari Byron in particular has garnered more than 32,000 online signatures.
“This is a huge step backward for Discovery — as the main female Mythbuster, Kari inspired a generation of girls and showed them that they, too, had a place in the traditionally male-dominated world of science,” read the petition.
The 11-year-old cable hit recently announced that long-time veterans of the show Byron, Tory Belleci, and Grant Imahara were all leaving the series as part of a creative shake-up. “While Adam [Savage] and Jamie [Hyneman] are amazing educators in their own right, Kari was what drew me and so many others to the show, year after year,” the petition continued. It’s also disappointing to see Grant, the sole person of color on the show, dropped as well.”
Networks often choose to ignore fan petitions, but Discovery Channel sought to reassure Byron supporters: “We are all big fans of Kari — as well as Tory and Grant — and are looking for other projects where we can work with them.”Printer Friendly
No More Welfare for Banks
By: Thomas M. Hoenig
Wall Street Journal, 6/11/2012
I have a proposal to strengthen the U.S. financial system by simplifying its structure and making its institutions more accountable for their mistakes. Put simply, my proposal would help prevent another 2008-style crisis by prohibiting banking organizations from conducting broker-dealer or other trading activities and by reforming money-market funds and the market for short-term collateralized loans (repurchase agreements, or repos). In other words, Glass-Steagall for today. Those opposed to taking these actions generally focus on two themes. First, they say that if Glass-Steagall—enacted in 1933 to separate commercial and investment banking—had been in place, the crisis still would have occurred. Second, they argue that requiring the separation of commercial banking and broker-dealer activities is inconsistent with a free-market economy and puts U.S. financial firms at a global competitive disadvantage. Both assertions are wrong. Advocates of the first argument say the crisis was not precipitated by trading activities within banking organizations but by excessive mortgage lending by commercial banks and by the failures of independent broker-dealers, such as Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns.
This assertion ignores that the largest bank holding companies and broker-dealers were engaged in high-risk activities supported by explicit and implied government guarantees. Access to insured deposits or money-market funds and repos fueled the activities of both groups, making them susceptible to the freezing of markets and asset-price declines. Before 1999, U.S. banking law kept banks, which are protected by a public safety net (e.g., deposit insurance), separate from broker-dealer activities, including trading and market making. However, in 1999 the law changed to permit bank holding companies to expand their activities to trading and other business lines. Similarly, broker-dealers like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and other "shadow banks" were able to use money-market funds and repos to assume a role similar to that of banks, funding long-term asset purchases with the equivalent of very short-term deposits. All were able to expand the size and complexity of their balance sheets. While these changes took place, it also became evident that large, complex institutions were considered too important to the economy to be allowed to fail. A safety net was extended beyond commercial banks to bank holding companies and broker-dealers. In the end, nobody—not managements, the market or regulators—could adequately assess and control the risks of these firms. When they foundered, banking organizations and broker-dealers inflicted enormous damage on the economy, and both received government bailouts. To illustrate my point, consider that if you or I want to speculate on the market, we must risk our own wealth. If we think the price of an asset is going to decline, we might sell it "short," expecting to profit by buying it back more cheaply later and pocketing the difference. But if the price increases, we either invest more of our own money to cover the difference or we lose the original investment. In contrast, a bank can readily cover its position using insured deposits or by borrowing from the Federal Reserve. Large nonbank institutions can access money-market funds or other credit because the market believes they will be bailed out. Both types of companies can even double down in an effort to stay in the game long enough to win the bet, which supersizes losses when the bet doesn't pay off. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) fund and the taxpayer are the underwriters of this private risk-taking. This leads to the second criticism of my proposal—that breaking up the banks is inconsistent with free markets and our need to be competitive globally. The opposite is true. My proposal seeks to return to capitalism by confining the government's guarantee to that for which it was intended—to protect the payments system and related activities inside commercial banking. It ends the extension of the safety net's subsidy to trading, market-making and hedge-fund activities. This change will invigorate commercial banking and the broker-dealer market by encouraging more equitable and responsible competition within markets. It reduces the welfare nature of our current financial system, making it more self-reliant and more internationally competitive. Capitalism will always have crises and the recent crisis had many contributing factors. However, the direct and indirect expansion of the safety net to cover an ever-increasing number of complex and risky activities made this crisis significantly worse. We have yet to correct the error. It is time we did. Mr. Hoenig is a director at the FDIC. His proposal, "Restructuring the Banking System to Improve Safety and Soundness," is at www.fdic.gov.Fandom means a lot of different things to different people. But one thing unites us all: we hope our favorite team will win, and spend a great deal of time thinking how they can.
For those of us who dig a little deeper on the “how” side and use analytics, we hope that our work will eventually make its way to a front office. In some ways, it already has: numerous “hockey bloggers” hirings have been made recently.
But how many and for which teams?
With some research, I’ve culled a working document on all analytics hires for NHL teams and how they may be using analytics. The following descriptions comes from a variety of sources including Craig Custance’s Great Analytics Rankings [Paywall], fellow bloggers from across the internet, media reports, word of mouth and anonymous insiders.
It should be noted that just because a team has made an “analytics hiring”, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they value their input or use the analysis provided properly. In fact, hires can be made simply for PR reasons, and some teams may even give analytics tasks as secondary duties to staff members who do not posses any formal background in the subject. Teams may also have hired private firms providing proprietary data, which in reality may not provide any tangible, verifiable value than what is free and readily available online.
This information presented below is subject to change, and I suspect some of it may not be a 100% accurate due to the nature of this research. With that being said, please feel free to let me know if you have any conflicting information, or simply more information to add.
Here is what we know about each team:
Anaheim Ducks: Anaheim does not appear to have made any analytics hiring.
Arizona Coyotes: Arizona made waves this past season by naming John Chayka, the 25 year-old co-founder of Stathletes, as the Assistant General Manager. He joins Bob Teofilo, Director of Hockey Operations and Hockey Analytics”. Given that Stathletes is a video analytics firm, we can safely suppose that Arizona is using tracking data, which they may be using (at the very least) to ameliorate their systems.
Boston Bruins: A Sports Management graduate from the University of Massashusets, Ryan Nadeau was named Director of Hockey Operations/Analytics in the summer of 2014 after serving four years as the Manager of Hockey Administration. Both Peter Chiarelli, Boston’s old GM, and Don Sweeney have conceded that the club relies on advanced analytics to guide their decision-making, particularly in scouting, player valuation and coaching systems. However, just how “advanced” these analytics are is unknown: given Nadeau’s administrative background; it’s unlikely that he possesses any formal training in data mining. But he has pointed out that the “people who are doing some of the analytics work aren’t affiliated with teams” and that their work can be found on “blogs and websites”. So, at the very least, Boston is using these websites to extract data that are relevant to their interests. Whether they modify it in any sophisticated way is unknown at the moment. (Courtesy: @asmae_t)
Buffalo Sabres: Tim Murray possesses a strong background in analytics, despite his team’s calculated attempt to be as terrible as possible this past year. So it should come as no surprise that they have a few analytics personnel on their payroll including Hockey Data Analyst Jason Nightingale and Video/Analytics Coach Neil McKenney.
Calgary Flames: Despite Brian Burke comparing analytics to drunks resting on lampposts, he seems to have a lot of faith in Chris Snow whom he considers one of the brightest in this business. The Flames front office page describes Snow as “responsible for the complete and comprehensive planning, implementation and oversight of the club’s video and statistical data mining programs including designing, developing and implementing a proprietary data base of hockey information for use by the club. In addition, he will integrate the data-based video system PUCKS into the team’s coaching, player preparation, scouting and planning processes.” Calgary has also hired at least one blogger into analyst roles but at this time it is not known if they have been renewed for the 2015/16 season.
Carolina Hurricanes: The hurricanes sent shockwaves through the league just over a year ago with the hiring of one of the most prominent bloggers in Eric Tulsky. They extended a full-time offer to him this summer.
Colorado Avlanche: Under Patrick Roy and Joe Sakic, the Avalanche have not exactly been known as havens of analytic development. It’s been rumored however that they recently hired Chris MacFarland, the ex-Assistant General Manager of the Columbus Blue Jackets, to carry analytics work. It’s also believed he acts as Joe Sakic’s right-hand man.
Chicago Blackhawks: If Chicago has analytics personnel on board, they are keeping it very quiet. They may however be using a private company, as Craig Custance from ESPN reported. They also have worked with Adam Gill, who is listed as the Video Coach for their AHL affiliate the Rockford IceHogs but it’s highly unlikely that he currently works with the front office/coaching staff of the NHL team.
Columbus Blue Jackets: Since Jarmo Kekäläinen became involved with the Blue Jackets, many of their moves (and PR articles on their officially website) are similar to what the analytically minded would likely exectute. Josh Flynn (officially tagged as the “Director of Hockey Administration) is a name that’s been floated around as someone who’s heavily involved in their analytical development.
Dallas Stars: Dallas is an interesting situation. General Manager Jim Nill has been very pro-analytics and even mentions reading many of the prominent hockey statistical blogs but at this time no one who follows the team closely has been able to identify someone in a specific analyst role.
Detroit Red Wings: Detroit was one of the earliest adopters of analytics. Mike Babcock was personally interested in analytics and would talk with math students at the local university. In August, the Red Wings became serious and hired Bryan Campbell as the Director of Statistical Analysis and Hockey Administration.
Edmonton Oilers: It is well-known that coach Dallas Eakins hired ex-blogger Tyler Dellow despite the rivalry with local media. Although Eakins only lasted a half season, Dellow was retained. The Oilers have also been known to use Darkhorse Analytics but it is rumored that their contract has not been extended for the 2015-16 season.
Florida Panthers: During the “Summer Of Analytics, the Panthers hired Brian MacDonald, a mathematics professor from West Point. MacDonald was another prominent blogger in the first wave of hockey analytics in the mid 2000s.
Los Angeles Kings: LA, like Chicago, is another team that appears invested in analytics, given their success and sound decision-making. But for the time being they are keeping everything under wraps and no names have surfaced.
Minnesota Wild: Rumors are starting to emerge that they’re the next team that will make a significant analytics hiring to their management staff and are currently looking at the blogosphere for hires.
Montreal Canadiens: The Canadiens made a large move earlier this summer when they announced the hiring of ex-blogger Matt Pfeffer as a part-time analytics consultant to the team. Pfeffer has been working with various teams over the past few years including San Jose Sharks, Hockey Canada, the Ottawa 67’s, and the Peterborough Petes.
Nashville Predators: The situation in Nashville is unclear at this very moment but in the past they’ve hired Eric Tulsky in a consulting capacity. Their Hockey Operations Assistant Paul Richard Cook has been involved with analytics as one of his secondary duties in the past.
New Jersey Devils: The Devils are another team that made a hiring during the “Summer Of Analytics” bring in Sunny Mehta. He was an early generation hockey blogger and was named Director Of Analytics. He later hired Sai Okabayashi, of Shift Chart fame, as a “Data Scientist”, whose main responsibility appears to rest in data collection and cleaning.
New York Islanders: The Islanders generally have been considered pro-analytics but they have done an excellent job in hiding to what level of involvement. Custance has suggested there is a link to Power Scout Hockey. The Islanders draft picks the past 2+ seasons have also been heavily analytic influenced and that is where their “Team Psychologist” Dr. Frank Gardiner seems to come in play. Gardiner can be seen at the draft tables with his laptop right beside Garth Snow and Trent Klatt.
New York Rangers: The Rangers may be quietly involved in analytics. Blue Shirt Banter wrote a good piece dissecting the possibility of Jim Sullivan’s role as the possible analytics lead.
Ottawa Senators: With their shoestring budget, the Senators have not made an official hiring. It’s been suggested that the current team does not fully ignore numbers and that they may even occasionally consult with a local math student.
Philadelphia Flyers: The Flyers use Catapult Sports Consulting as well as their in-house employer Ian Anderson. It is known Anderson has expanded with the hiring of another blogger in a part-time role.
Pittsburgh Penguins: The Penguins have started their major involvement with analytics in the summer of 2014 with the hiring of VP of Hockey Operations Jason Karmanos who had the task to reshape their analytic tools. Since then the Penguins have hired Carnegie PhD Sam Ventura (of War-On-Ice fame).
San Jose Sharks: The Sharks have undoubtedly embraced analytics, given that their majority owner is a founder of SAP. They’ve hired Matt Pfeffer in the past for consulting, but now the team uses their own analytics software called RinkNet.
St. Louis Blues: The Blue’s GM Doug Armstrong has been an early analytics adopter, but no one in charge of analytics per se has been (publicly) identified. Chris Baker, of HockeyMetrics.com, has been involved with the Blues organization in a consulting role in the past.
Tampa Bay Lightning: The Bolts partnered up with TIBCO Software, a company that provides analysis and predictions at all levels of their business. In 2009, they hired Michael Peterson, who previously worked in baseball with the Tampa Bay Rays and Cleveland Indians, to aid the front office in analytics-driven decision-making.
Toronto Maple Leafs: It is safe to assume that no team has dedicated more resources for analytics than Toronto. It started with the hiring of Kyle Dubas, the assistant GM who came from the OHL. Dubas et al. then went on to hire four bloggers and various other analytics minds including Cam Charron (of Canucks Army and other sources), Daryl Metcalf (of Extra Skater), Rob Pettapiece (a mathematically inclined blogger) and most recently Bruce Peter from the Saskatoon Blades.
Vancouver Canucks: Under Mike Gillis, the Canucks were at the forefront of analytics adoption. But since the arrival of current GM Jim Benning, analytics have taken a back seat both figuratively and literally: Jonathan Wall has been named their “Director of Hockey Operations & Analytics” although he possesses no known formal background in analytics… In fact he used to be working as an Equipment Manager for the Vancouver Canucks and the UBC Varsity Hockey team.
Washington Capitals: The Capitals managed to grab another famous first-generation hockey blogger in Tim Barnes (aka Vic Ferrari) in the “Summer of Analytics”.
Winnipeg Jets: The Jets have a similar situation to Chicago’s and appear to be working with a consulting agency. They also have a team that does live tracking for the video coach or Paul Maurice to look at in the games; Gus Gottfred is one of the individuals that does live tracking of statistics for the team.
There are also a few bloggers that are known to be working with teams including Corey Schnjeider (@ShutDownLine) but we cannot pinpoint to which team they are working with.
Special thanks to @asmae_t for helping with editing, reviewing and providing much input into this piece.The 'olde-worlde' style pub that's so local... it's in your back garden
It is perhaps the ultimate in local pubs — so local that it’s in your back garden.
Website Drinkstuff.com has come up with a range of blow-up hostelries in an ‘olde-worlde’ style that can be inflated on your own turf.
However, you’ll need a lot of beer money to buy one.
Inflatable local: The 'Hogshead' is 26ft tall, 15ft wide and costs £27,815
The biggest model — the Hogshead — is 26ft tall and 15ft wide and costs £27,815.
It takes (the website claims) just ten minutes for four adults to set up, and you can invite up to 50 people inside to celebrate your new ‘landlord’ status.
Inside, the pub includes features such as a tiled roof, a fireplace, a brick stone wall and two chimney pots.
Cosy: The inflatable pub boasts a roaring fire and artwork on the walls... but no dart board
Three smaller models — called the Barrel, Kilderkin and Firkin — start at £4,275.
With imitation tiled roof, brick walls, chimney pots and fireplaces, you could almost be in a real pub.There are cows as far as the eye can see beside the road leading to the archaeological site of La Joyanca, in north-west Guatemala. Over the last 10 years, the primal forest has been cut down, replaced by grassland for intensive cattle farming. Here in the Petén region, around as well as inside the Laguna del Tigre National Park, agriculture is inexorably devouring the forest.
The process has been triggered incrementally in a series of seemingly minor steps. "At the end of the 1980s, when this zone was not yet a national park, Basic Petroleum obtained an oil exploration concession in the Laguna del Tigre area, in the heart of the forest," said Marco Cerezo, a Guatemalan environmentalist who founded FundaEco, a leading NGO dedicated to nature conservation and development. "Later, the oil companies asked for, and obtained, permission to build a road to their oil wells. And that is where the land clearing started, all along that road. Now approximately 40% of the national park has been cleared."
The same thing is happening across the Petén region, which extends across the northern half of the country to the border with Belize and Mexico. According to the latest report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) published at the end of 2010, Guatemala has experienced the most rapid deforestation of any country over the last five years.
In 2010, primary forest accounted for 1.6m hectares, compared with 2.4m 20 years earlier. Guatemala, which, after Brazil, has South America's second-largest rainforest cover, lost an average of 27,000 hectares a year between 2000 and 2005 (a rate of 1.32% per year), increasing to 68,000 hectares a year between 2005 and 2010 (3.72% per year), meaning that the rate of deforestation has almost trebled in the course of a decade.
It is driven by two factors, explains geographer Gilles Selleron: "Thanks to satellite imagery we can distinguish between the cattle rearing, which is mainly carried by the Ladino population, people of Hispanic origin, and the traditional subsistence farming of corn, marrow and beans by the indigenous Q'eqchi, a Maya people." Selleron, who is based at the French national research institute and the environmental geography unit at Toulouse University, is a specialist in forest dynamics.
Demographic pressure does not explain the speed with which the agricultural and grazing frontier has advanced. Nor why small farmers are pushing their way deeper and deeper into the forest.
According to Cerezo, recent trade negotiations have allowed Guatemala to increase sugar exports, so sugar cane plantations have expanded. This competition for the land in a country that has never
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is a weekly show featuring in-depth interviews with the movers and shakers in tech and media every Monday. You can subscribe on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn, Stitcher and SoundCloud. Too Embarrassed to Ask, hosted by Kara Swisher and The Verge's Lauren Goode, answers all of the tech questions sent in by our readers and listeners. You can hear new episodes every Friday on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn, Stitcher and SoundCloud.
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If you like what we’re doing, please write a review on iTunes — and if you don’t, just tweet-strafe Peter. Tune in next Thursday for another episode of Recode Media!Movement and call data showed a different picture of connectivity than surveys
Friendships can be inferred with 95% accuracy from call records and the proximity of users, says a new report. Researchers fitted 94 mobiles in the US with logging software to gather data. The results also showed that those with friends near work were happier, while those who called friends while at work were less satisfied. The data, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed a marked contrast with answers reported by the users themselves. "We gave out a set of phones that were installed with a piece of 'uber-spyware'," said the study's lead author Nathan Eagle, now at the Santa Fe Institute. "It's invisible to the user but logs everything: communication, users' locations, people's proximity by doing continuous Bluetooth scans." The researchers then compared the data with results from standard surveys given to the mobile users - and found, as the social sciences have found time and again, that people reported different behaviour than the mobile data revealed. "What we found was that people's responses were wildly inaccurate," Dr Eagle told BBC News. Mobile phone data are fantastic complements to the existing, very deep survey literature that the social sciences already have
Nathan Eagle
Santa Fe Institute "For people who said that a given individual was a friend, they dramatically overestimated the amount of time they spent. But for people who were not friends, they dramatically underestimated that amount of time." The researchers were able to guess from the mobile data alone, with 95% accuracy, if any given pair of users were friends. An analysis of the overall proximity of a given user to his or her friends - maximised if they worked together - was correlated to people who reported a high level of satisfaction at work. Conversely, those who made calls to their friends while working were found to report lower levels of satisfaction at work. Wide application One principal question of such a small sample size, made up exclusively of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is how much the results really mean in a sociology context. However, the group has gone on to carry out a larger study that just finished, comprising 1,000 people in Helsinki, Finland. There is also an ongoing trial of the approach in Kenya, which Dr Eagle said includes participants ranging from computer science students to people who had never used a phone before. Standard Nokia 6600 handsets were fitted with "uber-spyware" Dr Eagle sees the approach not as a means to supplant but rather to supplement traditional measures. "Mobile phone data are fantastic complements to the existing, very deep survey literature that the social sciences already have," he said. Moreover, he sees it not just as a means to map out the networks of friends that mobile users might have, but to carry on this "reality mining" in contexts ranging from the modelling of the spread of disease to the design of urban spaces. "We were capturing data when the Red Sox won the [baseball championship] World Series for the first time," Dr Eagle recounted. "Suddenly all our subjects became unpredictable; they all flooded into downtown Boston to a rally in the centre of the city. "City planners approached us because they wanted to know how people were using urban infrastructure, to know when the people left the rally, how many walked across the bridge and how many took the subway, how many biked or took the bus. "We can give them some real insight with the idea of helping them build a better city that reflects people's actual behaviour."
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionSometimes ecological data just don’t make sense. The sockeye salmon that spawn in British Columbia’s Fraser River offer a prime example. Scientists have tracked the fishery there since 1948, through numerous upswings and downswings. At first, population numbers seemed inversely correlated with ocean temperatures: The northern Pacific Ocean surface warms and then cools again every few decades, and in the early years of tracking, fish numbers seemed to rise when sea surface temperature fell. To biologists this seemed reasonable, since salmon thrive in cold waters. Represented as an equation, the population-temperature relationship also gave fishery managers a basis for setting catch limits so the salmon population did not crash.
Quanta Magazine About Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent division of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research developments and trends in mathematics and the physical and life sciences
But in the mid-1970s something strange happened: Ocean temperatures and fish numbers went out of sync. The tight correlation that scientists thought they had found between the two variables now seemed illusory, and the salmon population appeared to fluctuate randomly.
Trying to manage a major fishery with such a primitive understanding of its biology seems like folly to George Sugihara, an ecologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. But he and his colleagues now think they have solved the mystery of the Fraser River salmon. Their crucial insight? Throw out the equations.
Sugihara’s team has developed an approach based on chaos theory that they call “empirical dynamic modeling,” which makes no assumptions about salmon biology and uses only raw data as input. In designing it, the scientists found that sea surface temperature can in fact help predict population fluctuations, even though the two are not correlated in a simple way. Empirical dynamic modeling, Sugihara said, can reveal hidden causal relationships that lurk in the complex systems that abound in nature.
Sugihara and his colleagues are now putting their insight to use. Earlier this year they reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that their method predicted the 2014 Fraser River salmon run more precisely than any other method. Sugihara’s technique predicted a run of between 4.5 million and 9.1 million fish, while the Pacific Salmon Commission’s models predicted anywhere from 6.9 million to 20 million fish—a forecast so broad as to be of little benefit to, for instance, a fisher wanting to know how many boats to deploy in the coming season. The final count was around 8.8 million.
Courtesy of George Sugihara
This success built on an earlier result Sugihara and his colleagues had achieved with Pacific sardines, and they’re working with scientists at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to apply the methods to Gulf and Atlantic menhaden. Leading ecologists hope Sugihara’s methods can provide the field with some much-needed predictive power, and not just for marine fisheries but for many other ecosystems. Don DeAngelis, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Miami, calls it “a huge theoretical breakthrough.”
Sugihara and others are now starting to apply his methods not just in ecology but in finance, neuroscience and even genetics. These fields all involve complex, constantly changing phenomena that are difficult or impossible to predict using the equation-based models that have dominated science for the past 300 years. For such systems, DeAngelis said, empirical dynamic modeling “may very well be the future.”
A New Set of Coordinates
The roots of empirical dynamic modeling go back more than 30 years. In the late 1970s, the Dutch mathematician Floris Takens was studying chaos theory, which had begun to emerge in the 1960s as scientists recognized that many of nature’s complex phenomena seem to defy prediction. In chaotic systems, small perturbations can have large and seemingly unpredictable effects, as in the archetypical example of a butterfly’s flapping wings influencing the weather thousands of miles away.
It is not the world that is mysterious. Rather it is the way we view it that makes it mysterious.
Takens helped find order in the chaos. Along with the physicist David Ruelle, he developed the notion of a “strange attractor”—a set of points in a coordinate system made of the variables that influence a system, around which the system’s state, plotted over time, swirls like a ball of yarn.
In many natural systems, however, the number of relevant variables that make up the coordinate system is immense. The factors that determine the weather in a certain place at a certain time are almost limitless, and some of these can be very hard to measure—the air pressure three miles above the North Pole, for example.
But let’s say you could consistently and accurately measure one variable, such as the temperature in New York City. Takens found a way to use present and past measurements of that one variable to capture all the information in the system. The method involves creating an alternate coordinate system from those past measurements; in other words, one coordinate axis might be the temperature in Times Square today, a second axis might be the temperature yesterday, a third the temperature two days ago, and so on. Takens showed that the full state of a chaotic system can, in theory at least, be embedded in a time series of a single variable. He published his “embedding theorem” in 1981.
The theorem “caused a big hullabaloo,” said Timothy Sauer, a mathematician at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., who has extended the original theorem so it can be applied more generally.
The next step was for people to use it in the real world, but the messiness of nature had a way of impinging on the purity of Takens’ math. Despite the fact that weather provided much of the initial impetus for chaos theory, it rebuffed efforts at prediction, because too many constantly changing factors are involved, and no one variable can truly capture them all. Sauer said that Takens’ theorem can be most effectively applied to systems in which the number of influencing factors is relatively small.
Sugihara learned about Takens’ theorem as a Princeton graduate student working with Robert May, a physicist by training who switched to ecology in the early 1970s. May specialized in simple and elegant theoretical studies, including one proving that the population of even a single species could fluctuate chaotically. Sugihara became interested in seeing if he could build on May’s advances using real-world data. In 1986, a few years after earning his doctorate, Sugihara moved to Scripps to get his hands on plankton data that a researcher there had collected in the 1920s and ’30s. “It’s an amazing data set,” Sugihara said. “I knew there was some way to get good information out of it.”
Based on the plankton data as well as work on measles and chicken-pox cases by other researchers, Sugihara and May published a paper in Nature in 1990 showing how Takens’ theorem could help make short-term predictions of some nonlinear systems. The essence of the method involves identifying points in a system’s attractor graph that are close to the point representing the system’s present state. For one or two time steps, one can then predict that the system will evolve similarly to how it did in the past. The paper has since been cited more than 1,000 times by scientists all over the disciplinary map. The paper also prompted Sugihara to make a mid-career foray into finance, as firms were very interested in forecasting stock prices using methods similar to those he had applied in ecology.
In 2002, Sugihara returned to science. He had unfinished business: convincing the world that ecosystems, though complex and chaotic, could be predicted, and that managers could use those predictions to do their jobs better. “I feel like I have a mission,” he said, “to get people to understand how this all works—to begin to embrace natural systems as they are as opposed to as we hope they would be.”
A Thirst for Data
Ecological modeling began almost 100 years ago, and from the start it was influenced heavily by physics and engineering, which had used differential equations to describe dynamic systems for the previous 200 years. The most commonly used fishery model, for example, is the Ricker model, developed by the Canadian biologist William Ricker in the 1950s to predict the number of new adults that an existing generation of fish is likely to produce the following year. Ricker’s original equation included just two parameters: the reproductive rate of a given fish, and the number of fish the environment can sustain, known as the “carrying capacity.”
Fishery managers still rely heavily on the Ricker model, along with variants that include factors like temperature, to estimate a “maximum sustainable yield” that fishers can take without causing fish stocks to crash. Such estimates are naive, Sugihara said, because they assume fish population is correlated to environmental factors in simple and static ways. “It really is almost a kind of hubris to write down an equation that guesses that temperature ought to enter in a specific way.” Environmental factors—the climate, ocean circulation, human impacts—are always changing, but parameterized models such as these are stuck in time and cannot adapt to those changes, much less incorporate them to become more accurate. “They will not necessarily improve as we get more data,” Sugihara said.
Empirical dynamic modeling, by contrast, seamlessly incorporates new data and is always improving. Takens’ theorem works best when there are enough data points to make a dense attractor, making it easier to find times when a system’s present state is close to a past one. Any new data points will help users to see where a system is going to go next. “It’s allowing the data to say what the relationships are,” Sugihara said. And it succeeds, he said, “where the rubber hits the road,” namely, on how well it can predict the future, and not just on how well scientists can make a curve fit the data after the fact.
Sugihara’s work is not armchair mathematics: Many fishery scientists want better forecasts, and researchers from both NOAA and Canada’s equivalent agency, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), have co-authored papers with Sugihara and his students. But so far no fishery commission has actually incorporated the methods into its management practices. One hang-up, said Jon Schnute, a retired analyst formerly at DFO, is that so far only Sugihara and his colleagues have had access to the underlying algorithms, meaning that fishery biologists must send their data to Scripps and then wait for a forecast. By contrast, all fishery biologists can use software implementing the Ricker model. Empirical dynamic modeling “hasn’t reached that point of maturity,” Schnute said.
That is changing. Sugihara’s software is now available for researchers to use, and his students are leading workshops to teach them how to do so. DeAngelis, a lifelong user of parameterized equations, said he hopes to use Sugihara’s methods in his own work predicting the population dynamics in fish populations in the Everglades.
The End of Equations
DeAngelis also goes further, writing in a comment accompanying Sugihara’s team’s 2015 PNAS paper that empirical dynamical modeling may be part of a broader shift away from the dominance that equations have long exerted over science. Many commentators, including DeAngelis, noted that equations have not yielded the same success in ecology that they have in the physical sciences, suggesting a new approach is needed.
Sugihara agrees. Static equilibrium equations may be useful for building a bridge, he said, but it’s time to abandon the search for equilibrium in the complex, nonlinear systems that nature produces. Seductively simple correlations may appear for a period of time, he observed, but in a chaotic system such correlations do not provide true insight. “It is not the world that is mysterious,” he said. “Rather, it is the way we view it that makes it mysterious.”
Fellow ecologists are excited by the new method but mindful of the challenges Sugihara faces. Paucity of data remains one of the big ones. While fields like medicine and neuroscience are now spewing out huge data sets more quickly than scientists can process them, ecology is still stumbling toward its big-data revolution.
A more difficult question, Sauer said, may be that of stationarity—whether the meaning of a measurement stays the same from one day or year or decade to the next. Stationarity is one of the hallmarks of laboratory science: A protein molecule or yeast cell today is the same sort of thing that it was 100 years ago. But it is less clear whether a tally of Fraser River sockeye salmon in 2015 has the same meaning as a count of the same salmon in 1950. The DFO changed how it defines salmon stocks during that time period, and even the fish themselves may have evolved.
DeAngelis adds that empirical dynamic modeling has another limitation: The method can make only short-term predictions. This goes back to the fundamental problem with chaotic systems: Two systems whose initial conditions vary only the tiniest bit will diverge over time onto totally different trajectories. In practical terms this means that even if the method does a good job of forecasting next year’s salmon population, it can’t say much about that population several years from now.
For these reasons and others, Sugihara is starting to push his methods beyond ecology. A few years ago Sugihara got an email from Gerald Pao, a molecular biologist in the lab of Inder Verma at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, just down the road from Scripps. Pao was convinced that Sugihara’s methods could be used to interpret gene expression data. Sugihara was skeptical, but once he realized how rich Pao’s data were, with coordinated time series based on hourly measures of the expression of all 25,000 or so genes in human chromosomes, he realized he was wrong. Sugihara, Pao and Verma got started on yeast and mouse models and hope to publish a paper soon that will show how networks of genes can be causally linked even when their expression patterns aren’t correlated.
Ideas similar to empirical dynamic modeling are also showing up in neuroscience. Neuroscientists would love to be able to predict the onset of crippling conditions like epileptic seizures, and some are modeling firing patterns of neuron networks using Takens’ theorem. Sauer said neuroscientists may be further along than ecologists in bringing the theorem from the realm of theory into practice. But, he said, “the real killer app is not here yet.”
Sugihara agrees with this assessment. “Takens’ theorem is an amazing thing,” he said, “and the potential applications remarkably have not been fully realized.” He added, “I think that’s just beginning to change now. … I think we’re beginning to overcome the activation energy barrier that it takes to understand this stuff.”
Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research developments and trends in mathematics and the physical and life sciences.A weekend boat theft in Anchorage has led to the sinking of a drug distribution scheme, according to Soldotna police.
Good Samaritans helped the boat's owner track it to a Soldotna hotel, where four people were arrested and more than $100,000 in drugs and cash was seized, police said.
Anchorage Brewing Co. owner Gabe Fletcher said his stepfather's boat -- a 28-foot Kingfisher named Celestial Dawn -- was stolen Sunday night outside the company's facility on West 91st Avenue in South Anchorage.
"It's like a $100,000 boat," Fletcher said.
Anchorage police spokeswoman Jennifer Castro said an initial report of the theft at 9:20 p.m. Sunday didn't include any suspect information, but patrol officers were asked to keep an eye out for the boat and its trailer.
Fletcher said he also put out his own feelers on the theft, including a sharply worded post on the brewery's Facebook page.
"We have a pretty good friend base on our Facebook page," Fletcher said. "We sent out emails asking people to keep an eye out for the boat, and it just spread like wildfire."
People who spotted the boat and contacted Fletcher sporadically tracked its progress south overnight. Fletcher said they saw it near the Soldotna Inn, on the Kenai Spur Highway in downtown Soldotna, at about 8 a.m. Monday.
"They're driving around in daylight with this huge boat that says Celestial Dawn on the side; it's like they're pulling around a huge sign that says, 'I'm stupid,'" Fletcher said. "And then they park the boat on the busiest intersection on the Kenai Peninsula."
At that point, Fletcher called Alaska State Troopers to report the boat's discovery. He said it wasn't difficult to find the people who allegedly took it after the hotel's clerk was asked to contact them.
"The lady calls around the rooms to ask if anybody has a boat and (one of the defendants) says, 'Sure, we have a boat,'" Fletcher said.
Troopers and officers who raided the defendants' room with a search warrant found a variety of drugs, including 150 grams of black tar heroin worth an estimated $75,000 on the street, 90 grams of meth with a value of $18,000 and 2 ounces of marijuana. More than $10,000 in cash was also seized, along with fake IDs, drug packaging and paraphernalia, and six firearms; two of those guns, an AR-15-type rifle and a semiautomatic pistol, had been reported stolen.
According to a statement from the Soldotna Police Department, the accused include two Californians: 35-year-old Jesse M. Larosa of Yorba and 30-year-old Ashley N. Rubalcaba of Tustin. Alaskans charged in the case include Petersburg resident Anthony L. Hanson, 37, and 24-year-old Anchorage resident Samantha L. Griffiths. The arrests were first reported by the Peninsula Clarion.
Soldotna Police Chief Peter Mlynarik said the quantity of drugs seized Monday was likely intended to supply smaller drug dealers.
"There's really no reason to come down here with that amount of drugs unless you're planning on distributing it," Mlynarik said.
The drug bust isn't Soldotna's biggest -- Mlynarik said Soldotna officers seized about $250,000 of marijuana in a 2014 case -- but it's still a rare occurrence.
"This is definitely not the norm -- it's a huge amount of drugs to find," Mlynarik said.
Asked about the motive behind the boat theft, Mlynarik noted the case was still under investigation, with further charges possible.
"That's one of the links we're still following up on, getting all the players involved," Mlynarik said. "I wondered the same thing: Why take the boat they had?"
Fletcher said the boat is back in Anchorage, with a door aboard broken open but no items stolen.
"What do you even do with a boat that big?" Fletcher said.
Hanson, Larosa and Griffiths were all charged with multiple counts of misconduct involving controlled substances, while Rubalcaba was charged with criminal impersonation. Hanson and Larosa face additional counts of misconduct involving weapons; Hanson was hit with two counts of theft, while Larosa was charged with two counts of forgery.Some homeowners across Canada, and those trying to enter the market, should expect to spend more money on mortgage payments as both RBC and TD Bank have raised mortgage rates in recent weeks.
And it’s only going to get more expensive.
“I do expect rates to continue to push up in the coming months and into next year, as opposed to the opposite,” said James Laird, cofounder of RateHub.ca and president of mortgage brokerage CanWise Financial.
READ MORE: Ottawa’s new mortgage requirements could make it harder to secure a mortgage
The TD and RBC hikes have been relatively modest — 15 to 30 basis points — but do result in an increase in monthly mortgage costs.
Here’s what you need to know.
If you already have a mortgage that’s locked in, you’re in the clear until it’s up for renewal. Variable rate mortgage holders, as well as new buyers, will see things change.
Housing data released Tuesday – the same day as RBC’s rate hike announcement – showed the average price of a home in October was just shy of $482,000. Excluding the greater Vancouver and Toronto areas, the average price of a home in Canada was just over $360,000.
READ MORE: Nearly 1 million Canadians could struggle with even a slight rise in interest rates
Mortgage calculators can help Canadians get a handle on the impact of these increases. Here are some examples of how RBC and TD’s rate changes will increase the mortgage payment on a $360,000 home, with 20 per cent down and a 25-year amortization period:
RBC’s raise for its special offer, five-year fixed rate mortgage from 2.64 per cent to 2.94 per cent : $1,310 to $1,354 — $44 more per month.
: $1,310 to $1,354 — TD’s variable rate mortgage hike from 2.7 per cent to 2.85 per cent : $1,319 to $1,341 – $22 more per month.
: $1,319 to $1,341 –. For a $700,000 mortgage, the same changes in rates would increase the monthly payment by $85 and $42, respectively.
, the same changes in rates would increase the monthly payment by, respectively. For a $1 million mortgage, the same changes in rates would increase the monthly payment by $121 and $88, respectively.
“It doesn’t really change how much someone can qualify for, it just changes what their mortgage payment is each month,” said Laird.
READ MORE: Some Canadian real estate markets could be in for a massive correction
Canadians have enjoyed historically low interest rates and Canada’s hot housing markets have soared to levels out of reach for many. As a result, governments at all levels have introduced measures, like B.C.’s foreign homebuyers tax, to cool the markets.
But the main factor for the recent rate change is volatility in the global bonds market, Laird explained, prompted by the U.S. election.
“Bond yields have moved dramatically in the last 10 days, up almost 50 per cent in two weeks,” said Laird. “And that’s really one of the key costs of funding mortgages in Canada, is the price of money, which is bond yields.”
RBC said a number of issues factored into the hikes.
“We take a measured and careful approach,” said Mary Ellen Brown, senior vice-president of RBC’s Home Equity Financing.
“We ensure that the movement that we make is reflective of changes that we’re seeing in the marketplace.”
Shop around and lock in the best mortgage rate
While Canadians are seeing a rise in mortgage rates, they still remain incredibly low, Laird said.
“Below 3 per cent is, historically speaking, unheard of … Make no mistake, we are still in an unusually low-rate environment.”
If you’re shopping for a home, it’s a good idea to lock in at the current rate. This can often be done for 60 to 120 days.
READ MORE: CMHC issues ‘red’ warning for Canada’s housing market
“Anyone considering getting a mortgage…they should be getting pre-approved, they should be getting locked in. We do think that rates are going to continue to push up.”
And like anything else, shop around for a rate. Go to your home bank, ask your friends for mortgage broker referrals, and look online in order to find the best rate possible.
Should you rent or buy? This real estate calculator will help you decideAs anger over recent cyclist deaths quite has rightly raged, Londonist, also rightly, has widened the debate by asking a very good question: won't somebody think of the pedestrians? The answer pointed out that pedestrians accounted for more than half of all those killed on the capital's streets in 2012 - 69 out of 134. As Londonist also reported, three died on the same day only last week.
The 2012 stats also show that 27 of those killed were riding a "powered two-wheeler" (motorbikes, mopeds etc), 19 were in cars and 14 were cyclists, while the remaining five were in a taxi, bus, coach or goods vehicle. These numbers on their own don't reveal different risk levels for different ways of getting around - a complicated subject, by the way - but they do show that safety on London's roads is a concern for an array of people who negotiate the capital's streets in different ways.
They also serve to underline that the issue of road safety is enmeshed in a wider one - an issue about the management of London's road space, the design of its public spaces and the city's environmental and economic health. Boris Johnson has been accused of complacency, victim-blaming and dodging responsibility over cyclists, but more focus should now be directed towards his surface transport and "public realm" strategies as a whole.
For all his "cycling mayor" persona, a big priority for Johnson has been keeping the private motorist sweet. Launching his 2012 election campaign, he rubbished his opponents as "car-hating." Cars, lorries and taxis will always be a necessary and in many ways desirable part of London life but, for Johnson, "smoothing traffic flow" has primarily meant pleasing an important part of his electoral client base when he should have been doing more to calm, regulate and reduce road traffic.
In other areas of transport policy, Johnson has rightly continued where Ken Livingstone left off, but at street level he's mostly slammed into reverse, halving the congestion charging zone (a decision even he seemed to regret), dumping or fighting shy of bold pedestrianisation schemes and coming up with precious little to expand or give greater priority to the bus service - the most used public transport mode of all, and the most efficient on the roads in terms of moving people round the city.
This is the context in which Johnson's cycle hire scheme and his belated efforts to improve cycling infrastructure and "street safety" should be judged. His appointment of one of his most loyal media allies, Andrew Gilligan, as "cycling commissioner" to push a "cycling vision" through hints at a pressing need to claim that substantial progress has been made in a key "Brand Boris" policy area before the second Johnson term is through. Needless to say, the Evening Standard has been well onside.
Gilligan's plans have received widespread praise, including from within Transport for London - an organisation he attacked in an assortment of imaginative ways through news outlets he worked for when Livingstone was mayor - but it remains to be seen how far the mayor's "cycling vision" helps London transform its streets for the better for the majority using them, whether for travel, business or pleasure. Making streets more liveable is not only about cycling, but also about walking, relaxing, socialising, running businesses and shopping - objectives that sometimes conflict and so demand rather more than headline-grabbing examples of "going Dutch."
In the run up to last year's mayoral election Gilligan took to using the word "groupie" to denigrate those who argued that Livingstone would be a better choice for mayor than his friend Johnson. His use of such a term says quite a lot about Gilligan and rather less about we who based our views on the records in office of the two men and the policies they proposed.
Even though he'd decided against restoring the western extension of the congestion charging zone, Livingstone was clearly the better candidate on all aspects of transport. Reviewing his past achievements, Professor David Begg, the publisher of Transport Times, has written:
Congestion charging cut traffic by 20% and initially reduced congestion by 30%. It led to a dramatic increase in bus patronage and reliability and a big increase in the numbers walking and cycling. Air quality also improved... Livingstone presided over a modal shift from car to public transport, walking and cycling which was unrivalled worldwide. He believed in a roads hierarchy which prioritised pedestrians, cyclists and buses in that order.
Under Johnson, much of that momentum has stalled. I doubt he has the will to restore it. Let's hope his eventual successor does.
Update, 15:06. Another cyclist died on London's roads earlier today - the sixth in less than a fortnight. Guardian report here.Everett Kennedy Brown/European Pressphoto Agency
Are we moving from the crash to the bubble, dispensing with that pesky economic recovery thing altogether?
The Federal Reserve is well into its third round of “quantitative easing,” in which it buys longer-term assets to bring down long-term lending rates. We are about five and a half years into the Fed’s extraordinary monetary policies (its out-of-the-box lending programs began before the crash, in late 2007).
The effect the central bank hopes to produce hasn’t materialized. Despite modest growth, the economy remains a wellspring of misery, with mass unemployment, wage stagnation and factories going unused. In March, a smaller percentage of working-age people were actually working than at any other time since 1979.
Through its unconventional policies, the Fed is trying to ease the crisis. It has succeeded in driving down lending rates. Ben S. Bernanke and company would also like to kindle inflation expectations, spurring people to buy and companies to invest today instead of waiting until tomorrow. Supposedly, all of this will drive a self-sustaining economic recovery.
Related Links Graphic: Stocks in Expensive Territory
Instead, the Fed has kindled speculation. Investors are desperate for yield and are paying up for riskier assets. In areas like real estate, structured finance and equities, the markets are ahead of the fundamentals. It doesn’t look to me like a bubble yet. But I would call it the Dysplasia Stage, abnormal growth that looks precancerous.
It’s not just an economic or financial issue, it’s cultural and psychological. We seem to have unlearned what real growth is and simply substituted speculative bubbles. Policy makers are either paralyzed or barrel forward because this is all they know how to do.
Let’s first take the stock market. On the standard measures of looking at estimated earnings, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index isn’t particularly high. But that’s misleading. Corporate earnings are extremely high as a percentage of the gross domestic product. Margins are high. Is that sustainable?
There are more reliable measures of stock market value, and they look frothy. One gauge, the price of stocks based on the past decade of earnings, is named after the Yale economist Robert J. Shiller. Using that, stocks are too expensive by 65 percent. Alternatively, many investors look at something called the Q, devised by the economist James Tobin, which compares stock prices with corporate net worth. The nonfinancial companies are overpriced by 57 percent. The stock market is not at 1999 or 1929 levels, but it has reached other previous peaks of 1906, 1936 and 1968, according to Smithers & Company, a London-based research shop.
To make stocks correctly priced, “either earnings have to explode heavenward for 10 years or else stock prices have to come in a lot,” said Scott Frew, who runs Rockingham Capital Partners, a small hedge fund. He expects earnings to fall.
It’s not just stocks. Investors are bidding up junk bonds, commercial mortgage-backed securities and bundles of corporate loans called collateralized loan obligations. Last month, investors were paying more for such loans than at any time in the last five years. They are snapping up billions of dollars in securities made up of subprime auto loans.
And the housing market isn’t just rising, but roaring back so fast you can feel the G-force coming off the reports. Home prices in Phoenix went up 23 percent over the last year, according to the latest Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller index. More than one in four homes in Phoenix was purchased by an investor who bought more than five homes, up from 16 percent a year earlier.
“I am now starting to become less skeptical” about the worries over a new housing bubble, said Christopher J. Mayer, a real estate economist at Columbia University. When local money is on the sidelines and outside buyers come in to snap up real estate, that typically ends badly, he added.
So what’s going on?
The Fed is engaged in “trickle-down monetary policy,” said Daniel Alpert, managing partner of Westwood Capital, an investment bank. “This type of monetary policy is making the wealthy wealthier and hoping that it trickles down to the shop floor.”
But “trickle down has never worked,” he said. “The wealthy don’t need to consume. And when there is oversupply of capacity, the wealthy don’t need to invest in new capacity.”
Has the Federal Reserve monetary policy reached the average American? To a certain degree, yes. Many Americans have been able to refinance their homes. Those auto loans may be helping people get to and from work.
But the economic effects are modest for the size and scope of the effort. Investors glory in the asset inflation. The most pronounced effect of low mortgage rates has been to allow people with good credit and low debt to refinance multiple times over the last few years. Stock ownership is concentrated among the wealthy; junk bonds and collateralized loan obligations only more so.
Mr. Alpert says the first round of quantitative easing was necessary to ease the liquidity problem in the markets — the unwillingness of investors to conquer their fears and buy up assets. But the third round is “unnecessary,” he said.
Others disagree. Dean Baker, an economist from the liberal-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research who warned about the housing bubble much earlier than most, doesn’t see a bubble yet. He advocates continuing quantitative easing.
Mr. Baker adds a note of caution, however. Regulators should move to high alert; Federal Reserve officials should start speaking out to signal that they
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5 members, 3 of whom are appointed by the mayor. It is then submitted to the City Council. The Council, however, can only reduce the proposed budget; it cannot increase it.
The city has in place an award-winning management process, called CitiStat, which the mayor uses to oversee the strategies used to ensure progress on longer-term goals as well as the effectiveness of day-to-day city operations, such as responses to 311 service requests. This evidence-driven process has been in place for more than a decade and used by three different mayors, so there is some sustainability of this management approach.
The current mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, has modified the CitiStat process to include a strategic view of the city’s operations. She committed to improvements in six priority outcomes for the city. These include: better schools, safer streets, stronger neighborhoods, growing economy, cleaner and healthier city, and innovative government. These outcomes are all in the context of the city’s new 10-Year Financial Plan.
Starting in 2009, the previous mayor launched a reform of the budget process in order to better connect the performance management strategies generated via the evidence-based CitiStat to the financial resources needed to deliver on those strategies in a more effective manner. Mayor Rawlings-Blake embraced this reform as a way to both make the budget process more transparent and to deliver on her six priority outcomes.
Kleine says that the Outcome Budgeting approach “was a natural progression from CitiStat, but it is more than an overlay.” The new budgeting approach, he says, “has pushed performance measurement to every corner of city government, including dozens of mid-size and smaller agencies that do not participate in CitiStat.” He also says “it focused the city on outcomes, whereas CitiStat is mainly concerned with operational metrics that can be updated frequently.” He notes that the new budgeting approach has resulted in the CitiStat process including a stronger look at both costs and outcomes.
Overview of Baltimore’s Outcome-Oriented Budgeting Approach. According to Baltimore’s budget director, Andrew Kleine, “Outcome Budgeting is a budget process that aligns resources with results.” Instead of starting from the previous year’s budget and adjusting allocations up or down, Outcome Budgeting starts with what results matter the most to citizens. The approach “shifts from an agency-centric view to a services-centric view.... Evidence plays a big role in the process.”
As a result, the budget is developed around a combination of various services that support the city’s six Priority Outcomes, not the various city agencies. The city’s budget provides details for about 240 specific services that, in various combinations, support the Priority Outcomes.
Baltimore’s Budget Preparation Process. Following are the key steps used in Baltimore’s budget preparation cycle :
Step 1: Establish priorities. The mayor and her senior leadership team define key Priority Outcomes to be pursued. Setting the priorities is informed via a citizen engagement process, including the Baltimore Citizen Survey. For the current budget cycle, there are six Priority Outcomes.
. The mayor and her senior leadership team define key Priority Outcomes to be pursued. Setting the priorities is informed via a citizen engagement process, including the Baltimore Citizen Survey. For the current budget cycle, there are six Priority Outcomes. Step 2: Determine Resources. The mayor and her senior leadership team set broad spending parameters around each of the outcome categories.
. The mayor and her senior leadership team set broad spending parameters around each of the outcome categories. Step 3: Create Results Teams. A Results Team is created for each of the six Priority Outcomes. These interdisciplinary teams are comprised of representatives from various city agencies, the mayor’s leadership team, and a member of the local community. Each team is staffed by someone from the city’s budget office, as well. Interestingly, the teams are seen as a testing ground for potential future leaders among participating city staffers.
. A Results Team is created for each of the six Priority Outcomes. These interdisciplinary teams are comprised of representatives from various city agencies, the mayor’s leadership team, and a member of the local community. Each team is staffed by someone from the city’s budget office, as well. Interestingly, the teams are seen as a testing ground for potential future leaders among participating city staffers. Step 4: Create Guidance Documents. Each Results Team puts together a “guidance document” that outlines specific measurable goals to be achieved in the coming year and the actions to be taken to achieve them. Once the documents are developed, the Results Teams sit down with the mayor and her senior staff for a “tollgate” review of the guidance before it is sent out to agencies.
The guidance document outlines specific, measurable goals, such as “increase school attendance” in order to reduce the dropout rate. The guidance document for “better schools,” for example, includes a cause-and-effect map, along with examples of specific strategies to make progress against the goals. It concludes with a list of criteria by which agency-offered proposals would be assessed.
Step 5: Agencies Submit Budget Requests. The agencies use the guidance documents to prepare their budget submissions. There is a web-based tool for them to submit their requests, service-by-service. They no longer budget by program; the unit of budgeting is around “services.” The Departmental budget requests, covering a total of about 240 different services, are submitted back to the Results Teams.
Budget staff say the results are less opaque, especially for citizens, to understand. For example, the Department of Recreation and Parks used to report funding under 4 programs, such as “Regular Recreation Services,” “General Recreation Services,” and Special Recreation Services.”.... Now it reports on 12 services, such as: “Recreation Centers” and “Horticulture.” See graphic for an example:
There are performance measures for each service, and trend data are reported when the Department submits its budget requests. The following graphic shows an example of what the final budget proposal looks like for the “horticulture” service within the city’s Recreation and Parks Department, which is linked to the city’s “Stronger Neighborhoods” priority outcome:
Step 6: Results Team Reviews and Ranks Requests. The Results Teams have conversations with the agencies and rank their funding requests. They create a spreadsheet of the service requests and associated dollars, and then prepare a memo to the mayor with recommended “portfolio investments” in each of the outcome areas, describing what could be achieved at, above, or below the current services provided. Once the memos are completed, the Results Teams sit down again with the mayor and her senior staff for a second “tollgate” review to discuss the various memos.
Step 7. Mayor Makes Decisions and Budget is Finalized. The city’s budget staff compile and update the various Results Team materials and present a complete package to the mayor and her senior staff for decisions in a third and final “tollgate” meeting. She sees everything the city is doing. Under the old approach, the mayor only saw the budget changes at the margins; now the mayor sees the full picture. The city’s budget is then posted on-line, including a short citizen’s summary and more details, as well as agency-level information service-by-service.
How Does the Process Make a Difference in Outcomes? City staff say that the budget process has made a difference in a number of different areas. Services that did not demonstrate value were cut. In contrast, services that could demonstrate effectiveness – such as youth violence prevention -- were protected from cuts during a period when the city was facing severe budget cuts.
New strategies have been developed to reduce costs, as well. For example:
The Fire and Health departments now assign nurses to frequent 911 callers and this has reduced their call volume by about 50 percent. This has resulted in substantial savings for the Fire Department.
The “Cleaner and Healthier City” Results Team’s decision process led to the city’s Transportation Department piggybacking on a Recreation and Parks Department mowing contract to reduce the cost of median strip mowing by $1.5 million.
Results Teams invited agencies to make offers to run services that were currently housed in another agency. For example, the Department of Housing and Community Development’s code enforcement section proposed that it could leverage existing business processes to more effectively collect burglar alarm registration fees and false alarm fines. It took over the function from the Police Department and significantly increased revenue collections.
The outcome budgeting process also led to the creation of a mayoral task force that recommended the city move toward a smaller, higher quality network of recreation centers. As a result, the city has turned over nine centers to non-profit operators, closed nine centers, converted eight centers to after-school programming, increased staffing at 30 centers, and has undertaken a capital program to build four new centers and renovate several others.
The budgeting process is still evolving. For example, at the beginning of the fiscal year 2013 budget cycle, the budget process began accepting enhancement requests that would allow services to request funding for new strategies that advanced one of the Mayor’s Priority Outcomes. In Fiscal 2014 the budget process funded 16 enhancement requests ranging from a Food Desert Strategy developed by the city’s Planning Department to an evidence-based summer reading program.
Image via S.Borisov/Shutterstock.comHere's a pdf of a recent study by the European Commission that users will definitely find interesting, on which languages users in Europe use online. The entire report is 125 pages. Here are some of the parts I find the most interesting:
- Because the report was based on interviews with internet users, in countries like the Netherlands and Sweden it was more or less a sample of the entire population, but in places like Bulgaria where internet penetration is lower it was a different sample - people with internet access there are not necessarily representative samples of the rest of the population.
- 48% of users read English online, 29% actually wrote in it. As always, lurkers and passive users are more common.
- 9 out of 10 users said they always visited websites in their own language if they could. 53% said that an English-only page would be acceptable if they couldn't use it in their own language.
- Malta was the most willing (97%) to read sites in English if they couldn't be found in Maltese, no surprise at all considering how hard it is to find Maltese content online.
- Latvians and Bulgarians used the internet the most frequently, with 69% of internet users using the internet several times a day. Least frequent were Italian users at 33%.
- 44% of those in the EU only use their own language online. In the UK this is 85% (no surprise), and in Malta it's 7%. Hungary is interesting at 48%.
- Other languages used online (languages used as an L2, so mother tongue usage not included here): English 48%, French 6%, German 6%, Spanish 4%, Italian 2%, Russian 2%...
- Of these languages, the one that respondents said they used 'all the time' the most is a bit surprising: Swedish at 24%. This is most certainly due to respondents from Denmark (since Norway's not included). Edit: forgot about Finland, where Swedish is also an official language. After that is Spanish at 21% (probably due to Portugal). The L2 that people said they used the least ('occasionally') is Polish - 73% of those who claimed to use Polish said that. Meanwhile, 'all the time' for Polish was 12%.
The other languages by country part is the most interesting. For example, the country that uses Spanish as an L2 the most is....Portugal at 14%. Spain is a bit weird because 12% report using Spanish as a non-mother tongue. Technically true, but not helpful in knowing what the top three other languages used by Spanish speakers are. Kind of the same for Luxembourg where French and German are included as foreign languages, even though they are official languages there and used all the time. Besides this, the country that uses German as a foreign language the most is unsurprising: Netherlands at 29%.
I still haven't looked over the entire report bit in the meantime, here's the part mentioning L2 usage online for various countries.
Edit: expanding a bit on my preliminary reading:- The activities that people carry out in an L2 is particularly interesting. The category most often referenced was getting information and reading the news, an activity that doesn't require a particularly high level of skill. The most interesting though is the activity least frequently carried out in an L2: banking. Acquiring passive information in another language in an L2 is one thing, managing your money is something else. 74% said they never banked in an L2. Also keep in mind that since German and French are counted as foreign languages in Luxembourg for this survey (they shouldn't), 'never' should be even higher than this. People in Luxembourg surely don't bank in Spanish or Portuguese, for example.Later on in the report it shows the amount of banking done in other languages by country, and this backs up the suspicion that Luxembourg has biased the numbers a bit. Malta comes first though, with 47% saying they banked in another language all the time and 15% frequently. For Luxembourg it's 23% all the time and 23% frequently. After that are Cyprus and Latvia, and after that every single country has at least a 60% 'never' response rate to banking in another language. The countries that never bank in a foreign language the most: Romania (80%), Denmark (80%), Finland (82%), France (82%), Germany (81%).Full Tilt Poker released details today of its first-week promotion plans when the site re-opens on November 6, called “Deal Me In.” It includes large cash bonuses for all new and existing players, $250k in freerolls every day until November 11, Happy Hours running around the clock, and huge added value for FTOPS tournament satellites.
Freeroll tournaments will be held over the first six days, with a total of $250k given away in prize money. It will culminate on Sunday, November 11, with ten separate tournaments each with $10k in prize money.
All real money players will also be offered a cash bonus—its “biggest ever bonus package” states the press release—which will be $200 minimum and a free “rush poker ring game ticket” for all existing real-money players. New players will get both a standard signup bonus and this bonus offer once they play for real money.
Full Tilt’s Happy Hours, an old player-favorite where you can earn double the player points during specific times at certain games, will return. During the first week, there are double points “available around the clock,” with different games featured each day.
There will also be a sale in the first week in the Store. Previously announced is the ability to turn points directly into cash by purchasing both tournament tickets and new “ring game tickets.” During opening week, various tickets will be sold at a discount.
FTOPS, Full Tilt’s quarterly tournament series, will return in December. Announced today was the “FTOPS XXI Satellite Frenzy,” which will launch later this month. Bonus entries “worth more than $300k in total” will be added to satellites to gain entry into the series.
With the announcement today, there is little doubt the team at Full Tilt is pulling out all the stops to retain the player base. On November 6, $184m will be injected into the online poker market. Players will have immediate access to withdraw these funds either through Full Tilt or, in countries where Full Tilt will not relaunch, through PokerStars.
Full Tilt, of course, would like to encourage players to not immediately withdraw, and these first-week promotions will certainly appeal to many.Work and pensions secretary says report setting out the billions of pounds that EU migrants had added to the economy is ‘silly’
Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, has said that non-English-speaking children are changing the character of British schools, as Ukip looks likely to gain its second MP in the Rochester and Strood byelection.
The senior Conservative said an academic report setting out the billions of pounds that EU migrants had added to the economy was “silly” because it only looks at immigration in terms of the financial benefits to the economy.
His comments represent the latest escalation in the negative rhetoric about immigration as the Tories try to stem the flow of supporters to Nigel Farage’s party, which wants radically lower migration and a withdrawal from the European Union.
On BBC Radio 5 Live’s Pienaar’s Politics, Duncan Smith said: “I thought there was a silly report, recently, in the last couple of weeks, that said: ‘Oh look in tax terms they have contributed more.’ First of all you have to take them all the way through to when they get older and they actually start taking from the state.
“You don’t account for the fact that often in many communities they literally change the schooling because so many people arrive not speaking English. You have then got problems you know with local services, transport all that kind of stuff.”
He went on to say that the EU’s principle of free movement of people needs rebalancing and to claim the Germans have privately told him they “need to sort this problem out”.
The report mentioned by Duncan Smith was by two leading migration economists at University College London and said European migrants made a net contribution of £20bn to UK public finances between 2000 and 2011.
Duncan Smith’s confidence about achieving EU reform on immigration echoed that of Sir John Major, the Conservative former prime minister, who also argued the EU will be reasonable about helping Britain with its “huge bulge” in immigration in the short term. Major suggested a short-term pause in free movement could be possible and that national governments should be able to “block alien and unwanted” legislation coming from Brussels.
It was the former prime minister’s second intervention on the EU within days, as support for Ukip and tensions between London and Brussels over immigration reforms increase. In a speech in Germany on Friday, Major predicted there was 50-50 chance of Britain leaving the EU.
On BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show, the Tory grandee argued that people will stop voting for Ukip once their economic circumstances improve. However, he acknowledged that “none of the growth in the economy has yet reached wage packets or salary slips”.
“The policies of Ukip, the direction of Ukip is, it seems to me, profoundly un-British in every way. They are anti-everything. They are anti-politics, they are anti-foreigner, they are anti-immigrant, they are anti-aid. I don’t know what they’re for. We know what they are against, and that’s the negativity of the four-ale bar.”
He also suggested Ukip’s stance on foreign aid contrasted with “the huge generosity of the British people” towards charitable causes including Children in Need and the fight against Ebola.
“People, even in times of hardship, are prepared to put their hands in their pockets and be generous to other people,” he said. “What a counterpoint that is to the negativity and sheer nastiness of much of what Ukip stands for.”
The attack on Ukip contrasts with the careful way many other senior Tories have been reluctant to criticise the party directly, since David Cameron antagonised its supporters in 2006 by branding them a bunch of “fruit cakes and loonies and closet racists”.
Tim Aker, Ukip’s policy chief, responded to Major on Twitter, saying the former prime minister “has some cheek saying Ukip engage in anti-politics” when he presided over the New Labour, New Danger posters.
Douglas Alexander, shadow foreign secretary, said he thought it was a “tragedy for Britain that we are seeing more effective leadership from an ex-Conservative prime minister than the present Conservative prime minister.” He told Sky News: “Of course there is reform and change that can be secured within Europe in relation to immigration and in relation to other issues. I thought John Major made a convincing case that change is possible.
“The tragedy for the UK is that we have a prime minister today who is so weak in the face of his own backbenchers internally, and the threat of Ukip externally, that he seems incapable of grasping that reform opportunity.”
Alexander acknowledged the “scale of immigration we have seen in recent years has brought to bear particular pressures on particular communities, that’s why we need to see sensible reforms”.
Although Ukip is a bigger threat to the Tories, Labour was last night urged by Len McCluskey, the head of Unite, to attack Nigel Farage’s party more forcefully because it is picking up votes in working class areas of the north.
He told the Financial Times: “There has been a view in the Labour party for a while that, ‘let’s not worry about Ukip’. They may take votes from Labour but they’ll take seats from the Conservatives. So there hasn’t been that full-frontal attack that we’ve been arguing for … Is it true that migrant workers are undercutting pay? Yes. Who’s to blame for that? Not the migrant workers but the greedy bosses who are allowed to get away with it.”
McCluskey welcomed the fact that Labour was talking more about immigration but added: “Ed Miliband has got to be seen as being on people’s sides and he has got to talk to people in a way that they get the message. That’s one of the advantages that people say Farage has.”
He also warned that Unite, Labour’s biggest backer, will campaign hard against public spending cuts in the next parliament.
Tories are still grappling over whether they can achieve any meaningful reform of immigration rules in Europe that will satisfy voters tempted by Ukip. The Cameron is due to set out his position in a speech by the end of the year, but other countries, including Germany and Ireland, have made it clear that the free movement of people should not be up for negotiation.
Cameron is also facing a headache over Britain’s EU budget contributions in the week of the Rochester and Strood byelection, after it emerged Britain had abstained in a vote about whether to hand over an extra £400m to boost the bloc’s contingency fund this year. The Sunday Times reported suspicions in Europe that this was part of a secret deal made by George Osborne, the chancellor, in return for delayed payment of the separate £1.7bn bill that was retrospectively demanded by the EU from the UK. This was denied by the Treasury.
However, a letter submitted by Nicky Morgan, then financial secretary to the Treasury, has emerged which stated the government did not agree with the request for extra spending in June 2014. It said the commission should look at reallocating money rather than “coming to member states with requests for additional money”.Thank you to Baby Pibu for providing me with product, free of charge, in exchange for this honest blog review. All opinions are 100% my own.
Here in Minnesota, a typical week in April or May could be sunny and 70 on Monday all the way to 30 and snow on Tuesday. So while we’ve had a little breath of Spring and a few days of Summer, the cool weather seems to always loop back in for one more round. Thankfully, we haven’t seen any late season snow storms as of yet this year. So with the changes and guarantee that Summer will have to show up to stay soon, I reached out to Baby Pibu (pronounced ‘pea-boo’) to try a couple of their products. Created by a dermatologist mom, all of their products are hypoallergenic, naturally derived, and non-irritating.
The first product I wanted to try was the Baby Pibu Baby Sunscreen. With a broad spectrum SPF 30+ to protect again the sun’s harmful rays, it’s also fragrance free. Their formula is non-greasy and goes on smooth and rubs in clear. The Baby Pibu Baby Sunscreen is recommended for ages 6 months and up and I enjoy using for our entire family! The kids especially love how they don’t feel sticky or look white after applying.
Baby Pibu also sent me their Pibu’s Bathtime Wash. Available in either an 8 or 16 ounce size, this tear-free hair and body cleanser is the perfect addition to children’s bath time. Lightly scented with a hint of lavender, this creamy relaxing formula rinses off easily. I really like using this product before bedtime as lavender is known to be relaxing and soothing and it seems to have a calming effect for us.
Buy It: Head over to Baby Pibu to see for yourself the great selection of products they offer.
Connect: Don’t forget to like Baby Pibu on Facebook, follow them on Twitter and Instagram, and subscribe to their You Tube Channel for all the latest news and promotions.
Win It: Baby Pibu is generously offering one of our lucky readers their very own Baby Sunscreen and Bathtime Wash, valued at $39! This giveaway is open to the US only and will end May 18th, 2016. For your chance to win, enter the Giveaway Tools below. Good luck!
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I’m a city girl turned country by my awesome husband and we have three busy boys and two darling daughters. I love spending time with my family, reading Karen Kingsbury novels, and catching up with friends while our kiddos have play dates. I’m blessed beyond measure and can’t wait to see what God has in store.
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Related posts we've written:An Italian thief thanked police officers for arresting him and putting an end to a beating from Korean tourists whom he had robbed in Rome, police say.
"I must thank you; they were massacring me," the 48-year-old criminal told police on Monday after he was arrested near the Theatre of Marcellus, one of the monuments in Rome's historic centre.
The thief, from the northern region of Liguria, stole a handbag from a Korean family when they were not paying attention. He threatened the family with a knife when he was spotted and then tried to flee.
Two men from the family, in their 20s, chased him for several hundred metres before they got him down with taekwondo moves. They disarmed the thief and continued to beat him.
A patrolling police officer intervened, separated the three and arrested the thief immediately.By Jenna Goff
Washington Week Fellow
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the most unpopular presidential nominees in history. But voters who don’t like them have a choice: Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson is currently lingering at around 8.8 percent of the popular vote, about 6 percent short of the 15 percent he would need to participate in the presidential debates. As the general election heats up, here’s what you need to know about the two-term Republican governor of New Mexico and triathlete:
Johnson served two terms as governor of New Mexico, from 1995 to 2003, as a Republican. As governor, Johnson was known for his conservative stances on a variety of issues. He slashed income tax rates, slowed the growth of government, and vetoed more than 700 bills passed by a Democratic legislature. His approval rating dropped however, when he called for the full legalization of marijuana in 1999. As a Libertarian, Johnson believes in smaller government when it comes to economic and social issues. His most well-known policy proposals include: legalizing marijuana, raising the retirement age for Social Security, abolishing the IRS, and shrinking the military. Johnson first ran for President in 2012. He started out as a Republican candidate but switched to the Libertarian Party in December of 2011 after polls showed him trailing in the GOP. He later drew in one percent of the popular vote as the Libertarian Party’s 2012 presidential nominee with 1.27 million votes - the highest in the party’s history. Johnson has climbed the tallest mountains on all seven continents, including Everest. He was healing from a broken leg when he ascended Mount Everest, and he says his toes have never healed from the frostbite he incurred on the mountain. Johnson has also finished 75 triathlons. His best Ironman time (which includes a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bicycle ride, and a marathon) was 10 hours and 38 minutes, in 2001. His running mate is former Republican Gov. Bill Weld of Massachusetts. The ticket is one of the most mainstream since the Libertarian Party was founded in 1971. It is also the first time two governors have been on a presidential ticket since 1948. Johnson has long said that he doesn’t do negative campaigning. He has, however, referred to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as the “two most polarizing political candidates” and spoken out publicly against Trump and his running mate Mike Pence. If elected President, Johnson would be the first unmarried president since 1885, when Grover Cleveland took office. He is, however, currently engaged to realtor Kate Prusack. Johnson believes that most Americans are secretly libertarian, or that they are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. He first started to refer to himself as a libertarian at the age of 18 when he read a book - he’s since forgotten the title - about what it means to be libertarian. Johnson founded a construction company, Big J Enterprises, when he was a senior at the University of New Mexico in 1975. In 1986, the company became the facilities contractor for Intel in New Mexico. Johnson was successful enough that he was able to self-finance his first gubernatorial campaign and sold Big J for $5 million in 1999. Johnson has an estimated net worth between $3 million and $10.5 million. Johnson was born in 1953 in Minot, North Dakota, to a tire salesman-turned-teacher and a mother who worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. His family moved to New Mexico when he was 13. He currently lives in a Taos, New Mexico home he built himself. If Johnson polls at least 15 percent of votes, as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations, he will join Trump and Clinton in the presidential debates this fall.
Photo via Flickr / Gage SkidmoreChris Fox, CP24.com
An adult suspect allegedly shouted anti-Muslim comments at an 11-year-old child outside an Oshawa school on Thursday in what was just the latest hate-motivated crime reported to Durham police in recent weeks.
Police say the suspect approached the yard at Woodcrest Public School at around 10:20 a.m. and proceeded to direct anti-Muslim comments and threats towards an 11-year-old student, who is Muslim.
The student subsequently reported the incident to school officials, who in turn contacted police.
The suspect is described as 30 to 40 years old and six-feet-tall. He was last seen wearing a black sweater, black pants and a ski mask.
Durham Regional Police say that the incident is one of six recent hate-motivated crimes that they are investigating.
One of the other recent incidents involved the discovery of swastikas inside three Durham Region buses.
Anyone with information about Thursday’s incident is asked to contact Det. Const. Hartry of the Central East Criminal Investigations Bureau at 1 (888) 579-1520 ext. 2732.by
We often hear horror stories about how credit cards ensnare you with debt, and how the high interest can keep you in financial chains.
If you aren’t careful with your credit card use, this type of situation can be very real – and devastating.
However, like so many things in life, a credit card isn’t evil.
How you use the credit card matters, and that means that you need to be aware of how you are using your credit. vSavvy credit card use can actually help your finances.
Credit Card Rewards: Free Stuff and Cash Back
One of the best ways to take advantage of credit cards is to use rewards programs.
Many credit cards offer ways for you to earn rewards that result in free merchandise, discounted travel, and even cash back. There are those who receive enough miles each year to fly for free, or who receive cash back each month.
The height of frugality is free stuff, and credit cards can help you with that.
With cash back, you can super-charge your savings goals. Vacations can be much less expensive with travel rewards. Shopping perks and free merchandise can save you money on planned purchases.
With the help of credit rewards, it’s possible to get ahead financially in a number of ways.
However, you do have to be careful.
When you carry a balance, that’s when things can get ugly. Your interest rate offsets any rewards or cash back that you earn. If you plan to take advantage of credit card rewards, you have to pay off your balance each month if you don’t want to get stuck making high interest payments, and wind up in debt bondage.
Easing Your Cash Flow
The way your money moves through your personal financial system can have a big impact on your situation.
Credit cards can help you smooth things out.
If you use your credit card to make certain purchases, you can be sure that the money in your checking account is free for other items, such as mortgage payments. Indeed, some find that putting automatic withdrawals on a credit card can ensure that you don’t run into problems of having money taken out of your checking account before your next direct deposit.
Of course, you always need to make sure that your purchases are planned, and that your credit card use fits in with your budget. You want to create a spending plan that you can stick to. That way, as you use your credit card, you can make payments and make sure that your checking account doesn’t end up incurring over the limit fees.
However, by the time your credit card statement is issued, you want to make sure that you have enough money in your account to pay off the balance. The point of using credit cards in this way is to make your money move more smoothly through your personal economy, not to buy items you can’t afford.
No matter how you use your credit card, it’s important to pay attention to your budget, and do your best to pay off the balance each month.
Finally
Yes, a credit card can get you into trouble if you aren’t paying off your balance in full or if you are accumulating fees.
But used wisely a credit card can help you with you finances. It can help with cash flow, purchase tracking, rewards, insurance (like if you rent a car), and more.
What other ways can a credit card help your finances?
Comments
commentsIt's something we've all heard before "The next big California earthquake and the entire state will fall into the ocean" or some variation thereof. Despite the geology and physics that only exist in Dwayne Johnson movies, this will not happen for a number of reasons.
Geology is a relatively new science, only really gaining momentum a few hundred years ago, with a lot to learn and tremendous advancements in the field in short time periods. As with most scientific fields, the general population aren't as well informed on the current research and data that supports our predictions and understanding. This allows for movies and fiction to perpetuate unrealistic scenarios and the general population to lack the ability to fully discern where Hollywood ends and science begins.
Imagine you watched a movie whereby aliens could take over a host human's body, grow to adolescence, and burst out of the host human all without the host knowing it was incubating an alien. The general public's understanding of biology, astrobiology, and human experience naturally steps in and raises alarms that this is clearly fictitious with no scientific or colloquial base. On the other hand, imagine a movie whereby an enormous earthquake triggers parts of California to fall into the ocean, splitting the state and triggering a massive tsunami. The general public's understanding likely leads them to believe this is overly exaggerated but that it could in fact happen in a less dramatic fashion. This is despite clear geologic and scientific evidence and understanding that this would not happen.
If you're still not convinced, I intend to cover a couple of the key reasons why the scientific community has no concerns that California will break away from the US and fall into the ocean.
The Nature Of Southern California's Faults
The San Andreas fault system, and associated fault systems within southern and central California are a result of the Pacific Plate moving northwest along the North American Plate. The majority of Southern California faults are strike-slip, meaning they move roughly parallel to one another in opposite direction with little vertical motion.
Although strike-slip faults have some vertical offset, it is insignificant compared to the horizontal offset. Therefore, the fundamental nature of the San Andreas fault system does not allow for drop and subsequent sloughing off of land on the western side of the fault. The land to the west of the right-lateral fault will progressively move northward along California's coast as it makes its way eventually to Alaska.
The average annual rate the Pacific Plate movies in relation to the North American plate is 46 mm per year to the northwest (similar to the rate your fingernails grow). This is an average plate movement, whereas a large earthquake in the San Andreas Fault could trigger significantly larger localized movement on the order of tens of feet in seconds. The nature of movement of the San Andreas Fault system means Los Angeles will one day be adjacent to San Francisco. However, it does not allow for a massive drop or westward movement required to have California "fall into the ocean."
The Nature Of California's Plate Boundaries
California sits uniquely at the intersection of two major plates, the Pacific Plate and North American Plate. The plate intersection runs up the western coast of North America all the way to Alaska, with the Juan de Fuca plate interjecting its remnants along the Pacific Northwest. The fault movement impacting California and sliding it northward is a direct result of the two massive plates moving in different directions relative to one another.
This movement will continue to drag parts of California with it northward. However, the plate boundary follows the western coast of North America and thus any landmass "stuck" on the western edge of the plate boundary will be dragged north along the west coast of North America.
Eventually the Juan de Fuca plate will continue to disappear underneath the North American plate and the entire stretch of the west coast will be the Pacific Plate abutting against the North American Plate. This allows for the northward movement of western California along the coast until it reaches Alaska. For visualization take a look at the excellent future global plate projections made by Christopher Scotese.
It's not to say the next big earthquake in California won't have devastating effects, but there are physical limitations to what the fault movement will and has the potential to do. Geology is a science of perspective, millions of years and potential energy release the size of an atomic bomb. Despite the exaggerated perspective and scales that geologists work on, it must be tempered by realism in the face of public education and information.Image copyright Getty Images Image caption This man carried a young girl out of the West Point health facility
There are conflicting reports over the fate of 17 suspected Ebola patients who vanished after a quarantine centre in the Liberian capital was looted.
An angry mob attacked the centre in Monrovia's densely populated West Point township on Saturday evening.
A senior health official said all of the patients had been moved to another medical facility.
But a reporter told the BBC that 17 had escaped while
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reality for many students: The average renting undergrad is cost-burdened in 49 states, and Washington D.C.
Housing affordability is an especially acute issue in Washington D.C., with the working undergraduate earning a median of just $9,698 and housing costing an average of 59.3% of that income. Alaska had the highest student median income, with $27,406, and housing costing an average of 29.5%, the lowest income to housing cost ratio of any state. Vermont had the lowest median income for students, at $8,053 per year, and rent was on average 46% of that total.
Students faced with rent costs beyond 100% of their income are capped at 101% in the Census’ data, meaning many of these state averages would potentially be higher yet if there was more precise data for these households.
WORKING STUDENT EXPERIENCE
Although we can’t say who is paying for their own rent, we can still clearly see the realities working students face: 31 hours of work per week plus class time and homework, earning just $14,383 per year and spending nearly 42% of it on rent, while the loans stack up to the tune of $1.3 trillion in unpaid student loans nationwide. That amount is expected to double by 2025, Bloomberg reports.
We asked the students how working impacted their studies, and their reflections on their jobs were largely positive. The largest group, 34.9%, said it made them take college more seriously, 27.6% said it made school more difficult, but their grades were still good. Just 20.5% guessed their grades would have been higher if they hadn’t needed to balance a work schedule with their studies, while 16.3% said it had no substantial effect, and.6% said that it ruined their college experience.
Piling work hours on top of hours spent studying and spent in class is bound to add stress, but as the students themselves report, it’s a motivator to keep on top of schoolwork and to keep an eye on your future.
CONCLUSION
So how possible is it to work your way through college?
Depends on your definition. If our data is any indication, it is very possible to work while in college — in fact, in most of the country, the majority of college students are also workers. But that doesn’t mean that their earnings are in line with their college costs — which, in an era when tuitions regularly exceed $40,000 per year, would be almost impossible.
Instead, today’s working students face the challenges of rising tuitions and rents by focusing on the immediate: food, books, transportation, and bills. If it hasn’t been at least partly subsidized by scholarships or family help, the cost of going to class has been pushed to the future in the form of student loans. Working students can find themselves working to pay for college long after graduation day — a burden that can have an enormous impact on a student’s planned course of study, and which disproportionately affects lower-income students.
For press inquiries, contact Sam Radbil.
Are/were you responsible for paying for your own #college? | https://t.co/IUfGGjKMMt — ABODO Apartments (@ABODOapts) May 31, 2017
METHODOLOGY
We analyzed the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015 American Community Survey public use microdata sample (PUMS), merging the household data set and individual person dataset. Each PUMS record includes a person weight and a household weight assigned by the Census Bureau for calculating estimates. Further information on this weighting can be found in the PUMS documentation.
As the base for our calculations we used the subset of records in which the respondent listed “undergraduate student” as their current grade in school. We defined a “working student” as an undergraduate working at least 27 weeks in the previous 12 months. All percentages in this analysis were calculated as the sum of the weights of respondents with a given characteristic, divided by the sum of the weights of respondents in the base. For example, the percentage of students working equals the sum of weights of working students divided by the sum of weights of all students.
Living Arrangements
We categorized the students’ living arrangements based on their relation to the reference person (householder) in the housing unit. Students who listed “child (biological, step, adoptive, foster, grand, or in-law)” as their relation were considered to be living with parents; those who listed their relation as “self, spouse, roommate, sibling, or other non-relative” were considered independent and were further broken down by tenure to form the renter and owner categories; those living in noninstitutionalized group quarters were considered living in dorms. The “other” category comprises those who listed their relation as “parent,” “parent-in-law,” “other relative,” or “institutionalized group quarters.”
Median Income & Rent
To calculate median income, we created weighted frequency distributions for the inflation-adjusted wage of working students in each state. We then used the design factor method provided in the PUMS documentation to calculate estimates of the medians. “Percentage of income spent on rent” is a statistic listed in each PUMS household record. We calculated the average by state (as a weighted average using household weights) for the population of working-student renters.
ABODO was designed to help students of all backgrounds find apartments that suit their needs. We’ve helped Buckeyes find an apartment near Ohio State and showed Badgers off-campus housing close to UW-Madison. We know where the most affordable rentals near Pitt are, how to find a cheap apartment close to UW-Milwaukee, and if you’re in Minneapolis, we can help you find the perfect apartment in Dinkytown. Wherever you are, we know where to rent.Top 5 Costumes: Doctor Doom
Who is the biggest bad of the Marvel universe? Many people’s response these day might be Thanos considering Marvel’s big cinematic push. Make no mistake though, Doctor Doom is still one of the most devious, ruthless, and powerful villains in the Marvel universe. Don’t let the two bad film iterations convince you otherwise. In the comics, he is not just a Fantastic Four villain as he has been at odds with about every hero possible. If you have been keeping up with Secret Wars you know how far his reach can extend. Again, since the most recent film version of Doom was once again a disappointment, we decided it was time to look back at his comic roots, specifically the costumes he has worn over the years. Of course you can automatically go to his iconic green cloak and armor, which is the basis for most of his various costumes. We pulled our top five picks straight from his Latveria closet and ranked them accordingly. Check below to see if your favorite costumes made our list and as always let us know your favorites in the comments below!
5. Ultimate: His ultimate costume here ditched most of the green, beyond the tattered cloak, making the armor more of a focus. And his giant medal codpiece staring at you in this picture. Doctor Doom’s original costume has a great “man in the iron mask” feel to it, while this just makes him to robotic, taking away the human element which really makes him an interesting character. It still is an interesting take for him and his original look, but it misses the mark more than the rest.
4. 2099: In Doom’s leap to the future apparently green was passé. Instead he switched to the blue cloak which turned out to be a nice pair with his metal armor. Having his shirt and just having the metal stand out actually makes plenty of sense; while we’re not completely positive, we’re pretty sure he is wearing more metal armor underneath in his normal costume anyways. The only negative we actually have for this is the spikes around his neckline which feels like a very 90’s addition. They serve no purpose and look a little out of place and awkward. Maybe he was just a really big fan of Ghost Rider?
3. House of M: Doctor Doom rules his own country. In House of M where he has no scars, this is what Doom could have been in the main Marvel universe, a more straightforward, but sinister monarch just the same. This costume makes him look like Doom, but even more regal than his normal armor can pull off. It makes you imagine he would topple governments with politics and underhanded deals rather than actually being in the middle of the fights himself. This is a version of Doom we would have liked to see more of.
2. Classic: What? His classic costume didn’t make the top of the list? It was pretty close, but in the end settled on it taking the second spot. Beyond this costume being iconic at this point, it really is a great design. Having his face hidden behind a metal mask already makes him feel more devious and scary than someone with just a mask. The rest of his armor reminds us that he is a super villain, while the green cloak and shirt also give him that prestige air of being a monarch. As bad as the movies have done translating Doctor Doom’s costume to the screen, we don’t know if this would exactly translate perfectly. At the same time, for the comics it is perfect which is why it has changed so little over the years.
1. Unthinkable: We already expect many people won’t agree with us on this one. Victor Doom is already one of the most powerful, dangerous villains imaginable in the Marvel universe. What could possibly make him even more terrifying? How about wearing a costume made out of the flesh of the love of his life when he was younger? In Unthinkable he sacrificed her to seal his connection to the dark arts. Aesthically, we might prefer the actual looks of his classic over this. For this costume it does look great, but it definitely is the thought that counts here. This is a look that would have all the children in Latveria shivering under their covers hoping Doom wouldn’t get them. Looking at this, we wouldn’t blame them. It turns him from monarch and super villain to a figure from your nightmares that you won’t soon forget. Just looking at it is a reminder of why Doctor Doom is the greatest villain in the Marvel universe.Similar to Chuck Yeager and Scott Crossfield setting airspeed records in their experimental aircraft. Doorslammer legends Barry Mitchell and Stevie Fast Jackson are doing a little envelope pushing of their own. At Lights Out 8 the Camaro duo set back to back records for the fastest 1/8th mile drag radial tire pass.
Changing the Record Books
The record setting action took place beneath the lights of Southern Georgia Motorsports Park. The record setting began during qualifying, when Barry Mitchell staged his gorgeous supercharged 1969 Camaro Z/28. As soon as the light turned green, like a rocket the black Z/28 raced down the 1/8th mile to a new world record of 3.738 @ 197.25 MPH!
However, this record would only stay in the books for total of 5 minutes. On the next run, the always competitive Stevie “FAST” Jackson staged his sleek 5th Gen Camaro radial monster nicknamed Shadow 2.0. When the Christmas tree flashed green, like a bat outta hell Shadow 2.0 flew down the 1/8th mile to neck breaking record of 3.737 @ 199.82 MPH! Beating Mitchell’s record by just 0.001 seconds!
A Look At the Camaros
Barry Mitchell’s 1969 Chevy Camaro Z/28 was built by Tim McAmis race cars. This bowtie is powered by a Brad Anderson 521 ci Hemi mill topped with a Hammer Supercharger’s roots blower.
The gear banging is done by a three speed Lenco transmission built by Todd Tutterow. The Lenco has a Tutterow designed converter drive unit and a Neal Chance converter with power transmitting through a carbon fiber driveshaft.
The Camaro sits on McAmis custom four link suspension. This suspension provides traction by utilizing Mark Menscer shocks with Mark Williams carbon fiber brakes providing the stopping power.
Sanders wheels sit on the rear wrapped in 315 Pro Mickey Thompson radials, while Weld wheels sit up front wrapped in Mickey Thompson front runners.
1320 video said that this Camaro is almost two beautiful to race and we have to agree! This car could easily win best in show at Goodguys! Its looks stem from a head turning gloss black paint job by Jeff Hoskins.
Stevie Fast Jackson’s Shadow 2.0 is a 5th Gen Camaro Pro Mod built by the legendary RJ Race cars. Jackson’s the set up is still classified information at this time. When asked by 1320 video he told them it has a roots blower and gave no further details.
He went on to say it’s blown Brad Anderson Hemi with “…new updated chassis stuff, a couple of new tricks, bells and whistles…”
Well it’s safe to say those new tricks, bells and whistles work, because Jackson is the fastest man on radials. Lights Out 8 continues to night on Motormania TV.Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau waves while accompanied by his wife, Sophie Gregoire, as he gives his victory speech Monday after Canada's federal election in Montreal. (Chris Wattie/Reuters)
Lawrence H. Summers, the Charles W. Eliot university professor at Harvard, is a former treasury secretary and director of the National Economic Council in the White House. He is writing occasional posts, to be featured on Wonkblog, about issues of national and international economics and policymaking.
The Canadian Liberal Party won an overwhelming victory in Monday's election. Voters decisively rejected the ruling Conservative Party and placed the Liberal Party far ahead of the left wing New Democratic Party. This is obviously important for Canada. But there are also two lessons here for American political observers.
First, polls often get it wrong. As in Britain, and now the Canadian election, results were much more decisive than had been expected. A Liberal majority looked extremely unlikely two months ago. Even three days ago, I suspect Liberals would have been thrilled if they could have counted on a clear plurality of the vote. An era when less than 10 percent of voters respond to pollsters, and where mass opinion changes rapidly, will be one where Election Day is again a day of drama.
Second, in an era of extraordinarily low interest rates and slow growth, it is becoming increasingly clear that progressives do best when they reject austerity and embrace public investment. The British Labour Party and the Canadian NDP sought to demonstrate their soundness by embracing budget balancing as an objective. Their results were terrible.
The Canadian Liberals on the other hand were rewarded for a very different choice. As incoming prime minister Justin Trudeau told the Financial Times, “People keep telling me we have made a risky choice in this time when there is this political mantra of balanced budgets as a way to demonstrate responsible leadership. I am on the side of economists who say: Why put off investing when we have an opportunity now?”
Indeed, many Canadian political commentators noted the strategic importance of the Liberals’ infrastructure pledge. Martin Patriquin in Maclean’s called the infrastructure plan “the all-important wedge to isolate the NDP." Michelle Gagnon in CBC news identified the announcement of deficit-funded infrastructure spending as “the first turning point." And, as noted on Bloomberg, “Trudeau entered the campaign in third place and his numbers began to increase after he broke from his rivals to favor three years of deficit spending, in part to fund an infrastructure blitz aimed at stoking Canada’s sluggish economy."
More infrastructure investment is not just good economics. It is good politics. Let us hope that American presidential candidates get the word!A trip to Kolkata was next up for the league leaders as they took on title rivals East Bengal. Ashley Westwood’s men came away from the Barasat Stadium with 3 precious points as they tasted their first victory against East Bengal on Bengal soil. Arnab Ray has a look at what we learned from the game that finished East Bengal 0-1 Bengaluru FC.
The Blues hoped that the journey from West to East would see a reversal of fortunes after they slipped to their first defeat of the season against Mumbai FC last time around. A quick turnover between games meant that last year’s runners-up had little time to lick their wounds. The game was a chance to turn things around immediately and that’s just what the away side did courtesy a Sunil Chhetri second half goal.
Ashley Westwood displays his tactical acumen
Predicting the Bengaluru FC line-up before the game is never easy with Westwood’s attention to detail leading to a number of tweaks designed to overcome the opposition in front of them. The Englishman often alludes to carrying out video analysis of the opposition before the game and this results in a specific game plan to overcome the opposition more often than not.
As expected after the game against Mumbai FC, Westwood rang in the changes both in terms of personnel and systems. The injured Eugeneson Lyngdoh was replaced by the energetic Thoi Singh while young defensive midfielder Malsawmzuala was brought in for the more attack minded Alwyn George. Upfront another of the Blues’ young new signings, Seiminlen Doungel was trusted from the start replacing the hard working CK Vineeth.
On paper it looked like the return of the customary 4-3-3, but as the game panned out it turned out to be a bit more complex. In the defensive phase of play, Bengaluru ensured that the midfield was well placed in front of the back 4 to provide protection, an area exposed by Mumbai in the last game. Zuala was the dedicated defensive midfielder and carried on from where he left off previously. The youngster has looked very competent at breaking up play and in possession and put forth another encouraging display. Shankar Sampingiraj and Thoi were the 2 other central midfielders with the latter having an important role in the set-up. Thoi’s energy was leveraged by Westwood as the Manipuri midfielder had dual roles. He was expected to not only provide cover to Rino Anto down the right flank but also make up the number in the central areas to ensure that Bengaluru had the numerical advantage against East Bengal’s 4-4-2 when they attacked centrally. Thoi may not have gained that many plaudits but his energy was vital for the away side.
With Thoi Singh marshaling the right hand side of the midfield, Len Doungel found himself playing more centrally. Both John Johnson and Curtis Osano were not shy of trying to find Kim Song Yong with the long ball, Len was on hand to provide much needed support to the North Korean striker. Playing off the big man, the 22-year-old was a constant menace for the East Bengal defence as he justified his selection and put a real shift in before he was replaced by Vineeth in the second half. Both Kim and Len were also instructed to run into the channels behind the opposition full backs when the space opened up. With Sunil Chhetri occupying a higher position on the left as opposed to Thoi Singh on the right, Len and Kim were both drawn to the right wing as they helped stretch the East Bengal defence.
Bengaluru’s organized pressing scheme stunts East Bengal’s attack
There have been plenty of mentions of energy in this article already and it should come of little surprise. The Blues pride themselves on their fitness and a professional approach involving sports science often bears fruit on the pitch. When East Bengal were in possession in their defensive third, Bengaluru were quick to step up and close down the ball. Only Zuala kept his position as the deepest lying midfielder with the 2 strikers Kim and Len, along with 3 midfielders Shankar, Thoi, and Chhetri all pressing the ball in the first phase of the build-up play.
If executed correctly, a high intensity coordinated pressing scheme is difficult to deal with. The opposition has to either play through it with quick precise passing or dribbling ability or just bypass it completely by playing long balls. The duo of Arnab Mondal and Bello Rasaq are a formidable pairing at the back but not likely to go on adrenaline induced, defence tearing solo runs. The same can be said of Mehtab Hossain who once again is a competent rather than imaginative distributor of the ball. With no other options, the home side looked to find Ranti Martins and Joaquim Abranches with long balls. This played right into the away side’s hands as John Johnson and Curtis Osano easily dealt with the aerial threat. The selection of Zuala once again paid dividend as he was on hand to pick up the second ball. Overall the pressing scheme did a great job of stunting the East Bengal attack and only after the goal did the Blues sit back and defend the lead.
Rino Anto and Chhuantea too saw their roles changed slightly on the day. Usually more than happy to bomb forward and join in with the attack, the full-backs were a bit more restrained and served as another layer of protection in case the press was bypassed. They were selective in their forays forward but eventually did have their say in the game. Rino Anto’s curling left foot cross found Sunil Chhetri in what turned out to be the telling blow.
Amrinder Singh stakes his claim to be number 1
Westwood was true to his word as he replaced Mawia Ralte with Amrinder Singh in goal after the former’s mid-week blunder. The 23-year-old looked very comfortable in between the sticks as he hardly put a foot wrong during the course of the game. He commanded his penalty area well and was assertive in dealing with any crosses that were swung in. His most noteworthy contribution was a splendid save as he thwarted Do Dong-Hyun’s curling free kick which seemed destined for the back of the net. He not only did well to palm the effort away from the danger area but also reacted sharply to keep out the rebound. Stabaek’s Gurpreet Singh Sandhu has made the Indian goalkeeper’s position his own and with Amrinder and an experienced Subrata Pal waiting in the wings, Stephen Constantine has a welcome problem of plenty with respect to the national team.
Amrinder Singh may have walked away with the Hero of the Match award but it could have quite easily have gone to another member of the Bengaluru defence, Chhuantea. East Bengal splashed the money on Korean winger, Do Dong-Hyun and much is expected from him. Playing on the right wing, Do failed to make much of a contribution largely duo to Chhuantea’s defensive ability. The left-back was positionally excellent throughout the game and also used his recovery pace well when it was needed. He didn’t venture forward as often as he does at the Kanteerava as mentioned above. A team effort with encouraging individual displays from the likes of Chhuantea and Amrinder saw the Blues take home 3 points from this top of the table encounter.
IMAGE CREDIT: I-LEAGUE MEDIA
Written by Arnab RayThe United States and Britain each have suffered from the blunder of invading Iraq in 2003—and have made many others suffer as well, not least of all the Iraqis. But the release in Britain of the mammoth Chilcot report is a reminder of how differently the two allies have treated their coming to terms with the blunder. That difference had been apparent even before this week. An earlier British inquiry, the Butler report, had explicitly pointed out, for example, the improper mingling of intelligence analysis and policy—which, although such mingling occurred on this side of the Atlantic as well, has never been directly and officially acknowledged in the same way in the United States. Now the Chilcot report, in its extremely thorough examination of all aspects of the decision to go to war and of what followed, has made the trans-Atlantic difference in retrospection even greater.
Oh, sure, there have been some official after-the-fact inquiries in the United States related to the Iraq War. They have served a cathartic function and also have served to divert attention and blame away from those—Democrats as well as Republicans—who supported the invasion at the time. The Senate intelligence committee and a White House-appointed commission both examined in minute detail intelligence work about weapons of mass destruction. But the so-called WMD issue was not the driver of the war. As super-war-hawk Paul Wolfowitz later admitted in an unguarded comment, it was just an issue that people could agree on as a rationale for launching the war. And even a firm conclusion that weapons programs exist in the hands of a nasty regime does not constitute a case for launching a major offensive war. (Anyone up for war in North Korea?)
It was the highly costly, destructive, destabilizing aftermath of overthrowing Saddam Hussein that made launching the war a blunder. The war would have been highly costly, destructive, and destabilizing even if every word that the Bush administration said about WMD had been true. And conversely, if the war had ushered in the sort of blossoming of democracy and stability in Iraq that its most fervent promoters envisioned, the war would not be widely considered today a blunder and we would not be seeing 2.6 million-word reports of commissions of inquiry, WMD or no WMD.
Among the Chilcot report's very pertinent lines of inquiry that have had no counterpart in any American inquiry has been how peaceful channels for resolving differences with the Iraqi regime were never adequately explored. Actually, applying the same inquiry in the United States would require blunter language than that used by Chilcot. The chief promoters of the war in the Bush administration did not want to resolve peacefully issues of WMD or any other issues. One of their fears in the months leading up to the invasion was that the Iraqi regime would say yes to all international demands and the case for war would be deflated.
As for the destructive aftermath of Saddam's ouster, the Chilcot panel said, “We do not agree”—with Tony Blair, that is—“that hindsight is required. The risks of internal strife in Iraq, active Iranian pursuit of its interests, regional instability and Al Qaeda activity in Iraq were each explicitly identified before the invasion.” In the United States, the intelligence community had produced major assessments before the war anticipating much of the post-invasion mess, but the policy-makers ignored those assessments. Redacted versions of those assessments can be read today in a tardily released “report” of the Senate intelligence committee, which was supposed to look into war-related issues other than the much-beaten WMD intelligence issue but got so tied up in partisan knots that what it finally released could hardly be called a report at all. (I have told this sorry story in detail elsewhere.)
As for the decision-making process leading to launching the war, the Chilcot report goes into much detail, down to what word-smithing the prime minister's senior aides recommended for messages going to the U.S. government. Here in the United States there can be exhaustive inquiries into decision-making processes when there is a political appetite for it. Right now, for example, Republicans in Congress are trying to do that regarding a decision by the FBI director involving some matter involving emails. But there has been no inquiry at all into what was one of the most extraordinary aspects of the decision to launch a major offensive war in Iraq: that there was no policy process at all leading to that decision. All the meetings and memos and discussions in the Bush administration about Iraq were about selling or implementing the decision to go to war, not about making that decision in the first place.
What accounts for this big difference in how the two countries have handled this tragic episode in their history? One reason probably is that the political forces in the United States that promoted the war have remained, despite their ghastly blunder, powerful. Neoconservatives continued to dominate foreign policy thinking in the Republican Party (although more recently Donald Trump—who claims, without a record to back him up, to have opposed the war—has shaken things up). In Britain, by contrast, Blair is almost alone in defending his decision to go to war, lamely echoing Wolfowitz's lines about how the world is better off without Saddam Hussein.
A related reason is that partisanship in the United States has become more poisonous and ruthless than it is in the United Kingdom. It seems that everything is fair game to try to knock down opponents, no matter how much the knocking down distorts history and thus pollutes or negates any effort to come to terms with that history. Republican efforts to propagate the myth that Barack Obama, by implementing a troop withdrawal agreement negotiated by the Bush administration, somehow snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory in Iraq—notwithstanding the still-ongoing civil war there, and the patent failure of earlier military efforts to achieve their objective of political reconciliation among Iraqis—have fed the notion that maybe the decision to go to war wasn't really a mistake and it was just later implementation that was mishandled.
The release of the Chilcot report ought to be the occasion for Americans to reflect on another asymmetry between the United States and Britain regarding the Iraq War: that it was the U.S. administration, not any British government, that initiated this whole horrible idea. The United Kingdom got involved because Blair was Bush's poodle, who was so concerned about keeping U.S.-U.K. relations harmonious that he wrote to George W. Bush, “I will be with you, whatever.” Americans ought to think about the responsibilities of global leadership, and about how easy it is to abuse a position of power in which even a significant and proud country like the United Kingdom will fall in line that way. Dragging Britain into the Iraq mess was such an abuse of power. It was a betrayal of one of America's most important and staunchest allies. It gives many, including not just in Britain but elsewhere, reason to be less inclined to follow the U.S. lead in the future.
Dragging Britain into the Iraq mess probably has had other deleterious effects in Britain as well. Blair's role in the Iraq War has come to be perceived as one of the biggest aspects of his legacy, and that has helped to reduce support for Blairite New Labourism. This helped to make the feckless left-winger Jeremy Corbyn leader of the Labour Party. And that in turn was an ingredient in the outcome of last month's Brexit vote.
Image: "DAVOS-KLOSTERS/SWITZERLAND, 29JAN09 - Tony Blair, UN Middle East Quartet Representative; Member of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum captured during the session 'The Values behind Market Capitalism' at the Annual Meeting 2009 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 29, 2009.
Copyright by World Economic Forum
swiss-image.ch/Photo by Remy Steinegger." CC BY-SA 2.0.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- There are times when these three words must be said: I was wrong.
I was wrong about Johnny Manziel.
Not about Manziel and the draft. I was against taking the rookie quarterback before the draft. I expressed doubts about him immediately after in a column ("Still not convinced Manziel is the right move") that made me very few friends from the millions who are enamored with the mystique of Johnny Football.
But I was wrong calling for Manziel to start after the Browns lost in Buffalo.
That was the game where Mike Pettine pulled Brian Hoyer in the fourth quarter, replacing him at quarterback with Manziel. Then the coach made what I considered a rookie mistake. He refused to clarify the quarterback question for three days.
Now, I can understand why Pettine turned back to Hoyer. Manziel is miles away from being ready to be a starting quarterback. But the reversal after the brief Manziel fling put Hoyer in terrible position. He knew the coach was ready to pull him out again, and that the plan seemed to be to turn to Manziel ASAP.
Hoyer had a lousy game against Indianapolis, a 25-24 loss in which he threw two interceptions. Once again, I wrote that it was time to start Manziel. Hoyer had thrown eight interceptions compared to one touchdown pass in four games. His confidence was shaken. The team was losing.
Let Manziel play the last three games and see what happens, I reasoned.
WHAT WE DON'T KNOW
Also, the coaches were telling us that Manziel was working hard in practice and in terms of preparation.
Once the regular season opens, the media is not allowed to watch anything meaningful in practice. Nor do we have an idea who is attentive in team meetings and video sessions.
Yes, you all hear things about players. But the truth is, the media doesn't really know what happens in practice and preparation. That's a fact, regardless of how some people in my profession profess to have more inside knowledge than even cyberspace can hold.
Another factor is that Pettine has been willing to mention certain players did not practice well, especially rookies. Terrance West has lost playing time at least twice this season because of poor practice habits. After the loss in Carolina, Pettine said top pick Justin Gilbert didn't have a good week of practice, so fellow rookie Pierre Desir started instead.
Given Manziel's reputation for the night life and his sense of entitlement, it was a safe guess that he wasn't putting in near the time of the studious Hoyer.
But we didn't know that for certain. I also believe it's unfair to judge a young player simply on reputation when I couldn't find any tangible evidence during the season about his worth ethic.
My assumption was that Manziel had to be doing enough off the field or Pettine never would have brought him into the Buffalo game. Nor would Pettine have spent so much time agonizing over a starter after the loss in Buffalo.
When the Browns drafted Manziel, they talked about the "It" factor, an intangible that helps certain quarterbacks make huge plays. My guess is part of the push to play Manziel was his reputation as a guy who produces on game day, even if practice is so-so. It's the swagger, the confidence, the knack of making big plays.
It's why Manziel was drafted.
But so far, Manziel doesn't have "It," and there are few clues that he soon will.
WHAT WE DO KNOW
Football coaches often say, "The film don't lie." From a grammar standpoint, that sentence has some holes. But the video fills in the gaps.
So did watching Manziel play all of the 30-0 loss to Cincinnati. He injured his hamstring late in the second quarter of what became Sunday's 17-13 loss in Carolina.
We don't need a video to tell us the obvious -- Manziel is a mess as a quarterback.
Suppose his name on the back of his jersey was Jones -- and he was an undrafted free agent. His performance of three points and five (non-penalty) first downs in six quarters would be lucky to land him a spot on the practice squad.
That was especially evident when he was replaced by Hoyer in the second half, and he at least led the Browns to 10 points. That really told me how I had gone so wrong about Manziel, assuming the offense could not sink much lower than it did in the previous four Hoyer games.
Manziel had 12 offensive possessions. Nine were three plays and a punt.
That's right, 9 of 12 possessions were 3-and-OUTS!!!
Manziel could not use his legs to evade defenders. He was late on most passes. The 6-footer seemed to have trouble seeing over the linemen, and often quickly bolted from the pocket.
No matter what Manziel says, he looks over-matched and under-prepared.
WHAT WE SHOULD THINK
For those of us who were initially against the drafting of Manziel, it's tempting to dismiss him as a first-round blunder.
There will long be a debate about exactly how much influence Jimmy Haslam had in his selection. The Browns owner is from Tennessee and is an SEC fan, the conference where Manziel set records at Texas A&M.
Regardless of all the draft stories, the Browns have him. Yes, six quarters isn't much to draw any grand conclusions -- but Manziel offered virtually nothing to indicate he is ready for the NFL.
So yes, I was wrong about playing him in the last few games. But something good did come out of it, even if it's very bad news.
When it comes to considering the quarterback situation for 2015, the Browns can't possibly think that Manziel is ready to open the season as a starter.UPDATE: The White House joined the growing chorus of condemnation surrounding televangelist Pat Robertson’s comment that the earthquake in Haiti was the result of a “pact with the devil” the nation’s founders made when fighting against French colonial rule in the 18th century.
“It never ceases to amaze, that in times of amazing human suffering, somebody says something that could be so utterly stupid,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said. “But it, like clockwork, happens with some regularity.”
The following video was uploaded to the Web by MediaMatters, Jan, 14, 2009.
Original story follows below
Haitian ambassador shames Pat Robertson
Pat Robertson suggested Wednesday that Haiti deserved the recent devastating earthquake because they had made a “deal with the devil.” Rachel Maddow covered Robertson’s comments Wednesday night while lamenting his First Amendment rights. By coincidence or design, Raymond Joseph, the Haitian ambassador to the United States, joined Maddow following the Robertson segment and directly addressed the pastor’s remarks.
Speaking on his Christian Broadcasting Network show, “The 700 Club,” Robertson implied that the quake, and the general suffering of the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country, was the result of a “pact with the devil” that Haitian rebels made in the 18th century.
Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon the third, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it’s a deal. And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other. Desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It is cut down the middle on the one side is Haiti the other is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we meed to pray for them a great turning to god and out of this tragedy I’m optimistic something good may come.
As soon as the Haitian ambassador to the United States was introduced by Maddow, he volunteered a response to Robertson. “I think I would like to address one thing I heard tonight about how the pact with the devil made it possible for Haiti to suffer the way it is,” said Jospeh.
“I would like the whole world to know — America especially — that the independence of Haiti, when the slave rose up against the French and defeated the French army — powerful army — the U.S. was able to gain the Louisiana
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and Cumberbatch does eventually admit that he “went to the set” adding, “It was incredible”. But that looks to be all he’ll say on the subject, with the actor adding: “I probably shouldn’t be saying these things”.
Cumberbatch joins the sofa tonight to discuss the upcoming release of The Imitation Game in which he plays mathematician Alan Turing, credited with cracking the German Enigma Code during World War 2.
On being able to remember how the code was broken, the actor admits, “Not an awful lot stuck. I’m not of that ilk. It was so complicated but I did spend a lot of time trying to figure it out.”
Plus, there’s another Benedict Cumberbatch on the show tonight as the actor appears with his brand new waxwork after Madame Tussauds revealed their latest installation earlier this week.
“Peculiar, but a big honour,” Cumberbatch says of the waxwork, adding: “It’s really weird”.
But it’s a very good likeness (we’ve seen for ourselves) with comedy star Miranda Hart joking, “I said hi to it backstage and my makeup artist said, ‘Why is he just staring?’”
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See The Graham Norton Show tonight at 10:35pm on BBC1To many, marijuana remains the “devil’s lettuce” or a predecessor to the oft joked-about munchies. To countless others, though, it and its non-high-inducing chemical compounds like cannabidiol (CBD) can lead to lucrative business or economic opportunities — and be used for numerous health benefits like relieving pain and reducing anxiety and seizures.
“If you look at the tremendous number of receptor sites for cannabinoids in the human body, it’s only natural to think cannabinoids can be used medicinally,” Dr. Stuart Titus, president and CEO of Medical Marijuana Inc., told Metro. “We think that the next 20, possibly as many 100 to 200 years, in the future, you’ll see a number of pharmaceutical companies moving into the cannabinoid space.”
It not as far-fetched as it may sound. “Going back to late 1800s and early 1900s, just about every pharmaceutical company had some form of cannabis-based medicine,” added Titus, who was initially one of the first investors in Medical Marijuana Inc., which developed the first legal supply of CBD on U.S. and world markets.
Medical marijuana and many other industry topics are on the docket for the 4th annual Cannabis World Congress & Business Exposition, which takes place at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York today and Friday.
The Cannabis World Congress comes just days after a letter from Attorney General Jeff Sessions asking Congress to repeal federal medical marijuana protections was leaked earlier this week.
Sessions cited the “historic drug epidemic” of opiate abuse, not pot, but his letter put many who rely on or work in the field of medical marijuana on edge nonetheless.
“Parents who have seen tremendous reductions in seizure disorders and improvement in quality of life for them and their children, to take this away from people, my gosh, I think it would be a terrible injustice,” Titus said.
But with Americans able to get “one form of legal cannabis or another in 47 of 50 U.S. states, it’s only a matter of time before we come to grips with this and tax and regulate cannabis just like we would alcohol,” he added.
On CWCBE’s agenda are sessions on where and how to invest or open a business in the industry, the latest in medical research, diversity, hemp processing, dispensary running and more. New York state Sen. Diane Savino and Rev. Al Sharpton are among the keynote speakers.
For more info on Cannabis World Congress & Business Expo, visit cwcbexpo.com.For Iranian athletes, London is a city that evokes nostalgia. In 1948, when it hosted the Summer Olympics, Iranian athletes came to this city for their first official participation ever at the Olympic games and they returned home with the country's first medal - weightlifter Jafar Salmasi won a weightlifting bronze in the featherweight division.
Sixty-four years on, they have returned to London with hope of adding more to the stack of 48 medals already at home, with good chances of winning in wrestling, weightlifting, and taekwondo.
So far, most of the news surrounding the Iran team is about whether they would compete against the athletes from Israel, Tehran's sworn enemy. With no surprise, it turned out that they won't.
Last week, the head of of the Iranian Olympic committee, Bahram Afsharzadeh, was quoted by news agencies as saying that his country would "follow the sportsmanship and play every country", prompting speculation that Iran would abandon it's long-standing policy and face Israeli athletes for the first time.
Those suggestions were immediately rejected by officials in Tehran and Iran's sports minister, Mohammad Abbasi, stepped in to clarify by saying that "not competing with the Zionist athletes is one of the values and prides of the Iranian athletes and nation". Iran's semi-official Fars news agency said that Afsharzadeh was misquoted.
For Iranian athletes, that's a principle they must follow. Iranian judo champion, Javad Mahjoub, was said by the Iranian authorities to be too sick to attend the games, reportedly suffering from a "critical digestive system infection" but many speculated that his illness could have been an excuse to withdraw him from competing against an Israeli.
"As no Iranian has ever competed with an Israeli, it shows a pressure from above," Ehsan, a Tehran citizen, told the BBC. "Maybe it is the fear that if an athlete takes part in those Games they might be removed from the national team. So they do not compete, even if their competitor is not very strong."
Other Iranian athletes have also been stopped from reaching London 2012. In June, the Iranian women's national football team had to withdraw from a qualifying match for the Olympic games because of their hijab. Fifa rules doomed their dress code, which covered their neck and ears, as unacceptable.
Despite the difficulties, many athletes are competing. The 23-year-old Behdad Salimi, an Iranian weightlifter in the +105 kg category who has won a number of gold medals including at the 2011 World Weightlifting Championships in Paris, is one who many Iranians are watching closely. He's described as the "embodiment – the massive embodiment – of Persian pride".
"Nothing will satisfy me in the Olympics except a gold medal," he told the Christian Science Monitor. "I am going to London to take it and bring it back home. I did not wish just to be an Olympian; my serious desire has been no less than a gold medal."
Hijab complications, however, have not stopped many other Iranian women from competing at the Games. For 25-year-old Neda Shahsavari, it's a defining moment, due to become the first Iranian women to compete in table tennis at the Olympics.
"Expectations are high. It is very difficult, but I will do my best," she told the AFP. For Shahsavari, hijab is apparently no obstacle. "I've been competing dressed like this for more than a decade here at home and in international games. I am accustomed to it."This week I worked on a new snapshot build that I was able to release on Monday!
Version 0.6.5_1 contains these changes:
-Fixed ghost players on siege mode
-Implemented max player limit for servers. Default is 16. Controlled by adding the line MaxPlayers=16 to the ServerConfig.ini under the ServerSettings header. AI do not count against this limit.
-Max team count for Arena servers. Controlled by adding “MaxTeams=2” to ServerConfig.ini under ArenaMode header. Default is 32.
-Fixed lots of collision issues with rocks on Giant Leap
– Joining a Siege game in-progress will drop you directly to spectator mode until the end of the round. If you are rejoining and your MAV was still intact, you will retake control of your MAV.
-Fixed unlock conditions for Armored-Stabilized-RJ-Boosted and Armored-Stabilized-Stomper-Boosted
You can join in on the discussion of the snapshot here: http://bombdogstudios.com/forums/topic/0-6-5_1/
I am continuing to make some small fixes and will likely have 1 more snapshot update before pushing this out as a stable build.
In the mean time, I have moved 4 of the servers to the snapshot builds and left 4 of the official servers on the stable build.
That’s all for this week! See you next week!Schulz delivered a passionate plea for a more united and federal Europe at an SPD party congress that was due to decide whether his centre-left party will enter exploratory talks to form a new coalition government with Merkel.
"I want a European constitutional treaty that creates a federal Europe", said Schulz, the former European parliament president, proposing a written convention involving civil society and citizens.
The treaty would then be presented to all member states for ratification, with those that reject it automatically leaving the bloc, Schulz proposed in a speech at a Berlin meeting of some 600 delegates.
He suggested a target year of 2025, one century after the SPD first spoke of a future "United States of Europe".
Schulz said only a more united EU could meet challenges such as combating climate change or managing mass migration, forcing internet giants such as Google and Facebook to respect civil rights or stopping large companies from dodging taxes.
"Europe is our life insurance," said Schulz. "It is the only chance we have to keep up with the other great regions of the world."
He also argued that only a strengthened EU would stop the advance of right-wing nationalists, citing gains they had made in Germany as well as Austria, Denmark, Finland, France and the Netherlands.
"If we don't change course, if we don't strengthen Europe in very practical and concrete ways, then these forces will win," he warned.
He reiterated that the eurozone should have more investment and a common finance minister and budget.
Schulz said that if the SPD ends up again governing with Merkel, Berlin's stance on Europe would have to shift away from the austerity approach of Merkel and her former finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble.
"God knows that the European Union can't afford another four years of German policies on Europe in the style of Wolfgang Schäuble," he said to applause.A number of our customers have contacted us over the past 24 hours about network activities some users have noticed on the Telstra Mobile Network, and the topic has generated a lot of discussion inside Telstra too. I wanted to address the concerns.
Firstly, it’s crucial for me to point out that our customers’ trust is the most important thing to us, so upon hearing concerns about the development of our new cyber-safety product we have stopped all collection of website addresses for its development.
We’ve made this decision as part of our acknowledgement that more consultation was needed before launching this service.
The new cyber-safety tool was designed to allow adults to choose the website categories kids in their care can access on a mobile phone. The website addresses were being collected to allow parents to specify the website categories kids can access on their mobile phone.
In order for this product to work accurately we needed to classify internet sites, based on the content they hold.
I want to reassure all our customers that at no point in the development of this product was personal information collected or stored and we’ll be reviewing what we learned from this project.
We understand our customers’ concerns about protecting their privacy online and are serious about keeping trust on this front by being transparent about the way we deal with customer data.
We’re already talking with key industry bodies to determine how best to proceed in the future. Cyber-safety is an important issue to address but we’re also very conscious of individual rights.
Please feel free to post your questions or concerns below as we’re happy to respond individually to any customers with concerns.Samuel L. Jackson
All work and no play doesn't fly with Samuel L. Jackson.
The actor has a clause written into his contracts stipulating that he gets leisure time on movie sets to play golf, he tells CNN.
Fall TV Preview: Where we left off with returning shows
"Generally, they either move me onto a golf course so I can play or join a club so I can play, and they have to let me play at least twice a week," Jackson told CNN.
Explaining his affinity for the game, Jackson added: "I like golf because it's a perfect game for an only child like me.... In this game, you get responsibility for everything you do bad, and you get all the credit for everything you do well."
Watch Jackson's full interview below. What do you think of his contract clause?The mystery of the expansion of sea ice around Antarctica, at the same time as global warming is melting swaths of Arctic sea ice, has been solved using data from US military satellites.
Two decades of measurements show that changing wind patterns around Antarctica have caused a small increase in sea ice, the result of cold winds off the continent blowing ice away from the coastline.
"Until now these changes in ice drift were only speculated upon using computer models," said Paul Holland at the British Antarctic Survey. "Our study of direct satellite observations shows the complexity of climate change.
"The Arctic is losing sea ice five times faster than the Antarctic is gaining it, so, on average, the Earth is losing sea ice very quickly. There is no inconsistency between our results and global warming."
The extent of sea ice is of global importance because the bright ice reflects sunlight far more than the ocean that melting uncovers, meaning temperature rises still further.
This summer saw a record low in Arctic sea ice since satellite measurements began 30 years ago. Holland said the changing pattern of sea ice at both poles would also affect global ocean circulation, with unknown effects. He noted that while Antarctic sea ice was growing, the Antarctic ice cap – the glacier and snow pack on the continent – was losing mass, with the fresh water flowing into the ocean.
The research on Antarctic sea ice, published in Nature Geoscience, revealed large regional variations. In places where warm winds blowing from the tropics towards Antarctica had become stronger, sea ice was being lost rapidly. "In some areas, such as the Bellingshausen Sea, the sea ice is being lost as fast as in the Arctic," said Holland.
But in other areas, sea ice was being added as sea water left behind ice being blown away from the coast froze. The net effect is that there has been an extra 17,000 sq km of sea ice each year since 1978 – about a tenth of a percent of the maximum sea ice cover.
Antarctica is a continent surrounded by an ocean, whereas the Arctic is an ocean surrounded by a continent. For that reason, said Holland, sea ice was not able to expand by the same mechanism in the Arctic as at the southern pole, because if winds pushed the ice away from the pole it quickly hit land.
Holland did the research with Ron Kwok at Nasa's jet propulsion laboratory in California, where maps of sea ice movements were created from more than 5m individual daily measurements collected over 19 years. The maps showed, for the first time, the long-term changes in sea ice drift around Antarctica.
Kwok said: "The Antarctic sea ice cover interacts with the global climate system very differently than that of the Arctic, and these results highlight the sensitivity of the Antarctic ice coverage to changes in the strength of the winds around the continent."After adding the likes of both David West and LaMarcus Aldridge this offseason, the San Antonio Spurs were bound to go through some growing pains offensively. Both power forwards were seen as valuable additions to the Spurs, although it would certainly take some time to mold these notable mid-range shooters into San Antonio’s offensive system. With the Spurs’ first eight NBA games in the books, it is clear that San Antonio is taking more mid-range jumpers than last year, a trend that could be a cause for concern as the season progresses.
Last year, San Antonio was once again near the top of the league in offense. The Spurs finished with an offensive rating of 106.2, good for sixth-best in the league. However, that number has taken a slight hit this year, currently standing at 104.7 points per 100 possessions. Of course, this is a small sample size, but the reason for this slight decline may already be clear.
So far, the Spurs have attempted 27.8 mid-range jumpers per game according to NBA.com/Stats, less than only three other teams in the league. This number has increased by 7.2 mid-range jumpers compared to last year, signaling the clear shift in San Antonio’s personnel.
Due to this shift, the Spurs are attempting less 3-pointers. According to NBA.com/Stats, 26.8 percent of the team’s field goals came from behind the arc last year. This year, that number has fallen to 22.2 percent.
This is significant because the 3-pointer is seen as the most efficient shot on the basketball court, and the Spurs have epitomized this philosophy over the past few years.
Of course, this change had been assumed after knowingly taking on two dominant mid-range players. But one anomaly is that Aldridge, who attempted a career high 1.5 3-point attempts per 36 minutes at 35.2 percent last season, is only shooting about.7 in 3-point attempts per 36 minutes this year. He has yet to make a shot from deep. Many around the league thought that Aldridge’s long-range breakout would only continue in San Antonio, where 3-point shooting success is common.
As the season progresses, this will be an interesting development to watch. San Antonio is still second in the league in true shooting percentage, although that mark may not be sustainable over a full season. Even as the Spurs’ offense continues to take form, one philosophy has not changed: San Antonio moves the ball better than most of their counterparts, evidenced by the a top-3 assist ratio.
Nicholas Sciria is a writer for RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @Nick_Sciria, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.When even the most committed Republicans came around to support Donald Trump in 2016, they made a kind of bet. It wouldn’t matter much that Trump had no apparent fealty to conservative ideology or that he was a complete ignoramus about policy, because he’d be leaving all that boring stuff to them. The Republican Congress would pass its agenda, he’d sign whatever they put in front of him, and they’d all live happily ever after.
But now it’s not looking so simple. In fact, Trump just dealt a huge blow to their top priority: repealing the Affordable Care Act. Accomplishing repeal without causing the GOP a political calamity is an extremely delicate enterprise, and the last thing they want is to have him popping off at the mouth and promising things they can’t deliver. Which is what he just did:
[Republicans say they’ll protect you if you have a preexisting condition. Don’t believe them.]
President-elect Donald Trump said in a weekend interview that he is nearing completion of a plan to replace President Obama’s signature health-care law with the goal of “insurance for everybody,” while also vowing to force drug companies to negotiate directly with the government on prices in Medicare and Medicaid … Trump said his plan for replacing most aspects of Obama’s health-care law is all but finished. Although he was coy about its details — “lower numbers, much lower deductibles” — he said he is ready to unveil it alongside Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). … As he has developed a replacement package, Trump said he has paid attention to critics who say that repealing Obamacare would put coverage at risk for more than 20 million Americans covered under the law’s insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansion. “We’re going to have insurance for everybody,” Trump said. “There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can’t pay for it, you don’t get it. That’s not going to happen with us.” People covered under the law “can expect to have great health care. It will be in a much simplified form. Much less expensive and much better.” … “It’s not going to be their plan,” he said of people covered under the current law. “It’ll be another plan. But they’ll be beautifully covered. I don’t want single-payer. What I do want is to be able to take care of people,” he said Saturday.
A week before President-elect Trump's inauguration, lawmakers passed a preliminary budget measure that starts the process of repealing the Affordable Care Act. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)
We should begin with the assumption that nothing Trump says can be taken at face value; the “plan” that he claims is being devised could be no more real than the secret plan to defeat the Islamic State he used to claim that he had formulated. But that’s not the point. What matters is this: Donald Trump just emphatically promised universal health coverage. That’s an absolutely gigantic promise, and it’s one that Republicans have no intention of keeping.
But now they’re stuck with it. Democrats will be saying, “President Trump promised that everyone would be covered!” every day for as long as this debate goes on. Every time a congressional Republican is interviewed on this topic, they’ll be asked, “President Trump said that everyone would be covered. Does your plan do that?,” and they’ll have to bob and weave as they try to avoid admitting the truth.
[Big health-care issues Republicans must confront]
That’s because the Republican plan, in whatever final form it takes, will absolutely, positively not cover everyone. Universal coverage isn’t even one of their goals. Republicans believe it’s much more important to get government as far away from health care as possible. In place of the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid and subsidies for the purchase of insurance that have extended coverage to 20 million more people than used to have it, they’ll be offering some tax credits and health savings accounts, which would be very good for the healthy and wealthy, but not so great for other people.
President-elect Donald Trump called Obamacare a "complete and total disaster" and said he will be filing a plan to "repeal and replace" it. (The Washington Post)
They call this “universal access,” which is meant to sound like “universal coverage” but is actually nothing of the sort. The truth is that there are really only two ways you can achieve universal coverage: by having the government cover everyone in some form of single-payer, or with a set of extremely coercive mandates to carry coverage, much more coercive than the ones in the ACA. Republicans would rather pluck out their own eyes than agree to either one of those. So the trick is to make the public think they won’t take away coverage from tens of millions of people, while doing just that.
That requires some rhetorical subtlety, which is something Trump is just not capable of. Here’s more evidence: Trump’s insistence that the Republican plan will give people “much lower deductibles” is absolutely false — in fact, every extant Republican plan promotes higher deductibles, as a way of forcing people to become aggressive health-care shoppers because they have “skin in the game” and, thereby, through the magic of the market, driving down costs.
If Trump understood the political and policy challenges Republicans face, he’d know that high deductibles are supposed to be complained about and wielded as evidence that the ACA is a failure, but you’re not supposed to actually promise that any Republican plan will lower them. You want people to assume that, of course, but you don’t want to promise it directly, because then you might be held accountable for that promise.
But Trump says whatever comes into his head, and whatever seems like it might be popular. People hate out-of-pocket costs, so he promises low deductibles. People don’t like the idea of tens of millions losing their coverage, so he promises that everyone will be covered.
And now, congressional Republicans are going to have to answer for breaking a promise they didn’t even make. At a moment when opposition to the repeal of the ACA is gathering strength, this was the last thing they needed.Disney/Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 hit the tracking boards this morning and came on quite hot according to non-Disney sources. Rival estimates believe that the movie has the potential to feasibly open to $150M at the domestic B.O., and if the James Gunn-directed sequel gets to Captain America: Civil War proportions ($179.1M), that wouldn’t be a surprise.
Total awareness for GOTG Vol. 2 is at a massive 88%, definite interest is at 63% and firsts choice at 28%. Of course, it’s a no brainer that males will show up. Females are strong, but older females are the least strong among the four quads.
Now, we always have to footnote projections three weeks out. Anything can happen to vary these figures up or down, and has been the case with titles that come on tracking quite strong, they’re a challenge for the industry to make laser-point predictions on. Why is that? Because statistically there’s a small sampling of films that opened north of $100M.
Disney/Marvel’s The Avengers still holds the all-time opening record for the first weekend in May with $207.4M followed by Avengers: Age of Ultron ($191.2M), Captain America: Civil War ($179.1M), and Iron Man 3 ($174.1M).
Advance tickets have been on sale for GOTG Vol. 2 since March 24.
Before Warner Bros. Suicide Squad broke all August records, 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy set the table, initially setting an opening record for the month of $94.3M. The James Gunn-directed pic was an anomaly, and a true gamble for Marvel because the property didn’t feature well-known, recognizable superheros that have been in the pop culture zeitgeist throughout the years. The fact that GOTG made $333.2M domestically –still the highest grossing film for the month — and $773.3M worldwide clearly proved that Marvel’s deep universe works; that the brand speaks volumes to non-fanboy crowds.
The GotG Vol 2 gang kicked off their global publicity tour in Tokyo, Japan this week. The pic will have its world premiere in Hollywood next week before its first international openings on April 25, two weeks before its May 5 domestic debut. The sequel is the 15th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This week, Marvel Studios is coming off a massive teaser debut for its fall release, Thor: Ragnarok, which hit 136M views in 24 hours.By now you've probably heard about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), the bills that want to cripple your internet. Perhaps you want to do something about it. Here are some tools that can help you keep track of SOPA and PIPA as well as prepare for problems in case they pass.
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Photo by Leigh Prather (Shutterstock).
Discover SOPA Supporters
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Not sure if your congressperson supports SOPA/PIPA? SOPA Track is a web site that can help you find out and keep track of their activity regarding the bills. It can use location tracking to provide the information automatically, or you can look them up by state or search using your address. Doing so will provide you with the names of your representatives, their stance on SOPA/PIPA, how much money they've raised from relevant groups, and several ways you can call them to voice your opinion on the matter. Even if they share your views, it's worth making a call or sending a message to thank them as it's always possible for their mind to change.
Google Chrome users can pick up the No SOPA, which reveals which sites support SOPA when visiting them. If you're interested in writing a letter to supporters, boycotting their sites, or simply be aware of their support, this extension can help with identification.
Protect Yourself in Advance
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SOPA intends to block the domain names of sites that violate its terms. That means if Lifehacker was in violation, you couldn't go to lifehacker.com to reach our site. Instead, you'd have to go to our numeric IP address instead. In the event Lifehacker or any other site were to be blocked, however, you could easily undo the effects with a browser extension.
Google Chrome users should check out MAFIAAFire Redirector, which will intercept any domain names typed into your address bar and load via the site's numeric IP address instead. Firefox users have the choice of two extensions, DeSOPA and MAFIAAFire ThePirateBay Dancing, which do the same thing.
Additionally, Reddit users are creating a SOPA emergency list that hold the IP addresses of various sites. In the event these extensions don't work out or there isn't one for your browser, you'll be able to make edits to the hosts file on your computer to override any blocked sites. For now there's no sense in doing anything because there is no problem yet, but it's good to be prepared for the worst.
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Know of any other helpful SOPA/PIPA tools? Share 'em in the comments!The battle has raged for more than 30 years now. The sport of snowboarding swept the world in the 1980s (quickly following on from the lacklustre success of the monoski) and soon anyone who was anyone wanted to be a rad snow surfer, and definitely not a boring old “two planker”.
Two long, skinny planks that were not for turning easily at that. The average age of skiers touched the 40-years-old mark, and predictions that snowboarding would sweep away skiers by the end of the 20th century were rife.
But skiing wasn’t going to go down without a fight. Instead ski design copied snowboard design and the tables were turned. Freestyle skiers followed boarders into the terrain park, and barely competent skiers on fat skis followed barely competent boarders into the off-piste powder – now known as “freeride terrain”.
The inexorable rise of the snowboard against the skier slowed and in recent years seems to have been reversed with cool young freestyle skiers following cool young boarders into the Olympics, once again copying events created by boarders and making the ski equivalent.
So in terms of market share, the battle seems to be won : skiers have seen off the boarding hordes. But what of the image of skiing – can it ever be as cool as boarding? Does anyone care? Is cool even an acceptable word to describe something that’s cool anymore? Should it be rad? Or sick?
I don’t know, I’m too old, so I asked some whippersnappers on snow what they thought:
First up was famous British boarder Jamie Nicholls whose many achievements include his memorable outdoor-indoor-outdoor descent through The Snow Centre in Hemel Hempstead last year which earned him more than six million Youtube views, of which I’m guessing the vast majority said, “Wow! That’s cool!”
“I have a lot of friends who are skiers and I definitely feel like freestyle skiers are very different to the average skier on the mountain. I think skiing is tech and the guys at the top level are amazing. But skiing is not for me, freestyle skiers are cool, but for sure not as cool as snowboarders …” says Jamie, 22, adding, “Obviously I’m going to say that though!”
Katie Summerhayes, the 19-year-old freestyle skier and Sochi Olympian who also carried the flag at the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics, disagrees.
“I think snowboarders are cool, but skiers are cooler,” she confirmed.
British snowboard cross athlete and Scottish champion Kyle Wise, 26, gets philosophical and questions who came first, the skier or the boarder?
“I will always be a snowboarder but have always respected skiers, cool or otherwise. I’ll poke fun at the supposed rivalry sometimes, but deep down I’m fine with skiers. Neither is about how cool you look, it’s about the enjoyment the individual gets out of it,” says Kyle, but there’s a but:
“However, trying to see it from an outsider’s point of view, skiers are doing better than before, but it looks a bit put on and a bit artificial. Snowboarding derives from and is influenced by board sports, and skiing seems to take the same influences from these sports rather than doing its own thing. But who cares anyway, a lot of snowboarders think boardercross is uncool and that racing is for skiers, but when they give it a go they love it – it’s a crazy winter wonderland!”
But 23-year-old Lucy Dore, who works for ski holiday specialist travel agency Ski Solutions, reckons skiing has definitely caught up with boarding.
“I would agree that boarding was definitely the ‘cool’ snow sport during the nineties and noughties; however it is not so much the case now. For me there is no competition; I would always prefer to go down the slopes forwards rather than sideways!” says Lucy.
25-year-old Norwegian freestyle skier Bastian Juell, who seems to be the epitome of cool himself, is the only skier we found who, with superb Scandinavian magnanimity, comes down in favour of boarders being cooler than skiers … in certain circumstances.
“It depends on what you mean with cool,” explains Bastian. “If it’s about having passion about what you do I would say that it’s more common among the boarders. Boarding is more of a lifestyle than skiing is. It probably has something to do with learning to ski or board, as it’s easier to ski than board. But, there are a lot of passionate skiers as well – like me!”
So there we have it, incontrovertible proof that if you’re a skier, skiing IS finally as cool as boarding, as far as the skiers are concerned at least, but if you’re a boarder, then it’s still a “Nah, sorry guys.” Peace and love to all.
Boarding Not Cool At Alta – The Battle Goes On
Although most of the snow-sports world has moved on over the past three decades or so, three ski areas in the US remain stuck in a mindset that was prevalent in the 1980s – that snowboarders need to be kept off ski slopes. Why? Well, that’s always been a bit vague … they’re wreckless young skallywags? It’s too dangerous? They cause too much damage to the piste with their boards sliding down, ploughing the powder off? Who knows?
Anyway, thankfully, snow-slope equality now exists at 99.99999% of the world’s ski areas, but three US areas – Alta and Deer Valley in Utah and Mad River Glen in Vermont – still ban boarders.
For the past year or so, a group of four boarders have been engaged in legal action against Alta, essentially arguing that it’s their constitutional right to be allowed on the resort’s slopes.
The group targeted Alta because, unlike the other two, it operates in open US National Forest – or public land, where the US constitution appears to grant access for all. However, the boarders were dealt an early blow when the US government’s National Forest Service backed Alta’s position.
A year ago, a district judge in Utah found in favour of Alta’s ban, but the boarders have now moved on to a higher federal appeal court in the next stage of the legal battle.
Alta argues its ban is about a business model, offering skiers a boarder-free environment, but the lawyer representing the boarders says it’s about an outdated stereotype.
“Defendants have transformed public land into a private country club controlled by those exclusive, elitist, and discriminatory views,” the attorneys for the boarders put in their initial written submission.President Obama promised to strengthen Social Security for the future by making the wealthy pay more. Under current law, people pay Social Security taxes up to $106,800 in income. On every additional dollar, there's no Social Security tax. Obama's promise to "strengthen" the retirement program by charging the tax for earnings above $250,000. There's no sign of progress. We checked with with St. Petersburg, Fla., CPA and tax attorney G. Barry Wilkinson, who said it hasn't happened. And legislation to make the change appears to have fizzled. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced a bill in September 2011 called the Keeping Our Social Security Promises Act that would achieve Obama's goal. In a press release, Sanders said the change would fully fund Social Security for another 75 years. The bill was referred to the Senate Finance Committee and has not moved. Obama still mentions the promise in his speeches. At a town hall meeting in Annandale, Va., in April 2011, Obama said, "If we just made a little bit of an adjustment in terms of the cap on Social Security, that would do a significant amount to stabilize the system.” That's talk, but no action. We rate this a Promise Broken.
Barack Obama promised during the campaign to shore up Social Security by lifting the payroll tax cap on people with earnings above $250,000.
A quick primer on Social Security: Social Security is a program, started in 1935, that sends cash payments to seniors based on the taxes they paid toward Social Security when they were working. The current tax rate for Social Security is 6.2 percent on the first $106,800 of wages. (Fine print: Employers pay an additional 6.2 percent, and the self-employed have to pay 12.4 percent. The $106,800 is indexed to inflation, so it typically increases every year.)
Obama's proposal would be to tax wages above $250,000. Yes, this does create a weird doughnut hole on earnings between $106,800 and $250,000, but Obama wanted to keep his pledge not to raise taxes on families who make less than $250,000. PolitiFact has currently rated that promise Compromise.
We have been unable to find any proposals thus far in which the Obama administration proposes lifting this cap, and that includes its Treasury Department's "General Explanations of the Administration's Fiscal Year 2010 Proposals."
This issue may sound familiar because the Senate is currently considering increasing payroll taxes for people whose income exceeds $250,000 for Medicare's Hospital Insurance. The current rate is 1.45 percent; the Senate measure would raise it to 2.35 percent on people with higher incomes. But this is a different issue from Social Security taxes.
Confused? Look on your own pay stub if you get one. The line that represents Social Security taxes is usually labeled FICA OASDI, which stands for Federal Insurance Contributions Act Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance. The Medicare portion is usually labeled Medicare HI, for Hospital Insurance
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case of the Coyotes, that same level of talent isn’t on the roster.
Adding in the Coyotes’ consistently unstable footing as a franchise, the on-ice issues seem even more sad. There aren’t any easy answers or solutions to the Coyotes’ woes, either on or off the ice.
Best: Wes McCauley
You probably didn’t expect an NHL official to make it on the “best” list. We didn’t either. Wes McCauley is here because he’s marching to the beat of his own dramatic drum and we absolutely love it.
Watch some of his best and most dramatic moments:
In a league that tends to stifle creativity and personality, this is great to see.
Worst: Offside reviews
The offside rule was a hot topic in 2017. Specifically, coaches challenging whether or not a player was offside prior to a goal was an infuriating, painful experience throughout 2017. As the NHL called back goals due to players not involved in the play being a hair offside, the cries to change things up grew louder and louder. Some players were so frustrated that they advocated for the removal of the offside rule as a whole.
Why would the NHL put up more offensive hurdles when it’s starving for goals?
Finally, the NHL adjusted the review procedure so that the challenging team would be assessed a two-minute penalty if they challenged an offside call incorrectly. It’s not ideal, but it at least cuts down on the previous low-risk, big-reward system that was in place. It would have been better to see a more drastic action taken to fix a rule/review that’s broken.
Best: Chris Pronger checks Justin Bieber
The 2017 All-Star Celebrity Game back in January was pretty easy to forget, but there was one moment that hockey fans rallied behind: Chris Pronger checking Justin Bieber.
The hit itself was tame (keep in mind it was a fun celebrity game), yet it produced one of the best photos of the year.
AP snapped an amazing photo of Chris Pronger squashing Justin Bieber into the boards: pic.twitter.com/hhykeHh5Oh — Charlie Roumeliotis (@CRoumeliotis) January 28, 2017
Amazing.
Worst: Relocation talk
When did threatening to leave a city become an acceptable strategy in the NHL to get what you want? Relocation talk is nothing new in the NHL, but it is bizarre to see two Canadian teams – the Calgary Flames and Ottawa Senators – talking about moving. No one really believes that either of these two teams will pack up and leave what should be two strong Canadian markets in favor of greener pastures that may not exist.
Honestly, Senators owner Eugene Melnyk could be on this list multiple times for all of the statements he has made this year.
Meanwhile, there are fans of teams around the NHL who are facing the reality that relocation may be in store. That makes the teams crying wolf even more appalling.
Best: Bryan Bickell and Brian Boyle
Sometimes hockey players are forced to deal with ailments that are bigger than the game of hockey. Such was the case with Bryan Bickell who was forced into an early retirement due to with multiple sclerosis and Brian Boyle who was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia.
Bickell had an amazing moment when he scored a shootout goal in the final game of his career.
Moments like the shootout goal from Bickell are perfect. It’s great to see a respected player go out on such a high note.
Meanwhile, Boyle was able to return and made his debut with the New Jersey Devils. It’s pretty incredible he’s even playing. It goes without saying that his first goal with his new team was an emotional one that brought him to tears after the game.
Boyle also scored a great goal on Hockey Fights Cancer Night.
You never want to see players (or anyone for that matter) go through a serious illness. The class shown from both Bickell and Boyle are worthy of all of the praise the two have received.
Worst: Red Wings logos used by Nazis
This story is so bizarre that it almost sounds too ridiculous to be true. The Nazi demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia featured a surprising logo belonging to the Detroit Red Wings.
I look away for 12 hours and the Detroit Red Wings have become a symbol for neo-Nazi dickheads? pic.twitter.com/s7aBiyYkmA — Andrew Kirell (@AndrewKirell) August 12, 2017
The signs belonged to a group of white nationalists who go by the Detroit Red Wings. Kind of an obvious trademark infringement, don’t you think?
The Red Wings quickly stated they were exploring legal action.
If you need further proof that 2017 was bonkers, consider the fact we have to write about Nazis using hockey logos.We decided on this description politely.
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ContactA couple of weeks back Daniel XIII was kind enough to share with me this fantastic fan art posted over at Comic Art Fans. It gives us a glimpse of what a team-up might look like with Dave Steven’s The Rocketeer and Republic Pictures serial hero Commando Cody! I am not sure what manner of menace must have emerged that would take the talents of both the Rocketeer and Commando Cody to defeat but I truly wish IDW Publishing would get to work on bringing this comic to us fans of the “Rocket Men”.
Until that actually happens, why not watch the whole 1952 “Radar Men of the Moon” serial featuring Commando Cody? Keep an eye out for a future Lone Ranger, Clayton Moore!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wR3uXBMq0w
[Via] Public Domain MoviesMan who took his date's phone after she refused to pay for half the drinks is cleared of theft because he said he never intended to keep the device
Kishore Nimmala was furious when he discovered his date had no cash
The 32-year-old spent £54 on two rounds of drinks at The Ruby Blue bar
Nimmala grabbed her phone but said he never intended to keep it
A jury cleared Nimmala of theft following a three-day trial
Cleared: Kishore Nimmala was cleared of theft today after his first date with Fakhara Sultana which went wrong
An IT worker accused of snatching a woman’s mobile phone on their first date to ‘teach her a lesson’ when she refused to pay half of the drinks bill was cleared of theft today.
Kishore Nimmala, 32, was said to be furious after Fakhara Sultana told him she had no cash during a romantic rendezvous at the Ruby Blue Bar in Leicester Square.
Nimmala spent £54 on two rounds of drinks before insisting she should contribute, Southwark Crown Court heard.
But Ms Sultana, who met Nimmala on dating website Zoosk, assumed that he would be coughing up the cash for everything during their date.
Jurors heard she cut the evening short after Nimmala became agitated, but he was said to have pestered her for cash as she walked to Charing Cross Tube station.
He was then alleged to have seized her white Blackberry mobile phone on February 15 this year.
But a jury cleared Nimmala of theft after deliberating for just 53 minutes following a three-day trial
Nimmala said he took Ms Sultana’s phone thinking she would give him £25, but insisted he never intended to keep the device.
Helen Thomas, prosecuting, previously told the court: 'This case is about a first date that goes badly wrong.
'Ms Sultana informed to defendant that she didn’t have any money with her and that she had assumed that he would be paying for the evening.
'At that point the defendant became angry and so their evening together came to an abrupt close.'
Scene: The Ruby Blue Lounge in Leicester Square where Kishore Nimmala went on a first date with Fakhara Sultana
The couple then made their way to Charing Cross station with Nimmala allegedly badgering his date for her share of the cash on the way.
The court heard that when Ms Sultana took her phone from her bag, Nimmala 'grabbed it' and ran.
Two police officers, who were on Charing Cross Road, joined the chase and caught up with Nimmala on St Martin’s Lane before they witnessed him throw the phone away.
The court heard that Nimmala does not deny taking the phone without permission, but that the issue is whether or not he did so dishonestly and with the intention to permanently deprive her of the device.
Nimmala, of Leyton, east London, denied theft.
Hearing: Nimmala denied one count of theft at Southwark Crown CourtThe Major League Soccer expansion draft might become a thing of the past.
Discussion of eliminating the expansion draft has taken place at the committee level within MLS, according to a highly placed league source. The league has used the draft for every expansion team since 1998 with the inaugural seasons of the Chicago Fire and Miami Fusion.
New York City FC and Orlando City SC, which just completed their first seasons in MLS, used the expansion draft to build their respective rosters. But with North America's top flight adding new teams every couple of seasons, the talent pool from existing clubs is becoming diluted. The time may have come to find a new way to build expansion team rosters.
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"[The] league would probably expand [the] number of foreign slots and increase allocation money for expansion teams," the source said.
Allocation money and international slots are perhaps the most useful mechanisms for team building. Both Orlando City and NYCFC traded for extra international slots to fill out rosters that featured high-priced Designated Player signings like Kaka and David Villa. These marquee names could be augmented with allocation money to provide more room under the league's salary cap, or the allocation money could be traded.
This new proposal would give more versatility to an expansion team instead of having to select players from the proverbial scrap heap. Also, existing clubs would no longer have to make sacrifices. While top talent hasn't always been lost, the expansion draft has affected teams' depth and ability to develop talent. And with successful clubs qualifying for tournaments such as the CONCACAF Champions League, the loss of players can impact an MLS team's ability to compete outside the league's regular season.
Story continues
MLS's next expansion franchise, Atlanta United FC, is set to begin play in 2017 as the league's 21st team, and Los Angeles FC is scheduled to debut in 2018. Minnesota United FC will either enter the league in 2017 or 2018, while Miami – backed by David Beckham and his ownership group – is still working on a stadium deal with the city and county.From today we’re open-sourcing all of our books. They can all be downloaded for free, or you can checkout the source from their Github repositories. In this post I explain why we made this decision and what it means for our books in the future
Why Open Source?
Open sourcing our books is something we’ve been considering for some time. For a while now we’ve had two free and open source books, Creative Scala and The Type Astronaut’s Guide to Shapeless. These books have reached an order-of-magnitude more people than our paid books. On the other hand, we’re not making money from our free books, and it takes a long time to write a book. When we considered the tradeoffs we decided that the contribution to the Scala community outweighed the relatively small amount (compared to other revenues) we earned from the books. Basically, we believe there is some great stuff in our books—and our readers seem to agree—and we want more people to be able to access it.
What Happens Now?
Not all our books are complete. In the last few days we’ve pushed out updates to Advanced Scala and Creative Scala, and we’ll continue to work on the unfinished titles. Once Advanced Scala is complete, which should be very soon, we’ll turn our attention to finishing the long-neglected Essential Interpreters. In short, the decision to open source our books has no impact on our intention to develop them further.
How Can I Get Involved?
The first thing you can do is grab a copy of any of our books in PDF, HTML, and ePUB format. We ask for your email address so we can keep you aware of updates.
If you want to build the book yourself, or contribute to development, go to our Github repositories. All our books have a simple Docker based build process that should be straightforward to work with. However, if you encounter difficulties please open an issue and we’ll sort it out.
We originally published our books under a mixture of CC-BY-SA and CC-NC-SA licenses. We had some objections to the use of the term “open source” combined with the CC-NC-SA license (see the comments below). We have addressed this by updating all of the licenses to be CC-BY-SA.Income tax and National Insurance could be merged under one of the biggest shake-ups of the tax system for decades.
George Osborne, the Chancellor, has commissioned a study into the reforms which could lead to the creation of a single "earnings tax".
The system of national insurance contributions dates back to 1911 when it was established to help working people insure against illness and unemployment.
It was expanded after the Second World War to help fund the health service and wider social security programmes, and is now charged at 12p for every pound of income.
It has developed in parallel with income tax, but senior Conservatives believe that the distinction has become increasingly academic as general taxation also funds the NHS.
Mr Osborne considered merging the two taxes in the final Budget of the last Parliament but decided not to amid concerns about problems linking the two IT systems.
In a consultation paper three years ago, the Treasury said the parallel taxes created bureaucracy and added costs for employers.
It argued: “We believe greater integration of the two systems has the potential to remove economic distortions, reduce burdens on business, and improve fairness across individual earners.”
In a survey in 2011, the Office of Tax Simplification, which is part of the Treasury, found almost unanimous support for the idea.
After the Budget earlier this month David Gauke, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, wrote to the Office of Tax simplification requesting the review.
He said: "This is an area often cited as a major source of complexity for taxpayers. I would like the OTS to look at what the impacts, costs and benefits of closer alignment would be and to set out what the necessary steps would be to achieve closer alignment."
The Chancellor, George Osborne
The Office of Tax Simplification will publish its report before the Budget next year.
National Insurance rakes in billions every year for the Treasury. Anyone who is employed and earns between £112 and £815 a week pays 12 per cent of their income in National Insurance. A further 2 per cent is paid on all earnings over that level.
People who are self-employed pay National Insurance at a flat rate or as a percentage of the individual’s annual taxable profit.
Tax experts have previously warned that while the concept of a single levy would be attractive, disentangling two separate payments with different rules would create practical problems.
But Mr Osborne has been sympathetic to the principle of the reform since his arrival at the Treasury, and supporters of the move believe the problem of incompatible computer systems could be overcome in time.
Previous Chancellors have balked at merging the systems, not just because of the problem of how to protect the elderly from paying National Insurance contributions on their pensions.LSU has had some talented quarterbacks during program history, and the debate rages on as to who the five best quarterbacks ever to put on a Tiger uniform were. Here's our take on how the top five shakes out.
Tommy Hodson was arguably the best QB to ever play at LSU
5. Y.A. Tittle
Yes, Tittle is certainly most well-known for his time in the NFL, and we won’t say that didn’t help bump him into the fifth spot ahead of names like Jeff Wickersham, Matt Mauck, Matt Flynn, Herb Tyler, Jamie Howard, Alan Risher and Zach Mettenberger. He certainly made a name for himself with the 49ers and Giants, turning in a 17-year career as a two-time NFL MVP and seven-time NFL Pro Bowl selection. But while at LSU, Tittle lined up at quarterback as Bernie Moore made the transition from the single-wing to a T-formation in 1945. And he answered in a big way, passing for 2,525 yards and 23 touchdowns, which were huge numbers in an era where the forward pass wasn’t the preferred method of moving the football. In 1947, Tittle was named the Cotton Bowl MVP.
4. Rohan Davey
Davey was the first LSU quarterback to put up a huge season for the Tigers during the “modern era”, and he held on to the Sugar Bowl’s passing record until Tim Tebow broke it with the Florida Gators. His 3,347 passing yards during the 2001 season is still the most by a quarterback in LSU history, and his 4,415 career passing yards ranks among the Top 10 in program history. His 528 yards gained on 35-of-44 passing against Alabama in 2001 still stands as the most passing yards in a single game in team history.
3. JaMarcus Russell
On talent alone, Russell was probably the greatest quarterback to put on an LSU uniform. His NFL career busted out after being taken with the No. 1 overall pick, but that didn’t make his college days a wash. From 2004-06, Russell passed for 6,625 yards - third-most in school history. He also passed for 3,129 yards during the 2006 season, becoming only the second LSU quarterback to ever eclipse the 3,000-yard mark in a season (Rohan Davey and Zach Mettenberger also accomplished the feat). His 52 career passing touchdowns remains second-best in school history behind Hodson, and his 28 passing touchdowns in 2006 is tied with Matt Mauck for most in a single-season by a Tiger quarterback.
2. Bert Jones
Jones was the first LSU quarterback to ever be awarded consensus First-Team All-American honors, and while he had only started two games prior to the end of his junior campaign, he started every game as a senior, ultimately leading LSU to a 12-2-1 record as a starter. LSU spent all but one week in the Top 10 during that 1972 season, and Jones ended up finishing fourth on the Heisman Trophy ballot. During his 17 games with the Tigers, Jones passed for 3,225 yards and 28 touchdowns, which - at the time - was the most career passing yards and touchdowns by any quarterback in school history.
1. Tommy Hodson
Hodson can certainly make a case for being the best quarterback to suit up for the Tigers. He left school as the SEC's all-time leading passer at the time, and he still holds the LSU record for most career passing yards (8,938) and most career touchdowns (69). His 8,938 career passing yards is also 2,194 yards more than the next name on the list: his predecessor Jeff Wickersham. He played all four seasons he was in Baton Rouge, and even led the Tigers to a Top 10 ranking as a freshman. And all these years later, Hodson still leads the program in career completions (674) and victories by a starter (31).Apple has successfully been awarded a trademark for the “design and layout” of their retail stores. Since opening their first in Virginia over a decade ago, their stores have been at the heart of the companies branding; with the late Steve Jobs heavily involved in their design. Since, the growing presence of similar stores, including a familiar Microsoft chain launched in 2009, has left Apple feeling the need to protect its own distinctive style.
More after the break.
Save this picture! Apple's Upper West Side Store NYC - Courtesy of ifoapplestore.com
This move is not without precedent, as last year Apple secured their first architectural patent on the design of a once-off store in the Upper West Side of New York City. The new certificate, awarded last Thursday on January 24, covers Apple's more generic mall store design, protecting their original design in both black and white. As document mentions, the following was patented: "...the design of the store front, recessed lighting, shelving, flush video screens and even their unique genius bar layout at the rear of the store".
However, with the size and complexity of most architectural designs, questions are being asked about the where the line is drawn between close similarity and an outright copy.
Nevertheless, as with music and software, copyright and patent infringement could soon become an important aspect of architecture, with many ‘starchitects’ being highly sought after for their distinctive style. Notably Zaha Hadid is currently in a race to finish her Wangjing SOHO office block in Beijing, whilst pirates construct a copy-cat version in the eastern Chinese city of Chongqing.
via Patently AppleHyung-Jin Kim, The Associated Press
SEOUL, Korea, Republic Of -- Late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il repeatedly pushed for summit talks with South Korea before his 2011 death but the plans failed because Pyongyang demanded $10 billion and large-scale shipments of food and fertilizer, a former South Korean president says in a memoir to be published next week.
Parts of the memoir by ex-President Lee Myung-bak, provided to reporters in advance, reveal that senior intelligence officials from the two Koreas made secret visits to each other's countries to explore summit possibilities in 2010, when two deadly attacks blamed on Pyongyang killed 50 South Koreans. Lee says a North Korea envoy who visited Seoul that year was later publicly executed after returning to the North.
The memoir comes as both countries float the idea of a possible summit between Kim's son and current leader, Kim Jong Un, and Lee's successor, President Park Geun-hye. It would be the third summit meeting since the two Koreas were divided 70 years ago, although chances seem low as the countries bicker over the terms for talks.
The first summit in 2000 prompted an era of co-operation between the rivals, but also became a source of criticism in South Korea. Conservatives said Seoul's then "sunshine policy" of providing generous economic aid to Pyongyang with few strings attached supported the North's nuclear and missile development.
Lee, a conservative who ended a decade of liberal rule in South Korea in 2008, halted such aid and refused to implement rapprochement projects signed in the second summit in 2007. His actions earned him public loathing in North Korea, where state media called him a "rat" and a "traitor."
Lee writes in his memoir that the "sunshine policy" was tarnished because North Korea diverted aid to nuclear and missile development and continued to stage provocations against South Korea.
Lee, who severed as president from 2008 to 2013, saw tension spike sharply after his inauguration. A soldier killed a South Korean tourist in North Korea in 2008, and North Korea staged long-range rocket and nuclear tests in 2009. But Lee says that in 2009 North Korea began proposing a summit meeting between him and Kim Jong Il. The proposal came when senior North Korean officials visited Seoul to pay respects to late President Kim Dae-jung, who participated in the first summit with Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang and won a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to reconcile with the North.
Those efforts were damaged when a close associate of Kim Dae-jung was convicted in 2006 of pressuring the Hyundai conglomerate into sending $450 million to North Korea shortly before the 2000 summit.
Lee says one of the North Korean officials who visited Seoul, Kim Ki Nam, told him that Kim Jong Il had said it wouldn't be difficult for the leaders of the two Koreas to meet again if agreements signed during the 2000 and 2007 summits were carried out. Five days after the meeting, Lee says North Korea called for a "considerable amount" of rice, fertilizer and other aid shipments in return for a summit.
On the sidelines of a regional conference in Beijing in October 2009, Lee says Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told him that Kim Jong Il had sent a message that he wanted a summit. Lee says he was willing, but didn't want to pay for the meeting and wanted the North's nuclear program on the agenda.
Later in 2009, officials of the Koreas met secretly in Singapore, and North Korea insisted on economic aid in exchange for a summit. Lee says the North later said it wanted 400,000 tons of rice, 300,000 tons of fertilizer, 100,000 tons of corn, asphalt worth $100 million, and $10 billion for the establishment of a development bank in North Korea.
Prospects for summit talks were further hurt after a South Korea-led international investigation blamed North Korea for torpedoing a South Korean warship and killing 46 sailors in March 2010. The North launched an artillery strike on a South Korean island that killed four people in November of that year. North Korea has denied involvement in the ship sinking.
North Korea's state media didn't immediately comment on the contents of Lee's memoir.The White House has said Pakistan ‘can and must’ do more against the terrorist groups operating in its soil, it has been reported.
Emphasizing that no state should allow its soil to be used by any terror group to launch attacks on other countries, a senior White House official has said “Recognising the sacrifices of the people and the security forces of Pakistan in fighting some militant and terrorist networks, a fight which we support, President Barack Obama has emphasised that Pakistan ‘can and must’ also take more effective action against terrorist groups operating from its soil.”
The official further added “The president has made it very clear that no state should allow its territory to be used by terrorists to launch attacks into another state, and we will continue to engage on this issue.”
The official was responding to an online petition, ‘We the People’, launched by Indians in the US that was signed by 665,769 people.
This comes as Pakistan has been accused of allowing certain militant groups to use its soil for planning and coordinating attacks in its neighboring states.
The officials have long been criticizing Pakistan for allowing the Taliban and Haqqani terrorist networks to openly operate in Pakistan.
According to the Afghan officials, the two militant groups are having leadership councils based in Peshawar and Quetta cities of Pakistan from where they plan and coordinate attacks in Afghanistan.The Black Lives Matter ‘movement’ was created from a false narrative that the Democrats have cultivated for votes.
Via Twin Cities Pioneer Press:
The untold story at protests on St. Paul’s Summit Avenue was the abuse that officers took from some agitators, the president of the St. Paul police union said Thursday.
“A number of agitators continuously attempted to bait officers into physical confrontations while using vile rhetoric that does not have a place in our public discourse,” said Dave Titus. “Agitators have struck, slapped, spit on and challenged to fight our cops. One agitator antagonized multiple officers while holding a razor blade in his mouth while only a few feet away.”
Titus also said African-American officers were repeatedly called “Uncle Tom” and were sworn at, and female officers were “ridiculed, claiming they were just sex objects for male cops.”
“This is not peaceful,” Titus said. “This is absolutely disgusting. It’s an attempt to ignite a physical confrontation, yet our officers remained calm and peaceful and respectful.”
The protests outside the Governor’s Residence began early July 7, hours after Philando Castile was fatally shot by a St. Anthony police officer, and ended July 26. Police arrested about 70 people on July 26 and July 27.
Corydon Nilsson, an organizer with Black Lives Matter St. Paul, said he was at the Summit Avenue protest every day and never saw or heard about anyone assaulting officers.
“No one was stupid enough to fight officers; people may have expressed their dislike for the police but did not attempt to ignite physical confrontation,” he said in a text message. “These attempts at demonizing the protest community and the supporters who want justice for Philando Castile are nothing but typical police attempts at character defamation.”
The St. Paul Police Department documented at least six instances of officers reporting they were assaulted in some form on Summit Avenue, including being shoved or spit on, said Steve Linders, a department spokesman. The assaults mostly happened on July 26, the day police broke up the demonstration and made most of the arrests, according to Linders.
Police are gathering video and audio from squad car cameras, and are working to identify who was responsible, Linders said.
Overall, Titus said the “vast majority of protesters were not an issue.” But he said the media had characterized the protests as peaceful without reporting on agitators “that put our officers in very unsafe, difficult situations.”
Keep reading…"Hold your fire til we see a moment of weakness" This article is about content that is either unreleased or only out recently that may be seen as a spoiler. This means that there is no spoiler rule in effect. Read the Spoiler Policy. Specifics: Crossing Over, 35th Anniv.
The Real Ghostbusters was an Emmy-Nominated American animated television series based on the hit 1984 film Ghostbusters. The series ran from 1986 to 1991, and was produced by Columbia Pictures Television (now Sony Pictures Television), DiC Entertainment and Coca-Cola Telecommunications. The series continues the adventures of paranormal investigators Dr. Peter Venkman, Dr. Egon Spengler, Winston Zeddemore, Dr. Ray Stantz, their secretary Janine Melnitz and their mascot ghost Slimer. In 1988 during the show's six year run it was retooled with the Slimer! show that was sandwiched around The Real Ghostbusters and was titled Slimer! and The Real Ghostbusters. The show also received a new opening sequence (which was used for the remainder of the series) when it was re-titled as well. The series continued to develop the franchise's mythology; In "Partners in Slime", Vigo was mentioned, confirming Ghostbusters II is in the continuity of the animated series. However, due to many reasons the show started the Ghostbusters Animated Timeline Canon.
During the show's run (September 13, 1986 – October 22, 1991) a series of comics were made: NOW Comics- The Real Ghostbusters Series for North America, and Marvel Comics Ltd- The Real Ghostbusters Series for the United Kingdom. A Toy line by Kenner was produced through its run as well. There was even a short lived Magazine. In 1997, the franchise was revived with Extreme Ghostbusters. A group of new Ghostbusters joined Egon, Janine and Slimer, who helped to bridge both cartoons.
Contents show]
Plot
The series' origin is told in the episode "Citizen Ghost", which is a flashback episode. Peter reveals that the suits were replaced with new ones that were in new colors. Gozer was taken out but the old suits had ecto-plasmic residue and Peter was supposed to destroy them. Also in that episode, it is revealed that Slimer stuck around the firehouse and while Peter didn't like him, the others after a few days grew to like him, as he was harmless and valuable to research. Ray names him, to spite Peter, Slimer. At the end of the episode the Ghostbusters are in serious trouble with ghostly versions of themselves that wanted them out of business. Slimer wore them out as they fired at him wasting their ecto energy. Because of that, the Ghostbusters were able to capture the ghosts. Slimer earned his spot as a pet and friend of the Ghostbusters.
"Take Two" explained in a way, the differences between the cartoon and the film. The film according to the episode was made based on events in the cartoon. Inside jokes about the film are all over the episode.
Development
A short pilot episode was produced, but never aired in full. Scenes of the pilot can be seen in TV promos that aired prior to the beginning of the series. As with most pilots, the short episode has several striking differences from the finished product. For the most part, the differences come down to a greater faithfulness to the movie: Peter Venkman's design bears a greater resemblance to Bill Murray, the Ghostbusters still use their original uniforms, and Slimer appears as a gluttonous bad guy as he does in the movie. Certain scenes from the pilot would be edited and used in the show's intro, most notably the encounter at the end with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Other scenes from the pilot, including a shot of Ray waking up from bed with a Mr. Staypuft doll, the team sliding down the fire pole in silhouette, and a skeletal Red Baron laughing as he flies across the sky, would later be used in the special opening sequence for the 1989 Real Ghostbusters prime time Halloween special, "The Halloween Door".
Maurice LaMarche, the voice of Egon Spengler, described that even though the auditioners did not want him to impersonate Harold Ramis, he did so and got the part. LaMarche mentioned that, supposedly, Bill Murray asked why Lorenzo Music's voice sounded like Garfield and not like himself, and this may have weighed in the replacing of Music, with Dave Coulier replacing him after 78 episodes. This is ironic considering that Bill Murray took over the role of Garfield for the live-action movies. Ernie Hudson was the only actor from the film who auditioned to reprise his role, Winston Zeddemore, for the animated series, but he lost to Arsenio Hall.
Unproduced Scripts
"Funny You Should Scream" By Jina Bacarr [1] Premise: Dr. Teufel (meaning devil) ran a carnival and trapped children in his Fun House a la Pied Piper. What happened: The script was donated to the "cause" the animation writers were fighting with the labor board for recognition to be admitted into the WGA. J. Michael Straczynski had to prove to the board that story editing and writing co-existed in the world of animation as it does in episodic television writing Since the 1930s, animation writers were "required" to belong to the Cartoonists Guild. This Ghostbusters script helped to establish a new precedent and animation writers were finally recognized by the WGA through the Animation Writers Caucus.
The Other Ghostbusters
"The Real" was added to the title over a dispute with Filmation. After the success of the film, a TV series based on the Ghostbusters began production. At the same time The Real Ghostbusters was being created, Filmation was making a cartoon known simply as Ghostbusters, a revamp of the 1970s live-action series. Despite rumors to the contrary, Columbia was allowed to use the name Ghostbusters for its cartoon, but added "The Real" to snub Filmation. In the episode "The Spirit of Aunt Lois", Dr. Bassingham, a charlatan spiritualist wore an outfit similar to that of Jake Kong. With character designs by Jim McDermott, the animated characters were dramatically redesigned from the way the same characters looked in the movie due to likeness-rights issues.
Season Guide & Episode Guide
For a list of the episodes of the Real Ghostbusters click here.
Main Characters
Dr. Peter Venkman
Dr. Peter Venkman (voiced by Lorenzo Music seasons 1-2 and Dave Coulier seasons 3-7) is the group's first-among-equals. While not their official leader, Venkman often makes the decision whether or not they will take a case. He also provides comic relief and is usually nominated for tasks no one else wants to do.
Dr. Egon Spengler
Dr. Egon Spengler (voiced by Maurice LaMarche) a scientific genius, is the primary source of expertise the group uses to understand (and many times combat) the ethereal realm. A skilled theorist, in many episodes Egon formulates the solution when all hope seems lost.
Dr. Ray Stantz
Dr. Ray Stantz (voiced by Frank Welker) is portrayed as an excitable jack-of-all-trades. He is second only to Egon in sheer intelligence, and leans towards practical applications of science as opposed to Egon's pure research – the engineer to Egon's physicist. He is also a child at heart, cheerful and optimistic (and rather enamored of cartoons and stuffed animals). As the only one of the four who can reliably understand what Egon is talking about, he is usually the one to put his theories into practice.
Winston Zeddemore
Winston Zeddemore (voiced by Arsenio Hall seasons 1-3 and Buster Jones seasons 4-7) is the courage and straight-man of the group; his accuracy with the proton gun is his forte. Of all the Ghostbusters, Winston Zeddemore has the most subtle character development; it is hinted that he is an avid reader and the descendant of a powerful African bloodline. Sometimes his last name is misspelled "Zeddmore"
Janine Melnitz
Janine Melnitz (voiced by Laura Summer seasons 1-2 and Kath Soucie seasons 3-7) is the secretary of the Ghostbusters and has an interest in Egon.
Louis Tully
Louis Tully (voiced by Rodger Bumpass seasons 5-6) is the accountant for the Ghostbusters. Was put in the cartoon to follow along with Ghostbusters II movie.
Slimer
Slimer (voiced by Frank Welker) is the pet of the Ghostbusters and is the only ghost that will stay still for Egon to test and study. In the Kenner toy line known also as the "Green Ghost
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look: Attacks from Afghan soil have Indian involvement: Sartaj Aziz
Pakistan’s reaction to the India-US joint statement issued after President Barak Obama’s visit bore the signs of changing strategy.
Adviser on Foreign Affairs and National Security Sartaj Aziz has in a statement mentioned terrorism “sponsored and supported from abroad” and Islamabad’s expectation from others to show the same commitment as Pakistan had demonstrated in the global war on terrorism. India was not named, but there were little doubts, who was being alluded to.
The Pakistan government recently shared a ‘dossier’ with the US on the Indian involvement in terrorist acts here. The security official said it included some strong evidence of the Indian involvement in Dec 16 Peshawar school carnage which left 149 schoolchildren and teachers dead.
The attack was claimed by the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
The government has been particularly uneasy over Delhi’s continued terrorism allegations to undermine its counter-terrorism efforts.
Worrying as it has been for Pakistan, Indian allegations have found receptive ears in Washington.
Before embarking on India visit, President Obama had said in an interview that “safe havens within Pakistan were not acceptable”. And the joint statement issued at the conclusion of the presidential visit called on Islamabad to “bring the perpetrators of the November 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai to justice”.
The security official said that the new strategy on India was meant to counter the narrative that India was a victim of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism.
DIALOGUE RESUMPTION: Source in the PM Office, who was privy to High Commissioner Basit’s discussions with Prime Minister Sharif, said it was decided in principle to show no haste in resumption of stalled dialogue.
Sharing the sense of the meeting, the source said: “Pakistan will wait till India was ready to talk and talk on all issues.”
A PM Office statement quoted Mr Sharif as saying: “India is an important neighbour for us and we would like to have normal relations with the country on the basis of mutual respect and sovereign equality.”
Pakistani strategists believe that India could soon move to restart the dialogue. They base their assessment on the fact that elections in Kashmir have been completed and, therefore, there would be no more domestic compulsion to keep tensions with Pakistan high. Also, the US has been reported to be nudging New Delhi to restart the dialogue.
Published in Dawn, January 29th, 2015
On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play"Sure, it might be a bit cold in May, but it's not as cold as ignoring genocide."
With the #changethedate movement picking up well-warranted momentum lately, your Facebook feed is likely full of calls to move our national day of celebration to a date that isn’t so deeply offensive to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Triple J recently contemplated moving the Hottest 100 to a different day (and what the hell else do our great nation’s citizens do besides listen to the countdown on Australia Day?) But until now, nobody has really agreed on an appropriate alternative date.
Well, comedian and Axis of Awesome frontwoman Jordan Raskopoulos thinks she may have found a possible solution.
I say it every year but can we just have Australia day on May 8? May8? M8! maaaaaate — Jordan Raskopoulos (@JordanRasko) January 10, 2017
She’s expanded on her idea in a video for Junkee today. “For some Australians, [January 26] is a bit of a shitty day”, Raskopolous says in the clip. “It’s the day Australia was invaded by colonists.”
She then goes on to explain why changing the date is just the decent thing to do. “Let’s imagine that Australia is one big sharehouse. And you live in that sharehouse. And your housemates come home and say ‘We’re going to have a party on Friday night,’ and you say ‘Can we not do it on Friday night? That’s the day my dad died’.
“Good housemates would say ‘Sure, let’s have it next week, we want to make sure everyone has a good time. It’s kind of like that, except your housemates moved in without permission, they don’t pay rent, and their dad killed your dad.'”
“Sure, it might be a bit cold in May, but it’s not as cold as ignoring genocide.”
Check out the whole clip here:The Milwaukee Bucks have signed free agent forward Chris Copeland, General Manager John Hammond announced today. Terms of the contract were not disclosed in accordance with team policy.
Copeland, 31, was undrafted out of the University of Colorado in 2006 and spent six seasons split between the NBA D-League and professional teams overseas before landing in the NBA with the New York Knicks in 2012-13. He has posted career averages of 6.4 points and 1.8 rebounds over three seasons with New York and Indiana, and has averaged 3.5 points and 0.7 rebounds through 21 playoff games (1 start).
Copeland spent the last two seasons in Indiana, and in 2014-15 averaged 6.2 points and a career-high 2.2 rebounds in 50 games (12 starts). In a 21-point effort at Atlanta on Nov. 1, 2014, he hit a career-high six 3-pointers. In his rookie campaign, Copeland finished first among NBA rookies in 3-point field goal percentage, connecting on 42.1 percent of his shots from beyond the arc. That number was also good enough to tie for 13th among all NBA players that season. Copeland was named the Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month in April of 2013.
CHRIS COPELAND'S CAREER IN PHOTOS
View GalleryGetUp! phone campaign targets marginal MPs to bury Adani coalmine
MP Kate Jones, in Brisbane yesterday, is one of eight state Labor politicians under attack by GetUp! activists. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen
GetUp! made 50,000 scripted calls into Queensland marginal seats in a bid to undermine Palaszczuk government support for Adani’s coalmine, ahead of a weekend backflip on infrastructure funding that is now threatening projects across the state.
Amid growing turmoil in the Queensland cabinet, which reneged on agreements with Adani and the Turnbull government, the activist group targeted vulnerable MPs including premier-slayer Kate Jones, who won back her inner-city Brisbane seat, now known as Cooper, after losing it to Campbell Newman in 2012.
Ms Jones is among eight state Labor and two federal Liberal politicians in Queensland under attack in the past 10 days.
Escalating its campaign this month, GetUp! issued detailed instructions to supporters on how to kill off Adani’s proposed $16.5 billion Carmichael mine in central Queensland’s emerging Galilee Basin coal province.
The Australian has obtained a recording of these instructions, referred to as a “dialler-tool”, which can be heard by ringing a special information line.
The tool tells GetUp! supporters how to conduct phone calls with voters to galvanise opposition to the Adani project.
Labor sources said GetUp! volunteers called an estimated 4000 homes across Treasurer Curtis Pitt’s electorate of Mulgrave on the night before a government leak about a still-to-be announced royalties deal his department had struck with Adani.
Eight Labor state seats, including those held by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and ministers Grace Grace, Mark Furner, Coralee O’Rourke and Yvette D’Arth, are in the crosshairs of GetUp!
Ms Jones’s small “old guard’’ right faction — once the platform for Peter Beattie and Kevin Rudd — last week lent its support to the left in junking the deal with the giant Indian company after almost two years of negotiation.
“Cooper is a highly educated and connected electorate and I’m sure a number of issues will be weighed up ahead of the next election, including the LNP’s preference deals with One Nation,’’ Ms Jones said.
After the royalties deal was dumped, Adani indefinitely delayed its investment decision scheduled for today on the Carmichael project, set to be Australia’s biggest coalmine.
A divided cabinet also voted on Friday to break its agreement with the Turnbull government to act as “the middle man’’ for the application and disbursement of commonwealth funding from the $5bn Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.
Adani has sought a NAIF loan of up to $900 million for its rail link that will eventually be opened to other miners in the Galilee Basin.
Treasurer Pitt last year acknowledged “constitutional legal advice’’ that Queensland needed to act as a “legal conduit’’ for the loans and flagged support for 11 projects dipping into the fund. On Saturday, however, Deputy Premier and left faction leader Jackie Tad, who holds her South Brisbane seat on Greens preferences and has not been targeted by GetUp!, announced the government would no longer facilitate loans from the fund.
“Our position is the federal government should be funding Adani from the NAIF directly and not using Queensland as a middle man,’’ she said.
Federal Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Matt Canavan said the NAIF could not be changed and that Queensland had worked collaboratively to overcome the legal hurdles of the fund: “We put the NAIF arrangements for good reasons and we have no plans to change them.”
The GetUp! dialler tool raises the NAIF $900m concessional loan for the rail-line connecting the Adani project with the coast at Abbot Point, warning that without this “handout”, it would be “very unlikely that the Adani coalmine will proceed”.
The concessional loan is opposed by Bill Shorten, who argues that the project should “stack up” without taxpayer-funded support.
Curtis Pitt letters
“This handout is very unpopular with voters,” the dialler-tool says. “Our strategy then is to talk to voters in key Liberal-held marginal electorates where there are moderate Liberal MPs. Given enough pressure, these MPs will speak out … Malcolm Turnbull can direct Canavan to veto the loan and will do so given sufficient pressure.”
A GetUp! spokeswoman said 54,549 calls had been made. “People have been volunteering to make calls into target electorates both from their own homes and taking part in ‘calling parties’ in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney,’’ she said.
Acting federal Liberal director Andrew Bragg said “GetUp! and environmental activists threaten Australian democracy, which is no longer a level playing field … Their ruthless and underhanded coaching of people by encouraging lying to other voters via technology sets a new standard in Australian political campaigning.’’
Anti-coal activists are told to begin the phone calls by asking whether the recipient is aware of plans to extend a concessional loan of nearly $1bn to the Adani mine. “If they do support the loan, it’s time to cut our losses and wrap up the phone call,” the dialler-tool says.
A conversation with Jac Nasser - insights from a global Australian Join Jac Nasser, BHP Chairman in conversation with The Australian's Senior Business Writer John Durie for the opportunity to hear from a man who has risen to the top in some of the toughest and most competitive businesses. Thursday 29 June 2017, 12pm for 12.30pm to 2pm Ivy Ballroom, 320 George Street, Sydney Book Now OA man suspected of fatally shooting four people at his neighbor's home in Kansas City, Kansas before killing another man about 170 miles away in a rural Missouri house was taken into custody early Wednesday morning after an extensive manhunt, the Missouri Highway Patrol said.
BREAKING: Missouri Highway Patrol found Serrano laying on the ground on the north side of the highway @41ActionNews — Dia Wall (@DiaWall) March 9, 2016
Pablo Antonio Serrano-Vitorino, a Mexican national who authorities said was in the country illegally, is accused of fatally shooting 36-year-old Jeremy D. Waters of Miami County, 41-year-old Michael L. Capps, 27-year-old Clint E. Harter and 29-year-old Austin L. Harter – all three from KCK.
He was also wanted in connection with the shooting death of 49-year-old Randy Nordman in Montgomery County.
The manhunt for Serrano-Vitorino included helicopters, police dogs and at least one SWAT team began late Monday after the first shooting. One of the four men managed to call police before he died, but it's unclear how the men knew each other or what may have prompted the shooting, Kansas City police officer Thomas Tomasic said.
The manhunt shifted Tuesday, when a truck Serrano-Vitorino was believed to be driving was found about 7 a.m. abandoned along Interstate 70 in central Missouri, about 80 miles west of St. Louis.
About 25 minutes later, sheriff's deputies responded to a shooting about five miles away at a Montgomery County home and found the body of 49-year-old Nordman, according to the patrol.
Highway Patrol Lt. Paul Reinsch said a witness who called 911 reported seeing a man running from Nordman's property, launching a manhunt of that area.
The patrol said Tuesday that Serrano-Vitorino was considered dangerous and may be armed with an AK-47.
Reinsch said investigators weren't aware of any connection between Serrano-Vitorino and Nordman, whose home is near his family's campground and a racetrack for remote-controlled cars.
Serrano-Vitorino was charged with four counts of first-degree murder in their killings, Wyandotte County District Attorney Jerome Gorman said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement Tuesday night that Serrano-Vitorino, of Mexico, had been deported from the U.S. in April 2004 and illegally re-entered "on an unknown date." ICE said it would place a detainer on Serrano-Vitorino if he is taken into custody.
According to the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, Serrano-Vitorino was released from suicide watch Wednesday afternoon and placed in general population. Thursday morning it was discovered Serrano-Vitorino cut himself with a safety razor in a suicide attempt.
The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office said ambulance personnel were summoned, and Serrano Vitorino was transported to the hospital. He is under guard and in stable condition.
Charges against Pablo Antonio Serrano-Vitorino Wyandotte County District Attorney Jerome A. Gorman has charged Serrano-Vitorino, 40, with four counts of first-degree murder. On Wednesday afternoon, Serrano-Vitorino was also charged with first degree murder, armed criminal action and burglary in Montgomery County. If guilty, he could face the death penalty. A preliminary hearing is set for April 28 at 1:30 p.m. Serrano has requested and was approved for a public defender. No bond was was set for Serrano in Montgomery County. Instead of a wedding anniversary, victim's widow plans a funeral Kansas City, Kansas police said on Monday night, police responded to a shooting in the 3000 block of South 36th Street. When officers arrived they found three men dead from apparent gunshot wounds. A fourth victim was transported to an area hospital where he later died from gunshot wounds. A neighbor told 41 Action News that Serrano-Vitorino lived next door to the home where the four victims were found. It’s unclear what may have led to the murders. Family members told 41 Action News two of the victims in the homicide are Clint Harter and Austin Harter. Harter’s wife, Ruth, says they were two weeks away from their eighth wedding anniversary. But instead planning for a celebration, she is planning for a funeral. Ruth received a call at work that something was wrong.By the time she rushed home, police confirmed her worst fear. She had spoken with Clint just a few hours before his death. ‘I said ‘hey what are you doing?’ He kept telling me stuff and all of a sudden it was ‘just babe, babe, babe,” Harter said. The four deaths left many in disbelief, including Audrey Ragan. She takes care of her mom, who lives across the street from the Harters. “My legs went numb I couldn't believe it,” Ragan said. She says Clint loved to fix classic cars. “He would get [them] out occasionally and drive, “ Ragan said. “He was pretty proud of them.” But above all he devoted his heart to his daughter, Zoivanii, with another child on the way. “I will keep his memory alive my girls will know how much he loved them,” Ruth Harter said. Besides a funeral, the family is planning a candle vigil later in the week at the site where the shooting happened. The Harter family has set up a GoFundMe to help with funeral costs and other expenses. A vigil for the victims was held at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Another vigil will be held Wednesday at 6 p.m. Watch 41 Action News Reporter Andres Gutierrez's report below:
Department of Homeland Security confirms Pablo Serrano-Vitorino is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico
According to the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) previously deported Serrano-Vitorino, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, in April 2004.
He illegally returned to the U.S. on an unknown date.
ICE released the following statement:
"Mr. Serrano-Vitorino was fingerprinted Sept. 14, 2015 at the Overland Park Municipal Court, which generated the issuance of an ICE detainer. Further records checks indicate that ICE erroneously issued the detainer to the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, instead of to the Overland Park Municipal Court."
Despite the ICE detainer and his criminal history, he was “subsequently released from local custody without ICE being notified,” the Department of Homeland Security said.
The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office is also looking into the case.
“ICE continues to monitor the case and will place another detainer on Serrano-Vitorino if he is again taken into local custody,” according to a statement from the department.
The Wyandotte County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to 41 Action News he was arrested in June 2015 for alleged domestic violence. He was released on his own recognizance.
Serrano-Vitorino to be prosecuted in Missouri and Kansas
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster will assist Montgomery County prosecutor Nathan Carroz in the case against Serrano-Vitorino, according to a release from Koster's office.
“This is an unimaginable tragedy for the family and friends of Randy Nordman and the four men murdered in Kansas City, Kansas,” Koster said. “My office will work tirelessly to bring justice for Mr. Nordman.”
Serrano-Vitorino will be prosecuted in Missouri prior to proceedings in Kansas.
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Like 41 Action News on Facebook :People who were charged with a crime in England used to be told by the police that they did not have to say anything, but that anything they did say might be taken down and used as evidence against them. I think we should all be given this warning whenever we use a mobile telephone.
Recently the courts asked me to examine a man charged with murder. Among the documents in the case the prosecution provided for me were transcripts of the accused man’s last few mobile telephone calls to the person who was soon to become his victim. The accused, of course, had no idea that his calls were being recorded. There was no doubt whatever that he had committed the act of which he was accused and that he was not altogether a nice chap; murderers seldom are, though I have known some nice murderers. Nevertheless, I found the transcripts disturbing. Everything these days is taken down and may be used in evidence against us.
Practically all our life in the public space is now recorded by a camera placed somewhere unbeknown to us. Video evidence of the accused person’s movements before his alleged crime is now routinely produced in court. There are millions of recordings of us. It is enough to make a sensitive person fear to leave his house and never to use his telephone.
“Most of us comfort ourselves that we have nothing to hide, though personally I doubt that anyone can be quite as dull as that.”
I remember the last days of CeauÈescu’s Romania. If you went to someone’s home, he immediately put a cushion over the telephone because he assumed that it was bugged by a microphone. In embassies diplomats would speak to you only in basements deep in the ground that they believed had been cleared of all electronic apparatuses. But surveillance under CeauÈescu was crude and sporadic by comparison with the surveillance that we all undergo nowadays in free countries.
Where our movements, our purchases, our conversations, and our financial transactions are universally traced, or at least traceable, we hope that the effect of the surveillance cancels itself out, that the signal is lost in the noise. We continue to live as before because we cannot do otherwise; even terrorists continue to use the phones so often that will entrap them. (I don”t understand why they don”t communicate by post.) Most of us comfort ourselves that we have nothing to hide, though personally I doubt that anyone can be quite as dull as that.
The advertisements that I receive over my email tend to simultaneously comfort, alarm, and amuse me. I use no spam filter because spam is often more interesting than bona fide personal communications (just as overheard conversations are often so much more interesting than the ones we have ourselves). I assume that, given the almost infinite number of possible advertisers, the advertisements I receive are not sent to me at random but as a result of some kind of electronic profiling. What comforts me about them is that such profiling has so completely mistaken my character; the advertisements are almost all for things in which I have absolutely no interest. Cyberspace has not succeeded in plucking out the heart of my mystery any more than Rosencrantz succeeded in plucking out the heart of Hamlet’s mystery.
Pay to Play - Put your money where your mouth is and subscribe for an ad-free experience and to join the world famous Takimag comment board.The Ruby Tuesday located in Hopkins Square closed this summer, leaving a vacant space available for rent in the commercially viable complex. The Cordish Company, in charge of leasing for Hopkins Square, has been in conversation with several companies hoping to fill the space, however one likely company is the Java Jazz Bar and Grill.
Situated in the heart of Charles Village, Hopkins Square is located at 3003 North Charles Street. The Square is directly adjacent to the Homewood, the largest Hopkins undergraduate apartment building, accommodating 220 residents.
Cordish emphasizes the complex’s proximity to Hopkins and Union Memorial Hospital as an incentive for businesses to invest in retail space.
According to data provided by Cordish, the space is privy to an average daily traffic count of 22,000, in addition to vehicles. Beyond the foot traffic driven by Hopkins students and affiliates, the surrounding residential area is densely populated. Further demographic overview provided by Cordish indicates that the 2010 population within one mile of the Square was 37,784. The number of households was reported as 15,806.
Despite the reportedly extensive commercial traffic, Ruby Tuesday was forced to vacate the complex due to waning profits. The restaurant opened in the spring of 1999. The Charles Village location was the restaurant chain’s first opening in Baltimore. Ruby Tuesday was an anchor retailer at Hopkins Square, along with FedEx Kinko’s and 7-Eleven, for the past decade prior to closing.
The 4500 square foot space is available for a five-year lease contract, with an option of renewal for an additional five years at a fixed rate.
“We are currently in conversation with several businesses interested in the vacant space,” Bob Waugh, Director of Development for The Cordish Company, said. “Nothing is definite at this time.”
One potential leaser is the Java Jazz Bar and Grill, partly owned by Warriors Group. Warriors Group owns 51 percent of the company; the remaining 49 percent is available for investors. Warriors Group is a veterans advocate group founded by soldiers. This nonprofit organization seeks to assist, foster and promote enterprises that create entrepreneurial and employment opportunities for veterans. One percent of profits from the Java Jazz Bar and Grill would go to supporting this advocacy endeavor.
Sergeant Cornelius Thomas of the United States Army is part of Warriors Group’s team working on launching the new business. Thomas said that although conversations are still preliminary at this time, they hope to finalize contracts to lease the Hopkins Square space in the coming weeks. The owners hope to open Java Jazz Bar and Grill in the first week of January.
According to Thomas, Java Jazz Bar and Grill would be open 24-hours, 7-days a week. They plan to offer breakfast, lunch, and dinner menu items, with breakfast items served at all hours.
The owners aspire to make the Java Jazz Bar and Grill a relaxed environment where students and Charles Village residents alike will want to spend time.
Chelsea Brock, who is a Private First Class in the US Army National Guard, is also the program assistant, representing the mix of entrepreneurship and military service.
“We want people who live in the area to feel comfortable waking up and walking right down to us to grab some breakfast,” Brock said.
To entice students, the owners plan to make free Wifi available to patrons.
“We want students coming here to study with friends and grab some coffee, and then come back later in the night for some dinner and to unwind. A full wine bar and full coffee bar will be available, with over 300 different kinds of hot teas. Our main audience is college students, but also residents. We want to reach the whole community,” Brock said.
The owners plan to host live jazz performances during three shifts each day, as well as regular Karaoke nghts, Open Mic Nights and poetry nights.
Some Hopkins undergraduate students are excited by the possibility of a new eatery and social venue in the area. Many consider the limited selection of restaurants, bars and cafés currently available in Charles Village as a detractor from the Hopkins social scene.
“I think it’s great a new business is opening up. Charles Village needs more options for students. It gets boring going to the same places all the time,” senior Gerrard Clark said.
Java Jazz Bar and Grill’s unique offering of live music furthers the appeal.
“I love live jazz, and would be a huge supporter of any jazz bar to open in the Hopkins area. I know many students who would be thrilled with this addition, and many others who would love to explore a live jazz culture,” Peabody senior Kathryn Ledwell said.
No conclusive decisions have been made regarding the space at this time.
“I met with [the Warriors Group] yesterday,” Waugh said yesterday. “They’re very enthusiastic about the plans but I am still waiting to receive final paperwork before further discussion can be had. We are nowhere near finalizing a deal.”Five years ago, if you were an investor looking for guidance on which country’s debt was the safest to invest in, Standard & Poor’s ratings wouldn’t have done much to help you navigate the headwinds of the financial crisis.
Investors now think that Ireland has more than a 40 percent chance of a default or debt restructuring at some point in the next five years. The country is penalized with double-digit interest rates when it wants to borrow money. But in 2006, Standard & Poor’s had Ireland’s debt rated with its top-of-the-line, AAA rating. It didn’t downgrade Ireland until March 30, 2009, long after its financial problems had become obvious, and the price to buy insurance on its debt had increased tenfold from a year earlier.
Spain, which markets now posit has about a three-in-ten chance of default or restructuring, also had a AAA rating, which it maintained until January 2009. Today it still has a AA rating, one notch higher than Japan’s.
Iceland, the tiny country with the oversized banking sector that came perilously close to national bankruptcy, was in 2006 rated AA+, the same rating the United States now has.
Greece, which now appears more likely than not to endure at least a technical default, had debt rated A, lower than most European countries but a reasonably good grade by world standards. It too was not downgraded until January 2009, and its bonds were still rated as investment-grade until March 2010.
Although Standard & Poor’s assigns ratings based on a series of letter grades, they can easily be translated into a numerical scale — sort of like the way that letter grades in high school are translated into a grade-point average:
This allows to test the reliability of the ratings in various ways, as well as to reverse-engineer them and see how the sausage is made.
What factors is S.&P. looking at when it rates sovereign debt? A country’s debt-to-G.D.P. ratio? Its inflation rate? The size of its annual deficits?
S.&P. does look at each of these factors. But it also places very heavy emphasis on subjective views about a country’s political environment. In fact, these political factors are at least as important as economic variables in determining their ratings.
For instance, the S.&P. ratings have an extremely strong relationship with a measure of political risk known as the Corruption Perceptions Index, which is published annually by Transparency International. These ratings have been the subject of much criticism because they are highly subjective, relying on a composite of surveys conducted among “experts” at international organizations who may have spent little time in most of the countries and who may instead base their judgments on cultural stereotypes.
I don’t know whether or not S.&P. looks at these ratings. But the fact that the two sets of ratings are so closely related is troublesome. It suggests that S.&P. is making a lot of judgment calls about countries they have no particular knowledge about. Keep in mind that even when it comes to the United States, S.&P. made a $2 trillion error that reflects their lack of understanding of the way that bills are scored by the Congressional Budget Office. Are we to expect that they add value based on their perceptions of the political climate in Kazakhstan, or Cyprus, or Uganda?
Other factors that S.&P. looks at, which can be determined through regression analysis, include a country’s G.D.P., its inflation rate, its recent deficits and its long-term debt. But the subjective Corruption Perceptions Index is more closely related to the S.&P. ratings than any of these economic fundamentals.
In addition, in 2006, S.&P. tended to rate European countries higher than others, even after controlling for all these other factors — something which has been especially problematic since, with some exceptions like Venezuela and Lebanon, countries in the euro zone now dominate the list of those most likely to default.
None of this would be a problem if S.&P.’s ratings had performed well. But there is little evidence that they do. The next chart presents a comparison of S.&P. ratings as of June 30, 2006, to the risk of default five years later (on June 30, 2011) as measured by the prices of credit default swaps, financial instruments that pay an investor if there is a default on a bond obligation.
S.&P.’s bond ratings from five years ago would have told you almost nothing about the risk of a default today. They had no insight about the threats in European markets, nor about which countries in Europe were relatively more likely to default. (Norway, which remains among the most solvent countries in the world, had a AAA rating in 2006, but so did Ireland and Spain.)
By comparison, simply looking at a country’s ratio of net debt to G.D.P. would have been a better predictor of default. It wouldn’t have done well by any means: it only explains about 12 percent of default risk. Still, this simple statistical indicator does better than the S.&P. ratings. (Nor is it the case that some combination of debt-to-G.D.P. ratios and S.&P. ratings does better than either one taken alone. Once you’d accounted for a country’s debt-to-G.D.P. ratio, the S.&P. ratings would not have improved your projections of default risk by a statistically significant margin.)
Certainly, one might contemplate more sophisticated models than this (for instance, accounting for a country’s inflation rate in addition to its debt seems to be helpful). But when considerably more advanced studies have been published by academic economists like Carmen M. Reinhart, they have come to similar conclusions. Ms. Reinhart found that, although S.&P. rating changes have some value in predicting defaults, they are significantly outperformed by objective, statistical indicators.
One might reasonably protest that my study (although not Ms. Reinhart’s) is comparing apples to oranges. Whereas S.&P. is attempting to forecast actual defaults, I’m instead looking at the market’s perceived risk of default as of today. None of these countries have actually defaulted yet. There’s still the chance that the markets turn out to be wrong and S.&P. turns out to be right.
Here’s the problem with that: S.&P. ratings tend to lag, rather than lead, the market. That is, in cases where the market’s view of default risk is misaligned with S.&P.’s, S.&P. is a good bet to change their rating to catch up to market perception.
As I mentioned, for instance, investors had already determined that Irish debt and Greek debt had become quite risky long before S.&P. downgraded those countries. We can also study this in a slightly more formal way. Suppose that we’re trying to predict what S.&P.’s rating for a country would be today based on two factors: S.&P.’s rating on June 30, 2009, and the market’s perception of default risk (as determined through credit default swap prices) on the same date.
If you place these variables into a regression equation, the market price of credit default swaps is a statistically significant predictor of what S.&P.’s rating would be two years later. What that implies is that the markets pick up on salient information about the countries’ default risk before S.&P. does.
In fact, the evidence from the past five years suggests that it may be worthwhile to adopt a contrarian investing strategy that specifically bets against S.&P.’s ratings. If you were trying to predict a country’s default risk today, based on the market’s perception of its default risk two years ago as well as its S.&P. rating at that time, you would find that accounting for S.&P. ratings actually subtracted value from your model. That is, if the market had priced two countries as having a 20 percent default risk in 2009, but one of them had a AA rating from S.&P. and the other had a BB rating, the country with the worse S.&P. rating is likely to have proven to be the safer bet.
The reason for this is that S.&P. ratings probably have some influence on market perceptions about default risk — even though they aren’t very good. If markets evaluate a country as having a 20 percent chance of default, but S.&P. rates it as being quite safe, that price represents a compromise between daft investors who take S.&P.’s ratings to be gospel, and savvier ones who have conducted their own analysis and have concluded that the country is at significant risk of default. By betting against S.&P.’s ratings, you’re taking the side of the smart investors — and getting a subsidy from the suckers who think S.&P.’s price is right.
But there is another “tell” to indicate that S.&P.’s ratings are slow to incorporate new information. It’s something which they seem to think is a feature of their ratings, but which instead is evidence that they are fundamentally flawed.
The giveaway is that S.&P.’s rating changes are serially correlated — that is, downgrades tend to follow downgrades, and upgrades tend to follow upgrades. According to the company’s internal analysis, once a country is downgraded it has a 52 percent chance of being downgraded again in the next two years. By contrast, there is just a 9 percent chance that S.&P. will reverse course and upgrade the country.
What this implies is that S.&P.’s ratings are inefficient about how they incorporate new information. If a country is downgraded from AAA to AA, and that implies that the country is quite likely to be downgraded again in the near future, the question is why S.&P. didn’t apply a steeper downgrade in the first place.
Consider the case, for instance, where I had a model to determine the value of shares in Google. Initially, my estimate had been that a price of $600 per share is appropriate. But then there is some shock to the system — say, some fresh evidence that the country is on the verge of another recession and that this could adversely affect Google’s profits. I estimate that $500 is now a fair price.
So I tell you that I’m willing to sell you Google shares, today, for $500. But I also tell you that tomorrow, I’m likely to lower my estimate further, so you can probably buy Google stock from me for $400 per share.
No competent brokerage firm would ever convey that kind of information to investors. If I signal to you that I’m likely to accept a cheaper price tomorrow than I am today, nobody would buy at today’s price.
But this is essentially what S.&P. does. Rather than downgrade (or upgrade) a country by several notches, even when there is abundant to support it, they instead do so in stages. Greek debt, for instance, has been downgraded seven times since January 2009, as S.&P. has slowly caught up with the grim realities that investors had long ago perceived.
I suspect the reason that S.&P. behaves this way is because they know that their ratings can have reverberations on the market and are trying to avoid a sudden downgrade that might induce panic.
But in so doing, they are violating their mission of providing the most earnest and accurate assessment of a country’s default risk at any given time. A country that is downgraded from AAA to AA is riskier, in S.&P.’s view, than one that was just upgraded from A to AA — even though they now have the same rating — since the former country is likely to be downgraded again and the latter is likely to be upgraded again. S.&P. knows this, and smart investors know this. But they won’t tell you this because dumb investors might get spooked, which could rattle the markets.
A more cynical view is that S.&P. is playing the role of the schoolmarm, looking for excuses to reward or punish countries based on good behavior — and that this is getting in the way of their objectivity. Investors think, for instance, that France is 2 or 3 times more likely to default in the next five years than the United States based on France’s exposure to Greek debt. However, France maintains its AAA rating whereas the U.S. was just downgraded to AA
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,” Su said during the call. Channel vendors will receive the first Ryzen chips, along with system integrators. More traditional hardware vendors will come later, Su added.
That statement implies that vendors like Dell or HP (neither of which have been officially confirmed to be using the Ryzen chip) will be asked to wait, while AMD caters to boutique PC vendors. Ryzen will take on Intel’s highest-end Core chips, specifically the Core i5 and Core i7 processors, Su said.
Why this matters: AMD has said previously that it believes Ryzen to be the most significant consumer product it will introduce in well over a decade, with its subsequent Naples chip helping to extend AMD and its Zen architecture into the higher-margin server business. For the last several years, AMD’s shipments into the console business have propped up the company’s revenues while Ryzen was developed, but as both the Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4 move into their fifth year of life, AMD isn't depending on the console any more.
Hints of the Zen roadmap
Unsurprisingly, Su also confirmed that AMD is already thinking about the follow-ons to Ryzen: Su referred to a “Zen 2” and a “Zen 3,” and confirmed that AMD is also developing with 7-nm technology in mind. That will help offset any concerns hardware partners have about competing with Intel, she said.
“Our top customers—they are investing in our roadmap, they are not just investing in a point product,” Su said.
AMD Ryzen could signal a return to CPU greatness for AMD.
Su’s comments seemingly back up what a Game Developers Conference presentation revealed earlier: that Ryzen would launch before March 3. (Su didn’t specifically confirm our report sourced from the GDC document, however.) Su also revealed that its Zen-based server product, Naples, will launch in the second quarter.
What’s new, though, is a Vega timetable: Su revealed that the Vega GPUs will ship during the second quarter as well. In the second half of 2017, AMD still plans to launch a Zen-based APU, codenamed “Raven Ridge,” primarily designed for notebooks but also some desktops.
AMD's earnings reflect the transition
Su added that the profit margins for both Ryzen and Vega will be well above AMD’s average. Those aren't showing up in the current earnings, obviously. AMD reported a net loss of $51 million, though the company claimed $26 million in operating income when tossing out expenses. AMD reported a 7 percent increase in revenue from a year ago, to $1.1 billion. A year ago, AMD reported a net loss of $102 million.
Unlike prior quarters, AMD’s earnings were driven by its PC businesses, as opposed to the SoC chips that power gaming consoles and other products. AMD’s Computing and Graphics business generated $600 million in revenue, up 28 percent year-over-year. AMD said the growth was driven by GPU sales, specifically higher GPU prices. Put another way, GPU revenue was the highest in 11 quarters, Su said, and PC client revenue was the highest in the last seven quarters. Su offered no predictions for the success of Microsoft’s Project Scorpio and Sony’s next-generation console, however; “we’ll see how they do,” she said.
AMD predicted that revenue would drop by 11 percent (plus or minus 3 percent) in the current quarter, however, indicating that AMD won’t have as much to offer before Ryzen’s launch. That’s because AMD wanted to clear out its channel inventory, Su explained, before Ryzen officially ships.Image copyright PA Image caption Campaigners believe a deposit-return scheme would boost recycling
A detailed study into how a deposit-return scheme for bottles and cans would work has been commissioned by the Scottish government.
The initiative would see customers pay a small surcharge which is refunded when the bottle is returned to a shop.
Design options and potential costs will be examined by Zero Waste Scotland, with the findings then being put to a public consultation.
International drinks giant Coca-Cola has already backed the idea.
Environment Secretary Roseanna Cunningham said she had asked Zero Waste Scotland to start work on how a deposit return scheme would work in practice.
She said: "I am grateful to Zero Waste Scotland for its work so far on deposit return and to everyone who provided evidence to help us better understand the benefits of deposit return for recycling and reducing litter, and potential impacts on retailers and local authorities.
"Clearly there are a number of issues for the Scottish government to consider when it comes to deposit return schemes that can only be addressed by carrying out work to understand the design of a potential system."
Organisations like Coca-Cola have been coming under significant pressure to reduce the impact of plastic on the environment.
Greenpeace has just completed a study of Scotland's coastal habitats which found plastic in the nests and beaks of seabirds.
It said plastic bottles, bags and packaging were found on every one of the 30 remote beaches it surveyed.
Drinks companies, retailers and packaging firms will be invited to join a steering group along with environmental groups.
'Cheered from the rooftops'
The Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland has been running the Have You Got The Bottle? campaign.
Campaign manager Jenni Hume said: "This decision by Roseanna Cunningham will break the log-jam on this issue, and today she will be cheered from the rooftops by a wide range of businesses and campaigners.
"Whether or not organisations are already persuaded that deposit return would work well for Scotland, as it does around the world, we can now look forward to a proper discussion about a Scotland-specific proposal.
"We will be making the case for a system that works well for the public, for local authorities, and for small Scottish businesses, including retailers and bars as well as producers."
Zero Waste Scotland's initial study into the potential benefits of a scheme estimated that local authorities could save between £3m and £6m on litter clearance alone.
'Unnecessary' proposals
A spokeswoman said the final decision on introducing a scheme would be for the government to make.
She said: "It's important that we understand the evidence around potential costs and benefits of a deposit return scheme, in a specific Scottish context, and that's why we're undertaking further work for the Scottish government to look at designing a potential Scottish system and testing that out."
However, Ewan MacDonald-Russell, the Scottish Retail Consortium's head of policy and external affairs, described the proposals as "unnecessary, anachronistic, and expensive".
"We know this scheme will be hugely expensive for retailers, costing tens of millions to install reverse vending machines, cannibalising profitable floor space for unprofitable waste machines, disrupting operations and hugely inconveniencing customers," he said.
"In fact, the costs are clear. What is still uncertain is whether such a scheme will significantly improve overall recycling rates."Photos by Ásdís Pálsdóttir
Forty-four years ago, one of the most important sources for Norse mythology returned to its home in Iceland. The 13th century Icelandic manuscript, the Codex Regius (“King’s Book”), contains poems about gods, heroes, dragons, dwarves and giants from Iceland’s pagan past.
Scholars disagree about when the poems were first composed, but generally agree that they preserve elements of the oral tradition pre-existing Iceland’s conversion to Christianity in 1000 AD. After an Icelandic bishop presented the manuscript as a gift to the Danish king in 1662, it became known as the “King’s Book.” Iceland’s great collection of mythological poems remained in Denmark for over three hundred years. Icelanders didn’t trust the safety of air travel for the return of the irreplaceable manuscript, so a military escort guarded its journey via ship to Reykjavík, where a large crowd joyfully awaited its arrival on April 21, 1971.
Today, the poems are known and loved around the world as the core of the ‘Poetic Edda’, a book that has been repeatedly translated into many languages in various forms over the last few centuries. The collection of poems tells tales of the prophecy of Ragnarök, the wise sayings of Óðinn, the adventures of Þór, the slanderous accusations by Loki, the tragedy of Sigurðr the dragon-slayer, and much more.
An insight into a life that was
Pagan poems written down in thirteenth century Iceland have a vibrant life in today’s Ásatrú, a modern iteration of Old Norse religion. In the twenty-first century, the ‘Poetic Edda’ is treasured by Heathens around the world as a vital connection to voices from the pagan past.
“The poems of the ‘Eddas’ are a source of wisdom of humanity,” says Jóhanna G. Harðardóttir, goði (“priest”) of Ásatrúarfé- lagið, the religious organization that began the revival of pre-Christian Heathen faith in Iceland in 1972. According to Jóhanna, ‘Hávamál’ (“Sayings of the High One”), a poem narrated by the Norse god Óðinn, contains “the best lessons you can learn about getting along with other people in life. The world has changed, but people are still the same.”
Haukur Bragason, another goði, sees the poems as sources of both knowledge and entertainment. “They are a treasure, an insight into a life that was,” he says. “They are man-made fantasy explanations to questions that could not be answered. They contain serious philosophical questions and teachings, as well as being the TV series of that time.”
Worldwide Heathens
Although it may be impossible to truly translate poetry, the ‘Poetic Edda’ is known and loved in many languages. Since its founding in Iceland, the modern iteration of Norse religion known as Heathenry or Ásatrú (“Æsir faith”) has spread widely. The Worldwide Heathen Census 2013 found followers in 98 countries. Iceland has the largest number of Heathens per capita, while America has the greatest total number.
The poems resonate with Heathens in many lands, and the myths they contain have an influence that transcends national borders. “In Germany, we have a long and very rich tradition in translating the ‘Poetic Edda,’” says Andreas Zautner of the Eldaring. “There are more than a dozen translations highlighting different aspects. The ‘Poetic Edda’ is still influencing our daily culture. For example, if you visit Thale in the Harz Mountains, you find wooden statues of Eddic figures all over the town.”
Other Heathens were lured to Iceland by the ‘Poetic Edda’. “I knew the poems before I came to Iceland because I came mainly to learn more about them,” says Lenka Kovárová, a member of the Ásatrúarfélagið’s lögretta, who came to Reykjavík from the Czech Republic to earn a Master’s degree in Old Norse religion at the University of Iceland. “I see them in wider context as a part of European heritage, as a sort of pattern of wisdom.”
For others, like Eric Scott, an American Heathen who writes for The Wild Hunt and who came to Reykjavík to study Icelandic language, the ‘Edda’ is no less important. “The ‘Edda’ is like an heirloom—a reminder of where I, as a Heathen, have come from, and an inspiration for the future,” he says. “The voice of the poems is a grandfather’s voice, describing a foreign world in a foreign time, but a world less different from my own than it would seem at first. The poetry isn’t a set of fixed laws or inarguable truths, but rather a store of tales and maxims to meditate on.”
Poetry as ritual
Throughout the international Ásatrú community, the Icelandic poems are used in spiritual contexts. “I use the poems to remind me of who I am,” says Jóhanna, “and to teach children who they are and what they can become if they want to.”
For Steven T. Abell, Steersman (Executive Director) of The Troth, an American Heathen organization, the poems have deep personal meaning that transcends their literary value. “I feel an obligation to honour what is in the ‘Eddas’ in their own terms,” he says. “Just calling them great literature is not enough for me.”
The poems are spoken or sung in Ásatrú celebrations around the world. “Ásatrúarfélagið uses the poems in all their rituals and ceremonies,” says Haukur. “You can always find something relevant to the occasion at hand or the milestone in people’s lives. We use verses from ‘Hávamál’, ‘Völuspá’ and ‘Sigurdrífumál’, for example, in everything from a namegiving ceremony to a wedding and funeral, and also in common rituals.”
‘Sigurdrífumál’ (“Sayings of Sigrdrífa”) is one of the poems most widely used in modern religious contexts. Two verses used by the Ásatrúarfélagið in ceremonies and celebrations are also used by the Troth to begin weddings in America. In Henry Adams Bellows’s classic translation, they read:
Hail, day! Hail, sons of day!
And night and her daughter now!
Look on us here with loving eyes,
That waiting we victory win.
Hail to the gods! Ye goddesses, hail,
And all the generous earth!
Give to us wisdom and goodly speech,
And healing hands, life-long.
Other poems are often recited or chanted on special occasions. In Germany, a verse spoken by the god Óðinn is used for funerals and the remembrance of lost loved ones:
Cattle die, and kinsmen die,
And so one dies one’s self;
One thing now that never dies,
The fame of a dead man’s deeds.
The poems are sometimes given dramatic performance as part of religious rituals. Eric has performed ‘Völuspá’ (“Prophecy of the Seeress”) as part of a midwinter Yule ceremony. “We walked our group through the mythic history of the poem,” he says, “reenacting its events, especially the tale of Baldr’s death. Stepping into the poem, and embodying it, gave ‘Völuspá’ even greater depth for me. I had not only read the text, but—in a sense—I had lived it, as well.”
In many ways, in many lands, these ancient Icelandic poems continue to resonate deeply in hearts and minds. Eight centuries after they were first written down, and four decades after the Codex Regius manuscript was returned to Iceland, the poems of the ‘Poetic Edda’ have a vibrant life as part of the worldwide religious tradition of Ásatrú.SAN ANTONIO — Janissa Valdez, the 12-year-old girl who was body slammed by a middle school police officer following an altercation with another student, reportedly posted a photo with more than $400 in cash on Snapchat, appearing to brag about her newfound “fame,” according to social media posts.
The photo shows a girl holding a wad of at least $400 in various increments with the tagline: “Just because I’m famous now” with several emojis.
RELATED: Video of San Antonio middle school officer slamming female student on concrete sparks investigation
Initially it’s unclear if the girl in the photo is indeed Valdez, but the girl is wearing the same shirt that Valdez was wearing during her taping with “Good Morning America.”
One person in a social media posts insinuated the money she was holding in the Snapchat photo is possibly money received as payment for the national interview. Others are arguing over the photo and incident on social media, as well.
The Express-News has not confirmed if the money was payment to the girl or family for the interview.
RELATED: San Antonio middle school girl suspended after being thrown to ground by officer
Janissa Valdez, reportedly seen here in this photo on Snapchat, flaunts several hundred dollars in cash after a national interview regarding an incident where she was slammed on the ground by a police officer. Janissa Valdez, reportedly seen here in this photo on Snapchat, flaunts several hundred dollars in cash after a national interview regarding an incident where she was slammed on the ground by a police officer. Image 1 of / 20 Caption Close Girl body slammed by SAISD cop reportedly shares pic with wad of cash touting newfound fame 1 / 20 Back to Gallery
In the “Good Morning America” interview posted online Thursday, Valdez said she was still bruised from the incident where officer Joshua Kehm intervened after two students became verbally aggressive toward each other on the afternoon of March 29 at Rhodes Middle School.
"I just want something done," Janissa’s mother, Gloria, said regarding the officer. "Because he could go back and do it again to my daughter or another student."
RELATED: Video shows San Antonio officer using controversial neck restraint
Kehm has been placed on paid administrative leave, while the administration and the district’s police department investigates the incident.
The video of the body slamming incident was posted to YouTube on Tuesday, and has been viewed more than 2 million times.
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Twitter: @tylerlwhiteThe Republican National Committee adopted new rules for the 2016 presidential primary today:
o The carve outs (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada) remain in February o Other states can start their contests on or after March 1 o The proportional window is reinstated but for a shorter duration. Any contest between March 1st and March 14th will be proportional
(This means that the early states cannot allocate their delegates in a winner-take-all format.)
o Any contest after March 14th can go proportional or winner take all o The window for selection of alternates and delegates moved from 35 days before the convention to 45 days before the convention. There is a waiver process for states that are required by law to hold a primary but are not in compliance with the 45 day window and aren’t under Republican control. o New penalties: “If any state or state Republican Party violates Rule No. 16(c)(1) of The Rules of the Republican Party, the number of delegates to the national convention shall be reduced for those states with 30 or more total delegates to nine (9) plus the members of the Republican National Committee from that state, and for those states with 29 or fewer total delegates to six (6) plus the members of the Republican National Committee from that state. The corresponding alternate delegates shall also be reduced accordingly.
March 1 is a Tuesday, so look for that to become the new Super Tuesday.
If the first four states space themselves out, the Iowa caucus will be February 2, 2016 (Groundhog Day!), the New Hampshire primary will be February 9, the South Carolina primary will be February 16, and the Nevada caucus will be February 23. (UPDATE: University of Iowa professor Tim Hagle tweets that the Iowa caucuses are usually held on a Monday, so he thinks it’s more likely that the caucus will be February 1.)
The RNC also named twelve members to its 2016 Convention Site Selection Committee. The RNC has not specified the date of the convention, but chairman Reince Priebus said he wants a “late June, early July” convention. In recent cycles, the parties have held their conventions in late August or early September, trying to get their post-convention bump as close to the fall campaign as possible.
Cities competing to host the 2016 Republican convention include Las Vegas, Denver, Phoenix, Kansas City, and Columbus, Ohio.A federal air marshal was stabbed with a syringe at the airport in Lagos, Nigeria, on Sunday, an incident that is raising concerns about whether the deadly Ebola virus could be harvested from the widespread outbreak in West Africa and used as a bioweapon.
Initial tests on the substance in the syringe, conducted at a special biodefense forensics laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., did not detect the virus or any other threatening agent, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Christos Sinos, said Wednesday. The marshal, who arrived in Houston on Monday, was examined there and has been released from the hospital with no sign of illness, according to a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration.
Experts say it would be extremely hard for a group to grow large amounts of the virus and turn it into a weapon that could be dispersed over a wide area, infecting and killing many people.
“The bad guys are more likely to kill themselves trying to develop it,” said Dr. Philip K. Russell, a retired major general who was the commander of the Army Medical Research and Development Command.BORACAY ISLAND, Philippines (Xinhua) - A spokesman for an aboriginal group in Boracay was shot dead by unidentified armed suspects yesterday night in Barangay Manoc Manoc, local police said.
Police authorities identified the victim as Dexter Condez, the spokesperson for Boracat Ati Tribal Organization (BATO). Companions of the victim immediately brought him to the Boracay District Hospital after the incident happened, the police said, but he was declared dead on arrival.
Delsa Justo, chief of BATO, said Condez have been actively calling the government to provide them the piece of land promised to them by the National Commission on Indigenous Person (NCIP).
The Philippine Department of Interior and Local Government had come over last month to investigate the claims of the indigenous people. According to BATO, the piece of land promised to them after decades-long struggle were being blocked by an influential businessman.
Xinhua tried to interview the Boracay Tourists Assistance Center of the Philippine National Police but got no comment. Police officials said they are still investigating the incident.Several major watchdog organizations including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) have denounced Donald Trump’s appointment of Steve Bannon as senior adviser and chief strategist in the White House, a move that also prompted harsh criticism and widespread alarm among political strategists. Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart News and a figure closely associated with the white-nationalist “alt-right” movement, is described as a dangerous influence in a statement released Sunday by the ADL. “It is a sad day when a man who presided over the premier website of the ‘alt-right’—a loose-knit group of white nationalists and unabashed anti-Semites and racists—is slated to be a senior staff member in the ‘people’s house,” the group’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote. Greenblatt went on to urge Trump to “appoint and nominate Americans committed to the well-being of all our country’s people and who exemplify the values of pluralism and tolerance that make our country great.” The watchdog’s warning comes just weeks after the organization released a report detailing a spike in anti-Semitism and harassment of journalists by “alt-right” Trump supporters. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a hate-watch group, reacted to Bannon’s appointment by tweeting out several stories posted at Breitbart under Bannon’s watch, including one that encouraged readers “Hoist it high and proud: the Confederate flag proclaims a glorious heritage.” Additionally, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) issued a condemnation: “The appointment of Stephen Bannon as a top Trump administration strategist sends the disturbing message that anti-Muslim conspiracy theories and white-nationalist ideology will be welcome in the White House,” said Nihad Awad, the group’s executive director. “We urge President-elect Trump to reconsider this ill-advised appointment if he truly seeks to unite Americans.”NEW DELHI: Records related to the 1857 mutiny are in Urdu and not in a condition to be copied, according to National Archives of India (NAI), which expressed its inability to provide an RTI applicant with the information.Right to Information (RTI) activist Salim Beg, who filed the query, also wanted to know details about the freedom fighters up to the end of the British rule.On the query seeking information on those who contributed in the 1857 mutiny and on various movements and meetings related to freedom struggle, the NAI said, "The records are available with the department in Urdu and are not in a condition to be copied."Replying to the query related to freedom fighters, the department said, "Providing this information needs a lot of analysis."And in the absence of definitive context, eg. file number, department/ ministry, branch/section sharing the information warrants a lot of research. As per the rules, Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) needs to provide information available with government bodies and not conduct researches on behalf of any applicant," the RTI reply said.The NAI said that extensive records relating to that period are available with it and any Indian citizen is entitled to access and study them on any working day, according to the Public Records Act, 1993.A picture from the Illustrated London News of 1857 showing two sepoys in Mumbai tied to cannon before being blown to bits after being implicated for plotting in the Mutiny. (Drill havaldar Sayed Hussein and sepoy Mangal Guddrea were executed for participating in the Mutiny)Heavensward was quite the journey for our Warriors of Light, exploring the depths of light and darkness, of war and loss, and of friendships and alliances forged for years to come.
As our heroes prepare for the gathering storm, the Community Team will be hosting a contest of reflection on the journey through Ishgard that will soon be coming to a close. We challenge you to take any cutscene from 3.0 to 3.55 and breathe new life into the scene with your voice acting talents. Similar to our previous “A Realm Redubbed” contest, you can choose to enter with a serious or comedic submission! Up to three submissions for each category will be selected to win a grand prize package including a Moogle Lamp, a Mandragora Plush, a Stormblood t-shirt and a choice of one in-game item!
Read on for full contest details.
(http://sqex.to/YI9)As if this year hasn’t already been a massive win for Flying Lotus, it appears your boy’s got a few extra tricks up his sleeve for the next one. In 2015, there hasn’t been much the madcap musician and producer hasn’t had his hands on. He’s been prominently featured on stud recordings from Kendrick Lamar and Thundercat, formed WOKE (a supergroup with the virtuoso bass man and destroyers-of-all-genre Shabazz Palaces), played in-house DJ on Hannibal Buress‘ Why? and teased new joints in his very own close-up in a recent Apple spot.
But what we haven’t seen much of as of late, at least since his own brilliant You’re Dead! LP dropped last year, is FlyLo’s equally eccentric, mad-rapping alter-ego Captain Murphy. However, thanks to a little friendly Twitter fodder, we now have confirmation that new Captain Murphy is on the way from Flying Lotus in the new year. When surprise drops become the norm and make-a-meme-a-minute is the millennial modus operandi, it’s hard to get excited about anything, from anyone. But in 2015, sometimes it only takes a tweet to get your ears perked up.
Alright, FlyLo, we’re waiting.
Revisit the 2012 Captain Murphy project Duality to really get those earworms moving.Tokyo Shoseki Most popular ninth-grade text
Ikuhosha Conservative textbook
SUBJECT
“In August, 1945, Japan surrendered, accepting the Potsdam Declaration, and World War II ended. Then Japan started to create a peaceful and democratic government, shedding militarism. The government created a draft constitution based on what G.H.Q. (General Headquarters of the Allied powers) drafted.”
“The Allied powers that defeated Japan in WWII thought that Japan’s political system under the Constitution of Imperial Japan was the main cause of the war … General MacArthur, the supreme commander for the Allied powers, requested amendments to Japan’s Constitution, and the Japanese government drafted a revision based on the Constitution of Imperial Japan. However, G.H.Q. declined it and instead drafted another one by themselves in a week, before strongly pressing the Japanese government to take it on. “The Japanese government translated and adjusted the draft that was originally written in English …”
Establishment of Japan’s Constitution
“Japan caused grievous damages to other countries during World War II, and received massive losses itself. Then the Japanese Constitution made pacifism its basic principle, renouncing war and making efforts for everlasting peace in the world. Article 9 stipulates renunciation of war, not to maintain war potential, and not to recognize the right of belligerency of the state.”
“Japan, after its defeat in World War II, was disarmed and militarily occupied by the Allied powers. The Allied powers strongly requested Japan’s disarmament and that it should be reflected in the Japanese Constitution as well. “Therefore, Japan as a nation decided to renounce war as means of settling international disputes, not to maintain war potential, not to recognize the right of belligerency of the state. This pacifism was accepted by people partly because postwar Japan started from immense damages from World War II.”
Pacifism
“The emperor represents the state of Japan, remaining neutral, fair and selfless, without directly getting involved in politics, and is the embodiment of Japan’s long-lasting traditions as well as the consolidation of unification of the people.”
“Under the Constitution of Japan, the emperor is not a sovereign but the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people (Article 1). The emperor doesn’t have discretion on politics but engages only in the state acts stipulated in the Constitution. All the state acts the emperor conducts should be advised and approved by the cabinet.”Spread the love
WASHINGTON – The murder of Seth Rich was written off as a robbery gone bad by the mainstream press, as well as the DC police. However, there has been a persistent discussion that he may have been the source of the leaked DNC emails, published by WikiLeaks – and that he was not the victim of a random homicide.
After a months-long investigation into the murder of Rich by they Profiling Project, investigators found that his murder, “more likely was committed by a hired killer or serial murderer,” than a robbery gone bad.
The Profiling Project released the results of their months-long investigation into the murder of Rich on Tuesday.
“A proficient killer is what we think – the fact that the killer has gotten away with it for this period of time and it appears it was a very sanitized crime scene, so there is certainly some level of proficiency in the killing,” Kevin Doherty, lead investigator of the Profiling Project said during a press conference Tuesday. When asked about any specific clues that have led to the group’s conclusion, Doherty explained “it is the lack of clues” that substantiated the deduction. “The crime scene was sanitized, there is no direct linking to really anything. The police have no suspects,” he said. “The individuals have gotten away with it at this point in time. There were no behavioral indications at the crime scene. It didn’t look like rage or revenge or hate were the motivation behind it. It’s really a lack of behavioral indicators, motion and evidence that leads us to believe that whoever did this is proficient at killing.”
The project, which is an “all-volunteer group of current and former George Washington University forensic psychology graduate students and instructors,” said the group came together in an effort to “aid the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police utilizing forensic psychology skills and tools in hopes of providing at least one actionable item.”
The report includes numerous troubling findings, which lends credibility to the idea that there has been cover up of some kind related to Rich’s murder, including:
Seth’s death does not appear to be a random homicide. Seth’s death does not appear to be a robbery gone bad. Seth‘s death was more likely committed by a hired killer or serial murderer. There may be additional video surveillance of the crime and crime scene. The resolution of prosecuting the individual(s) responsible appears to be hindered both actively and passively. Seth’s killer(s) most likely remains free with the community.
The Profiling Project noted that it “decided not to officially interview anyone for this section” to avoid “the potential for re-victimization” and instead used open source information.
Over the course of the investigation the group found Rich was “conscious and breathing with apparent gunshot wound(s) to the back” when police arrived. He was taken to an unnamed hospital and “pronounced by attending physician at 0557 hours.”
Investigators from the group found “the crime scene was very organized to the point of being sanitized.”
“This would indicate careful planning on the part of the offender, control of the entry to and exit from the crime scene as well as in-depth understanding of law-enforcement investigative processes.”
This comes on the heels of Kim Dotcom offering to provide evidence to the US government that Rich was indeed the source of the DNC emails.
While WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange has stopped short of identifying Rich as the source of the emails, as WikiLeaks never divulges sources, he has shown an unusual interest in the case – leading many to speculate as to why.
“WikiLeaks has decided to issue a US$20k reward for information leading to conviction for the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich,” the organization announced shortly after his murder.
After announcing that WikiLeaks would pay $20,000 for information leading to the conviction of Rich’s murderer, Assange went on an interview with Nieuwsurr. During the interview, Assange implied that Rich was his source.
Assange: Whistleblowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often significant risks. There was a 27-year old that works for the DNC who was shot in the back… murdered.. for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington. Host: That was just a robbery wasn’t it? Assange: No. There’s no finding. Host: What are you suggesting? Assange: I am suggesting that our sources take risks and they become concerned to see things occurring like that. Host: But was he one of your sources, then? Assange: We don’t comment on who our sources are.
In subsequent appearances on Fox News Channel, Assange confirmed, “We’re interested in anything that might be a threat to alleged WikiLeaks sources.”
These recent revelations, regarding the investigation, also explain why the FBI was not allowed to inspect the DNC servers that were allegedly hacked by the Russians. It also explains why a private company was brought in to analyze the allegedly hacked computers, as the FBI’s analysis would likely have proven that there was no Russian hacking of the DNC – undermining the “Russia hacked the election” propaganda war — thus the DNC conveniently relying on the analysis of a private company, CrowdStrike.
Interestingly, Crowdstrike’s CTO and co-founder, Dmitri Alperovitch, is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a think tank with openly anti-Russian sentiments that is funded by Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk, who also happened to donate at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation.
Furthermore, in 2013, the Atlantic Council awarded Hillary Clinton its Distinguished International Leadership Award. In 2014, the Atlantic Council hosted one of several events with former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who took over after pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in early 2014, and who now lives in exile in Russia.
Really think about that for a second…
What legitimate reason would the DNC have for denying the FBI access to their allegedly hacked servers, and instead hire a private cyber security firm with a strong anti-Russian stance with extremely close connections to Ukrainian oligarchs?
The answer is that there is NO legitimate reason to do so. The only possible reason seems to be that the DNC didn’t want the FBI to be able to report that there was no Russian hack – as that would undermine the entire psyop/propaganda operation.
These facts lend credence to the theory that the DNC denying the FBI access was a strategic move meant to cover up what the DNC already knew to be a leak so they could forward a strategic narrative — that Russia did it.
The reality is that this family is now simply a pawn in a much larger geopolitical game. Oddly, the thought of Seth’s killing being the result of random violence is likely much more comforting to his family than the thought that Seth was potentially murdered by people connected to the organizations and causes he gave his time, energy and effort towards supporting — while trying to “make a difference in the world.”
The mainstream media is working diligently to spin this story, so if you care to help wake people up to what is actually transpiring please share this important report!SeaWorld plans to fight a decision by the California Coastal Commission that bans the breeding of killer whales in captivity, a condition that the agency attached to its approval of a multimillion-dollar expansion of the whale habitat in San Diego.
The company said that the commission overreached its mandate when it added the restrictions during a hearing last week. The discussion, the company said, should have focused on land use, not animal husbandry.
The statement released on Thursday by SeaWorld Entertainment was referring to a decision that went to the heart of one of the San Diego marine theme park’s main attractions: the 11 killer whales, or orcas, that are on display and perform there. The commission’s decision, which halted the breeding of the whales and called into question the future of the shows, had been applauded by animal-rights activists.
SeaWorld had sought approval for a $100 million endeavor called the Blue World Project, which planned for a habitat with a depth of 50 feet, doubling the water volume of the existing facility. It was expected to be open to the public in 2018.LIVERPOOL won — and won well, coming back from a goal down to the champions — at Stamford Bridge on Saturday. Not that you’d know it looking at some of the mainstream media ever since. It’s been Jose Mourinho this, Jose Mourinho that, Chelsea’s mistakes and the Stamford Bridge crisis.
The smell of managerial blood is thick in the air. So who cares about Liverpool and what could prove to be a significant win on the road in the Jürgen Klopp revolution?
Well, we do, obviously. And lost among the fallout since the Reds’ 3-1 win in London was a small window on how Klopp could soon have us tumbling over seats, punching the air, hugging strangers and singing ourselves hoarse on a regular basis.
To outsiders looking in, the moment Klopp berated fourth official Lee Mason and immediately followed it up by fronting José Morais, a member of Chelsea’s backroom staff, might have been little more than a sideshow to the main event.
But for many Reds it was a moment to make the heart skip — and more evidence that we’ve got the right man patrolling the Liverpool technical area week in, week out.
It’s all about what you want from a manager — how he can best serve, recognise and represent the fans and the city.
And lots of Liverpool supporters want a man with passion, with fight — a man who won’t take nonsense from the opposite dugout, or from journalists asking stupid questions, or from players who are too big for their boots.
He’s not a manager (yet) but when you see Jamie Carragher candidly admitting on
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- - United States - No - Explanation Uruguay* Yes - - - Uzbekistan - - Abstain - Vanuatu - - Abstain - Venezuela* Yes - - - Viet Nam* Yes - - - Yemen Yes - - - Zambia* Yes - - - Zimbabwe Yes - - - TOTAL 123 38 16 -
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*Introductory pricing schedule for 12 month: $0.99/month plus tax for first 3 months, $5.99/month for months 4 - 6, $10.99/month for months 7 - 9, $13.99/month for months 10 - 12. Standard All Access Digital rate of $16.99/month begins after first year.
*Introductory pricing schedule for 12 month: $0.99/month plus tax for first 3 months, $5.99/month for months 4 - 6, $10.99/month for months 7 - 9, $13.99/month for months 10 - 12. Standard All Access Digital rate of $16.99/month begins after first year.
*Introductory pricing schedule for 12 month: $0.99/month plus tax for first 3 months, $5.99/month for months 4 - 6, $10.99/month for months 7 - 9, $13.99/month for months 10 - 12. Standard All Access Digital rate of $16.99/month begins after first year.
Thank you for supporting the journalism that our community needs!
For unlimited access to the best local, national, and international news and much more, try an All Access Digital subscription:
We hope you have enjoyed your trial! To continue reading, we recommend our Read Now Pay Later membership. Simply add a form of payment and pay only 27¢ per article.
Thank you for supporting the journalism that our community needs!
For unlimited access to the best local, national, and international news and much more, try an All Access Digital subscription:
We hope you have enjoyed your trial! To continue reading, we recommend our Read Now Pay Later membership. Simply add a form of payment and pay only 27¢ per article.
Seven years ago, the City of Winnipeg's seminal Active Transportation Study found 2.3 per cent of all Winnipeg workers and university students rode their bikes to their jobs or classes on a regular basis. The belief is that proportion has grown, as the cost of filling up and maintaining automobiles has only risen since 2006, along with the awareness of the health and environmental benefits of cycling.
Like almost every other North American city, Winnipeg has witnessed a rise in the number of people who commute by bike during the winter. The precise nature of this increase is unknown, however, as there are no reliable recent statistics regarding Winnipeg commuter-cyclist numbers.
Two decades later, Winnipeg winters remain almost just as frigid. Yet, seeing Winnipeggers bike to work in February is no longer any weirder than watching a lineup of cars snake out of a Tim Hortons drive-thru.
As recently as the 1990s, the only people brave enough to ride bicycles throughout a Winnipeg winter were a half-dozen crazy couriers and a few other Lycra-clad diehards willing to endure hostile road conditions and even more hostile motorists.
Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/2/2013 (2203 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/2/2013 (2203 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS A cyclist rides on the pedestrian bridge towards Jubilee Avenue this week. There are no hard numbers on a rise in winter biking.
As recently as the 1990s, the only people brave enough to ride bicycles throughout a Winnipeg winter were a half-dozen crazy couriers and a few other Lycra-clad diehards willing to endure hostile road conditions and even more hostile motorists.
Two decades later, Winnipeg winters remain almost just as frigid. Yet, seeing Winnipeggers bike to work in February is no longer any weirder than watching a lineup of cars snake out of a Tim Hortons drive-thru.
Like almost every other North American city, Winnipeg has witnessed a rise in the number of people who commute by bike during the winter. The precise nature of this increase is unknown, however, as there are no reliable recent statistics regarding Winnipeg commuter-cyclist numbers.
Seven years ago, the City of Winnipeg's seminal Active Transportation Study found 2.3 per cent of all Winnipeg workers and university students rode their bikes to their jobs or classes on a regular basis. The belief is that proportion has grown, as the cost of filling up and maintaining automobiles has only risen since 2006, along with the awareness of the health and environmental benefits of cycling.
But no one has a clear handle on the number of regular Winnipeg winter cyclists, aside from anecdotal evidence.
"Even among avid cyclists, winter cycling is an oddity," said Andrea Tetrault, a regular summer bike commuter and occasional winter cyclist who blogs at winnipegcyclechick.com. This morning, she'll be among the Winnipeggers taking part in Winter Bike To Work Day, an international event intended to encourage more people to try the once-unusual pursuit.
While it may seem counterintuitive, she finds riding her bike in temperatures below -20 C way easier than cycling when it's just below zero, as extreme cold transforms the ice and snow on city streets into a harder, more predictable riding surface. Warmer winter weather creates sloppier conditions that demand more bike maintenance in the form of cleaning.
Staying warm on a bike during the winter isn't all that difficult when you're moving, provided you take care to insulate your hands. Cleaning your bike during the winter is a bigger annoyance, which is why some cyclists just buy a garage-sale beater and ride it into the ground over the course of one season.
The real limiting factor is road maintenance, suggests Anders Swanson, an avid cyclist who travelled to Oulu, Finland, this week to attend the world's first Winter Cycling Congress. Somewhat optimistically, Swanson titled his presentation Winnipeg, Winter Cycling Capital of North America, and immediately got called out on Twitter by an indignant Edmontonian.
Oulu, which sits at 65 degrees north, is almost as cold as Winnipeg but quite a bit darker during the winter. Oulu also resembles Winnipeg in that it's not particularly dense, yet it still enjoys an extremely vibrant winter-cycling culture.
"The first thing that's immediately apparent is everybody rides — your grandma, teenagers and stylish young women," Swanson said over the phone from Oulu, where he said the McDonald's has more bicycle parking than motor-vehicle stalls. "Until you've seen something like that, it's hard to fathom."
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Swanson said the key to winter cycling's popularity in Oulu and other European cities is regular snow-clearing on all bike paths. Successful winter-cycling cities also clear their bike paths and pedestrian walkways before they clear their streets, he said.
Such a move would provoke riots in automobile-centric Winnipeg. But Swanson said it's not that far from what this city already does, given that Winnipeg clears sidewalks long before residential streets are plowed.
During the winter, Winnipeg clears snow off 130 kilometres of bike lanes on streets and also plows 75 kilometres of active-transportation corridors at a cost of $250,000 a year, city spokeswoman Tammy Melesko said.
Clearing more paths may encourage more winter ridership. But the actual need remains unknown, even though it appears Winnipeg now has more winter riders.
Motorists, meanwhile, have become more accommodating of winter cyclists, Tetrault said. "I think people are getting more used to it and are resigned to the fact we're not going away," she said. "In challenging conditions, I know I'm an inconvenience to get around, yet generally people are really courteous."
[email protected] Or Appropriation? Behind Music Copyright Lawsuits
Enlarge this image toggle caption Danny Martindale/Getty Images Danny Martindale/Getty Images
Where do you draw the line between inspiration and appropriation when it comes to musical compositions? That question is at the heart of several high-profile court cases, including the recent "Blurred Lines" trial and a current copyright-infringement lawsuit involving "Stairway to Heaven." But it isn't always easy to prove a song is yours – particularly when you're up against one of the biggest rock and roll bands of all time.
To get an idea of how complicated this can be, here's one example of how a song can change – even a little bit – from one performer to the next.
Late one night, around 1960, folksinger Anne Bredon (known then as Anne Johannsen) brought her banjo to KPFK in Berkeley, Calif., and performed a song called "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You" on the station's open mic show.
Berkeley student Janet Smith heard it and asked Bredon if she could teach her the song. Smith then tweaked it to come up with her own version and performed the song at college "hootenannies."
That's where Joan Baez heard it.
"[Baez] came up to me and said, 'I like the kind of songs that you sing. I wonder if you'd be willing to send me a tape,'" Smith says. "It didn't occur to me that I should have identified 'Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You' as being written by Anne Bredon, because in those days people who wrote stuff kind of hoped no one would notice, and have it be an 'official' folk song."
Baez changed it a little more, then recorded it for her 1962 concert album — but Bredon wasn't credited on the album. Two years later, when Baez's songbook was in the works, Janet Smith led the publisher to Bredon.
Another five years later, Led Zeppelin recorded its version of the song.
YouTube
Neither Smith nor Bredon was into rock, so they didn't hear Led Zeppelin's veresion until the 1980s, when Smith's 12-year-old son brought it up.
"He said, 'Mom, I didn't know you did Led Zeppelin tunes,'" Smith says. "He said, 'There's this one called "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You",' and I said, 'You know, John, just think how many people have written a song called "I Love You" and they copyright it, right, and there's 519 versions.' But then I thought maybe I better listen to it, and it was in fact Anne's song."
It was listed in the credits of Led Zeppelin's debut album as "Traditional, Arranged by Jimmy Page," so Smith helped Bredon pursue legal action, eventually winning an out-of-court settlement.
But proving a song is yours isn't always easy, says leading music attorney Ken Anderson.
"The first step is establishing ownership," Anderson says. "That means that the material is original to you, meaning you're the one who created the material."
Anderson, who's represented both plaintiffs and defendants, says you also have to show that the accused had access to your material.
"In a case where you don't have very strong proof of access, but there is a striking similarity, some courts believe it's the expert's job to give testimony so that a determination can be made," Anderson says.
One of those experts is musicologist Judith Finell, who has testified in many high-profile cases, including the recent "Blurred Lines" trial. Although she can't comment on the specifics of that case, Finell explains how musicologists generally make comparisons.
"We listen to the music if it's recorded, or we study it if it's only in written form," Finell says. "And usually, we transcribe any section of that music if it sounds similar to the other music we're comparing it to. Then we start to determine if they have similar pitches in common, similar rhythms. What is it that makes them sound related?"
The same court that heard the "Blurred Lines" case is now considering a copyright infringement suit against Led Zeppelin over "Stairway to Heaven." The estate of the late guitarist Randy California alleges that the opening of Led Zeppelin's 1971 song sounds too much like the instrumental "Taurus," which was recorded by California's band, Spirit, in 1968.
YouTube
Led Zeppelin's lawyers either declined to comment on the suit or didn't respond to emails. But Francis Malofiy, who represents California's estate, points out that in 1968 Led Zeppelin was not yet a famous band.
"Led Zeppelin opened up for Spirit, and in doing so they became very familiar with their live set and the music that was played in their live sets," Malofiy says. "And Jimmy Page is on record, repeatedly, saying that Spirit, as a band, moved him on an emotional level. Spirit, as a band — he felt they were very good."
If the case goes to trial, it will be a rarity. Lawyer Ken Anderson says juries are unpredictable, and most litigants prefer private settlements. Anderson thinks this case could go either way.
"I could listen to the Led Zeppelin/Spirit thing and something will pop into my mind," Anderson says. "Like, you know, those are exactly the same chords, and progression, and descending chromatic bass line as, say, 'Michelle' by The Beatles, which trumps both of those because it came a long time before. Everybody's heard that."
For his part, Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page has denied the infringement claims in the "Stairway" suit.
Led Zeppelin has been the subject of at least a half-dozen claims aside from "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You" and "Stairway to Heaven." In 1985, songwriter Willie Dixon's estate sued Led Zeppelin over "Whole Lotta Love," claiming it was an infringement of Dixon's song "You Need Love" (recorded by Muddy Waters).
That case was settled out of court, as was a 2010 infringement suit by singer and songwriter Jake Holmes over "Dazed and Confused." Holmes had written and recorded his own "Dazed and Confused" two years before Led Zeppelin released theirs.
But for many songwriters, it's an uphill battle. Musicologist Judith Finell says that fewer than half the claims she's asked to evaluate are ultimately pursued.
"For an individual songwriter who basically has almost no money to go up against a company with an entire department of lawyers and outside counsel and endless amounts of money, it's a very impossible situation," Finell says.
The potential payoff may be worth the effort in cases like "Stairway to Heaven," where millions of dollars are at stake. But lawyer Francis Malofiy insists it's just as much about seeking credit where credit is due.
"This lawsuit, it's in large part about having to re-educate the public that there was an individual called Randy California, and he was a phenomenal guitarist," Malofiy says. "And part of this is about re-educating the public [about] this relatively unknown song called 'Taurus.'"A final unexplained signal emitted by the missing Malaysia Airlines plane was tracked to the same point in the Indian Ocean at which authorities believe they have found the aircraft, it can be revealed.
It is thought that this final "half-handshake" – or satellite contact – could have been the moment at which the plane ran out of fuel and plunged into the Indian Ocean.
As authorities said they were "very close" to finding the plane after detecting more than two hours of underwater signals, The Telegraph learnt that the site coincides with analysis from two weeks ago, which estimated where the final contact occurred.
The breakthrough in the search has assisted analysts to gain a picture of the likely final sequence for the aircraft, which is believed to have run out of fuel and then experienced a last jolt of power that triggered an incomplete satellite handshake before entering the water.
In such a scenario, the plane would likely have glided and could have turned upside down – rather than plunging into the water.
Angus Houston, who is coordinating the multinational search, said an Australian navy ship had detected two sets of pulse signals which sounded "just like an emergency locator beacon". The development was, he said, a "promising lead".
The first set was heard on Saturday and lasted for two hours and twenty minutes. The Ocean Shield ship then lost contact with the "pings" but turned around and later heard further signals for 13 minutes. It has since lost contact again and was last night trying to relocate the signals.
Significantly, Mr Houston said, the second set included two distinct sounds which would be consistent with transmissions from separate pingers attached to the black box's flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.
The new signals are not believed to be related to those detected by a Chinese ship about 345 miles to the south.
The missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 (AP)
"In the search so far it is probably the best information that we have had," said Mr Houston, a former Australian defence chief.
"We are encouraged that we are very close to where we need to be. I would want more confirmation before we say 'this is it'."
Chris McLaughlin, from British satellite company Inmarsat, which helped to identify the route of the plane by analysing its satellite "handshakes", said the location of the new signals appears to coincide with the likely site of the aircraft's final mysterious transmission at 00:19 GMT – eight minutes after its last regular hourly handshake.
After Inmarsat discovered the half-handshake two weeks ago, it estimated a possible endpoint for the flight much further north than previously thought.
The analysis was then further refined by a team of international experts, who used Malaysian radar data and Boeing analysis to assess that the plane was travelling faster than thought, burning up more fuel, and would have landed even further north along the same arc.
Likening the sequence to a car spluttering as it runs out of fuel, Mr McLaughlin told The Telegraph: "The partial handshake would be the plane running out of fuel and faltering for a moment, so the system went off network and then briefly powered up and had communication with the network. The plane looked for a final communication before it went off – and that was it."
According to Stephen Buzdygan, a former British Airways pilot who flew Boeing 777s, the plane would then have glided into the water and may have rolled onto its back because its engines would have shut down asymmetrically.
"Without fuel, assuming the crew were unconscious and no one was flying the plane, it would glide," he told The Daily Telegraph. "Engines have separate fuel supply, so the chances are it won't go in with the wings level. With no autopilot correction, it would slowly turn on its back and go down at an angle and the wings will be ripped off."
Despite authorities believing they are close to finding the plane in the southern Indian Ocean, Malaysian defence minister Hishammuddin Hussein insisted he had not lost hope of finding survivors.
"I have always said to the families miracles do happen," he said.
In what appeared to be a swipe at China's apparently premature announcement on Saturday night that it had detected "pings" as well as possible wreckage, he added: "All parties must be cautious about unconfirmed findings and making conclusions."
Chen Zesheng, a 63-year-old whose cousin was on the plane, said his family was treating the latest developments with caution.
"We are sort of getting used to this kind of new finding now," he told The Daily Telegraph.
"They have to find the wreckage of the plane otherwise they say this and they say that but none of it has actually been confirmed …. For now we don't have any plan to go to Australia or anything. We will decide when the final destiny of the plane is confirmed."
Adding to the urgency of the search, the black box pinger has passed the 30 day point at which its battery life is expected to end – though it could last a further two weeks. The aircraft and its 239 people on board disappeared on March 8.
"We're already one day past the advertised shelf life," said Mr Houston. "We hope that it keeps going for a little bit longer."
Mr Houston said it would probably take days to confirm whether the plane has been found and a potential recovery of the aircraft would take a "long time", possibly months.
"What I'd like to see now is us find some wreckage because that will basically help solve the mystery."
Mr Houston said the area in the Indian Ocean where the plane is believed to be located is 14,800 feet deep. An underwater autonomous vehicle will be dispatched to comb the ocean bed for possible wreckage but its depth limit is also 14,800 feet.
"This is very deep water – we are right on the edge of capability," he said.
Following protests outside Malaysia's embassy in Beijing, China now seems to be attempting to calm things down.
Xinhua, its official news agency, published an interview with Malaysia's former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who said the Chinese government had been very "knowledgeable" about the search and the Chinese "know that Malaysia is also trying its best".Shifting the Political Landscape in Support of Atheists
If you are an atheist and care about politics, then you really need to support Arizona congressional candidate James Woods. He is the Democratic challenger against a Republican incumbent in a heavily Republican district. On the plus side, he is doing everything right. He isn’t running from his atheism like most politicians in his position. He is actively using his humanist values as a positive.
Woods is playing it smart. He is using turning standard attacks against him into positive PR campaigns. For example, a Pro-Life group recently sent him a form letter trying to get him to sign a Pro-Life pledge and he responded by sending them back a letter supporting a woman’s right to choose and condoms. The condoms not only promoted his campaign, but also had a pro-birth-control message printed on the packaging.
PR stunts like that are sure to make national news and that is exactly what Woods needs to do if he hopes to win against an incumbent Republican in a Republican district. But Woods needs something else too. He needs us. He needs atheists from all over the country to donate to his campaign.
Just imagine with atheists from all over the country donated $10 or $25 to his campaign. He would be able to raise a huge amount of money from atheists (news worthy in itself) and be able to outspend his Republican opponent. In politics, money matters. Just having it is enough to sway many voters and to be taken more seriously as a contender.
Now imagine that Woods wins this race and an atheist pushing strong progressive values is able to defeat an incumbent Republican in a heavily Republican district in Arizona. It’s the jugular of politics! Atheists aren’t supposed to win in politics. Vocal progressives aren’t supposed to win in politics. And in Arizona of all places…
This is an opportunity to really change things in politics. Not just for atheists, but for progressives too. If atheists can rally behind James Woods and are able to help him win an uphill battle like this, other politicians will see that being an atheist isn’t a political death sentence. This would mean more politicians will come out of the closet as atheists and more atheists will start running for office. It might also open the door for politicians to start listening to some of the concerns of atheists while in office.
We can do this, but we need to do it together. Please support James Woods for Congress!
Here is my interview with James Woods.
Related articlesJuliano wanted to create the world’s safest automobile, and his Aurora featured innovations that were years ahead of their time. The Aurora also had many wacky ideas to go along with its bizarre styling. Some auto historians have called it the ugliest car ever made.
Although Mr. Saunders originally agreed, he has come to see beauty in the Aurora.
Juliano, who studied art, said he always wanted to design cars, even as he studied to join the priesthood. Published reports said he entered competitions for aspiring auto stylists, including one sponsored by General Motors. Juliano’s family said G.M. offered him a scholarship to study with the legendary designer Harley Earl, but he said the offer came just after he had been ordained a priest.
Juliano continued to be fascinated with cars and their design. He also believed that most cars were unsafe, and began a quest to design a car that addressed his laundry list of safety issues. His solutions were novel, to say the least.
“Despite having no mechanical knowledge, Father Juliano set out to put his heart and soul into that car,” Mr. Saunders said. “He bought a totaled 1953 Buick, straightened the frame, and began building his dream around that.” He spent two years designing the car and another two constructing it.
Over a plywood substructure, Juliano fashioned a swoopy 18-foot-long fiberglass body, which he said was resistant to dents, rust and corrosion. It had a gaping, cow-catcher-style nose, filled with foam, to safely scoop up errant pedestrians and cradle them on a kind of platform. The spare tire was in a “crush space” under the nose.
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Hydraulic jacks, activated by a dashboard control, lifted the Aurora off the ground for service.
The oddly bubble-shaped windshield, made from shatterproof resin, had no wipers because Juliano said it was so aerodynamic, raindrops blew away. The bubble curved out, away from occupants, to minimize head injuries. The roof was a stunning panoramic dome, with metal blinds inside.
The driver’s seat was toward the center of the car, for better protection in a side impact. There were four seats, each with seat belts, still a revolutionary idea at the time.
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The seats had high, reinforced backs and were mounted on a pedestal that could be rotated so, in case of an impending crash, they could be spun backwards.
Other safety innovations included a roll cage, side-impact bars, a collapsible steering column and a padded instrument panel.
Although the prototype cost $30,000 to build, Juliano calculated that he could produce copies for $12,000 and make a profit. At the time, the most expensive American car, by far, was a Cadillac Eldorado Brougham priced around $13,000. He planned to offer buyers a choice of engines, mostly from G.M.
Where Juliano got it all wrong was in the drivetrain. The Buick’s engine had not been started in more than four years.
Worse, he did not clean out the fuel lines before scheduling a media event in New York City in 1957, to which he planned to drive the Aurora for its world introduction.
He arrived hours late, because the Aurora broke down 15 times en route and needed to be towed to garages to have its fuel system purged of gunk. Although New Yorkers marveled at the futuristic-looking machine when it finally arrived, they had no reason to be impressed by its performance, especially relative to its price tag.
Things went from bad to worse for both Juliano and the Aurora. Questions were raised — no one seems clear who started this — about Juliano’s finances. He said he thought it was all instigated by G.M., which denied involvement.
Juliano compared himself to Preston Tucker, who had asserted that he was harassed out of business by other automakers when he tried to manufacture the Tucker in the late 1940s.
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Juliano was eventually accused by his superiors of misappropriating parishioners’ donations. The Internal Revenue Service opened investigations into possible tax liabilities.
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But Juliano was actually deeply in debt because of the project. He had no source of funds to begin production, even if he had received orders (which he had not).
Finally, Juliano declared bankruptcy. He forfeited the Aurora to a garage where he had an unpaid repair bill. He was forced to leave the Order of the Holy Ghost.
For decades, the Aurora lay forgotten and rotting in a field behind the garage. Juliano had a brain hemorrhage while reading in a library and died a few months later in 1989.
“I think the whole story is so sad,” Mr. Saunders said. “He died a broken man, because he lost his dream.”
Mr. Saunders found the Aurora through an old photo, which had a billboard for the repair shop in the background. He reached the shop’s owner and arranged to buy the car for $1,500, sight unseen, and have it shipped to England.
The car was in disastrous shape. “It had mostly melted,” Mr. Saunders recalled. “I wish I had never laid eyes on it.”
But he persevered for years and finished the car.
“I have never found anyone who could replicate Father Juliano’s astounding workmanship, in areas like the fiberglass bodywork or that Perspex windscreen,” he said. “I’ve done the best job of re-creating it I could.”
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Mr. Saunders’s restoration was rewarded when he was invited to show the car two years ago at the prestigious Goodwood Festival of Speed in England.
Since then, it has been displayed at the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, Hampshire (beaulieu.co.uk), and, true to its heritage, has been in and out of repair shops for assorted maladies.
Mr. Saunders said he believed the Aurora deserved a place of honor in automotive history.
“If anybody would have listened to him, he could have changed the face of motoring,” Mr. Saunders said of Juliano. “But for the time, he was just too far out there.”FAST PACED ACTION Wizard of Legend is a fast paced dungeon crawler with rogue-like elements that emphasizes dynamic magical combat. Quick movement and even quicker use of spells will allow you to chain spells together to unleash devastating combinations against your enemies!
OVER 100 SPELLS Unlock over a hundred unique spells and discover powerful spell combinations and synergies! A wide variety of elemental spells allows you to create a hand best suited to your playstyle. Dive head first into the fray or stand back and let your minions do the work for you, the choice is yours!
LOCAL CO-OP Grab a friend and tackle the Chaos Trials together in Wizard of Legend's couch co-op mode! Jump head first into the action in an all out offensive or strategically equip your wizards with spells and items that compliment each other's playstyle. The battle is not over when your friend is downed in battle. Defeat multiple enemies in a display of skill to grant your partner a chance to rejoin the battle!
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Contingent99 is a two person indie dev team based in Los Angeles. We've been hard at work on our debut project, Wizard of Legend! If you have any questions or inquiries, please feel free to contact us at:Email: team [at] contingent99.comTwitter: @contingent99 More info on our Presskit
KEEP IN TOUCH Sign up for updates about Wizard of Legend!My 12-year-old son couldn't remember the phrase "take a walk down memory lane" last week, instead describing a stroll through "nostalgia road." I knew it would come in handy.
Put on your hiking boots and join me for an educational trip down good ol' nostalgia road.
It seems like yesterday when Champion of Wimmin Maureen Dowd, bemoaning the lack of sympathy for anti-war mom Cindy Sheehan, declared in The New York Times that "the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute."
No ifs, ands or other hedging qualifiers. Absolutely absolute.
And it was just a blink of an eye ago that the same New York Times spilled barrels of adulatory ink on the 9/11 widows known as the Jersey Girls. Remember them? The quartet of Democratic women parlayed their post-terror attack plight into powerful roles as Bush-bashing citizen lobbyists.
Their story, the lib narrative-shaping paper of record reported, was a "tale of a political education, and a sisterhood born of grief."
Moms and widows deserved special consideration in the public square, the argument went a decade ago. Their experience and their testimony warranted respect, deference and the national spotlight.
But then, as now, only a special class of victims is entitled to cash in the Absolute Moral Authority card. Not all parents and spouses who have lost loved ones can join the Club of the Unquestioned and Unassailable.
On Monday night at the Republican National Convention, Pat Smith shared her own tale of a political education born of grief after her diplomat son, Sean Smith, died in the Benghazi terrorist attack. Hillary Clinton, she passionately insisted, "deserves to be in stripes!"
GQ sports writer Nathaniel Friedman showed his compassion for Smith's loss and pain by tweeting, "I don't care how many children Pat Smith lost I would like to beat her to death."
MSNBC host Chris Matthews, who had helped make Cindy Sheehan a media star and urged her to run for Congress based on her status as a grieving war mom, fumed that Pat Smith had "ruined" the entire convention with her heartfelt testimony. The smug Democratic political operative turned TV bloviator, who had also elevated the Jersey Girls' celebrity status with multiple bookings on his show, couldn't bear to speak Smith's name:
"I don't care what that woman up there, the mother, has felt. Her emotions are her own, but for the country in choosing a leader, it's wrong to have someone get up there and tell a lie about Hillary Clinton."
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chimed in on the same network that he was disgusted with how the GOP convention was using Smith to "exploit a tragedy."
GOP-bashers heaped similar derision on father Jamiel Shaw Sr. and mothers Sabine Durden and Mary Ann Mendoza, who all spoke at the convention about losing children to criminals who had slipped illegally through open borders and revolving deportation doors. "Progressives" sneered at Shaw as an "Uncle Tom" for pointing out that Latino gangbangers targeted his black son because of his race. The intolerant tolerance mob also accused Durden of being "fooled" and Durden and Mendoza of being "exploited for apocalyptic theater."
Will these horrified hang-wringers be as outspokenly offended next week when the Democratic National Convention dedicates an entire evening to the so-called Mothers of the Movement?
Among the sainted moms of the Black Lives Matter movement who will speak on Hillary Clinton's behalf are Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner; Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin; Maria Hamilton, mother of Dontre Hamilton; Lucia McBath, mother of Jordan Davis; Lesley McSpadden, mother of Michael Brown; Cleopatra Pendleton-Cowley, mother of Hadiya Pendleton; and Geneva Reed-Veal, mother of Sandra Bland.
Each of these cases lumped under supposedly unjustified gun violence and systemic racism is complicated and distinct. For starters, Bland hanged herself when her friends and family wouldn't bail her out of jail after she had kicked a police officer. Two of the "children" involved in police shootings (Brown and Hamilton) had assaulted cops during their fatal encounters.
But drop all questions and doubts. "These mothers have worked tirelessly to raise awareness around the issues that surround their children's deaths," the liberal Huffington Post reports.
Because these women endorse race-baiting, gun-grabbing narratives and left-wing candidates, no one working in the mainstream media will ever challenge their parental prerogative to participate in politics on behalf of their loved ones.
Moms who have lost their children to Democratic incompetence, corruption and open-borders treachery are out of luck. The dealers of Absolute Moral Authority play with a loaded deck.
COPYRIGHT 2016 CREATORS.COM["Businessman In Prison" on Shutterstock]
By Aruna Viswanatha
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Americans convicted of fraud and other white-collar crimes gained a new defender on Wednesday as an advocacy group that has long fought strict drug sentences launched a campaign pushing for lighter punishment for financial crimes.
The advocacy group, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, contends that sentences in cases of fraud, insider trading and other economic crimes are sometimes excessive and inconsistent.
Defense lawyers and some federal judges have pushed for lighter sentences for white-collar offenses, but many consumer advocates and members of Congress have faulted the U.S. Justice Department for not bringing more cases against Wall Street executives in the wake of the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
Federal prosecutors in New York and other districts have brought dozens of cases over insider trading, some of which have resulted in lengthy prison terms.
In one of the longest prison terms handed down for insider trading, Matthew Kluger was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2012 for passing tips about corporate mergers he learned of while working at U.S. law firms.
Hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam was ordered in 2011 to serve 11 years in prison for insider trading.
Sentences imposed for economic crimes are often largely tied to the size of financial losses, a factor that critics say can contribute to outsized jail terms.
FAMM cited Rajaratnam’s case and said his sentence exceeded the average federal sentences for manslaughter, sexual abuse, armed robbery and arson.
The group, which has testified before Congress and is assisting the Justice Department in its new initiative to offer clemency to some drug offenders, said it was advocating for a more “comprehensive approach” that encouraged judges to consider a broad range of factors in economic crime cases.
Existing guidelines “result in an unbalanced and inherently unfair system that is inconsistent with the principles of justice,” Julie Stewart, the president and founder of FAMM, said in announcing the new effort.
The Justice Department has opposed a wholesale revamping of white-collar criminal sentences but has said it was open to limited changes that could reduce some prison terms.
FAMM said it did not object to the sentences imposed on criminals that engaged in massive frauds like Bernard Madoff, who was sentenced to 150 years in prison after he admitted he ran a $65 billion Ponzi scheme.
But it said the guidelines should be revisited for lesser cases
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made it clear that in the next assessment in December 2010 he would not contemplate more troops. “It will only be about the flexibility in how we draw down, not if we draw down,” he said.
Two days later, Mr. Obama flew to West Point to give his speech. After three months of agonizing review, he seemed surprisingly serene. “He was,” said one adviser, “totally at peace.”U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton waves at a rally in Commerce City, Colorado August 3, 2016. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton extended her lead over Republican rival Donald Trump to eight percentage points, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday, from six points on Friday.
The bump for Clinton followed the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia last week at which Clinton and her supporters painted an optimistic portrait of America, and came amid controversy over Trump’s comments about the parents of a slain Muslim U.S. soldier.
About 43 percent of likely voters favor Clinton, 35 percent favor Trump, and 9 percent picked “Other,” according to the July 28-Aug. 1 online poll of 1,289 likely voters. The poll had a credibility interval of 3 percentage points.
Trump has faced a barrage of criticism in recent days from political allies as well as opponents after he criticized the parents of U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq in 2004.
The father, Khizr Khan, had harsh words for Trump at the Democratic convention where he spoke on Thursday night, saying the 70-year-old businessman and former reality TV star had “sacrificed nothing and no one” and railing against his calls to ban Muslim immigrants.
Trump responded saying Khan “viciously attacked” him, and suggested the man was repeating lines fed to him by the Clinton campaign.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who dropped out of the Republican presidential primary race and endorsed Trump, said on Tuesday that Trump’s criticisms of the Khans was “inappropriate.” House Republican Richard Hanna of New York said it was “not enough to simply denounce his (Trump’s) comments,” and said he would support former Secretary of State Clinton instead.
Trump had a short-lived bump in the polls after the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in late July, when Reuters polling showed him slightly ahead of Clinton for the first time since May.A self-described Christian mom is hip-hopping mad after hearing a rap song on the radio that offended her ears ― and her sensibilities.
So Krystle Partido recorded an 11-minute video rant from her home in Woodward, Oklahoma, to let the world know about the evils of “Norf Norf,” a 2015 ditty recorded by Vince Staples.
The tirade can be summed up in one sentence: “I cannot believe this stuff is on the radio!” (But leaving it at that wouldn’t be any fun, would it?)
“Norf Norf is about Staples’ tough youth growing up in Long Beach, California.
Lyrics include:
“Hit the corner, make a dollar flipping/ Split the dollars with my mama children/ Folks need Porsches, hoes need abortions/ I just need y’all out of my business.”
The chorus goes:
“I ain’t never ran from nothin’ but the police/
From the city where the skinny carry strong heat/
Norfside, Long Beach, Norfside, Long Beach.”
“This is on our local radio station, this crap is being played,” Partido seethes on her video. “I couldn’t even believe the words that I was listening to. As a mom, it infuriated me. Obviously the cuss words were bleeped out, but I’m not stupid.”
Partido gives a shout-out to performer Meghan Trainor, whose “All About the Bass” extols big butts, and nostalgically remembers the way music used to be when it was good and wholesome.
“I remember listening to the top hits as a kid. You know, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Backstreet Boys, and N’SYNC. Those were the top hits when I was a kid. Nowadays, it’s not the same, not the same at all.”
Her rage gives way to tears as she reads the “Norf Norf” lyrics aloud.
Here’s a link to Vince Staples’ recording. But, frankly, the lyrics sound better when read by his critic ― backed by the original beats, of course.
A side note: Although “Norf Norf” may indeed be a sign of the impending apocalypse, Partido doesn’t seem to have a problem reading the lyrics with her infant daughter in the background.
Staples weighed in once Partido’s video stirred up Internet flamers, saying she’s entitled to her opinion.
“I don’t really have much to say about the video — I don’t think it’s funny at all,” Staples told The Independent. “It’s not right to attack someone over their stance, their opinions, and their religion. I think that’s very immature.”
Partido may hate “Norf Norf, but she said she appreciates Staples’ support, and thanked him in a Facebook post that has since been removed.
Staples then clarified his comments in a series of tweets.
Thank you to Justin Carissimo for the misquote. Great Job. — Vince Staples (@vincestaples) October 6, 2016
What I was saying was that the woman in that video is clearly confused on the context of the song which causes her to be frightened. — Vince Staples (@vincestaples) October 6, 2016
She also, in my opinion, seems to be emotionally unstable. With both those things being said, she has a right to her opinion. — Vince Staples (@vincestaples) October 6, 2016
No person needs to be attacked for their opinion on what they see to be appropriate for their children. They have a right to it. — Vince Staples (@vincestaples) October 6, 2016
No person needs to be attacked for their opinion on what they see to be appropriate for their children. They have a right to it. — Vince Staples (@vincestaples) October 6, 2016
Thats all I have to say about that. Stop asking me. — Vince Staples (@vincestaples) October 6, 2016The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Back in March 2015, Ryan put together a master Google Doc of all the text in Trails in the Sky Second Chapter for the start of internal QA on the project. As I watched cells being added in real time my first thought was one of pity for the other testers who would soon have to comb through these lines. While everyone knows about SC’s near-legendary size, it’s another thing to actually have to work on it. The Kiseki series is not for the faint of heart, and as the document passed 89,000 rows (nearly three times the number of rows for Story of Seasons) my computer blue-screened trying to load it. This was to set the tone of the QA cycle for the next four months.
The Bad
Things started off well enough. Working from Australia I was unable to see the text as it might appear in game, but combing through the files allowed me to sweep for issues quickly and double-check notes I’d made during the editing phase. When the first English PSP build became available at XSEED, however, things were looking a bit…off.
Text-wise, a lot of issues that came up were of the garden variety ‘lost in display translation.’ Ellipses would revert to zenkaku ellipses (a single full-width character) instead of their intended three single dots, heart marks and music notes showed up as blocks, tildes would float like tiny seagulls, and unable to use quotation marks in the game (as it was an unsupported character), single quotes were instead eaten in almost every cell where they began a sentence. What seemed fine in file did not necessarily transfer cleanly to either PSP or Steam windows. Grimly, QA poured through file after file to yank things into line with how they actually displayed on screen. One even decided to go through all 1400 files and wipe any and all instances of extra spacing off the map. “Pretty or Death,” was their rallying cry against these aesthetic annoyances.
Another dreary, unexpected chore included realigning text when it turned out that some of the limits we were working with were not quite right. For example, since a number of items, monsters, and system text messages were used in both FC and SC, their descriptions had been duplicated for consistency in SC. Unfortunately, SC’s limits proved to be slightly more conservative than FC’s, and a frustratingly large number of these lines had to be reworked.
[Three character spaces less = a lot of rewriting or adjusting]
Spacing issues aside, text would also randomly inflate, windows refused to share space with each other, and for reasons no one was ever able to understand, a single letter was shaved in half on an innocuous quest.
[In a just world, ‘weirdo’ would be blown up here as it refers to Olivier]
[Capel window fail]
[WHY???]
Such a large game also made for a devil of a time when it came to consistency. Naturally, terms that crossed over from FC had to be matched, and terminology had to be internally consistent as well, but even the most casual-seeming words/stylistic choices had to be checked to make sure they lined up. Was it “O-okay” or “O-Okay” for stuttering? *Pant Pant* or *pant pant* for SFX? Did Private Brahm give Faye gloves or mittens in that entirely optional and forgettable NPC quest in FC?! A great deal of effort was put into confirming that these lined up across the board.
The sheer weight of all that text also had a telling effect on the QA testers. It wasn’t unusual to find tiny pleas for help worked into the margins of the Google Doc, blunt exchanges on name choices regarding fish, or jokes so bad that you could be 100% certain the bug had been logged well after work hours.
[This wasn’t even the worst one] <CLICK HERE FOR LARGER SIZE>
[We are professionals] <CLICK HERE FOR LARGER SIZE>
Stability-wise, the PSP version also wasn’t without a few hiccups. Our trusty outsourced QA team vetted the game for the usual compliance, graphical, crash, and collision issues, but one glitch refused to go away. While it took some effort, an external QA member found that if he tried hard enough, he could wedge Estelle into a narrow space in the Central Factory Archives. When he asked whether or not it was possible to not be eaten by bookshelves in this section of the game, we checked with the dev team. After much deliberation, their consensus was that it seemed best to leave this one be rather than mess with the code. Belatedly, I waived the bug on the master list, noting, “It’s a feature.”
[Friday challenge? Friday Challenge!]
The Ugly
While the PSP team was drowning in text checking and carnivorous shelves, the PC team was embarking on their own adventures. Sara, our PC wizard, has been waging something of a rolling battle against random menu crashes, warp zones, and mysterious enemy behavior. She’s had to adapt the code in a number of places to fix control issues, and even Frankenstein FC code onto SC to make things function properly. In Chapter 1, one of the Beta testers found out that when quartz was equipped in the seventh slot of any character’s orbment it would fall out of the inventory once you entered battle. This resulted in a crippled playthrough of the chapter that affected all party members. An entirely new setting of difficulty was spawned from this bug before Sara was able to fix it. The Beta testers slogged their way through in the meantime, but they soon encountered amazing new graphical anomalies and deadly purple mists to hinder their progress.
For the PC QA team during this stage, checking text or actually playing the game as intended and not some kind of RPG version of Dante’s Divine Comedy wasn’t possible a lot of the time. Bosses would appear mid-conversation and refuse to move, black voids would swallow whole parties, and unseen enemies would attack you in the unlikeliest of places.
“I was amazed at how many invisible monsters tried to kill me in the Central Factory.” – Beta Tester
[Seems like it’s a deathtrap for everyone, really…]
[The Bracer Guild in Bose became a gravitational singularity]
For Kelly, one of the in-house QA testers, just progressing through a single chapter became an exercise in futility as she found herself imprisoned in buildings populated by glowing purple doorways to nowhere. In particular, she found that EVERY door in the foreign embassies had the strange purple mist effects.
“After playing, I realized the truth,” she related somberly. “The embassies in Grancel were actually portals to hell, and I was stuck there for all eternity.”
[There is no escape] <CLICK ME FOR MIST IN ACTION>
Other glitches were harmless, but defied logic, and have been frustratingly difficult to root out for our long-suffering programmer.
[When glowing balls of light start coming out of the backsides of NPCs, you know you have problems]
[Everyone on this project went loco]
[I couldn’t even begin to tell you what happened here]
The Good
Random wormholes and glowing balls of light aside, it’s not all bad. We’ve had two dedicated teams consisting of a mash of internal XSEED QA, an external QA house, and series experts throwing themselves at the tide of text that have contributed endless hours to making sure that when you guys get SC it’ll be a memorable experience for the right reasons. Of particular note is the extra effort that’s gone into updating and connecting the games (FC, SC, and Cold Steel). As work was drawing to a close on the editing side of SC, a lot of discussion was also being had on the direction of the series as a whole. This was always in the back of our minds, but it became especially important as work on Cold Steel began. After all, with the Trails series, even the most innocent of terms can become incredibly significant in later games.
To nail down the most important of these (some 2000+ key terms, items, people, etc. at a rough count), the team consulted with Falcom and a number of series experts. The outcome of this was that some things from FC proved to have greater meaning than previously known, and some current SC terminology would have to be updated. It was also decided that, moving forward, the original Germanic naming conventions would be used. Such was our in-house Kiseki nut’s determination to normalize all conventions that even location names barely mentioned in passing like “Hemel” from FC would be updated to “Hamel.” These changes were applied both retroactively to FC’s Steam version, and incorporated into SC before and during the QA period, and we hope that fans will nerd out as much as we have over the rich lore that has been lovingly poured into this game*.
*We also overhauled the military structure of the entire Liberl Royal Army to make it functionally correct. Just because. Dedication or madness, you decide.
“Do ducks exist in Trails?” – QA Notes Attached to Bug #309
In addition to the overarching series updates, the removal of typos was also a priority. A sincere thanks must be given here to Danielle and the external QA team for their dedication to adding missing punctuation, fixing bad cut and paste jobs, and doggedly running an endless regression cycle to check everyone else’s changes. Some typos found during the QA were truly inspired, though, and it was almost a shame to fix them:
[Queen Alicia: “I am counting on you…to balance hose scales.”]
[Zane: “Yes…the end of the unavoidable path, if you use any marital art purely for combat.”]
Overall, it was a grueling few months, and in just a couple more we’ll be at the finish line. Please, please let us be at the finish line…
The Future
And…that’s pretty much it. You’d be shocked to realize that a pretty big part of the wait now involves us waiting around for things ourselves. For those not in the know, XSEED as a publisher is purely in charge of the text and reporting bugs we find—creating graphics, inserting the English text, and fixing the bugs we report during QA are all on the developer’s side. That’s not something exclusive to us, but fairly normal for the game publishing industry as a whole. The developers know their own source code best, after all! We do program the PC version on our end, however, and it’s worth noting that our programmer loves to add things like HD graphics, widescreen, content previously unavailable for the PC version, and other such quality of life improvements. Trust me, the magic she works up on our PC titles is always worth it.
- Jess (XSEED Foreign Correspondent, @HProtagonista)
And finally, an actual glimpse of the future. Please look forward to it.
Steam Achievements (Tentative List)
Breakfast Safari
Odyssey of Anton
Baby, Come Back
Master Fisher
Master Chef
League of Extraordinary Bracers
Penguin de Samba
Doom Baker
Ramblin’ Gambler
Blue Knight
That Damn Recipe
“Blorf”
Bounty Hunter
<Fin~>
If our Steam icon artist gets too busy to continue her role, Kelly has offered to assume the duties. Pray to Aidios, people. Pray like you’ve never prayed before.Get Ready For The Nike Vapormax Flyknit Utility In Triple Black
4.64 / 5 72 VOTES This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We may receive compensation when you click on links to those products. The opinions and information provided on this site are original editorial content of Sneaker News.
It appears that Nike isn’t finished introducing new looks to its Vapormax line, as its newest offering sees the sleek looking design bulked up into a mid silhouette. The Nike Vapormax Flyknit Utility is set to make its debut in a triple black color scheme with an extended ankle collar and a newly designed lacing system. With easy slip-on access in mind this particular lacing unit has been a growing trend with the Swoosh, appearing on new silhouettes like the Air Zoom Grade as well. Of course, no Vapormax selection would be complete without the Air Bubble unit-equipped outsole that furthers this sneaker’s blacked out aesthetic. Similar to the first releases of the brand’s popular SF-AF1 line, it is expected this pair will debut with the matching tote bag pictured below. While no official release information has been made available quite yet, expect Nike’s newest addition to the Vapormax family to arrive in early 2018.
Update: The Nike Vapormax Utility is releasing on January 4th, 2018 in Asia.
Update (4/16/18): The Nike Vapormax Utility in Triple Black has restocked on Nike.com.
Nike Vapormax Utilty
Asia Release Date: January 4th, 2018
AVAILABLE AT Nike
$225
Style Code: AH6834-001
Photos: US11WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court today threw out a lower court ruling allowing human genes to be patented, a topic of enormous interest to cancer researchers, patients and drug makers.
The court overturned patents belonging to Myriad Genetics Inc. of Salt Lake City on two genes linked to increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer.
Myriad's BRACAnalysis test looks for mutations on the breast cancer predisposition gene, or BRCA. Those mutations are associated with much greater risks of breast and ovarian cancer.
The American Civil Liberties Union has been arguing that genes couldn't be patented, a position taken by a district court judge but overturned on appeal.
The justices' decision sends the case back down for a continuation of the battle between the scientists who believe that genes carrying the secrets of life should not be exploited for commercial gain and companies that argue that a patent is a reward for years of expensive research that moves science forward.
In 2010, a federal judge ruled that genes cannot be patented. U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet said he invalidated the patents because DNA's existence in an isolated form does not alter the fundamental quality of DNA as it exists in the body nor the information it encodes.
But last year, a divided panel of the federal appeals court in Washington that handles patent cases reversed Sweet's ruling. The appeals court said genes can be patented because the isolated DNA has a "markedly different chemical structure" from DNA within the body.
The Supreme Court threw out that decision, and sent the case back to the lower courts for rehearing. The high court said it sent the case back for rehearing because of its decision in another case last week saying that the laws of nature are unpatentable.
In that case, the court unanimously threw out patents on a Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., test that could help doctors set drug doses for autoimmune diseases like Crohn's disease.
"The question before us is whether the claims do significantly more than simply describe these natural relations," said Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote the opinion in the Prometheus Laboratories case. "To put the matter more precisely, do the patent claims add enough to their statements of the correlations to allow the processes they describe to qualify as patent-eligible processes that apply natural law? We believe the answer to this question is no."
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has been awarding patents on human genes for almost 30 years.
Testing for mutations in the so-called BRCA genes has been around for just over a decade. Women with a faulty gene have a three to seven times greater risk of developing breast cancer and a higher risk of ovarian cancer.
Men can also carry a BRCA mutation, raising their risk of prostate, pancreatic and other types of cancer. The mutations are most common in people of eastern European Jewish descent.
Myriad Genetics Inc. sells the only BRCA gene test.
The case is Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, 11-725.Some media reports have tried to link the cookie cut to the credit crunch, arguing that Girl Scouts overextended their offering of sweets during the boom times only to be crushed by the recession. That's not exactly right. Girl Scouts faced a slow erosion predating the housing bubble, like many youth organizations competing against online communites. In some ways, Facebook has replaced the campfire as a place to gather around with your best buds and share your feelings.
Girl scout membership fell 8 percent between 2005 and 2010. But cookie sales have held steady at about 200 million boxes a year for the last decade. (To see more details about the Girl Scout cookie business and strategies to improve it, click through excerpts of a business summary obtained by The Atlantic.)
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BIG SMILES AND BOTTOM LINES
Girl Scouts is about teaching leadership, confidence, and community. It's also about teaching salesmanship, bottom lines, and supply chains. Hawking deserts is a $700 million business, and cookies account for two-thirds of the organization's budget.
Executives can be surprisingly direct about the business side of Girl Scout cookies. "We teach the girls about supply chain issues and the need for efficiencies," said Denise Pesich, vice president of communications. If that sounds like a first-year business school lecture, then don't be surprised that the organization uses professional sales consultants to teach their pre-teens how to mix precious smiles with canny nudging. Suggested closing lines include the emotionally priming "What's your favorite kind of cookie?" and the pleading appeal, "It's ooooonly four dollars!"
Cookies aren't the organization's first foray into the bold world of business efficiencies. In 2004, Girl Scouts hired a Columbia Business School instructor to grow membership and revenue. In the last six years, Girl Scouts restructured more than 300 councils, or independent groups, into just over 100 to cut costs and standardize the girls' experience across the country.
When flour and transportation costs rose in the 2000s, Girl Scouts protected their cookie box prices by making smaller cookies, putting fewer in a pack, and making other changes to make the boxes lighter. One of the two cookie suppliers ABC Bakers, which refused to participate in this year's six-cookie program, is piloting its own packaging overhaul described in the above gallery.
"Since 1917, we've had a laser focus on goal-setting, decision-making, money-making, business ethics," Pesich said. "I've heard people reflect as adults that Girl Scouts was their first foray into business."
Is it any wonder?
Photo credit: maritandtoomashinnosaar/FlickrThe purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of 8-week green tea extract (GTE) supplementation on promoting postexercise muscle glycogen resynthesis and systemic energy substrate utilisation in young college students. A total of eight healthy male participants (age: 22·0 (se 1·0) years, BMI: 24·2 (se 0·7) kg/m2, VO2max: 43·2 (se 2·4) ml/kg per min) participated in this study. GTE (500 mg/d for 8 weeks) was compared with placebo in participants in a double-blind/placebo-controlled and crossover study design with an 8-week washout period. Thereafter, all participants performed a 60-min cycling exercise (75 % VO2max) and consumed a carbohydrate-enriched meal immediately after exercise. Vastus lateralis muscle samples were collected immediately (0 h) and 3 h after exercise, and blood and gaseous samples were collected during the 3-h postexercise recovery period. An 8-week oral GTE supplementation had no effects on further promoting muscle glycogen resynthesis in exercised human skeletal muscle, but the exercise-induced muscle GLUT type 4 (GLUT4) protein content was greater in the GTE supplementation trial (P<0·05). We observed that, during the postexercise recovery period, GTE supplementation elicited an increase in energy reliance on fat oxidation compared with the placebo trial (P<0·05), although there were no differences in blood glucose and insulin responses between the two trials. In summary, 8-week oral GTE supplementation increases postexercise systemic fat oxidation and exercise-induced muscle GLUT4 protein content in response to an acute bout of endurance exercise. However, GTE supplementation has no further benefit on promoting muscle glycogen resynthesis during the postexercise period.April 19, 2012; San Jose, CA, USA; San Jose Sharks right wing Martin Havlat (9), defenseman Douglas Murray (3), left wing Ryane Clowe (29), left wing Patrick Marleau (12), and defenseman Brent Burns (88) during the national anthem before game four of the 2012 Western Conference quarterfinals against the St. Louis Blues at HP Pavilion. Mandatory Credit: Jason O. Watson-US PRESSWIRE
Where In The World Is A.J. Jenkins? by Rui Thomas
More bad news for San Jose Sharks’ fans and hockey supporters in general.
The NHL announced today that it had canceled games through December 14 as well as the All-Star festivities in Columbus in late January. Their website states that a total of 422 regular season games, or roughly 34 percent of the season, has been wiped out. For the Sharks, that’s 28 out of 82 games.
“The reality of losing more regular-season games as well as the 2013 NHL All-Star Weekend in Columbus is extremely disappointing,” said NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly.
Today marks the 69th day of the NHL lockout, which has dragged on much longer than expected. The two sides met earlier this week, but they are still a substantial distance apart in “player contracting rights, dollars, arbitration rights and other issues,” according to the Washington Post.
NHLPA special counsel Steve Fehr had the quote of the day, appearing on a Toronto radio show: “If it was Thanksgiving dinner, they gave us a relish tray but no turkey.”Story highlights The Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" is caused by an algae blooms that suck up oxygen
Scientists first discovered a dead zone in the Gulf in 1972
The number of dead zones across the globe is growing
They cost U.S. seafood and tourism industries $82 million a year, NOAA estimates
The Gulf of Mexico's annual spring-summer "dead zone" is the size of Connecticut -- slightly smaller now than in recent years but nowhere near the trim scientists had sought, researchers said this week.
Scientists' annual survey found an area of 5,052 square miles of "low oxygen water," or hypoxia, off much of Louisiana's coast and part of Texas, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday.
The zone is formed by nutrients that wash into the Gulf's waters -- largely agriculture fertilizer and wastewater coming down the Mississippi River. These boost algae blooms that suck up the oxygen in deep water, according to NOAA and the U.S. Geological Survey.
Marine life struggles to find enough oxygen to survive within the zone.
Fish and shrimp can migrate to areas with oxygen-rich water, but some life forms in the deep water and ocean floor -- including those that serve as food for the fish and shrimp -- can't get out of the zone and eventually die.
That hurts biodiversity and makes food hard to come by for the fish and shrimp when they return, said the survey's leader, Nancy Rabalais, executive director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.
Scientists first discovered a dead zone in these waters in 1972, and it has appeared ever spring and summer since, with varying sizes.
This year's dead zone, measured from July 27 to August 2, is smaller than the five-year average of 5,550 square miles, and well under 2002's record 8,481 square miles.
But scientists had set a goal of reducing the zone to 1,900 square miles by 2015 -- and this year's measurement likely means that target won't be met, Rabalais said.
"The average we're targeting against is three times the goal.... There hasn't been any progress in reaching that goal," she said.
Ways to shrink the zone, she said, would include changing agricultural practices, including the timing of fertilization -- ideas that have worked well on the small scale but not, so far, on the large.
There's been no evidence to show that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill of 2010 had any contribution to that year's dead zone or any subsequent one, Rabalais said.
The survey is supported by NOAA and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Gulf of Mexico dead zone is the world's second-largest caused by humans, Rabalais said. The largest is in the Baltic Sea.
"The number of dead zones throughout the world has been increasing in the last several decades and currently totals over 550," Rabalais said.Bryan Singer just tweeted that Fan Bingbing has been set to play Blink in X-Men: Days Of Future Past. Bingbing recently starred in the Li Yu-directed film Double Exposure, which broke a box office record for an art film in China, and the Xu Zhen-directed film Lost In Thailand, which also broke a box office record of all Chinese films in China.
She can next be seen in F… I’m Pregnant by China/U.S. director Eva Jin, and The Bride With White Hair, by Hong Kong director Jacob Cheung. Later in 2013, Bingbing will be shooting The Lady In The Portrait, The Moon & The Sun and Empress Wu Ze Tian. She is also in negotiations to star in the sequel of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
She is repped by WME and Timothy Mou of FBB Studios.When the Supreme Court ruled yesterday in the case of Riley v. California, it definitively told the government to keep its warrantless fingers off your cell phone. But as the full impact of that opinion has rippled through the privacy community, some SCOTUS-watchers say it could also signal a shift in how the Court sees the privacy of data in general—not just when it’s stored on your physical handset, but also when it's kept somewhere far more vulnerable: in the servers of faraway Internet and phone companies.
In the Riley decision, which dealt with the post-arrest searches of an accused drug dealer in Boston and an alleged gang member in California, the court unanimously ruled that police need a warrant to search a suspect’s phone. The 28-page opinion penned by Chief Justice John Roberts explicitly avoids addressing a larger question about what’s known as the “third-party doctrine,” the notion that any data kept by a third party such as Verizon, AT&T, Google or Microsoft is fair game for a warrantless search. But even so, legal analysts reading between the opinion’s lines say they see evidence that the court is shifting its view on that long-stewing issue for online privacy. The results, if they’re right, could be future rulings from America’s highest court that seriously restrict both law enforcement’s and even the NSA’s abilities to siphons Americans’ data from the cloud.
Digital Is Different
The key realization in Roberts’ ruling, according to Open Technology Institute attorney Kevin Bankston, can be summarized as "digital is different." Modern phones generate a volume of private data that means they require greater protection than other non-digital sources of personal information. "Easy analogies of digital to traditional analog surveillance won’t cut it," Bankston says.1
Daniel Solove, a law professor at George Washington Law School, echoes that sentiment in a blog post and points to this passage in the opinion:
First, a cell phone collects in one place many distinct types of information—an address, a note, a prescription, a bank statement, a video—that reveal much more in combination than any isolated record. Second, a cell phone’s capacity allows even just one type of information to convey far more than previously possible. The sum of an individual’s private life can be reconstructed through a thousand photographs labeled with dates, locations, and descriptions.
That argument about the nature of digital collections of personal data seems to apply just as much to information held by a third party company as it does to information held in the palm of an arrested person’s hand. And Solove argues that could spell trouble for the third-party doctrine when it next comes before the Court. “The Court's reasoning in Riley suggests that perhaps the Court is finally recognizing that old physical considerations—location, size, etc.—are no longer as relevant in light of modern technology. What matters is the data involved and how much it reveals about a person's private life,” he writes. “If this is the larger principle the Court is recognizing today, then it strongly undermines some of the reasoning behind the third party doctrine.
The Court’s opinion was careful not to make any overt reference to the third-party doctrine. In fact, it includes a tersely-worded footnote cautioning that the ruling’s arguments about physical search of phones “do not implicate the question whether the collection or inspection of aggregated digital information amounts to a search under other circumstances.”
But despite the Court's caveat, its central argument—that the notions of privacy applied to analog data are no longer sufficient to protect digital data from warrantless searches—doesn't limit itself to physical access to devices. And the opinion seems to hint at the Court's thoughts on protecting one sort of remotely-stored phone data in particular: location data.
The Logic of Location Data
The Riley ruling cites an opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor in the case of US vs. Jones, another landmark Supreme Court decision in 2012 that ended warrantless use of GPS devices to track criminal suspects' cars. GPS devices, Sotomayor wrote at the time, create "a precise, comprehensive record of a person’s public movements that reflects a wealth of detail about her familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations.” Roberts' reference to that opinion in Tuesday's ruling seems to acknowledge that the sensitivity of GPS device data extends to phone location data too. And there's little logical reason to believe that phone data becomes less sensitive when it's stored by AT&T instead of in an iPhone's flash memory.
With Riley and Jones, "we’ve now seen two indications that the Supreme Court is rethinking privacy for stored data," says Alex Abdo, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union. "Neither raises the question directly, but they both contain clues into the mindset of the court, and they both suggest that there’s another victory for privacy in the waiting."
"If I were to guess," Abdo adds, "I would predict that the Supreme Court will make good on its suggestion that the third-party doctrine doesn't make sense in the context of cloud storage."
>The ripples from Riley may extend to the NSA's surveillance practices, too.
The ripples from Riley may extend to the NSA's surveillance practices, too, says Jennifer Granick, director of Civil Liberties at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society. She points out that the NSA has used the same third-party doctrine arguments to justify its collection of Americans' phone data under section 215 of the Patriot Act. "What will this mean for the NSA’s bulk collection of call detail records and other so-called'metadata'?" she asks in a blog post. "The opinion suggests that when the Court has that question before it, the government’s approach may not win the day."
Thanks to the caveat footnote limiting its significance to physical searches of phones, the Riley ruling likely won't set any precedent useful for privacy activists just yet. But the OTI's Kevin Bankston says it hints that the Supreme Court has acknowledged the need for new privacy protections in the age of mobile computing. "The Court is clearly concerned with allowing access to data in the cloud or on cell phones without a warrant. And that’s likely indicative about how they’ll approach things like cell phone location tracking and NSA surveillance in the future," Bankston says. "The fourth amendment for the 21st century will be quite different from the fourth amendment in the 20th century."
1Correction 11:00PM EST 07/1/2014: An earlier version of this story misstated Kevin Bankston's affiliation.All Aboard Florida, a private-sector project to link major southern Florida cities with express rail service, just unveiled the design for its first station, a major transportation hub designed by SOM in the heart of downtown Miami.
All Aboard Florida plans to have a new 235-mile network of passenger railways up and running by late 2016. The express service would connect Miami and Orlando in under three hours (a trip that currently takes about three and a half hours by car), with SOM-designed stations in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach as well.
SOM’s Miami station, placed on a dense downtown block, features elevated the rail lines 50 feet above the ground, allowing retail space that opens up to the street underneath. The soaring tracks won’t disrupt the through-street traffic underneath
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A former NFL football player who abruptly left the sport in November was arrested early Sunday after he allegedly punched another man at a Near North nightclub.
John Moffitt, 27, was drafted in 2011 and played offensive line for the Seattle Seahawks for two years, according to NFL.com, before being traded to the Denver Broncos last summer.
He left the NFL in November.
Moffitt was at The Underground nightclub in the 0-100 block of West Illinois Street early Sunday when a man questioned him about selling drugs in the club, according to Cook County court records.
Moffitt then “became combative” and struck the man in the head, according to court records.
The head blow did not require hospitalization, court records state.
Moffitt, whose home address is listed in court records as Renton, Wash., was searched and found with 10 grams of cannabis, four ecstasy pills and one gram of cocaine, according to court records.
He was charged with possession of a controlled substance and possession of between 15 and 100 grams of ecstasy, both felony charges.
Moffitt also faces misdemeanor battery and cannabis possession charges, court records state.
He was ordered released on his own recognizance Sunday at Cook County Bond Court.
Moffitt made headlines last year when he retired from the Broncos, who went on to lose to his other former team, the Seahawks, at Super Bowl XLVIII in February.
The former All-American guard at the University of Wisconsin, who signed a four-year rookie deal worth nearly $3 million, said he quit the game because he was “just sick of playing football,” according to a January article in the Los Angeles Times.
Moffitt also said he was uncomfortable with the pedestal athletes are placed upon, as well as the potential for long-lasting injuries if he continued to play.
[email protected]
Twitter: @JournoGeoffZAt least 55 people have been killed and 372 others injured by two powerful blasts in the Syrian capital on Thursday morning. The car bombs detonated near a military intelligence building.
The blasts happened in quick succession during the morning rush hour, just as employees were arriving to work. An initial small explosion was followed by a much larger blast allegedly targeted at paramedics and security forces arriving at the scene, AP reports.
The explosion left two craters – three and six meters wide – in front of the military compound. The two cars were stuffed with more than 1,000 kilograms of explosives, said Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi.
Makdissi also said that in addition to 55 dead – some of them already identified – and 372 injured, there were at least 15 sets of unidentified remains, implying that the death toll was likely to rise. Syrian authorities have urged people to donate blood for the injured.
The blasts were branded a terrorist attack by state television and the authorities, but there has been no claim of responsibility yet.
UN Security Council condemns 'terrorist attacks'
The UN Security Council has issued a statement condemning "in the strongest terms the terrorist attacks that occurred in Damascus, Syria, on 10 May."
The 15-member body said it was also calling on all parties in Syria to immediately and comprehensibly implement the six-point peace plan proposed by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan. Earlier in the day, UN observers inspected the site of the bombing.
The Obama administration has also slammed the violence. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta linked the blasts with "an al-Qaeda presence in Syria," but had no information about who was responsible for the twin attack.
At the same time, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland has accused Assad's regime of creating "
this climate of violence that is causing not only folks to take up arms in defense, but is also providing an environment, potentially, for mischief to be made by others who don't favor peace in Syria.
"
A number of bomb attacks have happened in Syria since the UN-brokered ceasefire between loyalists troops and armed opposition forces was announced in mid-April.
The major latest attack occurred on April 27, when a bomber wearing a suicide vest set off an explosion near members of the security forces. The blast killed at least nine people and wounded 26.
On Wednesday, a roadside bomb went off in the country’s south-west, just seconds after the UN observer team head passed by with his convoy. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned that such incidents cast doubt over the observer mission’s future.
Some foreign-based opposition groups have routinely been blaming the Bashar al-Assad government for masterminding these terrorist attacks to discredit the opposition. Damascus denies such allegations, saying radical militant groups funded, armed and trained by countries hostile to Syria are behind the violence.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov does not rule out the possibility of outside forces being involved in masterminding the Damascus attacks, either.
"At least some of our partners are doing some practical things aimed at exploding the situation [in Syria] both in a direct and indirect sense of the word. I mean the explosions you have mentioned," Lavrov commented on the blasts during a press conference in Beijing.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia have admitted that they support Syrian opposition financially. It is believed that Turkey is turning a blind eye on armed groups using Syrian refugee camps on Turkish territory near the border to rest and regroup before moving into Syria.
It seems armed opposition groups, which failed to take control over any part of the country and turn it into their base of operation, are now resorting to guerilla tactics to attack the government. A ceasefire and political solution to the conflict are not in their interest, because they want nothing short of a total collapse of the Assad regime.
The Syrian government is seeking resolution of the violent crisis, which has been ravaging the country for 15 months, through political reform. This week it held a parliamentary election, the first ballot in decades involving competing political parties.
Smoke rises from the wreckage of mangled vehicles at the site of an explosion in Damascus May 10, 2012. (Reuters / Sana) Smoke rises from the wreckage of mangled vehicles at the site of an explosion in Damascus May 10, 2012. (Reuters / Sana)
Watch RT's report from Damascus
‘UN not rushing to deploy observers’
Both the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and special envoy Kofi Annan called the level of violence in Syria “unacceptable” this week. Recent bombings and escalating violence put the future of the UN observer mission under threat.
Currently on the ground there are 70 UN observers monitoring the peace in Syria, and the group is expected to grow into a full 300-strong mission by the end of the month.
Meanwhile, the director of Conflicts Forum NGO, Alastair Crooke, believes the UN is not rushing to place its observers in Syria, because a group of militarily-experienced monitors could accidentally get to the bottom of what is happening there.
RT:Many Syrians are saying that the presence of UN observers helps to reduce the violence. So, if that is the case, why is the world body taking its sweet time to deploy all 300 observers?
Alastair Crooke: I think it is quite clear that the UN at the highest level is not rushing to place the observers there. And I think that is part of the political agenda by some in the West, who really do not want to see this peace process work. Who would prefer to see it fail and then return the whole issue to the Security Council so they can have another go in bringing down the Assad government.
RT:With the government and the rebels blaming each other for the violence, how are the UN observers supposed to make sense of what is actually happening?
AC: Well I think that is precisely one of the purposes of having monitors in conflict. And I’ve been a part of this myself in the Palestinian case. It does make a difference actually to have people on the ground to have witnesses, because one of the things that is so difficult in the whole story of Syria has been these disperate narratives, the very different narratives that have come out. On the one hand one people claim this, on the other hand somebody else says something different.
So, having militarily-experienced witnesses on the ground who can tell what is a mortar shell and what is a burning tire being fired on a top of the roof more than an ordinary journalist can does help at least bring the thing and maybe possibly will contribute to stabilizing it.
Of course military observers, any sort of observers, can’t deal with a few determined saboteurs who wish to infiltrate the country and place explosives in a middle of a town. No state can really protect itself against that.
An image grab taken from Syrian state television shows Syrians inspecting charred corpses at the site of twin blasts in Damascus on May 10, 2012. (AFP Photo / SYRIAN TV) An image grab taken from Syrian state television shows Syrians inspecting charred corpses at the site of twin blasts in Damascus on May 10, 2012. (AFP Photo / SYRIAN TV)
People and security personnel try to remove a car from an explosion site in Damascus May 10, 2012. (Reuters / Sana) People and security personnel try to remove a car from an explosion site in Damascus May 10, 2012. (Reuters / Sana)The privacy debate has been framed by some as a zero-sum game between State interest and individual interest. Sections of the private sector worry that privacy as a fundamental right will have a dampening effect on scientific research and technological innovation. But this is not the whole truth. The armed forces and intelligence agencies depend on military secrecy. Democracy is a consequence of the secret ballot. The bureaucracy cannot function without official secrets. Science cannot progress without double blind peer reviews and anonymised data sets. Innovators and creators need to protect their trade secrets, patents [before registration] and copyright [before publication]. Competing firms in a free market need to protect their competitive edge and client confidentiality. E-commerce and banking require passwords and authentication factors to be kept confidential. The free press depends on anonymous sources. The list goes on! All of this is predicated on the individual right to privacy. It is, therefore, not a refuge for scoundrels who have “something to hide” but the foundation of an open society and the free market.
How do we then address the tension between privacy and other fundamental rights like the right to free speech and derivative rights like the right to information? The RTI Act already has privacy as one of the 10 exceptions – with public interest as the exception to the exception. But a comprehensive fix would be for Parliament to enact an omnibus privacy law that does four main things: One, establishes the contours of this right including exceptions, two, articulates national privacy principles, three, establishes the officer of the privacy commissioner and four, enables a co-regulatory regime that allows bottom-up data protection standards from each industry sector to be blessed by the regulator. How do we resolve the competing imperatives of privacy and national security, privacy and scientific innovation, etc? First by converting some of these tensions from zero-sum games to optimisation problems ie. trying to maximise both privacy and the competing imperative through innovative law and technology. Second, by updating 50 odd sectoral laws and regulations that impact the individual right to privacy in various domains.
How do we prevent the incumbent Internet giants from using their large legal teams to make a mockery of our privacy and data protection laws while at the same time protect emerging firms from over-regulation? Unlike the European GDPR, which has 37 years of historical baggage starting with the OECD Guidelines from 1980, India has the advantage of starting with a tabula rasa. If our law makers are bold and innovative – we can leapfrog straight into the age of big data, machine learning and AI by reinventing principles such as consent, notice, accountability etc. Rahul Matthan from Trilegal is leading some of the most innovative thinking here. Only through such regulatory innovation can we prevent both the “administrative paralysis” that might emerge from excessive litigation or the dampening effect on innovation from inappropriate regulation.
Sunil Abraham is executive director, Centre for Internet and Society
The views expressed are personal
First Published: Aug 25, 2017 11:40 ISTFor the seventh straight season and the 11th time in 12 years, your New York Rangers are participating in the postseason.
In prior years, the Blueshirts have used late season pushes, final game miracles or President Trophy aspirations to qualify for the playoffs. But this year, this year was something much different, as they’ve basically been on cruise control since February without a meaningful game in sight.
So the question is, can they flip the switch or will they continue to play uninspired hockey. Let’s take a look at this Original Six matchup.
Killer Kreider
Since we’re probably going to see this clip 5,000 times during the series, let’s just get it out of the way now…
Kreider is going to be public enemy #1 in Montreal this series, but I fully expect him to thrive on the boos. His physical style of play is perfect for the postseason and is a big reason why he’s much more consistent than in the regular season.
Kreider will be integral in setting up shop in front of Price and taking away his vision of the puck. If Price can see it, he’s going to save it, so limiting his sightline will be a key factor in solving a goaltender who’s had the Rangers number over the years.
Disrespect the King at Your Own Peril
“Carey Price is so great.” “He’s the #1 goalie in the NHL.” “He owns the Rangers.”
I get it, he’s good. And he takes his game to another level when he plays the Blueshirts…
Carey Price's career numbers vs. the Rangers are insane: 15-5-1, 1.82 GAA,.940 sv%, 7 shutouts. — Kevin DeLury (@kevindelury) April 4, 2017
But I’m pretty sure there’s a decent goaltender suiting up for the Rangers, who might be playing with a chip on his shoulder as he’s become the forgotten netminder in this series. I’ve never seen an athlete more competitive than “The King” and now he’s got critics doubting his game? Challenge accepted. While Lundqvist has had his regular season struggles against the Canadiens…
To piggyback off my last tweet on Price's numbers vs. Rangers. Here's Lundqvist's vs. Habs: 14-17-3, 2.87 GAA,.898 sv%, 2 shutouts. — Kevin DeLury (@kevindelury) April 4, 2017
…I think I recall him having an ok series vs. the Canadiens in the 2014 Eastern Conference Final…
Having said that, it’s been a season where Lundqvist hasn’t been able to get into a real rhythm with lots of stops and starts due to injury and Raanta’s emergence. So you do have to wonder what AV’s mindset might be if Lundqvist struggles in the first two games of this series and the Rangers go down 0-2. Does he have the chutzpah to turn to his backup, who arguable had a more consistent season, to spark his team? While that would be a panic move of the highest order, I’m pretty sure that frightening of a scenario might just call for one.
Glass vs. The Rookies
I’m surprised it’s taken me this long to get to Tanner, as despite being a borderline NHLer, he’s somehow dominated the Rangers fan base conversation since his recall in early March. And that won’t change in this series.
10 of the Rangers 12 forward positions are forever filled, however, there’s a battle for the final two spots between three players: Glass, Pavel Buchnevich and Jimmy Vesey.
With the Canadiens acquiring grit and toughness at the trade deadline in the form of Steve Ott and Dwight King, conventional wisdom says that Glass would be the antidote. However that would be playing right into Montreal’s hands. Adding a singular physical player to a lineup will not change the character of this team. It’s just not in the Rangers DNA. This group was not built to bang, it was constructed to skate. The Rangers revamped their forwards this past offseason to play a speed game, so why, now that they’re in the postseason, would they go away from their strength?
Instead of futilely attempting to match the Canadiens physicality, it would behoove the Rangers to get Buchnevich and Vesey into the line-up to skate circles around Montreal’ s bottom six.
In a perfect world, now that Grabner’s scoring has dried up, the Rangers best and most balanced forward lines going into this series would look like this…
Kreider-Stepan-Zuccarello
Nash-Zibanejad-Buchnevich
Miller-Hayes-Vesey
Fast-Lindberg-Grabner
Defensive Decisions
Similar to the forwards, the final few spots on defense are up in the air. If I know AV, the definites going into Game 1 are McD, Skjei, Smith, Girardi & Staal. Which leaves the final decision between Klein and Holden (sorry Clendening fans, he’s not getting in). Since AV is usually loyal to the guys he’s gone to battle with, I think Klein gets the Game 1 nod. To be honest, the two of them have been equally horrific recently, so I’m not sure it matters who AV ultimately goes with.
Once the games against Montreal actually begin, the question is what does Vigneault do when Girardi predictably can’t hang with the speed and skill of players such as Pacioretty and Radulov. Since the Canadiens are top heavy skill wise up front, it would make sense for AV to rely exclusively on McD, Skjei and Smith to shutdown the top six. Meanwhile, Girardi, Staal and Klein can be effectively matched-up against the more plodding bottom six.
One wild card on defense could be Kampfer. AV seemed to take a shine to the 28-year old defenseman after his recall with Glass, so if there’s full scale struggles on defense don’t be surprised to see Kampfer inserted at some point.
Nash’s Time Is Now
Nash’s playoff scoring woes have been well documented.
However, I have a feeling he’s going to be the X-factor in this series. Despite having better statistical seasons in New York, this might have been Nash’s best year on Broadway. Whether it was due to concussions or lack of aggression, Nash played most of his early tenure with the Rangers on the perimeter which is never a recipe for postseason success. Conversely, this season Nash has gone to the net with reckless abandon. And it’s paid off.
If he continues this mindset, he could finally carry this team to postseason success.
Stopping Weber
In case you haven’t heard, Shea Weber shoots the puck hard…
So stopping him on the power play will be of paramount importance for the Blueshirts as special teams are always a huge factor in the postseason.
The Rangers penalty kill is going to need to devise a plan to deny or limit him the puck with the man advantage.
The threat of offense from Grabner on the penalty kill could also be a deterrent for Weber. If the Austrian speedster creates a couple of early short-handed scoring attempts it could plant a seed in Weber’s mind that he needs to be a little more conservative with the puck.
Bad Blood
Not sure if everyone remembers, but this was a heated match-up in 2014. Not just because of the Kreider/Price incident, which Brandon Prust felt was “accidentally on purpose,” but also because of Prust’s other contribution to the series…
Which led to Gallagher implying that Stepan, who had a broken jaw, was embellishing the injury…
“I’ve seen broken jaws before.” Gallagher continued: “He got up and was yapping and yelling, so I don’t think the jaw was hurting too much.”
Former Montreal coach Michel Therrien added that it was a good hockey hit while Daniel Briere called the injury “fishy.”
And let’s not forget Practicegate in which Rangers assistant coach Ulf Samuelsson was chased out of the Madison Square Garden stands by Therrien for watching the Canadiens practice between Games 3 & 4. Shortly thereafter, Rangers GM Glen Sather took a seat high in the lower bowl for the rest of the skate.:
“There is always a gentlemen’s agreement between two teams and the general manager that coaches are not allowed to attend practices between games,” Therrien said. “ Game day is different. So when we saw those assistant coaches there, they were not supposed to be there, so we let them know.”
Hey Michel, how did that series end again? I can’t remember. Oh yeah…
Final Analysis & Prediction
All season long Rangers fans have begged for the 1st Wild Card in an effort to stay away from the likes of the Capitals, Penguins and Blue Jackets. Whelp, here they are, just where we wanted them: Starting the series in their House of Horrors, against a team they couldn’t beat this year (0-2-1) while facing a goaltender who owns them. Wait, why did we want to face these guys again?
Despite having all that stacked against them, the “road warrior” Rangers, behind their forward depth and a motivated Lundqvist, will get the job done. Rangers in 7, because they always have to go 7 games just to make their fans suffer.
I also previewed the series on two podcasts. Give them a listen below:
Real Talk Rangers:
NYR Zone Podcast:
Remember to follow me on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram or e-mail me at [email protected] Trauma Shapes The World We Know
Enlarge this image iStockphoto iStockphoto
Soldiers with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) — a trauma-induced condition in which individuals experience heightened emotional arousal and anxiety — see a world full of threat.
A new study by Rebecca Todd, and colleagues at the University of British Columbia and the Hospital for Sick Kids in Toronto, shows that that they really do. That is, they experience the presence of real threats the rest of us cannot see.
Todd and team examined Canadian combat veterans — half of whom were diagnosed with PTSD — and also non-veterans using MEG (magnetoencephalography), as the vets performed a perceptual-cognitive task. The task was to name the words in green font in a very rapid serial display of words in normal black font. It's easy to spot the first green word, but if the second word comes very quickly after the first — a matter of a few tenths of a second — normal subjects will tend to be unable to perceive it. This is known as the "attentional blink" (AB) and is thought to reflect the fact that perceivers can't redirect their attention quickly enough.
It is known that words with emotional resonance for subjects are able to resist the effects of the AB. People are more accurate at naming the second target — they are spared the affects of the AB — if the second target is especially meaningful. For example, a person's own name often gives rise to this sort of "emotional sparing," as it is called.
What Todd and her team found was that the AB was attenuated — there was emotional sparing — for healthy combat veterans, as compared to non-soldiers. That is, the vets were more sensitive to the hidden words when those words had to do with combat. But here's the punchline: Soldiers with PTSD were even better.
This heightened sensitivity has costs, as well. Combat vets are more sensitive to threat words than non-soldiers are but, it turns out, they are less sensitive to words with no particular emotional valence. It is as if the greater sensitivity to danger is purchased at the price of a relative neglect of the safe. And this effect is enhanced in soldiers with PTSD.
Eric Kandel, in early work on memory for which he won the Nobel Prize, showed that a snail that has been roughly poked will become hypersensitive. The lightest touch will cause it to recoil as if from violent contact. If it is touched again and again, however, it will, over time, habituate; it de-sensitizes — meaning, eventually, it will hardly respond at all, even to vigorous touch.
Perhaps it is not a stretch to say that individuals with PTSD are like snails that never habituate. The effect of their trauma is to make them more sensitive to the dangers around them. And, like the snails, less perceptive of non-threatening touch.
These findings fit with a picture in which people who have never served in the army, combat vets and combat vets with PTSD line up along a spectrum. This, in turn, goes along with the idea that the difference between the vets with and without PTSD is, as it were, just a matter of degree.
But one of the remarkable upshots of Todd's work — and this turns on the brain findings using MEG — is that it suggests this continuity view is wrong. The healthy combat vets show neural activation in areas connected to emotional arousal, but then quickly show activation in areas that dampen these effects. They are able to regulate their emotional response. The soldiers clinically diagnosed with PTSD showed a very different pattern of activation: The neural markers of emotional regulation are absent. Instead, what is found is a lighting up in visual cortex. This is interpreted to signify something that we already know to be the case, just on the basis of common sense: Those with PTSD get captured by their emotional response. It resonates for them and won't let them go. Todd's work gives, it would seem, a neural measure of the clinical phenomenon.
As Todd stressed in a Skype interview with me Tuesday, this result is a long way from offering anything like a diagnostic tool. She is describing average responses, after all. It's consistent with her findings that individuals with and without PTSD show a broad range of different neural and perceptual-cognitive results.
But perhaps there is some news we can use here when it comes to the lives of individuals suffering PTSD. If Todd is right, PTSD is a phenomenon whose effects can be discerned at time scales of tenths of a second, that is, the time scales at which the AB operates. Todd wondered whether this suggests that it is unlikely that conversation or talking therapy is going to offer effective treatments.
Perhaps. But maybe the work shows just the opposite. The neurological embodiment of PTSD, according to these findings, is robust. And Todd's work shows that soldiers with PTSD "process" cues associated with their combat experience differently even than other combat veterans. But what seems to be driving the process that Todd and team uncovered is the meaningfulness or emotional valence of the cues themselves. Whether they are presented in very rapid serial display or in some other way, what matters is that those who have been badly traumatized think and feel. And surely we can modify how we think and feel through conversation?
Indeed, what makes this work so significant is the way it shows that we can only really make sense of the neural phenomena by setting them in the context of the perceptual-cognitive situation of the animal and, vice-versa, that the full-import of what perceivers say and do depends on what is going on in their heads.
Alva Noë is a philosopher at the University of California, Berkeley, where he writes and teaches about perception, consciousness and art. You can keep up with more of what Alva is thinking on Facebook and on Twitter: @alvanoeThis article is about the culinary egg dish. For other uses, see Scrambled eggs (disambiguation)
"Scrambled" redirects here. For the TV programme, see Scrambled! For other uses, see Scramble
Scrambled eggs is a dish made from eggs (usually chicken eggs) stirred or beaten together in a pan while being gently heated, typically with salt, butter and various other ingredients.[1][2]
Preparation [ edit ]
Only eggs are necessary to make scrambled eggs,[3] but salt and pepper are often used, and other ingredients such as water, milk, butter, chives, cream or in some cases crème fraîche or grated cheese may be added. The eggs are cracked into a bowl with some salt and pepper, and the mixture is stirred or whisked: alternatively, the eggs are cracked directly into a hot pan or skillet, and the whites and yolks stirred together as they cook. Ground black pepper is also sometimes used as an ingredient.[4][5] More consistent and far quicker results are obtained if a small amount of thickener such as cornstarch, potato starch or flour is added; this enables much quicker cooking with reduced risk of overcooking, even when less butter is used.[6]
Preparation in pans
The mixture can be poured into a hot pan containing melted butter or oil, where it starts coagulating.[7] The heat is turned down and the eggs are stirred as they cook. This creates small, soft curds of egg. Unlike pancake or omelette scrambled egg is virtually never browned. A thin pan is preferable to prevent browning. With continuous stirring, and not allowing the eggs to stick to the pan, the eggs themselves will maintain the pan temperature at about the boiling point of water, until they coagulate.
Once the liquid has mostly set, additional ingredients such as ham, herbs, cheese or cream[7] may be folded in over low heat until incorporated. The eggs are usually slightly undercooked when removed from heat, since the eggs will continue to set. If any liquid is seeping from the eggs (syneresis), this is a sign of undercooking, overcooking or adding undercooked high-moisture vegetables.
Scrambled eggs can be cooked in a microwave oven,[8] and can also be prepared using sous-vide cooking, which gives the traditional smooth creamy texture and requires only occasionally mixing during cooking.[9][10] Another technique for cooking creamy scrambled eggs is to pipe steam into eggs with butter via a steam wand (as found on an espresso machine).[11]
Variations [ edit ]
Philippine variant of onions and scrambled eggs
Video showing the steps in which basic scrambled eggs are prepared with mushrooms and cheese
Serving styles [ edit ]
Scrambled eggs with bacon and pancakes
Classical haute cuisine preparation calls for serving scrambled eggs in a deep silver dish. They can also be presented in small croustades made from hollowed-out brioche or tartlets.[12] When eaten for breakfast, scrambled eggs often accompany toast, bacon, smoked salmon, hash browns, cob, pancakes, ham or sausages. Popular condiments served with scrambled eggs include ketchup, hot sauce, and Worcestershire sauce.
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Escoffier, Georges Auguste. Escoffier: The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery. Translated by H. L. Cracknell and R.J. Kaufmann. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2002
. Translated by H. L. Cracknell and R.J. Kaufmann. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2002 FoodMayhem.com. Chef Jody Williams Shows Me How to Steam Scramble Eggs. New York: FoodMayhem.com, 2009.
. New York: FoodMayhem.com, 2009. McGee, Harold. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. New York: Scribner, 2004.
. New York: Scribner, 2004. Robuchon, Joël, Members of the Gastronomic Committee. Larousse Gastronomique. New York: Clarkson Potter/Publishers, 2001.A doctor exams mammograms, a special type of X-ray of the breasts, which is used to detect tumours as part of a regular cancer prevention medical check-up at a clinic in Nice, south eastern France January 4, 2008. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard
LONDON (Reuters) - Extracts from a mushroom used for centuries in Eastern Asian medicine may stop breast cancer cells from growing and could become a new weapon in the fight against the killer disease, scientists said on Tuesday.
Laboratory tests using human breast cancer cells show the mushroom called Phellinus linteus has a marked anti-cancer effect, probably by blocking an enzyme called AKT. AKT is known to control signals that lead to cell growth.
Phellinus linteus — called song gen in Chinese medicine, sang-hwang in Korean and meshimakobu in Japanese — has previously been shown to have anti-tumor properties on skin, lung and prostate cancer cells.
The new research on breast cancer, however, marks the first time that scientists have started to understand how it works.
Dr Daniel Sliva of the Methodist Research Institute in Indianapolis said the mushroom extract reduced uncontrolled growth of new cancer cells, suppressed their aggressive behavior and blocked new tumor-feeding blood vessels.
“We’re not yet able to apply this knowledge to modern medicine, but we... hope our study will encourage more researchers to explore the use of medicinal mushrooms for the treatment of cancer,” he said.
The findings were reported in the British Journal of Cancer.The Bogan loves its car, and the Bogan loves putting bumper stickers on its car. A sentiment that has been distilled into a few short words appeals to the Bogan’s belief that the universal order is fundamentally simple to grasp, which is convenient since its past experiences of thinking about things too hard have proven frustrating and ultimately unrewarding. Perhaps this explains why the Bogan can sustain the conviction that Australia’s landmass of 7,617,930 square kilometres cannot physically accommodate any more than its current population of just over 22 million people.
This idea is perplexing, but the Bogan appears to believe it firmly enough to plaster it on the back of its beloved car. Believing Australia is fatally overcrowded, one does wonder why the Bogan pumped out three kids in the last two and half years, and this is yet another example of the kind of fascinating contradictions constantly thrown up by the phenomenon of Boganism.
At the risk of doing TBL readers’ work for them, the sticker makes a lot more sense when you look at it this way: Australia is not ‘full’ as far as the Bogan’s own kind is concerned – the message is intended for foreign immigrants, particularly asylum seekers. The Bogan is not racist, but believes that immigrants (only the brown ones, of course,) don’t ‘assimilate’, by which it means they don’t become Bogans. Naturally, the Bogan has never actually met a refugee before, and bases this opinion solely on something Aaron was saying in between mouthfuls of beef and black bean the other night. One of the most illustrative insights into the Bogan’s confounding pathology is that the Bogan claims to like each and every brown person it has ever chanced to meet, yet continues to maintain the opinion that every single other brown person is some kind of hybrid of Osama Bin Laden and Idi Amin.
To its marginal credit, and despite the fact that the Bogan drives about with a racist statement on the back of its car, a true Bogan is unlikely to be a member of an active white supremacist hate group. That would mean straying too far outside of the warm, cradling mainstream, and besides, their meetings clash with Two And a Half Men. Also to its credit is the accurate grammar and syntax of the printed sentiment.
No, the “Fuck Off, We’re Full” sticker is racism-as-automotive-adornment, a nod and a wink to other racist Bogans – “yes, I’m a racist too, it’s OK, you belong. Now please admire my sick rims”.
*UPDATE*
There have been some expressions of doubt that these exist. Doubt no longer.The NFL is a battle of attrition. Injuries happen nonstop and don’t discriminate. The 12 teams that have the fewest injuries combined with the depth to overcome injures, are normally in the playoffs.
The Patriots have Jimmy Garoppolo (3-0) and Martellus Bennett to replace Gronk, the Dolphins have Matt Moore, the Cowboys have Ron Leary, and so on. Often the healthiest teams make the Super Bowl.
This brings us to the Green Bay Packers. They have ripped off six straight wins to take the NFC North crown. Aaron Rodgers has been on fire, having thrown for 15 touchdowns and zero interceptions in the last six wins. But this article isn’t about their pass game. This is about how the Packers have overcome key injuries to the running back position, and still have some production there.
The Packers are 29th in rushing attempts but seventh in yards per carry. They lost both Eddie Lacy and James Starks. It hurt their run game. The coaches had to get creative so they inserted a wide receiver, Ty Montgomery, into the running back role and he’s flourished, changing the offense for the better. Along with Montgomery, the Packers have used their fullback, Aaron Ripkowski, and free agent pickup, Christine Michael, formally of the Seahawks.
What stands out to me is how the Packers have tailored their run game to fit the individual skill sets of each runner.
Ty Montgomery is a receiver by trade and he functions best in open space. He was a kick returner in college so he has some understanding of running to green grass. The Packers have made it easier for Montgomery by giving him runs with easy reads, outside zone, where he can run to the open grass, or one cut up the field.
There are also ‘G’ type run plays where a lineman is pulling and he can follow his lead blocker. These are simple reads that allow Montgomery to play to his skill set. They haven’t run much inside zone, which requires an understanding of linebacker fills, where the safeties will be, and how the front is moving.
Lets go to the film and start three weeks ago in Chicago. This was Ty Montgomery’s best game to date. He ran for 162 yards on 16 carries and two touchdowns. You will notice throughout these clips how the Packers try getting him to the edge and give him space to work
In the first clip, it’s outside zone weak. The Packers start the TE strong, but slide him back weak to hold the linebackers just for a second. He just runs to the open grass, makes a guy miss and scores.
Next up is Montgomery’s longest run of the game. It’s a G play, with the left guard pulling to trap the 9 technique defensive end. By alignment, a back should know this play would go inside the puller No. 65, following No. 70 up into the hole. Montgomery isn’t a back by trade. He’s trying to get outside. However, he does a marvelous job of being patient.
That shows up through his carries. It’s hard to teach being patient. You either have it or you don’t. He makes guys miss and busts out a 61-yard run. There’s no denying that he’s not elusive when he’s out in space.
Here’s another run play with a defined read. The center is pulling on outside zone. The back can easily see he’s the guy to follow and Montgomery gains 13 yards showing his patience but also getting
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PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS Still image from surveillance video at Washington's Dulles International Airport on the morning of the September 11 attacks shows hijackers at security checkpoint. A still image received on July 22, 2004, from newly released surveillance video from Washington's Dulles International Airport on the morning of the September 11 attacks, shows two of five hijackers passing through a security checkpoint. The release of the video coincides with the publication of the report of the September 11 commission, and shows five hijackers,four of whom repeatedly set off alarms but were quickly cleared to board the flight that later crashed into the Pentagon. REUTERS/courtesy NBC/Via Reuters TV Russian spy ringleader Christopher Metsos does a brush pass with a Russian Mission official to receive a shopping bag filled with money, in this still image taken from May 16, 2004 footage and released on October 31, 2011. The FBI on Monday released surveillance videos of clandestine meetings of Russian spies who have spent years in the United States trying to meld into American society in an apparent bid to get close to power brokers and learn secrets, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation said no classified information was stolen. Video recorded May 16, 2004. REUTERS/FBI/Handout (UNITED STATES - Tags: CRIME LAW POLITICS) FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS Anna Chapman and an undercover agent meet in a coffee shop in New York in this still image taken from June 26, 2010 footage and released on October 31, 2011. The FBI on Monday released surveillance videos of clandestine meetings of Russian spies who have spent years in the United States trying to meld into American society in an apparent bid to get close to power brokers and learn secrets, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation said no classified information was stolen. Video recorded June 26, 2010. REUTERS/FBI/Handout (UNITED STATES - Tags: CRIME LAW POLITICS) FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS A still picture taken from CCTV surveillance camera shows the suspected bomber (C) at Bulgaria's Burgas airport July 18, 2012. A suicide bomber carried out an attack that killed seven people in a bus transporting Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, the country's interior minister said on Thursday, and Israel said Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants were to blame. Video surveillance footage showed the bomber was similar in appearance to tourists arriving at the airport, Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said. REUTERS/Interior Ministry/Handout (BULGARIA - Tags: CIVIL UNREST TRAVEL TRANSPORT) FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS A man, described by investigators as a person of interest, is seen in a surveillance video in this handout photo released by FBI Denver on April 20, 2011. A busy shopping mall near Columbine High School was evacuated on Wednesday after authorities responding to a small fire at the retail complex found two propane tanks and a pipe bomb, officials said. Twelve years to the day after two Columbine High School students shot dead a teacher, 12 students and themselves on April 20, 1999, the devices were discovered at Southwest Plaza Mall, about a mile from Columbine. Investigators reviewed videotapes from surveillance cameras for clues, and later released two still images from the tapes showing a gray-haired man with a moustache and baseball cap they described as a "person of interest." REUTERS/FBI Denver/Handout (UNITED STATES - Tags: CRIME LAW) FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS Michael Brown is seen entering the Ferguson Market hours before the unarmed 18 year old was shot dead by a police officer, in a still image from a previously undisclosed store surveillance video in Ferguson, Missouri August 9, 2014. St Louis County Prosecutor/Handout via REUTERS FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY A combination picture of images taken from a security camera video distributed by the Rio police shows students running from the classroom where gunman Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, 24, opened fire and then Menezes de Oliveira (bottom R) leaving the same classroom inside the Tasso da Silveira school with a gun in his hand, in the Realengo neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro April 7, 2011. The gunman killed 11 students in a shooting spree at the school before killing himself, police said on Thursday. REUTERS/Rio Police/Handout (BRAZIL - Tags: CIVIL UNREST CRIME LAW EDUCATION IMAGES OF THE DAY) FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS A surveillance photo shows a man with a bag removing a shirt near Times Square where he is suspected of leaving a car bomb set up in a Nissan Pathfinder sports utility vehicle in Times Square in this New York Police Department surveillance footage released to Reuters on May 3, 2010. Investigators in the New York Times Square car bomb attempt sought Monday to track down a man seen on a surveillance video nearby as police combed through evidence looking for the culprits. Police said that a white man in his 40s was spotted in security video footage about half a block from where the sport utility vehicle that contained the bomb was left with its engine running and hazard lights flashing Saturday evening. REUTERS/New York Police Department/Handout (UNITED STATES - Tags: DISASTER CRIME LAW) FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS Video grab from surveillance video released November 9, 2009 by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) shows a woman being helped after falling on to train tracks just as a train was pulling into a station in Boston, Massachusetts on November 6, 2009. The woman walked to the edge of the platform and looked at the approaching train, then lost her balance and fell on to the tracks. People waiting on the platform waved their arms to try to alert the driver to the woman and the driver, Charice Lewis, slammed on the emergency brakes, stopping just in time. Lewis and another MBTA employee were honoured by officials on Monday. MBTA transit police said the woman had been drinking. She was unhurt. REUTERS/Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority/Handout (UNITED STATES TRANSPORT SOCIETY) QUALITY FROM SOURCE. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS A still image taken from a video released by prosecutors in Naples October 29, 2009, shows the May 11, 2009 killing of Mariano Bacio Terrasino, 53, outside a bar in central Naples. Italian prosecutors released on Thursday a shocking video of a mafia-style murder in Naples met with indifference by bystanders, hoping it would help break a wall of silence over the identity of the killer. The video, shot by closed-circuit cameras, shows a man wearing a baseball cap shooting dead Mariano Bacio Tarracino, a 53-year old man with a mafia criminal record, in broad daylight on May 11 this year. REUTERS/Procura Della Repubblica/handout (ITALY CRIME LAW) FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS An unidentified man is shown in this still image from surveillance video carrying a 86-pound pail of gold flakes valued at $1.6 million off an armored truck two months ago in Manhattan provided by the New York Police Department in New York, November 30, 2016. Courtesy of NYPD/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. EDITORIAL USE ONLY A frame grab from a surveillance video released by the New York Civil Liberties Union shows 49-year-old Esmin Green falling to the floor from a hospital waiting room chair at Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn, New York, June 19, 2008. Green died after lying on the floor for more than an hour unassisted by bystanders or hospital security guards, nurses or doctors. At that point Green had been waiting in the emergency room almost 24 hours for treatment. Video taken June 19, 2008. REUTERS/NYCLU/Handout (UNITED STATES) FACES PIXELATED FROM SOURCE. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. Denmark's Stein Bagger, the fugitive chief executive of "IT Factory" is seen arriving at the Los Angeles Police Department's Central Division's lobby on "Skid Row" in downtown Los Angeles to surrender to police officers in this frame grab taken from video surveillance taken on December 6, 2008. The video was made available to Reuters on December 8, 2008. Bagger was wanted by Interpol on charges of counterfeiting, fraud and forgery, local media reported. REUTERS/Los Angeles Police Department Central Divsion/Handout (UNITED STATES) QUALITY FROM SOURCE. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. Video grab from Ritz Hotel surveillance camera film shows French driver Henri Paul (Top C) who walks into a room at the Ritz Hotel, August 31, before the car accident which killed Princess Diana.? QUALITY VIDEO DOCUMENT - VIDEO PHOTO - This image, obtained from a Pentagon surveillance camera March 7, 2002, shows a fireball from the impact of hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the building September 11, 2001. The image was made available to law enforcement agencies to aid in the investigation of the events of that day.? QUALITY DOCUMENT? SALES Video grab from Ritz Hotel surveillance camera film shows French driver Henri Paul (L) who arrives through revolving doors at the Ritz Hotel, August 31, prior to the car accident which killed Princess Diana.? QUALITY VIDEO DOCUMENT - VIDEO PHOTO - This image, obtained from a Pentagon surveillance camera March 7, 2002, shows a fireball from the impact of hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the building September 11, 2001. The image was made available to law enforcement agencies to aid in the investigation of the events of that day.? QUALITY DOCUMENT? SALES Still image from surveillance video at Washington's Dulles International Airport on the morning of the September 11 attacks shows hijacker at security checkpoint. A still image received on July 22, 2004, from newly released surveillance video from Washington's Dulles International Airport on the morning of the September 11 attacks shows oone of five hijackers passing through a security checkpoint. The release of the video coincides with the publication of the report of the the September 11 commission, and shows five hijackers,four of whom repeatedly set off alarms but were quickly cleared to board the flight that later crashed into the Pentagon. REUTERS/courtesy NBC/Via Reuters TV A still image from surveillance video shows a gunman (L) running away from a Philadelphia Police vehicle in which Officer Jesse Hartnett was shot in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania this Philadelphia Police Department image released on January 8, 2016. A gunman claiming to have pledged allegiance to Islamic State militants shot and seriously wounded a Philadelphia police officer in an ambush on his patrol car, the city's police commissioner said on Friday. REUTERS/Philadelphia Police Department/Handout ATTENTION EDITORS - FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. THIS PICTURE WAS PROCESSED BY REUTERS TO ENHANCE QUALITY. AN UNPROCESSED VERSION WILL BE PROVIDED SEPARATELY Up Next See Gallery Discover More Like This HIDE CAPTION SHOW CAPTION of SEE ALL BACK TO SLIDE
A loss prevention officer at Walmart took notice of the pair and stopped them before they could make off with the "discounted" goods.
"I am just trying to get gifts for my son that I cannot afford," West told a responding deputy. "The computer is for my husband. Since he just got me a Coach purse, I figured he deserved something nice, as well."
West is currently being held at the Indian River County Jail in Florida on a $3,000 bond.
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Sutherland Springs and other mass shootings in places of worshipYou know what’s great about Sun News Network? No, it’s not the seamless marriage of perpetual fury and Wayne’s World-esque production values. It’s not even the daily five o’clock cutoff, where all the female talent goes ‘poof!’ and the Sun set becomes a soapbox for hours of spitty white male outrage. The best thing about the folks who bring you “Hard News, Straight Talk” is their utter lack of consistency. Or, since we’re all we’re straight talking here, let’s call it what it really is: hypocrisy.
Just over a week ago, the Sun News people grabbed hold of the story about interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel having been a member of the Bloc Québécois… and, well, hasn’t really let go since. Just yesterday the network fronted a story touting Turmel’s membership in the BQ as well as the “radically separatist” Québec Solidaire. ‘Byline‘ host (and, in the spirit of SNN’s trademark hyperbole, the network’s in-house right-wing commie-baiter) Brian Lilley took to his blog to decry Turmel’s separatist past and supposed radically communist leanings. “Quebec Solidiare is no mild-mannered left-wing political party or your grandfather’s labour movement political action group, they are full on commies,” Brian wrote.
Brian has every right in the world to denounce radical left-wing fringe elements, real or imagined, in Canadian society. However, he might have taken a look in his backyard before getting all frothy. Had he done so, he’d note that QMI, Sun’s own press agency, which provides much of the content to the Sun chain of papers, regularly publishes the bon mots of one Jacques Lanctôt. Why, just today Lanctôt wrote a breezy 700 words about the delights—”justice, peace, health care and culture for all”—of Castro’s Cuba.
You be the judge as to whether Lanctôt qualifies as ‘radical’, based on his past: he was one of the driving forces behind the Front de libération de Québec (FLQ) and founder of the FLQ’s ‘Liberation cell’ that was responsible for the kidnapping of British trade secretary James Cross in 1970. He served three years in jail as a result, and went into exile for eight years after his release. Now he writes for the same outfit as Brian Lilley, who for some reason has made no mention of this flagrant infiltration of a known communist, separatist radical into one of the largest media companies in the country. What if the CBC had published the columns of a known communist, separatist radical? You think we’d be hearing the same silence?
As for run-of-the-mill, non-kidnapping, non-radical separatists: Quebecor, the company that owns Sun News and the Sun chain of newspapers, employs those too. There’s former PQ minister Joseph Facal and Richard Martineau, who also hosts a show on Quebecor’s LCN all-news network. Hell, even former premier Bernard Landry, the man who once compared the Canadian flag to a “red rag,” once wrote for Quebecor—before his union sympathies got the better of him and he gave up his column during the Journal de Montréal lockout in 2009. If there’s a pan-Canadian outfit that promotes the thoughts and words of separatists and radicals, it seems the NDP has a competitor.
Oh, and remember the news about Conservative Transportation Minister Denis Lebel being a Bloc Québécois member? I asked the folks at the media monitoring service Infomart to find the number of times SNN hosts talked about it. The answer: once, on August 9. How about Turmel’s similar dalliance with the avowed separatist party? 936 times between August 2 and August 11. Straight news, indeed.
Finally, a digression. Last June, Sun News journalist (and proud SUNshine Girl) Krista Erickson grilled dancer and choreographer Margie Gillis, asking her, among other things, “the sum total of grants and public money [Gillis] has received throughout [her] career.” It was a cutesy bit of TV: pit the airy, Atwood-inflected arts type against Erickson’s blond indignation and watch the sparks fly. SNN would be guilty only of ripping off what Fox news does every day, were it not for one not-so-small detail: Quebecor, Sun News’s parent corporation, regularly avails itself of taxpayer dough—and complains, loudly, when it doesn’t get it.
Exhibit A: last year, the company took in $3.7 million in Federal government subsidies, through Heritage Canada’s Canadian Periodical fund.
Exhibit B: in 2010, Quebecor President Pierre-Karl Péladeau threatened to sue the Canadian Media Fund when it refused to pony up money for TVA’s Star Académie, our very own version of American Idol that is, in Péladeau’s words, “the biggest success in the history of Canadian broadcasting.”
Now why would the biggest success in Canadian broadcasting history need even one cent of taxpayer money? Sounds like the kind of hard biting question for Sun News, doesn’t it?BY AND large, it’s a fact that when Ferrari is making excellent road cars, its Formula One racers are slithering about, and then breaking down or coming fourth. And, conversely, when it’s making terrible road cars, its racers are cruising to victory without breaking a sweat.
All through the early Noughties, Ferrari was totally dominant on the track. It won the world championship five years on the trot. And the road cars it was making? Well, there was the 550, which was sort of quite nice, and the 360, which wasn’t even that.
But then in 2009 along came the brilliant 458 Italia and a range of front-engined GT cars that cause grown men to go weak at the knees. And it hasn’t won the F1 title since.
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It’s not just Ferrari that suffers from this problem. McLaren was pretty much always a top three team. But then it decided to start making road cars and now its F1 racers drive around at the back for a couple of laps and conk out.
Many commentators blame the Honda engine for this lack of pace and unreliability and I’m sure it’s partly to blame. But think about it. If you’re trying to get a road-car division up and running, you’re going to put your best people on that. You just are.
And it must be said, they did do a good job. The fresh-out-of-the- box McLaren MP4-12C wasn’t the most exciting-looking car and in some ways it felt as though it had been engineered by someone who cuts his lawn with nail scissors. It was all very obsessive compulsive. But, ooh, it was clever and fast.
And then the range expanded and the excitement started to come and eventually we got the P1, which, I still maintain, is the most bonkers car I’ve yet driven. It was swivel-eyed and mad. An insane bastardisation of Elon Musk’s vision, the way it used battery tech to create more speed. It really was, as I said at the time, a weaponised wind farm. I adored it.
It’ll kick a Fezza’s arse in any race, anywhere, anytime, but you can’t help feeling it’s a car built after a meeting in a Travelodge with a flip chart
Now, with the F1 team still in disarray, it has come up with a new road car that doesn’t have the P1’s hybrid drive system but somehow manages to be, as near as makes no difference, just as fast. Let me put that in figures. A P1 will do the standing quarter-mile in 10.2 seconds. And the 720S? You’ll need 10.4 seconds. That’s not a big gap.
And in the corners you’ll make up for that lost fraction. It took me a long time to master the P1. But when I did, I found that, in extremis, it will understeer. The 720S will too but to nothing like the same degree. Which means that round a track the straightforward dinosaur will be quicker than the rainbow warrior.
There are all sorts of extremely dreary reasons for this, all of which have to do with weight and electronics. Let me put it this way. You can download data from your 720S so that after supper you can analyse how it and you managed on your journey home from work. This is a nerd car.
It may look brilliant — mine was brown and I still thought it was a sensation — but you cannot get round the fact that it simply doesn’t have the soul of a Ferrari. It’ll kick a Fezza’s arse in any race, anywhere, anytime, but you can’t help feeling it’s a car built after a meeting in a Travelodge with a flip chart. And not while casually doodling over a bottle of wine.
And I’m afraid that, from this point on, things get a bit bad. There’s a lot of talk about how it’s 5.548% stiffer than the old 650S and how the engine has 195 more cubic centimetres because of the increased stroke and how there’s been a rethink in the design of the carbon fibre tub. And I don’t doubt all this engineering pays dividends at the limit through Eau Rouge at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium. But the downside is that when you run over a manhole cover on the M40, you’ll wince.
The party piece of all McLarens is the way they combine brilliant handling with a supple ride. Well, the 720S doesn’t. It’s too firm.
And the brake pedal is wrong. When you first push it, nothing happens, which means you have a bit of a panic and push harder, which causes the car to stand on its nose. I found that even when I had my foot on the brake pedal, the car would still creep forwards. You really have to give it a shove.
There’s nothing wrong with the brakes. It’s the pedal. And I’m not the only one to notice this. Autocar did too. And so did James May. It’s an issue that needs resolving.
One that can’t be resolved so easily, though, is the way the interior works. It’s all done on purpose and it’s too complicated. The electric seat adjustment is a case in point. There’s no logic to it, and the same applies with the immensely complex Track, Comfort and Sport settings. Then there’s the sat nav, which is way better than it’s been in any McLaren to date and is actually better than the system you get in a Ferrari, but it’s still not as goodas the setup you get in a Volkswagen Golf.
This then is a tricky car to sum up. Yes, it is mind-blowingly fast. It’s a direct competitor for the Ferrari 488 but in terms of what they both set out to do, it’s not a competitor at all. They’re in a different league altogether. I even think the Big Mac is better-looking and that’s saying something because the little Ferrari is like a dreamy mix of Alicia Vikander and something I just thought of.
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But the ride is too firm, and the controls are too hard to use and that brake pedal is an issue as well. And then there’s the really big problem. You sense this car was designed by really, really clever people who live and breathe yaw, slip angles and various other engineering conundrums. People who really would be more gainfully employed in the company’s race team, where such things matter.
For the 720S to blow my frock up, it needs some P1 fairy dust. It needs a bit of humanity in the mix, a bit of childlike fun.
In short, this car would have been better if it had been designed not in a Travelodge, but in the pub.
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Head to head: McLaren 720S vs Ferrari 488 GTB
McLaren 720S Ferrari 488 GTB Price £208,600 £183,984 Power 710bhp 661bhp 0-62mph 2.9sec 3.0sec Top speed 212mph 2055mph
Write to us at [email protected], or Driving, The Sunday Times, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GFAway from all the hubbub, helicopters, and roving paparazzi, the Miami Dolphins head coach sat down with Peyton Manning tonight and talked football. According to several sources including ESPN who references “high ranking Miami Dolphins officials”, the two sides met in Naptown for 5 to 6 hours. No training facility tours, no stadium tours, no grand welcome (or backseat rides behind John Elway). Nope, they sat and talked about football.
What little is known tells us that Joe Philbin along with unnamed members of the Dolphins staff were present for all our parts of the meeting. Both sides did well to keep the meeting private and leak proof. Earlier it was reported that the two sides would meet far away from South Florida but I suppose only a handful would have expected a return to Indianapolis so soon.
The news is neither good nor bad for the Dolphins although some may say the fact it lasted six hours without the sideshow attractions of “…and here is our weight room” is a good sign that they did in fact talk football. Perhaps game planning, Joe Philbin’s playbook, his coaching philosophy. Maybe at some point Manning got on the phone to his good friend Dallas Clark and asked him about his thoughts on Philbin. Clark, who has never been coached by Philbin drove to Philbin’s son’s funeral to show support and respect for the coach.
Regardless, the Dolphins now have had their time officially and the next move is with Manning. The Dolphins may come away feeling similar to the Cardinals and Broncos, thinking they have a good chance of getting something done but the reality is only Manning knows what Manning wants and in the end, he is the one calling the shots. Not Stephen Ross or Jeff Ireland, not John Elway or Pat Bowlen, nor the Bidwells and Ken Whisenhutt. No, this is Manning’s choice and he will make it when he is ready.
At least they got to meet with him…maybe that will put some of the poking fingers away for a little while longer.COLORADO: Sections of the 22-mile Guanella Pass Scenic Byway are unpaved (check conditions), but the aspens will make you happy to be driving slowly. From Grant to Georgetown; bit.ly/boWecw
IDAHO: The 69-mile Teton Scenic Byway is a drive of subtle yellows--here cottonwoods and there aspens. What's not subtle: the view of the Tetons. From Swan Valley to Ashton; 208/354-2312.
MONTANA: On the Seeley-Swan Scenic Drive, you'll spy the bright yellow fall needles of the larch, a deciduous conifer. Start 1 hour northesast of Missoula on State 83; Lolo National Forest; bit.ly/SdfmNA
NEVADA: On the 5-mile (one way) Marlette Lake Trail, you'll emerge from the aspens to see them reflected on the lake. East of Lake Tahoe; access at Spooner Lake, 1 hour south of Reno; bit.ly/RbQhTA
OREGON: You want bold russets and reds? Try a hike in William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge's Upland Forest for oaks and maples. Near Corvallis, off Finley Refuge Rd.; fwd.gov/willamettevalley/finley
UTAH: In Fishlake National Forest, Pando, the largest aspen clone in the world, creates a gigantic blanket of shimmering color. 3 1/2 hours south of Salt Lake City; 435/896-1070.
WASHINGTON: On Skyline Trail, in Mount Rainier National Park, don't just look up--focus downward to see the deep reds of vine maples and huckleberry bushes. About 2 1/2 hours south of Seattle; nps.gov/mora
WYOMING: You'll pass logging, but don't fear: Aspen Alley leads through a stand so dense, it's like swimming in a sea of gold. 2 hours west of Laramie; Medicine Bow National Forest; 307/326-5258.It’s Friday, we’re not in the mood to do anything serious because Christmas, so let’s take a look at something a little bit out there. The case for Donald Trump to become the next Athletic Director for Purdue University. In short: How to Make Purdue Great Again.
Because, why not?
We’ll look at the main things one would for any applicant for a job: the candidate’s desire, fit, ability, and mentality. As an added bonus, we’ll find out his opinion on some fellow Big Ten schools.
Desire:
He may be looking for a new opportunity soon. Or not. I’ll leave the politics out of this, but there’s a chance that by football season next year he’ll be looking for something on which to focus his energy. He likes a challenge. I’m not saying Purdue is the biggest athletic department challenge in the book, but the financial shortcomings of the football team have led to a potential revenue crisis for Purdue Athletics. As he said in his 2007 book Think Big and Kick Ass, “Rich people are rich because they solve difficult problems. You must learn to thrive on problems.” Boy, does Purdue have some problems that could use a self proclaimed very smart man. He doesn’t want to go to a big name Athletic Department. As he said in 2011, “You know the funny thing, I don’t get along with rich people. I get along with the middle class and the poor people better than I get along with the rich people.” Trump has long championed himself as a common man, albeit by his own description, a very very rich common man. No big name donors? No problem!
Fit:
He will be well received at Purdue. His poll numbers show quite some strength in the Hoosier State, and Purdue’s President, Mitch Daniels, came to Purdue after his stint in politics as Governor of Indiana. Why not Trump? He’d probably do it for little to no pay, but naming rights. Trump Field at Ross-Ade Stadium? Sure, I don’t like it, but if the team contends for Big Ten Championships in multiple sports annually, I think I’ll deal. Oregon has Nike, Maryland has Under Armour, Purdue (an engineering school, mind you) can have a man known for tall buildings. Seems appropriate. He seems to really like (Old?) Gold. No need to redecorate!
Ability:
He believes in the value of education. I can already see our Academic Progress Rate skyrocketing. Quote Trump, “It doesn`t hurt to get more education.” He believes in the value of a brand. He certainly has branded himself with a flair for the unique. The swagger could be the kick in the tail that Purdue needs. From his book, Midas Touch, “building a brand may be more important than building a business.” Trump understands that running Purdue Athletics wouldn’t be about just keeping the group financially afloat (that’s important, of course), but he also recognizes the value of talking big and self-promotion. In short, getting Purdue’s name out won’t win games immediately, but it may attract talent that could change the destiny of, say, Purdue’s football woes. He can pump a ton of money into the program to win. When talking about his candidacy for Purdue AD (or President of the United States, I forget which) Trump said, “That’s one of the nice things. I mean, part of the beauty of me is that I’m very rich. So if I need $600 million, I can put $600 million myself. That’s a huge advantage. I must tell you, that’s a huge advantage over the other candidates.” $600 million of self funding would really help the athletic department in regards to not only facilities and recruiting, but the general ledger of Purdue as a whole. He can leverage his relationships to help recruit. Normally it’s beyond the scope of an AD to attract athletic talent, but with Trump, it would be easy. His ties to Tom Brady would certainly impress any young QB out there, and his fascination with golf would surely lead to one of the more impressive courses in the world to be built in West Lafayette. Who says we can’t have the next Jordan Spieth?
Mentality
He doesn’t like to lose. Clear as can be, from the New York Times in 1983: “I don’t like to lose.” He expects to win. “We will have so much winning if I get elected that you may get bored with winning.” I could get used to that. He is a lot like the Purdue Twitter crowd. As he said to CNN on August 10 of this year: “ I do whine because I want to win, and I’m not happy about not winning, and I am a whiner, and I keep whining and whining until I win.”
Rivalry
He hates Nebraska: In regards to Nebraska born Chuck Hagel:
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel seems so lost and, frankly, dumb. He can’t even speak properly. Poor leader in these very dangerous times! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2014
He hates Illinois: In regards to Champaign, IL native George Will
George Will is a political moron. Last month he said Romney couldn’t win. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 9, 2012
He hates Maryland: In regards to Carly Fiorina, famous alumna of Maryland’s MBA program:
I just realized that if you listen to Carly Fiorina for more than ten minutes straight, you develop a massive headache. She has zero chance! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 9, 2015
He hates Penn State: In regards to Penn State alum Rick Santorum: “I have a big plane. He doesn’t.”
Conclusion: If this wasn’t enough to convince you that the next Purdue AD should be Donald Trump, there’s just nothing I can do to convince you. However, if you disagree with me, I’ll leave you this little piece of wisdom: “There are people—I categorize them as life’s losers—who get their sense of accomplishment and achievement from trying to stop others. As far as I’m concerned, if they had any real ability they wouldn’t be fighting me, they’d be doing something constructive themselves.”
You’ll certainly see nothing like that from Morgan Burke.Snapchat’s next big feature wants to get you to meet up with friends in real life rather than just watching each other’s lives on your phones. Snap Map lets you share your current location, which appears to friends on a map and updates when you open Snapchat. It’s rolling out today to all iOS and Android users globally.
“We’ve built a whole new way to explore the world! See what’s happening, find your friends, and get inspired to go on an adventure!,” Snap writes on its blog.
[Update: Snap Map was based on Snapchat’s secret acquisition of social map app Zenly for $250 million to $350 million. Read our full story on Snap’s acquisition of Zenly here.]
How to use Snapchat’s Snap Map
When you open Snapchat once you have access to the feature, you can choose to share your location with all your friends, a few friends you select or you can disappear from the map at any time by going into Ghost Mode or not opening Snapchat for a few hours. Alternatively, location sharing is turned off by default and you can leave it that way to just lurk, watching what friends are up to.
To access the Snap Map, you pinch on your Snapchat camera home screen. From there you can scroll around to see where friends are in your city or around the world. Tapping on their “ActionMoji” BitMoji avatar opens their Story to show what they’re up to, or lets you message them directly to make meetup plans. Snapchat automatically picks an ActionMoji for you based on your location, time of day and other factors.
Outside of the location-sharing element, Snap Map also gives users an alternative way to discover Story content beyond the well-worn Stories feed and the powerful but buried Story Search feature. Users can submit Snapchat Story posts to Our Story to be eligible for their content to appear to non-friends for around 24 hours. You also can see “heat” colors on the Snap Map to see where lots of Snaps are being uploaded, which might indicate a concert or big event from which you’d want to explore Snap Stories.
Snap tells me that Snap Map is designed for enhancing connections between people and their closest friends — engagement that makes up nearly 60 percent of interactions on Snapchat according to data from Sparkler that was commissioned by Snap.
These new ways to surface content could earn Snapchat more money by getting users to watch more Snaps, even if they’re not trying to meet up with friends. However, for now, Snap tells me there won’t be any ads on the Snap Map. If you see a cluster of content labeled Featured, that just means it’s curated by Snapchat’s team and will appear in the Discover section, as well.
Overall, Snap Map creates a low-friction way to see where your Snap-addicted friends are and what they’re up to. While not as precise as a real-time location-sharing feature,
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Our own Dan Ryckert (he used to be our own) enjoyed the game a lot when it first released. You can also check out a video interview with Vollmer and the creator of Tetris here.
We've reached out to both Vollmer and Google about this story, but neither have commented yet.
[Source: @AsherVo]
Our Take
Seeing as Vollmer is the originator of this type of game, it's sad to see that his game was removed from the store because it contains a reference to a more popular clone. I hope Vollmer is able to get his game back on the store soon.AT&T has been in the firing line with the launch of the Lumia 900 and now the Lumia 920. Customers have placed orders for numerous versions of the Lumia 920, but it appears as though orders are not being processed with speed and are causing concerns with those who are eagerly awaiting their new Windows Phone.
A number of threads have been created over in our community forum, which have each accumulated a number of responses. Some of our readers have even resorted to tweeting out some humorous jabs at Nokia:
While many are complaining that they've received no word from AT&T or Nokia on what the situation is with orders and stock available to fulfil customer demand, there have been a few reports of customers actually confirming their Lumia 920 is indeed being shipped (and we've even got ours from stores, but our Kevin Michaluk from CrackBerry is having difficulty finding a store that has a Lumia 920).
If that wasn't enough, the Lumia 920 are experiencing teething problems with many reporting battery life issues. We've just published a poll asking for readers to vote for how their Lumia 920 has lasted through usage.
But if you're not interested in reading into the problems surrounding the handsets, you can place an order for the yellow Lumia 920 on AT&T's website. Be sure to join the conversation on our forum. You can register a free account with Windows Phone Central, which takes a matter of moments.
This post may contain affiliate links. See our disclosure policy for more details.You want to know how weird and deep my rabbit hole goes? I’ve developed what I’ll call an eccentricity about chapters. As in: there are certain choices that writers make when dividing up their narratives that quite simply drive me fucking crazy. Without an ounce of justification, I get a pound of pissed. And what this makes me realize is not so much that I’ve developed strange little idiosyncratic tics while I’m reading (that much is obvious) but more that my reading experience is personal and solitary and deeply entrenched in whole loads of bullshit that have nothing to do with the books, i.e., that the completely happenstantial list of books I’ve read over my life has somehow hoisted onto me certain expectations of literature and literary narrative technique that are built upon wholly dubious foundations that belong only to me and cannot be argued with any intellectual integrity. And even though I know this to be true I still in some way hold my complaint against the writer and more specifically whatever book I’m reading at the time and sometimes even go so far as to downright dislike the book (though of course I keep my reasoning to myself, mostly).
Because the thing about chapters is that they provide a lot of opportunities for the writer to communicate information about their book and can in fact orient the reader as to how to read the thing. A more crass version of the chapter’s utility can be plainly seen in, e.g., the novels of Dan Brown, in which the chapters are so short (and the pagination designed just so in order to create as many pages with only a few lines on them as possible) that a reader is goaded into thinking they’re moving through the book super-quick. This is not authorial assistance; it is a kind of manipulation that, given the meteoric popularity of Brown’s novels and others like them, most people are apparently pretty cool with.
What I’m talking about instead are the ways in which chapters are not merely components of a narrative’s foundational architecture but also part of its aesthetic, i.e., more like those imposing Ionic columns that both hold up the facade and immensely add to the overall quality of the building. To begin with an obvious example: think of how much the Fantasy genre has benefited from borrowing the chapter structure of histories. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings––as the archetypal built-world saga––divides itself up into Books and Parts and Chapters, these last of which each come with a title. Plus there’s also the Notes, Maps and Appendices––all of which add to the verisimilitude of legit history, preparing the reader for a similar treatment of a fictional place. These verisimilitudinous appropriations are so effective for Fantasy and Sci-fi genres that they’ve become a standard part of their aesthetic.
A person who picks up Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao will know right away the scope of the novel. After a short but foreboding prologue, we enter the first part of the book. Chapter One, then, is titled, “GhettoNerd at the End of the World: 1974–1987.” How much information about the rest of the story can be gleaned from just this chapter heading? Well, for one we can tell that Oscar’s story will take place over a number of years, which connotes a sense of the epic on par with nonfiction histories. Moreover, “GhettoNerd” effectively characterizes both the citizens that people the story and the nomenclature they use. And the appended prepositional phrase, “at the End of the World” suggests grandness of a different kind: that of comic books and adventure stories, the very same kind gobbled up by the hopelessly uncool protagonist. Also, these emphatically grand names (later chapters are titled, e.g., “Sentimental Education: 1988-1992” and “The Three Heartbreaks of Belicia Cabral: 1955-1962”) help absorb some of the momentum-shock of suddenly jumping from one time and place to another, and raise this thickly-accented contemporary tale to the status of History (a notion furthered by the book’s actual preoccupation with educating readers about the horrors of Trujillo). Tolkien borrowed from History to make his fantasy world Real; Díaz used it to make his story Significant.
But there are other ways of structuring a novel to reinforce its aims and intent. Ali Smith’s There but for the sections itself into the four words of the title, and each part not only begins with the titular word but also investigates it. The unfinished sentence, “there but for the,” becomes the connective tissue of the novel, each part working like a lengthy footnote to each word. The section, e.g., “but” features a poem on the conjunction/preposition that ends:
But but?
And and?
(So simple.)
Conjunctions.
And conjuctions?
(So simple.)
The way things connect.
Ali Smith incredibly makes her book seem like a narrative investigation of a single, incomplete sentence––the ending of which is of course known to all of us and factors into the story as well.
Chapter titles can sometimes become almost like characters, as in Office Girl by Joe Meno (a writer I unabashedly enjoy and who seems forever attached to his early success with Hairstyles of the Damned despite continuing to publish interesting works like The Boy Detective Fails, Demons in the Spring, and The Great Perhaps). The third-person-narrative novel has these short little chapters with titles like “But Ten Years Before” and “And That Night Goes to an Art Opening” and “Because This Is What He’s Been Doing.” These casual (and causal) names add a nice rhythm to the story and are actually quite necessary tactics for the reader to understand the ways the two protagonists feel about certain things in their life.
Books like Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Chuck Palahniuk’s Survivor use numerical ordering as techniques––Haddon’s protagonist, the autistic Christopher John Francis Boone, finds safety in math, especially prime numbers, so the chapters are headlined by those indivisible numbers; Palahniuk’s 1999 novel’s chapters are in reverse sequence––starting with Chapter 47 and ending with 1––as is the pagination, thereby “counting down” to the climax in the most literal way possible. These are simple and effective touches, connecting the disparate elements of the novels into single, cohesive units. Eleanor Catton’s Man Booker Prize-winning The Luminaries uses the Zodiac to reinforce the written-in-the-stars nature of her tale. Twelve main characters mirror the twelve signs, and the book’s even got twelve chapters and those are made up of smaller sections named after the precise (as I’m sure Catton researched it thoroughly) locations of the corresponding sign, as in, e.g., “Mercury in Sagittarius.” Taken altogether, Catton’s chapters work to add to the tone of the work (which is an uber-complex mystery featuring mediums and séances and ghosts (of a sort)) but are way too complex for someone like me who both doesn’t buy into astrology and knows next to nothing about it. In other words, from my point of view Catton succeeded in creating a forest even though I don’t understand the trees.
And then there is, of course, the shit that bothers me: for example, Moliere’s Tartuffe, a play in which the introduction of any character to a scene calls for a new one. What is this about? It makes for frustrating reading, akin to having someone announcing the entrance of every featured player in a sitcom. There’s Jerry! And look––Kramer! Just annoying. I know my aversion isn’t intellectually justifiable (after all, the scene numbers would be invisible if I ever actually saw a production of Tartuffe) but everyone has to admit that we’ve come to expect certain things from chapters, right? But here is a great problem: my arbitrary history with reading has not only given me these unfair proclivities but it’s also somehow convinced me that everyone else agrees with me.
Take, for instance, Charles Baxter’s otherwise fine novel The Feast of Love. In the opening of the book, Charlie Baxter embarks on a late-night walk after a night of restless sleep. This chapter, entitled “Preludes,” ends when Charlie’s friend Bradley comes upon him: “’Hey,’ he says, ‘Charlie. What they hell you doing out here? What’s up?’” Then, the section ends. The next chapter, “One,” begins like this: “’Hey,’ he says, ‘Charlie. What they hell you doing out here? What’s up?’” It’s the same setting, the same scene––hell, the same fucking moment––yet Baxter inserts a division here. Why? Well, I could see someone saying that Bradley’s entrance marks a shift in the story, since it is Bradley’s stories that comprise the novel. But then Baxter does this again. Chapter One ends with Bradley launching into his tales: “Okay,” he says. “Chapter One. Every relationship has at least one really good day…” and then Chapter Two begins, “Every relationship has at least one really good day.”
I don’t know why Baxter’s creative choices in The Feast of Love annoy me so much (and, to be fair, he doesn’t do this the entire book), but I think it might have to do with the physical properties of chapters. When a narrative stops and then continues on another page, I immediately assume some passage of time has elapsed or that maybe a change in perspective has occurred––there is just something psychically affecting about having to turn a page or having larger text interrupt prose. But when the scene merely continues, I am yanked out of the story and into the mind of the writer (or, more accurately, what I perceive to be the mind of the writer). So does this mean that I should try to eradicate my tendencies, open myself up to the myriad ways that chapters can function? Or do I simply use my weird shit as a helpful barometer for my taste? Should I, i.e., accept that certain books cannot and will not meet my stupid expectations and move along? There are already way too many books in this world for me to read, so maybe I should simple stop wasting my time with stuff that annoys me, even if my annoyance has zero legitimacy.
Okay, a little more time. It really pisses me off when books that have multiple parts still number the chapters as if the parts weren’t there. Díaz’s Oscar Wao does this, as do a number of bigger novels. This seems to ignore the entire purpose of Parts and Books, which to me create their own internal structure, much like the way each floor of a hotel begins numbering the rooms from 01. When writers ignore this, I tend to think of the Parts and Books to be arbitrary, an unnecessary intrusion to the larger rhythm.
But all of these weird little tics are mine and mine alone. I would never actually assume anyone else agrees or even thinks about this. I only know that when I read, these factors come into major play––justifiable or not––and help determine my assessment of a work. Even if I never mention it to others, in conversation or in a review, this stuff ends up mattering to me. Art (and art criticism) is full of unfair and unsubstantiated subjectivity like this but we love to pretend that we can approach things with cool empirical impartiality. Some can, I suppose, but I sure as hell can’t. I get stuck on chapters, on character names, on setting, on my perception of the author’s intention––because to me there isn’t any one aspect of fiction that stands above everything else. Every part of a novel or a story is a choice, made by a human being, and each part is as important as the next. And then there’s me––all-too-human, full of my own idiosyncrasies and prejudices and preferences and unable to stop them from taking over––responding to an author’s idiosyncrasies and prejudices and preferences. It’s like any relationship, I guess: the writer has their baggage, and I have mine. All I can do is hope that more often than not I stumble upon artists whose baggage is closest to mine. Because the other option would be for me to try to change these tics––which without going into too much detail I’ll just assure you is impossible.
Photo: HznLrlEIeIkYECoHe blames his parents — for everything!
A Brooklyn man slapped his mom and dad with a $200,000 lawsuit that blames them for leaving him homeless and destitute because they allegedly raised him and his sibling in a poor household — and didn’t love him enough.
Bernard Anderson Bey, 32, claims he never got enough affection or support from parents Vickie and Bernard Manley — so now he wants them to mortgage their share of a Bedford-Stuyvesant home so their family can buy two Domino’s Pizza franchises to employ them all, according to the bizarre suit.
“Our whole family is really poor, and my father doesn’t care about the situation,” Bey said yesterday. “I feel unloved and abandoned.”
Bey claims in the self-filed Brooklyn Supreme Court suit that as a child his father beat him, called him “bastard” and “motherf–ker” and did drugs right in front of him.
“Defendant Bernard Manley informed the plaintiff he was entitled to nothing, which is true,” Bey wrote in the suit. “I am not entitled to receive anything from an asset he owns. I only thought he might find pleasure in seeing his children become successful.”
Bey’s mother, Vickie Anderson, said yesterday she was scared of her eldest son.
“I live in the projects. You want to sue me? What’s next, you coming to shoot up my door?” the mother said sadly.
“He’s 32 years old. That speaks for itself. Welcome to America. Everyone in America has the same opportunity. Don’t blame the parents at this point. The choice is yours. You’re an adult.”
Manley said Bey was his stepson and dismissed the suit. “He’s not related to me. He’s not my son,” Manley said.
While Bey claimed each of his five younger siblings are on public assistance because of their parents’ neglect, a sister called him “crazy” and “a pathological liar.”
“I’m not on public assistance. My parents were not terrible. They did the best they could. He chose the life he’s leading now.”
In the Brooklyn Supreme Court suit, Bey said he demanded his parents mortgage their share in the home part-owned by the father so their family can “break the bonds of poverty” by buying two franchises like Domino’s.
Bey wrote the suit on a laptop in the Downtown Brooklyn homeless shelter where he flops.
The ne’er-do-well said he has been arrested on drug charges in the past but is trying to turn his life around and now attends an automotive trade school.Since I don’t have a huge amount of noodles that haven’t been reviewed yet (around 8 at the moment and I could go through those in four or five says possibly), I’ve decided I should hit the overstock box and see what’s in there. My wife Kit got me a five pack of these for my birthday back in March and so I figure I should eat ’em up! Here’s the original review – look there for the original pics I did of the packaging, packets, etcetera.
Finished (click image to enlarge). I added thin-sliced rib eye, an egg, green onion, Urashima Sesame & Salt furikake and kizami shoga (pickled ginger). The noodles are nicely done – just what you expect from Demae Ramen. The broth was excellent – not too salty and had a rich, deep flavor. I stand by my 4.5/5.0 star rating from before – great stuff! UPC bar code 4897878830015.
The Hong Kong commercial for this stuff!
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu.
47.810652 -122.377355I think that we can all admit that the aftermarket car industry is in a perpetual state of change. It evolves as the industry and tastes change and that has been a lot over the past two decades. But what does this mean to those folks that are at the tip of the spear? The small shop owner.
Where did it all begin?
2001 saw one of the biggest game changers to the industry, the launch of the Fast & The Furious franchise. Import tuner culture had been around for years prior to the first movie’s release but it was a whole new world afterwards. The movie turned the scene into pop culture overnight and saw a huge influx of people. New performance shops opened up left and right to meet the demand of the power (and attention) hungry new customers. People were spending big money to set themselves apart from the rest.
As with anything, a booming industry breeds competition. Products begin to age and cheaper options begin to show up to undercut the established competitors and take a portion of the pile of money available. Mass retailers began to take notice as well and wanted in. These products may not have been up to the quality and performance of the industry leaders but they offered those with less money to work with an introduction into the scene. They could get more stuff for less money.
About this same time, companies began to release copies of other’s work. What started as boutique shops offering US customers a way to get a copy of a product that may never make its way to US shores became big business. The perception of the value of parts began to change. Why pay $1,500 for an original front bumper from Japan when you can get one almost just like it for $400 stateside?
Then the great recession happened….
Everyone was hit one way or another by the financial meltdown of the late 2000’s. Disposable income for the majority of Americans began to dry up and people had to put aside hobbies to focus on their daily lives. With this, many shops began to go out of business as fewer and fewer people could afford to indulge their cars anymore.
Time passed and the economy began to recover. While nowhere near as popular as it was during the early 2000’s, tuner culture began to come back as well. While interest in cars was back, things were much different than they had been. Online purchases provided instant price shopping on goods and social media was a driver of style and influence. While things looked brighter and brighter for car enthusiasts, not so much so for those shop owners who had managed to weather the storm. Image had eclipsed substance.
I recently was chatting with a shop owner who is a friend of mine and our conversation is what led me to write this article. We were talking about how much of a struggle it is for shops to keep going these days. We live in a world where online dominates our opinions. Review sites can boost or tank a business. People get advice on where to shop and what is a good product. Its no longer just about the work that you do but your reputation as well. While some can use this for good in terms of warning others about immoral business practices, others can use it as a weapon against the owners. Social media is a big part of where people get their information from whether it be groups on Facebook or accounts on Instagram.
In talking with my friend, he said that he has seriously considering changing the focus of his business to get away from custom work. When I asked why, he stated “I have such a strong hate lately towards doing any cars that are ‘in the scene.’ Anything custom at all. The car world we all love so much has gone to shit. It’s all about what’s the cool thing I can do for the least amount of money possible. Nobody wants to do quality mods anymore. Nobody cares about quality paint anymore. Nobody wants quality wheels anymore. The DIY guys have fully taken over the industry.”
In a sense, I could see where he was coming from. Many times I had gone on an owners forum or asked others how to do a certain task or project. I had tried to do as much of the work myself to not only build up my own knowledge of cars but also to save money. In a way, I had been guilty of the same thing due to the power of the internet.
Where things can go off the rails though is when social media becomes the de facto expert of all things. I asked my friend whether he thought social media has benefited or hurt local shops more.
“Hurt, drastically.”
“People value what they heard online by someone random over our professional opinions. Oh Tom online told me this is only a two hour job.”
While the idea of having a large base to determine the value of something is a good thing, it can also skew logic and facts towards the extreme. What might be the going rate for something might get skewed by a one-off experience used as an example. What might once be opinions is now heavy influence to conform to new norms.
My friend has seen this time and time again. “When someone posts up about wanting to paint their car and to get opinions, 90% of the response is, f-that wrap it. Or dip it. Majority of people are followers. They just go with the trends.”
As funny as it may sound here, influencers are even a thing in the car world. Just like everywhere else, the car world has its own ‘celebrities’ that drive trends. While some of these influencers may be professionals in some automotive area, many are not. That does not change their influence though. This can be very stressful for any shop owner that has to deal with one of these people.
“They cause more damage than good. You have to walk (sic) on eggshells around them or they wreck your reputation you worked on for years with one simple post. They don’t think about how much damage they are doing with those 5 minutes it takes to make the post.”
Social media can be great in so many ways. It can bring people together and share knowledge and ideas. Consequently, it can also be a weapon. It can be used to hurt honest shops which might lead to them abandoning a customer base that they feel treats them poorly. Hence the reason my friend is considering this now.
So, the next time you are talking with other automotive enthusiasts and someone asks why there are no good shops around anymore, think for a second about what we might have done to drive them away.Among the many peculiar characteristics of the recently elected President is Donald Trump’s unwillingness to follow the ordinary and established norms of the office of President. In some cases, these are not binding laws but traditions or rules of custom and decorum. Presidents traditionally, for example, release their taxes for greater transparency and as a bulwark against even the appearance of impropriety. Customarily, Presidents agree to avoid conflicts of interest and divest as necessary. Other rules are, for certain, binding legal proscriptions, such as those contained in the Emoluments Clause. President Trump has thus far refused—despite in some cases earlier promises, such as his commitment to release his tax returns—to follow any of these sorts of established norms.
It is not at all surprising then that a President so willing to transgress the most well-settled rules and reasonable expectations, is seen by some in his administration to give them license not to follow norms either. That’s how such authority and institutions work. As a result, it cannot be entirely unexpected that when he issued what the President termed a “ban” on Muslims entering the U.S. from certain countries, and federal judges ordered, as one example, the Department of Homeland Security provide the detained access to lawyers, that such officials were reportedly comfortable flouting a federal court order. In light of the President’s predilection for transgression, non-compliance with judicial decrees by his administration will likely not be an isolated matter—that is, if left unchecked.
This intolerable situation is precisely why courts should be prepared to exercise inherent and statutory contempt powers more rigorously. Permitting even small-scale or symbolic disobedience to lawful decrees would be exceedingly dangerous. Whether one agrees or disagrees with a particular court order, federal officials especially must comply or must be coerced to comply. They can appeal as appropriate to be sure, but allowing defiance of court orders weakens the very fabric of our legal system and undermines a key attribute of good governance – the rule of law. Rule of law is what distinguishes nations with relatively effective governance from those underdeveloped ones in cyclical crisis.
It is not alarmist to say that the erosion of rule of law in the U.S. would be, over time, cataclysmic. We know this because there are too many examples in the world today where there is an absence of rule of law. In such places, norms are followed with far less regularity, with dire consequences for effective and stable governance and the ultimate prosperity and security of society.
In certain countries, for example, citizens do not view the courts as equitable arbiters of disputes, either because the judiciary is perceived as packed with cronies of the ruling party, has a history of corruption, or other serious institutional infirmities. A recent case to better illustrate: In the Spring of 2015, Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza sought to run for a third term. Armed with a novel interpretation of the constitution and ignoring the governing treaties, Burundi’s highest court agreed that Nkurunziza could seek re-election. He ran and won. However, because of the utter absence of trust of the judiciary by citizens who lacked confidence that the court had the capacity to resolve disputes fairly, Burundi fell into a state of utter chaos from which it has yet to emerge. At the end of the road, that is what lack of rule of law looks like.
If citizens of a nation do not trust their judicial or other institutions to settle disputes equitably – whether commercial, political or other – then disputes will be resolved by other means, usually involving corruption or violence. What is more, it is self-evident that for any judiciary to serve this vital function of resolving disputes in a peaceful and legitimate manner, it must exercise effective means of enforcing its own decrees.
In short, a necessary but not sufficient condition of effective governance and ultimately stability, security and prosperity for nations is ensuring that courts have both the perceived legitimacy among the citizenry and actual power to resolve disputes and ensure the rule of law.
This brings us back to the peculiarities of President Trump and his administration. The United States has a long history, going back to Marbury v. Madison, of courts deciding what the law is and enforcing lawful decisions. And other than the occasional aberration such as President Andrew Jackson’s refusal to enforce the decision of Chief Justice John Marshall in the Cherokee Nation cases in the early 1830s, judicial decrees have reigned supreme, and through their regular and systematic enforcement established this as a nation governed by the rule of law. That system of rules and norms is a critical stabilizing force for sound democratic governance.
For that reason if the Trump Administration fails to obey judicial decrees, it must be met with regular reliance by the judiciary on enforcement mechanisms such as contempt. Otherwise, the rule of law – the hallmark of successful governance – will erode. While the U.S. will not devolve into an ungovernable state like Burundi or South Sudan overnight, the erosion of rule of law will seriously damage one of the essential pillars of our democracy. Countenancing even a temporary failure to comply will simply encourage greater noncompliance.
Contempt proceedings are effective because they immediately and convincingly personalize the cost of transgression. One does not jail the Customs and Border Protection Service; rather, a specific offending official is personally held to account in a civil contempt proceeding. By consistently personalizing the requirement to fulfill a judicial decree under jeopardy of incarceration in appropriate cases, the courts provide the official a clear choice. In this way, the courts play the essential role of ensuring that we remain a nation of laws.
To be clear, I am not advocating that courts should use a different standard with the Trump Administration than it would ordinarily use in any other circumstance. Nor do I have any quarrel with the judicial admonishment that in contempt proceedings courts should use “the least possible power adequate to the end proposed.” My point is simply that because of the extraordinary belief of this President that he can act above the law, the courts should be prepared to use contempt authority more frequently than they have had to before. As for the role of the public, Americans should better appreciate how essential this particular authority is in maintaining effective governance.
It may well be the case under a normal presidency where law and custom are followed, where truth rather than “alternative facts” guide, and where domestic and international stability is a key objective of the administration, that federal officials may be given the benefit of the doubt initially. But not here, not now. The President and his inner circle have made clear their predispositions to transgress our sacred trust and have demonstrated contempt for the rule of law. We are in unchartered waters and it requires an unconventional approach.
Since Trump’s election, many commentators have expressed deep concerns, some on the verge of hysteria, regarding the impact he may have on our democratic institutions. They cite his plain autocratic tendencies and attempts to discredit important institutions – the media, the intelligence community and the national security bureaucracy, judges, and civil society, among others. Trump’s instincts are no less autocratic than Orban, Erdogan, Chavez and Putin.
Nevertheless, I do not share the pessimism of these commentators. While we must remain vigilant in the Trump era and steadfast in defense of our values, we are not Hungary, Turkey, Venezuela or the Russian Federation. What distinguishes us are our institutions, which I believe are far more resilient. Our civil society is stronger. Our democratic traditions sturdier. We have a foreign service officer and civil servant class that is a bulwark guarding our values as a Nation. We have a society with an enduring faith in the Constitution.
At the same time, we cannot underestimate the necessity of a strong and independent judiciary with the power to coerce compliance. As we have already seen, the courts will play an outsized role in the Trump era. And they will play that role effectively by ensuring compliance with the law, under pain of contempt where necessary.
[Editor’s Note: For more on this topic, read Faiza Patel’s “Explainer: Officials in Contempt of Court Orders on #MuslimBan—Tracking All the Cases“]
Image: AndreyPopov/GettyIn the wake of the trailblazing success that was that Veronica Mars Kickstarter-funded movie project, Chuck actor Zachary Levi is now hinting at a possible Chuck movie.
Since the movie project based on that beloved cult series Veronica Mars will finally be entering production after many years of waiting -- all thanks to the fans, who have raised more than $2 million in less than 24 hours on Kickstarter -- our favorite nerd herd Chuck Bartowski himself, actor Zachary Levi, is now hopeful the same could be achieved to fund a Chuck movie.
The actor, who we'll see as Fendral in Thor: The Dark World later this year, took to Twitter and congratulated Veronica Mars star Kristen Bell as well as series creator Rob Thomas on "helping move entertainment a little closer in the direction I've always hoped it would go."
Levi also tweeted:
Zoom In
Then Chuck creator Josh Schwartz also took to Twitter, saying:
Zoom In
He then later made it clear that his first tweet was a "joke" adding that he "sincerely appreciate[s]" the ongoing support of Chuck fans. We don't know about you guys, but we miss all those Subway sandwiches. Really.
Back in February, Levi had mentioned the use of Kickstarter to bolster the possibility of a Chuck movie.
"I really want to do [the Chuck movie] Kickstarter style," he said. "I want it to be something that the fans can all pitch in for... because we've always been supported and survived on our fans anyway."
With the surprisingly awesome success of the Kickstarter-funded campaign for that Veronica Mars film, do you think a Chuck movie could really, truly be possible as well? Think the fans will answer in droves? And, more importantly, will there be Subway sandwiches AND Morgan's (Joshua Gomez) beard?
(via Digital Spy)Yesterday, I wrote about the Nationals’ upcoming decision in the wake of the Adam Eaton injury, talking about the pros and cons of sticking with an inferior option like Michael Taylor or making a big splash for a rental like Lorenzo Cain. In both the comments of the post and at the Pitch Talks show in D.C. last night, a number of people questioned why I focused solely on the potential acquisition of a CF, and didn’t talk about the possibility of acquiring a shortstop and shifting Trea Turner to center field as they did a year ago.
The idea seems to be fairly popular, and would expand the pool of players the Nationals could look at, putting them in a better position to upgrade without having to pay an extreme price due to the lack of quality center field options. But here’s the primary reason I didn’t devote any words to the idea in yesterday’s piece.
In theory, if Taylor doesn’t pan out, Harper could slide over to center field, where he spent most of his rookie season. Alternatively, Turner — who converted to center last year before returning to his native shortstop this season — could head back to the outfield. For the record, Baker doesn’t seem terribly interested in either of those contingency plans. “No,” said the Nats skipper dismissively when asked on Saturday morning if he was open to the idea of Harper or Turner taking over in center field. “Leave my team alone.”
While Baker isn’t necessarily the final word on the matter, and he could always change his mind, this isn’t the kind of vague non-answer a manager often gives to indicate that they’re considering a number of options and just haven’t decided which way they’re going yet. The definitive nature of his answer suggests that this isn’t something that Baker is interested in doing, and if the manager doesn’t want to move his starting shortstop to center field, it’s difficult to see the Nationals doing it, even if the front office believed it was the best idea. That’s probably not a fight anyone wants to start on a first place team.
But let’s put Baker’s resistance aside; would acquiring a shortstop and shifting Turner to center field be a better option than simply acquiring a center fielder to begin with?
To make the idea worth pursuing, there’s a three-part criteria that would have to be met.
1. There’s likely to be a shortstop available to acquire who would represent a better return for the price paid than the best option among center fielders.
2. The difference between the acquirable SS and CF is larger than the expected decline in value you’d get from Turner transitioning positions in-season.
3. There would be minimal long-term impact on Turner’s development as a shortstop by having him again spend the bulk of the season playing the outfield.
Let’s tackle those in order.
While we identified Lorenzo Cain as a quality center fielder who is probably getting traded this summer, there doesn’t appear to be a similar caliber of rent-a-shortstop. The best SS on a non-contender is Zack Cozart, and while he’s off to a strong start, his career 83 wRC+ is well short of Cain’s 105 mark, and by career WAR, Cozart’s +10.9 mark is just over half of Cain’s +20.2 total.
Of course, career totals aren’t always indicative of a player’s future production, and the wRC+ gap is smaller when we look at the ZIPS/Steamer rest-of-season projections, where Cain’s edge drops to 98 to 87. Cozart’s tapped into some power the last few years that he didn’t have previously, and Cain’s power has mostly regressed since his one spike up in 2015, so perhaps the offensive edge Cain has displayed is smaller than the career numbers suggest.
That said, Cain is the better player. Cozart’s a good defensive shortstop with perhaps an improving bat, but Cain’s an elite defensive CF who still hits better than even improved-Cozart. Acquiring Cozart instead of Cain would result in a less-impactful upgrade for the Nationals.
Of course, that could be a decent alternative if the cost differences are dramatic, but I’m not sure that we should expect Cozart’s cost relative to his production to be significantly different than Cain’s. While expanding the pool to include shortstops would give the Nationals more players to look at, they’d also be expanding the pool of teams they’d be competing against for those players, and shortstop isn’t any deeper in likely trade candidates than CF is.
Besides Cozart, the other decent shortstops that could be available this summer include Troy Tulowitzki and Alcides Escobar. Tulo is 32, expensive, and not hitting well. Escobar is 30, cheap, and not hitting at all. They are not particularly attractive trade targets at the moment, and while they could up their stock before the summer comes along, I don’t think having either Tulo or Escobar out there is going to significantly weaken the market for Cozart. There’s not a big imbalance of supply and demand at the shortstop market that would cause the
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“nightly” nature of the available ROMs though. This means there will be some bugs or features not working properly, but those will be fixed within the upcoming “stable” release.
Finally, if your Xperia Z1 Compact doesn’t come with unlocked bootloader or you don’t know your way around custom ROMs, I strongly advice you not to proceed because you may end up bricking your device.
Source (download links) | ViaAs we add more connected devices to our homes, it seems like we’re increasingly at risk of being hacked through our doorbells and thermostats. You can now add smart TVs to the list of vulnerable devices – only this time around, turning off your internet connection won’t save you.
Security consultant Rafael Scheel demonstrated an attack on a couple of Samsung smart TVs, in which he was able to gain root access to them. He told Ars Technica that this sort of breach would allow hackers to do things like “attack further devices in the home network or to spy on the user with the TV’s camera and microphone.”
Scheel, who developed this method for Swiss security consulting company Oneconsult, explained that he used a cheap transmitter to embed malicious commands into a Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial (DVB-T) signal.
Most TVs are tuned to DVB-T stations, and the transmission standard contains a vulnerability that Scheel was able to exploit in order to target known security flaws in the Web browsers that the smart TVs run in the background to enable access to online content.
That’s scary because such attacks can target several TVs at once, without the need to physically tamper with them. And while it sounds like all that’s needed is a firmware update, manufacturers aren’t always quick to patch the devices they sell in a timely manner.
However, you may not have to worry about having your TV taken over just yet. Engadget notes that only certain countries use DVB-T, and a smaller subset continue to support the hybrid broadcast broadband TV format needed to execute this exploit.
Plus, you’ll not only have be connected to the Web, but also have a DVB-T channel locked in. As such, most folks in North America who are tuned into ATSC channels won’t be affected. That’s a relief… right?
Read next: You can now kinda-sorta try Samsung's Bixby assistant on older Samsung phonesDIGG THIS
Angelo Mozilo is the Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of the failed Countrywide Financial Corporation. Mr. Mozilo co-founded this company, nearly 40 years ago, in 1969. To be in business for almost forty years, and to become America’s top private home-mortgage lender, are testimonies to genuine business acumen. However, success can breed arrogance, and a sense of supreme power, to the point where a corporate chieftain believes his personal will can override the free market and reshape society according to a grand vision — which, for Angelo Mozilo, entailed making America a better country by bringing home ownership within reach of all and sundry. For Countrywide Financial, unfortunately, Mr. Mozilo’s dream of social engineering demanded that sound credit-underwriting principles be abandoned. And now, Countrywide Financial Corporation’s failure stands as a monument as to how integrating egalitarianism and political correctness, into a business plan, is downright poisonous.
February 4, 2003 marks the day when Countrywide Financial’s shareholders should have dumped every last share of their stock. For on this day Angelo Mozilo made a presentation, at The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, titled The American Dream of Homeownership: From Cliché to Mission. This is the day that Mr. Mozilo revealed to the world that political correctness had infected his mind. He openly declared that sound credit underwriting was tantamount to judgmentalism and, therefore, anti-egalitarian. How dare anyone judge anyone else — credit standards be damned. Subprime mortgages, accordingly, were going to be a blessing for America since everyone deserves a house. Oh how political correctness feels so good. He worshiped the mortgage socialism hatched in the New Deal along with every federal-housing program introduced in the succeeding decades. A true credit professional would have been horrified by this speech; which indubitably was met with approving applause by the pseudo-intellectual, limousine liberals populating Harvard University. February 4, 2003 is the day Countrywide Financial’s Board of Directors should have fired Mr. Mozilo.
Over the years, Angelo Mozilo has been handsomely rewarded by Uncle Sam’s mortgage socialism. Here’s how it works. Countrywide Financial makes a conforming home loan, sells it to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac (both are government sponsored enterprises), and has its coffers replenished in doing so; hence, allowing Countrywide to keep churning out loans. Countrywide, in turn, remains the mortgage servicer on each loan and earns a fee for doing so. These fees most certainly add up when you are servicing $1.5 trillion in home loans (not all of which are Fannie and Freddie loans). Needless to say, Countrywide had other sources of revenues but mortgage servicing was top-shelf when it came to profitability.
Thus, it is no wonder why Mr. Mozilo waxed fondly, in his Harvard speech, regarding America’s foray into mortgage socialism. After all, it made him very wealthy. Here is an excerpt:
Our Nation took another important step in 1938 — in fact, 65 years ago this week — when Fannie Mae was created to buy those FHA loans, and as a result, the secondary mortgage market was born. We took a few more giant steps in the 1940s with the G.I. Bill in 1944 and the Housing Act of 1949, which stated the goal of "a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family." We witnessed the Fair Housing Act in the 60s, the creation of Freddie Mac in 1970, the expansion of Fannie Mae’s activities, the Community Reinvestment Act in the 70s, the introduction of adjustable-rate mortgages in the 80s, and more recently, the National Affordable Housing Act of 1990.
We have traveled so far — thanks to a mortgage-finance system that remains the envy of the world; thanks to a constant stream of creative and innovative mortgage products, and efforts directed at encouraging the offering of loans to those who have been previously shut out; and simply put, thanks to housing being an enduring public policy objective and the lasting commitment to that objective symbolized by our partnership.
We have transformed from a Nation of renters to a Nation of homeowners. The overall U.S. homeownership rate, which was at 44 percent in 1940, hit 68 percent by the end of the third quarter of 2002.
One can only imagine Mr. Mozilo’s broad smile as he delivered these words. Between his compensation and stock sales, Angelo has made hundreds of millions of dollars. Socialism certainly can be beneficial for an elite few.
Do you remember President George W. Bush’s initiatives to increase homeownership in the United States? His administration definitely played a role in creating America’s housing bubble. When speaking about housing assistance, President Bush evoked the emotion of envy and declared that the U.S. had a "homeownership gap." Angelo Mozilo, being a kingpin of political correctness, couldn’t resist playing the envy-card to an approving Harvard audience. He stated:
It started with the New Deal, and now, we’re in a new century. But through it all, one thing has remained, more or less, constant. This constant is our challenge. And this challenge is to increase the access to affordable housing. And in order to do this, we must close the homeownership gap that still exists.
As President Bush said last October:
"Two thirds of all Americans own their homes, yet we have a problem here in America because fewer than half of the Hispanics and half of the African Americans own their home. That’s a homeownership gap. It’s a gap that we’ve got to work together to close for the good of our Country, for the sake of a more hopeful future. We’ve got to work to knock down the barriers…"
While the number of minority homeowners has advanced recently, climbing from 9.5 million in 1994 to 13.3 million in 2001 — an increase of 40 percent — the fact remains that it is still not at a level equal to that of white homeownership. And as President Bush pointed out, the homeownership rate for African Americans is 47 percent and for Hispanic Americans it is 48 percent, a stark contrast to the homeownership rate of 75 percent for white American households. That means there is currently a homeownership gap of over 25 points when comparing white households with African Americans and Hispanics. My friends, that gap is obviously far too wide. It has been far too wide for far too long. And when adding new factors into the equation — like an influx of new immigrants or continued reduction in the supply of affordable housing — it has the potential to become far worse.
Credit underwriting has nothing to do with race, creed, skin color, gender, or religion. Sound credit underwriting has everything to do with the "Five Cs" of credit — i.e., character, capacity, capital, collateral, and conditions. Under pure capitalism, a credit underwriter is not concerned about making people happy by lending money regardless of a person’s creditworthiness. An underwriter’s primary objective is to make profitable loans and this demands nothing less than effectively assessing risk on a case-by-case basis. This, undeniably, requires underwriters to exercise learned judgment. Ah, but to say this in the cradle of political correctness (Harvard) would have been met with resounding "boos."
To be sure, Mr. Mozilo did not disappoint his fellow limousine liberals. He goes on the attack and smears credit underwriters as being judgmental — the antithesis of political correctness. Considering that Countrywide had become the largest private mortgage lender in the U.S., the following words depict a man who had taken leave of his senses:
I have two issues with our industry’s current underwriting methodology. The first is that the automated underwriting systems kick far too many applicants down to the manual underwriting process, thereby implying these borrowers are not creditworthy; and the second issue is that once arriving in the hands of a manual underwriter, the applicant is subject to basic human judgment that can be influenced by the level of a borrower’s credit score.
Let’s address my first issue. I acknowledge that credit scoring uses proven statistical methods to provide lenders with the ability to quantify the risk of extending credit. And there is little question that the technique effectively and efficiently separates those with very good credit from those with questionable credit.
However, far too many borrowers are being referred to an arduous manual and cumbersome underwriting process. To me, that is clear proof that the level deemed to be an acceptable risk by our automated underwriting systems is much too high. While many of these borrowers may ultimately be approved, it is because the manual process, or human underwriter, has analyzed non-traditional factors such as the borrower’s rent and utility payment history, which should be imbedded in the automated underwriting process.
Now, let me address my second issue, and that is the manual underwriting process itself. While Countrywide’s own internal evidence supports the notion that manual underwriters are approving a good majority of the loan applications that get referred, the fact of the matter remains that a human is involved in this step of the process thereby creating the possibility that a decision is made based upon the level of the borrower’s FICO score.
Thus, the current protocol intentionally creates an environment where borrowers with lower FICO scores are subject to being disproportionately affected by the manual underwriting process. I say we need to amend these systems to do more than just approve the "cream of the crop," by creating a system that says "no" only to those deemed unwilling to make their mortgage payments.
We must understand that the credit scoring system we have built is still imperfect, and that if we are to have any chance at closing the homeownership gap, we must make a serious investment in improving its capacity and capabilities. We must do this through improved automated underwriting models that take into account more variables, and measure true indicators of risk and willingness to pay. We need an ongoing educational process, not only at the primary market level, but also in the secondary markets and with mortgage insurers to help lead this effort to recalibrate the scoring system. And finally, it must be recognized that borrowers with credit scores below what is currently defined as "creditworthy" levels can still be acceptable credit risks. Thus, the credit score bar dividing creditworthy from high-risk borrowers, must be substantially lowered by the GSEs, the secondary market in general, and with bank regulators. The GSEs have made good progress over the last few years in expanding their credit criteria, but I encourage them to become much more aggressive in this regard.
What Angelo Mozilo desires to accomplish is to replace human underwriters with computers. He never mentions the Five Cs of credit because sound credit underwriting requires human judgment; which can be aided with, yet never replaced by, technology. In Mr. Mozilo’s daffy world of credit progressivism, he may as well distill the mortgage application down to a one-page document containing a single question: Are you willing to make your mortgage payment? If the answer is "yes" then the loan is approved and if the answer is "no" then it is declined. Under such circumstances, a computer would work perfectly.
As I have asserted before, political correctness is an enfeebling infection of the mind. Mr. Mozilo’s vision of politically-correct, and "enlightened," credit underwriting was nothing short of daffy. Yet, one can only imagine how approvingly this pabulum was met by his Harvard chums.
Angelo Mozilo had no intention of disappointing his fellow travelers. There was hope as to closing the homeownership gap. It was something called the subprime mortgage. In his bizarre mind, the more subprime mortgage originations there were, the better off America would be. To wit:
Historically low interest rates along with new, creative and flexible underwriting techniques are continuing to fuel a record period of growth for our industry. According to the Federal Reserve, the amount of overall mortgage debt outstanding is nearly $6 trillion. And, increasingly, the sub-prime market is boosting that number and the industry as a whole. During the first nine months of 2002, sub-prime originations rose an estimated 26 percent over the same period in 2001 — outpacing the overall market.
Had Mr. Mozilo delivered this speech today, he would have immediately been fitted into a straightjacket and then driven to the nearest loony bin.
Countrywide Financial and many other financial institutions ended up throwing all credit standards out the window in order to package and sell as many subprime mortgage-backed securities as possible. To be sure, many did not do so sharing Mozilo’s politically-correct and egalitarian hallucination — they just wanted to make a fast buck.
An important distinction to convey here pertains to the fact that Countrywide and others were not selling all of their loans to Freddie and Fannie. The aforementioned mortgage-backed securities were purely packaged and sold under private labels. When America’s housing bubble was expanding, buyers of such subprime securities obviously felt there was no downside. Such are the delusions that materialize when central bankers flood the world with the opiates of easy money and credit.
Regrettably, by completely ignoring underwriting fundamentals, Countrywide and its ilk have set up so many borrowers for failure (as have the king and queen of mortgage socialism, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae; both of whom, by the way, may be on the brink of their own financial meltdowns). The pain and anguish of losing a home, and having one’s family displaced, will be visited upon countless families. Of course, such borrowers must look in the mirror when the urge, to pass around the blame, emerges. Nonetheless, Angelo Mozilo’s dream has transmuted into a nightmare for millions.
My, oh my, aren’t political correctness, egalitarianism, and social engineering wonderful? You be the judge.
The Best of Eric Englund'Science Guy' Bill Nye discusses climate change in a video posted earlier this month by National Geographic.
Creationist Ken Ham launched another attack against Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye on Sunday after Nye released a short video explaining key things to remember about climate change, the Friendly Atheist reported.
“We don’t need to be concerned about drastic climate change,” Ham wrote on his blog. “Our climate, and the checks and balances that keep it operating within safe parameters, were designed by an all-wise Creator.”
In the video, released by National Geographic earlier this month, Nye identified five key points for viewers to remember about global warming, listed below in his words:
“The atmosphere is thin. Barely 60 miles, 100 kilometers, in outer space.”
“There’s 7.3 billion people breathing and burning.”
“All this heat energy in the atmosphere is changing things. It’s not just getting warmer, it’s changing.”
“This warmth is making the ocean get bigger. When the ocean rises [by a few inches], this whole area will be under water, and not just this area, that area, that’s Miami.”
“But the main, main, thing, everybody, is the speed, it’s the rate at which things are changing. Oh yes, the world was once warmer, there was once more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than there is today, but all of this never happened this fast. And that’s what you gotta get your heads around.”
Ham, who debated the “Science Guy” last year, tried to dismiss Nye’s first point by claiming that the world was already the “perfect size” for its type of atmosphere.
“We certainly need to make sure we don’t fill our atmosphere with pollutants or punch holes in the ozone layer,” Ham wrote. “But we also need to remember that our atmosphere was carefully put in place by our Creator. God knew exactly what kind of atmosphere we needed and He gave us that atmosphere.”
He also said it was “inconsistent” of Nye to express concern for residents in coastal areas like Miami after raising the point about the Earth’s population.
“Does he realize that, from his atheistic perspective, man is just an evolved animal and, in being consistent with an evolutionary ‘survival of the fittest’ worldview, population alarmists could suggest mass killings or forced sterilizations as possible solutions in reducing the population?” Ham argued. “I’m sure he would be aghast at such suggestions — but then on what basis does he anchor his morality and determine what is ultimately right and wrong in this world? It comes down to one’s worldview. What solutions are there in Nye’s game of ‘blame man and his increasing population’?”
Last month, Ham accused Nye of attacking the Bible itself after Nye argued that opposition to abortion was based on “bad science.”
Watch Nye’s video, as posted online, below.New Kids on the Block Genre Animation Developed by Kayte Kuch
Sheryl Scarborough Country of origin USA Original language(s) English No. of seasons 1 No. of episodes 15 Production Executive producer(s) Andy Heyward
Dick Scott Running time 22 minutes Release Original network ABC Original release September 8 –
December 14, 1990
New Kids on the Block is an animated television series featuring the adventures of the New Kids on the Block. The series lasted a season from 1990 on ABC. Beginning the following year, it aired in reruns from October 12, 1991[1] to 1993 on The Disney Channel.[2][3]
Though the group appeared in live action clips, their voices were done by other voice actors, due to licensing reasons.[citation needed] "You Got It (The Right Stuff)" was the opening theme, while an instrumental version of "Step by Step" was the closing theme.
Plot [ edit ]
The series focuses on the group's misadventures along with their managers, who are based on their real-life one Maurice Starr.
Episodes [ edit ]
"The New Kid In the Class" (September 8, 1990) "Sheik of My Dreams" (September 15, 1990) "In Step... Out of Time!" (September 22, 1990) "Cowa-BONK-a" (September 29, 1990) "Kissed, Missed 'n Double Dis't" "Dis't Dream Date" "Hot Dog!" "Overnight Success" "The Legend of the Sandman" (November 19, 1990) "Homeboys On the Range" "New Heroes On The Block" "The New Kids on The Old Block" "The New Kids Off The Wall" "Rewind Time" "Christmas Special" (December 14, 1990) (This episode aired on prime time, not Saturday morning.)
Principal cast [ edit ]
Crew [ edit ]
Susan Blu - Voice Director
VHS releases [ edit ]
Year Title Production details Notes Certifications 1990 The New Kid In The Class Released: November 6, 1990
Label: Sony Music
Format: VHS Includes "The New Kid In The Class" episode. RIAA: 2× Platinum[4] 1990 Sheik of My Dreams Released: November 6, 1990
Label: Sony Music
Format: VHS Includes the "Sheik of My Dreams" episode. RIAA: 2× Platinum[4] 1990 In Step...Out of Time Released: November 6, 1990
Label: Sony Music
Format: VHS Includes the "In Step...Out of Time" episode. RIAA: 2× Platinum[4] 1990 Kissed, Missed and Double D'ist Released: 1990
Label: Sony Music
Format: VHS Includes the "Kissed, Missed and Double D'ist" episode. 1990 Overnight Success Released: 1990
Label: Sony Music
Format: VHS Includes the "Overnight Success" episode. 1990 New Heroes On The Block Released: 1990
Label: Sony Music
Format: VHS Includes the "New Heroes On The Block" episode.
References [ edit ]Dutch and Canadian technology could be key to managing UK pigs more effectively, including the use of sound to sense the early signs of disease.
Technology that detects how pigs are feeling will be used on farms within years to help producers find ways to manage them more effectively, according to a leading scientist.
Precision farming tools will measure the mental state of individual animals, allowing farmers to make decisions about rearing pigs, from the way they are housed to the feed they are given.
Daniel Berkmanns, professor in bioengineering at KU Leuven in Belgium, says real-time monitoring of pigs’ actions, movements and interactions could help improve the health, welfare and performance of herds.
See also: Farmer Focus: Pig performance improves just in time for hog roasts
“I am convinced we will see the mental state of animals being monitored on a commercial basis in the next few years,” he says.
“Pigs are intelligent animals and we should use their intelligence. If you put animals in a pen they will behave like stupid animals, but if we recognise that they are individuals with different needs and responses, we can react accordingly.
“It will enable us to make things more interesting for them and us, and potentially result in better outcomes.”
Prof Berkmanns says the technology is almost ready to be introduced into broiler units, and it is only a matter of time before it could be used on pig farms.
“The technology is just at the beginning,” he adds. “Continuous, real-time monitoring through image analysis, sound analysis and sensors could have a huge array of uses such as monitoring health and welfare.”
Prof Berkmanns says researchers at the University of Ghent have devised a system to analyse the sounds pigs make to detect illness.
“Most disease in pigs is respiratory. With some diseases you can detect signs just three hours after infection,” he says.
“The system detects a sick cough and sends an SMS message to the farmer, who can go out and decide if they need to call a vet. This kind of system reduces the use of antibiotics on farm.”
Another system being tested involves monitoring pigs’ drinking behaviour.
“We can create models to estimate water use to within 92% or 200ml over 13 days,” Prof Berkmanns says. If water use drops, farmers are alerted and inspect what is happening on the unit.
“This technology doesn’t mean that farmers will be replaced by the technology,” he adds. “It has to be part of the management system.
“The idea with monitoring is that daily checks are taken over by the technology and the farmer enters to solve the problem, not find it.
“It doesn’t have a value if it is just interesting technology, it has to be able to help the farmer make improvements.”
Tailored diets could cut feed costs
Feeding pigs diets tailored to their individual daily needs can slash feed costs and ensure the sustainability of the UK pig industry, say scientists.
Using precision farming technology to ensure pigs are only provided with the nutrients they need can result in feed costs being cut by as much as 10%, research at the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food in Canada found.
While traditional three-phase feeding aims to maximise growth by ensuring the top-performing animals have the nutrients they require, it does not take into account that every pig’s nutritional needs are different on different days, says the department’s Candido Pomar.
Often pigs are overfed nutrients, which are excreted in faeces and urine, creating a waste of feed and a negative effect on the environment, he says.
Instead, investing in technology that will allow pigs to receive formulations based on their real-time needs will vastly improve efficiency.
“Precision technologies help get the right amount of feed to the right pig at the right time,” says Dr Pomar. “It is a total shift in pig nutrition. Instead of basing their nutritional requirements on estimations collected from data, feeding with technology depends on an individual animal’s health, genetics and nutritional status, as well as external factors such as stress and management systems.”
In experiments run by Dr Pomar and his team, 60 pigs were fed diets with varying amounts of lysine from automatic feeders.
Each pig was tagged and identified by the feeder and given a serving of 15-25g of feed. The pigs could return to the feeder as many times as they liked.
During the experiment, the pigs visited the feeder up to 110 times a day, but the overall amount of feed they consumed was 8-10% lower than traditional three-phase feeding.
Further trials discovered that typical lysine use could be reduced by as much as 27% without having any effect on growth performance, resulting in a 50% reduction in nitrogen excretion, Dr Pomar says.
“Precision farming is an effective approach to improving efficiency, reducing nutrient excretion and reducing costs,” he adds.
Sound sensors could detect some diseases within three hours of infection and alert farmers by text.
More from from the Bpex Pig Innovation Conference 2014University of Minnesota police arrested a student Thursday for allegedly vandalizing a public area of a residence hall with anti-Semitic graffiti.
The 18-year-old student from St. Cloud faces a charge of criminal damage to property, according to a police report, and university officials called the case a bias crime. The student allegedly drew a swastika on a desk in a public part of the 17th Avenue Residence Hall, where he lives.
The incident reported to police on Feb. 7 is one of seven cases of anti-Semitic graffiti or propaganda reported to the university’s Bias Response and Referral Network since the beginning of December.
Thursday’s arrest occurred a week after another student found a swastika and a picture of a concentration camp drawn on a white board inside his room.
“The University of Minnesota condemns all acts of hate on our campus,” a news release noted.DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi authorities rounded up thousands of illegal foreign workers at the start of a nationwide crackdown ultimately aimed at creating more jobs for locals, media reported on Tuesday.
Hundreds of thousands of workers have already left the kingdom following a grace period of seven months during which authorities told expatriates that if they did not fix their legal status they had to leave the country or face jail.
The government hopes that reducing the number of illegal workers will create opportunities for Saudi job-seekers. The official Saudi unemployment rate is 12 percent but excludes a large number of citizens who say they are not seeking a job.
However, the majority of the kingdom's nine million foreigners are unskilled laborers or domestic workers, jobs usually shunned by Saudis.
"Since early (Monday) morning, the security campaign got off to a vigorous start as inspectors swung into action," Nawaf al-Bouq, a police spokesman, told Saudi Gazette newspaper.
Police carried out raids on businesses, markets and residential areas to catch expatriates whose visas are invalid because they are not working for the company that'sponsored' their entry into the kingdom.
For a second day on Tuesday parts of the capital Riyadh were unusually empty as many expatriates stayed at home to avoid potential arrest.
CHALLENGE
Raising private sector employment in a country where most Saudis are in government jobs and where businesses employ more foreigners than locals is a major challenge for the kingdom.
Bouq told the paper that at least 1,899 illegal workers had been arrested in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah.
The paper also said police had arrested at least 2,200 people in the southwestern city of Samta, 379 in the Eastern Province and hundreds of others in other cities.
In Jeddah, dozens of Indonesian workers, mostly women, staged a sit-in to pressure the authorities to hasten their deportation, according to Arab News newspaper.
Many workers cannot leave the country because they lack official papers, including passports, the paper said.
The remittances sent home by expatriates in Saudi Arabia are often vital for their own nations, which include Yemen, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Pakistan and Egypt.
Saudi Arabia's mass expulsion of Yemeni workers in 1990 in retaliation for Sanaa's support of Iraq after it invaded Kuwait contributed to an economic collapse that accelerated the impoverished Arab country's 1994 civil war.
For decades, Saudi authorities ignored irregularities such as working for firms that had not sponsored their visas or in trades other than those listed on their immigration documents.
That spurred a black market in which foreigners overstayed visas, set up illegal businesses or took low-paid jobs in areas where authorities wanted Saudi workers hired on higher salaries.
This thwarted implementation of wide-ranging labor reforms to penalize companies for hiring more foreigners than locals.
(Reporting by Mahmoud Habboush, Editing by William Maclean and Gareth Jones)Fare scofflaws, consider yourself fairly warned.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s commuter rail provider plans to install fare gates at North, South, and Back Bay stations next winter, a proposal designed to cut down on ticket evasion.
Keolis Commuter Services would kick in an estimated $10 million for construction costs, as well as $7 million in yearly operating expenses, to cut down on fare evasion that costs the MBTA as much as $35 million a year. Riders have complained for years about commuters who get free rides because conductors fail to check tickets consistently.
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The plan would also allow Keolis to collect a portion of MBTA fare revenue. The company currently receives none, giving it little incentive to boost ridership or collect fares, MBTA officials say.
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Under a proposal presented Monday, Keolis would receive about $9 million in fares collected over a certain threshold, which has yet to be determined. The MBTA would receive the $1 million collected after that, and additional revenue would be divided evenly.
The proposal “evolves the contract and brings us closer together,” said David Scorey, Keolis’s general manager. “And it does give us the opportunity to share in the extra revenue that’s generated.”
That would let Keolis spend more on marketing, staffing the gates, and better equipment to check tickets on board.
“We think this can increase ridership,” said Evan Rowe, the MBTA’s director of revenue.
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In 2014, Keolis won an eight-year contract with a low bid that helped lead to millions in losses. Last year, the MBTA’s board approved paying the French rail giant millions more each year to add more coaches and improve maintenance.
Nicole Dungca can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @ndungcaDespite the fact that Jeb Bush represents a virtual royal dynasty with vast connections among the moneyed elite, he’s only raised a little over half of what his campaign needs at this point – and most of that has been spent. Currently, his campaign staff has seen their paychecks reduced (top campaign chiefs saw their pay shaved by $75,000). Reportedly, they’re eating at downscale diners and staying at economy lodging facilities as well. According to a report at RedState.com, Jeb Bush has even started flying commercial. One insider quipped, “The high life has ended.”
Of the top GOP contenders (not counting Trump), Jeb has the least amount of cash on hand, coming in fourth behind his former protégé and current rival Marco Rubio. Since announcing his candidacy last summer, he’s raised $13.4 million. Most of that was raised in the first sixteen days, and $11.5 million of it has been spent. Jeb Bush’s campaign must still contend with a $1.7 million payroll for this quarter as well as $2 million for consulting, fundraising and legal counsel.
So much for “shock and awe.” Jeb Bush apparently thought that he could intimidate his rivals by raising so much in such a short time. He also believed he could run on his family name and connections. Now, the Republican’s former “Golden Boy” might have to roll up his sleeves and actually go to work if he has any chance of securing the GOP nomination. Even that is looking unlikely. His poll numbers are averaging around 7 percent nationwide. The news is not much better in New Hampshire, a state political analysts believe he must win. Despite a $4.8 million “ad blitz” courtesy of his Super PAC Right to Rise, Jeb’s numbers slid from 9 to 8.7 percent in the Granite State. At the same time, big GOP donors, increasingly nervous about Bush’s chances, are starting to look more favorably at Rubio, despite the fact that his numbers are only slightly better.
In short: Jeb Bush’s star is falling from the status of leading man to that of bit-players like John Kasich, Rand Paul and Chris Christie. However, his dismal fundraising record is really the symptom of a deeper problem afflicting the entire field of Establishment, “mainstream” GOP candidates. They’re having a problem attracting campaign donations compared to the “outsiders” like Fiorina and Carson. Even Trump, whose campaign is largely self-funded, is picking up outside donors.
Furthermore, GOP candidates across the board are trailing Democrats in terms of individual contributions. While those big-money billionaire donors are happy to back easily bought-and-paid for GOP candidates, the power of those big donations pale in compared to those from hundreds of thousands of small donors supporting Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and others.
It says something about average people driven by passion as opposed to oligarchs motivated by greed and lust for power and control.
Watch our commentary on Jeb’s faltering campaign:Apple will update its smartphone and tablet lines later this year, not only with the likely introductions of the iPhone 6S and iPad Air 3, but with iOS 9, a new software update set to transform existing iDevices.
Introducing a number of new features, functions and services, the software patch will offer a variety of enhancements, from an improved Siri experience, to battery life benefits and revamped multitasking options. Set to be rolled out in a matter of months, iOS 9 will revitalise iPhone and iPad ownership for millions of users. Here's what you need to know.
What's new in iOS 9?
Unlike in recent years, the iOS 9 update is more about adding new features than a new look and feel. The Apple Watch maker has claimed the update will "elevate the foundations of the platform", addressing everything from search and maps to in-car options and Android migration.
Many of the new iOS 9 features are about bringing the platform into closer competition with Google and its Android OS. This is no more true than with Apple's reworked search offering. Populating your screen with contacts, apps, news feeds and nearby services, Apple wants to give you instant access to the most relevant data possible.
Taking things to the next level, it doesn't want you having to search for information at all where possible. A smarter caller ID system will do all of the leg work for you, looking through your emails in a bid to pair unattached numbers to a name you might recognise. This is just the tip of the iOS 9-themed offering, however.
Notes
Ignored by some, loved by many, Apple's Notes app is set for a sizeable refresh, becoming more relevant and useful to your daily life.
Gaining access from whatever app you're in, Notes will be about far more than a simple location to jot down your latest musings, with checklists, category headings and image, map and URL support all being added. With iCloud backing also joining the mix, the new Notes app will even let you use your finger to create handwritten reminders and image annotations – just like a real notebook.
Maps
Once the laughing stock of Apple's app line-up, Apple Maps has moved on from warped roads, lost locations and bendy buildings. Now a legit challenger to Google's market-leading free service, it's gaining transit directions in iOS 9.
Throwing public transport into the mix alongside walking and driving-based navigation, nearby points of interest, including landmarks, restaurants and cafes will now also be highlighted.
News
One of the biggest new additions to Apple's next software refresh is the introduction of an all new News platform. The company's latest can't-delete app is an imitation of sorts of Flipboard or HTC's Sense skin on Android. News will collate all of the articles you might be interested in, presenting them in one stylish, easy to access location.
With thousands of leading news creators on board for launch, Apple will package the written word alongside all manner of high-production image and video content.
The more you read, the more personalised the service will become, learning your interests and better attuning the promoted content collection to you.
Wallet
Replacing Passbook, Wallet will be the new one-stop app for all things payment-based. Apple Pay – the company's contactless mobile payment service due to launch in the UK later this month – will be managed through the new Wallet platform, gaining new features courtesy of the latest iOS push.
Joining your banking information in your digital wallet, store cards
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equivalent of Jason, the machete-wielding villain from the Friday the 13th movies. Just when you think he’s been eliminated for good, another rampage is about to begin.
Mets hitting coach Kevin Long certainly gets the analogy.
“Friday the 13th, what is this No. 6 or 7 for Granderson?” Long said. “I guess I’m so used to it. Like him, I don’t panic. I always think he is going to come out of it. I know things are going to go his way.”
The 36-year-old outfielder has been among the NL’s best hitters in June, after an atrocious start to 2017 that brought into question whether the club might consider releasing him.
Instead he will take a whopping 1.122 OPS over his last 37 games into Tuesday against the Marlins, as he again resembles the Granderson the Mets have come to know and appreciate.
Along the way he is creating a daily dilemma for manager Terry Collins, who has four outfielders for three spots, and lately that has meant a seat on the bench for Michael Conforto.
Granderson had maybe his best game of the season Sunday, when against the Giants he reached base five times, which included hitting a homer into McCovey Cove beyond AT&T Park’s right-field wall and drawing three walks. His slash line is a season’s best.235/.328/.457 with 10 homers and 29 RBIs.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say I am locked in, because nothing has really changed,” Granderson said. “The approach is still the same, the chase rate that we keep track of is still all the same. The walks are attributed to the opposition missing. I’m not necessarily doing anything in that situation. If my chase rates have changed I am doing something different, but they haven’t.”
Said Long: “His attitude is never going to change. I couldn’t tell you if he’s hot or cold, and I think that truly helps him at the end of the day.”
Granderson had a.122/.175/.211 slash line on May 3, but with Yoenis Cespedes on the disabled list, Granderson was needed in the lineup. And by the time Cespedes returned, on June 10, Granderson had become too consistent to bury on the bench. Now, the Mets are relying on him.
“If I told you the number of times I have seen people count him out and count him dead, he was literally crawling to his grave,” said Long, who was also Granderson’s hitting coach with the Yankees. “I have seen it. I guess what I have learned through my years, with Curtis especially, is we have just got to stay patient, and if we stay patient he’s going to be the type of player we know he can be.”
Granderson was asked if he takes any pleasure in proving wrong the naysayers who are ready to bury him each year.
“There’s always people that are going to feel a certain situation is equipped for other players, and there’s going to be some people that are on your side,” Granderson said. “No matter what, you can’t make everybody happy. Even the guys that are hitting great, people say, ‘He’s slow,’ or they say, ‘He’s older. He can’t play this position.’ Even the best guys always have some negative stuff said about them.”
With the Mets teetering in the NL East — even with their three-game sweep of the Giants, they are 34-41 and 11 games behind the Nationals (the deficit in the wild-card race was 11 ½ games entering Monday) — Granderson could emerge as trade bait as he finishes his four-year contract worth $60 million.
But don’t expect any trade buzz to distract Granderson.
“I have dealt with rumors before, so it wouldn’t be anything new on that side of things,” Granderson said, noting that in 2007 he thought the Tigers would deal him to the Braves at midseason. “Nothing happened. Experiencing that, I said I wasn’t going to let that happen again.”A lone gunman opened fire at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Friday afternoon, wounding six people seriously and killing five.
On Wednesday, Broward officials released the name of the fifth victim, Mary Louise Amzibel, 69.
They also confirmed the names of the other victims: Shirley Timmons, Michael Oehme, Olga Woltering and Terry Andres.
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Mary Louise Amzibel, 69
Amzibel is originally from Ohio, police said. She and her husband, Ed, were natives of Ashtabula but moved away years ago, according to the Star Beacon. Public records indicate the couple lived in Delaware.
Her husband was wounded during the shooting and remains in a coma, the newspaper said. They were in Fort Lauderdale for a Panama Canal cruise.
Shirley Timmons, 70
Shirley Timmons/Facebook
Timmons was from Senecaville, Ohio, and died at the airport, according to Jim Reineccius, a relative. Timmons’ husband, Steve Timmons, was shot in the face and taken to the hospital, where he is in a coma.
Shirley and Steve met in 8th grade and were high school sweethearts, according to a family statement.
“She was the most loving, passionate mother who had a love for life and truly sparkled,” they wrote. “She touched many and was loved by all. She will live in our hearts forever and will be truly missed.”
There was confusion after the initial shooting over whether Shirley was dead or had just gotten separated from her family. Loved ones took to social media to beg for information.
A family spokesman told an Ohio radio station that “Steve and Shirley raised an amazing family, three amazing girls. Their family was everything to them.”
He said the couple were on their way to a family cruise leaving from Fort Lauderdale.
Steve and Shirley, who owned the now-shuttered The Mayfair stores in Cambridge, Ohio, were married in 1966, according to an anniversary announcement in The Daily Jeffersonian. Their 51st wedding anniversary would have been on Jan. 28.
Steve is retired from Northwest Aluminum in The Dalles, Oregon.
Terry Andres, 62
Terry Andres/Facebook
Andres was from Virginia Beach, Virginia, and died at the airport, according to a local NBC affiliate in Virginia, WAVY-TV.
His daughter Ryan Kim, 37, told The Palm Beach Post that her father and mother had just arrived in Fort Lauderdale on their way to a cruise vacation when her father left the Delta Sky Club in Terminal 2 to get a luggage cart. “Then everything happened,” Kim said. “And after all the ruckus ended, they didn’t realize that my dad wasn’t there right away.”
Andres’ wife, Ann, was unharmed. The couple had been married for nearly 40 years.
Kim said her father had worked at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard for about 20 years, most recently as a radiological control technician. He was also a volunteer with the Oceana Volunteer Fire Department in Virginia Beach.
“I know that everyone always says that people are the greatest in the world, but he was the greatest person you could know,” Kim said. “He never had a horrible word to say about anyone or anything.”
Darrin Stevens, a friend of Andres, said he was “a hell of a great guy.”
“He was one of the most helpful men you would have ever wanted to meet,” Stevens said in a Facebook message. “Any time he could help someone out he did anything he could.”
A former fire department volunteer, Tommy Harrell, told the Miami Herald that he remembered Terry “as being a great person and doing anything to help out.”
Olga Woltering, 84
Olga Woltering/Facebook
Woltering and her husband, Ralph, are from Marietta, Georgia. The couple flew into Fort Lauderdale for a cruise with their children, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Ralph wasn’t injured in the shooting, but Olga was killed. The cruise was to celebrate Ralph’s 90th birthday, said fellow churchgoer Dan Blankowski.
The couple were involved members of Transfiguration Catholic Church since they joined in 1978, he said, and regular front seat attendees to 5 p.m. Mass.
“To call them pillars of the church would be a gross understatement,” Blankowski said.
Olga, a great-grandmother, was never seen without a wide grin, he said. Her habit of calling everyone “love” or “lovey” was made all the more charming by her British accent.
“Olga was one of the most joyful, loving, caring and committed people I have ever met,” the church’s pastor, Fr. Fernando Molina-Restrepo, said in a statement. “This is a horrible tragedy for everyone here at Transfiguration, especially because Olga was so loved.”
Other parishioners mourned Olga’s death on social media.
“Tragedy hit too close to home today. Transfiguration Church lost a very loving and caring woman in the Ft Lauderdale airport attack,” Jerry de Varennes wrote on Facebook, along with a photo of the couple on a couch, smiling and bouncing babies on their laps.
The family put out a statement Saturday asking for privacy in their time of grief and calling Olga “the cornerstone of our family.”
“While she’s absent in our lives now, she remains in our hearts, thoughts, and memories for ever,” they wrote. “Her bright smile and loving manner will be missed by all who had the fortune to know her. She rarely seemed to meet a stranger, rather she had a smile or a hug for all. She was a blessing in the lives of family and friends.”
The couple lived in a retirement community and were socially active, Alvin Connolly, a member of their church, told The Associated Press.
“She and her husband were kind of the life of the party,” he said. “They’d go to a dance, and they’d be the last ones on the floor.”
“You look at them and say, ‘Man, I hope I can do everything they do when I’m that age,’ ” Connolly said.
Michael Oehme, 57
Michael Oehme/Facebook
Michael Oehme and his wife, Kari, flew to Fort Lauderdale from Omaha, Nebraska, for their annual cruise. When the shooting started, he was killed and his wife was injured, according to Omaha TV station WOWT.
The witness who told TV stations about the couple, Mark Lea, told Omaha ABC affiliate KETV that he ran to help Kari Oehme moments after the shooting.
“I saw that she had a through-and-through on the right shoulder … And she said ‘where’s my husband, where’s my husband?’ And I asked her to describe him, and she described him and I looked right over there and saw a white-haired guy in a blue shirt that he had on … and he was not moving, not breathing.”
Michael Oehme owned a surveying business, according to the Omaha World-Herald. They lived in Council Bluffs, Iowa, which is across the Missouri River from Omaha.
His sister told The Associated Press that the couple was headed to the Caribbean.
“They were supposed to leave today,” Elizabeth Oehme-Miller, 52, said on Saturday. “They were happy to be going on another trip.”
A family member is flying down to help Kari, who was a clerical worker at a Council Bluffs office, return home.
Oehme-Miller heard about the news through a text message from her daughter.
“I still can’t believe it’s true,” she said. “It hasn’t hit yet. I’m kind of in shock right now.”Google's president for the Americas urged government officials Friday to open all municipal data so Google can use it to become everyone's perfect personal assistant—an invisible entity that knows what you want before you do.
"Think about all the information that the government has," Margo Georgiadis told 800 city planners, municipal officials and philanthropists gathered for the Metropolitan Planning Council's annual luncheon in Chicago Friday.
"It has a huge wealth of information that would be incredibly useful to what we're all doing every day."
The audience briefly interrupted Georgiadis's half-hour speech with a rumble of uncomfortable laughter and chatter when she explained how Google would use the data:
"You used to go to that search box, and you used to go look for something. And you just wanted an answer. And now, we don't think that's good enough," she said. "If you tell us a little about who you are, where you work, where you live, if we can look at your calendar to tell a little bit about what you're doing, we can actually become a personal assistant.
"You don't have to ask the question because we already know what you're looking for."
[On Monday, a Google spokesman clarified Georgiadis's comments, saying Google is only interested in public information. Read about it here.]
Local governments have shared transportation data (see your local bustracker app) but they can share much more, she said, mentioning data on neighborhoods, jobs, schools, events — "you name it."
"Cities are starting to make progress in this area. But think about how to be much more useful."
A Harvard Business School graduate, Georgiadis leads Google in North and Latin America. She worked as chief operating officer of Groupon for a few months in 2011. Prior to that, she was Google's vice president of global sales.
Technology will become seamless, she predicted, a simpler and easier part of life. For example, if Google can read your calendar and it knows traffic conditions between you and your upcoming destinations, it can guide you to them efficiently without being prompted. If it knows you'll be flying, it can call up your boarding pass when needed, check on departure times, get you from the airport to your hotel.
But these tasks are minor, Georgiadis said, compared to what more data could enable.
"A huge cornerstone of the ability to do this is access to information. And I would advocate that our city needs to think about defaulting to open, all of its data and its processes, so that people can tap into that anywhere they are," she said.
"We're only at one percent of the way tech can change our lives. So if you think it was a wild ride in the last five years, saddle up."
Follow Jeff McMahon on Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, or email him here.One of the most hotly contested ideas of the last few years is being debated again. Should we allow two people of the same sex to get married now, or should we wait a bit, spend $160 million, wait a bit more, and then allow them to do it?
Who knows what will happen. Either way, it looks like same sex marriage will become a thing in Australia at some point this century. So if that makes you feel a little bit weird – here are some tips to deal with it.
Tip 1: Don’t marry a gay person
Easier said than done, we know. But trust us, if you commit to this one rule, you won’t be affected by same sex marriage at all. Literally not at all. Guaranteed. It seemed too good to be true to us too. But we tried it, and it actually really works – just use your very best self discipline to stop yourself from marrying someone of the same sex, and you won’t have a thing to worry about.
Tip 2: Don’t go to same sex weddings
You’ll no doubt be invited to loads, so this could be a tough one to stick to. But you’ll need to resist the urge to go along, otherwise you could catch gay. Just tell the bride and bride you’ve got something else on that night. Like a heterosexual rights rally or something.
Tip 3: Don’t think about gay sex
Just don’t think about it. If you’re against gay marriage, the worst thing you can do is imagine two men, totally naked, having sex. That’s just not going to be appealing to you, so don’t think about it. Just clear the thought of two erect penises right from your mind.
Tip 4: Move somewhere else
Make sure you choose somewhere where they’re unlikely to legalise marriage equality anytime soon. Saudi Arabia is our pick. You’ll fit right in. And if you don’t, they’ll just force you to, so it’s easy.
Tip 5: Take comfort in the bible
You know that marriage was meant for people called Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. So you’ll also agree with Psalm 137 that says you should throw your baby against a stone wall. It’s a great way to blow off some steam when you get angry about the fact that same-sex marriage is legal.
And remember, God says that your marriage is better than a gay person’s. (He also said you shouldn’t wear clothing made of two different types of material. But just ignore that bit).
This article first appeared in The Shovel Annual. Buy your copy here.
Become a Shovel member. Or follow us on Email | Facebook | Twitter | InstagramJapan’s conservative premier said Tuesday that his government will uphold Tokyo’s official apology for the damage and suffering it inflicted on its neighbors during World War II.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s assertion comes amid intense speculation in Tokyo — and, to a lesser extent, in Washington — about how he will mark the 70th anniversary in August of the end of the war.
Abe has made it his mission to return Japan to a more “normal” footing, repeatedly signaling that he thinks his country has apologized enough for its wartime actions. He also has indicated that he will seek to revise the largely U.S.-drafted constitution, which renounced Japan’s right to possess the means to wage war, to “match a new era.”
Under questioning in the Diet, the country’s parliament, Abe said his cabinet “upholds the position of previous cabinets regarding recognition of history as a whole,” including the Murayama statement delivered 20 years ago on the 50th anniversary of the end of the war.
In that statement, then-Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama said that after “following a mistaken national policy,” Japan had, “through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations.”
“In the hope that no such mistake be made in the future, I regard, in a spirit of humility, these irrefutable facts of history, and express here once again my feelings of deep remorse and state my heartfelt apology.”
Abe said his 70th anniversary statement will be premised on Murayama’s and on a similar statement made 10 years later by Junichiro Koizumi.
“As for what will be in my statement, it will be self-examination of Japan during the last World War, the steps we have taken to become a peaceful country, what contribution Japan will make to the Asia-Pacific region and the world from now on, and what Japan will be like in the next 80, 90 and 100 years,” Abe said Tuesday under questioning from the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan.
“We will bring together our wisdom to think of what we can disseminate to the world and include it in the new statement,” he said.
However, his position is far from consistent. Just three weeks ago, on a local TV show, he said he wanted his statement to reflect “how the Abe government considers the matter,” rather than just using “the wording we have repeated.”
In particular, he said he wanted to avoid “bits and pieces of argument over whether the previous wording was used or new wording was added.” The words “colonial rule and aggression” are particularly contentious in conservative circles here.
Abe is forming a committee of advisers to work on the statement and consider what role Japan should play in the 21st century. A speech he made in the Australian capital of Canberra last year, in which he expressed remorse but did not offer an apology, is said to be the model for his August statement.
His aides are keeping Washington apprised of his thinking as they begin drafting the statement, said people involved in the discussions. He will visit Washington in late April for a meeting with President Obama and is seeking to address the joint houses of Congress, according to local reports.
Abe, the grandson of postwar Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, who was suspected of war crimes but never indicted, clearly thinks that Japan has paid its dues for its wartime aggression. He has indicated more overtly than ever that he wants to revise the postwar constitution, which says that “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation.”
In a parliamentary session Monday, Abe said amending this pacifist clause in the constitution was one of his ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s highest priorities.
“I want to deepen public discussion about the way the constitution should be, to match a new era,” he said. “And based on such deepening of discussion, I will firmly and steadily work to revise the constitution.”
An ally of the prime minister previously said that Abe would try to revise the document at the end of next year, if the LDP wins a two-thirds majority in the upper house of the Diet. Together with its junior coalition partner, the pacifist Komeito, the LDP already has a two-thirds majority in the lower house.
If both chambers approve the revision, it would be put to the public in a referendum. But it is far from certain that the changes would win majority support. The populace remains wedded to — and proud of — its 70 years of pacifism.
“Abe’s impulse is going to be to move as far and as fast as he can on revision and reinterpretation,” said Sheila Smith, a Japan expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. “But how much opportunity is there for Abe to move?”
Polls show that the public remains bitterly opposed to revising the charter. A survey by NHK, the public broadcaster, this month found that only a quarter of respondents thought Japan’s Self-Defense Forces should be allowed to go overseas to rescue Japanese people, while a third wanted Tokyo to ban such actions, and 36 percent were undecided.
But the recent hostage crisis — in which two Japanese nationals held by the extremist Islamic State were beheaded — has created an opportunity for Abe that did not exist before. The prime minister has said that the crisis showed that the Self-Defense Forces needed to be freed of postwar constraints to protect Japanese people abroad.
Political scientists say Abe’s advisers are testing the waters to see how far the government can exploit the public outrage over the brutal killing of their compatriots.
Yuki Oda contributed to this report.Review: 'The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda' Stream The Spiritual Jazz Master's Collection Of Archival Material
Note: NPR's First Listen audio comes down after the album is released. However, you can still listen with the Spotify or Apple Music playlist at the bottom of the page.
Courtesy of the artist
Multi-instrumentalist, composer, spiritual leader and the wife of John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda (1937-2007) long stood in her husband's shadow. Some certain number of more casual jazz fans, if they have known her name at all, only know it from sidewoman credits on some of his albums, and not for her own performances and recordings.
But even many more ardent fans who know her string of recordings for Impulse and Warner Bros. in the 1970s don't know the music she created in the last two decades of her life — music that was not necessarily meant for widespread consumption: the Hindu devotional songs that she recorded as a spiritual leader and the head of an ashram near Los Angeles.
John and Alice had fallen in love in 1963; in short order, they married and had four children together: Michelle, John Jr., Ravi and Oranyan (also known as Oran). Within four years of their marriage, however, John Coltrane died of liver cancer. He was just 40 years old. Like her husband, Alice Coltrane was a spiritual seeker; not long after his death, she met Swami Satchidananda — the guru who opened the Woodstock festival — and became his disciple. Her own compositional language evolved during those years into an intoxicating, highly unusual blend of jazz, blues and Indian instruments and tonalities. Her life as a spiritual leader also grew during those years, and she founded The Vedanta Center in 1975.
Coltrane's life took another sharp turn when, in 1982, their eldest son, John Jr., was killed in a car accident at age 18. With her religious beliefs for sustenance after that tragedy and with a growing following of her own, she founded the Sai Anantam Ashram the following year, which became a 48-acre compound in Agoura Hills, Calif.
Despite Coltrane's withdrawal from her secular career, music was still at the heart of her religious practice. Even the Hindu name she took on — "Turiyasangitananda" — has music embedded in its core. Sangit, or sangeet, is "music" in Sanskrit; she translated her adopted name as "the transcendental lord's highest song of bliss." (Her followers and friends simply called her "Turiya" or "Swamini," the title for a female teacher.)
It was a good match between spirit and spiritual path. In the Hindu tradition, the entire universe — the cycles of birth, life, destruction, silence and renewal — are all encompassed with the sound of "aum" (or "om," as it's more commonly transliterated into English) — and there is a deep, long tradition of expressing love for the divine through songs, whether bhajans (individual songs of devotion), kirtans (call-and-response worship songs) or even in the classical tradition, in which ancient devotional poems are the texts for sung ragas.
In the music she created for her religious community, Coltrane – unsurprisingly – did not simply mimic Indian tradition when it came to singing praises to Hindu deities at her ashram's mandir, or temple. She created something wholly new, and completely her own. The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda is a powerful and indelibly personal mix of the soulful gospel cadences that Coltrane had been steeped in since her church-going childhood in Detroit, and the brimming, collective energy of the call-and-response kirtans. At the ashram's Sunday services, "She would start playing music and everyone else would join in and they might go two, three, four hours of doing that," recalls Coltrane's nephew, musician and producer Flying Lotus (birth name Steven Ellison), in this collection's extensive liner notes.
The songs on this compilation are culled from four recordings Coltrane made in the 1980s and '90s on a series of self-released cassettes that were meant primarily for an audience of her followers. (The label for this reissue, Luaka Bop, calls it the first volume in a series called World Spirituality Classics.) Texturally, these compositions exist on several planes simultaneously: they are grounded by Coltrane's rich, darkly hued, deeply resonant voice (which she had never deployed on her secular recordings); swept along in the currents of her followers' voices, their hand-held percussion, and her harp and organ; and lifted straight into the cosmic stratosphere by the synthesizers that she came to love in her later years.
It's already been argued that a new generation of listeners will be tempted to delve into these devotional songs as zone-out sounds, "ambient music with a purpose" that squares nicely with our era of yoga studios and pressed juices for sale on every block. But this is music that – just as in both the traditional gospel and Hindu devotional styles – demands participation: The particulars of what or who you believe in (or don't) may not even matter. Either you're going to be using your voice to sing along, or your heart.It appears one of the Internet’s dearest recent dreams has already been dashed: Rosie O’Donnell will not play _Steve Bannon on this week’s episode of Saturday Night Live.
O’Donnell’s representative confirmed to Vanity Fair that O’Donnell will not appear on the next installment of the sketch series, hosted by Alec Baldwin.
Soon after Politico reported that Donald Trump apparently didn’t like Melissa McCarthy—a woman—playing Press Secretary Sean Spicer in an S.N.L. sketch that quickly went viral last weekend, Twitter went into a frenzy, suggesting ways for S.N.L. to tweak the president even further. One idea? Casting O’Donnell, his longtime nemesis, as White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. O’Donnell fanned the flames by volunteering for the gig if asked, and even changed her Twitter avatar to a photo of her dressed as Bannon.
Alas, it seems that—at least for now—this is nothing more than a liberal fantasy. Luckily, we’re guessing this means S.N.L. has plenty of its own tricks up its sleeve this week.
Get Vanity Fair’s HWD Newsletter Sign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood. E-mail Address SubscribeTeenage girl who desperately tried to save boyfriend tells of her heartbreak after he drowned while they swam across river
Jansen Badinger suffered a heart attack while swimming across the river
His girlfriend said the current grew stronger and he may have panicked
Was an inspiration to everyone at school
Wanted to be a firefighter
A teenage girl has spoken of how she desperately tried to save her boyfriend as he drowned while they were swimming across a river after he had an asthma attack.
Central Valley High School student Jansen Badinger died in the Spokane River, Washington, last week. His girlfriend Alaina Bates said she did as much as she could to save him but her efforts proved fruitless.
'I did everything I could. I tried to get him on my back, I tried to get him to hold my leg and he just physically could not do anything,' she said.
Tragic death: Central Valley High School student Jansen Badinger died in the Spokane River, Washington, last week after suffering from an asthma attack mid swim
His girlfriend Alaina Bates tried to save him but could not: 'I did everything I could. I tried to get him on my back, I tried to get him to hold my leg and he just physically could not do anything'
A friend said of Jansen: 'He'd always know how to pick people up when they're down, make them laugh if they're sad and he was an easy person to get along with. He cared about everyone'
'But when he couldn't do anything his face was calm and he wasn't scared. That's the type of guy he was, always smiling, and full of hope,' she told KHQ.
'He wanted to make a difference. He changed people's lives and they didn't even know it '
'Everyone remembers his beautiful smile. It was so genuine and contagious and wow, he could really make you laugh.'
The couple had already swam across the river once and were on their way back when the current grew stronger. Alaina believes his asthma attack may have been stress-induced.
'It happened and I can remember everything so vividly but at the same time it doesn't feel like he's gone,' she told KXLY.com.
Witnesses pulled Jansen out of the water and started CPR but it was too late.
Jansen was an extremely popular student at the school and touched so many lives, Alain's father Charlie Bates said.
'They loved him dearly. He had the world at his fingertips. I don't think he's ever said a bad word about anybody. He wanted to make a difference.
'He changed peoples lives and people didn't even know it.'
Scene: Jansen and Alaina had already swam across the Spokane River. It was on their way back that tragedy struck and the 18-year-old had an asthma attack
Remembered: Hundreds of students from Central Valley High School attended a candle-lit memorial for the popular and beloved teen after his death
Popular: When Jansen graduated last month he was voted 'Most Likely To Bleed Blue' in recognition of his school spirit. He wanted to be a firefighter and a teacher
When he graduated last month he was voted 'Most Likely To Bleed Blue' in recognition of his school spirit. He wanted to be a firefighter and a teacher.
The Spokesman Review wrote a touching tribute to the 18-year-old after his death, revealing that - as a keen sportsman - he mentored younger children.
Outside of high school, sports also played a significant role in Jansen's life, and he often mentored younger children.
He played with the FC Soccer Club for four years, said Stephen Brown, his coach. Jansen also used to help younger players during soccer camps.
'I really don’t think the kid had a bad bone in his body,' the coach said. 'The kind of kid you want to have around. He was a people’s person.Joseph Hooton Taylor Jr. (born March 29, 1941) is an American astrophysicist and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate[1] for his discovery with Russell Alan Hulse of a "new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation."
Biography [ edit ]
Taylor was born in Philadelphia to Joseph Hooton Taylor Sr. and Sylvia Evans Taylor, both of whom had Quaker roots for many generations, and grew up in Cinnaminson Township, New Jersey. He attended the Moorestown Friends School in Moorestown Township, New Jersey, where he excelled in math.[2] He received a B.A. in physics at Haverford College in 1963, and a Ph.D. in astronomy at Harvard University in 1968. After a brief research position at Harvard, Taylor went to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, eventually becoming Professor of Astronomy and Associate Director of the Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory. Taylor's thesis work was on lunar occultation measurements. About the time he completed his Ph.D., Jocelyn Bell (who is also a Quaker) discovered the first radio pulsars with a telescope near Cambridge, England.
Career [ edit ]
Taylor immediately went to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's telescopes in Green Bank, West Virginia, and participated in the discovery of the first pulsars discovered outside Cambridge. Since then, he has worked on all aspects of pulsar astrophysics. In 1974, Hulse and Taylor discovered the first pulsar in a binary system, named PSR B1913+16 after its position in the sky, during a survey for pulsars at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Although it was not understood at the time, this was also the first of what are now called recycled pulsars: neutron stars that have been spun-up to fast spin rates by the transfer of mass onto their surfaces from a companion star.
The orbit of this binary system is slowly shrinking as it loses energy because of emission of gravitational radiation, causing its orbital period to speed up slightly. The rate of shrinkage can be precisely predicted from Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, and over a thirty-year period Taylor and his colleagues have made measurements that match this prediction to much better than one percent accuracy. This was the first confirmation of the existence of gravitational radiation. There are now scores of binary pulsars known, and independent measurements have confirmed Taylor's results.
Taylor has used this first binary pulsar to make high-precision tests of general relativity. Working with his colleague Joel Weisberg, Taylor has used observations of this pulsar to demonstrate the existence of gravitational radiation in the amount and with the properties first predicted by Albert Einstein. He and Hulse shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery of this object. In 1980, he moved to Princeton University, where he was the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Physics, having also served for six years as Dean of Faculty. He retired in 2006.
Amateur radio [ edit ]
Joe Taylor first obtained his amateur radio license as a teenager, which led him to the field of radio astronomy. Taylor is well known in the field of amateur radio weak signal communication and has been assigned the call sign K1JT by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). He had previously held the callsigns K2ITP, WA1LXQ, W1HFV, and VK2BJX (the latter in Australia).[3] His Amateur Radio feats have included mounting an 'expedition' in April 2010 to use the Arecibo Radio Telescope to conduct moonbounce with Amateurs around the world using voice, Morse code, and digital communications.
He is actively developing several computer programs and communications protocols, including WSJT ("Weak Signal/Joe Taylor"), a software package and protocol suite that utilizes computer-generated messages in conjunction with radio transceivers to communicate over long distances with other amateur radio operators. WSJT is useful for passing short messages via non-traditional radio communications methods, such as moonbounce and meteor scatter and other low signal-to-noise ratio paths. It is also useful for extremely long-distance contacts using very low power transmissions.
Honors and awards [ edit ]
Taylor was among the first group of MacArthur Fellows. He has served on many boards, committees, and panels, co-chairing the Decadal Panel of that produced the report Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium that established the United States's national priorities in astronomy and astrophysics for the period 2000-2010. He was a guest of honor in the 2009 International Physics Olympiad.
See also [ edit ]Inside Nick Cafardo's weekly notes column for the Boston Globe, the plugged-in reporter wrote Sunday that the Phillies have been eying Braves rightfielder Nick Markakis.
"Teams such as the Royals and Phillies are also looking at Atlanta’s Nick Markakis, though the money is an issue there, especially with the Royals," Cafardo wrote.
An interesting tidbit given the Phillies' need for some corner outfield offense, but it would be hard to see the logic behind acquiring a player like Markakis unless the Braves are willing to pay down a significant portion of his remaining salary.
Markakis, 32, is in the second season of a four-year, $44 million contract. In addition to what he's owed the rest of this season, he's due to make $10.5 million in 2017 and $10.5 million in 2018.
That's not a crazy high salary in this day and age, but it's a lot of money for a guy with no power in a corner outfield spot. Markakis has one home run this season, which he hit this weekend against the Phillies. In 875 plate appearances with the Braves since the beginning of 2015, he has four home runs.
He's still a decent contact hitter from the left side, though. He hit 38 doubles with the Braves last season so the gap power is still there. And in nearly 7,000 big
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probably due to the ever expanding definition of thoughtcrime. The entire left has shut down any conversation with the entire right, for fear of thought contamination.
If you will not talk, it is going to be war sooner or later.
If someone just flat refuses to talk to me or talk to anyone like me, he is an enemy. So genuine unironic Nazis are not enemies, merely friends that are mistaken about socialism and the role of Jews. They will talk with me in a civilized rational fashion, so seem unlikely to murder me. Theoretically they will murder Moldbug but they really just do not seem like the kind of people who would murder Moldbug. As soon as someone like Moldbug turns up, I figure they would turn into merely ironic Nazis. But the left will not talk with me except under my moderate prog identities, nor with anyone like me. Not even the high IQ and supposedly moderate and reasonable left, those that think themselves the sane, smart, and moderate left. Which makes resolution of conflicts impossible, and in the long run, war inevitable. In the long run, they are going to wind up unintentionally blundering into trying to kill the people that they have intemperately demonized and will not hear, and the people that they have demonized and that they will not hear will try to kill them.
And, given that war seems inevitable, we would be foolish to start the salami slicer on the unironic nazis. The cuckservative collapse occurred because in an endlessly unsuccessful effort to make themselves acceptable to the left they read one faction after another out of the conservative movement, as racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, whatever, until there was hardly anyone remaining, until the salami slicer had consumed most of the salami.
I recently read how Nixon was supposedly a terrible horrible opponent of affirmative action. In actual fact Nixon enormously expanded affirmative action. He just did not go quite as far in making dissent from affirmative action a crime as some people wanted – which oversight was swiftly remedied by the justice department in a series of consent decrees, wherein employees committing thought crime constitutes proof of discrimination. Affirmative action under Nixon was the salami slicer moving into high gear, and recent events are the salami slicer running short of salami.
Tags: the trumpeningBudweiser celebrates America – and New Republic (aka Pravda 2.0) finds fault with @realDonaldTrump?! https://t.co/sfvTcoSq8e — Gray Matter (@zengadfly) May 10, 2016
Trump Derangement Syndrome is off to a good start.
According to the New Republic, we have Donald Trump to blame for Budweiser’s attempt to rename its signature beer brand “America” for this year’s election:
This stupid Budweiser campaign is Donald Trump’s fault. https://t.co/Tp344Fp6h0 pic.twitter.com/TFu8BQnelX — New Republic (@NewRepublic) May 10, 2016
What, it’s not because of global warming or George W. Bush’s fault? An excerpt:
This stupid Budweiser campaign is Donald Trump’s fault. If we think of the U.S. presidential election season not only as a grand exercise in democracy, but as a vast proving ground for how to sell a message to millions of Americans, then Trump’s campaign is surely being studied by every marketing agency in the country. The secret to his success, and the main rhetorical innovation he has brought to presidential politics, is to dispel subtlety altogether and make subtext text. Undocumented immigrants aren’t just shadowy threats to the American citizenry; they’re rapists and drug dealers. Ted Cruz isn’t merely an unctuous politician who will say whatever it takes to win; he’s Lyin’ Ted. Discussions of the size of Trump’s hands aren’t really about the size of his hands; they’re about the size of his penis. Time was that voters had to suss this intended meaning out for themselves, but no longer.
According to the Washington Post, the “America” cans — if approved by regulators — will include patriotic phrases such as “E Pluribus Unum,” “Liberty and Justice for All” and “Indivisible Since 1776.”
Do we need to remind Budweiser that they’re no longer an American company?
Budweiser is owned by a Belgian company. https://t.co/YGF4EeZMXm — Matt Pearce (@mattdpearce) May 10, 2016
To be more accurate, Budweiser should put "Belgian Multinational Corporation" on its cans until November. — Ryan Teague Beckwith (@ryanbeckwith) May 10, 2016
And what about Bud Light? Here’s a suggestion:
If Budweiser is now called "America," shouldn't they change Bud Light to "Canada"? — Jason Noble (@jasonnobleDMR) May 10, 2016
Heh. Anything is better than those awful Amy Schumer and Seth Rogen Bud Light commercials:
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Kroger announced officially this weekend that they are ending the doubling of coupons in the Mid Atlantic Region. This will be replaced with new “lower prices”. All coupon doubles will end on 5/12 in stores in:
Charleston, WV
Richmond, VA
Roanoke, VA
Raleigh/Durham, NC
What does this mean for deals?
For those you that are still near Lowes Foods and Harris Teeter, this isn’t a hard decision. Kroger will probably lose your business. From what we have seen in other regions already affected by this new “lower prices” plan, the prices didn’t change much at all and it wasn’t enough to get you to remain loyal to them. Head to other stores that still run great promotions with coupons and allow stacking of store coupons and manufacturer coupons.
For those that don’t live near another store that doubles… I would recommend that you start price matching normal Kroger deals at Walmart. Why? Rather than heading to Kroger to get the deals they are running you could take all your grocery ads from around town and grab it all in one place. It makes for a bigger savings when you add in the produce and meat deals that other stores had and not having to drive all over to get them.
There is one exception – when Kroger runs promotional events like this weeks Procter & Gamble event, Walmart will not price match instant savings deals. So you if you want those items, you would still need to shop in Kroger.
What about other Regions?
We have seen Kroger drop doubling in 3 other regions in the last year. They already didn’t double in 3 regions… that really only leaves 3 regions left. Will it come out in the last 3 areas? I can’t say for sure but I won’t be surprised if the Delta region isn’t next, followed by the Louisville (Mid-South) Region.
While I think it would be a PR nightmare, I won’t be surprised if the Atlanta (South) Region is last. Can Kroger compete in areas with Publix stores that double, accept competitor coupons, and have tons of store coupons? They can because of the numbers that don’t coupon at all, but their coupon users will probably disappear.
What will you do? Does this change your shopping plans or not affect you much?THE CD AND DVD HAVE SWITCHED ROLES IN THE REWARDS. FOR A $50 PLEDGE, YOU WILL NOW RECEIVE THE FILM ON DVD INSTEAD OF THE SCORE ON CD. THE $100 REWARD REMAINS THE SAME.
"The Pretender" is a slow-burning depiction of deceit and suspicion involving a Homeland Security agent interrogating a man over his connection to a terroristic plot on a local hospital. However, despite the agent's claim to knowing the suspect's real identity as a Middle-Eastern terrorist, the suspect insists that he is innocent, even through physical and mental afflictions.
This is a student-produced short film at Point Park University, and with your help, it can be something special! We want to have the best technology and props that this money can buy to create the most realistic atmospheres imaginable. Also, it would be great to have some extra cash for crew meals and maybe even film festivals.
NOTE: The script is currently going through rewrites, so some details are subject to change. For example, Randal Taylor was an FBI detective in the script at the time of filming our project's video, but has since been rewritten as a Homeland Security agent.Unfortunately for African-American actress Stacey Dash, she is no longer black enough for white guy John Fugelsang.
Just because Stacey Dash abandoned melanin doesn’t mean the rest of us need to abandon Black History Month. — John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) January 20, 2016
The alleged comedian’s comments come after Dash opined Wednesday on Fox News’ Outnumbered that she would rather do away with Black History Month. Dash also came out against the BET Network:
We have to make up our minds, either we want to have segregation or integration,” Dash said. “If we don’t want segregation then we need to get rid of channels like BET and the BET Awards and the [NAACP] Image Awards, where you are only awarded if you are black.
In 2005, actor Morgan Freeman also came out against Black History Month. Fugelsang has not yet weighed in on whether or not Freeman is a race traitor.
While I disagree with Dash’s take, I invite Fugelsang to lay out exactly what views he believe black women are allowed to hold.
[Image via screengrab]
——
>>Follow Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) on Twitter
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.We don’t want to be like the guy at the end of the film: gagged and tied to a chair with our hands behind our backs. We need financial support. People, equipment, food, blood... all of these things cost money.
The absolute minimum cost to make this film is $11,563. This is what we would call the “beg, borrow, and steal method of filmmaking”. Pretty much self-explanatory but with potential jail time.
Back the Project! Kickstarter is an all-or-nothing deal. If we don't meet or exceed our $11,563 goal then we get nothing. Zero. Nada. Zip. Which will make us really sad and probably send one of us on a table flipping rampage. If you care about tables then please back us. No amount is too great or too small. Not only will your heart be happy, but you'll also be supporting the growth of the indie film community.
Tell EVERYONE and their mother! No, really. Call your mom and tell her about the project. Even if you can't donate, sharing this kickstarter with friends and other likeminded horrible people via email or social media will really help build a community to rally behind what we're trying to accomplish.
Follow us! We're hip. We're cool. We've got a Facebook AND a Twitter account for you to follow. That's where we'll post any updates about the film, production stills, and behind the scenes footage.
Ask us anything! And we do mean ANYTHING. Have questions? Want more information about the film? Our shoe sizes? Ask away!
Filmmaking is fun, challenging, rewarding, and costly. Independent films are often financed through grassroots campaigns or by going into debt. We are working with other passionate filmmakers and actors who are devoting their time, energy, and talent into the making of this film- it would only be right to pay them for their craft.
Plus, who doesn't love that face?
Like custom illustrations? So do we! That's why we asked our good friend Jake Ekiss to design an exclusive 4 or More poster! Jake is an incredible Dallas-based comic creator and illustrator and we are so excited to share his art with you! Included in the VIP tier and above in an 11x17" print.
Arm by Kristi Boul
Yup. That's an arm. And you can only imagine what will happen to it. We had Houston Special FX and Make Up artist Kristi Boul make 2 of these bad boys for the film. There are also 2 spots (well, 1 now) for the "Can You Give Me A Hand" tier... What an odd coincidence! Here's a quick video of the process:
You'll need an HTML5 capable browser to see this content. Play Replay with sound Play with
sound 00:00 00:00
Ideally, we'd like to aim for $18,180. This would include a symbolic compensation for cast & crew (when we say symbolic, we really mean it. It would be like: “Aww, that’s cute. I’m going to frame this as a souvenir”). This would also improve production values dramatically by allowing us to rent bright and shiny toys (equipment), feed the cast and crew (ever work with “hangry” people? It’s real. And it’s not fun), location expenses, props, wardrobe, production insurance, film festival entry fees, etc.
For the low, low price of $32,201 we’ll get all of the above (minus the jail time) as well as a professional post-production studio for sound mixing (with a REAL audio engineer and everything!). Sound is a crucial part of the film and is the independent film’s achilles heel. This goal would also cover music rights, ADR work (fancy acronym for audio stuff), color correction and grading, etc. In all seriousness, post-production is costly, and this number is just an estimate of what we will need to polish the film.
NOTE: We are NOT affiliated with Cards Against Humanity, nor do we work with/for them. We just really like the game.The new livery harking back to the team's original colours under founder Bruce McLaren was a major talking point when the wraps came off the car on Friday.
But it was noticeable that apart from oil partner Castrol, which has replaced Exxon Mobil, there was little to suggest on the surface that a new chapter for the team has begun from a commercial and financial point of view.
But Brown made it clear that the team has all it needs to improve its performance following the first two disappointing years in partnership with engine supplier Honda, thanks to further investment from controlling shareholders Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company and Mansour Ojjeh.
"I think history shows it takes a couple of years [to start winning]," said Brown, who joined McLaren in December in the wake of Ron Dennis' departure.
"We have the right drivers, a healthy budget, Shaikh Mohamed and Mansour Ojjeh have increased our budget in areas, so we have everything we need. Now we just need it to work and a little bit of time for it to come together."
Brown has a reputation as the most successful and high-profile F1 sponsor gatherer, but has consistently stated his caution to attract a new title sponsor in his first season at McLaren.
He is targeting 2018 to announce a new commercial partner.
"To get a sponsor takes about a year," he said. "No miracles were going to happen in 2017. Most companies, any big decisions they are making are taken by October, November, December at the latest.
"We were just getting started in December, so there was no way – or at least it was unlikely – that we were going to get anything significant.
"I've been focusing on restructuring our commercial department and to get some good buzz back in this place, which I think we are accomplishing.
"I think our team launch has been the most anticipated, to create some excitement and some momentum and have people want to join us. The partners we currently have, I've visited all and they are very happy."
"2018 is when we need to deliver a title partner. I already feel that pressure because it takes a year. But I haven't seen any new sponsor announcements on any car, including on those that have won the championship for the past three years.
"I think that's an indication of the headwinds we've been facing in F1. With Liberty Media coming in we now have a great story about where the sport is going. McLaren is now a good story, and so is F1 – so there are positive times ahead."
Damien SmithDemocratic California Rep. Ted Lieu referenced a false CNN report Friday to allege collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
“Trump’s own CIA Director stated Wikileaks acts like a ‘hostile intelligence service.’ Russia used Wikileaks against democracies. Now we know [President Donald Trump] & Donald Trump Jr. & others in Trump campaign were given access to hacked documents on Wikileaks,” Lieu tweeted. “Sure looks like collusion.”
Lieu’s tweet came in response to a since-corrected CNN report that said then-candidate Trump, his son Trump Jr., and others on the Trump campaign received access to WikiLeaks documents on Sept. 4, before the documents were released publicly. (RELATED: CNN Botches Major ‘Bombshell’ Alleging Contacts Between Don Jr. And WikiLeaks)
However, the email was actually sent on Sept. 14, which CNN has since acknowledged.
This date change is significant as WikiLeaks tweeted on Sept. 13 the same archive of Democratic National Committee documents that was emailed to the Trump campaign.
A spokesman for Lieu did not respond to a press inquiry.
The California Democrat has been one of the most aggressive congressmen when it comes to pushing unproven theories.
“You don’t need to be a prosecutor to know that someone writing NO FOUL PLAY WHATSOEVER in connection with a death seems awfully suspicious,” Lieu tweeted in July about the suicide of Republican operative Peter Smith, who committed suicide after speaking to the Wall Street Journal about attempts to obtain Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Lieu also suggested in March that Trump could be guilty of treason, a crime punishable by death.Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein held a town hall event that broadcast live on CNN on Wednesday, one of her most wide-reaching attempts to woo voters dissatisfied with the two major party candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, but hesitant about voting for a third party.
During the talk, Dr. Stein discussed the dangers of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump in the White House, President Obama’s missed opportunities in office, foreign policy, her experience as a doctor, and systemic racism.
Without the influence of corporate donors, "We have the unique ability to actually stand up for what it is that the American people want, what everyday people want," Stein said, trying to dispel the idea that liberals voting for a third party candidate could push Mr. Trump into the White House.
Stein is a physician and environmental activist but has years of experience running for office. She was also the Green Party's presidential nominee in 2012, was nominated for Massachusetts' secretary of the Commonwealth in 2006, ran for Massachusetts state representative in 2004, and Massachusetts governor in 2002.
Her party platform focuses on environmentally friendly jobs, campaign finance reform, and tax increases for the wealthy.
During the town hall event, Stein emphasized her concerns about a Clinton presidency, questioning Mrs. Clinton's trustworthiness and support for war in foreign policy.
"I do have serious questions about Hillary's judgment, her safeguarding of national security information and above all, her trustworthiness in the job where she will have her finger on the button," Stein said, according to CNN.
Stein's running mate, Ajamu Baraka, a human rights advocate and associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies think tank, criticized Obama, reiterating his view that the first African-American president's neoliberal politics handicapped his "historic opportunity to transform this country." Both running mates have emphasized social justice, and the party's platform calls for "efforts to overcome the effects of over 200 years of racial discrimination."
Stein, a strong opponent of the war on terror, also called for a "peace offensive in the Middle East," including an embargo on weapon sales and cuts to military spending.
The Green Party has enjoyed a publicity boost in the wake of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) of Vermont's energetic campaign, which stirred up splits within the Democratic Party. Nationwide, however, Stein still polls in fourth place, with roughly half the support of Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson, who comes in behind Trump and Clinton.
"Whatever happens, you know my campaign is here," Stein told Sanders supporters at a Democratic National Convention rally, according to The Atlantic. "We are going to continue this movement."
However, many Democrats are fearful of splitting the party vote and creating a Trump presidency in the process.
Stein's success could depend, in part, on Mr. Johnson's own success attracting Trump voters, Princeton University history professor Sean Wilentz told The Christian Science Monitor in early August. But "Libertarianism is a very amorphous category," he said, making it hard to predict Johnson's success, or lack thereof.
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Others think votes toward third party candidates will have more to with how certain a Clinton victory seems before November. If it looks like Clinton has secured the White House, Republicans unhappy with Trump and Democrats unhappy with Hillary will be more likely to vote third party.
"I really think the popularity of the third party candidates this time around as a protest vote – because that's likely what it would be – is really going to be more about how much do people feel the other race is already decided," Lara Brown, the director of the political management program at George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management, told the Monitor last month.While the Bulls have opened up some room under the cap this summer, I've noted several times that the bar to using this cap space to bring in a max player is so high that Chicago shouldn't even really consider the idea. However, using Carlos Boozer as a trade chip, technically remaining above the cap, and then having more exceptions might allow the Bulls to pursue big time free agents including Carmelo Anthony.
Prerequisites to a Melo trade
1: Melo had to tell New York he's not coming back and make them believe it.
2: Melo has to limit the destination to Chicago and one other team that can take him without New York's help in order to force New York to accept that he's leaving.
3: The Bulls have to outbid that other team.
4: The Knicks will have to be willing to stomach one year of Carlos Boozer
5: Melo has to ultimately choose the Bulls
How this could possibly work
First, looking at the top five things, it's a long list, but all of them are reasonable. I think New York probably expects Melo to bolt. A source recently came out and identified the Bulls and Lakers as two teams he'd be into going to, and listed the Bulls as favorites. The Knicks don't seem like a team scared of taking on some salary in order to improve themselves, they have massive, massive amounts of revenue.
The Lakers qualify as "the other team to apply leverage" as they have room to sign Melo to a max deal, however, L.A., while having cap room, won't have much of anything useful to give up for Melo unless they're willing to part with their draft pick in this draft (unlikely if it's a star potential player).
Chicago offers up Carlos Boozer, their first, Charlotte's first, and the 1st rounder from the Kings acquired as part of the Luol Deng trade for Carmelo Anthony. While none of the first round picks projects into a star player, New York is bereft of draft picks to build around if they get rid of Anthony, getting three firsts for him will allow the front office to hit the reset button and start building through the draft again.
They'll be able to fill in the cheap type of role players that will allow them to build a talented team and still have some cap room available to make a big splash the next chance they get or possibly get their own star through one of their own picks later or a surprise player from one of these selections.
It's not a great offer, but it's probably better than what teams will typically get for a star who's leaving as a FA either way where there isn't a ton of leverage. The trick to limiting the Knicks leverage is the threat of the other team to pry Melo away without the Knicks help.
What this leaves the Bulls
Player 2014/2015 Derrick Rose $18,862,876 Carmelo Anthony $22,000,000 Joakim Noah $12,200,000 Taj Gibson $8,000,000 Mike Dunleavy Jr $3,326,235 Jimmy Butler $2,008,748 Tony Snell $1,472,400 Richard Hamilton buyout $333,334 Nikola Mirotic $5,000,000 Vet min x5 $4,576,215 Total $77,779,808 Projected Tax $76,000,000
The Bulls are over the projected luxury tax line by almost two million dollars, probably not all that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. They could also potentially drop the minimum salary commitment by getting rookie 2nd rounders (I've slotted in 3rd year vet minimum players which is the amount any player going into his third year or longer would receive).
The Bulls could also offer D.J. Augustin the Bi-Annual exception which would add two a shade over a million dollars on top of this number. I think D.J. will demand more than that on the open market, and while I'm sure he's appreciative of his opportunity in Chicago, he'll likely be thinking that this window of opportunity won't look quite so good with Rose back next year. Certainly not good enough to take a smaller offer to stay.
The Bulls would still need to find a back up center and a back up point guard. However, if Mirotic translates this team might be the best team the Bulls have fielded in the post-Jordan era even if Rose never comes back to superstar levels. If he does, it's trivially the best team.
The Bulls could have three premier offensive threats in Rose, Melo, and Mirotic if all goes well. If they're still able to bring a similar caliber defense that they've done in the past, they'll finally have the multi-faceted offense to attack their opponents with multiple players that can create for themselves and multiple players who can shoot the three at the same time.
Shot creation, three point shooting, spacing, and depth... It could all be there for the Bulls.
It would remain to be seen if Rose could make a full come back, whether Carmelo can learn to be an effective team player, and whether Mirotic could translate, but it's a team that could potentially become a title favorite instead of a "puncher's chance" type of squad.
It won't be easy to pull off, but Carmelo Anthony via trade might be the Bulls best shot at a title in the next three seasons.GAZA (Reuters) - Gaza’s ruling Hamas movement delivered death sentences on Sunday to three Palestinians it ruled had taken part in what it said was an Israeli-directed assassination of one of the Islamist group’s senior commanders.
Members of Palestinian security forces loyal to Hamas escort an alleged collaborator with Israel, who was convicted in participating in killing senior Hamas commander Mazen Fuqaha, as he arrives to a Hamas-run military court in Gaza City May 21, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
A Hamas security court said the three men had confessed to the killing of Mazen Fuqaha, a Hamas military wing commander, who was shot in the head and the chest in his car on March 24 near his Gaza home.
“The field court has sentenced the three convicted of carrying out the crime of the assassination of martyr Mazen Fuqaha to death,” said Brigadier-General Naser Suleiman, chairman of the Hamas-run military judiciary.
Hamas convicted all three, aged 44, 38 and 38, of collaborating with Israel. It said that one of the men carried out the actual shooting and the other two had provided Israeli security agencies with information about Fuqaha’s whereabouts.
Israel’s Shin Bet security service, which carries out covert operations against Palestinian militants, did not respond to a request by Reuters for comment on Hamas’s allegations.
Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, in an interview with Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper soon after the killing, attributed the death to an internal power dispute in Hamas.
Israel jailed Fuqaha in 2003 for planning attacks against Israelis and sentenced him to nine life terms. He was released in 2011, as part of a group of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners whom Israel freed in exchange for a captive soldier.
Israeli media said that after Fuqaha’s release and exile to Gaza that he continued to plan attacks by Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank.
Over the years, Israel has established a network of contacts in the Palestinian territories, using a combination of pressure and sweeteners to entice Palestinians to divulge intelligence.
Palestinian and International Human Rights groups have repeatedly condemned the death penalty, and urged Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to suspend it. Palestinian law says President Mahmoud Abbas, who has no actual control over Gaza, has the final word on whether executions can be carried out.
Hamas has sentenced 109 people to death and executed more than 20 of them under its judicial system since 2007, when the group seized power from Abbas in a brief civil war.Sedition Charge Divides India As Protests Continue
Enlarge this image toggle caption Punit Paranjpe/AFP/Getty Images Punit Paranjpe/AFP/Getty Images
In India, a university student is accused of uttering anti-India slogans that valorized a Kashmiri separatist. Is such sloganeering in support of Afzal Guru, who was hanged for his role in an attack on the Indian Parliament, a case of free speech or sedition?
Indians are sharply divided.
This past week, debate over the charge of sedition leveled against Jawaharlal Nehru University student leader Kanhaiya Kumar drew mobs to the courthouse and demonstrators to the streets.
The offense of sedition carries a life sentence in India.
Supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose government pushed the allegations of sedition, endorse the crackdown.
Some of Modi's most ardent followers fall on the far right of the political spectrum. A crowd of them descended on the university's campus this week, swarming the barricaded gate, and vowing to root out what they called "a nest of anti-national activity."
Hours later, a group of lawyers pummeled students at a court complex as police looked on. According to local media reports, more unruly lawyers rounded on the only defendant in this case to date, thrashing Kanhaiya Kumar.
When bundled into court, Kumar appeared terrified and denied the sedition charge. India has been dissecting the doctoral student's experience and drawing very different conclusions.
"We Indians will not tolerate this. They cannot raise slogans against our country. It is not free speech — it is speech against our country," says Radshree Kumar, a supporter of the Modi government. "It's a plot to destabilize our country."
On the other side of the political coin is writer and filmmaker Sohail Hashmi.
"Whenever those in power want to suppress dissent they charge you for sedition. And who's going to define nationalism?" he says. "It is absolutely essential for anyone who stands for democracy to stand with these students."
Enlarge this image toggle caption Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images
These different understandings of free speech reflect different perceptions of Jawaharlal Nehru University, or JNU.
Singing "We Shall Overcome" and brandishing banners that read "Defend the Right to Dissent," thousands of students from JNU led a march through Central Delhi in solidarity with the jailed student they call "Comrade Kumar." Students say the crackdown is politically motivated by a Modi government that's out to discredit the school's liberal tradition.
The spokesman for the prime minister's Bharatiya Janata Party, Nalin Kohli, says they have long considered the school a "bastion of leftist" ideology. But he denies any witch-hunt. Kohli says Indians generally share a revulsion of sloganeering that turns the Kashmiri separatist Afzal Guru into a Kashmiri martyr.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Julie McCarthy/NPR Julie McCarthy/NPR
"Secessionist thought which calls for violence, the break-up of a state, which calls for the rejection of due process of law, which convicted a terrorist — there would be concerns and obviously an investigation is bound to happen," Kohli says.
Meanwhile, 42 faculty members and researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, one of the country's premier academic institutions, came out in support of the JNU students. "We criticize the general atmosphere of fear and intimidation that is being created to target the entire university," the group said in a statement.
Afzal Guru's execution was publicly questioned when it was carried out in 2013. But going after students for criticizing the hanging three years later makes no sense, says parliamentarian Shashi Tharoor. "It's absurd," Tharoor says. "It denies the very possibility [that] in a university we allow all sorts of ideas to contend and flourish, and in the end people come out with more expanded minds. That's what university is all about. That's what democracy is all about."
Tharoor has introduced a bill in Parliament to more narrowly define what constitutes the crime of sedition.
The student charged under the colonial era statute sits in high security lock up. He is due to be back in court Monday to ask for bail.A Microsoft executive late Thursday used the furor over Mozilla's decision to curtail support for Firefox 4 to plead the case for Internet Explorer in the enterprise.
"I think I speak for everyone on the IE team when I say we'd like the opportunity to win back your business," said Ari Bixhorn, director of IE at Microsoft, in a post on his personal blog. "We've got a great solution for corporate customers with both IE8 and IE9, and believe we could help you address the challenges you're currently facing."
Bixhorn addressed his open letter to John Walicki, the manager of workplace and mobility in the office of IBM's CIO. Earlier Thursday, Walicki and others had voiced their displeasure with Mozilla's decision to retire Firefox 4 from security support when it launched the new Firefox 5 this week.
In a comment appended to a blog maintained by Michael Kaply, a consultant who specializes in customizing Firefox, Walicki called Mozilla's decision to end security support for Firefox 4 a "kick in the stomach."
Walicki said his company has 500,000 corporate users on Firefox -- a year ago IBM set the open-source browser as the default on all new PCs assigned to workers -- and complained that IBM had just completed testing Firefox 4 and was planning to roll it out later this year as a replacement for Firefox 3.6.
"I'm now in the terrible position of choosing to deploy a Firefox 4 release with potentially unpatched vulnerabilities, reset the test cycle for thousands of internal apps to validate Firefox 5 or stay on a patched Firefox 3.6.x," Walicki wrote.
Bixhorn was quick to exploit the opportunity.
"Although I'm in no position to question a competitor's approach to customer engagement and support, I did want to take the opportunity to clarify the Internet Explorer team's commitment to, and support for, our corporate customers," said Bixhorn, who then spelled out Microsoft's position.
"Enterprises have always been, and will always be, an important focus of ours," Bixhorn said.
He also reminded Walicki of Microsoft's long-standing policy to support each edition of IE "as long as the latest version of Windows that it runs on is supported."
That means, Bixhorn continued, Microsoft will support IE9, which launched a week before Firefox 4, through January 2020.
Mozilla pulled the support plug on Firefox 4 three months after its late March debut.
Asa Dotzler, director of Firefox, has made it clear he doesn't consider enterprise users worth supporting.
In several comments added to a follow-up post by Kaply, Dotzler did not mince words.
"Enterprise has never been (and I'll argue, shouldn't be) a focus of ours," Dotzler said. "I can't imagine why we'd focus at all on the kinds of environments you care so much about."
Later Thursday, Dotzler essentially said it was a return-on-investment decision.
"Years ago, we didn't have the resources [to solve the enterprise support problem]. Today, I argue, we shouldn't care even if we do have the resources because of the cost benefit trade," Dotzler said. "A minute spent making a corporate user happy can better be spent making many regular users happy. I'd much rather Mozilla spend its limited resources looking out for the billions of users that don't have enterprise support systems already taking care of them."
Near day's end, he was even more blunt: "I'm basically saying that I don't care about making Firefox enterprise-friendly," Dotzler said.
Some commenters weren't sure how to take his comments.
"Sorry Asa... I seriously do not know if this is a joke or if you honestly think that the world loves FF [Firefox] that much," said a commenter identified only as "Eric."
But Bixhorn seemed certain that Mozilla's message was coming through loud and clear.
"And John [Walicki], as you point out, Mozilla's recent decision to accelerate the pace of their releases further accentuates the problem of only supporting the latest version of Firefox," said Bixhorn.
"Let me know if you'd like to discuss this further," he concluded, and published his email address.
Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer, or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed. His email address is [email protected] call the postcard-sized creation by Whoopi Goldberg a work of art, might be pushing it, but it is still expected to spark keen interest among buyers. The work will appear along with equally distinguished ones by Bono, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Julian Lennon in a silent auction to raise funds for a primary school in north London at the annual Affordable Art Fair
Benedict Cumberbatch's postcard. Photograph: Affordable Art Fair/Rex Features
Cumberbatch and Bono have gone for self portraits – the Sherlock star's a Byronic profile, the U2 frontman's a quick slash of blue marker conjuring up his trademark sunglasses. Lennon has sent a sweetly traditional landscape in red marker on cardboard, complete with duck pond and cottage with smoking chimney, which any of the pupils might feel they could at least match in art class. Goldberg's is more a message than a painting, a cheery greeting to "all students everywhere
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.com: NBA players are generally more outspoken than hockey players when it comes to societal issues. Do you think the NHL could stand to get more diverse? And could hockey culture be preventing players from speaking out on certain issues?
Pacioretty: I think hockey players are just generally more quiet and reserved about this stuff. I feel I could have a bit more of a say in it, being diverse. I'm Mexican, and there aren't many Mexicans in this league. I'm proud of being a Mexican hockey player. There's not many [of us], like I said, but I don't really feel the need to speak out about it because I think everyone's really accepting in this league.
We've shown that through the You Can Play initiative, where everyone's accepting of everyone else, no matter their race or their sexuality. I think that for the most part, hockey players are very, very open-minded. But maybe people are more reserved, and maybe there's room for guys to make a difference and speak out about certain situations, but there's no need to force them. It's up to them to do so, given their personality. But I don't think anyone's holding them back from the opportunity to do so.
"The fans love me," says Pacioretty, who moved into downtown Montreal over the summer. But, he admits, "In Montreal, you're never as good as they say you are, and you're never as bad as they say you are." Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports
ESPN.com: What do you think of advanced stats?
Pacioretty: [pauses] I've got some thoughts. I don't know if I should say them. It's good for some things, but my feeling is that you can make anyone look good or look bad by a certain stat. It's really hard for me to jump completely on board with it. There is some stuff I like to know, such as which areas of the ice I'm productive in and stuff like that.
But in terms of being able to measure a player solely through a pie chart -- for me, that is ridiculous. But I understand it could be part of the game, it could be part of systems, but I rely too heavily on my opinion on a player. I can make an opinion on a player in five seconds by watching him, how he holds his stick, by the stick he uses. It's just really hard for me to jump on board with, like I said, analyzing a player through a graph.
ESPN.com: If you weren't a hockey player, what would you be doing?
Pacioretty: Maybe a lawyer.
ESPN.com: That was something you thought of as a kid?
Pacioretty: No, just the first thing that came to mind.BAYTOWN, Texas - A man shot and killed his estranged wife at a home in Baytown, Harris County deputies said.
The shooting was reported at 1:25 p.m. in the 7900 block of Echinacea Street.
Deputies said Roy Garcia Jr., 35, shot Julia Martinez, 34, in front of their two children after confronting her at the residence. Deputies said the children were unharmed during the shooting and were placed with family members.
Garcia left the home in a tan-colored Chevrolet Tahoe.
Deputies said Garcia surrendered to troopers with the Texas Department of Public Safety at a rest area in Guadalupe County Saturday night.
He is being held in the Guadalupe County jail.
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Copyright 2017 by KPRC Click2Houston - All rights reserved.In a cautionary tale illustrating the complex challenges of integrating renewable energy into the electrical grid, spot electricity prices in Chile have dropped to zero in some places on 113 days so far this year. Solar production in the country has expanded rapidly in recent years, but a lack of transmission lines is leaving the energy stranded where it’s not needed, forcing prices down.
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Bloomberg reports that one basic problem is the division of the country into separate central and northern grids, which are currently not interconnected at all. The highest concentration of solar installations was built in the north, where the country’s copper mines were expected to drive energy demand, but are now facing a slowdown.
The Chilean government is working to connect the two regions so the excess energy can move, as well as to improve connections within grid zones. But in the meantime, Bloomberg says solar investors are losing money, and the chaos could cast a pall on funding for future projects.
For more on energy, watch our video.
Chile is Latin America’s biggest producer of renewable energy, with solar capacity quadrupling since 2013 to 770 megawatts. New projects funded before the current slump will continue to drive up capacity over the next year, and number of days of ‘free electricity’ this year—for those who happen to be in the right place— is on track to beat last years’ total of 192 days by a wide margin.
But between overcapacity and the mining slump, those projects could be the last for some time.Paul Reubens, the actor best known for his iconic role as Pee-Wee Herman, will play The Penguin/Oswald Cobblepot’s father in “Gotham” season two, star Robin Lord Taylor revealed during the show’s panel at New York Comic Con.
“He will be showing up very soon,” Taylor teased, before letting his fan enthusiasm out. “Pee-Wee Herman is playing my dad! What the hell? Oh my god!”
Fittingly, Reubens has already played the role of the Batman villain’s father before — he appeared as Tucker Cobblepot in 1992’s “Batman Returns.”
This Monday’s episode sees the introduction of Michael Chiklis as Captain Nathaniel Barnes, and Chiklis described his character as “a countermeasure to the villainy in Gotham.” He’ll be attempting to pull the police department out of the muck — especially Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie), who is “sliding down that slippery slope of the ends justify the means.”
McKenzie admitted that “Gordon is not going anywhere good” in season two, especially given his alliance with Penguin.
On that front, Taylor teased, “All the villains are going to start interacting with each other, and not just the villains but the heroes as well … fun stuff is coming up.” Fans of Penguin and Edward Nygma (Cory Michael Smith) will be pleased to hear that the duo have a “big storyline” this season, since Nygma has become somewhat obsessed with Penguin.
Related ‘Gotham’ Sneak Peek: Meet Bruce Wayne’s New Crush (EXCLUSIVE)
McKenzie also noted that this season, every episode is building on the momentum of the last and setting up new conflicts for the weeks to come. “Really pay attention,” he advised fans. “There are little nuggets that are sprinkled in that will pay off later.”
Many fans are reeling from the death of Cameron Monaghan’s Jerome, a character some believed was a precursor to the Joker. “Gotham” producer John Stephens played coy on the Joker legacy, but said we’ll see “seeds of how that story’s going to develop,” and of Jerome, he teased, “you probably haven’t seen the last of that fellow.”
“Gotham” airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on Fox.This mod has not been released yet! Our very own Forum: *COMING SOON*
TaleWorlds Forum: *COMING SOON*
THE FACTIONS
The factions for the alpha will be the Imperials and the StormCloaks. We are defiantly adding others such as Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, The Companions, The College of Winterhold, Nightingales and Blades and many more. Their has been a long discussing wither or not we should allow the player to turn into a wolf while being in The Companions it will be most likely. You will be able to pick wither to be a warrior, mage or thief at the start of the game, we were discussing wither or not the first fight with the couple of bandits should be where the dragons attack (yes dragons may be added *flyable* also) it will most likely be that, we probably won't make them purchasable as it will be too op, but they will be available to try and kill in caves that we will add to the map.
We will most likely also allow you to pick your race but it may have to be in separate modules to allow you to pick as it may be too hard to do.
THE MAP
We will be spending a lot of time on making the map.
The area of Skyrim that it will (initially) cover. In later releases, more of Skyrim will be accessible.
FAQ
When will this mod be released?
We don't even know that. But we will notify everyone when we have one. Most likely late this year (2014) or early next year (2015). We plan to make this mod very big.
Why have you made the guilds, minor factions?
Just to make the Mod more interesting and entertaining, plus these guilds will
have plenty of power to compete with the Imperials and the Stormcloaks.
Do you plan to do the rest of Tamriel?
Depending on how Skyrim goes... Then yes.
Will dragons be added? And will they be flyable?
The chance will be very, very low that we will be adding flyable dragons. But we
will attempt to. They may also turn out very buggy and we may not be able to fix
alot of it, we will see how it turns out anyways and get back to you guys.
Are you guys dead?
No. We are focusing more on the mod for now, we will sure to be posting stuff about it soon.
Do you really have to be in the alpha testers to test the game?
Because of big demand for the alpha. Alpha 1.0 will be released to the public, future versions of alpha's will be set to the alpha testers.
Will this work with the current version of Mount & Blade: Warband
Obviously.
At the start of the mod, will you start off in Helgen?
Perhaps. If we do it obviously won't be the same re-enactment.
Overall thankyou all for reading, we really appreciate your time and patients towards the mod.
Thanks.FDA Panel Endorses Gene Therapy For A Form Of Childhood Blindness
Enlarge this image toggle caption Spark Therapeutics Spark Therapeutics
Gene therapy, which has had a roller-coaster history of high hopes and devastating disappointments, took an important step forward Thursday.
A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee endorsed the first gene therapy for an inherited disorder — a rare condition that causes a progressive form of blindness that usually starts in childhood.
The recommendation came in a unanimous 16-0 vote after a daylong hearing that included emotional testimonials by doctors, parents of children blinded by the disease and from children and young adults helped by the treatment.
"Before surgery, my vision was dark. It was like sunglasses over my eyes while looking through a little tunnel," 18-year-old Misty Lovelace of Kentucky told the committee. "I can honestly say my biggest dream came true when I got my sight. I would never give it up for anything. It was truly a miracle."
Several young people described being able to ride bicycles, play baseball, see their parents' faces, read, write and venture out of their homes alone at night for the first time.
"I've been able to see things that I've never seen before, like stars, fireworks, and even the moon," Christian Guardino, 17, of Long Island, N.Y., told the committee. "I will forever be grateful for receiving gene therapy."
The FDA isn't obligated to follow the recommendations of its advisory committees, but it usually does.
If the treatment is approved, one concern is cost. Some analysts have speculated it could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat each eye, meaning the cost for each patient could approach $1 million.
Spark Therapeutics of Philadelphia, which developed the treatment, hasn't said how much the company would charge. But the company has said it would help patients get access to the treatment.
Despite the likely steep price tag, the panel's endorsement was welcomed by scientists working in the field.
"It's one of the most exciting things for our field in recent memory," says Paul Yang, an assistant professor of ophthalmology at the Oregon Health and Science University who wasn't involved in developing or testing the treatment.
"This would be the first approved treatment of any sort for this condition and the first approved gene therapy treatment for the eye, in general," Yang says. "So, on multiple fronts, it's a first and ushers in a new era of gene therapy."
Ever since scientists began to unravel the genetic causes of diseases, doctors have dreamed of treating them by fixing defective genes or giving patients new, healthy genes. But those hopes dimmed when early attempts failed and sometimes even resulted in the deaths of volunteers in early studies.
But the field may have finally reached a turning point. The FDA recently approved the first so-called gene therapy product, which uses genetically modified cells from the immune system to treat a form of leukemia. And last week, scientists reported using gene therapy to successfully treat patients suffering from cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy, or ALD, a rare, fatal brain disease portrayed in the film Lorenzo's Oil. Researchers are also testing gene therapy for other causes of blindness and blood disorders such as sickle cell disease.
The gene therapy endorsed by the committee Thursday was developed for RPE65-mutation associated retinal dystrophy, which is caused by a defective gene that damages cells in the retina. About 6,000 people have the disease worldwide, including 1,000 to 2,000 people in the United States.
The treatment, which is called voretigene neparvovec, involves a genetically modified version of a harmless virus. The virus is modified to carry a healthy version of the gene into the retina. Doctors inject billions of modified viruses into both of a patient's eyes.
In a study involving 29 patients, ages 4 to 44, the treatment appeared to be safe and effective. More than 90 percent of the treated patients showed at least some improvement in their vision when tested in a specially designed obstacle course. The improvement often began within days of the treatment.
"Many went from being legally blind to not being legally blind," said Albert Maguire, a professor of ophthalmology who led the study at the University of Pennsylvania, in an interview before the hearing.
The improvement varied from patient to patient, and none of the patients regained normal vision. But some had a significant increase in their ability to see, especially at night or in dim light, which is a major problem for patients with this condition.
"What I saw in the clinic was remarkable," Maguire told the committee. "Most patients became sure of themselves and pushed aside their guides. Rarely did I see a cane after treatment."
That was the case of Allison Corona, who's now 25 and lives in Glen Head, N.Y. She underwent the treatment five years ago as part of the study.
"My light perception has improved tremendously," Corona said during an interview before the hearing. "It's been life-changing. I am able to see so much better. I am so much more independent than what I was. It is so much better."
The patients have been followed for more than three years, and the effects appear to be lasting. "We have yet to see deterioration," Maguire says. "So far the improvement is sustained."
The injections themselves did cause complications in a few patients, such as a serious infection that resulted in permanent damage, and a dangerous increase in pressure in the eye. But there were no adverse reactions or any signs of problems associated with the gene therapy itself, the researchers reported.
While this disease is rare, the same approach could work for similar forms of genetic eye disease, Maguire says."There are a lot of retinal diseases like this, and if you added them together it's a big thing because they are all incurable."
If approved, the treatment would be marketed under the name Luxturna.One of many sunny and hot days at National Harbor this summer. (Alejandro Donis via Flickr
1 p.m. update: The temperature at Reagan National Airport has climbed to at least 93 degrees so far today, putting our total number days at or above 90 degrees at 37 — one above average for the entire year.
Original post
If you’ve ever been around during a Washington, D.C., summer, you know it can get pretty hot (and humid). On average, we expect about five weeks of days at or above 90 degrees.
On Monday, we hit our average annual number of 90-degree days already — 36 — quite early in the year, and summer is still going. Typically, August and September offer up about 12 more days of 90+ highs.
The actual average varies a bit depending on the span of years that you’re looking at. We have an average of 36 90-degree days based on the standard climatology of 1981-2010, which captures the nature of our most recent decades. But if we look at the most recent 30 years ending last year, the average is 37. Same general ballpark.
Numbers for 90-degree expectations have been fairly steady throughout recent history, although it seems highly likely to continue to inching up based on past trends and future climate expectations.
Where we rank to-date
So far 2015 has put up a solid tally of 90-degree days in Washington, D.C., at least. It seems most “near 90” days ending up at 90 or above at Reagan National Airport, D.C.’s official weather station, though not always at the other airports in the metro.
90-degree days in D.C. during 2015 (dark red) and how it compares to the record years (bright red). The dashed blue line shows how we’ve ranked in terms of number of 90-degree days to-date. (Author analysis of NOAA data)
With 36 days of 90+ highs through August 3, 2015 now ranks 12th for most 90-degree days to-date. If we put up another one on Tuesday, which seems likely, it’ll move us to 10th all time through August 4. Looking at the graph above, you can get a general sense of where we need to stay to keep pace through the rest of the month.
D.C.’s numbers are impressive compared to other places locally. We’ve been able to maintain a top-20 percent running tally since mid-to-late May. And it hasn’t necessarily been hot the whole time.
Lest we forget the cool down in late June and early July, which kept us off 90-degree weather for 13 days in a row. If it wasn’t for that period, 2015 would be running near the very front of the pack like it was earlier in the warm season.
Where we rank against other full years
Just through Monday, Washington, D.C. has already seen more 90-degree days than the totals of 2014 and 2013. We’ve also had more 90-degree days than eight of the past 15 years since 2000, and more days than 93 of the years since records began in 1872.
In other words, we’ve bested about 65 percent of all years on record already, with more to go.
90-degree days by year at D.C. (Author analysis of NOAA data)
The year 2010 was our most recent record-setting year, when the mercury spiked to at least 90 on an incredible 67 days. 2010 is tied for the record with 1980. Compared to the torrid stretch from 2010-2012, we still have a way to go. 2010 and 1991 are the high marks for this point in the month of August. Both were near and past 45 90-degree days and still climbing in early August.
While years with about 50 or so 90-degree days are surely in reach, we quickly start to lose opportunities for 90s as push farther into the month.
Typically, we see another 12 90-degree days from August 4 through the end of the year. The most that have happened after August 4 came in 1980, when an additional 33 days accumulated. On the low end, in 1890 there weren’t any more 90-degree days after this point. And as recent as 2004 there was only one 90-degree day from here through the rest of the warm season.
Compared to the region
90-degree days through August 3. This map shows WBAN stations. It includes a number that are not long-term climatology stations, but also all main climate sites. (Author analysis of NOAA data)
This is a topic that probably deserves a post (or three) on its own, but it needs at least passing mention here. National’s temperature is running way above both Dulles (10 90-degree days) and BWI (16 90-degree days) on this heat metric.
Two things are worth noting.
The first is that it has generally been warmer than normal over the southeast and cooler than normal over the northeast much of the summer. The D.C. region has been more or less in the middle, clearly trending on the mild side near D.C. and south in particular.
Temperature departures across the northeast during June and July. (High Plains Regional Climate Center)
Second, at least around here, many of the days that have hit or surpassed 90 did so just barely. Of D.C.’s 36 days 90 or above, 24 were in the 90-92 range. At Dulles, there are 13 days that just missed 90, in the 88-89 zone.
Still, it’s certainly noticeable that DCA has one of the highest tallies in the larger region. One generally has to get down to southern Virginia and the North Carolina Piedmont to see comparable results in any widespread fashion. Further north, 90s have been few and far between.
What NWS sees ahead
It does seem our run at building on 90s is coming to a close. For how long is hard to say. The National Weather Service is calling for a pattern more or less like what we’ve already seen so far this summer in the time ahead, with D.C. near the border of warm and cool.
6-10 day temperature outlook. (Climate Prediction Center)
There are also hints that after a quick cool down, heat marches back in. Not super high heat, but definitely the type that can bring more 90-degree days.
Even as we get well into August, 90s do happen. They generally keep happening into September, with the average final 90-degree day coming on September 10.
But, for those who are wishing for cooler weather, we’re talking weeks and not months. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Other leisure pursuits may take priority
Only one-third of teenage boys in the UK say they enjoy reading, a study by the National Literacy Trust suggests.
The Trust found a significant drop in boys' reading enjoyment between the ages of eight and 16 - from 72% at ages eight-to-11 to 36% at ages 14-16.
Girls' pleasure in picking up a book also dropped off in the teenage years, though not quite as markedly.
At ages eight-to-11, 83% of girls said they enjoyed reading, but this dropped back to 53% at ages 14-16.
Director of the NLT Jonathan Douglas said: "Young people's love of reading steadily declines from the day they leave primary school to the day they leave secondary school - particularly when it comes to boys.
"This is a trend we must reverse."
Mr Douglas said an increasing number of academic, social and leisure priorities, as well as a curriculum that puts more emphasis on homework and study, all played their part.
Image copyright Getty Images
He said there were lots of ways that parents and teachers could encourage teenagers to read for fun.
"For starters, you can motivate boys to read by tapping in to their interests, such as football, comedy and gaming, and letting them choose what they want to read.
"Remember that everything counts, whether they want to read a fictional story, newspaper, magazine or comic."
Increasing pleasure
Overall though, pleasure in reading appears to be rising steadily among UK children.
The NLT survey of 41,334 children aged eight to 16, carried out at the end of 2016, found nearly six children in 10 (57%) said they enjoyed reading either very much or quite a lot.
"While enjoyment levels had been rather stable between 2005 and 2012, they have been rising steadily since 2013, and in 2016 we recorded the highest percentage of reading enjoyment levels," the report said.
Girls enjoyed getting stuck into a book more than boys, with 65% enjoying reading either very much or a lot compared with 52% of boys.
Image copyright Getty Images
A child's background was not linked to reading pleasure, as the Trust did not find any difference between children who received free school meals and those who did not.
"It is the first time in 11 years [of conducting this research] that we have not recorded a difference in reading enjoyment by socio-economic background," the report said.
However, there were differences along the lines of ethnicity, with fewer pupils from white backgrounds enjoying reading compared with pupils from mixed or black ethnic backgrounds.
Pupils from Asian backgrounds were most likely to say they enjoyed reading.Kukmin Ilbo via NaverA Korean-American media outlet was able to grab hold of a police report that Ailee filed in August 12th, 2009 in regards to her nude pictures and being scammed by a lingerie company. The report has a chat conversation between Ailee and her friend. Her friend requested 50 nude pictures for a lingerie company camera test and Ailee agreed without suspicion. It wasn't until later that she found out that her friend's Facebook was hacked.1. [+1,004, -114] Ailee, it will be difficult but stay strong through this2. [+863, -153] All a singer needs to do is sing well. There's no need for you to hang your head low. Fighting...3. [+680, -86] Ailee fighting!!!!4. [+636, -83] The media should stop sensationalizing this. Ailee fighting.5. [+635, -87] Journalists, all shut up6. [+193, -32] I have to admit that I don't quite understand where she got the bravery to send nude photos like that...7. [+186, -34] Maybe because I'm a man but I'm having a difficult time understanding how she could send nude photos like that without suspicion8. [+119, -17] Then what's that conversation from Dispatch with Ailee's ex-boyfriend? Did Dispatch lie?- "That's different. Ailee told her boyfriend what happened and he asked to see the pictures to help her with the report."Published: 19:31 GMT, 28 November 2016 | Updated: 20:39 GMT, 28 November 2016
Their relationship was confirmed earlier this month when they couldn't keep their hands off each other during a New York Knicks game.
And it seems Ashley Olsen is continuing her budding romance with Richard Sachs, 58, as they enjoyed their first vacation together in St Barths on Sunday.
The 30-year-old Full House alum sweat it out with the financier who went shirtless during a morning hike.
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Copy link to paste in your message +12 Sweating it out: Ashley Olsen enjoyed a morning hike with her new beau Richard Sachs, 58, who went shirtless
Last month a source told Page Six that the pair was spotted sitting next to each other during a spin class and were 'affectionate after the class, despite being sweaty.'
'They were canoodling and cuddly when they left holding hands,' the source added of the sighting on October 28.
During the couple's afternoon outing the actress-turned-fashion entrepreneur showcased her lean limbs in black Nike workout pants as she walked alongside the art dealer.
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Copy link to paste in your message +12 Getting into shape: The 30-year-old Full House alum stepped out with the financier who showed off a fuller midsection
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Copy link to paste in your message +12 Grueling workout: Richard - who is nearly twice Ashley's age - sported a bit of chest hair and slightly disheveled mane as he worked up a sweat
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Copy link to paste in your message +12 Slim stems: The actress-turned-fashion entrepreneur showcased her lean limbs in black Nike workout pants as she walked alongside the art dealer
She donned a white graphic vintage tee with the sleeves rolled up, revealing her toned arms and wrapped a flannel around her slender waistline.
Richard - who is nearly twice Ashley's age - showed off a fuller midsection and sported a bit of chest hair.
He ditched a shirt and stepped out in dark gym shorts while completing his workout gear in bright blue trainers.
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen leave separately from NY Knicks game v f Loaded : 0% Progress : 0% w 00:00 A Previous f Play A Skip LIVE d Mute w 00:00 Current Time 0:00 / Duration Time 0:00 t Fullscreen g Need Text Video Quality i k m h n j Foreground --- White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan --- Opaque Semi-Opaque Background --- White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan --- Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window --- White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan --- Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Default Monospace Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Sans-Serif Casual Script Small Caps Defaults Done
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Copy link to paste in your message +12 Fit figure: The twin sister of Mary-Kate Olsen donned a white vintage tee with the sleeves rolled up, revealing her toned arms and wrapped a flannel around her slender waistline
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Copy link to paste in your message +12 Shirtless Sachs! Richard ditched a shirt and stepped out in dark gym shorts while completing his workout attire in bright blue trainers
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Copy link to paste in your message +12 Cosy couple: The lovebirds spent an entire week at Richard's villa and were spotted out looking very comfortable with one another
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Copy link to paste in your message +12 Casual cool: The blonde beauty went boho chic in a semi-sheer mini dress with hand-woven bag
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Copy link to paste in your message +12 Retail therapy: The twosome were spotted shopping by French boutique Victoire
The new couple spent an entire week at Richard's villa and were spotted out looking very comfortable with one another.
They did some shopping and were even spotted exiting a market with a cart full of groceries.
Earlier this month the pair were on a double date with Ashley's sister Mary-Kate and her older husband Olivier Sarkozy, 47.
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Copy link to paste in your message +12 Jet-setting to jeeps! Ashley and Richard made their way around town in a small white Mini Moke
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Copy link to paste in your message +12 Leggy blonde! The Row boutique founder flaunted her slender limbs in a short white frock* Cent tax per ounce could cut consumption by 10 percent
* Cutting caloric intake could lower obesity levels
* Industry groups say soda taxes don’t work
WASHINGTON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - More U.S. health experts called for taxing sweetened soft drinks on Wednesday, saying such taxes could fight obesity and be used to fund public health efforts.
New York City health commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley, nutritionist Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, Kelly Brownell, an obesity expert at Yale University in Connecticut and others said the current taxes do not go far enough.
“We propose an excise tax of one percent per ounce for any beverages that have any added caloric sweetener,” they wrote in their proposal, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“Much as taxes on tobacco products are routine at both state and federal levels because they generate revenue and they confer a public health benefit with respect to smoking rates, we believe that taxes on beverages that help drive the obesity epidemic should and will become routine.”
They said studies have shown taxes could cut consumption just enough — by about 1 gram of sugar per ounce.
“A tax of one cent per ounce of beverage would increase the cost of a 20-ounce soft drink by 15 to 20 percent.” They estimate that would lead to a 10 percent drop in consumption, or enough to affect weight.
“A consumer who drinks a conventional soft drink (20 ounces or 591 millilitres) every day and switches to a beverage below this threshold would consume approximately 174 fewer calories each day,” they wrote.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated in December that a tax of three cents on every 12-ounce (355-millilitre) can of soda could raise $50 billion over 10 years.
Brownell called for such a tax in April along with Farley’s predecessor, Dr. Thomas Frieden, who became director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in June.
“Currently, 33 states have sales taxes on soft drinks (mean tax rate 5.2 percent), but the taxes are too small to affect consumption and the revenues are not earmarked for programs related to health,” Brownell, Farley and the others wrote.
OBESITY SURGING
They noted that people are drinking more sweet drinks and the obesity rate is surging. “In Mexico, intake of sugar-sweetened drinks doubled between 1999 and 2006 in all age groups,” they wrote.
“Reducing caloric intake by 1 percent to 2 percent per year would have a marked impact on health in all age groups.”
The American Heart Association weighed in on the issue last month, recommending that Americans cut back dramatically on sugar and singling out soft drinks as the top source of “discretionary” sugar calories.
The beverage industry objected.
“We agree that obesity is a serious public health issue, but the solution put forth by these researchers simply won’t work. Reducing obesity will only be addressed through comprehensive solutions,” Susan Neely, president and chief executive officer for the American Beverage Association, said in a statement.
“Importantly, taxes will not teach our children how to live a healthy lifestyle.”
The researchers had anticipated this argument.
“Seat belt legislation and tobacco taxation do not eliminate traffic accidents and heart disease but are nevertheless sound policies,” they wrote.
“Opposition to a tax by the beverage industry is to be expected,” they added.
An industry group called Americans Against Food Taxes, backed by juice maker Welch’s, soft drink maker PepsiCo Inc PEP.N, the American Beverage Association, the Corn Refiners Association, McDonald’s Corp (MCD.N) and Burger King Holdings Inc BKC.N, is also fighting such a tax.“Niko Kovač (Croatia’s national team coach) and I speak a common language. He decided that I am needed in the team and I respect his decision, I am Croatia’s solider. I don’t play for the money, a transfer or a record. I just want to help as much as I can” Darijo Srna, Croatia’s captain, said after the World Cup in Brazil. In 12 years of loyal service the versatile right back collected impressive 118 caps and scored 21 goals for Vatreni. He played at three European and two World championships. After this year’s World Cup in Brazil, where Croatia exited the competiton very early, some players waved farewell to the national team. Srna, although some expected otherwise, didn’t. He remained an integral part of the team and is now, motivated as ever, chasing his fourth European championship qualification.
For many years Srna was undisputed first right-back pick of every national team coach in the Croatian senior team set-up. With Robert Kovač at the helm nothing changed. But it is, especially to Srna himself, undoubtedly clear that he will withdraw from the squad eventually. Croatia is certainly not prepared for such a scenario at the moment. Though, that could change in the future. Three weeks ago, when Croatia played a friendly match versus Cyprus in Pula, Jedvaj, being only 18 years old, made his full international debut. It was only a friendly, a last Croatian rehearsal before the Euro 2016 qualifiers, but it was a very important step forward in Jedvaj’s promising career. He entered the game in the 61st minute and replaced – guess who – Darijo Srna.
Who is Tin Jedvaj?
That debut came only a few days after his first Bundesliga start, when Bayer Leverkusen’s new coach Roger Schmidt made him a starter at the right side of his defence. Since then Jedvaj played all four Bundesliga games and scored two goals. “From a tactical point of view Tin is very good and reliable. He has a really good feeling when to send a cross and he knows when he can run forward,” Schmidt said. Jedvaj, who grabbed the chance of going to Leverkusen on loan from Roma in June, indeed looks very promising on the right side of Bayer’s 4-2-3-1 formation.
He can score too. Against Werder Bremen, on September 12, he scored a spectacular right footed goal. He added another one versus Hertha Berlin. Last week, on September 16, versus AS Monaco, Jedvaj debuted on the big stage, in the Champions League. It took only one month for him to score a hat-trick of important debutes (in the Bundesliga, the Croatian national team and in the Champions League) and to recieve worldwide attention. Croatian press is united and certain: a star for the future was born.
Tin Jedvaj has football in his genes. His father Zdenko was a decent defender for Velež Mostar and Dinamo Zagreb and stayed in the Croatian capital after the end of his playing career. Tin, a self-proclaimed Zagreb’s city boy, rose through Dinamo Zagreb’s youth ranks and made his first team debut in February last year, at the Croatian eternal derby between Dinamo Zagreb and Hajduk Split. He made only 14 senior appearances for Dinamo and, to be honest, didn’t leave (he had no time) a significant mark. But the biggest clubs from around Europe saw enough. Arsenal was very interested, Tottenham tried to strike a double deal
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enough RNs. They didn’t know their IV blew because we didn’t have an RN there to (monitor),” she said.
“The near misses are horrendous,” she added. The nurses want the province to place a moratorium on RN cuts.
Article Continued Below
They have launched a large advertising campaign to spread their message. They also have an online petition that they are inviting Ontarians to sign at nursesknow.ona.org. In question period at the legislature, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath warned that four years of frozen hospital budgets are taking their toll. With less than one RN for every 100 residents, Ontario has the second worst RN staffing ratio in Canada, she said. “The scientific evidence is clear. Every nurse being cut out of hour hospitals puts patient care and patients’ lives at risk,” Horwath said. Health Minister Eric Hoskins said the government has been working to stabilize Ontario’s nursing workforce, but acknowledged more work needs to be done.I recently installed Ubuntu Server 14.04 onto a 32GB pen drive. This is used as the main drive for an Intel NUC.
-System-
Intel Nuc (i3 D34010WYK) - Headless
Sandisk USB3 micro pen drive (used instead of internal Msata HD)
WD 3TB USB external Drive
Wifi to ethernet bridge (for now)
Install was no problem, initially it ran great.
I am having a unique problem (I can't find similar scenarios through my searches). I have a 3TB WD external drive also plugged in via USB. I have FSTAB set up using UUID to mount but when ubuntu boots, it looks as though it is trying to boot from the 3TB drive to boot and then failing.
If I try to boot without the 3TB drive plugged in it fails, as the drive could not be detected when fstab goes to mount it.
My initial thought was GRUB, but I'm not sure what the various settings in are. I can see HD1 in a comma separated page that has things about floppy disks (pressed E for "edit commands") and thought maybe I need to take that out and make it USBXXX. I'm a bit worried about this as I have never had good luck with GRUB.
To add a bit more weirdness, after this has happened, the nuc will not boot to the USB pen drive. It instead goes to the network boot and the uefi doesn't show it as a boot option. If I remove and plug back in, it works. I really don't want to get an MSATA drive as they are expensive. The NUC was cheap, is small, and low energy.
Any help would be awesome, I'm very new to linux, only played with a few VM's and a raspberry pi as a file server (samba).All this leaves an important question: Can public pressures affect private preferences as well as public preferences? Kuran thinks so, and he offers a subtle and intriguing explanation, focusing not on the concealment of private preferences but on their transformation. Let's start with individuals. Suppose that you tend to believe that women, like men, should be educated, and that everyone should have the chance to become literate regardless of gender. Suppose, too, that this belief is inconsistent with existing social pressures (as it is in many parts of the world). Eventually you may change your private belief, making it conform with those pressures. This is because it can be extremely frustrating, even distressing, to believe something that other people think implausible, offensive or stupid. In order to reduce cognitive dissonance, dissenters may bring their private preferences into line with perceived public opinion. And in this way people who are oppressed by the status quo can come to collaborate in their own oppression. Thus, in discussing the caste system in India, Kuran adduces evidence that "Hindu ideology has contributed to the untouchables' acceptance of their deprivations as fair, that it has made many treat their wretched existence as natural, and that it has facilitated their complicity in an order that degrades them."
But Kuran is interested not only in what happens with individual agents. He wants to explain also how certain private beliefs get lost or abandoned as the content of public information changes over time. If certain thoughts are "unthinkable"--in the sense that people who entertain them are seen as uncivil or immoral--they may eventually become "unthought," that is, they disappear altogether. And so social pressures can make certain ideas disappear from public discussion. As this happens, people become less conscious of the disadvantages of what is publicly favored and more conscious of the advantages. In the long run, private opinion itself moves against the thought that is publicly disfavored. If you have never heard that women should be educated equally with men, or that caste systems offend equality of opportunity, or that likes and dislikes are a function of social pressures, you may well not think of these things at all. Thus Kuran offers an account of how ideas can change across generations. In the end, the effects of public opinion on private preferences come from a collective process, in which millions of people affect one another's views through interdependent acts of knowledge and "preference falsification."
Kuran applies these basic ideas to three case studies: the fate of communism; the caste system in India; and the spread of affirmative action in the United States (which, in his view, was "unwanted"). The discussion of communism is a highlight of the book. Offering many vivid anecdotes, he shows that communism persisted not only, or not mostly, because of brute terror, but also because of a "pervasive culture of mendacity." People joined organizations they abhorred, followed orders they considered nonsensical, cheered speakers they despised and ostracized dissidents they greatly admired. How could this have been? Kuran shows that all this could not have been the consequence of terror--state resources were often far too limited for that--and that it was largely a product of widespread perceptions of what other people thought, or thought normal. Thus, for example, a unanimous vote of the Writers' Union denounced Boris Pasternak as an enemy of the Soviet Union for producing Doctor Zhivago, even though they widely admired the writer and his novel. There were countless similar examples. In the Soviet Union, of course, force was relevant; but preference falsification also played a role.
In some cases, preference falsification produces a situation of stability, but in other cases it is possible to get rapid, unforeseen, even unforeseeable shifts. Recall that public preferences are a function of what people think that other people think. It follows that when in Eastern Europe the level of apparent public opposition started to rise, people's public preferences changed quickly, as they came closer to their private preferences. Not only governments, but also policies, customs and fashions "can be abruptly abandoned when people who have helped sustain [them] suddenly discover a common desire for change." In fact, societies reach a tipping point when social pressures no longer support the status quo, but even undermine it. Eventually it is support for the status quo that produces reputational loss. (Think of recent civil rights movements for blacks and women.) Thus "a revolutionary bandwagon may help create the discontent that keeps it in motion. Switches from the government to the opposition may alert essentially content people to the government's failings; or they may make people who had been resigned to the status quo recognize the possibility of political change."
Kuran offers a similar explanation for the surprising longevity of the caste system in India. Within all castes, even lower ones, people are punished for expressing discontent and resentment. Above all, the threat of ostracism imposes great risks on anyone who showed disloyalty to his particular caste. It might seem that some group would break away from the system and create its own caste-free colony. But no such group can be created unless the individuals who would compose the group are willing to break away, and the threat of ostracism makes each potential member withhold participation until the project of breaking away seems likely to succeed. Since almost everyone sees this problem, no colony is formed. Taking issue with some common explanations, Kuran claims that the caste system is not economically efficient and that it does not maintain itself through any conspiracy from the top. It perpetuates itself because even subjugated castes uphold the system by punishing nonconformists.
Kuran thinks that the spread of affirmative action has also been made possible by preference falsification. Until recently, he says, affirmative action has not been subject to sustained social criticism, not least because those who express doubts have been treated as traitors to the cause or as racists. Kuran emphasizes in particular the lack of publicly expressed black opposition to affirmative action. In his view, this is a clear case of preference falsification, since blacks who challenge affirmative action risk ostracism from the civil rights community.
So much for Kuran's basic argument. A good test of a theory is whether it illuminates areas that it does not discuss. Measured in this way, Kuran's book is a terrific success. Consider the large effects of changing social norms and pressures with respect to smoking, the use of the term "African American," physical exercise, sexual harassment, statements of religious faith and diet. In all of these areas, we have seen bandwagon effects, even cascades, as people change both their acts and their statements in accordance with their perceptions about what other people think. Consider, too, the use, and the outcomes, of opinion polls. People may say they think something because of what they think other people think. This fact is yet another reason for concern about the pervasive use of opinion polls. Recent work even shows that the race of the interviewer much affects people's responses, a finding that supports Kuran's argument.
By drawing attention to the effects of social pressures, Kuran's discussion also illuminates an important mystery about the possibilities of law. There is an intriguing category of laws that are rarely enforced but that are seen to make a statement about what people think: mandatory seatbelt laws, laws requiring people to clean up after their dogs, laws banning littering, laws regulating places where people smoke. Whether or not they are enforced, such laws have large effects on people's perceptions of other people's attitudes; and in this way they affect behavior. The possibility of such laws also clears a greater space for democratic legitimation of new or emergent public convictions.
Of course an argument of this nature and scope raises many questions. Sometimes Kuran writes as if he is producing highly scientific accounts of stability and social change. But the underlying phenomena are diverse and unruly, and Kuran is only identifying a relevant factor in complex situations, rather than offering law-like generalizations about how societies change or stabilize themselves. A great virtue of his book is that it is much more systematic and rigorous than most discussions of these problems; but sometimes the analysis is too casual. Kuran seems a strong opponent of affirmative action, which is fine, but his own policy judgments make an excessive intrusion into his discussion of the underlying phenomenon. (He repeats the pervasive but utterly false claim that Martin Luther King Jr. was an opponent of race-conscious affirmative action policies. King strongly supported such policies.)
More generally, Kuran's treatment of the political dynamics of the affirmative action debate is too impressionistic and anecdotal. It is too simple to say that opponents of affirmative action have been shamed into silence. On the contrary, many of them, both white and black, have been vocal for a long time. At the same time it must be said that the attack on affirmative action, which is now very widespread, nicely confirms Kuran's point about the possible split between private and public preferences. A bandwagon effect is now occurring with great rapidity, to the point where, in many circles, people are under strong social pressure to oppose affirmative action policies, and those who defend those policies risk their reputations.
Kuran departs productively from traditional economists in refusing to see "preferences" as fixed and given. In his discussion of individual and social changes in preferences, he shows that they are very much a function of prevailing social norms. Unfortunately he mostly sticks with the economic tradition in seeing "preferences"--here "private preferences"--as the foundation of behavior. This oversimplifies reality. The term "preferences" includes many different things. It includes beliefs about facts as well as desires. And it includes emotional reactions, prominently involving shame (something with complex relations to "reputational utility"), as well as considered judgments about what is best; drives; whims; preferences about preferences ("I don't like opera, but I wish I did!"); crude self-interest; aspirations; and more. Some people even like to defy convention and see "reputational cost" as a great benefit, an important phenomenon to which Kuran pays too little attention.
From the psychological point of view, then, Kuran's division of the wellsprings of action into "private" preferences and "public" preferences is too crude. And there is a related problem. Kuran writes as if people make internal judgments that are purely "private." These are, in his view, "genuine desires." In his framework, these private judgments are compromised by external forces that lead to a statement about preferences that is "false." In a way, this is right and illuminating; but it is too simple. People's most private "preferences" are a product of a great many things, including public forces of various kinds. The privately held views of the racist may be a product of familial or local attitudes, and not in any deep sense genuine; the public taboo on public expressions of racism may be a good corrective, rather than an artificial, external intrusion onto something that deserves to be called "true." If my "private" judgment is that homosexuality is an illness, or that welfare benefits should not be reduced, or that the budget deficit is not a serious problem, I am probably reacting to an array of publicly asserted facts and values. Few of us have made fully independent judgments about public policy. Certainly our "private preferences" do not predate social interaction.
In fact, what Kuran sees as "public preferences" may be especially authentic. What people say in public can be a function of what they believe to be right or fair, whereas their "private preferences" may, even to them, seem selfish or invidious. A racist may have a "private preference" for a system of racial hierarchy, but some racists are ashamed of their racism, and hence their "public preferences" capture what, in a sense, they really think or think right. Most "preferences" are a function of the context in which they are expressed, and so Kuran's suggestion that private preferences are "true" and public preferences "false" is unconvincing. Sometimes the public preferences are authentic in the sense that they correspond to what people think, on reflection, to be best.
Kuran raises, but does not answer, another pressing question: Is "preference falsification" a good thing or a bad thing? Kuran's examples suggest that it is very bad; but as he is aware, no such judgment would make sense. For one thing, the answer turns partly on the content of the relevant social pressures. What sorts of "preferences" are being stigmatized? In most places, people are likely to feel under a good deal of pressure not to defend Hitler. That pressure should not be much mourned; it is a way of reflecting human learning and inculcating human decency (and also of economizing on discussion). By contrast, something has gone wrong if reasonable or good moral judgments cannot be expressed publicly, as, for example, in nations in Eastern Europe in which one could not criticize communism, or in the many parts of many nations where one cannot endorse feminism (consider the often-heard phrase, "I'm not a feminist, but...").
In this way, the social pressures that produce "preference falsification" should be evaluated partly by asking about substance: what sorts of things are causing reputational losses? But social pressures should not be evaluated only in these terms. It is most unfortunate if such pressures prevent people from saying and testing what they actually think, because a barrier to honest statements is an insult to people's autonomy, and because the public's capacity for deliberation and self-criticism will be severely undermined if a social taboo is placed on dissenting views. Too often, discussion is made impossible when social pressures make people act and talk as if they agree, when they do not.
We are living in a period in which an abstraction called "government" is under widespread attack and little attention is given to the effects of social pressures on human freedom and well-being. As Kuran shows, those pressures can make people say and do things that they abhor. And since social pressures can affect the development of preferences, government may have to act in order to allow people to overcome corrosive social pressures; consider recent official action with respect to cigarette smoking, unsafe sex, sexual harassment, environmentally irresponsible behavior, and even the failure to buckle seatbelts. It is not the least virtue of Kuran's book that it offers ample evidence that social pressures can be serious obstacles to liberty, and that in the face of such obstacles governmental efforts might actually promote freedom.
Cass R. Sunstein is the author of, forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
By Cass R. SunsteinA Venezuelan diplomat, stopped on suspicion of driving drunk, claims the officer beat him up and broke his jaw
A Bolivian police officer says he was bitten by a Venezuelan diplomat he stopped on suspicion of driving drunk. For his part, the diplomat says the officer broke his jaw.
Sub-Lieutenant Franklin Mamani says the diplomat he identified only as Alexis T aggressively asserted diplomatic immunity and bit off a piece of his nose during the traffic stop.
Dennis Espinoza is an attorney for the diplomat, and he told Radio Erbol on Thursday that the police officer actually beat his client and broke his jaw. The embassy itself had no comment because most of its personnel are on vacation.
Television images seem to support both versions: They show the envoy with a bloodied face and the officer with a scarred nose.An 8-year-old girl was rushed to surgery Thursday night for a gunshot wound to her upper back following a shooting that killed a 29-year-old man in Marrero, Jefferson Parish authorities said.
The little girl was playing with a friend and a relative outside her apartment building in the 1100 block of Dimarco Drive around 8:40 p.m. when she was struck by a stray bullet from gunfire authorities believe could be tied to a carjacking, said Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office spokesman Col. John Fortunato.
Witnesses reported hearing three or four shots, and seeing either one person or two people chasing the 29 year old, Fortunato said. Authorities later discovered the man's body on the driveway apron between two cars. No weapons were found at the scene, he said, only several spent shell casings.
The victim's car, a gray Pontiac G6, was seen leaving the area immediately after the shooting - followed by a black Audi, Fortunato said.
The little girl was transported to an area hospital for surgery, Fortunato said. He said her injury appeared to be non-life threatening.
A chaotic scene unfolded just beyond the yellow police tape, as multiple family members learned of the shooting and tried in vain to get closer to the victim's body, which remained on the pavement for roughly two hours before it was placed in a waiting coroner's van.
"Please don't tell me my brother's gone," the victim's sister screamed after running up the long, dark street. "I just buried my sister. I can't take no more."
Her mother showed up a short time later. Barely able to stand, the woman collapsed several times into the arms of family members before someone offered her a chair from a nearby residence.
The woman's deteriorating condition brought a nurse in the area to come check her vitals. A nearby deputy also noticed the mother and called for an EMS crew, which arrived a short time later but left after a brief examination.
Anyone with information about this shooting should contact Crimestoppers at 504-822-1111, or toll-free at 877-903-7867.WASHINGTON -- Republican House leaders Thursday offered the president and Senate far less than they want in the ongoing financial standoff, presenting a six-week hike of the debt limit, but no deal to reopen the shuttered federal government.
President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats have repeatedly argued that they will not negotiate with the GOP on the budget until the government is reopened and the House stops using the $16.7 trillion debt limit as a lever to extract concessions. The limit is expected to be reached Oct. 17, but the House bill would push the debt ceiling back to around Thanksgiving.
"What we want to do is offer the president today the ability to move a temporary increase in the debt ceiling, an agreement to go to conference on the budget, for his willingness to sit down and discuss with us a way forward to reopen the government, and start to deal with America's pressing problems," House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters on Capitol Hill.
"I would hope that the president will look at this as an opportunity and a good-faith effort on our part to move halfway, halfway to what he's demanding in order to have these conversations," he continued.
Several lawmakers said the debt bill could move as soon as Friday if Obama agrees to open up talks on other topics.
Yet reaction from the White House was not very positive, although press secretary Jay Carney said that if a clean debt ceiling bill actually reaches the president's desk, Obama would sign it.
Still, Carney reiterated the administration position that the White House doesn't see the debt ceiling being raised or the government being opened as any sort of concession, but as part of Congress' job.
"Our position is clear: they ought to turn on the lights, they ought to pay our bills," Carney said. "The logic here is that they would harm the American economy and the American people in order to try to extract concessions from the president and their counterparts on Capitol Hill. That's an unsustainably bad proposition."
Similarly, Senate Democrats did not seem impressed by the deal.
"Republicans may let one hostage go, but they are keeping a gun to the head of the other, while reserving the right to kidnap the first one again in a few weeks," an aide to Senate leadership told HuffPost on background, because the House's formal legislation has yet to be released.
It remains unclear if the Senate would go along with a short-term bill. Democrats introduced a measure in the upper chamber that would extend the debt limit for more than a year.
Ahead of a Thursday afternoon meeting between two-dozen Republicans and the White House, one Republican agreed that all the proposal does is essentially move the goal posts.
"We haven't changed our position, only the timeline," said Rep. John Fleming (R-La.). "There won't be a vote on a temporary extension of the debt limit unless the president agrees this afternoon to sit down and talk with us."
Yet even GOP reaction to the House plan seemed mixed coming out of the Republicans' closed-door meeting Thursday morning. After leaders presented the plan to members, many echoed Boehner in saying it was a show of good faith to the White House. But hard-line conservatives like Iowa Rep. Steve King said he was not "enthusiastic" about the deal, and others said they would only back the bill if the president pledges to begin negotiations on broader fiscal issues.
Although a half-dozen lawmakers leaving the meeting said the House's proposed debt-ceiling hike has no riders, The Wall Street Journal reported there was one possible wrinkle that would permanently ban the sorts of "extraordinary measures" that Treasury secretaries have long used to keep bills paid during debt limit debates.
The United States actually began brushing up against the debt limit in May, and since then the Treasury has essentially been borrowing from itself and raising pension funds to meet obligations. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) said that while he thought the House bill was "clean," he was concerned about how it deals with the measures Treasury has already taken. A six-week measure would add about $90 billion to the debt, but undoing all the steps taken going back to May could make the tab more like $300 billion, he said. "If it says a date certain [six weeks], how do you take into account reimbursement of the federal government and our creditors for the extraordinary measures that the Treasury Department has been using since May?" he said.
With Carney repeating the position that the president will not negotiate on opening the government, it seemed unlikely that the White House meeting would prove fruitful.
However, if Boehner's offer of a conference committee comes through, negotiations with the White House might not be required. Congress has the ability to work out its differences on its own through such a committee, with members from both chambers sitting down to craft a spending plan, as they have so far failed to do.TAMPA, Fla. -- One day after losing pass rusher Jacquies Smith for the season, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers signed running back Jacquizz Rodgers to a one-year deal.
The move reunites him with Dirk Koetter and Mike Smith, his former offensive coordinator and head coach, respectively, with the Atlanta Falcons.
The Bucs were down to two running backs last week after Mike James was placed on injured reserve. Rodgers, 26, who was among the Bears' final roster cuts, worked out for the team last Tuesday. Rather than sign him and be on the hook for possible veteran termination pay, the team opted to promote Peyton Barber from the practice squad.
Per the NFL's Collective Bargaining Agreement, players with four or more credited seasons who are on NFL rosters in Week 1 of the regular season and subsequently released, are allowed to collect one-time termination pay. If a veteran player is on an NFL roster after the season opener, he is still entitled to those payments but at a reduced rate.
Rodgers played in Koetter's offense from 2012-14, and provides the Bucs a change-of-pace option for the team's primary running back, Doug Martin, and the sure-handed, pass-catching back, Charles Sims.
Last season with the Bears, he saw action in just five games, suffering a broken arm in Week 5 against the Kansas City Chiefs. His best seasons came in 2012-13 with Atlanta, where he recorded 764 and 673 yards from scrimmage, respectively, and six touchdowns altogether.
In addition to being a change-of-pace back for the Bucs, he can return kicks. From 2012-13, he had 48 kickoff returns for 1,167 yards, averaging 24.3 yards per return. Against the Falcons in Week 1, the Bucs had Adam Humphries lining up for both punt and kickoff returns, and newly-signed wide receiver Cecil Shorts III is expected to work in there as well.In a letter sent to Cruz and Lee today, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association CEO Scott Serota warns that the proposal is “unworkable as it would undermine pre-existing condition protections, increase premiums and destabilize the market.” | Getty Insurers condemn Cruz-Lee plan to loosen insurance rules
Health insurers are blasting an effort by conservatives to modify the Senate Obamacare repeal bill and set up a two-tier market in which companies could sell plans that don’t meet Obamacare’s coverage requirements.
Their big concern, according to documents obtained by POLITICO: The plan by Ted Cruz and Mike Lee would threaten access to coverage for individuals with costly medical conditions.
Story Continued Below
In a letter sent to Cruz and Lee today, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association CEO Scott Serota warns that the proposal is “unworkable as it would undermine pre-existing condition protections, increase premiums and destabilize the market.”
America’s Health Insurance Plans additionally is circulating a memo that raises similar concerns about the individual insurance market.
“Unfortunately, this proposal would fracture and segment insurance markets into separate risk pools and create an un-level playing field that would lead to widespread adverse selection and unstable health insurance markets,” reads the AHIP memo.
Cruz and Lee are pushing the amendment as a way to increase consumer choice and bring down premiums in the individual market. But the pointed criticism by insurers is likely to embolden Senate moderates who are wary of any plan that might jeopardize access to coverage for individuals with costly medical needs.
POLITICO Pulse newsletter Get the latest on the health care fight, every weekday morning — in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Insurers have until now taken a nuanced stance on the GOP's Obamacare repeal efforts. They’ve praised Republicans for including provisions designed to stabilize the individual market in the near term, but they’ve also criticized the roughly $800 billion in cuts to Medicaid included in the House and Senate bills.
AHIP CEO Marilyn Tavenner had an hour-long meeting in the office of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell the day before the Senate’s draft repeal plan was released last month. The hostility of insurers to the Cruz-Lee amendment is likely to cause further headaches for the Senate’s stalled effort to pass a repeal package.How It's Calculated
The following list indicates the weighting of the relevant variables that led to the rankings of states on this website. For more on these weightings, see the book Freedom in the Fifty States which may be downloaded here. You can also apply your own weights to these variables here.
Dimension Category Policy Variable Fiscal Policy: 30.4% State Taxation: 11.6% Local Taxation: 8.8% Government consumption and investment: 8.2% Government employment: 2% Government debt: 0.3% Cash and security assets: 0.2% Regulatory Policy: 34.0% Land Use Freedom: 11.1% Local rent control: 5.3%
"Land-use" court mentions: 3.2%
Wharton Residential Land Use Regulatory Index: 1.6%
Renewable portfolio standards: 0.7%
Regulatory taking compensation: 0.2%
Eminent domain reform index: 0.2%
Parking lot gun mandate: 0.01%
Mandated free speech on private property: <0.01% Health insurance freedom: 8.8% Community rating: small groups: 2.4%
Individual health insurance mandate: 2.3%
Health insurance mandates index: 2.2%
Individual guaranteed issue: 0.6%
Small-group rate review: 0.5%
Community rating: individuals: 0.4%
Mandated direct access to specialists: 0.3%
Individual rate review: 0.1%
Standing referrals mandated: 0.03%
Individual policies: elimination riders banned: 0.02%
Mandated external grievance review: 0.02%
Financial incentives to providers banned: 0.01%
Labor-market freedom: 4.9% General right-to-work law: 2.5%
Short-term disability insurance: 0.9%
Noncompete agreements permitted: 0.8%
Minimum wage: 0.6%
Workers’ compensation funding regulations: 0.5%
Workers’ compensation coverage regulations: 0.2%
Employer verification of legal status: 0.1%
Employee anti-discrimination law: 0.01%
Paid family leave: <0.01% Lawsuit freedom: 3.3% Occupational freedom: 2.6% Nurse practitioner independence index: 0.8%
Employment-weighted licensure: 0.8%
Regulatory keywords in statutes: 0.8%
Dental hygienist scope of practice: 0.1%
Sunrise commissions: 0.06%
Physician assistant prescribing authority: 0.04%
Nurse Licensure Compact membership: 0.03%
Sunset review: 0.02%
Miscellaneous regulatory freedom: 2.4% Certificate of need for hospitals: 0.8%
Rate filing requirements: personal auto insurance: 0.4%
Rate filing requirements: homeowner’s insurance: 0.3%
Anti-price-gouging laws: 0.2%
General sales-below-cost laws: 0.2%
Rate classification prohibitions: 0.2%
Interstate Insurance Product Regulation Compact: 0.1%
Sales-below-cost law for gasoline: 0.1%
Direct auto sales: 0.1%
Moving company entry regulation: 0.02%
Mandatory labeling law: 0.01%
Cable and telecommunications: 0.9% Telecom deregulation: 0.6%
Statewide cable franchising: 0.3% Personal freedom: 34.1% Incarceration and arrests: 8.2% Crime-adjusted incarceration rate: 4.9%
Drug enforcement rate: 2%
Arrests for nondrug victimless crimes, % of population: 0.6%
Arrests for nondrug victimless crimes, % of all arrests: 0.6%
Driver’s license suspensions for drug offenses: 0.04%
Prison collect phone call rate: 0.01%
Guns: 4.5% Concealed-carry index: 2.2%
Initial permit cost: 0.5%
Local gun ban: 0.4%
Firearms licensing index: 0.3%
Waiting period for purchases: 0.3%
Initial permit term: 0.2%
Open-carry index: 0.1%
Training or testing requirement: 0.1%
Stricter minimum age: 0.1%
Assault weapons ban: 0.05%
No duty to retreat: 0.04%
Dealer licensing: 0.02%
Built-in locking devices: 0.02%
Restrictions on multiple purchases: 0.02%
Background checks for private sales: 0.02%
Registration of firearms: 0.01%
Design safety standards: 0.01%
Machine guns: 0.01%
Ballistic identification: 0.01%
Retention of sales records: 0.01%
arge-capacity magazine bans: <0.01%
Sound suppressor: <0.01%
Short-barreled shotguns: <0.01%
Short-barreled rifles: <0.01%
.50 caliber ban: <0.01% Gambling: 3.8% Casino and racino wins: 2.4%
Slot/video games outside casinos: 1.3%
Pari-mutuel wagering: 0.03%
Aggravated gambling felony: 0.02% Social gambling allowed: 0.02%
Charitable gambling: 0.01%
Express prohibition on internet gambling: <0.01% Marriage: 3.4% Same-sex partnerships laws: 2%
Super-DOMAs: 0.8%
Sodomy laws: 0.3%
Cousin marriage: 0.2%
Covenant marriage: 0.1%
Blood test required: 0.01%
Total waiting period: 0.01%
Education: 2.8% Tax credit/deduction law for scholarships/expenses: 1%
Publicly funded voucher law: 0.6%
Mandatory licensure, private school teachers: 0.5%
Mandatory state approval, private schools: 0.2%
Compulsory schooling years: 0.2%
Private school curriculum control: 0.1%
Public school choice: 0.1%
Curriculum control, homeschools: 0.04%
Record-keeping requirements, homeschools: 0.03%
Standardized testing requirements, homeschools: 0.03%
Notification requirements, homeschools: 0.02%
Teacher qualifications, homeschools: 0.01%
Mandatory registration, private schools: <0.01%
Homeschool statute: <0.01% Alcohol: 2.6% Alcohol distribution control: 0.9%
Off-premises sales in grocery stores: 0.4%
Blue law index: 0.4%
Spirits taxes: 0.3%
Wine taxes: 0.2%
Beer taxes: 0.2%
Direct wine shipment ban: 0.2%
Keg regulations/ban: 0.1%
Happy hour ban: 0.02%
Mandatory server training: <0.01% Asset forfeiture: 2.6% State asset forfeiture law, aggregate score: 1.3%
Moving average of equitable sharing revenue: 1.3% Marijuana: 2% Medical marijuana index: 0.8%
Possession decriminalization/legalization: 0.5%
Maximum marijuana penalty: 0.2%
Marijuana misdemeanor index: 0.1%
Sales legalization: 0.1%
Mandatory minimums: 0.1%
Salvia ban: 0.1% Tobacco 1.8% Cigarette tax: 1.3%
Minimum legal sale age 21: 0.7% Smoking ban, bars: 0.2%
Internet purchase regulations: 0.05%
Smoking ban, private workplaces: 0.03%
Smoking ban, restaurants: 0.02%
Vending machine regulations: 0.02% Mala prohibita and civil liberties: 1.2% Affirmative action ban: 0.7%
Prostitution legal: 0.2%
Trans-fat bans: 0.1%
Mixed martial arts legal: 0.1%
Fireworks laws: 0.04%
Equal rights amendment: 0.03%
Physician-assisted suicide legal: 0.03%
DNA database index: 0.01%
Religious Freedom Restoration Act: 0.01% Travel freedom: 1.1% Automated license plate readers: 0.3%
Driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants: 0.3%
Seat belt laws: 0.1%
Fingerprint for driver’s license: 0.1%
Sobriety checkpoints: 0.1%
Motorcycle helmet law: 0.1%
Uninsured/underinsured coverage mandate: 0.1%
Handheld cell phone ban: 0.01% Campaign finance: 0.1% Individual contributions to candidates: 0.03%
Individual contributions to parties: 0.02%
Grassroots political action committee contributions to candidates: 0.01%
Grassroots political action committee contributions to parties: 0.01%
Public financing: <0.01%
Note: Because of rounding, percentages listed do not sum to exactly 100. Because of how we weight the local taxation variable, the weights for the fiscal policy dimension range from 29.5 (New Jersey) to 32.0 (Hawaii). For more on this, see “Local Taxation” under “Fiscal Policy” in the first chapter.Propaganda against KSA
Linda S. Heard
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point-of-view
There was a time when the prime role of television news was to report hard facts leaving viewers to form their own opinions. Today, every reporter, anchor, professor, activist and member of an obscure think tank are political, geopolitical and strategic pundits. Moreover, almost every network has
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Christianity.It’s True: Crystal Pepsi Is Coming Back For All Those People Who Forgot They Hated It The First Time Around
For better or worse (mostly worse), I’ve always been a big fan of soda, so when I was a senior in high school in Florida in the early ’90s, I was over the moon that my area would get to try Crystal Pepsi before some other parts of the country. Then I tasted the underwhelming clear cola for myself. Now, more than 20 years later, Pepsi gets to introduce a new generation of cola lovers to that same unique disappointment, with a limited time re-release of Crystal Pepsi that we’re pretty sure the world could have done without.
In a press release apparently written by someone who either has no memory of the 1990s or doesn’t understand what “iconic” means, PepsiCo says that “overwhelming fan demand” has given the company no other choice but to fill a few bottles with the “iconic 90s [sic] clear beverage.”
Um, Crystal Pepsi was barely around for a year, and its reputation is primarily that of an overhyped failure, so dubbing the drink “iconic” is like calling Cop Rock an iconic piece of TV history, or saying Ryan Leaf is a football icon. We guess “infamous” or “frequently mocked” doesn’t read as well in a press release.
Regardless, those who genuinely think they have fond memories of Crystal Pepsi can join those who will purchase it ironically in clamoring for the stuff when 20 oz. bottles hit store shelves July 7, with a scheduled end date of Aug. 8.
Who knows, maybe I’m just old and bitter and completely wrong. Maybe we’re actually standing on the precipice of a clear cola boom — a true Crystal Pepsi generation. Or maybe there will be lots of half-finished bottles of Crystal Pepsi filling up recycling bins in the hot summer sun.Mike Schleibaum of Darkest Hour is our guest this week; Axl and Vince try to figure out who got in trouble with the law on the Mayhem tour, how the transition to a new label came to pass and whether or not using electronic gear to change their tuning is cheating or totally legit. Vince also stuck around to give us his two cents about the band no one can seem to ignore, Babymetal, citing his recent trip to Japan to try to put them in perspective that many may not entirely grasp.
Chuck and Godless also rehash the topic of merch and how your band needs to do it better, with prime examples from a recent tour stop with Scale the Summit.
Stream this week’s episode below. Remember to subscribe to the MetalSucks Podcast on iTunes, subscribe to our direct feed or download this episode directly.
Songs:
Darkest Hour – “Infinite Eyes”
The Haunted – “Time (Will Not Heal)”Most likely, you’re at least passingly familiar with the fact that Rolex made a practice of selling watches to British officers held in German POW camps during World War II, with payment not expected until after the war’s conclusion. The Brits were singled out as it was generally believed that their word was bond, and Hans Wilsdorf had a soft spot for England, as he had originally started up his business there.
In this day and age, the practice of selling a watch now and asking for payment at some undisclosed time in the future (and relying on the watches owner to remain true to the bargain) seems like a far-fetched ideal. Yet it was a practice that worked – a great many servicemen came home from the war sporting Swiss timepiece (while other brands weren’t quite as generous in their offers as Rolex, they did indeed work to cash in on the literally-captive audience).
Let’s get back to the specific Rolex at hand, a Rolex Oyster that was purchased by a Clive James Nutting, Corporal in the Royal Corps of Signals, who was a prisoner in Stalag Luft III from 1939 to 1945. With the help of Alan Downing, a fuller picture has been painted of some of the things that Nutting went through at the camp (including pictures from his diary), as well as correspondence between Nutting and Hans Wilsforf. While this is centered around an Antiquorum Geneva auction that happened in 2007, the story is a great illumination of how things worked to get these Rolex watches into the hands of POWs. Head on over to TimeZone for parts one and two.
AdvertisementsLolita by Vladimir Nabokov
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Still dazed by the stupor of melancholy and perversion that Humbert Humbert has exposed my poor brain to. Still trying to make sense of the monster/poet/victim and of Lolita, the symbol of our age. Who exploited whom, who were the villains and who were to be punished, these thoughts are still swirling in my head; desperately trying to ascribe meaning beyond the mere acts of the novel, to read into the disparities between nature and actions. A see-saw of poetry and debauchery. I also wonder how much I missed out on due to my handicap of not knowing french.
The primary effect of this beauty and poetry is that we keep geting charmed by this old-world, aristocratic protagonist who can talk in such a poetic way and then he gently turns around and reminds us of what he is contemplating doing to that young girl and we draw back in revulsion again, only to be ensnared in his honeyed prose a few lines later. And so it goes, tiring you out and enchanting you.
So, a review will come as soon as I can reconcile the beauty of the novel with its deep, dark underbelly and some meaning that is not merely moral emerges.
That might take many readings and I am not sure that is something I am willing to put myself through. But a review, however small, helps clarify the book in my head and, for that I will try.
Another thing I want to make sense of is this – Nabokov’s account of the old newspaper story that inspired him to start a work such as Lolita presented in the novel’s afterword “On a Book Entitled Lolita” – The story was about “an ape in the Jardin des Plantes, who after months of coaxing by the scientists, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: the sketch showed the bars of the poor creature’s cage.” – Isn’t that just surreal? The connection with Humbert is right there at the edge of my imagination, in his own prison maybe and maybe in the prison that was his life’s lust. I don’t now, but what pleasure to ponder.
One thing I can confidently say even with my shock at the rest of the novel is that the opening paragraph is perhaps the most beautiful and alluring one I have ever read – It draws you into this perverse universe where every dark secret thought is open to scrutiny like some succubi, a beautiful mermaid or Lamia who lures you only to crucify you. The mind thrills and the eyes laze over the paragraph and you are aglow in the ecstasy the rest of the book seems to promise, thinking of the beauty that is waiting for you in those pages, the plays of language, the thrill of appreciating such wonder and you are happy that this book, Lolita, that you have heard so much about is going to be a delight. But of course, the book is just like a nymph as described in it, it tantalizes with ethereal beauty only to expose our world to the harsh reality of man’s nature – at least I think so. The book is the real Lolita not any character in it.
View all my reviews
Related articlesDiego Valeri's moment of individual brilliance is the clear-cut winner.
Valeri's cultured finish in the Portland Timbers' 3-3 draw with the New York Red Bulls won the Goal of the Week award for Week 1 – and it wasn't even close. The Timbers Designated Player's clinical strike, his first in MLS, earned 52 percent of the vote, beating Davy Arnaud's lob for the Montreal Impact by a full 35 percent.
Valeri found the back of the net against the Red Bulls in a swift motion, receiving a pass before flicking it up to himself and placing a shot just inside the far post with the outside of his boot.
CLICK HERE for all of this year's winners.
Final Vote Tally (online poll and text vote):
1. Diego Valeri (POR), 52%
2. Davy Arnuad (MTL), 17%
3. Álvaro Saborío (RSL), 14%
4. Federico Higuaín (CLB), 9%
5. Gershon Koffie (VAN), 8%The results of the drive to cleanse the world of pre-Islamic history
War has always been hard on ancient treasures and sites. In the 14th century Muhammad Sa’im al-Dahr destroyed the nose of sphinx because he was outraged that people were making offerings to it. (No, Napoleon didn’t order it shot off by cannon fire.) During World War II, American bombers dropped 1400 tons of bombs on Monte Casino, the place where St. Benedict built a monastery and established the Benedictine Order in the 6th century. It was rebuilt after the war and reconsecrated by Pope Paul VI in 1964.
In the post-9/11 era, the Middle East has seen an accelerating destruction of its vast and precious cultural heritage. Some of this is done by both ordinary people and criminal gangs searching for items to sell. The illegal trade in antiquities is a vast international operation worth millions, although very little of that money trickles down to the poor Syrian digging holes for buried items to help feed his family. Most striking of all is the deliberate cleansing of pre-Islamic history at the hands of ISIS, which looks to emulate Mohammed by striking at idolatry wherever they find it. Their religious fervor does not, however, prevent them from also selling these same idols to help fuel their fight.
1. Bamiyan Buddhas, Afghanistan
The new era of archaeological annihilation was inaugurated on March 2, 2001, when the Taliban carefully planted dynamite around two 6th century statues of the Buddha carved into the sandstone cliffs of the Bamiyan Valley in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan. One statue was about 175 feet tall, while the other was 115 feet tall, making them the largest standing statues of the Buddha in the world. They had had been attacked and damaged for hundreds of years, but the Taliban’s action, done on the orders of Mullah Mohammed Omar, finished the job quite thoroughly thanks to modern explosives. All that remains are the niches where they once stood.
2. Mosul Museum (Iraq)
The museum of Mosel, the second largest in Iraq, has not had an easy time of it since the Second Gulf War. It was heavily looted during the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, and after a long and arduous process of reconstruction and recovery of the collection, it was preparing to open again in 2014. That was the same time ISIS arrived in Mosul. Museum staff worked quickly and were able to move some 1600 artifacts to the National Museum in Baghdad. That left about 300 items still in Mosul, and ISIS decided to take hammer and jackhammer to these and record their actions for posterity. Assyrian relics and monuments are particularly loathed by ISIS because these represent pre-Islamic “idolatry” that Mohammed himself inveighed against. One slightly hopeful note in this entire mess: some of the statues being destroyed by ISIS in the video are obviously made of plaster, meaning they are copies of items held by other museums. That would make sense since so many original pieces were already moved to Baghdad: they didn’t bother trying to save copies. ISIS also torched a library archive full of ancient manuscripts and books.
3. Nimrud (Iraq)
South of Mosul were the remains of Nimrud, a city built in the 13th century BC by Assyrian king Shalmaneser I, and used as a capital by Ashurnasirpal II 300 years later. Excavations begun in the 19th century recovered countless bas reliefs, colossal figures, statues, and other priceless artifacts and remains of buildings. The discoveries filled in vital gaps in history and language, and expanded our understanding of Biblical stories. After hammering apart statues at the Mosul Museum, ISIS did the same to Nimrod, adding bulldozers and explosives to their efforts and releasing heartbreaking video of three millennia of history vanishing.
4. Dur-Sharrukin (Khorsabad, Iraq)
This capital city of Assyrian king Sargon II was build around 700 BC to replace Nimrud. It didn’t remain the capital for long, but did leave behind several monumental treasures and countless artifacts. The city walls were 80 feet thick, with seven huge gates. The exact extent of the damage wrought by ISIS early in 2015 is still unknown, but Iraqi antiquity authorities say the site has been widely looted and the remains of the ancient walls demolished.
5. Hatra (Iraq)
South of Mosul, Hatra was founded by the 2nd century by the Seleucids, one of the Hellenistic dynasties that succeeded Alexander the Great. (They’re most famous to Jews and Catholics as the enemy in the Book of Maccabees.) It fell to the Parthians several centuries later and the remains provided excellent examples of Parthian and Greek architecture and artifacts. The contemporary ruins were quite spectacular, particularly since Saddam Hussein poured millions into restoration. Film fans might have recognized some of the locations from the opening scenes of The Exorcist. The site was used and preserved by both Christians and Muslims, until ISIS turned their picks and hammers on it in Spring 2015. ISIS video shows them demolishing beautiful carved faces, and even shooting them to pieces. Some of these appear to be plaster restorations, while others are genuine.
6. Nineveh (Mosul, Iraq)
One of the most ancient settled places in the world, Nineveh has been occupied for at least 8000 years, and rose to be a major religious and political center until waves of war and sackings took their toll. As the Neo-Assyrian empire declined, this magnificent city—the largest in the world at one time—was left vulnerable and attacks led it to be mostly abandoned in 612 BC. The city appears several times in the Bible, particularly in the Book of Jonah. Many of Nineveh’s artifacts were in the Mosul Museum, but the massive walls and gates, some of them meticulously excavated and reconstructed over decades, were too tempting a target for ISIS to ignore. The extent of the damage is uncertain, but the face of the right lamassu (a protective figure with a man’s face, animal body, and wings) at the Nergal Gate is shown having its face chiseled off in photos released by ISIS. At least one other the lamassu at Nineveh was shown being destroyed, so there’s little hope that any of these offending “idols” escaped unscathed.
7. Mosque of the Prophet Yunus (Tomb of Jonah, Mosul, Iraq)
There are several places that claim to be the tomb of the Prophet Jonah. One them was in Nineveh, the place that figured so centrally in his life. The site on a mound near the walls had a long history as a shrine, first Christian, then Muslim. A mosque replaced the church there, and a tomb said to hold the remains of the prophet was inside the mosque. It was the most important holy site in the area, and was revered by Muslims. ISIS allegedly desecrated the tomb before blowing up the entire mosque. This puzzled some westerners, but it fits in with the radical iconoclasticism of ISIS, who claim the location was not place of prayer, but of “apostasy.” Among the other Mosul mosques and shrines destroyed are The Mosque of the Prophet Jerjis (Saint George), tomb shrines for the biblical figures Seth (Adam and Eve’s third son) and the Prophet Daniel, the Mashad Yahya Abul Kassem shrine, and Hamou Qado Mosque. Whether or not Seth or Daniel or St. George actually were buried in these tombs is of secondary interest, since the sites themselves had ancient traditions and architecture.
8. Mar Behnam Monastery (Beth Khdeda, Iraq)
In the 4th century, the children of a minor king named Sinharib, who ruled Nineveh at the time, found a holy man named Mattai in a cave. The boy was named Behnam and the girl Sarah, and Mattai taught them about Christianity. Behnam said if Mattai could heal Sarah’s leprosy, they would convert. After the miracle was accomplished, many of the king’s party followed his children to the faith. This angered him, so he had Benham and Sarah put to death. Sinharib later repented and converted, and the tombs of his children became a locus of miracles. A monastery rose at the site, and was run by Syriac Catholics and others until ISIS arrived in 2015, stripped the crosses from the monastery, and cast out the monks. In March 2015 they blew up the tombs and other parts of the site.
The summer of 2015 brought a parade of horrors from beautiful Palmyra, the jewel of ancient Syria with its deep history and well-preserved ruins. The nightmare began by exacting a terrible human toll: leading Syrian archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad was tortured and beheaded by ISIS. al-Asaad had worked to explore and preserve Palmyra for 40 years. Reports vary as to whether the 82-year-old was killed for collaboration and idolatry (including appearances at archaeology conferences with infidels), or because he refused to disclose the location of treasure, which ISIS imagined he was hiding somewhere in the ruins.
9. Temple of Baalshamin (Palmyra, Syria)
An orgy of destruction followed the murder of al-Asaad. ISIS laced the Temple of Baalshamin with high explosives and then blew it into rubble in August of 2015. The temple was completed in 32 AD, and dedicated to an important Canaanite sky god. It was converted into a church in the 5th century and a mosque in the 12th century. It was uncovered in the 1950s and excavation, study, and restoration had been ongoing. The site was notable for its striking colonnades and its mixture of Roman, Syrian, and Egyptian architectural elements. Its destruction has been called a war crime by UNESCO.
10. Temple of Bel (Palmyra, Syria)
ISIS moved on from Baalshamin to a temple dedicated to the other supreme god of the Canaanites, Bel. Bel (sometimes Baal) simply means Lord, but was used for a major Mesopotamian god who was at the heart of Palmyran religious life. As with the Temple of Baalshamin, the Temple of Bel was a strikingly well-preserved fusion of Roman and Eastern architecture. The site was used for worship at least 3000 years ago, but the temple itself dates to around the same period as Baalshamin. It, too, retained beautiful columns, as well as an altar, statuary niches, an astrological bas relief, and a ramp for leading sacrificial animals. Initial reports and satellite images seem to indicate that it had been destroyed in the same way as Baalshamin, but some eyewitnesses are saying ISIS was unable to knock down the walls.
11. The Lion of Al-lāt (Palmyra, Syria)
Before they started bringing out the big explosives, ISIS warmed up by hammering the Lion of Al-lat apart. The lion had stood outside the Temple to Al-Lat, and dated from some time in the 1st Century. It was found in pieces by archaeologist in 1977, its stones having been reused to build a temple. The pieces were recovered and reassembled with new stone filling in that gaps. It was a lovely piece depicting Al-Lat with a gazelle between his forelegs to symbolize his protection of the innocent. ISIS destroyed it in July of 2015.
12. Mar Elian Church and Monastery (Homs, Syria)
St. Elian had refused to apostatize and was killed by his father in the 3rd century. The church and monastery of St. Elian grew up beginning in the 5th century around the site of the saint’s martyrdom. Fr. Jacques Mouraud, the abbot of St. Elian, was kidnapped in the area on May 21 and is still missing. He had worked since 1991 to rebuild and restore the site. In August, ISIS brought in the heavy machinery, knocked down the walls, and desecrated the tomb of St. Elian.
And The List Could Go On
The destruction of ancient treasures of the Middle East seems to be endless, and we could fill another list with things preserved for millennia only to be lost in seconds. Not all of it was at the hands of ISIS. The Baghdad Museum, Tell Umm al-Aqarib, and other sites were looted in the wake of the US invasion of Iraq. El Hibeh and Antinoupolis were looted following the Egyptian revolution. Apamea, Mari, and Dura-Europo were looted during the Syrian civil war, sometimes by gangs, sometimes by ISIS.
But, by far, most of the destruction is being wrought in the name of a radical attempt to erase the pre-Islamic history of the region. We can expect much more of this as desperation, instability, and zealotry lead people to pillage and destroy the past in an effort to control the future.
Thomas L. McDonald blogs about history, faith, and technology at GodandtheMachine.com.Matt Haxmeier Member
Profile: Join Date: May 2009 Location: Arvada CO Posts: 1,619
Re: Pushups... They do seem much slower than the normal. We've started working them into some workouts. I wouldn't work them in to something like Angie or Barbara because I'd rather use those as benchmarks and do whatever I did last time and/or what others are doing for comparisons. I tried them on an unpartitioned Murph one day and they were so ridicuously slow with that kind of volume that I lost all steam. It made 200 pushups take as long as the first mile and 100 pullups combined.
To me 100 pushups lifting hands at the bottom makes it a significantly different movement. I wouldn't start using it for everything the same way I wouldn't say all pushups need to be done on the rings now. It seems like the training adaptation should be considered more than just the strictest movement.NBC
Continuamos con la presentación de las nuevas producciones que veremos para la temporada 2012/13. Ahora es el turno de hacer un breve recuento por las series de televisión de la cadena de NBC.
Go On
Robert Trachtenberg/NBC
Mathew Perry regresa a la pantalla grande para interpretar a Ryan King, un hombre sumergido en la miseria después de perder a su esposa en un accidente de coche. Al cabo de unos meses y tras superar los estragos del duelo, Ryan está listo para regresar al trabajo en la radio, no sin antes ingresar a un grupo de apoyo que le permita retornar en óptimas condiciones.
Es así que Ryan se involucrará en un grupo de terapia muy inusual, donde conocerá nuevos amigos y vivirá las situaciones más ocurrentes y divertidas. El reparto de elenco está conformado por Tony Laura Benanti, Julie White, Suzy Nakamura, Payton Khary y Allison Miller.
The New Normal
Timothy White/NBC
Una nueva comedia familiar que nos cuenta las mil y un aventuras de Bryan (Rannells Andrew) y David (Justin Bartha), una pareja gay que vive en Beverly Hills. La vida de ambos no puede ser mejor, con una carrera exitosa y un vínculo sentimental muy contrito. Sin embargo, el deseo más grande es poder tener un bebé.
Un buen día llegará Goldie (Georgia King), una joven madre soltera que se desempeña como camarera del Medio Oriente. Cansada de su mala fortuna, Goldie viajará hasta Los Angeles en compañía de su menor hija de 8 años sin pensar que podría convertirse en la madre de alquiler que Bryan y David estaban buscando.
Animal Practice
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Conoce al Dr. George Coleman (Justin Kirk), un exitoso veterinario que vive en la ciudad de Nueva York y se ha hecho famoso debido a sus métodos pocos ortodoxos para curar animales de todo tipo, valiéndose a veces de ellos para servirse un capuchino o hacer trampas en el póker. Todo una joyita de doctor.
Animal Practice cuenta con un reparto de actores conformado por Tyler Labine, Bobby Lee y Betsy Sodaro.
Guys with Kids
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Jimy Fallon es el responsable de esta nueva comedia que nos narra la vida de un grupo de padres que a pesar de tener 30 años todavía se aferran a la juventud al mismo tiempo que crían a sus pequeños bebés.
Chris (Jesse Bradford), Nick (Zach Cregger) y Gary (Anthony Anderson) se convertirán en un trío de padres modernos, sobreviviendo a los estragos de la madurez y aventurándose a las situaciones más inusuales y alocadas.
Save Me
Robert Trachtenberg/NBC
En los suburbios del Medio Oeste se respira un hábitat tranquilo y pacífico, sin embargo, el día menos pensado Beth (Anne Heche) sufrirá una experiencia cercana a la muerte al asfixiarse con un sándwich. Este acontecimiento provocará que Beth tenga un extraño encuentro con Dios hasta el punto de comunicarse con él las veces que sea necesario.
En desacuerdo y con una clara evidencia de escepticismo, el esposo de Beth, Tom (Michael Landes), se verá sorprendido cuando una serie de hechos inexplicables empiecen a ocurrir como arte de magia. Es así como las profecías de Beth aplicarán un nuevo régimen de vida doctrinal.
1600 Penn
Chris Haston/NBC
Los Gilchrist son una familia americana común y corriente, envueltos en una serie de problemas y dificultades que toda familia acostumbra enfrentar diariamente. La única diferencia es que viven nada menos que en La Casa Blanca.
Con un reparto de actores como Jenna Elfman, Josh Gad, Bill Pullman, Martha MacIsaac, Andre Holland, Amara Miller y Benjamin Stockham, Los Gilchrist llegarán a la pantalla chica para competir directamente con la comedia de ABC: Modern Family.
Next Caller
Paul Drinkwater/NBC
Un DJ de radio poco atinado se verá en la obligación de compartir el micrófono con una locutora feminista llamada Stella Hoobler, que hará hasta lo imposible para arruinar su vida. La nueva comedia de Marc Buckland y Stephen Falk ha reunido a un elenco de actores conformado por Collette Wolfe, Jeffrey Tambor, Joy Osmanski y Wole Parques.
Revolution
Nino Munoz/NBC
Esta producción original nace de la imaginación de JJ Abrams, Eric Kripke y Jon Favreau. La historia nos sitúa en medio de una sociedad apocalíptica que sufrió considerables pérdidas con la desaparición de la energía eléctrica, lo que provocó la necesidad de volver a la vida precaria y recurrir a un ritmo completamente alejado de la tecnología.
Esta sorprendente producción promete convertirse en el próximo éxito de televisión, especialmente si tenemos en cuenta a las estrellas que se unirán al reparto de actores: Billy Burke, Tracy Spiridakos, Anna Lise Phillips, Zak Orth, Graham Rogers, Giancarlo Esposito, David Lyons, María Howell, Tim Guinee y Andrea Roth.
Chicago Fire
Sandro/NBC
La vida de los bomberos es realmente estresantes, no sólo porque deben cubrir más de una emergencia y salvar vidas, sino también por la valentía de hombres y mujeres que arriesgan su propia integridad por una buena causa.
Este es el caso de un grupo de bomberos interpretados por Jesse Spencer, Jesse Spencer, Eamonn Walker, Charlie Barnett, David Eigenberg, Monica Raymund, Teri Reeves y Merle Dandridge, quienes deberán burlar a la muerte cada vez que ocurra una emergencia de grandes proporciones.
Do No Harm
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El Dr. Jason Cole (Steven Pasquale) es un neurocirujano muy respetado que tiene todo lo necesario para ser feliz, excepto por un oscuro y profundo secreto que nadie más deberá descubrir. Un buen día Jason despertaré en medio de una habitación totalmente desorbitado y acompañado de varias mujeres semidesnudas que nunca había visto en su vida.
Grande será la sorpresa de Jason cuando descubra que este mismo suceso comienza a repetirse todas las noches a la misma hora y bajo las mismas condiciones. Poco tardará en descubrir que posee una extraña habilidad para transformarse en otro hombre y empeorar las cosas cada vez que cae la noche.
También participan otros actores como Alana De La Garza, Mousa Kraish, Michael Esper, Gedmintas Ruta y Phylicia Rashad.
Infamous
J.R. Mankoff/NBC
Cuando Vivian Bowers es encontrado muerto de una sobredosis, nadie está realmente sorprendido. La heredera del imperio Bowers había llevado una vida excesivamente salvaje y retorcida. Sin embargo, un agente del FBI (Laz Alonso) pondrá en tela de juicio la repentina muerte y se enfrentará a toda la dinastía Bowes.
Es así como se inicia esta profunda investigación por hallar al responsable del supuesto homicidio, elaborando un plan inteligente que se desarrollará bajo un excepcional trabajo policial.
Hannibal
Robert Trachtenberg/NBC
Una de las producciones más ambiciosas de CBS trae la adaptación literaria de Hannibal a la pantalla chica. Protagonizado por Pushing Daisies, el Dr Hannibal Lecter es un asesino en serie que está bajo el asecho de Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) un investigador que no parará hasta reunir las pruebas necesarias para inculpar a Hannibal. Así comienza una aventura sangrienta que implicará un mayor número de víctimas.Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA from South Delhi, Naresh Yadav, has been named in an FIR related to alleged desecration of the Quran in Punjab's Malerkotla.
Sangrur police booked him on Saturday after the alleged mastermind of the desecration, Vijay Kumar, claimed he committed the crime at the behest of Yadav and that he was offered Rs 1 crore for carrying out the act.
Vijay Kumar alleged he met Yadav in Delhi and was told to tear the pages of Quran and throw them near a drain on Khanna road in Malerkotla, a Muslim-dominated town in Punjab.
Kumar said the intention was to create communal tension in Punjab ahead of 2017 polls and instigate people on communal lines so that they vote for AAP.
Yadav has been booked under sections 109 and 153-A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which deal with abetment and causing enmity between two groups on grounds of religion.
Malerkotla remained tense on June 25, with miscreants burning vehicles and damaging property after torn pages of the Muslim holy book were found in a cemetery.
The development comes just three days ahead of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal trip to Punjab to launch AAP's poll campaign. Party spokesperson Sanjay Singh defended Yadav saying there were political motives behind the FIR.
"SAD-BJP can see their defeat clearly in the upcoming polls, so our MLA is being falsely implicated to defame AAP. It is political vendetta," Singh said.When I was little I had a life perspective that was innocent and pure and all good. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. You had it too. It was a wonderful way to be and to look at life and the world around. But as the years went by, that wonderful way of seeing things gradually faded. I’ve always wondered what happened to it, where did it go. To this day I still wish I could bring it back somehow, or that it would come back on its own. Now that I’m all grown up, with a life full of complexities, I can use that life perspective more than ever.
The years have passed and I’ve gotten older and, hopefully, wiser. Yet I have not been able to regain that innocence that once came so effortlessly. Why is it so hard to get it back now?
One day I was complaining to a friend about my age-related aches and pains and the migraine headaches that I have grown accustomed to accepting as a part of my life. He asked me if I had tried medical marijuana for these ailments. He told me how his health issues had been significantly alleviated since he started using pot. He also said that he is a better person now, because of his marijuana use, although I wasn’t sure what he meant by that.
I figured I had nothing to loose and everything to gain. It was legal in my state now so there was no good reason for me not to try it. I visited a neighborhood dispensary and came home with my bag of goodies. I was about to embark on my first marijuana smoking experience since college. I didn’t really know what I was doing so I made it a point to be alone, no sense in making a fool out of myself in front of others.
I didn’t feel much on the first inhale. But the second one was a different story. I felt a warm, gentle wave sweep over my entire body. At the same time, my mind became instantly focused, clear, uncluttered. It was as if the windows had just been wiped cleaned for the very first time ever.
And there it was. It was back! That life perspective I once had as a child was with me again. I was so happy about that! So happy in fact that I began to cry. They were tears of joy, like those of a loving parent when he sees a long-lost child.
A couple of hours passed and that full-on wonderful feeling mellowed out a bit, although it was still very much present. I was able to go about my daily routine. I worked from home as usual, and I was pleasantly surprised by how smooth my work went. I was much more productive and resourceful, and my usually dry outlet suddenly saw a burst of creative juices flow. Because my body was relaxed and my mind uncluttered, I was able to tackle new tasks and finish them quickly and efficiently. Oh, and my run of the mill aches and pains disappeared completely. I felt as though I had a new body where there once was an tired, old one. I felt young and refreshed. Was I revisiting the fountain of youth?
This will sound corny to some of you but my attitude towards the world and my fellow man changed while I was feeling the effects of the marijuana. I felt uplifted and inspired. I was now thinking more about what I could do for the world instead of what the world could do for me. The warm glow that I felt inside my body spewed outward, towards the world and all of its people.
I know what you’re thinking. I am SO getting a carried away describing my experience after using marijuana. Well, sorry, I certainly don’t mean to turn this into a cheesy, transcendental outburst, but that is exactly how my experience was. Mind you, everyone’s experience is different, although I have heard stories similar to mine many times.
Needless to say, I am still using medical marijuana in my daily routine. It is my only medicine. It is my prayer. It is my godsend. Because of medical marijuana use, I have much better days. I’ll even go as far as to say that I now have wonderful days. I am a much better person all around when I use medical marijuana. At the risk of sounding corny, I will go on the record to say that since using medical marijuana daily I am having a truly wonderful life.
And isn’t that what we all really want?
Oh, and getting back to that life perspective that I had when I was little. Well it’s certainly back now. It’s back every single day, even when I don’t take my medical marijuana. It’s always with me, day and night. And the best part is that I know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that it will be with me again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. It is truly going to be a great year!
Happy New Year everyone.
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TumblrA bill that’s headed toward becoming law in Indiana legalizes the production of industrial hemp.
Hemp is a plant that is likely best known for being related to marijuana but it doesn’t include hallucinogenic properties.
Hemp advocates say it could be an economic boon to the state, but there are still some roadblocks to hemp becoming a local commodity.
Why Tobacco Farmers Want To Grow Hemp
Bob Backus has grown tobacco most of his life. He grew up on a farm in Southeastern, Indiana, where both his father and grandfather were involved in tobacco production.
But growing tobacco is not as accepted as it was 60 years ago.
“There are obviously health implications with tobacco, I think most of us admit that. There is a certain amount of political correctness in many aspects of the world today,” he says.
The changing public opinion, combined with high labor costs and a changing global market, has put a dent in tobacco production.
Tobacco farmers in the U.S. made a combined $3 billion in the early 1990s. In 2012, they
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. So, has it carried over? This year, there’s been 46 games. Escobar’s led off every time. In those 46 games, 25 swings. That’s 54%. A higher number than last year, and the very highest number of anyone this year! Esky took what worked in the playoffs and has carried it over. Obviously, it’s nowhere near the 90% rate we saw in the postseason, but nobody would reasonably expect that, and it’s the second-largest increase of any leadoff hitter from last year to this one, and it’s coming from someone who was already pretty so extreme.
Question two: how’s it working? Let’s look at a couple basic metrics. Of Escobar’s 25 swings, 13 have earned him a first-pitch strike, by means of either a foul ball (11) or swinging strike (2). Of the 12 balls that Escobar’s put in play, he’s got hits on just three of them, all three being singles. In other words, his OPS, which should improve substantially on first-pitch swings, is more than 100 points worse than his already well below-average OPS. Broaden the sample to include all first-pitch swings — not just first-inning first-pitch swings — and that.500 OPS gets even worse. It’s a laughably small sample, of course — 30 balls in play when looking at all innings — but the whole point here is that Escobar really shouldn’t be leading off in the first place, but that it was difficult to argue with last year’s results (.841 OPS) when he swung at the first pitch. It’s very easy to argue with this year’s results.
So, last piece of the puzzle: the pitchers. The confusing part last year was that Escobar was clearly sitting first-pitch fastball, getting first-pitch fastballs, and hitting them. Escobar is a fastball hitter, and so it only made sense to give him less of those. Any change?
2015, all first pitches: 59% fastballs,
59% fastballs, 2016, all first pitches: 53% fastballs
53% fastballs 2015, first-inning first pitches: 90% fastballs
90% fastballs 2016, first-inning first pitches: 72% fastballs
The league has adjusted. Escobar’s 72% leadoff first-pitch fastball rate is the lowest of any hitter in baseball who’s led off at least 20 games this year.
Alcides Escobar is still a poor hitter, and he’s still leading off for a contending team. He’s still swinging at a ton of first pitches, except this year, those swings haven’t worked. They haven’t worked for Escobar, and they haven’t worked for the Royals. He’s still sitting first-pitch fastball, except this year, he’s not getting them. Alcides Escobar as a leadoff hitter never made much sense, but it was fun while it was working. It doesn’t seem so fun anymore.When Rick Perry, who has been the governor of Texas for over a decade, announced last week that he wouldn’t run again, he set off a flurry of speculation about who would replace him next year. Many floated the name of Wendy Davis, the Texas State Senator who claimed the spotlight with her 13-hour filibuster of a behemoth abortion bill, and who seems to have the best shot of becoming the first Democrat to hold statewide office in Texas since 1995. But a week after Perry withdrew his name from the race, it’s already more or less obvious who his successor will be: Greg Abbott, Texas’s longest-serving Attorney General—he first won the post in 2002—who is so clearly his party and Perry’s handpicked favorite that even his Republican opponent has taken to calling him “the anointed one.” Here’s what you need to know about the man who may soon be at the helm of America’s second-largest state.
Man of Steel
Abbott has built his narrative as a politician around the first thing people notice about him: He’s paraplegic, and uses a wheelchair. When Abbott was 26, he went out jogging and was crushed by a falling oak tree. He says he whiled away the months of his recovery by studying politics and politicians, deriving energy from his newfound ambition to be one of them. Today, Abbott, who also lost his father when he was a teen, calls himself a “fighter.” “Some politicians talk about having a steel spine. I actually have one. I will use my steel spine to fight for Texas values every single day,” he said when he launched his campaign for governor Sunday.
Though Abbott’s disability is a big part of his identity—friends say he cracks jokes about his accident, and used to go by “Wheels”—he has been accused of lacking sympathy for others in the same position. In 2003, he unsuccessfully fought the federal Americans with Disabilities Act in court, arguing a section that prohibited public entities from discriminating based on disability was unconstitutional. (Abbott said he was personally for the ADA, and was just doing his job by defending Texas.) This kind of hypocrisy has dogged Abbott in the past. As The Washington Post reports:CLOSE Rockland County Executive Ed Day announces that Rockland is taking legal action to recoup for damages caused by pharmaceutical companies that made and sold prescription opioids that contributed to the current opioid epidemic. Mark Vergari/lohud
Buy Photo Rockland County Executive Ed Day, right, delivers remarks during a press conference in New City, Aug. 1, 2017. At left are Tom Humbach, the county attorney and Micheal Leitzes, the Rockland Commissioner of Mental Health. (Photo: Mark Vergari/The Journal News)Buy Photo
NEW CITY - In an effort to recoup costs related to the opioid epidemic, Rockland County will engage a law firm to seek money from pharmaceutical companies that manufacture the narcotics, officials said Tuesday.
"We're holding all those responsible for this serious epidemic," County Executive Ed Day said at a news conference to announce the initiative. "We're up against the tide, holding on. The taxpayers have been shouldering the burden for this scourge."
County officials expect taxpayers to benefit from any award or settlement. While no taxpayer money will be expended, the county will put up a $100,000 contingency fee to get the contract approved under county law, officials said. A contract with the firm has been sent to the county Legislature for approval.
DRUG DEATHS surge in Westchester
VIDEO: Opioid and Heroin SURGE
PREVIOUS: Opioid deaths rising in Rockland
EDITORIAL: Opioid epidemic blossomed as state fumbled
Day said a significant body of evidence exists that drug makers use deceptive marketing of their brand-name opioids — which include OxyContin and Percocet — to entice people, including young patients, to use highly addictive painkillers.
Simmons Hanly Conroy would investigate the viability of suing the pharmaceutical companies. The law firm represents several New York counties, including Suffolk, Orange, Dutchess and Sullivan. Any Rockland litigation likely would be merged with a larger lawsuit involving other New York counties.
Day said 37 of 40 overdose deaths in 2016 in Rockland were from opioids. In 2017, 16 of 18 overdose deaths were due to opioids, he said, noting that police and emergency responders have saved 54 lives using the anti-opioid nasal spray Naloxone.
Day said a 2016 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that $78.5 billion is spent annually on the drug epidemic across the nation, with a quarter of that amount paid by government programs funded by taxpayers. He said Rockland taxpayers pay millions of dollars for drug-related policing and treatment.
County Mental Health Commissioner Michael Leitzes said more than 600 people were in drug-treatment programs over the past two years.
RESOLUTION: Rockland Legislature sent litigation proposal
NEWSLETTERS Get the Breaking News newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-888-426-6388. Delivery: Varies Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for Breaking News Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters
County Attorney Thomas Humbach estimated Rockland would receive 60 percent to 90 percent of any settlement. He also said there was no time frame for a Rockland lawsuit.
Westchester County hasn’t opted in yet as a bill to authorize the county to join the lawsuit is set to be discussed by legislative committees.
Suffolk led the way in filing the first lawsuit in New York against painkiller-makers in 2016, followed this year by upstate counties that include the cities of Binghamton and Buffalo, the USA Today Network reported.
Humbach said the law firm would determine which pharmaceutical companies could be held liable, potentially some in Rockland.
Simmons Hanly Conroy, founded in 1999, has forged a national reputation for handling toxic exposure cases, including asbestos and mesothelioma, securing a $250 million verdict against U.S. Steel.
Among the targeted drug-makers are Purdue Pharma and related companies, Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Cephalon, Johnson & Johnson, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Endo Health Solutions and Endo Pharmaceuticals.
Day said the law firm resolved litigation against Purdue Pharma for $19.5 million alleging 5,000 clients’ addictions to Oxycontin resulted from the manufacturer’s fraudulent marketing campaign that claimed the drug was not as addictive as alternative drugs.
Twitter: @lohudlegal
Read or Share this story: https://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/rockland/2017/08/01/opioid-crisis-rockland/528402001/CtrlAltBernanke420
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Sr. MemberActivity: 350Merit: 250 Re: Getting shot and killed in past wars is todays equivalent of getting hacked... February 19, 2015, 11:38:19 PM #5 Quote from: darkota on February 19, 2015, 11:11:41 PM Quote from: redhawk979 on February 19, 2015, 10:46:20 PM Jesus Christ youre nuts
What redhawk979 said..OP is probably on drugs right now..You cannot compare the physical pain and mental agony of getting shot or being in a war to getting hackd...Good grief...OP is such a troll.
What redhawk979 said..OP is probably on drugs right now..You cannot compare the physical pain and mental agony of getting shot or being in a war to getting hackd...Good grief...OP is such a troll.
in the past, lets say the American revolution, running from the king for taxation without representation. The king hacked their monies, they ran, the king and his men followed trying to kill those who escaped his reign. Well todays world works much the same way except bitcoin changes the battlefield DRASTICALLY
Not to mention, this is not trolling. These are ideas I have and sometimes they all come at once and I want to discuss them, and I'm not sure about you but have you tried going to a local bar or cafe and talking about this stuff.... You are an ass for rejecting my desire to converse and play Plato's Soceretes. You don't have to participate or read this conversation. Beside who determines who is a troll, the person who is obsessed with bitcointalk, but hates those who don't subscribe to your exact view on EVERYTHING. in the past, lets say the American revolution, running from the king for taxation without representation. The king hacked their monies, they ran, the king and his men followed trying to kill those who escaped his reign. Well todays world works much the same way except bitcoin changes the battlefield DRASTICALLYNot to mention, this is not trolling. These are ideas I have and sometimes they all come at once and I want to discuss them, and I'm not sure about you but have you tried going to a local bar or cafe and talking about this stuff.... You are an ass for rejecting my desire to converse and play Plato's Soceretes. You don't have to participate or read this conversation. Beside who determines who is a troll, the person who is obsessed with bitcointalk, but hates those who don't subscribe to your exact view on EVERYTHING.
darkota
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Hero MemberActivity: 770Merit: 500 Re: Getting shot and killed in past wars is todays equivalent of getting hacked... February 19, 2015, 11:42:04 PM #6 Quote from: CtrlAltBernanke420 on February 19, 2015, 11:38:19 PM Quote from: darkota on February 19, 2015, 11:11:41 PM Quote from: redhawk979 on February 19, 2015, 10:46:20 PM Jesus Christ youre nuts
What redhawk979 said..OP is probably on drugs right now..You cannot compare the physical pain and mental agony of getting shot or being in a war to getting hackd...Good grief...OP is such a troll.
What redhawk979 said..OP is probably on drugs right now..You cannot compare the physical pain and mental agony of getting shot or being in a war to getting hackd...Good grief...OP is such a troll.
in the past, lets say the American revolution, running from the king for taxation without representation. The king hacked their monies, they ran, the king and his men followed trying to kill those who escaped his reign. Well todays world works much the same way except bitcoin changes the battlefield DRASTICALLY
Not to mention, this is not trolling. These are ideas I have and sometimes they all come at once and I want to discuss them, and I'm not sure about you but have you tried going to a local bar or cafe and talking about this stuff.... You are an ass for rejecting my desire to converse and play Plato's Soceretes. You don't have to participate or read this conversation. Beside who determines who is a troll, the person who is obsessed with bitcointalk, but hates those who don't subscribe to your exact view on EVERYTHING.
in the past, lets say the American revolution, running from the king for taxation without representation. The king hacked their monies, they ran, the king and his men followed trying to kill those who escaped his reign. Well todays world works much the same way except bitcoin changes the battlefield DRASTICALLYNot to mention, this is not trolling. These are ideas I have and sometimes they all come at once and I want to discuss them, and I'm not sure about you but have you tried going to a local bar or cafe and talking about this stuff.... You are an ass for rejecting my desire to converse and play Plato's Soceretes. You don't have to participate or read this conversation. Beside who determines who is a troll, the person who is obsessed with bitcointalk, but hates those who don't subscribe to your exact view on EVERYTHING.
Again, you Cannot compare the physical and mental agony associated with pain from getting shot...or even dying, to just having your paypal hacked. You are a troll. Again, you Cannot compare the physical and mental agony associated with pain from getting shot...or even dying, to just having your paypal hacked. You are a troll.According to reports, the slumping Florida Marlins are going to hire Jack McKeon to replace Edwin Rodriguez after Rodriguez resigned as the team's manager on Sunday. An announcement is scheduled for Monday, and may have already been made by the time this post gets published, since Jack McKeon wakes up at 3:30 every morning. This is an old joke.
Jack McKeon is 80. He is an 80-year-old man. If he is indeed being hired, he will become the second-oldest manager in the history of Major League Baseball, which dates all the way back to the birth of Jack McKeon. I know that the "old" angle is obvious and uncreative, but it's the obvious angle for a reason - 80 is often too old to jog or stand up, much less manage a group of professional athletes. It is the obvious angle because it is absolutely crazy.
This is a post about how old Jack McKeon is. There are going to be hundreds, if not thousands of things written over the next few days on the same subject. But what I want to do here is try to identify the one fact that makes Jack McKeon seem the most old. We know he's 80. What is 80? What does 80 mean? I want to try to find the one fact that makes you stop in your tracks and most think "man, Jack McKeon is old." After an evening of research, I have it narrowed down to four candidates.
*****
(1) Lou Piniella was the starter in left field on Jack McKeon's first-ever Major League lineup card
McKeon made his Major League managerial debut on April 6, 1973 for the Kansas City Royals. The opposing pitcher was a 26-year-old Nolan Ryan. McKeon's shortstop was Freddie Patek. McKeon's second baseman was Cookie Rojas. McKeon's right fielder was Hal McRae. And McKeon's left fielder was Lou Piniella. This is what Lou Piniella (he's the one on the left) looked like in March:
Since Jack McKeon managed his first Major League game, Lou Piniella recorded 1,099 hits, retired, became a manager, won 1,835 games over 23 years in building a case for the Hall of Fame, and retired again.
(2) Jack McKeon's name is Jack McKeon
Technically it's not Jack McKeon. It's actually John Aloysius McKeon. If anything, "Jack" makes him sound younger since Aloysius is a name you give a 17th century pope. But just the name "Jack McKeon" conjures the black-and-white image of a world-weary 1950s businessman who smokes three packs a day and is already 37 years old.
(3) Jack McKeon was born in the year that Arthur Conan Doyle died
You are, of course, familiar with the detective character Sherlock Holmes. Holmes was featured in four novels and 56 short stories, beginning in 1887, and was the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle, who was alive and quite well, all things considered, when McKeon was conceived.
(4) Jack McKeon was a professional baseball player prior to the invention of Mr. Potato Head
Spirograph and Operation - these were 1960s diversions. By the time they came around, was already well established, having been the first toy to be advertised on television in 1952. Mr. Potato Head was first manufactured in 1952, but it was actually invented in 1949. By 1949, Jack McKeon was already playing minor league baseball.
*****
So those are the four candidates. I'm still not sure which of them makes McKeon seem the most old, but they all leave me excitedly awaiting the day that Logan Morrison tries to explain to his manager what Twitter is.A 19-year-old woman is dead and a 20-year-old woman is in a coma after police say what is believed to be ecstasy were taken at separate raves in Ottawa over Canada Day weekend.
The raves were large, outdoor organized events in central and east Ottawa between June 29 and July 1, although police did not elaborate.
One of the events is believed to be the Escapade Music Festival, the Sun learned, which drew tens of thousands of people to the Rideau-Carleton Raceway over four days, ending on Canada Day.
Escapade director of marketing/festival promotions Maninder Virk told the Sun Friday evening that he was not aware of any major incidents, such as a medical emergency, at the festival.
“We were never told of any serious events that went on over the weekend,” said Virk. “We haven’t been told by paramedics or police or anybody.”
The woman who died was not from the capital. Police are talking to both families.
Police believe the drugs were bought in Ottawa, but the investigation continues.
How widespread a “bad batch” may have been, or whether the pills may have been laced with something that ramped up their potency is unknown right now.
So far, investigators believe the pills could be ecstasy, or MDMA, which can be a common ingredient used to make ecstasy.
Such synthetic drugs are not uncommon among teens and young adults, at event such as raves.
The 20-year-old remains in an induced coma, and is suffering from liver problems, police say.
The 19-year-old went to a local hospital, but died hours later.
The Sun reached out to the rave community but several people declined to comment.
It is not the first time police have sounded the alarm about deadly drugs.
In early June, two overdose deaths in the Outaouais, following several in Montreal, prompted a warning to IV drug users, about drugs possibly being laced with Fentanyl or extremely pure heroin making the rounds.
Police are joining forces with the regional coroner’s office and Ottawa Public Health to spread public awareness about the dangers of taking such drugs.
In Ottawa in an average year, paramedics respond to about 1, 000 calls related to drug overdoses.
About 40 of them are fatal. The majority of the calls are related to drug addicts.
The latest incidents, say health officials, are unusual. Ecstasy is also not usually the drug common in overdoses.
"Young people always want to experiment," said Dr. Rosamund Lewis, associate medical officer of health. Such risky behaviour, especially if alcohol or other drugs are added to the mix, can be deadly.
613-236-1222 613-236-1222 Anyone with information about these incidents is asked to contact the Ottawa Police Central District Investigations at, ext. 5166.
[email protected]
Twitter: @ottawasundbellNight Fighting Weapon System (NFWS) The picture attached is a ".5'56mm Night Fighting Weapon System". Made by AFPGA (Armed Forces of Philippines - Governmental Arsenals) in the Republic of Philippines, the weapon was developed in late 2004. ------------- Col. Jonathan C. Martir PN(M)(GSC), N-6, began development of a dedicated night fighting weapon system using the 5.56mm M16A1 service rifle as a platform. PN research and development on the NFWS resulted in a system which integrated an in-house produced sound and flash suppressor, and integrated night vision weapon sights on an M16A1 upper receiver barrel assembly. The system is most significant in developing an in-house dedicated night fighting system for the PN/PMC, and thus introduced the only such capability in the AFP. Although the system is described in further detail in a separate study, its basic features are described as follows: Upper Receiver: The NFWS upper receiver consists of an M16 A1 flat top upper receiver, which was developed into a fully integrated sound and flash suppressed upper receiver assembly that can be mounted or removed from a DMR lower receiver assembly in the same manner as the standard M16A1 service rifle. The NFWS upper assembly has an overall length of 31 ½ inches and is slightly heavier than a DMR or M16A1 service rifle upper assembly, principally due to the weight of the Night Vision Sight and the heavier barrel and integral suppressor. Mounting System: The NVS is mounted on a MILSPEC Picatinny rail base which is installed on the upper receiver. The NVS with its integral scope base mounts directly on the Picatinny railing and provides a secure, comfortable shooting position. Barrel: The NFWS utilizes a 16-inch chrome moly MILSPEC 5:56 X 45mm barrel with a 1:9 inch rifling twist to enable it to stabilize standard issue M193 55 grain ball to 62 grain SS109 and 69 grain Match ammunition. The barrel is individually re-crowned and re-chambered to ensure reliability and accuracy. The barrel makes use of porting, or cross drilling, with holes drilled along its entire length, which is covered by the integral suppressor. The barrel is cross-drilled for gas bleed off as part of the suppressor/silencer design. A metal housing which incorporates a series of slots to facilitate barrel cooling replaces the issued synthetic handguards. Integral Suppressor: The sound suppressor is an integral, all-metal unit that houses the entire barrel, gas port, and gas tube mechanism all the way up to the receiver. Proprietary designed expansion chamber(s) and baffles capture and dissipate or reduce sound generated from gases produced when the weapon is fired. Made from stainless steel for strength and durability, the baffles take into consideration the tropical and humid operating environment. Night Vision sights :The NFWS is a dedicated night fighting system, and uses one of two (2) night vision sights: the Litton Model M845 MkII Night Vision Sight or the Night Optics D-740/760 Advanced Night Vision Weapon Sight, as described below. The Night Optics D-740/760 Advanced Night Vision Weapon Sight: Made by Night Optics USA, Inc., the D-740/760 Advanced Night Vision Weapon Sight uses a waterproof, light weight (1.1kg), impact resistant, nitrogen purged housing to enable long-range observation under low light conditions. It is equipped with an illuminated red on green Mil-Dot reticle on high-grade multi coated 4 X power (on the D-740 model) and 6 X power optics (on the D-760 model) for a high resolution field of view. It features ¼ Minute of Angle (MOA) elevation and windage adjustments with a detection and recognition range of 300m and 225m, respectively. The D-740/760 series is powered by two (2) AA batteries for approximately 60 hours. It makes use of a low profile heavy duty Weaver mounting system which enables it to be used on individual and crew served weapons. The Litton Model M845 MkII Night Vision Sight: Made by Litton Electron Devices of Arizona, USA, the M845 MkII Night Vision Sight (“NVS”) is a lightweight (1.3 kg), fixed focus self-contained passive electro-optical night vision weapons sight, which is effective at short and intermediate ranges. It has a 75mm objective lens which has a permanent focal setting at “infinity” for a wide field of view to facilitate rapid target acquisition. The adjustable reticle on high-grade multi coated 1.55 X power optics provides for a high resolution field of view. Once the target is acquired, the adjustable reticle provides the shooter with a color contrasting aiming point of reference. Ammunition: The barrel and its 1:9 rate of twist enables the NFWS to stabilize 55grain M193 to the 62 grain M855/SS109 and 68 gr Hornady Match subsonic ammunition. As described earlier, the integral suppressor enables the NFWS to use standard supersonic ammunition, or subsonic ammunition, which is loaded by the Marine Scout Sniper School. Overall Conclusion: The Marine Scout Sniper Program as a Force Multiplier. To date, the experience of the Marine Corps Scout Sniper Program has been instructive in demonstrating effective and cost efficient weapons systems that complement and expand the Navy and Marine Corps small arms capabilities. It provides additional flexibility for Special Operations Teams by allowing additional mission capabilities currently not available with the service rifle through the MSSR, the DMR, and more recently, the NFWS. These are consistent with and strengthen the concept of the Battalion Landing Team (Special Operations Capable) or BLT (SOC) of the Philippine Marine Corps. The current capability thus consists of the means to identify and engage targets with a primary (up to 700m) system through the 5.56mm DMR, an intermediate (up to 1,000m) system with the 7.62mm MSSR, and a long-range (up to 1,500m and beyond) with the 12.7mm anti-material /personnel Barrett M95. It is worth noting that a similar structure also exists within the Israel Defense Forces (“IDF”), which has been combating terrorists and insurgents since its inception. The IDF employs its 5.56mm Designated Marksman Rifle using a stock M-16A2 platform, which is not as extensively developed in comparison to the PMC 5.56mm MSSR/DMR. Similar in concept is the 5.56mm Squad Advanced Marksman Rifle (“SAMR”) of the USMC, which is undergoing testing in Afghanistan and Iraq. The development of the 5.56mm MSSR/DMR, the use of suppressors and NVS for the NFWS demonstrates initiatives to optimize existing weapons platforms within resource constraints. The complete set with carrying case excluding the M16 A1 upper receiver assembly, both of which are in inventory, the 5.56mm MSSR/DMR and the NFWS without optics cost PhP 120,000.00 and PhP 40,000.00 or US$715.00, respectively. Both are cost effective initiatives which represent force multiplier that greatly contribute to the overall capabilities of the Philippine Navy and its dedicated special operations units. Similar imported systems would cost significantly more. Local production and maintenance of the 5.56mm MSSR/DMR and the NFWS ensure a sustainable self-reliance capability. Equally important to the success of the entire program is an awareness of the same program and its capabilities among middle and senior level officers and decision makers. Such awareness leads to the appropriate and effective employment of scout snipers to attain their objectives. This may be facilitated by the continued operation of the Marine Scout Sniper School, which to date, remains the sole institution in the Armed Forces of the Philippines that conducts sniper training and research and development for new systems and components. The continuing efforts and experience to date in countering asymmetric threats such as terrorism and insurgency in the Philippine archipelago therefore call for continued consideration and awareness of the relevance of the Marine Corps Scout Sniper Program and its experience in training and equipping Scout Snipers, and innovating and optimizing existing weapons capabilities within prevailing resource constraints to deny the enemy its advantages and decisively defeat them. The most recent example is the use of the NFWS by Marine Scout Snipers with FRBN on (month/date), which resulted in the killing of seven (7) MBG terrorists and the recovery of seven (7) M16 service rifles and M203 grenade launchers, all done at 0430H in Jolo. ----------- NOW, I don't know what the Filipinos think, but in my humble opinion the gun is WAY too long to be a "modern counter-insurgency weapon", that being a function that requires short barrel and maneuverability in confined spaces (we all are by now dramatically aware that most of the counter-terror combats are highly lethal Close Quarters Battle situation). Though I cannot argue about the quiet of the gun. Probably firing the NCWS you won't hear nothing else than the "Click" of the firing pin striking the bullet in the chamber... well, not a GREAT result, since Heckler&Koch's MP5-SD does it since at least 25 years in a very shorter package, while those Filipino SODs have built an integrally-suppressed barrel that's more than 1 Meter long. The gun itself in its entireness is even LONGER than the standard M16-A1 rifle it's based upon! And, even, the M16-A1! The Filipinos still use A1s which have up to 30 years of service. I think that their "Small Arms Modernization Programs" are NOT purported to "enhance fighting capabilities foreseeing a harder engagement in the fight against global terror", but to prevent the age from making their entire arsenals fall apart. You know, they've even re-issued WW2-era M3-A1 "Grease Guns" to their Marine Scouts, calling them the "M3-SpecOps", with a clumsy integral sound suppressor and a piss poor rail attachment over the gun for a modern NVD (Night Vision Device). Well, it's known that their main supplier of small arms parts from the US is DPMS, so we cannot expect MUCH more about them. The good thing in Filipino guns industry is that they make cheap civvie guns of an acceptable quality (nothing that matches the quality-price level of the Chinese production, however).
Photos and information from: Pierangelo TendasForget the Super Bowl, FX's Ryan Murphy anthology "Feud" premieres a month from today. Here's a guide to the famous decadeslong clash between the two Hollywood icons ahead of the anthology's March 5 premiere.
Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie. Kanye West and Taylor Swift. Donald Trump and Rosie O’Donnell (and now pretty much everyone). Hollywood feuds have been around for decades; certainly as long as there’s been an actual Tinseltown, at any rate. So it was only a matter of time before someone capitalized on the subject matter.
Ryan Murphy’s latest anthology series, FX's Feud, tackles the infamous decadeslong rivalry between Joan Crawford and Bette Davis before, during and after the filming of their 1962 film, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane. The eight-episode drama stars Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon in the respective roles of Crawford and Davis. The star-studded cast also includes Alfred Molina as Robert Aldrich, Judy Davis as Hedda Hopper, Stanley Tucci as Jack Warner, Catherine Zeta-Jones as Olivia de Havilland as well as longtime Murphy collaborators Kathy Bates and Sarah Paulson as Joan Blondell and Geraldine Page, respectively, while Mad Men grad Kiernan Shipka plays Davis’ daughter B.D. Hyman.
With Feud's premiere a month away (March 5, to be exact), THR offers a crash-course timeline of the important events surrounding Crawford and Davis' iconic feud.
1935: Dangerous hits theaters
Davis and Franchot Tone headlined the flick about a rehabilitated, alcoholic actress who was said to be a jinx. During filming, Davis fell hard for Tone, but he had eyes for Crawford instead … especially when she allegedly invited him over to her place and greeted him — naked. The pair eventually married, sparking Davis' jealousy.
1936: Davis wins her first Oscar
It seemed as though Tone and Davis had inevitable chemistry in Dangerous, since Davis wound up winning an Academy Award for the role. Obviously Crawford, who hadn’t yet even been nominated for an Oscar, took note.
1939: Davis wins her second Oscar
Davis may have been the bigger winner in the long run, as Tone and Crawford divorced the same year that she won her second Academy Award, this time for her role as Southern Belle Julie Marsden in Jezebel. Interestingly, she claimed to have also given the statue his famous Oscar moniker, claiming that its rear end resembled that of her husband’s (Harmon Oscar Nelson).
1945: Crawford wins her first Oscar
By this time, Crawford and Davis were both under contract with Warner Bros. (Crawford had separated from MGM), and both were at some point in consideration for the title role in Mildred Pierce. Crawford eventually landed the role when Davis turned it down, leading to her first Academy Award win. Davis, who was hungry for an Oscar trifecta, likely regretted the decision down the line.
1960: Henry Farrell releases What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Fresh off the 1959 release of The Hostage, the scribe followed up his inaugural novel with this gothic horror novel revolving around two aging sisters who grew up in the limelight. Around the same time, roles seemed to be drying up for Crawford and Davis; Crawford had starred in a number of failed TV pilots and Davis was back on Broadway.
1961: Crawford approaches Davis about Baby Jane
Director Robert Aldrich had agreed to take on a movie version of the novel, but both he and Crawford agreed they needed extra star power for the role of Jane. Crawford said she had always wanted to work with Davis, so she approached her one night after a performance of The Night of the Iguana on Broadway. Davis later agreed to tackle the role, but only after Aldrich assured her that there had been no sexual relationship between himself and Crawford, who was rumored to be quite liberal with her directors in bed.
1962: Baby Jane goes into production
From the outset, rumors of Davis and Crawford not playing nice on set ensued. Whether it was legit or to garner interest in the film remains between them, but reports of Davis kicking Crawford in the head and of Crawford filling her pockets with rocks during a scene in which Davis had to drag her are just some of the stories that surfaced.
September 1962: Davis takes out ads in the trades
Davis, who was known to take risks with her roles, and Crawford, who embraced classic Hollywood values and looks, always approached their craft from different angles. But Davis’ classic ad in the trades just a month before Baby Jane’s release undoubtedly only added to the friction between the two:
"Mother of three — 10, 11 and 15. Divorcee. American. Thirty years experience as an actress in motion pictures. Mobile still and more affable than rumor would have it. Wants steady employment in Hollywood (has had Broadway). BETTE DAVIS, c/o Martin Baum, GAC.”
1963: Academy Award nominations are unveiled
Crawford’s biggest slight came when the nominations for best actress were released and Davis earned a nom but Crawford did not. (The film itself received five nominations, including one for supporting actor Victor Buono.) Crawford then approached all of the nominees for best actress and offered to accept their award on their behalf should they win and be unable to attend.
April 1963: Anne Bancroft wins the Oscar
Fittingly, the one person who was unable to attend the show — Anne Bancroft — won for her work in The Miracle Worker. Not only was Davis upset about not winning when so many predicted that she would, but she also later accused Crawford of campaigning against her. Unfortunately for the actress, it was her 11th and final time to ever be nominated.
1964: Production on Hush…Hush Sweet Charlotte begins
Given the success of Baby Jane it didn’t take long for talk of a follow-up project reuniting the actresses and director Aldrich to get going. The film was also based on a story from Farrell (What Ever Happened to Cousin Charlotte) but Davis would only do it if the title was sufficiently changed to not sound like a sequel. But the tension between the actresses grew again when Crawford had a cooler of Pepsi products delivered to set (she was on the board of her late husband Alfred Steele’s Pepsi Cola Co.), and Davis responded by
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wee lad" in the 70s, what were you doing in 1967, Neil? Watching from the womb?)
Since then, four other keepers have now matched Shilton's feat. Ray Cashley hoofed the ball into the net for Bristol City v Hull City in the 1973/74 season (the Robins won 3-1). Steve Sherwood scored for Watford against Coventry (Sherwood's side won the game 2-1 in the 1983/84 season).
Next on the glorious list is ex-Coventry stopper (and one-time victim of a hoax claiming he had been arrested on spying charges in Kazakhstan) Steve Ogrizovic. Oggy booted the ball past Martin Hodge of Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough in the 1986/87 season, helping his side to a 2-2 draw.
And the most recent to score from his kick-out is Andy Lonergan, who, since this fine piece of knowledge was originally published, managed to fire one past hapless Kevin Pressman at Leicester earlier this season. The Preston keeper saw his long kick take a bounce over the stranded Pressman and roll into the back of the net, securing his side a 1-1 draw. The portly Pressman later claimed he had been distracted by the sun; we'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.
For more classic knowledge, click here.
HITTING THE GERS WHEN THEY'RE DOWN
In the interests of winding up a Scot in our office, which club has the worst record of qualifying for the European Cup/Champions League without ever winning it? asked Paul Griffiths last week. "My money's on Rangers by a distance!"
We can't accept Scot-baiting here Paul, but thankfully Hugh Mooney, a fan of the Gers' old mates from Glasgow and buoyant after Sunday's Old Firm win, was more than happy to oblige with an answer.
"As a good Celtic fan I'm delighted to confirm Paul's impression, with Rangers owning a record of 0-24 as the Americans might put it," writes Hugh. "However, the field is more competitive than he thinks, because Rangers share this faintly embarrassing record with CSKA Sofia.
"Close behind this unfortunate pairing are Anderlecht and Dynamo Kiev with 23 appearances and nothing to show for it. As for other British contenders, Rangers continue to compete with Linfield of Northern Ireland (21), a battle that I'm sure will run for years."
WRIGHT-ING A WRONG
"On March 9, 2002, Leicester City had a 'Nicole Wright' on the bench for their Premiership clash with Charlton. Can anyone shed any light as to he/she's identity?" asked Adam Hurrey last week.
As mysteries go, this one has been right up there with the best of them. But the obvious answer is the correct one: a typo renamed young striker Tommy Wright for the day.
Can you help?
"After you revealed the now-with-God Pope John Paul II's devotion in supporting multiple clubs, how about Vatican newboy Benedict XVI?" asks Adam Rutherford. "Is he a Bayern Munich fan as his birthplace might indicate, or is he as polytheistic as his predecessor? We should be told."
"Has any player ever achieved the full collection of winners' medals at club (Europe) and country level; World Cup, European Championships/Copa America, European Cup, Uefa Cup, Cup Winners' Cup, domestic league and domestic cup?" asks Shane O'Reilly.
And Simon Phillips wonders:"Charlton have not been awarded a penalty yet this season. Are they on course for a top-flight record?"The compromise over George Osborne’s controversial measure will hit many of the same people already losing their tax credits
The chancellor, George Osborne, is expected to fund the softening of the blow of controversial tax credits reductions by taking away housing benefit from many of the same people who will lose out.
Osborne’s tax credit changes were defeated in the House of Lords last month, with many in his own party worried they would punish working families unfairly.
The transitional arrangements will be set out in the five-year spending review, which will include further cuts at the Home Office for Theresa May – expected to lead to another round of reductions in frontline policing. The chancellor will also be forced to admit that deficit reduction forecasts for this year have proved over-optimistic and his hope of reaching a £10bn surplus at the end of the parliament is unlikely to be fulfilled.
Muslim group warns police cuts will harm trust with communities Read more
But Osborne insisted on Sunday that the only route to long-term economic security – and ultimately national security – lay in cutting the deficit.
The spending review, alongside new economic forecasts, will see cuts of up to 20% over the parliament across a range of departments. The decisions on Wednesday will lead to fundamental changes to the shape of public services, according to Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
The chancellor is also likely to press ahead with a manifesto commitment to cut welfare spending by £12bn, but he will slow the process of withdrawing tax credits from this April by offering transitional support through the parliament.
Many of the long-term cuts to the income of the working poor will be introduced through reductions to universal credit – which supersedes tax credits – that the chancellor forced through the Commons in a low-profile welfare committee vote last week.
Last month, Osborne was forced to backtrack on his plans to cut tax credits after a backbench rebellion and defeat in the Lords.
Cuts to local government grants will be offset for councils by the ability to increase their council tax by up to 2%. This funding, called the social care precept, must be used to fund local social care services. There are also likely to be cuts to the schools budget.
Alan Milburn, the chair of the social mobility commission, urged Osborne to think how targeted spending on teachers’ pay in deprived areas could reduce the educational attainment gap and boost long-term growth.
Research by the commission suggests that “if the UK [were] able to close the education attainment gap between the most advantaged children and everyone else by two-thirds by 2035, the UK’s long-run growth rate would ultimately be 15% higher”.
Spending review 2015: now it's time for George Osborne to face tough choices Read more
Trying to lower the temperature before Wednesday’s announcements, the chancellor told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show: “I’ve read all these reports in the newspapers that I’m at war with various members of the cabinet.
“I can tell you, the spending review has been agreed, all departments have settled – and all settled amicably – nothing has been imposed and indeed this spending review has gone more smoothly than than the two previous spending reviews I’ve done.”
Asked directly if there will be cuts to frontline police, Osborne said: “Of course, the police do an incredibly important and brave job on our behalf. Every public service has to make sure it is spending the public’s money [well] … and there are efficiencies that can be made in the police and how they buy their equipment, and how they operate their back offices.
“We made savings in the police budget in the last parliament and actually, the number of neighbourhood police officers went up.”
Questioned about how he was responding to the calls to row back on the cuts to tax credits, Osborne said: “I’ve said of course I’m prepared to listen to those who say can we ease the transition to this lower welfare, higher wage economy. But my central judgment [is this]: we need to make savings in welfare.
“I’ve always been someone who thought it’s not a weakness to listen to good arguments.”
But, suggesting his ultimate destination remained unchanged, he added: “I’m pretty confident we can deliver what we promised the British people we’d deliver at the general election, which is – yes – savings in welfare, savings in government … for a purpose, which is economic security: the security that enables jobs to be created and living standards to rise in this country.”
The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, said Osborne’s economic and fiscal plans were in utter chaos months after he announced them.
“We all know he gave up a long time ago on his 2010 promise to eradicate the deficit by today, but now he can’t even stick to the deficit-reduction plans he announced as recently as July,”McDonnell said.
“Labour [was] the first to call on the chancellor to target a lower surplus as a way he could reverse his tax credit cuts and stick to his self-imposed fiscal straightjacket. Now it seems he is being forced to take our advice as his economic and fiscal plans are falling apart.
“Rather than engaging in a cynical Westminster game of smoke and mirrors in this week’s spending review, it’s time the chancellor acknowledges the challenges facing our country. He must reverse his tax credit cuts and fully protect frontline policing from any cuts.”A CareFlite medical helicopter on the way to pick up a patient came "very close" to striking a drone aircraft Monday near Denton, the company's top executive said. (Published Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2017)
A CareFlite medical helicopter on the way to pick up a patient came "very close" to striking a drone aircraft Monday near Denton, the company's top executive said.
The helicopter had just taken off at about 5:30 p.m. when the incident occurred about four miles south of Denton Regional Airport, said CareFlite Chief Executive Officer Jim Swartz.
"It went right past the aircraft," Swartz said. "I would say it was very close. We were lucky nothing terrible happened."
The pilot, a nurse and a paramedic were in the helicopter at about 500-600 feet above the ground, Swartz said.
It happened so fast, the pilot did not have time to take evasive action, he said. The crew was startled but continued its assigned flight.
"I'm not sure the people who fly these drones know the risk they're putting airplanes and helicopters in," Swartz said. "They're putting them at terrible risk."
CareFlite was established in 1979 and operates six helicopters in North Texas.
Swartz said similar incidents with drones happen every few months but that this was an especially close call.
The pilot reported the scare to the Federal Aviation Administration, he said.
An FAA spokesman said the agency is investigating.
Under federal rules, drone operators are not supposed to fly above 400 feet under any circumstances and must notify the control tower or airport operator if they are within five miles of airports like the one in Denton, the agency said.
"It's a disaster waiting to happen," Swartz said.EXCLUSIVE: HBO’s fantasy drama Game Of Thrones has been a rare combination of a ratings smash, cultural phenomenon and a critical darling, winning the Best Drama Series Emmy last year. I hear the stars of the series are sharing in its success with major new salary bumps for what is rumored to be Game Of Thrones’ final chapter.
I hear mainstays Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister), Kit Harington (Jon Snow), Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister), Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen) and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) will all be paid north of $500,000 an episode for Season 7, which has been officially picked up, and Season 8, which is widely expected. HBO has not specified the size of the order for Season 7, but speculation has been that both Season 7 and Season 8 would be shorter than the standard for the show 10 episodes, possibly seven episodes (Season 7) and six episodes (Season 8).
HBO said that it doesn’t discuss contract negotiations.
The move helps secure the key GOT cast for the series’ final run. However, I hear it does not guarantee that all five characters will survive til the end as the show’s last episodes are yet to be written. I hear the contracts of the other regulars who landed raises alongside the Big 5 in fall 2014, have not been redone yet.
I’d heard that the previous major GOT cast contract renegotiation in 2014 netted close to $300,000 an episode for Harington, Dinklage, Clarke, Headey and Coster-Waldau heading into Season 6 in exchange for the actors giving the network an option for a seventh season.
Now in a similar fashion, the stars are securing a major new salary increase for Season 7 as they also sign on for a possible Season 8.
Season 6 of GOT wraps its run this Sunday.It's possible to think of Element Queries as a natural extension to CSS Media Queries. I would summarize the requirements for media queries like this:
a media type
query condition(s)
a stylesheet
In CSS this gets exposed as:
@media screen (min-width: 500px) { html { background: lime; } }
The @media wraps the stylesheet, the screen part is specifying the media type, and (min-width: 500px) specifies the query condition(s).
In HTML the same functionality is exposed through the media="" attribute on <style> and <link> tags:
<link rel="stylesheet" media="(min-width: 500px)" href="data:text/css,html { background: lime; }"> <style media="(min-width: 500px)"> html { background: lime; } </style>
Finally, in JavaScript the media querying functionality is available to authors using the window.matchMedia :
if (window.matchMedia('(min-width 500px)').matches) { css = 'html { background: lime; }' }
In order to extend these syntaxes in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to cover the functionality needed to describe element queries, let's look at the requirements for element queries:
a selector (list)
query condition(s)
event listener(s)
a stylesheet
Here we have a couple new ideas: a selector to apply the stylesheet to, and event listeners.
Element Queries in CSS
Normally JavaScript events are abstracted away from CSS authors - you don't need to worry about window.load or window.resize when writing media queries, you don't need to worry about mouseover or mouseout when writing :hover, and you're not worried about focus or blur when using :focus, etc.
For the most part I believe browser makers will be able to find a way to implement element queries in the most general sense without the need for CSS authors to specify the specific events they should listen to. In addition, enhancements may be made by listening to specific events related to the selector, and/or query conditions. If a query condition for scroll is used, the browser should be able to automatically listen to scroll events on the tags matching the selector used.
However it is likely that performance improvements could be made by allowing authors to limit which events trigger a reevaluation of the query conditions using a whitelist.
Proposed CSS Syntax:
@element html { html { background: lime; } }
Here the @element wraps the stylesheet, the html specifies the selector, and we are lacking query conditions or events. This is a simple element query that would apply to the document as long as an <html> element was found.
@element textarea (min-characters: 50) { textarea { background: lime; } }
This example includes a query condition that counts the number of characters of text inside the value of a <textarea> element.
This brings us naturally to the question: "What happens if there is more than one <textarea> in the document?" It certainly looks like as long as any <textarea> has more than 50 characters, all <textarea> tags in the document will gain a style. Because of this, another concept is required: a scoped selector.
I like the idea of using $this as a placeholder inside selectors in the element query stylesheet, to represent each element tested that passes the query conditions.
@element textarea (min-characters: 50) { $this { background: lime; } }
Now if we have multiple <textarea> present in our document we have a way of targeting only those specific <textarea> elements that match the query conditions. But the use of this placeholder isn't limited to just applying styles to matching elements themselves - it should be able to be used anywhere in selectors in the contained stylesheet:
@element.widget (max-width: 300px) { $this h2 { font-size: 10pt; } }
Lastly, a way to specify limited events should be offered to the user. This has no precedent in CSS so here are some ideas. It's possible that the specific names of events could be aliased to something new, but assuming for a moment that we are using the names of events from JavaScript, we need a way to specify both window -level, and tag-level event listeners. Maybe something like:
@element textarea (max-characters: 5) on blur { $this { background: red; } }
I would hope that by default, based on this query applying to an input element it would naturally listen to events like blur and focus and reevaluate the query conditions when those events occur, but here we limit reevaluation only to the blur event, and it is prevented from reevaluating any other time.
Element Queries in HTML
How could the same element query functionality be exposed to HTML? Perhaps through the use of additional attributes on <style> and <link> tags:
selector for a selector list
for a selector list element for query conditions
for query conditions event for events
These could look like the following:
<link rel="stylesheet" selector="textarea" element="(max-characters: 5)" event="blur" href="data:text/css,$this { background: lime; }"> <style selector="textarea" element="(max-characters: 5)" event="blur"> $this { background: lime; } </style>
Element Queries in JavaScript
And to expose this functionality to JavaScript, perhaps something like window.matchMedia could be useful, maybe window.matchElement. It would work similarly to this:
document.querySelectorAll(<selector>).filter(<query conditions>)
So for an element query of (min-width: 500px) on <div> tags you would need a test like:
document.querySelectorAll('div').filter(el => el.offsetWidth > 500)
This works fine, but the real power of window.matchMedia is that it's able to handle CSS units, rather than just working with pixels. Having the ability to do something like the following example would be better than what we have in JavaScript right now:
window.matchElement('div', '(min-width: 50em)')
References
If you're looking for syntax precedents for these ideas, or plugins that use something similar, check out:× Castaway claims he drifted 13 months in Pacific
(CNN) — A mysterious castaway claiming to have been lost at sea for 13 months is now safely back on land, but many questions remain about how he could have lived on his small boat for so long as it drifted across the Pacific Ocean.
The man calling himself Jose Ivan Alvarengo turned up in a heavily damaged boat on a remote coral atoll in the Marshall Islands, claiming that he had been living off fish and turtles he had caught and relying on rainwater, and sometimes his own urine, to drink.
Authorities are trying to determine the veracity of Alvarengo’s story. The Mexican government issued a statement Monday confirming Alvarengo’s identity and saying he was an El Salvador national who was living in Tonala in Chiapas state.
He was found on sparsely populated Ebon Atoll, a 22-hour boat ride from the capital of Majuro, on Thursday. The southernmost of the Marshall Islands’ atolls, Ebon has only 2.2 square miles of land, one phone line and no Internet service. The government airplane that services the atoll was not working, so Alvarengo did not make it to Majuro until Monday morning.
Alvarengo, who says he is 37, is now in a local hospital recovering from his ordeal, said U.S. Ambassador Tom Armbruster.
“He’s in much better shape than one would expect after such an ordeal,” Armbruster said.
In a hospital-bed interview with The Telegraph of London, Alvarengo told of how he hit land.
“I had just killed a bird to eat and saw some trees,” he is quoted as saying.
“I cried, ‘Oh, God.’ I got to land and had a mountain of sleep. In the morning, I woke up and heard a rooster and saw chickens and saw a small house. I saw two native women screaming and yelling. I didn’t have any clothes; I was only in my underwear, and they were ripped and torn,” The Telegraph quotes Alvarengo as saying.
People on the island where he was found Thursday say the 26-foot fiberglass boat was in very bad condition, covered in barnacles and with the carcasses of several turtles littering the deck.
Alvarengo claims to have set off from a port near the southwestern Mexican city of Tapachula, about 140 miles south of where the Mexican government says he is from and near the border with Guatemala, for what was supposed to be a one-day expedition to catch sharks on December 21, 2012.
He claimed that he and a teenage companion were blown off-course by northerly winds and then caught in a storm, eventually losing use of their engines.
According to Anjenette Kattil of the Marshall Islands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Alvarengo said that four weeks into their drift, he lost the young man because he refused to eat raw birds. There are no details on what Alvarengo did with the young man’s body.
Alvarengo told the Telegraph his companion’s death had him contemplating suicide.
“For four days, I wanted to kill myself. But I couldn’t feel the desire; I didn’t want to feel the pain. I couldn’t do it,” he is quoted as saying.
Kattil said Alvarengo worked for a company named Camaroneras de la Costa in Mexico. He has told authorities that he is a citizen of El Salvador but has lived in Mexico for the past 15 years and wishes to be repatriated back to Mexico.
Armbruster, the U.S. ambassador, said Alvarengo indicated that he had relatives living the United States and U.S. officials would attempt to locate them.
Government officials have been in contact with Mexico’s ambassador to the Marshall Islands, who is based in the Philippines, concerning Alvarengo in hopes he can contact El Salvadoran authorities.
The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement saying it has sent personnel from its embassy in the Philippines “to learn directly about the case.”
If Alvarengo’s story proves true, the trip across the Pacific would have taken him across roughly 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) of open ocean before ending in the Marshall Islands, about halfway between Hawaii and Australia, in the northern Pacific.
Such an amazing journey isn’t unheard-of in the small Pacific nation, as three Mexican fishermen made a similar drift voyage in 2006 that lasted nine months. Those men lived off fish they caught and rainwater, and they read the Bible for comfort.
Conditions in the Pacific make the timeline of Alvarengo’s journey plausible, according to Judson Jones, a producer for CNN Weather.
Jones said the currents between Mexico and the Marshall Islands would have carried a boat about 27 miles (42 kilometers) a day. That would mean the journey would take about 208 days if the boat stayed in the current. But Jones said a meandering journey in and out of the currents was most likely, making a 13-month journey believable.In June of 1995, Michael Meyer arrived in China to train for a two-year posting teaching English as one of the country's first Peace Corps volunteers.
Six weeks after I arrived in China, in hot, cicada-scored August, the teachers ordered us away from campus for a night to practice our Chinese “in the field.” I wanted to travel north to the world’s largest panda preserve, located in a valley enticingly named Wolong, “Sleeping Dragon.” The narrow road to pandas snaked 12 hours through deep mountain gorges. Plunge potential notwithstanding, the infrequent bus service meant I couldn’t make it there and back in two days.
Instead, I queued between cattle bars at the cavernous Chengdu station and felt a surge of accomplishment in buying a train ticket without reading the vocabulary I had written on my forearms. I picked Yibin, a Yangtze River port located seven hours south. I loved trains, and had never been on a Chinese one, so the journey, not the town, was my true destination. Only one-way tickets were sold back then, so I planned to ride the rails during daylight, disembark in Yibin, look at the Yangtze, and buy a ticket for the overnight train that returned to Chengdu.
The train did not disappoint. This was the end of the era when steam engines in China still chugged on some lines, and the journey on hard, shared L-shaped benches was a rolling town square, soon to be replaced by the hushed, individual airplane seating of high-speed carriages. The trip felt more like a voyage than a ride: as the train cut through the flat, farmed landscape—as unchanging and unnoticed as open ocean—passengers chatted and shared dumplings and smoked and sang and cracked sunflower seeds and argued, and one handed me her plump baby to bounce on my knee. Kids scampered up to yell “Good morning, teacher!” in English. They didn’t know that I was a teacher; it was the one sentence they remembered from school. In Chinese they politely called me shūshu (uncle). We discussed the train’s size and speed and what foods we liked and hated, and I was happy to keep conversational pace with the children, even as they corrected my pronunciation, until the train reached the end of the line.
When I asked for a return ticket in Yibin, the clerk said my least favorite Chinese word. “Méi yŏu.” My Sharpie’d arm once displayed it as MAYoh—“Not have.” After each entreaty—a standing-only ticket; a ticket to another northerly town—the clerk repeated méi yŏu with emotionless finality. Sensing I would be stuck in this humid, cement-colored city with little money and even scanter Chinese, the word sounded as chilling as Poe’s raven-squawked “Nevermore.” I had come to China without a credit card or pocket money—or even a camera—and had to subsist on Peace Corps’ monthly salary of U.S.$120. Even if there had been an airport or a driver to hire, I wouldn’t have been able to pay my way back to my bed in Chengdu.
“I need a ticket,” I pleaded, adding the phrase Chinese commonly invoked to persuade foreign guests: “It’s for our friendship.”
“Méi yŏu,” the clerk repeated, unmoved.
“I’m a U.S.-China Friendship Volunteer.”
“Take the bus. It leaves at sunrise.”
I had miscalculated terribly. There were no train tickets, and only one hotel in town was allowed to take foreigners. The reform-and-opening-up policy transforming China’s coastal economy had yet to trickle upstream to this river-fogged town, whose vaporous air smelled like the 104-proof báijiǔ(grain alcohol) being distilled in its largest factory. Even the clouds above it looked hungover.
I trudged down People’s Road to the hotel, averting my eyes from the pedestrians who froze in their tracks, and bicyclists who stopped pedaling. They did not call me “uncle,” they called me lǎowài, the Chinese slang for “foreigner” that literally means “old outsider.” In my Peace Corps training, I had been told to ignore people who yelled the word: imagine a kangaroo wandering through your hometown; wouldn’t you gawp too? No, I thought now, I would not taunt the creature by yelling, “’Roo!”; I would help it find a train ticket. The road turned, leading to a crumbling concrete bridge. The Yangtze—called the Cháng Jiāng (Long River) in Mandarin—banks east in Yibin. Before this turn, its upper reach, which I stared at from the tired bridge, was called the Jīnshā, or Golden Sand River. The water looked brown and torpid. At my back, I heard voices mutter lǎowài. This wasn’t fun. I wanted to hop back on the train.
The state-owned hotel’s lobby was not quite as large as Tiananmen Square. When I spun out of its revolving door, the staff did the kind of eye-popping double take I had only seen in black-and-white comedies. In China, a foreigner gains an enlarged sense of self; you are constantly reminded how present you are. The hotel workers looked me over from the shoes up. In a developing land where people still walked long distances, quality footwear attracted great interest, especially before coastal factories started cranking out Nikes. The concierge said I was the first foreigner he had ever checked in.
I was lucky he let me stay, as I had forgotten to bring my passport, a requirement to register as a guest. The concierge thumbed my little green residence permit booklet and laughed. “Heroic Eastern Plumblossom!” he snorted. “That’s a girl’s name.” Which made me feel sorry for that girl, wherever she may be.
The hall attendant who guarded the keys opened the door to a room whose clammy walls made a gallery of smashed roaches framed by shoe prints. Next door, a karaoke hall pulsed with the sound of wounded hearts bleating Karen Carpenter’s every “sha la la la la” as if it were their last. When I stepped into the shower the next morning, I looked up to an open pipe, pointing straight down. The water hit my head fast and cold.
I arrived at the bus station with swollen, sleepless eyes. A billowing black balloon crowned each vehicle, making it look ready for liftoff. The bag held natural gas, a cheap way to fuel the engine, the driver said, offering a cigarette and lighting his own. So our plunge would end in a movie-perfect fireball. I didn’t smoke, and tucked the butt behind my ear, just as Peace Corps training had instructed. Always be polite. Don’t make others lose face. Just say yes.
“You’re going back to Chengdu?” the driver asked. “Get on my bus. I’m going to Mount Emei. You’ll be there by four.” That was eight hours away. “You can catch a bus onward and be back in town for dinner.” Mount Emei is one of China’s four sacred Buddhist peaks, historically seen as a place of enlightenment. Pilgrims, I knew, were often plunge victims, since their destinations often perched perilously far from flat roads. But the passengers on this bus looked like they were heading back to school and work, not to a temple. So far I had made only three mistakes: assumed a return train ticket existed, failed to bring enough money, and traveled without my passport. Full of wary hope that the worst was behind me, I stepped aboard.
“Please sit down,” a young man said in English from the front seat behind the driver. He wore stonewashed shorts decorated with replicas of $100 bills. Benjamin Franklins smiled from his lap. “My English name is Franklin, my foreign friend.”
Franklin studied at the local teachers college. His introduction exhausted most of his English. I tried Chinese. When the bus rumbled awake five minutes later, we’d run out of things to say. Franklin looked out the window.
Thirty minutes after departure, the bus broke down. The driver stopped, opened the engine compartment beside his seat, and stared into the smoke, calmly prodding while passengers coughed. After this repair, the bus sped along a two-lane cement road threading ripening rice paddies. The view showed no billboards, no buildings, and few people. The Sichuan countryside looked beautiful from a passing window; eking a living from it looked much less alluring.
Out the windshield I watched as a man up ahead fell off his steel-frame bike. The driver pulled hard on the wheel, sending us gasping and leaning, then pulled hard the other way, straightening out, avoiding the man and heavy bike and not once tapping the brake pedal.
Only a line of thin baling string a little later could stop him. Tied between dried bamboo stakes, the barrier marked where a flash flood had washed away a section of road. The driver spied it from a distance, slowed to toss cigarettes to the repair crew, then swung the bus into a field of golden rapeseed, bumping along two ruts.
Franklin laughed nervously. I scanned the horizon for danger.
But there were no ravines here; the bus bounced along furrows, honking at farmers harvesting the bright yellow blossoms from the table-flat fields. The afternoon slipped away; I would not reach Mount Emei, let alone my bed in Chengdu, by dark. I worried whether I had enough cash for another hotel room, but remembered another admonishment from training: It is rude to count money in public. Since landing, I had sat through six weeks of cultural classes that were variations on the theme Never Offend.
I was a six-foot-two-inch rake whose strongest muscle was my mouth: at college I once talked down a mugger pressing a knife against my gut, and twice lost fistfights after telling off racists. I never felt big, but in China my size usually made me the largest person in the room. On this bus I was a head taller and two weight classes above the other riders. Yet, with my kindergartner’s vocabulary and dependency on others, I was also the smallest person there.
I can still feel my heart racing as the bus slowed. Three young men stood at the edge of a rapeseed field. One held an open glass bottle half filled with clear liquid that I knew wasn’t water. Our draining momentum brought an increase of dread. Keep going, I thought. Keep going keep going keep going. The bus stopped. The driver’s sidekick, a conductor who sold tickets and let people on and off, reached up and removed the screwdriver that dead-bolted the hinged door.
The three men staggered on board, then yelped at the sight of a foreigner. They leaned into my face, laughing sharp and drunk and mewling “Hello” with fermented breath. Franklin turned to the window. I swiveled to see the entire bus looking anywhere but at the three men. One wore a black shirt, one wore a white shirt, and one was bare-chested. A large knife dangled from each of their belts.
I froze when the word lǎowài barked from their lips. The word was a daily, often hourly annoyance, but this was the first time I’d heard it spat with such malevolence. I tensed, muted and still. The bus lumbered on. The conductor stood by the door, silent. The driver’s thin shoulders hunched forward. The shirtless man knelt and blew into my ear.
Black Shirt said, in singsong English, “Hello-ARE-you-AN-English-FELLOW?” Where had he learned that? I laughed, softening. “I’m American,” I answered in Chinese. Wǒ shì měiguó rén.
He raised his thumb. “Very good!” He chugged from the bottle and offered me a swig. He leaned close and asked more questions, which I couldn’t understand. “Tīng bù dǒng,” I responded, words meaning I hear (tīng), but don’t understand (bù dǒng). I leaned on Franklin, who leaned harder against the window glass, but still the man came, repeating the questions louder in my ear. The other passengers stayed silent. I stared ahead, terrified at what would happen next.
Suddenly, from behind, the conductor demanded their fare. White Shirt pushed him away. The bus driver glanced back but kept steering. Black Shirt, now kneeling beside me, held his eyes on mine.
Over his right shoulder I watched an elderly passenger rise to tap his back. The old man spoke too quick and harsh for me to understand.
White Shirt, standing beside him in the aisle, responded by smashing the liquor bottle over the old man’s head. Blood, booze, and glass splattered our faces.
Black Shirt turned from me to pummel the old man’s slumping body.
This is where I should have done something. Instead I sat terrified and mute.
White Shirt shoved the old man to the floor. Then he wrapped his hands around my neck and started to squeeze. In the aisle, Shirtless kicked the prone old man. Black Shirt unsheathed his knife.
Franklin pushed me away and then clambered over the seat onto the grandmother behind us. The other passengers surged to the back of the bus. Just as I pressed a forearm into my assailant’s chin, I saw the conductor remove the dead-bolt screwdriver from the door.
One quick stab between the shoulders brought down Shirtless from behind.
As if cued, the bus driver slammed on the brakes, causing Black Shirt to pitch forward and fall. White Shirt still clenched my throat. My free hand could not release his tightening grip.
The driver unscrewed the metal gear stick from its floor housing, raised it above his head, and brought it down as if driving a railroad spike. I heard the sharp crack of breaking ice. The hands around my throat loosened, then fell.
The bus went silent. And then came the sound of shattering glass. Frenzied Black Shirt and bloodied Shirtless had jumped off the bus after it stopped and started pelting the windows with rocks they plucked from the dirt road. I ducked the shards. White Shirt’s body slumped beside me in the aisle.
The fusillade ceased. I peeked over my seat and met tufts of black hair and pairs of brown eyes doing the same. Sitting up, the view showed we had made it to a village; this was why the driver had kept going when the violence began. I looked out one side of the bus and saw police officers in olive-green shirts running to where a circle of village men pinned Black Shirt and Shirtless to the ground.
I had never met Chinese police, and guessed it was not a pleasant experience. I also realized that forgetting to bring my passport was about to become more than an inconvenience. My left leg spasmed from adrenaline. Villagers ringed the bus, pointing and staring and murmuring lǎowài lǎowài lǎowài.
“Please,” a voice asked in slow, gentle Chinese. “Get off the bus. Come with me.”
The man pointed at his arm patch, where I recognized the characters for public security.
Another cop grabbed White Shirt’s inert body by the ankles. His wounded head thudded slowly down the bus steps.
“Please,” the officer repeated.
Since arriving in China the previous month, my reading outside of language lessons consisted of Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen Square memoirs. Exiting the bus seemed tantamount to erasure. I would walk through
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assembled behind glass and in full view of the public, with the same intergrity and pride as all Shinola products, at our flagship store in Detroit.Know of a New York organization that would like to try some Yes Lab shenanigans in the fall? Read on!
May 12, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DALLAS PARTY ENDS BADLY FOR U.S. TRADE REPS AND FEDERAL AGENTS
Dozens of rogue "delegates" disrupt Trans-Pacific Partnership gala with "award," "mic check," mass toilet paper replacement, projection
Two dozen rogue "delegates" disrupted the corporate-sponsored welcome gala for the high-stakes Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade negotiations yesterday with a fake award ceremony and "mic check." Other activists, meanwhile, replaced hundreds of rolls of toilet paper (TP) throughout the conference venue with more informative versions, and projected a message on the venue's facade.
The first action began when a smartly-dressed man approached the podium immediately after the gala's keynote speech by Ron Kirk, U.S. Trade Representative and former mayor of Dallas. The man (local puppeteer David Goodwin) introduced himself as "Git Haversall," president of the "Texas Corporate Power Partnership," and announced he was giving Kirk and other U.S. trade negotiators the "2012 Corporate Power Tool Award," which "Haversall's" partner held aloft.
The crowd of negotiators and corporate representatives applauded, and "Haversall" continued: "I'd like to personally thank the negotiators for their relentless efforts. The TPP agreement is shaping up to be a fantastic way for us to maximize profits, regardless of what the public of this nation—or any other nation—thinks is right."
At that point, the host of the reception took the microphone back and announced that the evening's formal programming had concluded. But Mr. Haversall confidently re-took the microphone and warmly invited Kirk to accept the award.
Kirk moved towards the stage, but federal agents blocked his path to protect him from further embarrassment. At that point, a dozen well-dressed "delegates" (local activists, some from Occupy Dallas) broke into ecstatic dance and chanted "TPP! TPP! TPP!" for several minutes until Dallas police arrived.
Fifteen minutes later, another dozen interlopers from Occupy Dallas interrupted the reception with a spirited "mic-check." Outside, activists projected a message on the hotel, and throughout the night, delegates discovered that hundreds of rolls of custom toilet paper had been installed in the conference venue.
The activists disrupted the gala to protest the hijacking of trade negotiations by an extreme pro-corporate agenda. "The public and the media are locked out of these meetings," said Kristi Lara from Occupy Dallas, one of the infiltrators. "We can't let U.S. trade officials get away with secretly limiting Internet freedoms, restricting financial regulation, extending medicine patents, and giving corporations other a whole host of other powers allowing them to quash the rights of people and democracies, for example by offshoring jobs in ever new ways. Trade officials know the public won't stand for this, which is why they try to keep their work secret—and that's why we had to crash their party."
There is mounting criticism of the U.S. role in pushing the negotiations forward in secrecy, despite the public's overwhelming disagreement with TPP goals. ("Buy American" procurement preferences are supported by over 85% of Americans, but U.S. trade negotiators are preparing to accept a ban on such preferences. Two weeks ago, 69 members of Congress sent a letter to President Obama asking him not to accept that ban.)
Many are calling the Obama administration duplicitous: while the administration publicly hypes a plan to revitalize American manufacturing and create jobs in the U.S., U.S. trade officials push for new "investor rights" that would make it easier for American companies to lay off domestic workers and open plants overseas.
"The TPP has been branded as a trade 'negotiation' by its corporate proponents, but in reality it's a place for big business to get its way behind closed doors," said Pete Rokicki of Occupy Dallas. "This anti-democratic maneuver can be stopped if the public gets active—just look at the movement that killed the ill-advised SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) law a few months ago. That's why Obama's trade officials lock the public, the press and even members of Congress from the trade negotiation process."
"We're really happy to know that even in their most private moments, US trade reps are reminded that a vast majority of the public stands opposed to corporate-friendly, closed-door trade deals like the TPP," said Sean Dagohoy from the Yes Lab, who assisted in the actions.
Contacts:
Occupy Dallas: Kristi Lara, [email protected], 505-463-7013
The Yes Lab: [email protected]
For more information on the TPP, live from Dallas, contact Lori Wallach, Public Citizen Global Trade Watch, [email protected], 202-454-5107WWE issued the following statement in response former WWE ring announcer Justin Roberts' blog on Connor “The Crusher” Michalek's Hall Of Fame induction.
WWE Statement:
“It is offensive to suggest that WWE and its executives had anything but altruistic intentions in honoring Connor and his legacy with The Warrior Award. In conjunction with Connor’s father, Connor’s Cure was established by Stephanie McMahon and Paul Levesque to raise awareness and funds for pediatric cancer, and to honor a boy that so many people within the WWE family came to love. The fund is managed by the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Foundation and has already raised more than $200,000 for pediatric cancer research.
In addition, following the Ultimate Warrior’s impassioned Hall of Fame speech last year encouraging WWE to recognize its unsung heroes, the Warrior Award was established in his memory to honor those who exhibit unwavering strength and perseverance, and who live life with the courage and compassion that embodies the indomitable spirit of the Ultimate Warrior. With the full support and input of Ultimate Warrior’s widow, Dana Warrior, Connor Michalek was the first recipient of the Warrior Award, and moving forward the award will be given annually to acknowledge other unsung heroes among WWE’s employees and fans.
WWE is proud to use our global platforms to raise awareness for important social causes, including Connor’s Cure as well as our longstanding partnership with Make A Wish, our on-going partnership with Susan G. Komen, which has resulted in more than $1.5 million in funds raised, and our international partnership with Special Olympics.”A petition has been delivered to the legislature urging the government to move forward with stalled plans to build a new RCMP detachment in the south end of the Cowichan Valley.
The petition, with approximately 1,000 signatures, was delivered by Sonia Furstenau, the Green MLA for the Valley.
“It is essential that the citizens of this area have the services they need,” said Furstenau.
“I am proud to be delivering this petition on behalf of the residents of Cowichan in hopes that the government will not deprive citizens of their community’s RCMP detachment.”
The existing Shawnigan Lake RCMP detachment is in need of rebuilding. The Cowichan Valley Regional District has already transferred a one-hectare piece of property, located on Shawnigan Mill Bay Road near the Trans Canada Highway, to the RCMP for the project.
But the previous Liberal government delayed plans for the new detachment and began exploring whether the North and South Cowichan detachments should be amalgamated.
A final decision from the province is expected later this month.
FOR RELATED STORY, CLICK HERE
Furstenau said the Cowichan Valley is large geographic region, and its population is growing.
“The South Cowichan detachment spends much of its time responding to problems on the Malahat,” she said.
“Removing RCMP presence from the south end would put a highway potentially full of traffic between citizens facing emergencies and their first responders. This presents an unacceptable risk to the community. I am urging the Solicitor General to go ahead with the original plan to rebuild the South Cowichan detachment on the land the CVRD has already provided for it.”WASHINGTON, DC — The Supreme Court issued an order today leaving in place a lower-court order exempting grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins of people in the United States from the Muslim ban. However, today’s order allows refugees with formal assurances from resettlement organizations to be banned unless they have other ties to people or entities in the United States, pending further proceedings.
The decision came as a result of the administration’s request that the Supreme Court overrule a decision by the federal district court in Hawaii last week. The Hawaii court found that the government had adopted an unsustainably broad interpretation of the Supreme Court’s limited permission to implement the ban on refugees and people from six Muslim-majority countries only with respect to people who had no “bona fide relationship” with a United States person or entity.
Specifically, the Hawaii court blocked the government’s efforts to ban grandparents and other close relatives of people in the United States. The Hawaii court also found that under the Supreme Court’s order, refugees do have a bona fide relationship with U.S.-based resettlement organizations that provide formal assurances of assistance with their resettlement.
The Supreme Court rejected the government’s request that it issue a new decision greenlighting the government’s broad implementation of the stay, instead allowing for these issues to be litigated further in the Ninth Circuit. While that litigation is proceeding, however, the Supreme Court suspended the Hawaii court’s ruling as to refugees with formal assurances of resettlement assistance. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Supreme Court and in the Hawaii court, urging the courts to block the government’s broad ban implementation.
Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, had the following reaction:
“Given an inch, the Trump Administration has tried to take a mile in implementing the ban. That is cruel, unnecessary, and unlawful. We are glad that the order requiring the government to recognize grandparents and other close family remains in place, but are deeply concerned about the effect of today’s ruling on thousands of refugees who seek to escape dangerous situations, who have been fully vetted by the United States, and whose arrival communities, congregations, and organizations in the United States have been preparing for and anticipating. We look forward to eradicating the entire Muslim ban, which is unconstitutional and repugnant to our most basic values as a country.”
The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in the fall in a challenge brought by the ACLU and partner organizations.
More information about the ACLU’s case can be found here:
https://www.aclu.org/cases/international-refugee-assistance-project-v-trumpThe Russian government wants to offer citizenship to singer Yo Yo Honey Singh after his song '4 bottle Vodka'went viral in Russia. "This should be our national song," President Vladimir Putin is reported to have gushed.Russia, which, once in the middle of an economic crisis even offered to pay salaries to its people with crates of Vodka, wants to offer a plot of land to Mr Yo Yo in one of its many territories, like maybe Goa or Ukraine.Tamil fans of Honey Singh have taken umbrage at this as the singer was the first North Indian to compose a song showcasing the underrated and comfortable lungi and want the Russians to back off. "Russia can wait. There are so many communities left to stereotype in India," said a visibly angry Mr Aiyenger who runs an MBA coaching institute called Aiyenger Management.He had a parting shot for Mother Russia too. "Remember the time of the reds ruling Russia," he fumed. "That was Karl yug," he added and stormed off.Meanwhile, the Pollution Control Board has decided to issue a notice to the rap singer for spreading misinformation with songs like 'Blue hai pani, pani'. 'We all know pani is not blue. It's tasteless, odourless and colourless. This is an outrage.’"You can, of course, get black water from the Yamuna, but not blue, no sir," he added.Social activist Hanna Azare, who once said alcoholics should be flogged and shamed in public, is understandably not too happy with the lyrics of the rap singer. In an eloquent remark, he said, "These singers are very boozy. Flog them."Asked to respond, Mr Yo Yo said:Aaj botallan khullan do Daaru-sharu dhullan do Whiskey da peg laga ke Saari duniya bhullan do.?Later, bald composer Vishal Dadlani, not known to be a big Yo-Yo fan, alleged: "Honey Singh has hidden his middle name from the world. It's 'Don't'."Back in Delhi, Mr Yo-Yo said he may not leave Punjab for Russia due to the massive differences between the people and culture. “We even dance different,” he said. “In Punjab, we go Balle-Balle! And in Russia, they prefer Ballet, Ballet!"Moscow is understandably not happy with this and President Putin may soon send Buk missile systems to Goa.STORY SUMMARY:
Bennett and Marissa are the sole survivors of the final suicidal act of their religious cult. Confused, relieved, angry and unfulfilled the two followers question each other’s motives for joining, living & surviving under the control of their Leader. Faced with their own doubts, Bennett and Marissa must confront their feelings and fears while deciding what life to live after (near) death.
PROJECT INFO:
PRE-PRODUCTION: has already started. We are budgeted and scheduled. As we get closer to meeting our financial goal we will start to book and commit to the elements necessary to make this film (ie. Equipment, Locations, etc.) PRODUCTION: We will require three shoot days for this project. The script is twelve pages and we feel like a three day shoot will be more than enough to accomplish what is needed. And pending any unforeseen conflicts we will shoot the week of January 28, 2013. POST PRODUCTION: Will start immediately after production and is estimated to take us through the end of March 2013. We intend the final product to be approximately 10mins in run time. TECHNICAL MUMBO-JUMBO: For those of you interested in what we will be shooting on and with here is a little peak behind the curtain to see some of the camera gear we intend to use: CAMERA: RED epic
LENS: Leica Primes (if they are available)
CAMERA SUPPORT: SteadiCam, Chapman Leonard’s Titan Crane, Panavision’s 15’ Techno Crane WHY WE NEED YOUR HELP:
You might be wondering why we're trying to raise $50,000. Well, the short answer is; films are expensive. There is so much that goes into making a film— the non-glamorous, often unknown aspects that makes what we watch believable and real. When making a film, of any length, you are creating a world. When you see an image from a film or television show, understand that everything you see (and don't see) has been planned and arranged with a purpose. From the location that was chosen or the set that was built, to the set dressing and decoration that fills the space, to the props the actors interact with and the costumes they wear; everything has been bought, rented or made. It takes very skilled and talented individuals to accomplish these tasks. On top of everything you see there are the lights and camera equipment, and their technicians, which also require incredible expertise to execute.
Once you've got your crew, actors, equipment, location, food, logistics (parking etc.), and insurance; it all adds up. Everyone involved in this project is a professional and we are aiming to raise enough money to make a professional film.
The creative forces [bio’s below] behind this project are all donating their time, effort and skill to the project but that still isn’t enough to pull it all together. If all of you -- friends, family, and fans --donate what you can (even if it's just a little) we will easily attain our funding goal!
We are so lucky to have assembled the team we have. Troian, Shay & Nolan have been amazing supporters of our work and have agreed to be a part of this project because they believe in us & the script. We hope you will too. If you have any questions please feel free to contact us.
THE TEAM:
hazart [top-left], brandon alperin [top-right], shay mitchell [bot-left], nolan north [bot-center], troian bellisario [bot-right]
Hazart (writer/directors)
(twitter: @hasday, instagram: @stillhazart) Website | Tumblr
Hazart is the combined efforts of Kyle Hasday and Matt Stewart. For over a decade, the duo has created works in film and photography that display an introspective and darkly beautiful vision towards the world we inhabit. Both are graduates of Chapman University’s School of Film and Television. Working in feature, commercial, music video and television production, Hazart has gained extensive professional experience in physical production, development and the creative tasks of bringing a script to life.
Troian Bellisario (actor 'BENNETT')
(twitter: @sleepinthegardn, instagram: @sleepinthegardn) Tumblr
Troian Bellisario is an accomplished television, theater and film actress in addition to a talented writer and producer. Fated to be a filmmaker, Troian has grown up on sets her entire life and began her on-screen career at the tender age of three. Before attending USC's Drama School, Troian was already an experienced television actress and soon began to star in theater productions and independent films. Currently, Troian stars in the hit ABC Family series, 'Pretty Little Liars' playing the role of Spencer Hastings.
Shay Mitchell (actor 'MARISSA')
(twitter: @shaymitch, instagram: @shaym) Website
Shay Mitchell is an actress and philanthropist best known for her role of Emily Fields on the ABC Family show 'Pretty Little Liars'. Shay found her way in front of a camera at an early age. She quickly was discovered by an international modeling agency in Vancouver and traveled around the globe including stops in Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Barcelona. After landing roles in commercials and Canadian television series, Shay moved to Los Angeles to work on 'Pretty Little Liars.'
Nolan North (actor 'LEADER')
(twitter: @nolan_north)
Nolan North has been described as “the nearest thing the games industry has to a bona fide leading man.” As an immensely talented and highly respected actor and voice actor, Nolan has had continued success in television and video games and is beginning to break into feature films. While he is best known for his portrayals of the lead character’s in popular games such as ‘Uncharted’, ‘Prince of Persia’ and ‘Assassin’s Creed’, he is also very accomplished on screen as well, appearing shows such as ‘Big Love’, ‘Ugly Betty’, and ‘NCIS’. Nolan currently plays the role of Peter Hastings on the ABC Family show Pretty Little Liars and is due to appear in J.J. Abram’s ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’.
Elizabeth Collins + Nav Singh (producers)
(twitter: @tandooripotato, instagram: @neentertainment) Website
Elizabeth Collins and Nav Singh co-founded NE Entertainment, LLC in early 2010. Since the birth of their company the two have had successful endeavors to include a Fiat web-campaign, an award winning travel show, multiple short films, and a feature documentary screened across the country. The girls are committed to developing uniquely original content regardless of the genre, medium, or budget. They foster the creation of “NE” story that deserves to be told. That being said – the partnership with Hazart is an exciting and fulfilling venture as they delve into “Immediately Afterlife”.
Brandon Alperin (cinematographer)
(twitter: @gipperpl, instagram: @gipperpl) Website
Picking up a 35mm camera at a young age, Brandon was enamored by how some emulsion, chemicals and photo paper in a dark room could shed so much light on life. Learning from and inspired by acclaimed photographers and cinematographers, Brandon has sought to create the idea of nostalgia and macabre through moving images. Graduating from Chapman University’s School of Film and Television, with an emphasis in Cinematography, Brandon entered the professional world of filmmaking and has lit for some of the most sought after cinematographers in music videos, commercials and features. He has taken his knowledge and expertise on journeys around the world: from time-lapse on the steps of the temples of Tikal in Guatemala, to an intimate one on one with the Dalai Lama in India. Brandon is in constant search of the next great image with which to tell a story.
PRIZES:
We've got some great prizes for you to check out as a reward for donating virtually any amount of money. For just $2 you will be given access to a private Instagram account that will give you an exclusive look into the making of the film. This account will have photos taken by the directors, cast and crew during pre-production, production and post and will all be filtered through this one instagram account!
If you can donate more we also have signed photos, scripts, and twitter thanks and shoutouts! We've even offered a dinner with the directors and cast. As well as a set visit!
Don't forget about our voicemail prize, where famed voice actor Nolan North will record a customized message for your phone. Nolan is the voice of Uncharted's Nathan Drake as well as voices for other big title games such as Portal, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Batman, X-Men, and TMNT titles and many more. Check him out on IMDB. In addition to his video game work, Nolan is an accomplished voice impersonator. Want Sean Connery to record your voicemail? How about Christopher Walken or Al Pacino? This is a very cool and exclusive prize that shouldn't be missed!
Take your time to look at our rewards and prizes and throw in your support for this project.
CREDITS FOR ABOVE VIDEOS:
writter/director hazart | producer elizabeth collins + nav singh | director of photography jordan keslow | editor jeremy floyd | gaffer travis stewart | sound jill cosh | makeup michelle chung | re-recording mixer ethan beigel |“If you’re still wondering,‘What do I call a transgender person, it’s so confusing,’ actually it’s pretty simple: call them whatever they want to be called.” — John Oliver, Last Week Tonight, June 28
Caitlyn Jenner, from Vanity Fair. ( file photo )
Of course, it should not take a comedian to tell us how to talk about transgender people. But, when John Oliver skewered the media for our collective insensitivities in reporting on and representing transgender people, he made valid points about even the best-intentioned journalists, ribbing us with the reality that, “Even when the media is trying to be supportive, they can still make dumb mistakes.” Indeed, with such high-profile transgender women as Caitlyn Jenner, Chelsea Manning and Laverne Cox all making news in recent months, I expect there have been many interesting discussions in many newsrooms about how we tell the stories of all transgender people, not just these high-profile individuals. Certainly this has been the case at the Star with several writers and editors — and our newsroom style committee — having engaged in discussion and debate in recent weeks about how to report and present such stories. This really is not rocket science. As Trans Media Watch, a British organization devoted to improving media coverage of transgender people states, this is about “accuracy, dignity and respect.”
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That means the language we use matters. In line with the imperative that transgender people be portrayed as they wish to be portrayed, a transgender person should always be referred to by the gender pronoun and name she or he prefers. There should be minimal — ideally, no — reference to their birth names. As GLAAD, the U.S.-based lesbian gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) media advocacy organization advises in its media guide, “When a transgender person’s birth name is used in a story, the implication is almost always that this is the person’s ‘real name.’ “A transgender person’s chosen name is their real name — whether they are able to obtain a court-ordered name change or not,” the guide tells us, adding, “When writing about a transgender person’s chosen name, do not say ‘she wants to be called,’ ‘she calls herself,’ ‘she goes by Susan,’ or other phrases that cast doubt on the transgender person’s identity.” GLAAD also provides guidance on how we illustrate stories about transgender people. It suggests that “in almost every instance” there is no need to publish “before” photos of the person in the news. “Often these images are simply included to satisfy the curiosity of readers or viewers, and in most cases they add nothing to the story.” So how has the Star handled its recent reports on high-profile transgender people? For the most part, I’d say, with the respect and fairness that’s aligned with these best practices. When Caitlyn Jenner made her debut on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine in June, columnist Vinay Menon took great care to write about her “birth” announcement with the sensitivity the sensational story demanded. Having sought out the GLAAD guidelines in advance, Menon referred to her as “she” throughout. He made one early mention that Caitlyn was “formerly known as Bruce” but given the context of this being the first story about Caitlyn that seemed necessary.
As GLAAD then advised, “Since Caitlyn Jenner was known to the public by her prior name, it may be necessary initially to say ‘Caitlyn Jenner, formerly known as Bruce Jenner …’ However, once the public has learned Jenner’s new name, do not continually refer to it in stories.” This includes reporting on Jenner’s past athletic glories. Says GLAAD: “Do avoid male pronouns and Caitlyn’s prior name, even when referring to events in her past. For example, ‘Prior to her transition, Caitlyn Jenner won the gold medal in the men’s decathlon at the Summer Olympics held in Montreal in 1976.’”
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In recent weeks the Star has reported on Chelsea Manning, who is imprisoned in the U.S for national security violations. The wire story we published rightly used “she” consistently and made only brief mention of her former identity to provide context. But, in presenting the story, the Star published side-by-side photos of Chelsea Manning before and after her transition, which seems to me unnecessary and out of line with best practices. That’s a relatively small misstep but still worth noting and learning from given the reality that most people learn about transgender people through the media. On this front, I expect we’ve all got much to learn about transgender people and transgender issues. For the media, that means going considerably beyond reporting and commenting on these high profile transgender people in the news recently to find and tell the stories of the transgender people in our community. [email protected] don't need overpriced "recovery" products after exercise, but eating a low-carb meal can have real benefits for your next workout, and for your general health and metabolism. It all has to do with tissue storage and insulin reception.
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Photo by SuziJane.
After a round of aerobic (active movement) exercise, eating a lower-carb meal helps the body store sugar from your bloodstream in muscles and other tissues, making more energy available for your life, and your next exercise, if you're fairly regular about it. The side benefit is a generally improved metabolism, and a means of helping avoid insulin insensitivity, a pre-condition that often leads to diabetes.
As part of a study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, researchers fed one of three meals to test subjects after 90 minutes of exercise on a treadmill or stationary bike. One was relatively balanced between carbohydrates, protein, and fat, and had a moderate amount of calories. One was otherwise balanced, but scaled back on the carbs. A final meal was lower-calorie, but had a higher amount of carbs. The results:
In all three exercise sessions, researchers say there was a trend for an increase in insulin sensitivity. But when the participants ate the low-carbohydrate meal following exercise, it increased their insulin sensitivity even more. Researchers say the results show that people can reap important health benefits from exercise without starving themselves after exercise or losing weight.
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While you're plotting your perfect low-carb, post-workout meal, be sure to replenish your fluids as well. Tell us what makes for a great meal after a hard workout in the comments.
What You Eat After Working Out Matters [WebMD via The Food Times]Bain Capital, the private equity firm branded a "job destroyer" in the US presidential elections, has bought a majority stake in the state-owned blood products firm Plasma Resources UK.
Lord Owen, a former Labour health minister in the 1970s, who created a service to make the UK self-sufficient in blood supplies, said it was "hard to conceive of a worse outcome" than the £200m sale of an 80% stake in the Hertfordshire-based company to private equity. The Department of Health will retain a 20% share in the business.
Plasma Resources UK turns plasma - the watery fluid in blood that carries the white and red cells - into life-saving treatments for immune deficiencies, neurological diseases and haemophilia.
Since the firm was created by the Labour government in 2002 to maintain a steady supply of blood products, all plasma has been collected from US donors because of the theoretical risk of contamination with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human form of BSE, which cannot be reliably tested for.
Under the deal announced on Thursday, Bain Capital has agreed to pay £90m upfront, with a deferred payment "expected to be worth £110m" due in five years' time.
The US private equity firm, which was founded in 1984 by former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, has promised to invest £50m in PRUK to increase production, refurbish facilities and develop new products. It has also pledged to keep the company's headquarters in the UK.
Bain Capital shot to notoriety in the US presidential elections, when Barack Obama's team made Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain a centrepiece of its campaign against the Republican candidate, accusing him and the company of shredding jobs in the American heartland. Romney made his fortune at Bain but left the company at least a decade before the presidential election.
The sale of the 80% stake adds to the growing list of privatisations now underway, including the Royal Mail, Search and Rescue, which will be taken over in 2015, and a tranche of the student loans book.
Health Minister Dan Poulter said the deal, which values PRUK at £230m, will "ensure that patients will have access to high quality plasma products for years to come".
"Bain Capital was chosen following a fair and open competitive process which looked at who offered the best deal for patients and to ensure future employment at the company."
But Lord Owen, the crossbench peer, blasted the deal. "It's hard to conceive of a worse outcome for a sale of this particularly sensitive national health asset than a private equity company with none of the safeguards in terms of governance of a publicly quoted company and being answerable to shareholders. Private equity has a useful function, as I saw in years past on the advisory board of Terra Firma, but Bain Capital should not have been chosen for this sale."
"Is there no limit to what and how this coalition government will privatise?"
In March the peer warned prime minister David Cameron that he would be foolish to allow the sale of PRUK, which he described as "an excellent insurance policy for the NHS" that ensures the integrity of plasma supplies. A privatised company posed risks of contaminated plasma, he suggested. "The worldwide plasma supply line has in the past been contaminated... We in this country should do everything in our power to avoid being reliant on open market tendering processes for NHS patients." Professor Allyson Pollock, professor of public health research and policy at Queen Mary University London, said there was "not a shred of evidence" to support government claims that private firms would boost innovation in plasma treatments.
"Where is the evidence that when you use venture capital such as Bain Capital that they invest and they don't asset strip?" she said. Innovation in the NHS and its blood supply services was at risk as a result of the deal, she said.
The sale illustrated "why we are concerned at the way that NHS and NHS associated products are being denationalised and privatised and put out to the market place as a source of profit rather than responding to patient needs."
Devin O'Reilly, managing director of Bain Capital in London and leader of the firm's healthcare team in Europe, said: "We are excited about the prospects of PRUK in the growing plasma products industry and are committed to investing in the company to help it reach its full potential in this global market."The calculus controversy (German: Prioritätsstreit, "priority dispute") was an argument between the mathematicians Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz over who had first invented calculus. The question was a major intellectual controversy, which began simmering in 1699 and broke out in full force in 1711. Leibniz had published his work first, but Newton's supporters accused Leibniz of plagiarizing Newton's unpublished ideas. Leibniz died in disfavor in 1716 after his patron, the Elector Georg Ludwig of Hanover, became King George I of Great Britain in 1714. The modern consensus is that both men developed their ideas independently.
Newton claimed to have begun working on a form of calculus (which he called "the method of fluxions and fluents") in 1666, at the age of 23, but did not publish it except as a minor annotation in the back of one of his publications decades later (a relevant Newton manuscript of October 1666 is now published among his mathematical papers[1]). Gottfried Leibniz began working on his variant of calculus in 1674, and in 1684 published his first paper employing it, "Nova Methodus pro Maximis et Minimis". L'Hôpital published a text on Leibniz's calculus in 1696 (in which he recognized that Newton's Principia of 1687 was "nearly all about this calculus"). Meanwhile, Newton, though he explained his (geometrical) form of calculus in Section I of Book I of the Principia of 1687,[2] did not explain his eventual fluxional notation for the calculus[3] in print until 1693 (in part) and 1704 (in full).
Background [ edit ]
The last years of Leibniz's life, 1710–1716, were embittered by a long controversy with John Keill, Newton, and others, over whether Leibniz had discovered calculus independently of Newton, or whether he had merely invented another notation for ideas that were fundamentally Newton's. Newton manipulated the quarrel. No participant doubted that Newton had already developed his method of fluxions when Leibniz began working on the differential calculus, yet there was seemingly no proof beyond Newton's word. He had published a calculation of a tangent with the note: "This is only a special case of a general method whereby I can calculate curves and determine maxima, minima, and centers of gravity." How this was done he explained to a pupil a full 20 years later, when Leibniz's articles were already well-read. Newton's manuscripts came to light only after his death.
The infinitesimal calculus can be expressed either in the notation of fluxions or in that of differentials, or, as noted above, it was also expressed by Newton in geometrical form, as in the Principia of 1687. Newton employed fluxions as early as 1666, but did not publish an account of his notation until 1693. The earliest use of differentials in Leibniz's notebooks may be traced to 1675. He employed this notation in a 1677 letter to Newton. The differential notation also appeared in Leibniz's memoir of 1684.
The claim that Leibniz invented the calculus independently of Newton rests on the basis that Leibniz:
published a description of his method some years before Newton printed anything on fluxions; always alluded to the discovery as being his own invention. This statement went unchallenged for some years; enjoyed the strong presumption that he acted in good faith; demonstrated in his private papers his development of the ideas of calculus in a manner independent of the path taken by Newton.
According to Leibniz's detractors, the fact that Leibniz's claim went unchallenged for some years is immaterial. To rebut this case it is sufficient to show that he:
saw some of Newton's papers on the subject in or before 1675 or at least 1677
obtained the fundamental ideas of the calculus from those papers.
No attempt was made to rebut #4, which was not known at the time, but which provides the strongest of the evidence that Leibniz came to the calculus independently from Newton. This evidence, however, is still questionable based on the discovery, in the Inquest and after, that Leibniz both back-dated and changed fundamentals of his "original" notes, not only in this intellectual conflict, but in several others.[4]. He also published "anonymous" slanders of Newton regarding their controversy which he tried, initially, to claim he was not author of.[4]
If good faith is nevertheless assumed, however, Leibniz's notes as presented to the inquest came first to integration, which he saw as a generalization of the summation of infinite series, whereas Newton began from derivatives. However, to view the development of calculus as entirely independent between the work of Newton and Leibniz misses the point that both had some knowledge of the methods of the other (though Newton did develop most fundamentals before Leibniz started) and in fact worked together on a few aspects, in particular power series, as is shown in a letter to Henry Oldenburg dated 24 October 1676, where Newton remarks that Leibniz had developed a number of methods, one of which was new to him.[5] Both Leibniz and Newton could see by this exchange of letters that the other was far along towards the calculus (Leibniz in particular mentions it) but only Leibniz was prodded thereby into publication.
That Leibniz saw some of Newton's manuscripts had always been likely. In 1849, C. I. Gerhardt, while going through Leibniz's
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for it these days are the beautiful scenery and the great weather, but that's not enough to sustain the people's will to live here.
We're living in a feudal state, where the super-rich coastal elites live in a bubble immune to all of their taxes and "progressive values." Meanwhile the middle class is getting squeezed out and driven into poverty.
Victor Davis Hanson sums up what's happening in California perfectly in his latest piece, "Is California Cracking Up?"
Here's a beginning of his article, you can click here to read the whole thing:
"Corporate profits at California-based transnational corporations such as Apple, Facebook, and Google are hitting record highs. California housing prices from La Jolla to Berkeley along the Pacific Coast can top $1,000 a square foot. It seems as if all of China is willing to pay premium prices to get their children degreed at Caltech, Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA, or USC. Yet California — after raising its top income tax rate to 13.3 percent and receiving record revenues — is still facing a budget deficit of more than $1 billion. There is a much more foreboding state crisis of unfunded liabilities and pension obligations of nearly $1 trillion..."
Click here to continue reading at the National Review.In the first political fallout from last week’s vote to raise the gas tax in California, opponents are trying to recall a rookie lawmaker who voted for it.
Carl DeMaio, a talk radio host and former city councilman in San Diego, said Tuesday that plans are moving forward to launch a recall of Sen. Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, who voted for the $52 billion road repair package, paid for by fuel taxes and registration fees, just four months after he took office.
“This is the right strategy. There’s consensus on it. And we are moving forward,” DeMaio said.
While the gas tax is the impetus of the action, DeMaio said he and others in the nascent coalition to oust Newman are primarily setting their sights on the Democratic Party’s two-thirds supermajority in the Legislature.
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DeMaio would not name any of the other players but did say they are working to get the California Republican Party involved, adding, “If they don’t take action on this, they deserve their superminority status.”
Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, said he’s monitoring the discussions.
“There is a desire to ensure that those who approved this attack on the middle class suffer the political consequences,” Coupal said by phone Tuesday. “People are really ticked off about this, so it would not surprise me if one or more recall efforts were launched as a direct result of this massive tax increase.”
Though it took a Republican vote in the Senate to clinch the needed two-thirds margin last week after Democratic Sen. Steven Glazer refused to support the road repair deal, dispatching Newman would put Democrats below the 27-member supermajority status, making it that much harder to raise taxes again in the future.
DeMaio said the time is right to capitalize on the tax vote, noting Newman won his fall race by fewer than 2,500 votes over Republican Ling Ling Chang. The district includes parts of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Orange counties and is considered a battleground for either party. Newman doesn’t stand for re-election until 2020, a presidential election year in which higher turnout tends to favor Democrats.
Click here to go to The Money Trail.
Newman, the co-author of ACA 5, the constitutional amendment that prohibits lawmakers from shifting the tax money to other purposes, was not immediately available for comment.
Transportation-related taxes, and talk radio, for that matter, were at the center of the successful 2003 recall of former Gov. Gray Davis. Several attempts to recall legislators, however, have foundered and sometimes left their subjects in better position because the rules allow them to raise unlimited contributions that can be used for other political purposes.
In 2009, critics launched a recall effort to oust then-Assemblyman Anthony Adams, R-Hesperia, one of a handful of Republicans who voted for temporary tax increases in February 2009. The effort ultimately fizzled for lack of valid voter signatures.
A couple of years earlier, then-Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata sponsored an effort to oust then-Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, after Denham refused to vote for the state budget in 2007. The recall failed overwhelmingly in June 2008.
DeMaio said he’s not worried about that happening: “They have not been well-planned, well-funded and well-managed.”
Proponents need 63,592 valid signatures and have 160 days to collect signatures and turn in petitions once they are issued. Based on the recall election timeline, it would occur after the road deal becomes law and Californians begin paying the higher fees and taxes.
“We are going to make a singular example of Newman,” added DeMaio.
Kaitlyn MacGregor, a spokeswoman for the state GOP, said party officials are listening closely to district voters.
“We hear that they are angry,” MacGregor said. “And if something comes together, we will look at it.”Joseph Frank Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966[1]), known professionally as Buster Keaton, was an American actor, comedian, film director, producer, screenwriter, and stunt performer.[2] He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression which earned him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".[3][4] Critic Roger Ebert wrote of Keaton's "extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929" when he "worked without interruption" on a series of films that make him "the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies".[4] His career declined afterward with a loss of artistic independence when he was hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, his wife divorced him, and he descended into alcoholism. He recovered in the 1940s, remarried, and revived his career to a degree as an honored comic performer for the rest of his life, earning an Academy Honorary Award.
Many of Keaton's films from the 1920s remain highly regarded, such as Sherlock Jr. (1924), The General (1926), and The Cameraman (1928),[5] with The General widely viewed as his masterpiece.[6][7][8] Among its strongest admirers was Orson Welles, who stated that The General was cinema's highest achievement in comedy, and perhaps the greatest film ever made.[9] Keaton was recognized as the seventh-greatest film director by Entertainment Weekly,[10] and the American Film Institute ranked him in 1999 as the 21st greatest male star of classic Hollywood cinema.[11]
Career [ edit ]
Six-year-old Buster Keaton with his parents Myra and Joe Keaton during a vaudeville act
Early life in vaudeville [ edit ]
Keaton was born into a vaudeville family in Piqua, Kansas,[12] the small town where his mother, Myra Keaton (née Cutler), was when she went into labor. He was named "Joseph" to continue a tradition on his father's side (he was sixth in a line bearing the name Joseph Keaton)[1] and "Frank" for his maternal grandfather, who disapproved of his parents' union. Later, Keaton changed his middle name to "Francis".[1] His father was Joseph Hallie "Joe" Keaton, who owned a traveling show with Harry Houdini called the Mohawk Indian Medicine Company, which performed on stage and sold patent medicine on the side.[citation needed]
According to a frequently repeated story, which may be apocryphal,[13] Keaton acquired the nickname "Buster" at about 18 months of age. Keaton told interviewer Fletcher Markle that Houdini was present one day when the young Keaton took a tumble down a long flight of stairs without injury. After the infant sat up and shook off his experience, Houdini remarked, "That was a real buster!" According to Keaton, in those days, the word "buster" was used to refer to a spill or a fall that had the potential to produce injury. After this, Keaton's father began to use the nickname to refer to the youngster. Keaton retold the anecdote over the years, including a 1964 interview with the CBC's Telescope.[14]
At the age of three, Keaton began performing with his parents in The Three Keatons. He first appeared on stage in 1899 in Wilmington, Delaware. The act was mainly a comedy sketch. Myra played the saxophone to one side, while Joe and Buster performed on center stage. The young Keaton would goad his father by disobeying him, and the elder Keaton would respond by throwing him against the scenery, into the orchestra pit, or even into the audience. A suitcase handle was sewn into Keaton's clothing to aid with the constant tossing. The act evolved as Keaton learned to take trick falls safely; he was rarely injured or bruised on stage. This knockabout style of comedy led to accusations of child abuse, and occasionally, arrest. However, Buster Keaton was always able to show the authorities that he had no bruises or broken bones. He was eventually billed as "The Little Boy Who Can't Be Damaged", with the overall act being advertised as "The Roughest Act That Was Ever in the History of the Stage".[15] Decades later, Keaton said that he was never hurt by his father and that the falls and physical comedy were a matter of proper technical execution. In 1914, Keaton told the Detroit News: "The secret is in landing limp and breaking the fall with a foot or a hand. It's a knack. I started so young that landing right is second nature with me. Several times I'd have been killed if I hadn't been able to land like a cat. Imitators of our act don't last long, because they can't stand the treatment."[15]
Keaton claimed he was having so much fun that he would sometimes begin laughing as his father threw him across the stage. Noticing that this drew fewer laughs from the audience, he adopted his famous deadpan expression whenever he was working.[16]
The act ran up against laws banning child performers in vaudeville. According to one biographer, Keaton was made to go to school while performing in New York, but only attended for part of one day. Despite tangles with the law and a disastrous tour of music halls in the United Kingdom, Keaton was a rising star in the theater. Keaton stated that he learned to read and write late, and was taught by his mother. By the time he was 21, his father's alcoholism threatened the reputation of the family act,[15] so Keaton and his mother, Myra, left for New York, where Buster Keaton's career swiftly moved from vaudeville to film.[17]
Keaton served in the American Expeditionary Forces in France with the United States Army's 40th Infantry Division during World War I. His unit remained intact and was not broken up to provide replacements, as happened to some other late-arriving divisions. During his time in uniform, he suffered an ear infection that permanently impaired his hearing.[18][19]
Silent film era [ edit ]
Cops (1922) A clip from the beginning of(1922)
In February 1917, Keaton met Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle at the Talmadge Studios in New York City, where Arbuckle was under contract to Joseph M. Schenck. Joe Keaton disapproved of films, and Buster also had reservations about the medium. During his first meeting with Arbuckle, he asked to borrow one of the cameras to get a feel for how it worked. He took the camera back to his hotel room and dismantled and reassembled it. With this rough understanding of the mechanics of the moving pictures, he returned the next day, camera in hand, asking for work. He was hired as a co-star and gag man, making his first appearance in The Butcher Boy. Keaton later claimed that he was soon Arbuckle's second director and his entire gag department. He appeared in a total of 14 Arbuckle shorts, running into 1920. They were popular, and contrary to Keaton's later reputation as "The Great Stone Face", he often smiled and even laughed in them. Keaton and Arbuckle became close friends, and Keaton was one of few people, along with Charlie Chaplin, to defend Arbuckle's character during accusations that he was responsible for the death of actress Virginia Rappe. (Arbuckle was eventually acquitted, with an apology from the jury for the ordeal he had undergone.)[20]
In 1920, The Saphead was released, in which Keaton had his first starring role in a full-length feature. It was based on a successful play, The New Henrietta, which had already been filmed once, under the title The Lamb, with Douglas Fairbanks playing the lead. Fairbanks recommended Keaton to take the role for the remake five years later, since the film was to have a comic slant.
After Keaton's successful work with Arbuckle, Schenck gave him his own production unit, Buster Keaton Productions. He made a series of two-reel comedies, including One Week (1920), The Playhouse (1921), Cops (1922), and The Electric House (1922). Keaton then moved to full-length features.
Keaton's writers included Clyde Bruckman, Joseph Mitchell, and Jean Havez, but the most ingenious gags were generally conceived by Keaton himself. Comedy director Leo McCarey, recalling the freewheeling days of making slapstick comedies, said, "All of us tried to steal each other's gagmen. But we had no luck with Keaton, because he thought up his best gags himself and we couldn't steal him!"[21] The more adventurous ideas called for dangerous stunts, performed by Keaton at great physical risk. During the railroad water-tank scene in Sherlock Jr., Keaton broke his neck when a torrent of water fell on him from a water tower, but he did not realize it until years afterward. A scene from Steamboat Bill, Jr. required Keaton to run into the shot and stand still on a particular spot. Then, the facade of a two-story building toppled forward on top of Keaton. Keaton's character emerged unscathed, due to a single open window. The stunt required precision, because the prop house weighed two tons, and the window only offered a few inches of clearance around Keaton's body. The sequence furnished one of the most memorable images of his career.[22]
Aside from Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), Keaton's most enduring feature-length films include Our Hospitality (1923), The Navigator (1924), Sherlock Jr. (1924), Seven Chances (1925), The Cameraman (1928), and The General (1926). The General, set during the American Civil War, combined physical comedy with Keaton's love of trains, including an epic locomotive chase. Employing picturesque locations, the film's storyline reenacted an actual wartime incident. Though it would come to be regarded as Keaton's greatest achievement, the film received mixed reviews at the time. It was too dramatic for some filmgoers expecting a lightweight comedy, and reviewers questioned Keaton's judgment in making a comedic film about the Civil War, even while noting it had a "few laughs."[23]
It was an expensive misfire, and Keaton was never entrusted with total control over his films again. His distributor, United Artists, insisted on a production manager who monitored expenses and interfered with certain story elements. Keaton endured this treatment for two more feature films, and then exchanged his independent setup for employment at Hollywood's biggest studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Keaton's loss of independence as a filmmaker coincided with the coming of sound films (although he was interested in making the transition) and mounting personal problems, and his career in the early sound era was hurt as a result.[24]
Sound era and television [ edit ]
Keaton signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1928, a business decision that he would later call the worst of his life. He realized too late that the studio system MGM represented would severely limit his creative input. For instance, the studio refused his request to make his early project, Spite Marriage, as a sound film and after the studio converted, he was obliged to adhere to dialogue-laden scripts. However, MGM did allow Keaton some creative participation on his last originally developed/written silent film The Cameraman, 1928, which was his first project under contract with them, but hired Edward Sedgwick as the official director.
Keaton was forced to use a stunt double during some of the more dangerous scenes, something he had never done in his heyday, as MGM wanted badly to protect its investment. "Stuntmen don't get laughs," Keaton had said. Some of his most financially successful films for the studio were during this period. MGM tried teaming the laconic Keaton with the rambunctious Jimmy Durante in a series of films, The Passionate Plumber, Speak Easily, and What! No Beer?[25] The latter would be Keaton's last starring feature in his home country. The films proved popular. (Thirty years later, both Keaton and Durante had cameo roles in It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, albeit not in the same scenes.)
In the first Keaton pictures with sound, he and his fellow actors would shoot each scene three times: one in English, one in Spanish, and one in either French or German. The actors would phonetically memorize the foreign-language scripts a few lines at a time and shoot immediately after. This is discussed in the TCM documentary Buster Keaton: So Funny it Hurt, with Keaton complaining about having to shoot lousy films not just once, but three times.
Keaton was so demoralized during the production of 1933's What! No Beer? that MGM fired him after the filming was complete, despite the film being a resounding hit. In 1934, Keaton accepted an offer to make an independent film in Paris, Le Roi des Champs-Élysées. During this period, he made another film, in England, The Invader (released in the United States as An Old Spanish Custom in 1936).[25]
Educational Pictures [ edit ]
Upon Keaton's return to Hollywood, he made a screen comeback in a series of 16 two-reel comedies for Educational Pictures. Most of these are simple visual comedies, with many of the gags supplied by Keaton himself, often recycling ideas from his family vaudeville act and his earlier films.[26] The high point in the Educational series is Grand Slam Opera, featuring Buster in his own screenplay as an amateur-hour contestant. When the series lapsed in 1937, Keaton returned to MGM as a gag writer, including the final three Marx Brothers MGM films At the Circus (1939) and Go West (1940), and The Big Store (1941). He also provided material for Red Skelton[27] and gave help and advice to Lucille Ball in her comedic work in films and television.[28]
Columbia Pictures [ edit ]
In 1939, Columbia Pictures hired Keaton to star in ten two-reel comedies, running for two years. The director was usually Jules White, whose emphasis on slapstick and farce made most of these films resemble White's famous Three Stooges shorts. Keaton's personal favorite was the series' debut entry, Pest from the West, a shorter, tighter remake of Keaton's little-viewed 1935 feature The Invader; it was directed not by White but by Del Lord, a veteran director for Mack Sennett. Moviegoers and exhibitors welcomed Keaton's Columbia comedies, proving that the comedian had not lost his appeal. However, taken as a whole, Keaton's Columbia shorts rank as the worst comedies he made, an assessment he concurred with in his autobiography.[29] The final entry was She's Oil Mine, and Keaton swore he would never again "make another crummy two-reeler."[29]
1940s and feature films [ edit ]
Keaton's personal life had stabilized with his 1940 marriage, and now he was taking life a little easier, abandoning Columbia for the less strenuous field of feature films. Throughout the 1940s, Keaton played character roles in both "A" and "B" features. He made his last starring feature El Moderno Barba Azul (1946) in Mexico; the film was a low budget production, and it may not have been seen in the United States until its release on VHS in the 1980s, under the title Boom in the Moon. Critics rediscovered Keaton in 1949 and producers occasionally hired him for bigger "prestige" pictures. He had cameos in such films as In the Good Old Summertime (1949), Sunset Boulevard (1950), and Around the World in 80 Days (1956). In In The Good Old Summertime, Keaton personally directed the stars Judy Garland and Van Johnson in their first scene together where they bump into each other on the street. Keaton invented comedy bits where Johnson keeps trying to apologize to a seething Garland, but winds up messing up her hairdo and tearing her dress.
Keaton also had a cameo as Jimmy, appearing near the end of the film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). Jimmy assists Spencer Tracy's character, Captain C. G. Culpepper, by readying Culpepper's ultimately-unused boat for his abortive escape. (The restored version of that film, released in 2013, contains a restored scene where Jimmy and Culpeper talk on the telephone. Lost after the comedy epic's "roadshow" exhibition, the audio of that scene was discovered, and combined with still pictures to recreate the scene.) Keaton was given more screen time in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966). The appearance, since it was released after his death, was his posthumous swansong.
Keaton also appeared in a comedy routine about two inept stage musicians in Charlie Chaplin's Limelight (1952), recalling the vaudeville of The Playhouse. With the exception of Seeing Stars, a minor publicity film produced in 1922, Limelight was the only time in which the two would ever appear together on film.
In 1949, comedian Ed Wynn invited Keaton to appear on his CBS Television comedy-variety show, The Ed Wynn Show, which was televised live on the West Coast. Kinescopes were made for distribution of the programs to other parts of the country since there was no transcontinental coaxial cable until September 1951.
1950s–1960s and television [ edit ]
Keaton getting his foot stuck in railroad tracks at Knott's Berry Farm in 1956
In 1950, Keaton's television series The Buster Keaton Show was broadcast live on a local Los Angeles station. Life with Buster Keaton (1951) was less well received as an attempt to recreate the first series on film, allowing the program to be broadcast nationwide. He also appeared in the early television series Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town. The theatrical feature film The Misadventures of Buster Keaton was fashioned from the series. Keaton said that he canceled the filmed series himself because he was unable to create enough fresh material to produce a new show each week. He also appeared on Ed Wynn's variety show. At age 55, he successfully recreated one of the stunts of his youth in which he propped one foot onto a table, then swung the second foot up next to it and held the awkward position in midair for a moment before crashing to the stage floor. I've Got a Secret host Garry Moore recalled, "I asked (Keaton) how he did all those falls, and he said, 'I'll show you'. He opened his jacket and he was all bruised. So that's how he did it—it hurt—but you had to care enough not to care."
Keaton's periodic television appearances helped to revive interest in his silent films during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1954, he played his first television dramatic role in "The Awakening", an episode of the syndicated anthology series Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Presents. About this time, he also appeared on NBC's The Martha Raye Show.
Also in 1954, Keaton and his wife Eleanor met film programmer Raymond Rohauer with whom they developed a business partnership to re-release his films. Actor James Mason bought the Keatons' house and found numerous cans of films, among which was Keaton's long-lost classic The Boat.[30] Keaton had prints of the features Three Ages, Sherlock Jr., Steamboat Bill, Jr., and College (missing one reel), and the shorts "The Boat" and "My Wife's Relations", which Keaton and Rohauer then transferred to Cellulose acetate film from deteriorating nitrate film stock.[31]
On April 3, 1957, Keaton was surprised by Ralph Edwards for the weekly NBC program This Is Your Life. The program also promoted the release of the biographical film The Buster Keaton Story with Donald O'Connor.[32] In December 1958, Keaton was a guest star in the episode "A Very Merry Christmas" of The Donna Reed Show on ABC. He returned to the program in 1965 in the episode "Now You See It, Now You Don't".[33] In August 1960, Keaton played mute King Sextimus the Silent in the national touring company of the Broadway musical Once Upon A Mattress.[34] In 1960, he returned to MGM for the final time, playing a lion tamer in a 1960 adaptation of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Much of the film was shot on location on the Sacramento River, which doubled for the Mississippi River setting of Twain's book.[35] In 1961, he starred in The Twilight Zone episode "Once Upon a Time", which included both silent and sound sequences. He worked with comedian Ernie Kovacs on a television pilot tentatively titled "Medicine Man," shooting scenes for it on January 12, 1962—the day before Kovacs died in a car crash. "Medicine Man" was completed but not aired.[36]
Keaton also found steady work as an actor in TV commercials, including a series of silent ads for Simon Pure Beer made in 1962 by Jim Mohr in Buffalo, New York in which he revisited some of the gags from his silent film days.[37] In 1964, he appeared with Joan Blondell and Joe E. Brown in the final episode of The Greatest Show on Earth, a circus drama starring Jack Palance. In November, 1965, he appeared on the CBS television special A Salute To Stan Laurel which was a tribute to the comedian and friend of Keaton who had died earlier that year.
Keaton starred in four films for American International Pictures: 1964's Pajama Party and 1965's Beach Blanket Bingo, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, and Sergeant Deadhead. Director William Asher recalled:
I always loved Buster Keaton.… He would bring me bits and routines. He'd say, "How about this?" and it would just be this wonderful, inventive stuff.[38]
In 1965, Keaton starred in the short film The Railrodder for the National Film Board of Canada. He travelled from one end of Canada to the other on a motorized handcar, wearing his traditional pork pie hat and performing gags similar to those in films that he made 50 years before. The film is also notable for being his last silent screen performance.[39] He played the central role in Samuel Beckett's Film (1965), directed by Alan Schneider. Also in 1965, he traveled to Italy to play a role in Due Marines e un Generale, co-starring Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia. His last commercial film appearance was in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), which was filmed in Spain in September–November 1965. He amazed the cast and crew by doing many of his own stunts, although Thames Television said that his increasingly ill health did force the use of a stunt double for some scenes. His final appearance on film was a 1965 safety film produced in Toronto by the Construction Safety Associations of Ontario, and he died shortly after completing it.[40]
Style and themes [ edit ]
Use of parody [ edit ]
Keaton started experimenting with parody during his vaudeville years, where most frequently his performances involved impressions and burlesques of other performers' acts. Most of these parodies targeted acts with which Keaton had shared the bill.[41] When Keaton transposed his experience in vaudeville to film, in many works he parodied melodramas.[41] Other favorite targets were cinematic plots, structures and devices.[42]
One of his most biting parodies is The Frozen North (1922), a satirical take on William S. Hart's Western melodramas, like Hell's Hinges (1916) and The Narrow Trail (1917). Keaton parodied the tired formula of the melodramatic transformation from bad guy to good guy, through which went Hart's character, known as "the good badman".[43] He wears a small version of Hart's campaign hat from the Spanish–American War and a six-shooter on each thigh, and during the scene in which he shoots the neighbor and her husband, he reacts with thick glycerin tears, a trademark of Hart's.[44] Audiences of the 1920s recognized the parody and thought the film hysterically funny. However, Hart himself was not amused by Keaton's antics, particularly the crying scene, and did not speak to Buster for two years after he had seen the film.[45] The film's opening intertitles give it its mock-serious tone, and are taken from "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" by Robert W. Service.[45]
In The Playhouse (1921), he parodied his contemporary Thomas H. Ince, Hart's producer, who indulged in over-crediting himself in his film productions. The short also featured the impression of a performing monkey which was likely derived from a co-biller's act (called Peter the Great).[41] Three Ages (1923), his first feature-length film, is a parody of D. W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916), from which it replicates the three inter-cut shorts structure.[41] Three Ages also featured parodies of Bible stories, like those of Samson and Daniel.[43] Keaton directed the film, along with Edward F. Cline.
Body language [ edit ]
Film critic David Thomson later described Keaton's style of comedy: "Buster plainly is a man inclined towards a belief in nothing but mathematics and absurdity... like a number that has always been searching for the right equation. Look at his face—as beautiful but as inhuman as a butterfly—and you see that utter failure to identify sentiment."[47] Gilberto Perez commented on "Keaton's genius as an actor to keep a face so nearly deadpan and yet render it, by subtle inflections, so vividly expressive of inner life. His large, deep eyes are the most eloquent feature; with merely a stare, he can convey a wide range of emotions, from longing to mistrust, from puzzlement to sorrow."[48] Critic Anthony Lane also noted Keaton's body language:
The traditional Buster stance requires that he remain upstanding, full of backbone, looking ahead... [in The General] he clambers onto the roof of his locomotive and leans gently forward to scan the terrain, with the breeze in his hair and adventure zipping toward him around the next bend. It is the angle that you remember: the figure perfectly straight but tilted forward, like the Spirit of Ecstasy on the hood of a Rolls-Royce... [in The Three Ages], he drives a low-grade automobile over a bump in the road, and the car just crumbles beneath him. Rerun it on video, and you can see Buster riding the collapse like a surfer, hanging onto the steering wheel, coming beautifully to rest as the wave of wreckage breaks.[49]
Film historian Jeffrey Vance wrote:
Buster Keaton's comedy endures not just because he had a face that belongs on Mount Rushmore, at once hauntingly immovable and classically American, but because that face was attached to one of the most gifted actors and directors who ever graced the screen. Evolved from the knockabout upbringing of the vaudeville stage, Keaton's comedy is a whirlwind of hilarious, technically precise, adroitly executed, and surprising gags, very often set against a backdrop of visually stunning set pieces and locations—all this masked behind his unflinching, stoic veneer.[50]
Keaton has inspired full academic study.[51]
Personal life [ edit ]
On May 31, 1921, Keaton married Natalie Talmadge, sister of actresses Norma Talmadge and Constance Talmadge. She co-starred with him in Our Hospitality. The couple had sons Joseph, called Buster Jr. (June 2, 1922 – February 14, 2007),[52] and Robert (February 3, 1924 – July 19, 2009),[53] both of whom later took the surname Talmadge.[54]
After the birth of Robert, the relationship began to suffer.[13] Talmadge decided not to have more children, and this led to the couple staying in separate bedrooms. Her financial extravagance was another factor in the breakdown of the marriage, as she would spend up to a third of his salary on clothes. Keaton dated actress Dorothy Sebastian beginning in the 1920s and Kathleen Key[55] in the early 1930s. After attempts at reconciliation, Talmadge divorced him in 1932, taking his entire fortune and refusing to allow any contact between him and his sons, whose last name she changed to Talmadge. Keaton was reunited with them about a decade later when his older son turned 18.
With the failure of his marriage and the loss of his independence as a film-maker, Keaton lapsed into a period of alcoholism.[13] In 1926, he spent $300,000 to build a 10,000-square-foot (930 m2) home in Beverly Hills designed by architect Gene Verge, Sr., which was later owned by James Mason and Cary Grant.[56] Keaton was briefly institutionalized, according to the Turner Classic Movies documentary So Funny it Hurt. He escaped a straitjacket with tricks learned from Harry Houdini. In 1933, he married his nurse Mae Scriven during an alcoholic binge about which he afterwards claimed to remember nothing. Scriven claimed that she didn't know Keaton's real first name until after the marriage. She filed for divorce in 1935 after finding Keaton with Leah Clampitt Sewell, the libertine wife of millionaire Barton Sewell.[57], in a hotel in Santa Barbara. They divorced in 1936 at great financial cost to Keaton.[58]
On May 29, 1940, Keaton married Eleanor Norris (July 29, 1918 – October 19, 1998), who was 23 years his junior. She has been credited with saving his life by stopping his heavy drinking and helping to salvage his career.[59] The marriage lasted until his death. Between 1947 and 1954, they appeared regularly in the Cirque Medrano in Paris as a double act. She came to know his routines so well that she often participated in them on TV revivals.
Death [ edit ]
Keaton died of lung cancer on February 1, 1966, aged 70, in Woodland Hills, California.[60] Despite being diagnosed with cancer in January 1966, he was never told that he was terminally ill or that he had cancer; Keaton thought that he was recovering from a severe case of bronchitis. Confined to a hospital during his final days, Keaton was restless and paced the room endlessly, desiring to return home. In a British television documentary about his career, his widow Eleanor told producers of Thames Television that Keaton was up out of bed and moving around, and even played cards with friends who came to visit the day before he died.[61] He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, California.
Influence and legacy [ edit ]
Keaton was presented with a 1959 Academy Honorary Award at the 32nd Academy Awards, held in April 1960.[62] Keaton has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: 6619 Hollywood Boulevard (for motion pictures); and 6225 Hollywood Boulevard (for television).
A 1957 film biography, The Buster Keaton Story, starring Donald O'Connor as Keaton was released.[27] The screenplay, by Sidney Sheldon, who also directed the film, was loosely based on Keaton's life but contained many factual errors and merged his three wives into one character.[63] A 1987 documentary, Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow, directed by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill, won two Emmy Awards.[64]
The International Buster Keaton Society was founded on October 4, 1992 – Buster's birthday. Dedicated to bringing greater public attention to Keaton's life and work, the membership includes many individuals from the television and film industry: actors, producers, authors, artists, graphic novelists, musicians, and designers, as well as those who simply admire the magic of Buster Keaton. The Society's nickname, the "Damfinos," draws its name from a boat in Buster's 1921 comedy, "The Boat."
In 1994, caricaturist Al Hirschfeld penned a series of silent film stars for the United States Post Office, including Rudolph Valentino and Keaton.[65] Hirschfeld said that modern film stars were more difficult to depict, that silent film comedians such as Laurel and Hardy and Keaton "looked like their caricatures".[66]
In his essay Film-arte, film-antiartístico, artist Salvador Dalí declared the works of Keaton to be prime examples of "anti-artistic" filmmaking, calling them "pure poetry". In 1925, Dalí produced a collage titled The Marriage of Buster Keaton featuring an image of the comedian in a seated pose, staring straight ahead with his trademark boater hat
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seems absurd to contend that open source software adoption will weaken the software industry or reduce its competitiveness. In fact, the emergence of open source software has contributed to creating a more competitive landscape in the software industry by offering alternative business models that enable smaller companies to gain traction against the dominant incumbent players.
The IIPA's position is profoundly hypocritical, because many parts of the US government, including the Department of Defense, have issued their own memos endorsing open source software adoption.
The IIPA's disingenuous move to equate open source software with piracy reeks of desperation. The BSA and other IIPA members are likely losing sleep over open source software because that development model and approach to licensing will empower developing countries to build their own domestic IT industries, eliminating the need for them to tithe to American software giants. It's another failing of the 301 review, which Big Content wants used to coerce other countries into adopting ever-more-stringent copyright laws.Rapper Coolio and another man were arrested at LAX Saturday morning for allegedly trying to bring a stolen loaded gun through the security screening area, police said.Airport police say that around 10:50 a.m. a 39-year-old man was stopped at an X-ray screening belt after TSA screeners detected a firearm in a bag. They determined that the bag contained items belonging to the man's 53-year-old traveling companion, who had already gone through security and boarded an airplane.Police took that man off the plane and say he claimed ownership of the carryon bag.Both men were arrested for possession of a stolen loaded firearm and were booked at LAPD Pacific Division jail.LAPD booking records identified the arrested man as 53-year-old Artis Leon Ivey Jr. -- the rapper's real name. His bail was listed as $37,308.Coolio, who was listed as a Las Vegas resident, was booked for possession of a firearm by a felon, according to airport police. He was released on bail Saturday afternoon.Coolio is a Grammy-winning rap artist best known for his single "Gangsta's Paradise." In recent years he has also appeared on reality television and released his own cookbook.Later Saturday, Coolio recorded a brief message to his fans on YouTube, referring to the incident as "a little misunderstanding at the airport today""For now I'm fine. I appreciate everybody's concerns and all your posts and everything. Everybody saying positive things. For those that are not, hey much love to you, too."He added that he still plans to perform at his scheduled concert in Indio on Sunday.The New Yorker gained unprecedented access to Apple’s head of design to profile Jony Ive, revealing more about the man and the company than ever before
He has created some of the most recognisable and iconic objects of our age, but Apple’s head designer Jony Ive has always been something of an enigma. The Briton behind the iMac and the iPod is usually as secretive about himself as Apple is about its products, but recently he and and the tech giant gave unprecedented access for a New Yorker piece.
The profile, by Ian Parker, runs to 20 pages in print and takes about an hour to read. Perhaps in the spirit of Ive, we’ve rounded the corners and – here are the key things we learned:
1. Ive has a lot of famous friends
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ive counts Coldplay’s Chris Martin among his friends. Photograph: Christie Goodwin/WireImage
Coldplay’s Chris Martin, U2’s Bono, Massive Attack, Yo-Yo Ma, designers Paul Smith and Marc Newson (who now works for Apple too), director JJ Abrams and Stephen Fry all crop up as friends of Ive.
2. He’s had a hand in the design of the new Star Wars lightsabers thanks to a boozy dinner with JJ Abrams
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The new more ‘spitty’ lightsaber. Photograph: Disney/PA
Ive said Abrams told him his thoughts were partly responsible for the new style of lightsaber in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, although he doesn’t explicitly mention the cross-shaped guards. Ive told Parker: “I thought it would be interesting if it were less precise, and just a little bit more spitty... more analog and more primitive, and I think, in that way, somehow more ominous.”
‘Build your own lightsaber’ kit could send Star Wars fans into orbit Read more
3. Ive’s not unfamiliar with getting involved in making films
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A shy Ive directs and edits his own Apple videos. Photograph: Graham Turner
Jobs gave Ive special dispensation to remove himself from public speaking, instead swapping them for appearances in scripted videos. And despite Apple having one of the most polished images and highly tuned corporate public relations, Ive’s presentation video for the launch of the Apple Watch was largely directed and edited by him.
4. Earlier in his career, things were less glamorous: Ive designed a bath, a sink and a toilet
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Humbler beginnings for Ive, who designed a bathroom set for Ideal Standard. Photograph: John MacDougall/AFP/Getty Images
Before Ive started at Apple in 1992 he worked for design consultancy Tangerine in London. There Ive designed the Macintosh Folio tablet concept for Apple, which had a stylus and an adjustable angled screen, as well as a sink, toilet and bath for British bathroom firm Ideal Standard. “It was a very, very simple bowl, and the rim was thick but it twisted,” he said. “It was sort of tipped open at the front.”
5. Now Ive has a 12-foot square glass-walled office
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ive has a copy of Banksy’s Queen with a chimpanzee face on his wall. Photograph: Martin Godwin
That office has a Playmobil likeness of Ive, a Banksy print of the Queen with the face of a chimpanzee, and a poster saying “believe in your fucking self. Stay up all fucking night... think about all the fucking possibilities.” His office is in Apple’s design studio, protected by a 10ft-long internal vestibule that obscures all the prototypes and work from all but the permitted to enter.
Banksy works go under hammer in auction criticised by artist Read more
6. Jobs’s office and Ive’s lab were linked by a special corridor (and Ive didn’t realise this was unusual)
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Apple’s 1 Infinite Loop campus, in which Ive worked. Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Parker writes that: “A covered corridor connects One Infinite Loop (Jobs’s office) and Two Infinite Loop (Ive’s lab). Just before Ive took me into the studio for the first time, he remarked that all the buildings were similarly linked. A colleague corrected him: this was true only of One and Two. Ive said: ‘Really?’”
7. Apple has three specialist recruiters who hire designers, and they only hire one a year
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ive’s design team is a close-knit group. Photograph: David Levene
The company has a core of 19 international industrial designers who work 12-hour days starting about 6am and can’t discuss any of their work with the outside world. Only about one a year joins and in the last 15 years, only two have left, one through ill health. Apple employs three recruiters with the sole purpose to find people to join the design team.
8. When Jobs came back to Apple in 1997, Ive had his resignation letter in his pocket
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Steve Jobs and Jony Ive began collaborating on the iMac almost immediately. Photograph: Eric Cabanis/EPA
Ive said he assumed his job was on the line and a new design head would be brought in, but they instantly hit it off: “It was the most bizarre thing, where we were both perhaps a little – a little bit odd. We weren’t used to clicking.” Jobs visited the design studio and told them: “You’ve not been very effective, have you?” But by the end of that day they started collaborating on the iMac, which Jobs insisted should be “lickable”.
Apple 27in iMac with retina 5K display review: oh my that screen Read more
9. It was Jobs that brought in Apple’s skeuomorphism, and Ive never liked it
Jobs liked digital facsimiles of analog designs, with the fake leather stitching of iCal and other apps based on the interior of Jobs’ private jet. Ive disliked the approach, although thought it was important for the first iPhone for familiarity, but didn’t intervene because he was at the stage of “I don’t think this is right, but I’m really busy doing my stuff”.
10. Ive is (unsurprisingly) obsessive about the little things
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ive’s smoothed icons. Photograph: Alamy
It wasn’t until Ive was given free rein over iOS 7 after Jobs’ death that he could finally change the design and smooth out the corners of the iPhone app icons. He says: “They drove me crazy. All I could see were these unresolved tangency breaks”.
11. Especially about corners, rounded corners
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The corners must be smooth. Photograph: Graham Turner
Powell Jobs (Steve’s wife) says Ive and Jobs would discuss corners “for hours and hours”.
12. His obsession with detail means Apple campus is going to have awesome lift controls
Ive says he had “a big fight” over simplifying the control panels for the buildings’ Mitsubishi lifts. No need to ask who won.
13. Lift controls are Ive’s domain because he’s also co-designing Apple’s new campus ( …and his own new house)
Apple’s new spaceship campus has Ive’s hands on it. Photograph: Apple
Both Apple’s new “spaceship” campus and his house involve Ive working with Foster + Partners. Lord Foster’s firm has 30 architects working on the campus, and the house in Pacific Heights, California sounds like it’ll be pretty impressive too – construction involves driving piles 12 metres (40ft) into the ground. It’s “a curious thing that we tend to compartmentalise, based on physical scale” says Ive – who sees his industrial design skills translating into architecture.
14. Not even Ive could stop the protruding camera lens on the iPhone 6
The iPhone 6 camera lens sticks out from the rest of the metal back. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
When asked about the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus camera lens sticking out of the back of the phones, which allows them to be thinner overall but not sit flat on a table, Ive simply said it was “a really very pragmatic optimisation. And, yeah …”.
iPhone 6 review: thinner, faster and slightly cheaper Read more
15. Apple employees tried to live with every 0.1in screen-sized prototypes of iPhones
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The 4.7in iPhone 6 and 5.5in iPhone 6 Plus weren’t pulled out of Ive’s butt. Photograph: Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images
It took Ive three years to settle on the screen sizes for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, with prototypes made from 4in to over 6in before the end of 2011. Colleagues carried around the prototypes for days. Ive says: “The first one we really felt good about was a 5.7 … and then, sleeping on it, and coming back to it, it was just ‘Ah, that’s way too big.’” Or as Tim Cook puts it: “Jony didn’t pull out of his butt the 4.7 and the 5.5.”
16. Ive pressed for the iPad before the iPhone
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ive would have released the iPad first, if he’d had his way. Photograph: Robert Nickelsberg / Alamy/Alamy
Ive was the driving force for the iPad, which he thought Apple should make before the iPhone. Jobs overruled him, saying the iPhone would introduce people to the concept of touchscreen control in a more familiar form – he said the iPad first would have had people deal with both a new category of computer and a new way of interacting with it.
Apple iPad Air 2 review : Apple's best tablet yet, but is that enough? Read more
17. Despite his line of work, he has strict screen time rules for his kids
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Even Ive limits the screen time for his kids. Photograph: redsnapper / Alamy/Alamy
Ive’s twin 10-year-old boys are prevented from accessing the iPad, among other screens, for as long as they would like. Also they still pronounce “aluminium” the British way despite growing up in San Francisco, as does Ive, whose accent is apparently unchanged.
18. Ive has got a penchant for cars (so maybe those Apple Car rumours aren’t so far fetched after all)
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ive owns one of these classic Aston Martin DB4s. Photograph: Bonhams/EPA
He is in fact a bit of a car nut, attending the Goodwood Festival of Speed every year. He owns an Aston Martin DB4 and owned his first Bentley 10 years ago. He commutes an hour to work every day in another Bentley – which is chauffeur-driven. (He says the reasons for liking Bentleys are “entirely design-based” and he “resisted and resisted” due to the other connotations.) Apple’s head of operations Jeff Williams, says Ive describes his Toyota Camry simply as “Oh God”.
19. That slight tendency for bling says something about the design of the Apple Watch
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Apple Watch in its various editions. Photograph: Apple
The first model of the Apple Watch took six weeks to design, but it took Ive a year to settle on the interchangeable watch straps. In Ive’s view, people are “OK to a degree” with carrying an identical smartphone to millions of other people, but a watch needs to be more unique”.
20. There’s a very good design reason as to why the Apple Watch’s ‘digital crown’ isn’t where you would expect it
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The ‘digital crown’ – not symmetrically placed for a reason. Photograph: Stephen Lam/Reuters
The “digital crown” is positioned off to one side and closer to the screen than the back, rather than being symmetrical like a winding wheel on a traditional watch. Ive says this is because its function is different … to place it centrally would be “literally referencing what’s happened in the past” but “the information about what it does is then wrong.” So that explains that then.
Apple iPad Air 2 review : Apple's best tablet yet, but is that enough? Read more
21. And of course the face isn’t round for a good reason too
Facebook Twitter Pinterest When displaying lines of text is the purpose, the screen has to be square, according to Ive. Photograph: Apple
It’s square because “when a huge part of the function is lists a circle doesn’t make any sense”.
22. Talking of faces (and cover your ears, Google), the face is ‘the wrong place’ for technology
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The face isn’t the place, sorry Sergey Brin. Photograph: Jeff Chiu/AP
Apple was working on a watch before Google revealed its smartglasses, but even so it was clear to Ive that the face “was the wrong place” and that the wrist was “the obvious and right place” for a notification device. As Cook adds, the device on the wrist “isn’t obnoxious” and doesn’t act as a barrier between people (although Parker notes Cook still gets notifications from a young woman silently appearing in his line of sight with a bit of paper – maybe that’ll change once he has an Apple Watch!)
Google Glass review: useful – but overpriced and socially awkward Read more
23. And finally, at school Ive was nicknamed ‘Tiny’
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ive has been about this size since he was 13. Photograph: Dave M. Benett/Getty Images
When he was 13, as Ive puts it: “I was as big as I am now.”UPDATE 4 PM 10/17/12: In the days since this initial report about Amanda Todd’s suicide, the story has become even more convoluted and concerning. In an effort to clear some of this up, I decided to vet Anonymous New Jersey's research on Kody Maxson. While no one can definitively link Kody to Amanda's suicide, it is apparent that Kody’s internet habits are unilaterally disgusting and revolve around online sexual extortion. Read my latest report here.
Update: We received a copy of the image that Anonymous New Jersey leaked through Pastebin that was previously inaccessible as a link hosted by Facebook. It's a mosaic of Google Maps screenshots from British Columbia, the personal information of Amanda's alleged harasser, and screenshots of accounts on jailbait websites that seem to link Kody Maxson to Amanda Todd. A copy of the image, with all personal details blurred, is available here.
In September of this year, a 15 year old girl named Amanda Todd from British Columbia posted a video onto Youtube wherein she detailed a terribly fucked up story with Bob Dylan-esque cue cards, of how one internet pedophile had deliberately destroyed her happiness. You can get all of the painful details from the video, but basically she flashed a strange guy while she was in the seventh grade over webcam. That image got into the hands of a pedophile who tracked her through high school, then leaked the images to her friends and family, while continuing to stalk her online and heavily disrupt her life. Some of the Canadian mainstream media have described it as “bullying... through online social media” but clearly this pattern of controlling and destructive behavior is more than just a case of “no one likes you” wall posts and “you’re fat” instant messages.
In light of the recent exposure of Reddit’s most notorious jailbait administrating troll by Gawker, and the news of Hunter Moore’s disgusting little empire embarking on a new online endeavor, it seems like all eyes are uncomfortably on the jailbait exploitation community on the internet. While jailbait certainly has a more palatable ring to it than child porn, it has clearly become a very insidious force on the internet that is pitting overly clever pedophiles against insecure teenagers.
An individual that has started a New Jersey based branch of the hacktivist group Anonymous to find justice for Amanda Todd has, supposedly, uncovered the identity of the pedophile that tracked and blackmailed Amanda. In a document they leaked to the text file sharing service Pastebin, they allege that the pedophile’s name is Kody Maxson of New Westminister, British Columbia. To back up their claims, they linked to a Facebook picture that’s protected (so that’s no help) and quote from an account tied to Kody Maxson on a jailbait forum, where he posted images of nude teenagers and made it known he was blackmailing underage girls.
In what can best be described as extremely bad taste, Hunter Moore has thrown a handful of horrible tweets into the Amanda Todd discussion. Hunter, the creator of IsAnyoneUp, a now defunct website that allowed guys to post photos of their naked ex-girlfriends with public links to their Facebook profiles, is an online architect that has helped people like Kody Maxson reach girls like Amanda Todd.
After tweeting shit like “I wonder if Amanda Todd will be on walking dead tonight” and “Life’s a Bleach - Amanda Todd” which is a reference to Amanda’s first bleach drinking suicide attempt (it’s not clear if this is how she committed suicide on the 10th), he was met with the usual torrent of hatred and disgust that the man has grown accustomed to. In response to the backlash, Hunter tweeted: “i lost 200 followers from my amanda todd joke. then gained 250 from making fun of a girl for wanting me to take her buttonhole virginity. <3.”
While Amanda described being bullied by her classmates in the original Youtube video she posted, the pedophile that stalked her through high school is clearly reason her torment began and continued to worsen. While this story is receiving a lot of attention in the media, the Canadian press has so far failed to properly illuminate the role of popular jailbait image boards and the horribly destructive control that one lone creep, hiding behind his computer, had over Amanda’s life. Luckily, the RCMP has a 20-25 man task force working on this, as they told the National Post, so at least they seem to know what’s up.
Hopefully, the popularization of Hunter Moore and sites like IsAnyoneUp can be reconsidered after a tragedy like this, and that the catch-all of “online bullying” becomes examined under a more complicated lens. The vigilante justice of Anonymous is simply a band-aid on a very serious and quickly growing problem online that is putting vulnerable young girls like Amanda Todd in a very complicated and destructive type of danger.
@patrickmcguireThis article is about the Latin phrase. For the physical theory, see quantum electrodynamics. For other uses, see QED (disambiguation)
Q.E.D. (also written QED, sometimes italicized) is an initialism of the Latin phrase "quod erat demonstrandum" meaning "what was to be shown"[1] or "thus it has been demonstrated." Traditionally, the abbreviation is placed at the end of a mathematical proof or philosophical argument to indicate that the proof or argument is complete.
Etymology and early use [ edit ]
The phrase, quod erat demonstrandum, is a translation into Latin from the Greek ὅπερ ἔδει δεῖξαι (hoper edei deixai; abbreviated as ΟΕΔ). Translating from the Latin into English yields, "what was to be demonstrated", however, translating the Greek phrase ὅπερ ἔδει δεῖξαι produces a slightly different meaning. Since the verb "δείκνυμι" also means to show or to prove,[2] a better translation from the Greek would read, "The very thing it was required to have shown."[3]
The Greek phrase was used by many early Greek mathematicians, including Euclid[4] and Archimedes.
Modern philosophy [ edit ]
quod erat demonstrandum to conclude some proofs; others ended with phrases such as sigillatim deinceps demonstrabitur, magnitudo demonstranda est, and other variants.[5] Philippe van Lansberge's 1604 Triangulorum Geometriæ usedto conclude some proofs; others ended with phrases such as, and other variants.
During the European Renaissance, scholars often wrote in Latin, and phrases such as Q.E.D. were often used to conclude proofs.
Ethics, Part 1, Q.E.D. is used at the end of Demonstratio of Propositio III on the right hand page Spinoza's original text of, Part 1,is used at the end ofofon the right hand page
Perhaps the most famous use of Q.E.D. in a philosophical argument is found in the Ethics of Baruch Spinoza, published posthumously in 1677. Written in Latin, it is considered by many to be Spinoza's magnum opus. The style and system of the book are, as Spinoza says, "demonstrated in geometrical order", with axioms and definitions followed by propositions. For Spinoza, this is a considerable improvement over René Descartes's writing style in the Meditations, which follows the form of a diary.[6]
Difference from Q.E.F. [ edit ]
There is another Latin phrase with a slightly different meaning, usually shortened similarly, but being less common in use. Quod erat faciendum, originating from the Greek geometers' closing ὅπερ ἔδει ποιῆσαι (hoper edei poiēsai), meaning "which had to be done". Because of the difference in meaning, the two phrases should not be confused.
Euclid used the phrase, Quod Erat Faciendum (Q.E.F.), to close propositions that were not proofs of theorems, but constructions. For example, Euclid's first proposition showing how to construct an equilateral triangle, given one side, is concluded this way.
Equivalents in other languages [ edit ]
Q.E.D. has acquired many translations in various languages, including:
Language Abbreviations Stands for... Albanian Ç.D.V. Çfarë deshëm të vërtetonim Arabic هـ.ط.ث وهو المطلوب إثباته Armenian Ի.Պ.Ա. (rarely abbreviated) ինչը և պահանջվում էր ապացուցել Bengali অ. সি. অতঃ সিদ্ধ Catalan C.V.D. com volíem demostrar Chinese 证毕 / 證畢
证讫 / 證訖 证明完毕 / 證明完畢
证讫 / 證訖 Czech C.B.D. což bylo dokázati Danish H.S.B. hvilket skulle bevises Dutch w.m.b.w.
w.t.b.w. wat moest bewezen worden
wat te bewijzen was Esperanto K.E.P. kio estis pruvenda Estonian M.O.T.T. mida oligi tarvis tõestada Finnish M.O.T. mikä oli todistettava French C.Q.F.D. ce qu'il fallait démontrer Galician C.Q.D. como queríamos demonstrar Georgian რ.დ.გ რისი დამტკიცებაც გვსურდა German w.z.b.w. was zu beweisen war Greek Ο.Ε.Δ. όπερ έδει δείξαι Hebrew מש"ל מה שהיה צריך להוכיח Hindi इति सिद्धम् यही सिद्ध करना था Hungarian E.K.B. (rarely abbreviated) Ezt kellett bizonyítani Icelandic Þ.s.s.á. Það sem sanna átti Italian C.V.D. come volevasi dimostrare Latvian k.b.j. kas bija jāpierāda Norwegian H.S.V. Hvilket skulle vises. Polish c.b.d.u.
c.b.d.o.
c.n.d.
c.k.d. co było do udowodnienia
co było do okazania
czego należało dowieść
co kończy dowód Portuguese C.Q.D. como queríamos demonstrar Romanian c.c.t.d. ceea ce trebuia demonstrat Russian ч.т.д. что и требовалось доказать Sanskrit इ.सि. इति सिद्धम् Serbo-Croatian ш.т.д.
š.t.d. што је требало доказати
što je trebalo dokazati Slovak č.b.t.d. čo bolo treba dokázať Slovenian k.e.d. konec enega dokaza Spanish C.Q.D.
Q.E.D.
L.Q.Q.D. como queríamos demostrar
queda entonces demostrado
lo que queríamos demostrar Swedish V.S.B.
V.S.V. vilket skulle bevisas
vilket skulle visas Tamil நி.வே. நிரூபிக்கப்படவேண்டியது Thai ซ.ต.พ. ซึ่งต้องพิสูจน์ Turkish G.İ.B. Gösterilmek istenen şey de buydu Ukrainian щ.с.б.д.
щ.т.д. що й слід було довести
що і треба було довести Vietnamese đpcm. Điều phải chứng minh
There is no common formal English equivalent, although the end of a proof may be announced with a simple statement such as "this completes the proof", "as required", "hence proved", "ergo", or by using a similar locution. WWWWW or W5 – an abbreviation of "Which Was What Was Wanted" – has been used similarly. Often this is considered to be more tongue-in-cheek than the usual Halmos symbol (see below) or Q.E.D.
Typographical forms used symbolically [ edit ]
Due to the paramount importance of proofs in mathematics, mathematicians since the time of Euclid have developed conventions to demarcate the beginning and end of proofs. In printed English language texts, the formal statements of theorems, lemmas, and propositions are set in italics by tradition. The beginning of a proof usually follows immediately thereafter, and is indicated by the word "proof" in boldface or italics. On the other hand, several symbolic conventions exist to indicate the end of a proof.
While some authors still use the classical abbreviation, Q.E.D., this practice is increasingly viewed as archaic or even pretentious.[citation needed] Paul Halmos pioneered the use of a solid black square at the end of a proof as a Q.E.D symbol, a practice which has become standard, although not universal. Halmos adopted this use of a symbol from magazine typography customs in which simple geometric shapes had been used to indicate the end of an article. This symbol was later called the tombstone or Halmos symbol or even a halmos by mathematicians. Often the Halmos symbol is drawn on chalkboard to signal the end of a proof during a lecture, although this practice is not so common as its use in printed text.
The tombstone symbol appears in TeX as the character ◼ {\displaystyle \blacksquare } (filled square, \blacksquare) and sometimes, as a ◻ {\displaystyle \square } (hollow square, \square). In the AMS Theorem Environment for LaTeX, the hollow square is the default end-of-proof symbol. Unicode explicitly provides the "End of proof" character, U+220E (∎). Some authors use other Unicode symbols to note the end of a proof, including, ▮ (U+25AE, a black vertical rectangle), and ‣ (U+2023, a triangular bullet). Other authors have adopted two forward slashes (//) or four forward slashes (////).[7] In other cases, authors have elected to segregate proofs typographically by displaying them as indented blocks.[8]
Modern humorous use [ edit ]
In Joseph Heller's book Catch-22, the Chaplain, having been told to examine a forged letter allegedly signed by him (which he knew he didn't sign), verified that his name was in fact there. His investigator replied, "Then you wrote it. Q.E.D." The chaplain said he didn't write it and that it wasn't his handwriting, to which the investigator replied, "Then you signed your name in somebody else's handwriting again."[9]
In the 1978 science-fiction radio comedy, and later in the television and novel adaptations of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "Q.E.D." is referred to in the Guide's entry for the babel fish, when it is claimed that the babel fish – which serves the "mind-bogglingly" useful purpose of being able to translate any spoken language when inserted into a person's ear – is used as evidence for existence and non-existence of God. The exchange from the novel is as follows: "'I refuse to prove I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.' 'But,' says Man, 'The babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.' 'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic."[10]
In Neal Stephenson's 1999 novel Cryptonomicon, Q.E.D. is used as a punchline to several humorous anecdotes in which characters go to great lengths to prove something non-mathematical.[11]
Singer-songwriter Thomas Dolby's 1988 song "Airhead" includes the lyric, "Quod erat demonstrandum, baby," referring to the self-evident vacuousness of the eponymous subject; and in response, a female voice squeals, delightedly, "Oooh... you speak French!" [12]
See also [ edit ]Toronto police are warning the public about a deadly form of heroin being sold in the city after receiving reports of drug overdoses in recent days.
In a statement Saturday morning, police said they'd received reports of numerous overdoses. One of the instances was fatal.
"It appears that the common link is a deadly form of heroin being sold," the statement said.
Dr. Clement Sun, medical director at Addiction Centre Toronto, has been monitoring this new wave of heroin. He is concerned dealers may increasing the potency of the drug in order to sell more.
"With this wave of injuries and deaths from heroin, we're afraid that they could be mixing other products in there to give it more kick to be able to sell it," he said.
"Who they injure is not a concern to them."
If heroin users encounter serious physical illness, they are advised to attend a clinic or hospital immediately for treatment.
Anyone with more information is asked to contact police at 416-808-1300, or call Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-8477(TIPS).
With a report from CTV Toronto’s Ashley RoweFinishing up the 'Aviation Pinup Series' featuring each branch of the US Military for now... today's airbrushed style pinup photo features Kelsey, the US Army's 82nd Airborne, Army Air Forces, and the famed aircraft that brought the war deep into enemy lines on D-Day... the Douglas C-47 Skytrain! It was a collaborative effort between the Army and the Army Air Force using the military version of the DC-3 airliner to drop paratroopers like the 101st and 82nd Airborne deep into Germany the night before the invasion. With a wingspan of 95 feet, this 18,100 pound aircraft could carry about 28 paratroopers a range of 1,600 miles. A crew of four commanded this 224mph aircraft that would go on to be used by nearly every nation around the world in 90 different countries! This workhorse was a vital piece in many of the Allied missions during World War 2 bringing troops, supplies, towing gliders, dropping vehicles, and much much more into the battlefield. Over 10,000 were built and many went on to be used in civilian use as airliners, cargo aircraft, and much more! This pinup is part of a new'simple' type of aviation pinup that I'll be doing more of in the coming months using Army Air Force, Navy, and Marine aircraft ranging from fighters to transports to bombers. Each will feature a pinup with an aircraft and the matching US insignia for that aircraft as we go through each branch of the service honoring the pilots and aircraft of WW2. The background will also be themed to the aircraft's color schemes during the war.Model:Photographer:© Dietz Dolls Vintage Pinup Photography: www.dietzdolls.com Facebook Fan Page: www.facebook.com/DietzPinupPho…New York's Naked Cowboy - who entertains the Times Square masses by strumming a guitar dressed in his undies - has taken exception to a Naked Cowgirl who he reckons is "ripping off his shtick".
That's how the New York Post summarises Sandy Kane's infringement of Robert Burck's Naked Cowboy trademark. Burck is demanding the former stripper, "famous for closing her act by lighting her breasts on fire", either "stop making money off of his trademark or sign a 'Naked Cowboy Franchise Agreement'".
The Post explains: "Most licensed franchisees are required to fork over $5,000 for a year or $500 a month and go through a screening process to ape the Naked Cowboy's act."
Burck said of Kane: "If she's going to sell stuff and make money off of it, then, yeah, she's going to have to pay."
Kane is having none of it. She's been parading around Times Square in "a red, white and blue cowboy hat and matching bikini" for the past few years, posing for photos at a couple of bucks a pop.
The "50-something New Jersey native whose real name is Sandra Brodsky" protested: "You know how much money I make? Two dollars a picture. I'm not selling any products."
The Post has more, plus a snap of the Naked Cowgirl which is not for the faint-hearted, right here. ®
Free whitepaper - Taking control of your Time Square franchise: Dealing with unregistered Naked Cowgirls
Related storiesOne of the predominant themes of the 2016 presidential campaign thus far — and one that is unlikely to lose significance once the primaries give way to the general election — is the American people's exasperation with a political system they see as corrupt, self-serving, disingenuous and out of touch.
It is not an especially partisan or ideological sentiment; you can just as easily find it among supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders as among fans of Donald Trump. You can even find those who support paragons of the status quo, like Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush, making similar complaints. It's about as close to a consensus position as you're likely to find nowadays in American politics.
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Yet despite the widespread agreement that something is seriously wrong with democracy in the U.S., there's much less of a consensus as to what that something is — and, crucially, how to fix it. The answers Bernie Sanders offers, for example, are not exactly the same as those proffered by Donald Trump. Is the problem too much government? Not enough government? Too much immigration? Not enough immigration? Too much taxing and regulating? Not enough taxing and regulating?
Our lack of a systemic analysis of the problem is part of the reason why our answers are so diffuse and ill-fitting. And that's just one of the reasons why "The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government," the new book from ex-longtime GOP staffer turned best-selling author Mike Lofgren, is so valuable. Lofgren puts a name and a shape to a problem that has often been only nebulously defined; and while his conclusions are not exactly uplifting, the logic and sophistication of his argument is hard to resist.
Recently, Salon spoke over the phone with Lofgren about his book, the deep state and his read on the current sorry state of American government and politics. Our conversation, which also touched on President Obama's relationship with the deep state, was edited for clarity and length
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an irresistible attraction on petit bourgeois intellectuals. When we read this philosophy in books, it enjoyed no privilege in our eyes. A priest, who has just written a voluminous and very interesting work on Marx, calmly states in the opening pages: “It is possible to study [his] thought just as securely as one studies that of any other philosopher or any other sociologist.” That was exactly what we believed. So long as this thought appeared to us through written words, we remained “objective.” We said to ourselves: “Here are the conceptions of a German intellectual who lived in London in the middle of the last century.” But when it was presented as a real determination of the Proletariat and as the profound meaning of its acts – for itself and in itself – then Marxism attracted us irresistibly without our knowing it, and it put all our acquired culture out of shape. I repeat, it was not the idea which unsettled us; nor was it the condition of the worker, which we knew abstractly but which we had not experienced. No, it was the two joined together. It was – as we would have said then in our idealist jargon even as we were breaking with idealism – the Proletariat as the incarnation and vehicle of an idea. And I believe that we must here complete Marx's statement: When the rising class becomes conscious of itself, this selfconsciousness acts at a distance upon intellectuals and makes the ideas in their heads disintegrate. We rejected the official idealism in the name of “the tragic sense of life.” This Proletariat, far off, invisible, inaccessible, but conscious and acting, furnished the proof – obscurely for most of us – that not all conflicts had been resolved. We had been brought up in bourgeois humanism, and this optimistic humanism was shattered when we vaguely perceived around our town the immense crowd of “sub-men conscious of their subhumanity.” But we sensed this shattering in a way that was still idealist and individualist.
At about that time, the writers whom we loved explained to us that existence is a scandal. What interested us, however, was real men with their labours and their troubles. We cried out for a philosophy which would account for everything, and we did not perceive that it existed already and that it was precisely this philosophy which provoked in us this demand. At that time one book enjoyed a great success among us – Jean Wahl's Toward the Concrete. Yet we were disappointed by this “toward.” The total concrete was what we wanted to leave behind us; the absolute concrete was what we wanted to achieve. Still the work pleased us, for it embarrassed idealism by discovering in the universe paradoxes, ambiguities, conflicts, still unresolved. We learned to turn pluralism (that concept of the Right) against the optimistic, monistic idealism of our professors – in the name of a Leftist thought which was still ignorant of itself. Enthusiastically we adopted all those doctrines which divided men into watertight groups. “Petit bourgeois” democrats. we rejected racism, but we liked to think that “primitive mentality,” the universe of the child and the madman, remained entirely impenetrable to us. Under the influence of war and the Russian Revolution, we offered violence – only theoretically, of course – in opposition to the sweet dreams of our professors. It was a wretched violence (insults, brawls, suicides, murders, irreparable catastrophes) which risked leading us to fascism; but in our eyes it had the advantage of highlighting the contradictions of reality. Thus Marxism as “a philosophy which had become the world” wrenched us away from the defunct culture of a bourgeoisie which was barely subsisting on its past. We plunged blindly down the dangerous path of a pluralist realism concerned with man and things in their “concrete” existence. Yet we remained within the compass of “dominating ideas.” Although we wanted to know man in his real life, we did not as yet have the idea of considering him first a worker who produces the conditions of his life. For a long time we confused the total and the individual. Pluralism, which had served us so well against M. Brunschvieg's idealism, prevented us from understanding the dialectical totalisation. It pleased us to decry essences and artificially isolated types rather than to reconstitute the synthetic movement of a truth that had “become.” Political events led us to employ the schema of the “class struggle” as a sort of grid, more convenient than veridical; but it took the whole bloody history of this half century to make us grasp the reality of the class struggle and to situate us in a split society. It was the war which shattered the worn structures of our thought – War, Occupation, Resistance, the years which followed. We wanted to fight at the side of the working class; we finally understood that the concrete is history and dialectical action. We had repudiated pluralist realism only to have found it again among the fascists, and we discovered the world.
Why then has “existentialism” preserved its autonomy? Why has it not simply dissolved in Marxism?
Lukács believed that he had answered this question in a small book called Existentialism and Marxism. According to him, bourgeois intellectuals have been forced “to abandon the method of idealism while safeguarding its results and its foundations; hence the historical necessity of a 'third path' (between materialism and idealism) in actuality and in the bourgeois consciousness during the imperialistic period.” I shall show later the havoc which this wish to conceptualise a priori has wrought at the center of Marxism. Here let us simply observe that Lukács fails absolutely to account for the principal fact: we were convinced at one and the same time that historical materialism furnished the only valid interpretation of history and that existentialism remained the only concrete approach to reality. I do not pretend to deny the contradictions in this attitude. I simply assert that Lukács does not even suspect it. Many intellectuals, many students, have lived and still live with the tension of this double demand. How does this come about? It is due to a circumstance which Lukács knew perfectly well but which he could not at that time even mention: Marxism, after drawing us to it as the moon draws the tides, after transforming all our ideas, after liquidating the categories of our bourgeois thought, abruptly left us stranded. It did not satisfy our need to understand. In the particular situation in which we were placed, it no longer had anything new to teach us, because it had come to a stop.
Marxism stopped. Precisely because this philosophy I want to change the world, because its aim is “philosophy-becoming-the-world,” because it is and wants to be practical, there arose within it a veritable schism which rejected theory on one side and praxis on the other. From the moment the U.S.S.R., encircled and alone, undertook its gigantic effort at industrialisation, Marxism found itself unable to bear the shock of these new struggles, the practical necessities and the mistakes which are always inseparable from them. At this period of withdrawal (for the U.S.S.R.) and of ebb tide (for the revolutionary proletariats), the ideology itself was subordinated to a double need: security (that is, unity) and the construction of socialism inside the U.S.S.R. Concrete thought must be born from praxis and must turn back upon it in order to clarify it, not by chance and without rules, but-as in all sciences and all techniques-in conformity with principles. Now the Party leaders, bent on pushing the integration of the group to the limit, feared that the free process of truth, with all the discussions and all the conflicts which it involves, would break the unity of combat; they reserved for themselves the right to define the line and to interpret the event. In addition, out of fear that the experience might not provide its own clarities, that it might put into question certain of their guiding ideas and might contribute to “weakening the ideological struggle,” they put the doctrine out of reach. The separation of theory and practice resulted in transforming the latter into an empiricism without principles; the former into a pure, fixed knowledge. On the other hand, the economic planning imposed by a bureaucracy unwilling to recognise its mistakes became thereby a violence done to reality. And since the future production of a nation was determined in offices, often outside its own territory, this violence had as its counterpart an absolute idealism. Men and things had to yield to ideas – a priori; experience, when it did not verify the predictions, could only be wrong. Budapest's subway was real in Rakosi's head. If Budapest's subsoil did not allow him to construct the subway, this was because the subsoil was counter-revolutionary. Marxism, as a philosophical interpretation of man and of history, necessarily had to reflect the preconceptions of the planned economy.
This fixed image of idealism and of violence did idealistic violence to facts. For years the Marxist intellectual believed that he served his party by violating experience, by overlooking embarrassing details, by grossly simplifying the data, and above all, by conceptualising the event before having studied it. And I do not mean to speak only of Communists, but of all the others – fellow travellers, Trotskyites, and Trotsky sympathisers – for they have been created by their sympathy for the Communist Party or by their opposition to it. On November 4, 1956, at the time of the second Soviet intervention in Hungary, each group already had its mind made up before it possessed any information on the situation. It had decided in advance whether it was witnessing an act of aggression on the part of the Russian bureaucracy against the democracy of Workers' Committees, with a revolt of the masses against the bureaucratic system, or with a counter-revolutionary attempt which Soviet moderation had known how to check. Later there was news, a great deal of news; but I have not heard it said that even one Marxist changed his opinion.
Among the interpretations which I have just mentioned, there is one which shows the method in all its nakedness, that which reduces the facts in Hungary to a “Soviet act of aggression against the democracy of Workers' Committees. It is obvious that the Workers' Committees are a democratic institution; one can even maintain that they bear within them the future of the socialist society. But this does not alter the fact that they did not exist in Hungary at the time of the first Soviet intervention; and their appearance during the Insurrection was much too brief and too troubled for us to be able to speak of an organised democracy. No matter. There were Workers' Committees, Soviet intervention took place. Starting from there, Marxist idealism proceeds to two simultaneous operations: conceptualisation and passage to the limit. They push the empirical notion to the perfection of the type, the germ to its total development. At the same time they reject the equivocal givens of experience; these could only lead one astray. We will find ourselves then in the presence of a typical contradiction between two Platonic ideas: on the one side, the wavering policy of the U.S.S.R. gave way to the rigorous and predictable action of that entity, “the Soviet Bureaucracy”; on the other side, the Workers' Committees disappeared before that other entity, “the direct Democracy.” I shall call these two objects “general particularities”; they are made to pass for particular, historical realities when we ought not to see in them anything more than the purely formal unity of abstract, universal relations. The process of making them into fetishes will be complete when each one is endowed with real powers: the Democracy of Workers' Committees holds within itself the absolute negation of the Bureaucracy, which reacts by crushing its adversary.
Now there can be no doubt that the fruitfulness of living Marxism stemmed in part from its way of approaching experience. Marx was convinced that facts are never isolated appearances, that if they come into being together, it is always within the higher unity of a whole, that they are bound to each other by internal relations, and that the presence of one profoundly modifies the nature of the other. Consequently, Marx approached the study of the revolution of February 1848 or Louis Napoleon Bonaparte's coup d'état with a synthetic intent; he saw in these events totalities produced and at the same time split apart by their internal contradiction. Of course, the physicist's hypothesis, before it has been confirmed by experimentation, is also an interpretation of experience; it rejects empiricism simply because it is mute. But the constitutive schema of this hypothesis is universalising, not totalising. It determines a relation, a function, and not a concrete totality. The Marxist approaches the historical process with universalising and totalising schemata. Naturally the totalisation was not made by chance. The theory had determined the choice of perspective and the order of the conditioning factors; it studied each particular process within the framework of a general system in evolution. But in no case, in Marx's own work, does this putting in perspective claim to prevent or to render useless the appreciation of the process as a unique totality. When, for example, he studies the brief and tragic history of the Republic of 1848, he does not limit himself – as would be done today – to stating that the republican petite bourgeoisie betrayed its ally, the Proletariat. On the contrary, he tries to account for this tragedy in its detail and in the aggregate. If he subordinates anecdotal facts to the totality (of a movement, of an attitude), he also seeks to discover the totality by means of the facts. In other words, he gives to each event, in addition to its particular signification, the role of being revealing. Since the ruling principle of the inquiry is the search for the synthetic ensemble, each fact, once established, is questioned and interpreted as part of a whole. It is on the basis of the fact, through the study of its lacks and its “oversignifications,” that one determines, by virtue of a hypothesis, the totality at the heart of which the fact will recover its truth. Thus living Marxism is heuristic; its principles and its prior knowledge appear as regulative in relation to its concrete research. In the work of Marx we never find entities. Totalities, (e.g., “the petite bourgeoisie” of the 18th Brumaire) are living; they furnish their own definitions within the framework of the research. Otherwise we could not understand the importance which Marxists attach (even today) to “the analysis” of a situation. It goes without saying that this analysis is not enough and that it is but the first moment in an effort at synthetic reconstruction. But it is apparent also that the analysis is indispensable to the later reconstruction of the total structures.
Marxist voluntarism, which likes to speak of analysis, has reduced this operation to a simple ceremony. There is no longer any question of studying facts within the general perspective of Marxism so as to enrich our understanding and to clarify action. Analysis consists solely in getting rid of detail, in forcing the signification of certain events, in denaturing facts or even m inventing a nature for them in order to discover it later underneath them, as their substance, as unchangeable, fetishised “synthetic notions.” The open concepts of Marxism have closed in. They are no longer keys, interpretive schemata; they are posited for themselves as an already totalised knowledge. To use Kantian terms, Marxism makes out of these particularised, fetishised types, constitutive concepts of experience. The real content of these typical concepts is always past Knowledge; but today's Marxist makes of it an eternal knowledge. His sole concern, at the moment of analysis, will be to “place” these entities. The more he is convinced that they represent truth a priori, the less fussy he will be about proof. The Kerstein Amendment, the appeals of Radio Free Europe, rumours-these are sufficient for the French Communists to “place” the entity “world imperialism” at the origin of the events in Hungary. The totalising investigation has given way to a Scholasticism of the totality. The heuristic principle – “to search for the whole in its parts” – has become the terrorist practice of “liquidating the particularity.” It is not by chance that Lukács – Lukács who so often violates history – has found in 1956 the best definition of this frozen Marxism. Twenty years of practice give him all the authority necessary to call this pseudo-philosophy a voluntarist idealism.
Today social and historical experience falls outside of Knowledge. Bourgeois concepts just manage to revive and quickly break down; those which survive lack any foundation. The real attainments of American Sociology cannot hide its theoretic uncertainty. Psychoanalysis, after a spectacular beginning, has stood still. It knows a great many details, but it lacks any firm foundation. Marxism possesses theoretical bases, it embraces all human activity; but it no longer knows anything. Its concepts are dictates; its goal is no longer to increase what it knows but to be itself constituted a priori as an absolute Knowledge. In view of this twofold ignorance, existentialism has been able to return and to maintain itself because it reaffirmed the reality of men as Kierkegaard asserted his own reality against Hegel. However, the Dane rejected the Hegelian conception of man and of the real. Existentialism and Marxism, on the contrary, aim at the same object; but Marxism has reabsorbed man into the idea, and existentialism seeks him everywhere where he is, at his work, in his home, in the street. We certainly do not claim-as Kierkegaard did – that this real man is unknowable. We say only that he is not known. If for the time being he escapes Knowledge, it is because the only concepts at our disposal for understanding him are borrowed either from the idealism of the Right or from the idealism of the Left. We are careful not to confuse these two idealisms: the former merits its name by the content of its concepts, and the latter by the use which today it makes of its concepts. It is true also that among the masses Marxist practice does not reflect, or only slightly reflects, the sclerosis of its theory. But it is precisely the conflict between revolutionary action and the Scholastic justification of this action which prevents Communist man – in socialist countries as in bourgeois countries – from achieving any clear self-consciousness. One of the most striking characteristics of our time is the fact that history is made without self-awareness. No doubt someone will say this has always been the case; and this was true up until the second half of the last century- that is, until Marx. But what has made the force and richness of Marxism is the fact that it has been the most radical attempt to clarify the historical process in its totality. For the last twenty years, on the contrary, its shadow has obscured history; this is because it has ceased to live with history and because it attempts, through a bureaucratic conservatism, to reduce change to identity.
Yet we must be clear about all this. This sclerosis does not correspond to a normal aging. It is produced by a world-wide combination of circumstances of a particular type. Far from being exhausted Marxism is still very young, almost in its infancy; it has scarcely begun to develop. It remains, therefore, the philosophy of our time. We cannot go beyond it because we have not gone beyond the circumstances which engendered it. Our thoughts, whatever they may be, can be formed only upon this humus; they must be contained within the framework which it furnishes for them or be lost in the void or retrogress. Existentialism, like Marxism, addresses itself to experience in order to discover there concrete syntheses; it can conceive of these syntheses only within a moving, dialectical totalisation which is nothing else but history or- from the strictly cultural point of view which we have adopted here-“philosophy-becoming-the world.” For us, truth is something which becomes, it has and will have become. It is a totalisation which is forever being totalised. Particular facts do not signify anything; they are neither true nor false so long as they are not related, through the mediation of various partial totalities, to the totalisation m process.
Let us go further. We agree with Garaudy when he writes (Humanité, May 17, 1955): “Marxism forms today the system of coordinates which alone permits it to situate and to define a thought in any domain whatsoever-from political economy to physics, from history to ethics.” And we should agree all. the more readily if he had extended his statement (but this was not his subject) to the actions of individuals and masses, to specific works, to modes of life, to labor, to feelings, to the particular evolution of an institution or a character. To go further, we are also in full agreement with Engels when he wrote in that letter which furnished Plekhanov the occasion for a famous attack against Bernstein: “There does not exist, as one would like to imagine now and then, simply for convenience, any effect produced automatically by the economic situation. On the contrary, it is men themselves who make their history, but within a given environment which conditions them and on the basis of real, prior conditions among which economic conditions – no matter how much influenced they may be by other political and ideological conditions – are nevertheless, in the final analysis, the determining conditions, constituting from one end to the other the guiding thread which alone puts us in a position to understand.” It is already evident that we do not conceive of economic conditions as the simple, static structure of an unchangeable society; it is the contradictions within them which form the driving force of history. It is amusing that Lukács, in the work which I have already quoted, believed he was distinguishing himself from us by recalling that Marxist definition of materialism: “the primacy of existence over consciousness” – whereas existentialism, as its name sufficiently indicates, makes of this primacy the object of its fundamental affirmation.
To be still more explicit, we support unreservedly that formulation in Capital by which Marx means to define his “materialism”: “The mode of production of material life generally dominates the development of social, political, and intellectual life.” We cannot conceive of this conditioning in any form except that of a dialectical movement (contradictions, surpassing, totalisations). M. Rubel criticises me for not making any allusion to this “Marxist materialism” in the article I wrote in 1946, “Materialism and Revolution.” But he himself supplies the reason for this omission. “It is true that this author is directing his comments at Engels rather than at Marx.” Yes, and even more at contemporary French Marxists. But Marx's statement seems to me to point to a factual evidence which we cannot go beyond so long as the transformations of social relations and technical progress have not freed man from the yoke of scarcity. We are all acquainted with the passage in which Marx alludes to that far-off time: “This reign of freedom does not begin in fact until the time when the work imposed by necessity and external finality shall cease; it is found, therefore, beyond the sphere of material production proper” (Capital, III, p. 873). As soon as there will exist for everyone a margin of real freedom beyond the production of life, Marxism will have lived out its span; a philosophy of freedom will take its place. But we have no means, no intellectual instrument, no concrete experience which. allow, us to conceive of this freedom or of this philosophy.
footnote
The methodological principle which holds that certitude begins with reflection in no way contradicts the anthropological principle which defines the concrete person by his materiality. For us, reflection is not reduced to the simple immanence of idealist subjectivism, it is a point of departure only if it throws us back immediately among things and men, in the world. The only theory of knowledge which can be valid today is one which is founded on that truth of microphysics: the experimenter is a part of the experimental system. This is the only position which allows us to get rid of all idealist illusion, the only one which shows the real man in the midst of the real world. But this realism necessarily implies a reflective point of departure; that is, the revelation of a situation is effected in and through the praxis which changes it. We do not hold that this first act of becoming conscious of the situation is the originating source of an action; we see in it a necessary moment of the action itself-the action, in the course of its accomplishment, provides its own clarification. That does not prevent this clarification from appearing in and by means of the attainment of awareness on the part of the agents; and this in turn necessarily implies that one must develop a theory of consciousness. Yet the theory of knowledge continues – to be the weak point of Marxism. When Marx writes: “The materialist conception of the world signifies simply the conception of nature as it is without any foreign addition,” he makes himself into an objective observation and claims to contemplate nature as it is absolutely. Having stripped away all subjectivity and having assimilated himself into pure objective truth he walks in a world of objects inhabited by object-men. By contrast, when Lenin speaks of our consciousness, he writes: “Consciousness is only the reflection of being, at best am approximately accurate reflection”; and by a single stroke he removes from himself the right to write what he is writing. In both cases it is a matter of suppressing subjectivity: with Marx, we are placed beyond it; with Lenin, on this side of it.
These two positions contradict each other. How can the “approximately accurate reflection” become the source of materialistic rationalism? The game is played on two levels: there is in Marxism a constituting consciousness which asserts a priori the rationality of the world (and which, consequently, falls into idealism); this constituting consciousness determines the constituted consciousness of particular men as a simple reflection (which ends up in a sceptical idealism). Both of these conceptions amount to breaking man's real relation with history, since in the first, knowing is pure theory, a non-situated observing, and in the second, it is a simple passivity. In the latter there is no longer any experimenting, there is only a sceptical empiricism; man vanishes and Hume's challenge is not taken up. In the former the experimenter transcends the experimental system. And let no one try to tie one to the other by a “dialectical theory of the reflection” the two concepts are essentially anti-dialectical. When knowing is made apodictic, and when it is constituted against all possible questioning without ever defining its scope or its rights, then it is cut off from the world and becomes a formal system. When it is reduced to a pure psycho-physiological determination, it loses its primary quality, which is its relation to the object, in order to become itself a pure object of knowing. No mediation can link Marxism as a declaration of principles and apodictic truths to psycho-physiological reflection (or dialectic). These two conceptions of knowing (dogmatism and the knowing-dyad) are both of them pre-Marxist. In the movement of Marxist “analyses” and especially in the process of totalisation, just as in Marx's remarks on the practical aspect of truth and on the general relations of theory and praxis it would be easy to discover the rudiments of a realistic epistemology ;which has never been developed. But what we can and ought to construct on the basis of these scattered observations is a theory which situates knowing in the world (as the theory of the reflection attempts awkwardly to do) and which determines it in its negativity (that negativity which Stalinist dogmatism pushes to the absolute and which it transforms into a negation). Only then will it be understood that knowing is not a knowing of ideas but a practical knowing of things; then it will be possible to suppress the reflection as a useless and misleading intermediary. Then we will be able to account for the thought which is lost and alienated in the course of action so that it may be rediscovered by and in the action itself. But what are we to call this situated negativity, as a moment of praxis and as a pure relation to things themselves, if not exactly “consciousness”?
There are two ways to fall into idealism: The one consists of dissolving the real in subjectivity; the other in denying all real subjectivity in the interests of objectivity. The truth is that subjectivity is neither everything nor nothing; it represents a moment in the objective process (that in which externality is internalised), and this moment is perpetually eliminated only to be perpetually reborn. Now, each of these ephemeral moments- which rise up in the course of human history and which are never either the first or the last-is lived as a point of departure by the subject of history. “Class-consciousness” is not the simple lived contradiction which objectively characterises the class considered, it is that contradiction already surpassed by praxis and thereby preserved and denied all at once. But it is precisely this revealing negativity, this distance within immediate proximity, which simultaneously constitutes what existentialism calls “consciousness of the object” and “non-thetic self-consciousness.”TWRP Beta Released for Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, Decryption Now Supported
One of the reasons Google’s Nexus devices were so popular with enthusiasts was their development-friendly nature, which made installing and flashing custom recoveries like TWRP, custom ROMs, and kernels relatively easy. With the debut of the Google Pixel and the Pixel XL, things changed for the worse — a patch of the most popular root methods and a difficult-to-manipulate A/B partition caused a real headache for developers. The situation improved over time, but some in the community saw the Pixel as “hacker-friendly” as its predecessors.
Luckily, the Pixel 2 and Pixel XL haven’t suffered the same fate. Two weeks after releasing the alpha version of TWRP, XDA Senior Recognized Developer Dees_troy released TWRP Beta 2 for the Pixel 2 XL and Beta 1 for the Pixel 2. The biggest change is that both phones can now be decrypted in TWRP, though Dees_troy notes that a future Android security patch might break the functionality.
Dees_troy notes that the developers of the beta release of TWRP are trying to grab the files they need from the Pixel 2’s system and vendor partitions, but that if they aren’t successful, they’ll fall back to the ones they’ve built.
It’s a huge step forward for Pixel 2 development. It took two weeks for the Pixel 2 and the Pixel 2 XL, which were released in mid-October, to get an alpha release of TWRP, and it had serious limitations. Users couldn’t decrypt, backup, or restore data; MTP did not work; factory reset using the custom recovery was unreliable; and the recovery menu could only be used in a “temp-boot” state. (Separately, root was achieved on the Pixel 2 / Pixel 2 XL using Magisk).
The reason? Dees_troy says that the Pixel 2’s decryption is different than the Pixel 1’s and most other File Based Encrypted (FBE) devices on the market. In a technical explanation on Google+, he stated that the Pixel 2’s hardware security module is supplied by NXP, and that there’s both (1) a new interface between the Android’s user space and the module — “Weaver” — and (2) anti-rollback protection features introduced with Android 8.0 Oreo.
If you’re interested in reading the Dees_troy’s excellent writeup, head to the source link.Advertisement Sen. Yee accused of gun charges; freed from jail on bond Criminal complaint released Share Shares Copy Link Copy
California state Sen. Leland Yee has been released from custody and his lawyer says the Democrat from San Francisco plans to plead not guilty to corruption and gun charges.Read criminal complaintYee left the federal courthouse in San Francisco shortly before 7 p.m. Wednesday after spending most of the day locked up after his early morning arrest. Yee declined to comment.Yee's lawyer, Paul DeMeester, declined to discuss the charges against the senator in detail, saying the 137-page criminal complaint will take time to read and fully grasp the criminal case.But DeMeester said the senator plans to plead not guilty to six charges of public corruption and one count of conspiring to sell guns without a license.DeMeester said the day's goal was to get his client freed on bond. Beyond that, he declined further comment.Yee, who has authored gun control legislation, asked for campaign donations in exchange for introducing an undercover FBI agent to an arms trafficker, according to court documents unsealed Wednesday.The allegations were outlined in an FBI criminal complaint that names 25 other defendants, including Raymond Chow, a onetime gang leader with ties to San Francisco's Chinatown known as "Shrimp Boy," and Keith Jackson, Yee's campaign aide.The affidavit accuses Yee of conspiracy to deal firearms without a license and to illegally import firearms.Yee is also accused of accepting tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and cash payments to provide introductions, help a client get a contract and influence legislation. He or members of his campaign staff accepted at least $42,800 in cash or campaign contributions from undercover FBI agents in exchange for carrying out the agents' specific requests, the court documents allege.Yee discussed helping the agent get weapons worth $500,000 to $2.5 million, including shoulder-fired missiles, and explaining the entire process of acquiring them from a Muslim separatist group in the Philippines to bringing them to the U.S., according to the court document by FBI agent Emmanuel V. Pascua.Yee said he was unhappy with his life and told the agent he wanted to hide out in the Philippines, according to the affidavit."There's a part of me that wants to be like you," he told the undercover agent, according to the affidavit. "You know how I'm going to be like you? Just be a free agent there."The introduction with the trafficker took place at a San Francisco restaurant earlier this month, according to the documents. Yee said he wouldn't go to the Philippines until November."Once things start to move, it's going to attract attention. We just got to be extra-extra careful," he said, according to court documents.Chow and Yee were arrested Wednesday during a series of raids in Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay area.Jackson, a former San Francisco school board president and well-known political consultant who raised money for Yee's unsuccessful mayoral run in 2011 and his current bid for secretary of state, was also in custody.Jackson, 49, did not enter a plea Wednesday as the FBI accused him of being involved in a murder-for-hire scheme and trafficking guns and drugs. He was denied bail and is due back in court Monday.Yee wore handcuffs and was shackled at the waist when he appeared in court Wednesday afternoon with 20 other defendants. His demeanor was downcast, and he looked nervously into the packed gallery of about 100 reporters and other observers.Yee was charged with six counts of depriving the public of honest services and one count of conspiracy to traffic in guns without a license. He was held on $500,000 bail, and his passport has been confiscated.If convicted on all the counts against him, Yee faces up to 125 years in prison.Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, who was flanked by 14 other Democratic senators at a news conference in his Capitol office, called on Yee to resign from the Senate or face suspension."Don't burden your colleagues and this great institution with your troubles. Leave," he told reporters. "Absent that, we are prepared to go to the floor immediately and suspend him, and we will do so if necessary."Yee's Senate spokesman, Dan Lieberman, declined to comment and said he did not know if Yee had an attorney. Yee's chief of staff, Jordan Curley, did not respond to a message left on her cellphone.According to court documents, Yee performed "official acts" in exchange for donations from undercover FBI agents, as he sought to dig himself out of a $70,000 debt incurred during a failed San Francisco mayoral bid in 2011.Yee is also accused of accepting $10,000 in January 2013 from an undercover FBI agent in exchange for making a call to the California Department of Public Health in support of a contract it was considering.The agent who discussed arms with Yee presented himself as a member of Ghee Kung Tong, a fraternal organization in San Francisco's Chinatown that Chow reportedly headed. It was among the sites searched Wednesday.Firefighters were seen going inside with a circular saw and later said they had cracked a safe. FBI agents exited with boxes and trash bags full of evidence that they loaded into an SUV.Chow is accused of money laundering, conspiracy to receive and transport stolen property, and conspiracy to traffic contraband cigarettes.He was denied bail because he was deemed a flight risk and a danger to the public. The Department of Homeland Security has been trying to deport Chow, who is not a U.S. citizen, since he was released from prison in 2005.Yee is the third Democratic state senator in California to face charges this year. Sen. Rod Wright was convicted of perjury and voter fraud for lying about his legal residence in Los Angeles County, and Sen. Ron Calderon has been indicted on federal corruption charges. Wright and Calderon are taking a voluntary leave of absence, with pay, although Republicans have called for them to be suspended or expelled from the Legislature.Yee, 65, represents western San Francisco and much of San Mateo County. He is best known for his efforts to strengthen open records, government transparency and whistleblower protection laws, including legislation to close a loophole in state public records laws after the CSU Stanislaus Foundation refused to release its $75,000 speaking contract with former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin in 2010.Chow ran a Chinese criminal organization with ties to Hong Kong and was convicted of gun charges. But he had recently been held up as an example of successful rehabilitation and was praised for his work in the community.Yee's arrest came as a shock to Chinese-Americans who see the senator as a pioneering leader in the community and a mainstay of San Francisco politics, said David Lee, director of the Chinese American Voters Education Committee."People are waiting to see what happens, and they are hoping for the best, that the charges turn out not to be true," said Lee, whose organization just held a get-out-the-vote event with Yee and other officials last week.For his efforts to uphold the California Public Records Act, Yee was honored last week by the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for his efforts to maintain the requirements of the California Public Records Act.Yee has at times clashed with fellow Democrats for casting votes of conscience, refusing to support the Democratic budget proposal in 2011 because of its deep cuts to education, social services and education. He also opposed legislation by a fellow Democrat, Assemblyman Paul Fong of Cupertino, that banned the sale of shark fins used for Chinese shark fin
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1987, the Saudi branch of Hezbollah (a.k.a. Hezbollah al-Hejaz) carried out its first attack inside the kingdom. Previously, a confrontation between Shiite pilgrims and Saudi security forces at the July 1987 Hajj turned violent, escalating into a stampede that killed more than 400 people. Among the dead were a number of Saudi policemen and Iranian pilgrims, and rumors spread that some of those killed were tied to Saudi Shiite political and militant organizations.
Seeking retaliation, Iran began courting radical Shiites in the kingdom's Eastern Province to carry out attacks. A week after the tragedy, Saudi Hezbollah issued its first official statement, vowing to challenge the ruling family.
The following month, it claimed responsibility for an attack against a petroleum facility in Ras al-Juaymah. In communiques issued in Beirut and Tehran, the group threatened to carry out additional revenge attacks targeting Saudi officials. And a month later, it threatened attacks against US and Saudi interests abroad.
Rescue and clean-up crews search for casualties following the US Marine barracks bombing in Beirut on October 23, 1983. Wikimedia Commons
According to CIA reporting at the time, Iran had already "smuggled explosives into Saudi Arabia" at the time "and conducted terrorist operations against Kuwaiti targets."
Pointing to the 1983-1984 Beirut bombings, the agency assessed that "many Iranian leaders use this precedent as proof that terrorism can break US resolve" and view "sabotage and terrorism as an important option in [their] confrontation with the United States in the Persian Gulf."
Within a year, Saudi Hezbollah made good on its threat by attacking the Saudi petrochemical industry, which then as now employed many Americans. In March 1988, it claimed responsibility for an explosion at the Sadaf petrochemical plant in Jubail. Additional bombs struck the Ras Tanura refinery, while another apparently failed to detonate in Ras al-Juaymah.
Saudi authorities responded forcefully, arresting a number of suspected Shiite militants. They captured three Saudi Hezbollah members after a deadly standoff in which several policemen were killed and injured. The three men and another cell member were publicly executed in September 1988.
To avenge the executed operatives, Saudi Hezbollah declared war on anyone employed by "the House of Saud" and embarked on an assassination campaign abroad, attacking Saudi officials in Turkey, Pakistan, and Thailand.
Commenting on one of these plots, a CIA analysis issued in December 1988 noted, "Riyadh is concerned that the assassination of a Saudi diplomat in Ankara on 25 October may be the opening round in a Shi'a terrorist campaign targeting Saudi officials and facilities."
The Ankara shooting in question took the life of Abdulgani Bedawi, the second secretary at the Saudi embassy in Turkey. Another assassination attempt came two months later, when Ahmed al-Amri, the second secretary at the Saudi mission in Karachi, Pakistan, was seriously wounded by a gunshot in late December.
Then, on January 4, 1989, Saleh Abdullah al-Maliki, the third secretary at the Saudi embassy in Bangkok, was shot and killed outside his home. Two factions of Saudi Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the latter operation in statements released under the names "Soldiers of Justice" and "Holy War Organization in the Hejaz," both of which tied the murder to Riyadh's September 1988 executions. In February 1990, four more Saudi diplomats were murdered in Thailand in a case ultimately tied to Saudi Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, a group of Kuwaiti and Saudi Shiites affiliated with Hezbollah al-Kuwait were caught smuggling explosives into the kingdom in July 1989 and placing them in the vicinity of Mecca's Grand Mosque. That September, sixteen Kuwaitis and four Saudis were beheaded for their roles in the plot, prompting Saudi and Kuwaiti Hezbollah to call for vengeance at a press conference in Beirut, where they could speak freely under the protection of their mentor, Lebanese Hezbollah.
Several of the executed Kuwaitis were of Iranian origin; officials in Tehran called them "martyrs" and declared that their deaths should be avenged with attacks on Saudi, Kuwaiti, and US interests. A CIA analysis published in August 1990 assessed that "these statements may have encouraged radical Shia elements to carry out a series of attacks against Saudi facilities and personnel." The agency also assessed that Iranian-linked terrorist attacks carried out over the previous year "were probably approved in advance" by the president and other senior leaders.
A supporter of Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah holds up a poster of him as he appears on a screen to speak at an event to commemorate the deaths of six Hezbollah fighters and an Iranian general killed by an Israeli air strike in Syria on January 18. Khalil Hassan/Reuters The most well-known Hezbollah attack on Saudi interests was the June 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, which killed 19 US servicemen and an unspecified number of Saudi civilians in a nearby park and wounded another 372 Americans.
Although responsibility for the attack was unclear at first, the FBI ultimately concluded that the bombing was planned, organized, and sponsored by Iran and executed by Saudi Hezbollah operatives, prompting US federal indictments against thirteen members of Saudi Hezbollah and an unidentified Lebanese Hezbollah operative.
Another kind of shadow war
While Hezbollah remains an active agent in Iran's shadow war with the West, the regime's most recent plots targeting Saudi interests have been planned and executed by the Qods Force. Like the Hezbollah assassination campaign in the late 1980s, recent plots have included the targeting of officials abroad.
In May 2011, Iranian agents shot and killed another Saudi diplomat in Karachi, foreshadowing the Washington restaurant plot that was already being planned at the time. In June 2012, Kenyan authorities arrested two Iranian nationals — purportedly Qods Force operatives — believed to be plotting attacks on Israeli, US, British, or Saudi targets in Kenya or elsewhere in Africa.
Indeed, the Qods Force reportedly established a dedicated "Special External Operations" entity known as "Unit 400" to carry out just these types of attacks, primarily targeting diplomats from countries that were actively trying to undermine Tehran's nuclear program.
Cyberwarfare seemingly entered the rivalry at this point as well — in August 2012, the state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco was hit by a cyberattack that US intelligence attributed to Iran, with then-defense secretary Leon Panetta describing it as "a significant escalation of the cyber threat."
Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah meets with Ali Akbar Velayati (L), Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's top adviser on international affairs, in Beirut in this handout picture released by Hezbollah Media office on May 19, 2015. REUTERS/Hezbollah Media office The regime seemed to put this shadow war on hold while the multilateral nuclear negotiations unfolded, but current sectarian tensions in the region may have rekindled Tehran and Hezbollah's interest in targeting their Saudi adversaries with asymmetric and reasonably deniable attacks.
Regional tensions were already high over Riyadh and Tehran's support for competing actors in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. But Riyadh's leadership of a military coalition targeting Yemen's Houthi rebels — who practice Zaidi Islam, a branch of Shiism — came as an unwelcome surprise to Iran (for more on Tehran's links to the Houthis, see PolicyWatch 2364, "Yemen's Zaidis: A Window for Iranian Influence").
Understood against the background of numerous past Iranian and Hezbollah attacks on Saudi interests, the latest warnings constitute much more than just isolated semantic barbs in the war of words between Riyadh and Tehran. Given this history and the very real Sunni-Shiite tensions engulfing the region, Naim Qassem's April 13 pledge — that Hezbollah "cannot be silent" about the Saudi "genocide in Yemen" — may lead to more than just angry statements.Three people were hit by gunfire at a shopping mall outside Washington, D.C., in Maryland, police said on Friday, without specifying the condition of the victims.
The suspect in the shooting, which occurred at Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda, was at large, police said on Twitter.
A second shooting in which a woman was wounded was reported at a shopping center about 8 miles (13 km) away from the mall but it was not immediately known if the two were connected.
The victims in Bethesda - two men and a woman - were taken to a hospital, Montgomery County police spokesman Rick Goodale said. Several injured people were transported from the scene, Montgomery County Fire and Rescue said on Twitter.
The initial call in the Westfield shopping mall shooting came in at 11:13 a.m. as an assault outside of the mall, Goodale said.
The second shooting was reported at 11:50 a.m. at the Aspen Hill Shopping Center in Silver Spring, Montgomery County police said on Twitter.
"Both shooting scenes are in close proximity and a possible connection will be considered by investigators, but they have not yet made a determination if there is a connection," Goodale said.
Bethesda and Silver Spring are suburbs just north of Washington.BAGHDAD — Over the past few weeks, six bombings hit Basra cafes frequented by young people. Most recently, the Coffee Time cafe was targeted Aug. 17 on busy Algeria Street in central Basra. The bombings resulted in a young man's death and left others wounded, while the cafes were forced to close and lay off their staff.
Images captured by surveillance cameras are spread over social media. They clearly show individuals who planted the explosives and a car that belongs to one of the bombers.
Col. Louay Abdul-Amir of the Basra police told Al-Monitor that investigations are ongoing, noting that the police have arrested some suspects while others remain at large.
All six targeted cafes had hired female wait staff to attract customers, the first to do so in Basra in decades.
Haifa al-Badran, the head of a humanitarian association in Basra, told Al-Monitor, “The majority of the girls working in cafes are Iraqis, employed in a civilized manner to support their families.” He said, “Families in Basra did not see any violation of ethics and morals in public.”
However, the situation seemed to have sparked the fury of the religious forces in Basra. Al-Monitor obtained a copy of a flyer found near one of the bombing scenes that called for sending the female workers back to their homes and accusing the cafes of turning into "homes for demons and the practice of adultery and sodomy."
The text was poorly written and unsigned, reminiscent of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS). The flyer warned that the cafe owners will end up in “forensic medicine and hell” should they refuse to obey.
Iraqi intellectuals and activists were angered by the cafe attacks. Civil rights activist Mohammed al-Nour told Al-Monitor that, in his view, the main suspects in the bombings are “Shiite extremists” who colluded with the security services and political blocs in Basra to target cafes.
For the past two years, activists have been monitoring the escalating role of political Islam and its affiliated armed factions in central and southern Iraq, where the political and religious roles of the Popular Mobilization Units have risen.
Author Ahmad Sahen from Basra warned about the religious forces’ interference in public life and told Al-Monitor, “Political Islam is deliberately interfering in civilian life regularly, which reflects how religious ideology cuts across civilian life.”
This is neither the first time entertainment venues for youth have been threatened, nor is it the first attack on the freedom of women. On Aug. 13, for instance, Muqtada al-Sadr called for boycotting cafes that employ waitresses, warning that "certain measures" he did not explain would be taken should the government fail to address this issue.
The Sadrist movement's affiliated militias, known as the Mahdi Army and now as the Peace Brigades, have been fighting IS in the provinces of Salahuddin, Kirkuk and Anbar.
Imtar Rahim Ne’hma, a member of the Badr bloc in the province of Basra, also warned against cafes employing female staff members and called on their families to address the problem “in order to preserve their lives.”
Ahmed Abdel Hussein, the chairman of the legal committee of Basra's provincial council, told Al-Monitor, “The law does not forbid girls from working in cafes.” He added, “The employment of girls is a traditional and social issue rather than a legal one.”
However, Nour said, “The political forces’ conflicting points of view on the legalities of cafe work and the legitimacy of girls working in them was enough excuse for Shiite extremists to target such locations.”
Meanwhile, Hussein noted that the differences between political blocs are an important factor in the security decline and the increase of organized crime in Basra. On Aug. 25, Basra Governor Majed Nasraoui accused “influential” political parties of being involved in the bombings.
In recent months, heated debates have arisen in Basra after the Shiite religious forces, represented by the Popular Mobilization Units, and the political forces, represented by their militias, distributed pictures of clerics and late Supreme Islamic Leader of Iran Ruhollah Khomeini in the streets of Basra. They also prevented the sale of alcohol and banned modern hairstyles for young men and stylish veils for young women in the southern Iraqi city. The targeting of entertainment venues for young residents and terrorizing of girls for working there can be taken as a result of the Iran-affiliated forces’ Islamic struggle against the secular civil forces.Lucas Perez has been linked with an Arsenal exit.
Newcastle manager Rafa Benitez could be ready to offer Lucas Perez a way out of Arsenal after confirming his interest in the forward.
Perez wants to leave the Emirates Stadium after just one season and Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has said he will not stand in his way after signing Alexandre Lacazette from Lyon this summer.
While Perez has been mainly linked with a return to Deportivo La Coruna, Benitez said that he has been monitoring his fellow Spaniard as well.
"I like the player because I have good friends in A Coruna," Benitez said after Sunday's 2-0 friendly win over Hellas Verona. "I know that he did really well. He's come here and not played in many games, but I like the player."
Newcastle are getting ready for their first season back in the Premier League after a year in the Championship, and Benitez said he is still hoping to strengthen his squad before the end of the transfer window.
"We know what we need and will try to do it until the end of the transfer window," he said. "We are now trying to work in different directions at the time."
Mattias is ESPN FC's Arsenal correspondent. Follow him on Twitter: @MattiasKaren.www.3dtotal.com/galleries/imag…"
Last assignement Key art work for the class with Andree Wallin on Conceptartworkshop.com. UPDATE "Hey my friends, at last further to my previous announcement, my first artwork "An Ancient Spell" is up on 3DTotal gallery waiting for your votes for 7 days from now. It's really quick to vote, choose the number of stars you judge for the artwork and bam it's done. Many thanks for your contributions guys!!Last assignement Key art work for the class with Andree Wallin on Conceptartworkshop.com.
Jungle theme this time, I put a famous adventurer in it without really thinking of a fan art but I like this character.
This class was such a great adventure in itself so I should thank a thousand times Andree for his kind suggestions, for teaching us so well, my classmates and Travis Bourbeau for the school.Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."
Vertiplay™, an Oribel line, offers toys to keep playtime fun and your house organized — each one hangs on your wall! The Musical Railtrack Xylophone allows children to experiment with sound and music while working on their grip and hand-eye coordination.
Oribel cares about the kinds of toys they offer to families. To them, toys not only entertain but also teach and look good! The Vertiplay™ line offers toys that hang on walls and doors at the toddler level. Never leaving your home looking cluttered, Vertiplay™ toys keep young children entertained and happy in ways you’ve only imagined. Introducing new learning toys to you brings pleasure to the OMG Goodies family, we hope you’ll read about this incredible one!
My Thoughts on the Musical Railtrack Xylophone:
Remember the Fisher Price Xylophone? I remember sitting and attempting to play it when I was younger. I also remember trying to pull it behind me with the rope that was always several inches too short. As I got older, I enjoyed playing Mary Had a Little Lamb and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. With my own children, I realized the metal bells weren’t quite in tune and that annoying rope, the one that causes every baby to cry, became more and more annoying.
The Musical RailTracks Xylophone has no annoying ropes, but it does have the ability to stick to smooth surfaces such as doors and walls. Better yet, you can move it from surface to surface, if desired. The xylophone hangs from a sticker of a train and the xylophone represents the train tracks. It could not be any more adorable.
Today, xylophone options abound and parents may question which one to purchase. They may even consider not purchasing one at all. Xylophones often look the same and to most people, they sound the same. To little ears and toddlers who want to be able to reach all the keys with the mallet, which xylophone you choose makes a difference.
Developing a musical ear
When children develop their language skills they also have the ability to develop musical skills they may appreciate later in life. Absolute pitch, often called perfect pitch, can develop when very young children are taught to recognize pitches with their corresponding note names. Though this is not a necessary skill, it can help children who study music later as they learn the relationships between the notes and how to adjust their own pitch while singing or playing an instrument.
Much of this depends on whether they are able to recognize whether pitches and their relationship with other notes are too high (sharp) or too low (flat). Children surrounded by toys and in-tune music will develop an ear capable of better recognizing the difference.
This information leads me to an important factor when choosing a xylophone for your child. Can it be tuned? Different than others, the Vertiplay™ Musical Railtrack Xylophone is adorable and is tunable. A simple tightening or loosening of the screws holding the wooden keys in place allow you to tune each note individually. Considering the way wood (and metal) shrink and swell with temperature and humidity, this is a wonderful feature.
Other strengths taught by xylophones
There is so much more that makes xylophones incredible toys! It may seem that a child pounds a mallet on wooden or metal slats doing nothing more than driving their parents crazy, but they are learning with each pounding movement. As they work to strike an individual key, children develop better hand-eye coordination. Moreover, the way they hold the mallet determines how well the keys vibrate. A tight grip makes the sound duller, while a looser grip brings about a wonderful, fuller vibration. Now the Musical Railtrack Xylophone is teaching children how to use their grip in different ways.
One addition
There are few toys that I struggle to adequately describe my absolute delight in; however, the Vertiplay™ Musical Railtrack Xylophone, is one where words fail me. The tone of the wooden keys float with a rich sound that similar toys do not have. The ability to tune the keys means children can learn the correct intervallic relationships between notes. Also, keeping the adorable toy off the ground brings me nothing but happiness for all the parents who no longer have to worry about tripping over another toy.
I must convey this to all of you before telling you there is one addition to the toy I feel would increase its worth — adding the last two notes of the octave. The keys for those two notes would be the shortest ones, and while they would extend the length of the toy, they are of great worth to children who learn to play actual tunes on the xylophone and would increase the number of songs that can be played exponentially.
My Experiences with the Vertiplay™ Musical Railtrack Xylophone
I played quite a bit with the xylophone while it was in my home. I enjoyed playing Mary Had a Little Lamb and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Looking through the product page on the Oribel website, I noticed they include the color codings for playing Bah, Bah, Black Sheep (Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star). It’s a nice way to immediately have a song to play with your child.
The xylophone has been removed from my wall and given to a friend who has since hung it for her daughter. The move from one position to another was simple and no damage was done to my door or the sticker on the toy. This is definitely a quality toy I feel good recommending!
Connect with Oribel:
Visit the Oribel website for more information regarding their incredible Vertiplay™ line.
Purchase the Vertiplay™ Musical Railtrack Xylophone at the following locations:
loveoribel.com
Giggle.com
babiesrus.com
Amazon
Buybuybaby.com will also carry the Vertiplay™ line soon.
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PinterestJAMES RISEN, The New York Times:
I think it was — they didn't have much in the way of specifics. There were no specific cases that they announced that they were bringing against either reporters or whistle-blowers.
And I think that their press conference was mainly in reaction to Donald Trump's continued pressure on Sessions and on Dan Coats, the — and the intelligence community to get tough on leaks. But they lacked any real policy depth to what they were saying. They just talked about how they were going to get tough.
And so it sounded a lot like what previous administrations, both the Bush and the Obama administrations, have said. And it really is — we're going to have to wait and see whether they really have specific cases that they plan to bring or not.
They talked about how they have tripled the number of investigations, but that really leaves a lot to — a lot of questions, because the intelligence community, for years, has made many, many referrals to the Justice Department that never get prosecuted. And so the fact that they have more referrals doesn't really mean that we're going to see more criminal cases.Seven asylum seekers have been arrested at migrant centres in Germany following allegations of the gang rape of an Iranian teenager which is believed to have been filmed.
Police in the southwestern state of Baden-Wurttemberg issued the following statement: “The Afghan asylum seekers are suspected of having raped a 17-year-old Iranian asylum seeker several times and of having filmed the acts”.
Around 30 cops are believed to have raided a number of facilities in search of the alleged attackers.
The incident becomes the latest in a string of migrant sex attacks across the continent, which has seen incidents such as the rape of an Iraqi boy in a poll in Vienna, and even the sexual assault of a wheelchair-bound woman.
The news comes on the back of a report from the Daily Mail alongside the Gatestone Institute that migrants committed 142,500 crimes in their first six months in Germany – the equivalent of 780 crimes each day.
A Breitbart London analysis from May revealed a staggering 402,721 crimes committed by migrants in Germany:
Foreign nationals are thought to account for around 11 or 12 per cent of the total population of Germany, but were over-represented in every area of crime. Illegal immigrants and asylum seekers account for around 2.5 per cent of Germany’s population, but were also massively overrepresented. Amongst total offences, non-Germans accounted for 27.6 percent while illegal immigrants and asylum seekers accounted for 5.7 percent. Of homicides, the figures are 29.3%/8.2%, and of sexual assaults, the figures were 20.5%/4.8%. In all of these cases as well as those indicated in the chart below, non-Germans and illegal migrants outstripped their proportions of crime to their representation in German society. Non-Germans accounted for 38 per cent of all robberies, 38 per cent of thefts, and 43 per cent of thefts that involved a level of aggravation such as assault or force. They accounted for 40.2 per cent of burglaries, 43.5 per cent of shoplifting, and a whopping 75.7 of pick pocketing or purse snatching.
Police in Germany have not yet explained the circumstances surrounding the asylum seeker sex attack."One" is a song by American heavy metal band Metallica.[1] It was released as the third and final single from their fourth studio album,...And Justice for All (1988). Written by band members James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, "One" is an anti-war song that portrays a World War I soldier who is severely wounded — arms and legs blown off by a landmine, blind and unable to speak or move — begging God to take his life as he feels constant pain. His only hope is to devise a way to communicate with the hospital staff. In the music video, he jolts in the hospital bed, spelling "Kill me" in Morse code.[2] Production of the song was done by the band alongside Flemming Rasmussen. The song was the band's first top 40 hit single in the U.S., reaching number 35 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was also a number one hit in Finland.
A video for the song was introduced in January 1989 on MTV. Shot in black and white by director Michael Salomon, the video's story is intercut with scenes taken from the 1971 anti-war film Johnny Got His Gun. Due to routinely being required to pay royalty fees to continue showing the music video, Metallica bought the rights to the film. The video was ranked at number one on MTV soon after its introduction.[3]
Metallica performed "One" for the 31st Annual Grammy Awards show broadcast from Los Angeles in 1989. The next year, the song won a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance, the first ever win in that category.[3] The band also performed the song alongside pianist Lang Lang at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in 2014. The song is one of the band's most popular pieces and has remained a live staple since the release of the album, making this the most played song from...And Justice for All.
Recording and composition [ edit ]
"One" was written in November 1987 by Metallica's principal composers James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich. The song was released in 1989 as the third and final single from the album. For the first 17 seconds of the song there are a series of sound effects with a battle theme, an artillery barrage and helicopter are heard and continues slightly over a clean tone guitar intro by Hetfield before Kirk Hammett comes in over the top with a clean-toned solo. Ulrich's drums come in and continues until each chorus, when the guitars become heavy and distorted before returning to clean. There is a second solo by Hammett halfway through the song, before lyrics cut out and the song gradually gets more heavy and distorted until the "machine gun" guitar build up (played alongside double bass drums) before the next, often highly praised, guitar solo by Hammett, and a final dual solo by Hammett and Hetfield. The song begins in 4/4 time, and later 3/4 as well as 2/4.
In 1991, James Hetfield told Guitar World that he wrote the song's opening B-G chord change (miscalling it a'modulation') based on an idea prompted by the Venom song "Buried Alive" from their second studio album, Black Metal.
I had been fiddling around with that B-G modulation for a long time. The idea for the opening came from a Venom song called "Buried Alive". The kick drum machine-gun part near the end wasn't written with the war lyrics in mind, it just came out that way. We started that album with Mike Clink as producer. He didn't work out so well, so we got Flemming to come over and save our asses.
The song starts off in a soft melodic setting, but it develops through multiple sections into heavier and faster speed metal sounds,[4] leading up to a technically complex tapping solo by Kirk Hammett,[5] and a dual guitar section by Hammett and James Hetfield.[1]
Concept [ edit ]
The song is based on the idea of a soldier losing all of his limbs and being unable to hear, speak, or see, set to a World War I backdrop. In an interview in New Zealand in 1989, Ulrich describes the movie Johnny Got His Gun as having a similar theme, and this was the reason it was incorporated into the video.[6]
Music video [ edit ]
"One" was the first Metallica song for which a music video was created. The music video, directed by Bill Pope and Michael Salomon, debuted on MTV on January 20, 1989. The video, shot in Long Beach, California, is almost entirely in black and white, and features the band performing the song in a warehouse. It features dialogue and several scenes from the 1971 film adaptation of Johnny Got His Gun. Timothy Bottoms can be seen starring as Joe Bonham, the main character in the novel (written by Dalton Trumbo and published in September 1939; the basis for the 1971 film).
Three versions of the "One" music video were made; the first (the longest, album version) contained scenes of both the band and scenes from the movie. The second was simply a shortened version of the first, and the third, often known as the "jammin' version", lacked scenes from the movie (the song and video fades at the last bridge in the third version).
Like many other music videos from Metallica, "One" puts great emphasis on the performances of the band members as musicians, with many shots of James, Jason and Kirk's hands picking and fretting. The video features the band members in a typical early Metallica fashion: playing (as if in rehearsal) in some sort of warehouse, in tight formation around Lars' drum kit, and dressed in casual street clothes and with long untamed hair.
In the music video, both James and Kirk play ESP guitars; Jason Newsted is on a 5-string Wal bass. Jason plays bass with his fingers at the start of the song, but later switches to a pick.
Two of the three versions of the "One" music video appear on 2 of One, a VHS released on July 1, 1990 and both would again be featured on the band's 2006 music video compilation DVD.
The music video was ranked at number 38 on Rock on the Net: MTV: 100 Greatest Music Videos and number one on Fuse's No. 1 Countdown: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Special Edition.
Live performance [ edit ]
"One" is a favorite of many Metallica fans, and therefore is a fixture of the band's live performances. When played live, the song is usually played with guitars tuned down by one semitone (a permanent fixture of their studio and live work since the post Metallica era, save for Death Magnetic in the case of the former) and is preceded by pyrotechnics and the same sounds of war such as machine guns, and bombs exploding as heard on the recorded version. The song also features heavy strobe lighting during the heavier half of the song, namely before the Hammett solo.
The song was also featured on S&M, Metallica's album of live performances in collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Kamen. Another mentionable performance was at the Grammy Awards 2014, having pianist Lang Lang accompanying the band on an acoustic grand piano.[7]
Track listing [ edit ]
Personnel [ edit ]
Charts [ edit ]
Honors [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]By Ashley Remkus
Alabama Media Group, Birmingham
LIMESTONE COUNTY, Ala. — A woman was arrested in the parking lot of the Limestone County Jail when a jailer caught her breaking into an employee's vehicle, authorities said.
Natasha Dawn Mencia, a 29-year-old from Athens, is charged with breaking and entering a vehicle, a Class C felony that's punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Pictured is Natasha Mencia. (Photo/Limestone County Jail)
Limestone County Corrections Officer John Moore was sitting in his vehicle eating a biscuit in the parking lot when Mencia tried to get in the passenger side, authorities said.
"He asked her what she was doing, and she walked away," Sheriff's spokesman Stephen Young said in a news release.
Authorities said Moore got out of his vehicle, followed Mencia and saw her approach other vehicles. Eventually, she got into another corrections officer's unlocked truck, Young said. No items were believed to be missing from the officer's personal vehicle.
Moore took Mencia to Sgt. Martin Evans, who questioned her.
"Mencia stood silent for a short period of time (5-10 seconds) and finally stated 'Just take me to jail,'" according to an arrest report. "Sgt. Evans obliged Mencia's request...and walked her the approximately 200 feet to the booking room."
Mencia has been released on $2,500 bail.
©2017 Alabama Media Group, BirminghamDragon Ball Z Kinect announced for October release
Looks like more and more developers are jumping on the Kinect bandwagon. Bethesda Studios announced yesterday that Skyrim would be able to take advantage of Kinect voice commands in an update coming later this month, and now a beloved franchise will be receiving the same motion capture treatment. Namco Bandai has announced Dragon Ball Z Kinect, due in October.
Dragon Ball Z Kinect will let players fight in Story Mode and Score Attack without requiring a controller. Players will be able to deliver over 100 fighting moves, and play with any of the 50 characters on offer from across the DBZ universe. You’ll be able to punch your fists furiously at the sensor to fight opponents, and yes: you’ll be able to deliver the infamous Kamehameha.
In Story Mode, the game will follow the events of Dragon Ball Z in first-person mode. Fights will have the same camera movement as the anime, and players will have to mimic fighting moves and match their character. In Score Attack, players simply battle opponents one after the other in order to rack up the highest score possible.
Dragon Ball Z Kinect will also feature QR Code support. If you hold up special QR codes to the Kinect sensor and scan them, you’ll be able to unlock extra playable characters and power-ups. The game will be released sometime this October in both the United States and Europe. Better start practising your Super Saiyan yell now.
[via Joystiq]SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – Mayor John Taylor was punched and kicked during an assault Saturday night while he was walking home from a Christmas party with his wife, authorities said.
Two men assaulted Taylor, knocking him to the ground and kicking him in the head as his wife tried to get the men to stop, said Jim Amormino, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
Authorities are unsure of the motive for the assault, Taylor said, since the men did not demand or take any property from Taylor or his wife. His position in public office is not believed to have been a motive, Amormino said.
Taylor said Monday that he could not comment until the investigation is over. Other city officials also declined to comment.
The assault was reported at about 11:30 p.m. Saturday near Los Rios and Del Obispo streets, according to the department blotter.
According to the city’s website, Taylor has lived in the Los Rios historic area of the city for more than 20 years. He was first elected to the city council in Dec. 2010.
Taylor and his wife of 23 years were walking home when they heard people walking behind them, Amormino said. The couple walked to the side to let the men pass when one of the men punched Taylor in the face.
“They knocked him to the ground and punched and kicked him in the face area,” he said. “His wife attempted to help her husband. She did scream.”
The assault stopped shortly after Taylor’s wife shouted that mayor was being attacked. The two then ran off.
The men were described as being about 6 feet tall and about 220 pounds.
Taylor was taken to a hospital and treated for cuts and bruises.
Deputies are investigating the attack and are searching for witnesses in the city, Amormino said.
No arrests have been made.
REACTIONS
Former City Councilwoman Laura Freese, who worked with Taylor on the council for two years before she left this month, said she was “devastated” by the news of the attack.
“As Mayor Taylor said to me, it is the first time he had ever felt danger walking along his street in the 27 years he has lived there,” Freese said. “I am grateful it wasn’t worse.”
Freese said she believes the City Council will address the issue.
“Safety for all our residents is the No. 1 focus of the City Council,” she said. “I have complete faith that the council will take swift action to make sure that this type of tragedy doesn’t happen to anyone else in our city.”
Carolyn Franks, a resident of Los Rios Street and owner of Zoomars Petting Zoo in the Los Rios district, said she was at the zoo about 10:30 p.m., an hour before the assault. She said an unmarked sheriff’s vehicle was patrolling the area at the time.
“We’re all kind of shaken by it,” Franks said. “It’s very dark on that street at night.
“It’s a really unfortunate incident … it is probably time to talk about making it a little safer there,” Franks added. “I mean, it is our historic district and we want to protect and make people comfortable walking around there at night.”
Longtime Los Rios Street resident Stephen Rios said he was home at the time of the attack but didn’t hear it.
“We are not going to be intimidated in our neighborhood,” Rios said. “We’re going to walk our streets freely and we’re going to work with the neighbors, the city and the Sheriff’s Department to make sure all concerned will be safe in our neighborhood at any hour of the night or day.”
– Josh Francis contributed to this report.
Contact the writer: shern
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with the Coyotes sale it was already subject to “deal fatigue” because of failed attempts and previous controversy around the team. Everybody was already sick of hearing about the Coyotes 18 months ago. Many of the investors that would logically be approached to become involved in a hockey team had already been “worked over” by Ice Edge, Reinsdorf, Hulsizer and who knows who else. So the total pool of money available was reduced.
Put yourself in the shoes of an investor writing a big check for a venture (an NHL hockey team) that on it’s BEST day is an extremely risky one and read the above list of obstacles. Many of them might give you pause when asked to put pen to paper, right? The blame for none of those obstacles can be laid at the doorstep of Greg Jamison.
Realistically, it’s possible Mr. Jamison and his crew began their FINAL earnest negotiations with the NHL (representatives conspicuously absent from the January 8 City Council meeting) with slightly more than three weeks before the deadline. Did they have confidence that it would be done? Of course they did and, when asked, expressed that confidence.
Because of that confidence, now they were all “lying” according to the judgmental crowd. Most of this crowd, by the way, when offered multiple opportunities to actually make a difference in the fate of their team had other things to do and other checks to write.
What’s curious to me is why, considering the history of this deal, those fingers aren’t being pointed at the City of Glendale or the NHL?
NHL Dichotomy
It’s not even worth going over how many ways the City of Glendale has been deficient in negotiating a resolution to the bag handed to them with the Jerry Moyes bankrupting of the Coyotes. The NHL, on the other hand, deserves at least a little review in the blame game.
First, Coyotes fans, if not Glendale residents, should be grateful for the continued support of the NHL in keeping the Coyotes in town. They continue to offer public, restrained optimism that the Coyotes remaining in Glendale long term is possible. Perhaps the size of the TV market in Phoenix is their only reason for such support, the NHL has never definitively articulated their reason(s).
It was telling, to me, that the NHL didn’t jet NHL representatives Bill Daly and Gary Bettman to the City Council meeting on November 27th. If I’m not mistaken, that was the first time an important vote in Glendale was skipped by those two gentlemen. I don’t believe anyone has asked them why they missed the meeting, I’m sure a generic “I was busy” answer would be the result. It’s possible that’s true, I suppose.
We lost half of the NHL hockey season. It was interesting to see the blame ping pong back and forth between the NHL and the NHLPA depending on the stage of the public negotiations. What isn’t debatable is that one of the parties involved in that dispute with all the posturing and brinksmanship was the NHL including the Board of Governors.
So, then, considering the recent AND more distant history of negotiations with the NHL aren’t they having many more fingers pointing at them for the failure of this deal? By most accounts, the NHL stood fast on the $170M price of the team despite the actual market value of the team being considerably less. Doesn’t it seem obvious to anyone other than myself that, perhaps, had the NHL really wanted to consummate this deal with Hockey Partners they could have found a little “wiggle room” SOMEWHERE in the deal? Assuming it was a money issue, couldn’t they have worked out some agreement with Hockey Partners to satisfy a balance AFTER the purchase of the team was in place and stability of the Coyotes was restored?
I, for one, think that they could have.
So What’s The Point?
The point is that negativity is bad and positivity is good. It does seem that in the social media space, at least, people have gotten the Jamison bashing out of their system. We’ll see what it’s like at the rink tonight at the Hawks game.
I am not being a Jamison apologist and nobody imagines that they are worthy of blind, unquestioning support. But people, including people in the public eye, have a reasonable assumption that they can EARN the support of people. My personal opinion is that Greg Jamison and his Hockey Partners people have earned that support in spades. Bashing them is counterproductive enough to be noticed by other potential buyers and investors and, of course, by the press and troll brigade. How does that help attain the goal that we all want?
Where we are now is a bad place. People that care about the Coyotes and their home in Arizona were dealt a serious yet not fatal blow on January 31. We all had a lot of eggs in the Hockey Partners basket and it didn’t work out. It’s normal to have a sense of betrayal and once that’s active, the next reaction is to figure out who betrayed us.
We are not dead yet. It’s not unrealistic to expect we continue to have an opportunity to keep our team here. It’s not unrealistic to expect that, based on past history, there will be opportunities for the hard core Coyotes fan base to pitch in again in some fashion to support the resolution of the four year corner we find ourselves painted into. There are probably a thousand ways to get a deal done that’s good for ALL parties involved, all that’s required is the will to make it happen and the willingness to let Jerry Weiers take the credit.
Did I say that out loud?
Keep the faith and the civility, Coyotes brothers and sisters, we’re still here!Olivia Chow kicked off this week's Metro Morning interview series of mayoralty candidates Monday, saying Toronto "needs a new mayor" while vowing to go back to an above-ground transit line in Scarborough.
Every day this week at 7:40 a.m., Metro Morning will interview a different mayoralty candidate (see schedule below). Those in the Toronto listening area can hear the interviews on 99.1 FM. You can also watch live video of each interview at cbc.ca/Toronto.
In her interview with host Matt Galloway, the former NDP MP said council's decision to opt for a subway line into Scarborough, instead of light rail, was the wrong decision.
"Scarborough residents deserve something four years faster, four more stops and a billion dollars less," said Chow. "Had [the Scarborough light rail line] not been cancelled, the Scarborough residents by next year... would have a new, improved better service."
Chow said by opting for cheaper light rail in Scarborough, the city could direct the money elsewhere. The light rail option was entirely funded with money from the province while going with subway along the route will require a 1.6 per cent property tax increase to pay for a 30-year loan.
"By [scrapping the subway extension], we are saving $1 billion," she said. "That is a whole lot of money. That would give us the fiscal room to build that relief line, to build better bus services … to fix the housing that is falling apart at TCHC."
Galloway pressed Chow on this, asking her if revisiting the Scarborough transit issue would only push back a decision that has already been repeatedly delayed by political infighting.
"There's a right decision and a wrong decision," said Chow. "By [council making] a wrong decision, the residents in Scarborough will have to wait eight more years before they actually see improvements to their transit service.
"We need to take politics out of transit planning. Experts said very clearly that building an above-ground rail service is better. We can get shovels in the ground next year."
Galloway also asked Chow, a former Toronto city councillor, how the city can make available more affordable housing. He spoke about a fire last week that killed two people in Kensington Market in a building officials have described as a rooming house.
"We know that 168,000 people are waiting for affordable housing," said Chow. "It's desperate. I've been pushing the federal government to build more affordable housing. We need to root out all the illegal rooming houses and get better inspections. We can work with different levels of government."
Chow also repeated her promise to hold property tax increases in line with inflation.
"I grew up in a struggling immigrant family," she said. "I know the value of every nickel. We won't spend money that we don't have. I will hold property tax in line with inflation."
Metro Morning will continue to interview candidates in the race this week, the schedule is:Team White, led by captain Carlee Campbell, had key contributions from Marie-Philip Poulin, Jess Jones, and Jill Saulnier and 30 minutes of shutout goaltending from the Toronto Furies’ Christina Kessler to roll to a 9-5 victory at the CWHL’s All-Star Game at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto on Saturday.
The third annual All-Star game set a new CWHL record for a ticketed event with 8,122 fans in attendance. Only the first instalment of the All-Star game had more people, but that game was free.
Team White got hat tricks from the Brampton Thunder’s Jones and the Calgary Inferno’s Saulnier in the high scoring game. Poulin made her presence known, notching a goal and three beautiful assists, including two beautiful tape-to-tape set ups for Saulnier and another to Meghan Grieves of the Boston Blades.
Saulnier was named the game’s first star, Jones got second star, and Poulin the third. Team White’s Rebecca Johnston also had a four point game with a goal and three assists.
“[Saulnier’s] a great [player] to play with,” Poulin said after the game. “We had the chance to play together a couple of times with the national team and she’s so dynamic, so skilled and when you see her on the ice, my jaw drops every time she has the puck. She’s really good and she made me look good today.”
“The group of girls that we have out here are tremendous,” Saulnier said. “Some were idols of mine growing up, and I had the opportunity to play with them today in Poulin and [Caroline] Ouellette. You know, it’s an exciting time and obviously it’s fun to contribute in a special game like this, for sure.”
Perhaps the most fun moment of the game happened during a TV timeout during the third period, when Psy’s “Gangnam Style” came on over the PA. Ever the character, Team White coach and Olympic gold medalist Tessa Bonhomme got the crowd going by dancing on the jumbotron.
When the director cut to Team Blue coaches Cheryl Pounder and Lisa-Marie Breton-Lebreux, they followed suit, along with the entire Team Blue bench. Team White’s bench joined in the fun, much to the pleasure of the fans in the stands at the ACC, which included many girls hockey teams.
When you're in the middle of a game but the dance cam hits. #priorities #CWHLAllStar pic.twitter.com/yvUApDtCAR — Toronto Furies (@TorontoCWHL) February 11, 2017
“Just knowing that maybe one day, they’ll want to aspire to play in the CWHL, and they want to play in that game, I think it was quite fun to see,” said Poulin.
This was the second time Bonhomme tried to inject fun into the All-Star game. In the first event, when she was a player, she threw her glove at Natalie Spooner when she was on a breakaway from the bench.
When Spooner realized that Bonhomme would be coaching against her, she said she hoped she would throw something softer at her this time, and Bonhomme obliged opting to throw down some dance moves.
Spooner was captain of Team Blue along with her National team teammate and Amazing Race Canada partner Meaghan Mikkelson. Team White got off to a 3-0 lead in the first period, and Blue couldn’t score on Kessler, who made 18 saves and shut out the opposition.
Kessler was the unofficial goaltender of the game for the second straight All-Star game, and was the only one to not allow a goal. She has allowed one goal in three All-Star game appearances.
Team Blue would cut the lead to one, to make it 4-3 on Jenelle Kohanchuk’s first of two goals on the night, but that was as close as they would come. Kohanchuk would also add an assist for a three-point night.
The CWHL regular season ends next weekend. Les Canadiennes will be in Calgary to face the Calgary Inferno. However, the regular season seeding is confirmed. Les Canadiennes will host the Brampton Thunder in two weeks in the best-of-three CWHL semi-final.Looking for news you can trust?
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A leading group of climate change skeptics is concerned that paganism is creeping into the Catholic Church. That was the message delivered by Gene Koprowski, director of marketing at the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, at a press conference in Philadelphia Thursday.
The event, which Heartland had billed as a challenge to Pope Francis’ “views on global warming and the nature of capitalism,” was recorded by the liberal group American Bridge. Talking Points Memo first reported on the video Friday. You can watch an excerpt above.
The pope, who is visiting the United States next week, has called on policymakers to take action to control climate change and has criticized the excesses of free market capitalism. According to Koprowski, when Heartland staffers first began reading news stories about the pope speaking out on climate, they were “shocked that the pope was buying into this left-wing political craze that is global warming.” So in April, Heartland sent a delegation of climate skeptics to Rome to offer a “prebuttal” to a Vatican climate summit in an attempt to change the pope’s mind.
“When the Vatican leapt into the controversy on climate science, we were initially under the impression that His Holiness was a victim of bad advice from bad advisers,” Koprowski said Thursday. “There were people from the UN who were population control advocates. There were people from other left-wing groups who were advising the pontiff.”
But Koprowski said that after the pope released his landmark encyclical calling for action on climate change, he began to suspect that “something more may be afoot.” Koprowski then invoked pagan rituals and “nature worship” that he said were “seeping into the Church” during the Middle Ages, adding: “I’m wondering, as a scholar, if pagan forms are returning to the Church this day.”
Koprowski concluded: “I would say, contrary to some of the criticism, that this is not communism that has entered the church. It’s, rather, paganism.”
Heartland and Koprowski did not immediately respond to requests for comment.CLOSE Briefing reporters aboard Air Force One, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said President Trump "will be really tough" on NATO allies when he meets with them in Brussels Thursday, insisting they boost their contribution toward defense spending. (May 24) AP
President Trump (Photo11: Olivier Matthys, AP)
BRUSSELS – President Trump did not explicitly endorse the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's commitment to collective defense in his remarks at the military alliance's headquarters, even as he called on other leaders to spend more money on security.
Trump has never formally endorsed the NATO treaty's Article 5 commitment that an attack on one member country will be treated as an attack on all, making his silence on the subject in an address Thursday especially striking. The president who has touted an "America First" foreign policy did, however, refer more generally to "the commitments that bind us together as one" and promised to "never forsake the friends who stood by our side."
Trump refusal to explicitly endorse Article 5 raised some eyebrows. Ivo Daalder, the NATO ambassador under President Barack Obama, tweeted: "Deeply disappointing that Trump failed to reaffirm U.S. commitment to collective defense. Major missed opportunity."
Trump's first joint meetings with NATO leaders are largely ceremonial in nature. They include a working dinner and dedication ceremonies at the new NATO headquarters building, including memorials to the fall of Berlin Wall and to Article 5 of the NATO charter.
After Trump’s speech, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said it should have been assumed that Trump backed Article 5, given the fact he was speaking at the dedication of a memorial to it. “We’re not playing cutesy with this. He’s fully committed,” Spicer told reporters. “There’s 100 percent commitment to Article 5. I am somewhat perplexed when you’re at a ceremony that is centered around Article 5 people [that] could expect to hear certain words.”
And ahead of Trump's remarks, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that "of course we support Article 5," and noted that the only time NATO has invoked it was after the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
The new Article 5 memorial at the new NATO headquarters building is a piece of the wreckage from the destroyed World Trade Center. Praising the new building, Trump said, "I never asked once what the new NATO headquarters cost. I refuse to do that. But it is beautiful."
As Trump encouraged members to "contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations" to NATO, he urged the military alliance to focus more on stopping terrorism to remain relevant in the 21st century.
"All people who cherish life must unite in finding, exposing and removing these killers and extremists – and yes, losers; they are losers," Trump said at the NATO event, condemning Monday's bombings at a concert in Manchester, England. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack.
For its part, NATO announced it would join a global coalition to battle the Islamic State, though not in any combat role.
Before NATO's announcement, all 28 members of the alliance were already members of the coalition battling the group known as ISIS. Some countries had opposed NATO inclusion, concerned that it might be drawn into a ground war in the Middle East.
Instead of combat, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the organization's involvement would include the use of surveillance planes, intelligence information sharing, and stepped-up military training in Iraq. In endorsing the plan, Stoltenberg cited the attack in Manchester.
“I expect NATO allies to step up and agree to do more in the fight against terrorism, not least because of the attack we saw in Manchester,” Stoltenberg told reporters.
While he has been criticized for being too close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump at NATO also specifically called out Russia's military activity in Ukraine, saying that the "the NATO of the future must include a great focus on terrorism and immigration, as well as threats from Russia and on NATO's eastern and southern borders."
This appears to be Trump's most public callout of any Russian behavior, especially notable since the American president's first foreign trip came a week after the Justice Department appointed a special counsel to look into possible ties between Trump campaign associates and Russians who sought to influence the 2016 presidential campaign.
The U.S. intelligence community has accused Moscow of orchestrating a high-level campaign of cyberattacks and fake news to undermine the democratic process and Hillary Clinton's campaign, though Trump has since openly sought a warmer relationship with Moscow. That was highlighted in a controversial Oval Office meeting this month in which Trump reportedly disclosed highly classified information to Russian diplomats in an apparent attempt to get Moscow to step up its fight against the Islamic State.
In his NATO talks, Trump stressed that the United States is one of only five members in the 28-nation alliance that his hit the target of spending 2% or more of gross domestic product on military defense.
"I have been very, very direct with Secretary Stoltenberg and members of the Alliance in saying that NATO members must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations, for 23 of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying and what they’re supposed to be paying for their defense," Trump said.
Taking a somewhat hectoring tone at times, Trump said, "this is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States."
"And many of these nations owe massive amounts of money from past years and not paying in those past years," he continued. "Over the last eight years, the United States spent more on defense than all other NATO countries combined. If all NATO members had spent just 2 percent of their GDP on defense last year, we would have had another $119 billion for our collective defense and for the financing of additional NATO reserves."
Stoltenberg said member nations have made progress on the spending pledges.
European leaders greeted Trump's visit with some anxiety, noting that Trump has described NATO as "obsolete" in a world facing terrorist threats from non-state actors. Trump retracted his campaign trail claim the alliance was "obsolete" after an April meeting at the White House with Stoltenberg.
NATO and European Union members have also questioned Trump's positive comments about Putin, a foe of the NATO military alliance who has backed many anti-EU candidates in elections throughout the continent. Trump also unnerved European Union leaders by supporting last year's "Brexit" vote in which the United Kingdom opted to exit the EU.
On another diplomatic front, Trump fielded a complaint from British Prime Minister Theresa May about news leaks from U.S. officials on the British investigation of the Manchester terrorist attack. May told reporters she would make it clear to Trump "that intelligence that's shared between law enforcement agencies must remain secure."
In response, Trump issued a statement saying he has asked the Justice Department to investigate the leaks and prosecute people if necessary. "These leaks have been going on for a long time and my administration will get to the bottom of this," Trump said, adding that "there is no relationship we cherish more than the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom."
In addition to NATO, Trump held meetings Thursday with European Union leaders and the new president of France, Emmanuel Macron.
Even though Trump had kind things to say about Macron's election opponent, the anti-EU Marine Le Pen, during the campaign, the U.S. and French presidents appeared cordial and touted the long-standing alliance between their two countries.
“It is my great honor to be with the newly elected president of France, who ran an incredible campaign and had a tremendous victory," Trump said. "All over the world they’re talking about it. And we have a lot to discuss, including terrorism and other things."
He told Macron, "Congratulations. Great job.”
Responding in French, Macron said he was "very happy to be with President Trump," and "we have an extremely large agenda to discuss: the fight against terrorism, the economy, climate and energy."
In an ambitious first foreign trip as president, Trump traveled to Brussels after a series of meetings in Saudi Arabia and Israel about the Middle East peace process. Trump wraps up the trip at the weekend G-7 summit in Italy, where topics are expected to include counterterrorism, free trade, and climate change.
As Trump met with NATO and EU leaders, his predecessor Barack Obama spoke during his own visit to Europe and appeared to take issue with the current president's "America First" foreign policy.
In an apparent reference to Trump's proposed anti-migration wall between the United States and Mexico, Obama said: "In this new world we live in, we can’t isolate ourselves, we can’t hide behind a wall."
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2rXD1beEarlier this week, someone tried to tell me that Rudy Gobert, in Year 2, was already as good as Marcus Camby in his prime, and I just about lost my mind. Gobert had a good two months, but come on, let’s take the hype down a notch. Camby could do everything, and he did it for more than a decade. Does no one remember how good he was? Do the ’99 Knicks mean nothing anymore? UMass? Nothing? It’s like there’s an entire generation out there and nobody’s walking around saying, “Damn, Marcus Camby was pretty solid.”
It’s time to fix this.
Camby was unstoppable in college. If you ever wondered what Anthony Davis would look like if he’d stayed in school, check out Camby’s junior year at UMass. He averaged 20 points, eight rebounds, and four blocks while playing in the largest T-shirt on the face of the earth. The poor souls of the Atlantic 10 didn’t stand a chance, and neither did anyone else in college basketball. He took John Calipari’s team to the Final Four. He was the best player the school had seen since Julius Erving.
After his junior year, it was time for the NBA. Camby went no. 2 overall to the Raptors, and on draft night Rick Pitino said he should’ve gone no. 1 over Allen Iverson. In Toronto, Camby would link up with Damon Stoudamire, rock the dinosaur jersey, and become a franchise cornerstone. Then things got complicated.
Camby suffered back and ankle injuries that slowed him down as a rookie, and midway through that first year, a scandal broke. Agents claimed they had provided cash, cars, and prostitutes to Camby while he was at UMass. The NCAA investigated, Camby admitted it was true, and that Final Four run was vacated. This was all a really big deal. As Sports Illustrated wrote in 1997, “Camby’s talent has never been questioned, but in light of the revelations, his character has.” Nine months later, after more injuries and a second straight year of losing, he was out of Toronto.
Marcus Camby was born on March 22, 1974, and he grew up in Hartford, Connecticut. He was reborn on the 1998-99 Knicks.
Now we need to talk about the 1998-99 Knicks.
Keith Torrie/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images
That season began with the NBA lockout, a six-month nightmare for basketball fans and divorce lawyers alike. When the dust settled, Michael Jordan was gone, the All-Star Game was canceled, and the schedule had been cut to 50 games. The Knicks had one of the most expensive rosters in the league.
Marcus Camby. Patrick Ewing. Allan Houston. Latrell Sprewell. Larry Johnson. Chris Childs. Charlie Ward. Chris Dudley. And, of course, ol’ Happy Times Harry himself, Jeff Van Gundy.
Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images
The regular season was a mess. Ewing was ravaged by injuries, Sprewell missed games, and the roster had very little time to jell after the lockout. Eventually, the whole team began to look like a very expensive bad idea. As the New York Times sneered late in the year, “after seasons of using cash piles to facilitate trades and patch up mistakes, [then-GM Ernie] Grunfeld has helped turn an organization that once contended for a title into a money pit.” In a way, this Knicks season was the bridge between title contenders of the past and nightmares of the future.
Some people blamed the offseason trade that had sent 35-year-old locker room leader Charles Oakley to the Raptors for Camby. “They dealt Charles Oakley,” ex-Knick Buck Williams told the Times, “and discounted chemistry. Oak sacrificed to make the team better, and he helped make Patrick’s life easier. And I’d say with Patrick, why get younger until he retires?”
It took Ewing going for 27 and 19 against the Celtics just to clinch the 8-seed. Then the playoffs started. The team that had been a mess for months turned out to be AWESOME.
Sprewell would tear through the lane at 150 mph and get to the rim at will. (During this same Camby-Gobert conversation earlier in the week, someone also compared Sprewell’s game to DeMar DeRozan’s. The numbers are remarkably similar. But no. This comparison is unacceptable. Sprewell was built differently. DeRozan isn’t out here driving straight through people’s chests on the way to an avalanche of and-1 layups. Sorry. Basketball-Reference will have to take a mulligan on this one.) Houston’s jumpers were the perfect complement to Sprewell’s screaming drives. Sure: Ewing was playing through pain every night, Johnson was beating people with mostly old-man strength by that point, and the $55 million the Knicks were spending on Ward and Childs would have been better spent on almost anything else. But with Houston and Sprewell and the others as role players, there was something there. And in the playoffs, it started to work. Because Camby made it work.
In the playoffs, Camby gave the Knicks the bounce they’d been looking for all year. He came off the bench and ran teams ragged. This actually started late in the regular season against Miami, and it continued in the first round when the Knicks took down the 1-seed Heat.
In the second round, Camby was driving from the top of the key and dunking all over Dikembe Mutombo. He dominated the Pacers in the Eastern Conference finals after Ewing partially tore his Achilles in Game 2. This was all years before net ratings and real plus/minus became religious doctrine among NBA personnel, but when Camby came off the bench, the Knicks became twice as fast on offense, and the defense only got better.
Coming out of UMass, Camby was supposed to be a franchise big man around whom you could build for the next 15 years — like Ewing, basically. What happened instead was something like the precursor to Tyson Chandler’s career. Instead of an All-Star who could carry a team, he was just a killer role player who allowed teams to play at warp speed without missing a beat on defense. Today he’d get a max deal for this:
Chances are, you already know exactly how that playoff run ended. The Allan Houston shot against the Heat became a sweep against the Hawks, which became the four-point play, which became a Spurs title that will never be as cool as the team that played them.
Camby spent a few more years in New York, then took his act to Denver before bouncing around a few more teams and quietly bowing out in 2013. He had his moments in each spot, but beyond the tortured release on his jumper, the ’99 Finals, and thousands of blocks, it’s easy to forget he existed. That’s what makes him so fun to remember.
Mostly, though, we need to talk about Marcus Camby because Rudy Gobert could be as good and valuable as Camby was. He still needs to add the jumper with a horrifying release, but Gobert does most of the same things well, and the per-36 numbers are awfully similar. Gobert changed the Jazz at the end of last year the same way Camby changed the Knicks in the ’99 playoffs. Thinking about them reminded me why I love this sport.
The players who basketball fans love to remember are not much different from the ones we’re watching today. One day we’ll remember today’s stars with the same irrational loyalty people have for the ’99 Knicks. This is the circle of basketball fan life. When we’re not freaking out about players in front of us, we’re yelling about players we used to watch. It’s pretty basic. It’s also the best.
Anyway, NBA training camps open Monday. It’s time to start yelling about basketball again.
Start with these Camby videos.
1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyqJv50Nixw
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3.
4.
5.
6.
Next week we can start talking Gobert.
This piece has been updated to correct the nature of the injury that Patrick Ewing suffered in 1999. It was a partially torn Achilles, not a torn ACL.A rash of recent high-profile cyber attacks has security experts scrambling to find solutions.
“You cannot have an unrealistic set of expectations and believe your system will never be penetrated,” Michael Chertoff, former Secretary of Homeland Security under George W. Bush, told Yahoo Finance at the annual Concordia Summit in New York City. “You need layers of defense so your systems have resiliency.”
Chertoff, who now runs his own risk management company, stressed that cyber security involves much more than code. Among other things, he says companies must be armed with backup systems to store data in case their servers are compromised. In the video above, Chertoff compares a company’s cyber security system to the human body.
“We take a holistic approach,” he explained. “The human body doesn’t keep all bacteria and viruses out, but it also has an immune system and that’s what companies should have.”
He added that companies shouldn’t get in the business of paying off hackers. “It’s a mistake to pay because you’ll wind up paying again and again.”
Accept more refugees
Chertoff also spoke about the need for the United States to accept more refugees.
“A common-sense strategy from a national security standpoint says we ought to be taking in a reasonable amount, higher than the [current] 50,000.”
Chertoff added that having a low cap puts our allies who are hosting these refugees in a difficult position.
“We’re asking them to assume the burden of the refugees, but we’re not willing to partner with them,” Chertoff said. “If you turn the refugees away, you risk them becoming victims or worse, getting recruited by terrorists.”
Chertoff noted that not letting in more refugees could also put our military at risk.
“I remember when we were in Iraq and I was Homeland Security Secretary, many people applied to be refugees because their families had worked with US forces as translators, as guides, doing support work,” Chertoff said. “We owe it to them to say look you’ve got our back, we’ve got yours. “
On the subject of growing tensions between the United States and North Korea, Chertoff said it’s unrealistic to think Kim Jong Un’s regime will disarm.
According to Chertoff, the U.S. needs to keep a whole menu of options open including pursuing a diplomatic relationship with North Korea, similar to what the US had with Cuba.
“Getting people on the ground [in North Korea] might help us calibrate better how they might respond to things that we do.”Originally published November 7.
An Alberta man is warning others about the practices at a major used-car dealer in Calgary after buying a 2013 Dodge Ram 1500 with $37,538 in past insurance claims, which he says were undisclosed.
"I was told three times, maybe four times, 'perfect condition,'" said Eric LaPlante, who bought the truck from the Gallery of Fine Cars last fall for $33,995.
LaPlante said he found out about the truck's checkered past months later, when he took it to an appraiser at an official Dodge dealership.
Bought car for family, safety reasons
LaPlante and his wife moved to Alberta from New Brunswick four years ago. The 40-year-old metal worker said when his wife became pregnant in 2015, he sold his Audi sports car to buy a bigger, safer vehicle.
His search for a good deal led him to a big white truck at the Gallery of Fine Cars, a dealer with three locations in Calgary.
"Went for road test, liked it. It looked like it was in good condition," LaPlante recalled.
"One of my concerns was making sure I'm not buying a truck that was in an accident. So I asked the salesman if it was in an accident, the answer was, 'no.' Asked them a second time just to make sure and he said, 'Nope! Perfect-condition vehicle.' So I said, 'all right.'"
LaPlante said while signing the paperwork, he asked to see the car history report, but was told the person in charge was not around, so there's no way to find the document.
LaPlante said he had no idea he could run the car history report himself.
Traces of white spray paint, suspicious markings
A few weeks after LaPlante drove the truck home, he noticed small amounts of white spray paint on the screws and bolts around a rear tire, on the bumper and inside the hatch.
There were also traces of yellow markings similar to the ones used to identify parts in scrap yards.
Traces of white spray paint can be found in various parts of the truck, possibly from a new paint job. (Falice Chin/CBC)
Yellow markings on the latch of the truck's hatch. ( Falice Chin/CBC)
When the truck started vibrating because of a loose part, LaPlante took it to a mechanic.
"They did the repair, they changed the drive shaft that was bent," said LaPlante.
"They didn't know why but they told me that the truck's probably been in accident because there's no serial number on the driver door, which means it's a replacement door; it's not from the manufacturer."
Concerned about his truck, LaPlante returned to the Gallery of Fine Cars, demanding to see the car history report. He said the dealer's employee refused to show him the report.
Thinking it may have been in a fender-bender in the worst case scenario, LaPlante said he let it go.
"The truck was so new," he said. "I didn't think it would be anything major."
2 collisions, hail damage, repair auction
As time went on, LaPlante said he grew more and more uncomfortable about the truck. Eventually, he decided to trade it in for a newer model, thinking he'd take a small hit.
Laplante said he took the truck to an official Dodge dealership for an appraisal in October. That's when he saw a copy of the CarProof report for the first time.
"It has so much damage! I mean, I just can't imagine what the truck looked like after all that damage," he said.
CBC News obtained its own copy of the CarProof report. It outlines a series of collisions and repairs. Insurance claims from three incidents totalled $37,538 — a lot more than what LaPlante said he had expected.
"I don't feel 100-per-cent safe because I don't know if the airbags were replaced, I don't know if they're company airbags or cheap airbags," he said.
Insurance claims from two collisions and hail damaged totalled $37,538
CarProof report of LaPlante’s 2013 Ram shows a list of collisions, repairs and sale at auction as an accident repair vehicle. (Courtesy: CarProof)
Gallery of Fine Cars disputes story
The Gallery of Fine Cars denies LaPlante's allegations.
In a statement released through the company's lawyer Monique Morin, it says:
"Mr. LaPlante was provided with a copy of the CarProof Vehicle History Report prior to purchasing the vehicle which he acknowledged receiving and confirmed that he read and fully understood.
"The Gallery of Fine Cars has no record of Mr. LaPlante returning to its dealership following the purchase of the vehicle in November 2015 and is not aware of any performance issues with the vehicle."
Morin also attached a copy of LaPlante's purchase agreement.
Gallery of Fine Cars says the purchase agreement shows LaPl
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—try to foreclose and then evict you? Show me the paper, Mr. Banker, will be all you need to say.
This is a major, major crisis. The Lehman bankruptcy could be a spring rain compared to this hurricane. And if this isn’t handled right—and handled right quick, in the next couple of weeks at the outside—this crisis could also spell the end of the mortgage business altogether. Of banking altogether. Hell, of civil society. What do you think happens in a country when the citizens realize they don’t need to pay their debts?
–David R. Kotok, Chairman and Chief Investment OfficerAccording to a Vanity Fair – slash – 60 Minutes poll, 15% of Catholics believe the world would be a better place without religion. 1% of Evangelicals and 5% of Protestants, too.
Of course, the same poll showed that 28% of respondents, of all education levels, thought the United States has more than a billion residents. I can’t help but think the problem is entirely of culture and education — as in too much culture, enculturating people into Catholicism even though they don’t believe themselves, and too little education, where people simply cannot recognize the gaps in their knowledge of the world. That’s honestly the only way I could see someone labelling themselves as a “Catholic”, e.g. culturally, while believing that their religion should not exist.
An honest piece of advice to these 15% of Catholic adherents: just quit. Get out. You do not have to continue to adhere to the Catholic ways of life to believe what you believe. You do not have to stay in the Catholic denomination. You could switch to another denomination, one that has less of a problem with priests living resplendent lives while claiming poverty is a virtue, or having to receive your catechism from a man who may very well have been shuffled to his position after having been caught diddling kids in another district.
You can quit. You can quit and live a happy, healthy, full and pious life. Sure, the kiddy-fiddlers and the corpulent greedy bastards who claim to have a direct pipeline to God might “excommunicate” you, might claim that you’re going to Hell. But even if you still believe in Hell, and still believe in a just and righteous God, why would you believe these people who visibly break that God’s commandments over and over again when you break from their ranks?
And if you’re Catholic only because you like the community, but don’t actually believe in any of the Bible, much less believe in a higher power, then welcome to our community. You’re an atheist, and you are welcome to break bread with us.
Like this: Like Loading...When you are a monopoly, does it matter what you do to take in revenues or spend money? Sure, there are budgets and audits and all that good stuff. But when you are a monopoly that is a government agency, why doesn’t anyone seem to mind what the agency is doing?
The Board of Commissioners of the Erie County Water Authority (ECWA) recently approved their annual budget, with operating expenses totaling more than $60 million. They approved a $10 million increase in the capital budget, requiring new borrowing of $10 million. The rate for water will increase by 3.9 percent for 540,000 customers in 2016. In other news, Christmas decorations are popping up everywhere and the Sabres are not very good but are no longer tanking.
In an era when most governments and elected officials are supersensitive about raising taxes, the ECWA goes on its merry way. We have a property tax cap in New York State which for 2016 is set in most cases at less than two percent. But the ECWA increases rates by 3.9 percent and no one in a position to raise some hell about it does anything. It is almost like the ECWA is the proverbial third rail of politics for local politicians. We know the answer, but still need to ask: Why?
Bob McCarthy’s November 6 article in the Buffalo News about the 2016 ECWA budget approval highlights a few things:
Effective Jan. 1, the price of water will increase by 3.9 percent annually, or 12 cents per 1,000 gallons, according to authority Chairman Earl L. Jann, Jr.
The quarterly infrastructure charge will increase to $19.45, from $15.45, [Jann] added, providing money for several projects and repair of “an unprecedented number of water leaks” caused by two years of severe weather.
“We’re forced to increase our rates and charges for a combination of factors,” Jann said. “The cost of keeping pace with system upgrades and increases to compensation and health care for our employees has led to a dramatic rise in overall expenses.”
Ah ha! The old “combination of factors” defense!
The authority is also planning $20 million in facilities improvements, as well as security upgrades. The borrowing plan, however, caused the disagreement in approaches that was reflected in Thursday’s 2-1 vote. Jann said the authority’s capital budget has climbed to more than $29 million as a result of the planned system and infrastructure upgrades, a significant increase from previous yearly averages of $17 million to $18 million.
I thought it strange that McCarthy’s story did not mention what the total budget will be for 2016. But then I looked at the board minutes for their November 5 meeting and saw that the resolution that approved the budget didn’t actually say what the size of the budget is.
Why wasn’t the budget approved with some announced cuts in the top heavy bureaucracy at the ECWA? For openers they could consider some reductions in the management personnel of the authority, which includes:
Deputy Director $147,574
Director, Administration $138,399
Executive Director $132,763
Deputy Admin. Director $126,750
Business Office Manager $105,400
Assistant Business Office Manager $88,577
Administrative Assistant $87,969
Administrative Assistant $81,187
Comptroller $131,527
Cash Manager $114,876
Asst. Manager of Accounting Services $102,251
Executive Engineer $158,687
Senior Distribution Engineer $128,796
Senior Distribution Engineer $122,256
Electrical Engineer $111,790
Production Engineer $110,011
Distribution Engineer $104,345
Distribution Engineer $101,512
Distribution Engineer – 2 at $98,679
And then they could look at their human resources operation. The ECWA is incredibly top-heavy with people working in high-paying positions relating to human resources in any form you want to characterize it – personnel, labor relations, employee relations, human resources. Their budget for a 235-employee authority includes:
Secretary to the Authority and Personnel Director $132,756
Director of Human Resources $112,114
Director of Employee Relations $105,978
Coordinator of Employee Relations $99,547
Employee Benefits Specialist $76,228
That’s a total of $526,623 in salaries for five HR people, plus fringe benefits of course.
As previously noted, these salaries are very much out-of-line when compared with similar positions in the largest local governments in area, the County of Erie and the City of Buffalo.
The authority also likes to contract out some of their work which should be handled by the large group of high paid executive staff. In the past several weeks they approved contracts with the following:
Zeppelin Communications LLC (ZeppCom), which authority board minutes indicate was previously operating under the name Caputo Public Relations. The contract, which is for three years with an option to renew for two more, identifies Michael Caputo as the managing director. The firm will be paid up to $5,000 per month, with Caputo’s hourly rate set at $125 and a $65/hour for an account executive. They will work as independent contractors.
Barclay Damon LLP (BD) has a contract with the authority for an unspecified term while it works on a matter identified as “bond related transactions and general litigation and municipal law issues.” BD’s attorneys will work at a blended hourly rate of $225, with paralegals at $125. The contract was signed by James Domagalski.
Raftelis Financials Consultants, Inc., a North Carolina firm, will work for a year to “prepare a water utility cost of services/rate structure” in an amount not to exceed $76,700. Hourly rates for staff of this firm range from $70 to $400. They tack on $10/hour for administrative expenses, and the hourly rates increase 50 percent “for services related to the preparation for and participation in depositions and trial/hearing.”
The basic function of the Erie County Water Authority can be summed up simply: They pump water from the lake; purify and test it; and send it to their customers. So here are some questions:
What is the justification for such a large and extraordinarily high-priced management staff for such a small public works agency?
Given the very basic nature of the service and product provided, why can’t some of that high-priced talent perform PR functions?
Given that there are at least five attorneys working full or part time for the authority, why does Barclay Damon need to do legal work on “general litigation and municipal law issues?”
Why can’t the high-priced in-house accounting talent take care of the cost of service issues?
Maybe there was a reason for the ECWA in the early ‘50’s when the agency was created and county government was still operating like it did in the 19th century, but there is no justification for the ECWA to exist in the 21st century. I have avoided mentioning the names or political affiliation of any authority employees whose job titles are listed above. We all know that the current crew at the ECWA didn’t invent the organization that exists there. These are systemic problems, and the place needs to be totally reformed.
All of the functions of the authority can easily be rolled into county government, which performs all these activities, except on a larger scale. That includes management of a public works function; accounting; legal services; public relations; human resources, etc.
Read more of Ken Kruly’s observations on politics and government at Politics and Other Stuff.Bruton Smith is seen before a 2013 NASCAR race at Texas Motor Speedway. (Photo11: Randy Holt, AP)
BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) — Speedway Motorsports Inc. executive chairman Bruton Smith revealed Friday that he was treated for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in June and used this weekend's races at Bristol Motor Speedway as motivation during his recovery.
Smith arrived at Bristol on Wednesday for the Truck Series race — his first since his diagnosis — and will stay until Saturday night's Sprint Cup Series event. He missed a total of four race weekends at SMI properties while he was ill.
"I hate to miss any of our races, it's heartbreaking," Smith said in an interview with The Associated Press and ESPN.com. "I enjoy what I do. I love the automobile business, I like the racing business and I want to do more and more. That is the driver for me — to just do more things. I just like what I do."
The 88-year-old Smith was reluctant to discuss his health during the interview that lasted 30 minutes in a conference room in one of the Bristol towers. His son, Marcus, and longtime aide, Don Hawk, eventually explained his illness.
Smith was not feeling well in late May during races at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the cornerstone of his SMI empire, and was diagnosed with the cancer. He underwent surgery to treat it, and Smith said he did not require chemotherapy or radiation.
"He's been given a really good prognosis on his health, he's responded to the treatment really well and beyond the expectations," Marcus Smith said.
Smith said he lost 18 pounds during treatment, which included a hospital stay that was "long enough to get accustomed to it and decide I didn't like it."
Smith in February stepped down as chief executive officer of SMI, and later increased the voting power of his three sons in the company. He had controlled 70.2 percent of the voting stock before the move.
Smith, one of the founders of Charlotte Motor Speedway, was voted into the 2016 NASCAR Hall of Fame class in May. His SMI tracks host 13 of 38 Sprint Cup events annually.
PHOTOS: 2016 NASCAR Hall of Fame class
The behind-the-scenes restructuring at SMI led to speculation about Smith's health, which is why he agreed Friday to reveal what he'd been through the last few months.
"I think I feel a lot better than some people thought I did," he said.
Smith let his son and Hawk discuss almost all of the details of his illness.
"He doesn't like to talk about health, he doesn't like to talk about death," Hawk said. "He refuses to even say the word (cancer). In race racing terms, he was several laps down. He's back on the lead lap now."
His inner circle used a full-page newspaper advertisement for Saturday night's race at Bristol and a calendar to motivate Smith to use this weekend as his goal to get back to the track. In true Smith fashion, he promised Saturday night's crowd "will be the biggest crowd at any Cup event you've seen all year."
The restructuring at SMI has put Marcus Smith in charge of day-to-day activities, although Smith said he's still showing up for work at his office at Town and Country Ford in Charlotte, North Carolina.
"Marcus is doing such a fantastic job of running SMI that if I'm out, they don't miss me," Smith said. "He's the man. He's the man."
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.As soon as BISA heard that the State government was going to extend the tram down North Terrace to East Terrace we asked to speak to Transport Minister Mullighan about taking the opportunity to improve cycling on North Terrace. (Bike facilities on North Terrace is number 2 in our top 10 wish list.)
We never got the meeting, and now that the plans are out, we can see why. Not only will we not get bike lanes, but things will be worse, with the existing wide kerbside lane narrowed so much that cyclists will have to occupy the lane with buses and cars.
Despite making it worse on the road - impossible for all but the brave and fearless - they are doing nothing for cyclists for cyclists off the road either. One of our committee members wrote to DPTI about it and was told that cyclists will just have to take to the footpath.
Have a look at the promotional video. Not a cyclist to be seen. And this from a government that hopes to double the amount of cycling, and for a street that is the state's main cycling attractor. What a joke!
Instead of providing bike lanes, or at least keeping the existing wide kerbside lane, they've decided to have tram platforms on the outside of the tram tracks, instead of in the centre, as on King William and the rest of North Terrace. That means 2 platforms instead of one. Also, it looks like they are going to widen the footpath on the southern side - as if it isn't wide enough already - rather than provide a bike lane.
ie cyclists are being literally and completely ignored.
BISA has put it's stance on our website. Assuming its too late the change the configuration, we're calling for:
converting the footpath next to the buildings on the northern side of North Terrace into a bike path
30kph speed limit on North Terrace
part of the eastern footpath on King WIlliam Road north of North Terrace to be reserve for cyclists riding up hill. (The tram extension down King William Road to Festival Drive similarly squeezes out cyclists.)
If you want to do something about it you can register your interest on the project website, explain your interest as a cyclist. Better still, you can write to Mullighan: ([email protected]) telling him what you think.
Some things you could say(UPDATED December 27, 2014) December 22, 2014—As a libertarian, I maintain a soft spot in my heart for conservatives. This is partly because I once was a conservative. In fact, in many ways I still consider myself a conservative, although not one as defined by most modern conservatives.
The other reason is that there seems to be a lot of common ground between libertarians and conservatives. Conservatives speak the language of liberty, profess devotion to the Constitution and proclaim the virtues of the free market. They, on the other hand, decry the growing nanny state, violence against innocent people and government barriers to capitalism.
Despite all this, I’ve just about had it with conservatives. I’ve had it with their excuses for why they can’t always follow the Constitution. I’ve had it with their reasons for why it’s ok for some innocent people to be killed. Most of all, I’ve had it with explaining to them why they should support freedom on every issue, regardless of what the media mouthpieces of so-called conservatism tell them.
With the rise of libertarianismover the last decade or so, there have been many attempts by libertarians to convince conservatives that they should think differently on the issues.
We have attempted to convince conservatives that the United States’ foreign policy not only opposes what America’s founders said it should be, but that it, more importantly, tramples on the conservative notions of family, community and limited government.
We have argued that it is impossible for conservatives to favor economic freedom and personal choice while supporting the war on drugs – and, indeed, prohibition of any kind.
We have worked to show them that their perspective of the federal government – their over-emphasis on the office of the president, their forsaking of the local for the national, their vision of the states as an indivisible union – reflect the principles of not the American Revolution they say they revere, but that of the French.
We have tried to show that our nation’s incessant meddling in other countries’ affairs brings about unintended consequences that are impossible to predict, much less control.
More recent events have led libertarians to try to convince conservatives that the militarization of police and the problem of police brutality are problems that need to be confronted, not explained away. We have argued that the attempts to justify the deaths of non-violent people represent a callous disregard for life – certainly not a conservative principle.
With the recent release of the Senate’s report on torture, libertarians have tried to explain to conservatives the obvious point that torture is in no way defensible on conservative grounds. Conservatives are kidding themselves if they believe that no innocent people have been tortured and they are short-sighted if they think that this does not create additional anti-American sentiment in the world. Just as damaging as its effect on the victims, however, is the desensitization to human suffering and death that inevitably accompanies a society’s widespread acceptance of, and even support for, torture.
Additionally, conservatives have recently been told why the 50-year embargo against Cuba should end, on both humanitarian and free market grounds, both principles which conservatives allegedly revere.
I truly don’t mind explaining the libertarian perspective on these issues. I only arrived at libertarianism through years of reading and thinking, and I hope that explaining my beliefs—and how I arrived at them—can be instructive to others.
But it is tiresome to observe the adherents of a political philosophy that claims to value freedom so consistently give the benefit of the doubt to government. I understand that many points of view that conservatives hold are long-held and deeply-ingrained. But it drives me absolutely bonkers when people who so often deride others for philosophical inconsistency unquestioningly accept their own preconceived notions without a second thought.
H. L. Mencken once wrote, “The fact is that the average man’s love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth. He is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely.”
I fear that this accurately describes conservatives. If it didn’t, they wouldn’t need to have the principles of liberty laid out for them on every issue. While I don’t expect conservatives to become libertarians overnight, or even at all, I do expect them to be able to ask themselves if the positions they hold ultimately support or undermine freedom.
If you say you believe in freedom, then at some point you need to start giving freedom the benefit of the doubt. Conservatives’ consistent failure to do this is increasingly leading me to the conclusion that they might not hold freedom in any higher regard than do the liberals they despise.
AdvertisementsThe Philadelphia Eagles are expected to show interest in free-agent wide receiver Kenny Britt, according to league sources.
Britt had a career year (68 catches, 1,002 yards, five TDs) for the Los Angeles Rams in 2016 while working with Mike Groh, who is now the Eagles’ receivers coach. The two grew tight during their year together in Los Angeles, so a reunion would likely be welcomed on both sides. Britt could also be drawn to the type of quarterback stability that Carson Wentz is expected to provide after being with one QB after the next during his eight-year career.
The Eagles are in the market for multiple wide receivers this offseason and are exploring all available avenues, including free agency, the trade market and the draft. ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported that they are potential trade suitors for New Orleans Saints wideout Brandin Cooks.
At 6-foot-3 and 223 pounds, Kenny Britt would provide the size the Rams are craving to add to their receiving corps. Michael Allio/Icon Sportswire
Ideally, the Eagles would like to pair a speedy receiver with a big target on the outside. Britt (6-foot-3, 223 pounds) fits that latter description. He scored four touchdowns on 11 red zone targets last season (and has 16 career red zone touchdowns in all). In theory, he would be able to help Wentz out when the field shrinks.
The Eagles have a pressing need but also parameters they would like to stick to. They want to be relatively conservative in free agency, spending wisely in the here and now so they’re not handcuffed down the line when the team is truly ready to contend. And they would prefer to invest in players who will still be in their prime as Wentz enters his. Britt is 28, young enough to think he may have a few seasons left before seeing a significant drop-off. He isn’t expected to command quite as much as some of the other top receivers on the market.
Alshon Jeffery, for instance, could get more than $10 million per year. Kenny Stills may end up in eight-figure territory as well, and might not get out of Miami to begin with. All things being equal, the Eagles would probably love to bring in the 24-year-old Stills given that he is the ideal age and also brings the type of speed that they’re dying to add to the outside, but it might not be feasible.
DeSean Jackson is a burner as well, but he’s 30 and could end up with a contract that is simply too rich for the Eagles’ blood. The Tampa Bay Bucs are a team to watch there.
When you consider age and cost, Britt is one of the few on the higher end of the market who fits.
That he is entering his ninth season and hasn’t been as productive overall as some other available receivers are reasons to challenge the potential move. Then again, those very factors will help keep his price down, relatively speaking. The more perfect the player, the higher the cost.
In Britt, the Eagles would get a potential short-term fix at a dollar amount they could live with, and a player who may have some untapped potential given the lack of quality quarterback play he has been surrounded with to date.
It is likely that multiple teams will be in play for Britt so it’s no sure thing that he will land in Philly, but the Eagles are expected to have an eye on him as free agency opens.The design of many robots has been inspired by living creatures, from the humanoid machines that have appeared in science fiction for decades to the mechanical cockroaches that scurry around some research labs. There has even been a robotic tuna used to explore the ocean. But our reliance on the mechanical has left a very large area of the animal kingdom left out: soft bodied creatures with neither skeletons nor shells. In a paper that will be released by PNAS, researchers describe a soft-bodied robot that can crawl around lab, powered by compressed air.
The limits in robot design have been very practical. We don't yet have something that will mimic muscles well, which leaves our creations articulating their joints with things like gears and engines, which require a fairly rigid support structure. But the creators of this new robot were inspired by squid, which perform impressive feats of flexibility using a soft body that's supported by the ocean's buoyancy.
They figured they could skip the buoyancy requirement by using a tough elastomer that can stand up to the force of gravity while still retaining enough flexibility to move around. In practical terms, their work required two elastomers, one that was able to stretch when put under an appropriate force, another that would flex, but not stretch. A chamber that had these elastomers on opposite surfaces would flex in a specific way when the chamber was pressurized, with stretching on only one side causing it to curve in the opposite direction. A series of theses chambers linked together could create the sort of "muscle" that would propel their creation.
To create an actual robot, they fabricated a "tetrapod," with four limbs spreading out from a central body in a tall X shape. Each of the limbs could curve down when pressure was applied, and the "body" at the center of the X could either be held rigid or allowed to flex.
Before you get images of a giant, rubbery X shambling down the street, we'll point out that the robot here was only about 15cm (six inches) long. On the plus side, that allowed it to move using only about a half-atmosphere of pressure—about 10 percent of what you'd find in a typical bike tire. The pressurized air was supplied externally through a set of flexible tubes, but there doesn't seem to be a reason that a small pump couldn't be carried along, though it might take much longer for it to move.
The simplicity of the system also allowed it to be programmed with a remarkably low-tech approach: the movements were set up in a spreadsheet that was imported by the control software and used to control the valves that set the robot's pressure.
The authors were able to get it to move in two different manners. The first involved an undulation, where the two hindlimbs would curve and draw forward and then relax, pushing the robot ahead after the body and forelimbs also curled up. A separate algorithm flexed the legs one at a time to allow the robot to crawl. The authors were even able to get it to slide itself under a barrier with a low clearance, during which its entire body flattened out—not something you'd find easy to do with a traditional robot.
Right now, the response to pressure is limited by the fact that these materials aren't tough enough to keep the robot from popping under high pressure. That's something that can be changed but, even now, the soft, flexible robot is a challenge for traditional control systems. The authors were able to figure out how to send the appropriate commands empirically, but they say that the response to pressure is nonlinear, making it a poor fit for control software designed to handle simple joints and gears. Before we try building more complex soft-bodied machines, we're either going to have to master nonlinear control systems, or get a neural network to do the empirical learning for us.
PNAS, 2011. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1116564108 (About DOIs).The Chicago Bears' defense has been so bad, it became only the second team in NFL history to allow 50-plus points in consecutive games. That other team was the 1923 Rochester Jeffersons (1923!!!).
Despite the swirling winds in Chicago surrounding his coaching staff, Marc Trestman said Monday that defensive coordinator Mel Tucker and the rest of his coaches will remain in place.
"There will not be any (coaching changes) at this time," Trestman said. "I think we have excellent coaches here."
Tucker was the subject of consternation last season, with some fans calling for Trestman to fire the coordinator last year. Even after adding several pass rushers and secondary pieces, the defense has been just as sad in 2014.
"I feel very confident that (Tucker is) doing the things he can do to help us move forward," Trestman said, per Zach Zaidman of the Bears' Radio Network.
A team that was expected to battle for a playoff spot now sits at 3-6 and the man who was praised last season for his offense is feeling the seat underneath him begin to heat up.
"We know our fans are disappointed," Trestman said. "They have a right to be. This has been a very disturbing stretch of three weeks."
That, coach, is an understatement.
Some other notes from Trestman:
» He said at least four times that quarterback Jay Cutler needs to play better.
"Jay's gotta play better. He's gotta play better, but he can't do it alone. But he's gotta play better, just like the rest of us do."
(It must be "state the obvious" day in Chicago.)
» Trestman added that he did not consider benching Cutler at halftime on Sunday night. The Bears were down 42-0 at the time.
The coach also said he doesn't believe teammates have stopped supporting the struggling quarterback.
» Some good news on Brandon Marshall, who left the game with an ankle injury: Trestman said the team was "very optimistic" the wideout could play this week against the Minnesota Vikings.
» Despite what it looked like from the outside, Trestman said he didn't notice any players loafing during the blowout:
"I did not.... I'm sure there were minuses along the way, but overall I didn't see that."
The latest Around The NFL Podcast recaps every Week 10 game from an action-packed Sunday. Find more Around The NFL content on NFL NOW.By Charles Goldberg
AuburnTigers.com
AUBURN, Ala. - The injuries continue to mount at Auburn, so much so the Tigers will be without a number of starters in the backfield and quarterback Sean White is questionable for Saturday's game against Alabama A&M.
SEC leading rusher Kamryn Pettway will miss another game with a leg injury.
White has a shoulder injury. Receiver and punter returner Marcus Davis will miss the final two regular-season games with a shoulder injury, H-back Chandler Cox is out with a leg injury, running back Stanton Truitt won't play because of an ankle injury and special teams player Josh Shockley is out with a shoulder injury.
Coach Gus Malzahn said Tuesday he's "not ready to make a call" on whether White will play Saturday. "We'll play him when he's healthy," Malzahn said. He also said John Franklin III and Jeremy Johnson are in line at quarterback if needed.
Malzahn said he's hopeful Pettway will be well enough to play against Alabama on Nov. 26 as Auburn nurses its injured players to the Iron Bowl.
Running back Kerryon Johnson may play, but hasn't been completely healthy in weeks because of an ankle injury. Freshman Kam Martin will fill in at running back. Defensive back Rudy Ford may play running back, too. Malik Miller, who had knee surgery after the second game of the season, will practice this week and could play.
"We'll see how all that goes," Malzahn said. "I'll probably have a better idea running back-wise what our plan will be toward the end of the week."
Malzahn said White is "kind of day-to-day, week-to-week deal. We'll see how that goes this week."
Auburn's injuries multiplied against Georgia last Saturday.
Malzahn said the loss of Davis with a shoulder injury is "a tough blow."
"He was one of our leaders and, obviously, our punt returner."
Malzahn said Cox is out, but "we're hopeful to have him back for the Iron Bowl."
" Kamryn Pettway will not play again this week. Same status. We hope to have him for the Iron Bowl.
" Stanton Truitt injured his ankle early in the game. He tried to keep fighting through; couldn't go in the second half. He swelled up pretty good. He'll be out this week. We're hopeful to have him for the Iron Bowl also."
Malzahn said Shockley is out for both Alabama A&M and Alabama.
White said he suffered a second injury to his shoulder in last Saturday's 13-7 loss at Georgia.
"I kind of hurt myself a little bit more during the game," White said Sunday. "I think I could have done a little better job letting the coaches know. I wanted to play for my team and I wanted to try to win."
Auburn is 7-3 overall and 5-2 in the Southeastern Conference. Alabama A&M is 4-6.
Charles Goldberg is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: Follow @AUGoldMineSpeaking with Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow on Wednesday’s edition of Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM, Ann Coulter, the bestselling author of In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!, questioned the need for presidential debate moderators.
Coulter and Marlow were discussing Wednesday’s Commander-in-Chief Forum that would give voters their first chance to see Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton head-to-head, although not in an interactive debate setting.
“This whole moderator and debate business really enrages me,” she said of the questions swirling around forum moderator Matt Lauer’s alleged membership in the Clinton Foundation.
“As I’ve said before, why do we have moderators at all?” Coulter asked. “This is crazy, how the incredibly biased, disrespected, and distrusted media has injected itself right into the heart of a presidential campaign, so we have two-to-one on these stages.”
“Lincoln and Douglas didn’t have moderators,” she pointed out. “We want the candidates to ask one another questions. It’s one thing to have a referee who’s making sure that each candidate is given equal time, but why on Earth should all these Hillary voters be choosing the questions?”
As she argued at length in her latest book, Colter said “there’s no way we’d be talking about these issues – sanctuary cities, anchor babies, building a wall, a deportation task force” if Trump had not shaped the political conversation, rather than allowing the media to do it.
“The very first interview Donald Trump did, right after announcing he was running for President, was an interview with Bill O’Reilly. The first question, of course, is on ISIS, because that’s what politicians and the media fixate on, when don’t want to talk about immigration, or anything that matters to an actual American,” Coulter said. “And then went through, I don’t know, Syria, Iran, the Qods Force – it was 100 percent foreign policy. Three weeks later, the intro to Bill O’Reilly’s show is, ‘Illegal immigration, big problem in this country!’”
“And that’s why Trump has risen to the top of the polls. He’s welcomed by 30,000 rally-goers in Alabama today,” she said. “This was all Trump’s doing, and now the media is worming its way back in for the debates, so we can have a talking snowman, instead of Trump ask questions of Hillary, and Hillary ask questions of Trump.”
When Marlow told Coulter that even the United Kingdom is now talking about building a Trump-style border wall in Calais, and asked for “snap commentary,” Coulter pronounced it “fantastic” news, and quoted the old saying “walls make good neighbors.”
She closed by suggesting Breitbart News post full video of Donald Trump’s “magnificent” press conference, after his visit to Mexico, where she said he was “lovely, he was firm, and he talked about the wall, and said we support the right of all sovereign nations to defend their borders.”
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
LISTEN:In recent months, architect friends have explained how several post-Recesssion projects focus sustainability goals on the end-user experience, rather than simply pursue flagship "green" designations. It seems there is a commendable and renewed emphasis on the particular needs of building use, and, significantly, the specifics of a building user’s relationship to the surrounding urban area.
I see this as a tilt to the qualitative aspects of the urban experience—an approach I believe should stay as a lynchpin of evolving urbanism.
I find that when writing outside of the confines of my day job as a lawyer, I usually pursue these qualitative aspects. I like to emphasize the impressionistic and, essentially more ethereal, emotional "bookmarks" of experiences in cities around the world. By and large, these bookmarks recall modern expressions of traditional urban life. Together, they are a useful summary of evolving human experience in the city.
As background to work on my forthcoming book, I itemized and illustrated several of these more qualitative bookmarks while traveling last year. Here is the result.
Spontaneous competition in simple places
The aspects of the city that avoid rigid regularity are among the most interesting and memorable. Here, an empty storefront provides the stage for competing glass providers to advertise with several different labels. Commercial needs drive unpredictable results in even the simplest of situations.
Signage with a direct message
Commercial signage also provides a prime venue for urban observations. When such signage carries a lifestyle or political message in direct form, the purpose of the associated business is clear. In this urban place, living animals prevail, without question.
Wood-framed storefronts and proud displays
Natural building materials give an organic sense of invitation to an otherwise ordinary world of metal and cement. While not possible in all climates, and demanding of maintenance, wood-framed retail establishments punctuate their surroundings. Passersby are often drawn to these exteriors based on variety, color and well-presented merchandise within.
Water features that emulate nature, in context
While not always allowable for health and safety reasons, water features in the public domain emulate spontaneous puddles, pools and streams of urban times gone by. Just as sidewalk tables or benches give a human scale to the street, careful placement of water complements greenery and presents the unexpected. There are lessons learned from such small-scale improvements, especially if they are linked together in a restored natural system, or meet a dual aesthetic and drainage purpose.
Classy blokes in front of classy places
"Third places" with character, such as local bars, are nothing new. Rather than mandate all alcohol consumption occur within, outdoor customers can provide ambiance and interface with daily life. Such street interface need not be uncivil, and, in this case, res
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nights, but the way things are going right now, it's worth it."
James has stayed measured, like Lue.
"I don't think it feels like a streak," James said of the 10-0 mark. "I think it feels like we won one game. We won the next game, and how do we prepare and be better the following game? We've taken one step at a time. We haven't overlooked any steps along this process thus far, and I think that's part of the reason we're in this position today."
In a couple of more weeks, should Cleveland finish off Toronto with a sweep just like it did to its first two postseason opponents, the Cavs could be in position to take their perfect record into the NBA Finals. If they win four more games to capture the championship -- be it in a sweep, or be it in a five-, six- or seven-game series -- it will feel like perfection just the same.
"We've just got to win games," Lue said. "You've got to play who's in front of you every single night. Whether they call the East weak or not, we've got to beat these teams. These teams have beaten a lot of West Coast teams throughout the regular season, so I don't care what they say. We know we have something we're trying to accomplish, game. Whoever your opponent is, whoever they put in front of you, that's who you have to play, and if we get a chance to take care of our business and match up in the Western Conference, we'll see."Turkey outlines locations for potential safe zone in Syria
ISTANBUL
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has clarified the locations of possible internationally sanctioned safe zones near Syria’s border with Turkey, outlining a line stretching from the Mediterranean to Iraq.“The buffer zone we mean here is not a military definition, but a humanitarian safe zone under military protection,” Davutoğlu said in an interview with Al-Jazeera Arabic on Oct. 15.After noting that safe zones should protect “areas with populations over a certain density,” the Turkish PM mentioned the need to connect the Turkish border with northern Latakia, “certain areas in al-Hasakah,” as well as Jarabulus, Ayn-al Arab (Kobane), Tel Abyad, Idlib and Afrin to protect Syria’s Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens.Davutoğlu stressed that the depth of the safe zone could change according to varying humanitarian situations in these areas, but he reiterated that Turkey would not take the risk of intervention alone.“United Nations Security Council can’t take any decisions due to certain vetoes. Then, the international coalition that was created for an intervention in Syria and the coalition of the willing can take certain decisions and provide air protection [for the safe zone],” he said, recalling the internationally sanctioned no-fly zone in Saddam Hussein-era Iraq.The Turkish government has faced international and domestic pressure as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants have advanced toward Kobane, but Davutoğlu countered the criticism by slamming his critics.“The fall of Ayn-al Arab could really sadden us, and we will do everything to stop it, but where were they when Raqqa [the stronghold of ISIL] fell? Where where they when Jarabulus, Mosul fell?” he said.As recently as Oct. 15, earlier on the same day when Davutoğlu’s clarification came, Syria’s Foreign Ministry voiced objection to Turkey’s desire for “a buffer zone.”Damascus did not accept the proposals for “a buffer zone and would take in consultation with its friends all the necessary measures to preserve its national sovereignty and territorial integrity," Syrian state news agency SANA quoted a statement by the Syrian Foreign Ministry.The UFC’s first event in South Korea ended in a rather odd fashion last Saturday. Following his split decision win over Jorge Masvidal, Benson Henderson gave an interesting post-fight interview with Kenny Florian where he took his gloves off in the middle of the Octagon, stared directly into the camera and asked, “Was that impressive enough?” It was an odd moment and it was unclear as to who or what Henderson was referring to, but his comments could be linked to the reports that came out after the fight that the former champion was considering testing free agency. “When I retire, it will be retiring in the UFC – I know that for sure,” Henderson said. “But I’m going to test the market, yes.”
Benson Henderson Could be a Trailblazer for UFC Fighters
Henderson certainly wouldn’t be the first fighter still in his prime that has considered finding greener pastures outside the UFC. Not long ago, the former Strikeforce lightweight champion, Gilbert Melendez, tested the free agency waters, and was very close to leaving the UFC and signing with Bellator. Melendez reportedly received an offer from Bellator, which the UFC had the opportunity to match. In the end, Melendez was lured back to the UFC for what could be considered a king’s ransom; Melendez’s new deal included a clause that guarantees that at least 75% of his fights will be on pay-per-view, residuals from those PPV’s, a coaching deal on the next Ultimate Fighter, and a title shot against then champion Anthony Pettis. Not bad for a guy that was just 1-1 in the UFC.
Henderson though, isn’t just 1-1 in the UFC. He’s 11-3. He’s a former world champion, a three-time Fight of the Night winner and is currently undefeated since moving up to the welterweight division. Meaning if Henderson truly is planning on testing the free agency market, or at least trying to leverage a nice deal out of it, he could be in for a pretty impressive payday.
And the offers are apparently already rolling in for Henderson. Mark Lee, the General Manager of South Korean MMA promotion, Road FC, said, “Road FC is aware he would like to test his upcoming free agency, and we’re interested in discussing a contract with Mr. Henderson for $200,000.” $200,000 would be a big step up in pay grade for Henderson, who was on a $48,000 to show and $48,000 to win deal in his last three fights against Rafeal Dos Anjos, Donald Cerrone, and Brandon Thatch, with an expected $15,000 from the Reebok sponsorship.
And several fellow MMA fighters have publicly agreed with Henderson’s decision to explore free agency. Josh Thompson, a one-time opponent of Henderson’s, agrees with his decision to test the market and encourages Henderson to see what he’s truly worth. “I’m not giving him advice,” Thomson said. “I’m giving all fighters advice. My advice to them is you have to treat this like you’re playing for the Baltimore Ravens or the San Francisco 49ers or you’re LeBron James going from Miami back to Cleveland. It’s a free market agency and one team wants you and one team wants to keep you. Go to the highest bidder. Whoever that is. Hence the free market.”
Former UFC turned Bellator fighter, Josh Koscheck also agrees. Tweeting out:
Free agent! The ONLY way fighters will make real money again in this sport. Fight your contracts out?? Smart move @BensonHenderson — Josh Koscheck (@JoshKoscheck) November 28, 2015
If Henderson does indeed go to the highest bidder outside of the UFC, his free agency could be a trailblazing event for other UFC fighters who want to see what they’re worth on the free market, and could go a long way towards helping increase fighters pay. MMA could finally have an improved free agency market the way that the NFL or MLB does, and in the process could greatly increase what fighters get paid, and Henderson’s movement could be the first step towards achieving that.
Main Photo:As the busiest teams in the National Hockey League prepared Wednesday to play their 66th game, the leading scorers had 67 points.
[np_storybar title=”Tanking is pro sports’ worst kept secret, right Sabres fans?” link=”http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/03/03/how-tanking-is-pro-sports-worst-kept-secret-right-buffalo-sabres-fans/”%5D%5B/np_storybar%5D
A densely compacted scoring race was co-led by Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom of Washington, with Jakub Voracek of Philadelphia and John Tavares of the Islanders two points back, three others at 64, and 61 points getting you into a three-way tie for ninth.
The top 10, then, all essentially point-a-game guys.
Evidently, this has become the gold standard of NHL excellence: one point per game by its most exciting players.
Are you excited?
“It’s amazing to see. Probably the winner’s going to have a point a game, which is … I don’t know if we’ve seen that before,” said Vancouver’s Daniel Sedin, the lone player to crack the 100-point mark in 2011, when NHL offence seems to have ground to a halt.
For historical perspective, there’s a pretty good chance the 2014-15 scoring race, barring a massive spurt by someone in the final month, will be won with the lowest points-per-game total in 60 years, since Bernie Geoffrion took the 1954-55 title with 75 points in 70 games.
It was 14 years later when Boston’s Phil Esposito became the first NHL player to crack the 100-point barrier, with Bobby Hull and Gordie Howe following him over the hurdle that same spring.
Players have surpassed the century mark 271 times including those first three trail-blazers in 1968-69.
Only five seasons in that span has no one reached 100 points. Two of those times, lockouts shortened the season to 48 games (and even then, the scoring champions were on a 100-plus pace).
The other three exceptions happened in the five years before the 2004-05 lockout, when the league realized it had a scoring crisis and adopted fairly radical rule changes to try and re-start offences after the cancelled season.
This will be the sixth time, and it won’t even be close.
What happened?
“I think it’s just tighter,” said Daniel Sedin, who is hovering a bit below a point per game, as is his twin Henrik, the 2009-10 Art Ross and Hart Trophy winner.
“Five, 10 years ago you had teams where you could come in and score a few points, you knew it would be a high-scoring game. There’s no more easy games anymore.
“PK (penalty killing), that’s the biggest thing. It’s become so much better. You have to be really on your game even to get a power-play scoring chance.”
The Bruins of Esposito and Bobby Orr really ignited the era of explosive scoring. There was another spike during the dynasty years of the Islanders and Oilers, and the high-scoring era reached its zenith in 1992-93 when 21 players topped 100 points. Mark Recchi’s 123 points got him 10th place in the scoring race.
The post-2004 changes produced a two-year renaissance — seven players scoring 100 or more in 2005-06 and 2006-07 — but the party was over by the 2010-11 season, the year the Bruins beat the high-scoring Canucks to win the Stanley Cup.
The following season, only Evgeni Malkin made it over the 100-point mark. Martin St. Louis might have done so in 2013, if there had been a full season. Last year, it was only Sidney Crosby at 104 points, and after him, it was back to the point-a-game guys.
“Every team plays a certain way now,” Henrik Sedin said. “You don’t run into 10, 12 teams that give you a lot of open ice and there’s five three-on-ones every game, six, seven power plays a game. There’s maybe one or two teams in the whole league that you run into now that play that way.
“That’s No. 1. No. 2 is, the game is called a little differently, I think. This is my personal opinion.
“I don’t know if it’s because of all the concussions, they’re trying to slow the game down. Which I’m totally OK with, but I think that’s the way the game is called right now, and you won’t see the five-on-threes, or seven power plays a game, or the open ice that you used to see because guys were afraid to put a stick on you or grab you or hold you.”
It’s true that an unintended consequence of cracking down on obstruction after the lost season was bigger, faster players colliding at higher speeds, resulting in hockey’s modern plague: concussions.
So slowing it down became a priority.
The coaches took it from there, with heavy emphasis on penalty killing and shot-blocking.
“It’s tough to get shots through on the power play,” Henrik said. “You used to just give it up to the D, and they’d drag it along the blueline and take the shot and if you had a good screen it was a great scoring chance. Now, you’ve got to shoot it past three guys on the way, and it’s tough.”
The twins, like all the great players, still have their moments. But league-wide, there’s a general sense that the science has all but stifled the art.
The dead puck era is back.Virtual reality is still a difficult sell, so some of the industry’s most promising plans involve putting it in places people already congregate — including movie theaters. From December 2nd to January 1st, AMC theaters in Austin, Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco will be showing a VR experience based on the upcoming Assassin’s Creed film.
The installations are a partnership between 20th Century Fox, AMD, and Dell-owned gaming company Alienware. Each participating theater will be equipped with several free Oculus Rift kiosks showing the short video. The piece will actually premiere tonight at The Game Awards, and in addition to being released for free through Oculus Video on the Rift and Samsung Gear VR headsets, it will appear on Facebook as a non-VR 360-degree video. But perhaps even more so than other 360-degree videos, the Assassin’s Creed experience benefits from a headset — it’s a kinetic parkour run that becomes a lot more fun if you can look around freely, instead of dragging around a flat video. Also, you can sort of feel like you’re standing next to Michael Fassbender, for the roughly 15 seconds in which he appears.
The theaters, however, are spread a bit thin. There are a total of six participating locations:
Century City 15 - Los Angeles, CA
Orange 30 - Orange, CA
Lincoln Square 13 - NYC
34th Street 14 - NYC
Barton Creek 14 - Austin, TX
Metreon 16 - San Francisco, CA
The experience will run during afternoon hours, starting at 2PM or 3PM each day and ending at 9PM or 10PM. The Assassin’s Creed film itself premieres December 21st, at considerably more cinemas.
AMD talked about its movie theater plans earlier this summer, describing a system where people could pay for VR experiences at permanent cinema kiosks. Short video tie-ins to blockbuster movies are popular right now, but there are also some longer and more interactive pieces, like the cooperative four-person game Star Trek: Bridge Crew. Other companies are also attempting to build entire virtual reality equivalents to cinemas, like IMAX, which is supposed to open its first VR theater by the end of 2016.
But this effort is meant simply to show off the Assassin’s Creed experience. AMD virtual production director James Knight says there are no plans to keep these particular kiosks open after the new year, or add other videos — film studios don’t yet have a steady flow of VR material, or a clear picture of how to monetize it. For now, this is a chance to try out the Rift, while seeing how smoothly VR fits into the theatrical experience.Malaysian police said Wednesday they have arrested one of the two women suspected of killing Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half brother of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, who was killed Monday. Kim Jong Nam was attacked in a shopping area at Kuala Lumpur airport as he waited to board a flight to Macau. He died on his way to hospital.
South Korea has pointed the finger of blame at Pyongyang, with the country’s spy agency saying that two female assassins were responsible for killing the 45-year-old exile. Malaysian authorities said one of the suspects was arrested at Kuala Lumpur airport on Wednesday while carrying a Vietnamese passport identifying her as as Doan Thi Huong – born May 31, 1988. The Malaysian authorities are working with North Korean and Vietnamese officials to confirm the woman’s identity.
The woman was “positively identified from the CCTV footage at the airport and was alone at the time of arrest,” the police said in a statement. Earlier on Wednesday a local newspaper, the Malay Mail, published a photograph claiming to show one of the suspects. The picture shows a woman with short black hair wearing a white top with the letters “LOL” printed across the front.
The police are continuing to search for the second female suspect, as well as up to four men who may have been involved in the murder. The body was transferred to another hospital on Wednesday where an autopsy will be conducted. A North Korean embassy car was seen at the hospital.
The exact details of just how Kim Jong Nam was killed are still unclear, though all reports suggest he was poisoned. According to Selangor state’s criminal investigation chief Fadzil Ahmat, who spoke to Malaysia’s Star newspaper, Kim Jong Nam “told the receptionist at the departure hall that someone had grabbed his face from behind and splashed some liquid on him.” It was also reported Tuesday that poisoned needles had been used in the attack.Print Article
Courtesy photo Animator Ron Campbell directed The Beatles Saturday morning cartoon and helped animate The Yellow Submarine (pictured here). Campbell will visit Emerge Gallery May 5, 7 and 7 to exhibit, sell and create new works of familiar characters.
Courtesy photo Famed animator Ron Campbell puts finishing touches on an image from The Yellow Submarine. Campbell will be coming to Coeur dAlene in May to share his experiences in the cartooning industry working on such shows as George of the Jungle and Scooby Doo.
Courtesy photo Animator Ron Campbell directed The Beatles Saturday morning cartoon and helped animate The Yellow Submarine (pictured here). Campbell will visit Emerge Gallery May 5, 7 and 7 to exhibit, sell and create new works of familiar characters.
Courtesy photo Famed animator Ron Campbell puts finishing touches on an image from The Yellow Submarine. Campbell will be coming to Coeur dAlene in May to share his experiences in the cartooning industry working on such shows as George of the Jungle and Scooby Doo.
By DEVIN HEILMAN
Staff Writer
As a little boy growing up in Australia in the 1940s, Ron Campbell spent his Saturday afternoons in movie houses.
He was mesmerized by the animated images, captivated by characters like Tom and Jerry, chasing each other across the screen.
I would watch the cartoons and I didnt understand them at all, Campbell said Wednesday in a phone interview from his Arizona home. They were so fabulous. What were they? Were animals running around behind the screen? I didnt associate it with the (projector) light above me at all.
It seemed magical to me, he said.
When his great-grandmother told him they were just drawings, his 7-year-old mind made a decision to make this his life.
This fascination with animation drew Campbell to a career where he would become a creator of that magic for generations of wide-eyed children. Campbell spent 50 years in children's television, directing and animating such beloved shows as "The Flintstones," "Scooby Doo," "Popeye," "The Smurfs," "Winnie the Pooh," and many more.
And even though he never met The Beatles in person, Campbell's talent was used in The Beatles Saturday morning cartoon from '65-'69 and their iconic psychedelic animated film, "The Yellow Submarine."
"It was almost an accident," he said of working on "Yellow Submarine." "It was my third year in America and I was working on other things. I didn't need it at all, but it just fell in my lap."
Campbell said he doesn't have one favorite cartoon character.
"I loved all the characters I worked with," he said. "I was always fortunate to be able to work on what I enjoyed."
At 77 years old, Campbell is still bringing these colorful characters to life, and he's going to bring his magic to Coeur d'Alene next month.
Campbell will be at Emerge Gallery in person to exhibit his Beatles cartoon art and share his experiences in the world of cartoons. He'll be selling original Beatles cartoon paintings as well as new works of familiar characters at the request of his visitors, who will receive certificates of authenticity with the pieces he creates.
"He does painting while he's there," said Campbell's representative, Scott Segelbaum. "People have been moved to tears seeing part of their childhood play out right before their eyes.
Campbell will be at Emerge from 3-8 p.m. May 5, noon to 6 p.m. May 6 and noon to 4 p.m. May 7.
Emerge is located at 208 N. Fourth St. in Coeur d'Alene.Almost every multiplayer game on xbox has a LAN (Local Area Network) multiplayer option. One of the best video game experiences is playing in a 16 player Halo LAN game. However, not many people know how to set up a LAN for Xboxes, but fortunately, I can show you how.
What you neeed
1. Xboxes, as many as you want
2. TV's, as many as your Xboxes
3. Controllers, as many as you want
4. People, as many as you want
5. An Ethernet Switch or Hub, as many ports as you want Xboxes, a switch is the best.
6. One Xbox System Link Cable or Ethernet Cat. 5 Crossover Cable, for the Xbox that will be creating the games, this goes in the uplink port on the switch/hub.
7. As many Ethernet Cat. 5 Patch Cables as you want Xboxes minus 1, these go in the numbered ports on the switch/hub.Deaths in America caused by accidental overdoses to prescription medications have quadrupled since 1999. CVS wants to do something about that.
The company said Thursday it's putting an opioid antidote on its shelves in 12 states. The drug, Naloxone, reverses opioid overdoses and is already available without a prescription at CVS's in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
The following states will now have access as well: Arkansas, California, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin.
Opioids include heroin and legal prescription pain medications such as oxycodone (Vicodin), which are addictive and commonly abused.
"Over 44,000 people die from accidental drug overdoses every year in the United States," CVS vice president Tom Davis said in a statement Thursday. "By providing access to this medication in our pharmacies without a prescription in more states, we can help save lives."
He added that the company is looking into ways to make Naloxone available in even more states. Company spokesperson Michael DeAngelis said states must set up programs allowing the medication to be dispensed without a prescription, which "is typically done through a state's department of health or board of pharmacy."
Naloxone has been carried for years by emergency response teams and police departments, and can be administered via a shot or nasally.
The antidote expansion is one of several unique initiatives by the retailer. Last year CVS said it would stop selling cigarettes. It also works with the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids to provide a unit to police departments where the community can safely dispose of drugs.We will be offering a mobile app again this year that can help you find your way around the festival grounds. It has a full schedule and an interactive map that features all of our vendors. Palaroo can be downloaded via the App Store or Google Play.
There is so much entertainment, you'll be hard pressed to catch it all. As the kids whirl about on the rides to flashing lights and lively music, parents can sample light-as-air cotton candy or cooling snow cones. The festival proves to be a shopper's delight with everything from handmade crafts to homegrown fruits & vegetables.
The event can be traced back to 1934, with ties to the Clay County 4-H and to William Jewell Colleges' Homecoming events. Many class reunions and get-togethers are centered around the festival, which is held on the fourth full weekend of September each year.
Featuring live music!This, I believe should be included in the next generation of MMO's. As EQ:N stands to be our only hope of breaking the cycle in the foreseeable future, I have a series of requests for Sony. This all falls within the realm of possibility with what they have so far shown us.
Exploration.
In the truest sense of the word. I want there to be things so far out of reach that it could possibly take us years to find it. This leaves the possibility of even cross-realm rumors and posts on many forums from the famous founders of uncharted lands. Whether it be ancient ruins that must be accessed by traversing deadly, lava filled caverns, only to find that you must delve deeper through the lava into an underground sea, through gauntlets of unwelcoming subterranean aquatic life before you finally reach your discovery; or possibly crossing through impossibly treacherous terrain to a cave near a gigantic mountain's summit that leads to an archaic network of portals that go only in a loop, but first pass through a plane of unimaginable terrors. I believe that there should be some static locations, but not necessarily the same on every server, that are just relics of ancient lore. These places should be exaggerated by the NPC's of the world and spoken of only as legend or myth. This would give us all a reason to explore... endlessly.
Mystery.
I believe that many of the quests within this world should not be spoon fed to us. In fact, they shouldn't really be spoken of out loud from the NPC's without being first triggered by you. Meaning, breadcrumbs are provided, but it's up to the player to figure out what to do with it. EQ1 started with a good concept of this. Provide the casual player with enough to do, and enough spoon feeding, but leave the hardcore players more than enough to satisfy our hunger for the epic quest. Riddles, puzzles, misleading NPC's, possibly factions that do not want you to complete your task are all positive traits of a truly emergent AI, and something I believe is well within the realm of possibility. I would love to find something that I don't necessarily understand, and maybe it takes me a few months before I piece together where it is supposed to go. I'd have to ask around, the NPC's and the community, to find out what the item is and what I can do with it. Quests that are truly unique, slow to progress, and bare no obvious explanation would be incredibly welcomed... so long as the reward was equal to the struggle of completion that is.
Rarity.
I believe that the trend of "Everybody gets a trophy!" should be over. I believe that items should be hard to get, and should carry a lot of value with the player base. I believe that there should be just some impossibly rare items available. Perhaps items of legend of certain factions. Perhaps a legendary weapon from an Orc hero is possible to attain, but the chances of said item turning up are beyond incredibly rare. Maybe for the first year or two of the game, only one may be found. A number of these unique items in the game would provide a fantastic addition to the lore. The community would revere those who managed to attain such an item, even if it's just a lowly warrior who just so happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Raids.
I believe there should be true raiding. Raids that have such mechanics that would require the group of adventurers to change skills around to fit the needs of the encounter. This would allow people to all participate in the fight, but also allow specific mechanics for "boss" mobs to have, so adventurers would need to take on a certain role for the fight. Whether it be damage mitigation for the group, support, cc, or whatever it may be. I believe raids should force people to depend on one another. If one link in the chain breaks, the whole falls apart. I believe that there should be a population cap for engaging said "boss" mobs. This would prevent players from just out scaling the encounter by throwing more and more people at it, which trivializes its difficulty. I also believe that rewards for managing to pull the group together in such a manner should be reflective upon its difficulty.
Scaling.
I believe scaling is bad. I don't believe that having more people to accomplish something should increase its difficulty. I believe that the world in general should be a dangerous place, and that it should be dangerous to venture out alone. Regardless of my numbers, my enemies should be just as powerful. Perhaps the enemies response will adjust to my numbers. A single orc is always as powerful as a single orc. But... perhaps orcs report that more than one adventurer are slaying their ranks... and their reinforcements will account for the number of their opponents. Just a thought. There are places that you have been and places you know you can handle alone. But there are also places you know you dare not go. Don't adjust my opponents to me, let me adjust myself for my opponents.
Multiple Rule Sets.
I believe that multiple rule sets are a good idea. I believe that they allow for changes to the PvP system, without skewing the balance of PvE. I believe you should be able to choose to play on a server free of roving bands of players looking to assault anyone leaving the city gates. I also believe, however, that there should be a place for people wanting to do that, and for those willing to take the risk to exist in such a world.
Conclusion.
These are my opinions. Do with them what you will. SOE has somewhat earned themselves a bad wrap, but I think these components can bring the magic of what once was EverQuest back into the world. I don't think we need the trinity per se, or an ever increasing gear margin to deal with, as much as we need the mystery back in the world. I would love nothing more than to see on forums somewhere in a couple years that they found an incredibly weird portal that took them and their group to a confusing place, run by a tyrannical and insane trickster that nearly drove them mad. Fighting self illusions, rooms that bend the laws of physics, and hedge mazes leading to seemingly nowhere... The community as a whole discovering new things and discussing them is a large part of how we need each other in these games. Bring back the challenge and wonder.In the middle decades of the eighteenth century two schools of thought emerged, one in France and the other in Great Britain, that were critical of Mercantilism, the government system of economic planning and regulation in the 1700s. In Great Britain, the primary thinkers were members of what has become known as the Scottish Moral Philosophers.
Property and, consequently, security and liberty of enjoyment are the essence of the natural and fundamental order of society.
In France the proponents of the new ideas of economic freedom were known as the Physiocrats. The term came from the ancient Greek word, “physiocracy,” meaning “rule by nature.” They also liked to call themselves “the economists.”
Central to their critique of the regulatory state of their time was insistence that there was a “natural order” to things in the social world as much as in the physical world. A proper arrangement of the institutions of society required reflection on the nature of man, his requirements for survival and betterment, and his relationship to others in society.
As Austrian economist, Murray Rothbard, summarized,
“In political economy, the Physiocrats were among the first laissez-faire thinkers... They called for complete internal and external free enterprise and free trade unfettered by subsidies, monopoly privileges or restrictions. By removing such restrictions and exactions, commerce, agriculture and the entire economy would flourish... They also supported the operation of a free market and the natural rights of person and property.”
The Physiocrats and a Natural Order to Society
Pierre-Paul Mercier de la Riviere presented one of the clearest statements of the Physiocrat’s conception of man and the social order in, The Natural and Essential Order of Political Societies (1767). Each man, Riviere said, has a natural right to secure what was necessary for his survival. This was, also, the cornerstone for deducing the relationships that would be both just and wealth generating for all men:
“I do not think that anyone will deny the existence of the natural right to secure one’s own survival. This basic right is, indeed, only the result of a basic duty that is imposed upon man under penalty of pain or even death...” “Now, it must be clear that man’s right to secure his own survival includes the right to acquire, by his own work, those things that are useful to his existence as well as the right to keep them after their acquisition. It is evident that this second right is only part of the first, for one cannot be said to have acquired what one has not a right to keep; the right to acquire and the right to keep form together only one and the same right although considered at different times...” “The exclusive property of his person, which I am going to call personal property is thus for each man a right by absolute necessity; and since this exclusive personal property would be nil without the exclusive ownership right to those things which man acquires by his own labor, this second exclusive right of property, to which I shall give the name of negotiable property is an absolute necessity, like the first from which it is derived...” “Once it is realized that it is absolutely necessary that personal and movable property are exclusive rights we are able to realize that each man has also duties which are of absolute necessity. These duties consist in the obligation not to invade the property rights of others, for it is evident that without these duties right would cease to exist...” “Property and, consequently, security and liberty of enjoyment are the essence of the natural and fundamental order of society. This order is part of the physical order, and therefore its principle characteristics are in no way arbitrary.”
Francois Quesnay and Circular Flow of Economic Coordination
If there was a natural order to society, how did it ensure harmony and balance in the productive activities among men? An explanation was given by one of the leading figures among the Physiocrats, Francois Quesnay.
Quesnay insisted that government had no essential role directing or controlling the circular flow of goods between town and country.
For two decades Quesnay served as royal physician to the king of France, Louis XV. But his attention and interests were focused equally on the social system and it’s functioning. He blended his knowledge of agriculture with his training as a medical doctor.
He insisted that it was the production of the land – resources and food production – that was the basis of all prosperity in society. Manufacturing and industrial crafts were derivative and not primary sources of wealth. There would be nothing to transform into finished goods for consumption and other productive uses if the resources of the earth had not been mined, and the soil had not been tilled so both those who worked the land and those who were employed in industrial enterprises could have the means of material survival. Thus, in the division of labor, it was the agricultural sectors that were the foundation of society and its economic wellbeing, Quesnay argued.
In 1758, Quesnay prepared for the King his famous Tableau Economique (“The Economic Table”) It was designed to demonstrate the interdependency and flow of goods and money through the various sectors of the economy: farmers, landowners, manufacturers and merchants. It showed a harmonious and self-balanced coordination in the division of labor.
Quesnay’s Tableau Economique outlined the interdependency of the various specialized activities within the economic order. The resources and foodstuffs produced by the agricultural sectors were exchanged for the manufactured goods of the towns. The town manufacturers and craftsmen supplied those who worked in agriculture with the tools and implements that increased their productive capability on the land as well as with finished items for consumption that the farmers could not as easily produce for themselves.
The more abundant the output from the countryside, the more the people could be freed from agriculture to specialize in manufacturing in the towns. And the more improvements from specialized manufacturing there were, the better the tools and equipment that those in agriculture could acquire to improve their own productivity over time.
Goods circulated in exchange from countryside to towns and from towns to countryside. And the circulation of all these various goods between town and country was facilitated by the medium of money. Quesnay’s intricate diagram showed how goods for money and money for goods flowed through the various parts of the economic system and how wealth was distributed among the farmers, the manufacturers and merchants, and the king and the Church.
“Stop, my friend, stop and do not be misled by political speculations that aim to persuade you that in commerce you can take advantage at the expense of other nations."
Leaving Markets Free to Set Prices and Direct Production
He insisted that government had no essential role directing or controlling the circular flow of goods between town and country and the matching flow of money between agriculture and manufacturing to facilitate the exchanges. There was no need for the government to regulate the prices at which goods were bought and sold. “Do not attempt to fix the prices,” Quesnay declared. “Only competition can regulate prices with equity.”
The same applied to international trade. The Mercantilist dogma that trade among nations always resulted in a gain for one of the traders and a loss for the other was wrong. Declared Quesnay: “Stop, my friend, stop and do not be misled by political speculations that aim to persuade you that in commerce you can take advantage at the expense of other nations. For a just and good God has seen to it that that is impossible.”
The best policy for government to follow is “laisser passer, laisser faire” — let goods pass and leave men alone to their own decisions.
The French Enlightenment thinkers of those middle decades of the
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able to read the hashtag from their $10 seats in row 1 seat 1 behind the Argo bench.
As an amendment to this rule I will allow latin slogans which the majority of the team UNDERSTANDS and abides by to make their way onto the back of a helmet such as Quid Quid Requiritur meaning whatever it takes as adopted by the Calgary Stampeders new lid.
21) Increased Drug Testing
I enjoy the wild wild West feel that spraying the ball all over the yard can supply to the CFL fan, but I also like to think that the athletic freaks of the game are achieving said skills honestly.
At this point I am well aware that many of them do not. A member of the Hamilton Ti-Cats several years ago told me former Cats linebacker Rey Williams had an annual tradition of bragging about his offseason ‘treatments’ during the PED awareness seminar held by league officials at each training camp across the league.
I also attended training camp in Calgary last year where I saw a player openly admit to a doping official and the entire room he had taken a banned substance while awaiting approval for medicinal purposes. Nothing was done. This must change.
22) Currency of the country
Canadian Tire money will now be accepted at all concessions stands.
23) More legends postage stamps, limitless legends postage stamps
Canada Post and the CFL, a match made in functional, artistic, cultural heaven.
24) Alumni Flag Tournament
Each organization will be responsible to produce a team of five alumni players from their history to play in a one day 5-on-5 flag football tournament during Grey Cup week in a venue with at least 1000 seats.
25) Purchasing Jerseys
I want jerseys everywhere in the stands so not only will I not charge you an extra $80 to embroider a name and number on the jersey for a teams backup quarterback, beginning tomorrow morning I will also ensure that all Canadian Football League jerseys will be sold at cost with 0% markup. This should lower the cost of a jersey to around $35. I do this for..you know..THE PEOPLE WHO ATTEND OUR GAMES.
Also free name plate and number exchange when (not if) your favourite player gets traded so long as you pay the return postage with a CFL legends stamp.
26) Historical Alterations
I will ensure that Anthony Calvillo has a display at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio as the games all-time leader in passing yards, a visual which does not exist for visitors currently.
For the entire Saskatchewan Roughriders organization I have destroyed all film worldwide of the 13th man in 2009, it now never happened. Also someone go find Lapo and give him a hug please.
27) Sideline Sports Drink Supplier
We are now officially sponsored by Canadian sports drink company GD4U (http://www.gd4u.com) not Gatorade, Powerade or Jack Danielsade.
28) Atlantic Football
We will find a fantastic local ownership group in Halifax to bring the CFL back to Atlantic Canada. Upon finding a suitable leadership core funding for construction will begin and before completion of my second term in 2023 the Atlantic Schooners will return as originally intended to the CFL.
29) Officiating
Andre Proulx will be given english classes and a manual on how to turn on his microphone while Al Bradbury will be required to wear a Mr.Incredible costume when entering and exiting the stadium.
Also flags will have a small electric charge built in which will not allow a flag to be thrown more than two seconds after the whistle has blown. This measure aims to prevent pass interference calls that come five seconds after the ‘contact’ and Ben Major (@BenMajor31) has been given a $2000 raise for his heroics earlier this season.
Murray Clarke has… Mu.. MY GOD, COHON BECAME A REFEREE!
This supposed ‘Murray Clarke’, if that is his real name has worked eight Grey Cups, EIGHT! This is the biggest scandal and conflict of interest in Canadian sports history how did this pass the smell taste for all of us?
30) Video Game
Cultivating a strong youth fan base in the CFL is important to the growth and future of the game. Besides supporting the heads up football tackling education initiative I have found other ways to protect and grow the Canadian game.
Former Commissioner Cohon stated in his exit interview that he was able to check off most of his goals except one which was to create a CFL video game.
In my first five minutes as CFL Commissioner i have completed that which Mark Cohon could not in eight years. The advantage of having a young Commissioner is that I am in tune with the needs and wants of the young fan.
As a result I understand that if you own an XBOX or Playstation video game device and have purchased NCAA 14 you can download all CFL teams with matching stadiums, uniforms, player ratings, names etc in order to get the full CFL vibe.
The game is still played under American rules and restrictions but you will be sure to enjoy all the flair and passion of Labour Day rivalries and East-West showdowns in video game format.
31) The Logo
The CFL logo has been reimagined. I asked my design team to find a way to show the unique family nature of attending CFL games that has been passed down generation to generation in many communities across the country. I think they did a bang up job
* Marshall Ferguson is a current Marauder student athlete originally from Kingston, Ontario attending McMaster University studying Political Science and Communications. While being an active member of the Marauder football program, Marshall also hosts and produces a weekly youth football radio show @OVFL_Live while serving as Sports Director at 93.3 CFMU radio and appearing as a contributor to both AM900 CHML’s The Sports Lounge with Scott Radley and Cable 14’s local football coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @Marsh2Fergs
AdvertisementsA video shows a man in his underwear clinging to an ATV in the middle of a rodeo ring getting tasered and kicked because he refuses to let go.
The footage opens with the man kneeling by the large, tricked out SUV in the middle of the indoor rodeo ring in Wichita Falls, Texas, surrounded by a crowd of people.
The man, covered in cow feces, is yelling unintelligible words and making exaggerated hand gestures.
A hilarious video shows a man in his underwear covered in feces clinging to an ATV in the middle of a rodeo ring. He refuses to let go of the vehicle, even when the owner tells him to
Two policemen come over and one of them kicks the man to the ground. When he still won't let go an officer tasers him, but he manages to keep his grip on the ATV
'This is why you don't do drugs,' the person taking the video says.
He stands up holding his filthy pants and still clinging to the back of the vehicle.
The owner of the ATV walks up and asks the man to get up and move away from it. When he says no, two police officers are called over.
One of them forcefully kicks the man to the ground and then tasers him.
He shakes from the shock but manages to keep holding onto the ATV.
The officers yell for him to let go and then try to pull his hand off. One of the officers pulls his leg while the other tries to loosen his grip on the ATV.
The owner of the ATV comes up and begins to kick the man.
Once the man finally lets go of the ATV, officers try to handcuff him but he flips over with his arms under his chest so they can't reach his wrists.
Three officers wrestle with the man and finally manage to get him cuffed.
The video was posted to LiveLeak.com on Sunday.Shigeru Miyamoto may no longer be the go to man behind the Zelda series, but he is still consulted and asked for his opinion time to time. That, and he’s Shigeru Miyamoto—he pretty much knows everything going on at Nintendo, from games to hardware to board meetings. Due to Iwata’s illness, which kept him out of the recent shareholder meeting, Miyamoto had a larger than usual presence. Through that presence, he all but announced Nintendo is currently working on a new Zelda game for the 3DS. At least, formulating the ideas behind the game if nothing else.
“In this way, we are gradually changing the structure of “The Legend of Zelda” series, and we are preparing to newly evolve the series for Wii U. In addition to that, we have ideas for Nintendo 3DS which we have not announced yet, so I hope you will look forward to them.”
To understand this in context, he is talking exclusively about the Zelda series at this point in the meeting. It isn’t really too surprising that at least plans for the next Zelda game for 3DS are moving forward (and likely slated for a 2016 release if I had to guess).
Source: Nintendo JapanA Mississippi woman said her heart was warmed while recently shopping at a Walmart.
App users: View full article here
Spring Herbison Bowlin stopped by Walmart during lunch last Thursday and was in the checkout line when she was moved by the cashier's kindness toward another customer.
Bowlin said a gentleman in front had just been given his total when he looked back at her and began apologizing as he pulled out handfuls of change from his pockets.
"He miscounts and starts to get flustered," Bowlin said.
The man continued apologizing.
"His hands and voice are shaking," she said. "This beautiful cashier takes his hands and dumps all the change on the counter and says, 'This is not a problem, honey. We will do this together.'"
Bowlin said the man continued apologizing to her and the cashier, and they kept reassuring him he was doing nothing wrong.
Eventually, they were able to get the man's transaction taken care of and Bowlin said he shuffled away. Then, she looked at the cashier and thanked her for being so patient with him.
"She shakes her head and replies, 'You shouldn't have to thank me, baby. What's wrong with our world is we've forgotten how to love one another.'"
Bowlin shared a photo of the exchange and said she wants to be more like the kindhearted cashier. The image has more than 21,000 likes.With the Republican National Convention in town — you may have seen a little something about it elsewhere in the paper — it seemed only right to get in the spirit and talk politics, starting with one of the most opinionated Rays, Luke Scott. • To get a sense of political views that conservatively would be described as ultra-conservative, know that he posts a copy of the U.S. Constitution in his locker, refers often to the Judeo-Christian principles the country was founded on and says the root of his concerns is the eroding moral character and fiber of the nation. • He is against excessive government intervention, rails against laziness and finger-pointers and insists "we need to get back to our identity as Americans."
Also, that President Barack Obama is "an open Marxist, an open Socialist" not capable of handling the responsibilities of the job.
"What it really means to be an American is to be a man or woman of accountability, responsibility, hard work ethic, discipline, have honor, good character and be honest," Scott said. "Those are the true core principles."
Some of Scott's more provocative views:
• On the Obamacare health-care reform plan, which requires people to carry health insurance: "That needs to be taken and thrown into muriatic acid and just absolutely disintegrated and never spoken of again. Like it would be blasphemy to even mention it. We can't afford it. It's not right. It's the unaccountability thing, where people can smoke cigarettes and be lazy and be unhealthy, and then you and I have to pay for their health care bills. No, I'm sorry, it shouldn't work that way. … This bill is another thing that helps people avoid accountability and responsibility and puts the burden on those that are doing things the right way, which is evil. E-V-I-L."
• On immigration: "Legal immigration, I support. Illegal immigration — that's a big red X. Goodbye. Not welcome."
• On abortion: "I'm against abortion. Even the scientists say when sperm and egg come together, there's a life. So whenever you take away a life, it's called murder. It's wrong. … If it's a case of rape, that person goes in and takes a morning-after pill or some kind of drug, a contraceptive."
• On the Obama administration's handling of the economy: "Horrible. I give them an F-minus. A complete F-minus. Failed."
• On prayer in schools being restricted: "I think that's terrible. It should be allowed."
• On making English required: "English is the dominant language here. This is the language that we speak. It should be mandatory. If you don't want to, then by all means you don't have to — but good luck trying to get by with someone that doesn't speak your language."
• On those who prefer a different system: "Here's a message to those who are socialists and are communists — go live somewhere else. GET OUT! We don't do that here. Go to Russia. Go to Cuba. Go to China."
• On Republican nominee Mitt Romney's positions: "I haven't paid a whole lot of attention, but I like the fact that he's chosen this (Paul) Ryan guy (as his running mate). What I've heard about him is awesome — he's no nonsense, keeps it real, tells you how he feels. He's cut from the same cloth as (U.S. Rep.) Lt. Col. Allen West, another great man and great leader in this country who knows what it means to be an American."
Other views
Two other politically savvy players were a little less inflammatory in discussing their primary issues:
RHP Burke Badenhop, a "more conservative" Republican:
Education, "to figure out ways to pay teachers more and get better curriculums"; healthier eating; improved working relations between Republicans and Democrats "for the greater good"; a decrease in the capital gains tax to spur investment, noting, "I've never been a big fan of being taxed on your money and taxed on the money you're trying to invest."
OF Sam Fuld, a "slightly fiscally conservative, socially liberal" Democrat (whose mother is a New Hampshire state senator):
Clean up and essentially simplify the tax code; increase funding all across the board for education; start to tax the food market similar to the tobacco industry and create more transparency in the food industry, which ties in with health care; and, his personal plank, "go to an eight-team college football playoff."
Rays rumblings
Good thing the Rays are winning, or just think what their attendance would be. Oh wait, they are last in the majors. … So now will ex-Ray Carl Crawford say his heart was in Los Angeles all along? … Most interesting revelation from the behind-the-scenes Caught Looking TV show was concern among the Rays that RHP Alex Cobb was again tipping his pitches during the Aug. 18 game. … ESPN's Uni Watch expert, Paul Lukas, ranks the current Rays uniform design 21st among MLB teams; the Cardinals were first. … The PR staff has already started an email campaign touting LHP David Price's candidacy for the AL Cy Young Award.
Got a minute? Ben Zobrist
Something you're scared of?
Heights. If I'm not strapped in I'm not good.
Karaoke song if you had to?
I know all the words to Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby.
Favorite TV show?
The Office.
Late-night snack?
Skittles.
Celebrity crush?
Does my wife (singer Julianna Zobrist) count?Ndamukong Suh and Nick Fairley may be the best DT combo in the league, but is that enough to get the Lions back in the playoffs? (Rick Osentoski/AP) Ndamukong Suh and Nick Fairley may be the best DT combo in the league, but is that enough to get the Lions back in the playoffs? (Rick Osentoski/AP)
With training camps about to begin, we take a division-by-division look at where each team stands heading into the 2013 season.
The NFC North has all of one Super Bowl title since the turn of the millennium (Green Bay, Super Bowl XLV) and Chicago, Detroit and Minnesota have all of one championship combined. In terms of raw star power, however, this division is living right.
The North boasts the game's top receiver in Calvin Johnson, arguably its best quarterback in Aaron Rodgers and superhuman running back Adrian Peterson, who lapped the field at his position last season. Then there's Clay Matthews and Julius Peppers and Jared Allen and Brandon Marshall. In other words, the NFC North is loaded with talent.
What that means heading into the 2013 season is that, despite Green Bay jumping out as an early favorite, this division could finish any number of ways. There are four potential playoff teams here... and at least three that could bomb.
Time to take an early look at the Black and Blue Division:
Chicago Bears
Key moves: Signed TE Martellus Bennett, OT Jermon Bushrod, G Matt Slauson, WR/KR Eric Weems, OLB James Anderson, LB D.J. Williams, DT Sedrick Ellis; drafted OL Kyle Long, LB Jon Bostic, OLB Khaseem Greene; lost QB Jason Campbell, TE Kellen Davis, G Lance Louis, OL Gabe Carimi, DE Israel Idonije, LB Brian Urlacher, OLB Nick Roach; hired head coach Marc Trestman, OC Aaron Kromer, DC Mel Tucker
Where they got better: The left side of the offensive line. That's the belief, at least, after Chicago spent big bucks on left tackle Jermon Bushrod and nabbed guard Matt Slauson. Bushrod will take over on Jay Cutler's blindside -- J'Marcus Webb allowed 30 QB hurries and seven sacks from that spot last season. And Slauson should provide stability at a position that was a revolving door during the 2012 season. If all goes according to plan, the right side of the line might get a boost, too, with Webb sliding to that tackle spot and rookie Kyle Long penciled in at guard.
Where they got worse: Linebacker. Say what you will about the declining skills of the now-retired Brian Urlacher, but losing him lands a significant emotional blow on the Bears. They'll also feel the departure of Nick Roach, who's now with the Raiders. The replacements for Urlacher and Roach are D.J. Williams and James Anderson, respectively, though rookie Jon Bostic may push Williams in the middle. Neither Anderson nor Williams made it through the full 2012 season. There's a chance this all will come together, with incumbent Lance Briggs as the glue. For now, it is a question mark.
Breakout player: Alshon Jeffery, WR. Jeffery arrived in Chicago with high expectations but managed all of 24 catches during his rookie season. He'll get every opportunity to bring those numbers up in 2013, as Marc Trestman's aerial attack takes advantage of all available weapons.
Where they stand: Trestman's hire signaled a sea change in approach for the Bears, who shucked Lovie Smith's defense-first philosophy in favor of Trestman's CFL-honed offensive stylings. Cutler ought to benefit from that change, but altering a team's identity is risky and challenging. The Bears will be dangerous with the football -- don't overlook Martellus Bennett's arrival. This defense, however, was a top-five unit last season, and Trestman will have to reach into his bag of tricks to keep it there. Anything short of a playoff berth would be a letdown.
Detroit Lions
Key moves: Signed RB Reggie Bush, K David Akers, TE Joseph Fauria, DE Jason Jones, DE Israel Idonije, S Glover Quin; drafted DE Ezekiel Ansah, CB Darius Slay, G Larry Warford, DE Devin Taylor; lost K Jason Hanson, OT Jeff Backus, OT Gosder Cherulis, G Stephen Peterman, DE Cliff Avril, DE Kyle Vanden Bosch, DT Corey Williams, OLB Justin Durant, CB Jacob Lacey
Where they got better: The run game. Reggie Bush's impact will be felt up and down the offense (and possibly on special teams), as the Lions plan to feed him the ball early and often. Bush will be able to show off his talents as a pass catcher, but it is on the ground that Detroit must get better. Bush can only help, especially as the Lions spread the field with Calvin Johnson and the rest of their receivers. The revamped offensive line also may be better suited to grind it out a bit, thanks in no small part to rookie mauler Larry Warford.
Where they got worse: Offensive tackle. The Lions just handed QB Matthew Stafford a monster contract extension, so now they must get to work figuring out how to keep him upright. Riley Reiff will start at LT, with either Corey Hilliard or Jason Fox at RT. Detroit is very high on Reiff, its first-round pick in 2012, and yet any tackle combination will compare poorly to last year's Jeff Backus-Gosder Cherulis duo.
Breakout player: Nick Fairley, DT. The light seemed to come on last year for Fairley, who finished with 5.5 sacks in his second NFL season and got stronger as the year progressed. He says that the Lions have the best DT combo in football with he and Ndamukong Suh paired. He might be right.
Where they stand: Realistically, the Lions' talent level probably falls somewhere between last season's 4-12 meltdown and 2011's 10-6 playoff team. Johnson, Stafford and Bush will be thrilling to watch, while Ryan Broyles is a breakout candidate himself. Detroit's worries are the same as usual: offensive line and defense. In the case of the latter, few teams shy of Baltimore and Oakland overturned as much of their starting lineup as Detroit -- at least five new starters will take the field in Week 1. The Lions should be much improved over their 2012 selves, but will that result in enough additional wins to be playoff contenders?
Green Bay Packers
Key moves: Drafted RB Eddie Lacy, RB Johnathan Franklin, OL David Bakhtiari, OL J.C. Tretter, DE Datone Jones; lost RB Cedric Benson, WR Greg Jennings, WR Donald Driver, C Jeff Saturday, OLB Erik Walden, LB Desmond Bishop, S Charles Woodson
Where they got better: Defensive end. Running back is an obvious choice here, too, with the Packers having spent two draft picks to upgrade that position with Eddie Lacy and Johnathan Franklin. They used their first selection, though, on DE Datone Jones, whose versatility will bolster a unit that slumped last season. If 2012 second-round pick Jerel Worthy can get all the way back from the ACL injury he sustained last season, this group will be even better. With B.J. Raji and Ryan Pickett already entrenched up front, getting reliable production from Jones or Worthy would do wonders for pass rushers like Clay Matthews.
Where they got worse: Wide receiver. The loss of Greg Jennings to Minnesota is far from sounding a death knell in Green Bay -- few teams have the depth at WR the Packers have, with Jordy Nelson, Randall Cobb and James Jones back to catch passes in 2013. Still, even though Jennings played just eight games last season, he made 425 receptions over his Green Bay career and unquestionably had Rodgers' trust. The Packers survived last season with Jennings banged up and they're deep enough to excel without him now. But losing a player of that quality still stings.
Breakout player: Nick Perry, OLB. Another of the Packers' 2012 draft picks (Round 1), Perry played a mere six games in 2012 before suffering a season-ending wrist injury. Back at 100 percent, he'll man the OLB spot opposite Matthews. Given the attention offenses must pay to Matthews and that aforementioned improved D-line, Perry could be an eight- or nine-sack guy.
Where they stand: Despite Green Bay capturing a second straight division crown, last season was frustrating for the Packers. They faltered against teams in the NFL's upper echelon, culminating in a 45-31 playoff loss to San Francisco. This year's Green Bay team, despite the departures of Jennings and a few key defensive players, appears to be better. Adding a couple legitimate run-game threats will make Rodgers all the more dangerous -- a scary thought for defenses, given the precision with which Rodgers has picked secondaries apart in past years. Green Bay remains the team to beat in this division and a definite Super Bowl contender.
Minnesota Vikings
Key moves: Signed QB Matt Cassel, WR Greg Jennings, LB Desmond Bishop; drafted WR Cordarrelle Patterson, DT Sharrif Floyd, CB Xavier Rhodes; lost WR Percy Harvin, WR Michael Jenkins, LB Jasper Brinkley, CB Antoine Winfield
Where they got better: Wide receiver. Put an asterisk next to this one, because now ex-Viking Percy Harvin is one of the league's elite talents when he is healthy and motivated. But Minnesota got just nine games from him last season, and a secondary option at the WR position never materialized. Now, even though Harvin is in Seattle, this spot has more potential with Greg Jennings and exciting rookie Cordarrelle Patterson arriving. Between that 1-2 punch and TE Kyle Rudolph, QB Christian Ponder has no shortage of players to throw to this season. Plus, don't count out the possibility of Jarius Wright or even Joe Webb emerging as a legit No. 3 receiver.
Where they got worse: Slot corner. First-round pick Xavier Rhodes figures to step in and start at one of the Vikings' CB positions, but Minnesota may be deep into the season before it finds a true replacement for Antoine Winfield in the slot. Pro Football Focus graded Winfield as the best cornerback in football last season, with a substantial edge on the competitors in run defense. Josh Robinson, Winfield's expected fill-in, has never played slot corner before and admitted this offseason, "This is all new to me." All three of the Vikings' division rivals will spread the field with multiple receivers, so getting Robinson up to speed is a necessity.
Breakout player: Harrison Smith, safety. Smith was everything the Vikings could have hoped for in his rookie season, after they traded up for him during the 2012 draft. Given another year of experience under his belt, the Notre Dame product might be ready to challenge for a Pro Bowl spot.I bought this at Mazza Stilografiche when I visited Italy for some work last month. Considering I’d walked into the store and asked if they had any Omas left over, I guess they were pretty disappointed I only spent €15 in there…
The Pelikan Jazz was released just before the equally-budget Stola lines, and caters to those who like smaller and lighter pens. Both are made of metal, though the build of the Jazz is much slimmer, and therefore significantly lighter. Similarly, both are also only available in medium nibs, though the Jazz comes in quite a wide range of colours and even has some matte-finish options.
It’s a cartridge/converter pen as one would expect at this price point, and the nib is not removable (similar to the Stola). The barrel is only thin enough to hold one cartridge, so it doesn’t have the advantage of having a spare ready at all times. The clip is also more “boring”, bearing no resemblance to other Pelikan clips. Instead it has a hinge, and clips tightly to a shirt pocket. Overall it’s a much more understated design, and definitely looks to avoid making a statement.
The nib itself is a simple affair: it’s very plain and only has the Pelikan logo on it, without even a nib width indication. It’s a stainless steel nib, and writes a dependable medium.
But of course I didn’t buy the pen just to use as a medium: I’ve turned my Stola into a cursive italic (see below), and so I had to muck around with this nib as well.
I wanted to see just how fine I could go before the limiting factor became the width of the ink slit. And so I imitated Sailor’s saibi-togi nib, using the actual one as a model, and bottomed out at 0.05mm:
A fuller writing sample at normal sizes can be found below. It’s a very scratchy nib, due to its size, and I’m very pleased.
It’s not very practical as it is, but then this pen was always intended to be a little bit of a guinea pig. I use my Souverän pens far more, but would heartily recommend the Jazz as a pen to chuck in a pencil case or purse to have around when you need!
AdvertisementsThe objection is one of more than 160 sent by the Saudis to ICANN, the body in charge of web addresses, over its plan to allow hundreds of new “top-level domains” to supplement.com,.co.uk and other existing suffixes.
“Many other Christians use the term 'Catholic' to refer more broadly to the whole Christian Church regardless of denominational affiliation,” the Saudi Communication and Information Technology Commission said in its complaint.
“Other Christian communions lay claim to the term "Catholic" such as the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Church.”
"Therefore, we respectfully request that ICANN not award this."
The Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social Communication, which already controls.va, paid the $185,000 fee to bid to create.catholic earlier this year, saying it was "a recognition of how important the digital space is for the church".
The Saudi government, under the control of the royal family, added that it objected to any group being put in charge of web addresses based on religious terms. It complained about bids to create top-level domains for.islam,.halal and.ummah on similar grounds.
The Kingdom also made moral complaints about an array of planned new suffixes.
It said.baby, which three bidders including the baby powder maker Johnson & Johnson have applied to create, could be used to host and promote pornography.
“Pornography undermines gender equality and threatens public morals by objectifying and exploiting women,” the Saudi government said.
“The values expressed in pornography clash with the family concept and they undermine the traditional values that promote marriage, family, and children.”
It objected to.gay because it “will be offensive” to societies where homosexuality is “contrary to their culture, morality or religion”, to.tattoo as tattooing is prohibited in Islam and Judaism and to.bar on grounds that because of its association with alcohol the term “promotes activities that can be detrimental to public order and morals”.
A similar plan to create a.pub top-level domain aimed primarily at British landlords also raised Saudi hackles. Sir Richard Branson will have to fight objections from the Gulf power if he is to create.virgin, too.
The Saudis also objected to gambling-related applications in moral terms.
The barrage of complaints has highlighted the difficulties ICANN faces in pressing through its reforms of the web’s addressing system, the most radical in its history. There are currently only 364 top-level domains, most referring to countries, but the United States-based quango is now considering applications to create almost 2,000 more.
Observers fear that the process will be bogged down with complaints from trademark holders seeking to protect their brands online, but ICANN must also balance cultural sensitivities. The organisation is already battling criticism that it is dominated by Western interests, and especially those of the United States.
The first of the new top-level domains are nevertheless due to go live next year.' In early 2012, there appears to have been no structured follow up, monitoring or recording of compliance with the wishes of the coach' Click to expand...
Yeah, exactly.It's not a 'governance' charge around the fact that high-ranking Essendon officials were unable to guarantee the safety of their players for weeks.It's not a 'governance' charge around the belief that. Hird talked the talk about it having to be on the narrow etc, which is excellent when negotiating punishments if that's the sole route EFC and Hird went down, but failed to bother to make sure it was. Dank may not have crossed the line, but Hird put his trust in the wrong person. Poor governance around record keeping, yeah right.Or the marginalisation of key, qualified medical staff.etc etc.It's just a governance charge around record keeping.Nothing to see here. Hird shouldn't even have to front the charges!Nuke Page Bookmarklet
This bookmarklet will start dropping nuclear bombs on the page you are currently on. As you move your mouse around the page, you will see your target aiming scope move along too. Left click the mouse button to drop a bomb on the site to destroy it. Wipe it off the internet!
Fun way to destroy those websites that you find irritating!
Using web effect frontend www.AddEffects.net, you can make linkable links to any webpage or website that get nuked without the need of a bookmarklet! Below are some URL hack examples:
www.is-a-jerk.com/flash/url.asp?flash=10&insult=off&destroy=www.cnn.com
www.is-a-jerk.com/flash/url.asp?flash=10&insult=on&destroy=www.aol.com
To use this bookmarklet, simply drag it to your bookmarks bar (or right click it and save it to your bookmarks).
To see other Favlets/Favelets I have made & added, click on the DAVE BROWN tag :)
Brought to you by www.WHAK.com!
Source (me.ddleso.me)
View Bookmarklet Code:The National Institutes of Health has turned to neuroscientists at the nation’s most “Stone Cold Sober” university for help finding ways to treat drug and alcohol addiction.
Brigham Young University professor Scott Steffensen and his collaborators have published three new scientific papers that detail the brain mechanisms involved with addictive substances. And the NIH thinks Steffensen’s on the right track, as evidenced by a $2-million grant that will help fund projects in his BYU lab for the next five years.
“Addiction is a brain disease that could be treated like any other disease,” Steffensen said. “I wouldn’t be as motivated to do this research, or as passionate about the work, if I didn’t think a cure was possible.”
Steffensen’s research suggests that the process of a brain becoming addicted is similar to a driver overcorrecting a vehicle. When drugs and alcohol release unnaturally high levels of dopamine in the brain’s pleasure system, oxidative stress occurs in the brain.
Steffensen and his collaborators have found that the brain responds by generating a protein called BDNF (brain derived neurotrophic factor). This correction suppresses the brain’s normal production of dopamine long after someone comes down from a high. Not having enough dopamine is what causes the pains, distress and anxiety of withdrawal.
“The body attempts to compensate for unnatural levels of dopamine, but a pathological process occurs,” Steffensen said. “We think it all centers around a subset of neurons that ordinarily put the brakes on dopamine release.”
A group of undergraduate students work in Steffensen’s lab along with post-doctoral fellows and graduate students. Jennifer Blanchard Mabey, a graduate student in neuroscience, co-authored a paper about withdrawal that is in the current issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.
“It's rewarding to see that your research efforts place another small piece in the enormous addiction puzzle,” said Mabey.
A separate study, co-authored by Steffensen and Ph.D. candidates Nathan Schilaty and David Hedges, explains how nicotine and alcohol interact in the brain.
“Addiction is a huge concern in our society and is very misunderstood,” Schilaty said. “Our research is helping us to formulate ideas on how we can better help these individuals through non-invasive and non-pharmacological means.”
Eun Young Jang, a post-doctoral fellow in Steffensen’s lab, authored a third paper for Addiction Biology describing the effects of cocaine addiction on the brain’s reward circuitry.
In these three research papers, dopamine is the common thread.
“I am optimistic that in the near future medical science will be able to reverse the brain changes in dopamine transmission that occur with drug dependence and return an ‘addict’ to a relatively normal state,” Steffensen said. “Then the addict will be in a better position to make rational decisions regarding their behavior and will be empowered to remain drug free.”I got my first game in with NCA. Sort of.
Sort of because what I actually did was deployment exercises with one of our USARF players. We rolled for initiative normally, deployed, played through the first round, then switched armies and repeated. I think looking at my list from both sides was a good exercise and I’d be interested in trying it again, but it also was a little awkward to try to act like there would be more rounds, and USARF had first turn both times. Next time we’ll trade first turn.
Having not played any mission to completion, I don’t feel like I have a complete feel for anything, but I have some impressions.
The first thought that came to me with the conclusion of the exercise, was that I was set up to lean heavily on three models – Swiss Guard Assault Hacker, Aquila Guard Multi Rifle Lieutenant, and Hexa Spitfire – but I didn’t provide enough orders to power them. All three were in my first combat group, which was 10 orders, and I had two orders in the second group. When I was running my own forces, in the face of fairly extreme odds, Van Zant put down the Aquila, and a Pathfinder before running out of orders while Dogged. An infiltrating flamethrower grunt knocked out both the Hexa Spitfire and the Fusilier Missile Launcher with one template. (This is going to be a later point as well.) A Combi Fusilier was targeted, and taken out by the Katyusha. Going in to my first turn with only four orders in the group, plus the still hidden Swiss Guard’s order, was very painful. I opted to convert three orders to regulars, and use the Paramedic’s irregular to try to medikit the Aquila up, and succeeded! But then he died again in his first exchange on the next order. I now didn’t have enough orders to do anything useful. I attempted to maneouvre the Swiss Guard to shoot a Foxtrot in the back, but fell short by an inch. My opponent’s first turn really pulled the rug out of under me, I never had a chance to build up any sort of momentum. It was a great opening on his part, but I think I could have weakened the blow on my part before I even got to the table if
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You can do everything within your control but success still eludes you. There is the element of luck and chance to contend with – the being in the right place at the right time. You can still do something about this. It does mean being outgoing and making an effort. Attend workshops, exhibitions, lectures, etc. Those chance happenings are out there and waiting to happen. Those students of mine that have done this and chanced their luck and spoken to the people who they wanted to work for managed to make a connection. Where there is a genuine connection and you have the evidence to back your interest then your luck might be in. The message is stop hiding behind your computer and get out there and get involved.
Lillias Kinsman-Blake examines how graphic imagery can renew the case for feminism in the 21st century. This iconic image makes the point that America has still yet to see its first female president.
Promote Yourself Online
Are you making the most of free online resources? It takes time for the search engines to find you. Think and plan ahead. Get involved in online discussions. Keep a blog – on the Design for Visual Communication course we often describe a blog as a digital sketchbook. Finished work can be displayed on resources such as Flickr and template websites such as Indexhibit or Cargo Collective. If you are experimenting with moving image why not set up a Vimeo account? All these resources become places that you can point people towards or be discovered on. If you Google yourself, how many times do you come up on the front page?
Festival Director Utkarsh Marwah proposed the use of image projection and interaction as a method of engaging audiences with the content of performances.
Short Courses
Short and intense courses can help in providing a community of like-minded people which is motivating. It can provide you with technical and subject skills. Then you are left with you the individual. I’m fascinated by those that seem to ‘get it’ quite quickly and those that struggle. People just take different amounts of time to absorb information and use it. I do think most people have the capacity to learn and understand design. A ‘good’ teacher should be able to explain in a way that helps the student to understand. You should also be able to look at ‘good’ examples and learn from those by analysing why others think they are good. Colleges help to contextualise this for students by explaining the theory that underpins the practice. This makes you a more informed and rounded designer. It provides you with reference points and a language to articulate your ideas on design.
Oxford graduate, Venetia Thorneycroft reclaimed Freud’s Book Of Dreams for the creative community in a production that Scott House, who produced it, described as the most complicated book ever.
Communities of Practice
The advantage of traditional colleges and universities, such as LCC, is that they have good analogue and digital facilities as well as extensive libraries. You get a very hands-on experience of historical and contemporary processes. They are highly motivating communities of practice. It’s the reason why I teach there. The two courses I run are PgCert and PgDip Design for Visual Communication. We teach the fundamental design principles (visual language and grammar; typography; colour; and information design). We teach design theory alongside, and not separate from, design practice. We take an integrated approach. We teach the necessary research and development methods to engage with the design process. We provide opportunities to apply the learnt skills to conceptual projects. We do this over a year both in part-time and full-time mode. Graduates have gone on to work at places such as Frost, Spin, Browns, Unit Editions, Fallon, Intro, Design Council, Sea Design, BBC and CERN. They have been published, set up their own companies and even opened a shop. You can read about the courses and see student work at the LCC course website. Here’s our 2012 publication. Here’s our 2013 publication.
Dorota Zurek’s project Walking London revisits the notion of psycho-geography and urban exploration within South London.
Conclusion
As to the secret of being good at graphic design. There are no secrets. There are no mysteries. You take the talent you have and work hard. You learn from the lessons of the past and apply these to your present and future. There are no guarantees of success, but I wish you luck, and above all – enjoy the journey fellow travellers.
About Me
I studied graphic design at Middlesex Polytechnic (now University). I went to work with my tutor in his studio. I worked freelance and in small to medium size companies. I eventually combined professional practice with teaching. I’ve been lucky to have secured a full-time teaching post at the London College of Communication (LCC). I also assess at the annual ISTD Student Assessments which makes me aware of current design standards amongst students on UK design courses. I run courses for mature students who are converting career. They have a degree in subjects other than graphic design such as molecular genetics, geography, music as well as design related areas such as fashion and architecture. In the spirit of practising what I preach, you can see some of my work on Flickr. You can contact me at: [email protected].
References
Thought for the Week, Michael Johnson
The Ideal Candidate
Learn Graphic Design Fast, Richard Holt
Shillington College
What Makes a Great Designer, Adrian Shaughnessy
Postgraduate Diploma Q&A, Lucinda Borrell
How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul, Adrian Shaughnessy
What is a Designer, Norman Potter
AdvertisementsRichard Gere and Cindy Crawford during 63rd Annual Academy Awards at Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California, United States. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)
We don't know about you, but we're obsessed with Old Loves, a Tumblr blog that pays tribute to famous couples from the past. (Like Ben Affleck and a clearly unamused Gwyneth Paltrow -- or French New Wave power couple Anna Karina and Jean-Luc Godard on their wedding day.)
Inspired by the blog -- and by the fact that it's Throwback Thursday -- we thought we'd take a moment to look back at formerly married celebrity couples who called it quits a long, long time ago.
Delight in their short-lived looks of love -- and ridiculous '80s and '90s haircuts -- below.
18 Former Couples You Forgot About SEE GALLERYJan 16, 2014 by KAREN FOSTER
12 Foods Most People Don't Know Are Dyed or Adulterated
Orange cheddar cheese comes to mind as one of many foods people don't realize is dyed. While some food coloring and adulterations are less harmful than others, many exist as toxic threats in the food supply. Almost any food you buy that is not its natural color has the potential of being adulterated, even if purchased from a reputable grocery retailer.
Food fraud was recently defined in a report funded by the National Center for Food Protection and Defense (University of Minnesota) as a collective term that encompasses the deliberate substitution, addition, tampering or misrepresentation of food, food ingredients or food packaging, or false or misleading statements made about a product for economic gain. A more specific type of fraud, intentional or economically motivated adulteration of food ingredients has been defined by USP's Expert Panel on Food Ingredient Intentional Adulterants as the fraudulent addition of nonauthentic substances or removal or replacement of authentic substances without the purchaser's knowledge for economic gain of the seller.
1. ORANGE CHEDDAR
To my knowledge there are no cows that produce orange milk. Yet, a majority of consumers are unaware that orange cheddar is dyed. Cheddar cheese acquired its classic orange color from annatto in the 1800’s when it was thought that high quality cheeses were yellow due to higher quality green grass fed to cattle. Annatto is known as the “poor man’s saffron” because it can be used to achieve a similar bright yellow color to saffron without the high price. Natural annatto is not itself toxic to human health, however there are some processed forms of annatto which are completely synthetic. This is often not clearly labeled on cheddar cheese ingredient lists and synthetic forms are often being labeled as "color added" rather than "artificial color". This creates an allergenic potential and endangers consumer safety while providing difficult challenges for consumers who experience reactions since they may relate allergic reactions to intolerance of cheese rather than the color, although both may occur. Annatto is also added to butter, ghee and margarine.
Solution: Stick to white cheddar. All cheese should be white or slightly off white.
2. OLIVE OIL
Olive oil is one of the most adulterated foods on Earth. The worst part is that there is little regulation or oversight on what constitutes virgin olive oils. To boost profits, for example, some producers have been caught adulterating the oil they label as "extra virgin" with much cheaper hazelnut, soy, or sunflower seed oil, among others, as well as mislabeling its country of origin. And they keep doing it because the profits in adulterating olive oil are “comparable to cocaine trafficking, with none of the risks.” Often the well-known brand-name olive oil companies you're familiar with may not even realize that this trick has been pulled on them by unscrupulous suppliers halfway around the world--but you wind up with adulterated oil in your kitchen and on your food just the same. In recent years olive oil was the most adulterated agricultural product in the European Union, prompting the E.U.’s anti-fraud office to establish an olive-oil task force.
Solution: Unless you have a very good nose, you may not be able to tell the difference if an olive oil has been adulterated or not. Don't worry about colour. Good oils come in all shades, from green to gold to pale straw - but avoid flavours such as moldy, cooked, greasy, meaty, metallic, and cardboard. Ensure that your oil is labelled "extra virgin," since other categories--"pure" or "light" oil, "olive oil" and "olive pomace oil" - have undergone chemical refinement. If you are purchasing a full bottle of virgin olive oil for less than $10-$15 per bottle, there is a good chance it is adulterated. Since most extra virgin oil nowadays is made with centrifuges, it isn't "pressed" at all, and true extra virgin oil comes exclusively from the first processing of the olive paste. The absolute best olive oil is Ice-Pressed, a truly raw superfood.
3. TURMERIC POWDER
Turmeric powder is added to many foods to enhance yellow tints and colors. Although some ingredient lists will state turmeric, Metanil Yellow and Kesari Dal are often being added instead of turmeric. These adulterants are highly carcinogenic and if consumed over a continuous period of time it can also cause stomach disorders. Lead chromate powder has also been found in adulterated turmeric. Even raw turmeric powder sold as either pre-packaged or bulk has been found to be adulterated with these substitutes.
Solution:
If you purchased turmeric powder and suspect it may be adulterated, dissolve half a spoon full of the powder in 20 ml of lukewarm water. Add a few drops of lemon juice or any commonly available acid at home. If the water turns pink, violet or purple, it shows the presence of Metanil yellow.
4. BLACK PEPPER
Some manufacturers of black pepper are known to use papaya seeds to add bulk to their product. Papaya seeds in any modest quantity can cause serious liver problems and stomach disorders.
Solution:
Float the sample in alcohol. Mature black pepper corns will sink whereas papaya seeds will float to the surface.
5. WASABI
Most wasabi served at sushi restaurants is not real wasabi at all. It's usually made from horseradish powder mixed with green food coloring and dry mustard. Real wasabi is one of the rarest and most difficult vegetables in the world to grow, which is why that fake stuff was created. The real thing is green Japanese horseradish root that gets mashed into paste and is incredibly spicy, and quite expensive.
Solution:
If you really want to know if the wasabi you are consuming is the real thing, the first clue is the color which is usually slightly paler than the fake stuff. Smell wise, the real rhizome will assault your nostrils with one whiff, causing the eyes to water instantly. Taste also goes to the real rhizome -- the sushi bar stuff has a bit more ‘heat’ but the real stuff definitely has much more flavor.
6. PICKLED GINGER
Most of the processed pickled ginger (pink or golden yellow) that restaurants use is packed with aspartame and potassium sorbate, and some processors even use MSG. Aspartame, the main ingredient in Equal, NutraSweet and Spoonful, is an artificial sweetener. Potassium sorbate gets used as a preservative. Both are toxic. The pink ginger is dyed with red food coloring.
Solution:
Some attentive sushi chefs shave their own ginger and pickle it themselves, but you would need to inquire to find out.
7. CARMINIC ACID OR CARMINE
Another very popular method of introducing red and pink into foods is cochineal extract. Cochineal dye has been around for centuries, but most people are not aware it's crushed insect body parts. Sometimes it appears as carminic acid or carmine. The cochineal insect is native to Mexico and South America, and contrary to the popular nomenclature, they're not technically beetles. Solution:
If this really grosses you out, read your ingredient lists and hopefully carminic acid or carmine will be listed instead of "added color" which could be anything.
8. GREEN CHILLIES, GREEN PEAS, OTHER GREEN VEGGIES
Some frozen varieties of these foods still contain Malachite Green to accentuate the bright, glowing green colour of the vegetable. Scientists have found that exposure to malachite green may raise the risk of cancer, cause genetic mutations, and harm the human reproductive system. It has been used as a fungicide in some countries but was supposed to be banned internationally in the 1990s.
Solution:
Take a small portion of the sample and place it over a moistened white blotting paper. Coloured impressions on the blotting paper indicate the presence of Malachite green.
9. BRIGHT RED MEAT
Although not a chemical dye, most meat eaters may be unaware that more than 70% of all beef and chicken in the United States, Canada and other countries is being treated with poisonous carbon monoxide gas. It can make seriously decayed meat look fresh for weeks. The meat industry continues to allow this toxic gas injection into many of the meat products people consume on a daily basis.
Solution:
Don't buy your meat at conventional grocery retailers. The CO gas is just a small part of the problem. Hormones, antibiotics, vaccines and other chemicals injected into cattle contribute to far worse health issues. If you must eat red meat, ensure it is organic, coming from pasture-fed animals.
10. CHILI POWDER
Believe or not but some loose and bulk chili powder is still adulterated with red brick powder or sawdust, for bulk. That's right! At some point in your life you've likely eaten chili powder that had construction materials in it.
Solution:
Only purchase organic brands of chili powder which are marginally more expensive and grown without any toxic chemicals.
11. GOLDEN HONEY
Most golden honey you see at your local grocery is dead and far from the health promoting powerhouse of its raw unpasteurized counterpart. Processed honey is not honey at all and if you desire any kind of health benefits, you must stick to the real stuff. But some golden honey is even adulterated with corn syrup, rice sugar and even water.
Solution:
A cotton wick dipped in pure honey burns when ignited with a matchstick. Natural honey will light the match easily and the flame will burn off the honey. Fake honey will not light because of the moisture it contains.
12. INSTANT COFFEE
Tamarind seeds or chicory powder are very popular adulterants around the world and used to add bulk and color to instant coffee. These can cause diarrhea, stomach disorders, giddiness and severe joint pains.
Solution:
Gently sprinkle coffee on the surface of water in a glass. The coffee will float whereas chicory will start to sink within a few seconds. Also, the falling chicory powder will leave a trail of colour behind due to the large amounts of caramel it contains.
Karen Foster is a holistic nutritionist, avid blogger, with five kids and an active lifestyle that keeps her in pursuit of the healthiest path towards a life of balance.
Kava, Valerian May Fight Stress-Related Insomnia
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Reference SourcesDave Thomas (@pragdave) is a cornerstone of the Ruby community, and is personally responsible for many of its innovative directions and initiatives. Dave is a programmer, and now he is an accidental publisher. He wrote The Pragmatic Programmer with Andy Hunt at the end of the '90s, and that experience opened a new world for them. They discovered a love of writing that complemented their love of learning new things. Dave is one of the authors of the Agile Manifesto, and he is probably responsible for bringing Ruby to attention of Western developers with the book Programming Ruby. He was one of the first adopters of Rails, and helped spread the word with the book Agile Web Development with Rails. He enjoys speaking at conferences, running public and private training. But most of all, he loves coding. PragDave.comPHILADELPHIA – Insurance companies end up covering proton therapy treatment for pediatric cancer patients in 97 percent of the cases they originally deny once those decisions are appealed. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania analyzed five years of coverage decisions at Penn’s Roberts Proton Therapy Center. They discovered that roughly one in 10 pediatric cancer patients are initially denied coverage for the cutting edge and costly treatment – yet nearly all patients ultimately get approval. They published their findings in Pediatric Blood & Cancer today.
Proton therapy has a few key differences from traditional radiation, but the main advantage is that the radiation beam itself stops when it hits its target as opposed to going all the way through the patient’s body. This means it can focus on attacking the tumor while sparing healthy tissue – something that’s especially important in pediatric patients, since radiation can impact development of the brain, spine, and other areas.
“Most oncologists agree it’s a better choice than traditional radiation in pediatric cases because it’s so targeted,” said the study’s co-author Eric Ojerholm, MD, an instructor in Radiation Oncology at Penn. “However, since we don’t have data from randomized clinical trials with these patients, we don’t have the conclusive evidence that insurance companies normally like to see before universally approving coverage.”
While that lack of trial data has led to unfavorable language in many insurance policies, Ojerholm said this study shows it does not seem to be stopping insurance companies from covering proton treatment in pediatric patients.
The Penn team looked at five years of insurance coverage data for pediatric proton cases in the Roberts Proton Therapy Center spanning from 2010 to 2015. Of the 287 cases they evaluated, 255 (89 percent) were approved outright while 32 (11 percent) were initially denied. Following appeals, 31 of 32 initially denied cases (97 percent) were overturned and approved.
“This shows that insurers are ultimately willing to accept the benefits of proton therapy for young cancer patients, however a great deal of time and resources are still wasted in appeals of coverage denials and ultimate approvals,” said the study’s co-author Christine Hill-Kayser, MD, an assistant professor of Radiation Oncology at Penn.
The researchers discovered two factors most associated with initial denial: age and tumor type. Some patients over age 18 develop a cancer that doctors consider pediatric because of how the tumor typically behaves. Examples include neuroblastoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, germinoma, and Ewing sarcoma. Even though someone with these diseases may be over 18 years old, doctors would typically treat the cancer the same way they’d treat a pediatric patient. Yet patients in this group were initially denied four times as often as those 18 or younger.
The second theme that emerged was that cancers located outside the brain or spine were denied 4.5 times more frequently.
“This is probably because the strongest evidence for pediatric proton therapy is in brain and spine tumors,” Ojerholm said. “Insurers appear willing to accept these cases but may initially be more hesitant for other disease sites.”
Despite the high rate of success on appeal, researchers say the process itself can be problematic. The average appeal took about a week. It involved letters, peer-to-peer phone calls, or in some cases, both. In 28 percent of cases, it took multiple rounds of appeal before coverage was finally approved.
“These appeals mean time and resources for patients, doctors, and insurers,” Hill-Kayser said. “If the ultimate outcome is overwhelmingly going to be approval anyway, we believe there should be a way to streamline this process.”
The researchers suggest changing the language of insurance policies to recognize the distinction of pediatric tumors. They also propose classifying patients between the ages of 19 and 30 who have these pediatric cancers as pediatric cases, which would eliminate one of the common causes of denial.
The researchers did note potential limitations of the study, including that all data came from a single hospital. A different center in a different part of the country would have its own unique mix of insurance carriers and plans, which may produce a different result. Further, Penn has an advisory board that evaluates patients for proton therapy and only recommends those most likely to benefit from the treatment. If another center skips that step, they may see more denials or less reversal on appeal.A professor at Yale University talks about what history can teach us.
"We have at most a year to defend the Republic, perhaps less. What happens in the next few weeks is very important."
This article was first posted by Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Timothy Snyder is a professor of history at Yale University and the author of numerous books of European history, including Bloodlands and Black Earth. His most recent book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, will be published at the end of the month. This is the English version of an interview published in Süddeutsche Zeitung on February 7, with some additional information due to current developments.
Donald Trump has been president for three weeks. How would you describe his start?
The first thing that we have to notice is that the institutions have not thus far restrained him. He never took them seriously, acts as if they don’t exist, and clearly wishes they didn’t. The story that Americans have told themselves from the moment he declared his candidacy for president, was that one institution or another would defeat him or at least change his behavior—he won’t get the nomination; if he gets the nomination, he will be a normal Republican; he will get defeated in the general election; if he wins the presidency will mature him (that was what Obama said). I never thought any of that was true. He doesn’t seem to care about the institutions and the laws except insofar as they appear as barriers to the goal of permanent kleptocratic authoritarianism and immediate personal gratification. It is all about him all of time, it is not about the citizens and our political traditions.
You wrote an article for Slate in November, comparing the rise of Donald Trump with the rise of Adolf Hitler. Why did you feel the need to publish such a piece?
It’s very important that we use history to our advantage now, rather than finding in history taboos and ways to silence one another. The history of the 1930s is terribly important to Americans (and Europeans) right now, just as it is slipping from our memories. I was not trying to provoke one more fruitless series of conversations about comparability. I was trying to help Americans who were generally either shocked (people who voted against Trump) or surprised (people who voted for him, who generally thought he would lose) find their bearings in a new situation. The temptation in a new situation is to imagine that nothing has changed. That is a choice that has political consequences: self-delusion leads to half-conscious anticipatory obedience and then to regime change. Anyway, I didn’t actually compare Trump to Hitler, I didn’t use these two names. What I did was to write a very short history of the rise of Adolf Hitler to power without using his name, which might allow Americans to recognize certain similarities to the moment they themselves were living through. I know that these comparisons are a national taboo in Germany, but at the moment its rather important that Germans be generous with their history and help others to learn how republics collapse. Most Americans are exceptionalists, we think we live outside of history. Americans tend to think: “We have freedom because we love freedom, we love freedom because we are free.” It is a bit circular and doesn’t acknowledge the historical structures that can favor or weaken democratic republics. We don’t realize how similar our predicaments are to those of other people.
You use the Weimar Republic as a warning example.
I wanted to remind my fellow Americans that intelligent people, not so different from ourselves, have experienced the collapse of a republic before. It is one example among many. Republics, like other forms of government, exist in history and can rise and fall. The American Founding Fathers knew this, which is why there were obsessed with the history of classical republics and their decline into oligarchy and empire. We seem to have lost that tradition of learning from others, and we need it back. A quarter century ago, after the collapse of communism, we declared that history was over—and in an amazing way we forgot everything we once knew about communism, fascism and National Socialism. In this little article for Slate, I was trying to remind us about things that we once knew.
How similar is the situation between Germany of the 1930s and today’s United States?
Of course, not everything is similar. Some things are better now than they were in the 1930s but some things are worse. The media is worse, I would say. It is very polarized and it is very concentrated. In Germany before the state shut down German newspapers, there was authentic variety that we don’t have now. People in the 1930s generally had longer attention spans than we do. On the other side, the United States is a larger country, with pockets of wealth distributed widely, and it is more connected to the world. The main advantage that we have is that we can learn from the 1930s. Again, it’s very important to stress that history does not repeat. But it does offer us examples and patterns, and thereby enlarges our imaginations and creates more possibilities for anticipation and resistance.
When did you realize this lack of knowledge about 20th century history here in the United States?
I got an early hint of that when I was touring the United States for my book Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. This was in 2011 and I realized that Americans had really forgotten about the crimes of Stalin—which is strange because we were educated, during the Cold War about Stalinist terror. I thought that Americans would be surprised because I was saying that number of Soviet citizens killed (although still horrifyingly large) was much smaller than we had been taught. Instead I realized that Americans had simply forgotten that there was Stalinism and terror. That struck me: What else could we forget? The idea of the Holocaust is certainly present, but it is almost totally lacking in context. And without context it is hard to see resemblance. A Holocaust that is reduced to a few images or facts cannot teach about larger patterns. And Americans risk of stressing its uniqueness is that it allows people to dismiss any learning from history. People will ask: Is he wearing a Hakenkreuz, did he kill six million Jews? if the answer is in the negative, then they will reply: then history has nothing to do with the present. Over the last 25 years, we have not only forgotten much of what we once knew but we have raised a whole generation which doesn’t have these reference points.
You would argue that this knowledge had existed before but it was forgotten.
Scholars knew much more know about the 1930s—whether we are speaking of National Socialism, fascism, or Stalinism. But publics are much less interested. And we lack, for whatever reason, the concepts that we used to have that allowed us to connect ideas and political processes. When an American president says “America First” or proposes a political system without the two parties or attacks journalists or denies the existence of facts, that should set of a series of associations with other political systems. We need people who can help translate ideological utterances into political warnings. Thinkers of the middle of twentieth century are now being read again, and for good reason. The American canon included native and refugee ex-communists who came to this country of the 1930s, refugees from fascism and National Socialism in the 40s, and the Cold War liberals of the 1950s. There was this time where we engaged in political theory and history, where people thought about what fascism and communism meant for democracy. Now, one reason why we cannot forget the 1930s is that the presidential administration is clearly thinking about them—but in a positive sense. They seem to be after a kind of redo of the 1930s with Roosevelt where the Americans take a different course, where we don’t build a welfare state and don’t intervene in Europe to stop fascism. Lindbergh instead of FDR. That is their notion. Something went wrong with Roosevelt and now they want to go back and reverse it.
President Trump’s political strategist, Steve Bannon, has said that he wants to “make life as exciting as it was in the 1930s.“ The first two weeks have shown how big his influence is, it seems much bigger than Reince Priebus’s or Jared Kushner’s.
I can’t speak to intra-White House conflicts. I can only say that Mr. Trump’s inaugural address was extremely ideological. During the campaign he used the slogan “America First” and then was informed that this was the name of a movement that tried to prevent the United States from fighting Nazi Germany and was associated with nativists and white supremacists. He claimed then not to have known that. But in the inaugural address he made “America First” his central them, and now he can’t say that he doesn’t know what it means. And of course Bannon knows what it means. America First is precisely the conjuration of this alternative America of the 1930s where Charles Lindbergh is the hero. This inaugural address reeked of the 1930s.
When Bannon calls himself a “Leninist,” do Americans know what is he talking about?
No, they usually have no idea. It is a good question. Americans have this idea that comes from Jefferson and the American Revolution that you have to rebel every so often. And they sometimes don’t make the distinction between a rebellion against injustice and the extinction of the whole political system, which is what Bannon says that he is after. The American Revolution actually preserved ideas from Britain: the rule of law being the most important. The whole justification of the American Revolution was that the British were not living up to their own principles, were not including Americans in their own system. In a broad way that was also the argument of the civil rights movement: the system fails itself when it does not extend equal rights to all citizens. So there can be resistance and even revolution which is about meeting standards rather than about simple destruction. What Bannon says correctly about the Bolsheviks was that they aimed to completely destroy an old regime. We can slip from one to the other very easily, from rebelliousness to a complete negation of the system. Most Americans had a rule of law state for most of their lives, African Americans are an exception, and so most Americans think this will be there forever. They don’t get that a “disruption” can actually destroy much of what they take for granted. They have no notion what it means to destroy the state and how their lives would look like if the rule of law would no longer exist. I find it frightening that people who talk about the destruction of the American state are now in charge of the American state.
Trump put a portrait of Andrew Jackson on the wall of the Oval Office, another president that was a populist. But people around him seem to have a wider agenda.
In the same interview with the Hollywood Reporter in which Bannon talks about the “exciting 1930s,” he talks about how he is operating in the darkness. He compares himself with Satan and Darth Vader and says in essence that he misleads the public and the media deliberately.
The White House statement for the Holocaust Day on January 27 didn’t mention Jews. At first it looked like a mistake, but now it is official that it was intentional.
The Holocaust reference is very important on our side of the Atlantic. If Americans have a reference point in world history, it is precisely the Holocaust, the Holocaust and let’s say Normandy, the Second World War, are the one aperture into a broader history, one where republics fall and extremes triumph. So if Steve Bannon turns the Holocaust into talk about “a lot of people have suffered” what is happening is that he is closing that aperture. The next step is to say that mainly Americans are the victims. History then dies completely and we are trapped in myth.
Which are the differences in how Germans and Americans remember the Holocaust?
Let me answer this in a different way. Normally when I speak to German journalists, I try to emphasize parts of the history of the Holocaust that Germans overlook or minimize, and how those can allow Germans to overlook certain kinds of historical responsibility or draw lessons that are too narrow. In the United States it is obviously very different. It is not a matter of taking a debate about national responsibility and try to make it broader by making it more inclusive of what we know about the historical Holocaust. It is rather a matter of how a distant non-German nation can try to see patterns, analogies, political lessons. And right now the comparison we need to ponder is between the treatment of Muslims and the treatment of Jews. It is obviously the case that the point of the Muslim ban is to instruct Americans that Muslims are an enemy: a small, well-assimilated minority that we are supposed to see not as our neighbors or as fellow citizens but as elements of an international threat. More than that, Trump’s policy is a provocation, which is probably meant to provoke an event like the assassination of the German diplomat Ernst Eduard vom Rath on November 7, 1938.
When Bannon calls the press the main “opposition party“ that should make everyone concerned. This is not only intended to cheer up Trump supporters.
When you say that the press is the opposition, than you are advocating a regime change in the United States. When I am a Republican and say the Democrats are the opposition, we talk about our system. If I say the government is one party and the press is the opposition, then I talk about an authoritarian state. This is regime change.
Last week Trump called those who take part in demonstrations “thugs” and “paid protestors.” This doesn’t show respect for First Amendment rights, it sounds more like Putin.
That is exactly what the Russian leadership does. The idea is to marginalize the people who actually represent the core values of the Republic. The point is to bring down the Republic. You can disagree with them, but once you say they have no right to protest or start lying about them, you are in effect saying: “We want a regime where this is not possible anymore.“ When the president says that it means that the executive branch is engaged in regime change towards an authoritarian regime without the rule of law. You are getting people used to this transition, you are inviting them into the process by asking them to have contempt for their fellow citizens who are defending the Republic. You are also seducing people into a world of permanent Internet lying and way from their own experiences with other people. Getting out to protest, this is something real and I would say something patriotic. Part of the new authoritarianism is to get people to prefer fiction and inaction to reality and action. People sit in their chairs, read the tweet and repeat the clichés: “Yes, they are thugs” instead of “it is normal to get out in the streets for what you believe.” He is trying to teach people a new behavior: You just sit right where you are, read what I say and nod your head. That is the psychology of regime change.
Today’s media environment is very different from the 1930s, everything happens so fast.
This is part of what contemporary authoritarians do: They overwhelm you with bad news and try to make you depressed and say with resignation: “Well, what can I do?” I think it is better to limit yourself. Read the news for half an hour a day, but don’t spend the whole day obsessing about it. Americans have to pick one thing to be confident about, and then act on it. If you care about and know about refugees, the press, global warming—choose one and talk with people around you about it. Nobody can do everything but everyone can do a little bit. And people doing their little bit will meet others doing the same, and the depression lifts.
You posted “20 Lessons from the Twentieth Century“ on your Facebook page in November. Did your students here at Yale ask for advice?
No, that wasn’t it. It was unprompted, I was in Scandinavia during the election. I thought Trump would lose, that it would be close but he would lose. On the plane on the way back I started thinking about what we could learn from history. When I had written about Trump earlier in 2016, it was about his connections to Russia. The 20 lessons was the first attempt to bring something I understand about European history to my fellow Americans in a way that is politically salient. I don’t usually write directly about American politics; I am an American but insofar as I have something to offer it is rather because I know something about contemporary and historical Eastern and Central Europe. Nobody asked me, but this was a way for me to start acting. We have to do something. This is what I can do.
“Do not obey in advance“ is the first recommendation in this Facebook post. You also reference the “Reichstagsbrand“ as a warning sign. How should the American public react?
Americans love to use the word “playbook,” which is a metaphor from sports. There is a playbook from the 1930s that some people in the presidential administration are following. This includes picking a minority in your country, associate it with a global threat and use the notion of a global struggle as a way to create national solidarity while neglecting the nation’s actual problems. The Reichstag Fire is the crucial moment when Hitler’s government becomes a Nazi regime. An event of that type, whether unexpected,
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WASHINGTON Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to closing the detention center for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay and moving some of the detainees to prisons on U.S. soil, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds. By more than 2-1, those surveyed say Guantanamo shouldn't be closed. By more than 3-1, they oppose moving some of the accused terrorists housed there to prisons in their own states. The findings underscore the difficult task President Obama faces in convincing those at home that he should follow through on his campaign promise to close the prison in Cuba, especially in the absence of a plan of where the prisoners would go. In many parts of the world, however, Gitmo has become a symbol of U.S. arrogance and abuse, and Obama has cited its closure as a way to lay the foundation for better relations. He is scheduled to deliver a major address aimed at the Muslim world on Thursday from Cairo. It is one of the few subjects on which most Americans side with the views of the Bush administration over its successor. "Coming up on eight years after Sept. 11, fear remains, and fear is politically potent," says political scientist Paul Freedman of the University of Virginia, who studies public opinion. "When it comes to the issue of terrorism … people are inclined to err on the side of that fear." Former vice president Dick Cheney said Monday that Obama made "a mistake" in promising to close the facility by the end of the year. "I think it's going to be very difficult," he said at a National Press Club luncheon, given the reluctance of U.S. allies and citizens to accept its prisoners. "These are bad actors. These are the worst of the worst." In a speech last month, Obama said the nation's "Supermax" prisons could be relied on to hold detainees. Government lawyers are reviewing the status of the 240 prisoners at Guantanamo to determine whether they should be tried in federal court or before a military tribunal, released overseas or held without trial. In the survey, Americans were inclined to accept the argument by Cheney and former president George W. Bush that the detention center had made the United States safer. By 40%-18%, they said the prison had strengthened national security rather than weakened it. Those who want the prison to remain open feel more strongly on the subject that those who want to close it. A 54% majority of those polled say the prison shouldn't be closed, and that they'll be upset if the administration moves forward to close it. Last month, Senate Democrats stripped $80 million to close Gitmo from a spending bill and blocked transfer of detainees to U.S. soil, at least for now. The survey of 1,015 adults, which was taken by landline and cellphone Friday through Sunday, has a margin of error of +/– 3 percentage points. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read moreJUPITER ISLAND, FL—Ending months of speculation and rumors, golf star Tiger Woods and Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn announced on their personal Facebook pages Monday that they are an ordinary couple into incredibly perverse, bizarre, and degrading sexual acts.
“We’re reserved, consenting adults just like your loved ones, enjoying quiet evenings on the couch, fisting drunk skanks we picked up at a bar,” said Woods, adding that their relationship had evolved quite normally from being close friends to sharing every bodily fluid. “Lindsey and I do a lot of typical stuff like watching sunsets, cooking dinner together, or she’ll strap on a dildo and ream my ass like crazy.”
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“Anyway, we appreciate that you respect our privacy,” continued Woods.
Woods expressed hope that the announcement would limit public scrutiny and prevent intrusion into their mundane personal affairs, such as soliciting prostitutes for gangbangs.
“At the end of the day, Lindsey and I just want to be left alone with four or five hookers, my buddy Kurt, a couple frat boys, and our favorite cameraman,” said the 14-time major winner. “We don’t want the press always interfering in our sordid sex lives.”
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“I hate getting hounded by paparazzi every time my girlfriend and I are out and about trying to innocently invite a few lactating pregnant women to our weekly orgy,” added Woods.
Vonn reportedly posted a similar statement on the social networking site, confirming that the couple often spends run-of-the-mill afternoons at the mall, shopping or sneaking into the men’s restroom and fucking against a urinal.
Admitting that their relationship was very conventional, Vonn also revealed that Woods was charming, sensitive, and a regular guy who constantly surprises her with thoughtful gifts such as brand-new stainless-steel anal beads and high-end nipple clamps.
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“Tiger is an old-fashioned gentleman and a sweetheart who really knows how to treat a lady,” said Vonn. “Sometimes I look over and he’s just so enthusiastic about eating out a cocktail waitress we just met.”
“But, like most couples, we usually just hang out and cuddle in the sex swing and watch some porn,” added Vonn, describing her ideal evening at home. “And, you know, just fuck and fuck and fuck for hours.”
At press time, sources close to Woods confirmed that the winner of 76 PGA tour events was enamored with Vonn and had mentioned on numerous occasions that every time he looks at her face he just wants to see it covered in cum.Marlene Leung, CTV Toronto
A 10-year-old girl thwarted an abduction attempt after asking a stranger for a code word that he did not know.
Durham police say a man approached the girl outside Applecroft Public School in Ajax, east of Toronto, on Monday around 3:30 p.m.
The man attempted to lure the girl into his vehicle, which was parked in the school parking lot, police said. A female was in the vehicle at the time.
The man told the girl her parents had sent him to pick her up.
Det. Dave Mason told CTV Toronto that the girl and her parents shared a secret code word that would be used if someone approached her telling her they were there to pick her up.
If the person was truly sent by her parents, he or she would know the code word.
“She asked this person what the code word was and obviously they got it wrong,” Mason said. “She told them ‘You got the code word wrong’ and that person left.”
As the two suspects left in the car, the girl even managed to memorize a few of the licence plate numbers and what the suspects and the car looked like. When she returned home she told her parents, who notified police.
Police are now running through a series of possible licence plate numbers and have released descriptions of the suspects and the vehicle.
The vehicle is described by police as a small, blue-grey two-door sedan with a noticeable dent on the rear bumper.
The first suspect is described as a white, adult male with a medium build. He is unshaven and was last seen wearing a grey hat, blue scarf, green jacket and red and black high-top sneakers.
The second suspect is described as a white female with long blonde hair. She was last seen wearing a purple and pink hat and is believed to be in her late teens or early 20s.
Mason said the case serves as a reminder to parents of the importance of talking with their children about personal safety.
“I think it’s important to have some sort of safety plan in place and to have that discussion with your kids,” he said.
Anyone with any information about this case is asked to contact Det. Dave Mason at 1-888-579-1520 ext. 2541, or Crime Stoppers at 1-8000-222-8477 (TIPS).Pharma bro Martin Shkreli even crawled out from his hidey-hole to join in.
People Claiming To Be “Clovergender” Are Actually The Worst Kind Of Internet Trolls
A fake “gender identity” has begun making the rounds on social media: “Clovergender.”
Invented by right-wing trolls to mock transgender and non-binary people, the term purportedly describes adults who identify as children and are also attracted to children, sexually or romantically.
A Facebook page claims “cloversexual” is distinct from pedophilia, however, because “clovergender” people are actually children in adult bodies and should be recognized as such.
There’s even a clovergender Twitter profile claiming to promote equality for “children trapped in adult bodies, struggling to live adult lives in a world that doesn’t understand them.”
Snopes reports that the term first appeared on January 1 in a Reddit thread claiming, “clovergender people are often misunderstood. This gender faces a lot of discrimination, and clovergender groups have one of the highest suicide rates in America.”
But Reddit users have captured screenshots from 4chan proving “clovergender” was cooked up by members to mock progressive “social justice warriors” and invalidate actual trans people.
“Unfortunately, there is no known surgery at this time for clovergender individuals,” one mock post reads.
The cloverleaf is actually the main logo for 4chan, the image-based platform that spawned both Gamergate and 2014’s massive celebrity photo leak. The site has a lengthy history of users trying to trick the media into reporting on fake trends and events: In 2015, 4chan hosted a viral video deceptively claiming to picture Muslim refugees engaged in acts of violence. Members also created fake “white student union” Facebook groups that received mainstream news coverage.
Last year, a group of 4chan users duped many into believing Hillary Clinton wanted to start drafting female soldiers.
Following the creation of “clovergender,” scammers discussed ways to make the hoax more believable—and further agitate the LGBT community and its allies—in a a number of threads.
The phrase quickly made its way to social media, propelled by pharma bro Martin Schkreli posting tweets imploring people to “spread clovergender awareness.”
Twitter
Shkreli’s Twitter account was actually suspended on Sunday, after he cyber-stalked and harassed Teen Vogue writer Lauren Duca.
But earnest responses from people thinking the hoax is real have already started populating Twitter.
#clovergender is not a gender. it's a way to disguise pedos, MAPs and child molesters. they are not lgbtq and will never be. stay clear. — natalia lopez (@exoticpuppets) January 6, 2017
#clovergender people in the same category as the lgbtq? yOU'RE A PEDOPHILE WHO NEEDS PROFESSIONAL HELP NOT A GENDER — Kristα (@KrissyImmaFan) January 6, 2017
#clovergender makes me want to puke — Jesse Williams (@JesseJesse223) January 6, 2017
The ultimate goal of the “clovergender” prank is to undermine the validity of actual non-binary identities by suggesting that any kind of behavior—including pedophilia—would be condoned by progressives, as long as its couched as an “identity.”
It employs the “slippery slope” argument embraced by bigots who claim that if we allow trans people to use the bathroom that matches their gender, we’ll soon be forced to accept child abuse, bestiality and other criminal behavior.
Denigrating LGBT identities as deviant, unfortunately, is not limited to internet trolls: It’s par for the course among many Republican legislatures—as new “bathroom bills” pop up in states like Texas and Virginia—and president elect Trumps’ cabinet picks: Ben Carson, his pick for Housing and Urban Development, compared same-sex marriage to bestiality and Tom Price, the nominee for Health Secretary, equated homosexuality with pedophilia.
TL/DR: Don’t be duped. “Clovergender” isn’t real, and anyone arguing for its acceptance is actually a troll trying to undermine the existence of real LGBT identities.
h/t: Snopesby Mason Adams
How do we solve complex, 21st-century problems and prepare the workforce of the future for careers in fields that do not even exist today?
At Virginia Tech, educators and administrators are tackling the challenge together, using a model of collaborative leadership that encourages big-picture, multidimensional solutions.
The collaborative leadership method brings together individuals with deep subject-matter expertise, the ability to develop relationships and work with those from different backgrounds, experience built across sectors, and a desire to serve the greater good.
If that approach sounds familiar, it should: These are at the core of the VT-shaped experience in which students are immersed. They are also qualities that researchers and thought leaders have identified as necessary to tackle problems with many facets.
"If individuals, even very talented individuals, come up with a solution to a problem, they'll solve one or two dimensions," said Thanassis Rikakis, executive vice president and provost. "These problems have 20 or more dimensions, and we need to approach all of them in an integrative manner. If we have the right people in the room listening to each other, that's when the really good ideas emerge."
The strategy, initiated in December, is the second phase of the Beyond Boundaries initiative. It includes the formation of stakeholder committees that will drive the development of transdisciplinary teams.
The stakeholder committees consist of deans, institute directors, and faculty members with demonstrated strengths in the key components of Virginia Tech's five Destination Areas and five Strategic Growth Areas. Destination Areas, along with related, smaller-scale Strategic Growth Areas, provide new frameworks for faculty and students to identify and solve complex, 21st-century problems.I can’t really add much to Cyclists in the City’s excellent and thorough analysis of the problems facing the East-West Superhighway route through the Royal Parks – problems, it seems, that are entirely being caused by the Royal Parks themselves, as the Evening Standard reports.
But I would like to examine the apparent rationale tharee Royal Parks are advancing for blocking a separated route for cycling, on the existing carriageway – a route that would look like this, in the visualisation that Transport for London have already prepared.
As is clear from this visualisation, the route would run on existing road space, separated from motor traffic by what look like removable wands, visible on the right of the image.
It is very important to note here that the Royal Parks are not actually objecting to the principle of a Superhighway running through this area; their objection is specifically about the form cycling provision should take.
As the Superhighway comes down Constitution Hill, instead of running it on the road, the Royal Parks want the route to pass directly through this area of shared use, shown below, at the foot of Green Park.
This is already a very busy area, heaving with pedestrians who are coming to and from the Palace, or making their way from Hyde Park into central London. I don’t think mixing cycling and walking here works at all, even at present – the numbers of people walking and cycling here are just too high.
Yet the Royal Parks are apparently proposing that this shared footway is appropriate for what will likely be one the busiest cycle routes in London, pushing more people cycling into this area.
It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, especially when – just over that wall, visible in the picture above – there is an ocean of road space that could quite easily be used for a protected cycle route, without having any effect on motor traffic, while simultaneously keeping cycling and walking separated from each other at this very busy location.
Locating the cycling route here would therefore actually represent a considerable improvement for pedestrians, because cycling would no longer be mixed in with walking on the existing shared use footway. These issues are summarised very well by Andrew Gilligan in the early part of this BBC report from Tom Edwards.
So what is the reasoning the Royal Parks are employing for blocking a segregated track on the road, and insisting that the crap status quo should be maintained (and indeed worsened, through the addition of more cycle traffic into a shared use area)?
All we have to go on at present are the minutes of their Board meeting back in December, at which Andrew Gilligan and Transport for London representatives were present (thanks to Jon Stone, for uploading them) –
TfL set out the consultation concept designs for the east-west cycle superhighway within the Royal Parks. The Board agreed that TfL could undertake public consultation on the proposed road based scheme through Hyde Park. The proposals for St James and Green Parks were not satisfactory for safety, operational and aesthetic reasons. The Board asked TfL to look again at the concept design and come back with revisions and mitigations.
Unspecified ‘safety, operational and aesthetic reasons’.
I have to say it is not especially clear why an expanse of tarmac is more aesthetically pleasing if it is entirely used for motor traffic – perhaps the Royal Parks could provide more explanation. The ‘operational’ reasons don’t make a great deal of sense either, as we’ve known for some time that the segregation at this location would have to be removable, for events.
As for ‘safety’, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to pretend that running a busy cycle route directly through an area of footway used by huge numbers of pedestrians is safer than separating that cycle route from those pedestrians, by using excess carriageway space.
The total inconsistency of the Royal Parks on this issue is betrayed by the fact that they are simultaneously insisting that it is not safe for the Superhighway to run along Rotten Row –
Because of… concerns about pedestrians!
How can the Royal Parks profess concern for conflict between walking and cycling in Hyde Park, while simultaneously blocking a Superhighway route by Buckingham Palace that would serve to remove that conflict?Facebook Twitter Pinterest Reddit
Positive news for members of Bullet Club today. The faction has been on edge lately due to Hangman Page’s disturbing disappearance.
Current IWGP United States champion, Kenny Omega, appears to have secured a lucrative endorsement deal with BrandIt.
We are proud to sponsor one of the hottest global athletes who appreciates the importance of branding and precious metals, @kennyomegamanx. pic.twitter.com/tamQDCqNBd — BrandIt (@BrandItOfficial) September 18, 2017
BrandIt’s bio:
A leading conglomerate specializing in corporate brand registration and the global precious metals trade
We attempted to contact the company for comment on Kenny Omega and why the word “official” is suspiciously in their Twitter handle, but have not yet received a response.
Despite being a well-established company they appear to have just created a Twitter account yesterday…
Omega’s branding and precious metals enthusiasm had not been known about until recently.
Disturbing Video of Kenny Omega Emerges
News that Omega has secured such a lucrative endorsement comes on the heels of some disturbing video coming to light. On the most recent edition of “Being the Elite”, a self-allegedly drunken Kenny Omega made disparaging remarks regarding a fellow member of Bullet Club.
As the incident continued it appeared as though Omega had confessed his love for said Bullet Club member’s wife. It would later be revealed as a simple miscommunication, however.Some time ago, I wrote a synopsis of the Caldari-Gallente war and declared it a more interesting subject than the war between Amarr and Minmatar. I stand by that statement, but it would be unfair to give treatment to one conflict while neglecting the other. This will be a vastly different piece of historical narrative, however. While the Caldari and Gallente fought as equals with clashing ideals, the battle between Minmatar and Amarr developed from the struggle of an oppressed people against a colonial power. As it sadly happens in such cases, the history of the Minmatar effectively became one with the history of the Amarr for long stretches. Still, this is a classical story of faith and conviction on both sides, leading to immense suffering and bloodshed.
God’s Chosen People
When the first of New Eden’s stranded colonists took to the stars again in 20572, they came from a civilisation built upon a universal religion and a strong feeling of manifest destiny. As a people, they had turned their homeworld into a hierarchical theocracy ruled by an emperor and a caste of high priests. The dominant ethnic group of that world called themselves Amarr after their original island home. Hence they named their planetary dominion the Amarr Empire. Their global regime was held together by religious convictions including a belief that they were destined to reclaim New Eden as God’s chosen. The religious zeal and sense of providence which fueled this Reclaiming drove them to colonise their own solar system and eventually expand the Amarr Empire beyond its boundaries. By the year 21290, the Amarr had built the first stargate to the neighbouring system of Hedion and in the centuries that followed they expanded ever further. Despite internal struggles and the emergence of aggressive heretical sects, the Empire conquered the scattered remnants of human colonies they found during that expansion period. It had long been considered a god-given right that a conqueror may enslave the subjugated, and so the Amarr assimilated several peoples of whom only the Ealur and Ni-Kunni are remembered in name. When the Empire discovered the first space-faring civilisation in 22355, the fates of both nations became tied to one another for centuries to come.
The Amarr encountered the interstellar society of the Minmatar, an alliance of seven tribes that had colonised several worlds in the constellation around their home system Pator. Although the Minmatar had not yet developed the technology to build stargates, they had discovered ancient acceleration gates and developed unparalleled propulsion systems. Many of the tribes had been nomads for ages, so they followed the ancient interstellar routes like their ancestors would follow the natural pathways of their homeworld Matar. In the centuries since the warring tribes of that planet had united to become a global culture, they had developed a strong, proud civilisation based on venerable traditions and an impressive excellence in engineering, but nothing prepared them for the military might of the Amarr Empire.
The Day Of Darkness
Despite considering them beneath their level, the Amarr did not take the Minmatar lightly. Probing raids showed that they were a rebellious and belligerent people. Consequently, any campaign against them would have to be swift and decisive. After more than a century of covert operations, the opportunity came for the Amarr to strike in the year 22480. Due to a major instability in the planetary climate, the population of Matar was confronted with massive storms on a global scale. During this planetary emergency the Amarr attacked the heart of Minmatar civilisation, destroyed the defenses of the tribal homeworld and spread through the Pator system, devastating military and civilian infrastructure alike. With their fleets crippled and their communication systems in complete disarray, the Minmatar were virtually helpless when a fleet of slaver vessels descended upon their colonies and abducted millions. Some of the smaller settlements were completely depopulated and only on Matar itself did the Amarr meet any significant resistance.
While the raid was a resounding success, the Amarr also realised that the fierce Minmatar would not be conquered as easily as the civilisations the Empire had encountered before. Instead, the Amarr continued to raid colonies and kept destroying any defenses the Minmatar would rebuild. The final blow which broke the cohesion of the Matari tribes came when Emperor Damius III managed to convince the leaders of the Nefantar tribe that they could remain free if they cooperated and sold their fellow Minmatar into slavery. In an effort to spare their own population, the Nefantar leaders agreed and started to deport all unaffiliated Matari on their homeworld Hjoramold and adjacent systems into the hands of Amarr slavers. The other tribes were appalled by this betrayal, but the Amarr emperor kept his word. After a final raid into Pator which lead to the total collapse of the Minmatar as a unified civilisation, Damius III granted the Nefantar the Ani constellation as their own dominion. The majority of the last tribe to remain fully free converted to the Amarr faith and the emperor would henceforth refer to them as the Ammatar. What remained of the other tribes adopted that term as an insult reserved for the worst of traitors.
After the final sack of Pator in 22485, those who managed to escape slaver raids formed resistance groups and guerilla armies which harassed the Amarr, but could do little to prevent the continued depletion of any colonies that were still left. By the time Damius III died in 22620, the vast majority of Minmatar had been enslaved and their worlds became part of the Amarr Empire for hundreds of years.
Internal Struggle
A time of peace and prosperity for the Amarr Empire followed during which the Ammatar enjoyed rapid progress and increasing wealth as imperial vassals. Their former brethren endured a much more terrible fate, though. In an effort to “improve” on their slaves, the Amarr subjected the Minmatar tribes to a systematic regime of brutal eugenics to weed out the weak and breed the most desirable qualities into their slave population. This Human Endurance Program cost countless lives and caused immense suffering, but the Amarr kept going until it eventually resulted—among other things—in the breeding of an unconditionally loyal army of slave soldiers: the Kameiras.
Peace did not last indefinitely however. In the past, the Amarr Empire had already seen its share of byzantine intrigue and civil war, and the next internal conflict came after the succession trials following the death of Velenus IV in 23041. Traditionally, the losing heirs were supposed to commit ritual suicide after the new ruler had been determined, but this time the headstrong Khanid heir Gharkeh refused to do so, declaring “I will not be ordered by some whimpering fool to destroy myself when my work is unfinished. You will not take anything from me, not my kingdom, not my people, and least of all my life.”
Gharkeh withdrew his family and followers to the region house Khanid held as their dominion. To make matters worse, Gharkeh had been the supreme commander of the Imperial Navy, and as such he managed to commandeer one of the two titan warships the Amarr had built. He also had the loyalty of many admirals and commanders who followed him with their fleets when he declared independence. In defiance of the Theology Council, he chose an inverted imperial sigil as the arms for his Khanid Kingdom. The Amarr glyph symbolises the supremacy of God over mankind, and by turning it upside down Gharkeh Khanid declared himself above religious law.
The Empire was thrown into disarray by this defection and rather than retaliating against the Khanid, the new emperor Heideran VII opted for consolidating internal affairs. Initially, Heideran hoped to make the rebellion fail by supporting Dakos Khanid, the younger brother of the self-proclaimed king who remained loyal to the Empire, but Dakos failed to undo his brother’s work and got killed as a result. In another effort to strengthen his own position, Emperor Heideran VII suppressed the religious order of St. Tetrimon and declared their leader a heretic. Formed in 21460, this orthodox sect sought to uphold the purity of Amarr scripture and prevent it from being amended in ways that would benefit the agendas of individual Emperors or the Theology Council. Naturally, that put them at odds with the ruling authorities and Heideran VII would not risk any further internal dissent. To spite the Amarr Empire further, the newly minted king Khanid II[1] granted the order asylum. That was the final move which forced the Emperor’s hand and he ordered the invasion of the secessionist kingdom, but by then he was too late. Ironically, the Khanid military had gained valuable experience during Dakos’ rebellion which had been supported by the Amarr, and when the attack came, they were battle-hardened and well prepared. Faced with potential defeat, Emperor Heideran VII slowly reduced the war effort until it became no more than a series of border skirmishes.
The Empire also had other issues to deal with on the home front. The Privy Council was the secular advisory body for the Emperor and traditionally it was comprised of five imperial heirs to prevent ties during decision making. With the Khanid gone, a replacement had to be found to prevent a political stalemate. The Emperor thus elevated the wealthy and powerful Tash-Murkon family to the status of imperial heir. That caused displeasure within the traditionalist house Ardishapur who resented the choice because the Tash-Murkon bloodline had come from the Udorian ethnicity – a people the Amarr had subjugated long ago during the time when they were still fighting to unify their homeworld. Consequently, the Ardishapur considered the Tash-Murkon unworthy.
The Ardishapur, however, did not get much opportunity to contend with the Emperor about his decision as they got under pressure from the authorities themselves. Moving against them, the Theology Council persecuted Arzad Hamri, an important vassal and personal friend of Arkon Ardishapur, head of the house. Hamri had developed an increasingly liberal attitude towards his slaves. He granted them leave, established educational programs that would keep their tribal culture alive, and even created special scepters of office granted to valued servants. Arzad Hamri’s slaves belonged almost exclusively to one tribe, the Starkmanir, and because of his leniency he had earned their unified respect. The Theology Council, however, deemed those actions heretic. Not in the least because the “obsidian scepters” which Hamri awarded made use of the Amarr religious symbols in unacceptable ways.
Arkon Ardishapur tried to downplay the problem but was eventually forced by the Theology Council to prosecute his friend to the full extent of the law—which meant the death penalty. Seeing their well-liked lord put to death lead the Starkmanir to rise up in rebellion. The turning point of this uprising came when the court-slave Drupar Maak struck down Arkon Ardishapur with one of the scepters Arzad Hamri had created. In retaliation, the Imperial Navy was ordered to completely destroy the Starkmanir tribe and for a long time it was believed that they were annihilated during that campaign. It would only come out many decades later that the Ammatar had secretly evacuated large numbers of Starkmanir and hid them among their own slave population.
The End Of Isolation
Despite all the setbacks, the Empire reigned supreme and unchallenged for centuries and its expansion continued in great strides once the jump drive was invented in 23058. The Amarr thought themselves the undisputed rulers of New Eden. They considered their Reclaiming a success and thus proof that they were God’s chosen, until they encountered the first Gallente in 23180.
Shockingly, these strangers were not only a technologically advanced civilisation—easily capable of challenging the Amarr militarily—they also appeared to be a complete anathema to the Amarr way of life. Secular, hedonistic, and democratic, the Gallente embodied everything the Empire rejected and it soon became clear that they were too powerful to be conquered. The upsetting nature of that meeting was alleviated slightly when the Caldari were encountered soon thereafter in 23187.
While the Amarr considered the Caldari a stoic and faithless people, they were somewhat consoled by learning that these corporate pragmatists were engaged in a war with the Gallente. At least the Empire could rest assured that those two foreign cultures had better things to do than bother with them, but the supremacy of God’s chosen was put into doubt by these encounters.
An opportunity to reassert the divine mandate of the Amarr Empire did present itself—or so it seemed—in 23191. Another culture made contact with the Amarr, and those people—known as the Jove—appeared to be a peaceful, docile civilisation of scientists and philosophers with no significant military power. The Amarr saw an opening to demonstrate their might and gain a foothold in the northern regions of New Eden by subjugating and enslaving the Jove.
That proved to be an error of judgement which would shake the very foundations of the Empire.
[1] He called himself the second because in ancient times the Khanid on the Amarr homeworld were once ruled by a king.The second 2016 issue of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine announced on Monday that Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan's Hiroshi Shiibashi and Dragon Quest: Dai no Daiboken storywriter Riku Sanjo will publish a collaboration one-shot manga titled "Cremators" in the magazine's combined third and fourth issue on December 21. Shiibashi is drawing the manga and Sanjo credited with the original work. The dark fantasy manga will be 55 pages long with a center color page.
Jump Next!! began publishing Shiibashi's most recent manga, Tsukumogami: Teito Jōhōbu Tokkenchobōin Serosero Nanashiki ( Tsukumogami: Imperial City Information Bureau Special Privilege Spy Nanashiki Serosero ) in July 2014. The manga adapts Yoshi Manaka's light novel of the same name.
Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan inspired two TV anime series. Viz Media released the manga's 25th and final compiled volume in English in February.Square has a new approach to retail customers it’s launching today, with a brand new Square Retail app that complements a comprehensive backend package of tools that include complete coverage of inventory management, customer relationship management and employee tools.
The new offering is designed to really provide a next-level retail solution for merchants and shop owners who need more than just the Square Reader and basic square mobile app. Square’s Point of Sale Lead Matthew O’Connor explained to me that the solution can and does scale depending on the needs of their clients, but can serve any customers from a one-location shop to a merchant with multiple storefronts and lots of inventory to track.
“We’re mostly targeting folks where it’s generally what we call ‘owner-led,’ so it’s usually one decision maker who’s making a decision for how they run their business. It will scale to hundreds of locations, it will scale to hundreds of thousands of SKUs and items.”
For now the primary type of retailer Square is targeting with this product are those in the “finished goods” business, which means people who have packaged products or things like shirts and clothing that have barcodes, as well as things like wine or games, O’Connor says. Those are best suited to its inventory management system, which O’Connor and Square demoed for me, and which boasts a smart, clean, simple and intuitive interface.
The new Square Retail app is heavily search focused, letting you quickly and easily find things like customer profiles and any item in your inventory with a unified search bar at the top of the interface. The app also supports barcode scanning for quickly building out a customer’s cart at checkout, and all of its features plug into a new extensive backend that’s equally simple, clean and easy to use.
Using Square’s new dashboard tools, shop owners and retail staff can maintain and browse a new smart customer directory, that tracks sales and builds profiles of shoppers, and that can also contain notes included by sales associates who’ve helped them. The system also auto-groups customers based on shopping habits, which is convenient feature if you’re a small store with an active customer population and CRM isn’t your primary focus.
Inventory management is similarly slick, with real-time unit counts that scale across locations, if a shop owner has more than one. This system also allows you to request transfer of units from one location to another, and it makes ingest easy by letting you input and track your purchasing orders, including marking shipments as received to automatically load those new items into your inventory.
The last component of the system, the employee management tools, allow you to set access levels for individuals or groups, which helps ensure that you can keep the whole thing running smoothly across multiple stores.
Square says it has designed the whole system to be something most people can pick up and teach themselves with minimal effort, the same way it approached its original business of letting individual merchants receive payments via their phone. The idea was to create something lightweight but fully functional, and then offer it at a minimum price – Square’s asking $60 per month per register for access to the total Square for Retail package.
“You have access to the integrated payments, access to Capital, access to chargeback protection, and our analytics,” O’Connor offered when I asked why store owners might choose Square Retail over competitors like Shopify or Revel. “One of the big things we’ve heard from our customer is they really do want a one-stop shop, they want to go to one place where they feel like somebody could help them run their business, and having to have multiple vendors and multiple people that they’re working with is generally considered a downside. So I think ultimately it’s all the stuff you’ve seen from Square, and the fact that it’s all working together and coming together on the back end.”
Square is banking on its ecosystem effect, in other words, and that’s a compelling advantage for its target group of customers, who are often shouldering a lot of responsibility themselves. When they need to rely on outside vendors, it makes sense that they would generally much rather have one company and contact to deal with. Square’s rethink of its approach to retail seems like a much more targeted and thorough plan, which bodes well for their chances in this segment.C onservatism in Canada has taken a beating over the past year, but things may be turning around now that Brad Wall has won his third term and Brian Pallister ended the Manitoba NDP. Conservatism is on the rise in the provinces, but at the federal level it is at a crossroad. How do we move forward in the face of Justin Trudeau’s 24/7 celebrity party?
This question brings us to Maxime Bernier.
As returning Poletical visitors know, Maxime Bernier has a lot of fans here, both among our readers and our writers. We’ve written multiple articles about him and his libertarian-style conservative brand over the years. We even floated him as a leadership candidate back in 2013. An online poll we conducted that year had Bernier support for leadership at 33%. Today, you can see him winning our latest poll.
I was very happy to sit down with Mr. Bernier for the first interview we’ve had with him on the site and ask some questions about his goals, his ideas and where the Conservative Party needs to go.
J eff Hodgson : Tell us about the state of your campaign right now.
M axime Bernier : First of all, I can tell you that I am very happy with the reception I had when I launched my campaign. Very good positive feedback. We received a lot of emails from across the country and we are building the organization right now. People can contact me on my blog and we
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admittance into Paradise whose vastness is as that of heaven and earth.
((Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 189))
And the existence of these states exist in all the worlds:
Now punishments and rewards are said to be of two kinds: first, the rewards and punishments of this life; second, those of the other world. But the paradise and hell of existence are found in all the worlds of God, whether in this world or in the spiritual heavenly worlds. Gaining these rewards is the gaining of eternal life.
((Abdu'l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, 60: The Immortality of the Spirit, pg223))
Put simply, a person does not move from “Hell in this World” (rejection of the Manifestation of God, and thus their own true purpose) into “Heaven in the Next World” (knowledge and recognition of the Manifestation of God). They move from “Heaven in this World” to “Heaven in the Next World” or from “Hell in this World” to “Hell in the Next World” - belief to belief, unbelief to unbelief.
Second, we have texts that definitively express the unawareness in the next world of those who died unaware.
The following quotes can be found in the letter titled “The Condition of non-Baha'i Relatives after Death” from the Universal House of Justice to aid in clarifying this very question. Please read the entire letter for further clarification. I will address small portions of the quotation, which is in Bold with the words of the Guardian Italicized.
For example, the following extract from a letter dated 17 March 1940 written on behalf of the Guardian to a believer whose father had recently passed away, provides the following statement: The Guardian... wishes me to hasten to convey to you the expression of his deepest sympathy in this grievous loss which you have come to sustain. He will specially and earnestly pray for his departed soul that in the realms of the spirit beyond it may receive such guidance as would enable it to fully recognize and accept the Faith, and thereby attain abiding peace and happiness....
The Guardian here says he will pray for a soul that it “may receive guidance as would enable it to fully recognize and accept the Faith.” Therefore, that soul currently does not “fully recognize and accept the Faith” and they are in the next world.
Shoghi Effendi in a letter dated 22 May 1935 written on his behalf to an individual believer makes the following statement: Concerning your question whether a soul can receive knowledge of the Truth in the world beyond: Such a knowledge is surely possible, and it is a sign of the loving mercy of the Almighty. We can, through our prayers, help every soul to gradually attain this high station, even if it has failed to reach it in this world. The progress of the soul does not come to an end with death. It rather starts along a new line....It is possible for a soul, not only to recognize the Truth in the next world, but also to make up for "lost opportunities".
Once again, the knowledge of the Truth “in the world beyond” is “surely possible” and a soul can “gradually attain” even if it “failed to reach it in this world.” The quote goes on that it is “possible” to “recognize the Truth in the next world” and even “make up for lost opportunities.” All this clearly implies that a soul ‘does not’ know, but can.
Shoghi Effendi in the following letters written on his behalf to individual believers states: ….No man can "obtain everlasting life" in the full sense of the term, except through acknowledging the Manifestation of God, in this age, Bahá'u'lláh. If he doesn't do it in this world he will have a chance to progress in the next one. (19 March 1946) He will pray that the Beloved may sustain and comfort you in your great sorrow, and that also He may, in His unfailing and all-merciful love, bless the soul of your departed husband, and enable it to grow and advance spiritually, and attain unto the full recognition of His Revelation. Now that the veil has been lifted, and that his soul has been liberated from the material limitations of this contingent world, may he be guided to a truer and deeper appreciation of this Cause, and make up for his lost opportunities while he was still in this world. (22 August 1939)
(The Universal House of Justice, 1991 Aug 28, The Condition of non-Baha'i Relatives after Death)
This final section of the quote from the letter again clearly tells us that a soul will “have a chance to progress in the next” world, and that God may “enable it to grow” and “attain unto the full recognition of His Revelation.” A soul may “be guided to a truer and deeper appreciation of this Cause” making up for “lost opportunities while he was still in this world.”
In conclusion, all souls learn ‘truths’ in the next world. They learn much (I believe) of their truer nature, facets of their being they were unaware of, the reality of the realms beyond. However, they do not become suddenly aware of their error concerning Baha’u’llah’s station, or the station, therefore, of the Buddha, the Prophet Muhammad, or Krishna.
They may learn many of their judgments were unjust, unbalanced, or biased. They may learn they did not seek our reality in accordance with their true nature. They may learn they were beholden to seek fervently for truth and justice in all domains of life, and that they failed.
They will not, however, become Baha’i and recognize the truth of the Manifestations of God. The state of existence in this life determines the state of existence in the next life. Hell to Hell, Heaven to Heaven.
And we must remember one final concept, all these lost opportunities “can” be made up for. And let us remember:
Through His potency the Trees of Divine Revelation have yielded their fruits, every one of which hath been sent down in the form of a Prophet, bearing a Message to God's creatures in each of the worlds whose number God, alone, in His all-encompassing Knowledge, can reckon.
(Baha’u’llah. Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, LI)
Manifestations of God exist in, and are sent to, “each of the worlds whose number God, alone…can reckon.”
with love and admiration,
RobLong after the reversal of that river, the mothers I meet on the beaches of Lake Michigan do not worry much over filth. Most of us believe that dirt is good for our kids, but some of us are wary of the grass in the parks, which may or may not have been treated with toxic chemicals. The idea that “toxins,” rather than filth or germs, are the root cause of most maladies is a popular theory of disease among people like me. The toxins that concern us range from particle residue to high-fructose corn syrup, and particularly suspect substances include the bisphenol A lining our tin cans, the phthalates in our shampoos, and the chlorinated Tris in our couches and mattresses.
I already practiced some intuitive toxicology before my pregnancy, but I became thoroughly immersed in it after my son was born. As long as a child takes only breast milk, I discovered, one can enjoy the illusion of a closed system, a body that is not yet in dialogue with the impurities of farm and factory. Caught up in the romance of the untainted body, I remember feeling agony when my son drank water for the first time. “Unclean! Unclean!” my mind screamed.
“He was too pure,” a Baltimore mother said of her son, who developed leukemia as an infant. His mother blamed the pollutants in vaccines for his illness, and herself for allowing him to be vaccinated. Fears that formaldehyde from vaccines may cause cancer are similar to fears of mercury and aluminum, in that they coalesce around miniscule amounts of the substance in question, amounts considerably smaller than amounts from other common sources of exposure to the same substance. Formaldehyde is in automobile exhaust and cigarette smoke, as well as paper bags and paper towels, and it is released by gas stoves and open fireplaces. Many vaccines contain traces of the formaldehyde used to inactivate viruses, and this can be alarming to those of us who associate formaldehyde with dead frogs in glass jars. Large concentrations are indeed toxic, but formaldehyde is a product of our bodies, essential to our metabolism, and the amount of formaldehyde already circulating in our systems is considerably greater than the amount we receive through vaccination.
As for mercury, a child will almost certainly get more mercury exposure from her immediate environment than from vaccination. This is true, too, of the aluminum that is often used as an adjuvant in vaccines to intensify the immune response. Aluminum is in a lot of things, including fruits and cereals as well as, again, breast milk. Our breast milk, it turns out, is as polluted as our environment at large. Laboratory analysis of breast milk has detected paint thinners, dry-cleaning fluids, flame retardants, pesticides, and rocket fuel. “Most of these chemicals are found in microscopic amounts,” the journalist Florence Williams notes, “but if human milk were sold at the local Piggly Wiggly, some stock would exceed federal food-safety levels for DDT residues and PCBs.”Boston, MA [March 24, 2014, 3:00 p.m. EDT] ─A single gene appears to play a crucial role in coordinating the immune system and metabolism, and deleting the gene in mice reduces body fat and extends lifespan, according to new research by scientists at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center (USDA HNRCA) on Aging at Tufts University and Yale University School of Medicine. Their results are reported online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Based on gene expression studies of fat tissue conducted at the USDA HNRCA, the Tufts University researchers initiated studies of the role of FAT10 in adipose tissue and metabolism. "No one really knew what the FAT10 gene did, other than it was 'turned on' by inflammation and that it seemed to be increased in gynecological and gastrointestinal cancers." said co-author Martin S. Obin, Ph.D., an adjunct scientist in the Functional Genomics Core Unit at the USDA HNRCA at Tufts University. "Turning off the FAT10 gene produces a variety of beneficial effects in the mice, including reduced body fat, which slows down aging and extends lifespan by 20 percent."
Typically, mice gain fat as they age. The authors observed that activation of the FAT10 gene in normal mice increases in fat tissue with age. Mice lacking FAT10 consume more food, but burn fat at an accelerated rate. As a result, they have less than half of the fat tissue found in normal, aged mice. At the same time their skeletal muscle ramps up production of an immune molecule that increases their response to insulin, resulting in reduced circulating insulin levels, protection against type 2 diabetes and longer lifespan.
The authors note that eliminating FAT10 will not fully address the dilemma of aging and weight gain. "Laboratory mice live in a lab under ideal, germ-free conditions," said Obin, who is also an associate professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. "Fighting infection requires energy, which can be provided by stored fat. Mice without the FAT10 gene might be too lean to fight infection effectively outside of the laboratory setting. More research is needed to know how to achieve that balance in mice and then hopefully, at some point, people."
The possibilities for future research of FAT10 are exciting. Recent high-profile studies reported that FAT10 interacts with hundreds of other proteins in cells. Now the Tufts and Yale researchers have demonstrated that it impacts immune response, lipid and glucose metabolism, and mitochondrial function.
"Now there is dramatic road map for researchers looking at all of the proteins that FAT10 gets involved with," said co-first and corresponding author Allon Canaan, Ph.D., an associate scientist in the Department of Genetics at Yale. "Blocking what FAT10 does to coordinate immunity and metabolism could lead to new therapies for metabolic disease, metabolic syndrome, cancer and healthy aging, because when we knock it out the net result is mice live longer."
Canaan and colleagues initially developed the FAT10-deficient mouse to study the role of FAT10 in sepsis. In an attempt to increase sensitivity for sepsis, Canaan aged the FAT10 knockout mice and made the discovery that mice lacking the gene were lean and aged more slowly. The mice appear younger and more robust than comparably-aged normal mice, have better muscle tone, and do not develop age-related tumors.
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The co-first author of the study is Jason DeFuria, Ph.D., who conducted the research as a doctoral student under Obin in the Obesity Metabolism Laboratory at the USDA HNRCA at Tufts University. DeFuria, a graduate of the Friedman School, is now a postdoctoral researcher in the Division of Cancer Biology and Tissue Engineering at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine. The Yale investigators include senior author Sherman M. Weissman, Vincent Schultz, Montrell Seay, David Tuck, and Richard Flavell. Additional co-authors are Eddie Perelman of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and Michael Snyder of Stanford University.
This study was funded by the William Prushoff Foundation, NIH Grants to Obin (R01DK074979) and DeFuria (T32DK062032) and with funds from the U.S. Department of Agricultural-Agricultural Research Service contract 58-1950-7-70.
Canaan A; Defuria J; Perelman E; Schulz V; Seay M; Tuck D; Flavell R; Snyder M; Obin M; and Weissman S. "Extended Lifespan and Reduced Adiposity in Mice Lacking the FAT10 Gene." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Published online ahead of print March 24, 2014.
For three decades, the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University has studied the relationship between good nutrition and good health in aging populations. Tufts research scientists work with federal agencies to establish the USDA Dietary Guidelines, the Dietary Reference Intakes, and other significant public policies. The Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University is the only independent school of nutrition in the United States. The school's eight degree programs, which focus on questions relating to famine, hunger, poverty, and communications, are renowned for the application of scientific research to national and international policy.View Caption Hide Caption Sam Bruce. (247Sports)
Say this for Sam Bruce: he appreciates history.
Asked in a radio interview about his influences as a receiver and where he learned to run routes, he mentioned two South Florida coaches who have mentored him (Kevin Beard and Sly Johnson) then name-checked a pro whose career ended nearly 30 years ago: Billy “White Shoes” Johnson.
Johnson, a three-time Pro Bowler in the 1970s and ‘80s, was a 5-foot-9 receiver and return specialist who brought a certain flair to his game, celebrating in the end zone with never-before-seen touchdown dances while wearing white footwear in a time when his peers did neither. Johnson is a player the Hurricanes of the ‘80s and ‘90s, both beloved and reviled for their dancing and gyrating, would have grown up watching.
Flash forward to today. Bruce, a highly touted prospect at Fort Lauderdale-St. Thomas Aquinas who plans to sign with Miami on Wednesday, is listed at 5-8. He wants to return punts and kicks in college in addition to his receiving duties. He also has plenty of confidence, not unlike like Johnson and the old-school Hurricanes. In an interview on WQAM this week, Dolphins broadcaster and former tight end Joe Rose opined that the Hurricanes could use “about 20” players with Bruce’s chutzpah.
“I got you, baby,” he told Rose, 58. “We’re bringing them in. We’re bringing them in. And they’re all like me. We got the same thing in mind. We’ve got the same goal in mind. We’re ready. We’re going to get in the weight room. We’re going to get big. I’m excited for Miami football, man. I’m excited.”
Bruce, who said he will arrive on campus in May, will need to compete with returning slot receiver Braxton Berrios, a junior-to-be, for playing time. Redshirt senior Malcolm Lewis also plays the position.
Bruce, who pledged to the Hurricanes in July 2014, also considered attending Ohio State. He publicly reaffirmed his commitment last week, but said in the interview he finalized his decision after Mark Richt visited him at home two weeks ago. On his Ohio State visit in October, his tour guide was former Dwyer High receiver Johnnie Dixon, who chose the Buckeyes over the Hurricanes two years ago. Bruce had a different mentality than Dixon, who wanted to get away from South Florida for college.
“There’s nothing like home, man,” Bruce said. “It was just all about playing home in front of my hometown, in front of my family, in front of my people.”BY: Follow @LizWFB
Environmental Protection Agency employees have not accepted Donald Trump's victory and are still "coming to work in tears" more than two months after the election.
"At EPA headquarters, the mood remains dark," ProPublica reported Wednesday. "A longtime career communications employee said in a phone interview Tuesday that more than a few friends were ‘coming to work in tears' each morning as they grappled with balancing the practical need to keep their jobs with their concerns for the issues they work on."
Trump's victory has been tough for bureaucrats. The State Department held stress workshops after the election so they would not "become paralyzed by fear." EPA employees were caught crying before, just after the election, as were White House aides. Energy Department employees were granted counseling. Sobbing staffers greeted Hillary Clinton on Capitol Hill a month after her loss.
EPA employees are upset that the new president will take a different approach than the Obama administration. ProPublica called Trump's nomination of Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general who has sued the EPA over its climate change regulations, to lead the agency "dramatic."
The Trump administration froze all EPA grants and contracts to make sure new grants are in line with the new administration's objectives. They also asked for the schedule of all planned meetings and presentations by the agency through mid-February.
Doug Ericksen, the EPA's communications director for the transition, told National Public Radio that "we'll take a look at what's happening so that the voice coming from the EPA is one that's going to reflect the new administration."
Employees are also scared that the climate change part of the EPA's website will be removed.Some of you might be aware that our friends over at ESPN 540 and ESPNMilwaukee.com will offer regular and exclusive interviews with Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers moving forward, news that is good for all involved but especially those of us looking for interesting blog posts during the lockout.
In appearances on the D-List and with Homer this week, Rodgers offered some fun insight into the moments before Super Bowl XLV and his mindset as kickoff approached. In a span of about 10 minutes, Rodgers immediately noticed Christina Aguilera's botched line in the National Anthem and was later amused by a fight among photographers awaiting the coin toss.
Here's how Rodgers told the story about Aguilera, who at one point mistakenly sang this line: What so proudly we watched at the twilight's last reaming.
"I don't like standing in the front row, because I don't like that camera right in your face. I know you're on the bazillion-foot jumbotron. So I said, I'm going to stand by some people who are maybe not the most TV-recognizable names and see if I can blend in. So I went and kind of hid in the back...
"I don't remember who I was standing next to. But she starts singing it, and in most of the stadiums, they have the words on the board up above the singer so she can tell if she screwed up, or he. She screwed up and I knew it. Something was off.
"And I'm looking around like, did anyone else realize it? I don't think they had. I don't even know if the people were listening. But I knew something was off. So I tapped, I think it was Diyral Briggs next to me, I go, 'Did you hear that?' He's kind of like, 'What?' I said, 'She just totally screwed up.' So I look up at the board and see where she's at and I'm like, 'She just totally messed that up. People have got to know that she just screwed that up.'
"I feel kind of bad for her, but at the same time, come on now."
But, Rodgers said, "I have a better story than that.
"We walked out to the coin toss. The Super Bowl, there are these long TV timeouts. So we go out for the coin toss as one of the captains, there are five of us, and the Steelers guys are standing over there. And we're just standing there looking at each other for a good three minutes.
"Well, over to the left, about 10 cameramen have been trying to get in place to get the best shot, and two of them are fighting. They're yelling at each other in different languages, flipping each other off. The one guy is flipping him off, and the other guy below him is just taking all these pictures of it....
"So they're screaming at each other. The up guy is flipping him off and the down guy is taking all these pictures of him. So then the [low] guy stands up and he starts taking pictures of him. So they're both screaming at each other taking pictures of each other for a good minute and a half.
"And I'm tapping A.J. [Hawk], 'Look at that! Look at that! It's unbelievable!"
The anecdotes were fun, but I think they also revealed how calm Rodgers was in the moments before the biggest game of his life. I cover NFL games every week during the regular season and playoffs, and I can tell you that the pregame atmosphere at the Super Bowl are easily the most electric of the year.
But for Rodgers, he said, "It felt like a normal game. Is that bad? It felt like a normal game."
Nope, it's not bad at all. I think it helps explain why the Packers jumped out to a big lead in Super Bowl XLV and hung on for the eventual victory. Now we just need to work on Rodgers' late-70's movie knowledge. At the beginning of the Homer clip, he mistook the "Superman" theme for "Star Wars." Come on now.oss-sec mailing list archives
Re: CVE-2014-6271: remote code execution through bash
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 MITRE is currently using CVE-2014-7169 to track the report of the incomplete patch, i.e., incorrect function parsing that's present in builds that are up-to-date with the http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bash/bash-4.3-patches/bash43-025 changes. We realize that other people may be releasing further information about the technical details and implications later. CVE-2014-7169 expresses the affected upstream versions as "GNU Bash through 4.3 bash43-025" -- in general, this would include distribution packages released earlier today (2014-09-24). - -- CVE assignment team, MITRE CVE Numbering Authority M/S M300 202 Burlington Road, Bedford, MA 01730 USA [ PGP key available through http://cve.mitre.org/cve/request_id.html ] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.14 (SunOS) iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJUI3DaAAoJEKllVAevmvms+/kH/32ZGjC+BSqKoz6ZBUCMLnQ2 +Li91/GvD0Rs8bqKPDsz30spiJR57ZluKMrlxJrlIffiHqAFiYkQ3+JXmnK/HAnA OtgToNtZ+1BV2jPrjXhuy2h+E5paTXMhM0T12xaUo89vtE7oer4Pld4JDqreXSSk 1Nfu5AaGcvbBmwaNRn1qw+nARw0CFPmMRa169jQAesAAcyNx8V7IPgFpPj4K4S8c 0zKXVdhIZxXvPcdZ5QzXKhcluOyOl1dJsjXR1qXT03QJsvhRighqb/3dZy+4mLyl JWhDfs7l8XXGCzbF8eSg2CNBpTGy1d/32F7YqaKj53xWFWyktHtbk4nJ5hlPlKU= =E9tp -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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Re: CVE-2014-6271: remote code execution through bash cve-assign (Sep 24)Early in the first half of Saturday's game, former USC tailback Marc Tyler tweeted, "Barkley is not that good, sorry SC fans."
Apparently, that created a Twitter-storm because Tyler later tweeted, "Get mad if you want, I speak the truth."
He does? Imagine Tyler's take if, during an eventual 62-51 loss, Matt Barkley hadn't completed 65 percent of his passes and thrown for 484 yards and five touchdowns. It's amazing how nobody ever singles out the nose tackle or the free safety, even when a team is in the midst of the worst defensive performance in its history.
If you're searching for a litany of reasons why USC is off to a frustrating 6-3 start, you would have to dissect the entire 75-man roster -- stopping just short of Marqise Lee -- to find someone less worthy of blame than Barkley.
In the Trojans' last two losses, Barkley has thrown for 977 combined yards and eight touchdowns.
Oh yeah, but what about the interceptions, two in each of USC's three losses? Making better decisions is something he's working on, but it's not as if Barkley's flinging the ball recklessly. On the first one Saturday, the defender practically mauled Lee before making an athletic catch at the back of the end zone. On the second one, Barkley was trying to avoid a sack.
Of his 10 interceptions this season, seven were Barkley's fault, by the estimation of coach Lane Kiffin.
Barkley's two main infractions in his four seasons at USC were playing at a time the program got pummeled by the NCAA and having to be compared to Andrew Luck. It's not exactly a fair backdrop. He's not perfect, but he's an elite quarterback who has lived up to everything other than the recruiting hype. How many high school phenoms do?
He'll probably be a good quarterback in the NFL, too, and if he is, every USC fan will claim they loved him in college. He might even end up the top quarterback drafted next spring. It'll be close between him and Geno Smith of West Virginia. Had he come out a year ago, he would have had to contend with Luck and Robert Griffin III.
A leaky USC defense and one truly awful team-wide performance against Stanford has skewed everyone's perceptions.
"If we were winning these games, the storyline would be about Matt’s play and how he’s even playing better than a year ago," Kiffin said. "People would think that would be hard to do, to duplicate or do better than what arguably was the best season in the history of the conference for a quarterback."
Hyperbole aside, he's got a point. Other than an uptick in interceptions, Barkley is having his best season yet. He has thrown for more yards, more touchdowns and with a better passer efficiency rating than he did in 2011. Sure, his receivers make him look good, but he makes them look good, too.
People complain about the interceptions, but you rarely see anyone express an appreciation for his improved touch on deep balls or his precision timing with his two dynamic receivers. He has helped cut down on sacks, even after losing one of the best left tackles in USC history, by getting rid of the ball more quickly.
If anyone has reason to complain, it's Robert Woods, who has caught 31 fewer balls this season than a year ago, mostly due to the emergence of Lee as, probably, the best receiver in the country.
"I'm sure people look to him, because he's the leader of our team, but he's definitely not the one to blame here," Woods said.
Told of Tyler's tweet, Woods shook his head, smiled and said, "Marc."
It's been said before. Barkley didn't keep first-round NFL money on the table to return for his senior season so he could go to the Alamo Bowl and see his Heisman hopes dissipate by the beginning of November. He probably doesn't have enough time to change people's perceptions of his career, so all he can do is continue to add to his records. One day, people might appreciate them.
Kiffin met with him at length Monday and the two agreed on a goal for the Trojans' final three games, or however many they have to play: no more interceptions.
"Decision-making all around is something I can get better at," Barkley said.
He made a surprising decision to come back last December. So far, it hasn't quite worked out, but they'll miss him when he's gone.Engineers create origami paper-based bacteria-powered battery
(Nanowerk News) Origami, the Japanese art of paper folding, can be used to create beautiful birds, frogs and other small sculptures. Now a Binghamton University engineer says the technique can be applied to building batteries, too.
Seokheun Sean Choi developed an inexpensive, bacteria-powered battery made from paper, he writes in the July edition of the journal Nano Energy ("An origami paper-based bacteria-powered battery").
Origami batteries like this one, developed by Binghamton University researcher Seokheun Choi, could one day power biosensors for use in remote locations.
The battery generates power from microbial respiration, delivering enough energy to run a paper-based biosensor with nothing more than a drop of bacteria-containing liquid. Dirty water has a lot of organic matter, Choi says. Any type of organic material can be the source of bacteria for the bacterial metabolism.
The method should be especially useful to anyone working in remote areas with limited resources. Indeed, because paper is inexpensive and readily available, many experts working on disease control and prevention have seized upon it as a key material in creating diagnostic tools for the developing world.
Paper is cheap and its biodegradable, Choi says. And we dont need external pumps or syringes because paper can suck up a solution using capillary force.
While paper-based biosensors have shown promise in this area, the existing technology must be paired with hand-held devices for analysis. Choi says he envisions a self-powered system in which a paper-based battery would create enough energy were talking microwatts to run the biosensor. Creating such a system is the goal of a new three-year grant of nearly $300,000 he received from the National Science Foundation.
Chois battery, which folds into a square the size of a matchbook, uses an inexpensive air-breathing cathode created with nickel sprayed onto one side of ordinary office paper. The anode is screen printed with carbon paints, creating a hydrophilic zone with wax boundaries.
Total cost of this potentially game-changing device? Five cents.
Choi, who joined Binghamtons faculty less than three years ago as an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, earned a doctorate from Arizona State University after doing undergraduate work and a masters degree in South Korea. Choi, who holds two U.S. patents, initially collaborated on the paper battery with Hankeun Lee, a former Binghamton undergraduate and co-author of the new journal article.0 of 50
While a team's logo has no effect on the outcome of the game, it is the symbol that represents the team and something that everyone associates with it.
Fans put a good deal of stock in the team's logo, as they are the ones buying merchandise and clothing with the logo on it, and having a ridiculous logo is certainly going to limit T-shirt sales, if nothing else.
Today's logos have become fairly boring, but luckily, baseball has a lengthy history and has certainly had its fair share of impressively bad logos through the years.
A thanks to Chris Creamer's website, www.sportslogos.net, which is by far the most comprehensive database of logos on the Internet and made this article much easier.
So here are the 50 worst baseball logos, 20 from the minor leagues and 30 from the major leagues. Sit back and enjoy some laughably bad logos.This article is about a 19th century proposed mechanism of heredity. For the theory of the origin of life from outer space, see Panspermia
Charles Darwin's pangenesis theory postulated that every part of the body emits tiny particles called gemmules which migrate to the gonads and are transferred to offspring. Gemmules were thought to develop into their associated body parts as offspring matures. The theory implied that changes to the body during an organism's life would be inherited, as proposed in Lamarckism
Pangenesis was Charles Darwin's hypothetical mechanism for heredity, in which he proposed that each part of the body continually emitted its own type of small organic particles called gemmules that aggregated in the gonads, contributing heritable information to the gametes.[1] He presented this 'provisional hypothesis' in his 1868 work The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, intending it to fill what he perceived as a major gap in evolutionary theory at the time. The etymology of the word comes from the Greek words pan (a prefix meaning "whole", "encompassing") and genesis ("birth") or genos ("origin"). Pangenesis mirrored ideas originally formulated by Hippocrates and other pre-Darwinian scientists, but built off of new concepts such as cell theory, explaining cell development as beginning with gemmules which were specified to be necessary for the occurrence of new growths in an organism, both in initial development and regeneration.[2] It also accounted for regeneration and the Lamarckian concept of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, as a body part altered by the environment would produce altered gemmules. This made Pangenesis popular among the neo-Lamarckian school of evolutionary thought.[3] This hypothesis was made effectively obsolete after the 1900 rediscovery among biologists of Gregor Mendel's theory of the particulate nature of inheritance.
Early history [ edit ]
Pangenesis was similar to ideas put forth by Hippocrates, Democritus and other pre-Darwinian scientists in proposing that the whole of parental organisms participate in heredity (thus the prefix pan).[4] Darwin wrote that Hippocrates' pangenesis was "almost identical with mine—merely a change of terms—and an application of them to classes of facts necessarily unknown to the old philosopher."[5]
Science historian Conway Zirkle wrote that:
Zirkle demonstrated that the idea of inheritance of acquired characteristics had become fully accepted by the 16th century and remained immensely popular through to the time of Lamarck's work, at which point it began to draw more criticism due to lack of hard evidence.[4] He also stated that pangenesis was the only scientific explanation ever offered for this concept, developing from Hippocrates' belief that "the semen was derived from the whole body."[4] In the 13th century, pangenesis was commonly accepted on the principle that semen was a refined version of food unused by the body, which eventually translated to 15th and 16th century widespread use of pangenetic principles in medical literature, especially in gynecology.[4] Later pre-Darwinian important applications of the idea included hypotheses about the origin of the differentiation of races.[4]
A theory put forth by Pierre Louis Maupertuis in 1745 called for particles from both parents governing the attributes of the child, although some historians have called his remarks on the subject cursory and vague.[6][7]
In 1749, French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon developed a hypothetical system of heredity much like Darwin's pangenesis, wherein 'organic molecules' were transferred to offspring during reproduction and stored in the body during development.[7][8] Commenting on Buffon's views, Darwin stated, "If Buffon had assumed that his organic molecules had been formed by each separate unit throughout the body, his view and mine would have been very closely similar."[4]
In 1801, Erasmus Darwin advocated a hypothesis of pangenesis in the third edition of his book Zoonomia.[9] In 1809, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in his Philosophie Zoologique put forth evidence for the idea that characteristics acquired during the lifetime of an organism, either from effects of the environment or may be passed on to the offspring. Charles Darwin first had significant contact with Lamarckism during his time at the University of Edinburgh Medical School in the late 1820s, both through Robert Edmond Grant, whom he assisted in research, and in Erasmus's journals.[10] Darwin's first known writings on the topic of Lamarckian ideas as they related to inheritance are found in a notebook he opened in 1837, also entitled Zoonomia.[11] Historian Johnathan Hodge states that the theory of pangenesis itself first appeared in Darwin's notebooks in 1841.[12]
In 1861, Irish physician Henry Freke developed a variant of pangenesis in his book Origin of Species by Means of Organic Affinity.[13] Freke proposed that all life was developed from microscopic organic agents which he named granules, which existed as 'distinct species of organizing matter' and would develop into different biological structures.[14]
In 1864, four years before the publication of Variation, Herbert Spencer in his book Principles of Biology proposed a theory of "physiological units" similar to Darwin's gemmules, which likewise were said to be related to specific body parts and responsible for the transmission of characteristics of those body parts to offspring.[
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the reparations, the city has also agreed to begin teaching students about Burge’s legacy of corruption in Chicago’s public schools. Beginning this school year, eighth- and tenth-grade students will examine Burge’s crimes in U.S. History in regards to police brutality and the violation of constitutional rights.
Instead of showing an ounce of competence, Burge and his officers forced confessions out of innocent people resulting in numerous overturned convictions. Although he failed to protect the streets of Chicago, Burge did inadvertently cause many police departments to adopt the policy of mandated video interrogations. Although most government employees are not required to wear cameras and record their actions, cops have proven over and over again that they simply cannot be trusted.President Obama’s 2014 State of the Union address is remembered today mainly for this bit of rhetorical irony: “America must move off a permanent war footing.”
It was the triumph of speechwriting over experience. Obama’s pledge came about three weeks after the fall of Fallujah to the Islamic State. By June, Mosul would be overrun. Global jihadism now has a cause — Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s sham caliphate — around which to rally. It controls unprecedented territory and resources. It has a stream of thousands of Western recruits cycling in and out of the Middle East. And it encompasses a dangerous competition between the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, in which acts of terrorism are a source of street credibility.
Obama’s reaction, as always, has been restrained. The world does much to disappoint him, but it apparently has nothing to teach him. Every signal he has recently sent — in his lack of an appropriate symbolic reaction to the Paris attacks, in his limp, equivocal performance beside a more determined British Prime Minister David Cameron — seems to be saying: I am not going to repeat George W. Bush’s overreaction to terrorism, which only feeds extremism.
So, Obama is careful to explain that terrorism is not “an existential threat.” “Intelligence and military force alone,” he says, “is not going to solve this problem.” And he urges Europeans to “not simply respond with a hammer.”
We have come a long way when an American president pompously urges the French to curb their cowboy instincts.
But the situation in Europe reveals this line of argument — that overreaction provokes terrorism — to be farcical. The French did not support the Iraq war. They did not engage in enhanced interrogation. They have been consistent supporters of the Palestinian cause. They have tried not to offend. But it didn’t matter. Some offense by Charles Martel in the 8th century would have been sufficient pretext. Western countries are not engaged in policy disagreements with violent Islamism. They are facing, in Cameron’s words, a “fanatical death cult.”
Obama is correct to distinguish that cult from the faith of Islam. Equating the two is not only substantively wrong, it is strategically insane. No president would criticize the religious beliefs of millions of his fellow citizens — particularly when their good faith is necessary to isolate violent radicalism. And any fight against terrorism depends on good relations with Muslim allies who take many of the front-line risks. Islam is not the same as Islamism. And not even all Islamism is violent Islamism. Such distinctions are essential to successfully conduct a war on terrorism.
And Obama is correct that this war requires a variety of non-military strategies: diplomacy that somehow corrals Sunni and Shiite powers into anti-terror alliances; economic development that provides opportunities for alienated youth; effective ideological campaigns (which are now badly underfunded) to counter violent extremism. We do need “all the elements of our national power.”
But even with these caveats, the task that remains is a global armed conflict of uncertain duration. It will involve maintaining a technological edge to monitor the communications of potential terrorists. It will involve arming, training and guiding (sometimes with American boots on the ground) proxies to fight battles. It will involve targeted killings with drones, bombers and special operations forces.
Particularly with the rise of the Islamic State during the past year — which occurred in a vacuum of local sovereignty and global attention — the United States has an enormously complex and difficult task ahead. It involves building up allies that have previously proved hollow and fragile; patiently reclaiming territory; preventing infiltration by jihadist veterans and attacks by homegrown sympathizers; helping re-establish some semblance of legitimate government in Iraq (challenging) and in Syria (pretty near impossible).
It is not sufficient to describe this — or dismiss this — as “counterterrorism.” Even the effort that Obama currently describes requires the end of a terrorist regime holding large portions of two countries in the Middle East. Americans need to be prepared for years of conflict — and for the strong possibility of terrorist escalations such as we saw in Paris. Or worse. And American allies need to be led and encouraged in this effort, not ignored or lectured.
President Obama has variously tried to declare victory against terrorism (“al-Qaeda’s core leadership has been decimated”) or to claim that the United States has turned a corner past war. But his wishes do not make it so. Displaying his own core of leadership — if only to justify his stated strategy of regime elimination — has never been more needed.
Read more from Michael Gerson’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.THE DISTRICT Magistrate of Kamrup (Metro) district, which includes Guwahati city and its suburbs, has declared a radius of 100 metres from “all prominent religious places” under his jurisdiction — including temples, mosques, gurudwaras and churches — as a “silent zone”. According to a notification issued Friday evening, DM M Angamuthu has also asked the State Pollution Control Board to submit a monthly report on noise pollution in these zones.
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The notification states that it was issued in “compliance of the direction received from the Government of Assam”. It states that the decision was taken under Rule 3 (2) of the Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules, 2000, of the Environment Protection Act of 1986. The notification, however, does not directly refer to the use of microphones and loudspeakers in places of worship.
When contacted by The Sunday Express, Angamuthu declined to comment on the contents of the notification. “Anyway, the use of loudspeakers is not permitted between 10 pm and 6 am,” he said. Officials from the BJP-led government in Assam were not available for comment. Rule 3 of the Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules, 2000, of the Environment Protection Act of 1986, deals with “ambient air quality standards in respect of noise for different areas/zones”.
Rule 3 (2) states that the “State Government may categorise the areas into industrial, commercial, residential or silence areas/zones for the purpose of implementation of noise standards for different areas”. According to the notification, the five areas marked as silent zones in Guwahati include all government and private hospitals; educational institutions; the high court, district and sessions court and the CJM’s court; all government offices; and, “all prominent religious places inclusive of temples, gurudwaras, mosques, churches, monastery, math and naam-ghar, etc”.
The notification states that officials of the Public Works Department have been asked to place proper signages in the notified areas within 15 days. The State Pollution Control Board has been asked to collect, compile and publish technical and statistical data relating to noise pollution as well as measures taken for its effective prevention and control, it says. The issue of loudspeakers being used at places of worship was the subject of a heated debate on social media recently after singer Sonu Nigam wrote that he had been woken by the azaan and questioned the use of loudspeakers at places of worship.
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On April 16, Nigam posted on his official Twitter account: “God bless everyone. I’m not a Muslim and I have to be woken up by the Azaan in the morning. When will this forced religiousness end in India.” In another tweet, he wrote: “I don’t believe in any temple or gurudwara using electricity to wake up people who don’t follow the religion. Why then..? Honest? True?”An effort by Sen. Rand Paul Randal (Rand) Howard PaulThe Hill's Morning Report — Emergency declaration to test GOP loyalty to Trump The Hill's 12:30 Report: Trump escalates fight with NY Times The 10 GOP senators who may break with Trump on emergency MORE (R-Ky.) to freeze $1.5 billion in annual aid to Egypt went down to defeat on Wednesday.
Only 12 Republicans supported Paul's amendment to the transportation spending bill that would have allocated the foreign aid to Egypt for bridge repairs in the United States. The amendment was defeated in a 86-13 vote.
Paul argued that U.S. law requires the aid to be terminated in the case of a military coup, which he said happened when elected Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was deposed on July 3.
Senators opposed to his amendment, Paul argued, were “voting against the rule of law.”
“It's not convenient now to obey the law that they passed,” he said.
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Backing the amendment from Paul was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellHouse to push back at Trump on border Democrats block abortion bill in Senate Overnight Energy: Climate protesters storm McConnell’s office | Center-right group says Green New Deal could cost trillion | Dire warnings from new climate studies MORE (R-Ky.) as well as by a coalition of Tea Party and others proponents of government spending cuts, including Sens. Ted Cruz Rafael (Ted) Edward CruzTrump unleashing digital juggernaut ahead of 2020 Inviting Kim Jong Un to Washington Trump endorses Cornyn for reelection as O'Rourke mulls challenge MORE (R-Texas), Mike Lee Michael (Mike) Shumway LeePush to end U.S. support for Saudi war hits Senate setback The Hill's Morning Report — Emergency declaration to test GOP loyalty to Trump The Hill's 12:30 Report: Trump escalates fight with NY Times MORE (R-Utah), Dean Heller Dean Arthur HellerTrump suggests Heller lost reelection bid because he was 'hostile' during 2016 presidential campaign Trump picks ex-oil lobbyist David Bernhardt for Interior secretary Oregon Dem top recipient of 2018 marijuana industry money, study finds MORE (R-Nev.), Tom Coburn Thomas (Tom) Allen CoburnThe Hill's Morning Report — Presented by PhRMA — Worries grow about political violence as midterms approach President Trump’s war on federal waste American patients face too many hurdles in regard to health-care access MORE (R-Okla.), Jerry Moran Gerald (Jerry) MoranThe Hill's Morning Report — Emergency declaration to test GOP loyalty to Trump The Hill's 12:30 Report: Trump escalates fight with NY Times The 10 GOP senators who may break with Trump on emergency MORE (R-Kansas), James Risch (R-Idaho), Mike Crapo Michael (Mike) Dean CrapoSenate reignites blue slip war over Trump court picks New push to open banks to marijuana industry Private insurance plays a critical part in home mortgage ecosystem MORE (R-Idaho), Mike Enzi Michael (Mike) Bradley EnziWill Senate GOP try to pass a budget this year? Presumptive benefits to Blue Water Navy veterans are a major win If single payer were really a bargain, supporters like Rep. John Yarmuth would be upfront about its cost MORE (R-Wyo.), John Barrasso John Anthony BarrassoOvernight Energy: Trump ends talks with California on car emissions | Dems face tough vote on Green New Deal | Climate PAC backing Inslee in possible 2020 run Dems face tough vote on Green New Deal Dems slam EPA plan for fighting drinking water contaminants MORE (R-Wyo.), Charles Grassley Charles (Chuck) Ernest GrassleyOvernight Health Care: Drug execs set for grilling | Washington state to sue over Trump rule targeting Planned Parenthood | Wyoming moves closer to Medicaid work requirements Senate reignites blue slip war over Trump court picks Lower refunds amplify calls to restore key tax deduction MORE (R-Iowa) and John Thune John Randolph ThunePolls: Hiking estate tax less popular than taxing mega wealth, income Will Trump sign the border deal? Here's what we know Key GOP senator pitches Trump: Funding deal a 'down payment' on wall MORE (R-S.D.).
Leaders on the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations argued at length against abruptly terminating aid to Egypt. They raised concerns, however, with the administration's decision to avoid saying whether Morsi's ouster was a coup; such a determination would have triggered an automatic aid freeze until the election of another president in Egypt.
Senate Foreign Relations chairman Robert Menendez Robert (Bob) MenendezActing Defense chief calls Graham an 'ally' after tense exchange William Barr is right man for the times This week: Trump delivers State of the Union amid wall fight MORE (D-N.J.) said the vote on aid was “far too important a decision to be an afterthought to an appropriations bill.”
“We need a more nuanced approach, one that speaks to both our values and our interests,” Menendez said, “and which provides the president with the flexibility needed to conduct delicate and discriminating policy in a challenging and chaotic environment.”
The top Republican on the committee, Sen. Bob Corker Robert (Bob) Phillips CorkerBrexit and exit: A transatlantic comparison Sasse’s jabs at Trump spark talk of primary challenger RNC votes to give Trump 'undivided support' ahead of 2020 MORE (Tenn.), vowed to take up the legal issues of continued aid to Egypt when Congress returns in September.
Please send tips and comments to Julian Pecquet: [email protected]
Follow us on Twitter: @TheHillGlobal and @JPecquetTheHillQaryatain is home to 40,000 people - many of them members of Syria's
Capture of the town allows ISIS to unify several key areas under its control
Jihadis fighting for the Islamic State have seized a key town in central Syria in what is the terror group's most significant advance since capturing the ancient city of Palmyra in May.
The heavily populated town of Qaryatain lies south west of Palmyra, which is home to towering Roman ruins, and is located some 50 miles from the Assad regime-held city of Homs.
ISIS fanatics seized the town earlier this morning after three suicide bombers targeted army checkpoints at the entrance to Qaryatain yesterday.
Following intense overnight fighting, the Assad loyalists were overwhelmed - allowing the terrorists to take full control of the key town and prompting them to release a series of gloating images of militants posing with captured tanks on affiliated Facebook pages.
Terrorists: ISIS jihadis have posted a series of gloating images of militants posing with captured tanks on affiliated Facebook pages since capturing the heavily populated Syrian town of Qaryatain earlier this morning
An Islamic State fighter poses with a tank captured from Syrian regime forces during overnight clashes
Location: The heavily populated town of Qaryatain lies south west of Palmyra, which is home to towering Roman ruins, and is located some 50 miles from the Assad regime-held city of Homs
The capture of Qaryatain allows ISIS to link up areas under its control in and around Palmyra with areas in the eastern countryside of Qalamoun in Damascus province.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ISIS seized the town today after three suicide bombers targeted army checkpoints at the entrance the day before, setting off a fierce battle.
Websites affiliated with ISIS confirmed that the terror group had taken control of Qaryatain.
A Facebook page through which ISIS posts news of its military activities carried photos purportedly to show the fighting to 'liberate' the town, including a tank allegedly seized from the Syrian army.
Qaryatain lies midway between the cities of Homs, Palmyra and Damascus.
Activists say it has a mixed population of around 40,000 Sunni Muslims and Christians, as well as thousands of internally displaced people who had fled from Homs.
Taking control: ISIS fanatics (pictured) seized the town earlier this morning after three suicide bombers targeted army checkpoints at the entrance to Qaryatain yesterday
Moving in: Following intense overnight fighting, the Assad loyalists were overwhelmed - allowing the terrorists to take full control of the key town
ISIS has suffered a string of military setbacks since capturing Palmyra.
In June, Kurdish fighters and their local allies expelled the terror group from the key northern border town of Tal Abyad, cutting off a major supply route for the group.
Late last month, Turkey began carrying out airstrikes against ISIS targets in Syria.
It also agreed to allow U.S. warplanes to use the strategic Incirlik Air Base for anti-ISIS operations.
Yesterday Turkey's foreign minister said that American aircraft had started to arrive at the base, adding that an 'extensive' fight against the extremists would soon begin.
The news comes as a Kurdish official claimed that ISIS executed 19 women for refusing to have sex with its fighters.
He claimed the women were being held hostage in ISIS' Iraqi stronghold of Mosul, which the terror group seized in June last year.
Seized Qaryatain is ISIS' most significant advance since capturing the ancient city of Palmyra in May (pictured)
Until the capture of Qaryatain ISIS had suffered a string of military setbacks since seizing Palmyra (pictured)
Earlier Iran's President Hassan Rouhani told his Turkish counterpart that the two countries must work with one another to root out the threat of extremism in the Middle East.
The two countries'should achieve a joint plan and a practical solution, with each other's help, for uprooting terrorism in the region,' Rouhani told Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a telephone call last night.
'A consolidation and expansion of ties between Tehran and Ankara is of paramount importance to us,' the official IRNA news agency quoted Rouhani as saying.
Nearly a year after a US-led coalition started air strikes against the Islamic State group, Ankara has finally launched a two-pronged offensive against the jihadis in Syria.
Turkey's strikes began two weeks ago after a series of attacks inside its territory including a devastating suicide bombing blamed on IS.
But at the same time, Turkey has also been carrying out strikes on Kurdish forces based in northern Iraq that it claims are linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) - a group Ankara considers a terrorist organisation.
The brave Kurdish defence forces in Syria and Iraq have so far proven to be the most effective group combating ISIS on the ground, despite little support from Western nations.Unlike his previous unveilings at Chelsea, there were no gimmicks this time around as Jose Mourinho was introduced as Manchester United manager. There was no "Special One" or the "Happy One," rather he had a very down to earth and measured approach to the questions he was asked.
The only moment when he did come across slightly rattled came when he was questioned about his attitude to promoting youth, which is a cornerstone of Manchester United's philosophy, and something he has been criticised for failing to do at his previous clubs.
Like Rafa Benitez and his list of facts, which weren't actually facts, or Louis van Gaal and his passing statistics dossier, Mourinho came well prepared for this question. He produced a sheet of 49 names of academy players he had given debuts to over his 16 years of management, saying that statements suggesting he overlooked youth were "lies."
Mourinho's record with young players is something that split United fans ahead of his appointment. While it is accurate to claim he has played 49 players from the academies, that doesn't necessarily support the notion that he gives youth a chance.
At Chelsea, there were just five players he gave starts to in the Premier League over five years, and a total of 352 minutes in the league to products of the youth team. That works out at less than six hours, with Ruben Loftus-Cheek taking up three of those.
Managers can only work with what they have, though, so if the youth team players aren't good enough, Mourinho can't be blamed for that.
While Louis van Gaal has made Mourinho's job easier in a lot of ways, given it will take some doing for the new manager to rival football as dull and success as limited, when it comes to youth, the Dutchman has put pressure on United's new boss.
Van Gaal gave debuts to 14 players, with the likes of Marcus Rashford and Timothy Fosu-Mensah proving to be particularly impressive. In the case of the former, Manchester lad Rashford had an incredible few months towards the end of the season, scoring match-winning goals against Arsenal, Manchester City and West Ham, as well as earning a surprise call up to the England squad for Euro 2016.
Now that Mourinho has brought in Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who certainly won't be warming the bench with the reputation he has and money he is earning, questions have been asked over where Rashford will feature in the new manager's plans.
The youngster led the line for Van Gaal in Anthony Martial and Wayne Rooney's absence, but when both players returned from injury, Rashford held on to his preferred position in the starting lineup.
With Mourinho, Rashford may find himself flanking Ibrahimovic, with Martial on the other side. This could prove to be a good move for him, particularly at this stage of his career, with his pace a huge asset and something well suited to a wider position.
Regardless, whether Mourinho is a huge promoter of youth or not is fairly irrelevant at this point, as age wouldn't put the manager off using a player who has already proven he is capable of performing at the top level. Maybe Rashford, 18, wouldn't have made his debut for Mourinho if the Portuguese manager was in charge last season, but that matters little now. Rashford has shown what he is capable of and Mourinho didn't become the successful manager he is by ignoring the immensely talented players available to him.
The potential test ahead is if Rashford has a slump in form, something that you might well expect from a player who had his eye set on a starting place in the under-21 side this time last year, but who has now been thrust into the limelight for club and country.
Marcus Rashford is the latest exciting youth product from the Manchester United academy.
Will Mourinho persevere with Rashford or will he dip in to the transfer market to bring in a player who is tried and tested? The Portuguese allowed players like Romelu Lukaku and Kevin De Bruyne to leave Chelsea and brought in the likes of Samuel Eto'o and a year later, Didier Drogba. Even Radamel Falcao, who had a terrible time at United in 2014-15, was deemed worthy of another chance by Mourinho last season, with the manager possibly having more time for players who have already established themselves, even if age or form is working against them.
However, the introduction of Ibrahimovic doesn't necessarily mean that Rashford is being sacrificed, rather his development is being aided.
When talking about Ibrahimovic at his unveiling, Mourinho said: "His experience will be invaluable in helping to develop the younger players in the squad."
While time on the pitch is obviously a crucial feature in bringing Rashford's game on, playing and training alongside Ibrahimovic can only be a positive move for the young striker.
It stands to reason that people outside of Old Trafford will be trying to poke holes in Mourinho's reputation, clearly aware that United stand their best chance of winning the title since Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement, but when it comes to playing Rashford, supporters shouldn't be too concerned.
Mario Balotelli, Alvaro Morata, Jese Rodriguez, Raphael Varane and Davide Santon are among the young players Mourinho put his faith in, and there's no reason why Rashford can't join that list.
It's unlikely that Mourinho will leave a legacy of youth football behind him when his time at United comes to an end, as Sir Matt Busby and Ferguson did, but he will use the players who have proven themselves to be good enough, and for that reason Rashford doesn't have anything to worry about.
Scott is one of ESPN FC's Manchester United bloggers. Follow him on Twitter: @R_o_M.By Daniel Mabsout
The taking over of the Palestinian cause on behalf of the International community is what BDS is. The pro-Palestinian activists and audience are being taken on a trip by the World Order and it is the BDS trip. BDS is not representative of the Palestinian civil society, and the Palestinian organizations it represents are foreign infiltrated NGOs and not Palestinians, therefore BDS cannot speak in the name of the Palestinian Cause. This is the first lie. And BDS is built on this lie. If BDS is Palestinian, then why its headquarters is outside Palestine and why its operating room is in South Africa?
Why BDS does not Boycott Israel itself, why it is after Ford Motor Company and G4S and Garnier and whatever? It is Israel that should be denounced and exposed as an illegitimate state built on usurp and genocide, and Israel that should be dismantled as a usurping state in order to allow the Palestinians to return to their homes and the other Palestinian to enjoy peace in their homeland.
The Usurping state of Israel should be first disarmed and then dismantled for the Palestinians to return home. We are hailing BDS and no one speaks about the 200 nuclear heads that Israel possesses and the missiles and the submarines and the air fighters and all kinds of weapons that are daily being flown to Israel. Why no one is is raising this issue that Israel is a real threat to the whole region and not just applying segregationist policies that should be reformed. What kind of crap is this? Let the EU and USA stop arming the usurping state and stop funding it and sustaining it and Israel will fall on its own and will not last few months. This is much better than rallying against Soda Stream!
***The International Community should support instead the armed struggle of the Palestinian people to retrieve their rights and their homes instead of rallying against stupid BDS that is nothing but a manipulated and infiltrated NGO financed by George Soros and the European UnionNo man did more to blaze the trail for anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim hysteria than Donald Trump’s spiritual fore-bearer, Patrick Buchanan. So it’s not too surprising that Buchanan is propped up in the Mean Folks Home somewhere, spraying MD 20/20 at the 12” screen of his Philco Safari, as he screams along with Trump.
In fact, Buchanan is so simpatico with Donald, that he’s convinced that the only way Trump can lose is if Hillary cheats.
Buchanan, citing Trump’s recent suggestion that the election could be “rigged,” said that if Hillary Clinton defeats Trump, “would that not suggest there is something fraudulent about American democracy, something rotten in the state?”
It might also suggest that Hillary got more votes than Trump. But that idea hasn’t entered Buchanan’s mind. Trump can only beaten by being cheated, and of course, you know what comes next.
The Czechs had their Prague Spring. The Tunisians and Egyptians their Arab Spring. When do we have our American Spring?
Wait. Is this the scenario that ends up with Cliven Bundy leading ISIS in Nevada?— The Cleveland Cavaliers entered Game 2 of the 2016 NBA Finals down 1-0 to the Golden State Warriors, but at least one statistic must have provided some comfort: Since 2009, LeBron James had never lost a Game 2 following a Game 1 loss. With the Warriors looking to get halfway to clinching a title before leaving the Bay, the stakes were high for the Cavs to figure out a way to make a statement in Game 2, following their 15-point Game 1 loss. But it turned out it was the Warriors who delivered a resounding message in Game 2, with a blowout 110-77 win to a take a 2-0 series lead. Let's look at what went right and wrong in Game 2:
The Warriors' versatile big man has been an essential part of this Golden State squad the last two seasons. While his scoring is usually bonus content to the Warriors' cause, it's Green's ability to defend multiple positions, on the interior or the perimeter, that gives coach Steve Kerr and the Warriors the ability to utilize smaller lineups without losing anything in terms of effort or hustle on the glass. In Game 2, Green finished with 28 points, seven rebounds, five assists and one turnover. As the Cavaliers dedicated defenders to stopping Klay Thompson and Steph Curry, Green was frequently left unguarded at the three-point line, and Green cashed in 5 of his 8 three-point attempts. "The way they're guarding us, Draymond's open a lot," explained Kerr. "So he becomes our safety valve when there's pressure. He becomes an open shooter when they're jumping out at Steph or Klay. So it's a good situation for him. It's just the way the series has played out so far. He's been in a pretty comfortable position. We like to play him at the top of the key as a passer, as a shooter, and so far he's been in a good spot. He's done a nice job of navigating when to shoot, when to pass."
WRONG: Cleveland's pace
Following their Game 1 loss, the Cavaliers spoke early and often of their intent to infuse their offense with more pace and tempo in Game 2. This could be seen as being counter intuitive, as the high-speed Golden State attack tends to thrive when teams attempt to match their speed. Since Tyronn Lue took over as Cleveland's coach at midseason, there's been an emphasis on playing with pace. But in Game 2 the Cavs were never really able to get their offense unleashed and get the ball moving from side to side, as they often found themselves defaulting to one-on-one plays at the end of the shot clock. While the Cavs trailed Golden State at the half by a manageable 52-44, The Cavs scored just 18 points in the third quarter and 15 in the fourth. "I thought early we did hit first," said Lue. "I just thought when they went to the small lineup, their small lineup was a lot faster than what ours was. Being faster and being longer and athletic gave us some trouble. It gave us some problems. So we've got to try to figure that lineup out, and we'll be fine. But I thought we came out with the right intentions. We had a chance to make some plays in transition. We turned the ball over, fumbled the ball and didn't convert when we needed to convert."
RIGHT: The Splash Brothers
Golden State won Game 1 despite the Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry combining for just 20 points, their lowest total of the season. And while Curry played just 24 minutes in Game 2 due to foul trouble, he still managed to score 18 points and grab a team-high nine rebounds. Meanwhile, Klay Thompson finished with 17 points and five assists, including a flurry midway through the second quarter that helped key a 20-2 run from the Warriors to overcome Cleveland's six-point lead, their largest of the game. "The hardest part of the series is coming up when we go to Cleveland," said Thompson. "They'll be playing with a sense of desperation, and their fans are going to be really hungry. They're not very nice in Cleveland, the fans, and that's all right. That's what makes the game so much fun."
As two-thirds of Cleveland's Big Three, Irving and Love are expected to help LeBron James shoulder the load for the Cavaliers. That didn't happen in Game 2, although that was partially due to injury. Irving ended with 10 points and one assist, and finished the game with a -26 plus/minus rating. Meanwhile, Things went wrong for Love, through no fault of his own. Golden State forward Harrison Barnes injured Love with an inadvertent elbow to the head during the second quarter. Love stayed in the game at the time, but after experiencing dizziness in the second half, he was removed and was placed in the NBA's concussion protocol, putting his availability going forward in doubt. "I didn't even know what happened," Lue said, "but at halftime he showed no symptoms. He didn't talk about it. Then when we came back out in the third quarter, I could see in a timeout he looked kind of woozy. He went back on the floor for a second, and then we had to get him off the floor."
RIGHT: LeBron James
Cleveland's do-everything forward did a little bit of everything in Game 2. After finishing one assist shy of a triple-double in Game 1, James had 19 points, nine assists and eight rebounds in Game 2. James seemed to take a larger role on offense, serving a facilitating role early on (he had no points and five assists in the first quarter) before starting to drive to the rim (James had 14 points in the second quarter). James also turned the ball over seven times, and following the game he noted he was unhappy with his overall performance. "I got myself in a lot of trouble tonight personally," said James. "Turned the ball over way too much. And I said after Game 1 we just can't turn the ball over against a great team and expect to win, and I had basically half of the turnovers. We had some in the fourth quarter, but we had our third group in. They had some. But I had half of the turnovers when I came out, and it resulted in them getting some easy baskets. So I've got to be better. I've got to be better with the ball. You know, trying to play make for myself and play make for my teammates at the same time, I've just got to be more solid."
WRONG: J.R. Smith and Channing Frye
Cleveland's floor-stretchers haven't been able to open the floor. While the sharpshooting Smith averaged 12.4 ppg during the regular season, on almost seven three-point attempts per game, Frye has been terrific in the postseason for Cleveland, averaging 2.5 made three-pointers in the playoffs against Atlanta and Toronto. But neither has been able to get going in the NBA Finals. Smith was 1-for-4 on threes in Game 2, making him 2-for-7 for the Finals. Frye is 0-for-1 on threes in the Finals. Their shooting provides an important counterweight to Cleveland's ability to drive the basketball, as Smith and Frye hitting threes opens things up for Cleveland's offense. And after averaging 83 points through two games, one way or another, Cleveland's offense desperately needs unlocking.
Lang Whitaker has covered the NBA since 1998. You can e-mail him here or follow him on Twitter.
The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Turner Broadcasting.The lawsuit also involves 'Turner and Hooch' and alleges that Disney is making it "exceedingly difficult for profit participants to retain the best possible representation and be paid the monies they are due."
What about David? That's the question posed by a new lawsuit filed by Richard Dreyfuss and Christine Wagner against Walt Disney Pictures over the 1991 film What About Bob? and 1989 motion picture Turner and Hooch. Dreyfuss co-starred with Bill Murray in the former, while Wagner's late husband produced the latter, starring Tom Hanks and a dog.
According to a complaint filed on Thursday in LA Superior Court, Disney has refused a demand by Dreyfuss and Wagner to hire their chosen auditor — Robinson Inc., founded by David J. Robinson.
In a potentially watershed case from attorney Neville Johnson, the complaint lays out how profit participation auditors are called upon to find monies due to profit participants and how studios are "make auditing as onerous as possible."
Often, when big stars do battle with studios over auditing, it never gets reported publicly because of confidentiality agreements and disputes adjudicated in closed door arbitration. According to the lawsuit, the arbitrators don't wish to upset the studios for fear of losing repeat business. "It's a one-sided world where corporations assert their control over talent who do not have the leverage to otherwise protect themselves."
Dreyfuss and Wagner now figure they have an opening to explore issues of how net profits are calculated by raising the issue of auditors.
"There are very few firms that regularly audit the Studios," states the complaint. "The so-called 'Big Four' accounting firms have no reputation for or competence in this regard. These few firms that do have the relevant expertise include: Robinson Inc.; Green Hasson Janks; Hacker Douglas & Company; and Nigro Karlin Segal Feldstein & Bolno."
Robinson is said to be "tough, tenacious, and gets results," which allegedly is why Disney doesn't want the firm involved. But the plaintiffs argue that it's a reputable firm that has performed audits of all the studios including Disney, and furthermore that Robinson is an extremely qualified auditor. He was the director of Worldwide Television Finance for NBCUniversal. He also spent time in the 1990s for Deloitte & Touche where his clients are said to have included E! Entertainment Television, Beacon Communications, Rysher Entertainment, Harvey Entertainment, DirecTV and Todd-AO Studios.
Robinson's firm is a co-plaintiff in the suit.
In response to demands that Robinson be allowed to perform audits for Dreyfuss, Disney stated that such an audit must be done "by a national firm of reputable CPAs."
"Disney has not stated any basis for its conclusion that Robinson Inc. is not a nationally recognized firm," retorts the lawsuit. "Apparently, no one can leave a 'nationally recognized firm,' and start out on his or her own without running afoul of Disney's policy regarding the same. What Disney has done is reduce an already very small pool of auditors to a nearly non-existent puddle, and made it exceedingly difficult for profit participants to retain the best possible representation and be paid the monies they are due."
Alleging such causes of action as breach of contract, violation of California business and professions code, and intentional interference with the right to pursue a lawful calling or profession, the plaintiffs assert that they are being damaged. Wagner says she is entitled to 50 percent of Turner and Hooch net profits and there are fees at stake for Robinson.
Also representing the plaintiffs are attorneys Douglas Johnson and Jordanna Thigpen.
Disney hasn't yet responded to a request for comment.
Twitter: @eriqgardnerMore than a year after Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey banned "copycat" assault rifles, anger at her move still riles gun owners as lawmakers consider bills to strip Healey's authority.
"I'm still wondering if I'm going to be prosecuted by the attorney general ever since last July for her decision to invent a number of new felonies," said Matthew Jackson, software engineer and gun owner from Marlborough.
Jackson said he owns guns that were legal at the time he bought them. "I don't like the idea that whether or not I am a felon is determined by the goodwill of the attorney general," Jackson said. "I feel like some amount of legislative
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final album still appears to be in the name of the band, the album name, Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III was purposefully vague, without a specific artist's name. Even the two singles from the album were released under different names, though Linda Ronstadt now had the burden of the Capitol recording contract: "See, The [Stone] Poneys were taken off the books after the second album. Since it was a hit, they made royalties off it. But I didn't. I paid all by myself for the third album, which was expensive, and it put me severely in the red by the time I started recording my first solo album."[2]
Later incarnations [ edit ]
By late 1967, Linda Ronstadt began recruiting musicians to assist in the studio and also on the road. One of the first was an old friend from Tucson, Shep Cooke. He had already turned down Ronstadt's invitation to join Stone Poneys twice (in 1966 and also in early 1967); when she asked him again in late 1967: "Something told me I'd better not decline a third time. 'Different Drum' was climbing up the charts, and I couldn't refuse. So I joined the Stone Poneys in November 1967."[9] Another latter-day member of Stone Poneys was Kit Alderson, who would later help train Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon in the guitar and autoharp, respectively, for their work in the 2005 Johnny Cash/June Carter Cash biopic film Walk the Line. By November 1968, a different group of musicians were billing themselves as the Stone Poneys. Joining Ronstadt was guitarist John Forsha – who was also a session player on the band's first two albums – drummer John Ware, bassist John Keski, steel guitarist Herb Steiner, and drummer Bill Martin.[3]
Purists might contend that these Stone Poneys were not the real band, only backing musicians for Linda Ronstadt; however, they were still being billed as Stone Poneys, and many of the musicians still view themselves as "ex-Stone Poneys". Shep Cooke fondly remembers his time with the band: "We rehearsed like crazy, finished the third Stone Poney album, toured the entire country for 2½ months, played on Joey Bishop's and Johnny Carson's TV shows*, went crazy for lack of sleep, and parted company (after the last gig in late 1968) reasonably good friends but a little disillusioned about 'the big time'."[9]
(*There was never a 'Tonight Show' Stone Poneys appearance aired. Linda first appeared on the late night talk show in 1969. Her second appearance wasn't until 1983.)
Post break-up [ edit ]
Despite the lack of big hits, Linda Ronstadt was becoming increasingly well-known following the success of "Different Drum", and in 1969 she officially went solo with her album Hand Sown...Home Grown. However, beginning in the mid-1970s, Kenny Edwards recorded and toured with Linda for about 10 years. In 2007, Linda Ronstadt reconnected with Bob Kimmel in Tucson and sang harmony vocals on one of Kimmel's songs, "Into the Arms of Love" that was included on a CD released that year by his new band, BK Special.
Albums and singles [ edit ]
Official Capitol releases [ edit ]
On the first two albums, most of the songs were written by Bob Kimmel and Kenny Edwards. Under the guidance of producer Nik Venet and Capitol, the group recorded their first album in the fall of 1966, The Stone Poneys, which was released in January 1967. The album is notable for its precise strong-voiced harmony vocals. The disc's one and only single release "Sweet Summer Blue And Gold" received no airplay and failed to chart anywhere. (The first album is now mainly known by the name of the 1975 reissue, The Stone Poneys Featuring Linda Ronstadt).
The second album, Evergreen, Volume 2 was released in June 1967. On this album, Linda Ronstadt sang lead vocals on almost all songs. The exception was the title track, which has a psychedelic rock feel. Kenny Edwards was the vocalist on "Part One", while "Part Two" was an instrumental that featured fine sitar work (also by Edwards).
The band hit pay dirt with Michael Nesmith's "Different Drum"[10] (written and copyrighted in 1965 prior to Nesmith joining The Monkees), the second 45 (following "One for One") from the new album. The band's version of "Different Drum" hit the Billboard Pop Chart on November 11, 1967 and stayed in the Hot 100 for 17 weeks, getting as high as No. 13. The song also reached No. 12 on the Cash Box survey. The song has been a staple on oldies radio ever since and remains one of Linda Ronstadt's most popular recordings.[11] Its parent record slid up Billboard's main album chart to No. 100 and lasted for a respectable 15 weeks on that chart.
Their third album was titled Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III (released in April 1968); at this point, Capitol was promoting Linda Ronstadt rather than the band, and only Linda's picture was on the cover. Like its predecessor, the album had two singles: "Up To My Neck In High Muddy Water" b/w "Carnival Bear" (released under the name Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys) which stalled at No. 93 on the Hot 100; and "Some of Shelly's Blues" b/w "Hobo" (released under the name Stone Poneys, Featuring Linda Ronstadt) which, like the album, did not chart. "Some of Shelly's Blues" was another Michael Nesmith song. The album ended with the Laura Nyro song, "Stoney End", which turned out to have been aptly named (although the song was not written for The Stone Poneys).
"So Fine" single [ edit ]
After "Different Drum" became a hit, Mike Curb pulled out two of the recordings he had produced back in 1965, "So Fine" and "Everybody Has His Own Ideas", and decided to release them in 1968 as a 45 on his label Sidewalk, which was a Capitol subsidiary. The single was put out without the knowledge of Capitol – or Mercury either, for that matter, who had paid for the recording session. Capitol record company executives were understandably furious, and the single was immediately pulled from the market.[12] Thus, this disk has become one of the rarest Linda Ronstadt collectables, bringing as much as $144 (in a 2007 eBay auction).[13]
Reissues [ edit ]
In the early 1970s, the Pickwick record label licensed several Stone Poneys tracks from their Capitol albums. Five of these songs were included as Side 2 on a dual compilation album called Back on the Street Again (catalog number SPC-3245), with Side 1 consisting of five songs by David Clayton-Thomas that are taken from solo albums that he was recording while serving as the lead singer for Blood, Sweat and Tears. Other than the title song and "Different Drum", the Stone Poneys songs on this album are relatively obscure tracks that have hardly appeared at all on Ronstadt's compilation albums over the years: "Song About the Rain", "I've Got to Know" (also known as "I'd Like to Know") and "New Hard Times".
Apparently somewhat later, Pickwick released Stoney End (catalog number SPC-3298) under the name Linda Ronstadt & The Stone Poneys. The only song included on both of the Pickwick albums is "Different Drum"; the other tracks on this album are mostly familiar songs like "One for One" and "Some of Shelly's Blues", as well as their recording of the 1960s classic "Let's Get Together". (The album was released on the heels of the successful reissue of the version by The Youngbloods in 1969).
In 1974, prior to the release of Heart Like A Wheel, Capitol issued a Linda Ronstadt compilation titled Different Drum, which featured five Stone Poney tracks and five songs from Ronstadt's first three solo albums. Aside from the title track, the four Stone Poneys tracks were remixed tracks from the third Stone Poneys' album, all featuring Ronstadt solo: "Hobo," "Up To My Neck In High Muddy Water," "Some Of Shelly's Blues," and "Stoney End."
Eight years after the release of the band's first album (in March 1975), it was reissued by Capitol under the name The Stone Poneys Featuring Linda Ronstadt, as a result of the multi-platinum success Linda Ronstadt had in 1974-75 as a solo artist with the No. 1 album Heart Like A Wheel. The song listing in the reissue highlighted Ronstadt's three solo performances (she also sang solo on one verse in a fourth song that was not so identified). As a result, the largely unknown first album by The Stone Poneys was more widely available in the 1970s and 1980s than the subsequent albums that featured the band's more familiar songs.
In 1995, Capitol briefly issued the three Stone Poneys albums as individual CD releases. These releases were removed from the catalog within a few years.
In 2008, the Australian label Raven released The Stone Poneys, a 27-track "two-fer" CD featuring the first two Stone Poneys albums plus four tracks from their third album.
Linda Ronstadt has claimed dissatisfaction with the arrangements of the three Stone Poneys albums many times over the years, but Capitol has continually made money through reissues of the early material in numerous configurations. Also, in addition to their hit song "Different Drum", several of the other Stone Poneys tracks have been featured in many of Linda Ronstadt's compilation albums over the years, such as "Hobo", "Some of Shelly's Blues" and "Stoney End".
Unreleased material [ edit ]
The now deleted Linda Ronstadt Box Set included the initial release of "Everybody Has His Own Ideas" besides the original 45; otherwise, the only Stone Poneys music made available on CD has been the songs on the original three albums, which has left many songs such as "Carnival Bear," from a 1968 single that never appeared on any of the albums, without any available issue. Even the three song "fragments" that open the third album – which total barely 1½ minutes – have never been reissued as full songs.
Discography [ edit ]
Numbers in parentheses indicate the date of release, and also the highest position on Billboard charts
Singles [ edit ]
"Sweet Summer Blue and Gold" b/w "All the Beautiful Things" (rel. 1/67) – Capitol #P 5838; promo; yellow label
"Sweet Summer Blue and Gold" b/w "All the Beautiful Things" (rel. 1/67) – Capitol No. 5838; yellow/orange swirl label
"One for One" b/w "Evergreen" (rel. 6/67) – Capitol #P 5910; promo; pale green label
"One for One" b/w "Evergreen" (rel. 6/67) – Capitol No. 5910; yellow/orange swirl label
"Different Drum" b/w "I've Got to Know" (rel. 9/67) – Capitol #P 2004; promo; pale green label
"Different Drum" b/w "I've Got to Know" (rel. 9/67) – Capitol No. 2004; yellow/orange swirl label (#13)
(#13) "Different Drum" b/w "I've Got to Know" (rel. 9/67) – Capitol No. 2004, red and orange label
"So Fine" b/w "Everybody Has Their Own Ideas" (rel. 68 - withdrawn) – Sidewalk No. 937; promo
"Up to My Neck in High Muddy Water" b/w "Carnival Bear" (rel. 3/68) – Capitol #P 2110; promo; pale green label
"Up to My Neck in High Muddy Water" b/w "Carnival Bear" (rel. 3/68) – Capitol No. 2110; yellow/orange swirl label (#93)
(#93) "Some of Shelly's Blues" b/w "Hobo (Morning Glory)" (rel. 5/68) – Capitol #P 2195; promo; pale green label
"Some of Shelly's Blues" b/w "Hobo (Morning Glory)" (rel. 5/68) – Capitol No. 2195; yellow/orange swirl label
(Re-Issue 45s)
"Different Drum" b/w "Long Long Time" (rel. 1980±); double-sided 'back-to-back' hits – Capitol #X-6185, violet label
"Different Drum" b/w "Long Long Time" (rel. 1975±); double-sided 'back-to-back' hits – Capitol/Starline No. 6185 grey label
Studio albums [ edit ]
Compilation albums [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Regarding Reference No. 1 – This article erroneously listed Arizona State University (which is located in Tempe, not Tucson) instead of Tucson's University of Arizona as the college that Linda Ronstadt attended for one semester in the fall of 1964. Archived enrollment records from U of A confirm this.In what is starting to look like a genius move, the federal government and local law enforcement have mostly kept their distance in the two weeks since an unknown number of out-of-town, rag-tag militiamen stormed the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon and vowed to stay until the federal government turned over its land to local ranchers.
So far authorities have declined to confront the men or to put the squeeze on them by restricting movement to and from the refuge or even to turn off the electricity, which might help draw the men out of the compound in the freezing January days.
But the lack of confrontation by federal officials has not only prevented it from becoming the next Waco or Ruby Ridge but transformed it into a peculiar and mundane sideshow, a one-sided standoff where the militiamen’s days are marked by visits from wacky outsiders like pretend judge Bruce Doucette coming to sniff out “evidence” against the federal government and from disgruntled community members ready for the men to leave already.
By leaving the would-be revolutionaries to their own devices, authorities have given them enough rope to hang themselves.
In the last week alone, the militiamen have made headlines–not for forcing the government’s hand on federal lands or helping free the Hammonds–but for throwing boxes of dildos on the floor in protest against the mocking mail they have been receiving, for getting arrested after allegedly driving an official refuge vehicle into town to get groceries, for ransacking government files and for using government computers.
With each odd incident, the media and the public gets more insight into the individuals holed up at the wildlife preserve and their puzzling and incongruent motivations. It does not appear that all of the men at the refuge subscribe to one ideology or another. A report from the Anti-Defamation League actually chronicles that the men hold a hodgepodge of views and have some varying disagreements on how to tackle the standoff.
By taking a hands-off approach to the incident, the government has actually given the militiamen room to stew, to fight with one another and ultimately, to undermine their cause.
Take for example Jon Ritzheimer, the man who recorded himself throwing boxes of sex toys onto the floor at the compound. Before he appeared in Oregon standoff videos, Ritzheimer was not known for taking up land disputes, but for putting together threatening, anti-Muslim protests and videos. He was well known in Arizona for organizing a protest where more than 200 individuals –many with guns– showed up outside of a Phoenix mosque. In November, he once again came on the FBI’s radar for announcing he planned to travel to a Muslim hamlet in New York.
Kenneth Medenbach, the man arrested for allegedly driving a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service vehicle into town, was actually out on bail for another seven-month government land occupation he was allegedly involved in last year. According to the Guardian, he was also convicted of squatting on government land in 1996 when the 62-year-old now chainsaw sculptor resided in a tent on government land and guarded his assumed property with “50 to 100 pounds of the explosive ammonium sulfate, a pellet gun, and what appeared to be a hand grenade with trip wires.”
The more outspoken, bold and hungry the militiamen are for attention, the more peculiar their standoff becomes. While federal officials have been wildly criticized for leaving the militiamen to their own devices, those still at the compound are giving feds plenty of evidence to help government officials charge them later.
In one bizarre video released last week from inside the compound, an ISIS-sympathizing, self-proclaimed video gamer from Ohio, David Fry, recorded himself using a Linux flash drive to circumvent password-protected government computers. And there are several photographs of de facto standoff leader Ammon Bundy ripping apart government fencing with his bare hands.
Over the weekend, one of the most outspoken standoff participants LaVoy Finicum– a Mormon rancher who has ceased paying grazing fees and has penned a right-wing conspiracy-ridden cowboy thriller – had several foster children removed from his family’s custody back in Arizona.
He claimed the federal government was taking aim against his family in retaliation for his involvement in the standoff in Oregon, but questions have now been raised about his motivations for fostering such a large number of children and whether such an activity is his major source of income.
Another man affiliated with the Oregon militiamen, Californian Darrow Burke, 57, crashed his vehicle outside of Hines, Oregon, in an embarrassing display for the militiamen Sunday. He was cited for driving without a license. A man who in the first few days of the standoff served as Ammon Bundy’s bodyguard – and who goes by the name of ‘Fluffy Unicorn’ – was arrested last week in Maricopa County, Arizona, for an outstanding warrant. One by one, the militiamen’s pasts are catching up with them.
Even the father and son pair they claimed to be fighting for – Dwight and Steven Hammond– have turned themselves into authorities and have begun serving five-year sentences for setting fire to federal lands. The Hammond family has said it wants nothing to do with the standoff at the refuge.
The longer this standoff drags on, the more the militiamen do that further undermines that cause and the more the federal government begins to look like they may have made the right move when the opted to deescalate the situation. Isolated from the rest of the country, the militiamen enter the third week of this standoff, free to cross legal lines and incriminate themselves on video tape.Tales around a fire. That’s how it started… the oral tradition, the first way knowledge was stored and transmitted.
Thousands of years later, we’ve rediscovered the power and presence of the human voice in the telling of new tales. Digital technology has made the recording and delivery of high-quality audio narration both convenient and affordable. Now storytellers everywhere are lifting their words from the page (or pixel) and breathing new life into their tales through audio fiction podcasts and audiobooks.
Translating a written tale into an audio presentation has unique rewards and challenges… and that’s the terrain we set out explore on this Roundtable Dialogue episode.
Joining me is Uvi Poznansky, Tom Barczak, Walter Rhein, and Janet and Chris Morris, a panel of astonishing artists and storytellers who have expressed their tales beautifully in both formats. Together, we set out to examine this old/new art form, sharing observations and insights to better understand the new oral tradition.
The Roundtable Dialogues #3: Audiobooks, The New Oral Tradition
[caution: mature language – listener discretion is advised]
Check out this and all our episodes on iTunes and on Stitcher Radio!Theo Allofs/Minden Pictures/FLPA
Elephants have evolved extra copies of a gene that fights tumour cells, according to two independent studies1, 2 — offering an explanation for why the animals so rarely develop cancer.
Why elephants do not get cancer is a famous conundrum that was posed — in a different form — by epidemiologist Richard Peto of the University of Oxford, UK, in the 1970s3. Peto noted that, in general, there is little relationship between cancer rates and the body size or age of animals. That is surprising: the cells of large-bodied or older animals should have divided many more times than those of smaller or younger ones, so should possess more random mutations predisposing them to cancer. Peto speculated that there might be an intrinsic biological mechanism that protects cells from cancer as they age and expand.
At least one solution to Peto's paradox may now have been found, according to a pair of papers independently published this week. Elephants have 20 copies of a gene called p53 (or, more properly, TP53), in their genome, where humans and other mammals have only one. The gene is known as a tumour suppressor, and it snaps to action when cells suffer DNA damage, churning out copies of its associated p53 protein and either repairing the damage or killing off the cell.
The elephant's tale
Uncovering TP53's role has taken a few years. Joshua Schiffman, a paediatric oncologist and scientist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, first heard about Peto’s paradox three years ago at an evolution conference, when Carlo Maley, an evolutionary biologist now at Arizona State University in Tempe, revealed he had found multiple copies of TP53 in the African elephant's genome.
Schiffman specializes in treating children missing one of their TP53 gene's two alleles, which leads them to develop cancer. So after hearing Maley's talk, he wondered whether elephants held some biological insight that could help his patients. He teamed up with Maley, who had not yet published his work, and asked elephant keepers at Salt Lake City’s zoo whether they could spare some elephant blood so that he could test how the p53 protein works in the mammals' white blood cells.
At about the same time, in mid-2012, Vincent Lynch, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Chicago in Illinois, was preparing for a lecture on Peto’s paradox, and wondered about mechanisms that could explain it. “Right before I gave the lecture, I searched the elephant genome for p53, and 20 hits came up,” says Lynch.
Schiffman and Lynch’s teams have now independently revealed their findings — Schiffman's in the Journal of the American Medical Association1, and Lynch's in a paper2 posted to the bioRxiv.org preprint site, but which is in review at the journal eLife.
Using zoo autopsy records for 36 mammals — from striped grass mice to elephants — Schiffman’s team recorded no relationship between body size and cancer rate. (Around 3% of elephants get cancer, according to the team’s analysis of hundreds of captive-elephant deaths).
The researchers found that elephants produce extra copies of the p53 protein, and that elephant blood cells seem exquisitely sensitive to DNA damage from ionizing radiation. The animals' cells carry out a controlled self-destruction called apoptosis in response to DNA damage at much higher rates than do human cells. Schiffman suggests that, instead of repairing the DNA damage, compromised elephant cells have evolved to kill themselves to nip nascent tumours in the bud. “This is a brilliant solution to Peto’s paradox,” he says.
Mammoth set
Lynch’s team — working with African and Asian elephant skin cells from the San Diego Zoo in California — found similar results. They also discovered more than a dozen TP53 copies in two extinct species of mammoth, but just one copy in elephants’ close living relatives, manatees and hyraxes (a small, furry mammal). Lynch thinks that the extra copies evolved as the lineage that led to elephants expanded in size. But he thinks that other biological mechanisms are involved too.
Mel Greaves, a cancer biologist at the Institute for Cancer Research in London, agrees that TP53 cannot be the only explanation. “As large animals get bigger, they become more and more sluggish,” he notes, thereby slowing their metabolism and the pace at which their cells divide. And protective mechanisms can only do so much to stop cancer, he adds. “What would happen if elephants smoked and had a bad diet,” he says. “Would they really be protected from cancer? I doubt it.”Wait a minute. Is that a cat inside a table? Created by Ruan Hao for Hangzhou and Hong Kong-based architecture firm LYCS, CATable is a functional wood table that’s designed for both people and cats! Like we’ve seen many times before, there’s been a growing trend of transforming livable spaces for the comfort of your cat. While German design company Goldtatze took that to an extreme with this indoor playground and, while, interior designer Jillian Northrup and her husband architect Jeffrey McGrew made it their mission to create this amazing transportation tube, this table is something that’s a bit more attainable.
With the proper-sized holes and long passageways, the table encourages cats to roam freely around your workspace. Their natural curiosity would be satisfied by exploring the unknown paths behind each hole. According to the architecture firm, the desk was created due to cat owners’ shared experience: “Putting away the cat from your lap top was like a sentimental ritual of temporary farewell.”
As Hao succinctly states, “It is a table for us, and a paradise for cats.” CATable was exhibited at this year’s Milan Design Week.
LYCS Architecture: Website | Facebook
via [Freshome]“I’m surprised by how blatant it was,” he added.
But Tea Party activists did not reserve their criticism for Democrats. “The Republicans, frankly, have been a disaster,” Mr. Meckler said. “They stood strong on some things, but the only reason they stood strong is because we stood behind them with a big stick.”
Still, the Tea Party could point to some impact already. Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, who will become House speaker when the Republicans assume the majority, has proposed new procedural rules that acknowledge Tea Party demands. House members will not be able to introduce a bill or a joint resolution without “a statement citing as specifically as practicable the power or powers granted to Congress in the Constitution to enact it.”
This was a leading demand of the Contract From America, a Tea Party manifesto that was issued as a prelude to the midterm elections. Proposed legislation will have to be posted online for three days before any vote, reflecting Tea Party demands for greater transparency.
More ceremonially, the rules call for the Constitution to be read aloud on the House floor when the session opens.
Tea Party pressure prevailed in blocking the Senate from passing a $1.2 trillion spending bill and a measure that would have created a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants.
Photo
But Judson Phillips, the founder of Tea Party Nation, a social-networking Web site, declared after the approval of the arms-control treaty that “the G.O.P. has caved.”
Mr. Phillips, too, had urged his members to inundate their lawmakers with phone calls, e-mails and faxes urging them to stop considering legislation. “Give them no rest until they are out of town,” he wrote.
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Tea Party leaders scoffed at the Republicans’ greatest victory from the lame-duck session — the extension of the Bush tax cuts as part of a compromise with the White House. Instead, Tea Party leaders complained that Republicans had abandoned a push for a full repeal of the estate tax.
Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content, updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.
Mr. Phillips said the tax cuts were more accurately described as “maintaining the status quo” because the lower rates had been in place for several years.
Despite its victories in November — more than 40 candidates supported by the Tea Party were elected to the House and Senate — the Tea Party lost battles for important leadership positions. Tea Party Patriots, for instance, had backed Representative Jack Kingston of Georgia to be chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Mr. Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin, also a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, criticized Republicans for choosing Representative Harold Rogers of Kentucky instead, saying he was likely “to continue the big-spending, pork-barrel ways that lost Republicans the majority four years ago.”
In an opinion article on Politico, the two also criticized Republican leaders for choosing Representative Fred Upton of Michigan to lead the Energy and Commerce Committee, saying the choice “indicated they are not serious about expanding the nation’s energy-producing capability” through expanded oil drilling and a relaxation of regulations on nuclear power and coal.
The collapse of the spending bill, which would have financed government agencies through September, also means that the next Congress will have an almost immediate effect on decisions about government spending. Under a stopgap measure, the current Congress extended financing for government agencies until only March.
Incoming Tea Party lawmakers said they would push for drastic cuts to federal agencies whose functions they believe would be better handled at the state level, like the Department of Education.
Mike Lee, a senator-elect from Utah who had Tea Party support and defeated an incumbent Republican, Robert F. Bennett, said that he, along with other incoming senators, had signed letters to Senate Democrats asking them to delay voting on the arms-control treaty until the new Congress was seated. Mr. Lee was disappointed that the Senate approved the treaty anyway.
Still, he said he believed that the vote to extend the Bush tax cuts signaled that Congress had heard the demands of the Tea Party in the midterm elections.
“This changes by degrees,” Mr. Lee said. “As long as you have a Democratic president and a Democratic-controlled Senate, I don’t think there are many people who are expecting that the government’s going to be transformed overnight into something in the image of the Tea Party. That would be delusional.”GETTY David Cameron called for older people to vote to stay in the EU
The Prime Minister also urged youngsters to tell their parents and grandparents to back EU membership in what he warned was a “very close” referendum battle. “Think about your children, about your grandchildren, think about the country and the world you want them to grow up in,” he said. “It is worth standing back and thinking here we are, 70 years after the end of the Second World War.
The PM is gaining a reputation for being a hypocrite Brian Monteith
“This continent which was in conflict for so much of the 20th century has found a way of peaceful coexistence and that is something we should want to be part of.” Mr Cameron told a Sunday newspaper of his fear that people who thought the “rational” course was to stay in the EU would not turn out to vote. “For heaven’s sake get out and vote In, because you might wake up and find out you’re out,” he pleaded.
GETTY The PM said people should think about their children and grand children
GETTY Young people in the UK have a greater tendency not to vote
Leave.EU spokesman Brian Monteith said: “The PM is fast gaining a reputation for being an impertinent hypocrite by turning the truth upside down and inside out. “Rather than begging young people, who have a greater tendency not to vote, to tell their grandparents, who need no lessons in voting, to keep the UK in the expensive EU, it is grandparents who are needed to advise young people it is in their interest to get out and vote to leave.”
The pros and cons of Brexit Fri, February 26, 2016 The pros and cons of Brexit. Play slideshow Getty Images 1 of 12 Pros and cons of Brexit
GETTY Carolyn Fairbairn said an exit would trigger serious economic disruptionEnlarge By Bill Ingalls, AFP/Getty Images NASA Administrator Charles Bolden speaks during a luncheon co-hosted by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Women In Aerospace on Dec. 9 at the Ritz-Carlton in Arlington, Va. WASHINGTON President Obama will chart a course for NASA within weeks, based on the advice of a handful of key advisers in the administration and Congress. Obama, who met Dec. 16 with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, hasn't said when or how he'll announce his new policy. The announcement likely will come by the time the president releases his fiscal 2011 budget in early February, because he must decide how much money the space agency should get. In determining NASA's future policy, Obama must decide whether to increase the agency's budget to pay for goals such as sending astronauts to the moon or Mars in missions that could be decades away. "The next authorization will really set the path of NASA for the next 10 to 20 years," said Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, which oversees space policy and research. In an October report, the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Committee said NASA's current funding puts it on an "unsustainable trajectory" to undertake ambitious missions. It urged Obama to increase the agency's budget by $3 billion a year — above the nearly $19 billion per year it receives now — to finance circumnavigating the moon and Mars, landing on one of Mars' moons, and landing on or docking with an asteroid during the next 15 years. The question is whether Obama will embrace one of those options or any of the others the committee suggested. Besides top NASA officials and members of Gordon's committee, other key figures offering Obama advice will be Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Nelson, who flew aboard the shuttle in 1986, is perhaps NASA's most vocal supporter in Congress. He acknowledged that only the president can inspire the nation to support the space program and find the money that the "severely underfunded" agency needs. "He's going to have to put the juice to the program," Nelson said at a Sept. 16 hearing on the spaceflight committee's report. At his confirmation hearing in February, Holdren said research and development related to space exploration is crucial to national defense, civilian and military communications, weather forecasting and the study of the land and oceans. At his initial meeting with Bolden, Obama described his passion for NASA by recalling that his grandfather took him to Pearl Harbor to wave at Apollo astronauts aboard an aircraft carrier that had picked them up after splashdown. During the past six months, Obama has hosted a White House stargazing party for students, a teleconference with the International Space Station and two shuttle crews in the Oval Office. He also has telephoned the shuttle and met with the crew of Apollo 11. Jansen is a reporter in the Gannett Washington bureau Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read morePopZette Rosie Can Dish It Out but She Can’t Take It In her latest flare-up, comedian claims something awful about Trump fans and his family
Will wonders never cease.
In the universe inhabited by liberal comedian and actress Rosie O’Donnell, it is perfectly acceptable to go after the family of a sitting president of the United States — and share on social media with millions of people whatever the heck pops into your head about that family, just because the mood strikes.
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Feel like attacking President Trump’s young son, Barron Trump, and suggesting he might have autism with no proof, information or background whatsoever, just because you’re trying to provoke?
She did that — and ultimately was forced to apologize to Melania Trump after Mrs. Trump had to hire a lawyer to get the offending information taken down.
Related: Rosie Finally Apologizes to Melania
Feel like going after President Trump just because you don’t like the man personally and have engaged in a feud with him for years — activity clearly meant to keep your own name in the limelight?
She’s done that on numerous occasions.
Related: Rosie Spreads Fake News About Donald Trump
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Now, however, O’Donnell claims that supporters of President Trump are being mean to her.
Her life is rough, she says. She has it hard. Things are terrible.
At Caroline’s in Manhattan on Wednesday night, O’Donnell showed up at John Fugelsang’s “WTF Donny” comedy show. Warming to the spotlight, she told the crowd the Trump presidency — which is not even six months old — has destroyed her life, as Page Six reported.
O’Donnell took a terrible swipe at first daughter Ivanka Trump.
“This is the second time I’ve been in public since he’s been elected because I go to the mall sometimes and Trump people go, ‘Hey, f *** you,'” O’Donnell said.
She added, “The boys in public school in New Jersey said to my 14-year-old daughter the next day, ‘Tell your mom I’m gonna grab your p****.’ It has affected my entire life and my entire family for a tremendous amount of years — over a decade.”
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She was referring to her long-running feud with Trump, as Page Six noted.
[lz_ndn video=32348437]
Time for some common sense here: The comedian has no role in any of this? She takes no responsibility for the things she’s said and done? Doesn’t somehow grasp that it takes two to tango? Refuses to acknowledge her own rudeness and inappropriate behavior? Won’t see that her own words have caused trouble?
But there you go again. Right after making those statements at Caroline’s, O’Donnell proceeded to take a terrible swipe at first daughter Ivanka Trump — under the guise of pleading for sympathy for her.
“The next time you or I want to make fun of Ivanka,” said O’Donnell, “I want you to carefully think — with compassion — about what … [she] had to do to survive … being favorited by that cult
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this historic pub and create a thriving venue for our residents and the wider population of south London to enjoy.
"This project will bring new jobs, new investment and new hope to our area."
Press AssociationShare
2015 was arguably the year that Node.js grew up. It was the year that we formed the Node.js Foundation, backed by some of the biggest names in the software world. At NodeSource, we hear a constant stream of news from companies adopting Node.js as an integral part of their software stack. But, as big believers in the transformative power of the platform, we're not surprised when the value of Node.js becomes apparent to new companies.
Node.js adoption and usage trends can be inferred from many sources. One of the richest sources of data is nodejs.org itself. By analyzing the logs for binary and source downloads, we get to discover some interesting patterns. Every way we slice this data we find trends that point to an increasingly healthy and popular ecosystem, with new users, both casual and corporate, being added every day.
Looking inward, we can also analyze the health of the Node.js project itself. Git provides the richest source of data and we can track changes all the way back to the 16th of February, 2009 when Ryan Dahl first started constructing what would become the world's most popular software ecosystem.
Tracking the metrics we can glean from Git and GitHub is becoming increasingly important as we measure the impact of the new open source governance model being pioneered by the project. Number of commits, unique committers every month and total committers over time all suggest that 2015 has been an impressive year for contributions, but there's more work to be done as we attempt to ensure that Node.js is guided and developed by a broad and diverse cross-section of its user-base.
Here’s our Node by Numbers 2015
Download the PDFWe tried something different with the OMG Sale on Wednesday.
Burning Man is, and has always been, a place where everyone is encouraged to explore what’s possible and find new ways to do things. In that spirit, we tried to address some of the recurring concerns from our past handful of sales regarding access and fairness by trying something new. Some of it worked, and some of it didn’t.
Before we get into details, please know this first and foremost: while the experience for ticket buyers was rough and not what we planned, the sale access process did actually work behind the scenes. The error messages that people encountered didn’t change the outcome for anyone. The database assigned all of the places in the sale, even though it was overloaded. Everyone who made it in got their chance to get tickets, even if they saw errors. Everyone else who saw errors should have seen the “the OMG Sale is over” message, but it unfortunately didn’t work out that way.
Why did this happen? As you may recall, our Tech Team put a lot of work into setting up the infrastructure for Burner Profiles to be able to handle extreme load earlier in the year. One of the biggest changes we made was migrating the entirety of Profiles over to Amazon Web Services. We witnessed the fruits of that effort during the Main Sale when Profiles didn’t even bat an eyelash at the onslaught. Unfortunately, there were just enough differences with the OMG process that some legacy code from the first generation of Profiles’ life came into play and had some serious load-handling implications. This resulted in the database that records account logins and such getting overloaded and responding sluggishly, which caused the error to be displayed.
There was also some browser-related issue for some users that caused the countdown clock to behave, um, kinda five-dimensionally, flashing all kinds of weird times. While the display was unnerving, it was entirely superficial and didn’t impact any functionality. When the real-world clock struck 12:00:00, the same thing happened for all users, including people whose countdowns displayed strangely.
Some people clicked the button and then got hung up, only to get in several minutes later — they actually got in immediately because the database captured the time they initially clicked, even though the success message may have taken a few more minutes to display. After reviewing our logs, we feel confident that spots in the OMG Sale were in fact correctly assigned on a first-come, first-served basis from the timestamps.
We know these details won’t bring comfort to anyone who didn’t get the tickets they were hoping for in the OMG Sale, but we want you to know that we are truly trying to do what is right by the community. We learned so much from this process, and that knowledge will absolutely inform implementation of future sales. We sincerely apologize for any distress the bumpiness of the sale caused.
For those still looking, we want to remind you to of the following: reach out to your immediate community of Burners first — tickets often shake loose as people’s plans continue to change and crystallize. Our ePlaya also has a forum dedicated to ticket-seekers. Please be safe when buying tickets from third parties; never use wire transfers, MoneyGram or Western Union.
Be sure to thoroughly read our fraud prevention and third-party buyer info. Don’t buy tickets above face value. It encourages scalpers, and scalpers suck.It’s been three years since the Democratic Republic of Congo faced down its last epidemic of Ebola. Now, a case of Ebola has again been confirmed in the country—and public health officials taking the threat seriously.
Starting on April 22, nine people have been stricken with hemorrhagic fever, a group of illnesses that strike multiple systems in the body and that result from a family of viruses that includes Ebola. According to Reuters, three have died from the fever so far, but only one of those cases has been confirmed as Ebola. The World Health Organization has sent specialists to the area, the Associated Press reports.
The new case suggests that Ebola is back in the Democratic Republic of Congo—raising the specter not just of the 2014 outbreak that sickened 66 and killed 49, but the much larger (unrelated) outbreak that swept through West Africa between 2014 and 2016. In the West Africa outbreak, notes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 28,000 people were infected and 11,325 of them died.
About 50 percent of people who contract Ebola virus disease die from it, writes the WHO, though that number can vary depending on the outbreak. The virus is passed from animals to humans and can spread quickly through a community via contact with an infected person’s broken skin, mucous membranes, and bodily fluids like blood.
As Smithsonian.com reported earlier this year, it’s thought that a small subsection of “superspreaders” are much more likely to transmit the disease than others, but researchers are still learning more about how the disease spreads. Since Ebola incubates so quickly—in as few as two or three days—it’s hard to track who’s spreading it and stop contagion before it stokes an epidemic.
In 2016, a trial vaccine was effective in Guinea, and Reuters reports that 300,000 doses are standing by in case of a widespread outbreak.
Both Congo and public health workers will have to spring into action to prevent a small pocket of disease from turning into a larger outbreak. Hygiene, physical contact and even burial rituals must be carefully monitored among the community to help stave off a spread of the disease, and officials will closely monitor the situation to keep a handle on the situation. A WHO official tells Reuters that since the outbreak is in a very remote area, “we are a little lucky.” Hopefully, that luck will hold and the outbreak will be an isolated one.Dean Bowditch's goal against AFC Wimbledon was his eighth in all competitors this season for MK Dons
MK Dons marked Robbie Neilson's first home league game as manager with victory over AFC Wimbledon.
The clubs, both offshoots of the old Wimbledon FC, have met four times, but never before in a league fixture, and the Dons have now won three.
Neilson's side were the most industrious throughout, restricting Wimbledon to just three shots on goal.
Dean Bowditch scored the game's only goal from the penalty spot after Dean Lewington was felled by Dannie Bulman.
The win was MK's first at home in the league in 16 games, dating back to 5 March last season when they were in the Championship, and the first since Neilson left Scottish Premiership side Hearts to take over from Karl Robinson on 2 December.
Despite the milestone win over a side that started life in the ninth tier of English football in 2002, the hosts remain 10 places and five points adrift of Neal Ardley's men.
While the fixture was another significant part of the two clubs' histories, it lacked the sort of fervour that surrounded their maiden meeting in the second round of FA Cup in 2012, a match with MK Dons won 2-1.
A crowd of 11,185 were at Stadium MK with away support of almost 2,000, despite a boycott by a number of AFC Wimbledon fans.
Media playback is not supported on this device MK Dons v AFC Wimbledon: A potted historyKaBuM veteran Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo has announced that his team have merged with ProGaming.TD.
The Brazilian team were last weekend in action at the ESWC Finals, in Paris, where they finished fifth of their group with four defeats and a solitary victory against Platinium-Servers.
Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo took to Facebook to reveal that, upon returning home, the team received an offer to merge the financial resources of both KaBuM and TeamTD, which would allow them to attend one international event every three months.
Three roster changes for KaBuM
After careful consideration, FalleN came to the conclusion that the offer was too good to pass up and recruited three players from ProGaming.TD, Lucas "steel" Lopes, Caio "zqkS" Fonseca and Ricardo "Boltz" Prass.
These three new players will be stepping into the shoes of Henrique "HEN1" Teles, Lucas "LUCAS1" Teles and Lincoln "fnx" Lau with immediate effect.
"This ESWC showed that we still lack a lot of organisation, commitment and experience at international events for us to be champions abroad," Toledo wrote on Facebook. "It showed me that even though you give the team everything that is in your power, that may not be enough to have full commitment from your team-mates. "I am saying this because our practices could have been better. It is true that practicing in Brazil is not as good as practicing abroad, but if that is not possible then you have to do the best with what you have. "I have said many times that fnx is one of the best players I have seen, but despite the fact that he is so good when committed, it is hard to motivate him. So we decided not to play with him for the next competitions. "It seemed easy, picking up a player to replace fnx and pick up where we left off, but an opportunity arose. This is one of the toughest decisions one can make when you are playing alongside people you really care about. "But this is our job, and somtimes we have to let people we care about go to move on. I work every day with the dream of putting our country at the top of eSports, and that is what motivates me and gives me the safety to make hard decisions like this one."
From now on, the team will be called KaBuM.TD, with their lineup now looking as follows:
Related video:Enormous troughs that reach across the asteroid Vesta may actually be stretch marks that hint of a complexity beyond most asteroids. Scientists have been trying to determine the origin of these unusual troughs since their discovery just last year. Now, a new analysis supports the notion that the troughs are faults that formed when a fellow asteroid smacked into Vesta’s south pole. The research reinforces the claim that Vesta has a layered interior, a quality normally reserved for larger bodies, such as planets and large moons.
Asteroid surface deformities are typically straightforward cracks formed by crashes with other asteroids. Instead, an extensive system of troughs encircles Vesta, the second most massive asteroid in the solar system, about one-seventh as wide as the Moon. The biggest of those troughs, named Divalia Fossa, surpasses the size of the Grand Canyon by spanning 465 kilometers (289 miles) long, 22 km (13.6 mi) wide and 5 km (3 mi) deep.
The origin of these troughs on Vesta has puzzled scientists. The complexity of their formation can’t be explained by simple collisions. New measurements of Vesta’s topography, derived from images of Vesta taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft last year, indicate that a large collision could have created the asteroid’s troughs. But, this would only have been possible if the asteroid is differentiated — meaning that it has a core, mantle and crust — said Debra Buczkowski of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. Because Vesta is differentiated, its layers have different densities, which react differently to the force from the impact and make it possible for the faulted surface to slide, she added. “By saying it’s differentiated, we’re basically saying Vesta was a little planet trying to happen.”
Her team’s research was published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
Most asteroids are pretty simple. “They’re just like giant rocks in space,” said Buczkowski. But previous research has found signs of igneous rock on Vesta, indicating that rock on Vesta’s surface was once molten, a sign of differentiation. If the troughs are made possible by differentiation, then the cracks aren’t just troughs, they’re graben. A graben is a dip in the surface that forms when two faults move apart from each other and the ground sinks into the widening gap, such as in Death Valley in California. Scientists have also observed graben on the Moon and planets such as Mars.
The images from the Dawn mission show that Vesta’s troughs have many of the qualities of graben, said Buczkowski. For example, the walls of troughs on simpler asteroids such as Eros and Lutetia are shaped like the letter V. But Vesta’s troughs have floors that are flat or curved and have distinct walls on either side, like the letter U — a signature of a fault moving apart, instead of simple cracking on the surface.
The scientists’ measurements also showed that the bottoms of the troughs on Vesta are relatively flat and slanted toward what’s probably a dominant fault, much as they are in Earth-bound graben.
These observations indicate that Vesta is also unusually planet-like for an asteroid in that its mantle is ductile and can stretch under a lot of pressure. “It can become almost silly putty-ish,” said Buczkowski. “You pull it and it deforms.”
Buczkowski and her colleagues’ arguments for differentiation of Vesta are interesting, said planetary scientist Geoff Collins of Wheaton College, in Norton, Mass, who specializes in tectonics, the structure and motion of planetary crusts. “On many much smaller asteroid bodies, we’ve seen very narrow troughs that look just like cracks on the surface,” said Collins, who was not involved in the new study. “But nothing that looks like a sort of traditional terrestrial graben that you’d find on Mars or the Moon where things have really been pulled apart.”
But Collins is not yet fully convinced that Vesta’s troughs are graben. An example of rock-solid evidence of graben on Vesta that has yet to be discovered, he said, would be an obvious crater that had been torn in two by a trough.
There are other qualities of Vesta that could be clues to how the troughs formed. For example, unlike the larger asteroid Ceres, Vesta is not classified as a dwarf planet because the large collision at its south pole knocked it out of its spherical shape, said Buczkowski. It’s now more squat, like a walnut. But if Vesta has a mantle and core, that would mean it has qualities often reserved for planets, dwarf planets and moons — regardless of its shape.
The origin of that funny shape is the centerpiece of a different hypothesis about how the troughs formed. Britney Schmidt of the Institute for Geophysics in Austin, Texas, believes the south pole collision knocked Vesta into its current speedy rate of rotation about its axis of about once per 5.35 hours, which may have caused the equator to bulge outward so far and so fast that the rotation caused the troughs, rather than the direct power of the impact. “It’s an enigma why Vesta rotates so quickly,” said Schmidt, who was not a part of the current study.
Dawn has already left to explore Ceres, so all the data it will retrieve on Vesta is in hand. Buczkowski said scientists will continue to sort that data out and improve on computer simulations of Vesta’s interior. As those analyzes come along, she said she will keep an open mind toward any revelations that come to light, but she doesn’t expect her conclusion will change. “I really think that these are graben,” she said.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Anwar Ibrahim: "I thank God for this great news. I am finally vindicated"
Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has been acquitted of sodomy after a two-year trial.
Judge Zabidin Mohamad Diah said DNA evidence submitted by the prosecution was unreliable and discharged the case.
Mr Anwar, 64, has consistently denied the charges and called them a government bid to cripple his political ambitions and influence.
The government said the verdict showed Malaysia's judiciary was free from government influence.
Sodomy is illegal in Muslim-majority Malaysia but, says the BBC's Jennifer Pak in Kuala Lumpur, very few people are ever prosecuted.
'Justice has prevailed'
Mr Anwar had been accused of having sex with a former male aide. He had faced up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.
Analysis The acquittal caught Malaysians by surprise but not because they thought Anwar Ibrahim was guilty. The trial, dubbed by the local media "Sodomy 2.0", was seen as an extension of his earlier conviction. Many Malaysians expected more of the same. Mr Anwar's struggle against sodomy charges has been front and centre in Malaysian politics for nearly 14 years. But his resolve to become prime minister, first within the governing coalition and now as the opposition leader, has never been stronger. Now a free man, analysts say the charismatic leader cannot paint himself as a martyr. Without that helping to tip the scales, some young people hope that the next election will be more issue-based rather than focused on personalities.
But the judge said that there were questions over whether DNA evidence had been contaminated.
"The court is always reluctant to convict on sexual offences without corroborative evidence. Therefore, the accused is acquitted and discharged," the judge said.
The verdict was greeted with cheers from Mr Anwar's supporters, wife and daughters, our correspondent says.
Mr Anwar told journalists outside the courtroom: "Thank God justice has prevailed I have been vindicated.
"To be honest, I am a little surprised."
Information Minister Rais Yatim said that the verdict showed that judges were free to rule as they saw fit.
"Malaysia has an independent judiciary," he said. "The current wave of bold democratic reforms introduced by Prime Minister Najib Razak will help extend this transparency to all areas of Malaysian life."
Police said two people were injured in two small blasts caused by explosive devices in a car park outside the court as the verdict was delivered. They did not say whether it was linked to the case.
'Toppled'
The allegations against Mr Anwar surfaced just months after elections in 2008, in which he led the opposition to unprecedented gains at the expense of the ruling party.
TIMELINE: ANWAR IBRAHIM 1993 to 1998 - Deputy Prime Minister, under Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad
- Deputy Prime Minister, under Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad 1999 - Jailed for abuse of power, sparking huge street protests
- Jailed for abuse of power, sparking huge street protests 2000 - Found guilty of sodomy with his wife's driver
- Found guilty of sodomy with his wife's driver 2004 - Supreme Court overturns the sodomy conviction, freeing him from jail. He quickly emerges as the de facto opposition leader
- Supreme Court overturns the sodomy conviction, freeing him from jail. He quickly emerges as the de facto opposition leader March 2008 - ruling coalition narrowly wins general election, but with its worst results in 50 years. The opposition makes unprecedented gains
- ruling coalition narrowly wins general election, but with its worst results in 50 years. The opposition makes unprecedented gains Aug 2008 - Anwar charged with sodomy for a second time, but despite this is soon voted in as an MP
- Anwar charged with sodomy for a second time, but despite this is soon voted in as an MP Feb 2009 - Second trial for sodomy starts
- Second trial for sodomy starts Jan 2012 - Acquitted of sodomy by High Court
This verdict comes ahead of elections due in 2013 but widely expected to be called later this year.
Hundreds of police and security personnel were on the streets of Kuala Lumpur ahead of the verdict, and thousands of Mr Anwar's supporters waited outside the court.
Mr Anwar was once Malaysia's deputy prime minister and an ally of former leader Mahathir Mohammad.
But he fell out with Dr Mahathir and was later jailed for corruption and sodomy. The sodomy conviction was later overturned and he was freed in 2004 after spending six years in prison.
He is now seen as the key figure in Malaysia's opposition coalition, which currently controls about a third of the seats in parliament.
The governing party has been in power for over 50 years and, says our correspondent, Mr Anwar is seen as the only person capable of challenging their dominance.
In a tweet from his account minutes after the verdict, the opposition leader looked ahead to the polls.
"In the coming election, voice of the people will be heard and this corrupt government will be toppled from its pedestals of power," the message read.“I wanted him to have the name of revolutionary, indigenous people in the world. I wanted him to know he was part of a world culture and not just from a neighborhood…”
— Afeni Shakur
At virtually any presentation, I get the following question: was Tupac Shakur named after Tupac Amaru? I get it even after I’ve talked about it in lecture. Students remain incredulous. While more frequent in the United States than in Peru, I’ve also fielded questions about the two Tupacs in Lima and Cusco. I’m writing more about this (and also have some in the book) but here are the basics.
In 1972, Afeni Shakur (formerly Alice Faye Williams), a member of the Black Panther Party in the United States, was acquitted on conspiracy charges in New York, part of a group known as the Panther 21. Once freed, she changed her infant son’s name from Lesane Parish Crooks to Tupac Amaru Shakur. He was less than a year old, born in East Harlem on June 16, 1971, while his mother was out on parole. The last name honored her husband and Tupac’s stepfather, Mutulu Shakur, himself a prominent black nationalist. “Tupac Amaru” referred to the Peruvian revolutionary.
Tupac Shakur wore the name proudly, emblazing it as 2-Pac on his chest, in one of his many tattoos. Handsome, gifted, and shot down in his prime, Tupac Shakur became an international symbol of resistance. Both Tupacs, José Gabriel and Shakur, died martyrs, with their popularity or fan-base growing post-mortem. After her son’s death, Afeni Shakur founded the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation, which includes a very active Foundation for the Arts.
Two great reads:After announcing a fundraiser for recounts in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Green Party candidate Jill Stein raised over $6.5 million dollars. While this covers both recount costs and legal fees pertaining to the recounts, Stein has announced that all leftover funds will go toward funding her band’s EP.
Since Stein does not plan to pursue a political career outside her symbolic quadrennial bid for the presidency, she decided that any overage will be used to refocus her efforts on what’s most important: her music.
“Before I got into politics, I was a folk rock artist advocating for change through song,” Stein says. “I love campaigning, but there’s really nothing like returning to my roots and going back to the studio.”
Those close to Stein say that she’s repeatedly yearned for “gigs” where it’s just “you, the reefer, and the road.”
Stein’s children have reportedly encouraged her to get back into medicine if she chooses to leave politics, but Stein disagrees.
“Every time they try to talk to her, Jill just shakes her tambourine in disagreement and retreats back to her in-home studio,” says one family friend. “Which is just the guest bathroom at the moment.”
“My in-home studio is really the place where I can think and dream,” Stein says. “There are a lot of seashells in there.”
Stein is excited to expand upon her current studio setup and will spare no expense in getting “the sound” she wants.
“I’ll probably go on a retreat for a bit, just to work on my music,” Stein says about her post-recount plans. “I think of a song title a minute, I swear. I actually just thought of one right now—‘The Dream Vaccine.’ Damn, that’s good.”
Members of Stein’s staff say they’re surprised she’s leaving politics, but aren’t disappointed.
“I know it seems weird, but this is probably the best use of funds,” says one former staffer: “She’s actually a better musician than she ever was at politics.”The Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) and the Indian School of Business and Economy (ISBE) have been directed by the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum to pay Rs 1 lakh compensation each to five students. IIPM and ISBE also have to refund the course fee of Rs 23,65,370 that the students had paid.
A report in Deccan Chronicle states that the five students - Shivaraj Ashok, Muddassir Jawed, Mary Priya, Sajid Khan Khazi, Pradip Singh Chauhan – had joined ISBE for an MBA approved by Gulbarga University. After the first semester, they were informed the ISBE would conduct its own exam and the fourth semester exams would be held by Gulbarga University.
When the students filed an RTI on this matter, Gulbarga University authorities informed them that ISBE had only filed an application for approval of the course and this was still pending as ISBE had not followed up. The report adds that ISBE denied the charges and said that IIPM also gives full disclosure.
However, the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum has asked the institute to refund the entire course fee and pay Rs 1 lakh as compensation to each student for wasting their two academic years.In the spring of 2014, while studying in Haifa, I traveled down to Jerusalem to meet up with my mother and other members of our congregation who were visiting Israel. After a number of trips to Israel with my family, my synagogue, and my youth group, I had become familiar with the Jerusalem tourist circuit: ancient sites, bustling markets, museums, memorials and, of course, the Western Wall.
At the Kotel itself, I had grown all too used to my family and friends splitting in two, as the men went to pray in the men’s section and the women went to pray in the women’s section. This trip was different, though.
With the establishment of an egalitarian prayer plaza at the Western Wall in late 2013, I could now pray at one of Judaism’s holiest sites alongside my mother. As we approached the plaza together, I remember feeling grateful and hopeful. I was grateful for advocates of religious pluralism such as Women of the Wall and the Israel Religious Action Center, whose tireless activism pushed the Israeli government to build the egalitarian plaza, securing the opportunity for families like mine to pray together at the Western Wall.
I also felt hopeful that the establishment of this plaza would not mark the end of the journey toward increased recognition of progressive Judaism in Israel. While it is good to have a dedicated egalitarian space at the Kotel, the space itself fails to meet many of the conditions spelled out by Women of the Wall. It is small, not easily accessible to those with physical disabilities, and set off from the main Western Wall plaza.
In this sense, the egalitarian plaza reflects the experience of many non-Orthodox Jewish communities in Israel. They, too, have secured important victories but remain far from their ultimate goals. In the absence of national action on pluralism issues, individual communities have turned to their local governments. Municipalities have been showing increasing generosity towards organizations that promote religious pluralism, providing religious groups with space for services, hosting joint programs and providing free land for synagogue construction. Over the summer, the Jerusalem City Council approved funding for organizations that support religious diversity, including the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion’s campus.
And yet, these achievements leave us far from the vision of “full equality for all streams of Judaism in Israeli religious life” (Religious Pluralism in Israel, 1999). Even the activities sanctioned by local governments are typically categorized as social and political gatherings, rather than religious observances. The Orthodox Chief Rabbinate retains control over conversion and marriage issues. The Israeli government pays the salaries of only four Reform rabbis, and even they receive payment from the Culture and Sport Ministry rather than the Religious Services Ministry. Though the bottom-up approach progressive communities are taking has yielded some important steps forward, there is still a lot of work to be done.
Learn more about this issue from the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, and the Israel Religious Action Center.Image copyright AFP Image caption The 150 US troops that arrived in Swidwin will be joined by a further 450 soldiers in the coming days
The first contingent of US troops has landed in Poland for military exercises amid tensions with Russia over Ukraine.
An initial 150 soldiers are to be followed by a further 450 within days.
US President Barack Obama has warned Russia it faces new sanctions if it refuses to implement an agreement to reduce tensions in eastern Ukraine.
Reports are coming in of violent incidents overnight between pro-Russian militants and Ukrainian forces in Mariupol and Artemivsk.
Mr Obama accuses Russia of flouting last week's deal on Ukraine while Moscow has warned it will respond to any attack on its "interests" in Ukraine.
Speaking on Russian state TV channel RT on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov drew a parallel with the 2008 Georgian war, saying that if "the interests of Russians have been attacked directly.... I do not see any other way but to respond in full accordance with international law".
Mr Lavrov also accused the US of "running the show" in Ukraine, and that it was "quite telling" that Kiev had re-launched its "anti-terrorist" operation in the east on Tuesday during a visit by US Vice-President Joe Biden.
US state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki dismissed his comments as "ludicrous". "Our approach here is de-escalation. We don't think there's a military solution on the ground," she said.
'Security guarantee'
The 150 soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade arrived in the Polish town of Swidwin from their base in Vicenza, Italy.
Stephen Mull, the US ambassador to Poland, said the US had a "solemn obligation in the framework of Nato to reassure Poland of our security guarantee".
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Sergei Lavrov: "You cannot avoid the impression they [US] are running the show"
President Obama told a news conference in Japan that Moscow had failed to halt actions by pro-Russian militants in Ukraine.
The US had further sanctions against Russia "teed up", he added.
The US troops are expected to be carrying out military exercises in Poland as well as in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia for the coming months.
There has been growing concern in those countries at the build-up of thousands of troops in Russia along its borders with Ukraine in recent weeks.
Elsewhere, the UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed that Russian military aircraft had been identified approaching the north of Scotland, but they turned away shortly after fighter jets were scrambled to investigate.
Military officials in the Netherlands and Denmark confirmed they too had scrambled jets to escort the jets away from their airspace.
And in the seas around the UK, a Royal Navy warship is shadowing a Russian destroyer in what the MoD described as a "well established and standard response" as it sails past British territory.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC visits Ukrainian soldiers on the border with Russia
But the focus of the tension remains eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists have taken over administrative buildings in at least a dozen towns in a bid to seek closer ties to Moscow.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced on Thursday that the city hall in Mariupol, a port on the Sea of Azov, had been "liberated" overnight without any casualties.
"Civic activists" played a major part in the operation, he said.
However, local news website 0629 reported that the self-proclaimed People's Republic of Donetsk was still claiming control over the mayor's hall after a struggle with attackers.
Mr Avakov also reported that Ukrainian troops in Artemivsk had fended off an attempt by dozens of pro-Russian militants to seize weapons from a military unit. One soldier was wounded, he said.
Unverified footage of military helicopters, said to be flying over Artemivsk, was posted by a blogger on YouTube.
Unrest began in Ukraine last November over whether the country should look towards Moscow or the West.Virginia’s first urban cidery, Blue Bee Cider, is located in the historic Scott’s Addition district of Richmond, VA. Our ciders are made with rare and heirloom Virginia apples prized for their tannin, acidity, and flavor.
One of Virginia’s native bees, the Blue Orchard Bee (osmia lignaria), provided the inspiration for our cidery’s name. These hardworking bees are solitary and wild, emerging early in the spring just in time to pollinate apple blossoms.
Tasting Room Hours
Monday-Friday, 1:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Saturday, 12:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Sunday, 12:00 pm – 7:00 pm
(Last call is 30 minutes before closing, every night.)
Food
You are welcome to bring your own food or order delivery.
On weekends, we host guest food vendors. Check out the lineup!
Learn more about hosting a private event or wedding at our venue.
Join our Cider Club to stay in the loop and get exclusive access to new cider offerings!WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Thursday it is officially scrapping a post-9/11 requirement for immigrant men from predominantly Muslim countries to register with the federal government. The U.S. hasn’t used the program since 2011, but a top immigration adviser to President-elect Donald Trump has spoken of renewing it.
The decision to end the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERs, comes amid growing international terror fears and Trump’s suggestions that he could ban Muslim immigrants from the United States. After a truck attack killed 12 in a Christmas market in Berlin this week, Trump told reporters, “You know my plans.”
The program’s elimination could make it more complicated for Trump’s administration to launch its own registration system for Muslims.
Trump never publicly spoke about introducing such a program. But a close adviser, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, said last month he was in favor of launching an updated system for all foreigners from “high-risk” areas.
Meeting Trump in New York, Kobach carried a document labeled “Department of Homeland Security Kobach Strategic Plan for First 365 Days.” It listed an NSEERS reboot as the top priority. Kobach helped draft the program while working at the Justice Department under President George W. Bush.
The registration system started about a year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, requiring men and boys from a variety of mostly Middle Eastern countries to register with the federal government upon their arrival in the United States. Such people already in the country had to register with immigration authorities inside the U.S.
Registration, which also applied to immigrants from North Korea, included fingerprints and photographs. People also were required to notify the government if they changed addresses.
The administration will publish its decision in the Federal Register on Friday. It had been widely derided by civil libertarians as an effort to profile people based on race and religion.
The program is “not only obsolete,” said Neema Hakim, spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department, “its use would divert limited personnel and resources from more effective measures.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, which has opposed the program since its inception, described it as a “failed counterterrorism tool and massive profiling program that didn’t yield a single terrorism conviction in nearly a decade.”
“With this action, the U.S. is on the right path to protect Muslim and Arab immigrants from discrimination,” said Joanne Lin, the organization’s senior legislative counsel.
The program never prohibited travel for men and boys from the more than 20 affected countries, including Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
When the Obama administration abandoned the system in April 2011, it said a newer data collection program would be sufficient to collect biometric information for all foreigners coming into the country. At the time, more than 80,000 foreigners were registered.
READ MORE: Could President Trump really create a tracking system for U.S. Muslims?At Amalia Ulman’s “Stock Images of War,” an immersive installation surrounds twelve simple wire-frame sculptures, each titled after a different month of the year – “War in January,” “War in February,” etcetera, (all works 2014). This zodiac of fragile vehicles – wheelchairs, tricycles, military tanks, a bicycle, and a car – marks both a departure in Ulman’s practice and her first solo show in New York.
The sculptures’ thin wire frames, ranging between two and six feet in height, form irregular, silvery outlines of recognizable shapes, rendered as they might be by a child. The misshapen wheels supporting “War in August” – the figure of a wheelchair roughly the size of a fridge – tilt inwards, while the deformed chair they bear slumps to the left. With “War in October,” another wheelchair has a hard time keeping itself upright; its chairback leans precariously backwards toward the floor. In their
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recent Pentagon study on military strategy in a "post primacy world" admitted that the never ending quest for US hegemony abroad is based on conditions of imperial desperation. The study concluded that the US "clings to significant political, economic, and military leverage" but laments that such leverage is "increasingly exhibiting less reach, durability, and endurance." In other words, US military domination is an indispensable yet unstable component of profit accumulation for the rich, and few politicians are willing to lose their donors over the issue.
“US-backed ‘rebels’ in Syria have long been verified as nothing more than jihadist terrorists seeking to destabilize the region at the behest of the US, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, Jordan, and NATO.”
The same study labels the "economic nationalism" of the current Administration as a stress on US hegemony. However, Trump's so-called "populism" is not the cause of US imperialism’s woes. It is a product of them. The same set of conditions that drove Donald Trump's rise to the presidency are linked to Barbara Lee and Tulsi Gabbard's right-wing turn. US imperialism is in crisis and cannot allow any insurgent politicians into the War Party, let alone insurgent positions.
Gabbard and Lee appear to have succumbed to the pressure of the War Party. Now led by the Democrats, The War Party must fulfill the wishes of its capitalist masters or die. It immediately saw the Trump Administration as ideologically and politically unfit to contain the rising powers to the East. Trump's electoral victory added insult to injury to the War Party’s constant escalations toward nuclear annihilation. This prompted the ruling class to further unite the Democratic and Republican Parties toward a confrontation with China and Russia. And it has been the Democratic Party that has taken the lead in the project of endless war.
The US bill to extend sanctions against Iran, Russia, and the DPRK is but another extension of this project. Sanctions are internationally recognized as tools of war. Sanctions are meant to starve a nation into submission. Sanctions commit mass murder through the forced restriction of medical supplies, food, and other items of basic necessity. Sanctions killed over 500,000 children in Iraq and have sent untold numbers more to an early death wherever they have been enforced.
“US military domination is an indispensable yet unstable component of profit accumulation for the rich.”
The US sees sanctions as the most fail-safe method to regain the ground lost to Russia and China in the post-Obama era. The Obama Administration's eight years of rule failed to weaken the influence of its Russian and Chinese competitors. President Obama never once hesitated to authorize bloody imperialist proxy wars meant to wrestle back US control over large regions of the world looking in other directions for development. He did so with the utmost of arrogance. However, the results of his efforts offered little to be arrogant about. Libya, Syria, and the Ukraine were thrown into chaos. Millions died from Obama era proxy wars, drone wars, and sanctions regimes.
Uncontrolled chaos in the Eurasian region has only weakened US imperialism’s sphere of influence. Syria is a case in point. The Syrian Arab Army has made the most significant gains in the last year after spending over six years fighting tens of thousands of foreign-sponsored terrorists invading the country. These gains, such as the liberation of Aleppo, were made in part because of the heroism of the Syrian people. However, the Trump Administration's decision to end the CIA's supposedly covert aid to terrorists was also heavily influenced by the weakened state of the US empire.
“Tulsi Gabbard and Barbara Lee have cosigned the US empire's desperate attempt to destroy independent nations by way of starvation.”
A more fragile, vulnerable US empire is cause for celebration. But the dangers of US empire do not evaporate just because the system is in crisis. Tulsi Gabbard and Barbara Lee have cosigned the US empire's desperate attempt to destroy independent nations by way of starvation. They, like the entire ruling class, should be held to account for their actions. Real demands on power must be brought to bear. Black people, oppressed people, and working people generally need a common program that opposes war and fights for an end to gentrification, police brutality, mass incarceration, and poverty wages. Neither corporate party has any interest in hearing these demands, let alone fulfilling them. That means the power of the people is the only solution to the crisis before us. It is well past the time that a discussion takes place among "movement" activists, leftists, and organizers on how to strengthen the power of the people. This conversation is just as absent in the era of Trump as it was in the era of Obama.
Danny Haiphong is an Asian activist and political analyst in the Boston area. He can be [email protected]While not flawless, the PC version of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes was one of the better ones we’ve seen of late (and looks even finer after all this Batman stuff.) That hopefully bodes well for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain in September.
As further reassurance that they’re taking this seriously, Kojima Productions community manager Robert Peeler has put out an open call for PC version suggestions on the Phantom Pain Steam forum.
“In a little over two months time we’ll have a PC version of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, something we’ve been working on, but while we’ve been doing our best, and reading what feedback you’ve given thus far…let’s do our best to funnel it all into this thread,” Peeler writes.
There are “no guarantees they’ll all make it in,” but when something isn’t possible Peeler says he’ll do his best to explain why this is the case.
The thread already has close to 500 replies, with suggestions piling up for FOV options, a separation of post-processing options (so depth of field can be turned down or off,) full mouse support in menus, an unlocked frame-rate, different anti-aliasing options, and all that other good stuff you’d want in a PC version.
If some or all of those make it into Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, it’ll be a job well done.Vladimir Putin has accused Turkey of shooting down his plane to protect ISIS links
Speaking during international talks in Paris over how to tackle climate change, Mr Putin described Turkey’s action a “huge mistake”.
Mr Putin said Moscow has grounds to suspect the Su-24 was downed by Turkish jets on November 24 to secure illegal oil deliveries on an "industrial scale" from Syria to Turkey.
He said: "At the moment we have received additional information confirming that that oil from the deposits controlled by ISIS militants enters Turkish territory on industrial scale.
“We have every reason to believe that the decision to down our plane was guided by a desire to ensure security of this oil’s delivery routes to ports where they are shipped in tankers."
Mr Putin said terrorists have been abusing the visa-free regime between Russia and Turkey to move freely, adding that Ankara failed to address the issue after Russia raised it.
He added: “We have been asking [Ankara] for a long time to pay attention” after extremists began “emerging on Turkish territory".Answer this one honestly. In all your life, have you seen anybody else, or specifically, any public figure who resembles his own mask as much as Narendra Modi does? You could possibly argue that computers have rendered mask-making more accurate. Yet, we have never seen a real face and mask so like each other as with Modi. Sometimes you'd even wonder which one is more real. But why are we making such a big deal of it?
The mask has been an essential metaphor in BJP politics ever since rebellious but erudite K.N. Govindacharya mocked Atal Bihari Vajpayee as a mere mukhauta (Hindi for mask) of the BJP while the real face was entirely different. It was a diabolically clever description. What Govindacharya meant was, RSS (and the Hindu Right it represented) was the real face of the BJP. The liberal, secular, inclusive and middle-of-the-road Vajpayee was just a mask to conceal it. Vajpayee was furious, but admitted in a conversation with me a couple of months after losing power in 2004 that this was indeed the reality. That what he represented was not the real BJP and that Govindacharya was right.
Just about three months since his ascent to power, you know that there is no such confusion in Modi's case. The mask and the real face are exactly the same, physically as well as metaphorically. To that extent, Modi is genuinely a leader of the nationalist Hindu Right and his government India's first genuinely right-of-centre one, socially and politically for sure, and we wait to see if it turns out decisively that way economically as well. Every major action and utterance of his, from discontinuing the routine of 7 RCR iftars to his Independence Day speech and now cancellation of foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan, underlines the same point. Americans would put it as, the man you see is the man you get. In India, in BJP's current context, it is, the man you see on the mask is the man you get as your leader.
This is a completely new phenomenon in Indian politics where hypocrisy-signal left, turn right has been the norm. Barring some phases of hard socialism, as under Indira Gandhi post-1969, all our leaders have been a bit of this and a bit of that, pretending to be of the left, but never quite true to it. That's why India has always had a mixed everything, from economy to social and foreign policies. Even economic reformers like P.V. Narasimha Rao and Vajpayee have had to hide their actions behind socialist camouflage, and L.K. Advani famously paid homage to Mohammed Ali Jinnah at his mausoleum. In short, the mask has been an essential equipment in the trick-box of India's political class. This is where Modi, and his BJP, I dare say, are different, and this will be the hallmark of his tenure in power.
Unlike other ideological leaders who, once they rise to the top, make course corrections, usually moving to the centre, Modi has given every indication that he will, as prime minister, be no different from the way he was as chief minister of Gujarat. This reflects in the generally underwhelming talent base of his Cabinet, reliance on trusted civil servants, shutting out of the media and centralisation of power. He will sound inclusive-as he has done in Gujarat consistently since his second victory in December 2007-but will not reach out to any particular community, whatever its sense of insecurity or hurt. And on issues of national security, his actions as prime minister will be consistent with his fundamental views and instincts. That's why he would take no time cancelling talks because Pakistan's high commissioner meets Hurriyat leaders while every other prime minister, including Vajpayee, had ignored this as a mere side-show or tamasha. Read the text of his Independence Day speech carefully. It is inclusive, conciliatory, forward-looking and modern. But it is also pure RSS. Modi spoke as an RSS pracharak would have, stressing family values, morality, cleanliness, discipline and patriotism. But his tone was far from threatening or overbearing, the choice of words careful, but with no attempt to specially reach out to any particular section, minorities, Dalits, OBCs, tribals. In the RSS worldview, all Indians are the same, in fact in the purest ideological interpretation, as recently underlined by Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat, they are all integral to a common identity of Hindutva, although Modi has never gone that far since he rose to public office for the first time in 2001.
And chances are, he won't. Because, like every other follower of a sharp ideology, he has indeed made a course correction, but he did so much before he rose to prime ministership. He did so post-2007. His discourse became so benignly inclusive that in the 2014 campaign you couldn't find one line you could object to on grounds of communal insinuation or even lack of civility. But there was never a special approach to Muslims, and that is how he is going to be as prime minister. His Independence Day speech highlighted the same Modi.
W hat are the other clues from his past and recent conduct that give you an insight into his mind? He ruled his state for 13 years without a Muslim legislator in his party. Yet he did not allow VHP and RSS a free run in the one state they would have hoped to be able to call their own. You ask Pravin Togadia who is the one fellow Indian whose guts he hates, and if he is honest, the answer will be Modi. Alright, no VHP people were put away in encounters, but some had cases of sedition filed against them. How he subdued these groups was in contrast, for example, with the pampering they enjoyed in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh. As time passes, expect more of the same from him in Delhi as well. He may not have responded or contradicted publicly to some of the recent utterances from RSS, etc, but you have seen the static levels go down. Of course, disciplining the sarsanghchalak is a different challenge altogether. Modi's method, therefore, is likely to be more in the nature of very soft Hindutva, and very pronounced nationalism. You will be surprised if he allows his Government to be distracted by the Ram temple, a common personal law or the repeal of Article 370. Modi believes in employing his political capital to further his ideology, but he will do this very, very cautiously. As the India Today Group-Hansa Research Mood of the Nation opinion poll shows, this seems to be already working: a surprisingly large number of Muslims now say they will vote for Modi.
These are early days yet, but could it be that Modi is now refining an innovative ideology of the Right? Very nationalist, very moralistic, self-righteous, uncompromising, yet non-threatening to minorities. He and his Government show many other traits of the instinctive Right: their penchant for giganticism, for example. Sardar Patel's statue has to be two and a half times the Statue of Liberty, and a country where top speeds of passenger trains have remained the same in decades has to suddenly leapfrog to bullet trains. More such traits will surface as the months pass. India's first genuinely right-wing government will unfold into a fascinating political story.
Postscript I did receive a few calls from Modi when he was chief minister, but only once to complain. My paper then had done a story saying that in many parts of Gujarat poor Muslims were being denied NREGA benefits. Modi said the story was factually wrong. "You criticise or question me over Hindutva, that is fair and it is your right, because I believe in Hindutva," he said. "But I strongly object if you say that I am denying my poor Muslims a hundred rupees a day." I said I would have the reporter recheck his facts. "What you people in Delhi will not understand is, in my Gujarat, my Muslims are not so poor that they will work for NREGA. They are mostly doing very well and will not waste their time in unproductive work," he said. Subsequent checks indeed showed the story to be based on incorrect facts and surmises, and we readily made amends.
In retrospect now, does this tell us something about Modi's mind as it has evolved through his long tenure as chief minister? That he will not specially reach out to the minorities, but would so strongly resent it if accused of being unfair to them as a ruler. We may, in fact, be dealing with a leader who does believe in rajdharma, but would define it for himself in his very own way.DIGG THIS
Before the U.S. House of Representatives, November 21, 1979
Although I was not in Congress when either the Lockheed or the New York City bailouts were enacted, I would have opposed both of those actions, as well as the proposed action regarding Chrysler, for many of the same reasons. Let me explain those reasons.
In a nation that is sinking in a sea of debt, it is irresponsible for this Congress to be considering a measure that would add billions to that debt. The expansion of credit is one of the primary forms of inflation. It is not merely inflationary in its effects; it is inflation itself. If this $1.5 billion is created by the federal government, it will ripple and percolate through our banking system, and because of our fractional reserve system, the ultimate growth in the money supply will be far more than $1.5 billion. The standard multiplier is six; that means an infusion of $1.5 billion will eventually result in a $9 billion increase in the money supply. In his testimony before the House Banking Committee, the former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Alan Greenspan, stated that
Loan guarantees, insofar as the issue of inflation is concerned, are virtually indistinguishable from on-budget financing, and that the major cause of inflation into this country has been an excessive amount of credit preemption, largely in the area of guarantees, which... has created excessive monetary growth and is the base of inflation in the system.
A vote for the Chrysler bailout is, simply put, a vote for further inflation.
Some may argue that the inflation is necessary in order to avoid unemployment, echoing the now repudiated idea of A.W. Phillips, that less inflation means more unemployment and vice versa. The past few years of our experience with inflation and unemployment should convince everyone that high inflation and high unemployment can exist side-by-side. I believe the connection is even closer: Inflation causes unemployment — perhaps not immediately, but in the longer run — and we are now in the longer run of our past inflationary policies. It follows that a vote for aid to Chrysler, because it is a vote for inflation, is also a vote for more unemployment.
Such unemployment may not be obvious, but it will nonetheless be real. One of the things that bothers me most about this entire discussion is that it centers around only what is obvious. Saving 100,000 jobs at Chrysler is obvious; losing 100,000 jobs, one by one around the country is not obvious, but they will nonetheless be lost, should aid to Chrysler pass.
Let me explain why I believe this to be so. If this aid takes the form of loan guarantees rather than direct loans (and, I add parenthetically, that over $1 billion of the New York City loan guarantees has been converted into direct federal loans by the Federal Financing Bank) it will be tantamount to an allocation of credit to Chrysler. That means that Chrysler will get capital that would have gone to other more efficient and more profitable businesses. Because this capital will be diverted by these loan guarantees to a less efficient business, it is highly probable that more jobs will be lost through invisible unemployment than would be were Chrysler to fail. I hasten to point out that this will result in all the increased costs to the government that the proponents of the bailout so loudly declare they wish to avoid. Of course, the costs will not all be centered in Michigan; unemployment checks, welfare checks, food stamp benefits will increase nationwide, in big and small towns, urban centers and rural America. Rather than a few localities suffering noticeably; many will suffer almost invisibly. Workers who have nothing to do with Chrysler will lose their jobs or pay the taxes and higher prices caused by this bailout. The average industrial worker earns half of what the average Chrysler workers earns, and under the UAW contract, the Chrysler workers will be receiving a $500 million pay and benefits rise over the next three years. I have always thought that businesses in trouble cut costs; the Chrysler workers will receive far more in wage increases alone over the next ten years than this bailout amounts to. That (and other facts) would indicate to me that the Chrysler workers have not made any sacrifices and that they hope, through federal aid, to maintain their relatively high wages at the expense of the lower-paid workers in this country. We are being asked to shift the burden from the relatively well-off workers at Chrysler to the relatively worse-off workers throughout America. A Chrysler bailout will be a shifting of burdens that should be borne by those involved.
Do we in Congress have the authority, either moral or constitutional, to cause this suffering? I can find no provision in the Constitution authorizing Congress to make loans or loan guarantees to anyone, let alone to major corporations. Nor have I yet seen a valid moral argument concluding that we, as representatives of all the people, have the right to tax the American people — most of whom receive less in wages and benefits than Chrysler workers — to support a multibillion-dollar corporation. What right have we — and I pose a serious question that deserves an answer — what right have we to force the American taxpayers to risk their money in a business venture which private investors dealing in their own funds have judged to be too risky? Chrysler paper is now classified; that means that any private investor who is handling funds for his depositors, shareholders, or clients may be judged as violating his fiduciary responsibilities should he invest in Chrysler. Don’t we have a trust equally important from the American people? Are we not betraying their trust by voting for a Chrysler bailout? I believe so.
Rather than supporting this patchwork and temporary "solution," we should be addressing those factors, over which we have control and for which we are responsible, that have brought Chrysler to the brink of bankruptcy. In his testimony before the House Banking Committee, President Iacocca listed three factors that caused the troubles at Chrysler: (1) government regulations; (2) inflation; and (3) the gasoline allocation system that caused last spring’s gasoline shortages. Please note that all three factors are the responsibility of the Congress. We wrote the regulations or gave some bureaucrats a blank check to write the regulations. We are responsible for inflation through our mismanagement of the monetary system. And we empowered the Department of Energy to create a gasoline allocation system that brilliantly achieved what I had heretofore thought impossible: gasoline shortages in Houston, the oil capital of the United States.
It is our responsibility to diagnose the Chrysler disease accurately. Instead, we are acting like political quacks, prescribing potions to treat symptoms, while the cause of those symptoms rages on unabated. Chrysler is not unique; it is merely the prototype, the harbinger, of crises to come. Dr. Greenspan testified that the most likely sequence of events, in his view, would be federal loan guarantees followed by a Chrysler failure anyway. Unless the disease is correctly diagnosed, the potions we prescribe will kill the patient.
I would urge this Committee and the whole Senate to act with more deliberation than the House has acted. This form of welfare for corporations must end. Just because it was extended to Lockheed does not mean that it should be extended to Chrysler. Bad precedents should not be followed, and these precedents are particularly bad. Because Lockheed, a large corporation, New York City, the largest city, and now Chrysler, the tenth largest corporation in the country, are the three institutions to which aid has been or will be extended, one can conclude that there is an obvious pattern of discrimination in the action of this Congress.
Last year there were 200,000 bankruptcies in this country, according to U.S. News & World Report. Yet we have selected only the largest for our aid. This is discrimination of the crassest sort. We ignore the smaller victims of this government’s policies simply because they are small. Only the largest, those with the most clout, the most pull, get our attention. This aristocracy of pull is morally indefensible. What answer can be given to the small businessman driven into bankruptcy by government regulations when he asks: "You bailed out Chrysler, why not me?" No justification can be given for this discrimination between the powerful and the powerless, the big and the small.
It is an axiom of our legal system that all citizens are to enjoy the equal protection of the laws. That axiom is violated daily by our tax laws, and now by this proposed corporate welfare plan for Chrysler. Apparently some citizens are more equal than others. That is a notion I reject, and I hope you do, too. I urge you to reject this proposal for all the reasons I have stated.
See the Ron Paul File
November 21, 2008
Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.
Ron Paul Archives
The Best of Ron PaulWe have good news for those interested in Windows Hooking. Deviare Hooking Engine is now open source and available on GitHub. The license is GPL but a commercial license and support are also available for users who want to distribute closed-source products based on Deviare. Our other open source hooking product, Deviare In-Proc, now supports hooking.NET methods. Our main competitor Microsoft Detours does not.
People can now use, learn from, and fork Deviare Hooking Engine. If you are new to Deviare and want to bootstrap a project please take a look at our related blog posts. Academic users might be interested in the following resources:
We have also added a new option to Deviare In-Proc which disallows reentrancy. If a hook is marked with the disallow reentrancy flag, then calling the hooked function from the detoured one will jump to the original API function. It also provides helper methods to facilitate DLL injection into other processes.
For other differences between Deviare Hooking Engine and Deviare In-Proc see the reddit thread: GPL alternative library to Microsoft Detours for binary instrumentation.
Case Studies
Related SolutionsDonald Trump campaigned in Wisconsin for the fifth time since he became the Republican nominee, in hopes that he can overcome poll predictions and make the consistently blue state go red. (Whitney Leaming/The Washington Post)
Donald Trump campaigned in Wisconsin for the fifth time since he became the Republican nominee, in hopes that he can overcome poll predictions and make the consistently blue state go red. (Whitney Leaming/The Washington Post)
Donald Trump got the big October surprise. The momentum seems to be going his way. Hillary Clinton is again on the defensive, again over her emails. But in this enclave of white, upper-middle-class Republicans, the party’s presidential nominee still faces a barrier that will be difficult to clear.
“It’s a moral choice,” Dick Radder, a 68-year-old Republican, said as he cupped a black coffee outside a Starbucks here Tuesday. “I can’t get there. I can’t get to Trump. I’m a husband and a father. And I can’t convince myself to vote for a person who is weakening the fiber of the country.”
Most of the well-kept lawns here are dotted with signs for Sen. Ron Johnson (R) and for other down-ballot candidates, but support for Trump is less evident.
“You’re in a town that’s about going to college and raising a family. People are polished and hard-working. He’s not one of us,” said Andy Schwichtenberg, a 28-year-old stockbroker.
“I did try,” Schwichtenberg added with a sigh. “I went to a rally.” But he was not swayed and he was turned off by the crowd, which he noted was packed with men and women “who came there on Harleys.”
In the last days of a presidential race where Trump is targeting traditionally Democratic states to try to forge a path to victory, holding together Republicans who have reservations about him remains a vexing challenge for a candidate who has repeatedly clashed with his own party.
Nowhere has that been more true than Wisconsin, a state that celebrates civility and is the historic home of the Republican Party, which was founded in Ripon in 1854.
Trump lost Wisconsin’s April GOP primary by 13 percentage points to Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), and he lost in Waukesha County by 39 percentage points. More recent polling has shown lingering unease about his character in this small city and other Milwaukee suburbs, long a hub of deeply conservative Republicans — and where strong turnout will be necessary for Trump to win.
“They have just never been comfortable with Trump,” Charlie Sykes, a popular talk radio host, said in an interview Monday night. “The only question, the only thing people are talking about, is whether they’ll come home.”
Sykes, who has been a leader of anti-Trump efforts within the Wisconsin right, said Trump’s chances will come down to what are called the “wow” counties — Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington — that need intense GOP participation to offset the heavy Democratic numbers coming out of Milwaukee, Madison and other liberal parts of the state.
Trump, who rallied Tuesday in northwest Wisconsin, is intent on making a late play, pitching himself to independents and working-class voters as someone who channels their economic frustrations.
Trump’s push is reminiscent of how previous Republican nominees have tried with little success in past frenzied final weeks to score blue state upsets when other battlegrounds started to look less likely to go their way. Mitt Romney, for example, drew huge November crowds in Pennsylvania in 2012 but lost the state by five percentage points.
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 out on the trail ahead of the general election in November. 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.
Still, Trump’s advisers hope that the FBI’s announcement last week that the agency is resuming its investigation of Clinton’s emails could be enough of an impetus for Wisconsin Republicans to finally decide to vote a straight party ticket, even if they will never warm up to him.
The campaign’s view, voiced in several interviews, is that if Trump can spark Republicans in the suburbs and rural regions, the party organization here is ready to gin up turnout.
“You do have a bit of a feathered nest,” Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said, noting that Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who is from Wisconsin, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker have built a robust state party over the past decade that has made significant gains in non-presidential years.
“I tell people to remember that we’re not hiring a pope,” Laurie Bujack, 57, said as she made calls at a bustling county GOP field office decorated with a crucifix, posters of Ronald Reagan and a life-size cutout of the local GOP hero, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.).
Nearby, Chuck Bloom, a retired 73-year-old salesman in a Trump T-shirt, said he identifies with those who were not with Trump at the start — he certainly was not. But now, he said, is “no time to be on the fence” or have “your nose out of joint.”
“It could be Hillary, God forbid,” he said.
Trump and his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, campaigned Tuesday alongside Walker, a familiar face in the Milwaukee suburbs and who clashed with Trump in the primaries. Republicans are hoping his more recent support will help rally wavering voters.
“The message his being there with Trump sends is: Trump is the Republican candidate. Get behind all of our Republicans,” said Candee Arndt, a veteran activist and longtime friend of Walker. “This is about the Supreme Court and the federal courts. It’s about more than Trump.”
Wisconsin Democrats, meanwhile, are busy rousing their coalition, dubious but slightly unnerved about Trump’s foray into a state that they have won, at times narrowly, since 1988.
“I know what it was like during the times Trump says were ‘good.’ We’re not going back, and I’m trying to tell the young people what’s at stake,” Alma Johnson, 74, said Monday at a phone bank in Milwaukee with dozens of African American Democrats.
In another sign that Clinton is not taking Wisconsin for granted, her campaign last week reserved television advertising time in the state. Her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, appeared at Wisconsin college campuses Tuesday, and her daughter, Chelsea, will make three stops Wednesday.
Clinton, who lost the Wisconsin primary handily to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, is getting help from her onetime rival, who will be in Madison and Green Bay on Wednesday to campaign for Clinton and former Democratic senator Russell Feingold, who is locked in a hotly contested race with Ron Johnson.
The polling average in Wisconsin shows Clinton up by nearly six percentage points. President Obama won Wisconsin by about seven percentage points over Romney and by 12 percentage points in 2008. President George W. Bush came far closer in 2000 and 2004, losing both times by a few thousand votes.
By Tuesday afternoon, more than 518,000 early votes had already been cast, according to the state’s elections commission. For Democrats, the data was seen as favorable since about 30 percent came from the urban part of Milwaukee and the Madison area — more than the 26 percent of statewide ballots those counties provided in 2012.
Making calls Monday night with Democrats, Hazel Frazier, 65, argued that working-class whites are not sure bets for Trump for reasons different from why many wealthier conservatives are averse to him.
“I used to work at General Motors, which has left. When those jobs go, it leaves black people and it leaves white people without what they had,” Frazier said beneath a poster that read in part, “Don’t get frustrated!”
“I’m an old bird, and I don’t buy that working-class folks are going to go for Trump,” she said. “We see through men like him, and we’re sick of the damn emails.”
Early voting is up by similar margins in the “wow” counties — providing 16 percent of the absentee ballots. Four years earlier, those counties counted for 12 percent of the vote.
“You couple the FBI announcement with the organization we’ve built, we feel very good,” said Mike Duffey, the executive director of the Wisconsin GOP. He said there are more than 30 offices in the state prepared to meet new and nontraditional voters who may come out on Election Day to register and vote for Trump.
As Robin Moore, 53, president of the Republican Women of Waukesha County, said Monday: “Republicans here have moved from lesser of two evils to one evil. That’s progress.”
“It’s been hard for some women, and those tensions [with Ryan] didn’t help,” Moore said. “At the end of the day, we have to save the Supreme Court and we have to stop her.”All photos by Jennica Abrams
When Julien Baker came out to her father at 17, he reached for his Bible.
“I was like, ‘I think I’m going to hell.’ He said, ‘Okay, stop,’” the now 20-year-old singer and guitarist remembers. “He went over and grabbed his Bible off the shelf and I was like, oh no, I think I’m about to get holy watered.”
Fair assumption. After all, hers was a churchgoing family—she considers herself nondenominational—living in the buckle of the Bible Belt: A 2013 Gallup poll of the most and least religious states in the country revealed Tennessee to be in the top ten, and Memphis, where Baker grew up, borders Mississippi, which claimed the number one spot. One of her friends was thrown out of his house when he came out, and another was shipped off to Love in Action, a “pray away the gay thing,” as Baker calls it. But she was wrong about her father.
“He spent the next hour saying, ‘I’m gonna prove to you that you’re not gonna go to hell.’ I told my mom [I was] afraid and she was like, ‘If I’m human and imperfect and I love you no matter what, how much do you think a perfect being loves you?’” Baker continues. “Here my parents are [saying], ‘We love you. God loves you.’ I think that’s why I wanna talk about it so much. This exists. Tolerance exists.”
It’s a chilly Friday evening in LA, and Baker is seated in the basement of the Eagle Rock Center for the Arts preparing for her show, the latest stop on her first West Coast tour. She is five feet tall, fine-boned and, thanks to a hardcore cold brew habit, seems poised to spring up from her chair. Her nails are clipped to the quick, her hands look like they belong to someone twice her age—the result of playing guitar since she was 12—and her soulful, cartoon-big eyes give her an alternatingly worldly or childlike affect, depending on the angle.
She’s articulate and down-to-earth, quoting Gabriel García Márquez one minute and joking about swilling “tall boys” of Mountain Dew the next. When she gets excited, her voice hushes as if she’s sharing a secret. A light Southern accent warms her words and softens her vowels. Hers is a voice that makes everyone’s throats catch a little when they hear it, a voice that seized the attention of critics and fans alike last October with the release of her studio debut, Sprained Ankle. Made up of nine simple, heartbroken, and heartbreaking songs accompanied by Baker’s plaintive electric guitar plucking, that pure, quavering-with-emotion voice belongs to a remarkable new talent.
Funny, then, that she never wanted to be a singer.
“Every girl is a singer. I wanted to learn the solos and play lead guitar. I would meticulously teach myself solos so when dudes were like, ‘Oh, you’re a girl, you can’t play guitar,’ I could rip these insane Telecaster blues solos and tell them, ‘Yeah, I can burn up a fret board,’” she says, laughing. “You’re not going to tell me I’m just some girl in the punk scene. I still think the timbre of my voice is weird. I’m no Mariah.”
The worst curse word Baker lets slip during our interview is “crap,” so it’s hard to believe she was such a hell raiser as a child. She partied, hard, and pierced her cartilage with a safety pin. She tattooed her side when she was underage and snuck over to a friend’s to listen to American Idiot because she was forbidden from doing so at home.
“I was super rebellious. You start drinking and smoking and staying out late and not answering your mom’s calls,” she says. “And I’m really embarrassed of that person. There are so many people in Memphis who have real reasons to be angsty, but I was just a suburban white kid with all this misplaced rage. Like, ‘Screw you, Mom and Dad, you won’t let me pierce my lips and I’m 12 years old!’”
What her parents did let her do was play the piano and guitar. She hated practicing, so her piano teacher acquiesced and allowed her to play songs she heard on the radio by ear. When she was in high school, she started a post-punk band, Forrister, with her friend Matthew Gilliam. They’d booked a gig but didn’t have a singer, so Baker volunteered.
“I
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, does not impose a tax, it does require certain stores to collect at least five cents for each carryout bag given to customers.
Margaret Chin, one of the bill’s main sponsors, told NBC News that the measure would help reduce the 10 billion plastic bags New Yorkers toss out each year by between 60 and 90 percent. The fee would apply to paper bags as well, since their production also impacts the environment, supporters of the bill say. This would dissuade customers from simply switching from plastic to paper.
“The goal of the bill is not to charge people anything,” Chin, a Democrat whose council district includes Chinatown, the neighborhood where she grew up, said. “The goal is to have everyone work together and see that they can also take part in protecting our environment, and to stop and think whether they need that plastic bag when they buy something from the store.”
RELATED: 'I'm Not Afraid to Speak Out': How Margaret Chin Found Her Voice
Wellington Chen, executive director of the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation, told NBC News he supports the bill and said it would help rid Lower Manhattan of the ubiquitous red bags, a color symbolizing good fortune in Chinese culture, that are often strewn along the streets.
“It’s glaringly staring at you,” Chen said, referring to the red bags. “You can’t miss it in the trees, you can’t miss it in the garbage cans, and if you drop it on the floor, you see it all over Chinatown. That is littering.”
In interviews this month, several Asian-American retailers and shoppers in Chinatown told NBC News that they welcome the bag fee, saying it’s good for the environment, though some expressed concerns about shops that might flout the rules. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has indicated he will sign the bill into law, which would fine non-compliant store owners, but it remains unclear when the signing would happen.
Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg first introduced the idea of a bag fee back in 2008, but it failed to gain traction in the City Council. The current bill, originally calling for a minimum charge of a dime, passed narrowly in the City Council 28-20 after two years of debate. Meanwhile, the New York State Assembly and Senate introduced their own legislation to bar the city from imposing fees or taxes on bags. A state law would trump a city one.
State Assemblyman Ron Kim, a Democrat whose Queens district includes Flushing, home to many Chinese and Korean Americans, told NBC News he doesn’t believe the council’s bill is the best way to curtail the use of plastic bags. Each year, the city collects 91,000 tons of paper and plastic carryout bags and spends $12.5 million annually disposing of them outside the five boroughs, according to the Sanitation Department.
“I agree with the intent behind the members of the City Council, but I think the outcome is not what we want,” said Kim, adding that he believes the bill punishes low income and poor families.
RELATED: Ban the Bag? Why Plastic Bag Taxes and Bans Don't Always Work
Unlike the bag fee in Washington, D.C., which is a tax to fund cleaning the Anacostia River, New York City’s will direct the change into the pockets of retailers. Kim, however, said he would prefer to see the money generated from the fee reallocated to the consumer, instead of given to store owners, or put into a fund for environmental protection.
For Zhou, the Lower East Side store owner, the fee can help offset the hundreds of dollars she said she spends each month buying lightweight red plastic bags.
But she’s still worried.
“If our store implements the law and collects a fee, but if the rest of the stores haven’t, then people will say, ‘Why are you so cheap,’ and, ‘I’ll go somewhere else to buy my stuff,’” Zhou said. “Some people are like that.”
“If our store implements the law and collects a fee, but if the rest of the stores haven’t, then people will say, ‘Why are you so cheap,’ and, ‘I’ll go somewhere else to buy my stuff.’ Some people are like that.”
If signed into law, the bill would take effect on Oct. 1, and retailers would have until next April to comply before being fined. The fee would apply to bags provided at convenience, grocery, and apparel stores, as well as supermarkets and pharmacies, among others. Those exempt would include restaurants, food vendors, and state-regulated liquor stores.
A fee would not be charged for small handleless bags, like those at supermarkets that customers use for produce, meats, and seafood, and New Yorkers paying with food stamps would be exempt. Retailers who don’t follow the law would be fined $250 for a first offense and $500 for subsequent violations.
The bill also requires the city to advertise the bag-fee program in newspapers, public places, and on radio, and to distribute reusable carryout bags with a focus on low-income New Yorkers below 200 percent of the federal poverty line.
RELATED: China's new revolution: Ban on plastic bags
For many Chinese, particularly immigrants who came to New York within the last decade, having to pay for plastic bags is nothing new. In 2008, China made that a requirement for supermarkets, department stores, and shops, while also banning thin, cheaply produced plastic bags in an effort to fight pollution.
Speaking in Mandarin, Annie Wang, who works in Chinatown and lives in Brooklyn, told NBC News she believes the city’s bag fee is reasonable. “This way people won’t pollute the environment,” she said. “It’s best if you have one of those bags you bring yourself.”
Wang, who is from China and has lived in the U.S. for almost 10 years, said she has a pull-bag on wheels that she uses when she buys fruits and vegetables, a common sight in Chinatown. And if she had to make a stop at the supermarket without her pull-bag, she’s fine with shelling out a nickel or a dime to buy a plastic or paper bag, she said.
For Michelle Lin, a 25-year-old who lives in the Bronx and works on Broome Street, the bag fee is similar to when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority began charging customers a dollar every time they purchased a new Metrocard, a ticket made from plastic that straphangers swipe at turnstiles.
“When it just started, I hated it,” she said, “even though I still pay for it sometimes.”
About the bag fee, Lin added, “It’s something that once people get used to, it’s pretty good. It’s good for the environment.”
Like Wang, Lin is accustomed to the bag fees in China, where she was born and returns every now and then. Sometimes, though, she has to remind herself to bring bags when she goes out shopping.
“It’s a little awkward when you go back there, but it's understandable,” she said.
A plastic bag sits stuck in a tree in a Manhattan street on May 05, 2016 in New York City. Spencer Platt / Getty Images
Plastic bags, including the ones in red, were not always part of the shopping experience in New York’s Chinese-American communities. Chin, the councilwoman who sponsored the city’s bag-fee bill, said she doesn’t remember them ever being given out at markets as a kid growing up in Chinatown during the 1960s. Back then, she said, most items were wrapped in paper.
Chen, the executive director of the Chinatown Partnership, had a similar recollection. He came to New York after leaving Hong Kong in 1970, nearly a decade before plastic shopping bags were first introduced into American stores.
“There was none of that culture,” he said.
But for Kim, the bag fee is personal. The 37-year-old assemblyman, who is Korean American, said he and his wife grew up saving plastic bags that, like many Asian-American families, they reused in an effort to be frugal.
“But now these families that are going through the same exact experiences are being punished,” he said.
Follow NBC Asian America on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr.On tackling runaway inflation, an area where the UPA administration’s consistent failure in its second term is a reason being cited for its electoral rout, the NDA government has a ready reckoner in the form of a detailed action plan — with 20 specific recommendations and 64 actionable points — even before it assumes office. More pertinent is the fact that this detailed report was prepared by a panel headed by Prime Minister designate Narendra Modi in his capacity as Gujarat Chief Minister and was submitted to outgoing PM Manmohan Singh in March 2011.
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The recommendations — including reforms of the APMC Act, liberalisation of agri-markets, along with an unbundling of FCI operations of procurement, storage and distribution — will form the blueprint for the NDA government’s supply-side attack on inflation, according to a representative of the BJP economic cell.
In the run-up to the elections, the BJP top brass maintained that the problem of spiraling inflation is specifically on account of supply-side bottlenecks and that raising interest rates, while being ineffective in tackling core inflation (non-food, non-fuel inflation), only served to dampen a demand-led recovery. The BJP’s hard stand against FDI in multi-brand retail notwithstanding, the recommendations include fostering competition by way of promoting retailing through the “organised sector and cooperatives”.
Despite being slightly dated, what makes the report relevant is that none of the key recommendations were taken up by the UPA government for implementation, something that the BJP top brass complained about subsequently. And more importantly, despite a tight interest rate policy maintained by the RBI, inflation has again started to rear its head, with the latest year-on-year inflation estimates for March showing a spike in retail inflation on higher food costs.
Analysts say the risk of a less-than-normal monsoon this summer will call into question assumptions that the worst is over on the inflation front. The focus of the new government, according to BJP economic cell leaders, will be on addressing supply side issues rather than trying to curtail inflation via monetary policy instruments and hiking interest rates.
The Working Group on Consumer Affairs headed by Modi was constituted on April 8, 2010 and the report was finalised in January 2011. The other members of the panel included the chief ministers of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Unlike the usual practice of voluminous reports, the Modi committee report was touted as a “precise document” that gave specific recommendations with 64 detailed actionable points that would facilitate “expeditious implementation”.
The other key recommendations include a ban on future trading of essential commodities, the setting up of a central price stabilisation fund, a ministerial-level coordination mechanism at the national and regional levels for coordinated policy-making. The measures also include specific interventions such as a time-bound development of agri-marketing infrastructure, including storage capacities in food deficit regions, cold chain, agro-processing, and increasing competition by promoting retailing by organised sector and cooperatives.
The report also suggested the setting up of a price stabilisation fund by the Centre to help state governments procure and distribute essential commodities in short supply. For evolving a single national agriculture market, the report recommended setting up a “ministerial-level coordination mechanism at the national and the regional level for coordinated policy making”. Enlarging the scope of priority sector lending so that the agriculture marketing activities are also made eligible was another key recommendation.
To minimise information asymmetry in the agriculture market, the report also called for establishing a mechanism, if necessary by creating a dedicated agency, to collect and widely disseminate information to all stakeholders on production, import, stocks and overall availability of essential commodities besides extensive use of the information.
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The panel also recommended that offences under Section 10-A under the Essential Commodities Act should be made non-bailable and that special courts be set up for speedy trial of offences under the legislation. In addition, the report also stipulated that the period of preventive detention under the Prevention of Black-Marketing and Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act, 1980, should be increased from six months to one year.CLOSE Someone left hand-knit scarves in Burlington's City Hall Park with a tag stating: "I am not lost. I was handmade for you. If you are cold and need me, please take me." NICOLE HIGGINS DeSMET/FREE PRESS
Buy Photo Wook shows off a scarf from the collection left by a good Samaritan in City Hall Park in Burlington, on Thursday, Jan. 27, 2017. (Photo: NICOLE HIGGINS DeSMET/ Free Press)Buy Photo
Some City Hall Park visitors have benefited from a random act of kindness.
Someone left hand-knit scarves in the park abutting Burlington's City Hall with tags stating: "I am not lost. I was handmade for you. If you are cold and need me, please take me."
About a half dozen scarves were seen hanging on the fountain railing Wednesday night. The following morning, two scarves remained.
RELATED:Burlington City Hall Park due for upgrades
A man with a banjo said he had put a scarf to good use.
"It kept me warm last night," the man who identified himself as Wook said.
He said he had slept near the park in the driest spot he could find.
"It's awesome who ever did that," he said.
Jessica Peck of South Burlington identified herself Thursday as responsible for the hand-knit scarves. Peck said this was the second time she's left scarves there for whoever needs them. She made an earlier delivery on Christmas Eve.
She brushed off the question of whether there was an agenda behind her actions.
"Everyone gets cold the same," Peck said.
The knit-stitch scarves each take a week for Peck to complete in her spare time after work, but they are well-made and warm, according to those who use them.
Eric Charbonneau reads the card that came with his scarf, which was left by an unknown donor in City Hall Park, Burlington on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2017. (Photo: Burlington)
Earlier in the day, park visitor Eric Charbonneau came across Wook and the two remaining scarves.
"You got one of them?" Charbonneau said to Wook.
When told he could take one, he did, immediately wrapping himself in it. "That's cool."
That left a single orange-and-purple-striped scarf.
Burlington City Arts Center staff who work in the gallery abutting the park said they had no idea who left the scarves but were happy the good Samaritan(s) had taken action.
Buy Photo The last scarf hangs in City Hall Park in Burlington, on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2017. (Photo: NICOLE HIGGINS DeSMET/ Free Press)
"It just shows that there's some good in the world," Assistant Curator Ashley Jimenez said Thursday morning.
Long-time Burlington resident Chai Gang stopped by the scarves to admire their color.
"I don't know who made them, but it's a good idea," Gang said. She added she was born during the depression and back then homelessness was not a word. She recalled 20 people living in her home, and all of them looking for work.
"People wouldn't need to be homeless if people could take them in," Gang said looking at the scarves.
Contact Nicole Higgins DeSmet [email protected] or 802-660-1845. Follow her on Twitter @NicoleHDeSmet.
Read or Share this story: http://bfpne.ws/2jB0SKdRather than heavily protecting backdoors with hardcore packers, many malware authors evade heuristic detections by obfuscating only key portions of an executable. Often, these portions are strings and resources used to configure domains, files, and other artifacts of an infection. These key features will not show up as plaintext in output of the strings.exe utility that we commonly use during basic static analysis.
The FireEye Labs Obfuscated String Solver (FLOSS) uses advanced static analysis techniques to automatically deobfuscate strings from malware binaries. You can use it just like strings.exe to enhance basic static analysis of unknown binaries.
Please review the theory behind FLOSS here
Quick Run
To try FLOSS right away, download a standalone executable file from the releases page: https://github.com/fireeye/flare-floss/releases
For a detailed description of installing FLOSS, review the documention here
Standalone nightly builds:
Usage
Extract obfuscated strings from a malware binary:
$ floss /path/to/malware/binary
Display the help/usage screen to see all available switches.
$./floss -h
For a detailed description of using FLOSS, review the documention hereImage copyright AP Image caption Mr Nemtsov was shot on a bridge within sight of St Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin
A leading Russian opposition politician, former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, has been shot dead in Moscow, Russian officials say.
An unidentified attacker in a car shot Mr Nemtsov four times in the back as he crossed a bridge in view of the Kremlin, police say.
He died hours after appealing for support for a march on Sunday in Moscow against the war in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has condemned the murder, the Kremlin says.
President Putin has assumed "personal control" of the investigation into the killing, said his spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Investigators said the murder could have been "a provocation aimed at destabilising the country".
The investigative committee said in a statement that several motives for the killing were being considered including "Islamic extremism".
US President Barack Obama condemned the "brutal murder" and called on the Russian government to conduct a "prompt, impartial and transparent investigation".
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko described Mr Nemtsov as a "bridge between Ukraine and Russia".
"The murderers' shot has destroyed it. I think it is not by accident," he said in a statement published on his administration's Facebook page.
Image copyright AFP Image caption Boris Nemtsov was one of Russia's leading economic reformers in the 1990s (file photo from 2009)
In a recent interview, Mr Nemtsov had said he feared Mr Putin would have him killed because of his opposition to the war in Ukraine.
Mr Nemtsov, 55, served as first deputy prime minister under President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s.
He had earned a reputation as an economic reformer while governor of one of Russia's biggest cities, Nizhny Novgorod.
Falling out of favour with Yeltsin's successor, Mr Putin, he became an outspoken opposition politician.
Analysis: Sarah Rainsford, BBC Moscow correspondent
A lawyer for Mr Nemtsov reported that he had received death threats over social media in recent months; but for now there's only speculation as to why he was targeted. He openly opposed Moscow's role in the crisis in Ukraine - and the annexation by Russia of Crimea.
He had been planning a rare public protest on Sunday against both things - and a growing economic crisis in this country.
Since his death, social media has been flooded with tributes to a man remembered by friends as decent, honest and a democrat. He had been pushed to the political margins in Vladimir Putin's Russia, but he was still prominent enough for someone to want to kill him.
Profile: Boris Nemtsov
Russian and world reaction
Mr Nemtsov was shot at around 23:40 (20:40 GMT) on Friday while crossing Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge accompanied by a woman, Russia's interior ministry said.
He was shot with a pistol from a white car which fled the scene, a police source told Russia's Interfax news agency.
According to Russian-language news website Meduza, "several people" got out of a car and shot him.
One of the politician's colleagues in his RPR-Parnassus party, Ilya Yashin, confirmed Mr Nemtsov's death.
"Unfortunately I can see the corpse of Boris Nemtsov in front of me now," he was quoted as saying by Russia's lenta.ru news website.
Flowers were left at the site of the shooting through the night.
Image copyright AFP Image caption People have been coming to the scene of the murder since Saturday evening to leave flowers
Image copyright AP Image caption Russian opposition leaders Ilya Yashin, left, and Ksenia Sobchak react to news of the death of Mr Nemtsov
Image copyright AP Image caption Mr Nemtsov feared his vocal opposition to President Putin's policies on Ukraine could get him killed
Violent deaths of Putin opponents
April 2003 - Liberal politician Sergey Yushenkov assassinated near his Moscow home
July 2003 - Investigative journalist Yuri Shchekochikhin died after 16-day mysterious illness
July 2004 - Forbes magazine Russian editor Paul Klebnikov shot from moving car on Moscow street, died later in hospital
October 2006 - Investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya shot dead outside her Moscow apartment
November 2006 - Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died nearly three weeks after drinking tea laced with polonium in London hotel
March 2013 - Boris Berezovsky, former Kremlin power broker turned Putin critic, found dead in his UK home
'Putin's aggression'
In his last tweet, Mr Nemtsov sent out an appeal for Russia's divided opposition to unite at an anti-war march he was planning for Sunday.
"If you support stopping Russia's war with Ukraine, if you support stopping Putin's aggression, come to the Spring March in Maryino on 1 March," he wrote.
Speaking earlier this month to Russia's Sobesednik news website, he had spoken of his fears for his own life.
"I'm afraid Putin will kill me," he said in the article (in Russian) on 10 February.
"I believe that he was the one who unleashed the war in the Ukraine," he added. "I couldn't dislike him more."
Mr Putin has been widely accused of fomenting the bloody rebellion in east Ukraine - an accusation he denies. Fighting there followed Russia's annexation of Crimea in March last year.
Almost 5,800 people have died and at least 1.25 million have fled their homes, according to the UN.
The Ukrainian government, Western leaders and Nato say there is clear evidence that Russia is helping the rebels with heavy weapons and soldiers.
Independent experts echo that accusation while Moscow denies it, insisting that any Russians serving with the rebels are "volunteers".Stand clear of the dead bodies.
“Leaking” corpses of people killed by subway trains are often brought to employee lunch rooms and other break areas inside stations, disgusted union officials and sources said Monday.
In an effort to restore service quickly, bodies are simply carted off to “whatever room happens to be nearest,” a union source told The Post.
“If a lunch room is the nearest, they’ll put it in the lunch room,” the source said.
And that’s enough to make transit workers lose their lunch.
LaShawn Jones, 52, who has been a station agent for 18 years, said she was coming into work at the 103rd Street 1 train station about five years ago — and made a quick stop in the employee bathroom when she saw some NYPD Emergency Service Unit officers handling a body inside.
“They weren’t aware that I was coming in and I wasn’t aware that they were in there,” Jones told The Post. “All I remember seeing was a black bag with purplish stuff.”
Jones returned to the bathroom on her lunch break — and though the body was gone, she saw some “hair and scalp and basically body parts in the sink,” she said.
Jones said she immediately went to her booth and called her supervisor. The mess was eventually cleaned up, “but the fact I had to experience that was disgusting,” she said.
“That can totally mess with your psyche, not just for that day but for the future as well,” Jones added. “I couldn’t go home. I was hysterical and I was crying, but by the time the supervisor got there, I calmed myself down.”
Others are so traumatized that they need to take time off, said Derick Echevarria, vice president of stations for Transport Workers Union Local 100.
“To see pieces of a body is traumatizing,” he said. “It stays with them to see something like that.”
Theresa Green, a station agent for 28 years who is a member of the TWU Local 100 union, told the Chief-Leader, which was the first to report the story, that dead bodies at subway stations have been handled this way for years and “nothing was ever done.”
“I saw this on April 7, 2008, when someone committed suicide in the Franklin Avenue C station in Brooklyn, and it still goes on because this is their procedure,” Green told the paper.
Union officials said it takes at least two hours for a corpse to leave the station.
“The police are forced [to] store the bodies in utility rooms and other subway rooms while waiting for Medical Examiner’s Office staff to arrive. It’s unacceptable that transit workers have to endure this on the job,” a TWU Local 100 spokesperson said in a statement. “Mayor de Blasio and his administration have failed to provide enough staffing for the Medical Examiner’s Office to quickly retrieve and remove bodies from the subway after these tragedies.”
An MTA source said bodies are temporarily kept in non-public areas by the NYPD while they wait for the medical examiner to show up.
In a statement, an MTA spokesperson said that “it’s of the utmost importance” that anyone who dies in the subway system is removed from the tracks and platforms as fast as possible “to restore service quickly and to give humane treatment to the deceased and their family.”
“The placement and removal of bodies are handled by NYPD and the NYC Medical Examiner, and we’re discussing with TWU officials how any of the current practices can be enhanced for the comfort of our workers,” the statement said.
A City Hall spokeswoman said in a statement that the ME’s office and the NYPD “are committed to reducing our response times even further to ensure both the humane treatment of the deceased and the health of subway workers and straphangers.”
Only members of the NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit can remove dead bodies from a subway track or tunnel, according to a section of the department’s patrol guide provided to The Post.How do you stop Leicester City? Even now, eight months into the season, it remains as much of a tantalising puzzle as a question. We have become fluent in their star names’ tricks and traits, while the Foxes’ distinct viciousness on the counterattack is a staple of Match of the Day highlight reels. Yet Claudio Ranieri’s side continue to be a footballing Enigma machine, refusing to yield all their secrets. Staggeringly, Leicester have lost only three times in the league this season – and only once, a 5-2 home loss to Arsenal in September, have they been properly filleted.
So how do you stop them? That was the question that Dan Altman – a Harvard-trained economist whose company North Yard Analytics works with a number of Premier League and Champions League clubs – set about answering at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference on Saturday. His starting point, he told his packed audience, was this fascinating nugget: “The more Leicester pass, the less Leicester score.”
Nothing compares to this truly magical title charge by my Leicester City | Gary Lineker Read more
Altman knew this because he had analysed every single Leicester attack starting from within their own half this season. This involved examining the total length of passes in each move as well as whether that possession led to a shot and the quality of chance it produced. (Yes, that is a lot of number crunching). Crucially, it allowed him to work out how direct the Foxes’ attack was compared to other teams – and how the speed of their attacks affected their chance creation.
What Altman found was fascinating. First, Ranieri’s men created far better chances when they went for the jugular immediately. So if, say, they received the ball 80 yards from goal, their expected goals per possession was highest when the ball was passed between 80 and 120 yards before a shot. In other words, when they played direct football. However, when they played in a more measured style, similar to Arsenal or Manchester City, their chance of scoring was far lower than other teams around them in the league.
The data showed something else. Danny Drinkwater and N’Golo Kanté are often primarily regarded as supreme worker bees, protecting Leicester’s back four and growling away in midfield. Not without reason, given Kanté leads the league in interceptions and tackles. Yet, as Altman pointed out, for the first 16 games of this Premier League season the highest proportion of Leicester’s most dangerous attacks started with these two central midfielders – with long balls from their goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel also prominent in the data.
So how might this help teams stop Leicester? Or at least slow them down? As Altman argued, given that Ranieri’s side need to be direct, teams should force them to the flanks more often because usually they will have to come back towards the centre to create better chances, which will blunt the speed of their attacks. They also need to press Drinkwater and Kanté with greater frequency.
Indeed, as Altman explained, this has started to happen. When he compared Leicester’s first 16 matches this season to their next 12, he found that because Drinkwater and Kanté were being harried more often the attacks they started were less effective. More of Leicester’s play was beginning and going through the flanks – and particularly the full-back Christian Fuchs.
The effect on Leicester’s attack is notable. Over games 17 to 28 in the Premier League, their shots from possessions starting in their own half tumbled by 50%. Meanwhile, the expected goals from these possessions – a measure of how good their chances were – fell by 25%. To Altman, this meant that pressing the midfielders had been successful, although it also had a cost: Leicester’s shots from counterattacks fell but the quality of those shots rose. The reason was simple: attacks that did get through the press had fewer defenders to beat further up the field.
Altman stressed that his presentation was not a comprehensive master plan to stopping Leicester but a small snapshot showing how deeply mining data, along with using more traditional methods such as video analysis, could help teams potentially develop an edge.
As he also points out, the data suggests Leicester have other potential weaknesses that might yet be exploited, such as Schmeichel. “He is often pivotal in starting attacks, so opposing forwards should probably hassle him more when he has the ball,” Altman says. “And though he’s a good shot-stopper, he’s below average at cleaning up the play after shots that don’t result in goals, so opposing players should always be ready to charge in for a rebound.”
Still, these potential weaknesses are not yet greatly affecting Leicester’s results. For months the doubters and sceptics have expected them to slip back to their rightful place. Yet winter has gambolled into spring and the Foxes have become favourites for the Premier League – aided, Altman says, by a dose of luck.
That is certainly the case, but if Leicester can rebuff Spurs and the rest, few would begrudge them the title. True, they have also benefited from this most gloriously bonkers season in memory, with Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United all wildly underperforming and Arsenal imploding when coming up on the rails. However, it took balls and bravado for Ranieri’s side to seize the day – as well as superb recruitment, canny management and Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez producing a season for the ages.
For decades Leicester have been the most blue collar of teams. Now, wondrously, they appear smarter and sharper than the pack.Are you guys fired up for Netroots Nation this weekend? You know, Netroots? The annual lefty political conference that used to be known as YearlyKos, before they rebranded it because nobody really likes Markos Moulitsas? Yeah, that one. It’s being held in Atlanta this year, and they’re bringing in a local boy to help out.
Jon Ossoff will be leading a panel discussion at Netroots on Saturday about winning the 2018 midterm elections pic.twitter.com/uRcJwZyJHR — Jeff Stein (@JStein_Vox) August 10, 2017
If you can’t read that, here’s the description:
LEAVING IT ALL ON THE FIELD: THE MIDTERM ELECTIONS IN THE RESISTANCE ERA
Democrats have suffered severe losses in recent midterm elections. Because of redistricting, the 2010 elections devastated the party so badly that we have not yet been able to recover. And 2014 wasn’t much better. But the party in control of the White House usually loses ground in the midterms—and because of Trump, progressives are more mobilized than they have been in a decade… For 2018, where, and how, should progressive activists focus their energy for maximum impact? Our panel— comprised of a handicapper, a staffer, an activist, and a candidate—will approach these questions from each angle.
“Leaving It All on the Field.” Y’know, like George Custer.
Ossoff is the only one on the panel I’ve heard of, and I’ve only heard of him because for months he was raised up to be the Great Democrat Hope. They threw $30 million at him, they pulled in celebrity endorsements, they came up with clever ads to appeal to his fellow millennials:
And he lost. Which is why he now has the free time to hang out at Netroots and pretend he knows what happened.
I hope somebody records this panel. I want to know what advice Ossoff has to offer on winning an election, other than: “Don’t be me.”
(Hat tip: Twitchy)From Dengeki this week comes a final release date for Nippon Ichi's original PS3 RPG, The Witch and the Hundred Soldiers. Previously announced for Spring release, the game's date has been finalized for early summer, specifically June 28.
Dengeki also has a full preview for the game, complete with new characters and gameplay details.
It looks like you'll be able to select from ten weapon types, equipping them to your undead knight warrior in five slots. The game also has a gambling area where you can play fishing, dice and other mini games.
As previously detailed, the game's main character isn't the knight who appears on the screen. You're actually playing as Metallica, a witch who calls upon the soldier, and his 99 comrades when needed, to do battle.
Metallica can also enslave enemies, although we're not sure how they're used at present. Other uses for enemies include recovering your knight's stamina by eating them alive.
With all these details appearing in Dengeki, we'll hopefully get a new online look at the game later in the week.Author’s Note: The following column is comprised of excerpts taken from my first lectures on the first day of classes this semester at UNC-Wilmington. I reproduced these remarks with the hope that they would be useful to other professors teaching at public universities all across America. Feel free to use this material if you already have tenure.
Welcome back to class, students! I am Mike Adams your criminology professor here at UNC-Wilmington. Before we get started with the course I need to address an issue that is causing problems here at UNCW and in higher education all across the country. I am talking about the growing minority of students who believe they have a right to be free from being offended. If we don’t reverse this dangerous trend in our society there will soon be a majority of young people who will need to walk around in plastic bubble suits to protect them in the event that they come into contact with a dissenting viewpoint. That mentality is unworthy of an American. It’s hardly worthy of a Frenchman.
Let’s get something straight right now. You have no right to be unoffended. You have a right to be offended with regularity. It is the price you pay for living in a free society. If you don’t understand that you are confused and dangerously so. In part, I blame your high school teachers for failing to teach you basic civics before you got your diploma. Most of you went to the public high schools, which are a disaster. Don’t tell me that offended you. I went to a public high school.
Of course, your high school might not be the problem. It is entirely possible that the main reason why so many of you are confused about free speech is that piece of paper hanging on the wall right over there. Please turn your attention to that ridiculous document that is framed and hanging by the door. In fact, take a few minutes to read it before you leave class today. It is our campus speech code. It specifically says that there is a requirement that everyone must only engage in discourse that is “respectful.” That assertion is as ludicrous as it is illegal. I plan to have that thing ripped down from every classroom on campus before I retire.
One of my grandfathers served in World War I. My step-grandfather served in World War II. My sixth great grandfather enlisted in the American Revolution when he was only thirteen. These great men did not fight so we could simply relinquish our rights to the enemy within our borders. That enemy is the Marxists who run our public universities. If you are a Marxist and I just offended you, well, that’s tough. I guess they don’t make communists like they used to.
Of course, this ban on “disrespectful” speech is really only illusory. The university that created these speech restrictions then turns around and sponsors plays like The Vagina Monologues, which is loaded with profanity including the c-word – the most offensive and disrespectful word a person could ever possibly apply to a woman. It is pure, unadulterated hypocrisy.
So, the university position can be roughly summarized as follows: Public university administrators have a First Amendment right to use disrespectful profanity but public university students do not. This turns the First Amendment on its head. The university has its free speech analysis completely backwards. And that’s why they need to be sued.
Before we go, let us take a few minutes to look at the last page of your syllabus where I explain the importance of coming to class on time, turning off your cell phone, and refraining from talking during lectures. In that section, I explain that each of you has God-given talents and that your Creator endowed you with a purpose in life that is thwarted when you develop these bad habits.
Unbelievably, a student once complained to the Department chairwoman that my mention of God and a Creator was a violation of Separation of Church and State. Let me be as clear as I possibly can: If any of you actually think that my decision to paraphrase the Declaration of Independence in the course syllabus is unconstitutional then you suffer from severe intellectual hernia.
Indeed, it takes hard work to become stupid enough to think the Declaration of Independence is unconstitutional. If you agree with the student who made that complaint then you are probably just an anti-rel
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Ukraine. A European Union weakened by Brexit might encourage him to light another blaze in our neighbourhood.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Polish delicatessen and shop in Dalston, north London. Photograph: Jeff Blackler/Shutterstock
If London says no on behalf of Britain, then almost certainly pro–EU Scotland would declare independence. We Poles look on border changes in Europe with unease: Poland’s border has been shifted too often without asking Poles for their opinion, but at our cost.
The very word Brexit is negative for us: something we have no means to resist. Even the European council president, Donald Tusk, can do little about it.
The British discussion has, however, a Polish dimension. One of the main slogans used by Cameron and the British anti-EU critics is the fight against immigration and social benefit scams by foreigners.
Poles are now the third biggest immigrant group in Britain after the Irish and Indians. Some estimates talk of a half million, or even 800,000, Polish immigrants who settled in the British Isles after Poland’s entry into the EU.
They made use of the right of the free movement of people. In most cases they worked hard, strengthening the British economy. Anti-EU politicians have turned them into cheats and thieves.
Recently Prince Jan Żyliński, the richest Pole in Britain, decided not to stand for Ukip’s witch-hunt. He publicly challenged Nigel Farage, who aimed his sharpest barbs at Poles, to a duel by sword in Hyde Park.
But Farage chickened out. He didn’t even want a duel of words. He was ignominiously defeated in the May elections for the House of Commons. Now Żyliński should challenge Cameron to combat.
Maybe that would change something. Bartosz T Wieliński, of Gazeta Wyborcza in WarsawThe San Diego Chargers, who have Danario Alexander, Malcom Floyd, Vincent Brown, Robert Meachem, Eddie Royal and about 10 other guys signed at Wide Receiver for 2013, used their 3rd round pick on Wide Receiver Keenan Allen out of the University of California.
Keenan Allen Wide Receiver / San Diego Chargers Height: 6-3 Weight: 210 Born: Apr 27, 2013
In 2012, Allen caught 61 passes for 737 yards and 6 receiving touchdowns. He also ran the ball 3 times for 39 yards and a rushing touchdown. Working as a punt returner, he returned 15 punts for 212 yards and a return touchdown.
Allen posses great size, speed and hands and has the ability to be a playmaker. He was once considered a first-round prospect but has been falling down draft boards for months. Why?
California wide receiver Keenan Allen's drug test at the NFL Scouting Combine was red-flagged, according to an ESPN report. The report said Allen's test showed suspicious levels of water -- a sign that someone could be attempting to flush their system -- and was ordered to take another drug test. Results of that test are not known, and Allen's agent, J.T. Johnson, said his client did not fail a drug test. Once considered a potential mid-first round pick, Allen's stock has been freefalling since he suffered a PCL injury to his left knee in October. That ended his junior season with the Bears and kept him from working out at the combine. However, he did go through team interviews, a thorough medical check and the drug testing. He finally returned to the field to work out for NFL teams in Greensboro, N.C., on April 9, but turned in disappointing 40-yard dash times in the 4.70-4.76 range. Allen is still building up the muscles around his knee and he did look good in positional drills last week, but the reports of a flagged drug test will only continue to weigh down his stock nine days before the NFL Draft. Source
Allen has what nobody else on the Chargers' roster has: The physical gifts to replace Vincent Jackson as a true threat in the passing game. However, he probably won't be ready to take on that role in his rookie season.
This is good value for a 3rd rounder, but the fans are still wondering how Tom Telesco intends on addressing the Left Tackle, Nose Tackle and Strong Safety positions.Google is culpable of spreading a myth that advertising is the only way for a media business to make money on the Web, but there are big online monetization opportunities yet to be fully realized, Betaworks CEO John Borthwick said at PandoMonthly in New York tonight.
For the decade starting at the turn of the millennium, Google ruled the Web as a kind of "benign dictator," Borthwick said, while emphasizing that it was not necessarily a bad thing. Google, after all, struck on a model that helped fund many businesses (including its own, rather handsomely). But it was unfortunate, he said, that PayPal was halted in its prime, scooped up by eBay before it had finished innovating. He asked: "What could have happened if browsers had integrated payments?"
As far as traditional ad-supported websites go, it's probably too late to hope for financial redemption. "Going to your website – a website that is a recycled version of your existing media property – and saying people are going to pay for that is a stupid idea," Borthwick said. But the Web is much bigger than just websites, and it's only getting bigger. The world of apps, for instance, is an "incredible ecosystem," he said, and Apple's App Store has proven that it can support real businesses.
There will be more opportunities to follow, he said, including with in-app purchases, which mobile gaming companies have taken full of advantage of. "The in-app purchases is a wonderful freemium alternative," he said. "It took Apple a long time to get that. In-app purchase stuff, subscription stuff, they’re still futzing around with it. I still think it’s got a long way to go."
He said he's also fascinated by bitcoin and thinks it can become a "cryptocurrency" that will become important to the ecosystem Betaworks is building. For instance, the company is looking into ways that readers might be able to pay tips on Digg, in the same way that Reddit users can reward each other with "Reddit gold." And he's also attracted to the emerging currency because it has some of the "wildness" that was evident in the early days of the Web that has been wrung out in recent years.
None of that means bitcoin is going to save media companies, of course. But a currency that lives and flows on the Web is at least a bit more exciting than another banner ad.• Review: no significant effect on carbon emissions likely • Campaigners hope Obama will say no to crude-oil project
The Keystone XL, a mundane pipeline project that escalated into a bitter proxy war over climate change and North America's energy future, moved one important step closer to reality on Friday.
The State Department, in its final environmental review of the project, concluded that the pipeline, which would carry crude from the Alberta tar sands in Canada to refineries on the Texas Gulf coast, would not – on its own – have a “significant” effect on carbon pollution.
The report acknowledged that crude from the tar sands was 17% more carbon intensive than conventional oil. But it said that did not mean that the project on its own would worsen climate change by expanding production from the tar sands.
“The approval or denial of any single given project is unlikely to significantly affect the extraction of the oil sands,” Kerri-Ann Jones, assistant secretary of state, said during a conference call with reporters.
The finding clears the way for President Barack Obama to approve a project that has became a highly charged symbol of the fight over North America's energy future. But he is under no deadline. The State Department said that the environmental impact statement it released on Friday was not an automatic guarantee Keystone XL would be completed.
“It's only part of what we need to look at in order to make this important decision,” Jones said. She said that the decision-making process would also examine issues of energy security, foreign policy and economic interests, along with climate change.
Eight government agencies and the public now have 90 days to weigh in on the project. Secretary of State John Kerry, who worked on climate change for years in the Senate, will also have a say. The final decision rests with Obama, who will determine whether Keystone XL is in the US national interest.
But after five years of wrangling and delays, it now appears increasingly likely that TransCanada will be able to build the pipeline.
“If anything I would hope we would see a shorter time frame rather than a longer time frame,” Russ Girling, TransCanada's chief executive, told reporters. “My view is that the 90 days could be truncated significantly because I do believe that a lot of the inter-agency consultation has already taken place.”
Girling said it would take two full years to build the pipeline, once it had final approval.
The State Department, in Friday's report, essentially concluded that Keystone would have little material effect on greenhouse gas emissions and that Canada would continue to develop and ship tar sands crude with or without the pipeline.
“Approval or denial of any one crude oil transport project, including the proposed project, is unlikely to significantly impact the rate of extraction in the oil sands or the continued demand for heavy crude at refineries in the United States,” the review said.
The review included models suggesting that transporting oil by rail would generate even more greenhouse gas emissions than a pipeline, and also discussed measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the pipeline.
“The facts do support this project. The science continues to show that this project can and will be built safely,” Girling said. “It will have a minimal effect on the environment and it will not significantly impact carbon emissions.”
The finding came as a bitter disappointment to environmental groups and some Democratic members of Congress, who had urged Obama to reject the pipeline.
“Even though the State Department continues to downplay clear evidence that the Keystone XL pipeline would lead to tar sands expansion and significantly worsen carbon pollution, it has, for the first time, acknowledged that the proposed project could accelerate climate change,” said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, a campaigner for the Natural Resources Defence Council.
“Piping the dirtiest oil on the planet through the heart of America would endanger our farms, our communities, our fresh water and our climate. This is absolutely not in our national interest.”
The campaign against Keystone XL has become a national movement over the last three years, with environmental activists, Nebraska landowners and hedge fund managers all coming out against the project. In 2012, Obama, under pressure from landowners concerned about underground water sources and sensitive prairie, rejected the first proposed route for the pipeline across Nebraska.
The White House continued to come under pressure from environmental campaigners. Former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer took out television ads on Tuesday, the night of Obama's state of the union address, attacking Keystone XL, and other wealthy Democratic donors wrote open letters to the White House seeking to shut down the project.
The pipeline would eventually double the amount of crude oil being shipped from Alberta's tar sands.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Protesters against the Keystone XL oil pipeline have made their presence known. Photograph: Yuri Gripas/Reuters
Campaign groups argued it would open up a vast store of carbon and tie North America more closely to a fossil fuel future. The climate scientist James Hansen said building Keystone XL would be “game over” for the planet.
Industry groups and supporters said the project would help protect America's energy supplies and provide jobs. Republicans in Congress – joined by some Democrats in conservative or oil-producing states – put forward legislation to compel Obama to move on the pipeline. They also warned that rejection of Keystone XL would damage relations with Canada, which has lobbied hard for the project.
Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper, built his economic strategy around natural resource extraction – despite its toll on the climate. The Canadian government, in a report to the United Nations last September, estimated its carbon emissions will soar 38% by 2030, largely because of the development of the tar sands.
Others argued that opponents had oversold the importance of Keystone XL as a contributor to future climate change. They said Obama's commitment to cutting carbon pollution from power plants – the single biggest source of carbon dioxide emissions – would have a far greater impact on the climate.
Obama said last June that he would base his decision on the project's carbon pollution impacts.
Some campaigners said they hoped Friday's finding would still provide enough leeway for a refusal.
“The State Department has given Obama all the room he needs to do what he promised in both campaigns: to take serious steps against global warming," said Bill McKibben, the co-founder of 350.org, which led the fight against the pipeline. “Now we'll see if he's good for his word.”
But Obama has been consistent in trying to move on climate change while expanding fossil fuel development, much to the frustration of campaigners who say the two policies are incompatible. In his state of the union address, Obama gave strong support to natural gas development, but made no mention of Keystone.
The State Department had conducted two earlier environmental reviews of the project. Last March, it found that if Obama rejected the pipeline Alberta crude would go to market by rail or other pipelines. But it revisited the issue under criticism from the Environmental Protection Agency, which said the early reviews had not been broad enough.
The State Department is awaiting a separate report from its inspector general, into allegations by environmental groups that a contractor's review was biased because of connections to TransCanada and the oil industry.
“It seems like it's been very influenced by industry and that's highly problematic,” said Scott Parkin, senior campaigner at Rainforest Action Network.
Activists immediately called a series of protests against the decision.
Nearly 80,000 people have signed up to commit civil disobedience to stop approval of the pipeline, said Elijah Zarlin, senior campaign manager at Credo.
“If the State Department is recommending to the president that this is in the national interest, that would trigger action,” he said.NEW YORK (Reuters) - Continental Airlines Inc said on Friday it will charge a $15 service fee for a first checked bag for certain customers who buy economy-class tickets.
The fee applies immediately to tickets bought for destinations in the United States and to flights between the United States and Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Canada for travel starting on or after October 7.
Continental said the fee will not apply to its “EliteAccess” customers, travelers on full-fare economy tickets, or to military personnel and their families on official orders.
Amid high fuel prices and a slowing U.S. economy, airlines have been introducing fees, raising fares, and cutting routes, capacity and jobs in order to survive.
Earlier this year, Continental introduced a $25 fee on a second checked bag for many economy-class customers.Why Carriers Just Love Firefox OS
There’s a good reason why Mozilla was able to get more than a dozen carriers to line up behind its browser-based phone operating system.
First off, carriers love anything that threatens to lessen the power of Apple and Android. It’s why they always express hope and optimism for any new release of Windows or BlackBerry and have for years.
“Duopolies are not beneficial for any industry,” Telefonica CEO Cesar Alierta said onstage at Mozilla’s press conference on Sunday. Telefonica is betting very big on Firefox OS, bringing it to several countries this year and to all its markets by the end of next year.
Even with BlackBerry and Windows Phone, Telecom Italia CEO Franco Bernabè says there is enough opportunity for Firefox and even Tizen, a mobile version of Linux.
“I think there is room for all of them,” Bernabè said in a brief interview at the Mozilla event. “The only thing we don’t want is to have two monopolies dominating the market.”
But Firefox offers two additional benefits beyond just offering carriers a chance to knock Google and Apple down a peg.
The first of these is cost. The operating system, like Android, is free. But even more than that, it is designed to run well on low-end hardware where Android performs poorly or can’t run at all.
Secondly, Firefox is open. Carriers can do whatever they want, from running their own apps and services to branding and anything else.
That could give Firefox and Tizen a leg up on BlackBerry and Microsoft, Bernabè said. “In our opinion, who will prevail will be the open source platforms.”
There is still a huge challenge, though. Firefox OS actually has to run well. And that’s where the carrier’s dreams could end.
The list of companies that bet too early and too heavily on HTML is a long one that includes, most notably, Facebook, which has since reversed course and focused heavily on native work for iOS and Android.
Analysts say Firefox has lined up an impressive array of partners but still has a lot of work to do in order to deliver a product that will sell.
“The real acid test for Firefox OS and its long-term prospects is the quality of the software itself and the user and developer experiences that it fosters,” said Ovum analyst Tony Cripps. “What is clear from the Firefox OS demonstration handsets that we have seen was that they are still some way from being market ready, being both slow and buggy.”
Even low-cost smartphones have to work well, Cripps said, noting that there is increasing competition from Android as well as the latest generation of feature phones such as Nokia’s Asha touch line and Samsung’s Rex phones.
Meanwhile, the U.S. could prove an even tougher nut to crack. The home market is on Mozilla’s radar, but not the top priority, says CEO Gary Kovacs. The company announced Sprint as a partner, but didn’t give any details and Kovacs said the U.S. probably won’t see its first Firefox OS devices until 2014.The ACLU of Montana filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the constitutionality of a proposed ballot initiative that would require transgender residents to use public bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their sex at birth.
The lawsuit was filed in District Court in Cascade County on behalf of seven transgender Montanans, the parents of a transgender 9-year-old and the city of Missoula. The Bozeman City Commission voted Monday to join the effort.
"This proposed measure legalizes discrimination," said Alex Rate, legal director for the ACLU of Montana.
The ACLU and the plaintiffs argue the Locker Room Privacy Act would deprive transgender Montanans of equal protection under the law and violate their rights to privacy, dignity and due process.
The lawsuit asks the court to declare the initiative unconstitutional and to prevent Secretary of State Corey Stapleton from placing it on the November 2018 ballot.
The Montana Family Foundation is sponsoring the initiative. Foundation president Jeff Lazloffy has argued that predators claim they are transgender to access public bathrooms used by the opposite sex.
"High school girls shouldn't be forced to shower in front of a boy, even if he does think he's a girl," Lazloffy said in a statement Tuesday. "Boys shouldn't have to change clothes in front of a girl, even if she thinks she's a boy. It's just common sense."
Lazloffy said Initiative 183 offers solutions such as single-stall changing facilities.
While his arguments center on locker room use, plaintiffs focused on the initiative as it would apply to public restrooms.
"This morning, I walked down the hall and used the women's restroom," transgender plaintiff Roberta Zenker told those gathered at the Capitol Rotunda. "It was not lost on me that if I-183 passes, I would not be able to use that restroom."
The law would force her to use the men's restroom and face possible harassment, humiliation and embarrassment or risk breaking the law by using the women's restroom, she said.
"What better way to discriminate against a class of people than to effectively exclude them from public places," said Zenker, who transitioned to a woman 11 years ago.
Lazloffy argued the lawsuit is premature because the initiative has not yet qualified for the ballot. Supporters have until June to gather the nearly 26,000 signatures needed.
Rate noted that in an earlier case challenging the constitutionality of a ballot measure, former Montana Supreme Court Justice Jim Nelson wrote that placing a facially invalid measure on the ballot would be a waste of time and money for all involved.
The high court ruled last month that the ballot language approved for the initiative needed to be re-written because it did not include the initiative's definition of sex and was otherwise vague.
Rate said he hoped the judge would rule before the November 2018 election.“The fungus you want in your walls.” Now that’s a phrase I’m sure you never thought you would hear. With the threat of certain fungal species associated with sick building syndrome becoming an increasingly common concern… who wants fungus in their walls? Well the minds behind Ecovative Design are intent on convincing the world that everyone should have fungus in their walls, and in their packaging. From what I’ve read, I’d have to agree and I’d like to share what I’ve learned with all of you.
Ecovative Design is exactly what its name suggests; a company using ecological knowledge and innovative techniques to design eco-friendly substitutes for common products. Ecocradle® Packaging is a green alternative to traditional styrofoam packaging and Greensulate® is an alternative to traditional insulation for housing. The company was launched in 2007 by two graduates of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre. Their idea of changing the way common materials are made has become a working reality through all of the grants they have won. I find their achievements and ingenuity impressive. It takes a lot of hard work and unique thinking to create and run a company with an ambitious goal, especially in this economic climate.2
Ecovative Design’s products use natural ingredients to grow biodegradable alternatives to insulation and Styrofoam packaging. In their products, bulking agents–husks and hulls of various commonly grown food stuffs–are held together by fungal mycelia. The idea to bind natural products together this way was sparked by an interest in the way fungi bound wood chips. It was a simple observation, but it opened a curious mind to new possibilities. It turns out that the use of a fungus is key to the production process. The enzymes that the fungus secretes and the filamentous structure of mycelium convert lignocellulosic waste into a cohesive product. By maintaining a controlled micro-environment Ecovative Design can grow their products in an approximately week long process. The versatility of fungal enzymes allows for many different types of husks and hulls to be used in the production process, allowing for specialization in production based on region. Cotton hulls can be used in one region where they are a common waste product; soy growing regions can exploit soybean hulls. Ecovative Design looks to not only produce a green product, but to make the whole process as eco-friendly as possible.2
Ecovative Design’s products are made possible by the unique way that fungi grow. The growth of mycelium is key. Their fungus belongs to the phylum Basidiomycota (a group you know, since it includes mushrooms, bracket fungi, and stinkhorns, among others). The company specifically uses a fungus capable of producing dimitic or trimitic hyphae. These types of fungi contain two or three different types of hyphae respectively (which fungus? that’s proprietary info). The different types of hyphae give the growing fungus different characteristics, such as increased thickness or strength. All fungi create generative hyphae, but some can also make skeletal hyphae or binding hyphae.1
In case you were thinking of your spore allergies: The fungi are rendered inert, unable to continue to grow or produce allergenic spores, by a key step in Ecovative Design’s production process. The production and stabilization of Greensulate® and Ecocradle® prevents the fungi from producing spores.2
I’m sure you’re also concerned about how the Greensulate® handles traditional standard tests for insulation products. This I found really interesting. Greensulate® stands up better to fire damage than traditional insulation. This can be seen in a snippet of an interesting video that Ecovative Design made for the Google 10^100 Project. But dried basidiomycete mycelia are highly combustible, so how is Greensulate® fire retardant? It’s the bulking agents within the insulation rather than the fungus that makes the product fire retardant. The bulking agents, a combination of rice husks, buckwheat hulls, and cottonseed hulls, have a naturally high silica content that prevents the product from burning readily. The Greensulate® product also meets current standards for flood damage and behaves similarly to lumber in these tests. One test found that the material absorbed less than 8% water by mass while maintaining structural integrity. Greensulate® also performs similarly to lumber in tests of resistance to fungal growth. The ability of Greensulate® to resist fungal growth is achieved by the addition of a boride solution, but less is necessary in Greensulate® than in traditional cellulose insulation.2
I’m thinking Ecovative Design is definitely on the right track. It’s exciting to see young entrepreneurs putting fungus to good use in a new way, and I hope to hear more about this company in the future. Keep on the lookout for more news about Ecovative Design, as they continue to win grants and awards for their eco-friendly and innovative ways. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for people to be excited to have fungus in their walls and as an alternative to petroleum-based packaging.Equifax, the credit monitoring company, is in trouble again, just a few days after revealing that hackers compromised its personal and financial data stores, affecting nearly all of the company's 143 million customers which is 40% of Americans.
In response, Equifax set up a site where potential victims could use several digits of their social security number and their birth date to find out whether they were one of the affected individuals, EquifaxSecurity2017.com. That site, though, wasn't part of Equifax's corporate website, and users risked giving information to a third party, just by visiting the "safety check" page.
Matters became more complicated on Monday when Equifax's Twitter account tweeted out the wrong safety page link, sending customers to SecurityEquifax2017.com, a faux version of the Equifax site that looks identical in every way to the original site, except that it has no authority to collect any sensitive customer information.
Programmer Nick Sweetling created SecurityEquifax2017.com as a test to see if users leaving Equifax's site would give their information to an untrusted third-party site, and to prove how reckless Equifax was being in response to the hacking incident.
Sweetling didn't anticipate that Equifax itself would tweet out the site. But they did. Three times. Each time sending customers to a site that had no official connection to Equifax's security protocol.
Once they figured out their mistake, Equifax deleted their tweets, but not before the fake site's URL went out to thousands of Equifax's followers, and three people who tweeted questions at Equifax, specifically.
This is the third time in the wake of Equifax's hacking scandal that the company has been forced to defend its "clean up." Besides the error tweets, customers have complained of unfriendly service agents who direct them back to the EquifaxSecurity2017 website only, and immediately following the attack, lawyers became concerned that users who failed to read the fine print on Equifax's security check sites were signing away their right to sue the company later.As you guys know, the Vikings have run a variation of the Cover-2--the Tampa-2-- for a good part of my adult life, and definitely since 2006, when Brad Childress was hired. When he was fired and Leslie Frazier went from Defensive Coordinator, to Interim Head Coach, to Head Coach, that same defense has stayed.
Before we go any farther, if you're not sure how a Tampa-2 defense is supposed to work, Arif has done a must read series on this defense. Start off by reading this, then go read this, before you go any further. If you can only read one, read the latter. But you're an underachiever if you do.
Now, contrast that with this nugget of info from Peter King in his weekly Monday Morning Quarterback column. He was relaying a conversation former Colts GM Bill Polian had with Tampa Bay safety Ronde Barber, as explained by Alex Marvez:
The cover-two defense as we know it could be on the road to becoming obsolete. Polian got into a fascinating exchange with Tampa Bay free safety Ronde Barber about this topic. Barber is entering his 15th NFL season playing in the acclaimed "Tampa-2," a scheme predicated upon the strong safety disrupting receivers who are funneled toward the middle of the field by cornerbacks playing zone coverage on the outside. Many of the bone-jarring safety hits once allowed are now banned as the NFL has instituted rules to better protect pass catchers. That has Polian, whose Colts used that system from 2002 through 2011 after Tony Dungy was hired as head coach, questioning whether it can be used effectively in today's NFL. Said Barber: "Our theory was all these guys got to the ball and intimidation was a physical act. It was, 'Get guys to run through zones. We'll shoot our guns and separate them from the ball.' The rules will definitely affect it... I know we don't play cover-two now the way we used to."
Let's look at this a little bit more, after the jump.
What makes this defense the most effective is the discipline and physical play of the secondary, as Arif pointed out in his breakdown. With the rules in the NFL getting stricter and/or more random and inconsistent in what or what doesn't constitute a flagrant foul, players will be more inclined to not go after a receiver coming over the middle like they used to.
If there is no intimidation factor, as Barber said, the amount of guys Alligator Arming throws for fear of being waylayed is going to drop. If that's going to drop, the main philosophy for the Cover-2/Tampa-2 has essentially been neutered.
I think this is an interesting, if not troubling dynamic for the Vikings. They've been drafting defensive players, ostensibly, to fit into the Tampa-2 system for half of a decade now. If the rules are making players less aggressive, the defense isn't going to be effective. If the defense isn't going to be effective, like we saw most of last year, the Vikings aren't going to win. If the Vikings aren't going to win, Frazier will get fired. Spielman probably will, too.
Now, you have a defensive roster full of players fit for a system that isn't workable, on a bad team going through what will probably be a full defensive makeover. Ouch.
With that said, the cause of the Vikings defensive troubles the last couple of seasons hasn't been due to a lack of aggression, it's been due to injuries and an overall lack of talent in the defensive backfield. I also think that this 'death knell' of the Tampa-2 is a bit premature. Whenever the NFL institutes a rules change, players adapt, and this won't be any different than any other situation.
This is going to be more difficult due to the fact that the meting out of punishment for 'dirty' or 'illegal' hits are more random or arbitrary than lottery winnings. I can understand why Barber says players are playing with a different level of aggression, but I also think he fails to underestimate the ability of defensive coordinators and players to adjust, once the rules settle themselves out.
Anyhow, I thought this was an interesting Monday afternoon discussion topic. Thoughts?Share
A Detroit favourite plays his favourite house records.
Mike Huckaby is one of electronic music's teachers. Here's a man that recently told us that he'd prefer to stay in his home city of Detroit tutoring kids on music production at the city's Youthville centre than playing festivals in Europe. A deep house producer who spent years honing his synthesis and programming skills only to publish his knowledge in the form of a sample CD. ("I just have a sense of compassion to help others not to be stuck regarding the music making process like I was in the past," he told LWE last year.)
Our Machine Love feature with him last year was full of anecdotes concerning this struggle to succeed in music making, yet it always ran parallel with his desire to share all he'd unearthed. If this is all beginning to sound a little too feel-good then we should also emphasise that Huckaby is pretty badass DJ and producer in his own right. He's been releasing grade-a deep house since 1995 and despite his statement to the contrary regularly finds himself touring throughout Europe among other worldwide destinations like the upcoming Decibel festival in Washington state.
As for Huckaby's mix for us? "These are the records that I want to hear for the rest of my life."
What have you been up to recently?
I'm quite busy these days. I've just finished Tresor's 20th Anniversary mix CD; remixes for Vladislav Delay and Pole; a limited release for Sushitech; Sun Ra Edits Vol 2; a sample CD for Red Bull Music Academy in Australia; a lecture and workshop there; the Decibel Festival in Seattle; as well as a European tour that starts in October. In addition to that I have several workshops in Europe and Russia too. So yeah, I'm quite busy these days.
How and where was the mix recorded?
At home in Detroit with vinyl and turntables.
Can you tell us about the idea behind the mix?
These are the records that I want to hear for the rest of my life. This is also my last podcast for 2011. So the best has been saved for the last, so to speak. I found an old reel tape when I was on the Electrifying Mojo's show, so I crafted a nice little intro, and mixed from there. That was one thing my reel-to-reel came in handy for.
It's impossible to capture a city in a film. What did we miss that you think is important about Detroit in Real Scenes?
I think coverage of Ron Murphy's contribution to Detroit should have been discussed, as well as Archer's vinyl pressing plant in Detroit. Those things should have been included. J. Dilla's influence and popularity in Detroit could also have been discussed.
Has there been much of an upsurge in interest in Youthville since its premiere?
Absolutely. I am overwhelmed by the amount of feedback I have received about the documentary. People from all over the world have begun to contact me and make contributions towards my Ableton and Reaktor classes at Youthville. People have donated computers to students in need, and as well as financial donations to help students in need of purchasing software for the classes.
But the greatest thing that has been achieved after the documentary's premiere has been landing a sound design opportunity for the two students featured in the video. Being able to do sound design for Reaktor at 11 and 14 years old is mindblowing!
When the concept of the Detroit / Berlin connection is being discussed, Tresor and Hardwax is often the source of the conversation. But the next Detroit / Berlin connection beyond the millennium is a technological one that exists between Native Instruments, Ableton and the work that I'm doing at Youthville. Those companies have lent a tremendous amount of support.
What are you up to next?
I'm trying to get My Life with the Wave Vol. 2 done, and I'm soon on my way to Russia.
Photo credit: Walter WasaczStory highlights Donald Trump said he "should get credit, not be scorned" for the tone of his events
He blamed Bernie Sanders for protests that have turned violent at his campaign events
(CNN) Donald Trump is pinning the blame for escalating violence and protests at his campaign events on Bernie Sanders.
The Republican presidential front-runner said in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" Sunday that he "should get credit, not be scorned" for his handling of the tension at his events.
"You had professional disruptors, thousands of them, from Sanders and to a smaller extent, Hillary (Clinton)," he said of a Friday night event in Chicago that Trump canceled after chaos broke out there.
Trump was deflecting blame after a weekend of eruptions on the campaign trail. On Friday, his campaign canceled his appearance at an event in Chicago amid security concerns. On Saturday, a man rushed the stage during one of his speeches, and Trump closed out the day by calling for the arrest of protesters at his events.
Trump said of conservatives: "We are treated so unfairly, and I'm treated very unfairly."
Read MoreMata: Mou relationship never bad
By Football Espana staff
Manchester United star Juan Mata has rejected widespread reports that he's ever had a bad relationship with new boss Jose Mourinho.
The Portuguese boss sold Mata to United six months after taking over at Chelsea to prompt rumours that he either did not value the Spaniard's abilities or that the two did not get along at a personal level.
"My relationship with Mourinho has never been bad," the 28-year-old explained on Cope on Thursday night.
"Many lies were told about me and Mourinho when he arrived at the club this summer and it bothered me that every day I had to read and listen to rumours that weren't true - with him I'm fine.
"You read a lot of comments on facebook and twitter but they just make you laugh.
"I really want to lift titles at Manchester United, the Premier League is a trophy I have never won but I believe we can do it with this group.
"It was disappointing not to go to the European Championships this summer but I'm happy to be back involved and Lopetegui is a good manager."Ankara, Turkey - In the past week, the wave of demonstrations that began in Taksim Square in Istanbul has spread to different cities across Turkey.
From the protesters' standpoint, the demonstrations in Ankara, the nation's capital, signify widespread frustration at the country's overall direction. They see Turkey moving in a more conservative and Islamist direction, and have blamed the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Most of the demonstrators are young, western-oriented, and secular. They carry flags with the portrait of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, regarded as the father of modern Turkey, and claim that Erdogan has forgotten the spirit on which Ataturk established the state.
On June 5, thousands of union members gathered in Ankara's main square to protest. The demonstrations remained largely peaceful until police violently cracked down on the protesters late in the afternoon with tear gas and water cannons. Several people were injured, some severely, and scores were arrested.I believe game journalists and developers BOTH need to be honest
GethN7 Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 20, 2015
As a GamerGater, we do a lot of calling out of gaming journalists who don’t disclose being friends of people whose games they lavish praise on, but if you ask me, that’s
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Pacific bluefin tuna eggs, babies, juveniles and adults all in the farming system. Two scientists from Kinki went out to sea with local fishermen, seeking to capture juvenile tuna for raising in captivity. “We researchers always wanted to raise bluefin because it’s big and fast. It’s so special,” said one of the scientists, Hidemi Kumai, now 79 years old. “We knew from the beginning it was going to be a huge challenge.”
Watch a video about Kinki University’s tuna farming operation in Kushimoto, Japan.
It was more than that. The moment the researchers grabbed a few juvenile fish out of a net, the skin started to disintegrate, killing them. It took four years just to perfect delicate fast-releasing hooks for capturing juveniles and moving them into pens. “Local fishermen used to say to us, ‘Professors, you are crazy. Bluefin can’t live in confinement,’ ” Mr. Kumai recalled. In 2011, Kinki lost more than 300 grown fish out of is stock of 2,600 after an earthquake-triggered tsunami hit a coastline 400 miles away. The tsunami triggered a quick shift in tide and clouded the water, causing the fish to panic and smash into nets. Last year, a typhoon decimated its stock. Again this summer, frequent typhoons kept the researchers on their toes as they waited for the breeding season to start. “Oftentimes, all we can do is pray,” said Mr. Okada as he threw a mound of mackerel into the pen using a spade. It took nearly 10 years for fish caught in the wild to lay eggs at Kinki’s research pens. Then, in 1983, they stopped laying, and for 11 years, researchers couldn’t figure out the problem. The Kinki scientists now attribute the hiatus to intraday drops in water temperature, a lesson learned only after successful breeding at a separate facility in southern Japan. In the summer of 1994, the fish finally produced eggs again. The researchers celebrated and put nearly 2,000 baby fish in an offshore pen. The next morning, most of them were dead with their neck bones broken. The cause was a mystery until a clue came weeks later. Some of the babies in the lab panicked when the lights came on after a temporary blackout and killed themselves.
Samples of tuna in early stages of their life cycle are preserved in bottles at the Kinki University Fish Nursery Center. Jeremie Souteyrat for The Wall Street Journal
Mr. Kumai and colleagues realized that sudden bright light from a car, fireworks or lightning caused the fish to panic and bump into each other or into the walls. The solution was to keep the lights on at all times. “ These fish can’t protest with their mouths so they protest by dying. ” —Hidemi Kumai For nearly five decades, Mr. Kumai has lived along a quiet inlet, steps from the university’s research pens. He calls the fish “my family.” “These fish can’t protest with their mouths so they protest by dying,” he says. “We must listen to them carefully so we catch the problems before they resort to dying.” At last, in 2002, the Kinki team became the first in the world to breed captive bluefin from parents that were themselves born in captivity. The circle was complete. But the survival rate remained low. While farmed Atlantic salmon had developed into a multibillion-dollar business, it seemed doubtful for years that the tuna undertaking could be commercially viable. Kinki University had funded its project with proceeds from the sale of more common fish raised at its research facilities. That kept the tuna farming alive even after other academic and commercial organizations gave up. Now the university needed help from someone with deeper pockets, and by the latter half of the last decade the timing was right. The world’s voracious appetite for sushi and gourmet fish was eroding stocks of bluefin tuna and governments were beginning to clamp down on overfishing. The country most at risk of a tuna shortage was Japan, which consumes 80% of the world’s overall catch, or some 40,000 tons annually. Japanese trading companies with big fisheries operations such as Mitsubishi Corp. and Sojitz Corp. began courting the Kinki researchers. One early supporter was a young employee of Toyota Tsusho Corp., a trading company affiliated with the auto maker. Taizou Fukuta was working at a desk job in the company’s finance department in Nagoya when he saw a documentary about the tuna project. He was inspired to propose a tuna farming business in a Toyota in-house venture contest and won, according to Mr. Fukuta. With $1 million in seed money, Mr. Fukuta, now 39, visited Kinki’s Mr. Okada, the university’s head of tuna research, many times until the academic agreed to team up with Toyota in 2009. “I was truly impressed by their insistence on sticking with this project for over 30 years,” says Mr. Fukuta, who is now team leader of the company’s agriculture and aquaculture business. Toyota footed the bill for larger facilities where baby fish hatched at the university’s labs could be raised in large numbers for about four months. At that point, the juvenile fish are stable enough to be sold to commercial tuna ranches, where they are fattened in round pens around 100 feet in diameter and 30 feet deep for three to four years before being sold for slaughter. Mr. Fukuta gave up his desk job and moved to a small island off the southern island of Kyushu that offered a warm climate ideal for raising baby tuna. He persuaded local fishermen to lease his company the rights to set up dozens of fish pens. He learned to dive and to steer a boat.
Your browser does not support the audio element. Scroll Mr. Okada, the general manager of Oshima Station, tosses fish into a pen to feed the tuna. Luis Patron for The Wall Street Journal Mr. Okada, the general manager of Oshima Station, tosses fish into a pen to feed the tuna. Scroll A 7-year-old bluefin tuna swims in a pen at the Kinki University Fish Nursery Center. These tuna will spawn eggs for the next generation of farmed tuna. Jeremie Souteyrat for The Wall Street Journal A 7-year-old bluefin tuna swims in a pen at the Kinki University Fish Nursery Center. These tuna will spawn eggs for the next generation of farmed tuna. Scroll After a bluefin tuna is slaughtered, it is immediately dumped in ice. Jeremie Souteyrat for The Wall Street Journal After a bluefin tuna is slaughtered, it is immediately dumped in ice. Scroll Bluefin tuna are packed in ice before shipping to preserve the freshness and pink-red color of the meat. Jeremie Souteyrat for The Wall Street Journal Bluefin tuna are packed in ice before shipping to preserve the freshness and pink-red color of the meat.CM Punk is currently preparing for his UFC debut, and Duke Roufus has provided an update on his training. According to the Roufusport head, the former WWE star went through an "MMA fight scrimmage" against one of their prospects recently. He spoke about Punk's first live sparring match on social media and commented on his performance:
A photo posted by Duke Roufus (@dukeroufus) on Mar 3, 2015 at 6:27am PST
@CMPunk #MMA fight scrimmage with Pro 4-0 Welterweight @craigeckelberg yesterday at @roufusport Punk has some things to work on but he showed a lot of #Potential @ufc @danawhiteufc #UFC photo credit to @duchessofroufus
A photo posted by Duke Roufus (@dukeroufus) on Mar 2, 2015 at 6:38pm PST
Proud of @CMPunk did his 1st live #MMA Sparring today. You can teach #Skill but you can't teach #Will getting better every day! He's very #Dedicated thanks to all our #Team for the support!
CM Punk's sparring partner was a welterweight in Craig Eckelberg who has won all 4 of his bouts by submission. No date has been set for Punk's UFC debut as of yet.LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron warned Argentina on Thursday that London stood “ready and willing” to defend the Falkland Islands, 30 years after Britain recaptured the South Atlantic archipelago whose sovereignty remains a hotly contested issue.
In a speech to commemorate the 1982 British victory over Argentina, Cameron accused Argentina’s government of “aggression” and said there would be “absolutely no negotiation” over sovereignty of the tiny islands, about 300 miles off the Argentine coast.
Tensions between the two countries have escalated in recent months, especially since British companies started to carry out offshore oil exploration. Argentine President Cristina Fernandez has reasserted claims to the scattered islands, known in Spanish as Las Malvinas.
“My message to the government of Argentina is this. The UK has no aggressive intentions towards you,” Cameron told an audience including British veterans of the two-month war to retake the Falklands which resulted in the deaths of 255 British and about 650 Argentine soldiers.
“But do not underestimate our resolve. Threats will not work. Attempts to intimidate the islanders will not succeed. Because Britain stands ready and willing to stand up for the Falkland Islanders at any time.”
Britain says there could be talks on sovereignty only if the islanders wanted them. The islands’ government said on Tuesday it would hold a referendum, probably next year, of its 3,000 inhabitants to see if they wanted to stay part of Britain’s self-governing overseas territories.
‘PARADOX’
Argentine Defense Minister Arturo Puricelli dismissed the idea of a referendum. “It’s a paradox to ask the usurpers to debate whether or not they want to continue usurping,” he said in a speech on Thursday marking the end of the war.
“Argentina has historic, legal and geographic arguments in favor of our sovereignty over the Malvinas,” he said.
Gavin Short, chairman of the Falklands Legislative Assembly, said he was certain the residents would back a continued link with London and Cameron said this would clarify the position “beyond any doubt”.
Argentina accuses Britain of colonialism over the archipelago London has controlled since 1833. Fernandez was due to attend a meeting of the U.N. Decolonization Committee on Thursday to raise the issue and push for talks.
“Britain’s excuses for not negotiating are unfounded,” Alicia Castro, the Argentine ambassador to London, wrote in an article for the Independent newspaper.
“They cannot hide behind the so-called self-determination of the islanders when no UN resolution has recognized such a right.”
As well as stepping up its rhetoric, Argentina has been applying diplomatic and economic pressure.
In December, the South American trading bloc Mercosur - including associate member Chile - agreed that vessels sailing under a Falkland Islands flag would be banned from docking at any of its ports as an act of solidarity with Argentina.
Cameron said he wanted a sensible relationship with Buenos Aires and a partnership over issues such as fishing.
“There is only one shadow on the horizon. And that is the aggression from over the water,” Cameron said.
“We’ve seen the (Argentine) president trying to restrict the movement of Falklands vessels, banning charter flights to and from Argentina and today, escalating the debate at the U.N.”By David Jacobson, Temblor
See earthquakes near New Caledonia
Over the last few days, there have been a series of large, M=6.0+ earthquakes east of New Caledonia, near the New Hebrides Trench. While even the largest of the quakes to hit the region, a M=6.8 on October 31, only caused light shaking on New Caledonia and did not trigger a tsunami, because of the differing earthquake mechanisms seen across this sequence of events, we wanted to give it a closer look.
The New Hebrides Trench marks where the Australian Plate subducts beneath the Pacific Plate. While convergence between these two plates varies from north to south, near the recent earthquakes, it is approximately 80 mm/year. Despite the fact that compression is the dominant force, three of the four large magnitude quakes in the last few days were extensional in nature. The sequence of events kicked off with a M=6.8 compressional event on October 31, and has been followed by three large magnitude normal faulting (extensional) earthquakes.
The key to determining why this is the case is by looking at the location of the earthquakes. The compressional earthquake on Halloween struck to the east of the New Hebrides Trench at a depth of approximately 11 km. This means it occurred along the subduction interface. However, the three extensional events that followed the M=6.8 were to the west of the trench, meaning they occurred within the Australian Plate. Given the timing of events, we believe that the M=6.8 compressional earthquake helped trigger the extensional quakes which followed.
In a subduction zone earthquake, the subducting plate, suddenly slips further beneath the overriding plate like a conveyor belt. While locally there is compression, outboard of the trench, on the outer rise tensional stress can be released. In the events near New Caledonia, the M=6.8 interplate thrust event subjected the so-called outer rise to sudden tension, since the subducting slab is pulled toward the subduction zone. So, the steeply-dipping tensional faults that typify the outer rise are brought closer to Coulomb failure. This same phenomenon occurred on a a grand scale in the Kurli Islands, when a M=8.3 interplate megathrust event in Nov 2006 triggered a M=8.1 outer rise in January 2007 (Ammon et al, 2008).
While all of these earthquakes were relatively large, they should not be considered surprising. In the Temblor figure below, the Global Earthquake Acitivity Rate (GEAR) model is shown. This model uses global strain rates and the last 40 years of seismicity to forecast the likely earthquake magnitude in your lifetime anywhere on earth. What this model shows, is that in the location of the recent activity near New Caledonia, earthquakes exceeding M=7.5 are expected.
Reference
USGS
EMSC
Charles J. Ammon, Hiroo Kanamori & Thorne Lay, A great earthquake doublet and seismic stress transfer cycle in the central Kuril island, Nature, Vol 451, 31 January 2008A man called the "prison Houdini" has a path to freedom after Florida's parole commission voted to release him this month, 36 years after he was arrested for stealing the tools his father bequeathed to him.
Mark DeFriest didn't wait for his father's will to be executed before taking the tools and was convicted of burglary. Decades were added to the sentence after several escapes.
Florida's parole board voted Thursday to parole DeFriest on July 26. He still has to serve at least two years in California for a drug violation while incarcerated there.
He's been in different facilities under an interstate prison agreement. He's now in Oregon and not receiving help with mental health issues and re-entry programs. The parole commission was assured he'd receive that help in California.WASHINGTON – Recent polls for major news organizations contained “very encouraging news” for Sen. Bernie Sanders and warning signs on Hillary Clinton’s general election prospects should she win the nomination, according to a memorandum by polling and strategic consulting expert Ben Tulchin. Significantly, Sanders fares better than Clinton in many head-to-head matchups with leading Republicans. The independent surveys show the senator from Vermont continues to close the gap with the former secretary of state while voters’ familiarity with Sanders and his favorability ratings are steadily rising, Sanders’ pollster said. Moreover, Sanders’ agenda has dominated the debate. His message about a rigged economy propped up by a corrupt campaign finance system “is driving the issue agenda within the Democratic primary,” Tulchin wrote. Looking ahead to next year’s general election, Sanders is much more popular than Clinton with independents and he is much better positioned with Republicans, factors Tulchin said raise “real questions as to which of these leading Democratic candidates is in fact the best positioned for the general election.” In several recent surveys Sanders outperformed Clinton in matchups with Republicans. In a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released on Nov. 3, Sanders outpolled Donald Trump by nine points, 50 percent to 41 percent, and the Vermont senator beat Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida by five points, 46 percent to 41 percent. In a McClatchy/Marist poll released Nov. 13, Sanders outpolled Donald Trump, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina. Sanders outperformed Clinton against Cruz and Bush. In a new poll in Colorado, Sanders fared better than Clinton when pitted against four leading Republican White House hopefuls. Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll, said Clinton “would get bruised and beaten by all the top GOP opponents, and absolutely crushed” by Rubio or Carson. With the first primaries and caucuses less than three months away, the survey findings warn that Clinton “has real vulnerabilities within the Democratic primary electorate,” particularly for “being too close to special interests and Wall Street.” The analysis of recent polls for CBS News, NBC News, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal underscored the fact that Sanders has closed the gap with Clinton since he declared his candidacy on April 30. Half a year ago, Sanders barely registered in polls and pundits dismissed his chances. Today, Sanders “has made tremendous progress and is now the leading Democratic challenger to Hillary Clinton and within striking distance of her,” according to the memo. Nationally, Sanders trailed by 30 points in a New York Times/CBS News poll in September (58 percent to 28 percent) but trailed by only 19 points (52 percent to 33 percent) in the latest survey. In fact, Sanders gained a net 5 points on Hillary over the past month, a period one published report declared “the best month ever” for Clinton. In Iowa and New Hampshire, the states with the first caucuses and primary elections next February, the survey show that the more people know about Sanders the better they like him. “The bottom line is that as Democratic primary voters in key early voting states become more familiar with Sanders, they very much like what they hear and are much more likely to vote for him, thereby putting Sanders on a trajectory to make the Democratic primary horserace even more competitive as he campaigns aggressively and begins to advertise to get his message out more broadly.,” the pollster wrote. To put the numbers in historical context, then-Sen. Barack Obama in 2007 trailed Clinton by 27 points at the same stage of that campaign. A Gallup Poll released on Nov. 16, 2007, put her ahead with 48 percent of the vote to Obama’s 21 percent.Sites shortlisted for Australian waste facility
13 November 2015
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The Australian government has shortlisted six sites for further evaluation and public consultation for a national radioactive waste management facility. The final site selection is expected to be made next year.
In early March, the minister for industry and science invited nominations from landholders in all states and territories for a facility to store intermediate-level waste and dispose of low-level waste from Australian medical, research and industrial processes.
The government said that, by the 5 May deadline, it had received a total of 28 nominations from landholders across Australia.
In a statement today, the minister for resources, energy and Northern Australia, Josh Frydenberg, said: "Each nominated site was subject to an objective and evidence-based assessment by the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, with the assistance of an independent advisory panel and Geoscience Australia. The government has assessed the nominations against technical, economic, social and environment factors."
The government has now drawn up a shortlist of six sites for further evaluation and public consultation. These are: Sally's Flat in New South Wales; Hale in Northern Territory; Oman Ama in Queensland; and Cortlinye, Pinkawillinie and Barndioota, all in South Australia.
Frydenberg said the government will now "engage in extensive consultation over the next 120 days with local stakeholders with an interest in the sites". The period for public comment ends on 11 March 2016. He added, "The outcomes and feedback of the consultation process will help inform the government's consideration of the next phase of detailed assessment, which will involve a further shortlist of two to three sites with an expectation of a final site being identified before the end of next year."
The department of industry and science said earlier that it foresees the project moving through the subsequent phases - site identification, facility design and site licensing, and construction and operation - over the period to the early 2020s, but pointed out that this is dependent on licences and approvals.
While Australia does not use nuclear energy it does have a long history of nuclear research, including the operation of the OPAL research reactor which produces radioisotopes for use in medicine, research and industry. The country currently has some 4250 cubic metres of low-level waste and 656 cubic metres of intermediate-level waste in temporary storage at numerous sites at universities, hospitals and laboratories. More than 100 sites are licensed to store such waste on a temporary basis. Legislation enacted in 2012 aims to establish a single-site facility for managing that waste based on a "volunteerism" approach.
Plans for a national radioactive waste management facility at Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory were shelved in June 2014 when the Northern Land Council, which represents Aboriginal peoples in the area, withdrew its nomination of the site.
Researched and written
by World Nuclear NewsKotlin is a programming language from JetBrains that makes it very easy to implement a RESTful API. Now that it’s officially supported for Android development, I wanted to build an app using Kotlin and Clarifai. Luckily, the creators of HBO’s Silicon Valley gave me all the inspiration I needed in last week’s episode where Jian-Yang builds an app that uses machine learning to identify if something is “HotDog” or “Not HotDog.” I mean, if Clarifai knows anything, it knows hot dogs (see: food model or NSFW model)!
We will be assuming some basic knowledge of Android to get off the ground, but if you are unfamiliar you can learn about building your first app here. If you have a version of Android Studio prior to 3.0, you can refer to these guides on starting a Kotlin project. Otherwise, read on to learn how you can build your own Not HotDog KotDog app using Clarifai and Kotlin!
Defining Our Models
Let’s start by discussing our model objects. If you take a look at the Clarifai Predict Documentation you’ll see the body of the Curl Request looks like this:
{ "inputs" : [ { "data" : { "image" : { "base64" : "'" $ ( base64 / home / user / image. jpeg ) "'" } } } ] }
What we have here is an image object, within a data object, within an input object, that is part of an array. So ultimately we will need four classes here. I will call each of them ClarifaiImage, ClarifaiData, ClarifaiInput, ClarifaiPredictRequest, respectfully. Here is how they will be defined in Kotlin:
data class ClarifaiImage ( val base64 : String? = "" ) data class ClarifaiData ( val image : ClarifaiImage? = null ) data class ClarifaiInput ( val data : ClarifaiData? = null ) data class ClarifaiPredictRequest ( val inputs : List < ClarifaiInput >? = ArrayList ())
Yes, it is true, each of these classes only needs a single line! Kotlin provides us with data classes which provide default implementations for common methods such as toString(), equals(), and copy(). Kotlin classes already provide us with getter and setter methods. Another benefit of Kotlin as opposed to some other languages is the use of default parameters in the constructor. If we look at ClarifaiImage, for example - the constructor takes in an argument for the base64 value, but if it is not passed in it will be assigned to an empty string. You can learn more about those here.
In addition to all of those, we need to make an AuthToken class that will come back from our authorization call, discussed next:
data class AuthToken ( @Json ( name = "access_token" ) val accessToken : String? = "", @Json ( name = "expires_in" ) val expiresIn : Int? = 0 )
Notice that in this class, we use the @Json(name = "") annotation to specify what the JSON key is for a field. If you don’t specify this, Retrofit will just use the variable name. In this case, though, the JSON convention conflicts with Kotlin variable name convention, so we’re using the annotation to override that.
If you would like to see all of the model classes for this project, including the ones used for a ClarifaiPredictResponse, you can view them here.
Retrofit & Authorization
Now that we’ve defined the necessary models used to make our calls, the next thing we need to implement in our app is an authorization call. We will do so using Retrofit, an HTTP Client for Android that was built by Square. This is an industry standard library used for making network requests. Let’s start by adding the necessary dependencies into our build.gradle file:
compile'com. squareup. retrofit2 : retrofit : 2.1. 0'compile'com. squareup. retrofit2 : converter - moshi : 2.1. 0'compile'com. squareup. okhttp3 : logging - interceptor : 3.3. 1'compile'com. jakewharton. timber : timber : 4.5. 1 '
While only the first two are required, I’ve included a logging interceptor for the HTTP calls for debug purposes, as well as a common logging library by Jake Wharton called Timber.
To implement Retrofit, we start by creating an interface that defines any calls we want to make. So far, we’ll need one for authorize() that takes in a RequestBody object, and will return an AuthToken result. Here is what the interface code looks like:
interface ClarifaiAPI { @POST ( "/v2/token" ) fun authorize ( @Body requestBody : RequestBody ): Call < AuthToken > }
The annotation is what tells retrofit that this is a POST request, and provides any extension onto the base URL. Where is the base URL coming from? I’m glad you asked! Let’s build our ClarifaiManager class!
class ClarifaiManager ( context : Context, apiId : String, apiSecret : String ) { private val clarifaiApi : ClarifaiAPI init { val authInterceptor = AuthorizationInterceptor ( apiId, apiSecret, context ) val loggingInterceptor = HttpLoggingInterceptor (). setLevel ( HttpLoggingInterceptor. Level. BODY ) val client = OkHttpClient. Builder (). addInterceptor ( authInterceptor ). addInterceptor ( loggingInterceptor ). build () val retrofit = Retrofit. Builder (). baseUrl ( "https://api.clarifai.com/" ). addConverterFactory ( MoshiConverterFactory. create ()). client ( client ). build () clarifaiApi = retrofit. create ( ClarifaiAPI :: class. java ) } fun authorize ( requestBody : RequestBody ): Call < AuthToken > { return clarifaiApi. authorize ( requestBody ) } }
The ClarifaiManager.kt class maintains a reference to our ClarifaiApi interface. This class defines the OkHttp client we want to use, and any initializations. Here we define our logging intercepter, an authorization interceptor (explained next), and our client which has a base url of “https://api.clarifai.com/” and uses Moshi to convert the JSON response to our Kotlin objects.
The AuthorizationInterceptor.kt file is an interceptor class that will intercept all outgoing Retrofit calls, and preform any necessary actions. In this case, we know that we need to include an Authorization header on every call, so defining this in an interceptor is easier than applying it to every call in the ClarifaiApi.kt interface. Here is the code for the interceptor:
class AuthorizationInterceptor ( val apiId : String, val apiSecret : String, val context : Context ) : Interceptor { override fun intercept ( chain : Interceptor. Chain?): Response { // Get request path. val uri = chain?. request ()?. url ()?. uri () val path = uri?. path val authValue : String if ( path == "/v2/token" ) { authValue = Credentials. basic ( apiId, apiSecret ) } else { val prefs = context. getSharedPreferences ( App. PREFS_NAME, Context. MODE_PRIVATE ) val authString = prefs. getString ( App. AUTH_TOKEN_KEY, "" ) val authResponse = Moshi. Builder (). build (). adapter ( AuthToken :: class. java ). fromJson ( authString ) authValue = "Bearer ${authResponse?.accessToken}" } val request = chain?. request ()?. newBuilder ()?. addHeader ( "Authorization", authValue )?. build () return chain?. proceed ( request )!! } }
The class accepts two strings, which are your API ID and API Secret (found under your application, as well as a context which is used for shared preferences. Our interceptor does one of two things:
If we are trying to hit the token endpoint, we use basic authorization credentials. If we are trying to access any other endpoint, we use the authorization token that’s been stored in shared preferences. We read back the AuthToken.kt object as a string and use Moshi to convert it back to an object. We’ll discuss how to save that next.
Now that we have our Retrofit service defined, it’s time to implement it. We’ll do this in our MainActivity.kt file inside the onCreate() method. Here is a snippet of our activity file that is relevant up to this point:
class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity () { val manager : ClarifaiManager by lazy { ClarifaiManager ( this, getString ( R. string. api_id ), getString ( R. string. api_secret )) } override fun onCreate ( savedInstanceState : Bundle?) { super. onCreate ( savedInstanceState ) setContentView ( R. layout. activity_main ) authorizeUser () } private fun authorizeUser () { val call = manager?. authorize ( RequestBody. create ( MEDIA_TYPE_JSON, GRANT_TYPE_CREDENTIALS )) call?. enqueue ( object : Callback < AuthToken > { override fun onFailure ( call : Call < AuthToken >?, t : Throwable?) { Timber. e ( t ) } override fun onResponse ( call : Call < AuthToken >?, response : Response < AuthToken >?) { Timber. v ( "Success! Token ${response?.body()?.accessToken}" ) val authString = Moshi. Builder (). build (). adapter ( AuthToken :: class. java ). toJson ( response?. body ()) val prefs = getSharedPreferences ( App. PREFS_NAME, Context. MODE_PRIVATE ) val editor = prefs. edit () editor. putString ( App. AUTH_TOKEN_KEY, authString ) editor. apply () } }) } companion object { private val MEDIA_TYPE_JSON = MediaType. parse ( "application/json; charset=utf8" ) private val GRANT_TYPE_CREDENTIALS = "\"grant_type\":\"client_credentials\"" } }
Inside the onCreate() method we create our ClarifaiManager instance using our API credentials, and then using the authorizeMember() method we get the call and implement a Callback using an anonymous class that will handle the success or failure response. If it is a failure, we simply log the error. If we are successful, we convert the AuthToken response to a string using Moshi and store it in SharedPreferences, so it can be read by the interceptor we’ve already created.
Break Point
This would be a good point to pause from the tutorial and test that your application works. Before you run it, here are some additional steps that didn’t get covered:
Include the internet permission in your AndroidManifest.xml file by adding <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" /> outside of the <application> tag. Add an App.kt file which defines your application and has some constants and the Timber setup. You can copy the source here. Following the tutorial, you should now be able to run your app. When the activity starts, you should see something similar to this in your logcat: 05-25 13:54:34.619 24830-24830/com.clarifai.notkotdog V/MainActivity$authorizeU: Success! Token jU85Sdyz2moNlGOK6Pl4MVHEu2ZJJj
If you experienced any errors, please double check the source code from GitHub and let us know in the comments so we can update the tutorial accordingly.
Additional Code
Before diving into implementing the prediction calls, there’s some additional code you will want to add to your sample app, only if you are following along. If you are just reading through, skip to the predict call section.
This is code that’s not in scope of what this post was designer for. If you would like additional clarification on any of it, please ask in the comments!
Add a photo icon drawable to be used for the FAB.
Grab the string and color resources.
Update your AndroidManifest.xml file to include the FileProvider and additional permissions. You must also add provider paths as an XML file.
Update your activity_main.xml and content_main.xml files from here.
The full MainActivity.kt code can be found here, but we will discuss some of it still.
Predict Call
Once you’ve verified that you can run the app and successfully get an authorization token, we can begin implementing the predict call.
First things first, let’s make the corresponding changes to ClarifaiAPI.kt and ClarifaiManager.kt. These changes should not come as a surprise, they’re implemented the same way the authorize() call was:
interface ClarifaiAPI {... @POST ( "/v2/models/{model_id}/outputs" ) fun predict ( @Path ( "model_id" ) modelId : String, @Body requestBody : ClarifaiPredictRequest ): Call < ClarifaiPredictResponse > } class ClarifaiManager ( context : Context, apiId : String, apiSecret : String ) {... fun predict ( modelId : String, request : ClarifaiPredictRequest ): Call < ClarifaiPredictResponse > { return clarifaiApi. predict ( modelId, request ) } }
Next, we can implement the predict call inside our activity. Here is the logic it should follow for Not KotDog:
Show the image we are predicting and a loading state. Encode the image bytes as a base64 string and build our ClarifaiPredictRequest. Make the call with Retrofit, determine if the picture is a hot dog, and update the view accordingly.
To determine if we have a hot dog, we will use the concepts returned in the response along with Kotlin’s Collection.Any method to see if any of the concepts match the name we’re looking for.
private fun predict ( modelId : String, imageBytes : ByteArray?) { // If bytes are null just return if ( imageBytes == null ) { return } // Clear out previous and show loading resultView?. visibility = View. GONE progressBar?. visibility = View. VISIBLE imageView?. setImageBitmap ( BitmapFactory. decodeByteArray ( imageBytes, 0, imageBytes. size )) // Build out the request val image = ClarifaiImage ( Base64. encodeToString ( imageBytes, 0 ) ) val data = ClarifaiData ( image = image ) val input = ClarifaiInput ( data ) val request = ClarifaiPredictRequest ( arrayListOf ( input )) val call = manager?. predict ( modelId, request ) call?. enqueue ( object : Callback < ClarifaiPredictResponse > { override fun onResponse ( call : Call < ClarifaiPredictResponse >?, response : Response < ClarifaiPredictResponse >?) { Timber. v ( "Success!" ) Timber. v ( "${response?.body()}" ) val matchedConcept = response?. body ()?. outputs?. first ()?. data?. concepts?. any { it. name == HOTDOG_KEY }?: false val resultTextResource = if ( matchedConcept ) R. string. hotdog_success else R. string. hotdog_failure val resultColorResource = if ( matchedConcept ) R. color. green else R. color. red resultView?. text = getString ( resultTextResource ) resultView?. setBackgroundColor ( ContextCompat. getColor ( this @MainActivity, resultColorResource )) resultView?. visibility = View. VISIBLE progressBar?. visibility = View. GONE } override fun onFailure ( call : Call < ClarifaiPredictResponse >?, t : Throwable?) { Timber. e ( t ) resultView?. text = getString ( R. string. hotdog_error ) resultView?. setBackgroundColor ( ContextCompat. getColor ( this @MainActivity, R. color. red )) resultView?. visibility = View. VISIBLE progressBar?. visibility = View. GONE } }) }
To modify this to fit your needs, you’ll just need to pass in the appropriate model id (which can be found here)[https://developer.clarifai.com/models], and change the onResponse() logic to look for things other than a hot dog.
After implementing your predict call, as well as the other necessary code changes mentioned above, you should have something like this:The Vancouver Canucks have long been expected to trade former Selke winner Ryan Kesler at the NHL Entry Draft this weekend, but according to a report from TSN's Bob McKenzie, "There's nothing imminent" on the Kesler trade front, in part because the offers just aren't good enough at the moment.
Kesler has two-years and $10 million remaining on his current contract, which includes a full no-trade clause. While Kesler has given the Canucks a list of six teams he's willing to be moved to, the teams presumed to be at the top of his list - the Anaheim Ducks and the Chicago Blackhawks - appear to be unwilling to meet Vancouver's asking price at the moment.
"I get the sense that Anaheim and Chicago believe that maybe they're the only two teams in the running," McKenzie said during an Insider Trading segment on Wednesday evening. "Therefore the offers aren't good enough for what Vancouver wants to do.
"The Vancouver Canucks are not going to do this deal if they don't get the right amount, at least not at the draft."
So the Canucks may hang onto a disgruntled star player who wants out of Vancouver, rather than trading him? That seems familiar.“Pressure without reason is irresponsible, but reason without pressure is ineffectual.”
So wrote Allan Borovoy who spent 40 years “raising hell” with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and died less than a week after the NDP’s majority victory in
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of the caesium-133 atom, was built by Louis Essen and Jack Parry in 1955 at the National Physical Laboratory in the UK.[7][8] Calibration of the caesium standard atomic clock was carried out by the use of the astronomical time scale ephemeris time (ET).[9] This led to the internationally agreed definition of the latest SI second being based on atomic time. Equality of the ET second with the (atomic clock) SI second has been verified to within 1 part in 1010.[10] The SI second thus inherits the effect of decisions by the original designers of the ephemeris time scale, determining the length of the ET second.
Since the beginning of development in the 1950s, atomic clocks have been based on the hyperfine transitions in hydrogen-1, caesium-133, and rubidium-87. The first commercial atomic clock was the Atomichron, manufactured by the National Company. More than 50 were sold between 1956 and 1960. This bulky and expensive instrument was subsequently replaced by much smaller rack-mountable devices, such as the Hewlett-Packard model 5060 caesium frequency standard, released in 1964.[4]
In the late 1990s four factors contributed to major advances in clocks:[11]
Laser cooling and trapping of atoms
So-called high-finesse Fabry–Pérot cavities for narrow laser line widths
Precision laser spectroscopy
Convenient counting of optical frequencies using optical combs.
Chip-scale atomic clocks, such as this one unveiled in 2004, are expected to greatly improve GPS location.
In August 2004, NIST scientists demonstrated a chip-scale atomic clock.[12] According to the researchers, the clock was believed to be one-hundredth the size of any other. It requires no more than 125 mW,[13] making it suitable for battery-driven applications. This technology became available commercially in 2011.[13] Ion trap experimental optical clocks are more precise than the current caesium standard.
In April 2015, NASA announced that it planned to deploy a Deep Space Atomic Clock (DSAC), a miniaturized, ultra-precise mercury-ion atomic clock, into outer space. NASA said that the DSAC would be much more stable than other navigational clocks.[14]
Mechanism [ edit ]
Since 1967, the International System of Units (SI) has defined the second as the duration of 9192631770 cycles of radiation corresponding to the transition between two energy levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom. In 1997, the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) added that the preceding definition refers to a caesium atom at rest at a temperature of absolute zero.[15]
This definition makes the caesium oscillator the primary standard for time and frequency measurements, called the caesium standard. The definitions of other physical units, e.g., the volt and the metre, rely on the definition of the second.[16]
The actual time-reference of an atomic clock consists of an electronic oscillator operating at microwave frequency. The oscillator is arranged so that its frequency-determining components include an element that can be controlled by a feedback signal. The feedback signal keeps the oscillator tuned in resonance with the frequency of the electronic transition of caesium or rubidium.
The core of the atomic clock is a tunable microwave cavity containing a gas. In a hydrogen maser clock the gas emits microwaves (the gas mases) on a hyperfine transition, the field in the cavity oscillates, and the cavity is tuned for maximum microwave amplitude. Alternatively, in a caesium or rubidium clock, the beam or gas absorbs microwaves and the cavity contains an electronic amplifier to make it oscillate. For both types the atoms in the gas are prepared in one electronic state prior to filling them into the cavity. For the second type the number of atoms which change electronic state is detected and the cavity is tuned for a maximum of detected state changes.
Most of the complexity of the clock lies in this adjustment process. The adjustment tries to correct for unwanted side-effects, such as frequencies from other electron transitions, temperature changes, and the spreading in frequencies caused by ensemble effects.[clarification needed] One way of doing this is to sweep the microwave oscillator's frequency across a narrow range to generate a modulated signal at the detector. The detector's signal can then be demodulated to apply feedback to control long-term drift in the radio frequency. In this way, the quantum-mechanical properties of the atomic transition frequency of the caesium can be used to tune the microwave oscillator to the same frequency, except for a small amount of experimental error. When a clock is first turned on, it takes a while for the oscillator to stabilize. In practice, the feedback and monitoring mechanism is much more complex.
Historical accuracy of atomic clocks from NIST
A number of other atomic clock schemes are in use for other purposes. Rubidium standard clocks are prized for their low cost, small size (commercial standards are as small as 17 cm3)[13] and short-term stability. They are used in many commercial, portable and aerospace applications. Hydrogen masers (often manufactured in Russia) have superior short-term stability compared to other standards, but lower long-term accuracy.
Often, one standard is used to fix another. For example, some commercial applications use a rubidium standard periodically corrected by a global positioning system receiver (see GPS disciplined oscillator). This achieves excellent short-term accuracy, with long-term accuracy equal to (and traceable to) the U.S. national time standards.
The lifetime of a standard is an important practical issue. Modern rubidium standard tubes last more than ten years, and can cost as little as US$50.[citation needed] Caesium reference tubes suitable for national standards currently last about seven years and cost about US$35,000. The long-term stability of hydrogen maser standards decreases because of changes in the cavity's properties over time.
Modern clocks use magneto-optical traps to cool the atoms for improved precision.
Power consumption [ edit ]
The power consumption of atomic clocks varies with their size. Atomic clocks on the scale of one chip require less than 30 milliwatt;[17] Primary frequency and time standards like the United States Time Standard atomic clocks, NIST-F1 and NIST-F2, use far greater quantities of power.[12][18]
Evaluated accuracy [ edit ]
The evaluated accuracy u B reports of various primary frequency and time standards are published online by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM). Several frequency and time standards groups as of 2015 reported u B values in the 2 × 10−16 to 3 × 10−16 range.[19]
In 2011, the NPL-CsF2 caesium fountain clock operated by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), which serves as the United Kingdom primary frequency and time standard, was improved regarding the two largest sources of measurement uncertainties — distributed cavity phase and microwave lensing frequency shifts. In 2011 this resulted in an evaluated frequency uncertainty reduction from u B = 4.1 × 10−16 to u B = 2.3 × 10−16;— the lowest value for any primary national standard at the time.[20] At this frequency uncertainty, the NPL-CsF2 is expected to neither gain nor lose a second in about 138 million (138 × 106) years.[21][22][23]
NIST physicists Steve Jefferts (foreground) and Tom Heavner with the NIST-F2 caesium fountain atomic clock, a civilian time standard for the United States.
The NIST-F2 caesium fountain clock operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), was officially launched in April 2014, to serve as a new U.S. civilian frequency and time standard, along with the NIST-F1 standard. The planned u B performance level of NIST-F2 is 1 × 10−16.[24] "At this planned performance level the NIST-F2 clock will not lose a second in at least 300 million years."[25] NIST-F2 was designed using lessons learned from NIST-F1. The NIST-F2 key advance compared to the NIST-F1 is that the vertical flight tube is now chilled inside a container of liquid nitrogen, at −193 °C (−315.4 °F). This cycled cooling dramatically lowers the background radiation and thus reduces some of the very small measurement errors that must be corrected in NIST-F1.[26][27]
The first in-house accuracy evaluation of NIST-F2 reported a u B of 1.1 × 10−16.[28] However, a published scientific criticism of that NIST F-2 accuracy evaluation described problems in its treatment of distributed cavity phase shifts and the microwave lensing frequency shift,[29] which is treated significantly differently than in the majority of accurate fountain clock evaluations. The next NIST-F2 submission to the BIPM in March, 2015 again reported a u B of 1.5 × 10−16,[30] but did not address the standing criticism. There have been neither subsequent reports to the BIPM from NIST-F2 nor has an updated accuracy evaluation been published.
At the request of the Italian standards organization, NIST fabricated many duplicate components for a second version of NIST-F2, known as IT-CsF2 to be operated by the Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica (INRiM), NIST's counterpart in Turin, Italy. As of February 2016 the IT-CsF2 caesium fountain clock started reporting a u B of 1.7 × 10−16 in the BIPM reports of evaluation of primary frequency standards.[31][32]
Research [ edit ]
[33] A caesium atomic clock from 1975 (upper unit) and battery backup (lower unit).
An experimental strontium based optical clock.
Most research focuses on the often conflicting goals of making the clocks smaller, cheaper, more portable, more energy efficient, more accurate, more stable and more reliable.[34] The Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space is an example of clock research.[35][36]
Secondary representations of the second [ edit ]
A list of frequencies recommended for secondary representations of the second is maintained by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) since 2006 and is available online. The list contains the frequency values and the respective standard uncertainties for the rubidium microwave transition and for several optical transitions. These secondary frequency standards are accurate at the level of parts in 10−18; however, the uncertainties provided in the list are in the range of parts in 10−14 – 10−15 since they are limited by the linking to the caesium primary standard that currently (2015) defines the second.
For context, a femtosecond (6985100000000000000♠1×10−15 s) is to a second what a second is to about 31.71 million (7007317100000000000♠31.71×106) years and an attosecond (6982100000000000000♠1×10−18 s) is to a second what a second is to about 31.71 billion (7010317100000000000♠31.71×109) years.
21st century experimental atomic clocks that provide non-caesium-based secondary representations of the second are becoming so precise that they are likely to be used as extremely sensitive detectors for other things besides measuring frequency and time. For example, the frequency of atomic clocks is altered slightly by gravity, magnetic fields, electrical fields, force, motion, temperature and other phenomena. The experimental clocks tend to continue improving, and leadership in performance has been shifted back and forth between various types of experimental clocks.
Quantum clocks [ edit ]
In March 2008, physicists at NIST described a quantum logic clock based on individual ions of beryllium and aluminium. This clock was compared to NIST's mercury ion clock. These were the most accurate clocks that had been constructed, with neither clock gaining nor losing time at a rate that would exceed a second in over a billion years.[42] In February 2010, NIST physicists described a second, enhanced version of the quantum logic clock based on individual ions of magnesium and aluminium. Considered the world's most precise clock in 2010 with a fractional frequency inaccuracy of 8.6 × 10−18, it offers more than twice the precision of the original.[43] [44]
The accuracy of experimental quantum clocks has since been superseded by experimental optical lattice clocks based on strontium-87 and ytterbium-171.
Optical clocks [ edit ]
[45] May 2009- JILA's strontium optical atomic clock is based on neutral atoms. Shining a blue laser onto ultracold strontium atoms in an optical trap tests how efficiently a previous burst of light from a red laser has boosted the atoms to an excited state. Only those atoms that remain in the lower energy state respond to the blue laser, causing the fluorescence seen here.
The theoretical move from microwaves as the atomic "escapement" for clocks to light in the optical range (harder to measure but offering better performance) earned John L. Hall and Theodor W. Hänsch the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2005. One of 2012's Physics Nobelists, David J. Wineland, is a pioneer in exploiting the properties of a single ion held in a trap to develop clocks of the highest stability.
New technologies, such as femtosecond frequency combs, optical lattices, and quantum information, have enabled prototypes of next-generation atomic clocks. These clocks are based on optical rather than microwave transitions. A major obstacle to developing an optical clock is the difficulty of directly measuring optical frequencies. This problem has been solved with the development of self-referenced mode-locked lasers, commonly referred to as femtosecond frequency combs. Before the demonstration of the frequency comb in 2000, terahertz techniques were needed to bridge the gap between radio and optical frequencies, and the systems for doing so were cumbersome and complicated. With the refinement of the frequency comb, these measurements have become much more accessible and numerous optical clock systems are now being developed around the world.
As in the radio range, absorption spectroscopy is used to stabilize an oscillator—in this case a laser. When the optical frequency is divided down into a countable radio frequency using a femtosecond comb, the bandwidth of the phase noise is also divided by that factor. Although the bandwidth of laser phase noise is generally greater than stable microwave sources, after division it is less.
The primary systems under consideration for use in optical frequency standards are:
single ions isolated in an ion trap;
neutral atoms trapped in an optical lattice and [46] [47]
atoms packed in a three-dimensional quantum gas optical lattice.
These techniques allow the atoms or ions to be highly isolated from external perturbations, thus producing an extremely stable frequency reference.
Atomic systems under consideration include Al+, Hg+/2+,[46] Hg, Sr, Sr+/2+, In+/3+, Mg, Ca, Ca+, Yb+/2+/3+, Yb and Th+/3+.[48][49][50]
One of NIST's 2013 pair of ytterbium optical lattice atomic clocks.
The rare-earth element ytterbium (Yb) is valued not so much for its mechanical properties but for its complement of internal energy levels. "A particular transition in Yb atoms, at a wavelength of 578 nm, currently provides one of the world's most accurate optical atomic frequency standards," said Marianna Safronova.[51] The estimated amount of uncertainty achieved corresponds to a Yb clock uncertainty of about one second over the lifetime of the universe so far, 15 billion years, according to scientists at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) and the University of Delaware in December 2012.
In 2013 optical lattice clocks (OLCs) were shown to be as good as or better than caesium fountain clocks. Two optical lattice clocks containing about 10 000 atoms of strontium-87 were able to stay in synchrony with each other at a precision of at least 1.5 × 10−16, which is as accurate as the experiment could measure.[52] These clocks have been shown to keep pace with all three of the caesium fountain clocks at the Paris Observatory. There are two reasons for the possibly better precision. Firstly, the frequency is measured using light, which has a much higher frequency than microwaves, and secondly, by using many atoms, any errors are averaged.[53] Using ytterbium-171 atoms, a new record for stability with a precision of 6982160000000000000♠1.6×10−18 over a 7-hour period was published on 22 August 2013. At this stability, the two optical lattice clocks working independently from each other used by the NIST research team would differ less than a second over the age of the universe (7017435494880000000♠13.8×109 years); this was 10 times better than previous experiments. The clocks rely on 10 000 ytterbium atoms cooled to 10 microkelvin and trapped in an optical lattice. A laser at 578 nm excites the atoms between two of their energy levels.[54] Having established the stability of the clocks, the researchers are studying external influences and evaluating the remaining systematic uncertainties, in the hope that they can bring the clock's accuracy down to the level of its stability.[55] An improved optical lattice clock was described in a 2014 Nature paper.[56] In 2015 JILA evaluated the absolute frequency uncertainty of a strontium-87 optical lattice clock at 2.1 × 10−18, which corresponds to a measurable gravitational time dilation for an elevation change of 2 cm (0.79 in) on planet Earth that according to JILA/NIST Fellow Jun Ye is "getting really close to being useful for relativistic geodesy".[57][58][59] At this frequency uncertainty, this JILA optical lattice clock is expected to neither gain nor lose a second in more than 15 billion (15 × 109) years.[60][61]
JILA’s 2017 three-dimensional (3-D) quantum gas atomic clock consists of a grid of light formed by three pairs of laser beams. A stack of two tables is used to configure optical components around a vacuum chamber. Shown here is the upper table, where lenses and other optics are mounted. A blue laser beam excites a cube-shaped cloud of strontium atoms located behind the round window in the middle of the table. Strontium atoms fluorescence strongly when excited with blue light.
In 2017 JILA reported an experimental 3D quantum gas strontium optical lattice clock in which strontium-87 atoms are packed into a tiny three-dimensional (3-D) cube at 1,000 times the density of previous one-dimensional (1-D) clocks, like the 2015 JILA clock. A synchronous clock comparison between two regions of the 3D lattice yielded a record level of synchronization of 5 × 10−19 in 1 hour of averaging time.[62] The 3D quantum gas strontium optical lattice clock’s centerpiece is an unusual state of matter called a degenerate Fermi gas (a quantum gas for Fermi particles). The experimental data shows the 3D quantum gas clock achieved a precision of 3.5 × 10−19 in about two hours. According to Jun Ye "This represents a significant improvement over any previous demonstrations." Ye further commented "The most important potential of the 3D quantum gas clock is the ability to scale up the atom numbers, which will lead to a huge gain in stability." and "The ability to scale up both the atom number and coherence time will make this new-generation clock qualitatively different from the previous generation."[63][64][65] In 2018 JILA reported the 3D quantum gas clock reached a frequency precision of 2.5 × 10−19 over 6 hours.[66][67] At this frequency uncertainty, this 3D quantum gas clock would lose or gain about 0.1 seconds over the age of the universe.[68]
Optical clocks are currently (2018) still primarily research projects, less mature than rubidium and caesium microwave standards, which regularly deliver time to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) for establishing International Atomic Time (TAI).[69] As the optical experimental clocks move beyond their microwave counterparts in terms of accuracy and stability performance this puts them in a position to replace the current standard for time, the caesium fountain clock.[46][70][71] In the future this might lead to redefine the caesium microwave based SI second and other new dissemination techniques at the highest level of accuracy to transfer clock signals will be required that can be used in both shorter-range and longer-range (frequency) comparisons between better clocks and to explore their fundamental limitations without significantly compromising their performance.[46][72][73] [74]
Clock comparison techniques [ edit ]
In June 2015, the European National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington, UK; the French department of Time-Space Reference Systems at the Paris Observatory (LNE-SYRTE); the German German National Metrology Institute (PTB) in Braunschweig; and Italy’s Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica (INRiM) in Turin labs have started tests to improve the accuracy of current state-of-the-art satellite comparisons by a factor 10, but it will still be limited to one part in 1 × 10−16. These 4 European labs are developing and host a variety of experimental optical clocks that harness different elements in different experimental set-ups and want to compare their optical clocks against each other and check whether they agree. In a next phase these labs strive to transmit comparison signals in the visible spectrum through fibre-optic cables. This will allow their experimental optical clocks to be compared with an accuracy similar to the expected accuracies of the optical clocks themselves. Some of these labs have already established fibre-optic links, and tests have begun on sections between Paris and Teddington, and Paris and Braunschweig. Fibre-optic links between experimental optical clocks also exist between the American NIST lab and its partner lab JILA, both in Boulder, Colorado but these span much shorter distances than the European network and are between just two labs. According to Fritz Riehle, a physicist at PTB, "Europe is in a unique position as it has a high density of the best clocks in the world".[75] In August 2016 the French LNE-SYRTE in Paris and German PTB in Braunschweig reported the comparison and agreement of two fully independent experimental strontium lattice optical clocks in Paris and Braunschweig at an uncertainty of 5 × 10−17 via a newly established phase-coherent frequency link connecting Paris and Braunschweig, using 1,415 km (879 mi) of telecom fibre-optic cable. The fractional uncertainty of the whole link was assessed to be 2.5 × 10−19, making comparisons of even more accurate clocks possible.[76][77]
Applications [ edit ]
The development of atomic clocks has led to many scientific and technological advances such as a system of precise global and regional navigation satellite systems, and applications in the Internet, which depend critically on frequency and time standards. Atomic clocks are installed at sites of time signal radio transmitters. They are used at some long wave and medium wave broadcasting stations to deliver a very precise carrier frequency.[citation needed] Atomic clocks are used in many scientific disciplines, such as for long-baseline interferometry in radioastronomy.[78]
Global Navigation Satellite Systems [ edit ]
The Global Positioning System (GPS) operated by the US Air Force Space Command provides very accurate timing and frequency signals. A GPS receiver works by measuring the relative time delay of signals from a minimum of four, but usually more, GPS satellites, each of which has at least two onboard caesium and as many as two rubidium atomic clocks. The relative times are mathematically transformed into three absolute spatial coordinates and one absolute time coordinate.[79] GPS Time (GPST) is a continuous time scale and theoretically accurate to about 14 ns.[80] However, most receivers lose accuracy in the interpretation of the signals and are only accurate to 100 ns.[81][82] The GPST is related to but differs from TAI (International Atomic Time) and UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). GPST remains at a constant offset with TAI (TAI – GPST = 19 seconds) and like TAI does not implement leap seconds. Periodic corrections are performed to the on-board clocks in the satellites to keep them synchronized with ground clocks.[83][84] The GPS navigation message includes the difference between GPST and UTC. As of July 2015, GPST is 17 seconds ahead of UTC because of the leap second added to UTC on 30 June 2015.[85][86] Receivers subtract this offset from GPS Time to calculate UTC and specific timezone values.
The GLObal NAvigation Satellite System (GLONASS) operated by the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces provides an alternative to the Global Positioning System (GPS) system and is the second navigational system in operation with global coverage and of comparable precision. GLONASS Time (GLONASST) is generated by the GLONASS Central Synchroniser and is typically better than 1,000 ns.[87] Unlike GPS, the GLONASS time scale implements leap seconds, like UTC.[88]
Space Passive Hydrogen Maser used in ESA Galileo satellites as a master clock for an onboard timing system
The Galileo Global Navigation Satellite System is operated by the European GNSS Agency and European Space Agency. Galileo started offering global Early Operational Capability (EOC) on 15 December 2016, providing the third and first non-military operated Global Navigation Satellite System, and is expected to reach Full Operational Capability (FOC) in 2019.[89][90] To achieve Galileo's FOC coverage constellation goal 6 planned extra satellites need to be added. Galileo System Time (GST) is a continuous time scale which is generated on the ground at the Galileo Control Centre in Fucino, Italy, by the Precise Timing Facility, based on averages of different atomic clocks and maintained by the Galileo Central Segment and synchronised with TAI with a nominal offset below 50 ns.[91][92][93][90] According to the European GNSS Agency Galileo offers 30 ns timing accuracy.[94] The March 2018 Quarterly Performance Report by the European GNSS Service Centre reported the UTC Time Dissemination Service Accuracy was ≤ 7.6 ns, computed by accumulating samples over the previous 12 months and exceeding the ≤ 30 ns target.[95] Each Galileo satellite has two passive hydrogen maser and two rubidium atomic clocks for onboard timing.[96][97] The Galileo navigation message includes the differences between GST, UTC and GPST (to promote interoperability).[98][99]
System under construction [ edit ]
The BeiDou-2 satellite navigation systems is under construction in 2017 but has to add planned extra satellites to achieve its full-scale global coverage constellation goal. BeiDou Time (BDT) is a continuous time scale starting at 1 January 2006 at 0:00:00 UTC and is synchronised with UTC within 100 ns.[100][101] BeiDou became operational in China in December 2011, with 10 satellites in use,[102] and began offering services to customers in the Asia-Pacific region in December 2012.[103] The BeiDou global navigation system should be finished by 2020.[104]
Time signal radio transmitters [ edit ]
A radio clock is a clock that automatically synchronizes itself by means of government radio time signals received by a radio receiver. Many retailers market radio clocks inaccurately as atomic clocks;[105] although the radio signals they receive originate from atomic clocks, they are not atomic clocks themselves. Normal low cost consumer grade receivers solely rely on the amplitude-modulated time signals and use narrow band receivers (with 10 Hz bandwidth) with small ferrite loopstick antennas and circuits with non optimal digital signal processing delay and can therefore only be expected to determine the beginning of a second with a practical accuracy uncertainty of ± 0.1 second. This is sufficient for radio controlled low cost consumer grade clocks and watches using standard-quality quartz clocks for timekeeping between daily synchronization attempts, as they will be most accurate immediately after a successful synchronization and will become less accurate from that point forward until the next synchronization.[106] Instrument grade time receivers provide higher accuracy. Such devices incur a transit delay of approximately 1 ms for every 300 kilometres (186 mi) of distance from the radio transmitter. Many governments operate transmitters for time-keeping purposes.
See also [ edit ]Image caption At the Battle of the Chateauguay near Montreal in 1813, an outnumbered Canadian, British and Mohawk force repelled the US troops
Canada today is seen as a harmonious nation of hockey, mounties and maple leaves, in peaceful contrast to its often fractious and noisy neighbour to the south. But Canadian-ness itself was born amid the blood, gunpowder and glory of the War of 1812, writes Grant Stoddard.
As a British-born newcomer to Canada, I've noticed Canadians see their Canadian-ness as the sum total of their shared values, interests and beliefs.
By contrast, in other places national identity is more typically linked to battles, popular uprisings and improbable triumphs in the face of adversity: the Boston Tea Party, the storming of the Bastille, the October Revolution.
This led me to assume that while Canada is a wonderful place to live, it lacked a rousing origin story.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the story of the birth of Canadian-ness - which began 200 years ago this week - is as rollicking, bloody, stirring and inspiring as they come.
Canadians famously cannot bring themselves to brag, so I am taking it upon myself to recount the series of events that paved the long road to Canadian nationhood. Hold on to your toque!
Challenges and disunity
Image caption De Salaberry led a combined forced of 1,350 that drove off 4,000 US troops.
In the years after the American Revolution, Britain set about creating a mirror-state to the north of the 13 rebellious former colonies.
Hoping in part to entice the US back into the empire, Britain aimed to demonstrate that life in North America could be happier and more stable under her administration.
There were challenges: the territory in what is now Canada was rugged, under-developed and thinly populated.
Furthermore, the main groups of people living there did not like each other very much.
First Nations tribes resented the unrelenting European expansion into the heart of the continent. Disaffected French Catholics had settled along the St Lawrence River in the early 1600s and remained after Britain finally wrested control of Canada from France in 1763. British inhabitants of Nova Scotia, known as the "14th Colony", had not joined their sister colonies in revolt.
Some Canadians were uninterested in receiving liberty and prosperity at the point of an American sword. So they took up arms Why the forgotten war still matters
And tens of thousands relocated north after the American War of Independence: refugee crown loyalists and former black slaves rewarded with their freedom for fighting alongside the British.
The new arrivals were so numerous that Britain carved a new colony - New Brunswick - out of Nova Scotia to accommodate them. Yet even after the influx, the US still had about 20 times the population of what was now called British North America.
The British government encouraged even more immigration from the US by offering free land and low taxes. These opportunist migrants, who had little loyalty to the British crown, were euphemistically called the Late Loyalists.
At the dawn of the 19th Century, what is now Canada was no melting pot or even patchwork quilt but rather a hodgepodge of disparate groups who held wildly varying opinions on British rule and American republicanism and a deep distrust of one another.
By 1812, with the British embroiled in war with France, US hawks moved to take advantage of their northern neighbour's disunity, finish the job of the revolution and kick the British off the North American continent once and for all.
Proponents of war were confident that the fractious Canadians would greet US forces as liberators, with former President Thomas Jefferson quipping that annexing the vast territory would be "a mere matter of marching" and could be completed within a few months.
Image caption Native leader Tecumseh was killed by a US soldier at the Battle of the Thames in Ontario, shown in a detail from an 1833 lithograph
One of the leaders of the invasion force was US General William Hull, a 58-year-old veteran of the revolution who had been reluctant to take part.
He promised the Canadians liberty and prosperity, while also threatening "instant destruction" and a "war of extermination" at the first whiff of collusion between the Canadians and the natives.
Though some Canadians took heed, others, regardless of their allegiances, were uninterested in receiving liberty and prosperity at the point of an American sword. So they took up arms.
Bravery and patriotism
In battles on both sides of the border, vastly outnumbered Canadian militiamen, British regular troops and First Nations warriors inspired by Shawnee warrior Tecumseh overcame the Americans.
Image caption Canada never rejected the British Crown as America did, and remains a loyal part of the Commonwealth
A force led by British Maj Gen Isaac Brock and Tecumseh captured Detroit from Gen Hull, taking almost 2,500 American regulars and militiamen captive with only 300 British regulars, 400 Canadian militiamen and 600 natives.
At the Battle of the Chateauguay near Montreal, French Canadians repelled a US attack. Under the leadership of Charles de Salaberry, 50 regulars, 400 volunteers, 900 militiamen and 180 Mohawks drove off 4,000-strong US force.
Despite their difficult history with British rule, Les Canadiens had proved their bravery and patriotism beyond a doubt.
Their victory inspired yet another improbable defence of Canada just over two weeks later at the Battle of Crysler's Farm, in which 900 British regulars and Canadian militiamen repulsed 8,000 US troops.
By the war's end, both York (now Toronto) and Washington DC had been put to the torch by invaders; the British bombardment of Ft McHenry in Baltimore had inspired a new national anthem; and Gen Andrew Jackson had routed the British Army at the Battle of New Orleans.
But the map of North America had hardly changed.
Image caption Canada's First Nations tribes' hopes for an independent state died after the War of 1812; above, three men who fought with the British, photographed in 1882
The US withdrew to well within the boundaries of the 13 colonies. Inexperienced British diplomats gave away her territorial gains at the negotiating table, while bullish and skilled US negotiators rejected the British-backed idea of an independent "buffer state" for the indigenous tribes between the US and British North America.
This betrayal of the natives hastened the demise of native autonomy in North America, as the US turned its attention from annexing lands in the north to pushing west toward the Pacific Ocean.
The War of 1812 was declared in Washington 200 years ago yesterday.
The British and Americans drew and the natives lost, leaving the fledgling Canadians with the best claim to victory.
In the spirited defence of their way of life, they surprised both the invaders and one another with their resourcefulness, co-operation and tenacity in the face of an invasion force with an overwhelming numerical advantage.
In that sense, their struggle was not unlike the American Revolution a generation earlier.
What Canadian-ness actually means continues to evolve and remains a perennial topic of discussion both domestically and internationally.
Nevertheless, its beginnings can be traced back to 18 June 1812, when her fractious inhabitants stood together against subjugation by a foreign power.
The 33.5 million people living in Canada today - fully one-fifth of whom are foreign-born - have this patchwork vanguard to thank for their country's steady path to progressive prosperity."My Region First!"
It's a rallying cry we're hearing more these days, as regionalism becomes more a part of public policy.
The B.C. government recently approved the Trans Mountain pipeline that will haul Alberta oil to port. And it did so after squeezing up to a cool billion dollars out of Kinder Morgan — money which will go into an environmental protection fund.
Sounds good. Alberta gets an economic boost, B.C. gets a share of the spoils and some environmental help, and Kinder Morgan foots the bill. Or does it?
Things aren't always how they appear. More often than not, the person who has to cut the cheque is not the one who ends up paying.
So who does? It's a complex question.
But in the case of B.C.'s Trans Mountain "fee," there's an argument to be made that ultimately it will be B.C. consumers footing a large part of the bill. Let's take a look.
Call it a fee if you like, but it's a tax
B.C.'s deal with Kinder Morgan sets a dangerous precedent for interprovincial trade.
It pits provinces against each other. What, for example, is now stopping Alberta from demanding a fee from B.C. produce growers to ship their fruits and vegetables across Albertan highways? Or for charging B.C. natural gas producers to ship eastward on the Alliance pipeline?
The B.C. fee is in effect a tax.
There are two fundamental, but very different, questions economists ask with respect to any tax.
The first is what we call statutory incidence. Basically it answers who pays directly. In the case of Trans Mountain, the answer is Kinder Morgan, the pipeline owner.
But the second, and more important question addresses the economic incidence — who ultimately pays the tax.
Premier Christy Clark speaks to reporters about the Kinder Morgan project on Nov. 30, 2016. (Pete Scobie/CBC News)
Politicians have pointed to the fact Kinder Morgan is writing the cheque (statutory incidence) to claim the cost of the deal isn't going to be borne by oil producers or consumers.
But if the fee is simply passed through in the form of a higher cost to ship on the pipeline, ultimately it will be either producers or consumers that bear the cost (economic incidence).
In this particular case, it's highly likely that Kinder Morgan will do just that.
The how and why
Pipelines are a natural monopoly. As such, regulators control the amount pipeline owners can charge to ship oil.
Here's how it works. The pipeline owner — in this case Kinder Morgan — declares its costs, the regulator then judges whether they are appropriate. If it agrees, it then approves the rate the owner can charge. This will include the owner's costs and a set rate of return.
In this case,
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